Guild Wars 2

The thread I created in Game Bugs is here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Secrets-in-the-Swamp-Possibly-bugged/first#post665817

It’d be good if people were to post their experiences there as well as here, to increase the chances that a dev will spot the thread and look into it.

As some others have said, Tornado is useful for the long-duration Stability it grants you. I’d use it more or less exclusively in WvW and PvP.

For PvE, I’m an Asura Ele, so I like having a golem around to carry me when I get tired. XD

Apparently this was the result of another mass bot banning. (Banned accounts can’t sell their stuff anymore.) There’s a stickied thread by John Smith in the BLTC forum about it.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

That said, Norn player characters are also encouraged in early game to kill harmless Excavators, clear out Dredge mines that don’t seem to be doing any harm, destroy Dredge industrial machines for little purpose.

That’s exactly why I avoid attacking any Dredge Excavators I run across. They’re not bothering why, so why attack them? That said, sometimes after I kill a Ratnik or Disaggregator, the Excavators will run over to his corpse, pick up his weapon and start attacking me.

Blast it, Dredge! I’m like the Predator! If you’re unarmed, I won’t attack you!

Thing is, if you chose the “Where life goes” philosophy for your Sylvari, you meet a very special Sylvari that throws a big ol’ wrench into the whole “Sylvari look like humans because the Pale Tree was planted atop human graves”. The meeting with this special Sylvari suggests that all Sylvari would have a humanoid appearance anyway.

Can’t be worse than a “Samuel Ele Jackson” I saw the other day.

And yes, he had the afro. Of COURSE he did. XD

The only major annoying thing about the Black Citadel is how the Trading Post and Bank are so far away from each other. (Hoelbrak has a similar problem.) I like being able to pick up my profits from the TP and just run over and dump it into my Bank, which is why Divinity’s Reach is my city of choice to do trading in. (Even better, the crafting stations are close enough that waypointing from there to your Bank doesn’t require a loading screen.)

Drugs. Lots and lots of physical enhancing drugs.

You know, I’m actually curious as to the reasoning behind ANet’s decision to allow gems to be traded for gold in the first place. What if gems could be bought with real world cash, and could also be bought with in-game gold, but you COULDN’T cash in gems for gold?

All anecdotes so far seem to indicate that most players don’t particularly value gems in and of themselves, since most of the stuff you get from the BLTC isn’t that popular. The true allure of gems lies in its ability to be converted for in-game currency, and it seems to be at the root of many “complaints” that the price for gems is too high, because what these players are really buying when they buy gems is in-game gold, and rightly or wrongly, they keep comparing the gem prices of the BLTC to the prices of the gold sellers.

So why not cut off that supply altogether? Make it so that the only way to earn in-game gold is via in-game activities. Obviously gold farmers would remain, but it would still be a breach of the game’s EULA to buy from them, and result in a perma-banned account. At the same time, ANet can adjust the drop-rates of high-demand items like precursors or lodestones, or karma prices for account-bound ingredients, to prevent inflation from spiralling out of control.

In addition to the stuff above, I think one good way of ensuring the players visit their home instance more frequently is to have NPCs you saved or helped send you messages saying something along the lines of, “Hey, thanks for helping! Come by your house sometime. I’ve got a present for you.”

When you visit your home instance after the NPC sends you that message, they give you a one-time gift, which could be money, a stash of materials or equipment (a bag, for instance). Obviously, the higher level the NPC is from your personal story, the better the item they give you.

Afterwards, you can periodically return to your home instance and these NPCs will have additional rewards for you. Subsequent gifts will be random and usually won’t be anywhere near as pricey as their initial gift, but it can be a little extra to help you out along the way. Think of it like the keyless chests in Nightfall; they’re a little bonus you can swing by and pick up from time to time, and you never know, you might get something good out of them, like a Charged Lodestone!

Halcyon.3981:

Khisanth.2948:

…. Undeads attack everything. The list goes on.

Nothing like seeing a Risen Brute run all the way across a swamp to stomp one single frog.

