Guild Wars 2

My experience was that the cavern does not light up if there are multiple people doing the JP (or more accurately, somebody just entering the darkened room resets the timer on the light). However, there are several ways you can get through the room even if it is totally lightless:

1. The easiest way is to have the Fiery Dragon Sword (HoM skin) or the Mad Memoires Complete Edition equipped on your character. Both items give off enough light for you to see the next platform to jump to.

2. Use the outline of a ground-targeted skill to look around. The targeting circle is still visible in the dark, allowing you to locate the next pillar. Some ground-targeted skills like Lava Font or Portal Entre also give off enough light to see by in a fashion similar to Method 1.

3. There is a torch lying on one side of the darkened room. If you have no light-creating skills, you can pick up the torch and use that. The #1 skill creates a temporary ring of fire around yourself, giving enough light to see by. Note that the torch disappears a certain amount of time after you pick it up, so you’ve got to be quick.

I’m happy enough with my Charr choosing them for racial sympathy. Let’s just say he feels a need to educate them on not needing to worship something to have a sense of purpose in their lives.

I agree. My disappointment with how Guesting still can’t work across different regions notwithstanding, I’m very pleased to see more of the devs out and about on the forums replying to player questions. More communication like this is always welcome and helps to foster better relations between the player base and the developers.

@ScribeTheMad: Oh God, I HATED that kitten Random rule. -_- I would save and reload my game multiple times until they abolished it after a match.

Lyn is currently not accepting Commendations, no. However, you could still package them in the MF. Some players have stockpiled insane quantities of Commendations in anticipation of her return (which has been confirmed to be in the January update).

However, it has also been confirmed that Lyn will NOT be offering Black Lion Keys anymore when she returns, so if that was what you were gathering Commendations for, better ease up on the collecting.

Why female only? Why not male? THIS IS SEXIST!

Imagine a giant turtle, the size of one of those Charr tanks, with a GARGANTUAN cannon mounted on its back.

I do the following:

1. Do a quick check on the TP to see whether there is a demand for them. Sometimes green or even blue items are being bought up for two or three times their vendor price. I expect these are usually people who are buying up the items to throw into MF or to package them for Lyn, although occasionally you’ll get a buyer who wants that particular item’s skin.

2. I salvage Blues for the materials. Greens I will check to see whether the rune/sigil on them is valuable. If it is, I salvage the rune/sigil and sell it on the TP. If not, I merch the Green.

Note that at higher item levels (70+), you could keep green items of the same type and try to combine them in the MF to get a Rare item which you can then salvage for Ectos. It’s not a guaranteed return of a Rare item though, from what I hear. Just an option you may want to consider.

Unfortunately, I don’t know for certain. I believe that the recipes are still valid (it’s still possible to create some of the Halloween skins like the Mad Moon and Arachnophobia in the MF, for example), but I don’t have a conclusive answer.

That was why I raised it in the first place. Imagine, an army of Mosshearts defending the swamp from the impure! As one, they all raise their fists, yell “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” and Smash the ground.

Because they smell. :P

And also because they keep calling Balthazar “Badazar”. Sacrilege!

Morgan’s Orchid (from the skill point of the same name) in Caledon Forest seems to be a very rare, but very powerful plant that can bestow great wisdom and insight upon the one who consumes it. I doubt that your apothecary would be selling dried petals of it, but if he/she did, they probably wouldn’t have any effect apart from perhaps a temporary high.

Redcap mushrooms from a spider cave in Caledon Forest also seem to have unusual effects on the ingester, increasing or decreasing their size. I would have pegged this as a hallucinogenic effect that makes the ingester unable to properly discern sizes and distances, but it does allow players to lift rocks they would normally be unable to and squeeze into spider burrows.

I would have vastly preferred it if GW2 had kept the Ritualist and dumped the Engineer, but as things stand now, there’s zero chance the Ritualist will make a comeback as everything unique about her profession has been absorbed into other professions. Spirits were taken over by Engineer turrets, Ash Pots were turned into Guardian tomes and Engineer kits, and Spirit Weapons have been adopted by the Guardian.

As a general rule, if you are defeated in the middle of a big boss fight, you should WP instead of waiting for a res. It takes too long for someone to get you up, and if there are only a few players taking on the boss, one person leaving the fight to help you up can mean the difference between victory or a TPK.

