Guild Wars 2

DrEckers.2039:

Zach: I guess you haven’t seen the nearly video of the nearly 1 hour long f100 posted on the forums.

Also hate to be a grammar kitten but, Tedious is defined in the dictionary as “marked by monotomy, long and tiresome.” If that does not explain higher level fractals I do not what does. Trying to redefine your point when you haven’t experienced the tedium of the higher fractals is speaking outside your experience.

Previously, fractal rewards were good, not great but good. As you mention you had a decent shot at ascended, but in addition the higher you went the higher your “fractal magic find” went. It was very common to come out of a f50 making 10-20g through the rares and exotic that dropped from mobs and chests. In addition, you could sell open spots if you completed the run with less than 5 people. And as you already mentioned, you had a good chance at ascended armor and weapons. If I converted everything to gold, you prob made on average around 7.5g per f50. Which was comparable to most dungeons pre-nerf though reliant on rng.

Now, everything is tied to the TP. I cannot explain how toxic that is for the rewards, but I can do my best to demonstrate. Currently, Fractal Encryptions stand at 9s50c buy and 12s41c sell on the Tp. In other words, the boxes themselves are valued Less than the guaranteed money coming out of them! The boxes have been in free fall since their inception, and show no sign of bottoming out since they have caused free falls in all of their contents. In other words the more people do Fractals, the less valuable the rewards become.

Now the daily rewards are still in a good place for fractals between 1-50. There is a guaranteed 1g drop from them, and stabilizing matrices seem to have balanced out to be worth about an ecto. This is because there is a chance for 4 to 5 dailies or about 5g per day if you do every low level daily each day. On the other hand, fractals 51-100 have gotten only a single daily per day and once did not even have one daily. And, their box gives the exact same guaranteed reward as Daily’s completed at lower tiers besides a few extra worthless +1s and a key! Considering the extra amounts to about an extra 25s, which will be made up by doing at least one other lower level daily, there is a clear liquid gold bias towards lower levels. Do not bring up the chance at an ascended as a reason to do the higher levels as the current research shows that there is actually a small decrease for opening a higher level daily chest. You are enjoying the rewards precisely because anet biased (either intentionally or unintentionally) the rewards for fresh players over seasoned veterans. Can you understand some of the outcry now, Zach?

Source GW2Tp Fractal Encryption
Source King Fractal Research

Oh I completely understand the outcry- don’t get me wrong. All I’m saying is that I like the one fractal and done. That’s it. I also understand the issues with encryption boxes. They should be make venderable at a decent price, like 30s or so per box. Making them TPable is good if they’re at a high value but bad if they are at a low value. The main issue is the high cost of the encryption keys. What I said about being tedious is that in general, one fractal is less tedious than three/four fractals. Of course, I also mentioned that as you go higher up the bosses get more hp and toughness and do less damage, which was the opposite in the old system. So for most fractals it will be less tedious, and as you get really high it starts to become more tedious.

Thaddeus.4891:

ZachAttack.3957:

I’ve also seen a lot of discussion about the bosses getting tankier and dealing less damage compared to before at higher levels, so that’s a negative too. Basically, the high level fractals are much less tedious but way more of a snooze fest it would seem.

I still stand by my point that they have less of a time investment though, as no matter how tanky the boss is, assuming you do not wipe, one fractal will always be shorter then 3, and especially 4. That’s what I like about the new fractal system. But the old one definitely gets the plus on rewards and is more fun compared to now at higher levels (I think we’d all prefer the higher damage and less tankiness over lower damage and higher tankiness).

And let us not forget that gold/ascended rewards were the only benefit. There was also a solid exp reward (if I remember correctly)- which is actually useful now with masteries. But you literally get so little exp in the new fractals that you feel like yoo are falling behind in mastery levels by playing them, which sucks.

And in response to your first statement, I will admit that I played low level fractals. The few I played were fun with decent rewards, but I didn’t have enough time to sink into a 3/4 fractal run every night for my dailies, which prevented me from getting into them as much as I would have liked.

Just to give you an exemple. The last Mosman that I did it was so long and so boring that my and my friend started to test his blast finisher on his revenant with my engineer water field. These field and low duration and his blast is long cast time so we trained maybe 10 times in a row while fighting the Mosman. It was on level 76 if I remember correctly. Noboby die because he was hitting like a noodle. At 50 we used to need a lot of reflect to protect from his axe and needed to pay attention because he was able to kill us in second. Now, we were testing thing out and we were talking about diverse topic because otherwise it was just so freaking boring. The first are so painfully long, while giving no challenge.

