Guild Wars 2

Thedenofsin.7340:

getting downed fixes it

It does, but getting downed isn’t even that easy. The lane mobs don’t even see you. You take a bit of splash damage but not much. To get downed i had to enter the portal and stand in front of the Champion’s face!

Hellmasker.1649:

Turning the dailies into a meta like the LS ones would be ideal imo. Have all the dailies worth 0AP and then reward 10 or so AP in the chest that has your coin/karma/luck/laurel already.

That, sir, is a wonderful idea.

I’m kind of in the same boat as you but I do generally draw the line at WvW daily achievements most days.

Thing to consider too is that the daily achievement isn’t necessarily the “whole daily”. There are also daily gathering nodes, daily ascended crafting, and if you wanted to take daily stuff to even more of an extreme there are boss and dungeon daily reward chests too.

I’m OK with the daily achievements as they are now, if I don’t always do the WvW and PvP stuff. Certainly would welcome the implementation of an idea such as that quoted though.

I think Gandara still has an ok turnout for it but I am now in this position:

I’ve done all the “easy” Wurm achievements, now all my focus will be on the Marionette which I believe to be Temporary content. The Wurm can be done any time; if others think the same as me they’ll probably go back to it later.

AngelMouse.7345:

Gandara beat her 5 times yesterday

And now we have a Desolation Interloper in our chat whining because it’s the middle of the day and we’re not “winning it for him”.

Loving the combination on the chart for an alliance between Centaur and Quaggan.

The Aquatic Equestrian Alliance maybe?

Shame that never worked out.

Redenaz.8631:

I have also obtained the new backpack. It is magnificient.

10/10, five stars, would randomly obtain again.

Hilariously your screenshot was taken during Wintersday.

I’m not entirely sure, but I suspect something is up with these claims.

cheshirefox.7026:

i wondered if it was some sort of psychopathic homicide, but seeing her mentors photo in the cave and the state of it, i really feel sorry for her now

Speaking of the cave thing – did anyone else see that chart of “potential alliances” on the wall? Most were crossed out in red ink, the most hilarious one seemed to be Centaur + Quaggan. The Aquatic Equestrian alliance?

You lot really fail to “get it”.

The mobs drop the cypher pieces. You convert them into items to open Scarlet’s Loot Chests. You do get loot from them in a manner of speaking, at least one completed cypher per event given the amount of watchworks you can kill. Chests have generally dropped me a couple of rares and a couple of greens or so.

You don’t get Champion loot because otherwise everyone would just use it as a champion farm and not necessarily play with the successful conclusion of the event in mind. Honestly don’t see what’s wrong with this.

Sublimatio.6981:

Marionette is hard, but not impossible when people know the mechanics of defenders well. The Wurms however are just riddiculous. I don’t know what ANet were thinking when they designed it. Unplayable indeed!

I think the idea for the Wurm is pretty sound; the mechanics are nice but they are waaaaay over the top. I’ll do the Achievements I realistically can, and then leave it. Players probably need to realise that “ludicrously hard content” is what this game lacks. If noone beats the wurm, does it really matter? At least players could stop complaining there was no challenge in GW2.

Ideally, for me, I’d like to see the wurm become a little more manageable. Tequatl I used to do weekly with our server, for a while, but now I just can’t be bothered with the hour or more of setting up our server needs to manage it. The wurm is even more ridiculous in this respect…and in it’s current form I’ll likely just ignore it.

munkiman.3068:

I was just going to say that… I’m thoroughly enjoying the new content.

That’s me for the first day if you discount the constant waiting around for spawns… there’s only so much of it I can take though.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Celeras.4980

Assuming you logged in at the single most inconvenient time (one minute after one of the bosses depopped), you would then have to wait 39 minutes for the next spawn for one of the two new bosses.

Assuming you log on at ANY other time (the times you call more convenient), you’ll find yourself in overflow.

slow clap

Any of us who were around for the Tequatl patch saw this coming a mile off.

The way to look at it is this:

You do the achievements you can realistically do, and just be prepared to write off the rest. Then we take that interview with Colin from some of the other sites as hope that expansion, or expansion-like content, is being worked on behind the scenes and accept this LS stuff as filler.