On the other hand, for really, REALLY big boss fights where 10+ players show up (like the Frozen Maw event in Wayfarer Foothills), it’s perfectly fine to wait for someone to res you if your corpse is out of the way and safe from environmental hazards. Two or 3 players ressing at the same time can get even a defeated player back up into the fight quickly, and the other surviving players should be able to hold their own.

1) Would you prefer ascended gear to be the last tier implemented for the remainder of GW2?

Yes.

2) Would you prefer ascended gear to be equal to exotic gear in all statistics except agony resistance?

Yes, but I can live with it being slightly better than Exotics, as long as Ascended items are the LAST tier.

3) Would you prefer the level cap to remain at 80 for the remainder of GW2?

Yes, but would not mind it being raised to 90 or even 100, as long as EQUIPMENT remains fixed at 80.

4) Would you prefer if WvW was set up on an equal playing field similar to PvP?

No. The whole point of WvW is that anybody, regardless of level or gear, can hop in and start participating.

5) Would you prefer if WvW / PvP / PvE had separate skill functionalities?

No to WvW, would not mind for PvP.

6) Would you prefer if Magic Find was removed from the game completely?

No preference either way.

7) Would you prefer if Magic Find was divided equally amongst all party members?

No opinion.

8) Is GW2 too ‘Grindy?’

Slightly leaning towards “Yes”, but only for really high-end items like Legendaries, Ascended and super-expensive MF recipes. It could be argued that that’s the whole point of those items, however.

9) Does GW2 need less RNG?

No opinion. Content with the way things are at the moment.

10) Has the Trading Post [and all its users/farmers] positively impacted the economy?

The TP is a wonderful addition in terms of convenience and matching up buyers and sellers. Wish it was there in GW1. Not so thrilled about people making money purely off the TP, but accept it as an unavoidable aspect of a free economy.

11) Do you have as much faith [and/or enthusiasm] about the game [and/or company] as you did before launch?

It’s taken some knocks, but I still have overall faith in the vision and direction of GW2 and ANet.

12) Do you reasonably expect [many of] your primary concerns to be addressed in early 2013?

I’m mainly waiting to see what they will do to make Ascended items easier to obtain. The introduction of the Crowns system seems to be a good first step.

I actually think levelling is TOO fast and wish it would be slowed down. I’ve got 5 characters at level 62 at the moment (been levelling them all at an equal pace), and I’m still only in the level 15 – 25 zones!

“Guesting is coming!”

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

“Players on North American home worlds cannot guest on European worlds or vice versa.”

Wait… what? O.o I thought that was the whole point of Guesting! It was already possible to group up with people from other servers in your region for dungeons. Granted, this new change makes it possible to do open world content as well, but it’s a real disappointment to people like me who were hoping to be able to play with our friends from EU servers as well.

I appreciate Martin’s explanation for the technical restrictions behind it that make Guesting between different regions impossible, but I really do hope that it’s something ANet can address in the future. Otherwise, I’ll just have to resign myself to never being able to play with some of my friends.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Zaxares.5419:

Hadson.5024:

Am I right thinking that we wil receive that new crowns both for daily/monthly and for some open-world activities?

Yes, Colin stated that you will get 1 Crown per Daily and 10 Crowns for a Monthly. This is planned to be introduced during the January update.

The blog also stated that Crowns will be offered for achievements down the track, possibly linked to “open world achievement tracks”, which suggests things like completing Jumping Puzzles, Dungeons and Mini-Dungeons, and maybe even Diving Goggles. However, this will be introduced after the January update.

I just want to clarify, the blog post never said anywhere that rewards for normal achievements outside of daily/monthly achievement will give tokens (crowns). We haven’t finalized what the rewards will be for the expanded achievement rewards, and it’s entirely possible they will have their own unique reward system.

Oops. Chalk that one up to over-eager player excitement. I will now disappear in shame. uses Ash Legion Spy Kit

Hadson.5024:

Am I right thinking that we wil receive that new crowns both for daily/monthly and for some open-world activities?

Yes, Colin stated that you will get 1 Crown per Daily and 10 Crowns for a Monthly. This is planned to be introduced during the January update.

