Guild Wars 2

TWMagimay.9057:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I thought it was 4500 Karma per jug? Just a minor correction.

Last I checked, karma booster, guild buff and banner affect jugs and drops bringing jugs to almost 8k per and drops to about 700. If they changed it, I missed the patch notes and can’t log in to check right now(might forget later). So, anyway…did they actually change that?

Not that I know of. I was curious about the number is all because last time I used a Jug to see the value it was 4500 Karma.

Of course, each Jug can be boosted . . . and you don’t count the Karma earned in the course of doing the Daily, nor the final reward from that chest you open. (Also, at level 80 it’s at least 5 silver. Sometimes close to 6 silver but I don’t yet know what triggers that.)

I’d start brainstorming ideas but there’s two catches:

1 – I’d rather save the effort for my D&D campaign.
2 – ArenaNet cannot use anything we post here.

Galen Grey.4709:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

nic.5720:

@ Galen Grey… I remember another poster on these forums describing you as a “silver tongued apologist” for ANet. I have to say that I agree with their assessment entirely.

However having read many of your posts recently, I am seriously beginning to wonder if your defence of ANet in almost everything they do, actually goes way beyond this.

Possibly into the realms of community relations/support liaison?

Is your choice of user name more than a simple coincidence or a passing compliment to a certain member of ANets’ staff?

Crap! Galen, they’re onto us. Quick, remember Plan B and hope they don’t sniff out the names this time!

Wait, wasnt Plan B to track every single user and use that memory eraser thingy Agent K gave us for this specific occation? what was it called? neuralearser something ? no wait that was Plan C right? or was it Plan K? man this is confusing!

No, Plan C was the Wintersday raffle they can’t win because it’s rigged, then we go laugh it off with thousands of Gold each.

And Plan K involved Skritt, a box of asuran failed experimental compound, and Havarti cheese.

TWMagimay.9057:

Tolmos.8395:

Sure, you can grind until your eyes bleed, since every decent karma farming method keeps getting nerfed… not that you have to worry about that, since no one is farming karma in Orr anymore but instead standing in Lions Arch yelling “LFG LFG LFG”.

I can’t express how happy I am that I got my armor while Plinx was still at 100%.

Or -gasp- you can also not. Let’s see…full karma armour is like~250k. You can get 40 jugs in 1 month just from achievements. At almost 8k karma per jug, that’s 320k karma. Look, there’s your karma exotic set. Now, if in that one month you also bothered with random stuff like dungeons, WvWvW, resource gathering(where you are bound to run into a few events), you also made a decent amount of gold, got some mats and extra karma. Oh, almost forgot, if you leveled by doing maps and not with crafting or wvwvw and didn’t accidentally delete all your gold, you’d probably have 5-10g saved up to buy a piece or 4 from the TP with it. But, yeah, you can go grind till your eyes bleed out. After all, games are not about having fun, but about getting everything and getting it right kittening now.

I thought it was 4500 Karma per jug? Just a minor correction.

cimon.5798:

has any of you whatsoever played a grindfest game at all. from the above statements i dont seem to think any one of you has. to call this game a grindfest where it literly takes a day to gear out a lvl 80 toon full exotics is like calling aa grilled cheese sandwich gourmet cooking. quit complaining about stupid stuff like this and get out there and fight in wvw so you can complain about that insted :P

Oooh, I’ve played grind before.

- EverQuest
- Ultima Online
- Minecraft
- UFO: Enemy Unknown
- Pool of Radiance
- Final Fantasy
- Dragon Quest
- Monster Hunter
- Master of Orion 2
- Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest
- Realm of the Mad God
- Pokemon
- Nethack (With a side of “RNG screws you hard to the wall and keeps tightening”, thank you very much)

Not all of these are bad games solely because there’s an element of grind involved. (In fact, if a couple of them are bad, it’s for other reasons.)

nic.5720:

@ Galen Grey… I remember another poster on these forums describing you as a “silver tongued apologist” for ANet. I have to say that I agree with their assessment entirely.

However having read many of your posts recently, I am seriously beginning to wonder if your defence of ANet in almost everything they do, actually goes way beyond this.

Possibly into the realms of community relations/support liaison?

Is your choice of user name more than a simple coincidence or a passing compliment to a certain member of ANets’ staff?

Crap! Galen, they’re onto us. Quick, remember Plan B and hope they don’t sniff out the names this time!

. . . Now onto seriousness.

There’s nothing in the cash shop, that is Black Lion, currently which is absolutely necessary.

The extra Character Slot, Bank Slot, and Bag Slot area pretty much just gravy. Bag Slots are unnecessary unless you really fill up that fast. (Given recent complaints about drop rates, I find it really strange anyone would claim they needed more inventory space.) Bank Slots are almost unnecessary, unless you’re doing Cooking. In which case, you will probably need most of that space. A Character Slot is unnecessary unless five isn’t enough for you to get what you want.

The only real useful function of Gems currently is to turn them into Gold. Which is a fluctuating target and if enough people started doing it, it wouldn’t be profitable for the people doing exchanges anymore.

Currently you don’t outright require buying stuff off the Trading Post to be effective in 90% of the game. It may change in the future, it may not. But as of today . . . and as is highly likely for the near future . . . it’s not essential.

To reiterate: There is nothing on the Black Lion Gem Store which is vital to completing the game.

Erasculio.2914:

As much as I don’t agree with the poster you were quoting, your summary of the conference call doesn’t explain why NCSoft’s stock options fell so quickly after the call. What were the bad news that made so many investors take their money and run for greener pastures?

. . . maybe there was no bad news? Maybe it was fickle traders trying to get enough money to get something bigger?

Or maybe a bunch of investors read the forums, saw the whining and said “oh screw this” and dumped their shares?