1 Fractal at high level will take less time than the old level 50 with 4 islands? I’m not sure about that. For now I saw level 100 be done in 45-1hours. I guess that it will be done in 30min as people get used to it, but we used to do a fractal 50 in 25-45min. So around the same amount of time really.

You also have to remember that the order was randomized back then- so you won’t consistantly get the easiest fractals, and if you get unlucky and hit three long fractals, you could be in there for 25 minutes each fractal.

ODB.6891:

ZachAttack.3957:

DrEckers.2039:

Everyone who seems to enjoy the new fractals does not seem to have played them beforehand. Everyone who seems to complain about the new fractals seems to have played them beforehand. It is a really kitten design if to attract new players you have to isolate the old ones.

I played them beforehand and honestly they just weren’t very fun. It was a huge time investment to run all three and potentially a boss too. I really like the new system now, my only complaint being rewards. It was rewarding to get that chest popping up in the bottom right of the screen at the end of the sets of 3(4) fractals, and now there isn’t that same sense.

+ Less tedious, less time investment
- Nerfs to rewards

I can’t agree with this at all. Fractals were definitely more fun before. There was randomness that made it less predictable/boring. You never fully knew, in advance, which fractals you were going to get. That alone broke up the boredom.

I also can’t agree with them being less time investment or less tedious. Clearly this is from the perspective of low level fractals, because if you were doing any high level ones…it would be immediately obvious that you were not saving time once you reached the boss. The bosses on high level fractals take forever to kill. It feels like you are doing an entire extra fractal just slow grinding away at all that health and toughness.

There is also the logistics issue of they way they have broken fractals up into “one island” instead of the previous 4. Now it is the norm for a group to either completely dissolve or partially dissolve after each “island”/fractal. If you do or at least want to enjoy the fractal content, you are now spending extra time forming or looking for a new group after each island. This is not a decrease in time investment…in fact…it increases the negative time investment because you are spending more time not playing the content than before. You are spending that extra time looking for a group repeatedly. I find that to be tedious.

The rewards also play a factor in this. Before, the rewards were just outright better. You got your gold, your loot chest, and your possible ascended item chest as direct rewards from completing the fractal chain. Now, you not only don’t get anywhere near that same level of completion rewards, but you have to still complete multiple fractals to get anywhere near that quantity of rewards. The quality of rewards is still lacking even if you do complete the same number of fractals though. Now, you get some mats and possibly some vendor trash. You also get any real possible rewards locked inside an encryption box…that will likely cost you money to even see what is inside…likely a net loss just to find out. If you do happen to get an ascended ring, the ascended salvage kits are so overpriced it is just ridiculous. Its gotten to the point where its not feasible to stay profitable by just playing the content you like…instead they seem to be forcing us to work the trading post…which I don’t enjoy.

I initially said that I couldn’t agree with any of what you said, but that wasn’t true…the rewards part…I definitely agree with. I think its really crappy that they are trying to bleed everyone out because some players got rich off of grinding content. Not everyone went that route and as a result…not everyone is sitting on a mountain of gold. There really needs to be profitable content in all game modes so that all players can enjoy the game and afford to do things in game.

I’ve also seen a lot of discussion about the bosses getting tankier and dealing less damage compared to before at higher levels, so that’s a negative too. Basically, the high level fractals are much less tedious but way more of a snooze fest it would seem.

I still stand by my point that they have less of a time investment though, as no matter how tanky the boss is, assuming you do not wipe, one fractal will always be shorter then 3, and especially 4. That’s what I like about the new fractal system. But the old one definitely gets the plus on rewards and is more fun compared to now at higher levels (I think we’d all prefer the higher damage and less tankiness over lower damage and higher tankiness).

And let us not forget that gold/ascended rewards were the only benefit. There was also a solid exp reward (if I remember correctly)- which is actually useful now with masteries. But you literally get so little exp in the new fractals that you feel like yoo are falling behind in mastery levels by playing them, which sucks.

And in response to your first statement, I will admit that I played low level fractals. The few I played were fun with decent rewards, but I didn’t have enough time to sink into a 3/4 fractal run every night for my dailies, which prevented me from getting into them as much as I would have liked.

DrEckers.2039:

Everyone who seems to enjoy the new fractals does not seem to have played them beforehand. Everyone who seems to complain about the new fractals seems to have played them beforehand. It is a really kitten design if to attract new players you have to isolate the old ones.

I played them beforehand and honestly they just weren’t very fun. It was a huge time investment to run all three and potentially a boss too. I really like the new system now, my only complaint being rewards. It was rewarding to get that chest popping up in the bottom right of the screen at the end of the sets of 3(4) fractals, and now there isn’t that same sense.

