Guild Wars 2

fixit.7189:

People have stated that it’s a .8 or some thing rate to get ectos from salvage but since patch I estimate it’s far less than that. Just salvaged 100 rares and got 38 ectos. I lost a lot of money, should have just posted on the TP.

RNG is RNG? Idk about that, feels nerfed. But I wouldn’t discount my absurb bad luck in this game though, it’s bad…reeeal bad lol so who knows.

What kit did you use and did you record your results for each salvage?

eldrin.6471:

Its a strange type of rng that gives great luck on whole days and bad luck on others.
I would have though it would be salvage to salvage. Not whole bad days and whole good days. but it does always seem to work its self out.

Gamblers in real life have good days and bad days.

RNG can and does have streaks and those streaks can last through an entire day.

And in game unless a player gets a lot of rares and exotics, it wouldn’t be hard to get a run of good luck or a run of bad luck.

JediYoda.1275:

lordkrall.7241:

Astralporing.1957:

Yes, and after they presold the game with the promise of access to any next beta event, all betas were only beta weekends. Unlike now.

That is actually not entirely correct.

Pre-purchase started on April 10th. There were tests after that which didn’t include everyone that have pre-purchased.

It is of course also worth pointing out that they never said any next beta event, but rather every Beta Weekend Events, just like this time.

Get your facts straight June 16, 2015 Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Is Available for
Pre-Purchase!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-is-available-for-pre-purchase/

Anet Announcing the WvW Desert Borderlands Stress Tests May 8, 2015, More information on how you can get an invite to participate will be released at a later time.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/announcing-the-wvw-desert-borderlands-stress-tests/

Announcing the First World vs. World Borderlands Stress Test July 2, 2015
The first World vs. World Desert Borderlands stress test will take place on July 9.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/announcing-the-first-worldvs-world-borderlands-stress-test/

People are confusing things and or haven’t been following the news or both!

I think lordkrall’s dates were for Guild Wars 2 base game, when it went on pre-purchase and when it started doing stress tests, beta events, vs beta weekend events.

Farzo.8410:

latinkuro.7304:

Farzo.8410:

Guild Wars 2 raiding should be like guild jumping puzzles but on steroids, and even more stuff, and new mechanics, and fights that require more than berserker – puzzle solving, coordination, and set rewards for that dungeon only that drops from chests or bosses themselves.

OMFG !!!

I hope you’re not serious about this [censored] idea !
Also, you people really do not read, see the part about requiring damage, control, support !!!

This generation is doomed if all you do is skip read !

I just think ArenaNet should do their own style kind of raiding, and not go after what every other MMO does with their raiding.

A big puzzle solving raid could be fresh and interesting, mixed with combat using new mechanics and fights not always requiring set amount of damage or healing or tanking, but brains instead.

Just because another MMO does raiding in X style, doesn’t mean GW2 can’t do raiding in X style as well.

I personally don’t see why both can’t exist at the same time.

Bukkebruse.2810:

Seera.5916:

…

That’s nice and everything, but the OP is talking about a fractal skin, not an ascended weapon.

Ah, ok. Was not aware that there were at one point rewards that were just skins and not actual weapons.

Dhorghar.5249:

Seera.5916:

Since the new patch there are now ways to change the stats on ascended armor and weapons.

From the patch notes:

Added a Mystic Forge recipe to change the stats on ascended weapons and armor. The recipe is as follows:

• Ingredient 1: An ascended weapon or armor piece.
• Ingredient 2: The exotic insignia or inscription for the desired stats.
• Ingredient 3: Five globs of ectoplasm.
• Ingredient 4: An Anthology of Heroes, purchased from Miyani for 10 spirit shards.
• Result: A piece of ascended gear with the stats of the inscription or insignia of the same type as the piece of gear that went in.
• Example: Zojja’s Claymore + Knight’s Orichalcum Imbued Inscription + Five Globs of Ectoplasm + Anthology of Heroes = Beigarth’s Claymore
• NOTE: All upgrades are lost as part of this conversion.

And then I wonder why many players don’t read my lfgs. It’s a pandemic disease in gw2.

And not everyone started playing Fractals at the same time. There are newer players who are not aware the first rewards were just skins. Such as myself. So excuse me for not knowing.

Astralporing.1957:

latinkuro.7304:

look at my part about reward structure before answering and looking like a [censored]

I did, and you clearly advertise reward system significantly better than at Teq (since you think Teq rewards suck). I actually agree with you about Teq rewards, so i’m all for it… as long as rewards everywhere else (yes, including most casual content you can think of) get buffed equally.

On the other hand, a definite no to raid rewards being visibly better than rewards from other content.

And yes, rewards should be equal across all play areas. They can have cosmetic unique loot, but nothing of better stats or anything like that.

latinkuro.7304:

Seera.5916:

latinkuro.7304:

Farzo.8410:

Guild Wars 2 raiding should be like guild jumping puzzles but on steroids, and even more stuff, and new mechanics, and fights that require more than berserker – puzzle solving, coordination, and set rewards for that dungeon only that drops from chests or bosses themselves.

OMFG !!!

I hope you’re not serious about this [censored] idea !
Also, you people really do not read, see the part about requiring damage, control, support !!!

This generation is doomed if all you do is skip read !

And maybe he was offering a counter idea to yours? That instead of raids like you’re suggesting, ANet should do raids like he suggests.