I think, you’ve just got to be realistic about it. I play most of the time…even I don’t really want to server camp all day just to get the chance to try at a kill. I likely will though because my stupidity will get the better of me. I know it sucks that this is what we get after 7 weeks, but the game is still fantastic (in my humble opnion) – so play the game in whichever way is most fun to you…if that is playing another game until the next patch hits, then so be it; if enough people do this then ArenaNet may have something to consider.

As for myself, I suspect I’ll be playing SimCity on one screen whilst I wait out the stupid timers on the other. Oh, to have that luxury, I know.

perilisk.1874:

undergeared, underleveled, or underskilled.

This could well prove to be a massive problem. I entered a portal earlier to fight the Regulator champion. Ours went down, then I looked around… downed or dead people lying over the other platforms.

L35s in L10 gear who haven’t even distributed all their trait points can access this event, enter the portals, and screw it up for everyone. Equally L80s who haven’t learned what red circles mean can do the same.

It’s a minefield.

The mobs drop components for a cypher. You can open chests in Scarlet’s base with the ciphers for loot. That seems reasonably fair to me, given they don’t want to encourage the preferential champion slaying just because of the loot they drop.

Okhu.7948:

The event itself is super fun (Marionette) the wait time however isn’t fun.

That is it. I actually really like the Marionette fight. The wait however… that totally ruins any fun or satisfaction I get out of it. By the time I’ve waited out the timer I’m totally hacked off.

PopeUrban.2578:

Good, this game hands out too many free achievements. We need more titles/achievements that require difficult feats, with reward points to match.

This is a well designed achievement. It encourages you to actually try to do well at the event, in stead of chasing some meta gizmo that can actively hurt it. (I’m looking at you tequatl chest/failure achievements)

Any achievement encourages YOU to do well, but it doesn’t mean other players will want to play ball just for your achievement to ping.

Mikuchan.7261:

Edit: On top of that you get a black screen during the fight and have to restart the game to end up in an overflow…

I just got that in Bloodtide Coast.

I’m trying very, very hard not to swear.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Lessons not learned
- Wait wars 2..

This is the big thing for me. Especially for this patch, being the first after Wintersday. You wait 7 weeks between patches and the patch they choose to release is one which forces players to wait to play the new content when all they want to do is get stuck into the new content! Mean. Mean and unnecessary.

Harlekin.2981:

I absolutely loved the conversations in the LA instance,

That’s all I’ve found so far that I like about this. The voice acting in there is nice.

It’s just like Tequatl otherwise. A whooooooooole lot of waiting around.

Waiting waiting waiting. ArenaNet tell us they’re learning. They never seem to learn the lesson that players, especially having waited 6+ weeks, don’t want to have to wait hours in between content spawns. :/

My favourite GW1’s boss’ corpse has been built over.

Rip in Peace fella.

I hate Scarlet.

lordkrall.7241:

I will get them when I get them.
They don’t make enough difference for them to be required, so I won’t rush getting them.

This should be more or less the case for most people. You can play the game just fine with Exotic Gear, Fractals notwithstanding.

I hope I’ve accrued enough materials to almost complete, if not fully complete, all armour crafting lines well before this announcement so, I’m kind of looking forward to it coming, and being able to finish maxing out my favourite alts’ gearsets.

I was never really much of a fan of Ascended gear when it was announced and released last year, however, I think they’ve done a good job in its acquisition, and kept the increase in stats fairly minimal such that it’s really not a requirement (even though I’m sure many dungeon groups after this update will be “Ascended [Warriors] Only”), but does give those players who want a further tier of gear something to aim for.

Players seem to like calling Ascended gear a grind. The OP makes reference to this. I guess, levelling a craft from 400 to 500 could be seen as a grind, but on balance I think the cost in doing so is reasonable for the status of the gear you can craft. Related to this, I see people often complaining “200 gold for one weapon no thanks!”. 200 Gold being the price people like to quote as how much it costs to level a craft. Once the craft is levelled, however, that’s it…you can make as many items as you want, and they’re really not all that costly; not in my view.

Astralporing.1957:

Mireles Lore.5942:

The materials needed to get it encourages play throughout all areas of the game.

Enforce, not encourage. And that sends completely different message to players.

