Guild Wars 2

So far it seems like every 3000 points will get you an armor piece of your choosing, so you’ll need 9000 points to even think about having one of the 3-armor sets, and probably have the other at 18000 points (which I don’t even believe are enough in the game currently to hit that). Thankfully I can grab the full Radiant set because lets face it, Hellfire looks almost identical to CoF armor which wont let it stand out as much.

I’d suggest the Radiant set mostly due to the fact CoF has the flame-armor taken care of. Not to mention almost no other armor really glows like Radiant does, gives it a unique feel in my opinion.

So I was fighting Mai Trin and everything seemed rather normal, until she used the most overpowered attack I’ve ever seen in this game.
I went to deflect her shadowstep shot, and she flat out locked me inside of a wall and stuck me in combat mode.

I think this needs a nerf.

Just wanted to say this was a brilliant idea. With only a couple tries with some of the people from this guild we were able to get both Unfriendly Skies as well as Personal Space. Now that I’m done with the dungeon, I’ll stick around in the guild for a while in case anyone else needs help with theirs.

I’d be interested in an invite too if you don’t mind. Main character’s name is Xalugami.

I’ve ran this nearly 10 times so far with a mix of guildies and PUGs, and 2 runs ended up at a loss at Frizz, and the other 8 we end up disbanding at Mai Trin (none of the party breaks were my idea, I could try for hours). I just need Personal Space, Unfriendly Skies, and simply beating the dungeon and this event’s achievements will be done.

So this thread was inevitable.
What was the point of making an easily lockable PvP-only area part of what’s currently been a PvE-exclusive experience? The moment the first server’s Mesmer makes it to the top of Obsidian Sanctum, the remaining servers are unable to finish it. Mostly due to the fact the other server camps the top of the arena, spawns all the vets, and just has their idle army standing & getting portal’d by if you try to sneak by with Stealth or some Stability.
So far the Living Story and all of it’s “content” was pure PvE & Minigames, so it’s mostly the PvE’ers doing this stuff. Pushing them into WvW will make queuing up for EB way longer than it has to, and eventually it could fill up the Obsidian Sanctum map. Not to mention that gives the camping server more incentive to keep an army there.

I can see that they wanted to bring more players into WvW, but by baiting them with an impossible achievement (for the servers with the slower Mesmer) is just really dumb.
I wouldn’t be complaining, but even with the new WvW match making system, we’re still against the same exact server who keeps the JP locked down 24/7.

How do you guys feel about this one?

Is there any way to earn the Shattered Dragon Wings for both PvE and PvP? I obtained one skin from doing the Dragon Bash meta, but I can’t find out how to get a second one.

These event rewards are getting extremely sporadic… Needing to buy additional skins to apply to PvP (such as the Mad Kings Day or Wintersday weapons). Getting a PvE+PvP back item from Tixx during Wintersday. Getting PvE Molten Gauntlets from the Molten Weapons Foundry (and following events) but needing to get lucky with Tournament RNG to get the PvP version. Even needing to grind additional Bauble Bubbles was fine, since we could choose to do it as often as we want. All of these at least work & allow the player to get their event items (either through earning the extra skins, or playing in PvE/PvP).
Seemingly following suit from Secret of Southsun, Dragon Bash once again ignores the players that want to earn rewards for their PvE and PvP sets.

I believe you guys at ANet should devise a set way of dealing with rewards for event items. I personally like the idea of earning the PvE skin via Meta Achievement (like Secret of Southsun) and the PvP skin via Tournaments (like Flame & Frost).

Here’s hoping this gets addressed/changed or something. Kinda blows to have done another monthly event and only being able to use the item half the time.

Astral Projections.7320:

I have an ele that I’ve transmuted the starter “eye”. There was a while where it wasn’t showing after a transmute but they fixed it.

That’s good to know, thanks a bunch!

I was wondering if anyone knows (or would be able to check) if any of the starter “Eye” headgear for Elementalists are able to be transmutated yet. Now that my Elementalist is in some high levels, I feel like my +5 Defense Storm Eye is gonna start mattering.

I recall earlier in the game’s life that the Eyes would lose their model upon Transmutating and am curious to know if this has been fixed. If anyone knows, or could spare a character slot for this, I would really appreciate it.

You’ll need a time machine to go back during when Flame & Frost was active, then proceed to sink $10-$300 in Black Lion Keys (tiny random chance and I’ve heard cases of costing over $300), and hope you get lucky enough to get a Fused Weapons Claim Ticket. Exchange said ticket at the vendor for the Fused Dagger Skin, and then make it a PvP item.

So sadly, there’s no possible way to get that skin for the remaining lifespan of GW2 (unless they recycle skins or stories which seem unlikely).

I haven’t tried this myself, but you might be able to stuff a bunch of Karma items into the Mystic Forge and sell the outcome (such as T3 Cultural weapons or Temple armor). I can’t confirm if it works since I need a lot of Karma for the 2 Legendaries I’m trying to pursue.

Other than that, Orrian [Addiction] Boxes can earn you a huge sum of coin.
Occasional Lodestones popping up can average a free gold (more for Charged, less for Glacial, etc), you get junk that’s worth a surprisingly large amount considering its frequency, and you get some of the Karma back (meaning buy more boxes). Even when I had just over 1.5 million karma, I ended up buying about 575 boxes when I should have went for purely Obby Shards. Ended up making about 24g from that though, and got some Lodestones I needed. As well as almost broke my clicking finger thanks to not having a “buy/open/consume in bulk” button.

