Guild Wars 2

Has there been any word on this at all?

Is it only affecting a subset of players? If so do we need to start compiling a list of common factors?

MithranArkanere.8957:

Why not just ask people without the slayer achievements done?

You can also test if two enemies are of the same type when it’s Kill Variety daily.

That’s how learned that the Looters in King Jalis’s Refuge are actually pirates.

I killed a pirate, it went up. Then I killed a looter, and it didn’t change.
Then another day I killed a looter, it went up, and I killed a pirate, and it didn’t change.
This means they are counted as a type, and share types with pirates.

The first thing that comes to mind with this is Gravelings.

Gravelings count for the Ghost Slayer achievement but the stupidly expensive Ghost slaying potion doesn’t work on them nor does the Sigil of Ghost Slaying.

So in summary, there can be exceptions.

Mac.3872:

Xar.6185:

They really should just sticky a thread about

• Mounts
• Duels
• Cantha
• Elona
• New Race
• New Class
• New Legendarys
• Precursors (Crafting & Scavenger Hunt)
• Guild Vs Guild
• Guild Halls
• Player Housing

After that just merge all the threads that pop up about those topics into the corresponding one or delete the new thread while giving the “A discussion already exists about <InsertTopicHere> post your thoughts / concerns here <ProvideLink>”

Or..

They could start developing the stuff that their customers are asking for?

Really it’s becuse every one of those threads eventually devolves into both sides trying too hard to prove who has the ‘silent majority’ on their side. The internal metrics they collect will tell them more than any number of argument threads about what fits in game for lore reasons, what breaks ‘immersion’, what the devs / designers ‘should’ be spending their resources on. etc.

(As I type this there are 2 mount threads on the first page alone…)

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

Why? It’s just as easy for them to ignore multiple topics as it is for them to ignore the one.

It was more for the general forum reader. So as to not see the same topic crop up over and over. Rehashed again & again. Sometimes even multiples on the same page of the forum….

They really should just sticky a thread about

• Mounts
• Duels
• Cantha
• Elona
• New Race
• New Class
• New Legendarys
• Precursors (Crafting & Scavenger Hunt)
• Guild Vs Guild
• Guild Halls
• Player Housing

After that just merge all the threads that pop up about those topics into the corresponding one or delete the new thread while giving the “A discussion already exists about <InsertTopicHere> post your thoughts / concerns here <ProvideLink>”

My window only shows 1 player at a time and only scrolls in one direction

Any word on this or idea to fix or anything?

Angel McCoy.1832:

ElysianEternity.6215:

In this special case I’d say, it’d be good form to inform us at least why the age of the secondborn was changed or what the real lore is now.

We did not believe we were changing canon. The official canon is that Scarlet was born in 1304 and it was around that time that the other Secondborn were also being born.

Angel,

Does this mean that the events that are described during Dream and Nightmare are all to have happened in 1304? Is there an official order of ‘birth’ for the secondborn? Previously is was believed that Caderyn was first is this still true?

How fast do sylvari learn? Just how much knowledge could the sylvari masters have consumed in 2 years to in order to teach to scarlet?

Thank you for the clarifiacations by the way.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Glastium/Sandbox/PC_voice

It’s not yet everything that the PC’s can say / shout but it’s getting there.

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what you want them to say. First you identify problems, then you try to find solutions to problems. They you try to implement the solutions. There’s nothing to say until they actually figure out the best way to go forward from this point. It doesn’t take a day or two. It takes time.

I know what I want them to say.

For all we know they may not see the problems that are being described in this thread as issues that need fixing. I want them to acknowledge the issues as they see them.

Tweaking / refining the algorithm is fine, dandy and definitely needed but the problems with the megaserver, (from the point of view of some of the posters in this thread) go well beyond a better matching algorithm.

I want some acknowledgement that the good things the megaserver brought came at a cost, it isn’t all sunshine and roses. Or some reasoning that the good things the megaserver brought are worth the sacrifices made and that the problems being brought to light in this thread either are directly being worked on or that they aren’t really issues from their point of view.

I want to know that just about 3 months of feedback isn’t being ignored. Because that is the perception that silence gives. Ignore it, they’ll get used to it kind of mentality.

A generic we’re working on it could mean anything from algorithm refinement to hardware perfomance. They may not be working on what the perceived problems are.
It is just to vague.

