Guild Wars 2

On top of the frustration of PvP in a nearly completely PvE aspect (7% vs. 93%) of the game.

And, on top of the frustration of being in bad pairings, and constantly being the third tier. Along with not always rotating colours (to help you get some of the ones you missed).

You have explorers taking a limited and valuable spot in the WvW maps, and given that many servers have massive queues (my server peaking at over 400 in queue at once…), that is a horrible proposition.

I know when I did my two character’s exploration (by swapping to a low queue, winning server), I did participate a bit in small fights, but I would go out of my way to avoid the large ones because it’s not something I enjoy. I felt bad about not really helping, but I simply wanted to get the WvW exploration nonsense over with.

An explorer should not waste a spot that someone who really wants to do WvW could use.

Just remember to jump up on the cliffside above that vista so you get the chest and achievement. It’s easily missed.

I don’t like fighting dredge, so I wasn’t very fond of this area, but it was still a nice challenge, especially solo.

This old woman’s opinion…

In game (PvE): During pre-view, excellent. Slowly degrading since then, but still better than most other games I’ve played. Most polite and friendly in the mid-levels (~30-70 areas), a bit nastier in the Orr areas. Low level areas a mix as expected.

The only real nastiness outside of chat in PvE has been an increase in people purposely training mobs to kill others; and an couple people who think it’s fun to intentionally bug skill points/events, and brag/laugh about it. I’m hoping that Tuesday clears much of that group out.

Forums: Not as mean tempered as some games, but not the absolute best either. Seems to me there are a lot of people who found out too late that the design of GW2 is not fitting with how they play. They would rather change GW2 to fit their style rather than have their $60 of fun and move on to something more to their liking.

TroublesomeKnight.7809:

Meanwhile all that happens with that gay couple you mentioned is one of them running up to you and Caithe begging you to save his boyfriend from being killed by the Green Knight, and that’s the only time you see them.

You do see them once more, but in a non-voiced and irrelevant to the story role. They are present as witnesses when you do your final duel against Bercilak. You can speak to them if you wish before the fight.

Granting boons, providing healing, setting up combo fields, and raising people should ALL be changed to add contribution.

Both to kill based things (loot drops, WvW badges), and to events (spending too much time helping the group do more damage and keep alive better can reduce your event reward down to silver or even bronze).

I like that it’s not themed around another world-changing conflict. Gives a break from what’s present on every other 15+ zone, and has a nice wilderness feel.

Agree with all the above.

Downed players are generally quick to raise, and you’re not putting yourself in much danger by doing so. They’ll get back on their feet, and be able to help in a decent amount of time.

Dead players it depends a lot on the situation, but generally I’ll wait until the area is secure before doing so. It usually takes too long to safely raise in combat.

Remember that you have much slower dodge response while raising someone, which can definitely be deadly to yourself in many situations.

joe.7684:

I’m a little confused here. Wasn’t that supposed to have been changed after BWE 2 to the current setup where the skill challenge at Oola’s Lab in northeast Metrica Province is a quiz? Or are we talking about something different, because I haven’t come across the skill challenge/event you describe?

The quiz skill point is outside the lab, and should always be available. The outer door, I can’t remember if it’s always open now or if it’s dependant on an event.

There is a rare drop in the Metrica Province map, a crystal that is supposed to open the inner door and lead to a group event. The console where you use that crystal has not functioned since the pre-purchase weekend (when I experienced it and /bug reported it).

The “Been There Done That” achievement is currently broken. The other sub-area achievements were, but they were fixed this week to reference the correct number of areas.

Wolfgang.4029:

It looks like bamboo tied together.

The overall structure is definitely bamboo.

The vines that are wrapped around the bamboo, and form the ornamental touches, are harder to tell from that photo. Some form of bittersweet is a strong possibility, but it could be any among a host of other vines.

Agree with Shifted. It’s not obvious, and I did not get it either until I reached that near-final chapter of my story mission.

Jump into the water from the Cathedral of Verdance, and look for a semi-hidden passage heading east.

In open-world PvE, they’re fun to play. You may have to work a bit harder, and pay a bit more attention to dodging, but they’re still fun to play.

Flashy spells always draw people to a profession.

A “traditional” mage will ALWAYS draw a following. If a profession is fun to play, as long as you’re not grossly underpowered (Ele is weaker overall, but not massively weaker), there will be players beyond those who just want a challenge.

