Guild Wars 2

bighaben.5890:

Simply, once you have all the gear you need, IE in stats, there are only skins to go for. I’m fine with this system, but the skins are tremendous grinds, that at a certain point cease to be optional if you wish to keep playing the game with a goal in mind. If I want a cool skin I have to put a tremendous amount of effort into it. And in some cases it’s truly ridiculous. This wouldn’t even be half a problem if ascended gear wasn’t recently gated into ridiculous time grinds as well. Now it’s becomes less optional and more required. RNG is a fickle beast, I will admit that, and finding the right balance is going to be difficult. In some area’s in the game it’s just fine, but in others it’s truly stupid. I call it a flaw in the RNG system, but ANET seems set on using it so they better be able to figure it out soon. These Fractal weapons are a prime example of RNG gone to far.

I play the game with a goal in mind. Having fun and kicking buttocks in WvW. No grind has become mandatory as of yet, and I choose to keep it that way. If I chose to grind out a particular Fractal skin, that grind would be necessary to reach that goal, this is true, but it would still remain optional. If I don’t get the skin I’m not restricted in ability or access to any part of the game whatsoever.

Irony.5203:

Leo Paul.1659:

I’m more familiar with the big guilds of JQ than in BG since I’ve fought most of them (or played together with them) in SOS.. I’m pretty interested on the politics of BG tbh..

Ahh, good old Blackgate Politics. Trust me, you really don’t want me to rant about it.

I thought I read that most of that was made up just to troll the forums and cause problems.

Oh well, that’s neither here nor there. What is lacking, however, is a score update. Someone wake up Feisty!

Babayum.9204:

Are you going for a specific skin? Or maybe have it already? I’m really curious.

Also, i’m not complaining that they should be handed out like hot cakes, they should be rare. But the RNG system is just bad design. You think spending 384 hours doing nothing but fractals is good game design? No, it’s demotivating.

For me, right now, my choice of optional grind is to get rings and amulets across a few 80s while pondering heavily either the Fractals capacitor backpiece (Shiny!) for my mesmer or perhaps the quiver… I like how they both look. If I get a skin in Fractals, that’s bonus. Of course… I spend a lot of time in WvW as well, so that limits my PvE a bit.

Yargesh.4965:

Killing Joke.4371:

Ranger. It has axes.

Max likes the axe.

Actually one of the few times I was in WvW I ran into a mesmer and they really did not like my axes when we got up close and personal.

What exactly do you do to the mesmer with those axes, if I may ask?

bighaben.5890:

VOLKON.1290:

Good news. Both grinds are optional. If you do them, it’s by choice, not necessity.

You know what? I hear this argument A LOT. In fact on just about anything that is in this games “endgame”. It’s optional so you don’t have to do it. But everything is like this, so what’s there left to do? NOTHING.

It’s a problem, your solution isn’t a solution. Anet has decided to add tremendous grinds to this game, and while their all optional it doesn’t prevent the absurd grinds in this game from being a determent to the game as a whole.

Everything should have a recipe associated with it, finding it would be an awesome bonus which is why the system in currents form is fine, but without being to actually craft it in anyway it becomes a MEGA grind. The fact you can’t get rid of them also makes it incredibly frustrating when you get stuff you don’t need and can’t do anything but salvage it.

You may have heard the argument, but you’ve never understood the argument. This isn’t one of those old-style MMOs where you need to keep up with the Jones in order to stay competitive. Exotics practically grow on trees, and actually greens and yellows are good enough for the vast majority of things to do. Ascended is fluff. Marginal stat increases gained by a dedicated time investment, nothing more, nothing less. You want the rings? Hey, Fractals or dailies are there. You want the skins from Fractals? Well, you have a chance to go for it if you wish. Yes, they’re tough to get… otherwise everyone would have them and people would be complaining about there being nothing left to grind for.

Good news. Both grinds are optional. If you do them, it’s by choice, not necessity.

I have multiple 80s. I’ll be leveling each of them up with the WvW abilities/ranks.

Seriously… I’m OK with that. It’s not the end of the world. Rather than mass-grinding a single character up I’ll be more casually working them up individually. Not a big deal, really.

yarz widowmaker.5893:

Polismassa.6740:

Nakoor.1980:

Polismassa.6740:

Jahn.7019:

Smells like fear to me.

you’re free to think what you wish, i’m just letting you know the reason why our GM didn’t list them in the guilds that we want to fight.

