Guild Wars 2

There are other possible changes than mounts, seen in terms of added gold sinks.

1) Increased WP costs at higher levels (due to maintenance caused by whatever Taimi does – perhaps they are a lot more unstable, and require constant staffing like the gates).

2) Inability to see all WPs (only those within a certain range), again due to whatever Taimi does (they are not as effective as before). Would not affect dungeons or WvW, since the range would probably be several maps wide.

The first option is far more likely, as the second one puts additional load on their servers.

I’ve not had a chance to check, but did the regional achievements for Dry Top change/add with the additional reveal?

If it did, then a reasonable suggestion to ‘fix’ any RNG concerns would be to add a Meta Achievement to the region set, once its complete. It could contain one of every RNG-related element (like the fossil) released in that series. This should hopefully extend the population count in the region a little more (as those who had no RNG chance, or late comers to the story, have a better chance to go through it). It also addresses the developer’s interest in time-gating, since this particular Meta will probably take some time to complete (given what I’ve seen so far).

Another possibility might be to increase rewards on Dry Top’s World Bosses, based on the Influence Level. Example is to start with 3 champ bags on T1, and add 1-2 bags for each tier increased. If you made it to the higher Tiers (4+), throw in something like the fossil as a bonus as well.

For those asking for harder death penalties (compared to the original launch version), I’m curious to know how you would accommodate for someone like me, who has bad wrists. To me, this game has been a challenge from day 1, and is already restricting me to a handful of classes because the mechanics of most of them (i.e. thief, ele, grenade engi) I cannot physically do. I cannot ‘Zerk/DPS’ for the same reason, and I thankfully had found an understanding guild that cared more about having fun than being efficient.

Despite this, I had a lot of fun with this game the past two years, and was perfectly happy with the death system (coming from Eve Online, I’m sure you can imagine why – I consider it a vacation here!). Ironically, for all Eve’s complexity and frustrations, what it did not have was heavy amounts of ‘twitch’ in order to play well. At least physically; a group leader certainly needed a sharp mind when commanding. But you can argue the same for WvW too.

Perhaps have EB/OS access linked to control of your home borderlands? 45% would be a reasonable minimum, though 60% would be better. Perhaps have this different for the various WvW tournament tiers. They could potentially use the Contested Waypoint mechanic to make it work.

Coldtart.4785:

Silalus.8760:

Aeolus.3615:

Would be cool to a just have one world like Eve and all alliances had territory to conquer Ç_Ç

There is literally nothing more like work than EVE. WORK is less like work than EVE.

0.0 space has not much to do with EVE being a job though. 0.0 is just that one shining gem in amongst an ocean of the kind of pain that gets you $30/hr in real life.

Show me a Null alliance that encourages full time (little or no combat) industrialists to work there – who are not alts of the leadership. :p Until that happens (perhaps the next patch?) I was happy with staying clear of that region.

Lue.6538:

Yargesh.4965:

Several people have lost their jobs in Iceland, being open to the whims of the players is no guarantee you will be able to pay your rent.

Oh really? You mean the WoD department, which was scrapped because CCP utterly failed to form a coherent plan for the game and what approach it would be taking?
Or do you mean the simple fact that countless of developers at CCP has left for other companies..

The Eve players aren’t making unreasonable requests either, nor are they to blame for the various individuals who lost their jobs at CCP or elsewhere on Iceland.. But I’m sure you know something I don’t.

There are two separate rounds of layoffs being discussed here (both of them centered around their GA office actually). The recent one (related to WoD MMO) was longer-term fallout of the DUST product not working out well as an income stream. Yargesh is probably referencing the first round; that was fallout from the introduction of their cash shop, and the (valid) ‘concern’ that the game was being positioned to become PtW. The short-term result was a massive falloff in active subscriptions.

[The PtW discussion has not come up as much here, which I consider one of GW2’s better decisions/strengths. Some of their decisions related to Gems are certainly annoying at times, but I cannot call any of it PtW (go look at Travian for an extreme example to compare with).]

And to clarify my definition of hardcore, reference the statement in my sig. I’m talking about methods that boil down to ‘social engineering’ – and usually are not in-game (i.e. other private websites like Kugu, EveWho, other metadata scanning etc). Most of it is legal within Eve, and even IRL if done correctly (though it does get overzealous at times). I’ve seen some of these same methods (and their counters) used with the upper tier WvW servers – which is why I’m not at all interested in the Tournaments.

Regarding EotM – one of the original goals of that map was to be a testbed/experiment area, so it is supposed to get changed over time. Which is why I don’t spend so much time on it, as I fully expect it to be changed left, right and sideways eventually. (One evil, though outlandish, idea – change the character and rewards to the PvP model instead of the PvE one!)