If I recall correctly, the only Karma Trinkets are the ones in Orr. Cavalier (Balthy), Magi (Lyssa), Rabid (Dwayna), Wayfarer (Melandru), and Soldier (Grenth).

You can craft most Trinkets with Cleric’s Stats and the closest option for back piece is Magi’s (but you can gem in an Exquisite Sapphire Jewel to it). However the craft/TP Cleric Trinkets wont be costing just Karma.

Argol Vazin.3061

I then noticed the Icelord Diadem. It looks cool but I was wondering if it can be dyed.

Nice pun.

The Diadem cannot be dyed, but you can always try to make an outfit match around the Diadem itself.

I definitely think some special characters should be allowed. NPCs get to have apostrophes in their names (Sayeh al’Rajihd comes to mind, and if Largos ever get released as playable, I’d too like an apostrophe), and I really can’t see what harm it could do.
Speaking of Sayeh al’Rajihd, it would be nice if you can uppercase/lowercase whichever letters you feel like after the first one, just like in her name.

What I did to make sure I got the names I wanted during the headstart was: create a bunch of random preset characters, skipped to the naming part, and deleted them right afterwards in order to have that name reserved for 24 hours. Left a lot of time to focus on character creation without worrying about it getting taken.

So whilst enjoying the amazing new content with my Bro who doesn’t play too often (but loves completing the month events), we’ve met an impasse when it comes to this specific achievement. Everything else so far in the event seems doable by any player thanks to the generous up-scaling in place for the map’s event duration. However he’s only Lv.24 (and can still solo the wildlife, so he can still do events and such) and this single achievement is proving to be flat-out impossible as said Omelette has a level restriction of Lv.75+ to consume.

Just wondering if there are any plans to change the level of the food during the event, perhaps even adding a second no-restrictions omelette with a lesser boost, or allow it to be achieved when the event is over (since he did buy one for future-sake). Or was it meant to be an achievement exclusively for Lv.75+ players?

Regardless of this really minuscule snag, the event has been amazing so far. The Achievements are very fun, as is Crab Toss (after you understand it a lot). Very glad to see life get breathed into this area without it being a lag fest or precursor spam.
Shame it’ll all be gone in a couple months though…

I just wanted to make a quick comment here really fast about the term “Personal” Story.

It seems to me like some people are using it as a point as “I AM THE STORY!”, but not following through with it. Yes, the story is personal because you are taking part in the actions happening in the game, at all times. The Personal Story Steps are chosen to guide you along the overarching goal of confronting an Elder Dragon, but everything you do in between is still your personal story, albeit undocumented.

So don’t get locked into the notion of “If the game isn’t focusing me directly, it’s not a story point”.

.

Side Note: If you guys really want to, we can run the dungeon(s) together someday, but you guys can all hide the Party UI, and we can all talk through /say if it makes you feel more comfortable. There’s literally nothing wrong with the party system, and I find the dungeons are very.. err.. palatable after a few runs & knowing the mechanics.
Feel free to accept/decline my offer as ever you wish, your choice (send me a mail in-game if you’d like). You’ll never know until you try it.

Also probably my last post here tonight, as I’m going to head onto GW1 to help some Guildies get started for the HoM, and then hop onto GW2 for dailies. I believe I’ve posted enough about my opinions, but feel free to message or whisper if you’d like to chat about anything else. Glad to finally toss around a topic without anyone resorting to insults or profanity and anger.

I hate it when the forums do this, I’ll just respond as a big chunk going down from reading your posts in another tab.

Vulpis.8063:

M-M-M-Multi Post

I agree that ANet took the absolute worst time to push a Dungeon, when it really should have forced Ascalonian Catacombs first, at Lv.30.
“The Order needs time getting you registered, so why don’t you see what your old mentor is up to?”. Cue message from your mentor explaining the basis for AC Story mode, and why you should assist. * Added as a Personal Story step *.
That would have had the same end result ANet wanted, a dungeon intro, but without being at a ridiculous point in the story to do so.

Again, Personal Story was never solidified to be a Solo-Only story mode, it’s all just assumptions based on its entirety until the last mission. That being said, Personal Story is separated out of PvE, as are Dungeons, both of which being linked together (very weakly… again ANet’s fault for that). Neither of which are actually mandatory. You will have to play by ANet’s rules to beat ANet’s game though, no way around that. It was their [terrible] choice to wait so long to force dungeons, and the playerbase pays the price.

The Herald was my mistake, as posted earlier with help taking a screenie. But he is one persistent dude/tte, and the main story dungeon characters are tied directly into your Personal Storyline itself. So it was foreseeable.

Don’t wanna be this guy, but a certain saladbowl wielding vegetation kind of steals your story halfway in anyways. That’s besides the point.
The Pact has proven to be full of terrible members who repeatedly get one-shot in both gameplay and cutscenes alike, so it’s no surprise that they can’t handle a real threat. You need actual heroes. People without glass bones and paper skin. You aren’t alone in Tyria, and you do need their aid. Did you honestly expect to fight (ha) an Elder Dragon all alone? They eradicated everything in the past (save for a few lucky-luckies out there) and you think one lone hero would suffice? Cute, but noble; the world of Tyria is big, and so are the Elder Dragons.

This awkward push is again due to ANet’s laughably rushed storyline (its like they quit from Lv.55-76ish, and never looked at the earlier quests after making them).

Dungeon Stories still further your personal storyline, your mentor helped you and now you help your mentor (or skip it all for some reason and see the climax because ANet didn’t want dungeon progression? Yeah, even that sounds bad for the best excuse… helpful for alts though). All of that is grouped content so ending off in your 8/8th group content area doesn’t seem so foreign.