You say you respect TW as players and would love to fight them, but then turn around and refuse to include them in the list of guilds you want to fight. I mean you do realize there are third person parties you can go to, to communicate.

your post makes it seem as if i made my statements previously, and then somehow made the list myself. i did not, my GM made the list, he was the one who recieved personal attacks from members of TW, not me.

To be clear, I am not a leader, nor an officer in the guild, I am a member, nothing more. When i say that we have respect for TW, that is the opinion of me, and several others in the guild, but when your GM decided to personally attack my GM with whispers, he closed a door that cannot be so easily reopened.

Do you want to GvG EMP? maybe someone from your guild should make a post saying that instead of “witty” remarks about precursors. I am really trying to keep this diplomatic, so please try and do the same.

So does EMP want to GvG against TW tonight or any time that we can get together? Send me a PM whether yes or no on the forums as I’m at work right now so we can set this up.

If any other guild would like to set up something as well send me a PM here first and then in game. I promise to keep the names of people to myself to keep away from any trolling.

Thanks,

Maybe it’s defective tinfoil, but are you trying to distract Emp from gaining points in order to help BG stay on top?

Suspicious minds want to know!

I only kill the bunnies when my kids aren’t looking. Otherwise it’s bugs and rats for me.

joocheese.6314:

Great speech by Indo; anyone who knows him knows that these speeches are not necessarily planned, but spoken from his heart and soul. Though corny and cheesy at times, his speeches do in many respects represent what we are all about in SoR…

Cheesy corn?

It’s fine in WvW in my opinion. You adapt. You learn to “don’t let them rez!”. No notable needs for change.

Esoteric.5490:

It’s simple. Orange swords used to show up for everything (5 players hitting guards).

ANet has stated publicly that they do not like the fact that “zerging” is the current meta because it is not what they foresaw for WvW.

The institution of Orange swords for groups of 25 or more directly benefits smaller scale warfare, splitting forces, stealth, and hitting multiple targets simultaneously. A single force cannot cover 4+ objectives under attack without losing at least 1-2, even with a waypoint. Orange swords going away effectively discourages zerging. Guilds and servers will still try to get away with it, but the sooner forces wake up and run in smaller groups, the sooner those zergs find themselves being pretty ineffectual. Also, I realize this may be a bit extreme for T7/8, but it is honestly a good thing for the rest of the game.

I imagine undermanned servers love this change, though, as it lets them move and ninja keeps with a lot more tact and stealth instead of getting steamrolled every time they proc orange swords with 5 people at a camp.

You’d like to think that’s true, but to be honest I’ve seen larger zergs this weekend than I’ve seen in a long time (Hi Blackgate! ). Now… after playing the weekend I’m still of a split opinion on this. But then again, that’s an opinion based on being on a T1 server, so take it with a grain of salt. Basically, in T1, I see this:

• No effect on the size of zergs. Larger groups than ever are flipping camps.
• The change to guild dudes at camps makes timing on flipping them more critical than ever. Zerg a camp at the three to six minute mark and you’re golden.
• More players are required to camp areas to serve as eyes… for many of them, not fun. Granted, sometimes I’m happy to chill out in a keep, but for many it sucks the fun factor out of things. At least… until the zerg arrives at your door.

The simple fact is that every Friday at reset T1 is full, queues on all four. That’s standard. This particular Friday and into today has been marred by unusual lag and disconnects. How many people are in our home servers are irrelevant when each and every week we’re maxing out WvW. So, in a nutshell, same number of people (full with queues), unusual and horrendously bad lag with multiple discos.

Gab Superstar.4059:

VOLKON.1290:

The morning comes, the disconnects continue. Hopefully someone at the office is looking into this?

I seriously hope not.

I don’t want Arena Net to waste their money on kittens who decided to hoard on one server and then complain about lag.

If you guys didn’t bandwagon, or encourage others to do so, server population would be more evenly spread out and you wouldn’t have lag.

Hate to disappoint ya son, but I was born and raised in the Quarry before you were even a pixel in the mind’s eye. Here’s a tidbit o’ data for you… populations are still the same due to the cap on players allowed.

The morning comes, the disconnects continue. Hopefully someone at the office is looking into this?

covenn.7165:

Game is completely unplayable. I have died twice tonight without seeing my enemy and being unable to fire abilities.

Sit down everyone… covenn’s right. I rarely if ever see lag in WvW and tonight is screen-stopping terminal lag. Disconnected at least four times. sigh…

It’s true sadly… the lag in T1 WvW is horrendous. There’s even a mass cycling of disconnects (which of course puts us back in Queuetopia).

