Just listen to Ursan people, he knows his maths. FWIW though we don’t actually know what the drop chance is so unless the community gets together and collects a large enough data sample its all speculation. I’m not against RNG as a concept as such but I do believe it should have artificial upper and lower limits in place to prevent experiences like Kerrigans.
From my somewhat limited experience I’ve noticed this fight is a lot easier if everyone stays out of range of the tentacle knockdowns. Melee colossus, range tentacles. If you want to ensure that it is impossible to lose the fight have one party member carry a crystal constantly and rez anyone who goes down. You lose dps so the fight takes longer but it makes it practically impossible to wipe.
I have no problem with new free content (of course!) but I do hope as they get more familiar with GW2s workings they get better at ensuring the new content releases without major bugs.
Or give a reason (cough tokens cough) for people to replay the story mode so that its possible to actually find anybody who wants to do it. And yes, making the NPCs not useless wouldn’t hurt immersion at all. Im sure its possible to balance encounters with a Destinys Edge that actually resembles heroes in any way.
Most people seem to agree its a great weapon. Im pretty sure the dps tests are somewhere in this forum that show it to have the highest single target dps of the guardian weapons.
Some hints for people having trouble –
If you have stability the geysers wont knock you around.
If you don’t make a section fast enough you can run along the geysers themselves.
For the first section if you stand on the last geyser and pop stability you can jump up onto the floating rocks (of the second last geyser) then onto the rocks of the last one and up to the second section.
The second section is only 3 rocks long but speed buffs still help with it.
The third section you can do the whole thing without using the floating rocks at all and still get onto the safe platform in the middle.
Once you get up on top of the cliffs it can be unclear where to go, keep following the coast to the southwest ,after a longish jump down you will see some more obvious ledges again.
After you get the achievement and splendid chest run down though the boat to the bottom and you will see some planks of wood leading over to the island. There is a champion guarded chest on the very top of the island.
Hope that helps!
Yeah, they learned their lesson from GW1 survivor title. Glad to hear it was fixed.
Honestly getting the survivor title on a Prophecies Elementalist before the change and without using Kilroy Stonekin’s Punch-Out Extravaganza! was one of the most satisfying challenges I’ve ever done in a game.
I don’t care much that they changed it because I did it for my personal satisfaction and nothing else. Now if you want survivor in GW1 you just stockpile books and go zero to legendary in about 10 minutes. Kind of lame, imho.
On Topic: Yay it’s fixed!! (if only my ranger was too)
On the other hand, dying with 1,250,000 XP is the worst feeling ever.
Its even worse when it happens because your internet connection drops out. I just about threw my laptop off the balcony.
Still all talking about different things people. The degree to which all your definitions of casual and hardcore differ are hilarious. For the sake of contributing something to the discussion I will say I think all the definitions are right with regard to some people, and they are all also wrong with regard to others. You might want to consider not trying to simplify things so much.
This thread is valuable, simple because it shows how many different definitions of casual there are out there. All you people talking about casual and hardcore players? You are all talking about different things. No wonder its impossible to have a discussion on the topic.
Sylvari, because Arthurian legend. And since race is almost a purely cosmetic choice really don’t understand how anyone can be unhappy at the race they chose. Its not like you don’t know what it looks like before you start!
I believe anet have stated that they timed these events for when their data shows the most number of people online in the game. How else could they choose it? If you are unlucky enough to be working all weekend, like me, there’s not really much they can do about it. I’m fine with it.
The last paragraph is relevant to the “problem” in that this game is new and the direction in which is headed isn’t set in stone. No one really wants to chase after stats every three months. Anet has stated that a treadmill is not their intention. We won’t know the difference until they actually do.
While it’s fine to protest the periodic addition of gear tiers to the game, it’s not acceptable to refuse an update that may or may not set a precedent for future updates. We simply do not have enough information to judge Anet one way or another at this point, and proof by intimidation is not proof at all.
They were advertising a cherry flavoured bar with no peanut content.
But after we ordered our cherry bars, what we end up getting are peanut bars. Some people really can’t take peanuts, you know. And in some countries / areas what they’ve done is not only of doubtful moral quality, it’s illegal.