I don’t see why ANet can’t do both types. Combat oriented raids and Guild Puzzle type raids.

I was talking about the ludicrous idea of raid style jumping puzzles !

Combat oriented raid guild puzzles is a good idea, that other thing not so much :S

I think that’s what he meant. He did say “guild jumping puzzles” and the guild puzzles do have a fair amount of jumping in them. As well as combat in them.

latinkuro.7304:

Farzo.8410:

Guild Wars 2 raiding should be like guild jumping puzzles but on steroids, and even more stuff, and new mechanics, and fights that require more than berserker – puzzle solving, coordination, and set rewards for that dungeon only that drops from chests or bosses themselves.

OMFG !!!

I hope you’re not serious about this [censored] idea !
Also, you people really do not read, see the part about requiring damage, control, support !!!

This generation is doomed if all you do is skip read !

And maybe he was offering a counter idea to yours? That instead of raids like you’re suggesting, ANet should do raids like he suggests.

I don’t see why ANet can’t do both types. Combat oriented raids and Guild Puzzle type raids.

If Raid Shards are what players use to revive others then the same person can still die over and over again. They just have to be near someone who hasn’t used up their shards. People aren’t going to be keeping track of who has been going down a lot.

Raid Shards should be how many times a player can be revived.

Raid attunement. Give each raid instance 5 character swap items (maybe have them be given to the instance starter, and they become destroyed upon leaving the instance but aren’t account bound). That way, everyone and their mother can’t swap, but it allows instances where someone disconnects and doesn’t get back on in a reasonable time or has to leave suddenly the ability to replace any necessary functionality the leaving player brought to the table.

Since the new patch there are now ways to change the stats on ascended armor and weapons.

From the patch notes:

Added a Mystic Forge recipe to change the stats on ascended weapons and armor. The recipe is as follows:

• Ingredient 1: An ascended weapon or armor piece.
• Ingredient 2: The exotic insignia or inscription for the desired stats.
• Ingredient 3: Five globs of ectoplasm.
• Ingredient 4: An Anthology of Heroes, purchased from Miyani for 10 spirit shards.
• Result: A piece of ascended gear with the stats of the inscription or insignia of the same type as the piece of gear that went in.
• Example: Zojja’s Claymore + Knight’s Orichalcum Imbued Inscription + Five Globs of Ectoplasm + Anthology of Heroes = Beigarth’s Claymore
• NOTE: All upgrades are lost as part of this conversion.

And why should only experienced WvW commanders get invites? Why not experienced WvW players. Just because the guy is new to commanding doesn’t invalidate any following he did prior to becoming a commander.

And maybe they do want some in this test who are very familiar with WvW but not truly veterans of WvW in the test to see how they act.

They likely invited him and X of guild mates to join in on the stress test. He’s being nice and opening up the Beta to those not in his guild beforehand just in case not all slots can be filled by his guild. That’s pretty nice of him, don’t you think?

Kitsune.1902:

Seera.5916:

As long as five players who are friends and want to play together and all want to do the same role have the chance to complete the content without changing to a different role, then I don’t care how they change it up. Be it they all want to play DPS or they all want to play Support or Control or whatever.

I don’t want to have to wait for someone in a particular build to show up in order to be able to do content.

Some people really enjoy soloing content. Add hard roles to the game and you destroy their fun. Because they can no longer do it alone. They have to bring others.

There is a limit to this. Five dedicated healer builds for example, that sacrifice essentially all of their DPS and defense to be as efficient at healing as possible.

Five characters with build like that should not be able to deal with all content. If you make all the content such that any and all builds – and combinations of builds – can drudge through it, you will sacrifice far too much.

If you take it to extreme, you’d have to give up all time based combat challenges, all ‘hold the line’ type challenges, and a lot of other mechanics. Taken to the wider scale, most – if not all – of the current world boss fights that are even a little challenging, would be impossible.

You can’t compare dungeon mechanics to world boss mechanics. 5 players in a group are not able to take a world boss down because a world boss is a World Event and they need more than 5 players. World bosses would be doable no matter what because enough people will be in a variety of builds that it wouldn’t matter. And unless you want to chase away a LOT of casual players, you can’t make open world have hard roles. That leaves dungeons as the only real place hard roles would cause a problem.

Hard roles:

Neutral out on inclusive/exclusive. You can claim they are more inclusive of more builds, but if the group already has the max number of DPS players and is needing a healer and a tank, then any DPS player that wants to join is excluded. Players should not be forced to carry around multiple sets of armor and have multiple builds in order to always be included in a dungeon run. And if there are 5 groups of players needing healers and only 3 healers are on that are wanting to do dungeons, that’s a lot of waiting time for 2 groups of players. And this game was ADVERTISED as not having to wait for someone to fill a specific role.

Yes, current set up does have people waiting for people that fit what they want to join the group, but they are choosing to wait for a specific person. They aren’t forced to do so by the game.

And yes, I say the five healers should be able to complete the same content that five DPS players should. Slower as they’ve sacrificed DPS for healing. But still able to do so. And the game currently allows for any group of players with any combination of builds to complete content. So I would not be sacrificing anything to keep it that way.

Paprikaspice.8462:

Seera.5916:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Seera.5916:

I just don’t want the method chosen to be adding hard roles to the game.