Boulderbolg.3460:

VOLKON.1290:

Boulderbolg.3460:

VOLKON.1290:

Boulderbolg.3460:

Thanks all for the warm welcome into T1. Looking forward to some weeknight ganking.

Let us know where you’ll be on weeknights and we’ll do our best to gank you.

Oh… wait… that’s not what you meant, is it?

It’s exactly what I meant. It’s been a long time since we’ve been ganked. If you mean zerged, however, well then we’re used to that.

Just remember to gank us back to keep it fair.

What is your guild tag? We’ll look for you.

FIRE

Boulderbolg.3460:

VOLKON.1290:

Boulderbolg.3460:

Thanks all for the warm welcome into T1. Looking forward to some weeknight ganking.

Let us know where you’ll be on weeknights and we’ll do our best to gank you.

Oh… wait… that’s not what you meant, is it?

It’s exactly what I meant. It’s been a long time since we’ve been ganked. If you mean zerged, however, well then we’re used to that.

Just remember to gank us back to keep it fair.

Zen.8497:

VOLKON.1290:

Zen.8497:

I thought it would funny to show how many JQ’ers are needed to take down 2 people and keep in mind this is them taking it easy on us. I am flattered though cause they were keep coming until all decided to participate. Also, spoiler alert, as you can see SoR has considered all the methods including cloning and so on to be able to match JQ numbers.

You do realize there’s a difference between the numbers needed to take them down and the numbers of people wanting a piece of the action, yes?

Just curious.

You do realize the difference between reality and the story telling yourself to sleep better at night?
Not curios. You have already answered that

Curios… um… hang on…

: something (as a decorative object) considered novel, rare, or bizarre : curiosity; also : an unusual or bizarre person

I’m not sure how to take that.

Kelo.4370:

LET THE STACKING BEGIN!

Photoshop that photo to BG stacker. I’m not making any claims about BG and stacking at all, I just think it would be funny.

Boulderbolg.3460:

Thanks all for the warm welcome into T1. Looking forward to some weeknight ganking.

Let us know where you’ll be on weeknights and we’ll do our best to gank you.

Oh… wait… that’s not what you meant, is it?

Zen.8497:

I thought it would funny to show how many JQ’ers are needed to take down 2 people and keep in mind this is them taking it easy on us. I am flattered though cause they were keep coming until all decided to participate. Also, spoiler alert, as you can see SoR has considered all the methods including cloning and so on to be able to match JQ numbers.

You do realize there’s a difference between the numbers needed to take them down and the numbers of people wanting a piece of the action, yes?

Just curious.

Added – Risen Giants have a new “Kick” ability. If not dodged (cannot be blocked), targets will be kicked 4000 yds and suffer the equivalent in fall damage when landing. Anyone who complains about it will get stepped on.

drwookie.6391:

sostronk.8167:

I should go get some sleep so I can be there for reset. Oh wait who am I kidding, Ill never get out of the queue on reset day!

You have to be there the moment of reset and click the join button very very quickly.

I wasn’t here for last week’s reset, but I remember the week before there was a queue within 2 or 3 seconds of people saying “Join now” on Teamspeak. It was crazy.

Wook, were you there when people were almost instantly in queue as well? That was nuts… it filled in seconds.

Add a new buff to him called “Adrenaline Rush” or something with the same timer. Effects – boosts him to Champion level.

Then disguise him as a rabbit and sit back and bathe in the Monty Python references.

OK, you’ll want a better name than that course, but have you considered gear where the full set provides a balance of all stats rather than a focus on a specific primary, secondary, etc? I like the feeling of versatility with a more balanced build, and sets with this in mind open the door for new armor templates, etc.

Just a thought.

Great. Just great. I have a bank tab filling up with salvage items and no salvage this month. Ah well, keep stacking them!

The crafting one threw me for a loop at first until I realized it was masterwork and up. For some reason I didn’t know what to do so did a little digging on the net. Next thing I know I’m using the Mystic Forge to craft a satchel recipe (which counted I think…), then creating a satchel of armor for my level 65 ele. I now know not only about satchels but also how to do it… and I’d never even considered them before.

A monthly that’s teaching me something. Curse you ArenaNet! (In a good way, of course.)

Quest logs? Ah, I remember those. To be honest I’ve nearly forgotten them and certainly haven’t missed them. An NPC running up to me asking for help is all the quest log I need.

I hate it when I’m trying to flip a camp that was just flipped. Absolutely hate it. However I love it when we’re the ones that just flipped the camp.

Go figure, right?