The blog also stated that Crowns will be offered for achievements down the track, possibly linked to “open world achievement tracks”, which suggests things like completing Jumping Puzzles, Dungeons and Mini-Dungeons, and maybe even Diving Goggles. However, this will be introduced after the January update.

Manticore Five.9867:

She wants my help, she can pay for it, not place a gaes on me that burns everytime I go do a jumping puzzle instead of warring de dragonz 24/7.

That would make bringing home potential partners to “meet the parent” rather awkward. XD

“Mother, I’d like you to meet James. Yes, I know he’s human, but you just need to get to know him! No, Mother, I love him and I will not stop dating him! You’re not the boss of my life! OwowOW! It burns! IT BURNS!”

I’m personally hoping that the Mystic Binding Agents are a MF ingredient that’s used to upgrade Exotic items to Ascended ones. Put the Exotic item in along with MBA’s, an Infusion, and maybe some Obsidian/Ectos, and out pops an Ascended version of the same item with an empty Infusion slot. This method also permanently fixes the upgrade bonuses, so you’d need to be absolutely sure that this is the final setup you wanted!

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned already, but if you are finding it annoying having to travel back to a city every time you want to access your bank, you can head into WvW (join your server’s Borderlands map). There are a number of crafting stations not far from the starting position, and you can use those to access your bank. Once you’re done, log back out to the character selection screen, and login as the same character. You’ll find yourself back in the original map!

Take note that WvW has a limited population, so you may need to queue for a while to get in during peak hours. Likewise, if you are there only to do banking, try to keep your business quick so you don’t take up a spot from a player who genuinely wants to play WvW.

Thereon.3495:

I have to admit that there have been times where I have honestly wondered why I killed a specific mob. It wasnt trying to hurt me, it was off of the beaten track and was going about its business when I run in flailing my axe and stun it with my shield before laying the poor beast to rest with one more devastating blow to its face. The creature died and for what? So I could gain some worthless junk and ‘experience in killing’ which I really do not need.

I don’t know about you, but my Norn Ranger is a hungry huntress and she NEEDS her Roast Boar stuffed with Moa stuffed with Fish stuffed with Frog every night.

For the rest of kill variety, I just rely on anything else that attacks me first.

Alas, Mr Troll appears to be stricken with either uncontrollable rage or extreme myopia (perhaps both!), because on several occasions I’ve seen him massacring the poor cows in the nearby paddock over and over again, forcing me to go in and put an end to his wanton butchery.

At other times, I’ve seen him valiantly defend the ranch from bandits by crushing the skulls of all the black-hearted brigands that were charging towards the hapless ranchers. I was about to congratulate him on his heroism when he then proceeded to crush the skulls of the ranchers.

My conclusion, unfortunately, is that Mr Troll is an unstable fellow who must be treated as being armed (he carries a seemingly inexhaustible supply of rocks) and extremely dangerous.

Thank you for your responses, Colin. You’ve addressed about all of the remaining concerns I’ve had regarding how the new Dailies/Monthlies will work via everybody else’s questions here. As a roleplayer who’s holding off on Dungeons/WvW until my characters are “ready” for it story-wise, I’ve basically missed out on every single Monthly reward since release. The ability to just pick 4 out of 6 achievements to complete the Daily/Monthly sounds fantastic! Looking forward to the new updates!

I get the feeling that the Profession Boxes will be a RNG loot bag that always gives an item usable for that profession. If you’re an Elementalist, for instance, you’ll only get Staves, Scepters and Focii from it, not Swords or Axes. Judging by the prices on that screenshot, such items will probably be Rare or higher, and might even drop Ascended weapons or Precursors.

How much does the Legendary “Eternal Love and Devotion” cost?

The Order of Whispers seems a bit too open about their presence and actions in GW2, in my opinion. A secret organisation of spies, assassins and “string-pullers” should never make their presence known, or let on that they are working behind the scenes. To my mind, if a Whispers agent does his job right, nobody would know that he’s done anything at all.

I respect the Vigil’s straight-forward attitude and methods, although I also think they can be a bit reckless at times. I completely agree with the Priory’s creed that “Knowledge of your enemy is the key to victory”, but I dislike how so many of their quests are “Let’s use our completely untested device/spell/ritual to save the villagers!” Are you kidding me?! That is NOT the way to introduce new weapons to the battlefield. You field-test it in a safe, controllable environment first! I simply cannot condone trusting the lives of innocents to something that has no guarantee it won’t simply blow up in their faces.