Hard roles is a wonderful thing, if done right. They are usually thematically tight and easy to grasp, unlike soft roles, which, at first glance, all look “same-y”. There’s a reason for why a game like GW2 is criticized for being “all dps” or having “no build diversity”: because soft roles contribute to that perception.

To be honest, hard roles are, to me, one of the key pillars of the entire RPG genre, much like how loot or stats are. A RPG is all about, as the name of the genre implies, choosing a role (Role Playing Game), a theme, a specific style or attitude. When everything feels same-y, the fantasy appeal and the charm of playing with a role is lost. Of course, that’s my opinion. You may not value that as much as I do.

However, will all being said, I don’t mean that I wish to see the “holy trinity”. There’s plenty of different roles you can make beyond healer or tank. GW1, for example, did not have a tank role, but the heal role was divided into two (healing and protection), and there was crowd controler/ disrupter (mesmers in general), minion masters or spirit turrets (great to prevent enemies from getting close to the back line, or to provoke aggro), general support (paragons especially), and a distinction between aoe nukers and single target burst builds (so it wasn’t all “dps”).

If the new content is done right, anet can potentially add plenty of new, distinct, fun roles to the game. Ventari offers an unique and different healing playstyle. Chronomancer offers time-based support for bursting, defense and general cooldown utility. Revenant’s Mallyx will be able to turn the enemy’s conditions against themselves. Etc. And all those “hard roles” are more interesting that way. They wouldn’t be half as interesting if they were just “stack might, vulnerability and fury, dps, use the occasional block or reflect” that current builds seem to generally fall to.

As long as five players who are friends and want to play together and all want to do the same role have the chance to complete the content without changing to a different role, then I don’t care how they change it up. Be it they all want to play DPS or they all want to play Support or Control or whatever.

I don’t want to have to wait for someone in a particular build to show up in order to be able to do content.

Some people really enjoy soloing content. Add hard roles to the game and you destroy their fun. Because they can no longer do it alone. They have to bring others.

you end up sacrificing build diversity and encounter complexity, a ton of what makes a an instance fun, so that any composition of builds can complete it. its just not worth it. gw2 already has plenty of qol stuff that easily lets you change builds. beating this kind of content is like a consolation prize. anyone could have done it and if you actually ran with an exellent comp, it would be brainless to complete.

the game needs to expect an excellent comp to balance accordingly.

But I don’t want to have to create and carry around multiple sets of gear to fit into different roles.

I don’t want to have to wait for someone who fits a specific role to want to party with my group in order to have a shot to complete content. I would not have bought this game at all if they had marketed this game as having that requirement. I will not play nor support this game should they move into this direction. And I imagine a lot of players are in the same boat I am.

And I don’t see how not having a hard trinity prevents a game from designing complex encounters. I really don’t. So again, I’d rather they change the game mechanics to allow for more roles being suitable for the average PUG meta rather than create hard roles where people are prevented from completing content if they don’t have people in specific builds.

If I die, I want it to be primarily because I made a mistake. Not because the healer made a mistake. Or the Tank made a mistake. I want it to be because I made a mistake. I want to be able to heal myself. I want to be able to take a hit myself. I want to be able to dish out damage myself. I don’t want to have to rely on someone else to heal me. I don’t want to have to rely on someone else to take a hit for me. I don’t want to have to rely on someone else to dish out damage for me.

How many WP’s, POI’s, Hero Challenges, and Vistas are you missing?

Iron Marches
Fields of Ruin
Bloodtide Coast
Sparkfly Fen

Those four maps have only 13 hearts. If I had to guess, I would say Fields of Ruin as it’s not a natural progression on the map for most characters, especially if you don’t touch the personal story.

And don’t forget to pop into the Chantry of Secrets.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Seera.5916:

I just don’t want the method chosen to be adding hard roles to the game.

Hard roles is a wonderful thing, if done right. They are usually thematically tight and easy to grasp, unlike soft roles, which, at first glance, all look “same-y”. There’s a reason for why a game like GW2 is criticized for being “all dps” or having “no build diversity”: because soft roles contribute to that perception.

To be honest, hard roles are, to me, one of the key pillars of the entire RPG genre, much like how loot or stats are. A RPG is all about, as the name of the genre implies, choosing a role (Role Playing Game), a theme, a specific style or attitude. When everything feels same-y, the fantasy appeal and the charm of playing with a role is lost. Of course, that’s my opinion. You may not value that as much as I do.

However, will all being said, I don’t mean that I wish to see the “holy trinity”. There’s plenty of different roles you can make beyond healer or tank. GW1, for example, did not have a tank role, but the heal role was divided into two (healing and protection), and there was crowd controler/ disrupter (mesmers in general), minion masters or spirit turrets (great to prevent enemies from getting close to the back line, or to provoke aggro), general support (paragons especially), and a distinction between aoe nukers and single target burst builds (so it wasn’t all “dps”).

If the new content is done right, anet can potentially add plenty of new, distinct, fun roles to the game. Ventari offers an unique and different healing playstyle. Chronomancer offers time-based support for bursting, defense and general cooldown utility. Revenant’s Mallyx will be able to turn the enemy’s conditions against themselves. Etc. And all those “hard roles” are more interesting that way. They wouldn’t be half as interesting if they were just “stack might, vulnerability and fury, dps, use the occasional block or reflect” that current builds seem to generally fall to.

As long as five players who are friends and want to play together and all want to do the same role have the chance to complete the content without changing to a different role, then I don’t care how they change it up. Be it they all want to play DPS or they all want to play Support or Control or whatever.