Yes they said the treadmill is not their intention, at the same time saying they will, with time, introduce more powerful items, just not every three months. Maybe every four or six. So yeah, they’ve already set a precedence for future gear updates.
They might want to name it whatever they want but it doesn’t change a single thing.
No they haven’t.
not ever three months…
How long has Guild Wars 2 been out…3 months!
Now look back at the sentence. They are saying, yes the game has been out 3 months and we are adding a new tier of gear to bridge a gap we left in original release, that doesn’t mean in another 3 months or more we aren’t going to be adding new tiers of gear.
They are effectively acknowledging that the game’s been out three months, but they aren’t setting a precedent by adding this set now. It’s a one time only deal.
Seriously hope you are right. In any case, shouldn’t we all be playing the game right now to see what the patch is really like?
Well if the game is just about getting to the max level for you, I’d say; roll an alt power-level them to 80 and rinse and repeat until you fill your character slots, then go play another game. Clearly that’s all that matters to you.
If you actually took the time to play the game as it was intended you’d never ever ask this question.
Dude, he is asking for advice about how to build his level 80 in terms of gear and traits, not what is there to do after hitting lvl 80. No need to get narky on him.
DPS. No one wants a support. Supports slow down dungeon runs and usually don’t help that much, unless said supports are elementalists. You are not an elementalist. Ergo, you do not run support.
I recommend the very first thing you do is get a bunch of level 80 green Berserker’s armor and accessories. Since they’re green they should be cheap, the whole thing shouldn’t run you much more than 10 silver or so. Then next you should get an exotic weapon of your choice (I recommend Berserker’s GS since it has the highest DPS) once you can afford it. Either do dungeon runs to save up the tokens or just drop the 2g or so to buy/craft it.
After that, start on exotic accessories. If for any reason you decide not to go with Berserker’s accessories, get some exquisite ruby jewels and socket those into whatever you do get. Berserker’s jewels are by far and away the best stat gain for any jewel, even if you’re not going for direct damage.
Armor is actually the least important of your gear stat-wise, so you can save that for last.
Genuinely curious, because I am not very knowledgeable, what is your logic for Beserkers being the best stat gain for any jewel? What makes them better than Valkyries, for example?
There are a disturbingly large number of people who think that atm legendaries have better stats than exotics. This thread is worth it just to correct them.
And did you miss the fact that said ascended gear doesn’t have an upgrade slot? I talked about that in my last post. Assuming these “infusions” are not standard stat upgrades and instead deal only with the Agony condition then it makes sense for their slightly higher base stats to be better. Overall you’re actually getting LOWER stats from ascended gear. That’s the theory anyway, and given the amount of information we have it’s just as valid as yours.
Cant believe some people still haven’t actually looked carefully enough to see this. In the image, on the blog, of the ascended item, it has more, more, MORE stats than the exotic Including the slotted upgrade. The stats for the upgrade are built into the item then ALL the stats are increased slightly. How can you look at that picture and see ascended items with lower stats? Not to mention the blog flat out stats that the upgrade stats are just added onto the new item.
So no, overall you are not getting lower stats from ascended gear, many people in many threads including this one many times have done the maths and pointed out its about an 8% increase, comparable to the difference between rare and exotic.
I actually like this. If you played GW1 there was a Normal Mode and Hard Mode. If you ran a Hard Mode in GW2 then you would like to be compensated for your efforts. For all your exotics you worked so hard for.. If you love the appearance you can simply transmute them onto a higher piece of gear.
Thats… Thats not even a remotely relevant comparison.
Adding the holy trinity and raiding would totally crown this game as king of the MMOs (imho ofc), then throw in some goals (DAoC style) to WvW, while removing the repair bill in WvW and it would just be heaven.
This is already the best MMO out atm, but it could grab more players if it used the WoWisk style raids and dungeons, the dungeons clearly arn’t working as thought when the forums are full of players upset about dying so much in every instance. The “everyone’s a DPSer” was a good idea, but it clearly isn’t doing much in the fun department when it’s nothing but die and run back, die and run back.
Some way of adding in trinity style play a bit more may work, we already have the heavy armour classes and some healer elements, and after all, there is no reason not to cover all the bases, making everyone out there happy?