I saw an Ettin run around doing nothing but squashing rabbits in Queensdale the other night. I immediately intervened to save the poor bunnies!

This is why I would never craft dyes through cooking myself. The price per dye is too steep, and you may not even get the tier you want. IF Master/Rare dyes always gave you a dye from the Uncommon/Rare tiers, it might be worth it, but until that happens, it’s cheaper to simply farm dyes through normal play or buy the ones you need off the TP.

Incidentally, such a change would probably result in a boost to the prices of many common ingredients like Carrots or Onions too, due to the fact that you need large quantities of them to craft dyes.

I just eat all the food I produce to level my Chef. I have 5 hungry characters to feed! XD

Keider.8652:

P.S.: You may also like the “Voltaic spear” ^.^
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Al%27ir%27aska

… I want this. It’s a random drop from mobs or the Mystic Forge, you say?

It seems that many players (myself included) are having a devil of a time trying to get the Shadow Behemoth to spawn, as discussed in this thread. I myself have waited around in Queensdale for 5 hours without ever seeing the Swamp shift past the “dormant” stage. (Some players have reported waiting for even longer!) We’re now wondering if something might be bugged with the quest chain that is causing it not to start.

Could a dev look into this and check whether something is indeed broken? It may help us if you give us a hint as to what it is that triggers the start of the event, so that more players can help test.

For the players, post here with your server if you have not seen the Shadow Behemoth or his meta-event chain start despite waiting in or around the Swamp for more than 2 or 3 hours. That way, if it is a bug, the devs can probably jump-start individual servers.

Server: Tarnished Coast

Another bit of information that might help solve the puzzle. Does anyone know if the DE’s leading up to the Shadow Behemoth all spawn one after the other (similar to other meta-events like the Frozen Maw or Wychmire Swamp), or does each DE in the meta-event (closing Underworld portals in a specific location) spawn separately, and a good period of time may pass between one and the next?

In any case, it’s quite possible that the Swamp event chain is spawning so rarely (perhaps not at all on certain servers) that it may be bugged. I’m going to make a new thread in the Game Bugs forum to hopefully draw attention to this situation from a dev.

Not all Champions are created equal. Case in point? Travel to Lake Adorea in Plains of Ashford and disturb one of the relics on the island there. This spawns an event where you have to kill Grazden the Protector, a Group Event Champion boss.

Yet despite his fearsome title and the gold logo around his portrait, Grazden dies even faster than your typical Veteran enemy. Bug? Quite possibly, but it just goes to show that you CAN solo some Champions.

It’s almost certain that Tengu will be the first new playable race, since they were originally planned as one from the beginning, but were dropped due to lack of time. I expect we’ll see them make their entrance with the Canthan expansion for GW2.

I personally would love for the Skritt to be a playable race, but it’s highly unlikely that they will be due to lore factors. (Skritt become less intelligent the farther they are away from other members of their species, which wouldn’t make sense for a Skritt PC.)

Hylek were built to be a non-player race from the start, so it’s also unlikely they’ll be a candidate.

The Kodan are a good possibility, but I think they share too much overlap with the Norn (large, arctic-bound race).

The Largos are another high possibility, but given that they’re an aquatic race, it may not make sense for them to undertake adventures which would take them far away from the water for extended periods of time. The same restriction makes the Quaggan also unlikely as a playable race. Coupled with the fact that Quaggans consider violence to be a great taboo among their kind means that an adventuring Quaggan would be ostracised by their own species.

While I don’t think it’s likely we’ll see Centaurs as a playable race, given how strongly the Centaurs feature as antagonists for Human characters, it is a remote possibility for the Elonian expansion. However, issues like animations, jumping puzzles and underwater combat might make them unviable as long-term playable characters.

I personally would like to see the Naga become a playable race, possibly with the Canthan expansion. From GW1, Naga do not seem to suffer unduly from extended periods away from the water, would be capable of underwater combat in a manner similar to the Krait, and should still be capable of jumping with coiled leaps. The Krait Witch’s model indicates that female serpentoids do look sufficiently distinct from their male counterparts, which means it would be possible to design armor and appearances for them. (Whether or not players would actually be interested in playing a reptilian race, however, is another question.)