+ Less tedious, less time investment
- Nerfs to rewards

thehipone.6812:

Well, the way to test it is to determine if we are actually on a particular “week” and then pick a zone and see if the rewards follow the datamined sequence, or if they differ. I can’t get ingame now to test, will check later to see if the rewards for all of the maps correspond to a particular week.

It doesn’t matter which order the items are listed on the in-game reward list. If one map goes 1,1,2,3,2,4,1 and another is 1,2,1,2,1,3,1,4 it may look random, but as long as each map always follows it’s own pattern, then it is not random.

But that seems so redundant. It might as well be random, because if they’re not going to make it the same order for every zone, there’s literally no point because it would be more work to make a different order for every zone.

Sarahfull is saying that not everyone feels that way. And until you can prove that 100% of players agree with you (which is already impossible based on his protest), than his statement is correct. I think the rewards could use a little bit of a buff, and for the bosses to do more damage and be less tanky, but overall I like most of the changes to the fractals. They are a lot less tedious to run, and there is so much incentive with the casual/core/elite/master fractal collections. I’ve been having a pretty good time running fractals since the update.

I don’t think the witch hat is available for purchase at this point in time. I think it was a bonus for buying the game like 2.5 years ago. As for something similar… No idea.

Einlanzer.1627:

ZachAttack.3957:

I’ve created a Roleplay guild that focuses around protecting the terrace, and I can say we beat it now 19 times out of 20. It’s all about a good strategy, along with having a decent amount of players. If you play it right, it’s a cakewalk. Although I do agree that something needs to be done about the liberation event. Like the centaurs send hundreds of troops to cap it, and basically abandon it after it’s captured.

Well the issue is that the event scales way out of control when there are only a handful of players present, which is what happens the vast majority of the time.

It really doesn’t make any sense. I think someone screwed something up when they tampered with it a while back.

Basically, as aforementioned by someone else, it’s a world boss. So a decent amount of players is almost required to see it through.

Paulytnz.7619:

ZachAttack.3957:

Paulytnz.7619:

Dude that’s Runescape or possibly WoW (never played it so can’t really say tbh) farming which does not really work here. You have to farm events for decent farming. :P In which case any class is fine just as long as you have a way of tagging a lot of mobs at once, some examples:

Engi – Flamethrower
Ranger – Longbow skill 5 with also the trait that gives Piercing to arrows.
Necro – Wells and/or staff.
Guardian – 2 Hander Sword/Staff/Longbow
Rev – Jalis, Vengeful Hammers – nuff said.
Mesmer – Staff?
Thief – Off the top of my head I can’t thing of many aoe options…maybe traps? However I do like Sword/Pistol as you can bunch groups up and Spam Blind and fast attacks on them.

Ele – A lot of options here for aoes, staff is fine but daggers and such should be equally viable

Warrior – Ummm, I don’t really like warrior much, although they have access to a lot of weapons they seem to be master of none. Pretty much the Jack of all Trades that Engi was promised to be. Maybe 2 Hander and just spin though everything….

Now, to address your question about single farming and what’s best. Just go with something that’s fast at killing. Personally I like Ranger as I can send my pet to solo 1 while I take out another 1-3 on my own. Of course you can do similar on other classes just by attacking a group 1 at a time and them bringing them all together to aoe them down. Examples Necro wells/Rev Jalis, Vengeful Hammers.

Lot of options just play with things. :P

I main mesmer, and if I wanted to farm something at a decent rate it was terrible, because they have almost zero AoE, aside from skill five on the staff which has a long-kitten cooldown. However, now with Chronomancer out I believe a mesmer can reliably tag mobs with their wells, so that’s what I’d say for mesmer :P

Thanks for the input. I do play a Mesmer but really besides staff I could not think what the best options would be for zerg type situations off the top of my head. Alone away from the zerg I play my Mesmer pretty much like my thief and enjoy using Sword as it has some nice cleaving. You can add the offhand too that gives you the speed buff to help somewhat for the Mesmer’s lack of mobility options, yet even this is not so great as if enemies touch the field you are then slowed down again. Sigh they really need to give Mesmer and Guardian another decent option!

PS, not had a chance to play my Memser to his Elite Spec yet. I have 6 other classes to do first before him sadly lol. But that’s the price you pay for having all classes. :P

Yeah the sword is nice but the issue is that it is melee. So in a Zerg mobs would die before you can get to them. And movement skills like blink have too long a cooldown to be used to remedy this. As for guardian, they were most likely the best farming class before elite specs thanks to staff 1, but now are even better with a long range option. They definitely do NOT need any more options :P

Paulytnz.7619:

Dude that’s Runescape or possibly WoW (never played it so can’t really say tbh) farming which does not really work here. You have to farm events for decent farming. :P In which case any class is fine just as long as you have a way of tagging a lot of mobs at once, some examples:

Engi – Flamethrower
Ranger – Longbow skill 5 with also the trait that gives Piercing to arrows.
Necro – Wells and/or staff.
Guardian – 2 Hander Sword/Staff/Longbow
Rev – Jalis, Vengeful Hammers – nuff said.
Mesmer – Staff?
Thief – Off the top of my head I can’t thing of many aoe options…maybe traps? However I do like Sword/Pistol as you can bunch groups up and Spam Blind and fast attacks on them.

