Guild Wars 2

2 and 2.5 are the best solutions as far as I see.

I’ve had extraordinary bad luck (at least as far as I can tell) with the Mystic Forge and pre drops, as well as Fractal drops and carapace chest pieces.

It’s miserable being on the lower end while seeing everyone else make heaps of money just by simply being lucky. While this is true in real life, I don’t want to experience this much real life in my video games.

With 2, this prevents severely negative consequences of random distributions while still offering a chance of great success.

2.5 is probably the best idea. This provides people with the hope that they can at least achieve what they’re seeking, without unbalancing current systems.

Drop rates on the carapace boxes are bad. I’ve done about 7 runs and haven’t gotten a single other box, while other players end up with excess numbers of boxes.

This is why I hate RNG. In Fractals and in this new LS, RNG punishes players for no discernible reason.

Is there any chance we’re going to see upgrades to how Fractal weapon skins drop?

+1 here.

I even got to see the Mists from Lion’s Arch!

Also, Margonites usually did not float above the ground, and those that did were usually female spellcasters who only floated an inch or two above the ground. All Mursaat floated several feet off the ground.

Additionally, Margonites should’ve been wiped out by Kormir within this time period.

Astral Projections.7320:

I have the Demon Mask on my Norn Necro. I don’t have a picture, but when I tried out the new eye colors, the red hued ones (Chili, Flame and Persephone) turned into a glowing yellow. Applied immediately.

Got a screenshot of that? I want to see.

Urosh Uchiha.9732:

pjuppi.3460:

where did you see this? printscreen or explain where you can see it plz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yUExT2SSA0

28 seconds into the video.

http://i.imgur.com/AWSzIun.jpg

See the attached image.

“I HAVE SEEN SOME THINGS.”

Did anybody else see the hovering magic-caster in the clip? Tell me I wasn’t hallucinating.

Groups with very specific gear demands (asking you to ping) tend to be pretty kick-happy.

Zaxares.5419:

I would like to see the following new ways for acquiring Fractal Weapons:

1. You get a Fractal Weapon Box for completing Fractal Frequenter (500 Fractals completed). This is a one-time bonus and is retroactive.

2. You can trade 100/250/500(? Open to negotiation) Pristine Fractal Relics for a Fractal Weapon Box. As part of this change, you can trade back any existing Fractal Weapon skin you don’t want for 100 Pristine Fractal Relics.

3. Fractal Weapon Boxes are now a very rare drop from completing Fractal Level 40 – 50.

4. A new Fractals meta-achievement is added where you get a Fractal Weapon Box for completing every single Fractals achievement (except Fractal Frequenter). (This may be a problem if ANet decides to add more Fractals in the future, however.)

I would love to see this. It makes the weapons accessible without making them giveaways.

Technically, given an infinite amount of time anything is possible.

It’s just that I don’t want to play Fractals for eternity.

Thanks guys!

Obal, what would you recommend to fill those trait slots?

Thanks for the tips!

I’m still working on getting enough skill points to unlock all the traits, but good suggestions. Right now I have GS and scepter/shield, so I set up as 4/0/4/6/0, but I can’t fill out the traits completely yet.

Hey!

I just leveled my guardian up to 80 thanks to tomes of knowledge, but I’m an absolute newbie to the class.

I was wondering what would be a good build for running Fractals with? I play regularly, and wanted a guardian for it.

rfdarko.4639:

Vagrant.7206:

Like I said (in the OP), I’m fractal level 50. I do 49 and 38 most commonly.

So maybe the former. :P

Depending on how much time you have, I’d recommending doing a 29 or 30 as well. Most of my skins have dropped from the 20s tier, I tend to just get rings or healers chest of ascended gloves from 50s.

Thanks for the tip, I’ll try that.

insanemaniac.2456:

Vagrant.7206:

I’d also like to point out that chests for ascended armor drop at a worse rate (in my experience) from fractals than from pvp chests.

you must either pvp a lot, be a low fractal level, or both.

Like I said (in the OP), I’m fractal level 50. I do 49 and 38 most commonly.