Never had it happen on my Ele on her entire run to 100% map completion.

I have had it happen twice in two days on a new Mesmer. Both times from falling damage, once in WvW, once in Caledon Forest.

Zenyatoo.4059:

im pretty sure if you just wait in the darkroom the captain turns the lights on
He did it for me when I went through it recently…

This is true. The light will periodically come on for a second or two, and in that amount of time you can do a jump or two, and remember the next few jumps. Patience will get you through that area.

There are also other random chests tucked away in corners or small caves in the open world. They tend to be protected by a champion grade mob, and are not always obvious.

Many world bosses do spawn chests, but not all.

Three jumping puzzles are required to complete in order to receive your star, because they have a Vista, PoI, or Skill point at the top.

These are Wall Breach Blitz, Tribulation Rift Scaffolding, and Vizier’s Tower. No other jumping puzzles are required to get the 100% map completion star. You receive the Vizier’s Tower achievement about halfway up. The other two have achievements that are easily missed if you are just going for the vistas.

Completing the area explorer achievements (and eventually Been There Done That) will sometimes require you to step into a jumping puzzle area (to make the name discovery and unfog), but don’t require you to complete them. Some examples are Demongrub Pits, Dark Reverie, Shaman’s Rookery, and Conundrum Cubed. There are others as well.

An invisible person/mob cannot be targeted, but can surely still be hit by ground targeted AoE’s or by using an attack skill where you think they are.

I do not know of any invisibility longer than 6 seconds.

Been There Done That appears to be broken. The devs recently corrected the sub-achievement for the various areas (Kryta, Shiverpeaks, Orr, etc.), but appear to have missed the title achievement.

In my experience, nothing done in WvW moved the title bar. Nothing done in dungeons moved the title bar. I do not do sPvP, but guildmates do and they reported no movement either.

Getting to 100% world completion gave me ONE item I could use on my Ele. It was a staff (I use S/D mainly), and it wasn’t even worth keeping as an alternate support weapon because its bonuses did not mesh well with my trait setup. I ended up just giving it to another Ele in guild who is primarily a staff user.

My rewards did benefit guildmates and friends, and made me a reasonable profit once the Trading Post came up.

There are many people who won’t purposely “train”, and will help kill if they do.

There are also many who do it maliciously and intentionally, and that percentage is only going up. The GIFT mentality is only getting worse.

I’m lucky because I preferred the look of the tier 1 Norn light armour over the tier 2/3 pieces, so it wasn’t a horrible cost for me.

The final tier pieces seriously need to be made Exotic, and not appear as it’s designed to sell gems (for the high grade Transmutation stones, provided you don’t get lucky with opening Black Lion chests).

Making a legendary requires the badges from WvW kills to make the Gift of Battle, so you are forced to do WvW in order to make one. If you only want the star, and when fixed, the Been There Done That title, then you don’t need to actually participate in WvW.

I just completed a WvW exploration run on an alt (using the server change “trick”). Along with the one Point of Interest and Waypoint I got after getting out of my starter instance, it ended up being 9% map completion. 91% of it, thus, is PvE only.

I do feel that WvW should not be included, for some of the reasons above and for others.

The Mists are not part of the world, they are separate. If anything, have a Mists exploration (maybe include the sPvP maps too) along with a Tyria exploration as separate “achievements”.

Many people trying to complete exploration have no desire to participate in actual PvP. This can weaken the server overall, and could harm the PvE side effects you get from Power of the Mists.

Many servers have massive queues, and the busiest can reach 5-6 hours during weekends. Having a non-participating explorer taking a spot in a WvW map while a WvW participant is waiting in queue hurts the server in general. Server swapping works for now, but is not going to be available forever.

Being on a consistently losing server (and there are a few servers that have little to no interest in WvW) after the free swaps are turned off is a hugely negative experience. You’re forced to get in very early during a re-pairing phase, which will eventually be at 2 week intervals. You will also have to do that three or more times, depending on how often you “rotate” between the colours, so you can access different parts before they become occupied.

I’m female. I’ve only played female characters (when I had a choice) since the MUD days. GW2 just continues that trend.

I use my norn Snow Leopard form over anything else in world PvE, because of the stealth. Makes it much easier to get to some well guarded PoI or skill commune, along with being able to ditch aggro.

