Guild Wars 2

Something strange, I no longer feel like a mushroom! That is all we can ask for Chris is open dialogue and the fact that we are being listened to. Thank you. Am I ever going to pick your brain on RNG!

I stated earlier that respect has to go both ways. Let me illustrate.

When a person is in WvW which is as we are all aware of, quite well populated with “hacks” they naturally come to the boards to voice their frustrations. The post will be deleted by the moderators and the OP will get an infraction BUT their concerns are NEVER addressed by a developer! Instead we are told to submit a report but we are never told if it was truly a hack or not. Left in the dark like a mushroom as someone has stated.

Not to mention that there is no valid choice to report a game hack or possible exploit in WvW, the population has to jump through hoops and log it as something totally different. This problem and others have been reported time and time again, the threads are invariably closed and nothing is heard from the developers.

Now I understand fully about having a priority list. Twenty years as a senior planner with a major corporation taught me the value about having such a list. However, there is one thing that ANET is remiss in doing and that is they are NOT telling their customers exactly what the priorities are. We get soon, or a list of things going to be looked at before the end of the year BUT it is a list that does not address all those little irritants such as the aforementioned hacking or the lack of a proper reporting tool.

Take all those concerns that you STATE you read diligently, place them into a list, even if it is 3 pages long, and simply state what the priority is to action those items or even if they will be acted on or not. Do not simply have the moderators close a thread and impose infractions on the poster. That poster posted for a reason, try to understand that reason first and then tell that person you understand.

Or in simple words “respect breeds respect”. Respect given will be returned in a far greater quantity.

Respect has to go both ways. Just saying.

For the record I have to stand with those that say it is a L2P issue. Allow me to explain. I run perplexity runes on my engineer and when he first started using those runes he dominated. However I am finding out that as time goes by I am losing more fights. Why? Because people are learning how to counter. I could easily list the counters that will destroy my perplex engie but that would be counterproductive for me would it not?

Today I ran into a Kaineng ele a few times in solo roaming in our BL. Although I did put the ele down a few times overall I lost more then I won. Against a DR mesmer we had a long, drawn out fight until that mesmer made one critical error and I won. There are ways to counter a perplex engie, find them. I will give you a hint, one Kaineng hammer warrior had it totally wrong when he bypassed my turrets and everybody else in my group in his blind desire to get to me in a camp fight. He did down me but by then my turrets and team-mates finished him off.

The problem is that hammer warrior knew only one way to attack, one tactic in his mind and he was unable to change to a different tactic during the fight. Thus our small group took out a much larger one.

There are also groups that are quite skilled in handling an opposing group with a perplex engie in the midst and when I run into a group such as that I just switch to my Mes or Guardian and toss something different into the mix. It usually prevails as people are unwilling to change what has been successful up to that point to try a different tactic. That is simple human nature.

As time goes on more and more people will discover how to counter a perplex engie. I am already seeing it happen but those people are not those coming to the forums to QQ about it, they are out working on counters.

My toons are:

Guardian Rank 101 Level 80
Mesmer Rank 46 Level 80
Engineer Rank 38 Level 80
Ranger Rank 7 Level 80
Warrior Rank 4 Level 80
Necro Rank 8 Level 80
Ele Rank 11 Level 80
Thief Rank 10 Level 80
Thief Rank 1 Level 56

For a total of 226 Ranks. Sadly there is no way possible to outfit them all in Ascended gear so most will no longer be used in WvW. As more and more people are getting fully upgraded with Ascended I am finding those toons of mine that do not have any Ascended gear are no longer quite as viable. It is forcing me down to three toons that I play in WvW now and that could dwindle more as time goes on.

Not trying to say that. What I am saying is the problem may not necessarily be at ANET. I , for example, am not suffering from lag today. It all depends on the route you take to get to the servers. Since as you state it is people from different parts of the world then it is highly probable that a node close to the ANET servers is having issues whereas the node I enter the ANET servers through is not affected.

It is called the world wide web for a reason. Think of a spider web with ANET being at the center. If everyone takes the path that leads through the spider then everyone will have lag or be delayed. If someone takes a different path that bypasses the spider they will get to the center without lag.

Sadly there is no way to choose your own path.