I don’t want to have to wait for someone in a particular build to show up in order to be able to do content.

Some people really enjoy soloing content. Add hard roles to the game and you destroy their fun. Because they can no longer do it alone. They have to bring others.

Tamasan.6457:

penelopehannibal.8947:

As someone said in another post about this, a Beta Weekend is different to a Stress Test.

Sure, and that’s why I said I understand why they’re doing this from an intellectual perspective. But it feels like the same kind of lawyer talk nonsense like “you didn’t actually buy that ebook, you’re just licensing it and we can delete it from your reader when we want” or “unlimited* mobile data (*not really unlimited)” that people get legitimately up in arms about.

Adding terms and conditions and exceptions to something after the fact isn’t how you keep hype and good feelings about a coming expansion.

But they didn’t suddenly make stress tests no longer eligible for all pre-purchasers. The beta access was clearly for beta weekend events from day 1. So I don’t see where you’re getting the “after the fact” from.

Paprikaspice.8462:

Seera.5916:

Paprikaspice.8462:

@ indigosundown

Whats wrong with a special snowflake feel? The differences between roles are real. Failures and successes in well defined roles are absolutely clear. You continue to cite the worst of the traditional trinity design where defined roles can be so much more than tank, healer, dps. Even in the traditional trinity, any game with half decent fundamental design can make each role realisitically different and fun. Agro doesnt have to be passive for a tank. defense doesnt have to be passive.

This is important in making group content actually engaging. I dont want a boss fight to just be dodge everything and do whatever damage you can.

Laissez faire players already loose out as theyre not part of the meta unless they are zerk. making encounters tougher, slower but still doable is a matter of tweaking even when specialized roles are included. the only difference is the meta requires a doverse group rather than all zerk

the current situation is both monotone and exclusionary. roles wont fix the exclusionary part but hard to argue that it can be worse than the current meta in terms of how boring it will be.

So if Laissez faire players group together, they are suddenly forced to wear zerk?

Hard roles are not the solution. They will only add new problems where old ones were. People will have to spend ages in LFG looking for a tank or a healer or whatever that meshes with the other builds that they have. I’d personally rather have a small variety of meta builds and no unnecessary waiting in LFG than having to wait in LFG to get a specific player filling a specific role.

no, but they sure as heck wont be accepted by every group. thats what im saying. making content still doable but much slower or difficult in other ways is a matter of tweaking. its conceivable that encounters that strongly encourage specific roles in a party can be completed without them.

also the game is already moving in this direction by its core design, even if instances havent yet. GW2 has 2 main roles at the moment, dmg and sponge. The current dungeon meta doesnt encourage the sponge role. Support and speed are important but generally secondary to one of these roles. Even hugely important support abilities like portal dont consume an entire build. HoT looks to really make support a primary role.

why design ventari for the revenant if its just going to be useless in an entire facet of the game? why make condis more powerful in pve? just for qol sake?

I’m not saying to not make other roles viable.

I just don’t want the method chosen to be adding hard roles to the game.

Paprikaspice.8462:

@ indigosundown

Whats wrong with a special snowflake feel? The differences between roles are real. Failures and successes in well defined roles are absolutely clear. You continue to cite the worst of the traditional trinity design where defined roles can be so much more than tank, healer, dps. Even in the traditional trinity, any game with half decent fundamental design can make each role realisitically different and fun. Agro doesnt have to be passive for a tank. defense doesnt have to be passive.

This is important in making group content actually engaging. I dont want a boss fight to just be dodge everything and do whatever damage you can.

Laissez faire players already loose out as theyre not part of the meta unless they are zerk. making encounters tougher, slower but still doable is a matter of tweaking even when specialized roles are included. the only difference is the meta requires a doverse group rather than all zerk

the current situation is both monotone and exclusionary. roles wont fix the exclusionary part but hard to argue that it can be worse than the current meta in terms of how boring it will be.

So if Laissez faire players group together, they are suddenly forced to wear zerk?

Hard roles are not the solution. They will only add new problems where old ones were. People will have to spend ages in LFG looking for a tank or a healer or whatever that meshes with the other builds that they have. I’d personally rather have a small variety of meta builds and no unnecessary waiting in LFG than having to wait in LFG to get a specific player filling a specific role.

My attempt to figure out the OP’s post:

In the past he played MMO’s heavily and was highly competitive. Likely hardcore player. Then real life happened and now married with kids.

As such he doesn’t have much time. He doesn’t want to spend his time online looking for where the action is. He wants to be there.

He also thinks 100% rep guilds are stuck in the past and should allow players to rep whenever they want.

He claims that dungeons are ignored because dungeons hurt communities.

He doesn’t like exploring the world. I don’t know if he hates or likes open world PvP.

He wants things added to the game to quickly take players to where the action is.

He likes that the game is not pay to win.

And due to WvW map limitations they likely want to try to keep the numbers of actual participants high and not those just wanting to get a sneak peak at the new WvW map.

Which means they’re likely targeting players who have been fairly active in WvW.

WvW maps aren’t like other maps. They don’t generate overflows.

Neural.1824:

The least they could do would be to teleport you back to the top of the puzzle when you die.
It used to do this.

Now they expect us to re-arrange our traits just to do a jumping puzzle? What next? Require an entirely different armor set?

