Guild Wars 2

Specifically the dodge achievements for the various warden fights. I got the ones for wardens 1 and 2 without too much trouble, but hit a wall when fighting 3-5.

I know you have to both avoid her attacks and have your lane be successful at breaking chain. After completing wardens 3 and 5 multiple times with full confidence of avoiding all the orange AE zones I finally checked the combat log.

The log is for warden 5 as it won’t go back far enough for 3, but aside for getting knocked around a little by warden 3’s bombs I’m confident I was unscathed by marionette.

I guess the tryhards are buying more gems than the casuals >.>

So aside from farming a fully upgraded Fractal Capacitor, as well as shelling out for a ton of mats for Yakkington’s tale, Light of Dwayna, or Shadow of Grenth, then transmuting them, there’s no other way to get this? No capacitor with a “select your allocation” feature like Yakkington’s?

Temporary content. Not gonna fix.

brb guesting to Ehmry bay!

Fake, you can’t possibly have that yet since the real backpiece is time-gated and requires 6 vision crystals to craft.

Definitely the worst feature of this patch.

>.>

WSTProphecy.9428:

Pick 1 thing out of instant death circles and tons of elite, vet, and champ mobs. Having both of them is way to chaotic.

While just standing around auto-attacking can get boring for a lot of players, the excessive amount adds that spawns prevents players from learning the boss mechanics, forces players who do know what they’re doing to run around chain rezzing other players, and just ruins the encounter overall. I’ve already heard talks of people guesting to other servers and/or only doing LS daily for their meta. I’ll probably end up doing the same if I even bother with it.

PopeUrban.2578:

Furthermore, until fights like tequatl, queen’s gauntlet, high fractal levels, etc. the game wasn’t pushing content toward a very specific set of more hardcore players. not being able to complete the content, and not being able to access it are two different things. You don’t need to grind a million prerequisites or even win anything to access every bit of content in this patch.

So let’s take content designed for “hardcore” players and push it on entire server populations of players of varying skill levels most of which don’t do 40+ fractals or kill Teq more than once per week, if that.

I’d respect your desire for more challenging endgame content if that weren’t the worst logic I’ve ever heard.

chemiclord.3978:

Official Forums: Always complaining.

Complaints, if used constructively, can make the game better, whereas complaining about complaints does not.

They do when you market content towards an entire player-base not just the elitists.

This is literally worse than the combo-field killing blow daily, as well as the worst world event since the Teq revamp…

Is there a Fractal Capacitor with the Celestial stat allocation? Was thinking of farming it along with my ascended weapons/armor, but I can’t find it or any info aside from paying +200g for Light of Dwayna.

If you put this kind of content in a year ago no one would have bothered. I’m ready to start paying a sub again. Some people just want to play your kitten game…

-Magic Flying Carpet similar to the flying broom “mount.” Maybe an oversized sombero.

-Itemized microtransactions instead of RNG packs/crates.

lordkrall.7241:

Swagger.1459:

I’m sorry you don’t understand the bigger picture. oh well, have a great day!

No, I am genuinely interested, so please, inform me.

Idkwtf he’s talkin about..

But the rest of us want cheaper tacos

with more toppings.

Vanity and convenience items are targeted towards compulsion. So while you’re not obligated to buy them, many players feel compelled to do so. The real problem is pricing. While I have no problem with employees at Arenanet or NCsoft making a living, with the average cost of items released monthly in the gemstore I could just as easily buy another game(s) on steam. You can’t nickel and dime people at $10 a pop. While i’m no economist, at the end of the day a $20 taco, is still just a taco.

Between RNG boxes, the mystic forge and the gold/time sink that is ascended crafting, it seems like getting scammed by another player would require too much effort.

But to each his own.

You can’t starve the lions and be surprised when they start eating each other.

Dye kits are recycled tears from the bottom of the mystic forge.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I don’t understand what is going on with gem store pricing. It used to be at least plausible that the handful of people buying things multiple times at high prices outweighed the potential for thousands of people to buy one each at reasonable prices, but now it just seems so unlikely. I mean, who is buying the BL starter pack, even at “discount” price?

On top of that the pricing is alienating a lot of players, and making it really difficult to be positive about the game. As I’ve said before, I love the game in almost every other area, but the gem store is making me feel less and less like a valued customer.