As others have suggested, put your minipet in an Invisible bag. Items in Invisible containers do not get automatically transferred to your Bank when the Deposit Collectibles command is used.

/signed

Currently I have my Inventory window and Bank window arranged in such a way that I can see my current gold on my character while having the Bank window open, but it would be a lot easier if that was displayed in the Bank window as well.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

Maybe it’s just me. I’ve got almost every dye in the game, as it’s not hard at all. The hard part is the last 10 or so. The price of specific rare dyes, that would usually be the last and hardest ones to find for everyone’s achievement would simply skyrocket. The cost of unidentified dyes would also go up considerably.

The raw damage it would do to the economy, vs the small reward of a title that you can’t see, and nobody else can see because you’re invisible in towns most of the time anyway…

Just let the dyes be for looking kitten good.

They could offset that by making unlocked dyes account-wide, which would reduce overall demand for dyes by making it easier for people to “max out” their dye collection.

I think it’s largely up to your personal preference. Personally I just like the way my Charr Warrior sounds when he unloads with his Rifle.

I actually came to this same realisation myself a while ago. After being frustrated with my minions for being rather fragile and not being able to regen while out of battle, it dawned on me. “Why not let enemies attack ME instead?” You’re a lot sturdier than your minions, and between Death Shroud, Wells, Life Siphon and life-stealing minions, you can actually tank remarkably well while your minions sit on the sidelines and attack.

I would still prefer it if minions were made slightly tougher and regenerated health in between battles, but my new strategy works too.

I don’t really like the Death Shroud mechanic myself. I get how it works, and yes, it is a nice boost to survivability, but I wish it could be expanded to offer additional benefits for Necromancers who prefer using their normal skills. One good suggestion I saw a while back was linking the Death Shroud to the number of minions you can summon. Each minion can be summoned once by default, but you can summon additional minions of each type by reserving a portion of your DS. For example, you can summon one Blood Fiend under normal circumstances, but you could summon a second Blood Fiend at the cost of reserving 25% of your DS bar. You could repeat this 4 times to end up with FIVE Blood Fiends following you around, but at the cost of completely reserving out your DS and thus not being able to enter DS at all.

Different minion types could take more or less % of the DS bar to summon additional copies, depending on how useful/OP having additional copies of a minion along would make them.

I dislike seeing Greatswords on Mesmers myself, but who am I to decide how other people like to play their character? I just refuse to use a GS on my own Mesmer. :P

For some reason it seems this workaround does not work with Elementalist starter helms. Not even if the character wearing the final mask is an Elementalist themselves. I accidentally deleted my Ele’s starting headgear, but even though I followed this procedure (which worked on my Mesmer and Necro), the Ele headgear is not showing up.

Even stranger, it IS showing up while on the Character Selection screen. It’s just not displayed while you’re in-game.

Nicely done! Now if only dyes were account-wide so all of your other characters could benefit from it. XD

I’m still running around in low-level areas, so this technique may not work for everyone, but it’s served me well so far.

As a Staff wielder myself, I typically stick to Fire Attunement in combat. I usually open with Flame Blast (3), pound the enemy with Fireball (1) until they get close, then drop Lava Font (2) at my feet, and use Arcane Wave for a good AoE damage blast + Might. Usually the enemy is dead or nearly so by this point, so a bit of backpedalling + more Fireballs is enough to drop them, but if not, switch to Air and use Gust (3) to knock them back, drop Static Field (5) in their path to stop them chasing you, then switch to Earth and drop Eruption and Shockwave (or Arcane Blast if you have it) at their location for another nice damage packet.

I still haven’t visited Ebonhawke in GW2, but I think that might have been a deliberate design decision on the part of ANet. On the whole, Ascalon has recovered from the Searing; the lands are once more lush and filled with life. Only in Ebonhawke, where both Charr and humans stubbornly cling on to hatreds of the past and refuse to move on is the land still so bleak and devastated from war.

