Guild Wars 2

It could go either way. ANet has previously stated that they like some items staying rare to preserve their exclusivity (not a stance I agree with, but that’s their official line), but at the same time, they DID bring back the Southsun skins, and made Fused/Sclerite weapons available again.

If I was asked to guess, I’d lean more towards the Jetpack/Monocle not returning as a Fractal reward, as backpieces and headgear have a precedent of being cosmetic rewards, but I wouldn’t rule it out completely.

Fox.3469:

Teq is perfectly fine as it is, it’s a world boss, you need to be organised and prepared to kill it. This fight is the best fight in the entire game. World bosses should not be free lootbags, there are many other ways to farm and for creatures of this magnitude it isn’t reasonable to expect to down it every time you do it, or to even take it down with fewer people. Tequatl is something that brings your server together, and in order to do it you need to engage with others in your server and organise it. FSP kills it every day now. It’s not that hard when you get people that care about this amazing experience rather then the achievements and loot and then bug off.

All the dragon fights should be like this.

How often does your server kill Tequatl each day? Once after reset? If so, that’s still not a solution to the problem. What about players who, due to work/school/sleep, just can’t get on at that time?

The bigger servers like Blackgate or Tarnished Coast still take down Teq fairly frequently after reset, but if you try visiting him at any other time you’re out of luck. Something’s seriously wrong if, even on the most populated servers, showing up to a World Boss at any other time greets you with a completely dead zone.

Also, you can be organised and prepared with less people. Nothing says that you shouldn’t be able to kill Tequatl with, say, 4 turret operators, 3 defenders on each side, and an additional 10 people attacking Teq directly. Everybody knows their role and what to do, so why should they be denied victory just because they’re 60 people short? If anything, I’d say that’s MORE challenging because you know you have less room to screw up; you don’t have the protection of the zerg to help revive you/cover up for your mistakes.

Hmm… I’m actually getting the sense that there’s two different demands being made in here:

1. “I want SB to last longer, so I can at least have a chance to zone into the map and get to him before he’s dead!”

2. “I want SB (and Wurm/Shaman) to be more engaging to fight than just autoattacking FTW.”

I think both camps could honestly be satisfied in the same update. Give SB more health (and maybe tone down Wurm/Shaman’s) so it takes about 8 – 10 mins to kill him. This should be plenty of time for latecomers to show up to the party and still get credit. At the same time, adjust his mechanics so that players need to be more active than just autoattacking him.

I think that the Toxic Offshoots had a really good thing going that could be applied to some of the World Bosses. Sure, you can just focus on attacking, but in order to successfully complete the event, you need to have players defending mortars/carrying kegs. For instance, with the Wurm, instead of everybody just pounding on the Wurm, we could have Seed Turrets that are obtained from Gamarien. These deal damage to the Wurm, and also remove stacks of shielding from it that occurs if the Wurm eats a Husk. This makes it more critical to keep Husks away from the Wurm, and also gives players something to do other than just attacking.

The Shaman could perhaps summon Icebrood Elementals to assist him, as well as Corrupted Ice Shards that, if not destroyed, just spawn permanent ice storms that reduce safe areas for players to stand.

I get most of my Crystalline Dust from Heavy loot bags, honestly.

I regret not buying the Vicious Claws needed for these when they were just 10 silvers or so. XD (Not for resale. It’s just that I’m now finally at a stage to start equipping my characters with Ascended backpieces, but prices for the Claws have tripled.) Might just continue to wait until the Crown Pavilion makes a comeback.

I seem to recall someone here (Mystic?) doing some research after the change was made. It showed that kit quality DOES make a difference, and that BLSK’s give the best return (although not by much, compared to Master’s/Mystic SK’s). So yes, if you’re salvaging Ectos, use Master’s/Mystic SK’s.

She does actually have a point. Players will always gravitate to whatever gives them the most profit in the shortest amount of time. That’s basically human nature at work. We’ve seen it in the Queen’s Jubilee, we’ve seen it in the Scarlet invasions, and we see it now in the Queensdale/Frostgorge Champ trains. Tequatl/Mad King’s Labyrinth/Tower of Nightmares all saw sharp declines in popularity, because the difficulty of the area, and the time investment, was just too high compared to the rewards we could get.

