Guild Wars 2

i think this game’s harder for altaholics. there’s enough differences between professions that it can be hard to transition (though the recent guardian gs skill changes have actually made that easier for me there).

whenever i’m having difficulty with something, i usually reassess my profession skills and my approach. there’s very little pve (outside dungeons and the fire ele zone boss in metrica province) that seems to be intended to be difficult.

you know i’ve wondered as i was frantically reporting the bots in cursed shore, if i might accidentally report a player

well, 42 is not necessarily the meaning of life; just the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.

we can now confidently say that, “how many character slots can you have in gw2?” is not the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.

i kinda assumed as much before though.

yeah, when i heard that you could level all crafting professions on the same character i thought it would be cool to have a crafting character like i did in global agenda. a few sentences later i heard that it would cost money to switch back i decided that it would be cooler to do it on 4 characters like i originally thought.

400 in everything but tailor/artificer and no regrets.

i found it to be kind of a relief.

so some people complain that there’s no reason to go back and play lower level content @ 80. other people complain that they have to go back and play lower level zones.

i don’t remember the tier of bag that you can open for vanilla but i know it’s out there (maybe high tier 2, lower t3?).

tl;dr: don’t bother. the one thing you had a measure of success with, i didn’t. i even took the mats with the biggest spread between t5 and 6 (silk to gossamer) and after about 25 skill points i had made a couple gold then ran a string of 10’s and ended with less than i started. i’ve completely given up on any money-making ideas that involve anything beyond looting and vendoring. that’s been the most consistantly successful method i’ve found so far. i’m not a big gambler though and there’s too much rng (at least range in the rng) in things like the mystic forge to be considered anything but gambling.

surprisingly no mention of plain stupid people’s affect on the economy? 300+ people selling items @ vendor (or vendor +1) is rediculous.

there are also plenty of non-bots with the goal of manipulating the market too. those stacks of ancient bone aren’t necessarily bots. just because one person didn’t farm them all doesn’t mean that one person couldn’t buy them and resell them. there are significant amounts of people that put a lot of effort into controlling the prices of resources (you can see them in action when you look at buy orders that skip several numbers in order to artificially inflate the prices).

anyway, tl;dr: your bot detection algorhythm is extremely unreliable if you’re going by, “that sure a lot of claws…BOTS!”

D W.5179:

… you didn’t build that…

the only question i have is whether you’re misquoting it on purpose to spoof fox news or on accident because you don’t understand the actual quote.

it probably has an effect but i don’t notice it much (only using 5 pirates/1 traveler runes and some orange coconut thing i made and i am trying to use up) since i’m only switching to that character to hit a couple events and nodes in orr before switching back to my main. i’ll agree that the best mf is no grind. that being said, it would be nice to know solid numbers on mf nad a lot of other things in the game.

i hope the guy who got the name Voltar in the first minute of the headstart HATES what his character looks like and never gets to change it.

other than that i’m on-board with putting a barber shop or something into the game for all the people who didn’t put thought into it during character creation (or their hair clips with armor or whatever)>

it’ll be alright. if you haven’t played gw1 then i can understand your uncertainty about the future. anet is a solid group of people though and they want their game to be as fun as possible.

as time goes on, people find that things they try either work or not.

Soulwatcher.2604:

…I haven’t seen a single “MAKE IT LIKE WOW NOW OR I AM GOING TO RAGE QUIT!”…

that’s what they’re saying when they say, “i’m bored,” or, “endgame sucks,” or, “there’s nothing to do.”
there’s a lot of those and they are asking for something to grind because that’s what they learned to do from other games. if you tell them that they can wvw, get completion, achievement hunt, farm crafting mats, run dynamic events, spvp, keg brawl, etc. they will tell you, “i don’t wanna.”
ok…
i think those are the same people that are complaining about the lack of “proggression” or “carrot-on-a-stick,” as i’ve thought of it since vanilla wow. so yeah. that’s the conditioning people have been under since eq.

i played gw1 since beta weekends and i’m content that i’ve played it enough. as for gw2, i expected pretty much what arenanet said would be in the game and i got pretty much what arenanet said would be in the game.