That one never teleported you back to the top. The final choice between 3 did teleport you back to that choice if you chose the wrong one.

Linfang.1087:

So you can only use a Char for the extra slot? this is sadness. ..

OP meant character when they said char. Not the race Charr.

Vallily.8741:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Vallily.8741:

I’m confused, I’m angry, and I’m without options at this point.

The option you do have, which you have not yet pursued, according to Customer Support, is to submit a ticket to Customer Support and allow them to assist you. A senior agent informed me that they have received no tickets regarding the account associated with your display name, or at least no tickets in the last couple of years. Please submit a ticket so they can help you.

Are you referring to arena net customer support through email, in game support , or digital river customer support by email or phone?

It would be nice if these dispute resolution procedures were spelled out when the transaction is denied, then i could follow a prescribed procedure rather than winging it.

During my previous troubles I didn’t submit a ticket through this account because i was purchasing the base game. No account was associated with that type of transaction. But i did call digital river and the phone call was as the OP described, they refused to help and claimed they weren’t associated with the transaction at all. I wish you would take that seriously even though i did not follow procedure I was unaware of.

She is taking it seriously. That’s why she told you what the other option you have is: submit a ticket. Gaile can’t solve the problem and it would be best if CS heard the details directly from you.

scerevisiae.1972:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s also been said they won’t have access to future living stories either.

Noone has said this. just like every game there ill be a significant proportion of people who don’t buy the expansion, and locking these people out of the new story would also preclude these people from buying from the store, so not something they are likely to do.

Not that I’d be bothered either way, LS has been crap.

How can you complete a personal story step if you don’t have access to the map it’s on?

Kitsune.1902:

Seera.5916:

Paprikaspice.8462:

Seera.5916:

No to required roles. I do not want to have to wait for a player who has a specific build and is skilled in their role in order to play the game.

I want to be able to group with my friends and we all play the characters and builds we want to play. Not have to worry about finding the content in the game that does require our gear set up or having to have someone play a character or change build to something they’re not wanting to play.

you can change builds at any time. all you would potentially need is 1 more set of gear. and i honestly see no way around the current dungeons which are faceroll at worst and moderately difficult with randos at best which allows for any team comp to clear. if you dont require roles, theres not much you can do to make bosses interesting.

You did not get what I said. I’m fully aware that I can change builds when I want to.

And that’s the thing. I should only have to change my build when I WANT to.

If content my friends and I want to play requires Builds X, Y, and Z to be able to be done with no exceptions and none of us have Build Y, I do not want to be forced to have to wait to find someone with Build Y who knows what they are doing or have to have someone switch into Build Y to do the content.

And having to carry another set of gear around should not be a consequence of making the game more diverse in builds.

Without commenting on the rest of the related issues… the problem is that if you can clear the content with any build, or any combination of builds, the result is that the only viable build in group content is the one that dishes out the most damage – because that’s the build that clears it the -fastest-, and thus gives you the best profit. And unless you are running that kind of build, you are not welcome to most groups. So essentially it’s not “play whatever build you like”, it’s “play the build that’s generally agreed to be the best” or “fast run exp only 10k ping gear”

But you can group with others who do not have to play with others in meta builds.

I am not opposed to design choices that increase variety in the PUG meta. I am opposed to changes that force people to have to have certain builds in their party in order to complete content.

Edited because the record running meta is very likely different from the PUG meta and most players don’t do record runs of anything.

Paprikaspice.8462:

Seera.5916:

Paprikaspice.8462:

Seera.5916:

No to required roles. I do not want to have to wait for a player who has a specific build and is skilled in their role in order to play the game.

I want to be able to group with my friends and we all play the characters and builds we want to play. Not have to worry about finding the content in the game that does require our gear set up or having to have someone play a character or change build to something they’re not wanting to play.

you can change builds at any time. all you would potentially need is 1 more set of gear. and i honestly see no way around the current dungeons which are faceroll at worst and moderately difficult with randos at best which allows for any team comp to clear. if you dont require roles, theres not much you can do to make bosses interesting.

You did not get what I said. I’m fully aware that I can change builds when I want to.

And that’s the thing. I should only have to change my build when I WANT to.

If content my friends and I want to play requires Builds X, Y, and Z to be able to be done with no exceptions and none of us have Build Y, I do not want to be forced to have to wait to find someone with Build Y who knows what they are doing or have to have someone switch into Build Y to do the content.

And having to carry another set of gear around should not be a consequence of making the game more diverse in builds.

you dont have to change builds or carry a second set of gear. at worst a few people in a geoup would need to switch. if you did have a second set of gear, youd basically fit with any group.

i think its a small price to pay for having meaningful instances. also, old dungeons would still be clearable with any comp.

whats the alternative? more of the same? no more dungeons? both sound terrible to me.

So I should force my friends to have to be the ones who always changes their builds? You’re suggesting that I be selfish?

I’d like to see them adjust the enemy AI.

The point the game has content where it is required for someone to be running a specific build in order to be able to complete the content is the day I stop playing the game. And by this I mean if you randomly selected 5 builds out of thin air and had people run through the dungeon as an experiment (willingly), the group would be able to complete the content. Maybe not as fast a group of all meta build players.

Paprikaspice.8462:

Seera.5916:

No to required roles. I do not want to have to wait for a player who has a specific build and is skilled in their role in order to play the game.