Nerfing overprofitable zones is the common response from most developers if they feel the economy is “too hot”, but this tends to draw significant backlash from players who, understandably, don’t like having their main source of income taken away. By far the better option is to instead address the root cause of WHY people want to farm in the first place, and that is to afford the stuff they want. This can only be done by increasing supply, making expensive things like Legendaries, Ascended gear or unique skins a lot cheaper. If a player could buy just about anything they wanted, just by doing stuff they enjoyed (whether it be open world PvE, dungeons, WvW, sPvP), I think we’d see a lot less emphasis on farming.

Of course, the downside to this approach is that there would be no real “status items” left. For the crowd who likes to have rare and unique items to show off to others, they will HATE this idea if they don’t have something to show that they’re “better” than other players.

Yeah, I’m certain it’s going to be the Fractal update (new Molten/Aetherblade/Thaumanova fractals).

What we don’t know yet is HOW they will be introduced. Will they become part of the regular Fractal rotation? (I think it’d actually be pretty cool if the Jade Fractal got put into a random set with the new 3, so we won’t always know which Fractal we’ll get for the 4th.) Or will they be special Fractals accessed by talking to Deesa or another NPC?

We will probably see Precursor prices fall a bit as more supply is introduced, but at the same time, it will also spur more people to try for a Legendary, so I doubt it will fall by much. (And of course, it will also push prices for other materials required to make a Legendary up.)

Neat finds! I’m going to see this for myself later.

Yeah, but WHY has the supply crashed so dramatically in just one week? That’s what we’re puzzling over.

I choose #2!

They might have intended to use Charged Quartz as a cheap way to discover Exotic armor pieces to build XP for post-400 armor crafting, and got in early.

Possibly due to speculation that Ascended armor will be in next month’s update?

I always use the diving skills during the fall, and I haven’t had any problems activating dive spots yet.

One other thing to eliminate is whether or not your friend died on the way down by hitting a wall etc. I believe that if you die before hitting the water, you don’t get credit either.

Ahh, Evon. Ever the huckster. Never change, you greedy kitten.

Speaking for myself, I have just as much fun with my Ranger as any of my other professions, and I’ve never been kicked from dungeons/Fractals just because I was using my Ranger.

It IS true that Rangers lag a bit behind some of the other professions in terms of raw damage (a good portion of a Ranger’s damage comes from their pet, and like all AI companions, the pet won’t always be cooperative in reacting swiftly to changing battlefield conditions), but honestly, unless you’re joining a speedclear group, most players aren’t going to be bothered about it.

Most of the hate directed against Rangers is usually against bad PLAYERS using Rangers, doing things like insisting on attacking a boss at range when the party needs to be sticking close in melee range. If you carry both a ranged weapon and a melee weapon for different situations, and adapt your tactics accordingly, the Ranger is just as welcomed as any other profession.

I don’t really WvW or PvP, so I can’t offer any advice for those situations.

Some people may also let their kids play a character on the account (technically against the EULA, yes, but you can bet that this happens), and storing money in the guild bank is a way to ensure that young kids don’t accidentally spend all of Mommy or Daddy’s savings buying up 250 Lodestones or the like.

Sonders no longer sells the Best Nougat, Gibbering Skull, or High Quality Plastic Fangs. Those went away after Halloween finished. He still sells the Candy Corn Cobs, Halloween Pail and the Bloody Prince Mini, as you probably know.

Taku.6352:

And then comes the dredge… :[

Another reason why my Earth Attuned Glyph of Storms Ele hates them so much. XD

Cassandra Nea.2507:

((Priceless. If this doesn’t end in a mad lovestory for Cap’n Storyteller and the Mermaid, I will never believe in love again))

I foresee a couple of close calls where the pair get ambushed by a common foe and are thrown into a situation where they must work together to escape.

Kidnapped by Pirates? Nah, too cliche.

Risen? Ehh, no. Shambling rotten undead tend to be poison for dramatic love stories.

Karka? YEAH, now we’re talking!

-scribbles- The Mermaid’s journey takes her to Southsun Cove, and the Cap’n follows after getting a tip off from a Charr Ash Legion spy silhouette who delivers via a note pinned to his door with a dagger.

Following a series of dramatic close calls, they get ambushed by karka, have a narrow escape where they run down a gorge while being chased by a rolling Veteran Karka, only to discover that it’s Karka Mating Season and they are cut off from the civilised half of the island by hordes of Champion Crazed Karka Hatchlings.

With no other option, they are forced to cooperate to survive against starvation, the elements and hungry karka, slowly developing a mutual respect that blossoms into affection, culminating in a passionate encounter at Owain’s Refuge. (Possible humor shot of Owain watching the pair creepily? Must run that by focus group.)

