Guild Wars 2

ANet considered their options and made a decision with the best of intentions.

Unfortunately it was a poor decision.

Yes, it doesn’t affect you if you’re 80.
Yes, the problem will diminish the more you level.
Yes, levelling is easy in this game.

Ergo, it’s not a big problem.

But it did create a problem for some players, and really it’s more about the principle of the thing. They spent a non-refundable in-game currency, that had been accrued by the player through time invested, without permission. Added to which, the automated decision making process turned up some absurd and utterly unwelcome results. And anyway, the process of deciding how to spend a currency on unlocking things is one of the fun areas of the game. In what universe did it seem like a great idea to deny players the opportunity to enjoy spending their own points in pursuit of desirable stuff?

Bizarre choice by ANet and one I hope they don’t repeat.

At best it was absurdly condescending to players. It might have been a bit easier to forgive if it had been well executed. But it wasn’t.

Shame.

~TG

I can’t answer your specific question I’m afraid; maybe someone else can.

I can only say again, in more general terms, that a) racial skills are ‘free’ and unlocked by default, b) ANet will have unlocked certain of your skills and traits for you (by spending your HPs without your permission) to try and emulate what you had before.

Also, just as a pointer: might I suggest taking a less snarky and impatient attitude towards people trying to help you. Your original questions were a bit confusing to me, and perhaps to others. You sound confused and frustrated yourself, perhaps understandably. But maybe try not to take that out on people trying to help. Just a thought.

~TG

Alex.1496:

that is not what i asked. is seems that you are having reading problems.

Your questions aren’t that clear tbh. Anyway…

Racial skills are now gifted; they’re all free and available from the get-go.

The patch process went like this:

- ANet untrained all your old skills and traits.
- Skill points from this were temporarily refunded to your character.
- the number of SPs accrued from levelling + skill challenges was reserved; the balance was converted to Soul Shards and put in your wallet.
- The reserved pool of accrued SPs was then converted to Hero Points.
- Then (in their wisdom) ANet took the liberty of spending from each character’s Hero Points in order to try and emulate as close as possible the build you had created before the patch, and the skills you had unlocked.
- all this happened as you logged in on each character post-patch.

To be clear:
- ANet decided to spend (some or all) of your (non-refundable) Hero Points for you. They did this with the best of intentions (described in a thread elsewhere on the forums). Nevertheless, it was a bad error of judgement and a poor decision. Although the fallout from this decision has only really impacted <80 chars, it’s really the principle of the thing that has annoyed a lot of people.

If you’re level 80 you have more than enough Hero Points accrued simply from levelling to unlock everything anyway.

Any spare HPs you have after unlocking all traits and skills are saved per character; allegedly, these can be used in future content (eg HoT) to unlock new things.

~TG

Psychology. People like opening wrapped up things; oddly even if they know what’s inside. It’s the same at Xmas and birthdays; the anticipation and activity of opening the wrapped gifts is often more pleasurable than actually what’s inside. Especially if you don’t know the contents… while it remains wrapped, it could still be amazing; the potential, the thrill of anticipation is the thing.

Brilliant. I’m also a little concerned about the closest lion statue. It seems to be glancing very nervously at something just of frame right. It worries me.
~TG

TJgalon.5012:

that sounds like wvw. playing the game normally, doing events and risks of being attacked by other players, so what is it you want, random attacks while playing the game? I am confused?

Yeah, I think that’s basically what he’s after; open world, consensual PvP, without the structured, goal driven context of WvW. Think Eve Online 0.0 space; by entering you consent to open PvP. In WoW, couldn’t you simply flag yourself as open to this in certain areas. I can’t remember now.

Anyway, while it would certainly bring an edge (for some people) to what is a pretty cosy game, it’s never gonna happen.

Fall damage mitigation is so situational that it makes much more sense as an easily switchable slot skill.

Great stuff!
10/10 would tour again

Oh god so much this.
It beggars belief that this isn’t a thing.

Agree.
Old blue.
Make it so.
New colour is a poor choice.
While you’re at it, make the mouse cursor the same blue. If I added up all the seconds I’ve wasted trying desperately to see where the kitten cursor was … sheesh.
~TG

I love the word ‘bothersome’.

NTDK.4897:

Currently all of them are so far away.

Lol.
I think our perceptions of time/distance are different.
~TG

I’m sad about this, too.

My thief is dazed and confused at the moment, wondering at his purpose in life.

I ran PP/SB.

Yes, it was quirky. Yes it was sub-optimal and not particularly competitive. But it was hella good fun, way more than simply viable, and deeply satisfying to roll through PvE with.

Now? I spent the mandatory 20-30mins unlocking my traits, checking the auto-selection, and then examining all the trait lines with a view to reinstating a close build to what I had before to get me going. After about 15mins of reading, rereading and checking again I finally came to the realisation that there is almost nothing now to synergise in support of a PP/SB thief.

Perhaps it’s Anets way of telling me how foolish I was all along. But maybe no one at Anet actually tried playing one, and so doesn’t realise just how much fun and how effective they could be.

RIP dear friend.

I’ll have a word with my necro and see if he can resurrect you in another guise.

~TG

DarkSpirit.7046:

Initially I wanted to buy the ultimate pack for my son and I because I thought 4000 gems + 1 character slot is more than the cost of $50. But after reading all the complaints about $50 being overpriced for a basic pack, I am having second thoughts about the expansion.

I’m sure he’d love it.
Don’t mind everybody else.
They’re just expressing their ‘value statements’.
~TG

Of course they expected it. They could have announced literally anything and these forums would have exploded in outrage. Isn’t that what these forums are for? Always seems that way to me.

It’s not a meme.

