Guild Wars 2

This is my opinion, and my opinion alone (although others may share the same opinion at will).

Best MMO ever.

No, I’m not a dev yet, but if ArenaNet ever gets themselves a mainframe and needs someone to develop on it they can feel free to give me a call. (Hey, NOTHING crunches data better than a mainframe still!)

The description says it upgrades the appearance of a sword… doesn’t specify one or two handed. (See Trading Post)

Does anyone know if this’ll work on a greatsword? If not, are there any greatsword skins?

Thanks all!

I can take care of a group of them on my mesmer fairly well, and on my ranger I can get one or two down before needing to retreat thanks to pets getting their attention. On my mesmer I use arcane thievery, feedback and null field as well as the healing skill that reflects with my lovable greatsword and mass invisibility for that “oh kitten” moment. (Yes, I actually typed kitten. The forums are turning kittens into dirty words. )

Basically, build to counter a mesmer as best you can, and when in doubt, bring friends.

Shadewolfe.8165:

My girlfriend can’t even start this puzzle because the snowflakes start melting too fast. Usually she loads in to the puzzle and the first few snowflakes are gone.

Her computer is more than up to the task of playing this game. This is unacceptable.

My kids and I have all completed it multiple times without any loading delays at all. We load in, wait a short bit for the first flake to appear, and have at it. So the problem isn’t with Anet’s end it seems. If her computer is more than up to the task, how’s your internet? What speed are you running at, what location, etc? The problem appears to be outside the ANet offices at least.

I’ve done it a few times on my Asura now, but for the life of me I can’t seem to get it on my Norn. Go figure.

Oh, I will, I will. Just surprised there seems (to my clumsy self at least) be a “racial disparity” with my ability to do it.

Do they have any other uses besides trading to that one trader for the skins etc? Trying to decide if it’s worth burning them up or saving.

They don’t seem to work in the Mystic Forge, so that’s out.
Can’t salvage for wool, oddly enough.
Don’t appear in any tailoring or (thankfully) cooking recipes.

Sekin.7803:

One side loses in wvw because it is outmanned. If we have the number, we do not need the npc commander gimmick. If we do not have the number, the npc commander will not even start to do his things. Something in the design does not seem right.

You’re outmanned. The event starts, you realize you need more people to kick it off. You spam for more people for the breakout event.

They will come.

ref.8196:

juno.1840:

Orr is “empty” compared to what it use to be. You could say it’s fewer bots, but now I see very little of anyone. Good luck getting your temple karma armors.

Similarly, getting a dungeon team is not as easy as it use to be (unless that dungeon is fractals).

I’ve been using gw2lfg.com for dungeons, it works very well, but obviously this should have been implemented in to the game.

Lankybrit.4598:

nerva.7940:

actually GW2 pop has been steadily growing. most servers are full.

That’s not population, that’s number of accounts. And of course number of accounts is growing because there’s no reason to cancel an account, even if you stop playing.

Cheers.

Do we actually know that it is the number of accounts?

Not according to CC Eva…

“… when you see a server FULL means that it is full from people actually playing there at the moment, independently of where did they create their accounts. For example, if a player creates an account in Vizunah Square and then moves to Baruch Bay, then all the characters of this player will go to Baruch Bay and he will be counted among the total amount of players of Baruch.”

Per CC Eva:

“Connor, when you see a server FULL means that it is full from people actually playing there at the moment, independently of where did they create their accounts. For example, if a player creates an account in Vizunah Square and then moves to Baruch Bay, then all the characters of this player will go to Baruch Bay and he will be counted among the total amount of players of Baruch.”

The other post that’s less clear… from the same time period.

Falnir.1356:

Boons and DOT effects are not showing in the combat text.

For example Virtue of Justice does burning damage over 5 seconds apparently but I can’t see this.

Well it says Burning (active effect) (5s): 283 so I am assuming this means 283 damage over 5 seconds? (I’m only level 12)

It makes it hard to fully analyse how to maximise my dps. Please fix this.

The idea is to prevent people from trying to “fully maximize their dps” and the like. The last thing we need is something akin to Recount where people start caring more about numbers and less about how well you play your character.

Seconded… it’s frustrating when you need to react quickly to catching hackers but there’s no quick way to do so.

There’s only one real solution.