In any event, I see the Charr as still being an evolving race. In time, diplomacy and integration with the other races will mellow out their innate ferocity. You can already see it with Charr that have left to live in places like Lion’s Arch and in many other locations throughout the game. The other day I was in Caledon Forest at one of the havens when I heard a Charr ask an Asuran if he still had any of that back salve available, complaining that he strained his back when he lifted a sack of bricks the wrong way. It was such a casual, friendly exchange between two races that I couldn’t help but smile.

There are a lot of players who simply can’t forgive the Charr though. I have several friends who refuse to play a Charr simply because they remember the Searing and what it meant to their characters. I don’t blame them for it. In fact, I consider it an awesome achievement on ANet’s part that they could make us feel so strongly about a fictional land.

illgot.1056:

Rafkin.8923:

Star Wars the Old Republic beat gold sellers by making sure their wasn’t anything useful to buy with game money. Most people have millions of credits and nothing to do with them.

When a game allows you to purchase the best items in the game their is always going to be a demand for the games currency. No Trade, Bind on Pickup, Be Present for the Fight, boss drops is the only way to go to put a dent in gold sellers.

The only way ANet can beat gold sellers is to offer more value than the gold sellers.

Offer a loyalty program for anyone buying gems from them directly which offers unique and desired rewards. Just make what ever program they develop something desirable.

“Asuran Frequent Gater” Program? For every 500 gems you spend in-store, you get a permanent 1% discount off Waypoint travel?

Same thing could apply to Armor Repair costs.

There were some stealth updates made to Cursed Shore, it seems. Probably to help combat botting/farming.

I vote for Kralkatorrik. To quote Rikkiti:

“Shiny? Shiny!”

Auesis.7301:

Zaxares.5419:

None of the Legendaries are really appealing to me. They’re either too whimsical (the Dreamer and Quip are great examples) or they just don’t suit my character’s concept (a dark, gothic MM necromancer using Bifrost??). I DO like Bolt, the Incinerator and the Flameseeker Prophecies, but Bolt’s non-stop crackling noise will get on my nerves very quickly, I imagine, the Incinerator gives away your position due to the flaming footsteps so it’s no good on a Thief, and the Flameseeker Prophecies doesn’t really suit my Charr Warrior.

So, I’m just going to save up my money and wait. Perhaps more Legendaries will be released in the future, and I’m in no hurry to get one.

Just so you know, Bolt was patched. It makes the noise for a few seconds after brandishing it, but then it shuts up. There are lightning sound effects on some attacks, but that’s it.

Great… You just HAD to make me farm 100 Charged Lodestones, didn’t you?

Venthus.6137:

Indeed. If there was a stupid Asura, he’d be the first to be given the boot too.

Visit the Peacemaker jail in Rata Sum. There’s a great example there of what the asura do to members of their race who aren’t up to their standards of intelligence.

None of the Legendaries are really appealing to me. They’re either too whimsical (the Dreamer and Quip are great examples) or they just don’t suit my character’s concept (a dark, gothic MM necromancer using Bifrost??). I DO like Bolt, the Incinerator and the Flameseeker Prophecies, but Bolt’s non-stop crackling noise will get on my nerves very quickly, I imagine, the Incinerator gives away your position due to the flaming footsteps so it’s no good on a Thief, and the Flameseeker Prophecies doesn’t really suit my Charr Warrior.

So, I’m just going to save up my money and wait. Perhaps more Legendaries will be released in the future, and I’m in no hurry to get one.

Make more Legendaries? There is a title track for having more than one Legendary, you know.

Personally, I’m still disappointed that the Pact weapons aren’t Legendaries (or at least Exotics). You just killed a freakin’ Elder Dragon, after all; you’d think that’d be worth getting a top-tier piece of equipment at least. If the Pact weapons were Legendaries, everybody would get to have that Legendary medal on their character selection screen to show that they’ve beaten the game, and people who really want to show off their wealth/dedication can work for multiple Legendaries (changing the title so that Pact weapons only count towards the title once, just like how you needed different kinds of weapons for the Weapon monument in HoM.)