Or do we only play to the call of the choosen few?
This is a funny joke. As a casual player dungeons are way too easy, the hardcore players have the exact opposite complaint you think they do. While I agree with you about WvW I do not want to play the same pve game as you, it seems.
The problem really started from the very beginning when they changed their character design from GW1. With the hundreds of skills to collect like cards, you had an excellent horizontal progression in GW1.
Getting your best skills from defeated enemies was also a great element that really merged the deck building and pve game really well. Not sure why they never tried to carry that into GW2 tbh, beyond skillpoints that is.
The moment they changed the skill system from the deck building style to this weapon-linked/utility skill system was the moment that predicted all of this.
The horizontal system in gw worked because it was like a card game. New cards came out that were DIFFERENT, but not better necessarily. You had to constantly redesign your skill choices.
We don’t have that anymore. We have the classic trait system with a small limited number of choices. It makes improving characters through horizontal progression very difficult, so the are going back to the vertical easy progression.
I honestly think it will be fine once they add a few more weapons and utilities to increase the variety of skills and skill combinations available. If they linked the acquirement of said skills to great, story driven pve content that would be the icing on the cake. I thought that is what they had planned, you have to keep things simple at the start of a game with a lifespan this long because it will invariably get significantly more complicated as time passes. I am starting to suspect that the wish is very much father of the though in my case, though.
The problem really started from the very beginning when they changed their character design from GW1. With the hundreds of skills to collect like cards, you had an excellent horizontal progression in GW1.
Getting your best skills from defeated enemies was also a great element that really merged the deck building and pve game really well. Not sure why they never tried to carry that into GW2 tbh, beyond skillpoints that is.
And that data includes the box sales and all income associated with the release. How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?
So many people seem to forget that you already bought the game, there is no sub fee so customer retention is a myth. What you want as a company in a B2P or F2P game is to sell items in a cash shop.
It doesn’t matter if people play or don’t play as long as you generate enough revenue to keep the game alive.
I have already spent money (100€) on gems to upgrade my bank, character slots and bag space because I thought I was in for the long run and I don’t mind spending a lot more for cool armor skins but there aren’t any.
So, instead of populating the gem store with cool stuff to buy I will get the same gear grind I’ve left other MMOs for? That has to be the best business decision ever.
And I can assure you that the best customer is a paying customer with money to spend. Long gone are the collage days when I had a lot of time but little money. Nowadays, I have enough disposable income but a lot less time to “grind” in games.
Guess what I will do if this goes through? I won’t spend any more on the gem store because I know that several months to a year down the line the difference won’t be just 8% in stats. Been there, done that and I’m done with gear based MMOs.
Like I said, you get no argument from me. The fact remains though, that Anet are rational people and therefore must believe they are acting in their own best interests, and the best interest of the game. In other words, there must be a reason for what they are doing.
jboynton asks: “How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?”
How does aborting the design manifesto – which, arguably, drove those sales in the first place – help raise revenue from a game that has no subscription? Are hardcore players the top consumers of cash shop items? I doubt it. Are hardcore gear-grinders going to produce the same kind of B2P expansion sales (when one comes out) as launch? If ANET alienates everyone who bought GW2 because of that manifesto, and because of the non-grind “whole-world” end game philosophy, what are those expansion sales going to be?
It seems to me we’re witnessing a potential SWG moment here; ANET can alienate everyone who came here specifically because of what GW2 was billed as, promised to be, and for three months now has delivered by changing the core nature of the game. And for what? Players that endlessly run from game to game seeking a means to satiate a never-ending quest for avatar progression/power?
You quoted the wrong person. I posted that the game is financially doing fine and am against vertical gear progression.
Yeah, he should have quoted me. And I would have replied that I have no idea but clearly ANET does or they would not be taking this course of action. So go and ask them. I more or less agree with you.
I think most of the posters in the thread need to re-read the information on ascended gear and Fractals of the Mist dungeon, including the blog post, over and over until they actually understand it. there is nothing here to be up in arms about. Nada.