I’ve started to notice that both endgame GW2/new content and new gemstore upgrades being catered towards compulsive players, whereas “vanilla” GW2 was a more polished and well-rounded game for all players. I’m at the point where I’d rather pay towards a subscription model so they’d focus more on pleasing the entire player base and not have to focus on making money quite so much. With WoW WoD, Rift 3.0, ESO, and various other non-MMO titles on the horizon, I can only fear for the worst.

• Scepter buff.

• Mainhand Pistol.

• Give either of the aforementioned weapons an auto-attack that generates confusion or torment to make condition builds more viable.

• Give either of the aforementioned weapons a high damaging auto-attack for a ranged alternative for power based builds than can still utilize the phantasms and utility of offhand weapons.

• Run Speed Signet. Mesmers have great mobility in combat but when it comes to chasing and opponent, trying to make a retreat, or general roaming and exploration we fall very short. The option of using this signet would increase the customization players have with runes instead of so many players feeling pushed into using Runes of the Centaur, Traveler, etc.

• Give the model for Phantasmal Warden a scepter and corresponding animation for more cohesiveness with what a focus is.

• Non-phantasm illusions mimicing your spell casts. Anyone who’s leveled a mesmer through Queensdale understands the basic mechanics of the class. Much of the illusion clones had is close to lost. A little work bringing back some of that mystery and survivability would be nice.

Fixes for:

• Clones created by Deceptive Evasion attacking critters and other mobs not in combat based on proximity as opposed to target.

• Phantasms getting feared/CCed and getting stuck, not attacking, and/or even worse attacking the closest mob to their proximity at the end of the CC.

Main hand scepter would be nice, and would fit well with the theme/design of the class.

[/ ]

I think the real problem lies in the fact that mesmers have no Signets with passive runspeed OR passive power bonuses. Additionally most of the popular builds don’t involve going far down the Power (Domination) trait tree. Consequently many mesmers are pushed towards Centaur Runes and similar gear itemizations to compensation for it.

While Phantasmal Warden is by no means useless, it would be nice to be able to use pistol or sword in my offhand more often, and expermiment with Runes of Scholar/Strength among others, as well as be able to roam around without having my heal on perma-cooldown.

This has been a recurring concern since release. Maybe one day they’ll address it. Until then we’re stuck with Centaur runes.

I typically build shatter or phantasm, so I can’t say for mantra builds or some hybrids but:

In my opinion condition damage really only helps staff and phantasm bleeds which compared the power gain to my auto-attacks and raw damage of phantasms, mind wracks and other dps abilities I didn’t find it worth it.

Healing power is beneficial for a select array of spells/traits. Signet of the Ether & Phantasmal Healing get bonus healing over time, but since so many mechanics in PvE are “dodge or die” I wasn’t completely sold on this. Restorative Illusions seems really weak to me and is so far down the Inspiration tree most shatter builds don’t include it. Restorative Mantras probably sees the best benefit from this, but I’ve only poked around with mantra builds here and there. I really wanted to farm Celestial. The weapons are one of the best looking for mesmers imho. Thought it would be interesting to be versatile, but I think the benefits of the condition damage and healing power to be too circumstancial and not worth the sacrifice of straight power.

For this reason I typically gear about have berserker’s & half soldier’s for high power with some survivability stats thrown it. (Cardboard Cannon) If they some day made it easier to farm a second set, I may experiment, but until then it’s what suits me.

1.) Clones created by Deceptive Evasion will attack some random Sparkfly/Rabbit/Rat because of proximity, then die rendering that use of the trait/dodge worthless.

2.) Scepter 1. I loved scepter while leveling. Probably tied with staff for most kills 1-80, but something happened along the way and it got really weak. Only place I really use it now is in sPvP or for daily variety killers, mostly for nostalgia’s sake.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Squee Squashington.5189:

Guess I’ll be putting that acheive on the shelf right next to 5000 warhorn kills lol… Thanks for the help all the same.

just walk off the edge (and keep holding forward so you move forward as you fall).

After several hours of repeats I finally got it. Couldn’t tell you how many people I saw just plain give up, even before getting to the balloon. Thanks to you both for the feedback.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Squee Squashington.5189:

This would be a good idea in general for bloodstone, dragonite, and empyreals as well. Some people flat out don’t do world bosses, or wvw, or get rediculously bored of the queensdale champ train. Other materials would be good of evening out prices as well.