No, I mean . . . if NCsoft decided to shut down ArenaNet, do you think GuildWars 2 would actually continue? Talk about “pay2win” and other things, but . . .

This idea doesn’t help any of us GuildWars 2 players fans or not.

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

alcopaul.2156:

Krosslite.1950:

You folks need to read. They clearly state it is to help thier game developer, which Anet is. This although unfortunate for NCsoft employees does not affect Anet’s employees since they are a subsidiary not NCsoft

subsidiary wholly owned by NCSoft.

And?

They are a game developer.

if you’re wholly owned by NCSoft, NCSoft can shut you down at will.

This benefits us . . . how, exactly?

I mean, there’s nothing here that really is of any positive potential outcome if NCSoft decides to shut down ArenaNet.

rgrwng.4072:

If Trahearne is the apparent know-it-all on all things Orr and Undead, wouldn’t he have a plan already to end the war against the dragons? oh, because he needed the plant sword with every professions’ skills imbued into it? c’mon, now. maybe it’s just coincidence, but how come Trahearne doesn’t get Risen-pulled? all the missions in Orr, they never really attacked him much when i was rollin’ through Orr. he did not need us to accompany him into the dream to get the sword at the end…

if he is the “know-it-all”, and he shows up to the enemy’s doorstep to get rid of them, wouldn’t they be gunning for him first? or the undead should have gone Terminator-style and infiltrated the Pact ranks to attempt a murder. The only thing that came close to it was the Vigil one with the mesmer mole.

still hoping for a marauder shields like expansion/rewrite.

but if he became a leading commander (with apparent experience) to take back Elona from Palawa Joko, and my ele as second in command, i can see that happening.

Let’s see . . .

“Why didn’t he have this all charted out?” – because he spent his time studying it but it was all reactive and not proactive. It wasn’t until he went to see the Pale Tree that he pretty much was shown: “You can do this, you just have to focus and try.”

As for why he’s not the primary target? He’s not the weakest link in the Pact – the weakest links in the Pact were the supply lines, the fact that any fallen allies can become Risen enemies, and the fact the three orders don’t get along that well. So it’s much easier to prey on THAT than on Trahearne directly.

And the Awakened of Elona are not the Risen of Zhaitan, they’re a completely different animal, trust me on that . . .

Velocity.4950:

well please explain to me why a gold bar cost less than a gold?

In a slightly obvious note – It’s not the gold itself, it’s the coin’s minting that makes it have a specific value. Currency has become the middle step of bartering for goods and services, since it allows two people to approach from an agreed-upon standard. Also, just because someone holds up a yellowish metal and says “this is gold” doesn’t mean it’s gold. I could hold up some pretty glass chips and call them gems, but you should probably (definitely) not take my word on it.

The subject of minted currency is a fascinating topic, and you should read up on it in your own time.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

He’s the Prince Rurik, Master Togo and Kormir of GW2.

I dunno about that.

- Prince Rurik died early on so we didn’t have to listen to him through the entire campaign. And we got to kill his undead form. It was a great day for Chosen everywhere.

- Master Togo worked behind the scenes while you were on the ground getting things done. Given how utterly intractable the dispute was between the Luxon and the Kurzick sides? He was necessary as a figure both sides respected. Also, he straight-up sacrificed himself at the end so we could deliver unto Shiro the mother of all beat-downs. It was so bad he wasn’t nearly as threatening when he popped up serving Abaddon.

- Kormir spent the first part of the campaign gathering an army only to have them routed when she underestimated how powerful her enemy was. She had her eyes removed, and thus there was a reason she didn’t do much other than talk – she could not see. When it came to the finale, it seemed thematic that since she was already “tainted” that she couldn’t proceed. Plus, if any of you seriously thought you were going to have your character ascend into becoming the Sixth God/dess . . . I have some lovely marshland to sell you in Kryta.

Trahearne wasn’t as grating to me. The voice actor could have done better, probably, but really this guy is having to deal with the prima donna attitudes of the three Order leaders and keep visible to make sure any one of the three Orders isn’t taking too much credit. I have absolutely no interest in playing politics trying to satisfy that balance, so he’s welcome to it while I go do the business that needs doing.

Logan needs a brick to the face. A few times. Mostly to remind him that he should either admit to his Queen what he feels or let it go. He needs a few more on the topic of Rytlock but that’s mutual between the two. That charr needs more boulders to the face than King Adelbern does.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

ArenaNet doesn’t have a lot of credibility. Going by this logic, exotic were supposed to be best in slot and they went ahead and threw that down the toilet.

I’m not inclined to believe anything they say unless it’s actually honest (i.e., “We’re putting in more grind! We’re nerfing all the drops! Buy more gems.”).

Okay, I’m trying to get my head around this. ArenaNet doesn’t have a lot of credibility, so whatever they say must be carefully examined . . . unless it’s exactly what you want to hear. In which case it must be true.

SHM.7628:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

SHM.7628:

Odd though that you respect my opinion and call me a troll at the same time.

Well there is a difference between respecting your opinion and liking it. I totally respect your opinion and you have the right to it. In certain parts of the world, you completely have the privilege to shout that opinion until your voice gives out.

However, I don’t think you should be surprised that someone calls you out over it. You deleted your characters, uninstalled your game, and if this had ended with “and then I moved on” . . . nobody’d be caring. However, if you consistently keep showing up in a place where you admittedly have no interest in improving anything just to say how bad it is?

Why would you be surprised someone called you a troll? Even if what you are instead is just a protester?

SHM.7628:

I’ve come to the conclusion that the game is pointless.

Also, every video game is (in essence) pointless. They’re meant to entertain, for the most part, and from a purely objective standpoint . . . mere entertainment is pointless, worthless, and not worthy of time spent. You gain nothing tangible through entertainment, except you will lose precious time.