I agree that the Norn-Dredge animosity seems to be poorly thought out. Aside from a few instances (and I can’t think of any reason why the dredge would be kidnapping snow leopard cubs), it seems the dredge just want to be left alone and it’s the norn who are constantly harassing them. Apparently dredge mining activities undermine the foundations of surface buildings, but that doesn’t make sense either, since it would be in the best interests of any subterranean race to AVOID cave-ins and collapses.

Hologramx.6402:

Have never see him for two months since release. Then suddenly I was seeing him spawning three times in a day when Halloween started (Phase 1). Then not anymore again after that phase ended. Pretty weird because it is easy to spot the event (its a huge red event ring) if you are around and you usually spend a few hours in that area when leveling your alts.

They need to clarify how to trigger the event so at least we can help them to fix if it is not working as intended. The Fire Elemental event starts consistently but not this one. Human starter zone always has a lot more players so it is strange that you can hardly see this event. Definitely something needs to be done here.

Your experience might actually lend strength to the theory that it is triggered by players NOT destroying portals, Holo. During Halloween, it’s a safe bet that the vast majority of players were doing Halloween content in the Mad Realm or hanging out in LA, which means that very few players were in the swamp destroying portals. Once the event was over, people started returning to their usual PvE activities, and so the timer for the quest keeps getting reset.

However, if this IS the way the quest is getting triggered, it’s an extremely stupid way because it relies on players NOT doing something they would normally do as part of completing their Renown Heart. I really hope that ANet sees this thread and posts a response.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Gab Superstar.4059:

I will never forgive the Charr. Althea? All those Ascalonians you saved from the cages that had been imprisoned for years? Throwing a little kid into an arena for fun and sports?

Disgusting, cruel creatures.

To be fair (and I’m not much of a Charr fan myself, to be honest with you,) none of the Charr currently alive in the GW2 era had even been born yet when all that was happening.

Yes. That’s one very important thing to remember. The Charr of 250 years ago were vicious, savage creatures who showed no mercy to their enemies and glorified violence and bloodsport. But the Charr of today? While they’re undeniably still very militaristic and exult in war and fighting, they’re also a lot more civilised and open to peaceful relations with other races. Again, using us humans as examples, 250 years ago slavery was still an accepted institution in many countries. Cultures and societies can change a lot in a short period of time, and it’s not always fair to judge the people of today by the actions of their ancestors.

Mind you, that doesn’t mean I’ll be attending any negotiations with a Charr without a weapon at my side.

The Lost Shores event content is scalable, just like the Halloween content was, so you should be fine.

LameFox.6349:

Zaxares.5419:

Here’s a tip. When jumping as a Charr, your HIND legs are where you’ll actually land, so use those as your targeting guideline. Yes, this means you’ll often look like half your body is going to go over the edge on that tiny little stone platform, but you won’t fall off.

Hold your weapon; problem solved.

That’s another way of doing it. You can easily do this by binding a key to draw/holster weapon (I have mine bound to R-Alt) and just pull our your weapon before doing any jumping puzzles.

That said, I’m not sure if it’d work in places like the Clock Tower though, since that seemed to hide/lock your weapons, so I still think it’s best to practice jumping while running on all fours.

You’re not the only ones. There’s a bunch of us trying to puzzle out how to start this Meta-Event in this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/events/Swamp-lies-dormant-Anyone-seen-Shadow-Behemoth-lately/first#post648457

At this point it’s hard to say if there’s some kind of trigger we keep missing, or if something’s broken with the event chain so it’s not firing.

TransparentlyOpaque.1824

What have you missed so far in Guild Wars 2 because of your global location?

A first peak at the cinematic of the Mad King? I do not see that as being a huge disappointment.