This last bit seems so insanely selfish I don’t even want to mention it, but here I go.
You aren’t the only hero, and you specifically need to find 4 more, so of course you all get equal credit. The fate of the world is in the balance and you complain that since people helped you, all 5 of you become nobodies? Not only that, but if you do the Story dungeon, you are the one to reform Destiny’s Edge. They’re only able to help because of your acts of valor. But then you claim they steal the show? They’re practically your [non-join-able] Guild now!

Besides, the battle is so horrible, you’ll feel terrible for finishing it. I’d rather kick a puppy and get a medal, same concept but with 10 minutes less of pressing [ 2 ] and sleeping on my desk.

I still agree, it was a ridiculously bad design flaw not to force the dungeons in the first place. Despite not being called Personal Story Dungeons, they still make up a huge portion of your story, clearly shown by the fact the final mission is a dungeon itself.

A hero’s gotta do what a hero’s gotta do. Like it or not. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth a try, or let it sit & whither.
This is ANet’s game with ANet’s [awkward] ruleset. They wanted a dungeon push, and they added one [horribly].

Jemmi.6058:

El curioso, 5 living story instances? I only know of the 2 prior to MWF. What am I forgetting?

Oops, my bad, I meant 7. I forgot the last pair.

1. Braham & Rytlock
2. Braham & Knut
3. Braham & Cragstead
4. Braham & Eir
5. Rox & Rytlock
6. Rox & Hatchery
7. Rox & Rytlock in the Prisons

Despite most being short, they’re all still their own solo story instances.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

If one of those people has to leave the group because the cat just got caught in the dryer, you can’t go on with the content.

I don’t mean to hop between you two discussing, but this made me chuckle.
Not in a “hah poor cat” kind of way, but a “glad to know people can still maintain humor” kind of way.

Poor kitty though. Get out of the dryer, you’re not a wet clothing article!

Now in both ways.

LameFox.6349:

Xalugami.2096:

I know The Herald sends a message before the Ascalonian Catacombs intro about the inclusion of dungeons to your story, although I can’t find any direct text (I have my character slots full so I can’t speed to 20 to check) of the message. So due to my lack of resources I’ll drop this point since I lack the facts. If anyone per chance has this message from The Herald, it would be nice to clear up what it says.

After consulting with the alt-fleet I did manage to find one where I hadn’t been cleaning the inbox, which contained this. AFAIK it’s the earliest thing they send you.

Bonus content from the screencap folder (apparently you can’t copy/paste in-game mail): Is it slanty in here or is it just me?

Ah ha, that seems about right. Thank you for taking the time for screen-capping that.

So I was incorrect in my memory of him/her saying you will be needed with Destiny’s Edge in the future. My apologies for bringing that up with false claims, however I feel that the Destiny’s Edge storyline was being so hard-pressed throughout your journey that one could argue it’s still a vital role in your Personal Story and bound to join the two at some point. I suppose you can think of it as the side-quests needed to get the “true ending”.

Most of your Personal Story is solo’ing, Most of the Destiny’s Edge story is dungeoneering. So (If you’ve followed [DE] in the Dungeons you knew their plan for Arah) gathering up a team of your own to combine with Destiny’s Edge and the Pact for the big dungeon “hurrah!” still shouldn’t be too big of a surprise, really.

If we’re bouncing around facts here, it never says Personal Story is pure solo content either, but it is easy to get into assumptions if nothing forces you to break the mold (something I feel Ascalonian Catacombs should have done to begin with, rather than “Surprise! Arah!”).

I would agree with just the instances becoming dungeons, but then that would be a little bit too weird needing to start up a dungeon for a bit of dialogue with a Lionguard.
Personal Story structure (as used by Fractals and the Living Story’s first 5 instances) works just as well and still provides great group content. But I do see how it would lull players into thinking it was going to stay that way.

In their defense, this has been the first Living Story seen to completion, so now we know the gist of how ANet plans to work these out.

Elbegast.6970:

Guild Wars 2 offered a constantly changing ‘personal story’, updated frequently. It offered the ability to complete group content without the need to form a party.

Tell me, what is ‘personal’ about doing a long chain of solo content only to see the ‘wrap-up’ of the party leader’s story, and not your own, in a 5 man dungeon with 4 other strangers?

I’m not saying to remove 5 man content. If anything, add more and make it a completely separate story from the solo content; much like the ’Destiny’s Edge’ storyline. But please, don’t tack it onto the end of my soloable personal or living story content.

It’s just like I said above, but will paste here for easy reference:

Xalugami.2096:

Don’t think of your final quest as “Locked quest unless I party up” because (as true as that is) it’s the wrong impression ANet was trying to push.
Your final story quest isn’t just a dungeon it’s being trusted to seek down the last reinforcements the Pact needs to finally assault the threat of the Elder Dragon Zhaitan. This is something you physically can’t do alone, so you must beseech the world of Tyria to find the final few heroes the Pact requires to secure a rather unthinkable victory.

Doing so both gives the player a unique objective (seriously, no other story quest asks you to find real, quality aid, so it’s a brand new mission objective for once) as well as introduces them into the end-game content ANet has created. Not to mention if this was a Dynamic Event, it would be so broken and unplayable I’m sure everyone would complain about it.

Sometimes the world needs a hero. Sometimes the hero is the one to rally powerful forces if the world is in great peril.

And sometimes, the hero has to overcome themselves to achieve that goal.