For the most part a simple manipulation of your screen in window mode will allow you to hit targets that you normally should not be able to. However I have seen cases where an arrow cart will hit where it normally should not even by manipulating your screen. After such cases I will mark the point where an enemy ac was and go back later to try and replicate where the hits were being made. On a 27" monitor, windowed mode, and re-sizing my screen there have been instances where I could not replicate where the ac was hitting.

So to assume it is all screen manipulation and not a zoom hack is being a bit naive.

Run a trace route from you to GW2. One of the nodes along the way may be having issues, especially if only a segment of the people are suffering from the type of lag you are describing.

I know how you feel OP. Many years ago I was watching a game on tv when the alarms went off on my computer. Someone was seriously trying to hack me, 6 times in just an hour. So I traced him back to a suburb in Chicago and since it was well before the advent of Google street view I went to the Chicago tourism board website. Well it just happened that they had those streets mapped so I zoomed in on the address and took a picture of the house the IP originated from.

Looking up that IP I got an email address so I bundled up my screenshot of the house along with my logs and sent the owner of the IP a short message. “I know where you live, stay out of my computer” The next day I received an apologetic e-mail from a worried father whose son happened to be the perp who was attempting to hack me. Sonny was banned from the computer and pops begged me for forgiveness. I never did tell him I lived over 3,000km away in another country.

However in cases like this a good trace route program is needed. You would have found the Texas IP in the route to ANET and GW2. Oh, it also explains why at times some people will be suffering terrible lag issues while others do not, it all depends on the route your signal takes to and from your location and how many nodes it touches on that journey.

Just thought I would share.

I run perplexity runes on my engie but out of 8 level 80 toons he is essentially my only condition toon (still working on my necro’s build). As an engie he pumps out over 2,200 watts of condition damage. It works well on those ET/AR zergs and dropping a kit on a flame ram while defending a tower works wonders. I can just hear them screaming “I’m melting….I’m melting!” Music to my ears. It helped when I picked up that Ascended Dire pistol a couple of nights back. Just need one more for the pair so if either ET or AR would oblige?

We need Moats! With alligators! Hungry alligators! Oh and a drawbridge of course. Those sharks in Bay just cannot cut the mustard.

Stop watch running……..is that what one would call an oxymoron?

EB is bad this week. Normally I do not have an issue there but this week, even after lowering my graphics from high down to low as they would go, I still kept getting random disconnects so I moved back to our BL. I did however get the last point I needed on my mesmer when we had Langor Gulch yesterday. Thanks ET for the generosity.

My thanks to the ET General, not sure what guild, that left me an Ascended Weapon tonight! My Engie now has a Dire pistol. Could you please drop more? Others on HoD are a might jealous that you favored me!

Edit: You will have to win next time to have a chance to get it back!

26 pages and we have seen the response and apology from ANET in regards to this incident. When are we going to see a similar response from those people involved for their language and treatment of the ANET person? Apologies should go both ways in this case but I have yet to see the opposing side man up and do so. All I see is “he kittened up and should be lynched, tarred and feathered and run out of town”. Since such language is against the TOS should those involved be punished accordingly which would constitute a ban? Fair is fair! Both sides were wrong.

Well ET and AR took turns trying to take our se camp which was not upgraded but had an engie and a warrior guarding. They sent 2…died….they sent 3…died…4 same result…it was not until they sent 8 that they won and by then I was so confused as to which one was attacking I cannot remember if it was AR or ET. after all red is dead

What bugs me the most is they are pushing ahead with the Bloodlust, the leagues and other changes that nobody really asked for while the ones long promised and seemingly forgotten gather dust. Things such as bugged towers, the totally ridiculous requirements for achievements and the abuse of arrow carts and LoS are still waiting to be addressed. The “invite/whisper?etc.” button does not even work in WvW. Now that should be an easy fix yet is goes ignored.

They would get more mileage by fixing what they currently have and prioritize any future changes. Not just do what some Dev thinks would be exciting such as adding bloodlust which only adds to the weaker servers woes.

Think about it this way.

Server “A” only GvGs against Server “B”. That is all they do for 7 days is GvG while server “C” plays the game as designed by capping all the objectives. At the end of those 7 days which server would have the highest score? Anyone care to do the math?

The answer to that question should end this argument.

Charak.9761:

MMOs are seperate from single player games like Crysis. There’s alot more revolving around the design code for the sandbox version of an MMO than a linear path of other games. In cost effectiveness, it’s just easier for ncsoft to just pass on this upgrade.

For your information LotRO upgraded to Dx11 post launch.