Ele – A lot of options here for aoes, staff is fine but daggers and such should be equally viable

Warrior – Ummm, I don’t really like warrior much, although they have access to a lot of weapons they seem to be master of none. Pretty much the Jack of all Trades that Engi was promised to be. Maybe 2 Hander and just spin though everything….

Now, to address your question about single farming and what’s best. Just go with something that’s fast at killing. Personally I like Ranger as I can send my pet to solo 1 while I take out another 1-3 on my own. Of course you can do similar on other classes just by attacking a group 1 at a time and them bringing them all together to aoe them down. Examples Necro wells/Rev Jalis, Vengeful Hammers.

Lot of options just play with things. :P

I main mesmer, and if I wanted to farm something at a decent rate it was terrible, because they have almost zero AoE, aside from skill five on the staff which has a long-kitten cooldown. However, now with Chronomancer out I believe a mesmer can reliably tag mobs with their wells, so that’s what I’d say for mesmer :P

I’ve created a Roleplay guild that focuses around protecting the terrace, and I can say we beat it now 19 times out of 20. It’s all about a good strategy, along with having a decent amount of players. If you play it right, it’s a cakewalk. Although I do agree that something needs to be done about the liberation event. Like the centaurs send hundreds of troops to cap it, and basically abandon it after it’s captured.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Vayne.8563:

OP if you’re on a US server and want some help learning how to get around I’d be happy to help. And that goes for anyone else on US servers.

I’ve had to do this for a portion of my guild and once they get it, they like the expansion a lot better. Just hit me up in game if you want. It really looks harder than it actually is in a lot of cases.

I just played for about 3 hours, got lucky and landed in an AB with TTS, super organized way less stressful than anything out of VB, managed to finish the meta, got a few Hero Points, restored some good will.

I’m assuming you must be in a decent guild since your one of the vocal white knights, mind if I take you up on that offer you gave to the OP?

The thing about 75% of the metas is that they can be commanded from map-chat. So in auric basin you just have to find a map with the meta starting, and start taxiing people in because there seems to be a shortage of new maps. If you get enough people it’s not very hard to beat the meta because of how lax the punishment for failure is.

Balerios.3679:

DH is op. No class can kill u that fast with only 1 combo . Its not about dodging or anything else. Class needs some balancing with others . This is ruining the pvp experience. More and more players make DH to play a super easy build and win . In most pvp matches there are at least 5 guardians! Half of ppl in pvp are guardians . Love for guardian ? Dont think so . Class is OP right now . And if this wont change , we will soon change name to GUARDIAN WARS 2

Yeah there are a ton of dragonhunters in PvP atm. There’s always at least 2 on each team.

Uncle Melty.4297:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Tbh, I don’t see why it would be an exploit. The event is labeled as “bonus event”, so it implies that it is not necesssary to finish it.
If Anet doesn’t want people to do this, they have to fix it and remove the “bonus” from it. Banning people for this would be insanely weird.

Really? You don’t see why it would be an exploit? You don’t think that jumping into a pit in a very specific place which then downs you all to skip past a bridge which has not been raised isn’t an exploit?

And what’s this? If you kill the monsters the bridge raises? Oh my! But no. It says bonus event. That means you don’t have to do it. Even though it’s the only legitimate way to raise the bridge.

That’s Like me saying, “Oh no, look at those big scary monsters! Maybe if I kill myself I won’t have to fight them.”

Banning people for this wouldn’t be insanely weird. I think they definitely have the grounds to do it. Especially those who have done hundreds and hundreds of runs. Do I think they will? Probably not. People have gotten away with much worse.

I agree with most of what you said, although your analogy could have been a bit stronger. However, the guy does bring up a good question. Why in the world is it labelled as a bonus event?

thehipone.6812:

Based on the datamined info linked in this reddit
point 3 is incorrect. The rewards are not randomly chosen but follow a pre-set sequence, much like a pvp track.