It’s pointless because its not fun. To me trolling means being abusive. I was not.

Things change because people dissent. Bad press makes a company more likely to change. Why do you think jugs of liquid karma were added?

I am a displeased customer. (there are many) I have a few options here that I excersised. I stopped playing, which empties the servers and prompts chnges. I am giving my feedback here and to anyone who asks my opinion. (word of mouth) I also have the power of the wallet. no cash shop support. plus no more anet purchases until I feel satisfied. In the end the bottom line is all that matters anyway.

Don’t like it? too bad for you. This is the American way.

The American way is not the ONLY way, mind you. Nor is it necessarily the best way.

My last words on this topic to you are: why don’t you just be mature about it, chalk up the loss of time and/or money, and move on? Putting this much effort into something you don’t care about isn’t healthy.

I have no trouble with Trahearne. He has the Pact to manage and all that ego of the three Orders to juggle. I don’t envy him that.

However, I would scrape together gems for a chance at taking out every single member of Destiny’s Edge even if it’s just a sparring match.

SHM.7628:

Odd though that you respect my opinion and call me a troll at the same time.

Well there is a difference between respecting your opinion and liking it. I totally respect your opinion and you have the right to it. In certain parts of the world, you completely have the privilege to shout that opinion until your voice gives out.

However, I don’t think you should be surprised that someone calls you out over it. You deleted your characters, uninstalled your game, and if this had ended with “and then I moved on” . . . nobody’d be caring. However, if you consistently keep showing up in a place where you admittedly have no interest in improving anything just to say how bad it is?

Why would you be surprised someone called you a troll? Even if what you are instead is just a protester?

SHM.7628:

I’ve come to the conclusion that the game is pointless.

Also, every video game is (in essence) pointless. They’re meant to entertain, for the most part, and from a purely objective standpoint . . . mere entertainment is pointless, worthless, and not worthy of time spent. You gain nothing tangible through entertainment, except you will lose precious time.

Primal.9513:

Don’t worry, that’s only ONE piece, there are 10+ more to come!

But it’s fine, since they will probably be available in WvW and for Karma.

My wild guess would be 1500 Honor tokens and 750k karma each.

Mmmm, realistically I’d say 480k Karma, and available from the end of a DE chain which is 3 long and requires a concentrated effort to pass.

Either that, or seeding in a dozen or so DEs which drop special tokens, and a new Token NPC somewhere who will exchange them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Modus Sceleris turned out to be where that gets chosen, given what I’ve found them being up to in places.

FLFW.3105:

First of all this is not any sort of QQ just my insight and since im still can call myself new to this game i may be missing something vital .

Recently i created a human mesmer to join my ‘squad’ .Thou im having a struggle to reach level 15. By the time i have complete 98% of map, did all events numerous times and still im just after lvl 13.

I’ve already have cleared Norn,Charr and Sylvani starting areas with my other toons and on none of them i had so much trouble into reaching atleast lvl 14 to move on to next region.

Ofcourse obvious soluton would be go to other race starting area to fill the gaps but since i have done them all except Asura, i dont want to do same stuff in game which has so much variety and also dont want to spoil Asura content because i have creating one in plans also.

It just my insight or point of view, maybe someone had same struggle and can suggest me way out?

Cheers,

Well, there’s a fair amount of content but you’re right . . . compared to Metrica Province or Wayfarer Foothills, there’s not a lot in Queensdale. Possibly because there’s a number of nested event chains going on around Shaemoor. The pumping station has 4-6 events related to it . . . not all of which “fire” at once. In the east the centaur attacks provide numerous events but they’re again not always likely to be seen.

The “Bad Neighborhood” area you can get into (just underneath the graveyard’s cliff) is a very dense area and prone to many wipes without a big group of people going for it. (At least 3 people are needed to handle the sheer amount of targets which are in there.) Therefore, a lot of people skip it . . . many don’t know it exists.

If I had to rank, I’d say Queensdale is probably the starting area which is easiest to “ease into” the game. The enemy mixture isn’t too rough, the events aren’t difficult to pass, and everything is fairly transparent. Few surprises . . . also, the World Event boss (Shadow Behemoth) is fairly simple despite being one of the more impressive-looking ones.

Snores.7806:

So who paid for your in game gold so you could convert it to gems ?

This is a real question? This is meant to be taken seriously?

I bought two bank expansions with gold I earned from doing events and exploration. I did not pay a third party for them, nor did I play the market, NOR did I have to do an immense amount of grinding. I have enough Gems for another character slot if I need it, but given Wintersday is around the corner I might just use them then.

In short? I worked for my gold to transform them into gems. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Gianna.2013:

Your example makes changing exotics to ascended really cheap and easy. I like it! Purchase large quantities of pears and lemons from their respective Karma vendors and profit!

Ahh, that only works if you were quick and early enough to already have been stockpiling

I’ve been out sick, mostly. And busy preparing for a family trip out of town. And trying to do some other things which are even less important.

I’ll drop back in when I’m good and ready and have time to devote to actually doing things. Until then, Tyria’s not going anywhere.

PaWryce.9702:

got another question on same topic. How often do you guys more then jug, casg and mystic coin? I havent gotten anything for 3 weeks now.

I generally get items when I’m doing them not on my level 80, which is odd to say the least. Last time it was 1 Basic Transmutation Stone, and before that it was a Black Lion Salvage Kit. The latest one was last weekend, before that roughly about that same window.

Edit: Has anyone tracked how often they get “extra items” if you do the daily consistently? Because for a while when I was logging in every day and getting it done I was getting a fairly consistent flow of “extra items”.