Regarding trains – I just don’t do them, its not safe for my wrists. Same problem with longer runs through LS1 content, or even a dungeon train (though we ran a Story Dungeon train for DM progression once – very fun, we ended up with two teams competing on time). On the flip side, I absolutely abhor the looks of every Legendary, and most of the other supposed ‘end goal’ items (as a former WvW player, stuff like that just paints a target on ya). So I can happily live on a diet of Exotics just fine…

Regarding progression and difficulty in general – I’m happy with the current state of things, and yet I found myself not playing as much. I think its because of my reasons for playing have shifted – I like to foster and help grow player communities, since those can last well beyond any one game (as we’re learning now with WildStar – we’re having a few pains with that, but it looks like we’ll work it out). Plus activities around community are usually easy on the wrists. Social Producer ftw.

My perspective on ‘Hardcore’ also appears to be extremely skewed from every one else – I came here from Eve Online, where baiting and evil behavior are not just legal, but encouraged by their Devs. IMNSHO, absolutely nothing will beat Eve at being hardcore (well, maybe Second Life, but that’s a different discussion).

I find the news pleasantly ironic – though happy to see a change in this direction, it showed up within a few hours of restarting Eve Online. Only one month so far, to see how the last two years have changed it (quite a lot actually).

Its not going to be a final answer to me, though. I’m still waiting to see what else is planned for LS2 and its related release cycle. A big thing for me will be more patching and tweaking – perhaps shaking the metas more often.

XacTactX.6709:

The optional stuff: get collector’s edition for a banker golem, get primeval vintage armor with collector’s so you get a helmet and shoulders with power runes. Get executioners axe halloween toy for running speed. Get polla from dragon bash with garnet pebble (not possible anymore). Get hero’s band from preordering gw2 (not possible anymore). Get an unbound backpiece with garnet pebble using a transmutation splitter (not possible anymore).

Can you explain the highlighted part? That’s the first I’ve heard of Primeval Vintage armor. And for ‘collectors,’ do you mean Digital Deluxe or something else? Because DD gives you the banker golem too.

Otherwise a very useful list, and one I’ll be using in one of my hobbies – experiencing all racial PS lines. Finishing up Norn, just have Human and Charr left now.

My post from the EotM CDI is below. I think its stood up well so far as a suggestion.

One interesting idea (due to changes to the trait tree) would be to have WvW (perhaps just on EotM) use the PvP ‘character’ instead of the PvE one. I’m not so sure this would work though (despite originally thinking it was a good idea); It does not fit with the original spirit of WvW – but then again, that spirit has changed drastically anyway by the players. ::shrug:: So I’m mentioning it anyway, good or ill.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I’d like to suggest a hybrid approach; Encourage spreading out by having different ‘League Tiers’ promote different play styles. This probably works best in NA’s cluster; I’ve not seen the language setup for EU (probably would need to balance based on language as well).

Bronze (bottom 6/9 servers): Red v Blue v Green, as discussed in other posts. These servers are removed from the Gliko ranking calculations; this also allows some server consolidation later on, if needed 5+ years from now. Transfers here are free or at a special reduced cost; Transfers out are normal costs today, though a free/reduced ‘first transfer’ after this change would be nice. Depending on how the Tier works (perhaps a special cluster), this would also allow EU and NA servers to compete/guest together in future.

Silver (middle 6/9 servers): WvW as we have it today. Perhaps implement overflow (only) to EB, since its usually the most populated/contested map (reduce PPT per map if implemented).

Gold (top 6/9 servers): PPT is king here, encourage and enforce it. Examples: 50-75% reduction in karma, remove Bloodlust, remove golem siege deployment, remove ability for players to attack structures (siege only), +25% MF to player loot bags, -25% MF to NPC loot. These changes should also encourage GvG play, both open field and overall map fighting.

Yes, there’s a lot of work to this kind of idea. But it gives players in most play styles something to excel at.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Hearing/Seeing more and more feedback about how the unlocks work, it just needs (I hope) simple changes to be in line with reasonable progression.

1) Map completions should be for levels below the tier, not above. With the unlocks starting at L30, I don’t understand why that was not the case already. Doing those maps should also earn you gold and skill points, that can be used to buy the traits you don’t want to do; this will help in fostering the ‘play as you want’ mentality again.

Map completion of the high-level zones should be reserved for Master (L60) or GM (L80) traits.