So maybe the former. :P

I’d also like to point out that chests for ascended armor drop at a worse rate (in my experience) from fractals than from pvp chests.

Alquinon.2957:

Keep in mind that for, a while there (until November I think), the droprates for fractal skins were accidentally screwed up (for the worse) for fractals 40+. I’m not sure when they first screwed it up, but I didn’t get a single skin for about three months. After the patch notes where they said that they fixed it, I got four more fractal skins I didn’t have before.

Even with that fix, it’s still not enough. The token system needs to be implemented for fractals as well.

Hi all!

I’m a regular Fractals-goer and my personal reward is at level 50. According to the achievement, I’ve completed well over 500 individual fractals (completing the achievement), and that’s not including all the fractals I did before the achievements were implemented.

I have acquired 3 fractal weapon skins — longbow, scepter, and hammer. There are one or two other skins I wish to acquire, but the RNG gods do not favor me.

Why is it that in almost every aspect of the game a person can work slowly towards large goals except for Fractal skins and precursors? Are Fractal skins akin to precursors? Why is there no means of working towards a skin outside of the RNG?

I say this of course, in a bit of frustration. I’ve been playing several weeks in a row without a skin in sight. I just wonder if there’s some way for ArenaNet to add a means to acquire the skins without relying on RNG.

Perhaps use the pristine fractal relics to buy a skin (maybe for like, 30/40/50 pristine relics)? It seems that would be a heck of a price to help circumvent bad luck, and would give me some use for all these pristine relics piling up.

Same here. Happened twice. Trying a third time.

Part 2

Shifting Gears

In the previous iteration of the TP, filtering items and searching was front and center in the TP. You couldn’t miss it — it was right at the top. Now searching is off to the top left corner, as is filtering. Additionally, while there are new filtering categories (thank you for that ANet!), the filtering system is only accessed through a tiny little gear icon, which most newcomers may not see.

http://i.imgur.com/FERnIo9.jpg

The filtering and search system is VITAL to making the TP experience pleasant. Don’t relegate these items off to the side!

Misc. Issues

While I personally don’t spend a lot of effort speculating in the market, some people do. Having a statistics page like in the original TP post was useful for people who wanted to know what was happening in the market.

The Good News — AKA What Was Done Right

This isn’t to say all the changes are bad. Some of the changes are wonderful.

The most important beneficial to the TP, in my opinion, was being able to sort by class restrictions. My fiancee and I have had this gripe about the TP since beta, and I’m glad to finally see it fixed.

Secondly, I have seen the TP speeds greatly improve. This is wonderful. The TP before was sluggish and unstable, and the new version seems to be much faster and more stable.

Thirdly, the transaction log (currently buying, currently selling, bought and sold items) is easier to navigate than before. This is a good ergonomic change.

Fourth, and perhaps least importantly, the dang thing looks prettier. It was an eyesore before. However, this new form needs to be functional too.

Which is why we should talk about…..

Suggestions!

1. Fix the aforementioned ergonomics issues — if I want to instantly buy 250 items, make it so I go through all necessary listings to reach that 250 items. If I want instantly sell a large number of items, it shouldn’t take twice the clicking!
2. Make entering quantities manually easier. Right now we have to click on the tiny quantity box, delete the number that’s currently present, and then enter our desired number. What should happen is that clicking the quantity box should instantly remove whatever quantity is currently in there already and allow us to instantly enter our desired quantity. The click and drag thing takes more time and effort than should be necessary.
3. Allow players to customize how many items they see per viewing pane.
4. Provide an additional statistics page for people who like to play the market.
5. In future feature packs, allow players to playtest changes first in order to discover these issues before they become available to the general public.

Why do people not like the new TP? It’s ergonomically unfriendly.

Let’s examine why!

Selling Issues!

The first reason is that all the tabs of the first TP have been reduced down to one tab. At first glance, this shouldn’t seem like an issue.

http://i.imgur.com/I01nej7.jpg

What one fails to realize is that the previous TP had a separate tab for selling all your goods. Selling goods on the TP in the past took a single click. Now it takes at least two clicks. If you do this multiple times during a dungeon run, this literally doubles your clicking.