1. Create a character named “Great Justice”.
2. Stand next to him.

PowerCat.5738:

Arenanet response that server population is tied to accounts registered to that server:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Server-Populations/first#post703192

It fluctuates because people switch server either very late, or very early.

I think you’re reading that wrong.

“Connor, when you see a server FULL means that the people who’ve chosen that server as theirs, or players who have moved to that particular server, have reached the cap, independently of where did they create their accounts.”

It’s worded a little vague… players on that server (or that moved to that server) have reached the cap. It appears, to me, to be talking about a player cap, not an account cap.

Narkosys.5173:

I dont get it people just dumb I guess.

cc eva has stated that server status is directly related to the accounts on the server not to people playing or concurrency.
I am tired of getting that link for people.

Yes they have lost 40-50% of the population since launch and are looking at ways to increase this.

If that were true, servers wouldn’t fluxuate their status during the day, from Full to Very High and back depending on the time. We had people transfer to JQ recently for WvW, they had to wait until something like 2AM for it to drop to Very High so they could enter.

Without the Asura to keep the world properly functioning at optimum level it would unravel under the sheer stupidity of the lesser races.

I think we only know what they want us to know and don’t know if we know all that there is to know, you know?

Just in time for Wintersday! Welcome to Tyria, you’re in for a treat.

Even if it’s a special bank tab to store town clothes and holiday hats that we can unlock for gems, having a dedicated wardrobe tab would be a nice touch. As time goes on and costumes and hats become more prevalent something like this will likely prove to be most beneficial in the future.

Of course… having some sort of closet in a personal housing instance would work too…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

If I were a charr, I’d be looking at that airship with a lot of envy. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll see a competition.

I smell a spoiler!

Nice job fixing the “jump in the back wall” bug, that’s gone for sure now. However, someone in a party two days did something similar, but using class mechanics. Apparently you can use the Wurm summon to summon a wurm inside the switch room then teleport yourself inside. Then he claimed to use some form of teleport gun (which I admit to never having heard of…) to pull others in there as well. I would up waiting outside the back exit all confused as to what the heck was going on.

Condas.7056:

Extreme yes, amongst a heaping pile of other weapons. Also would like to have spears on land.

Hmm… I could see mesmers using a one handed javelin… could be either a ranged or melee weapon.

I think they’d be a nice weapon addition in the future, sure. A crossbow would be another option they could consider adding in the future. What would be challenging is thinking of other types of weapons for more casterly types.

We had some people come over to JQ, but they had to wait until around 2AM to do so. Hopefully you’ll catch a window when a chunk of the population collapses from need for sleep.

When your wife starts nagging you to rake up the leaves… and you didn’t even realize they’d fallen off the trees already.

Some people are in a hurry to reach the shiny in the Maw chest. Sadly, they miss out on many golds worth of shinies on the way.

Believe me… I’ve seen far too many SoS players in WvW. (JQ here)

I swear you all are stuffing the WvW maps somehow with extra players. (Not really, but you all have an impressive turnout!)

Wizardauz.3761:

Imagine if everyone just got boulders in WvW for Zerg v Zerg

It’d be unstoppable.

It would rock. Out loud.

They have ascended hooves.

Does this make me OP?

I actually lost a good bit of toughness with this ring… but then again, I rely on not getting hit if I can help it.

Cortechs.3265:

I’ve already uninstalled because of Ascended Gear (btw Anet, your ‘Exit Survey’ is broken — surprise, surprise). Horizontal progression was the main reason I bought the game. There is no reason to continue playing now.

The forum does provide marginally entertaining lunch distractions though.

So, in the future when you realize that they’ve set the plate for horizontal progression in the future now, will you reinstall and check it out?

Sylosi.6503:

VOLKON.1290:

Fun fact… they didn’t stick in a gear treadmill. They added a step between exotics and legendaries to fill the time gap in between and to open the door to tons of lateral progression.

Fun fact, they added a gear treadmill that broke pre-game statments like this (from their lead dev):

“We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

You now have to hop on to a gear treadmill (a treadmill which currently breaks another one of their pre-game promises that you can play the game how you want) if you wish to remain just as powerful, pre-release prestigious gear meant cosmetic, if they just wanted to fill a space between exotic and legendary then it would of been cosmetic, the stats on a legendary were the same as an exotic.

They didn’t fill a space, they created an end game gear treadmill, because of whining / failure of tPvP.