2) Move WvW unlocks to high-end Master traits, or the GM traits. A player going in will still be at a disadvantage, but at least not completely stripped of traits. Plus, by then he/she should be more experienced with the class to help counteract that handicap.

3) There are lots of out-of-the-way, yet difficult jumping puzzles you can use for some of the more challenging unlocks (even low level ones). There’s also a couple of fun mini-dungeons that would get more player attention, if they had trait unlocks linked to them. I admit to be biased a bit to one of those, as it involves helping an Order of Whispers group.

Vio.2506:

My love for this game is waning; it’s only saving grace is that ESO is “poo” and buggy.

If you’re going to pay a sub anyway, give Eve a shot perhaps?

I picked up my first rifle literally within 10 minutes of starting my first character (Engi mentioned in sig), fell in love with it, never left it. It’s taken some time to figure out what will work in my specific case (can’t use grenades due to my wrists), but its done well in PvE and certain cases of WvW. The recent turret updates should help too.

insanemaniac.2456:

the problem is people overlook power builds.

I believe its because the engi character starts with a pistol, and if the player understands how the condition system works they’ll gravitate there quickly enough. In my case, the only other MMO I was involved in was Eve Online, so a game like this one is quite different… The Sigil system (until this patch) didn’t help matters any.

BTW, saw your build in the sig, I find it interesting. How hard is that to move away from Grenade kit?

OK, as of 4/17 evening patch, you’ve added the Defense events for Grenth and Lyssa to count toward their unlocks. Thank you, that helps with the Megaserver combination to some degree.

Now if you can just move that one trait off Karka Queen (or demote her to Mid-Level boss), I’d be much happier about the new GM traits.

As for the discussion regarding the lower tier traits, I’ll defer to other experience here. I have all the classes I’m interested in to 80, and was not planning on taking any newer characters past 20 (for experiencing personal story).

The unlock requirements for some of them though are a little over the top, however: Why is there a WvW requirement for a character trait? The one using the OS map is passable (that one tended to be somewhat neutral territory), but captures etc seem a little problematic. Especially if the trait is one that works great in WvW in the first place.

Dphorak.7496:

Could someone please explain to me what “kitten” means in this context? I notice people on these forums use it a lot

Its the profanity ‘filter’ word. Bring up the post as a quote and you’ll see the original words in place.

Dunno, for my Engi’s playstyle (open-world PvE & Guild Missions) my old Altruism set actually works better than before now. I re-traited to gain Might on healing skill, so now I’m getting 6 stacks + Fury instantly, without the need for ’Jugger – plus 3 stacks & Fury to everyone else. That now gives me an option to drop FT for something else in a pinch (usually EG) as support.

I do agree though that its daunting to re-build just my three ‘core’ characters. I’m taking it slowly since I have to re-learn all the trait stuff too. The ironic thing? Most setups I’ve liked so far doesn’t require a GM Major trait…

After looking through the discussion here regarding the GM Temple unlocks, something came to mind: Why isn’t the book sold by the Temple Karma vendors?? 7500 Karma each would be a reasonable trade-off, if the temple in question is already open (and you probably earned a good chunk of that getting there, if you worked your way down to it). At least that would fix one major pain-point.

danbuter.2314:

I suspect in a couple years, this Trait “feature patch” is going to be looked at the same way the patch that killed Star Wars Galaxies is today.

I’m beginning to think you’ll see that happen within 3-6 months, at least for the Americas and EU markets. I feel like its been re-worked into a different MMO sub-genre, which is not normally favored in these markets. (I know this style has a name, but I don’t like calling it that, sorry.)

Was looking through the unlocks for the new GM traits. Why is a limited-time ‘mega boss’ (Karka Queen) one of these?

All the others I can get behind (Grenth, Lyssa, etc) because they respawn regularly and its more likely over time that you’ll find people doing them. But placing this particular boss in the rotation can be a problem, for the same reasons discussed in the Global Timer thread.

I am otherwise lukewarm to this new system. Fiddling with my necromancer’s traits, I realized I may be able to pull some points back from a full x/x/30/30/x used in minion mancer. I instead added to damage and conditions (semi-hybrid), will have to see how this pans out. As for my one non-80 character, she’s designed to explore Personal Story steps I had not seen previously for the races. Sylvari and Asura are done as of now, working on Norn atm, its been a nice side diversion at least…

That reminds me – were the L11-L30 Personal Story steps also adjusted to take the lack of traits into account? Nothing in the notes about that…

Editing to add: OK, as of 4/17 evening patch, you’ve added the Defense events for Grenth and Lyssa to count toward their unlocks. Thank you, that helps with the Megaserver combination to some degree. Now if you can just move that one trait off Karka Queen (or demote her to Mid-Level boss), I’m much happier about the new GM traits.

