Guild Wars 2

Having this issue as well, loading into new places makes all my icons invisible and they take forever to load, switching skills or weapon swapping will cause it as well. In new places, the mini-map will show up as a grainy mess, even trying to bring up my map screen while I’m exploring pops up a grainy map, which I have to sit and wait let load. The social, and graphics screens are also blank (except for their text) and take so long to load.

This has been happening since the new patch hit. I learned the hard way when I had to play blind and guess what skills I was attempting to use during an off shoot fight. :P

Just here to confirm this, has happened twice. First time I thought it was just me, but second time was right after game client restart and I was trying to check daily progress. Realized I was crashing because I was trying to bring up the daily page.

The only thing I really have a problem with this year (but honestly I still enjoy this activity the most), which maybe it’s just my memory being fuzzy or maybe the lunatics just know what they’re doing this year, the patrols and hammers don’t seem to do much this time around.

I vaguely recalled the imps in particular actually being a great defense, they could deal with a solo lunatic and it usually took a little later into the game where they had a better lunatic force to deal with the imps (at least 2 lunatics would have to deal with the patrols). I saw the veteran imp get summoned just as a lunatic came by and he just dropped like a wet noodle, he was instantly dead. The summons don’t really seem to matter this year.

It seems to be a similar case with the hammer. The only thing that works well is the knockback. The #1 is just a tickle at best.

Oh my goodness, thank you so much! <3

I’ve actually posted this a few times in a much more compact version, but…

A while ago during beta, I was debating over what I would play. At the time, I loved the idea of human, sylvari, and asura. By the time weekend 2 rolled around, I gradually began warming up to charr. I played with character select quite a bit and got to the point where I actually really liked some of the charr choices. However, one of my small problems that I still have with the game is their limited choices. Charr have a very tiny pool of body types (asura do too) and there are some great horns/eyes that are gender exclusive, further adding to limited choices. (Because if you like a blind charr, you can only roll a female as I recall).

Flash forward to game release. I decided to go with human thief (always been my main in most mmosI play), mesmer, and guardian as my three favorite classes. I went with a male Charr guardian. I mean, heavy plated cat person, seemed like what fit most charr. I loved leveling my guardian it was fun to play, it was my 3rd 80. So once I hit 80, it was time to pick an outfit and start gearing him up. I go to the mists and come to find out 99% of the armor looks like crap on him! He only really looked good in cultural, and I didn’t have the money for that, nor did I really want that armor. I see my guildmates running around with awesome guardians and ask what armor it is, only to be disappointed because my charr looks ugly as sin. I tried so hard to make it work, but I finally gave up and deleted him.

Now I’m at the point where I am looking at ranger and elementalist. I have two humans (rerolled my charr to human guardian) and a sylvari and I want something different. So I make a female charr this time and before I consider leveling her I take a look in the mists at the armor. There’s nicer choices this time, but what am I running into again? Almost the same thing except charr light cultural is a joke, it’s ugly. I can almost get a few ideas together for a light armored charr, but the problems with their armor make it so hard. Same thing with medium armor…

I really want a charr, I love the female voices, and I would like at least one of each race, but when over half of the armor looks bad I don’t think I could do it. Especially after going through it and hitting 80 once before. Not to mention, I’ve heard that since charr is least played, there is most likely not going to be a change any time soon.

tl;dr — Had an 80 charr guard, couldn’t find any good armor for him. Deleted him and have attempted a medium/light charr. Can’t find any good armor, having a hard time considering rolling and leveling another to 80.

I have made an attempt at a survey. It’s in two parts, about 20 questions covering all races.

Part 1: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/P9QGGGL
Part 2: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/P9Q2J86

If you like the survey, feel free to share it. Or, if someone knows of a better site (was only allowed 10 questions per as a free account) or is better at making surveys, feel free to say.

III. Title/Achievement Changes

This is just a bunch of title ideas that may also come with achievement changes to reflect what is required for the title.

• PvP Titles
  Most of the achievements even available in PvP right now, give a title. Players can earn titles specific to their profession they play the most; Chapion _, which is earned from winning a certain amount of tournament games. However, while these titles are pretty cool, I would like to see one change, which will end up making the normal games achievements grant a title as well.
  This would mean that someone who plays an elementalist for example, could choose to be Chapion Magus, for winning 150 tournament games, or Magus for winning 200 normal games.