And then we’ll end the episode there so our newly enraptured audience will HAVE to buy the next issue to see what happens next. It’s PERFECT! $_$

Did either of you use the diving skills 1 or 2 on your way down? I remember reading some posts a long time ago that suggested that you needed to use either one of the skills at least once during the dive for it to count; merely letting yourself fall off the edge doesn’t count.

Also, just walk or jump off the edge. It seems that for some dives, dodge rolling off the edge can bug out the recognition, because the game tracks dive completion by seeing you start from a specific spot and hitting water. Dodge rolling might take you away from this spot before you start “falling”.

Why not both? Forgeable AND sellable!

And yes, the first thing I’d do is Forge Mini Rytlock, Mini Logan and Mini Jennah together with a Bottle of Elonian Wine.

Human Female Noble here as well. XD Mine focuses primarily on Inspiration magic, and she joined the Vigil; I envision her as a sort of spellcaster who uses Mesmer magic to inspire and uplift the soldiers fighting under her. Along with Time Warp.

The devs did say that the Gauntlet will make a return at some point in the future, and that the achievements will be completable again at that point. That suggests that Liadri will indeed return one day. (Honestly, we should send her to fight Scarlet. )

I’ve gotten Kasmeer/Marjory, Rox/Braham and Rox/Kasmeer so far. Still waiting to see Rox/Marjory, Braham/Kasmeer and Braham/Marjory.

Gaile mentioned that they expect to be swamped by requests for refunds, so give them some time. Possibly up to a week.

He was eaten by the Quaggans in their madness.

SB definitely needs a health boost to be on par with what the other World Bosses have. He still tends to die in under 4 or 5 mins.

ANet definitely does need to adjust Tequatl so he scales better for less people. I fought the Shatterer for the first time earlier this week. Even though it took us till 2:50 on the clock to beat him, there were still new people rolling in throughout his attack, with some people taking up position at the mortars/cannons because they could see that things were well in hand.

That’s what I think the Tequatl encounter should be like. It’s still possible to fail it, but it’s also easy enough that people know they can show up late, contribute and still have a good chance of winning. Tequatl is largely ignored because of the reasons Astral mentioned:

1. You need a critical mass of people to attend or there is NO chance of victory. This means that people tend to show up, see too few people around, and leave again, resulting in a vicious cycle.

2. Getting into a map with sufficient people AND the coordination necessary to win usually means you have to show up 30 mins – 1 hour early, and then wait for another 15 mins to an hour for Teq to spawn. Players don’t want to spend almost 2 hours waiting for one event for rewards they could get by running a dungeon or two.

3. Success is far from guaranteed. I’ve been in TTS overflows where we still failed to win. Players don’t like spending that time waiting for Teq only to get a piddling reward for their efforts.

My feelings on Scarlet notwithstanding, I have to say that Tara Strong does a superb job with voice acting her.

^ Heh, wish we could trade keys. I have 4 Green Keys, 2 Blue Keys, and absolutely no Pink Keys. (Luckily I made the right decision and picked the Pink Key when I beat the Story Instance.) I’ve resigned myself to just buying a Pink Key before heading into the Tower just to beat the RNG odds.

Yeah, Thunder Ridge Camp is full of win.

Megis.9264:

To be honest, you wouldn’t be able to sell her for much, if she was.

I know I’d pay much more for the real Queen Jennah.

My guess is that the Tower will be destroyed once we’ve injected enough Antitoxin. We won’t be able to enter the Tower anymore, but we’ll still see the ruins of it in Kessex Hills. The Toxic Alliance mobs will still have a small presence in Kessex (as evidenced by the new events around Viathan Lake), and we’ll occasionally still see Toxic Seedlings scattered throughout the world, but on the whole Kessex will start to return to its former beauty (forests regrow etc.)

I’ve yet to see any special boss. Then again, I’ve only done 6 Nightmare Chambers so far.

Antitoxin Spray is basically only useful for removing Toxic Pollen from your party, but even so, it’s generally not worthwhile bringing in a decent group, because:

1. The damage dealt by Toxic Pollen is fairly miniscule and can usually be outhealed.
2. People infected by Toxic Pollen sometimes spawn hostile Hallucinations, but these Hallucinations tend to be white mobs that are again easily destroyed by AoE damage. (Hallucinations spawned by enemies such as Toxic Hypnoss are a different matter though.)