RedStar.4218

The only thing that has been made perfectly clear in the game is who are the firstborns and that Ceara was born in 1304. That’s it.
We have no proofs in game when the secondborns were born. Do we even have something regarding Cadeyrn being the first secondborn ?

I don’t remember offhand about Cadeyrn being the first secondborn being presented in game. But that is kind of a big deal. He founded the nightmare court in part because of his I’ll prove I’m special / I’ll make the pale tree listen to me attitude that came from being the first secondborn… at least that’s how it used to be…

/confused

I think something that needs to be said is that there are a lot of players that have no idea how defiance works.

I can’t count how many times I’ve tried to explain it to other players. Sometimes they listen, other times they just keep spamming their skills because hey why not, clearly using a skill is better than not using it. Even though in a good number of situation the 1 skill on their weapon would be the best option.

The tooltip is there on the boss, but most don’t read it or can’t read it during combat. Then there are those that don’t even understand their own boons / conditions.

Whatever ends up happening with defiant I just hope it makes its way into the game in some sort of tutorial or something.

P.S.
The same thing can be said of combo fields….So many players just have no idea what triggers them or what effect comes from which combo.

RedStar.4218:

…And whoever is in charge of the wiki article on the timeline, Ceara isn’t the first secondborn. She was welcomed by Serimon, so Serimon must have been born before her.
Of course, as that story isn’t in the game, maybe that’s also false.
So to be on the safe side, remove the mention “first secondborn”.

I thought Cadeyrn was the first secondborn. That is part of his whole angsty nature, and what causes Caithe to tell him “You are either firstborn…or you are simply sylvari”, as he thought being the first secondborn made him special.

Although none of that is presented in game so take it with a grain of salt I guess….

Edit:
After looking around a bit the wiki is all messed up now. There are direct references to Scarlet as the first secondborn but all of Cadeyrns pages still call him the first secondborn. The dates for all of the remaining secondborn still mention the 6-7 years after the firstborn which we now know is not true.
It is as if someone who doesn’t realize all of the connections just updated scarlets info and left the rest…

For me it is very disappointing.

Whenever an npc or in game book (like the new priory books) informs us about something it can be changed because it is from that particular npc / book authors point of view or to their knowledge at that time. So in game lore is somewhat malleable.

Out of game lore isn’t presented in the game and is therefore malleable.

So all lore is malleable. It can and will change to suit the needs / desires of the moment regardless of what has come before.

It would have been easier to make Scarlet the 13th firstborn than to change the date of the secondborn. Especially since this effects Cadeyrn, his relationship with Faolain and the entire Nightmare court history timeline.

@Konig … While I am saddened that you are leaving, I understand your reaction.

@Torsailr.8456 Well said.

My question now is what about the Scarlet short stories? In game npc’s tell us one thing and the short stories explain it differently. Which is correct. Although after thinking about it, it doesn’t really matter. Scarlet will continue to be the Slayer of Lore. Even after her death she is managing to retcon / alter our beliefs / affect the story.

In short npc’s can be wrong or misinformed or just say what they think not necessarily what is. Meanwhile out of game lore can be wiped away at any time for whatever reason.

Does any of it even matter anymore…

Posted this in another thread… It fits in here:

Xar.6185:

How many Logan running away jokes are there?

One…. The rest are all true stories.

It was in an interview with TalkTyria.net.

Ree Soesbee

…The Nightmare Court began during the time of the Secondborn sylvari (the second generation of sylvari born from the tree, about six or seven years after the Firstborn)….

Source

Also Regina posted a quote from Ree on guildwars2guru that said:

The firstborn came from the tree, then six or seven years passed, and then the secondborn… and then more generations, each coming closer in time together and producing larger groups, until we get to the present day, where sylvari are being born… oh, about as fast as players are making characters.

Source
This was Ree’s response to questions / comments that arose from an Anet blog that is no longer accessible. It used to be here -> http://www.arena.net/blog/dream-and-nightmare

The original contents of the blog have been preserved on the wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dream_and_Nightmare

The twelve firstborn, called by their mother’s summons, stood breathlessly to greet their new brother. They had lived for so many years alone, believing that they were all the sylvari that would ever be

So… You didn’t buy any of them and you didn’t harvest them…

Are you saying that you aquired 15k+ quartz from opening wintersday gifts, Zephyr Sanctum Supply Boxes and as rewards from Santum Sprint? Ok that’s fine.