I don’t generally like losing my main skill bars, but it’s fine with Snow Leopard because I’m only using it to escape, not fight. It’s not OK for the Greatsword or Tornado, because you lose a lot of utility for little benefit.

I’d probably value the elemental summon (as “bait” only) a bit more if the bloody sound bug is fixed. I’d rather not have my ears blasted by a game bug that ignores all the sound settings on my computer

Edit: corrected typo

During BWE3, he was in a few of my story missions during the 11-20 range. I chose “Where life goes”.

During those missions, he did use a fair bit of Necro skills, including minions and wells. He was also a useful distraction and actually contributed well to battle.

I was quite disappointed on live (on my norn), how little he contributed during the actual combat phases once he joined my story missions.

As for his personality, no strong opinion either way.

Sisho.5431:

I use Ether Renewal on my Ele almost constantly. It is the most powerful condition removal I’ve seen so far considering it is a 15 second CD heal. Heals decent and removes conditions per pulse, and pulses like 8 times all together.

This is also my preferred heal on my Ele at higher levels (Signet of Restoration at lower levels, or in the water). You just have to be careful when using it as any interrupt you receive while it pulses will cancel it. Dodge rolling will also cancel it.

Much of what’s in Orr. The constant CC, especially the jarring and headache inducing constant pulls. The massively long aggro range, along with fast respawns, huge numbers, high HP, light speed. Then you HAVE to kill them in order to get anywhere, since waypoints are very often contested.

Outside of Orr, I particularly hate Dredge (still haven’t gotten my dodge timing down to avoid their SPAMMED sonic blasts), and the exploding spiders in Twilight Arbor.

I 100%‘ed all of Orr before stepping foot into Frostgorge. Frostgorge was actually enjoyable, and had far more variety. Orr tends to not be solo friendly, while Frostgorge is. In Frostgorge, you can get your 15 variety daily, while (even including Straits) you can’t in the Orr area.

The huge aggro range, constant pulling and other CC, light speed running Risen, and sheer numbers make Orr a slog to get through, and very tiring/frustrating after while. It’s a fine area for a while, but you’ll eventually need a break.

For me personally, I did 100% map completion because I like exploration. I would have done so without rewards, but the rewards were a nice little bonus.

In those rewards, I would have liked to have had more things I could use, but I didn’t mind THAT much since they were earned from something I would have done anyway. Completing every map in the game gave my Elementalist a single class-usable item, a staff. Since I usually run S/D, and that staff had stats that didn’t meld well with my trait setup, I just gave it away.

My guildmates, however, were quite happy to take the useful stuff I got off my hands, and the trading post (when it was up), NPC vendors, and salvaging handled the rest.

I personally didn’t find completing every map on my road to 80 that much slower than doing non-abusive event chains, or current crafting. I reached 80 after approximately 85 hours of gameplay (from /age), and I still had Frostgorge, WvW, the three Orr areas, and half of Mount Maelstrom left to do.

One skill challenge in Cursed Shore (last week) had such a short invulnerability/reset range that simply dodge-rolling would cause it to reset. I ended up having to wait for a friend to get there so that together, we could do enough damage to finish it off and survive “tanking” the damage. I /bug reported it, but don’t know if it was fixed or not.

I can understand having some leash range, but some of them are just too small, especially for mobile world event champions.

I swapped servers to get mine (Henge with its 3-6 hour queues, and I don’t like wasting a spot that could be taken up by someone who wants to actually do WvW). All done at 80, and this was after completing all PvE maps except Frostforge Sound, and a broken skill point in Malchor’s Leap that I managed to get first thing after a server reboot.

Completed a non-home borderland first, got level 20’s rewards. Battleground next, one item was in the high 30’s, the other 40’s. Then, finished the other two borderlands, and both of them granted level 20’s rewards.

MUD’s, then a few 2D hobby games (biggest peaked at ~60 people), then a couple Korean grinders, then DDO, then GW2.

Will stay with GW2 unless a development/design decision destroys the foundation of the game, like what happend with DDO.

I also experienced the annoyance of the camera issues doing Troll’s End. Parts of Dark Reverie, the one past Morgan's Spiral, also had a number of camera issues, but Troll’s End was still the worst one yet.

I didn’t even choose the tallest option on the slider on my female norn. Male norn’s have a higher range, so it could be even worse for them.