The whole point of having 3 different materials (bloodstone, dragonite, and empyreals) is to force you to play all different parts of the game.

I’m sorry, I forgot we deterred away from the “play how you want” mentality and moved on towards the play multiple aspects of the game for gear that’s only necessary for one avenue of content.

It wasn’t so long ago you could farm WvW badges for a set of highest tier gear. Or if you didn’t like that you could farm dungeon tokens for a set of the highest tier gear. Or if you didn’t care for either you could farm events and world bosses for a set of the highest tier gear. Or if you still weren’t satisfied you could mix and match individual peices or buy entire sets of the highest tier of gear.

While you’re right, the demand for T6 is slightly higher now so logically the mats should have held their value if not increased slightly.

This would be a good idea in general for bloodstone, dragonite, and empyreals as well. Some people flat out don’t do world bosses, or wvw, or get rediculously bored of the queensdale champ train. Other materials would be good of evening out prices as well.

Guess I’ll be putting that acheive on the shelf right next to 5000 warhorn kills lol… Thanks for the help all the same.

Gamblit.5041:

Netko.9271:

Gamblit.5041:

Oh my, i just watch a stash of 50k Silk gone from Sell orders in a matter of minutes. It’s up to 44 Copper now.

Just think of all the people that bought Silk when it was 17 copper – they have already made a fortune right now.
67,5 Silver profit from 1 stash of 250 Silk Scraps.

They were 8 copper 10 days ago, so yea someone who bought it then can earn lots, but now is more risky, how much more will rise before start fall again. It will fall, there are lots of income of silk in game, question is only when.

Will they really fall? If 1 player needs 8400 Silk scraps on average, to craft a full set for 1 character – then a 50 000 players would need 420 Millions Silk Scraps. –
I don’t think there is that much Silk around.

I bet my money on, we will run out of Silk if Anet doesn’t interfeer soon, to lower the material price for ascended armor.

People will start to buy light armor blues, greens, rares to salvage for silk in addition to ectos/luck. While 10800 is a bit over the top, it’s possible the cost will even out as the revenue players get from selling those blues/greens increases.

And everyone who stocked up on Gossamer is kittening livid. >.>

1a.) Ascended gear is not necessary and only most effective in fractals.
1b.) Ascended gear is targeted at the entire player-base. People who prefer WvW, dungeons, fractals, world bosses; everyone is constantly getting miniscule amounts of mats for this crap. If it was intended to be targeted towards “endgame”/high end fractals it should have required only fractal specific materials.

2.) It is a gear grind. The only difference is if you’re having fun or not. Since we’ve already played the WoW card:

Two hours or less of raiding NEW content with a high probability of getting at least one upgrade vs Time-gated transmutes plus heavy farming for materials in multiple areas of the game, quite possibly one of which you may not even enjoy, all of which is mostly OLD content.

Congrats on making an endgame literally worst than raiding.

3.)

The hardest part is convincing yourself that you don’t need ascended.

This.

Wangan.4859:

Hi guys, I just had a few questions regarding GW2.. i’ll give a little background. Been playing MMOs for about 10 years or so, so I’m familiar with everything MMO related however specifically with GW2 I have a lot of catching up to do. I played it for a bit during launch, though I only made it to lvl 10 on my thief because I couldn’t run GW2 good, now I have a strong computer and can run it well on high settings and want to get back into it. So onto my questions..

1. How much has changed since GW2 came out? Am I really behind? What are the biggest things that I’ve missed?

2. I’m a big PvP fan, how is the state of PvP in GW2 right now? I really like the thief, is the thief still viable in PvP right now? Has it been nerfed a lot since GW2 came out?

3. Whats the fastest way to level right now? Should I explore and do the various quests and story? Or is there better/faster ways? Now that I have a good computer, i’m blown away for GW2 graphics and game world, it all looks fantastic.

4. Any other info that someone could tell me? Is GW2 getting bigger or dying? What are the best PvP servers or are they all the same pretty much?

Thanks for any help.

1.) While there have been some tweaks to classes/content, most of the game should be familiar to you. The biggest thing you would have missed is parts of the Living Story, which is an ongoing world event kind of similar to seasonal events from other MMO’s. While they recycled some of the content from last Halloween and Christmas, there’s no telling how or if they will bring back any of the other chapters. Most of the rewards were just cosmetics though.