Keep in mind this was a design decision to get players into dungeons. Maybe they’ll like them, maybe they won’t (and with the last boss battle, I’d assume they’ll never touch a dungeon again… great contradiction ANet). You’ll never know until you try, and what better a way to make it the finale of the game. That means more people will feel the need to try.
Brought up again in Flame & Frost, but with the best dungeon ever made (unless you count SAB). I’m sure loads more people are awaiting dungeons in the future after playing that masterpiece [compared to the jokes we have now].

This is kind of a silly idea. I understand the forums are currently Solo vs Grouped Content and not to mix them, and this thread seems a bit too extreme just to have people cease voicing their opinions.

On the topic though, if every portion was a dungeon that would leave very little room for collecting special items in exchange for lore (like Lost & Found) or having the world get altered during the events taking place. Though that would exclude the solo-players, that literally takes away the “Living” from the World, since nothing is actually happening out in Tyria.

(Before people use the Molten Weapons Facility against this opinion, I’d like to point out that Wayfarer & Diessa have changed with events and NPCs, as well as lore all over the place. Then finished it off in a way only a dungeon could handle.)

Vulpis.8063:

Huh—the one’s I got were basically ‘Those losers from Destiny’s Edge are begging for you and 4 other people to go help them in their own splinter story, if you feel like taking the time out of your own story to go help them. No ‘need’ involved in it whatsoever.

I know The Herald sends a message before the Ascalonian Catacombs intro about the inclusion of dungeons to your story, although I can’t find any direct text (I have my character slots full so I can’t speed to 20 to check) of the message. So due to my lack of resources I’ll drop this point since I lack the facts. If anyone per chance has this message from The Herald, it would be nice to clear up what it says.

Vulpis.8063:

Once again, repeat after me:
There are more ways to have multiplayer interaction in this game other than 5-man teams.
I mean, really—we keep hearing this over and over again—are you that blind to all the other content that can be either soloed or grouped, as well as the ones that are designed for multiple players participating without needing for make a formal group?

There are definitely ways to do that, you’re right. You can feel free to do those quests without even needing a party.
However, a lot of players still enjoy testing their mettle in group-only challenging situations where it’s just the 5 of them (or less) and a couple terrible NPCs that die in a few seconds only to add to Daily Healer. Unlike the Dynamic Event system, there is no possible chance for a hero to walk by and help out for a bit. It’s just 5 people; we either do good and win, or do bad and not-win (shame GW2 has a lack of definitive failure, but I don’t mind that too much). Group-only content is still a thing, whether you enjoy it or not. Nobody can enjoy everything (and before somebody says they enjoy everything, there’s probably something un-GW2 related they dislike).

Vulpis.8063:

Reading comprehension please—the bait-and-switch doesn’t refer to there being dungeons in a MMO, it’s the problem that a dungeon is suddenly tacked on to the end of what up until then has been entirely soloable, and even the very name of the content indicates that it should be soloable from beginning to end. The Living story, you could barely justify by it not being a ‘story’ as such, but a ‘Some from column A, some from column B’ (amusingly the ‘collection of pies’ analogy fits better here—there actually is no big pie here, just a collection of small ones—with the problem that the event requires you to choke down the flavor that makes you vomit in order to complete it—whatever that flavor may be). The ‘Personal’ story has no such excuse, whatsoever.

I still believe The Herald alerts the player of this early on, but I won’t use that as a point since I don’t have the exact text on hand.

That being said, you had the whole Story to solo, and now that you’ve reached the end, it’s time to give players the final push they need to try out ANet’s target end-game PvE setting: a dungeon.
Don’t think of your final quest as “Locked quest unless I party up” because (as true as that is) it’s the wrong impression ANet was trying to push.
Your final story quest isn’t just a dungeon it’s being trusted to seek down the last reinforcements the Pact needs to finally assault the threat of the Elder Dragon Zhaitan. This is something you physically can’t do alone, so you must beseech the world of Tyria to find the final few heroes the Pact requires to secure a rather unthinkable victory.

Doing so both gives the player a unique objective (seriously, no other story quest asks you to find real, quality aid, so it’s a brand new mission objective for once) as well as introduces them into the end-game content ANet has created. Not to mention if this was a Dynamic Event, it would be so broken and unplayable I’m sure everyone would complain about it.

Sometimes the world needs a hero. Sometimes the hero is the one to rally powerful forces if the world is in great peril.

Illysharia.7286:

Its rare that I get to read such a long-winded post from someone who:

a) Utterly fails to understand what is being talked about

b) Baits the people who are voicing their criticism and suggestions to improve the game

Non-constructive posts like that really muddy this discussion.

By responding to the OP’s question and is genuinely curious as to what’s the matter with team content in a multiplayer game?

ANet already stated that the challenging/ending PvE focus would be through the dungeons and not the open world, as to give groups something to work on doing. So making them solo-able would pretty much strike that idea down (granted they already changed a bunch of their concepts since launch).
People who only play one way can’t have access to everything. Such as if a player doesn’t want to PvP, they shouldn’t have all the PvP skins unlocked. If a player doesn’t want to group up, they shouldn’t (though still can for the few rare ones) be able to do the group-based content. There’s still the entire rest of the game out there to enjoy.

My previous post seems to touch on the OP’s question by including previous examples of temporary events, as to hopefully make a based guess on the odds of this one ending in a dungeon. I also mention that the game tells you early on that group content is required for the storyline. I then proceed to ask for the side of why they dislike group content.
Seems to me like my response was on-topic in regards to the question being asked, as well as providing some examples from what the past holds.

Technically the only constructive post to OP’s question would be the exact answer, but since no one here knows, we can’t really be constructive on that regard.

Mara.6782:

armors made of karka shells maybe

We have armor made from Karka Shells, really large Shoulder-guards no one uses.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

but but.. We haven’t had any new armor since the game launched.