You also say that you aren’t using it to craft celestial gear. Ok… Since celestial gear is literaly the only way to currently use charged quartz crystals I am curious as to what your plan is.

I dislike time gating but they aren’t going to change it as it is an attempt to level the field between those that can purchase and those that have time.

The devs addressed this topic multiple times.

Jon Peters addressed it here

Colin then talked about it during a four part Q&A.
The relevant quote comes from part IV

Comment and question about how conditions only stack to 25 and if you have more than one condition stacker that it becomes useless and if anything is being done to address it.

Colin: Currently, no. Interesting statistic for you – every condition in the game costs server bandwidth. We have to track how often the condition is running, what the duration of that condition is, and what the stack is at. So the more stacks we allow, the more expensive it gets because we’re tracking every additional stack on there. So, we could say that you could have infinite stacks. Number one, that becomes really imbalanced. But number two, it’s really expensive for us on a performance basis. That’s one of those weird, kind of backend server issues that can help make game design decisions regardless of what you want to do with it.

Comment and question on how if everyone has their own individual stack on a mob instead.

Colin: Yeah, it’s tough. It’s certainly something that we can look at. It does drastically change the way the professions play. It does say that you can no longer stack all of one type of condition. It might change the skills on each weapons if we were to do that. It would encourage more group play to a certain extent. It’s not really something that we’re talking about, but it’s an interesting idea.

Jon Peters posted again and then again and also brought how condition damage doesn’t affect objects

So long story short, they are aware that the current method is not the best.
Whether or not they plan on trying to fix it or how long it takes them to find a solution, and an individuals reaction to that amount of time, is up to them I guess.

Disclaimer: Those quotes / responses are fairly aged at this time.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Azhure.1857:

Astral Projections.7320:

Azhure.1857:

Mesket.5728:

I hope you understand having 630 stacks of anything is not normal.

I thought the very same thing…. 630 Charged Quartz is a bit…. excessive.

Except he said 63 stacks, not 630.

Except I said 630 Charged Quartz. Which is what 63 stacks of quartz crystal would come out to. If you must be that person that gets picky on who said what, please target the person I quoted.

Aren’t stacks 250? So, it would be 63 × 250? 15,750, maybe?

15,750 quartz / 25 quartz per charge = 630 charged quartz perhaps?

I am in favor of:

• A full wipe means your team lost the path (unless other team wipes at at some spot [same boss, CoE lasers etc] then both restart).
• Hard res should be allowed.
• Each team should get to ban / negate 1 path per round.
• 2 out of 3 path wins to advance.

Just my opinion on what I think would work out well for both viewers and competitors.

All in all it was crazy fun. I wish I could have wathced more of it live. Grats to SC!
Huge thanks to DnT for all of the organization!

Mesket.5728:

What a shame, I was looking forward seeing this on live.

Ditto….

Too bad there isn’t a way to replace them alltogether and just postpone a bit…

To think I actually thought something good was going to come to the dungeon community with Anet getting involved. At least they showed some interest.

I hoped too soon I guess.

They are not barred arbitrarily.

They can pay 200 gems to see something that otherwise, and under the old system, they would have missed forever.

The gem cost only applies to story instances. All of the other content ( open world stuff) is still available for free to everyone.

Also people can party with anyone who has the content unlocked in order to play it for free. Just the specific rewards / achievements won’t be available to them.

Grimwolf.7163:

“Log in on July 1 to experience the start of Living World Season 2 and unlock the story content permanently in your Journal!”
So does this mean that we have to actually play the living story updates to be able to play them AGAIN later on with the journal?

No it doesn’t mean that at all. You log in, the story content is added to the journal and from there it is replayable on all of your level 80 characters.

I thought the purpose of the journal was to allow people to see updates they previously missed.

It is.

Why would you spend so much resources just to let people go back and see something they’ve ALREADY SEEN?

They aren’t. The journal is for everyone but mostly for those that Haven’t seen / played the content. You have somehow misunderstood something somehwere.

The point is, if you miss the event you can’t go back to it.

You can go back to it. That is kinda the whole point. Either the content is permanent open world stuff (like a new zone or new / reworked world boss etc) or it goes into the journal.

So why have the journal?

So that story content can be replayable.

If you’ve logged in then you’ve very likely played it anyway.

False. Some players schedules vary and perhaps they can only log in for a few minutes. This give them the chance to not miss anything.