After reading all of this I want to toss in my 2 cents worth. Although GvG is something I do not really care for it is something that I would not interrupt. However within the context of the current game design he is within his rights to attack any enemy on the screen and should be allowed to do so without censure from other players on his server. What he did do wrong was he crossed the line between player and developer when he put up his ANET tag. Up to that point he was a player on that server and “red is dead”. His opinion on how the game should be played was far more valid then those that were participating in the GvG battle AS FAR AS the current game design goes.

If one, ten or thirty people decided to bust up that battle and kill the enemy there is absolutely nothing wrong with it and this is where the GvG community makes their mistake which in effect goes against their efforts to promote their game within a game. You cannot censure someone for playing the game as it was designed to be played. Telling the enemy to kill him and not rez him is absolutely wrong as he is your team member and should be treated as such as long as he is not doing something against the rules of the game.

I make an effort to stay out of obvious GvGs or 1v1 battles or even “fight night” but it is within my rights and within the game design (current) to step in and fight/kill the enemy, and should be allowed to do so without censure or any repercussions from other players on my server.

As a player he did nothing wrong. As a Dev he should never have popped his tag.

Jakare.6807:

Classy as kitten henge. Minutes in and youre camping us at our spawn. I CAN’T HANDLE THE PRO SKILL LEVELS!!!11!1

Now if you place it in context we were defending the SE tower. You pushed us to the tower, we pushed back. you pushed back and it went back and forth like that. You were after our tower, we were defending it. It was not intended as spawn camping, just straight up defense. You made no effort to go out of your spawn by the other two routes, as you were after that tower. Unless of course you would prefer to have us hide in the tower but Henge does not roll that way.

If you had been around during the great Wi Flag debate in Asheron’s Call (I was) you would have seen the same argument. Those people that were affected by this “bug” in the rng complained vociferously that they were bugged. Those that were not affected by it came back with the same arguments you see here. “It is all rng”, “you do not understand random number generation”, “random is random” and so on. However someone at Turbine did finally investigate and discovered that there was a bug that weighted the random number generator against a certain segment of the population.

We can all agree that there is no way for us, the players, to gather the data required to prove or disprove a bugged rng in GW2. We would at least have to know what type of rng they are using first and foremost and we do not even know that. However what myself and many others would like would be some indication/response from ANET that they will at least acknowledge our concerns and have someone look at the code for their rng and assure us that it is truly random.

Turbine did not want to do this for the longest time in regards to the Wi Flag in Asheron’s Call but finally did so. ANET should at least do as much.

You can read about the Wi Flag in Asheron’s Call here:

http://asheron.wikia.com/wiki/Wi_Flag

Random is not always random.

Shufflepants, there are different types of RNG used in the gaming industry such as what Deniara stated above. As someone with a degree in mathematics you should also know that by their very design some of those generators will result in a better random distribution then others.

So yes random is random when you are tossing a non-loaded, 6 sided die from a cup but weight that die on one side and it is no longer quite as random. What people are saying here is that depending on what type of rng is being used in Gw2 and exactly how that specific rng has been implemented that the die you are tossing could very well be weighted on one side. Now if you have the first die and I am using the weighted die would our results over 1,000 rolls be the same?

If I get a good pull in a camp I drop a wall of reflection just in front of those nasty scouts, pull everything in range to that wall, call up my Hounds. The initial group will be down and I usually either have only the Super or the Quartermaster to go after. At times if the Yaks attack they will knock you around a bit so stability is useful. Takes a bit of practice at each camp to know the best spot to pull from but the nice thing about using the Guardian is if it goes wrong you can take a bit of a beating and pull away until things reset.

As I use GS and Staff, I can use Symbol of Swiftness, Save Yourselves and drop out my Wall of Reflection and put in Retreat until I get to my next objective. That will allow me almost a continuous speed buff.

I do 2 & 3 with my Guardian. I can usually have a non upgraded camp cleared before the swords appear and just have to wait on the cap so the arrival of a zerg does not bother me. Sometimes I get away, sometimes I do not.

Recognize yourself in the picture? Was it necessary to dance and try to sit on my head after steamrolling me with 20+ people? If you wish lets us meet one on one and we shall see who dances in the end.

There is a simple explanation as to why one person can be so much “luckier” then another even when doing the exact same things on a CONSISTENT basis. This would happen if the random number generator used in GW2 was a pseudo random number generator using a FIXED seed versus a random seed.