Also confirm. A mob’s lateral movement will almost always make Ride the Lightning fly out, channel for a period of time, and end up doing no damage.

Here’s Sara of Folkvangr.

Tried to go for the Lenneth Valkyrie look, but didn’t quite succeed.

Paho.8417:

There is a lot of female norn here ! Are you playing female because you’re female in real life or you’re enjoying their bouncing boobs when they run ?

Am female IRL.

Went Norn because I love the Norse-like theme and backstory. I can also tower over others, which I can’t do in real life because I’m really short.

MaceUK.4589:

How do I get bear form? I chose bear at character creation and now lvl 43 and just realised I haven’t got it!

It’s an elite skill. Bear, Wolf, and Raven cost 10 skill points, and Snow Leopard costs 30. The forms are not restricted to your biography choices, you can pick up and use all four of them if you so desire.

There is an occasional event that triggers (when the event itself is not broken) that involves two old Charr hunting down a bunch of separatists. You’ll get spawns that way, and they’ll eventually lead you to a separatist camp, northeast of the heart vendor.

I don’t know if the camp is open at all times, or only during that event.

Thieves/assassins aren’t always about sneaking. A major part of infiltration is sometimes just blending in to get close to a target. A cover as a waiter, cleaner, or butler will often able to gain access to secure targets more easily than someone trying to sneak in.

And I agree with Riot Inducer. Snow Leopard emphasises stealth, and what some would consider “unethical”, but is natural for a sneaky hunter. The story in A Spirit of Legend is a good example.

I also experience this at times.

It mostly happens for me after I switch windows, for example to Vent to adjust a person’s volume, then switch back to GW2 and immediately start a battle. If I wait a little bit before fighting, I usually don’t have the missing sound.

I enjoy the higher challenge level of Orr. I like that it emphasises working with a group. I like the desolate look and feel.

I do not enjoy the constant respawn that makes it take forever to get anywhere. Due to the sheer amount of snares and slows, you pretty much have to kill everything along the way to get anywhere (or stealth, which many classes do not have). That’s fine, but it often makes travel between events very time consuming, since you can’t depend on waypoints.

I also do not like that it’s impossible to complete the daily kill variety by just doing the Orr maps (even including Straits).

Mungrul’s term ‘wearing’ is the best description. By the time you’ve spent an hour or two in Orr, you end up mentally exhausted from the constant action, especially solo. There is no period of “let down” where you can walk a bit without threat like most of the other areas of the game.

PvE only, S/D, Condition damage primary spec, power and toughness secondary:
Ride the Lightning, Updraft (skip if I don’t need a closer, or the mob is weak enough that the fire chain will finish it)
Swap to fire, Ring of Fire, Dragon Tooth, Phoenix, Arcane Wave (9 stacks of might from the combo)
(if still alive)
Dodge if necessary, Fire Grab, swap to earth, Earthquake, Glyph of Storms (blindness spam yay), Churning Earth.
If necessary, dodge, swap to water, Cleansing Wave, Water Trident
Return to the fire line.

Wolf has self-healing (good because the forms block your 6-0 skills), and two nice interrupts, grants Fury and Regeneration, and inflicts bleeds. It’s probably the best fighting form. You can’t move while using the 1 skill.

Bear has one interrupt, Might, and boosts your HP. Mostly, however, it just looks impressive.

Raven has two interrupts, and some movement altering abilities.

Snow Leopard has a weakness granting debuff (nice for reducing incoming damage), can cripple, and can move while using the 1 skill. The real power is in its stealth ability, which is huge in some areas in PvE. Stealth will (almost) instantly drop aggro of any mob on you, and makes it much easier to get past a group of mobs to reach a skill point or point of interest.

Nanook.9258:

Was this zone as bad during beta? I ask because this doesn’t seem to be the sort of issues caused by heavy traffic…

During the betas, all areas higher than Gendarren Fields were blocked off. This one, thus, had no open testing until it went live.

While an aggressive OP…I have to agree.

The Mists are not part of the world. They’re separate in lore, and in their uses. Note that the three borderland maps all count, so you must complete them all.

96% of map exploration is PvE only, a huge amount. Requiring PvP areas to complete a nearly completely PvE experience is not right, as PvP and PvE should remain separate aspects of the game.