2.) Thief is still viable.

3.) I think crafting is still the fastest way to level, but it is not necessary and also expensive. If it’s your first character you’re leveling I would not recommend it unless you have some spare mats from leveling and you just want an extra level or two, but you don’t have to craft to level either. Renown (heart) quests, personal story, with exploration and map exploration is how I leveled and it was enjoyable. WvW can be a very time efficient and effective way to gain levels if you can find a good zerg to run with. If you find yourself underleveled the Queensdale champ train is a good way for low to mid level players to gain experience, karma, and a decent amount of loot/materials.

4.) I can’t say for certain, but I’d speculate the player base has shrunk since release. Can’t say for WvW since I’ve been mostly on the same server for a while, but maybe someone else can answer that or try that section of the forums if need be.

I’m currently sitting at 37/38 dive locations. Despite beating the Not So Secret jumping puzzle and making it to the goggles, I fell off the edge of the diving goggles platform exactly as the OFFICIAL wiki describes to avoid all obstacles on the way down and I hit one of the first kittening pipes.

I’ve read some inconsistencies regarding whether this specific location is required for the Dive Master meta acheivement, or if there are 39 possible locations that give credit towards the 38 needed for the meta. I was ready to throw in the towel days ago. All help is appreciated.

Ceallach.8740:

“Underflow” would be great for those in-between zones that have sparse populations outside of being chosen for a LS event.

Not a bad idea at all.

Star Ace.5207:

In short, the PvE maps are not as empty as they may appear-it may be an issue on your particular server, so feel free to guest around at times.

It could be, but again my server is listed High/Very High population depending on time of day. While I know quite a lot of people run WvW and Fractals, after recently leveling a
theif to 40, necro to 30, and just general roaming around on my main, the open world feels very dead. :-\

Leamas.5803:

coolmanx.5726:

I only get to play about 3-4 hours each day (more on weekends) so for a casual player I have to say I feel like I accomplished a lot in such a short amount of time.

Is this what’s considered casual? No wonder it takes me forever to do anything. LOL

LOL :P

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

tbh I think people exaggerate the term “casual” already… no one that is, in my eyes, casual even plays every day, let alone 3-4 hours a day. Casual to me is someone who comes and goes, plays maybe 2-4 days a week maybe an hour or 2 each time.. the problem is that most people don’t realize theres a middle ground between casual and hardcore being the “serious” crowd… serious enough about the game to want to get some of the high end shinies but not hardcore enough that missing something is the end of the world to them.

I was refering to it more as a spectrum than a 3 part social class system, but by that logic; Catering to the competitive/tryhard group would exclude not only the casuals but the players who fall in the middle as well, a substantial if not majority of the player base.

Leamas.5803:

Not So Secret was difficult, but there are certainly more difficult JPs in this game. Skipping Stones, Clock Tower, Dark Revery, Chaos Crystal Cavern, Snow Globe (Especially last year, when you had to do the entire thing in one run). NSS is much easier if you do it with others so you don’t have to worry about the mobs as much and you have to be able to land on target as the spacing for some of it is less than your max jump distance, greatly increasing the difficulty…and wait for agro to wear off. IMO, Skipping Stones is, by far, the most difficult/maddening JP in the game.

If I remember correctly, I’ve completed all the puzzles you listed besides Clock Tower. While I didn’t have too many issues with the others, I would certainly put Skipping Stones and Not So Secret in an entire league of their own.

Part of my inspiration for including jumping puzzles in this post is because I WAS running it with a friendly pug who gave up at the small brown platforms just after you go through the balloon. So while it was nice to have a little company and help killing nearby mobs, it’s disheartening to see someone get just as frustrated and not want to bother with the content.

Skipping Stones was the only JP that I was willing to cheat and accept a friendly mesmer’s portal to the end, for similar reasons to Not So Secret. There’s no wiggle room at all. One wrong move doesn’t have you doing a portion of the puzzle over again, but puts you entirely outside the puzzle having to start over completely. I made it to the top where the path splits towards either the balloon or the diving goggles, so while I’m not the best in the game I know I’m not entirely inept.