Empyreal Fragments can be obtained from easier WvW goals, open world chests and dungeons.
Dragonite can be obtained from harder WvW goals, world bosses, and more recently the Tower of Nightmares.

Those are both a reasonable spread of acquisition methods.

I consider Ascended items to be like “Mini Legendaries”. I don’t see any problem having players complete many and various different activities in order to acquire the components for them. As for Crafting professions being used instead of such as the Mystic Forge…well at least it’s a sure way of acquiring them instead of RNG. I don’t mind the crafting of it.

I am, however, getting very bored of hearing people say “ArenaNet said I could ‘play my way’ yet they’re making me craft for Ascended items and I don’t like crafting”. Puh-lease. Can I say “I want to be able to craft my way up the PvP rank ladder because I don’t like PvP”? Didn’t think so.

Dr Ritter.1327:

lordkrall.7241:

They made it quite clear last year that the holiday events will largely be the same each year. This has nothing to do with the Living Story.

Also keep in mind all the rage about them having a new story for Halloween this year compared to last.

No it does have to do with Living story. They put no effort in to the holidays anymore since their main concern is to try and make living story work. People were mad on halloween because the solo instance was a kittening joke compared to the scavenger hunt which was actually interesting and fun.

What’s more, they could have found a way to leave the scavenger hunt in the game. Festivals in GW1 always used to compound quests from previous years.

Give people a different back item skin for it each year and I’m sure it would give people an excuse to play through it again with very minimal work. Also it wouldn’t feel like content was being removed needlessky, never again to be seen and keeps the previous year’s back item unique and special.

I’d like to see one additional feature added to the festivals each year just to make it feel like they’re getting bigger year on year, just like the GW1 events always did. Maybe that’s too nostalgic of me?

I couldn’t agree more.

In addition, one thing I’ve not been able to accept yet is Scarlet’s alliance seems to be able to influence the whole world as well as the mists. The Elder Dragons haven’t even achieved anything close to that. I’m a bit bored with everything Scarlet doing having to be seen around the whole world (except Orr, which is just funny), and agree that it’s certainly badly done in WvW. I don’t mind seeing Living Story content in WvW, but it needs to be less of an intrusion. I know it’s supposed to be an intrusion nonetheless, but I think the fact it’s a token addition to WvW giving no WvW bonuses means it’s a bad choice to place the toxic spores at thoroughfares and choke points.

Chokolata.1870:

Scarlet again ?

When it is not?

Faux.1937:

What about Barbarian, Magi and Dire?

I assumed we’d be able to salvage insignias from non-craftable exotic armour stat sets when this patch goes like rather like we can with their corresponding weapons now.

I’m also curious about the Giver’s set. I’d love to see an Ascended set for this stat combination.

Treeline.3865:

You get a +1 from me. Not because I mind that they can’t beat their own content, I would just love to see them try

This, more or less.

Although I’ve said before that I’d like to see this, I’m coming around to a way of thinking that is: If noone can beat it, does it really matter? Many people keep saying GW2 has no challenge, presumably, FotM was originally designed to give players “the ultimate challenge”. If one fractal is not beaten for months, or even years, isn’t that a good thing? It would give the team that finally does so a lot of bragging rights.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Necromancer -> No invulnerability!

Anyone has access to invulnerability if they reroll Sylvari!

ArenaNet is stubborn. Sometimes it’s a good characteristic. Used to mean they didn’t bow to bad player pressure.

I have friends leaving, however, over the state of the living “story”. I think it doesn’t matter how much life support you put Scarlet on, it’s not going to make us want to know more about her, want to see her come back or even care whether she dies or not. I wouldn’t mind if the whole Scarlet rubbish was put to one side and forgotten about, with no conclusion. I’d rather see a carbon copy of a GW1 story played out in the GW2 living story to any more of what we have now. At least those stories were compelling; for me, anyway.

“Scarlet did it.” Three words to sum up about a year of GW2 living stories. Anyone feeling short changed?

Abaddon did it.

Wait, what?

Luigi.1584:

As I said. I’m looking forward to see developers doing this on 30+

I’ve always wanted to see them do the Dredge fractal at high level, without a death. Especially the “bombing of the door”.

I’d support the decision to change the pads, if the mobs are tank-able or killable whilst one guy opens the door. I strongly suspect that these mobs have not been toned down at all, however. I’ve always said that the “best way to complete content” should never, ever be through suicide.