Daddicus.6128:

For a while I didn’t pay much attention to the cash reward I was getting for finishing my dailies. A few days ago, however, I accidentally got the reward on my level 62 character. Normally, I would always switch to my level 80 because the reward was a full 5 silver each time.

However, when I took it on my 62, it was 4s 75c. I thought this was awfully close to 5s, so I would just take the reward with my 62 (62, now 68) so I didn’t have to swap characters. BUT, the next day I got 5s 35c, and the day after that 5s 41c (he was 65 by then). The key is that both numbers were higher than the consistent 5s I was getting on my 80.

I ALWAYS get 5s on my 80. (Including yesterday.) I have never received more than 5s.

So, I have two questions:

Has anybody else noticed a 100% consistent 5s for dailies on a level 80?

and

Has anybody else received more than 5 silver?

Thanks!

I have received up to 5s 60c sometimes on my level 80 Ranger. Any OTHER character who is not at 80 receives significantly less.

This isn’t about whether you’re overreacting about Ascended gear. Fine, you’re entitled.

This isn’t about the fact you paid for the game and played it for some time before getting a full refund. I don’t like that but it’s not my business to say whether or not you do.

This is about the fact ANet authorized a refund, but Paypal being the ones to refuse to issue it. ArenaNet did their part . . . this is in Paypal’s lap.

Car.3805:

Mirta.5029:

If you will concentrate on just getting money you’ll have no fun.

When you’ve pretty much done everything in the game and all that’s left is the shiny legendary skins, it’s hard not to focus on getting money.

You misunderstood, I think. Making money isn’t the issue, it’s devoting everything to doing it at the expense of fun times. In other words, find a way to make money while having fun rather than sacrificing your fun to make a little more money a little quicker.

. . . and yes, I’m aware it’s almost a cliched way of saying it.

Fortuna.7259:

Where does one guy put 1 million chocolate bars? Besides which, market prediction is not market manipulation. Given the amount of chocolate bars I’ve looted recently (zero) and their usefulness in high-level food, a hundred thousand players could buy up a million chocolate bars pretty quickly.

GW2 markets are crazy because drop rates and uses are changed so much.

Funny you should mention that, because there is a fine line between “manipulation” and “prediction”. One is creating the trend and another is simply predicting it . . . both take advantage of the fickleness of MMO markets mind you, but one is a lot more active than the other.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Asumita.2174:

ahh, jogging my memories.

I rather have a chunk of Takeshi’s castle though

I’d go for that…. only if my death/failure is shown in a comical fashion with Japanese commentators getting really into it.

I suppose it could be worse. We could be fighting for a piece of a silver monkey.

. . . the Aggro Crag? Seriously? They named it the Aggro Crag. I’m having flashbacks to the 90s all over again.

skulldrip.1374:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Not really fishy, exactly. There’s not a lot of need for chocolate unless you’re baking stuff, and the input to the Trading Post is probably equivalent or near equivalent of the drop rate. Hence, the amount stays stable.

So how did supply drop nearly a million over a week or two period? Explain that. You basically contradict yourself by stating its not used but that the drop rate keeps the supply stable. So its not used BUT very quickly 1million bars vanished and then all of sudden it became one of the most stable markets (the drop nerf was about a month before this happened as well, just fyi). try again?

No, don’t think I will take a more serious stab at this, it’s not worth my time. But I will drop these links here:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Omnomberry_Ghost
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strawberry_Ghost
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glazed_Chocolate_Raspberry_Cookie

Three places people could have channeled it just over the Mad King’s Shadow event period.

And if you start following recipes from the item itself:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chocolate_Bar

They’re used in several recipes for very nice high-level food. Not to mention if you can pretty much keep boons on yourself you can make some cheaper magic find recipes.

Can I absolutely account for the drop in supply? No. But there are better theories than “oh my God someone is doing something naughty!” . . . such as this one, which I don’t even have to stress to come up with.

People bought the supply when a lot were available to speculate later. It’s been touted as a great way to make money, to speculate with materials. However you can miss an awful lot more than you hit. The flood of supply was possibly a bunch of hoarders who had kept it on hand (like the butter from before) and decided they didn’t want it anymore.

There does not have to be a sinister reason for everything that happens.

drifter.8453:

still does not explain, being an 80 with all 80 gear, downscaled to, say….a level 10 zone, that the 80 seems a little squishier vs a level 10 character that is in the zone. It just does seem a little off.

I’m a ranger, the supposed quintessential underpowered class.

I don’t go down as often as a level 10 character when back-tracking through Queensdale

skulldrip.1374:

Zid.4196:

1,000,000 supply ain’t that much. There are still hundreds of thousand very active players in the game.

the point is that it went from 1 mil to 12,000 supply in the course of about a week and ever since then has stayed right at a consistent 10-12k supply. Kind of fishy right?

Not really fishy, exactly. There’s not a lot of need for chocolate unless you’re baking stuff, and the input to the Trading Post is probably equivalent or near equivalent of the drop rate. Hence, the amount stays stable.

@OP:

In order:

- The bots were bad for the game. Period. You might argue they were pumping materials into the world, but only at the prices they would be able to set since they’d hold a majority supply through their repetitive work just to grab loot. Diminishing Returns was put in to try to nip the bots where they care . . . the Gold income. It hit a lot of actual players who were content to farm but I’m going to guess it was seen as “collateral damage” and the hope was the players would choose to spread out rather than grind through that DR until it was pointless.

- Plinx got hit for much the same reason. Bots no longer farming loot, but now running the event chain. And a lot of players simply sitting in the same spot doing the same chain over and over because it was the fastest and most profitable way. Again, ANet wants players to spread out and move on rather than pick a spot and farm. They raised the timer so it takes longer to recycle (is what I recall reading that they did) and thus it was no longer always up for Gold/Karma Event Zerging. Again, unfortunate that the players didn’t respond as perhaps hoped and just moved to the next target of high-return, low-effort.