In short, all three Orders have their uses, but are flawed. Pity you can’t usurp Trahearne’s position as Marshall and rule the Pact yourself. :P

Interesting idea. Does the Mossheart transformation from another heart in the same map work too, do you know?

If you have the bank space to spare, I’d suggest holding onto the Mystical Cogs till next Wintersday. Odds are high that Tixx will be back again, and the extra Cogs may mean you’re able to craft the Toys that you weren’t able to get this year.

Weindrasi.3805:

When someone dies, about 3/5 times they instantly respawn at a way point, without waiting to see if anybody is around to revive them. It’s often a needless waste of gold, and if the way point is distant, a waste of time too. Most of the time I could have gotten to the player within a few seconds. A couple minutes at most! So be patient and see if anyone is around—it’s silly to use a way point if someone is in plain sight! I cringe a little every time I almost get to a body, only to have them leave on me—think to myself “There goes a silver piece, bud”

I’m with you completely on this, but there needs to be a way for other players to let the defeated player know that help is coming. Otherwise, you could be sitting there for over 10 mins not knowing if there’s someone coming to help you or if there’s anyone else in the area at all.

For me, unless I actually saw other players running in the same region/direction as me, when I get defeated, I WP almost immediately, because there’s no guarantee that someone will be along to res me (or that they’ll even help you at all! There’s been a few occasions when I see another player coming along, only to have them run right by my corpse without stopping. >.<)

I could be misremembering, but I’m pretty certain she says something like, “A Minotaur Spirit has never been seen.” Crucially, she doesn’t say “Minotaur hasn’t been seen in a long time.”

Konig Des Todes.2086

Not like Owl’s death caused harm to the owl race.

If only I can remember what Eir says about the Spirits of the Wild (I have it screenshotted – she mentions it during the Protect the Spirits storyline – it’s just on my other computer).

True. That’s probably the biggest factor against my theory that the Spirits represent the collective sapient awareness of a species concentrated in a single being, the fact that Owl’s death appears to cause no lasting harm to the owls across the world.

I don’t remember what Eir says about the Spirits of the Wild too, but I do remember that she was actually initially skeptical about the existence of a Minotaur spirit too, meaning there actually could be many more Spirits out there that simply haven’t been seen/discovered yet. Perhaps they dwell in different parts of the world (if Wallows had their own spirit, and they only live in Cantha, it would make sense that the Wallow Spirit would be located there), or maybe they’re just so shy and reclusive that they prefer not to be seen (like Hare).

I think Danira was probably saying that as a satirical example, similar to how one of the Asura members of the Funwerks Krewe saying he should have been a Norn owing to his love of hot chocolate and a blazing hearth.

But as to the OP’s question, ANet have indeed stated in no uncertain terms that crossbreeding between the different races is impossible. (That said, there’s MAGIC, so anything’s possible with enough Inquest experimentation! :P) However, interracial relationships can and have occured; they just never result in children. There was a quest in GW1 where a Norn proposed marriage to your PC, and you had to do a quest to get them to give up on you. I haven’t seen any in person yet, but I’m told there are occasional mentions of mixed race couples scattered throughout GW2 as well.

Every player will have a different preference. Personally I have one character of each race, play them all equally, and love them all equally.

“A true warrior needs no helm!”

But despite picking that option during my Charr creation, my Charr still wears heavy full plate into battle. It’s intimidating AND protective. Plus, he’s shaggy enough that you can’t really see his muscles when he’s naked anyway. XD

My Charr has dark brown fur with a few orange-y tufts on his chest and nose. I didn’t like making him TOO exotic in appearance, and now I love his colour combination because of how much it stands out from just about every other Charr PC out there. XD

Renn.8241:

But Charr are the enemy Or were. I was a pretty dedicated perma pre GW1 player and they had done so much damage to the human race, Ascalon and to people like gwen.
They were monsters and uncivilised and all of a sudden, mostly friendly, allies and friends to other races.