No. You are wrong. Period. You’re going to have to come to terms with that.

Exotics are easy to get. Real easy… they’re all over the TP for example. Legendaries, however, without a concerted group effort may be outside the bounds of most players for a significant period of time. How to fix that time-gap? Ascended gear. Squeeze it in between Legendaries and Exotics (required a minor stat boost to legendaries to do so), make it so that it takes a moderate amount of time (yet not insurmountable) to acquire. Give a small stat boost, not big enough that it’ll affect things like WvW, and add infusions and agony making them ideal gear to pursue for Fractals and future dungeons. With me so far? OK… now stop.

No more tiers.

From here, you can expand laterally. Future dungeons and content may introduce new sets of ascended gear and maybe even new conditions (i.e. Agony) to deal with. People have the option to pursue new sets of ascended gear if they wish. Add new ways to get the ascended gear. Crafting, WvW, dungeons, etc. will all have various means to get ascended, and it’ll take notably longer to do so than to get exotics.

This is NOT a treadmill. A treadmill is when the next tier of gear is so much more powerful than your current that it immediately renders it obsolete, and if you fail to get that next tier you won’t be able to progress. They’ve shown, with Fractals, that you don’t need the new gear to experience new combat (no agony at all until level 10), but if you wish to push the levels further you will have the option of ascended gear to help you out. (Looking forwards to seeing the effects of +5 agony resistance in there, just got my first ring last night, the Yakkington’s one.)

Exotics will always remain significant gear. Ascended gear will always be obtainable. Legendaries will always be pinnacle. This is not a treadmill, and if they introduced this all on release no one would have batted an eyelash at it. Treadmills never end as far as vertical progression goes. This does, and allows endless lateral progression.

All they have to do is let the guardian Wall of Reflection reflect treb shots back at the target.

Sylosi.6503:

tkalamba.2541:

I just don’t understand why everyone stresses so much over a simple new tier in a game that is 3 months old. You’ll need to regear again anyways the second they raise the level cap so there’s no point in freaking out over it.

If you a buy a game sold to you on one philosophy then they u-turn within 3 months, it is a perfectly valid complaint.

Would you say the same if they u-turned on other pre-game promises? For example they stated they would not have open world PvP (in the full proper sense), can you imagine the uproar of three months in they went all EVE and decided to make introduce full open world PvP on every server.

I somehow suspect that many of the hypocrites who say sticking in a gear treadmill is fine, would be having a fit.

Raising the level cap at an expanision is fine, it was expected, introducing a gear treadmill in direct opposition to their pre-game interviews/ Q&A/ videos, etc is not. Of course now they will have less peolpe buying their expansion, because they are now competing with all the over “WoW 2.0” clones fighting for scraps.

Fun fact… they didn’t stick in a gear treadmill. They added a step between exotics and legendaries to fill the time gap in between and to open the door to tons of lateral progression.

IComeInPeace.1768:

Did you actually choose VOLKON? or was that computer generated?

I chose it from an old WoW toon I had… but as to why it’s in all Caps I don’t know and it doesn’t seem like they can change it at this time. My mesmer is Volkon, without the “all caps”.

Ran it last night without any issues at all, so maybe they fixed something or maybe it’s random if there is a bug. Funny thing is, one guy wanted to reset because they fixed the exploits. We didn’t, finished it without major issues and I fun doing it all the way through the right way.

They also fixed the Dredge exploit (Thank you ANet!), which turned into more kills and loot.

… and he shall forevermore be known as Santa Claws.

I got the Yakkington’s Ring last night, my first ascended piece. I also haven’t decided whether to craft a quiver or go for a fully jacked up capacitor. Quit over ascended? Hell no, I’m having a blast just trying to obtain them. Yes, it’s a bit grindy and slow, however I spend most of my time in WvW, so this PvE draw really is a pleasant change of pace when I need a mental reset.

“Bag of Loose Change” would be appropriate.

Unless, of course, there’s a small percent chance that someone actually could get a gold or more… we don’t know.

We should be able to build a bridge out of him.

I remember prior to the ‘thief preventing you from capping’ fix this one thief that kept rezzing the guild dude while fully stealthed. That’s something you’d really have to watch for… the mesmer being rezzed and you never see it happening.

Avatara.1042:

That DEVS gm spouts his lies each time they are caught, and they are caught a lot.