RNGs with a fixed seed will return a repeating set of results and will start at the beginning of those results each and every time the rng is restarted. So if you log in today and the first 1000 returns on your list of returns based on your seed number are lousy rolls you will get the same 1000 lousy rolls when you log in tomorrow!

From the number of people that have posted such a disparity in “luck” between people my guess is GW2 employs a fixed seed pseudo rng but they would never admit to that for it would open one nasty can of worms.

Dear Yaks Bend:

I am writing this as a favor to you in order to inform you that you do not need quite so many people to take a non upgraded supply camp. It is doable with less and in truth one person can capture a supply camp and have it done before the swords appear.

If you wish I can train your people how to do it solo and can accomplish that training with a Guardian, Mesmer, warrior or any class that suits you. The cost for that training will be 5 gold per person but wait, there is more! If you sign up before the end of the month I will cut the cost to only 4 gold per lesson!

I suppose however there is that fear factor involved from being alone for the first time. Sadly I cannot teach you courage, that is something you must do by yourself.

I forgot one critical point. The above design does support GvG. Well actually more like GvGvG but consider the following. The EB map has no buffs, Bloodlust or Homeland. It will allow increases in map population depending on the size of the Outposts. At the beginning of a week each server will be able to field up to 10 people on that map and once upgrades are done on the Outpost 20, 40 and 60. (just an example)

A server can easily elect one of their Guilds before reset to be responsible for EB including supplying and building the Outpost plus the subsequent battles on that map.

WvWvW is currently flawed. It favors the zerg mentality which comes with stacking, map hopping and server population imbalances. I had posted some of this previously but I want to put it all together for some discussion.

The major change here is an added set of maps. The maps would then radiate outwards from the center, which is the Eternal Battlegrounds, to the current Borderland maps and finally to a new set called the Homelands. There are no direct paths or portals to the Homeland maps. Some other changes on all maps would be moving towers/keeps further apart so that a trebuchet cannot reach between them.

Structural changes would include the following. Wall design is changed so that defensive siege cannot be targeted by AOE from the base of the walls. Defensive siege should be taken out by offensive siege. The openings at the tops of gates should be closed off. Terrain should be changed to allow more choke points. The new design of the BL maps is a good start on this.

Stonemist Castle should be set up on a mesa in the center. If designed properly the Castle would be in the center and trebs should be able to reach close to but not all the way to the edges of the mesa allowing spots for attacking siege to be placed. The rest of this mesa is a flat, barren plain. An open killing field. However supply to SM would be ferried along treacherous Goat Paths from camps below, making guarding those supply lines critical.

So how would it all work? The current Borderland maps would act as gateways to both EB and the new Homelands. At each gate would be an outpost which has to be upgraded. Each upgrade tier would allow a server to take more people into either opposing Homeland maps or the Eternal Battleground. At the onset, small forces from each server would be allowed to cross with subsequent upgrades allowing more. Example.

Initially the Outpost would be scouting outposts allowing each server to take 10 people across the borders. The first upgrade would move it up to a Skirmish outpost, the second to a Battle Outpost and the fourth to a Command center. Command centers would allow a server to take a full compliment of people into the next zone. Homelands are the opposite. The Home team is allowed full map compliment in their Homelands from the beginning.

Supply then becomes the key. No supply is allowed to be transported via a person between maps. It is removed upon map change. Since the Outposts essentially exist on both sides of a border, the supply in those outposts is built from camps on either side and unless you own a camp in the BL or HL you are going into to the Outposts would be the only place to resupply from. Supply lines would have to be guarded if your team wants to expand their holdings.

What does this all accomplish? It slows down the “reset” night zerg map hopping mentality. Homelands are allowed space and time to build up defense before facing massive numbers of attackers. This would help smaller servers as they could concentrate on their priorities. The current Bloodlust in the Borderlands would remain but the Homelands would have an opposing buff. If a server manages to take all the Borderland Bloodlust buffs and move into an opposing Homeland, that buff would be negated by a Homeland buff. The Homeland buff would be negated in turn as the Home team loses camps/towers and keeps.

Tower/keep flipping is slowed down as siege will have to be built to take out siege. As supply cannot be ferried across border points golems and siege cannot be dropped and instantly built unless Outposts have the ability to resupply your forces. Upgrades in Homelands are more critical as they will grant your team the HL buff. The more upgraded your HL is the higher the buff.

