Guild Wars 2

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Yeah, we have all heard all about TTS, you do not have to keep advertising for them in every thread about teq. Enough is enough, OK?

I’ll consider it when people stop spreading misinformation.

i.e. your accusation that I advertise TTS on every thread about Teq. Patently false, good sir. I only do it on this thread because people seem misinformed.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Yeah, I have to use guesting to kill an open world boss. And first I have to find the right server.

Bad game design is bad.

TTS doesn’t require guesting since they only use overflows.

Joining TTS and participating in their attempts aren’t hard, people.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1opapd/tts_the_truth_of_what_we_are/

Very strange to see people still complaining about Teq when he’s being farmed in 5 overflows daily.

EDIT: Also, Karka Queen is being done practically daily on ~70-80% of servers (ATM, only 5 out of 24 NA servers have Queen CD’s of over 100 hours.) I’d say it’s being completed pretty frequently judging from metrics we can see.

Sell orders =/= supply, and buy orders =/= demand.

That being said, the price of candy corn has remained remarkably steady. Considering how easily it’s produced, all evidence points to the fact that it’s being consumed at the same rate it’s being produced (or else you’ll see a difference in prices.)

The candy corn economy is doing just fine.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I was more referring to the close x doors, carve x pumpkins, etc. Over the days it may feel like a grind.

If you even actually bothered to read my post, you would have noticed that I don’t mind such achievements and I in fact promote those jumping puzzle ones.

What people categorize as “grind” is what grind actually is – repeating the same activity several times over with no profit until reaching a very high amount of having repeated that same activity.

E.g., if the daily was instead doing the clocktower 10 times – rather than once – that could be considered a grind, because it wouldn’t be rewarded until that 10th time.

The dailies in of themselves is rather non-grindy. But the requirement to do dailies for the meta, the motivation/conditioning to do dailies for the chest, and their frequency (being dailies), tend to make people feel like their grinding. The issue isn’t so much the process, but rather the fact that rewards are only available via that process (or rather, the best rewards are). It creates a skinner box system and compels people to do what they consider to be grind – the repetitious task of profit only occurring after multiple repetitions of said task.

Almost everything in MMOs is a skinner box system. Halloween achievements has the bar set really low.

10 out of 12 achievements are one-time only achievements. You get 2 dailies a day, and 28 days worth of dailies (56 total). You only need to do 13 total for the meta-reward.

Different people have different thresholds. However, if you think these Halloween achievements are “too grindy,” I’m going to let you know that your standards way out of whack.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Ursan.7846:

An achievement grind?

The only achievement where you are required to repeat a task is the Trick-or-treat bag (50 bags), and the Door events (50 doors). (2 out of the possible 12 achievements)

Not to mention the meta being achievable doing the dailies, which include easy stuff like carving 5 pumpkins, doing the Lunatic Inquisition once, doing the clocktower once, etc…

And on top of it all, is the fact that you have 4 weeks to do it.

Is this what people categorize as a “grind” these days?

One can argue the dailies to be grind as well. Just grind that alternates per day.

Is doing the Mad King’s jumping puzzle once every 3 days is somehow so “grindy” that one must complain about it?

Again, is this seriously what people categorize as “grindy” these days? The achievements are incredibly trivial to do: that people would compare them to the massive skin-grind in the same update is mind-boggling.

rizzo.1079:

I’d call it more ‘grind’ than ‘actual fun things to do’, certainly. Is the LS part of it a bad grind? No, but is it grind? Yes.

As I stated, most of the achievements in the Halloween only requires you to do it once. The story mode instances, the bosses, some of the dailies, etc. It’s entirely possible to get the meta doing only the achievements where you only do an activity once.

There’s barely any repetition of anything. And some of these repetitions (carving 5 pumpkins, opening 50 ToT bags) are really trivial to do.

The achievements are hardly a grind. I’m shocked and confused why you’d want to lump it into a complaint together with the REAL grind that very much exists (for the skins, not the achievements). We want the achievements do be like this: lots of do-one-time ones, enough to complete the meta with just doing that, but with a smattering of repeated ones just for folks who like it.