- Orichalcum and Ancient Wood dropped probably because you can get some in Southsun Cove. There are 2 Ancient Wood nodes, 2 Orichalcum nodes, and 1 Rich Orichalcum Vein. This translates to . . . A LOT MORE . . . entering the market per node cycle. It’s dropped because the supply increased.

I don’t think there is a definitive magic bullet to earning Gold, though if your server is on an offensive roll in WvW then you can tag through capture or defense events and earn approximately 2 silver per until you hit Diminishing Returns. This assumes you aren’t repeatedly throwing yourself into the fray and dying.

I primarily make my money simply killing everything and selling anything to the vendor which is not more useful being Salvaged. This, along with one dungeon run per day, for the last week, has net me almost 8 Gold. And total playtime per day is roughly 3 hours devoted to just laying waste to an area and sorting through the loot.

Raine.1394:

Not saying that there aren’t people playing the TP aspect of the game, but there is only one significant controller of the economy and that would be Anet. And the primary mechanism for control is the drop rate.

. . . and simply adjusting the drop rate can play havoc with other interlocked wheels on loot tables. Witness what happened when they added butter and chocolate to loot bags of certain types, and how the Fine Material drop rate from them took a hit due to the increase in number of different items on the table.

Lots of people are playing the Trading Post for profit, or trying to – they are hoping to speculate on the next big score to fill their wallets. When butter was selling ungodly cheap, there were a few posts on Reddit showing bank vaults full of the stuff simply in order to stock for when the price swung around.

There are two sure ways to drop prices, one is to increase supply to meet demand (though there is a risk in doing this, as there are often unintended consequences) . . . or to simply boycott the high sales. NOBODY buy it and the price will fall so they can actually sell them at a more reasonable price.

The trick with the second one is to get it to stick.

Hey folks, a few details?

Your gear downscales with you in proportion to your level. If you’re level 60 and you have a weapon which is 55 then it’ll be fine within a zone whose range is closer to your real level. But if you go to a spot where you are scaled down to level 10? Your gear will be effectively level 9. Not a big deal?

What if your gear isn’t as up to date? Or what if you’re not 60 but 80 and have gear which isn’t up to date?

That was a problem I was informed about midway through September as I asked /map what was the deal and someone was kind enough to tell me I should look into gear closer to my level.

Kojiden.8405:

The halloween was pretty much a human event. This one is asura. I hope we get an event with Charr as the focal point.

Don’t you have Meatoberfest? I got a mug and everything.

OnlyFate.8549:

Actually I really want to know what is the purpose for forcing players to do things again and again.

So you can earn multiple “Gifts of Exploration” which are used for forging Legendary weapons. Since you only receive two when you 100% the first time, that would mean two Legendary weapons only for an account. Allowing you to do it per character means you can technically do it infinitely if you have the stomach for it.

. . . no. No I don’t, before you even ask the question. I’m hard pressed to find one Legendary I especially want.

OnlyFate.8549:

@Tobias Trueflight
I agree that Jugs of Karma is used to reduce the amount of grind. However the main question I want to bring out about the current situation of GW2 is “Is that necessary to require so much work/time for a piece/set of gear?” As you mentioned, even for someone who can finish their daily achievements EVERY DAY, they need approximately 2 Months for a set of Karma armor. If you need to keep doing the same thing for 2 months just for a set of gear (with not that impressive look and not better statistics compare to other exotic), I believe this is very grindy.

The thing is, I was just illustrating some points, not arguing for/against grind. However now I’m going to have to drop my opinion:

1 – Daily Achievements don’t have to be a grind.

Just about every area (except Orr) has the 15 diverse enemy types, and you can rack up the rest of the tracks easily enough. It takes less than an hour, typically, to pick up the whole Daily Achievement when you’re actively trying. The only time it doesn’t is if you’re missing events, and that can happen.

And with the whole of the world to wander through, you can vary where you go for your Daily earning. Queensdale and Gendarran Fields are used by a lot of people but it’s also easy to do Wayfarer Foothills or Plains of Ascalon. Metrica Province can actually be a bit fun to do. Just . . . say no to Thaumanova.

Put mildly? Doing Daily Achievements for your Karma needs can be varied enough to not be a joyless grind. Also, if you do go to Cursed Shore and do event chains (in addition) you will speed it up quite a bit.

(Notably, you can also speed it up VERY MUCH by doing dungeons’ explorable modes.)

2 – Don’t hate me for saying this. You don’t need the Karma armors. You don’t even really require Exotics. Masterwork and Rare can do fine for most common running around. You also don’t need the dungeon armors. Merely kitting yourself out in Rare armor should suffice, and the Exotics can be pushed back to “as I have the effort”.

(Re: dungeon armors? Approximately 1200 Ascalonian Tears for the full Dungeon set, which at 180/day is 7 days. One week of running all three paths every day.)

I said before, the two month “grind” you mentioned is still better than the optional grind for Obsidian Armor in GW1. For as much as people like to talk about that grind for Karma goods, it sure is strange to have it be less time consuming. (Either that or they were extraordinarily rich/lucky.)

Edit: Before you start about Ascended gear, I’m not going to talk about that stuff. You don’t need it, and I’m not going to begin arguing it’s not a grind. It very much can be one.

Deus Fatorum.2473:

any damage falling, combat, whatever

. . . now to find some person in WvW willing to hit me with siege weapons directly and see how that stacks up.

Deus Fatorum.2473:

Just for fun I will start a challenge… Who can take the most damage?