So this is all of course, my opinion and ideas on how I would like to see things changed. I highly doubt if it will be welcomed by everyone but it would make for more strategically thought out battles, with forces being spread out a little bit more across more maps and be in the end a bit more realistic.

Justine.6351:

if you are a thief that spams stealth/heartseeker and ganks green arrows then yes it is appropriate to hop on your dead body reguardless of the situation.

Nope..Guardian. Now I can see it if I was trolling them it may be warranted, and with 8 of them I am sure they were not all green arrows but as I stated it was one against 3 and then suddenly 8 more.

I have noticed YB does that sort of thing quite often….disappointing to say the least but karma is a b….

Well I was holding my own against 3 SF but then got swarmed by 8 Yaks. The outcome was certain but for the life of me I cannot figure out why 2 of the Yaks found it fitting to stand over my corpse and laugh. It wasn’t that they did anything heroic, of fought a fight on an equal footing….I guess if they did not have many kills to that point finally getting one would be a relief.

He talks to bloody much! Yap, yap, yap. After running 9 characters through their story to Orr I am in the process of learning new recipes for toothpicks!

Stormleaf.1769:

I find it amusing that the game is suddenly shattered for so many over something as insignificant as a 0-150 point increase in stats. I simply can’t believe that people who honestly and legitimately enjoyed the game prior to the buff are unable to logically enjoy it now. It seems far more likely that they’re simply being disingenuous, for effect.

Er I cannot enjoy it now. The lag makes it unplayable for me. That is honest, legitimate and not in the least disingenuous!

Silly OP! Making the outnumbered buff meaningful would not PUNISH the server with the lower population and we are all quite well aware of the fact that WvW mechanics are meant to punish the weaker server for not having the people. AOE limit? Ha take that weaker server! Timers on swords appearing? Ha! We will be through the gate and in the Lord’s Room before they know what hit them while they are all at that other keep! Bloodlust buff? Oh, I have a good one, let us give the stronger force a buff so those weaklings can get rotflstomped!

If your server cannot field adequate forces to fill maps in WvW You WILL be punished!

I suppose I do not have to qualify the above as blatant sarcasm!

I have not played much since the changes as the lag is totally detrimental to my survival but I have a couple observations to make. When facing a much larger force like we are currently on Henge with IoJ the stat bonuses make it much easier for the enemy to overwhelm you.

We had more then enough people yesterday and more then enough siege to fight off a much larger force at Hills under normal circumstances but were unable to hold onto it as the enemy had the stat bonuses from all maps.

A smaller server is unable to devote a team dedicated to hanging on to the capture points in their BL much less send teams to the other BLs if one of their keeps is under attack. It would be better for instance if the capture points were “locked” down in a Borderland whenever swords are up on a keep or tower. That would introduce a bit more strategy to the game. Servers with overwhelming numbers would not have to worry about those points but to a defending server they would be beneficial. As it is currently, with no timer on the points, we had a small team running in circles recapturing the points from a much larger zerg as soon as they left to go to the next one. We then had to abandon that effort to go and defend our keeps.

I do wish these bonuses were reworked in such a way that the HOME team ( a team in their own bl) had a better bonus/chance at a bonus, for that map then an invading army. The defense of one’s homeland will always make people fight harder and better even against those overwhelming forces but here it is just the opposite. The smaller server is punished for not having the people.

Where I only had the odd problem with lag before, such as a large fight in SM, the recent changes have almost made it unplayable with more then 20 people in the area.

Thorp.7982:

Because this one Elementalist reflects all of our attitudes as a server combined.

Because a few ran from you reflects all of our attitudes?

melodey.4652:

If you’re going to pat yourself on the back for defending your northern camp, do please frap it and upload it. So few of those fights are worth /flexing over due to the fact that anyone who is killed can immediately rez and return to the fight.

Now I fail to see how I was “patting myself on the back for defending our northern camp”? I was only pointing out that your people will run away from a fight leaving their teammates to die before the outcome of that fight is even decided.

Now withdrawing from a fight with the intention of returning and rezzing fallen team members is understandable but taking off in full flight because you got hit once? And with no intention of returning? I lost sight of her as she went down towards the ne camp so she wasn’t coming back. I suppose the opposition was just too much and she saw the writing on the wall.