An achievement grind?

The only achievement where you are required to repeat a task is the Trick-or-treat bag (50 bags), and the Door events (50 doors). (2 out of the possible 12 achievements)

Not to mention the meta being achievable doing the dailies, which include easy stuff like carving 5 pumpkins, doing the Lunatic Inquisition once, doing the clocktower once, etc…

And on top of it all, is the fact that you have 4 weeks to do it.

Is this what people categorize as a “grind” these days?

I used to be angry at RNG when they were account-bound.

That is no longer the case. No reason to be angry at RNG at all now. If you’re still angry, you’re angry at other, non-RNG reasons.

Yes yes, please do share with us your insights into Anet’s financial situation. I’m sure you came to your conclusions with game-wide metrics and factual data instead of personal anecdotes.

Nike.2631:

Then why did you just say “Nothing’s changed”?

CC Danicia.1394:

To be fair to everyone, the only thing which has changed in our policy is the insulting of our staff.

You should read people’s posts if you want to accuse them of saying something.

Are you talking about the clocktower?

Where is this competition coming from in the clocktower?

This is the exact same clocktower as last year, but with mist blobs instead of fat norn butts.

Also optional: editing your original post instead of quadruple posting.

Pariah.8506:

Yes, it was horrible.

You could acquire BiS gear for PENNIES if not for FREE! The horror! The horror…

Then had to grind your face off for minor improvements to specific skills.

Good times.

Apolyon.6937:

Well, except that if you wanted a Voltaic spear, you can go to the Slaver’s Exile dungeon and you know it will drop there for sure. I bought my 1st one, and got 4 more from drops.

The frog scepter was a drop from the Bogroot Growths, so you only need to do this specific dungeon.

Celestial compass, dropped in the underworld.

Mini Yakkington from the Gift of the Traveler.

Mini Polar Bear, ok, this one was rare, only during Wintersday, but at least you know where to get it.

Zodiac weapons, The Deep and Urgoz’s Warren.

Ectoplasms, Underworld and Tomb of the Primeval Kings. And they were more common than all the T6 materials together.

Black and White dyes, in Pre-Searing Ascalon.

Now tell me, if I want a Dusk, where do I go to get it? If I want a fractal skin, where does it drop (in fractals yeah, a lot… lol)? Entropy? Bonetti’s? What if I just want T6 blood, where does it drop?

There is only 1 thing that I wanted and could never put my hands on in GW1… the mini ghostly hero, and only because my pvp guild disbanded before it was introduced and I didn’t want to spend platinum on it. However the list of things I have given up in GW2 is only increasing…

You want a chance at a Dusk, you MF GSs.

If you want a chance at fractal weapons, you play fractals.

If you want a chance at Entropy, you farm champs that drop Gilded Coffers (Risen or Destroyers)

If you want a chance at Bonetti’s, you farm bandit/pirate champs that drop Embroidered Purses.

I never found a Voltaic Spear in my many runs of Slaver’s Exile, so I bought one. (Lets not forget the difference between an r9 and a r12 spear, and since there was no transmutation system, you were stuck with the stat…)

I could never get my hands on things like the mini Panda or mini Candycorn in GW1. I never got the Tengu weapons, because I refused to pay more for DLC.

The reward structure in GW1 and GW2 is really, really similar in terms of loot. Some RNG, some guaranteed through currency, some purchased through players, and some IMPOSSIBLE to obtain. It really wierds me out when people try to paint them as vastly different. They’re not.

Knote.2904:

Wouldn’t they make more money making them soulbound like the tools?

They’re not actually items.

Wanze.8410:

Its a dedicated guild manipulating the market.

Would make sense to me.

Why do people have a hard time fathoming the fact that different people can independently come to the same conclusion? Peter Higgs and Francois Englert started hypothesizing the now-named Higgs particle independently. Compared to that, the correlations people come up for the TP is so utterly simple.

I believe there was a thread with data on salvaging crystalline dust from ectos, but I can’t seem to find it, so I’m going to post a few questions.