I may give this another go in the coming days as it’s only an isolated incident from my personal play experience, but as a part of a multi-faceted list of concerns, I felt it deserved mention.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Goblin.5987:

I agree that this is nothing more than a gear grind. Right now it is ascended armor, soon it will probably be Legendary. Just like the weapons. Whats next Godly weapons?.

Legendary is the same stats as the highest possible item. So, a legendary weapon has the stats of an ascended weapon and a legendary armour would have the same stats as ascended armour. Thus only worth getting if you like the looks (if you already have ascended armour/weapons).

I think the real problem was that they were so afraid of it getting out of control and the process of acquiring said ascended weapons and armor becoming to trivial and easy that they made it so a large portion of players would find it overly time consuming to acquire. They overshot in my opinion, but perhaps that’s just me.

Septemptus.7164:

Please, try other games and then come back to say how bad it its in here and how many games rewards you more.

This game has very many flaws but it is EXTREMALY casual friendly.

I have played other games including but not limited to Rift, World of Warcraft, SWtoR, RO2, a little bit of GW1, as well as a little bit of some of the more ancient korean mmorpg’s. The risk vs reward in GW2 has more in common with the ancient korean mmo’s than any of the others I mentioned.

True, but unless you just dinged 80 they’re not horribly expensive karma-wise. It’s probably harder finding a server to guest on that actually has Temple of Balthazar open.

Knighthonor.4061:

1) No Levels – World is 1 level.

2) Each class has 50 skills unique to the class

3)Skills are gained by doing task in the world

4) Housing System – both individual as well as collective housing models, with a town feature as well for linking player created structures together optionally.

5)Naval, Ground and Aerial Ship/Vehicle Combat in the game both in PvP and PvE

6) Raid Dungeons made for 30 player groups and 15 player groups.

7)Elite Zones – random timers, but certain zones become fully champion/vet mobs with bosses mixed in. Forcing group combat in the zone for duration of the Elite status. Failure to defeat the Elite Status, triggers some kind of negative effect on players in the world.

2.) This. They seem to spend a lot of time trying to push people into using certain builds and balance them that customization gets a little lost in translation.

4.) This, but we’re months away from seeing anything like this.

5.) This, but we’re months if not years from seeing anything like this.

If you have a single crafting profession leveled to 450 you can craft those mats into bricks, ingots, and stars. What blows my mind is how they aren’t selling bricks, ingots or stars already on TP. Even cosmetics like Sombreros, Flying Carpet mounts (similar to the Flying Brooms) or paid class changes would be an improvement. Pricing is pretty unreasonable as well. $10 for one set of cosmetic armor? $50 for mini Mr. Sparkles. Yea, no thanks.

Darkobra.6439:

I’ve actually felt the opposite. The game is very casual friendly. You can be in any gear, run any skills and still win any content. Also, the rewards are very lacklustre and trivialises the end-game content by rewarding blues, greens and junk.

That’s how I felt with the addition and approach to ascended weapons and armor. But that’s a topic for another thread.

Giving some value to blues and greens via essences of luck was a good step towards adding value to those items, so kudos to that. There are however many aspects of the game, many challenging aspects, that offer very little incentive for doing so.

RedStar.4218:

Aside from Teq, which needs coordination and a lot of players, the rest is a personal issue. If you still die from any world boss, you need to learn to move around…
The Fire Ele gives you plenty of time to move around, except if you start saving downed players. The Maw…you shouldn’t even die more than once (hopefully because you were afk) and Mark II is a matter of not being blind and seeing the 2 seconds tell to move out of the way.
As for Jormag : the first phase is boring, the second is annoying because more than half of the players seem to still not understand that you need to protect those golems.

I don’t typically die on most boss encounters. A lot of my frustration extends to experiences with my class. Maw is frustrating because clones are killed by ice storms before they can get to boss and the shatter is still on CD regardless. Ele is frustrating for the very reason you stated; trying to rezz downed players with embers, ground aoe, and the linear flame spike is a little much. Golem can catch me in if I’m not quick enough to dodge out of aoe because I had to make clones with deceptive evasion. Wurm’s fear will leave clones and phantasms staring at the wall at the end of the fear rendering them useless. Even Shatterer will one shot most if not all of your phantasms (traited & signet’ed) every single air phase. While I’m sure some classes aren’t impacted as much I can’t say for other classes/builds where minions are more vital. But the initial intent of have people not stand around auto-attacking has pretty much forced me and people with similar builds or playstyles to standing around auto-attacking.