• Fractals Titles
  Dungeons reward Dungeon Master, why not something similar for fractals? (Please not “fractals master”) Perhaps there could be a “baby” version and a “hardcore” version so players could show off.
  The simpler title would be more along the lines of what we already have in game — waving to the giant, killing chickens, completing all the unique fractals, that sort of thing — simple. The other title would be more doing challenging things like we saw in aetherblade retreat (with baby mode as a requirement). Things like not getting hit by agony, killing things in a specific order, speedclearing, fighting bloomhunger with his spirits buffing him, etc.
  These set of titles would probably need to be on hold until the fractals themselves are tweaked.

• Dungeon Titles
  Similar to the fractal titles above, perhaps there could be a few titles for doing special challenging achievements. I don’t have much to say for this area right now, because the dungeons need to be adjusted for this kind of thing. However, should they fix the dungeons to where they provide more interesting challenges, perhaps special titles would be something they should add.

• WvW Titles
  These are perhaps the most grindiest, time consuming, titles in the game. Yakslapper alone was said to take 7-10 years I think I heard. My only question is, why aren’t these titles like the PvP ones? There is a PvP title that unlocks a new set of achievement tiers and a title with each milestone finished. Why not do similar for these titles?

Just to give an example, “Going camping” would instead grant a title upon finishing tier 3- 2.5k camps capped for (Raider), once reaching that point you would unlock the new set of tiers to finish and upon finishing tier 5- 100k camps capped you would earn Ultimate Raider.
Another option would be to give titles for ranking up in WvW. Perhaps not as goofy a system of titles like we see now, and not as many, but reaching certain levels or acquiring a certain amount of WXP would give you a title to actually choose from a list.

On a more achievement related note, adding achievements for winning as Red, Green, Blue. Holding a certain amount of Eternal, Home, or an Invader’s borderland.

• Personal Story Titles
  You get so many titles while going through the Personal Story, wouldn’t it be fun to actually show you’re the “Hero of Shaemoor”, what about a high ranking member of the Priory, or even the commander of the Pact?
  As it stands, these are titles that sound like they most likely won’t be put in the game, because titles are across all characters, not unique. Honestly though, I don’t see the problem since you can transmute any orders armor/weapons, as long as you have an alt that has unlocked access to that stuff. If some guy wants to be a Vigil member with “Lightbringer” so be it, there is no way to tell really. (Similarly if a Sylvari wants to wear a legion title). Really the only way to remedy it would be if it’s possible to make certain titles unique to a race or order.
  Something else that could be done is to add order flags to characters. Since world completion already does it, there should be no problem making order icons unqiue per character, allow someone’s main to show they are Priory, and their alt is OOW.

One final title idea is to make the final personal story quest more “flashy.” What about adding a title like “Zhaitan’s Bane” (this is the name for the slayer achievement, so maybe something else). It could have a fancy little chest as well that gives you some stuff.

II. Starter Racial Armor

We already see weapons that drop in game, related to the races (see: Asura/Glyphic, Charr/Steam, Norn/Shiverpeaks, Krytan), what about a set of armor based on that race that drops out in the open world as well!
Additionally, I would love if this set of armor was what newly made races had on when they started. I just find it odd that a Sylvari, Norn, and Human would be wearing the same type of cloth armor. To keep in line with how new characters are made, the new sets wouldn’t come with their helm, shoulders, or gloves, but the missing pieces could be found in those low level zones.

These are just some doodles I came up for starter ideas (just ideas!). I’m not fantastic at drawing and some of the stuff I was thinking of looks kinda meh. I was trying to keep it simple like what we already have, but I think I failed.
Norn Light/Medium: http://i.imgur.com/HUPazEg.jpg
Norn Heavy + Asura L/M/H: http://i.imgur.com/Sxd7oWR.jpg
Charr Light/Medium: http://i.imgur.com/KqzGdgn.jpg
Sylvari Light (Medium/Heavy?): http://i.imgur.com/7gK1QoL.jpg

• Norn — I was thinking wurm themed. Perhaps a bit contradictory because that’s what they are hunting. The armor is either reinforced with wurm chitin(?) or has metal wurm symbols.
  Light is a prime example of wurm symbols, shoulders and pants are wurms with a small cloth draped in the back, helm would be wurm circlet, or simply a metal circlet with a simple cloth draped around the head. Clothing is supposed to be fur lined with lots of loose looking fibers. (Drew a possible female variant with off the shoulder top)
  Medium I was thinking a scaled looking mask with a wurm holding the mask around (Same with shoulders). Plenty of wurm teeth buttons, chitin on the gloves, boots, and as belt.
  Heavy I was thinking a lot more chitin along with chainmail underneath. The gloves, boots, and helm have metal wurms circling around.