1. Did salvage kit make a difference in the rate?
2. What was the salvage rate?

Thanks in advance.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Collect all baubles on one map.
No bauble counter.
No achievement until you kill the boss.
Once the boss is dead, 30 seconds until next area.
No achievement.
Lie down.
Try not to cry.
Cry a lot.

Difficult? Sure. Frustrating? Certainly. Annoying? Absolutely.

But a grind? As a required repetition of actions in order to achieve something? Hardly, especially when there’s a plethora of resources available out there. (Whereas Dulfy would not allow you to sidestep the grind of 150 pinatas.)

How were SAB achievements “grindy” when every single achievement only required you to do something ONCE?

Charak.9761:

Except Molten Facility had intrinsic rewards
-Sentinal Inscriptions
-Jetpack (*unsoulbound)
-Unique mini
-Costume potion/recipe

Aether’s Retreat
-Unique Recipes
-Monocle
-Costume potion

but nothing in this new dungeon but a recoloured version of existing skins, where’s the real intrinsic value?

Do you mean extrinsic rewards? Intrinsic rewards would be running the dungeon because it’s fun, and it is entirely subjective.

Kimyrielle.3826:

That’s actually one of the more reasonable ideas how to keep that fight in spirit with the content some people want to do, but still acknowledge that unleashing this fight on the general public was a bad idea. They’d still have to tone the boss down a notch, for most (even large) guilds aren’t able to field 100 players at once, but I think this is otherwise a very good solution for this mess. I support this idea. However, I still think they should bring ‘casual’ dragon fights back, in addition to keep the harder version as guild missions. Us casuals like to slay dragons, too.

I don’t expect guilds to be able to field 100+ people by themselves. The high bar requires them to recruit and to instruct randoms. But this leads to more community building, which is always good.

The biggest difference is giving control of starting the boss fight to the players. This allows for guilds to organize, instruct, and set-up everything without worrying about the hordes of afkers/guesters clogging up the server (why would anyone wait there, if Teq’s never going to trigger on its own?). Guilds can even communicate. Guild A does it at 5 pm, Guild B does it at 6, and this further spreads apart population (whereas previously, both A and B are jockeying to do it at 5 and 6.).

Behellagh.1468:

Except it’s not. There are four outcomes per roll, each with their own probability. We don’t know what that is, nobody really bothered recording every salvage attempt to see if it’s 0,1, 2 or 3 ectos to establish a base line. What we do know is that with a large enough sample, it averages out to around 0.90. As far as we know there could be a 30% chance or even higher of getting none and it’s the chances of 2 or 3 that brings the average up to 0.90. All we can say for certain with master kits is it’s not a D4-1 ectos per salvage, that would yield 1.50 per.

A while ago, I did a salvage test where I salvaged 200 rares and recorded reach result (You may have posted in there). It was 64 results of 0 ectos out of 200, so a 32% chance of getting 0 ectos. Assuming this is the correct probability, the probability of getting 0 ectos from 7 salvages is 0.03%.

However, this argument still remains unconvincing. Improbable things do happen. And as always, there’s absolutely no documentation in this thread.

Make Teq a guild mission. In addition to the normal rewards, it should reward people repping the guild who triggered it something like 6 commendations. Players who don’t rep the guild and participates, still can get the normal rewards, but not the commendations.

1. It puts control of when the event starts in the hands of players. This way, people will no longer akitten order to participate in the fight.

2. It still allows the encounter to be open-world, and allows for random people to join in after the guild has set everything up. This allows players without large servers to participate, while still giving the guild control over most of the fight.

3. Since it is triggered by guilds instead of being random, players will have less of a reason to camp Sparkfly, and will allow for the participating guild to enter the server a lot more easily.

4. Since this is a guild content, it allows for a certain degree of accountability in some key positions (turrets, etc.)

5. Since guilds can share credit (similar to bounties/rushes, etc.) smaller guilds can potentially “team up” with other smaller guilds or larger guilds, even.

In the future, if Jormag/Shatterer gets remakes, these 2 + Teq can easily form their own guild mission category, with a guild getting assigned on randomly when they trigger the guild mission.

Crashed RIGHT AS TEQ SPAWNED.