As someone with very wacky times online, I want to agree with the idea of having more than one event running at the same time. Perhaps one Low and one Mid tier event?

Give us more choices for this, even if they’re artificial in the end.

Fror.2163:

Great, the maw just failed without any explanation, yet we seemed to be enough on the map to do it.

One of the new conditions of that event is to keep the Event NPC alive (forgetting his name atm, I don’t do World/Group Events much anymore). If he’s dead (and not revived in 5 minutes) its over.

As the ‘Condition Meta’ discussion has popped up (and no ruling yet for my earlier posts), I would again like to advocate the addition of Reduced Condition Duration as a ‘stat.’

Right now the only source is from consumables and rune sets like Melandru, as opposed to the various sources for adding duration. Adding more sources should help balance that out.

pdavis.8031:

Maybe, but we have no concrete schedule in place. All we have is, what seems to be, an example of a schedule. We do know that there is a 3 hour window for those bosses. Thats it. I would like to give the Devs more credit. They designed the game, they play test the changes long before announcment, and know what they are doing. Its hard to believe that a successful company would just roll out changes without any regard to how it will effect their player base and not take these issues into consideration. We don’t really know anything about the logistics of this system. Alot of assumptions are being made, and made mostly out of ignorance. Until the launch of the patch, and seeing it in action, we can only speculate.

It reminds me of the Y2K problem that everyone was freaking out about, and we all saw how THAT turned out.

I agree, and that’s why I’m reserving some judgement (or at minimum asking for more clarification). But some of what I do at work is to ‘reverse engineer’ how processes are done, to confirm they are sound – and worth the cost (helps with shopping for new vendor solutions). I’ve posted an example of that above, and is usually a SWAG during the initial stages, but is sometimes enough at times.

Also, I worked on the Y2K changes for part of the Financial Sector, it was a three year behind-the-scenes effort so that nothing happened (including several rounds of ‘rushed’ patches from the various vendors). Quite proud of that actually.

Mckeone.9804:

In terms of timers / schedules, why not leave the system as it is, but have the same set of timers across all servers? That way people who play in the same time block of time aren’t stuck with the same block of bosses.

I don’t understand why the current timer system has to change with the move to underflow servers.

The current timer system only worked in ‘Main’ instances that were associated with a server, which stayed up 24×7 until the next reset (which considered the reset time as Start, and began all the timers from that). Overflow instances that are created do not have this timer system added in.

This new system is basically a series of Overflow maps – there is no ‘Main’ instance, except by what majority of players from one server exists in a given instance. They will create and delete at will, so the old timer system does not work – there is no 24×7 instance with a known ‘Start’ time to begin those timers.

Small warning, pulling out the SysAdmin/Programmer hat for this next bit.

What they are implementing to get around this is something akin to Scheduled Tasks or Crontab (look those up in Wikipedia if not familiar). Each instance (which I assume is an individual process) will probably be controlled by a master ‘Timer’ process, that handles the Boss timer unlocks at set times.

There are a couple of ways that the scheduling itself can be implemented; I won’t be certain until I see what the responses from them are. But most common schedule systems can kick off two things at the same time just fine (which is why I suggested that above). A rotating schedule is a bit harder, but doable with a little background fiddling (and could probably re-use code from other areas).

Now, the new Guild Token intrigues me. Once you have an override switch available, if done generically enough you can apply that elsewhere. I suspect this new consumable is just a re-worked Guild Mission unlock. There’s nothing stopping ArenaNet (other than restricting the economy) to have this unlock apply to the ‘Mid Tier’ bosses as well (or make another one for those).

Again, my apologies for getting a little technical here. I hope its helped to some degree anyway.

pdavis.8031:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Update-on-the-MegaServer-roll-out-plan/first#post3858245

Update on Meagserver rollout. this might quell a few arguments and answer some questions.

That does not address one of the core concerns. Players with a limited-window play time will not be able to experience certain normal bosses at all with the new schedule.

At a bare minimum, please have the ‘low tier’ bosses run two at a time. As an added benefit, that should hopefully spread players out a bit too. [Edit – Or, just shift the low tier bosses by one ‘slot’ every day.]

Since I’m the only one who’s suggested the stat so far: Is (Negative) Condition Duration – aka reduced duration on conditions applied to you – on the table or not? If you’re not going to directly work on conditions in mass WvW fights in the near future, consider giving us tools to work through the Meta ourselves…

Nice to see one other suggest Heal/Power/Prec, I still feel this is what Cleric should have been, and would be a much more active combat set for a Support build.