Ascended Gear has stats on par with Exotic Gear that has enhancements already applied. Ascended gear removes enhancement slots in order to be able to provide infusion slots. This gear will not be more powerful, outside of Fractals of the Mist, than properly enhanced Exotic gear! Ascended gear will provide another method for players to acquire exotic quality end game gear, but some may miss the opportunity to customize their stats via enhancements.
Where Ascended Gear shines is when equipped with infusions, or when the item comes with resistance to the new FotM exclusive monster condition built in. This system will allow players who play a lot of FotM to get deeper and deeper into the FotM experience on a given extended run.
It’s an end game dungeon progression, but the gear progression provides zero gear inflation outside of FotM!
I look at FotM as another form of adjunct game play in the same vein as WvW and sPvP. They are optional forms of alternative game play meant to appeal to people with particular play styles and content preferences. You can completely ignore FotM dungeon, if you wish, and you will not see the rest of your game play suffer as a result. Others may play FotM almost exclusively. It’s just another way for the game to broaden it’s appeal and offer players more game play options to suit thier changing mood!
Not actually caring that much about the new gear and willing to wait and see what happens but really irritated that you havent bothered to notice even without an upgrade slot the new gear substantially out-stats exotics. Look at the picture on the blog, mate.
I respect your posts and the fact that nothing we’ve said to each other has in anyway devolved into a flame war; but, please, please, please, stop citing that it’s based on financial pressures.
The data coming from NCSoft does not support this stance. NCSoft just released the 3Q financials on November 7th, stating: “B&S and GW2 have firmly positioned themselves as main revenue drivers for the company.”
That was a week ago.
And that data includes the box sales and all income associated with the release. How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?
Give me another logical reason that you would completely alter the core philosophy of all of your marketing and game design less than 3 months after the game launched.
It’s simple, the only reason you would do something like that is because the current model isn’t working. The blog post said as much. “We’ve listened to player feedback.”
This is a calculated move. ANet knows that this move is likely going to alienate a certain percentage of their players, however, it’s likely to open up the game to more players, who will stay longer and play more, and put more cash into the shop.
It’s not that difficult to decipher.
This is the sad truth, by far the most plausible explanation of this whole situation anyone on these forums has voiced so far.
Although I can not stand the rabid fans who twisted and hyped every thing to a unreal level all the while bash other games and people who didn’t agree, I feel sorry for them. They were lied to.
They put there neck out there everyday defending things like the lack if progression and the Halloween event, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.
I for one support the change, but I’m not blind to the pain and embarrassment hardened supporters are feeling.
I hope you guys pull through. We might not always agree, but we are the community, not the devs, publisher, or shareholders. I support you guys.
BC
I appreciate this sentiment a lot, would be nice to see more of it from all sides of the discussion tbh.
Currently there is no gap in power between exotics and legendaries. They currently have the exact same stats. Their only benefit is cosmetic. This is no “in between” of anything currently in game.
This is adding a new tier, that is a direct upgrade to older exotic gear, and all legendary weapons will be increased in power to be direct upgrades to exotic weapons. Unfortunately they’ll all have power/vit/toughness instead of someone’s personal choice of power/prec/crit damage, or power/condition damage/vitality, or power/healing power/toughness, etc.
Currently you can transmute your favorite stats into a legendary weapon. When the patch hits you’re stuck with P/V/T or you downgrade your weapon to an exotic.
Bad idea.
This is a goood point, what happens to legendaries that have been transmuted to different stats when this patch hits?
Why, exactly? Others opinions aren’t going to hurt you. I don’t really feel like screaming at you even though you completely fail to understand my point of view too, because it wouldn’t help us understand each other at all.
We have all had some excellent tantrums and counter tantrums about everything and everyone has got nice and uptight so it might be a good time to chill out a bit around here.
Did you stop to consider why people might be feeling the way they do before getting disappointing in them? Clearly their thinking is different to your own, maybe try to understand it a little from their point of view.
Why do people tie new content and more powerful gear together with rope woven from unbreakablium thread in their own minds when in reality no such connection exists? You can have one without the other. Halloween springs to mind.
The discussion is about gear progression in general, and how it relates to what’s happening now.