So please do not accuse another server of running away when your own does the same.

melodey.4652:

Coming from the server that tucks tail and runs when they start losing people to numbers half their size. CD and SoS should have a dream date, you might find you have a lot in common.

This I get a chuckle out of. Yesterday a group of about 8 DH decided to attack our northern camp. While 7 decided to stay behind and fight it out (they were obliterated) one ele, level 80 not an uplevel, ran as soon as she got hit out the east gate with just myself in pursuit. (I was on my mesmer). No concern over her teammates who were dying, just total self preservation. Now we all know that a mesmer cannot keep up to an ele running so suffice it to say she got away.

I wonder what her mates told her?

edit: Oh by the way, the fight was still going on when she decided to run for her life and was just wrapping up when I returned.

Never seen as many thieves before until CD entered the picture. They do throw kind of a hissy fit when you turn them into a moa but I figure if they want to play chicken they may as well look like one!

New GW2 updates. Forums will now be hidden behind an rng box. Are you lucky? Will you get to that forum on your first attempt or will the rng Gods wreck havoc on you? For a limited time you can buy a “Forum Booster” at the Gem Shop which will give you a better chance at getting to the forum of your choice. These boosters will give you a 5% increase in forum luck! Get them while they last!

…er same problem here….

Seems to be a lack of understanding here and something I did not clarify in my first post on this subject. We all know which guilds are heavy into the GvG and as mentioned most if not all of those groups contribute heavily to the PPT score. For the most part things can go on and nobody will care or even notice.

The friction arises when there is a major attack on the map you are on, be it Bl or EB and a good number of your people on that map are wrapped up in GvG. At this point in time, should you lose that upgraded keep and waypoint resentment against those that were on the map but did not come to defend is a natural human thing. It is not that they are not contributing to the point total, or helping out the server but they did not come when they were needed to support you.

That is why I mentioned that at that point in time the two groups are pursuing very different agendas and that is where the resentment kicks in. Getting points per kill is not the same as holding a fully upgraded keep. If those that want to GvG could balance that, even if it means dropping their GvG battle to go save that keep there would be no basis for that resentment. It makes it even worse when the person leading the GvG battle has his Commander tag up. Commanders are supposed to be able to analyze priorities and react accordingly but if that GvG battle rates higher on his list of priorities over an upgraded keep then resentment is natural.

Make sense?

The excess of Bloodstone dust is an effort to hide the rarity of some of the other items. Give the masses lots of bread and they will forget about the wine. (whine)

Well I can try to answer the question as diplomatically as possible and hopefully not ruffle too many feathers. I do not GvG, our guild is a tiny, family guild. Although it does not bother me too much one way or the other I can foresee that it might in the future.

Think about the dynamics of WvW as they currently are. You are doing your best to protect what is yours and to gain points for your server and one of the larger guilds decides that they want to GvG. While that fight is going on, even if it is tucked away in some forgotten corner of the map, you can forget about asking those people for any assistance in defending a keep for example. They are on the map, may very well have a Commander tag up, but they are not involved in WvW, they are involved in GvG. At this point in time they are not playing the same game with the same goals as the rest of the people on the map. If it is one of your larger guilds then they not only are hurting you at that point by not helping, they also count against your map cap and could prevent you from bringing in people from another map to assist.

Secondly, if there is a GvG match going on on the map I am on how do I know it is GvG? If I happen to see red and to me red is dead, is it fair for me to be called out by my own teammates for playing the game as a WvW’er and not a GvG’er?

Going forward, once the leagues are active I can see this division between those that are serious about WvW and those that want to GvG becoming worse as there will be more incentive to gain as many points per tick in WvW as possible. Will it be fair that all players in WvW share in the reward should they win when all “Guild X” did was particpate in GvG while their teammates do all the heavy lifting?

If the GvG goals were the same as the WvW goals then it would not matter one way or the other but currently such is not the case. They are, while a GvG fight is going on, diametrically opposite of each other. Like oil and water they just do not mix. At this point the only thing that would help is a separate map for those that wish to GvG but at the point it becomes another game in itself such as WvW, sPvP and PvE are now.

So hopefully that helps you understand why many people may harbor hostility against those that just want to GvG.

The 20% mf we were given in no way compensated for the loss of magic find gear. Prior to the changes I had 170% base mf including those 2 rings the OP mentioned, all part of my mains mf farming set. Now, a week after the changes, salvaging every green and blue I collect I am not even at 50% yet. That 20% was a placebo, nothing more. Everyone got it, whether they had 200% worth of mf gear or 0%.