Well, I think the only way to really deal with it is for those of us on Jade Quarry to actively go after them. We shouldn’t rely on other servers to catch our cheats for us, we need to police ourselves. The help of other servers is of course appreciated, such as the video above, but ultimately it’s our responsibility.

I’m on JQ… I’ll be looking out for these clowns with the intent on following them around and reporting this behavior. It’s an embarrassment to our server. We’ve never needed cheating to get to where we are and we don’t need it now.

Any of the late-night crowd have any insight?

However, Guild Wars 2’s real developer, ArenaNet, is hiring.

This happens a lot at the rich Ori node in SouthSun… I asked someone about it and they said they logged out there and logged in to mine the node.

I’m still not sure if I believe him, but the fact that he responded and it’s indeed feasible…

Shield of Absorption and Wall of Reflection vs Swirling Winds and Smoke Screen…

As you know, Feedback and Wall of Reflection will both reflect projectiles back to their source, while Swirling Winds and Smoke Screen absorb the projectiles. What’s interesting, and I’m hoping this is an oversight because as a mesmer with a guardian alt I could have a blast with this, is that Swirling Winds and Smoke Screen work against trebuchet shots yet Feedback and Swirling Winds don’t. Now, you may think it’s because reflects would be OP if they reflected… Shield of Absorption, which by definition also absorbs projectiles, doesn’t work against trebuchet shots.

Is there a reason for this disparity? I’m not sure if it’s by design or a bug that needs to be reported, but for a variety of skills that all are supposed to work against projectiles there’s definitely a lack of consistency with how they function.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated… again, I’m trying to determine if there’s a design factor at play or a bug to be reported.

Thanks all!

Moderator.1462:

Hi everyone,

There has been some chat of exploits and acussations as usual going on here. Please refrain from that behaviour as it is punishable. If you suspect someone from cheating or hacking, use the in game report tool but refrain from bringing the discussion here.

Thanks

How exactly do we do that? Last I saw, they even took away the ability to get someone’s account name for reporting purposes, and there’s no quick reporting for exploits or the like, just botting and selling gold (examples).

If you all would add an option to the right-click report menu for exploiting (and include an optional added text) that would be great.

alcopaul.2156:

Aoshi.4785:

mulch.2586:

2 million + accounts.

Fewer than 1 million forums users

Therefore a minority. Cuz that’s what it means.

Pretty simple really. /thread

do you have to eat all the fishes in the sea to know what fish tastes like?

you just need to eat one to 2 fishes.

Do you really think you can eat one or two fish and know what they all taste like? Eat a couple fillets of whitefish and now you know what grouper or salmon must be like?

No.

The problem with using forums as a representative view of the entire population is that forums tend to be heavily skewed towards more hard-core styles of gamers. In other words… forums have an inherent bias. There’s a recent real life example of this in play… anyone remember during the recent Presidential race, there was a site called (iirc) unskewedpolls.com or something similar? They tried to remove from the polls the balances that were applied to them (to make them more realistically represent the actual populace). Removing those balances wound up with a sample that bore little resemblance to the actual population, and as a result they were embarrassingly wrong in their projections.

So, not only are forums representative of a minority of the population, they’re also biased to a major degree that needs to be taken into consideration when trying to get an idea of what the populace as a whole actually thinks. You can’t look at forums as an un-skewed sample and expect results that accurately reflect upon the population as a whole.

TAB targeting needs a direct neural interface to allow me to target what I’m thinking, even before I know I actually want to target it. Hopefully that’s in the works… would be nice for these massive January or February content releases coming up.

If you parse the numbers carefully you’ll be able to pick out the people that spend a serious amount of time in WvW.

My 80s…

Mesmer- 521 1/2 hrs, 765 deaths
Guardian – 170 hrs, 400 deaths

Nuked.2360:

FOO has not left JQ. I played with them a little bit this morning but due to reset coming up we didn’t push much. Also we are adding another oceanic/sea guild as we speak Aggroculture is in the midst of transferring to JQ

Ah, very nice, thanks for the input and reassurance. I was about to be a sad quaggan.

By the way, FIRE is always recruiting, the only requirements are wearing the FIRE tags and TS3. Like other guilds on JQ, we have some great commanders, are well coordinated and simply have fun while kicking buttocks.