i’m not entirely sure what you expected.

no. do not want. i would recommend unchecking doubletap too and instead bind a key/mouse button. you will roll in the direction of your wasd.

the reason this is a fun topic is seeing everyone’s response to 8 and the use of the word grind. i noticed today that i completely stopped looking at levels which is AWESOME!

i am becoming less able to understand why some people need a tangible reward for everything they do than i was the day before.

it may be gw 2 but it’s still a gw. make a running build and go.

that entire puzzle is intended as a giant grief mechanism. that is the sole purpose of the traps in there. iirc, there’s another one of those invisdibility crystals near there (depending on how quickly you can make it through the darkroom) so a mesmer could munch that then portal a group directly on top of the aroow cart.

another idea is to kill players in keeps instead and those that are camping the jumping puzzle won’t get any kills =*(

op is awesome, unimaginative posters after that are not.

*despite our best efforts, the trinity is trying to hold on for dear life! KILL IT WITH FIRE! LEAP INTO THE FIRE FOR A FIRESHIELD COMBO AND DROP A HEALING SPRING SO THE HAMMER GUARDIAN CAN BLAST HEAL THE GROUP AND…well, i don’t need to keep going. as someone who’s played tank and healer and dps, i’m glad it’s going away. you can still heal and tank and dps, just not exclusively.

i think too many people have difficulty with underwater combat and don’t improve (since it’s relatively optional). people do though…they’re just not out there in the water already usually. there was a ton of dudes doing the shark at ft trinity last night when i was there.

i don’t think the op intended this to be a troll post but it’s turned into that. when someone complains that the game is simultaneously too easy and mindlessly hard, i think someone’s just looking to complain and the actual complaint isn’t that important. as far as proggression, i think it’s less significant than it is in other games as the intention is for you to play the game for playing’s sake. the progression idea works more with subscription models as it’s intended to keep people logging in as long as possible.

i also think a lot of people are having difficulty matching the game with their expectations (including ones we don’t realize we have). i think that’s part of the reason there’s a feeling people get like they need to find bigger numbers for everything. what’s eq at now? 105 levels and 19 expansions? my total lack of interest in eq aside, that is a barrier to entry for me and probably a lot of people. anet’s spent a lot of time figuring out what it is they like and dislike about other games and have tried to bring the best of that home to this game. i think they’ve done a pretty good job just with the convenience features. i think the reason they did this is because they want the gameplay to be fun. you’re not going to fall behind so feel free to go check stuff out. because i’m such a cheap sob and i was spending a lot on crafting mats while leveling, i got into the habit of never using the waypoints. the more i do that, the more i’m finding myself just running into stuff and getting involved (yes, i do lvl 5 de’s on my lvl80). as the major problems get solved, the live team is going to be constantly adding and changing de’s throughout the game. there’s a few elaborate de’s too where the npc’s go through entire scenes that people miss because they’re too busy trying to ACCOMPLISH! for all my own personal trash talk about the low quality of personal storyline, some of the side stuff that’s hidden away is really funny.

the way i see people on forums and in-game with their blinders on reminds me of this story about a guy in a flood (i’m not a ‘religion’ guy but ‘god’ is one of the characters). he’s sitting on his roof and a boat comes past to pick him up. the guy says, “no thanks, god will save me.” the water rises and another boat comes by offering him a spot. “no thanks, god will save me.” so the water rises up to the roof level. a helicopter comes by and offers him a spot. “no thanks, god will save me.” so the water level rises farther and eventuall the guy drowns. he goes to ‘heaven’ and asks, “god, i have complete faith in you and knew you would save me but you never came. why?” and god replies to him, “i don’t know what you’re talking about. i sent 2 boats and a helicopter.”

for some reason that story comes to mind a lot when i’m reading the forums and playing the game. i think a lot of people knew something would be different about this game but it doesn’t seem like they know what they’re looking for.

anyway, tl;dr: i don’t think that progression in the subscription-model sense is an important factor in the development of this game. there are other things to look for and the internalized sense of need to progress is likely a learned response to conditioning.