I first start by stating gear progression is the norm withing MMO business, and then explain why it is this way, why our gear progress in general. " because it offers a player a sense of growth. " I never said Endgame progression is in every MMO"
I think I understand your point well enough and I agree of course the game has progression. Its not that this is a new tier, but rather the whole idea of the shifting goal-line that is worrying people now. It would be more accurate to describe GW1 has having a very short gear progression, that moved into cosmetic improvements and versatility (of collecting many sets) very early in the game. This is the system that most people mean when they say -no gear progression- and given how everything, including the game at launch, indicated that this system would be used in GW2 I can understand why many people are feeling quite hurt by this.
FWIW Most people are conveniently forgetting to recall that GW1 did have a very, very small amount of gear progression over its (coming up to 8 years!) life in the form of inscriptions and sigils, which were not in the game originally. IIRC basically an extra armour and weapon upgrade which were things I had to pursue when I went back to the game after an almost 6 year break. But aside from those all my characters old stuff was still up to scratch, and competitive in terms of stats and it felt a lot like coming home to find major renovations had been underway. This ability to drop in and out of the game without major inconvenience as time allowed is what a lot of us with busy lives really liked about it and for me the only real worry about this situation is that it could mean GW2 does not share this characteristic with its predecessor.
I don’t mind the addition of new armor tiers AS LONG AS they’re fun to obtain. Vertical progression is good, as shown by most offline RPGs ever created. Boring and repetitive vertical progression is not, as shown by most MMORPGs out there.
There is a lot of truth to this. The more I calm down and actually think about it the more I feel its going to come down to how well they implement it. If they gear comes faster than the content becomes stale, that could kitten. <- why on earth did it censor ok?(It would also help a hell of a lot if they spread the new gear across existing content so it doesnt become obsolete, this is something they need to do in general, eg high lvl resource nodes spawing for high level players in low level areas)
At the risk of repeating something i’ve said in other threads, the new gear is less powerful than your normal gear as it cannot be upgraded.
Agony is also not a gating mechanic. Guys, you need to read up on how the dungeon scaling works. You can do the dungeon fine without it, but as you repeat the dungeon, Agony starts to come into play.
As you would know had you looked at the picture more closely the new gear has the upgrade stats built in and all stats are higher.
Against current available upgrades yes. There are a bunch of recipes coming out so i’m going on the assumption that some of those will add up to be greater than the Ascended stats. I just hope i’m not wrong, as i’m also in the ‘no treadmill’ camp for the most part.
I agree, a lot is riding on the surrounding updates and how it is all handled. Right now I think it could work but the way the information has been released and the tone of that blog post leave a really bad taste in my mouth.
At the risk of repeating something i’ve said in other threads, the new gear is less powerful than your normal gear as it cannot be upgraded.
Agony is also not a gating mechanic. Guys, you need to read up on how the dungeon scaling works. You can do the dungeon fine without it, but as you repeat the dungeon, Agony starts to come into play.
As you would know had you looked at the picture more closely the new gear has the upgrade stats built in and all stats are higher.
Look…. The new gear is maybe 1 or 2 points better than the current exotic level, if yoyu check carefully the items are exotic stats with exotic upgrades already applied. the infusion will not give stat upgrades it is to counteract the agony that prevents you from delving deeper into the dungeon. So please stop all this raging everyone
+1 This needs to be stickied and so much of this forum rage will go away.
You can augment your current gear and you will have better stats than the Ascended gear.
You guys may want to have a closer look at that picture.
sorry for being a kitten but I’m trying to get people to realize how stupid it is to complain about all this.
With the best will in the world, you seem like a nice guy, so please try to realize that your opinion is not correct just because it is yours and other peoples are not incorrect just because they are different. If, objectively, there was no reason to be upset here then people would not be. Its a completely subjective matter and people will disagree on it. In the same way that I am perfectly happy for you to not be upset about this thing please give me the same courtesy and accept that I am upset even if you don’t understand why.
golfclap
that’s a legit clap btw. I’m not being smart. lol
Heh, fair enough. Seriously, I’m happy for you to like these changes and this update. I don’t though, and I have my reasons for it. I supposed you could see it as a difference between casual and hardcore but I always liked that Anet tried to balance that difference instead of just caving one way or the other.
and you said “remain in the game” so I took that as “potentially quit.”