Zietlogik.6208:

How about a new stat that adds resistance to conditions

That’s what I meant by (Negative) Condition Duration in page 3. We already have it on rune combos (ie. Melandru) so it should be possible.

I’ll add my support for those requesting more utility/usefulness to non-Berzerk combinations.

I also like the idea of crafting an item with no stats but extra ‘sockets’ (infusions and/or standard upgrade slots), and allowing us to make our own combination sets.

Nike.2631:

Sure, how about one of the other corners of GW2’s soft trinity:

Healing Power with Precision/Boon Duration

Interesting combo. Some others:

1) Heal, Power, Prec – (a ‘reverse’ zealot, and my take on what Cleric should have been)

2) Heal, Boon Duration, (Negative) Condition Duration
3) Vitality, Heal, (Negative) Condition Duration

- These two are primarily WvW bunker combinations (you don’t need reduced condition duration in most PvE or sPvP), but may work in certain dungeon situations as well. As I know you’re adverse to bunker combos, you could always restrict these to unique Ascended trinkets from the WvW Laural vendor.

Becka Williams.4978:

ExAstris.8527:

Becka Williams.4978:

The best part? We’re stuck with this. Anet’s spent far too much time and money to let it go now. So, we’re just going to have to live with it till they get around to “adjusting” it.

Not true. I can just leave. I did it when Star Trek Online started time gating content. Sucked those first couple of weeks, but I did indeed “adjust.”

If the goal was to streamline server load, then I guess it will have been a success.

Yeah, might be time to give up on MMOs entirely. You just can’t enjoy them, they gotta be tinkered with, usually for the worse.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, that was my plan when I left Eve, but gave GW2 a shot as it was supposed to be different. After 1.5 years I don’t think that’s the case anymore, and I honestly feel sad for both this community and the game itself.

I’m not leaving yet, but I’m certainly not interested in WvW, PvP or large PvE events anymore. Those horses have left the burning barn, and do not seem likely to return.

Pedroso.4603:

The thing that made me quit WoW was the fact that we had strict times to Raid and do some progression, and now the same is happening with GW2.

Time to give a shot on those new releases for 2014, cause now i can see that nothing really good will ever come, bad choices will always overcome the great news.

GG Anet, GG

This is a valid point; One of many reasons I eventually left Eve was its heavy reliance on what that community called ‘alarm clock’ events (the Reinforce timers). With my wacky hours (working 3rd shift, plus the occasional afternoon call/meeting/email), it forced a more casual play within games. That is not very compatible with Subscription MMOs, or anything that’s on set timers.

Before giving GW2 a try, I was preparing to drop all online/multiplayer gaming completely. I increasingly feel like that will become an option again (possibly to the benefit of various FOSS projects – I’d like to re-work how process monitoring works in Nagios/Icinga environments).

I appreciate the early release of tomorrow’s post, since it technically does not cover this upcoming patch anyway.

As others have stated here, the developers have made clearer what their vision should be, which is a nice thing to see. However, it also gives me a lot to think about regarding my own next steps. I’m certainly fine with adapting to the changes (and have various plans already); but it is more important to see how the next few weeks shake out with my guild first.

Well, Vivox’s customer list still shows NCSoft as TBA. But I’d be far too optimistic to think it would be that.

Perhaps enabling overflow for certain maps? OS is a reasonable choice to experiment with, since actions there do not affect score. Next possibility would be EB.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

Question for the devs: Any chance this will work with daily activities? Because being in mini-games with my friends and guildies instead of it being totally random would be awesome.

+1 for this question. We currently (try to) get around this by having everyone join at the same time. It would be nicer to leverage this new system instead.

When I logged in yesterday and wandered through LA a bit, I was hit hard by how much the aftermath felt like my personal experience with Ground Zero, and the actual losses that happened to me there. I eventually had to leave the game for awhile, as it still hits a bit too close personally.

Regardless, a big /salute to ArenaNet for nailing this part.

Karizee.8076:

I cannot filter achievements by guild, I either get Internal Server Error or it defaults to region rankings.

Having the same problem. Since it gave Internal Server Error, I figured my various firefox/noscript filters were killing it. But pulling up the same page in IE gave the same result.

Has anyone filed a bug report for this yet?

Orpheal.8263:

A big freaking NO to all of this, This are the most terrible WvW ideas I’ve ever read, which would ruin WvW for many people and would completely destroy any fun that this mode gives, just to turn WvW more into a stupid WvW Guild Elitist crap sandbox place that favors only one target group of players.