The typical Living Story update can be seen in its entirety after 1-2 hours.

True. But they have told us that they learned from season 1 so we will have to wait and see if this remains to be true. They have said after all the achievements are no longer guiding checklists and are more skill based.

i posted this during the CDI thread-stavaganza… It was largely ignored…

Currency.

We have a wallet because all of the various currencies became unweildy.

Yet with every living story update a new ‘currency’ is added. Not currency in the traditional sense but a collectable as currency.

Watchwork sprokets, ugly wool things, kite fortunes, various snowflakes, Zhaitaffy, pristine toxic spores etc. All of these need to be collected in large quantities and used at a vendor.

Any item subtracted from your inventory in exchange for an item from a vendor is a currency. No matter whether it goes into our collectable tab or the wallet, it is still a currency. No matter where we store it. Items spent at a vendor are currency.

I know there is a new item to exhcange every time so that people can’t just buy everything with what they have stored up but enough already.

Karma would be exceptionally useful to replace all of the collectable currencies. You help with the event? You gain karma. Use karma to buy the living story stuff. Need a special item for a crafting recipe? Buy it from a LS vendor appropriate to the content, Majory for example in ToN.

This gives added value to Karma, adds more karma sinks to the game and stops adding more items that are effectively currency.

Plus we now also have blade shards, festival tokens etc…

It really is getting out of hand and is really counter to the entire wallet mindset.

Points of Interest is a new live stream.

We’re happy to introduce our new livestream show: Points of Interest, your source for all things Tyrian! Join our host Kate Welch and designers Leif Chappelle and Theo Nguyen today at noon (Pacific Time) when they take a look back at Season 1 of the Living World.

So join us at noon today on at http://twitch.tv/guildwars2 – see you there!

lordkrall.7241:

But that is just the thing.
If they post and tell us that they are still working on it people will complain about them not telling us anything.

And if they don’t, people complain about them not posting.

What is the point of posting until they have changed their position (which right now is working on it)?

What are they working on ?
Improving the effiency of the back end code?
Improving the metric reporting?
Making the server grouping feature better?
Adjusting the weighting various options hold when entering a megaserver zone?
Polishing the server rack?

There are dozens of issues with the megaserver system. Saying “we’re working on it” doesn’t cut it. It could mean anything.

For all we know they don’t even consider anything posted in this thread an issue because their metrics tell them otherwise.

Also being vague sort of clashes with the stated goal of being more ‘black and white’ with the players. Don’t post it if you don’t mean it or aren’t allowed to be.

To be fair you can’t count Anthony’s response in this thread since his post is before the implementation. (and is over 2 months old)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-MegaServer/4071145

The only other red post is CC danicas post here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-MegaServer/4071145

Over two weeks ago, which basically says, we are looking at it.

I think what people want is a more direct acknowledgement of what Anet sees are the problems with the megaserver. Or if they even think that there are issues with it. Are they 100% happy with the fallout / reaction ? Or is there something being done.

This thread, like the boss scheduling thread and oh so many others is left to languish. While the players pass the dislike around, damaging attempts at building a better community.

Really hurting their goal of comunnicating more with the players and being more ‘black and white’.

Legendary Harpoon Gun, Trident, Spear.

And yes, I have seen people in game with both Kraitkin (Trident) and Kamohoali Kotaki (Spear)

This is something I’d like to see.

If your team can finish the dungeon within the time limit – bonus chest.
If your team kills every mob in the dungeon – bonus chest.
(the closest thing we could get to vanquishing from GW1)
If your team completes every event in the dungoen – bonus chest.
(When was the last time you saw a group do the ghost event under the stairs in AC?)

Most of all I’d like to see tiers of these things, like bronze, sliver & gold. I’d also like them to stack. As in, a team finishes within the time limit to earn a silver / gold chest but they also completed every event on the path to earn a gold chest for that. They just earned two bonus chests.

While I haven’t purchased the laboratorty, or even decided if I want to, it was really fun when someone plunked one down in EotM.

Just my opinion, but this is the perfect item to be in the gem store. With the implementation ‘just right’.

Think it ruins immersion? Think it doesn’t belong? Think this game is serious business and no place for sillies? Dont click it….

Think it is just the thing to make you enjoy the game a bit more. Click it as many times as you are able.

I’d say it’s a win / win all around.