For us, it’s only been a few years. But for the characters in GW2, it’s been 250 years. Human history is filled with examples of former (sometimes bitter) enemies who are now fast friends. The US and UK, UK and France, the US and Japan, Germany and just about everyone else in Europe etc. And most of those conflicts are less than a century old!

Yep, tigers are excellent swimmers. If you were ever being chased by a tiger and tried to get away by jumping in a river, you’d be in for a rude shock. XD

I’m pretty certain that it’s been stated that Charr are obligate carnivores. They must eat meat to survive, but they can probably tolerate small to medium amounts of plant matter in their diet. Judging by Charr food recipes like Kastaz Roasted Poultry, Poached Eggs and Portermaster’s hot sauce, Charr love spicy food.

marnick.4305:

1/ Fractals should be more accessible. This will be changed as per the update notes

2/ all exotic items should be upgradeable to ascended with an MF recipe requiring crafting profession “gifts”.

3/ Many MF recipes should be ascended quality per default. I’m thinking of Ilya/Lyss, Triforce Amulet and other extremely expensive MF skins.

4/ Requirements should be both dropped and spread out. 20 karka shells/passion flowers are more than plenty. Ecto requirements should be rebalanced too. Making specific gems over crafts would also be a good idea.

5/ Every zone in the world should have an internal goal that leads to a unique ascended piece of gear. EG: 250 green wood plank + 250 copper + gift of nobleman + 100 centaur gems (1 per event in queensdale) should lead to the Crown of Queensdale.

6/ Personal Story should give you all the materials for an ascended class item. Not required to save them up, you can make gold of them but the drops should be tailored to your character, not random.

I love these suggestions of yours, marnick, particularly 2, 3 and 4! Crafters not being able to make their own Ascended items, as well as a way for Exotic items to become part of the progression towards Ascended items, are the two biggest hindrances to the acceptance of the Ascended tier, in my opinion.

To be fair to ANet, Colin did state in a recent post that for Jan/Feb/Mar they are looking at including a lot more new content in existing maps. I haven’t read the KTR article, but if the author was using Southsun Cove as his example, that’s a flawed perspective; Southsun Cove is far from finished, and ANet has said they will be adding more content to it.

At the risk of derailing this thread, I wonder if there’s some kind of pre-requisite needed for a race to have its own Spirit. We never see Spirits of humans, norn, asura, skritt etc. so it seems likely that if a race is sapient, they do not have a Spirit. Perhaps a Spirit embodies the “sapient awareness” of a race concentrated in a single being, as opposed to spread out among all members of the race like humans?

If that is the criteria, then wouldn’t that mean that just about any non-sapient creature you meet in the wild has a Spirit? Drake Spirit, Skelk Spirit, Moa Spirit, Griffon Spirit, Spider Spirit (you think Gargantula was bad??) etc.

Heh, I see I wasn’t the only one curious about where that portal leads. It’s probably a placeholder for future content (like Fort Vandal in the W part of the same map, with the 10+ level 80 Champion guards).

I don’t have an issue with intermediate ingredients taking up too much space, BUT with the caveat that I basically spoiled myself by looking up a list of all the possible recipes, and then converting that into a list which breaks down all the different recipes by crafting level, and using that as a checklist while cooking. As a result, while each cooking tier creates some intermediate ingredients/recipes, most are used by the next cooking tier, and I only create ONE of each new type of recipe. (If a future recipe needs more basic ingredients, I just create those as and when needed, or just buy them from the TP.) I still had to dedicate about half of a bank tab to storing these future ingredients, however.

There are occasional recipes like that where the recipe itself is of a lower level than the ingredients needed to craft it. Chalk it up to oversights by ANet.

Incidentally, I personally believe the Wrangler’s Bag is not worth it. The Minor Rune of Holding costs about 5 silver, but the finished bag only gives 8 slots. You’d be better off buying a cheap 8 slot Bag off the TP for a fraction of that cost. If you already have a Minor Rune of Holding, level up your Leatherworker skill a bit more and craft a 10 slot Bag instead.