Despite the occasional holiday shoulder skin, the breathing mask, and the gauntlets (are we counting back items too? I wanna lean towards “no” since they’re accessories & not technically armor); you’re absolutely right. Even more-so since all of those were limited-time items.

This is a crazy realization due to the fact the endgame of GW2 is getting your character to look good. No new full set of armor (even just 1 set) since then kinda gives a grim impression about the future.
I’m positive a bunch of the guys who designed the different sets of Gem Store town shirts could have put some effort into additional Gem Store armor (or something) instead, and I’m equally as positive they would outsell those silly shirts in an instant (if the armor looked good and not rushed).

I would really hope this Living Story segment ends in a dungeon at least half as good as the Molten Weapons Facility (because it’ll still be better than most of the permanent dungeons). Of course, they best not add that cancerous RNG garbage like they did for the Jetpack (I quit after 40 runs, screw you RNG).

To the people concerned about group content in an online game with a ton of people playing, I honestly can’t see whats wrong with playing in a team. From the sounds of it, you have the time necessary (unlike a few people I read from, I feel bad for them but you can always plan a weekend around it too if time is an issue). It seems you just don’t like… the layout of the party window? I’m not sure, honestly.
If you don’t mind tagging along with others for skill points and events, that’s literally the same thing as being in a party, just without the party window (and blue text). I feel sorry for not being able to understand where you guys are coming from…

Seriously though, at level 20 or 25 you get in-game mail telling you “oh hey dude, you need to start doing 5-man content because its part of the storyline”, so seeing the last quest take place in Arah is not even remotely surprising; unless you don’t care about the story enough to read the texts, in which case why worry about the story?
It’s not ANet’s fault you guys want to be hermits and stick to a ridiculous solo-only vow in the complete opposite of a single player game. There’s tons & tons of people running dungeons every single day, and so far no one has received fatal physical harm for joining a party, so there’s many opportunities to join on in.

Single party-based instances are practically required due to the fact that Dynamic Event scaling in the open world can’t be tailored to challenge a bunch of groups of players all at the same time. Thanks to the open world, the dragon champions are just absolutely pathetic since there’s too many players (well, given ANet’s current record for dragons in a dungeon, they can’t even do that right either so its still up in the air).

Anyways, if you guys feel the need to call team-play in a massively multiplayer game a “bait & switch” and then completely give up on playing content, that’s your choice (and a rather silly, extreme one at that). However as dungeons provide a great way to challenge the players while delivering vital story bits (and can even be fun, if the temporary dungeons are proof enough), it would be rather silly to not have one here.

Speaking of temporary dungeons… Mad King’s Day bore a dungeon, Lost Shores released with a permanent dungeon, Wintersday had 5 dungeons, and Flame & Frost has a dungeon. I think a reasonable expectation would be Secret of Southsun ending with a dungeon, but it’s never been said outright (for anything) “everything is a group/solo instance” so it’s best not to assume either.

My Norn Guardian, Kiyomi Grace.
I tried to go for a GW1 Norn style but couldn’t find any bottoms that worked good with the top (and too many people use Tier 3… not to mention I’m broke lol). This is probably the best I can get, I’m personally happy with the outcome.

Sinanju.8456:

What’s your point? I’m on my 40th run now and I’ll keep doing it til I get it. If not I’ll buy one so I don’t see why you have to cry about it.

My point is that you should get rewarded for effort & playing the event in order to get rewards exclusive to the event, not for picking straws. I too will continue running this dungeon, but it’s just not fun or enjoyable when your effort & time isn’t getting rewarded (and while the clock is ticking down). RNG on temporary content sours the experience for players who wish to obtain the item(s). Like I mentioned above, not everyone has that amount of coin to just buy it right off the TP either.

Getting event items should be left for playing through the event & easily able to gauge your progress on your tasks (like looking at a bar for an achievement track, also this doesn’t mean easily completed either). Not playing the lotto or just running CoF; leave this to the stuff that stays in-game so you always have a choice to grind or buy.

I honestly cannot see a positive side to RNG-only inside temporary content. Can one of you guys please at least explain why this is a good thing compared to doing special tasks and working towards a goal in the event.
Usually when I think of event items I’d imagine “Wow, he was there during x and he was able to do y!”, but this stuff is like “Oh, must of played TP/CoF or pressed F and hit the jackpot, can’t believe I’ve still yet to get anything…”.

Kusa.6438:

Welcome to the world of MMORPGS my friend… It’s not a new concept. Just be glad it’s not an item that offers higher stats base. WoW has done this for pets, mounts, gear, and more. You know how many hours I tried farming holiday/one time events for rare RNG drops there? Or how about the countless hours raiding top tier content to never get the gear I needed/wanted. Trust me, be fortunate on how ANET does their gear and skin system. Plus I’m a casual player, and 60g worth of saved mats over a month or so was easy to get (considering the amount of time I play is far less than most people). So if you consider yourself a dedicated player, I would expect you to have more gold than I.

I never played WoW for that reason (well, and the sub fee).

I like playing Guild Wars 2 for fun, I like doing the fun things. I may work towards a goal if I want the rewards, but I’ll never being doing something not-fun otherwise. However since my version of fun is exploring the beautiful world, leveling up my crafting, & not running CoF or the Orr train for hours on end like a zombie. I haven’t made more than 20g out of my 2000 hours of /age because I like the game incorrectly.