Rules:

-You can die(and will probably need too)
-You have to get a screenshot showing the damage you have taken.
-The game you take the damage in must be GW2
-The person with the highest damage taken will earn the honorary achievement “Master of Death”
-No Photoshop(be legit)

I will wait to post my screen as it is ridiculously high amount of damage and I want to see what others get before posting it.

Have fun… dying =P

Does falling damage count for this or must it be from a single enemy attack?

hugemistake.5317:

I’m playing the game in french but i can say the same. The voice actors aren’t good, the dialogues are awful, the cut-scenes ugly and everything looks like it has been written for 12 years old. The “story” is a major letdown for me in this game. All the characters/races are huge clichés. All the norns are heroics are looking for glory, the humans are brave and faithful, the charrs are warmongers etc… There isn’t one interesting thing about the story.

Also it doesn’t feel at all like it’s about ME, more like it’s about Trahearne. The choices you are given are meaningless.

I think the story felt like it was driven by my actions . . . through the first two chapters of each character’s personal story. “The Fall of Falcon Company”, actually, felt a lot like it was my character driving the matters and digging up the past. “Unexpected Visitors” from my norn’s storyline was a downright entertaining set of events I enjoyed a lot. And I’m NEVER going to call the Order of Whispers storyline dull or bad because . . . Tybalt.

(Also, Tybalt is alive and well and retired somewhere with the best barbecued beef and strongest whiskey that exist on Tyria. On a beach with a nice view and no darned karka or risen to disturb him.)

After that it felt like they wanted there to be a single story for all the characters to get pulled into, and the last two chapters I really felt more like events were not being driven by my presence . . . the character was reacting to events as they unfolded. This may have worked for a single-player RPG, but this did not live up to the impact of the earlier personal story chapters.

On the topic of other parts of the world, I blame the disconnect on characters being left to stand idle rather than being animated. Even a triggered /laugh emote or such would liven them up and help me connect better.

Bregah.7365:

Having played quite a few MMOs (but no “Asian grindfests” – but games like WoW for years, tried Rift, ToR, WAR, Vanguard, EQ2, and also FFXI – which is the next closest to GW2), I think GW2 is the grindiest MMO I’ve played, if you disregard the PvP gear grinds in WoW and ToR (at least at release – I don’t know what it’s like now).

EverQuest was the absolute grindiest MMO I ever played, in many aspects. Gear. Progression. Leveling. Crafting.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t get close enough on all those points, but “Crafting” can be pretty close. The Fine materials hunt is where it bogs down. Also “Hardened Leather” seems to be scarce but I’m probably not hunting the right spots.

I put PvP gear grinds as a separate category because they are REQUIRED grinds to be competitive, and I have never heard anyone say they are “fun”.

Thank goodness GW2 sPvP doesn’t require that. Hopefully ever.

A big part of GW2 appearing to be such a huge grind is that everything “else” to do, apart from heart quests and dynamic events – basically anything that leads to an item – requires massive amounts of X, Y and Z item, and there simply aren’t the events to acquire the items needed in “regular play”. And by regular play – I mean just going around and doing whatever and getting the drops naturally.

I haven’t encountered that problem except in the last two tiers of crafting, or presumably going after Ascended/Legendary. (I haven’t started that yet. I’m waiting to figure out which one I really want before making a checklist for what I need.)

Take a set of karma armor – 250k karma. If you do every event in the game once – is that even enough karma? Disregarding that so many events are still bugged, and in lower level zones you get such a small amount compared to Orr, and is it any wonder people farmed the Plinx chain?

This is why the Jugs of Karma were put into the game, and you can get one per day through Daily Achievements and a lot via Monthly Achievements. 4500 Karma per day in addition to what is earned doing the 5 Events for the Daily is nothing to sneeze at. This, plus the inclusion of “Drop of Liquid Karma” into dungeons from the Champion/Legendary bosses also helps that out.

A full set of Rubicon Armor from the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance is 252,000 Karma, or 56 Jugs of Liquid Karma. It will take approximately 2 months to accumulate it all, but once you have that much there is no chance of NOT getting it so long as the event chain is completed. Once you have the Karma it is only a matter of time. (Except, of course, if we’re talking Armageddon Armor in which case, it could possibly be more difficult. Due to the related Cathedral being . . . often contested.)

So it is becoming easier, a little. It’s definitely easier than it was in Guild Wars 1 to earn Obsidian Armor. Note that there are other Exotic armors you can get, just not with the exact set of statistics or the skin you are after.

Or crafting – (snip ) . . . Of course I’ll have the money to buy them off the TP, but if I didn’t, my only option would be to grind.

Fine Materials are the bottleneck I’ve always run into when mass-producing Inscriptions to craft with. Tier 2, however, can be hunted down with some effort in a few places. Tier 5 is more difficult but if you’re hunting the late-game areas it can be easier to get your hands on them. Tier 6 is where it becomes truly difficult to get a sizable amount. Hopefully, this will be remedied somehow.

For Exotic creation, Globs of Ectoplasm are always a bottleneck, as each Exotic is going to require 5 Globs of Ectoplasm – equating to 30 Globs of Ectoplasm for each set. Rares can give 0-4 Globs, Exotics seem to generate more but I haven’t gotten a big enough sample size. 30 is not a terribly unreachable number, though.

But when you see the mats cost for many things (250 x, 250 y, 250 z, 250 a, 250 c), it just screams grind.

Not gonna lie, that was a little perplexing that the Ascended item recipes were created with that level of required goods. I’m hopeful it gets knocked downwards later. For Legendaries, I’m almost positive it was intentional to try to keep them as a “final goal” for characters to achieve. Supported by each requiring a Gift of Exploration from 100% map completion.

drifter.8453:

You start tipping people then everybody and their families will start chareging people for dumb things. Look what happened in GW1. People where constantly charging players to help them get from point A to point B.