I want to be able to group with my friends and we all play the characters and builds we want to play. Not have to worry about finding the content in the game that does require our gear set up or having to have someone play a character or change build to something they’re not wanting to play.

you can change builds at any time. all you would potentially need is 1 more set of gear. and i honestly see no way around the current dungeons which are faceroll at worst and moderately difficult with randos at best which allows for any team comp to clear. if you dont require roles, theres not much you can do to make bosses interesting.

You did not get what I said. I’m fully aware that I can change builds when I want to.

And that’s the thing. I should only have to change my build when I WANT to.

If content my friends and I want to play requires Builds X, Y, and Z to be able to be done with no exceptions and none of us have Build Y, I do not want to be forced to have to wait to find someone with Build Y who knows what they are doing or have to have someone switch into Build Y to do the content.

And having to carry another set of gear around should not be a consequence of making the game more diverse in builds.

No to required roles. I do not want to have to wait for a player who has a specific build and is skilled in their role in order to play the game.

I want to be able to group with my friends and we all play the characters and builds we want to play. Not have to worry about finding the content in the game that does require our gear set up or having to have someone play a character or change build to something they’re not wanting to play.

lordkrall.7241:

You will have access to what is currently in the game + new borderlands and new stronghold game mode.

You will not have access to Masteries, Elite Specialization. New maps. New story. Guild Halls (and most likely not) new challenging group content.

From what I’ve heard they’ll be able to visit Guild Halls once they are claimed via a portal of some kind in Lion’s Arch. They won’t be able to participate in claiming the Guild Hall. This is likely due to Guild Halls being instanced and it would cause issues if the Guild Halls themselves become EP locked. Because that does split the player base and ANet has tried to avoid doing that.

If he pre-purchases the game, he will get access to the core game now.

If he pre-orders the game, he likely will not get access.

And what will you tell the people who like having the option of outfits?

New players and players leveling up alts or new mains may love outfits. Great way to make characters look good and matching without needing transmutation charges.

Hopefully, HoT will offer a wide variety of new armor skins.

1. We’re approaching EP release. They don’t have unlimited manpower. They’re putting the manpower they have in the place where it’s needed: expansion. So you have not found the correct reason as to why content is not coming out.

2. Would the money brought in from the players that do sub exceed the current profits earned by people buying gems? How many players who currently buy a lot of gems would continue to do so if there was a sub fee?

thrag.9740:

dsslive.8473:

thrag.9740:

Seera.5916:

thrag.9740:

dsslive.8473:

thrag.9740:

The portal beta was in no way advertised as a stress test as far as I can see. It was advertised as a beta. Why would people assume it was a stress test?

Can anyone find me where it was called a stress test? All I can find is the original post:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/claim-your-spot-in-the-next-heart-of-thorns-closed-beta/

No it wasnt advertised as a stress test, so far the only stress test advertised was for the new wvw map.

But previous closed beta’s (announced as closed beta) should have given you an idea of what this one would be like. Here – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-heart-of-thorns-closed-beta-tests/ – was the very first closed beta announcement, a closed beta that was very short amount of time during the day. It was no different with the closed beta for which you could farm for a portal.

When there is clear precedent of what a closed beta is, i hardly see how this is even in the slightest “deceiving”.

How can you talk about precedent when your comparing a beta you get into through a random drawing to a beta you farm a rare drop for?

Because the precedent they were talking about wasn’t related to how the participants were chosen.

The precedent had been set for closed betas being short hours on one day during the week.

Sure. Or you can phrase it as "the precedent had been set for closed betas which you get into through random selection being short hours on one day during the week.

If stuff changes, you should expect different results. After all, in mmos, one of the best known precedents is, that actively working towards a goal should give better results than passively working towards it. So why would players expect a rare drop they farmed to be equivalent to random email selection?

Whether the method of obtaining a beta invite changed or not has no influence on what a closed beta actually is. It is not Anet’s fault you talked yourself into believing this closed beta would be special and be longer than the last one. They didn’t deveive anyone. They have no control in what you tell yourself something will be if you disregard the precedent set for it.

They chose the hours because they have to be hands on to get as much information as possible. This wasnt a marketing event, this was testing. Thus they need to be there working on it, thus it needs to fall during the time they work. It’s as simple as that.

A single pre existing beta is hardly a precedent. A much more well known precedent in mmos is that drops are a reward for playing. If it wasn’t a marketing event, don’t give it away as a drop.

Damian Vryce.9417:

Beta tests are never for your conveniance get that through your head already. You can keep whining that you think the times sucked, but these kinds of short tests have to be held during anet working hours meaning crap times for a lot of people.

Drops are a reward for playing the game. If the beta was not meant to be a reward to the player, do not give it away as a drop. That’s giving out mixed signals.

There have been reports that you can use the portals as decorations in Guild Halls when HoT launches. So there is a secondary usage to the portals beyond beta access.

So it is a reward for playing. Their guild gets a special decoration from them.

ANet probably didn’t have the numbers it wanted from it’s first beta. Because there was no easy way to separate active players from inactive players out of a mailing list.

So they devised a way to ensure that they had enough active players invited to the beta. By utilizing the drop system in game. If they got a portal, it means they’ve got the game installed on their computer and patched and they are at least somewhat active.

How would you design a beta selection process that would guarantee active participants and not have a bias towards players on at a certain time?