The devs addressed this topic multiple times.

Jon Peters addressed it here

Colin then talked about it during a four part Q&A.
The relevant quote comes from part IV

Comment and question about how conditions only stack to 25 and if you have more than one condition stacker that it becomes useless and if anything is being done to address it.

Colin: Currently, no. Interesting statistic for you – every condition in the game costs server bandwidth. We have to track how often the condition is running, what the duration of that condition is, and what the stack is at. So the more stacks we allow, the more expensive it gets because we’re tracking every additional stack on there. So, we could say that you could have infinite stacks. Number one, that becomes really imbalanced. But number two, it’s really expensive for us on a performance basis. That’s one of those weird, kind of backend server issues that can help make game design decisions regardless of what you want to do with it.

Comment and question on how if everyone has their own individual stack on a mob instead.

Colin: Yeah, it’s tough. It’s certainly something that we can look at. It does drastically change the way the professions play. It does say that you can no longer stack all of one type of condition. It might change the skills on each weapons if we were to do that. It would encourage more group play to a certain extent. It’s not really something that we’re talking about, but it’s an interesting idea.

Jon Peters posted again and then again and also brought how condition damage doesn’t affect objects

Granted those posts are a bit old now, but the point is Anet is aware that the current way conditions and condition capping works is not ideal but a technical limitation.

So long story short, they are aware that the current method is not the best.
How long it takes them to find a solution, and an individuals reaction to that amount of time, is up to them I guess.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Xar.6185:

I realized it changes nothing. The cost is still per use. Nothing changed except the user interface and some phrasing. People are going to use the same amount of ‘pay to make a change’ transmutation charges that they did for ‘pay to make a change’ transmutation crystals.

It saves me about 200 inventory slots. That changes a lot for me!

Since you selectively qutoed my post I assume you read only what you wanted to see and not the rest. I did say it that it frees up bank space and that freeing up the space is a good thing. The part of my post that you quoted was refering to how often the people that I play with will change their look.

I will say it again. The wardrobe change is good. Not great. It will change very little for the poeple that I play with in the overall scheme of things. However I do agree that it is an imporvement over what we have now.

Cush.4063:

Actually its a major change, not only to the UI but to your time and money as well. You don’t have to go out and spend months getting a second bolt anymore if you just want it for looks. You can simply use a trasmuted charge and get a second bolt in a couple seconds. That’s a huge change if you haven’t been reading the forums about people who made a second one complaining about it.

I did read those posts. Really legendaries are the biggest change the new system provides. But once again. I was answering the OPs question on why my enthusiasm fell. I was putting the change into the context of myself and the people I play with.

Overall the wardrobe is good, not great. Largely people will use it the same as they used the old system. A percentage will also use it to put bolt on every character without the stat swapping ability. But how often will they change their overall look? I have to use legendaries to make the system awesome? It should be awesome for everyone. Should it not?

The changes do nothing to make me want to hunt skins or chase down multiple looks. Which would be a good thing because then I’d have more incentive to swap looks on a whim. As it stands now we got a good, solid quality of life change / fix to a bad system. Not a great one. I’d still rather have the new wardrobe over what we have now hands down. I like the change I’m just not as giddy about it as some posters seem to be is all.

I was pretty excited at first.

Then I re-read the blog post.
Then I read it a third time for clarification.

Then I read some posts that pointed out things I didn’t initially think of.

Then I spent some time thinking about how this change affects me and the people I play with.

I realized it changes nothing. The cost is still per use. Nothing changed except the user interface and some phrasing. People are going to use the same amount of ‘pay to make a change’ transmutation charges that they did for ‘pay to make a change’ transmutation crystals.

Pay per use is pay per use no matter the UI. This only really helps some people free up some bank space.

I believe I would feel differently if it were a pay to unlock and usage was free system.

phys.7689:

<snip>Its more convenient, but it doesnt really make you want to hunt more items, or get new looks if you already have a prefered one. Most people will still be sitting on one look per charachter for months at a time.

This seems to be the way I am coming to grips with the changes.

Love the addition of the wardrobe. It is so much more streamlined and straightforward than what we have now. An improvement for sure.

However, with that said. It is still exactly the same systme we have now.
Yes, it will free up some bank space.
Yes, it will be more user friendly.

But in the end since the cost is still per use, most players will use exactly the same number of charges that they used to use in crystals each month prior to the change.