It’s change… change doesn’t always sit well right away with some people. It breaks the rhythm, takes us out of our comfort zone.

Thobek.1730:

VOLKON.1290:

Thobek.1730:

Rawnoodles.1398:

P.S : Due to the high amount of traffic across current Tc/K/BG and JQ/SoS/SoR threads of this upcoming match-up, ive decided to kick-start this thread to keep postings unified.

so typical of a JQ guy to post about next week before this week is finished.

No wonder everyone hates JQ.

I don’t hate JQ.

you’re not everyone, you’re no one.

Aren’t they cute when they try this hard folks? Let’s all give him a hand.

I have no problem with anticipating this weeks match up at all. Due to how the scoring went this week it was a good chance to refresh a bit, taking it easy, do a little casual PvE and reset the WvW portion of the brain. That being said, I’m more than ready now for some mass insanity, and I’m confident BG is ready to bring it. SoR hasn’t relented yet, so this should be an exciting week in T1.

FearedbytheGods.8617:

Reply but leave blank and under signature have:

/T Portals to top EB JP now open

Or for those that are complaing… Portals to top EB JP now open, 5g.

Give Rangers a camouflage ability… stealth while not moving, breaks if they move, take damage or cause damage. Could be an interesting tool for scouting…

Welcome back Blackgate! OK, listen… you hit SoR from the left, we’ll hit them from the right…

You think it’s easy being green? Let me tell you… it’s not.

People equating the generic combat in WoW make me giggle. Once I mastered the rotations on my pally tank or hunter I could tank or dps with the best of them. Ah, the good ol’ pally 9-6-9 rotation…

No thanks. I prefer combat that makes me know my skills as well as their secondary and often tertiary effects and allows me to consider using them situationally as opposed to what some spreadsheet has pre-determined I should be doing.

Salacious.7358:

Namu.5712:

Its like the game trys to be a holy trinity setup but then says they aren’t.

There are 3 things people do in this game.

Full dps = zerker gear and full dps trait lines
Full defensive = bunker…. fancy name for ima tank (mobs even aggro to the highest toughness)
Full Support = buffs/heals/support boons etc etc.

Sorry if im a bit slow but thats the trinity right there. And you are pretty much limited in this game to doing one of those, there is very little room for hybrid builds because of the way the traits are setup. Traits are currently setup so that you basically need to go down 30 points in many trait lines for a skill… and those trait lines themselves are geared towards the holy trinity…. 2 dps lines, 2 tank lines, 2 support lines.

And many viable builds REQUIRE you to take the traits just because they are must haves…..

Just some food for thought

VOLKON.1290:

<—- Balanced mesmer. I do damage, control and support as needed through weapons skills and swaps as well as utilities and traits that supplement the various aspects.

I am my own trinity.

I am also a balanced Mes, I use full zerk gear with a shatter like build but also have support via time warp and null field.

I use Null Field as well… also take Arcane Thievery and Feedback. I’ve found a nice synergy in them.

Sovta.4719:

VOLKON.1290:

<—- Balanced mesmer. I do damage, control and support as needed through weapons skills and swaps as well as utilities and traits that supplement the various aspects.

I am my own trinity.

So basicly[sic] you are nothing just have that time wrap. :P

Warp. Warp. At least spell check your digs.

I wouldn’t say I’m nothing, but that may just be my own ego.

Edge.4180:

I killed said veteran karka the other day and an NPC popped out but. But beyond a generic comment I couldn’t interact with him. Is it part of a guild mission?

I believe, from what I’ve seen, he may be tied to the bounties.

<—- Balanced mesmer. I do damage, control and support as needed through weapons skills and swaps as well as utilities and traits that supplement the various aspects.

I am my own trinity.

Yep, had it’s own chat box and everything… a Veteran Karka in a place I hadn’t seen it before.

So I killed it.

Let’s just say this… guilds will want to watch for this one.

Culling goes away?!

Squeeeeeee!

MMORPG: Back in January, one of the fixes for culling went into place, and it seemed to help a bit. But how will the changes coming in March eliminate this completely? There are a few skeptics in Bill’s (Murphy) guild that think it can’t be done.
Habib Loew: Hah, yeah we have seen a lot of the skepticism on the Internet. The change we made in January was really just a tweak to the system. It changed the priorities of Culling but did not eliminate it. The change in March will turn off Culling completely. You will now see every character within range of you. There will be several different options for how other players are presented to you, on the client side that you can choose from so you can control how it works for you.

Mance.5640:

Tysm coming over to JQ to shore up our NA versus AGG etc will be a nice addition this week though, should be fun.