The next issue is the number of items on the sell list. Previously, about 20 items were shown per screen, without any need to scroll. Now, we only get 9 items shown per screen, and we need to scroll down to see the 10th and beyond.

http://i.imgur.com/5a3RB7P.jpg

On the buy list, we get 8 items before we need to scroll.

http://i.imgur.com/LJ8itxl.jpg

The other additional factor in buying is that the “pages” no longer exist. While in theory this is good (it does reduce overall clicks), it makes it more difficult to keep track of your place when looking through a large list of items.

Moving on, let’s see how the actual buying and selling of items has been… unimproved.

Let’s say I want to sell an item instantly. In the past, you clicked a single button and poof! Everything sold instantly to the the person paying the most money, until the order was fulfilled. Do it again until items are gone or orders are filled.

What happens now is you have to first click on a buy order in order to sell instantly. (+1) click.

http://i.imgur.com/58w9Vo4.jpg

Afterwards, a screen pops up saying to pick up your coin. Hitting “Ok” or “Close” do the same thing, functionally, which is confusing. Additionally, hitting these buttons is another click, and although that was in the previous TP, it was almost exactly next to the sell button, which made it very quick.

http://imgur.com/58w9Vo4,G1E5XBA#1

Then when you click the button, it automatically puts you at the next sell instantly order. This is good! Automatic is good. What isn’t good is that the system by default doesn’t put the slider on sell all instantly — this is generally what people want, and what the system did by default previously. This adds another click (+1 click).

http://i.imgur.com/E0Snw7E.jpg

The issue of automatically including all items also pops up when listing the item, instead of using the buy order system. Listing the item makes the slider, by default, only sell 1 of the item. Most people don’t want to list just 1 item. Most people will, by default, want to list all items and reduce from there. This requires an extra click and drag to correct (+1 click).

http://i.imgur.com/AMHcxDN.jpg

Now imagine doing this after a dungeon run. If we assume the new patch made it take 6 clicks to sell items, instead of the previous 3 clicks it took, then you have effectively doubled the amount of clicking it takes to sell all your loot. This starts to wear on people’s patience.

Buying Problems

Let’s say I want to buy 250 Ancient Bones instantly, instead of placing a buy order.

On the old TP, I would simply enter 250 into the quantity slot, and the TP would automatically go through all available listings until my desired quantity was fulfilled. I can’t do that any more. Entering 250 on an item without 250 available in the first listing will only fill until the first listing is nullified.

http://i.imgur.com/khqda0B.jpg

I have to first check multiple boxes for available listings and make sure that at least 250 Ancient Bones are available in those listings. I then have to enter the quantity (250) and hit buy. As before, I also have to pray that somebody doesn’t buy at the same moment I do and cause the listings to change. As you can see from the image below, I actually have to start scrolling through listings and checking to reach the required 250 Ancient Bones. This is INCREDIBLY tedious, especially when considering the number of buys some people need to make.

http://imgur.com/khqda0B,CpQOnbA#1

Now let’s say I say “Screw that!” and want to place a buy order. This has been simplified over the previous iteration of the TP, but it’s confusing to newcomers. Now I have to click on the left side of the screen, enter my quantity and desired price, and list the item. This part is done fairly well, but not very clearly to newcomers.

http://i.imgur.com/nR4mpj1.jpg

However, I ran into a snag while doing this. I tried to place a buy order at the same price as a listing. The system automatically shifted me over into the instant buy section. This was not my desired goal — I wanted to place a buy order at a specific price and quantity, not buy instantly at variable prices and variable quantities. Now we’re back to the aforementioned issue of instant buys!

http://i.imgur.com/woE7Tnm.jpg

See more in Part 2!

I Am Dansker.7105:

Vagrant.7206:

Sylvari are magical in nature, and incorruptible by dragons

Actually that isn’t true as they are being corrupted right now by mordremoth, though those under the protection of the pale tree are safe (according to the pale tree)

As for her reason to be back, i hope it is for more than just handing over her sword, though i wouldn’t mind that either :P

Are you sure about that? When I say corruption, I mean dragon corruption (like the branded, icebrood, or the risen). I’ve never observed a corrupted sylvari.