This grind is already putting me out of my comfort zone, I’m turning into a really jaded player because no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, RNG says I suck and need to play it better. It’s hard to hold patience for slow groups or need to carry a team because I know I wont be rewarded for it. Every time I open the chest its more of a punishment & the game laughing at me for wasting hours upon hours to get a simple cosmetic I’m dying to have.

I’m fully aware games like WoW exists with endless grind, and most people have certainly played it. Sure, I’m at the lower end who really doesn’t know how bad the grind can get, but think about it like this: GW2 was perfectly fine without timed RNG, and all RNG ever has done is screw you over from other games. Why would you want to defend this sudden inclusion of RNG on temporary content when you can outright say it’s not good? I firmly believe if a player works hard putting their time & effort into something, they should definitely deserve the rewards they seek; not just a kick in the shin by a chest and getting laughed at as you just lost yet another hour of no progression.

Again, I can’t stress enough that stuff like this should be exclusive to permanent content (for treasure hunting, since it’s available forever); while temporary rewards should be obtained by performing specific challenging feats to retain exclusivity (as the RNG could lock them out for the whole event).
Just think, everyone selling a Jetpack definitely didn’t want theirs, while everyone actually grinding for the Jetpack can’t even get closer to getting one. It looks so stupid looking at it this way.

Kusa.6438:

Also those who are complaining about the drop rate really need to stop QQing.
The idea behind it was to be a unique item that only a few people have. If everyone could get the jetpack, then everyone would be wearing it and no one would like it because it is not unique. I really like the idea behind limited extremely rare items in the game. I personally was able to buy mine for 60g the day of the patch. I knew the price would double, so I sold everything in my bank just to get one. I don’t think ANET should cater to everyone baby out there who wants everything handed to them.

“Everything handed to them”? If the Jetpack was a reward for doing the dungeon without taking damage and running it over 50 times, I’d be going for that & eventually get it I’m sure. To me that doesn’t sound like getting it handed to me, that just sounds like I want to make progress and actually work towards the goal (ya’ know, with effort) instead of just pressing F at the end and seeing I picked the wrong straw again. I believe making it a super hard achievable goal would do exactly what you said: “The idea behind it was to be a unique item that only a few people have.” Sounds to me like it works & fits your ideals about your purchased ’pack.

Just because people are loaded with coin doesn’t mean we all are. Heavens forbid people want to earn their event rewards inside of the event content, definitely not as fair as playing the numbers game & it just makes us sound like big babies! Don’t give rewards to the people working for them, then it’s not special!

27 runs & counting, no special drop or exotic inscription, clearly fair so far.

MakubeC.3026:

I’ve done the dungeon over 8 times now. Not a single exotic find like Mini or Jetpack or Tonic.

I’m in the same boat, 27 runs in, no special drop or even any exotic inscriptions.
I find it annoying that if my RNG decides to send me a Mini instead of a Jetpack, I couldn’t even sell it to buy the ’pack.

Sinanju.8456:

I don’t want to sound like one of those guys but Jesus you guys cry about everything you can’t get. If you want it bad enough just keep running it til you get it or save your gold and buy it. I want those infused gloves but can’t get them because I missed the event. I’m not crying about it. You won’t get everything you want and I know it sucks but you don’t have to come to the forums and cry about it everytime.

So what is “bad enough”? The guy that got a 2nd special drop on his 4th run must have been playing it so hard to get those. Here I am starting my 26th run and I haven’t even gotten an exotic inscription, much less a special drop.
That’s like being paid with lottery tickets. Maybe you’ll get the money you want, maybe you’ll just go hungry until the next one, it’s all fair though!

RNG is a terrible system to put in with limited content, all this does is sour the experience for dedicated players who want to earn special items. No matter how many times you run this (my goal is 65 at minimum), you still could end up with absolutely nothing. If they added tokens or something, even just a set drop % at different run thresholds, this would be so much more fair for those who seek to acquire something.

It’s understandable that you can deal with not getting the Fused Gloves because you missed the progression required to obtain them, it had a bar to achieve & you didn’t fill it up. But here I am already working on dumping my 26th hour of life into a game, and I’m probably not getting anything from it again. No possible way to gauge progress on this.

GameOver.9658:

Still no Jetpack after 40 runs. I quit.

I’m at 20 runs and I feel like playing this anymore will start burning my eyes.
I can’t imagine 40 runs already, I’d say you deserve a Jetpack but RNG thinks otherwise.

Vulpis.8063:

More accurately, there’s 5 specific achievement pre-requisites you have to complete—though since I don’t have GW2 running, and it’s quite possible one or more of those 5 require everything you’ve listed.

I really wish there was an alternative method to getting to see those last cutscenes, though, in the form of some hard instance or world event, instead of only a 5-man dungeon. :-(

The dungeon is fun & not too harsh. If you’re struggling to find a party just whisper me in-game; if I’m on, I’m running the dungeon because of ANet’s sudden RNG fetish.

You need to have completed all of the Flame & Frost content.
75 Acts of valor with refugees (lighting campfires, fixing signs, delivering mementos, assisting wounded refugees), 150 Molten Alliance kills, all 6 Lost & Found items turned in (covered objects between the two zones), both of Rox’s pre-dungeon instances, all 3 of Braham’s pre-dungeon instances, the 12 Dead Drop locations (started by the whispers agent in Black Citadel), the Dungeon, and the last instances for Rox & Braham.
That’s about 4-5 hours of playing if you stop & smell the roses.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Besides, under their explanation of their goal – the ever evolving world concept, where the world of Guild Wars 2 progresses on a monthly basis into the future, it’s weird as all hell that while we cannot access, for example, Molten Facility next year – we’ll still be able to access the fight with Zhaitan, despite it happening before in the lore timeline, and despite the MF dungeon being better received.