Queue’s are massive on some servers. I can confirm the 3-4 hour queue times on Henge of Denravi. Right now, you can “cheat” and take advantage of the free server transfers, but that will not be possible forever. Some servers tend to be full, so it can take quite some time to return to your “real” server.

As said, once the week or fortnight matches start to happen, you can get blocked from progress for long periods of time. There will eventually be large teams/servers manipulating the matches, so you’ll eventually have gross mismatches happening. If you happen to be on a losing side in one of those mismatches, you’ll be blocked progress for up to two weeks.

Requiring the WvW maps for world completion will lead to people in WvW solely for that purpose. They’re not helping their server take/hold points, but they’re taking up valuable spots in the limited map population.

I agree with the suggestion that it would be best to make them separate “achievements”. Keep the PvE world completion as it is, and make the four WvW maps separate, and grant some PvP oriented reward.

I only got one exotic as a drop rather than a map completion. It was from a random Orrian mob during one of the Malchor’s Leap events, and it was a hammer (gave it to a Guardian in guild). They seem exceptionally scarce.

Jayne.9251:

Hrm are exotics from map completion at a certain level? I’ve yet to get a single one and I’ve completed about five or six areas….

The exotics tend to start once you start completing the level 60+ areas. I got my first two from a map completion when I finished Fireheart Rise.

Of all the exotics I pulled from map completion during my road to 100% world completion, I got a single one I could use, a staff, and it had stats that did not mesh well with my trait setup. I ended up just giving it to a staff/support Ele in guild.

Frustrating, but at least the ones that guild members didn’t want sold for a fair bit.

Removing the WvW maps from the 100% map completion requirements would also help the queues a slight bit.

You then wouldn’t have people who are only interested in the map completion taking spots in the queues and the actual areas that could go to people who truly want to participate.

With the combination of high mob damage and the lack of a “traditional” mitigation and healing situation, it makes all classes interrupts, stuns, dazes, blinds, and other CC much more important.

Other games have tried to give DPS more tricks to mitigate damage, but in many (but not all of course) cases, those abilities don’t get used and it still ends up with the pressure on the tank and/or healers.

Dungeons are not without their problems.

Without the control provided by a “traditional trinity”, you need to have a lot more coordination and leadership. Voice chat helps immensely, and is very unlikely to be used outside of guild or alliance runs. My previous game was D&D Online (Turbine did a lot wrong, but this is something they did right), and it had built-in voice chat, which made coordinating PUG runs MUCH easier.

There are, at present, too many “cheap tricks” that do nothing but cause unnecessary deaths and frustration. The exploding poison spiders in Twilight Arbor, for instance.

With a knowledgeable and well run group, it can be smooth and not too costly to run. Most runs outside of tuned, organized, and well run guild groups aren’t that way. It simply costs too much to learn a dungeon, especially in a PUG. The rewards typically aren’t worth the cost.

Frotee.2634:

Ok, just beat the one in Dredgehaunt cliffs – yes, I would consider that a jumping puzzle, was quite frustrating at times. But I felt oh so accomplished when I finally made it

It is a true jumping puzzle. It’s just easy to miss the chest off to the side after getting to the vista. The achievement is triggered when you open the chest.

Note that there ARE three jumping puzzles you must complete in order to complete a map, due to a Vista or another map completion element (like the skill point in Vizier’s Tower) being on top of them.

These are Wall Breach Blitz in Diessa Plateau, Vizier’s Tower in the Straits of Devestation, and Tribulation Rift Scaffolding in Dredgehaunt Cliffs.

Note that the chest and achievement in Tribulation Rift Scaffolding can be missed since you can jump across to the vista, without getting onto the final platform where the chest is.

Most of the general vistas aren’t too difficult, but a few have tricky spots where you must land exactly right. These may require a bit of practice (I have particular trouble with a Charr character, since it’s harder to tell where you’re going to land), but generally take much less time to complete than a “true” jumping puzzle.

Staff Elementalists in my guild complain about this boss and others like it quite often. They tend to be more support oriented, and don’t do a great deal of damage.

Supporting by combo fields, boons, non-damaging conditions, and healing all do not count. Controlling trash does not appear to count.

Right now, only pure DPS against the boss counts, and my guess is you need to do approximately 1% or so of the bosses health for it to count you.

With these popular big events, it can be quite difficult to do “enough” damage before the boss dies, just due to so many others with higher DPS.