Thomassassinate.9370:

Zaxares.5419:

I think the loot drop rates are fine as they are now, but loot from Veterans and (especially) Champions needs a buff. Either:

a) Depending on their level and location, Veterans should always drop a Masterwork/Rare item. Champions should always drop a Rare/Exotic item. Note that Rare Crafting Materials like Charged Cores/Lodestones can be part of the Rare/Exotic loot table.

b) Veterans and Champions should always be guarding a chest or a rich node of some kind. Currently it’s rather annoying to have to gather a group of 6+ players to defeat some Champion for a Group Event, only for no chest or decent loot to drop from the battle. Doing the event for its own sake is fun (as is helping out other players), but without some kind of tangible reward, eventually players will just migrate to whichever area is the most profitable.

Either of these changes should help encourage players to visit places off the beaten track and challenge formidable opponents. Currently my experience is that unless there’s a chest at the end with a chance for nice loot or a valuable node, most players tend to skip tough enemies/events as they don’t consider it worth it for the time/deaths invested.

Maybe a higher chance to drop rares and exotics but dropping 1 every kill would lead to people farming them for rares and the economy doing a tapdance down the drain.

That did occur to me, yeah. However, ANet could compensate by reducing the number/respawn rate of these enemies. Cut down the number of Champions and Veterans found in maps, and increase their respawn rate to something like every 15 mins for Veterans, and 1 hour for Champions. (Incidentally, this would probably also help ease the pain of players who are complaining about rapidly respawning enemies.) For events that spawn Veterans and Champions, increase the respawn time of these events appropriately to match.

Remember too that when I say Rare/Exotic drops, it doesn’t necessarily need to be an weapon/armor item. It could also be a 1 Rare Crafting Material, 3 – 5 Fine Crafting Mats, or even a Black Lion Key.

Basically, the rule of thumb seems to be this. If it’s an EASY way to make money? Don’t do it, it’s probably an exploit. Farming AC to get 500 tokens, converting them to Exotic items, and then salvaging them for Ectos? That’s fine, because the amount of time needed to do that is reasonable for the return.

Hitting upon a recipe that gives you 1 – 3 Ecto under a minute that just requires you to have a large stack of materials in the bank? That’s definitely an exploit.

John Smith posted in the BLTP forum that the 200 people who were banned, between themselves, created over 275,000 Ecto. That’s something that had serious potential to gravely affect the GW2 economy, so ANet had to take action.

I think the loot drop rates are fine as they are now, but loot from Veterans and (especially) Champions needs a buff. Either:

a) Depending on their level and location, Veterans should always drop a Masterwork/Rare item. Champions should always drop a Rare/Exotic item. Note that Rare Crafting Materials like Charged Cores/Lodestones can be part of the Rare/Exotic loot table.

b) Veterans and Champions should always be guarding a chest or a rich node of some kind. Currently it’s rather annoying to have to gather a group of 6+ players to defeat some Champion for a Group Event, only for no chest or decent loot to drop from the battle. Doing the event for its own sake is fun (as is helping out other players), but without some kind of tangible reward, eventually players will just migrate to whichever area is the most profitable.

Either of these changes should help encourage players to visit places off the beaten track and challenge formidable opponents. Currently my experience is that unless there’s a chest at the end with a chance for nice loot or a valuable node, most players tend to skip tough enemies/events as they don’t consider it worth it for the time/deaths invested.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

I did have a bit of a problem with the Norn quest in Wayfarer Foothills that has you raiding a Dredge mine and killing the workers. Not just the soldiers, the workers too— the ones who spawn unaggressive.

You don’t HAVE to kill those unaggressive Dredge workers though. I make it a point never to attack them unless they attack me first. Which often results in situations similar to the scene from Black Hawk Down where a US Marine has his gun trained on a woman running up the street and muttering to himself, “Don’t do it, lady…” And then she pulls out a gun from under her burqa and the soldier shoots her before she can fire. In my case, I’ve just killed a hostile Dredge Ratnik who attacked me first, and then I see a Dredge worker running over to the Ratnik’s corpse, and I mutter to myself, “Don’t do it, buddy… Don’t do it!” But the worker runs over anyway, picks up the Ratnik’s rifle, screams “FOR THE COLLECTIVE!” and attacks me, forcing me to cut him down too.

Dredge events are tough.

Iyeru.5240:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Not entirely sure where you got your impressions from.

When I searched the trade market for legendary tier shields, there were none. I had “Show available only” unchecked.

That just means that currently nobody has put The Flameseeker Prophecies up for sale. It is a Legendary just like the Bifrost, Twilight, Incinerator etc.