It’s a good concept, but their practice is flawed.

So much this.

Also, you’re the Konig Des Todes? Like, from the GW2g Durmand Priory forums? I’ve always been too shy to make an account over there, but I wanted to say I love reading your lore posts as you seem so level-headed and almost always have facts to back yourself up; not to mention I like your thoughts on lore speculation.
lol sorry, I’ve been kinda lurking around there since launch, guess you can say I’m a fan of your posts.

Back on topic though, I do agree that it’s so wild that they would remove their greatest dungeon to date because of an incohesive reason. If all dungeons are a relivable point-in-time, yet they’re removing this because it wont fit the current timeline, all that makes is a contradiction with itself.
If we could at least know if a permanent dungeon utilizing these mechanics is in the works, or if the dungeon itself is making a return appearance yearly (so doubtful), or even if we can get a voice-mod to change all our quotes with the voice of the weapons testing engineer; the loss wouldn’t have such a huge impact.

Actually multiple conversations, tunnel mobs, and the weapons testing all seem to change with each run; regardless of which entrance you used. I’d wager the conversations and the weapons test order are just randomly chosen on the fly, whereas the tunnel mobs have 3 (or more?) different possible sets leading into different champions at the end of the tunnel (Cave Troll, Ember, Ooze).
Enemy spawn locations also seem to change ever so slightly (like the Vet Mining Suit being idle slightly more to the left compared to a previous run).

If I’m not mistaken, this is what they were talking about when they said each run will be different (which actually goes a long way for that dumb RNG grind).

The main viewpoint I look at (which I believe has been said), is that if a player returns next month after leaving in October and wants to see how much the game has grown, there’s 1 map lacking the lore where it came from, Fractals, fixes/UI additions, and some new skins & currencies. That’s not a whole lot for half a year compared to what we did get, and it could lead that person into leaving for a longer time period as it seems like not much progress is being made.
The other way to look at it is since there’s time restrictions on this stuff, some people could get super overwhelmed and realize this isn’t the game for them since all this content is available for a limited time only.

I’m definitely all for holiday events coming & going year round; but small story arcs like this would make great “side quests” (I came from playing mostly RPGs, not much MMO experience, not sure if there’s a MMO term for that) especially how well designed this is. With what little I played of GW1, the way you can do the tutorial quests for the other campaigns as a Prophecies character was really well done and could make perfect sense in GW2. I wouldn’t mind if the rewards are turned off for the “re-telling of” either, that would allow people who were there to get the shiny prize, and the people that are late to the party still get the content.

I mean, this wouldn’t be as bad if they actually added more permanent playable content. If there was a steady addition of new permanent quests alongside these slow, short temporary changes, it wouldn’t be so bad watching them go away. But since this is the newest content since November (technically December, but that’s all gone, so November was the most recent permanent world update), and it’s leaving, it just feels empty

Also at the above comment of “Being temporary gets more people to play it immediately”. I agree with this, however imagine if it never ever comes back, imagine how many people a year from now get the game and get denied of all this content with no way to play it. I can understand hiding the special rewards, but the entire mass of content? It just doesn’t sit well (I haven’t brought this up on the forums before since I figure holiday events will come back, and Lost Shores technically stuck around).
After all, this is still a video game, and it’s meant to be played.

I just finished the dungeon for the 18th time and I’m extremely proud to say I’ve gotten jack squat from it (besides cooking recipes and yellow inscriptions) with all 18 runs combined.

Oh wait, that’s not being proud, that’s just pure seething hatred for this timed RNG garbage.
No no, rewarding a player for multiple completions is a dumb idea, they’re doing it right!

I too would love to know this.

I would love to know this too. All these dungeons are fantastic compared to the boring regular ones full of HP sponges.

I recall them mentioning that “temporary content will remain temporary to make it special”. That’s kinda like the same as filling up a museum with all these super unique artifacts, opening it to the public for a week, then setting it ablaze and making sure no one new ever gets to see it again until the grand re-opening where it’s most likely a whole new experience. That’s a lot of wasted stuff.

Invizible.2960:

So you can get the chest at the end multiple times?

Yes, you can get the chest after every run regardless of character opening it. The only limit is how much time you have, and how much time you can use to sink into the dungeon. All within this small time period the you can actually play the content.

I’m just hoping that around 5 runs per day will net me the Jetpack before the Dungeon goes away. I’m not the luckiest guy (10 runs in, absolutely nothing worth noting), so now that I have a time limit to grind a dungeon for a rare drop, I’m already feeling overwhelmed and pretty negative. One thing I would really just want to hear is “If you manage to play the dungeon x amount of times, you WILL have your reward”, but sadly that can’t be said, and knowing my luck, I’ll never get it no matter how many times I run it.

This is the problem with RNG + temporary content; if I manage to run this thing about 65 times, each run taking roughly an hour, there’s still no guarantee I’ll get what I’m looking for. Then the dungeon’s gone, and I just sit there asking why did I just waste 65 hours on absolutely nothing. Not to mention little new guy running it on the last day gets the thing outta nowhere, and gets rich or just flaunts it because it’s not like RNG involves effort, time, or skill.

Maybe if you got a little ticket after every run, then at 40 tickets or something you can buy a Tonic Recipe, Mini, or Jetpack. I thought this was the norm for dungeon rewards (see: every dungeon plus SAB that came & went), but I guess I should stop expecting those smart tickets.

I guess I’ll just keep at it and hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised, however with only 22 found+selling, I don’t think that’s going to happen in the next 2 weeks.