Ohoni.6057

The trading post should be a utility, not a game.

Here’s where I do have to disagree with you, Ohoni, despite my general support of your stance. While I, personally, do not find gaming the TP to be enjoyable (and thus do not engage in trading to profit), I acknowledge that it IS something that other players do enjoy. It’s a highly specialised form of PvP, and even though I don’t participate myself, I still enjoy reading about the tactics and strategies players use, and learning about all of the complex factors that go into speculation and other TP activities.

As long as the TP Barons do not (and I believe John Smith when he says they cannot, simply because the market is so huge) use their wealth in attempts to hinder the general playing experience of others, I believe they should be allowed to continue to use the TP as their “battleground” if that’s the experience they enjoy in the game.

Spent another $10 last night for an additional 800 gems to get Marjory’s Dagger and Kasmeer’s Staff.

I regret nothing. <3

Absolutely NOT to the OP’s suggestion. I hatehateHATE getting stuff that I don’t want. Players should be able to sell ANYTHING they get, whether it’s weapons, armors, minipets, back pieces, whatever. Soulbound on equip is fine if you want to keep item consumption in the game, but having account bound gear (outside of gem store purchases) just frustrates me to no end.

It’s not an active achievement, which means it’s a bit buggy when it comes to getting it. You might have it already unlocked, but it’s just not displaying.

Before Speedy Reader was put back in, I ran around and read all the books trying to get it, but it never popped. When the achievement was reintroduced, I went back to Ebonhawke to get it, only to discover I already had the achievement. So I DID get it; it just wasn’t shown.

More likely than not the Chinese TP will be isolated from the EU/US ones for the reasons Wanze stated. While it’d be interesting to see what sort of impact having a huge influx of new players on the market would be (and how fast it’d take them to catch up), I think ANet will probably err on the side of caution and keep them apart. (At least initially. I wouldn’t rule out a merger of the two down the line once the Chinese player base “matures” if it’s technologically possible.)

TP = Trading Post.

Not a mini collector, but I’m glad that they are now tradable. I always support players having more options to get the things they want.

But how would we stand against the power of his fancy panties?

Add me to the list of people impressed by the Nightmares Within content. The Tower is attractive to look at, memorable, and the Nightmare Chambers/Heart being soloable with character-specific lore helps build the story. The fact that the achievements are fairly light also means it’s easy to knock them out in a day or two of playing, and then return to your normal routine (or keep farming the Tower, as one likes).

My only wish? That the final battle with the Toxic Hybrid had Marjory/Kasmeer AND Rox/Braham with you. I so badly want to fight a boss with all four of my new friends beside me.

Incidentally, I think the difficulty of the Hybrid is spot on. He’s definitely soloable, but he can be trickier on certain builds. My Mesmer wiped once because she couldn’t destroy the Toxic Blooms fast enough to avoid it filling almost the entire room. I imagine I won’t have any issues on my Ranger (pet for tanking, Barrage and Axe for AoE damage), Ele (TONS of AoE), Warrior (incredible sustain) or Necro (minion army) though.

I’ve actually rescued Lord Faren in those chambers (as a Human Noble) twice now. Since as far as we know, Faren was never involved with the Tower of Nightmares content, I found it extremely suspicious. That suggests to me that either the “prisoners” we’re rescuing aren’t really there at all, or perhaps they are real, but we’re hallucinating that they’re people we know rather than just random strangers.

Supported. I’ve only been to a handful of invasions in the last few months, but each time it’s failed to reach the end because:

1. People are bored of the invasions and no longer bother showing up
2. Those that DO show up are more interested in farming the Aetherblade/Molten mobs for loot than actually completing the events.

There was some data mining a while back which unearthed possible “dungeon gambits”, similar to the gambits in the Queen’s Gauntlet. (One gambit was “No party member can die”, suggesting that if one guy dies, the entire party dies as well.) That could effectively give us Hard Mode for dungeons without needing to create new instances or modes.

I also like the idea of creating SEPARATE elite dungeon paths as a way of expanding dungeon content. For example, they could reinstate the old F/U path of TA (essentially bringing the old dungeon back), and then allow people to access the Aetherblade path by just picking a dialogue option from the NPC outside (“We are here in response to Lionguard Turma’s call for help.”)

It seems that the Argos gallery is also down, and has been for a few days. Hopefully Argos hasn’t decided to take it down.