• Asura
  Light I was just going with what is already seen, colorful robes with patterns on them and jewelry.
  (I don’t like the medium I doodle, it looks like what we already see)
  Heavy again, what we already see. Perhaps a bit more new recruit in the sense some areas are just cloth/chainmail gaps.

• Charr — A lot of what I tried to keep in mind is from the Charr armor protest, so a lot of it is just inspired from concept art. All the armor has metal on it in some way, I don’t see why the charr wouldn’t add a little metal here and there even if someone is a light or medium class. This And this
  Light is a lot of tattered cloth, metal chains, scratched metal plating with spikes. The mask is metal with tattered cloth underneath to cover the muzzle and a small chain hanging on the side. The armor has a long cloth, think tabard, in the middle. Pants have metal on the side with tattered cloth. Gloves and shoes are scratched metal with tattered cloth.
  Medium is a pair of leather goggles/mask with a metal face plate. The side (jaw hinge) has a gear on it. A small metal chest plate strapped on the front with another gear icon, leather tunic underneath. Metal belt with another icon, partial metal skirt down one side with pants underneath. Boots and gloves intended to look like broken shackles, with a leather strap with a chain on the end hanging down.
  Heavy I had no real ideas for, but something like the concept art (again).

• Sylvari
  Light I was kind of going for a tuxedo sort of top (short coattails in front, longer in back), curly leaf strands. Something like a magician.
  Medium/Heavy I was going for something like the ranger concept artwork cough with a leafy bandana, maybe some tattered cloth here and there. Perhaps the chestpiece would look like a bandana or a tunic with tons of leaves that shows off at the bottom on males and females. Or maybe this could instead be worked into a heavy armor design with leaf chainmail.

• Human — Human would pretty much just need shoulder, helm, and gloves added.

(Backpieces continued)

• (Continuing from infusion slot ideas above) A guildmate had suggested backpieces be a bit more interesting, adding abilities to make them more unique [backpieces and amulets seem to be the more special items in the accessories slot]. It was suggested they be stat-less and instead have fun abilities.
  I am simply bouncing of the idea and thinking the dungeon backpieces could have utility slots. There are only a few utility slot choices (and I don’t think there should be tons of different infusion types), so perhaps the dungeons could have special utility infusion that do special abilities like my guildmate suggested.
  I know this opens the floodgates in a sense, allowing people to have 2 +20% infusions or +2 of the abilities I’m about to list, but maybe they could be turned into unique infusions — 1 type per…
  These infusions would be bought at dungeon vendors, laurel vendor, maybe a small chance in the dungeon itself.

Here is a list of ideas I came up with from my guildmate’s idea. So far I find them a lot like runes, however maybe they would be low trigger chances, have internal cooldowns, give a tiny amount of damage,

AC-themed — Ghostly shield (1-2 sec invuln), Rock fall aoe, Laser shot, Ghost form (tiny swiftness buff)
CM- themed — Bomb (like engie), drop a turret, summon a thief ally
TA-themed — Vine whip, Tree ally, Thorn shield (bleeds enemies), spider allies, healing leaf (tiny heal)
SE-themed — Lava splash, summon singularity/spark ally, dredge ally, destroyer transformation (tiny might buff)
CoF-themed — Fire spray (flamethrower), crystal form (1-2 sec invul at cost of being stationary), summon imp
HotW-themed — corrupted form (tiny fury buff), ice block, throw snowball, icicle/blizzard aoe, summon totem (random buff)
CoE-themed — lightning overload (after gaining a 5 stacks of this buff in combat, shoot out sparks at nerby enemies), alpha ooze (small heal),
Arah-themed — summon tendril, drain life (it does some damage to the enemy and you get a tiny heal)