For many players that I know they would wait to hit 80, use 6 crystals they got from drops and sit stale in their look for ages only changing when something ‘big’ happened, like finisihing a legendary or something.

It is a good change, but if the cost was per unlock not per use, it would have been omgwtfbbqkitty over the top awesome. (although it probably should just be free like it is in so many other games but that is a totally different ball of waxed up arguments)

Blaeys.3102:

At current exchange rates, it takes about 14 gold for enough gems to buy 5 transmutation stones. One transmutation stone = 3 charges.

So, basically 15 transmutations (2 full outfits and several weapons) would cost you 14 gold today (if you didnt want to buy gems with real money). That seems pretty reasonable to me.

Your calculations are a bit off because:

• 1 transmutation crystal = 1 charge (Currently 5 for 200 gems)
• 3 transmutation stones = 1 charge (Currently 5 for 125 gems)

You have it the other way around.

My only question / concern is regarding skins from the hall of monuments and the acheivement panel.

Before the change one could use these an infinite amount of times, across the entire account, for free. How will these be affected? Will skins like these remain as they are? WIll there now be a cost every time you choose to apply a zenith weapon or radiant / hellfire skin?

Pair this change with the dye change and it seems that we need a FAQ as the blog leaves somethings out and is worded awkwardly for others.

A lot of this also depends on the cost / aquirement of tranmutation charges.

Excellent post Shriketalon. Superb.

While there is humor in your post, you managed to make very, very astute, well thought out points. Most importantly for Anet your points were made constructively.

Agree 100% with the entire thing.

Well done.

Hmmm…. seems a bit obtuse really.
A new point every 6 levels, sometimes 2 points and then another 2 points at 80 since the math doesn’t line up.

A much simpler way would have been just start trait gains at level 15 and earn 1 point every 5 levels which works out to 14 at 80 like they intended. Coincendently the starter zones are levels 1 -15 so it would work out to the player completing their respective starter zone before earning a single trait point.

If you use the aquirement rate they have provided it would seem level 90 is in the future. …

….

Not sure what to think at this point. I kinda need to know more.

If this was the system at launch I think I’d like it more than what we have currently.

As an aside there is so much changing in this upcoming ‘feature’ patch it kinda gives me the feeling that I’ve been playing something between a beta and an actual release…

Oh and 1 more idea to refresh before thread closure.

Fractal Profiles:
What I would rather see added instead of leader boards would be an account Fractal Profile similar to the way the PvP Panel statistics section looks & functions.

Favorite class for fractals, most played fractal, most completed fractal, fractal not finished the most, average time spent in each fractal etc, total completions by fractal level etc.

There are tons of cool personal metrics that could be displayed.

Modify the Fractal Frequenter acheivement a bit and you could add fractal specific titles, with the ability to track progress on them(Like PvP rank or WvWvW rank titles), a special title for completing dredge 100 times, a title for reaching max level, a title for completing a set number of total fractals (100, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, a gajillion etc) a title for completing a certain fractal level a certain number of times, various titles for reaching various fractal levels etc.

The options here are staggering.

I know I am both late to reply and reiterating something I have already said (way back on about page 2 or something) but I feel it needs to be said as the topic has come up again in the 2 dozen or so pages since.

In regards to lore in fractals.

Don’t sell the community short by asking for the living story replays to be put in fractals. There are quite a few players that love the living story updates and crave the ability to replay various things from the living story. These players should not have to endure tier 1 and 2 fractals only to hope that the LS chapter they want to replay comes up on tier 3.

Replaying living story chapters should never rely on RNG or beating ‘A’ first so you can hope to play the content you want.

I was very disappointed about that the MF & aetherbalde dungeon were only added to fractals. The living story should be replayable something like this:

Also I hope using the +1 system was enough to show support for things as I really didn’t have the time required to participate this time.

P.S. 5 man marionette that some players discribed. (One description was by Nike somwhere in this thread)Make it happen. (Just not in a fractal)

P.P.S the idea someone put forth about more gear like the fractal back piece. Make that happen too. An upgradeable piece of gear from basic to infused ascended to cosmetic. Very cool.

ColinJohanson.2394:

<snip>

“The next round of major features will be bundled together into a large “feature only” release that will come after the first season of the Living World 2014 has finished.”

Would you mind telling us whether or not the large feature only release will occur before or after the WvWvW spring tournament?