L30+ Super-human PuGs only?

The meta event is the least of this patch’s problems.

Unique.9351:

Oh my god it was on my warrior aswell, my main…

So, you buy another +5 with 75 Fractal Relics, chalk it up to experience, and come to the realisation that you really should properly read patch notes thoroughly in future.

It’s also worth noting that I have a feeling it says, in a little window, “which infusion do you want to replace”. Had you read through properly, it shouldn’t have happened.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Thanks for the report. We’re looking into it right now.

With the greatest respect, shouldn’t there be a basic check for this kind of stuff before a patch goes live?

If there is, how on earth was it missed?

novalee marie.2458:

It’s a slap in the face for those of us that did spend over 100 gold.

Not necessarily, if it’s your only T3 set then it still counts toward your Emperor title.

That said, it’s only a small consolation.

ArenaNet need to try harder. A lot, lot harder. This is a whole new low, I’m afraid to say. I thought that using Scarlet as a "go-to" baddie for Thaumanova was bad enough, then I see the lazy armour re-hash.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

And BL Keys and RNG are still here. Voting for Kiel did nothing in that regards.

Responding purely to this.

For many players, myself partially included, it was considered that a vote for Evon was a vote of support for RNG Black Lion Chest weapons.

Yes, they already existed. Yes, they’re still here, arguably the system is worse. I’ll know, however, that I did not vote for the NPC who claims to be in charge of the BLTC, and therefore I am not showing my support and admiration of such a system.

ArenaNet will ignore it, of course, and do whatever NCSoft tells them to do with the Black Lion Trading Company when it comes down to it. Let’s not kid ourselves. In essence, the election meant very, very little. Probably some weird social experiment for a local university?

#tinfoilhat

Whilst my Fractal level is closing in on 30, I don’t really enjoy it and only further it when I’m really, really in the mood these days – which is rare.

I do, however, want rewards from Fractals from time to time. With this in mind, I do L10 or 20 runs. L20 typically with Guildies, L10 with PuGs. On those days when there’s a Daily Fractal Frequenter, I’ll go even lower, just to get the darn thing done.

There must be more like me, so, I don’t think you need to be too concerned about lower level fractals being desolate (especially if you pick your day to do it wisely), moreso when you take into account some of the other points raised in this thread.

During the livestream the dev was transformed into a Jade Maw tentacle.

Whilst I find this cool, I’m fine with them not allowing players to fight whilst using them. How could you animate a tentacle’s use of skills properly, really?

The only Abaddon fractal I’d like to see would be a copy of the final Nightfall mission as one of the current Jade Maw “bonus fractal” rotations. That could be nice, and given Fractals is there to allow us to delve into past events, past missions wouldn’t seem too much of a push. Mmm, Nostalgia. After the last year, would you really entrust ArenaNet to do justice to any other Abaddon-related Fractal? Not sure I would. My argument, in a word? Scarlet.

Still happy with my Kiel vote. Looking forward to seeing how the Inquest managed to fudge it so badly.

JMar.3254:

PopeUrban.2578:

Get over it. Your rewards have already been acquired in terms of what the system you earned those numbers under offered. You’ve lost a number that will be functionally void at the exact moment you lose it.

So if they replace a PvP map, you’re okay with them resetting all glory and ranks to 0?

When they removed the TA up path, they did not reset all dungeon master or tokens.

When they removed MF, they did not completely delete all MF (with the exception of celestial)

When they redesigned AC, they did not reset dungeon master title, tokens, and levels earned there.

Removing content is no excuse to delete progression.

What is your fractals personal level?

Pretty sure you know some of those questions are a bit over the top. I do think that a reset of progression, in some cases, is warranted.

For instance, I’d dearly love ArenaNet to make Southsun count in World Completion. WvW maps do, Southsun does not. Legit? Remove players’ Nametag Stars until it’s re-completed. This happens with Living Story content, why not the whole of Southsun?

As for dungeons, yes, they SHOULD have reset the Dungeon Master title. I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Not for the small AC changes, but completely removing one TA path and adding another – Hell yes.