In-general:
Various elemental shields, different in design to what we see in game), they in contrast would ‘overload’ and shoot fire or chaos bolts out at enemies
Transformation buffs that grant a buff (tiny stack/small durations in contrast)
In-combat infusions that stack a buff style icon until they hit trigger points(like elemental shields)
Out of combat infusions that stack a buff style icon until they hit a trigger point (upon 5 stacks, you get a tiny swiftness buff, or invisibility for a few seconds [not stealth])
Infusions that trigger that certain hp percentages (granting 1-2 sec invuln or transforming)

This topic contains a total of 3 suggestions. I’m not guaranteeing these are 100% original and I’m sure some of them have been suggested before, but here they are regardless.

Contents of thread:
I. Dungeon Backpieces
II. Starter Racial Armor
III. Title/Achievement Changes

I. Dungeon Backpieces

As it stands, dungeon backpieces are a little dull. They might be nice for anyone under 80, but at 80 they don’t really have a use. They suddenly become this ‘annoyance’ because they replace the loot bag you get from the boss encounters in a dungeon. However, what if they had a little more incentive to collect after 80?

• This first suggestion is to add interesting designs to the existing backpieces, adding more variety to the backpieces in game so you can play dress-up. The current backpieces would pretty much remain the same in terms of stats and levels and have a chance to drop from story/exp like they do, but when displayed on the character they would actually have something on their back to show off.

• Furthermore, a side idea to this would be to add level 80 rare/exotic quality backpiece versions. These in contrast would be exclusive to explorable mode and much rarer drops (perhaps a better chance at the final boss). They would also have their own designs (different from the story backpieces).
  • These backpieces could be ascendable, similar to the southsun backpieces, where there is an infusion slot (perhaps utility* slot). Adding more reason to run dungeons and adding another option for those who wish to make a move to fractals and need agony resistance.
  • Ascencion recipe could be something along the lines of: Backpiece, Gift of _ (500 dungeon tokens), X globs, [Now that we have 500 crafting, maybe something from there, such as 250 bloodstone dust, or 250 dragonite ore, etc.]
  • While this would be asking a lot, but a few different versions based on the different paths.
  • Flavor text relating to the dungeon. (E.g. “The remants of a destroyed flame effigy.”)

• Story mode backpiece ideas:
  AC— Ghostly Spineguard — Similar to the item’s icon, perhaps a jar full of glowing dust. As the player walks, a faint smoke trail floats out of the jar.
  CM —Bandit Spinguard -- Something along the lines of this (a tattered cloth, not a full cape.)
  TA — Forest Brace — As pictured, a palm leaf (?).
  SE — Revolutionary Flyers — A big stack of papers with a dredge on them, string holding it all together. Bonus points if the dredge has the caption “NO!” on it.
  CoF — Charred Backwarmer — I have no ideas for this one, maybe the flame basket the flamethrowers wear, or a flame effigy ‘spine.’
  HotW — ??? — I have admittedly never seen the backpiece for here, so I have no comment for this one.
  CoE — Fiber Splice — A tube with mentioned fiber in it, slung diagonally across the back. Would give off a purple glow.
  Arah — Risen Spineguard — A spinal cord with a few ribs and coral along it, dripping with water.

• Explorable mode backpiece ideas:
  (This is more of a list of possible ideas based on what is in a path)
  AC — A piece of the Ghost Eater’s hide, it would glow at night similar to the weapons, a rare Ascalonian Artifact
  CM — A bomb bag (different from engineers), golem parts that spark
  TA — A branch with a spider web and spider on it, an illusionary branch, a seed pod in a jar, a tangled mess of thorns/corrupted flower
  SE — No comment
  CoF — (As with the story ideas, flamethrower backpack and flame effigy spine), a crystal with chains
  HotW — No comment
  CoE — An alpha ooze in a jar, an asuran device with chaotic energy sparking in the center
  Arah — Chicken friend (in a cage)

Looks like being in infantile mode is the reason. Nevermind.

I was playing with the crafting today just to see what it would be like.

So far it looks like the Ectoplasm Refinement section are time gated.
Ectoplasm Refinements are: Lump of Mithrillium and Glob of Elder Spirit Residue
Resets when dailies reset.