Casia.4281:

Exxcalibur.6203:

With the two best Wps in the game decimated into oblivion, where do people afk?

Apart from the compact convenience of the post scarlet forge wp, Postern ward had it all: Bank, TP, crafting, laurels, Black lion merchants, views and ambiance.

is there anything comparable elsewhere, now that LA has been turned into a vast open spaced Disney theme park of sterility, boredom and inconvenience??

Need help finding a new non LA home base.

H – E – L – P!

Seriously. Devs really need to learn the term, “Desire paths”.
I was really dissappointed new Lions Arch did not have the Postern ward as the prime location.

no merchant near Bank. Bank not near BL merchants, or crafting… so dumb.

Do remember that crafting stations double as banks for any character that has that craft unlocked. And the TP is right near the crafting stations. The only downside is the Forge isn’t super close, but it’s not any farther than it was in the original layout from some of the crafting stations.

Those threads just talk about people wanting the times to be different. If ANet made the times to match the times in those threads, we’ve had another bunch of players posting going: those times don’t work for me! Make some in X time slot! Not that ANet was being deceptive!

It. Was. Not. Deceptive. At. All. If it was, there would have been a LOT more threads posted on the forums about it. Like what we saw when they announced the pre-purchase packages. Or when they put in the NPE or added Ascended or changed traits up drastically the first time. But there wasn’t.

And RNG drops are still random selections. Just a different pool of possible participants than a mailing list. Not an unbiased selection, but still random.

You are trying to combine method of determining who gets into the beta with how long and when the beta runs. They are two completely separate things. Method of obtaining participants has NOTHING to do with how long or when a beta will happen.

They could have had a post on the forum for people to reply “Me!” in to get guaranteed access. Or ANet randomly choosing from registered, non-banned accounts.

But previous closed betas for HoT had not been held on the weekend and had been short few hour sessions a few times on one day of the week. Nothing posted that suggested the portal one would be different.

Now, should they give out invites for one of the beta weekend events that would extend beyond those who pre-purchased, those who participated in the closed betas (no matter which ones) should be the first on the list to get an invite. As a thank you for beta testing, or a sorry the beta time spot didn’t match your schedule, or a sorry the portal bugged out on you and prevented you from joining the beta.

thrag.9740:

dsslive.8473:

thrag.9740:

The portal beta was in no way advertised as a stress test as far as I can see. It was advertised as a beta. Why would people assume it was a stress test?

Can anyone find me where it was called a stress test? All I can find is the original post:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/claim-your-spot-in-the-next-heart-of-thorns-closed-beta/

No it wasnt advertised as a stress test, so far the only stress test advertised was for the new wvw map.

But previous closed beta’s (announced as closed beta) should have given you an idea of what this one would be like. Here – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-heart-of-thorns-closed-beta-tests/ – was the very first closed beta announcement, a closed beta that was very short amount of time during the day. It was no different with the closed beta for which you could farm for a portal.

When there is clear precedent of what a closed beta is, i hardly see how this is even in the slightest “deceiving”.

How can you talk about precedent when your comparing a beta you get into through a random drawing to a beta you farm a rare drop for?

Because the precedent they were talking about wasn’t related to how the participants were chosen.

The precedent had been set for closed betas being short hours on one day during the week.

You will have to buy it for them outside of the game from the website. There is no way to gift HoT from within the game.

Since HoT comes bundled with the base game for new players, any friends of yours that do not have GW2 will be able to play the game as soon as they register HoT and download the client.

Some updates you’ll like, others you’ll hate. That’s just how MMO’s go. You can’t expect every update to be one that you like.

They took the feedback from the last traits update and turned into a much better system. Now players who get to level 80 will have the ability to get a build together without running around the map and doing events and hoping the one you want isn’t bugged or currently not available (temple taken vs contested).

And they added in a way to change ascended armor stats. Yes, it’s not super cheap, but it’s a lot quicker and cheaper than making a completely new set. So they did realize that their changes to traits and skills may have changed what gear builds used.

The Only Exception.7430:

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Kharlus.3612:

I’m aware that people who bought GW2 during the first quarter will be refunded… and what about the veteran’s – the playerbase who is supporting the game since the very beginning?

The people who supported the game from the beginning got to take part in everything. They got to do the Mad King’s Clocktower with every other player’s body getting in the way, they got precursors from the Ancient Karka, they got to delve into the Molten Facility to try to get jet packs, they met the new set of heroes that are going to be carrying us into Heart of Thorns as they were introduced, they got to experience Tequatl back when it didn’t matter if he summoned bone walls because everyone stood inside them anyway, they got to experience the tension and camaraderie of fighting Scarlet’s Marionette in Lornar’s Pass, they participated in the epic Battle of Lion’s Arch, and they got every episode of the Living Story Season Two for free on top of all that just for logging in.

You’ve supported the game from the very beginning, and you’ve been amply rewarded for it with what I assume has been close to three years of enjoyable gameplay, seeing as you’re still here. That is what you get as a veteran player. That is your advantage. If all of that is meaningless to you, if that’s something that you’re going to brush off because you’re upset that a new player might get a deal now, then perhaps this expansion isn’t for you. Your interests might be better served elsewhere.

^

The expansion is just $50, that is very cheap for a free to play MMO.

GW2 is not a free to play MMO. I had to buy it to play it at all. That means it’s not free to play. It’s buy to play.

That being said, the EP is worth $50 to ANet. They are giving the base game to new players for free.