Angelica Dream.7103:

TwoGhosts.6790:

I’m definitely gonna try this at my local supermarket…
“Hey! I’ve been shopping here for years kitten it! I should get my groceries for free now!”

facepalm
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Unbelievable.

~TG

My local grocery story gives loyal patrons a discount on groceries and FREE gas tank fill up after I spend so much.

HOT should have a discount for loyal patrons.

Yes, I’m familiar with loyalty schemes. There’s even one in GW2, in the form of log-in rewards, birthday gifts, and other shinies as I recall over the years. Amazing, but true.

I think you misunderstood my point. I was envisioning stomping into my local store, kittening and yelling because I felt entitled to have my shopping for free now. There’s a lot of that around here at the moment.

Never mind.

~TG

KorbenDallas.6729:

lol these forums aren’t strong on satire detection.

LOL
Apparently, neither am I.
:P
~TG

I’m definitely gonna try this at my local supermarket…
“Hey! I’ve been shopping here for years kitten it! I should get my groceries for free now!”

facepalm
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Unbelievable.

~TG

Wow… ok, so at least it’s not just me then. Thanks for the replies.

I mean, it’s not crippling or anything, it’s just annoying when I’m so used to things being faster. I have had a couple of very long loads, though. Oh well, perhaps they’ll optimise things a bit better over the next fews days.

~TG

Since the latest update I have found that map load times are noticeably longer and sometimes frustratingly long (Lion’s Arch, I’m looking especially at you).

There have been no other changes to my system, setup or connection speed (across any devices or programmes), and so I can only conclude that they changed something in the patch that has caused this issue.

Anyone else experiencing a similar problem?

Cheers
~TG

I have 8 characters.

Two are human, but they are the two characters I have bonded least with. One remains just a pack mule, sadly.

I also find Norns a bit of a yawn, although I must admit I’ve enjoyed levelling my female Guardian; I also think that Norn males look absolutely ridiculous.

I have a single Sylvari, a male thief. I’ve had fun levelling him, too, but the male Sylvari voice acting is woeful I’m afraid (horribly wooden, pun intended).

Of all the races, I think I enjoy the company of my Asura characters the most (and my Charr characters second best). I just love the Asuran animations and vocalisations; the Asuran female /laugh and /dance are both priceless and adorable.

Humans, I’m sorry to say, are pretty boring in comparison (although my male character has some amusing voice acting, particularly the critical hit one, lol).

~TG

Don’t really see what all the fuss is about.
If you want to play the game on a completely level playing field… go PvP.

If you ackwnowledge that the stat difference is so marginal as to be irrelevent (and certainly not required) then why begrudge those people who felt like ‘grinding’ for it (or let’s call it working hard towards a longer-term goal)?

Be happy in exotics and enjoy playing.

shrugs
~TG

Lol, really, at some of the comments in this thread; I couldn’t bring myself to read them all, but the gist of many of them seems to be a lot of QQing about the rng approach to access to a closed beta test. D*mn Anet for their transparency over their selection method for beta participants! And d*mn them again for not telling us what the chances actually are of success. D*mn them all.

Um, to state the bleeding obvious: for sure, in a lottery you ‘have to be in it to win it’, but participation does not guarantee success.

You could cut the air of entitlement in this thread with a knife. Really.

Hmmm, but maybe you’re right!? Wait. I’ll write to my National Lottery to complain that I haven’t won my £million yet, despite playing not just once, but in fact on several occasions. Sheesh, they really should sort out their system so that I win, d*mn them!

In all seriousness, it’s really not a bad method for getting beta testers; you’re likely to get a lot of ‘play-it-hard, maybe-till-it-breaks’ players, perhaps alongside some more casual and just lucky people.

The only other system that makes sense is: (1) apply for beta, (2) names of applicants drawn out of hat up to the beta limit.

Oh well. I’m not even sure why I care.

I think I was just dismayed by the attitude of some people here; and there was me thinking I was pretty much habituated to the internet by now.

~TG

PS… chasing something till your wrist hurts is probably not such a good idea, and can probably lead to blindness :P

I think this would be a terrific idea. I can see how ‘shouts’ could be made as rewards, unlocks and even available in the gem store.

But I can see two potential problems for implementing this…

1. The spamming issue that others here have already noted.

Solution(s): toggles in the options menu for ‘Show other player shouts’ (floating bubbles), ‘Hear other player shouts’ (as audio), and also a volume slider for player shouts (like the musical instrument one). The options could even be more granular, to include only guild, party, or friends list players +/or to exclude any blocked list players.

2. Actually creating the resources to provide a range of shouts might be tricky.

Of course, you could initially just give players access to the character vocalisations that already exist for their characters. But to add to those sound palettes would require the availability of ALL the original voice actors to come back into the studio to each provide the same amount of additional material for any subsequent ‘shout packs’; otherwise, you would have some voices with more options available than others.

So, yeah, would fully support something like this, but I can see potential issues mainly to do with the logistics of creating the content.

~TG

Interesting to hear from people who do use it.

But I manually organise my stuff, got a system that works for me. Sometimes, by mistake, I hit the ‘compact’ button instead of ‘deposit …’ , and oh the pain as I see all my carefully arranged stuff squished into one blob of confusion

Anyway, always good to know that a feature you hate other people love; I might even see how it could, maybe, work for me … but my OCD says prolly not.

And yeah, don’t want it removed, just would like to turn it off to avoid being the victim of my own incompetence.

Cheers

TG

Create an option to DISABLE the friggin ‘Compact’ option in the inventory dropdown …

Who on earth uses it, anyway? And meanwhile it sits there waiting to ambush you and your neatly organised pack and ruin your next 10 minutes trying to reorganise everything again.

Thank you.