I’m curious if perhaps a survey of sorts could help make a statement as well? I know Anet has the chart with percentages for the races, but I’ve heard it’s the same chart from the start of the year (unless nothing has changed since then?).

Maybe a survey could answer some questions as to why those who main human or whatever don’t play charr. Or you could see if people had charr and deleted them, then ask why. I know forums would be a small sample size, but it may show that some people don’t play charr due to armor issues among other things and that there would be a bigger playerbase making charr alts if their armor/graphic issues are fixed. The survey could be linked on on the reddit/gw2guru as well perhaps?

I’m very disappointed honestly. I am one of the people who would play Charr if they had better looking armor. Heck, I actually had an 80 Charr guardian in the first six months the game was out. I ended up deleting him because of how disappointed I was in the armor choices. The only thing that seemed nice on him was the heavy cultural…

I’ve considered rolling charr ranger and ele since then, but when I go to the pvp locker I’m reminded why I don’t have one. There’s nice choices for light/med, much better IMO in contrast to heavy, but its still far and few to the large variety a human (sylvari/norn/asura) can pick from…

Massive shoulders, removal of horns, removal of hair (this is shared by the other races, but there are some armor pieces that I think specifically remove hair only on charr), clipping, stretching… it just blows my mind how awful the charr armor is and yet it takes a backseat because “meh, only a small pecentage.”

I think that’s great so far.

Here is a quick link to her weapons if you need:
http://dulfy.net/2013/03/11/gw2-dagger-gallery/#21
CoE/Inquest

These look awesome. I would love to get one as well.

Here’s an album with some pictures of my character:
http://imgur.com/a/U5pyn#0

I would like a full body + color action pose of my thief [weapons drawn] “leaping into battle.” Whether leaping means actually in the air dropping down at her foe, or kicking off from the ground towards whatever she is is attacking, I will leave that up to you.

You can PM me in game if there’s any questions or you want more specifics.

I really think there would be a larger percentage willing to play charr if ArenaNet would fix the problems with armor on them.

When I had first started the game, I had pretty much once of each race. I was about to make a guardian and had been set on sylvari at the time until I took a look at charr. I really liked the idea of having one and thus my charrdian was born.

I had a great time on him, got him to 80 and was ready to start making an outfit for him. A lot of my guildmates had great looking guardians, I wanted something just like they had, a nice outfit in line with my ideas of the profession. But as I went through the heavy armor for charr, I was completely disappointed. Nothing truly felt epic enough, outside of the racial armors.

It was actually a lack of customization for my poor charrdian that I ended up deleting him.

I really want a charr, but Anet’s strange choice to remove horns or make strange massive floating shoulders, or big stretchy pieces of plate drove me away from having one. Now I’m back in this same hole again because I think the female charr sound awesome (fantastic VA, love it for ele), but the armor I’m seeing has many problems which ruins the perfect outfit. It doesn’t seem as bad when it comes to light/medium, but there’s still issues.

I would really love to see Anet gradually fix charr armor.

This leaves me very conflicted about attempting to make another Charr. I was actually planning to make an ele with this helm in mind, because I liked the look, but knowing my poor charr’s hair vanishes just makes me sad.

All I can say is that I hope Anet gets around to fixing these things. I really want a Charr alt, but Anet’s choices in armor for them leaves much to be desired.

Let me just start by saying I think this new update looks fun, fun, fun! I logged in to see what all there is, but I’m too busy at the moment to play. However, I’m really excited for what’s in store when I can.

To the point, I think it would’ve been awesome if there were titles associated with repping the various cities — Champion of Hoelbrak, Rata Sum, Lion’s Arch, Black Citadel, etc. I just think it would be great to show off your pride for whatever city you like.

Here we go again… seems like AT&T doesn’t like GW2 patches. :\

I have been having this issue all day. The download starts at 15 kb/s and then gradually drops to 0 kb/s. Tried closing the client and reopening, have restarted the computer a couple times. I even let it sit and do its thing for about 2-3 hours while I went to get groceries, only to come back with 600kb downloaded in total, again stuck at 0 kb/s.

All my guildies seem to have had no problems downloading the patch and they’ve been playing since this morning. I ended up giving up with the patch until there’s more word on what is going on.