For those not familiar. We had waypoints in GW1, and a lot where very far from one another. Each Waypoint in GW1 where quest hubs. We had to get to the next waypoint, just to continue questing. If you did not get the next waypoint you ran out of quests.

That’s only half of it. See, the popular thing were “Runs” where experienced players would load up a few people into a group already calibrated to make all tasks trivial. The best known of these were “Droknar Runs” . . . often starting from Lion’s Arch in the late years since it would catch people coming from other campaigns. The reason for this was that Droknar’s Forge offered the highest armor first for every character in Prophecies and also was the starting point for the Southern Shiverpeak missions. The fees varied wildly, but a professional runner could get you through the three surprisingly long-and-difficult areas of the Southern Shiverpeaks with little fuss.

Other “Runs” existed, such as those offering to do the Underworld for Black Widow Spiders (only available there after finishing certain quests and in limited numbers), Dungeon Runs in Eye of the North (where some would ask payment for the service), and so on. Such things also snuck in with Nightfall – the maximum armor was available just outside Kamadan (the starting major city) but you had to have a certain quest ready in order to pass through. People advertised “ferries” which were just taking people through to buy their armor.

Note a lot of this came into being because armor and weapons in GW1 did not have level requirements; weapons had “required attributes” but no level requirements. Likewise, there were no checks on whether you should be in an area – once you reached a town/city you could travel there at any time . . . including combat.

On topic -

I would suppose tipping is all right, so long as it doesn’t end up where it’s an expected courtesy. A kind gesture is one thing . . . an expected payment is another

Toymaker Tixx,

Yahey there! I have no doubt you are aware I have been spectacularly good this year. Four hunts have been successful, leading to a diminished presence of jotun, dredge, and wurms in the Wayfarer Foothills. If you haven’t seen it, then by Bear I will have to get a drink for you and show the trophies I have hung in my homestead. Just let me know how weak to make the ale so you don’t pass out like that poor human visitor I had the last moon.

As for what you can get me for this “Wintersday”, I require very little personally. A norn does not beg for gifts, they either take what they need from the bodies of their enemies or they make it themselves in the fires of the forge! Or the stills behind their homesteads. That said, some of my companions this year could use some help and they are not norn so I feel no shame in making requests on their behalf.

For my drinking companion Mangonel Gearstrip, I ask you find a cask of Deeprunner’s Brown Ale, though that may be difficult even for you. I suppose Olaf’s Black Stout will do in a pinch but be sure you find the ninteenth batch and not the twentieth. Olaf meant well to change up his recipe but the result? It could fell a dolyak at fifty paces just from the stench, and I swear if we need to poison Jormag it would do the job all on its own.

(Don’t tell Olaf I said that. I don’t need him trying to break my arm again, as he needs both hands to make the twenty-third batch for next year’s Great Hunt.)

For Captain Loran Blackfrost, I want you to see about making sure his Haven’s gate gets repaired. I’m tired of having to play gate guardian when I swing by just to see about tracking some of those Svanir dogs. I know people call my profession “guardian” but that doesn’t excuse this abuse of my good will. If you can’t bring him help for the gate, then bring him a pair of crutches for after the next time he insists I need to stay and push back grawl. Grawl are no worthy foe of mine!

I see this letter is getting long, so I’ll finish it up. Khylin Blueleaf, my sylvari friend, keeps trying to understand everything so if you could get him some books to read. Though not that stuff written by that braggart Koss, he seems to think we norn care about his tales. If he was so great a warrior, why did we never hear of him before this? Anything written by Kimmes the Historian or Symon the Scribe would be satisfactory.

Oh, and remember . . . if you break anything in my homestead again this year, I’m breaking your golems. Fair is fair.

May you succeed at all you attempt,
Eidra Frekkesdottir

Mkalafut.1273:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Surbrus.6942:

Khados.8147:

I look at mounts from a monetization standpoint as another easy way to keep money rolling in for development. I find it mind-boggling that a cash shop game would launch without mount skins, housing items, and combat-wearable wardrobe clothes. Add ’em all. Seems like a gold mine to me, and a fair way to monetize without pay2win.

The thing is, the person at the head of the GW2 cash shop doesn’t understand that the consumer base for GW2 is different than the consumer base for Maple Story. Just because excessive gambling worked for one set of consumers, doesn’t mean that it is going to work for all consumers.

Short answer is that the cash shop isn’t working as it should, is due to incompetence.

Or the short answer is what’s been repeated several times across many many different parts of the forums:

“We’re not adding mounts. Period.”

It’s been almost the second most consistent thing they’ve said so far.

True. But he is right about the Maplestory garbage. That’s what we get for them putting her in charge of GW2 cash shop. Like cool stuff? Like having festive items for holidays? Buy keys and hope you get lucky! And if not, hey! You can always buy more keys!

rolls eyes

I can’t get into that, I lack the proper frame of reference . . . I also don’t want to get into that because the bottom line is still:

“We’re not putting in mounts.”

. . . until it happens. At which point I hope for a gold chocobo moa.

Surbrus.6942:

Khados.8147:

I look at mounts from a monetization standpoint as another easy way to keep money rolling in for development. I find it mind-boggling that a cash shop game would launch without mount skins, housing items, and combat-wearable wardrobe clothes. Add ’em all. Seems like a gold mine to me, and a fair way to monetize without pay2win.

The thing is, the person at the head of the GW2 cash shop doesn’t understand that the consumer base for GW2 is different than the consumer base for Maple Story. Just because excessive gambling worked for one set of consumers, doesn’t mean that it is going to work for all consumers.

Short answer is that the cash shop isn’t working as it should, is due to incompetence.