Let this NEVER happen!! Never ever .

While I can agree with you on the Leaderboard thing (for various reasons), the rest of those suggestions are setup in such a way that its not obvious who the supporters are. So elitism is at the very least masked from casuals.

For example, what guild in that format would end up on the banners? The best solution is “no one – just the color.” If you’re that interested, go prod the API or talk to the Guild Claimer.

As has been discussed back and forth in this thread (and others), we need a way to reward defense, or at the very least discourage rapid re-capping of structures.

Perhaps this? Karma earned from a structure is re-scaled based on how long it was in ‘enemy’ hands, with scaling similar to enemy WXP. The original Karma from a structure should be the max, but should take a significant time before its achievable (say 4 hours). Minimum of 30 minutes before any Karma at all is earned.

I’m guessing that doing this on a Charr has been ramping my difficulty to 11, due to his freaky hit box. He’s a guardian, but that does not appear to matter.

Any suggestions for this particular race, or should I just grab another character? I’m in no hurry (just need two more dailies for the Meta), I’m just poking at it as a challenge now (and possibly a useful skill in WvW).

EDIT to add: I also support the calls above for skipping this second cutscene – if you’re going to give a timed achievement, the average player is going to run through it multiple times (as seen above). Making that run faster is not going to be game breaking, since you’ve already scaled back the end-loot on subsequent visits. And yes, Kasameer’s hiccup thing is starting to grate (even doing this casually). Her reaction on Scarlet was a nice touch though.

DevonCarver.5370:

There will be the same three leagues as previously. No world can be lower than 9th place in a league. Everyone gets tickets.

While I applaud this take on the rewards, its important to note that last sentence is incomplete.

Everyone who completes the S2 Meta Achievement will get tickets.

Still waiting to see what the Achieves will be on that. The fact that it will be possible to finish totally in EoTM is a good start, but please bear in mind that not everyone who likes WvW can play regularly. I have bad wrists from no fault of my own – bus accident – and yet I’m still here; Only time I took off was when the S1 Meta was listed, promptly decided to catch up on other games instead (good timing actually, since I had a massive guilt trip from buying Skyrim and KSP last summer).

I’m still curious why ArenaNet creates these large events – with their main promotion of ‘bringing communities together’ – and yet they don’t supply the one thing we need to make this work. Integrated voice.

It’s possible to have this as a free option (Vivox in SL), or even paid (Vivox in Eve). Even offering better integration with the ‘independent’ Vivox system (C3) would work too, but not optimal.

Now I have no issues with using an external voice server (this is still very common, even with Eve), but that becomes a weak point if it becomes a direct or (usually) indirect attack point by a bored cracker. Integrated voice allows a backup method in a pinch.

OK, so I grabbed my engi (and an extra set of spinal blades that was going to him anyway), and went in. Additional spoilers incoming!

There is more info on the other two consoles (I assume it was not mentioned by the OP, as the dragon was the main point): The drill was designed as a sort of magical ‘keg tap,’ pulling out magic from the ley lines and letting it flow freely there. Its also autonomous, and will continue to function even after Scarlet’s death (probably even after wiping everything else from the map too).

My own conclusions from this:
1) LA is officially nuked for the duration. Probably well past LS Chapter 2.
2) LA will probably become the dragon’s roost once woken up. And/or the focus for every other major fight (requiring large amounts of magic) from here onwards.

Anyone try this on a Sylvari Engi yet? I’m game to try it just to see if the specific dragon is mentioned.

Gah, forum ate my post somehow.

Anyway, I got a similar list to what Mystic as above, though I picked up a named exotic (Atlatl), which nearly made me gibber at the idea of a Precursor dropping. Still a decent-looking speargun, will probably give to my engi as a neat skin.

Still, the actual ‘best rewards’ for me so far was
1) epic fight (first time run today – bad week at work – and was shaking by the time I reached the private ‘finale’ instance),
2) good, clean run (which I hear is a bit rare atm), no downs at the Knight, only a couple downs at the beginning since I was playing blind,
3) 0→5 Achieves in 40 minutes (will see how well I get close to the meta one),
4) final part of the holo fight, watching Scarlet appear (literally) at my feet,
5) last but not least, stomping Scarlet. Seriously, I’m tempted to get the Guild finisher just to do it again for the snapshot.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

In a similar way to the exercise that Orpheal has under taken it would be wise now to ask you all to pick 1 area that you would prioritize above all others having has the chance to have seen everyone’s opinions around each others proposals.