I don’t know enough about high level Fractals to properly comment though. I’m up at 30, and, happy enough that changes don’t affect me. I get that there would be annoyances – I know when a certain friend comes back onto the game he’s gonna be pretty darn kittened about it. If they’re completely changing the rules in there at 30+ though, on balance, perhaps it’s justified.

Rule 1: ArenaNet change goalposts. They do it all the time. All the time. Usually in small ways, but this seems to be quite a beast even by their standards.

ultrametroid.9862:

Well I’m in the UK and based on EU server and mine has also been completely reset…..

Just a +1 on this.

Only one of the guilds I’m in seems to be working.

I’m on Gandara, and live in the UK, so unless Gandara is hosted in NA then someone’s been talking out of their kitten.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

I get it, it’s fracs it’s hard, it must be challenging, and trust me it was challenging until… we realized it’s impossible.

I kinda had a similar train of thought with the Dredge fractal.

Why is one of the most preferred methods of opening the door with the bombs to die continuously, just trying to get the bombs into position? Why is one of the most preferred methods of keeping the double doors open to the gate controls to die on the pressure pads?

I know ArenaNet said, before release if I recall correctly, that they didn’t expect players to get through dungeons cleanly, with no deaths, but I always thought some aspects of Fractals take that a little too far, no?

Is it possible to complete the whole Dredge fractal (bomb door path) at L30+ without a single death? Just looking for reinsurance, really. I’ve never considered the “best way of completing content” should ever be by dying.

Probably. There is a story instance with Kiel, I understand.

Wouldn’t have thought there would be much to do, though I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

ArenaNet change goalposts all the time, players should learn to be prepared for it. Sometimes it benefits you, sometimes not.

I shall say this though. Fractals is a love it-or-hate it thing. A Fractal-only update might end up annoying a lot of people who either really really dislike it when it’s the only content in an update, or annoying a lot of people over L30. I hope they thought it through well. One other thing – if I get into that story mission, and find out that in the Thaumanova Reactor “Scarlet came and kitten got serious” I will be really rather sad. I hope for something more inventive. Something new.

Go to the new LFG feature, place an advert under the top “living world” section.

Not many people use it, but, if more people think to it could be very beneficial.

Rox was sent to the Tequatl site by Rytlock, remember. He’s still watching the world from a distance, it would seem. The fact that he notably didn’t attend the Queen’s Jubilee was also strange. Just another mysterious seed set by ArenaNet that may develop into future story.

cesmode.4257:

All across these forums, If someone says “the game should be like X”, that person is met by a swarm of responses like “Well not everyone likes X”. “Well I want dungeons to be a bit harder!”…“Well not everyone likes harder. Some people like speedruns”. “I want open world content to require more strategy and less zerg”….“Well, not everyone likes to cooperate. Some people like to zerg to farm $$”.

You missed the most overused and silliest one by far:

“They said I could play the way I want yet they make me do X”

I see this oh so many times, from some line in their Manifesto (I think), that everyone latched onto and some refuse to let go, extrapolating it to back up any argument they want to make.

aspirine.6852:

What’s so amazing again? Rehashing of old “living” stories and oh yeah scarlet again, and again she teleports away? This kind of amazing?

You’re another one of these players who takes the Story and uses that as the sole basis for declaring something as bad.

We all know the story is terrible. That’s a fact. Such a small percentage of players find Scarlet compelling or interesting. Noone really cares for this mess of “alliances”. Ok?

Now ignore the story. Look at the update as a standalone piece of content, Story notwithstanding. In essence you have a new explorable zone (albeit small), you have new enemies that hit pretty hard and stack rather a lot of conditions which is why I’d wager many players find it difficult. Someone, somewhere likened it to the difficulty of FoW or UW in GW1, and I’d have to agree. Don’t you find that refreshing? I do. I find fighting my way up the tower a pretty enjoyable experience that I have done many times over so far.

This isn’t to say that they’ve not short changed us with the Living Story. I definitely feel they have. If they could channel their energies into releasing updates with full size, real world maps with good dynamic events, NPCs, and lore content I’d be much happier. Comparing this update to those of the last three months, however; seems to be it’s a substantial improvement. Looking at how much work must have gone into that new Edge of the Mists WvW map really depresses me. PvE deserves more explorable zones, surely? Anet? Anyone? Anet? Pleeeease?