I don’t feel screwed over. Buying at launch is always the way to pay more for everything, no matter what genre of game it is. Or even non-games.

I bought the base game and every EP of Sims 2 when it was released. Later on, EA started selling EP’s in bundles. For less than it would cost to buy them separately. And last year, they gave away the digital version of the base game and every EP away for free. With no strings attached.

Even cars get cheaper once next year’s model comes out. Car companies want to get the old models off of the lot so they mark them down and/or offer better incentives and deals. Some of them only good for people who have bought a car of the same brand before.

So arguing that newer players get the better deal is correct, but it’s not going to change anything. Early adopters pay more for being early adopters.

Character slot or gems. Character slot won’t affect the economy in a large way. 4000 extra gems would likely affect the economy in a large way. Imagine what would happen if the TP players got 8000 gems that they could convert in its entirety to gold. And your reasoning that veterans should get the deluxe for the standard price is another reason to not do it. They can’t give away that much for free.

And we have no idea what they will do once the game launches. They may have the same offer for the character slot once the game launches. But they are trying to get people to pre-purchase. Or they may sweeten the deal to get more veterans to buy. You never know. Or you could wait until the next expansion pack comes and get HoT and the next EP for the price of just the next EP.

I think here “play your way” is being taken out of context. If it was truly play your way about your build, it would have been create your own traits. Place your own stat combos on your armor.

But it wasn’t. We have specific traits and specific stat combos on armor.

Play how you want was talking about how you can pretty much do anything and still progress in the game. You could just go out and collect mats and craft and not worry about the hearts for the most part or the personal story or the dungeons or WvW. That most hearts have multiple means to complete them.

The WvW subforum may be a better place to post a which server question if you’re looking to do WvW. I’d offer a suggestion, but I’m on a NA server so I don’t have any idea of which EU servers are good.

And EpicYogurt, just because you don’t care, doesn’t mean that others don’t so don’t speak for everyone.

thewaterguy.4796:

First of all the revenant is a PROFESSION not a race, professions have never had their own “story” behind them, so I highly doubt A-net will bother with a story for Revenant, with that said though, if Rytlock is the “First” revenant and the storyline is “Rytlock is teaching people how to be a Revenant” it would be very strange and awkward if you are a player that is a Revenant (particularly a charr) and yet nobody bat’s an eye at you, but then Rytlock becomes a Revenant and it’s this big deal and “Woah where did you learn that Rytlock?” then suddenly your character is sort of like “Uhh guys you do know I’ve been using the exact same magic? I was fighting Zhaitan with you and using it?” with that said though I don’t think A-net will ignore such a gaping plot-hole so I will reserve judgement until I can play the expansion and get into the story

Them going woah at Rytlock but not you may just that, they’ve only seen you do that kind of magic. Before Rytlock was a Revenant he was a warrior. Going from no magic to magic would likely cause some double takes.

You don’t get one character slot for buying the standard edition.

If you bought and registered GW2 before January 23, 2015, then you get an additional character slot for being a veteran.

Therefore, the Ultimate Edition would give you 1 and the veteran bonus would give you a second one.

To those saying that marriage needs to be for biological purposes: considering the fact that each generation tends to be larger, it may not be a bad thing for some people to in fact not procreate.

And in my mind, if gays/lesbians/etc were accepted and not forced to pretend they are straight, then fewer will feel the need to get married to someone of the opposite sex and have kids only to realize a few years later that they can’t pretend anymore and divorce. And what does that teach the kid? That it’s ok to lie?

Dashingsteel.3410:

That is not factual biology….. Pure speculation….

Why would someone choose to be gay or lesbian in a culture that would discriminate against them or even kill them? There are still places where it’s deadly be anything but straight.

Mightylink.3816:

Oh thanks for the spoilers guys, jeez… right in the thread title.

None of DE 1.0 have been confirmed dead. Any talk of them being dead is just rumor and speculation at this point.

thrag.9740:

Sure, you can claim that. Just like I can claim that if the beta had been a weekend event there would be fewer complaints.

But what I have presented is evidence of discontent in the community. What you have is just an untestable opinion. Do you think it’s a good idea to leave this discontent as it is? Because recent actions seem to indicate that Anet wants to make its customers happy.

So why hasn’t SAB returned? I seem to recall a lot of people not happy that it hasn’t returned. And some people spent real money to buy gems to get the infinite continue coin. Which ANet won’t refund since it will return one day.

Just because customers are unhappy doesn’t mean ANet will do something about it. And if they were in a please the customer mood, we’d have SAB back.

thrag.9740:

Seera.5916:

It wasn’t deceptive at all. The previous betas were just a few couple hour events on a single day. There was nothing said that said that this one would be any different.

For something not deceptive it sure did deceive a lot of players:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/European-Beta-Times
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/South-America-Beta-time-AWFUL
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Beta-times
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HoT-Beta-Not-on-a-weekend
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Beta-Testing-Times-quite-disappointing
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Next-time-tell-us-the-test-duration-first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/So-much-bitterness
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/beta-times-for-EU-is-big-joke
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Beta-time-set-up-for-NA-players

Those were threads complaining about the time that was chosen. Not that they were deceived into thinking the beta would be a longer one.

Even if the betas were longer and on multiple days, someone would still complain that the time did not fit them and that ANet should design a beta time slot to fit their play schedule.