Wait wait wait… time out… what?

Tsym coming to JQ?

I have mixed feelings if there’s any truth to that… they’ve been tenacious to fight against and a lot of fun. Ah well, if it’s true, welcome Tsym!

Ah, just saw AFKs post. Not funny Mance, not funny.

Zenith.6403:

Peetee.9406:

The insignificance of stats comes from skillful play, you’re ability to dodge an attack or your opponents ability to dodge an attack more than makes up for any statistical difference.

- It doesn’t have to be perfect world. We can just make the assumption that player skill has normal distribution. No matter what your player skill is, you’re still 10% more effective by having full ascended equipment. I think the idea you’re having here is that increasing your skill as a player will have more impact on your performance than having / not having ascended equipment. I agree with this idea.

10% more effective… what the cat does that even mean? Effective at what? Where did that 10% come from? So far with full ascended jewelry the best damage increase I’ve been able to tweak out is about 7.6%, but that’s purely Damage (taking into account precision as a secondary stat).

Tawn.9871:

Yes it is much better.. ever since the laurels were introduced the dailies have become very important to complete. Guildies are making sure they do dailies before doing anything with the rest of us which has noticably disrupted socialisation and group play.

Personally, I wish the dailies were either easier or didnt have important currency like laurels. Maybe give us a ‘weekly’ instead which gives 7 laurels.

Dailies were supposed to reward you for playing each day, without it being something you had to pay much attention to. So if you just did normal stuff for an hour, you’d get the daily. This hasn’t been the case. The required tasks are too specific and PvE focused. Which must be a pain for those heavily into WvW. Before laurels missing a daily was no biggie. Now its serious and its affecting gameplay.

So whilst i’m happier with the recent change.. it doesn’t go nearly far enough to resolve the issues with the system.

Actually, I got most of them done in WvW… well… three or four (most of the required five, not most of the actual nine). What was it… veterans, kills, dolyak kills… man, they’re overlapping in my head with the prior day as to what I did there… but they’re not all that WvW unfriendly. You will likely need to leave WvW to get all five, but only briefly.

Three Pounds.2359:

VOLKON.1290:

It took a moment to figure out what “ambient killer” meant, after that it was a breeze. There are a lot less bugs (and bunnies) in Tyria now.

Haha, yes! I actually had a tough time finding any at all this morning. I guess the the tyria pest control is very efficient today.

VOLKON.1290:

I hadn’t been to Metrica in quite some time… uh oh… the plan to get people into areas like that just might be starting to work!

What is special there today regarding the daily? Maybe I missed something

Went for the group event in the reactor when guildies mentioned it in guild chat.

captaincrunch.6731:

60/30/30 more stats doesn’t equal 10% increased dps. I don’t know how you came up with that.

“DPS” is invalid as a whole. It should be damage as there’s no accounting for time as a factor.

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

They indeed give some noticiable benefits.
But what is the problem about this? You do dailies/guild missions/fractals and get your set.
Exotic is so easy to get it isn’t even funny. If you dont like the stat difference then play all those MMOs that give you full stats the moment you ding the cap.
Yes they broke the manifesto yadda yadda, the majority seems to want it this way so we either deal with it or quit – it’s not going to change.

I’m still not happy with the 22% you have in that chart showing the increase in crit damage percent (pet peeve I guess). Because you’re already comparing percentages it should, as I mentioned before, show the actual 8% increase. Otherwise you’re saying “you get 22 percent more percent”, which is… weird. I understand why you did it and have it like that, I just can’t get my brain to accept it.

stof.9341:

VOLKON.1290:

No, actually you’re grotesquely wrong in your math. But it’s been gone over in so many active threads already… sigh…

Not really. The math Silver did is sound and correct. You on the other hand took out a huge wall of text that compares berserker ascended/exotic gear by completely ignoring crit chance and crit damage.

No I didn’t. It’s a different post, but the crit chance calculates to be well under a 1% increase.

You’ll like this.

This stands out:

MMORPG: Back in January, one of the fixes for culling went into place, and it seemed to help a bit. But how will the changes coming in March eliminate this completely? There are a few skeptics in Bill’s (Murphy) guild that think it can’t be done.

Habib Loew: Hah, yeah we have seen a lot of the skepticism on the Internet. The change we made in January was really just a tweak to the system. It changed the priorities of Culling but did not eliminate it. The change in March will turn off Culling completely. You will now see every character within range of you. There will be several different options for how other players are presented to you, on the client side that you can choose from so you can control how it works for you.