The only “corrupted” part of Scarlet and the assasin was their minds (which means they had psychotic breaks, not actual dragon corruption).

The game hints that the Sylvari may be incorruptible because they originated from a dragon’s power in the first place (meaning you can’t corrupt something that was corrupted in the first place).

Oola shows up as a ghost in the Old Oola lab (though, she had to bind her soul to one her golems, yet its destruction didn’t cause her to fade). Aside from that, no other Asuran ghosts that I know of….and even though there are no Sylvari ghosts so far, they’re implied to have souls (Soul/Avatar of the Pale Tree, the ritual where you see Riannoc’s death involves connecting with his spirit in the swamp, Caithe appearing as a spirit in the Dream in the starting quest). Still, I wish they’d be a bit more clear on why some races have ghosts more then others…blasted bookahs.

True, I hadn’t done the Asuran storyline quests so I never interacted with Oola.

So far I’ve only done this on my warrior, so I don’t know what it’s like for other classes. I imagine it’ll be easier on my engineer.

It was somewhat of a challenge on my warrior, mainly because I would get bounced into the fear wards, living me incapacitated for a good 5-10 seconds. Other than that, it wasn’t particularly difficult.

My engineer is a condi build with lots of good utility skills, so I imagine it’ll be much easier.

I never bothered to switch his mode. There was no way his DPS could match mine.

Most of this particular update was filler — go here and fix these people’s problems. Rytlock didn’t even accomplish anything, which is sad because the trailer hinted at a truly groundbreaking lore change with the ghosts.

As far as ghosts, humans are the predominant race to have ghosts because of the Foefire. Norn have been seen to have them, but that’s the result of a powerful force ripping their bodies from their souls (Zhaitan).

Sylvari are magical in nature, and incorruptible by dragons — they cannot become ghosts or Risen (I don’t even think they can become undead). I believe there are rare charr ghosts (the loggers in the forest) and I haven’t heard of an Asuran ghost yet. Jotun have been observed as ghosts too: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Veteran_Jotun_Spirit

TL;DR Ghosts are a result of a powerful magic being or spell.

This suggest that either Mordremoth or Marjory is the reason why Belinda is now a ghost.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Oh I can’t wait to be called commander again. I’m downright thrilled! I highly dislike being called “boss”. Boss of what? Whay am I the boss now? Noone asked me to be the boss. I’m way more delighted with being called commander than boss.

It’s the unnamed hero problem. Never called our names because XXX420_noscope_bbqXXX would be too hard to include in voice acting.

My only problem with Trahearne’s voice acting is that Trahearne’s character does not look like he should have a voice that deep. Voices should match the physical description of the character. Trahearne looks like a scholar (which he is), yet he sounds like a grizzled warrior.

I understand that the whole point of breaking the waypoint is to illustrate to people that the “kitten” is hitting the fan.

The problem with this is that it’s the only waypoint I’ve observed that has had this effect. This is an annoyance to most players who like to do business in this area, obviously, so they notice it.

The problem is not that the waypoint itself is broken. This makes sense from a lore standpoint.

The problem is that the broken waypoint is only applied to one waypoint. This is incredibly inconsistent from a lore standpoint. Waypoints around the world should start to exhibit this behavior — major racial cities excluded (given that they are all heavily paved or synthetic except the pale tree, which is magical in nature).

TL; DR: If you’re going to do something like this for lore, go all in. Otherwise it’s just seen as an annoyance from the devs.

My feeling about one of the new Norn hairs.

Yep. The buff is found close to the base of some of the waterfalls, and on upper levels of the waterfall (the northernmost skillpoint comes to mind). However, the healing effect is particularly weak (for my warrior it was about 5 health/sec, which is nothing). I think it was meant as a nod to GW1.

I find it weird that they just left Belinda hanging.

…

Ba dum tish!