The flat leveling curve means it’s not gonna take you any longer to get ascended gear than it would’ve to get exotics and if you already have ur exotics then it looks like you have to play the game i’m assuming that genuinely enjoy for a few hours to get ascended gear.
So it looks like Anet gave you more gear and more fun content through which to acquire it.
So if you can’t explain to me why everyone is complaining about that than I’m stuck believing there is no real issue here and we’re looking at 50 pages of people crying wolf.
Again, its not about the time it takes or the rate at which it happens, its that it happens at all. If you really want to understand it, really genuinely understand it, look at the history of GW1. I do not want a constantly changing top standard of gear forcing me to play a minimum amount to remain in the same ballpark (of effectiveness, happy for them to have cooler stuff) as people who play more than me. GW, 1 and 2 were built around the idea of a level playing field for everyone no matter how much they played (beyond a very low entry point) and player skill being the deciding factor. This update seems to indicate that is no longer the design for GW2. This makes me sad.
sorry for being a kitten but I’m trying to get people to realize how stupid it is to complain about all this.
With the best will in the world, you seem like a nice guy, so please try to realize that your opinion is not correct just because it is yours and other peoples are not incorrect just because they are different. If, objectively, there was no reason to be upset here then people would not be. Its a completely subjective matter and people will disagree on it. In the same way that I am perfectly happy for you to not be upset about this thing please give me the same courtesy and accept that I am upset even if you don’t understand why.
Because people, including me, do not want to be forced to play a certain amount to remain in the game. Its the reason we loved GW1 and this area where GW2 was promised to be the same is the reason we like it too. More shinies, more stuff all good. More powerful stuff, bad. Its not complicated man.
That’s right. It’s not complicated.
YOUR’E making it complicated.
What is preventing you from remaining in the game accept the pressure you put on yourself to keep up?
Keep up with who?
See?
There’s no issue here accept that which players create for themselves.
Who said anything about quitting the game? (I know other people are, I have not) All I stated is that I will like Anet and GW2 less for doing this, and the reasons why. If you are still genuinely confused as to why people dont like this situation then Im afraid I cant explain it any more clearly – new stuff good, more powerful stuff bad.
You are assuming that because they added additional gear, then they will continue to add additional gear. This is an assumption on your part, likely based around your fears.
The Ascended gear simply seems to be a higher power plateau. Which renders your analogy meaningless.
To put it in terms of snowballs… Arenanet pushed the snowball down a hill and it reached an infinite flat plateau shortly after.
In this situation it is a rationally assumption to make. Nobody will be happier than me if it turns out to be an incorrect assumption, but until we know more it is an assumption that many people will continue to make, both people who want it and people who don’t.
A FLAT LEVELING CURVE AND NO REAL GEAR REQUIREMENT (OUTSIDE OF THIS DUNGEON) MEANS THAT THIS IS NOT A GEAR TREADMILL AND YOU SIMPLY HAVE MORE SHINIES TO COLLECT.
Again I struggle to see the issue here.
Because if this is not the first of many increases in gear power than increasing stats on this release is pointless. They could have made the new stuff have the same stats as exotic. This release fine, its the umpteen other releases doing that same thing that will almost certainly follow it that are going to be the problem.
The angst is not about what this release contains, its about what it means for the future of the game.
Ok fine, lets say they do it.
More stuff to do. More shinies to be had.
Where’s the problem?
Because people, including me, do not want to be forced to play a certain amount to remain in the game. Its the reason we loved GW1 and this area where GW2 was promised to be the same is the reason we like it too. More shinies, more stuff all good. More powerful stuff, bad. Its not complicated man.
We had a discussion about this a few pages back in the thread. Based on NCsofts financial reports the best guess is that this is an attempt to keep revenue up after the money from boxed sales are gone.
Wasting time and resources to piss off a good deal of your customers seems like a really terrible way of making money.
What happened to cosmetic armour and other virtual things to spend our cash on?
Mate, you get no argument from me. The point is there must be some data backing this up, they wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t think it was a good idea.