Those don’t seem to be in a pre-set sequence to me. In kessex, it says on week one the order of rewards was:

1 – Vial of thin blood
2 – Vial of weak blood
3 – Molten sliver
2 – Vial of weak blood
4 – Leather sections
1 – Vial of thin blood
3 – Molten sliver

So based on the order of this, the first 7 rewards for the same map from week to week or across different maps should be in the order 1, 2, 3, 2, 4, 1, 3. But this is not the case. Take a look at diessa plateau in week one:

1 – Shiny Bauble
1 – Shiny Bauble
2 – Destroyer Sliver
1 – Shiny Bauble
3 – Wool Scrap
1 – Shiny Bauble
2 – Destroyer Sliver

So in week one of diessa plateau the first 7 have order of 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2. Unless I’m missing something here, this proves an element of randomness. I took all this information straight from the reddit post.

Based on common consensus, it would seem that you are rewarded with a map bonus every 1.8 events/jumping puzzles/mini-dungeon, making events by far the most productive. Right now I am unsure if what level of award you get (bronze, silver, gold) affects how many events you need to get the next reward, but it doesn’t really matter with how easy it is to get gold. It is still unconfirmed whether the item selected after you receive the base reward is random or not, but I am led to believe it is. Yes, the items are shuffled after the reset occurs, and some of them don’t show up the next week but instead show up again the week after.

Aktium.9506:

Minx.7521:

Schlange.4308:

LvL 83 now, still not a single Ascended Itemdrop

NICE

To lvl 96 now. Today finishing to 100. So far no ascended chest drop, only 4 rings, and 1 fractal weapon skin. (so basically 5 drops).

NOICE.

The only noteworthy thing I got from doing all the levels from 51-100 was an Exo wep worth 7g.

The only noteworthy I have gotten thus far was an exotic with 11g last night x3 Yay Devona’s gauntlets!

Aedelric.1287:

Super Adventure Box.

Yes pls.

If you’re planning on doing PVE/WvW zerging, then staff ele would definitely be the way to go. Other than that, I suppose there’s druid? If you want to play a support type build.

Tarkan.5609:

minizero.1432:

Also, if i got someone to help me complete a lvl 50+ fractal, could i then buy the boxes right away ?

can someone confirm the “myth” i’ve heard about this?

It’s not a myth. I think there’s a fractal mastery that allows you to purchase a fractal box for 20 pristine relics if you’ve completed a 50+ fractal.

Cathbadb.6079:

The only thing that should be removed is the RNG. Anet said the Legendary is obtainable by any player as long as they are willing to put the effort into it. I myself would rather grind the materials than buy them. It feels more like a real accomplishment than something I viewed as an annoyance and decided to throw money at.
I also understand why we must visit certain world bosses and hope for certain things to happen. This is to keep players in Old World Tyria and playing together as a team. Otherwise old content would become empty.
Has anyone been in the Silver wastes lately? I went there a few days ago (albeit on a weekday) and there were a total of 5 people on the entire map. It’s happening already.

So Anet has done a good thing, we the players who live in this “I want it now generation” just don’t realize it yet.

What silverwastes did you go to? I see full silverwaste maps all the time, and taxis left and right on LFG.

CureForLiving.5360:

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because (unlike everyone in my guild) I’m not rushing to complete every single one of my precursor as fast as possible. So I’m not really experiencing this issue. I guess I can see how someone who wants it now would not like this system.

I don’t really want it now… My point of thinking is that if something costs a kittenload of money you can get it very quickly. If something costs a little money it should take you quite a while to get it. And if the monetary value is the same as just buying a precurser off the TP with a time investment tacked on, then there’s not really a point. I REALLY like the idea, but it could have been implemented a tad bit better.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Arena net made it very clear Legendary collections would be hard. Their intent was to keep the value of precursor.

As usual, Anet cares more about their precious economy than they do their players.

And let’s not even get into the stupidity of using ascended mats (in ludicrous quantities because beep boop arbitrary value of item must be protected because reasons) to make an exotic weapon.

ZachAttack.3957:

As for “cheaper”. What should have been taken away from the monetary cost of the crafting should have been added in the time investment it takes you to craft it. Therefore they would be on the same level, with one requiring 100% gold and one 50% gold and 50% time investment. But what ended up happening was the same massive gold cost along with a massive time investment tacked on.

Yeah, this. What precursor crafting should have been was a system that required a lot of time but very little gold (or items that can be sold on the TP, ie ascended mats). That way, there would be a dichotomy of long-term and cheap (crafting) versus immediate but expensive (buying it on the TP), with the toilet for people who feel lucky and random drops as a wild card.

My point exactly.

PopeUrban.2578:

ZachAttack.3957:

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re not getting it.

The entire idea of the crafting was a path by which you didn’t have to use the TP or crazy low RNG to get it.