[[I update my nvidia drivers about 2 weeks ago in regards to an above comment.]]

Not sure if this is a valid suggestion, or a question.

I was out and about in Plains of Ashford today, hunting for events for my daily/monthly. To try and keep it simple and sweet, I had revived an escort event NPC which led me to the Battle in the Vault meta event. I have seen this event before, but there has never been anyone around. Regardless, I decided to take a peek inside and found a few people doing the event. We brought down the first champion, then the next, and the next until we got to the main event. A “veteran” player asked if we dare press our luck and attempt Horace, in a semi-silent consensus we said yes and charged in. Down went the final boss.

It was fantastic to say the least. I had never done the event, let alone the full chain. Inside the final chamber we found a little chest, which gave some items. It just got to me thinking… where is Plains of Ashford’s “Big Meta Event?”

All of the low level zones have something like it — Shadow Behemoth in Queensdale, Jungle Worm in Caledon, Fire Elemental in Metrica, Maw in Wayfarer’s — but I have yet to hear about the cool meta event in Plains of Ashford. So, if there is one, has the loot not been improved? Is this event bugged in the same way SB was? Or what?

Regardless, I think we need a Plains of Ashford meta event with a big loot chest so more people get out and enjoy the world.

Well, I’m sure this isn’t a new topic, but I couldn’t exactly find what I was looking for via search. So…

Ever since the Lost Shores event came and went, I have had this constant wish for the collection tab to be improved hopefully soon. As it stands, the newer items from the event (Passiflora, Karka Shells) are not able to be sent to the collections tab. They currently sit in my character’s inventory due to my limited bank space at the moment.

However this isn’t my only little problem. There is also the fact there are other crafting mats, such as the Mad King Event’s items and even things that have been in the game since the beginning, rare mats. I basically have about two of my bank slots dedicated to these items and overflow from my collection. Considering the December event is just around the corner, I’m soon going to need to store more mats somewhere.

• * * * *

I would like to see said items have their own collection tabs sometime in the near future. This is my proposed idea for the above:

—(Special) Event Tab
>> (Candy Corn?), Plastic Fangs, Skulls, Nougats, Winter Crafting mats, etc.
This tab would house the seasonal event items.

—Rare Crafting Components Tab
>> Ectos, Slivers, Lodestones, Cores, etc.
This tab would house all rare quality and higher items.

—Tokens Tab
>> Badges of Honor, Fractal Relics, etc.
More a maybe for me, but perhaps a collection tab for dungeons and WvW currencies might be useful as well.

As for most of the Lost Shore items, they should eventually be given tabs in their respective areas in cooking and gemstone areas we already have since karka land is here to stay.

Well, I don’t have much to say, because the first few pages seem to really explain my issues with thief.

I can only reply from a PvE perspective, but I do think dual pistol feels a little weak. I do think it works nicely for dungeons, which is really the only place where I run P/P. I sacrifice a bit of damage for a bit more control/utility for my party.
I think 1’s bleed is a bit lackluster and I’m lucky to get at a 5 max stack with it, contrast to the shortbow I think I can stack bleeds faster and better (and that thing is pretty slow/requires timing). Perhaps a remedy for P/P #1 could be to add a small stacking bleed onto the #3 skill? I don’t mind if pistol isn’t some godly condition machine, but I think it could use a little buff for the stacks applied.

Now that that is out of the way, I mainly want to talk about underwater combat for thieves. This arises more after I played fractals between my thief and mesmer. Our spear is fantastic and the harpoon gun is a great kiting tool. I love them both death (although I’d rather be on my Mesmer if I had the choice). The one thing that really bums me out about our underwater combat is that we have almost no skills to pick from! Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I feel like my mesmer has better picks than my thief.
I mean there’s a decent selection for the standard underwater skills… but don’t get me started on our elite! Last I checked my thief can only pick from Basilisk Venom. That’s one… one! only one! option for underwater and that venom is pure garbage! I’m pretty sure most people have at least 2 underwater elite choices. (I’m also human thief, so I don’t know if other races and their racials give them other options, but none of mine work underwater). If anything were added for underwater combat option, I would love to see thieves guild as a logical choice. The melee thief could use a spear, and the ranged one could use a harpoon gun.