Everyone hyping up the feature release with dates sometime in march is going to be sorely disappointed. During the previous WvWvW season / tournament thinghy they (Anet) stated no balancing would be done as to not disrupt the tournament. I see no reason for them to push the feature patch out between the 18th and the 28th of march while keeping the date secret and just repeating the tagline ’we’ll talk more when it’s closer’ over and over. They also stated that there would be a break after the LS concluded.

A lot of people feel that TESO big draw is the realm vs realm. It’s release date coincidentally coincides with the WvWvW spring tournament.
WildStar is considered somewhat overlapping with GW2s playerbase and releases sometime in June. Looking for the feature build to shake things up around then wouldn’t be crazy.

Also EverQuest Next and WoWs newest expansion due out later this year as well.
It would be resonable to expect the next ‘bigger & better / we’ve learned from the scarlet arc / listened to feedback’ version of the living story to begin around the same time or just before.

Also the beta for the china release is just starting. Some down time from patching the game will be needed to help ensure a smooth release. Also there will need to be some initial time for chinese players to actually play the game a bit before assualting them with the release cadence of the living story.

With that said I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the dates couldn’t be penciled in something like this:
March 18th = Living Story epilogue
March 28th = WvWvW Spring Tournament
(TESO releases)
April 30th WvWvW Spring Tournament ends
June 10th = ‘Huge’ Feature Build patch (Maybe in mid / end of may? depends on china release
(WildStar releases)
June 24th = Balancing / tweaking / fixing of feature build patch
August #th = Living Story Arc 2 begins

October whould be halloween and the mad king again, december has tixx plus it is very likely that the SAB (april & september last year) could make another return in the mix somewhere along with BotfW (july~ish) and dragon bash (was june last year).

For the curious here is Scott McGoughs post about the Uncatergorized Fractal

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/The-Uncategorized-Fractal-is-Rata-Sum/2380457

So is there any advice for someone in my situation?

I have exactly one POI left and that is all. It is one of the new POI’s in Lions Arch. I was just about to run over to it in order to gain 100% map completion but just then, a guilde (in all caps even) warned me about people not receiving the proper rewards for completing the world.

Lo and behold there are a bunch of threads about it. So, I reiterate, any advice on a course of action? Should I complete, get bugged, and submit a support ticket? Wait it out? Or what?

(Just to clarify – I was blissfully unaware that the new POI’s were even placed in LA. After I completed my last WvW borderland I was puzzled. I went back to the chantry. Revisited every map, checked, double and triple checked everything. That’s when I discovered the new poi’s in LA. About 20 paces from triggering the last one my guildie stopped me)

I’m tired of rolling….

I’m tired of talking about rolling.

At this point just let people vote for all but the boss fractal.
In order to incentivize people who choose grawl, cliffside and dredge remove the tier system and weight every fractal individually. Once weighted assign a modifer based on the cumulative weight of the fractals chosen to the loot / reward after the still random boss fractal.

Example:
1) Swamp
2) Aquatic
3) Uncategorized
4) Urban Battleground
5) Snowblind
6) Molten Furnace
7) Cliffside
8) Thaumanova
9) Aetherblade
10) Volcanic
11) Underground
(not a definitive weighting just an example)
If players chose swamp (1), aquatic (2) and asura(3) this would add a +6 modifier to the loot / reward after the boss fractal (or even cumaltive throughout the run, so that after swamp they had +1 bonus while on aquatic then a +3 bonus while on asura), meanwhile those after much better rewards / loot would choose Aetherblade (9), Grawl (10) and Dredge (11) for a bonus modifier of +30 to their rewards.

This way newer fractal runners could choose when they were comfortable enough to move onto the harder fractals. (or selectively choose which achievement to chase or which part of their fractal profile was lacking etc, )

A downside or Associated Risk would be without new players running fractals eventually everyone would be good / fast enough to only run the ones weighted the most. (a way to combat this would be to increase the weight of rarely selected fractals).

Just some quick thoughts…

The Lost Witch.7601:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Folks,

Good discussion. I am enjoying it. The discussion about re rolling is very insightful.

I would appreciate it if you could put some ideas forward for Leader-board mechanics.

Specifically in regard to the fact that I was unhappy with us putting out Leader-boards in their previous functionality (having lots of folks sitting at lvl 50 was not ideal) and therefore the feature was held back.