And it is absolutely for character development. Belinda as a character had no meaning to the story other than her relation to Marjory. We didn’t even know what she was like personality-wise — Neither does Kasmeer.

Rox, Braham, and Taimi together are more interesting personality wise than Kas and Marjory. I’m guessing this is some way to shoe in a bit more personality.

JACKELOPE!

TREE!

Furniture!

Or a guild banner?

Also, this is hysterical.

One of the new charr hairstyles has gone super saiyan. Just waiting for a blonde charr with that hair.

Humans are kinda interesting.

Personally I don’t find sylvari interesting in general, thus I don’t care about their hair. Same with Asura.

I really like one of the new Norn hairs… except for clipping issues. See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/New-Norn-Hairs-Clipping-issues/

Take a look at the pictures below and tell me that’s not a problem. This is tier 3 norn cultural armor (heavy).

I really want to use the new hair, but the clipping is BAD. The hair still manages to look pretty despite the clipping, but the clipping is just too much.

http://i.imgur.com/hr5VoNu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8GsCIPx.jpg

I just got this as well!

It made me hopeful for endless amounts of money. :P

Seems to have happened when the game thought that the ectos I meant to sell were actually bags. The weird thing is that the gold on whatever BL account was there was “1234g 56s 78c”

So I’m sure everyone is aware of this, and has been for a long time.

Overflows are generally bad to land in. While there’s no actual limit on how well they can do (I’ve seen overflows take out Teqatl), they have a tendency to fail.

Why? The problem can generally be boiled down to 2 reasons:
1) Failure to communicate.
2) Insufficient players.

While there’s little one can do to counter problem #1, this problem can be experienced on any server, regardless if it’s overflow or not.

However, problem #2 can, and should, be dealt with by ArenaNet. Large world bosses are meant to be difficult, not impossible. The issue with having a lack of people is that it makes these world bosses impossible. Not in a figurative sense either — these bosses don’t scale down.

We know that ArenaNet can program group events to scale up or down based on the number of people participating. Why not program large world bosses to do the same? The marionette fight is a perfect example — you need 20-25 people in each lane, roughly. But if there’s only 50 people in your overflow, you’re looking at 10 people in each lane, which is completely insufficient to beat the marionette.

Just my two cents.

FLiP.7680:

Vagrant.7206:

[…]
In other words, people who already paid their 100-119g for the human tier 3 cultural set have been gipped, badly. Other people can get a better looking set for 70% of the cost. On top of it all, insult is added to injury because the tier 3 human cultural armor is available to all other races.
[…]

Is it fair take out the best looking light armor only because it’s cheaper? Which will benefit you as well if you want another scholar class.

No. I’m saying it’s completely unfair to people who bought the more expensive, worse looking set because ArenaNet made a conscious decision that cheated them.

Based on current exchange rates, you can get 800 gems for ~70 gold.

The flamekissed armor is visually identical to the human tier 3 light armor, but with additional visual effects and available to all races (not human exclusive).

In other words, people who already paid their 100-119g for the human tier 3 cultural set have been gipped, badly. Other people can get a better looking set for 70% of the cost. On top of it all, insult is added to injury because the tier 3 human cultural armor is available to all other races.

It devalues the human tier 3 cultural set for no reason other than ArenaNet trying to make a buck — that is a huge problem.

Hopefully that clarifies any issues.

(FYI, I have Tier 3 medium human armor, and I can see why it would be such a big deal)

Yep. There’s not an ounce of Scarlet that I find interesting. She is a surrogate villain — not a proper one.

In my opinion, humans have the largest lore to their background — ArenaNet had to reduce their effect on the lore in order to accommodate for the new races. Humans have the most interesting and diverse story in the timeline of Tyria. Since they were the only playable race in GW1, I am also continuing my characters from then.

Charr: The bulkiness, to me, only suits the warrior and guardian classes. Even the slimmest charr female is still huge compared to other races.
Norn: I don’t have too much of a problem with the Norn except that the running animation bothers me — for how big they are, they run incredibly slowly.
Asura: The animations just bother me. Too… overdramatic. There’s no subtlety in the Asura.
Sylvari: Brand new race on the block, have no real backstory to them. Not to mention they just look like green humans.