Chris

I personally believe that the Dredge and Rewards problems are intertwined, and need to be dealt with together (or at the very least have the other ‘part’ of this coin polished, when attempting to re-mint the one side).

If I’m being forced to choose, it will be Dredge first (its the primary barrier to new entrants). HOWEVER, I strongly suggest you add some rewards to sweeten the interest in this Fractal.

Examples:

1) If we take the earlier idea to ‘split’ the final Legendary boss to its own Tier 4 (boss) fractal, add more achievements to these.
One example: Forged by Fire – ‘Attacked’ the Legendary boss with only those ‘molten ladle’ things the entire fight (aka only kept his Overheated debuff running).

2) The earlier idea of ‘rebalancing the composition of the Dredge forces’ will allow the removal of constant re-spawn. In turn, they should all have loot tables attached to them. Also, in this idea, I’d like you to consider having Dredge composition change with each Fractal Tier. i.e. you can add one extra ‘buffing’ Dredge in tiers 3/5 (that may not sound like a lot, but if placed within a group of ranged Dredge in the back, you’re going to add remote pressure to the party as the melee grind commences).

3) On the flip side (to explain my point): Working on Rewards only should have highest compensation to the Dredge map (if not changed). A simple solution would be to add a scaled bonus chest to all maps, similar to explorable dungeons now. Swamp would have no chest at all at Agony Tiers 0-2 (L0-20); Dredge (in its current form) should top out at Arah P4 levels (perhaps a bit higher) when at Agony Tier 5 (L50).

Again, I personally believe these two ‘pain points’ in Fractals will need to be tackled together in some form. But, you’ll not need to totally re-do the other bit when attacking only one side (even if I prefer you did both).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Just a quick note to let you know i am up to date.

I am assuming that you all feel that for example a Dredge rework is higher priority than say a rework to rolling?

Chris

As others have said: Dredge, then Rewards (then the Reset – I’m not affected, but do understand and support the concern here). Everything else can flow from that.

Thank you Chris. I have some hope that I may actually run Fractals more often; Just started poking my nose in again after a longish break from it.

I would like to (indirectly) circle back to server pride, given more recent comments.

Devon, has ArenaNet considered adding Vivox voice chat to the client? Looking at their customer list, I see NCSoft (as TBA). So my curiosity is very piqued.

If you (or anyone else on the thread) has not looked at it yet, I’ve had very good experience with it – in two relatively large system environments (Second Life and Eve Online). Note SL is (technically) FTP. You also don’t have to go the full route – they have something called C3 that would probably satisfy everyone’s needs. Our guild played with that for awhile too, it wasn’t too bad.

The primary risk here is that you (or probably the Vivox cluster) will become a larger target for DDoS attacks. But since they already host a much larger target (Eve) it should not be too bad…

To go back to the original request, my three biggest concerns:

1) re-balancing certain fractal instances to be in line (time- and difficulty-wise) with the others. This is already beaten over a ton here, I agree with most of it.

2) Rewards need to be re-evaluated, and tied to difficulty level. As mentioned already I get far more gold running Arah (to the point that I’m finally getting good at Lupi melee fights), or P1-3 of other dungeons. All happily in Exotics (mostly).

On the other hand, we should also consider slightly better rewards for running levels below our normal one – this is to encourage bringing newcomers to Fractals. Not asking for a lot here, perhaps another 10% Karma or a couple extra ‘normal’ relics per fractal. Also more options on what to do with rings/relics at higher participation levels (already discussed extensively).

3) Lore and Story. I like some of the ideas here (in particular the Practice Mode), as they can serve a dual purpose of both introducing the maps and the story behind it. videoboy’s idea above is also good. As well as incorporating its presentation through Dessa’s background monologue, and chat bubbles during the run (less intrusive yet still useful if you’re interested in it).

Devon, I disagree about server pride. The lower tiers are becoming more barren as rewards encourage longer coverage – which in turn encourages transfers to higher populations/tiers. You need to break this cycle.

I’d like to suggest a hybrid approach; Encourage spreading out by having different ‘League Tiers’ promote different play styles. This probably works best in NA’s cluster; I’ve not seen the language setup for EU (probably would need to balance based on language as well).

Bronze (bottom 6/9 servers): Red v Blue v Green, as discussed in other posts. These servers are removed from the Gliko ranking calculations; this also allows some server consolidation later on, if needed 5+ years from now. Transfers here are free or at a special reduced cost; Transfers out are normal costs today, though a free/reduced ‘first transfer’ after this change would be nice. Depending on how the Tier works (perhaps a special cluster), this would also allow EU and NA servers to compete/guest together in future.