To be fair they did offer the changes in existing gear but that was the gear only. The runes and sigils in that gear became worthless and if like me your heavy armor wearers already had exotic gear, the gear itself became worthless, just a set of exotics with stats duplicating an existing set. Prior to the changes if I was in the open PvE world I would find a half dozen rares a day just from killing mobs in my path with over 200% buffed mf. Now with barely 75% buffed I am lucky to find one.

Like the OP I bought those 2 rings for my main as the mf balanced the loss of stats. If I was to do it again today, under the new rules, I would choose differently. That 20% they gave you does not even factor into the argument because as mentioned, everyone got it.

vincecontix.1264:

Hi HoD,
Shikamaru X here I was the IoJ commander thief running a muck in you Garrison today apparently several of you accused me of hacking I don’t know if I should be insulted or flattered but I was frapsing the whole thing. I will upload the video to clear up any misunderstanding

I noticed you did not do too much damage just a ton of cloak and dagger, the only time you did any real damage was on a crit. Oh the better half would like to know how bruised your ego is when you got taken down by an Asuran engie! She hopes that you filmed it up to that part and do not edit it out.

Or some quite often miss their underwater weapons. That is what happened to me!

Should not be a grind. As I mentioned in another thread the lack of a story behind these weapons makes it a grind. After thinking through the process I have come up with some rough ideas, maybe they could do the armor differently?

While out saving Tyria you find a scrap of paper on the corpse of some hapless enemy you managed to overcome. That small, almost illegible scrap of paper leads you to some forgotten corner of the realm where after exhaustive searching you uncover the hilt of an ancient broadsword. That is all you can find, the hilt, so you tuck it away in your pack and go about your adventures. (the rng part)

So now you have the hilt to an ascended or legendary weapon. Up to this point the hilt can be traded (if for example you do not want a broadsword) or sold. If you decide to keep the relic and show it to a certain master weaponsmith (this can easily be randomized so it is not for example the one at the forge in Divinity’s Reach) who recognizes the maker’s mark on the hilt. This directs you to another master weaponsmith who tells you that his great grandfather had made that mark. (all this is done in a personal instance such as that you went through with your personal story) After going through boxes of old records he finds notes on how the sword was made and what special properties it had imbued in it. After some convincing he agrees to walk you through the steps required to reforge the sword as the wielder of the weapon is the one that must do the actual forging.

Now he is needful of the materials but even though you may be an accomplished weaponsmith forging a blade such as this one requires you to learn the art anew. THAT way the requirements for iron, steel, darksteel, mithril and up ingots makes sense. As well you can do it in steps." Iron first, when you have accomplished all I can teach you using iron we can progress to steel."

Even though you may hate crafting, and many do, you are not actually crafting at this point. You do not need to be a level 500 weaponsmith and you can progress at your own pace. (one reason for making this a personal instance) Each one of the ingredients for each of the steps in the reforging of the weapon has it’s own lesson to be learned and there is a STORY behind why a specific component or reagent is needed. They are not just all collected and “poof” you have an Ascended weapon.

So even if the material requirements stay the same by putting a story in place that engages the person you remove some of that “grind” aspect from it.

As I stated at the beginning these were just some roughed out ideas to show how a proper story can remove the “grind” and replace it with something a bit more interesting. Each different weapon type can have it’s own story behind it, some lore and history and even if it took 5,000 iron bars I for one would find it much more believable.

Something as simple as a point modifier would fix most of the complaints. For example Stonemist gives a server 35 points per tick. (to keep it simple I will use a 10:1 multiplier)

Capture SM when you are outnumbered 10:1 you gain 350 points.
Capture SM when you outnumber the opponent 10:1 you get 3.5 points
Capture SM when you and your opponent are evenly matched you get the original 35 points.

Do the same while you are defending SM. With a modifier based on the current online population of a given server the score would be closer and not based solely on the size of the zerg that can be fielded. They already know the populations that are on each map at any given moment. If 10 defenders can fight off a 40 man zerg complete with 4 or 5 golems then those defenders should be rewarded accordingly. That 40 man zerg BETTER succeed or they just hand the defenders a pile of points.

Taking 40 people to a sparsely defended BL to zerg everything just before the next point tick is not what I would call sporting.