Good job though guys. Now that we figured him out, hoping for more success to come in the future!

You’re upset that having optimal gear makes doing the hardest boss encounter in the game more efficient?

Did BG gearcheck everyone present the what, 2-3 times they have beaten it?

You think getting full exotic gear requires some sort of “miraculous” grind?

I actually wish it happened on all fails. Such a spectacle.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Why should non-Blackgate players be disallowed from trying to join in on a server with a much higher chance than their own server may have?

They shouldn’t, but good luck with the quenes. Hope you enjoy staying in Sparkfly for hours.

vonHerman.1728:

Seems like another event that will be abandoned after some time.
Vide Karka Queen.

Out of the 24 US servers, only 5 servers have Karka queen CD’s more than 100 hours.

It’s hardly abandoned.

difens.1326:

That’s clever plan on ANet’s side. Less ppl attempting teq = less good drops = less gold = hope for more gem purchases = some ppl fall for it = profit for ANet.

Almost as clever as their previous plan, the QP/Invasions → more gold → inflation → rising gold/gem ratio → more people use $ to buy gems → profit for Anet.

Mesket.5728:

you confuse more sparks with quality.

You’re confusing your subjective opinion of their added effects with the objective fact that devs actually spent time and effort adding said effects.

Mesket.5728:

Improving things already ingame won’t get any cash for them. They stopped caring about visual quality right after release. Who is gonna rate them now?

Right, because we didn’t just have a patch improving the visual quality of several legendaries 2 weeks ago, right?

That word sure gets thrown around lightly a lot here.

So the problem you have isn’t the fact that items are in the gem store, but they’re hard to get then?

Because what you describe (not wanting to farm “endlessly” for rewards) can easily be applied to many things in-game and isn’t restricted to the cash shop itself.

EDIT: Which is a perfectly legit complaint, but the title’s a bit misleading.

Goose.9317:

“Why am I forced to play this video game I bought?”

That is a really bad argument.

I enjoy everything in this game except dungeons. If they came out with an armor set which I want for its visuals, but had to grind out the same dungeon 20 times to get it, I end up a lot less happy than if I could simply purchase it with gold/gems.

This isn’t an argument, armor being in the gem store makes me objectively happier compared to the alternative of grinding specific content to get it.

Gold gives you options. Why are you opposed to players being given more options?

ilr.9675:

Lemme repeat it again b/c you skimmed over it the first time:

Get a second job instead …b/c there’s no point in putting 20+ hours into “working” in this game for a $7 dollar suit you could earn from pushing shopping carts for 1 hour

In other words: The Gem convert Price can only ever go in one direction most of the time. It can never, and will never, experience a long period of devaluation ever again.

Either that… or you’re talking about flipping/farming gold. And I shouldn’t even have to explain why that won’t work if everyone starts doing it.

And it should be like that. Purchasing gems with in-game gold should take a lot longer time than earning real money to spend.

The difference being that many people actually enjoy playing the game and earning the gold, while they have little motivation to push around shopping carts for a few hours, even if the extrinsic rewards are greater.

Now a long period of devaluation is impossible. Gems are still underpriced, IMO, but the prices should slowly reach equilibrium while fluctuating around it.

Please keep it in the gem store. Being able to buy it for gold, which I earn through a variety of activities, is so much better than grinding the same dungeon 20+ times for an armor set.

Remember guys, the one time people were actually right about ecto salvages, people were posting sample sizes of 4000+.

I really hope the people complaining about the released delay isn’t the same people who complain about buggy releases.

I don’t think anyone’s opposed to equal distribution of information, just that it’s impossible to achieve.

Hell Avenger.7021:

It is more fair than few people knowing insider tips. Now everyone has a chance.

No, not really. People who live in certain timezones will still hold a distinct advantage.

Posts like this is exactly why we can’t have nice Dev interactions.

Insider trading probably exists.

I’m having a hard time wondering why I should care though. Stuff like this happens all the time. I pretty frequently borrow my office tools to help friends fix stuff. It’s just a perk for working with the company anyways.

Besides, the recipe was disabled temporarily. It’ll come back on Halloween again. I have a hard time imagining whoever tried to buy up the supply will end up profiting.