Or the short answer is what’s been repeated several times across many many different parts of the forums:

“We’re not adding mounts. Period.”

It’s been almost the second most consistent thing they’ve said so far.

Shadowlancer.7102:

@ Tobias Trueflight.8350

You and the others on this thread is saying my information is false, where I am saying it is true.

I am still gathering information about the “Golem Airship event raining presents”. I am assuming, from my current intel, its an animation effect that will cause the Major Lag on that day, however fully knowing that Arenanet is watching this thread very closely and watching my every move.

One could say they might remove that animation to prevent the said Lag that I have predicted, or ignore me all together and include it anyways.

However since its not on my list, that I posted, I will still need 3-4 days to finish gathering my information before, deciding what to do with it.

Its been such a pleasure watching you all go after me. However, when I am right, I am right. Good Night.

I’m not going to BOTHER going after you because, well, you claimed your information is incomplete or that it could be changed later. Which is a great safety net for you to make any claim and when it turns out differently or slightly differently . . . “well they must have changed it”. So you’re not wrong, you were right when you made the prediction.

This is also a common problem because it illustrates one problem with “infallible predictions” which can be changed once you know about it. I drop a glass mug towards the floor and someone catches it. Naturally, my prediction the mug was going to shatter is right because of outside inference of how a glass object reacts when dropped from a height, but there is still room for me to be wrong. The glass might not shatter, but only chip or crack without breaking apart.

But if someone catches it, the glass did not shatter and my prediction for that experiment is no longer any good due to outside influence. The fact that, all things being predictable and without interference, the glass would shatter on the floor does not mean there is a guarantee it will happen. Outside influence is always an unknown factor.

Also, and this might be a bit of a stretch but I’ll throw it in anyway: as soon as you predict the future and say something there is an likely chance the event you predicted will be avoided. If I warn someone that I saw them get into a car accident twelve hours from now . . . it’s perfectly possible they won’t get into it if my information is detailed enough to prevent it from happening due to other precautions.

Anyway, my point in the post still stands. I am not saying, definitively, your information is false and your predictions won’t happen. A broken clock is right twice a day, at the least. I am saying the burden of proof is on you and if you refuse to give any then you can’t be surprised nobody is going to believe you.

Shadowlancer.7102:

@ Tobias Trueflight.8350

I was never wrong about the Halloween event leakage I provided 2-3 weeks early on my previous server, nor was I wrong providing yet again leakage about the Lost Shores event.

However, I dont have to prove anything since I know I am right, what you need to prove along with others that are trying to prove me wrong, is the list I provided.

Which cannot be proved until more information comes out. However I think on my new server, I shall share some secret info with some people about Gem Shop prices and what to expect inside the Toy dungeon.

No, my friend, the burden of proof is on you. Not us. If you are going to make claims you have to back them up with evidence. (Why is it so hard for people to grasp the correct order of things like this?)

- Person A holds up a sealed envelope and says inside there is a picture of something. Let’s say it’s a photograph of a dog.

- Person B says the envelope holds something else, like a grocery list. The envelope is completely opaque therefore one cannot look through it to see the contents, and two cardboard slats are in there to prevent anything from being discerned simply by feeling it.

- Person A now has the burden of proof to show what is in the envelope or otherwise prove that what is inside is a photograph of a dog. If he cannot prove this, or if he refuses to open the envelope, his claim can no longer be taken with complete credulity.

That’s how making claims work. You could be right, you could be wrong, but nobody is going to believe you if you refuse to show evidence or just claim that you have to be right because of a fault of “Person B”.

Shadowlancer.7102:

@ mrstealth.6701

I really hate it when people argue with me, I want you all to remember this thread because I have never been wrong in most of my threads, even the ones deleted because Arenanet is not that hard or complex to figure out.

- Inquest are involved with this event.
- You will be able to go inside the Toy workshop located in the Golem Airship, which will be instanced.
- Lag will be so bad in Major cities on the day when the Airship visits the major cities and that a majority of the community, will not see this appear on their screen or see the event in motion.
- Black Lion Chest will be updated.
- Christmas Outfits.
- New Christmas Mystic Forge recipes.
- Finally a twist in the Toy Dungeon instance which will cause problems in group.

As for my source of information. You would never be satisfied, where I got it from and call it fake.

However, once again, I have never been wrong. Enjoy and remember my words.

Oh, good, you’ve never been wrong. Therefore, you don’t need to cite your sources when you make these claims about “what’s really going on.” When, in fact, most of that could be inferred from how Halloween was handled and the other half is very broad things . . .

If I were to make predictions similar to that, it’d be easy to never be wrong.

I will make my own three predictions, which won’t be wrong and you could take that to the bank.

- Lots of people are going to have a good time doing this block of events.
- Some people are going to complain about them.
- There will be an NPC named Toymaker Tixx involved in some of the events either directly or through his minions.

Zen.2450:

I would like serious lore…

I want at least an element of whimsy to still be present inside the game. Serious lore is all fine and good, but Eidra Frekkesdottir getting blackout drunk at a moot and boosting a charr war machine to do drunken things with it was an absolute riot.

Shadowlancer.7102:

The games lore is confusing enough without having a Golem Airship making toys.

. . .

I think GW1 would have made your head explode during the holidays. Starting with the April Fools quests the last two years, the utter silliness of some of the Canthan New Year quests, Dwaya’s reindeer “Rudi” . . .

And without the holidays, the Norn Fighting Tournament ran by Magnus the Bison. Wherein people were there for almost no reason other than to fill a potential slot for an opponent.

There’s so much other goofy stuff which made it into the lore that a toymaking asura who has a massive golem airship manufacturing facility might be tamer than “Drakes on a Plain” which ends with a scythe which looks like a banana.