The real problem is in the future when:

A.) A new tier of equipment is released. The competitive are happy and the casuals say screw it and leave.

or

B.) They release a new tier of equipment and nerf the cost of making ascended. Then all the work people are putting into making their sets right now would feel worthless.

Increasing the ability to get materials for vision crystals, recipes or other components avoids both of these problems in the long term and doesn’t negatively impact other players in either way.

To the people saying, “Ascended gear gives no considerable stat increase outside of fractals.” By that logic, ascended gear gives no advantage to casual players either, so there shouldn’t be an issue with making it more tolerable to make, and I’d speculate there’s a lot more PvE bunnies who aren’t at fractal level 40+.

In any kind of game that has a massive player base you’re going to have players who fall into various levels of skill, laziness or patience. The “endgame” of Guild Wars 2 has evolved into something SO far from it’s original release design, that they might as well be considered different titles.

Guild Wars 2 has outstanding graphics and music, as well as a combat system completely unique to other mainstream MMO’s. One of the biggest selling points, however, was the open world. Renown quests, events, group events, massive world bosses, and eventually guild bounties. More dynamic events than even Rift!

Despite nearly every server population being described as High or Very High. The open world is dead. Most of the renown quests and events in zones have been completed by the first generation of players to play GW2 that you’re lucky to run into anyone at all while leveling, let alone someone to help you with that champ mob in Lornar’s Pass or Fields of Ruin. Mid-level zones such as those are such “ghost towns” it can feel like playing a single player game.

World bosses were once my favorite aspect of the game. The newly added mechanics to world bosses have ruined the experience for myself and I’d speculate many people as well. Claw of Jormag’s monotonous chain fears, unforgiving fire/ice tornadoes on Fire Ele/Maw, Golem Mark II’s ground AE that can not only 2 shot you but also renders your downed state nearly useless. People on many servers don’t even bother to turn up for Teq. While I don’t agree that people should just auto-attack and get loot, I would take that over sad turnouts to world bosses. There needs to be a middle ground.

Certain aspects of dungeons could use similar attention as well. When a large percentage of groups will flat out not invite you if you aren’t a heavy profession or experienced it’s not very inviting to everyone else, and not much incentive for new/returning players when you can buy a full set of exotic gear for 2-3 gold an item.

Guild missions could use some love. While I can only speculate from my own experience, I would say a large portion of level 80 players have their ascended accessories and most guilds who do still run missions do them mostly as a social event for cosmetic rewards moreso than any real reward that impacts gameplay. Perhaps make commendations tradeable for an Empyreal star, Dragonite ingot or Bloodstone brick?

At 37/38 Dive locations and closing in on finishing my remaining jumping puzzles I literally ragequit from the Not So Secret jumping puzzle and have “retired” from attempting it any further as well as any other jumping puzzle, thus ruining another aspect of the game. While this is only one isolated instance I truly empathize for players who don’t even bother with this type of content based on how unforgiving is can be.

While you’re always going to have players who are competitive or casual, it’s my observation that most recent content only caters to the competitive, leaving many casual players in the dust. The most recent influx of activity with the, albiet short, living story chapter The Nightmare is Over (an adaption of the Queensdale champ train) and Wintersday (recycled from last year) should be more than enough evidence that getting the “poo” kicked out of you isn’t always fun. While you do need enough challenge and competition to not trivialize content, some players just want to play your game and the results by getting people out in the world wanting to do so would give the game a much more positive and cooperative feel.

Emissary Vex.5690:

In any other mmo, every single quest gives rewards. Since GW2 has felt the need to change out quests for un-immersive achievements; every single achievement in living world should give gold, exp, loot, or karma just like a quest should.

If they gave away gold, karma, etc. for each achievement, they would just end up having to change the prices for the items you would be spending them on. The vanilla version of Guild Wars 2 might as well be considered a completely different title from it’s “endgame” counterpart.

Getting items for a couple events worth of karma is ancient history. Risk vs reward doesn’t really exist. The game is designed to keep you poor, probably to get people to buy gems as a shortcut. BiS items that would take a few hours of raiding or dungeon farming to get in other games take weeks to get in GW2. Anything you could acquire from casually farming achievements won’t have any major value.