Silver (middle 6/9 servers): WvW as we have it today. Perhaps implement overflow (only) to EB, since its usually the most populated/contested map (reduce PPT per map if implemented).

Gold (top 6/9 servers): PPT is king here, encourage and enforce it. Examples: 50-75% reduction in karma, remove Bloodlust, remove golem siege deployment, remove ability for players to attack structures (siege only), +25% MF to player loot bags, -25% MF to NPC loot. These changes should also encourage GvG play, both open field and overall map fighting.

Yes, there’s a lot of work to this kind of idea. But it gives players in most play styles something to excel at.

Devs could always opt for a split:

Fractal entrance eventually moved to Southsun, since the Consortium owns both of these.

The remaining guild-only vendors (mostly the commendation one) and the activity access moved to the racial cities.

Rest stays at Vigil Keep, to be rebuilt elsewhere. Could possibly be rebuilt on the shore where the Nightmare Tower was.

OK, after watching the HT vid, you’ve got me curious…

In a Rifle user’s situation, is picking up the turret still the better option? Since I only have the detonate and rocket boots, it seems better to always detonate.

Very good series so far, thanks. I admit to skipping the Grenade kit though, since I can’t use it…

1) Ranger (pets/spirits)
2) Engineer (Turrets)
3) Necromancer (Minions)

If I were allowed a 4th: Guardian Spirit Weapons (and only those).

The ‘follower’ code in general needs a rework or scrapping. It shows up the most in the three classes I stated (and in some cases, like Turrets, we’ve supplied a lovingly detailed explanation of the problems); As much as it pains me, you can hold on the Spirit Weapons until these are addressed.

Kurr.4179:

From the reddit thread :

“A major ISP called Level3 suffered a large DDoS around 2/12/14 1:30:01 AM GMT or 8:30PM EST. The outage was mitigated by Level3 around 2/12/14 4:01:32 AM GMT or 11:01PM EST. This is most likely your issue as Level3 is one of the ISPs used by ANet for server connectivity. The DDoS was caused by an NTP amplification attack and NTP should now be shut off on the core routers that had the problem.

Looks like the problems are back again. The last report I have from Level3 was stated as: “2/12/14 4:01:32 AM GMT The IP NOC has advised that the issue is believed to have been mitigated. Operations Engineers are currently working to confirm that no further impact is being experienced at this time.”"

Also some comments saying they just brought down RiotGames as well (not sure if true, don’t particularly care myself either but still very lame).

Level3 is a ‘Backbone’ ISP. Geez. That would help explain my network trace (done via GW2’s diagnostic mode) having the break occur within alter.net’s domain.

The attack vector is also very frightening. NTP (used for time sync over the Internet) is a ‘broadcast’ type protocol by nature: basically, fire and forget. There are a LOT of core systems that depend on that being precise.

(Sorry, I’ll take the UNIX/Linux Admin hat off now. But stuff like this really riles me up. Thanks for the heads-up though.)

Having only a color change is tricky, since half of the hues are affected by some form of color blindness.

Adding the typical heading banner used in UNIX/Linux circles may work better:

=-=-=-= WARNING! =-=-=-=

Far easier to spot, and it usually has common translations readily available.

(I normally use asterisks but they are getting translated to something else. Meh.)

Meadfreek.6789:

What do these “supply drops” consist of?

I believe its just 400 supply at the new spawn in the home Citadel. I’ve not seen it (or see actual notes anywhere yet), so not certain about the amount.

Gibson.4036:

Dawdler.8521:

That said, I definetly see a population problem coming up…

Around the beginning of April?

By then its possible that all five WvW maps will instance and overflow like EoTM; Perhaps shortly after. Borrowing a bit from my other post in the WvW subforum (regarding the rebalance of higher tiers):

1) The WvW maps could become one set of (Color) Borderlands, EB and OS, which would share and spawn overflows like EotM does now.
2) Servers are assigned colors on a rotating basis each week (to continue to make Map Completion viable).

No need for Glicko or ranking anymore. Just have all the servers on that ‘color’ which win, earn the expected number of bonus chests (perhaps gain some other bonuses).

I’m a bit torn about this, if they go forward with it.

DHBM.7652:

My question to this is what about the multiple overflows? say theres 3 EOTM maps in play. red wins EOTM map#1, blue wins on EOTM map #2, green wins on EOTM map #3…

does this mean red,blue, and green all get supply drops to there keeps?

I believe the PPT for each color is cumulative across all overflow maps. This is currently based on the (relatively) small PPT I see on any individual map; I don’t see anything specific about this in either the Patch Notes or the Wiki.