tl;dr for the tl;dr: check out keg brawl. i’m saving that for when i get bored and so far haven’t had the chance to check it out yet.

yeah, my guild’s essentially me. i just finished up the easy politics stuff (armorer) and started architecture 2 today. it seems (haven’t gotten the vault yet but…) like a reasonable amount of time. there’s not that many non-consumable upgrades in general. maybe they have place-holders for things that will be added later (when they do some type of guild hall upgrades or other additions).

nope. you might be thinking about either might boons (which do add power and condition damage) or possibly the fact that the curses trait line adds power and condition duration. i think curses adds condy damage.

they said they were looking into fishing a while ago and have left fish meat out of the game intentionally so they can impliment it later. no promises but they are aware of the fishing fetish mmo player’s have.

when a game hands you butter and chocolate, you should make chocolate chip cookies. a lot of the chocolate-covered fruits do a mf bonus too so there’s that as well.

the mystic forge is a win-machine. you tried to fail and you won instead. that’s awesome.

i dunno. i don’t need a carrot. the game’s fun to play so i play it. getting lvl80 stuff dropping is a nice bonus but not the goal.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

…but have you considered targeting content at a higher level than your character? I prefer difficult content, so personally I tend to look for content that’s 2 levels higher than my own.

i think the op’s issue was that a lot of events never go into the ultimate failure state which cheats us out of content. i agree and think that the dragon events (though i haven’t done tequatl yet, i’m sure it’s as visually stunning and easy to win as the 2 i have done). there’s no sense of risk in those.

definitely after about the lvl 20-30 zones the difficulty could ramp way up in general but maybe that’s a different issue.

hard stuff is good.
i don’t want to be able to beat every dungeon with a pug. that’s not what they are supposed to be about. what other game intends for their high-difficulty pve to be pug-able? why do people feel entitled to it here.

btw, despite anyone’s cognitive dissonance, i don’t have any dungeon gear and i have every intention of playing the crap out of them.

i’d guess that you cannot transmute them since i think it’s only armor (and back slots are jewelry technically i think).

lol, most fun saw ‘s t f u’ i bet and kittened that out.
edit: lauren caught that already.
i’d say if engy’s working for you, run with it. i don’t think any other class is really anything like engy.

i’m not a mesmer main by a long shot but from what little i’ve played mine (24 of his 30 levels are from jewelcrafting and cooking) but the thing i get from playing him is that he’s really slippery and during those times when i’d normally start thinking about an exit strategy, i usually have a button that makes everything alright. i get the impression that thief is similar but i haven’t leveled mine past 5 or 6.

something that might be helpful is taking your low-levels to the mists and playing around with traits and gear and stuff. that’s a good way to get a big picture of the unique qualities of that class.

i’m one of the people that needed to get a character to 80 immediately (completely irrational compulsion but i felt better after i did it). after that i was a lot more loose about what i did so i have just been playing different characters depending on what friends are online. i must like guardian because she’s 76 already. i think it’s probably a goodidea to play a single character for long enough to be able to come up with a build idea and start implimenting it. then you can switch willy-nilly and have a good time pushing the wrong buttons because i was used to playing another character.

yeah. saving up for the human cultural too to use on this rediculous crafted exotic stuff.

dyes you get for free (not discovered, just given with level) gimme a sec on the other 2.
per lisk on guildhead:
Scholar Tholin for 154 karma after completing Partake in the moot.
anodyne on guildhead says about the sticky bread:
Not available to discover. I’m guessing this is a recipe. Any idea where to get it?
whereas sp3cial00 states:
It’s discover lvl 100.. it is wrong on the site. Just tested it!

what i’d like to know is to what extent you can make boxes and satchels. can you learn cultural armor, 42k karma armor? dungeon armor? this would be INCREDIBLY valuable if that’s the case.

yeah, i don’t exactly tune them out and it’s not that bad because all my characters craft in different cities (usually la but not always). i think the idles and the 2-npc conversations could repeat less frequently.

i do kinda miss crafting in the grove:

“it’s the mint that makes it TINGLE!”

i can never hear what it is they actually are talking about eating but i like it.

for a running build (yes, i’ve used running builds for hitting nodes) i’ve run hawk/eagle since they kick in with swiftness usually right when you get aggro’d, for tanking i use mostly arctodus and polar bear (arc for the bleed if i want extra damage and the polar bear because chill is awesome).

for pvp (i’ve not done much) i’ve been into the snow owl (chill and precision) and whatever cat it is that has the bleed leap. in instances i’ve been using black widow and carrion devourer for the range and poison fields.

edit: oh yeah, gotta try raven out in wvw.

you can ignore your pet or use a non-tank pet. just like a mesmer that never shatters illusions, thief that doesn’t use steal, necro that never uses death shroud etc. you can be a ranger that doesn’t use the class mechanic. anet’s not going to remove it though.

longbow is if you want to auto-attack for 1800 damage, shortbow’s pretty decent for the bleed stack and if you want to use a sigil that procs on hit. axe is good for condy and something i’ll use with flame/poison trap in those de aoe dps races (i like it with torch…the 4 is a CRAZY long burn and the 5 is another burn field). warhorhn is what i’m currently using for the swiftness (running to nodes).

for melee (rangers seem to not realize this becuase we have so many safety nets) DISABLE AUTO-ATTACK NOW! this fixes the tweaky rubber-bandy bs from longsword and gives you the opportunity to chose to use your 3rd swing evade with gs when you actually want to evade.

dagger is a decent offhand that works pretty well with ls for the poison but i don’t really use it for pve. ever since i started really paying my guardian, i’ve found melee ranger kinda bad and since i have no condy in my build axe is aweful so for just killing-stuff purposes it’s all about both bows. axe/wh is pretty good for running around frostgorge and orr grabbing nodes.

i would check out how much berserker you need to get your ideal crit chance. if you’re doing less than 40% crit chance you might want to rethink bothering with precision and crit damage…especially with shortbow and axe.

yeah, the stats are pretty crappy for a lb ranger too. i just made a berserker pearl needler and i’m pretty happy with it. huntsman (or 4g) is essential for rangers with self-respect. i might go for the troll shortbow but i’m not really good enough in pvp to pull that one off.

torch is awesome… the ‘4’ move is like 8 seconds of burn with 30 in marksmanship…spike trap helps keep people in other traps…ranger is definitely one of the stronger condition classes.

well, i haven’t run across that but at least it allows an event to go into the failed state. too many things in the game keep butting up against the ultimate success state that it’s kinda nice to let things back up a little. seems a little weird but it makes sense and takes away a little of the orr tedium.

this is so poorly implimented that it has to be bugged. i can’t see the possible benefit of doing this on purpose from what i’m reading (people triggering this by completing chains).

that really screws the pooch on simultaneously getting mats for crafting a set of armor while getting karma for my support set off the temple vendors. is there a timeframe before you get punished does it start after teh first time you’ve completed it?

yeah. i like the entrance and the feel of the shatterer but the huge boss fights are a little too…easy. i did this as a 50-something defensive-spec guardian (my silver reward character…got spoiled on my dps-spec ranger) however i got gold (not sure about the complaint there) and felt like there was little-to-no threat of death/failure.

bro looked awesome but felt like a slightly-less intimidating version of a wvw gate. say what you will about vindictus; there’s a game that does some decent large-enemy fights.

Sniderbl.5916:

Could someone give us—users unfamiliar with the Holidays of the GW Universe—a rundown on the holidays, and what sort of things Anet did for GW1 Holiday Events?

i believe they’ve had a live team working on halloween since before release (don’t quote me). in gw1 that was about the mad king (i forget the lore involved but i expect to see him again). the next holiday is generally wintersday (they had some dwayna vs grenth snowball fights for that). without cantha i’m not sure if there will be a dragon-based celebration (pretty much a carnival in gw1). those are the main ones that i remember…i wasn’t that into them.

if this is all about after the patch then i guess i haven’t checked it out yet…just sounds a lot like the things that people have been complaining about since release.