The crafting model isn’t balanced to make it easier or cheaper when you’re buying stuff. It’s to make it actually achievable at all if you’re not buying stuff from the TP. You can go gather the materials yourself, reliably, and not spend anything at the TP.

Crafting is the ‘I want a precursor and want to spend zero gold on it, and in stead spend my time’ option. That option didn’t realistically exist before crafting because the only way to acquire a precursor without the TP was to sacrifice your firstborn to rngesus and still possibly get nothing. There was no progression toward it, it was either you got nothing, or you got a precursor.

Paying someone else for their luck or effort is still the fastest way to get a precursor. They didn’t want to change that for the existing ones. What they wanted to do is to add a method similar to the new legendaries (which you can’t buy or drop the precursors at all) for people that would rather do it themselves.

Doing it yourself is nearly always slower or more time consuming than paying someone else. That’s why commerce works in the first place. The difference is that it’s actually reasonable to say “i’ll do it myself” now.

I can’t possibly see how that is any more reasonable to say if it will take way longer and cost just as much if not more gold.

You’re still viewing it in gold costs. The point is that you can do it by not spending gold at all in a way that there’s an actual progress path rather than a completely RNG super low chance path of binary success.

It’s the same logic as crafting ascended. You can hope for an extremely low RNG drop chance, or you can opt for a more time consuming but reliable path by crafting it. The only reason precursors seem out of whck to you is because you’re viewing them from the lens of gold cost because, unlike ascended gear, they’re actually tradable. Anet admitted making them tradable was a mistake which is why all new legendaries and their precursors are not rng drops or tradable. Take gold cost out of the equation. Just pretend that, hey, you wanted to earn it through your own play in stead of paying for it on the TP, and save or use your gold for something else in stead. Now, from that lens compare the method of acquisition of precursors with and without the crafting mastry.

That was the type of play the crafting was designed for. it wasn’t designed to make them more accessible for people who pay others for their effort to make the process faster.

I’m just viewing it how it is. I’m not going to do precursor crafting if it costs more gold, more effort, and more time than buying it off the TP.

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re not getting it.

The entire idea of the crafting was a path by which you didn’t have to use the TP or crazy low RNG to get it.

The crafting model isn’t balanced to make it easier or cheaper when you’re buying stuff. It’s to make it actually achievable at all if you’re not buying stuff from the TP. You can go gather the materials yourself, reliably, and not spend anything at the TP.

Crafting is the ‘I want a precursor and want to spend zero gold on it, and in stead spend my time’ option. That option didn’t realistically exist before crafting because the only way to acquire a precursor without the TP was to sacrifice your firstborn to rngesus and still possibly get nothing. There was no progression toward it, it was either you got nothing, or you got a precursor.

Paying someone else for their luck or effort is still the fastest way to get a precursor. They didn’t want to change that for the existing ones. What they wanted to do is to add a method similar to the new legendaries (which you can’t buy or drop the precursors at all) for people that would rather do it themselves.

Doing it yourself is nearly always slower or more time consuming than paying someone else. That’s why commerce works in the first place. The difference is that it’s actually reasonable to say “i’ll do it myself” now.

I can’t possibly see how that is any more reasonable to say if it will take way longer and cost just as much if not more gold.

PopeUrban.2578:

ZachAttack.3957:

And please no one say “ANet didn’t say it was going to be easier”. We get that. Obviously. We thought it was going to be a non RNG “cheaper” way to get a legendary. And because it would be “cheaper” (and by cheaper I mean less gold spent to get it), there would be a massive time commitment. What we currently have is practically the same cost in gold, along with RNG, AND a massive time investment.

They didn’t say it was going to be cheaper either.

They said it was going to be a more reliable way to acquire a precursor yourself in stead of buying it

The collections actually do that. You can fairly reliably farm every part of them yourself, or split your cost between purchase and farming. You are no longer limited to trying for obscenely low RNG chances or farming up the entire gold TP price of a precursor.

The collections don’t make precursors cheaper, but they make them reliably obtainable for people that don’t want to buy stuff from the TP to get them

Getting a precursor from the collection is just as reliable as getting it from the TP. In its current state, there is zero point whatsoever in going through the collection if it’s going to be the same cost in gold (or even more in some cases), as well as more RNG drops AND a massive time investment (especially because of all the ascended mats you have to craft- and if you say just buy them, then what’s the point in not buying the whole thing off the TP?). Trust me, I love this game, and I was hyped for precursor crafting. But crafting a precursor seems to me to be way more of a gold and time investment than it is worth.

As for “cheaper”. What should have been taken away from the monetary cost of the crafting should have been added in the time investment it takes you to craft it. Therefore they would be on the same level, with one requiring 100% gold and one 50% gold and 50% time investment. But what ended up happening was the same massive gold cost along with a massive time investment tacked on.