Good evening Arenanet (or morning, or noon, or afternoon depending on where you are).

My personal feelings about Scarlet are rather mixed. On the one hand, I get that she’s supposed to be a comic book villain — always there to provide the “evil” hand that drives a conflict. On the other hand, we get very little in the way of her characterization other than a condescending person who somehow has way too much power at her disposal, and doesn’t leave any kind of evidence regarding her motivations or how she even got this power. This recent update has done little to inform players about what kind of person she is, her motivation, how she got her power, or even why we should care about her as a character other than a conflict-provider. I’m glad we’re taking a break from her, and I hope it’s indefinite, as she has been really boring up until this point (I took a few months break [edit: Apparently a synonym for “break” is a censored word on the forum] from GW2 because the Living World story bored me so much).

The tower, as a zone, is pretty good on levels 1 and 2. Level 3 however has really managed to get my goat — unless you are with at least 3 people, if not a full group, you will die many many times. The random fears off ledges, combined with the debuff and random elite/veteran spawns plus the stuns/immobilizes make it very difficult to get through this part of the tower without a zerg to shove you forward. The weird thing is that this portion of the tower is that it is more difficult than the final instance (even scaled up for a group of 5). The final boss is a joke compared to that third section. While difficulty in a zone isn’t a bad thing per se, and can be a fun challenge (I think of the Aetherblade hideout), in this case it punishes players who prefer solo play or players who got left behind by the zerg.

Anyway, there’s my 2 cents. Feel free to comment, or don’t.

Human Engineer.

I just noticed this too. Strange to go from chicken wings to a masculine run.

Reborn.2934:

@Vagrant.7206

are you using this ? http://www.kainy.com/whatiskainy.html if so i think better ask to their forums too

So it was Kainy. How absolutely bizarre.

Having the same issue every time I hit the play button.

—> Crash <—
Exception: c0000005
Memory at address 3f840400 could not be read
App: Gw2.exe
Pid: 6748
Cmdline: -useOldFOV -autologin
BaseAddr: 00400000
ProgramId: 101
Build: 23106
Module: Kainyx.dll
When: 2013-09-05T04:46:31Z 2013-09-04T21:46:31-07:00
Uptime: 0 days 0:00:06
Flags: 0

So I looked at the copper-fed salvage-o-matic and was absolutely mortified at Arenanet’s decision making on this one. It only counts as a basic salvage kit, and does not recover weapon or armor upgrades (nearly as useful as a crude salvage kit)

Copper-fed Salvage-o-matic: 800 gems = 31g12s
Cost per use: 3c

Basic Salvage Kit: 88c
Cost per use: 3.52c (88c/25 uses)

Right off the bat, you can tell that this is a bad deal. 0.52 copper per use better with the salvage-o-matic compared to the basic salvage kit?

Then, if we calculate the cost of the salvage-o-matic with money traded as gems (using current values), the salvage-o-matic costs 31g12s. In order to make up that difference by salvage uses alone, you would need to salvage nearly 600,000 items to make up the money lost by buying this thing. The only “benefit” is that it never breaks, which is a pretty mild benefit.

Heroes of today are busy; they’re always on the move and always looking for innovative ways to save on time and money.

Riiiiiight.

TL; DR: ArenaNet, what were you thinking? How is this a deal worth buying? Even the convenience factor doesn’t compare — I’d rather have 10 basic salvage kits sitting in my inventory than spend 31g or $10 for this.

How about a freaking pistol? We got even less this time around, the sovereign pistol is freaking ugly and that’s all we got for pistols.

I have to say, I am rather disappointed at the lack of content for engineers. Considering we’re limited to only pistols, rifles, and shields (not common for engineers), we don’t get much in the way of cool skins. Best I have is Ilya and Lyss, and the closest cool pistol skin was the aetherized pistol skin (looks like a 6 shooter). But in a lot of recent updates it feels like us engies have been left out.