Well, remember at the time that none of us knew it was going to be a one-time cinematic. Many people believed it would be a true one-time event that would only be available during this narrow window and nowhere else. (I expected that what turned out to be the Ascent to Madness dungeon would be available for an extended period of time, but nobody knew for sure at that point.)

But back to your original question, it’s not so much an issue with GW2/ANet itself. It actually stretches beyond them. Many other video game companies have a habit of planning events or special giveaways that are only easily accessible to people from the US (and occasionally Europe). For example, a few years ago Bioware announced (with great fanfare) a special event called the Bioware Bazaar that promised to reward devoted fans with the chance to get exclusive prizes. When the day finally arrived, it turned out that only citizens of the US were eligible to participate. To say there were a lot of irate people that day would be an… understatement. Bioware ended up pulling the plug on the Bazaar early and promised they would come up with something to ensure their fans worldwide would get something. (That still hasn’t happened, incidentally.)

So, when you’re a non-US gamer and you see stuff like this happen again and again and again from many different companies, it’s hard not to feel bitter when something else comes up that you probably won’t be able to participate in due to your geographic location.

Well, the timing is at least a bit better for me this time around (6am Monday morning for me), but I agree that it really irks me that it seems Asians/Oceanics will continually get the short end of the stick where these one-time events are concerned.

We get that ANet has to build their events around the periods of highest concurrency. It’s logical. We get it. But can’t you throw us a bone every now and again? If a one-time event takes place during noon US-time, have the next one start at noon Europe time, and the next one at noon Asia-time. It’s hard for us fans from the Eastern half of the world not to feel disgruntled when we’re constantly having to take one for the global fanbase.

There are plenty of Asura players with hair in the game, and there were lots of Asura NPCs with hair in GW1, so I think it’s safe to say that Asura do grow hair naturally. Those that are bald may be a sub-species that is hairless, or may shave their styles as a stylistic choice.

I suspect the reason WP’s have a fee is to both act as a gold sink in the game, and encourage people to hoof it across Tyria so they trigger/experience DE’s. In practice, however, we know that this crimps our budget and convenience by a large degree.

I think a compromise between the current system and a completely free WP system is more likely. Perhaps you can travel to WP’s for free, but only for a limited number of times per day or within a certain time period. For example, you can WP anywhere for free once within a 30 min period, but the next trip costs you 5c, then 10c, then 20c, and so on, until it caps out at 1s (price negotiable) per trip. Each time you use a WP it resets the cooldown period, so a player who uses it to travel to a new zone to adventure for the next hour or so isn’t likely to suffer any drawbacks from this method.

Most likely it is due to speculation over eggs being required ingredients for making Eggnog during Wintersday. That said, I’m not sure it’s wise to stock up on them. Eggnog (and Spiked Eggnog) were drinks back in GW1, and drinks in GW2 currently do nothing. If they remain the same, you can expect to see prices crash almost immediately once the Wintersday event is out.

That’s why I’m SO glad that this Halloween allowed us to give ol’ Thorn a good smackdown.

Regarding the centaurs attacking the monastery, do the Seraph hold centaur lands in the Battle for Beetletun meta-event on your server? Because I think if they do (by occupying Holdland Camp), no centaurs will attack the monastery. The Seraph have consistently held the Camp on Tarnished Coast every time I’ve visited Queensdale, and I’ve never seen the ale escort mission or the monastery attack occur.

Another theory I’ve heard. Secrets in the Swamp spawns only if a period of time goes by WITHOUT players closing portals. If there are enough open portals in the Swamp, then the event chain starts.

This may be feasible as there are other events in the game which are possibly triggered through the inactions of players. One good example is in the Anthill in Metrica Province, where I believe the Veteran Chaos Creature spawns once a certain number of Skritt scavengers bring enough chaos material back to the central node. Players can stop the Skritt from bringing the material back as part of the Renown Heart in the area, but the Skritt are hard to talk to as they’re constantly moving so most players usually just opt to kill Irradiated Rats and clean up Chaos Material instead.

Out of curiosity, which server are you on?