I believe you can also get them from AC & SE for pretty cheap token costs, I did the latter because AC is not worth the effort.

I decided I’d try out Costume Brawl for the dailies just now, but I couldn’t use any of my skills. I had used up all my Tonics and for the whole duration of those I was either being feared, stunned, or knocked down. Someone said it was a special gem store costume or something, but I think it’s got to be a bug or exploit since I recall the Gem Store is in no way pay to win (and I’d have to say being locked out of a daily category for a gem store item is kinda paying to win).
Hopefully this gets looked at; from my 45 minutes of trying to at least hit something but instead being stunned forever, I thing this needs to be changed. It’s a pretty major bug now that it’s a daily, at least there’s other things to do in the mean time until it becomes playable…

Let me just start by saying this is the absolute greatest thing I’ve seen (since SAB released, lol) in regards to making me nostalgic. Huge, huuuge props to everyone involved in this.

My quick question before I get back to playing it, do you think you might be able to provide a downloadable version so we could play it offline & separately from a web browser? I don’t mean to sound too greedy since this is already a fantastic gift to the community, but I think having a downloadable version would be really great to have around.

Anywho, thank you so much for taking the time to make this and allowing us all to play. I’ll be sure to grab a buncha gems once I head back into GW2.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

The “Daily personal story completer” cannot be done by someone who has finished their personal story.

You actually can complete this by joining someone else on their story.

I have all 6 Characters of mine sitting on 100% World Completion & I make it a point to do all 9 Daily Categories every single day. Seeing something like this would break my little heart…
Though one explorer-based daily achievement I’ve been wondering where it’s been is “Daily Treasure Hunter – Open x Chests”. That seems like a no-brainer to add in.

This is smart & I really love this idea. I can even see it working in the Transmutation Interface by just splitting up the stats individually to drag to the center instead of it just being the huge stat hunk. I could see myself dropping quite a bit of money on these things, assuming they aren’t just RNG Chest fodder exclusive.
I also like how this wouldn’t scale up the gear, you said it perfectly above about paying a premium & the additional premium.

Let me start by saying I love the idea of Guild Missions (definitely not the unlock requirements), and Guild Bounty Training was the most brilliant idea I could have seen coming after the initial launch of them.

However, earlier this evening our small little Guild decided we have enough members on for a Bounty Training (about 10 online). We ended up with Sotzz and spent the entire mission duration looking & wasting Waypoint fees to have our efforts fruitless. It occurred to me that this could most likely be fixed.

My suggestion is scaling Guild Bounty Targets to the size of the Guild starting them. That way smaller Guilds who don’t have access to a 100+ man roster to scour over 300+ barrels from an entire map still have a chance to not waste half a week of Influence.
As an example: Targets such as Sotzz could be available for being randomly selected if your Guild has 100 or more members, but he can’t get picked if you have less. Other Targets could be added at other member thresholds such as 25, 50, 75 or so depending on their overall challenge.

Separating some Bounty Targets that pose a major threat and keeping them reserved for the larger Guilds would help on both sides. It allows smaller Guilds to not get completely outmatched, as well as add unique content the larger Guilds can face.

I can’t see any negatives to this suggestion, the only one would be “But why should smaller Guilds have an easier time because they’re too lazy to recruit?”. I don’t think that’s much of an issue since larger Guilds can get rolling in Influence and usually have the strength to take out more Bounties than a smaller Guild can. Whereas if a Bounty fails due to some crazy spawn map, we don’t get utterly demoralized that we lost without a fighting chance.

Now before you cry out “Get an actual Guild”, Maybe think for a moment that not everyone likes to be in a giant conglomeration where you don’t know everyone you’re playing with. To me that doesn’t sound so much as a “Guild” as it does “Map Chat with Orange Names”.

It would be incredibly nice to see some feedback (and maybe even a red post?).
Anywho, I have some Influence to go make back, thanks for reading!

Valento.9852:

…and Simin requires only a full hyper mega DPS party, the strategy part plays only 0.5% on this fight.

That is hilarious. I needed some comedy to brighten up my week, thank you.
I’d say Simin is probably the easiest boss in the path, but Melandru’s Priest & the End Boss of the path are both afk autoattack encounters. So I’d say eating a sandwich & watching the latest Game Grumps is a tad easier than Simin is. You can either DPS her like a bunch of uncoordinated zerkers, or actually pay attention to the mechanics of the fight and work together flawlessly. I’d wager that this encounter can be done with white equipment.
.
Anyways, onto the topic… Arah is the final dungeon of the game, I feel that’s enough excuse to be challenging, long, and tedious. As mentioned somewhere above, if you’re jealous of CoF getting done in 10 mins, go do that dungeon instead. It’s just armor skins and the challenge of Arah separates the people who truly want it with the people who could care less about the skin. Its not supposed to be a place that caters to the players.

Most of the boss-type encounters are much better designed than a lot of stuff in the game. I’d have to agree that Zhaitan’s battle is almost as much of a joke as the quote above my post. Mechanically, pressing skill 2 until you win is shockingly bad; Maybe he could take a swipe at the ship once in a while & force you to realign your cannon or something? I’m sure if they spent 2 minutes thinking of alternate ways, Zhaitan would be infinitely better.

All of the filler Risen can be dealt with or skipped, that’s up to your party really. I feel like there needs to be more Risen, what with this being the biggest baddest dungeon out there… It just feels wrong with the few that are in there now.

tl;dr- Arah’s boss encounters are mostly all fun. It’s not supposed to be a friendly happy place, it’s supposed to be a hard obstacle to overcome that doesn’t cater to anyone-be it by encounters or length.