Velimere.7685:

ZachAttack.3957:

Velimere.7685:

ZachAttack.3957:

Tarkan.5609:

ZachAttack.3957:

Or, you know, you can just buy the box on the TP xP

was fixed as far as i know, but if i knew that before the fix… maan

Oh no you can still buy it.

I cannot.

Really? It’s still shown on the tp for me.

It shows up just fine there for me as well…

…However, that does not change the fact that I cannot purchase it.

Feel free to try it for yourself!

Personally I decided to work for it through the achieve rather than buy it. But I guess that would explain the lack of variation in price for them in the past while.

Masteries are account bound, so you don’t need to level them on alts. Unless of course you mean elite specs.

Zypher.7609:

Precursor crafting lets you work at it at your own pace. You do not need to save up X amount of gold, if you wanted to do that just buy the precursor. Not once did they say precursor crafting would cost less than a precursor currently.

You can work at your own pace by saving gold bit by bit and buying it off the TP later. The only thing precursor crafting does is give you a visual of your progress.

And please no one say “ANet didn’t say it was going to be easier”. We get that. Obviously. We thought it was going to be a non RNG “cheaper” way to get a legendary. And because it would be “cheaper” (and by cheaper I mean less gold spent to get it), there would be a massive time commitment. What we currently have is practically the same cost in gold, along with RNG, AND a massive time investment.

Velimere.7685:

ZachAttack.3957:

Tarkan.5609:

ZachAttack.3957:

Or, you know, you can just buy the box on the TP xP

was fixed as far as i know, but if i knew that before the fix… maan

Oh no you can still buy it.

I cannot.

Really? It’s still shown on the tp for me.

Tarkan.5609:

ZachAttack.3957:

Or, you know, you can just buy the box on the TP xP

was fixed as far as i know, but if i knew that before the fix… maan

Oh no you can still buy it.

ionix.9054:

Thanks for the response. If tier for chest is 51-100, what is the incentive of level 91-100 fractals if they have the same chest as level 51-60?

There is an achievement to do every fractal from 75-100 once, which awards you with a chest that gives you a bunch of pristine relics, a gold fractal weapon crate, and some other stuff (this chest can be sold on the TP for ~320G right now). Aside from this, I imagine it gives better rewards overall, coming from the chests and such.

Hey guys. I was running fractals last night, and had 3 daily chests by the end that were unopened. One I had saved from before HoT, two I got just that night. I opened all three, and got three ascended rings. In fact, the one that was from before HoT dropped an infused ring. I was pretty baffled by this, so I’m asking- is there like a 100% chance to get these rings from daily chests? Is it a really high chance? Has the chance been increased since HoT? Because I never got any rings from the chests before HoT.

EDIT: All the fractals I did were from scale 1-20.

Or, you know, you can just buy the box on the TP xP

Yayyyyy Congratulations!!

Completely agree. This expansion has been a blast, and auric basin is by far my favourite map in the game.

Swiftsure.1874:

ok to cancel it and redo?

Yep.

Dadnir.5038:

So in short you said that Anet made the game better with these change?
- less people simply leeching
- less event that fail becauser of leecher
- need to actually use your brain to play
- Reward for doing thing in the map instead of no reward at all
- etc.
Am I wrong?

My thoughts exactly. I really like the fact you can’t tag and leave, like with the mordrem invasions and silverwastes. It advocates a selfish style of play, so it’s nicer this way.

Paulytnz.7619:

I have found a semi decent way but it’s not super great. Two words:

Shiny Baubles.

Find the map/maps (I believe there are 2 atm) that give these as bonus rewards and play in those maps doing events/gathering other resources. These shiny baubles are vendor trash but they sell to the vendor for 30 Silver each. The great thing about this method is DR can NOT hit them as they are rewarded for completing events.

I’m pretty sure completing a random event in these maps would be quicker than doing a dungeon run? I know that you don’t get them every event completed. It seems to be a mix of every second event in my exp mixed in with sometimes one of the other listed rewards. I would love to be corrected on this if I am incorrect. But still, it’s another option and may just give you something else to do when burnt out on other money making ways.

The issue here is that while DR cannot hit the reward itself, it CAN hit the rate at which you receive the rewards. While it may take only 2 events to get a bonus reward when you first hop in, after an hour or so it starts taking you more and more events to get the next reward. DR haunts you even here :/

I think they have been fixed, but I’m not sure.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

This was my first Halloween in GW2 and it was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what Wintersday is like. You want engaging? Try surviving in the labyrinth by yourself for two hours with the horror chasing you all the way. Talk is cheap.

Dude, wintersday is insane. Best holiday ever, you’re going to love it!