You may not be paying a subscription, but you end up paying by the quality of content. I’d pay $15 a month to save myself the headache of drudging through endgame content, but that’s just my opinion.

I really hope someone of creative authority gets a chance to read this thread. I typically consider myself a completionist and acheivement hunter with any of the games that I’ve played, and while I am not a dev or expert, I really think the direction of this game’s design is heading down a turbulent path.

I’ve seen my fair share of homeless quaggan ads all over the internet trying to bring in new players to GW2. Which is awesome, and while there is a learning curve for people coming from other MMO’s let alone those who’ve never played one before, I truly empathize for these people who level up a bit and try to brave their way through Tower of Nightmares or similar content. Where even myself at 80 in half soldier exotic/ascended gear am having a hard enough time trying to survive let alone revive, coach, or carry other players. So much content has gotten to the point where it’s either fluff or “face-to-keyboard.”

It’s not just the Living story either. Maybe my experiences differ compared to higher population servers, but world bosses are quite a struggle for low to medium turnouts. I can appreciate wanting to drive more players into fractals and dungeons. I can appreciate not wanting people to be just idling/auto-attacking in order to collect their loot. As a mesmer, my clones get pooed on before they even reach the boss on Ele/Maw anyway, so I’m forced to auto-attack which was what you didn’t even want me doing in the first place..

Chain reviving people is just as monotonous as wiping and corpse running in any other MMO (which as you recall was nerfed in dungeons because you didn’t want players ruining the encounters by graveyard zerging bosses that they were having trouble with).

Many paths in dungeons could still be balanced better. There’s plenty of groups who are split between asking “LFM HEAVY’S ONLY OR DIAF” and “Lfg any path.. new.. please don’t hurt me.” Eccentric? Maybe, but you get my point.

The direction with GW2’s game/content design caters to the highly competitive. The insatiable. People have posted in this thread, “You have the option of choosing whether or not to do the content.” but in reality, it’s try hard or don’t bother trying.
Advertise to the newbies, cater to the elite. There’s no sense of accomplishment in drudging through content. I can’t tell you the best way for you to make money, but I can tell you as a long time fan of rpg’s and mmorpg’s, the only thing worse than being burned out on playing a game is wanting to love a game and not wanting to play it.

Respectfully,
The Almighty Squee

XOXO

Kasaeva.4691:

lol, anyone who’s going to buy those are going to buy them anyway. Outside dungeons isn’t the only place to use them and I’ve seen people using them in Lion’s Arch where there are plenty of vendors and WPs are free.
Anyone who doesn’t want to buy them isn’t going to suddenly start buying them just because it’s annoying to run to a vendor between dungeons. They’re going to sigh and start running.

Yea most likely. Or end up just throwing items away. There’s a big mystical pit somewhere full of trashed dungeon loot and wvw bags, probably ruled by Zommoros.

I agree whole-heartedly. I’d rather see half my guild/server running around with legendaries than them running around complaining they’re not getting results for the work they put in. I’d personally be a lot happier if I’d paid flat out $20 or something for it and could have saved that money for town clothes and other cosmetic items. Or better yet how many people might cash in ANOTHER $20 for a matching legendary offhand. Maybe even the underwater weapons barely anyone makes.

The best compromise is to release a second set of legendaries. One for each weapon with different skins, spell effects, etc. The prestige of the legendaries already released would be the same. Players who were adamant on not spending money in the gem store could still farm one the original way. Players who would rather not feel cheated could get their weapons through the gem store. And players who already have legendary weapons would be unaffected. If anything they might also be enticed to buy more legendaries from the gem store.

A very sound and practical suggestion. Probably never going to happen. It removes incentive for people to buy Merchant Express consumables from the gem store.

After mulling it over a bit I came to the conclusion that legendary weapons exist for the sole purpose of enticing people to gamble at the Mystic Forge, so that when someone loses all of their ingame gold they are more likely to cash back in through the gem store.

Solution? Save your gold.

Treat it like your token idea, and every day put 1-5 gold in your bank and never take it out. It will take a while but maybe in that time spent patiently farming you’ll randomly grab it from a dungeon or world boss chest. Or at least one you can sell to put towards the precursor you really want.