Obviously we have given Level 50 Leader diversification a lot of thought but it would be awesome to hear your proposals. Note there are a lot of logic problems in the solutions in this area so please do think about associated risks.

Cheers

Chris

I don’t think that fractals are well designed for a leaderboard.

Their random nature makes it difficult to really work towards a certain goal.

If we were to have the ‘quickest overall time’ then we need to get lucky with the fractals we get.

If we were to have the ‘quickest individual fractal time’ then we can’t reliably prepare for an individual fractal (except those in tier 1),

If the limit is set to ‘whoever reaches level or rank x the fastest.’ I think we may be stimulating a bad gaming habit. (Gaming for a few days straight when the new update comes out) And it wouldn’t be decided so much by skill as by the amount of time a person has available.

But! You already know that, and are asking for a good suggestion to make leaderboards work.

So… I’ll mention my idea again:

Challenge missions similar to those in GW1.

They were awesome, though too easy to exploit for a solid leaderboard. Close the exploits and you have a brilliant recipe for a PvE leaderboard.

Fractals may not be the place for this. Unless the randomness goes away, or we develop a seperate set of fractals with this competitive goal in mind.

I agree totally with The Lost Witch.

What I would rather see added instead of leader boards would be an account Fractal Profile similar to the way the PvP Panel statistics section looks & functions.

Favorite class for fractals, most played fractal, most completed fractal, fractal not finished the most, average time spent in each fractal etc, total completions by fractal level etc. There are tons of cool personal metrics that could be displayed. Modify the Fractal Frequenter acheivement a bit and you could add fractal specific titles, with the ability to track progress on them, a special title for completing dredge 100 times, a title for reaching max level, a title for completing a set number of total fractals (100, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, a gajillion etc) a title for completing a certain fractal level a certain number of times. The options here are staggering.

Quick question for Chris or any other dev that is watching.

Is it enough for me to hit the red +1 button or do I need to specifically quote the proposal and add my comments to show agreement?

A lot of what I would personally propose has been proposed already. I’ve been +1’ing those posts but I would just like to know that it’s the right way to throw my support behind various ideas.

Thanks

Galespark.7835:

Xar.6185:

<snip>.

Would it be satisfactory for you if old living story instances do continue to be incorporated into the random fractal rotation, while also becoming selectable from some kind of terminal for people who would like to replay just these instances as “stabilized fractals” (possibly with different content/rewards compared to the normal the fractal rotation)?

I personally think adding these slightly reworked LS instances is a great way to recycle old content while driving up the variety of challenges one might encounter during a fractal run, so I would hate to see Anet stop adding them to fractals. Also, old LS instances becoming available as a fractal is a nice, canonical way to keep them in the game. Certainly compared to our characters meditating back into time to recall events they might have never even experienced themselves, like it happened in GW1 for starter missions on characters from other campaigns.

I think the important part is that they are selectable from somewhere.

I also agree that reusing the LS encounters is a great way to recycle the content. I just think we are selling ourselves short asking for them to be added to fractals. Off the top of my head why not a personal story teller in the home instance that can be used as an interface to ‘remember when I did that cool thing’ or a scrying pool or with assistance from the pale tree. Plus if the LS encounters are used somewhere other than fractals things like the molten facility won’t have to be shortened.

The upside would be every new fractal would be totally new, the downside would be taking longer to see new fractals.

I keep seeing people saying they want to replay the living story inside fractals.
I get it. People want to replay the temporary content. I do too. I really do. Just not inside fractals.

If the only way to replay previous temporary living story content is through fractals a large number of players would be excluded as they are not fractal runners. The subset of fractal runners that does want the living story content would be reliant on RNG to actually replay the content they wanted. This wouldn’t please anyone.

At the same time we need more fractals and more fractal variety. Every fractal should have multiple paths to completion (Like dredge turrets vs bomb door or bloomhunger vs mossman).

Let new fractals be previous missions / dungeons from GW1 or totally new things like cliffside / swamp / underwater etc.

I’m all for replayable living story events just not inside fractals.

whyme.3281:

• because automated dodging of the pet would be to much work (I guess), lower the damage pets get from AoE and cleave attacks by 75%, that hit multiple foes.

I don’t think the pets have to dodge per say, but instead just given evade / invulnerable frames. Base the length of the frames and frequency of the frames on the type of pet (birds would get more of both then say cats which would get more than bears etc.)