Exactly! Why would you wear something called “Bladed Cowl” when you’ve got a beard? You’re just asking for trouble!

Jeez, how often are you guys naked to want customizable underwear? Unless you’re all ERPers… Forget it, I don’t want to know.

slamfunction.7462:

Xiahou Mao.9701:

ZachAttack.3957:

After you receive that reward, the system will randomly pick an item from the list of potential rewards, with the higher up items having a higher chance of being selected.

There’s no randomness in the Map Rewards, it’s set up exactly like a PvP Reward Track, except only the next reward is ever visible in the game. There are forty rewards available in each map. Larger prizes await at the 20th and 40th reward, which will each be 10x the primary reward. So using Straits of Devastation as an example, your 20th Map Reward will be 10x Vicious Claws. By the time you’ve reached that reward, you will also have received 3 Charged Cores and 2 Charged Lodestones as earlier rewards.

Proceeding onwards from there, the 21st to 40th Map Reward, Charged Cores get dropped entirely from the reward lists, instead with 5 Charged Lodestones taking their place.

The only thing I’m not sure of still is exactly how the rotation on the maps will work. Will your progress be saved for eight weeks later when the original rewards return on a given map? Or will you carry over your position to the newly rotated reward track once it comes in? We’ll find out when a rotation happens, I guess!

So then, what is the mechanism used to keep track? For example, i have PvP reward tracks, and a UI that tracks my progress in each one. If i do a PvP match, i get progress on whatever track i have active, and i can leave the mists to go do whatever, come back to it a week from that last PvP match and pick up where i left off.

Does this mean that you have to stay logged into the map, on the same character to do the 40 events or whatever?

I’m not complaining. I totally dig what they did here, but i’d like some sort of idea on how it works, so i can plan my play time to go after certain rewards.

I am in favour of the idea as well, but based on my own experiences with the system the way the rewards are chosen is semi random. It goes Base Reward, random next reward (selected from base reward and other rewards), base reward, and on until a certain amount of rewards are received at which point you will receive 10 of the base reward.

Below is the thread where I explained how map bonuses work:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Giant-Eye-and-new-map-bonuses/first#post5672720

Khisanth.2948:

ZachAttack.3957:

That Guy.5704:

There is a hidden participation bar only really revealed through data mining (and it needs to be exposed in the UI honestly). your participation through events works like a pvp reward track. you get some amount of credit per event (and per type of event?). you then get the different items spread evenly over the track, the cheapest item lots of times, the 2nd cheapest less, and so on, just like how pvp tracks are structured.

Look here for an idea. Whether they are still structured exactly like this post release, I have no idea, but it should show you whats actually going on. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3gjs8g/datamining_hot_map_reward_tracks/

If it is structured, I am seriously doubting that the rewards are based on price. I got more giant eyes from mount maelstrom last week than glacial lodestones, and eyes are more than 6x the cost of glacial lodestones. And if you are referring to vendor price, that sounds even less likely.

What did the bonus table look like at the time? Were eyes the “next reward” item?

Every time you receive the next reward item, the new next reward is chosen out of all possible rewards. Whether this is a random selection or not is unknown, but based on some of my studies I am under the impression that it is. What I was saying is that the giant eyes came up as the next reward more occasionally than the glacial lodestones. Not that I’m complaining of course!

That Guy.5704:

There is a hidden participation bar only really revealed through data mining (and it needs to be exposed in the UI honestly). your participation through events works like a pvp reward track. you get some amount of credit per event (and per type of event?). you then get the different items spread evenly over the track, the cheapest item lots of times, the 2nd cheapest less, and so on, just like how pvp tracks are structured.

Look here for an idea. Whether they are still structured exactly like this post release, I have no idea, but it should show you whats actually going on. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3gjs8g/datamining_hot_map_reward_tracks/

If it is structured, I am seriously doubting that the rewards are based on price. I got more giant eyes from mount maelstrom last week than glacial lodestones, and eyes are more than 6x the cost of glacial lodestones. And if you are referring to vendor price, that sounds even less likely.

Even with all their effects- I think an exalted set would be awesome as an ascended/legendary set.

What I’m so baffled by here is that masteries are end-game progression. End. Game. Progression. If we could blow through this in two days there is no end game progression. People would get bored too quickly, and there would be nothing left to work towards. The reason people see this as such a grind is because they feel they are being forced to level these masteries, and go out of their way to do just that. But honestly, if you stop for just a second, and go play the expansion you’ll unlock masteries in no time. Not to mention the fact that the story doesn’t require any rediculous high level masteries to unlock, and most places on the map are accessible without high levels of masteries. Just play the game guys. Play the game.