Lopez.7369:

I love the content, but it’s so unrewarding. I don’t know why they’re so skimpy with loot in living world content if they’re going to keep ridiculous farm zones like Frostgorge Sound around. Shouldn’t living world content always be the best place to farm so people actually do it?

This is precisely my concern about the current player base. “No rewards: not interested”. It’s a point, a sad one, but a valid point nonetheless.

What you maybe forget, or do not realise, is that the majority of players from GW1 played through the game for the experience (not “XP”, the experience of playing through the game). We didn’t have special skins hurled at us at the end of each mission to “keep us interested”. It wasn’t needed. Prestige stuff was farmed for at the end, if that’s what you were into.

My fear is, even if they get much better at writing episodic content for the Living Story, it will not satisfy new players, or those from other MMOs who migrated to GW2. Those players, such as yourself it would seem, are too loot driven to really appreciate it.

It’s also worth noting the achievement system at this juncture. Too many grindy achievements and players complain about grind. Few achievements and players complain there is not enough content – mainly as they’re not “forced” to play through for a longer period of time in order to complete the meta achievement. It seems to be a catch-22 situation that ArenaNet can never win.

takatsu.9416:

and idk if it’s scaling but the toxin didn’t bring down my health either xD

One of my few non-story complaints with this update is that stupid 25-skillpoint heal skill.

Worthless. Totally worthless. It heals for nothing and, in the tower, where you’d think you’d need it, toxin is reapplied as fast as it’s removed by that skill anyway.

Why, Anet?

Maybe I’m jumping the gun and it will see more play in later releases.

Luthan.5236:

I think Scarlet only does it for fun. No real reason.

I’ve been thinking this for a long time.

Also: My 2013 Prediction of the Year….

Really want to know what’s going to come of Kasmeer pricking herself on that thorn. I smell a big OP corrupted-Kasmeer Mesmer boss fight coming.

This did not end well for Trahearne.

Fluffball.8307:

The second time hybrid battle that gives you the achievement has a slightly different flow to it, unless I missed something obvious. The first one the flowers slowly push you to the center, and the second time, the center was just one giant flower and i had to fight hanging off the wall. Whatever, both were fun. I dig it.

Yes, it’s different. Tad harder, but that fight I found really fun, in the “explorable” version (although not explicitly stated as explorable).

I did it 2-man. Just happened to work out that way. I dunno how it scales up or down in terms of difficulty.

Edit: Just tried it 5-man. Ludicrously easy. Doesn’t seem to scale.

Rhialto.8423:

The difficulty here kind of reminds me of the Underworld or Fissure of Woe in GW1, which anyone who looks through my old comments will know that I absolutely loved. So, good job Anet!

Actually, gotta agree with that.

People scream for “more challenging content”, then it comes in the form of Tower Third Floor and it’s all: “Too hard, just rush”. Typical dungeon mentality.

Thugem Chi.6189:

*You will get swarmed with mobs of overpowered foes in tight areas that will be impossible to fight unless you are a large zerg.

Perhaps you just need to put some thought into how you fight them?

I made most of my way up solo. Some parts were tricky if I over-aggro’d accidentally, but nothing really severe.

Freeelancer.2860:

and the cinematic is just wow

Yes, it’s well done.

Freeelancer.2860:

That being said, the loot brigade will probably leave the tower to be abandoned in a matter of week (didn’t look at the achievements so I might be wrong there). Shame that all that work will go to waste.

True.
Sad, but true.

As a piece of content, a game to play, this is so much better than stuff they’ve put up lately. Scarlet Invasions were just a sad zergfarm, they destroyed Mad King’s Day due to lack of features and story, even the Tower of Nightmares patch 2 weeks ago showed so little promise. This is fantastic, though, to me. It’s a piece of content I want to play. A huge new explorable area to see and explore. Maybe that’s just me though – I know exploration isn’t for everyone, not if it doesn’t come with a side order of 20 free exotics and rare skins eh.

wookiee.4631:

Story-wise, I finally have a detailed impression of Scarlet, and she’s annoying and out of place as crap.

My comments were notwithstanding the pre-existing “Scarlet is a terrible villain” issue

The Cutscene was the best Scarlet-related cutscene so far though. Doesn’t change my opinion of her.