The statement that supply is totally cut off, and that there is nothing coming in is most likely false.

I wish Charged Lodestones were 4G again, so I’m happier whenever I get one.

A suggestion for normal mode (NOT tribulation mode).

I feel the spike traps in normal mode should be constantly firing, so that players can visually see it very easily instead of tip-toeing around. I don’t mind the unexpected instant-death in tribulation mode, but I believe it doesn’t belong in normal mode and the clear visualization will go a long way in making normal mode a bit more casual.

Josh Foreman.8250:

RvLeshrac.2673:

And then a dev claiming that the people complaining about the magical offset attack hitboxes are just crying when they meet the smallest amount of resistance, before finally buckling under the deluge and admitting that, yes, there are issues that need some work.

That seems like an odd interpretation of this:

Josh Foreman.8250:

You may be right. I think it’s too early to tell. Some number of people hit a little resistance and quit and come to complain about it. And some number hit that same resistance and are inspired to overcome it and they are in the game right now doing that. I don’t have a good sense of those numbers are right now. I’m more than happy to adjust it when I have better data to work from. Thanks for your feedback.

Or were you referring to something else I said?

Josh, you were not offensive at all, and never outright dismissed claims of difficulty. The people who claim you are either is utterly lacking in reading comprehension or are just incredibly defensive/sensitive and sees personal attacks between every sentence.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Lafiel.9372:

The biggest fail of this SAB is that it’s too long.

Lesson learned. I get it.

Don’t take it the wrong way Josh, the length is absolutely great. It’s not a fail at all. I think what that poster fails to clarify is that the length in itself isn’t a problem, but how they are organized. If Zone 2 was split into, say, 3 zones, there’d be absolutely no complaints about length at all.

Kaleban.9834:

If it can’t be reasonably acquired by everyone then it is unreliable. You must not know what a definition is if for you actual meanings of words are so fluid. Content is stuff in the game, which includes skins. Seeing as how its been asserted that the endgame is stuff like Legendaries, then absolutely cosmetic upgrades class as content.

So just because you don’t agree with a definition doesn’t mean you’re right. Words have specific meanings, if you can’t agree on that then you’re not actually participating an an adult conversation and are speaking gibberish.

I wasn’t aware there was some kind of widely accepted definition of the word “content” in the context of video games. There isn’t. There’s very a myriad of very subjective definitions for terms like “grind” “expansion” “P2W”, and yes, “content” in the context of a videogame.

No, I don’t claim to be right. There is no right or wrong. It’s just that simply, my personal opinion of “content” doesn’t include cosmetics.

Dark Jericho.8609:

Either it is or it isn’t. There’s no point in releasing patch notes when it contains contradicting notes separated only by a bullet point entry.

You can very easily read something, and comprehend it not literally.

Dark Jericho.8609:

Too literally. Okay. So they can put any nonsense they want in the release notes and no one should take the notes literally at all, and just ignore them. Righty-O.

There’s quite the distinction between “Not taking things too literally” and “Completely ignoring them.”

Kaleban.9834:

And what happens when the supply of, say the Super Sword skin which right now on the TP is at 189 is gone?

Sell orders =/supply.

And it hasn’t happened since April.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/41958

I mean, look at that. Unreliable? Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Regardless. I’m not sure what your point is, really. The quote I replied to…

RyanCid.9270:

it’s obviously not possible to get everything lol

Is obviously wrong.

EDIT: Also, it seems we have very different definitions of content. I don’t consider cosmetics as “content.”

Dark Jericho.8609:

We’re not, it’s just that the release notes states we can complete the remaining skins set via bauble bubbles, but then limits our farming capabilities to the point where we cannot get them via bauble bubbles alone.

You take patch notes way too literally.

But I can interpret the patch notes literally too. I just purchased the entire skins for bauble bubbles. Which I had saved from April. I see no contradiction, they never state the bauble bubbles must be farmed from this patch.

Regardless. The devs, when they typed it, obviously does not expect a majority of their playerbase to actually try to obtain the entire weapon set. And those who want to, it’s still possible for them.