Guild Wars 2

Hmm, OK. Hadn’t heard that was the case. Was it announced on Twitter or something?

OK, for an actual suggestion proposal:

When a player wants to buy/sell gems, have it show up as a sliding scale similar to how the normal TP works. The exchange rate is taken from the time when the Currency Exchange button is clicked. You can buy/sell as little as 1 gem, up to whatever upper limit you guys feel is reasonable.

@Healix: Oh, so the final instance where you beat the Bloody Prince back into the Box is currently locked?

If you’re suffering from bad latency, then you’ll just have to make an educated guess as to how early you’ll jump. Unfortunately, Healix’s tip about jumping when the green mist reaches the stairs can’t trusted when you have bad lag because I’ve been in instances where I was half-submerged in the mist and I still wasn’t dying.

Watching the gears when they explode out of the tower is a good way to tell if you’re lagging or not though. If it jerks or stutters at all, you have lag. If it all flows out smoothly, you should be good.

Ah, so they brought back the loot proper for the Labyrinth? Good. They’ve taken that feedback to heart then. Last year I basically watched participation in the Labyrinth plummet day by day; once people got their achievements, they basically just left since there was no real reason to spend any more time in there.

WhiteRose.6934:

If the duel is in the middle of the road though then I don’t think those involved have a right to complain. After all, you can’t expect people to know the different between a ‘this is a duel’ and ‘I was jumped heading to south camp help me’ encounter.

Exactly. This is why I always jump in to help my server mates unless the two people fighting are in one of the established “dueling areas”, such as in Obsidian Sanctum or behind the windmill in the Borderlands. I can’t tell whether you guys are dueling or whether he’s just some poor kitten who got jumped by a tail ganker (REALLY hate those guys).

Back when the Winter’s and Sclerite weapons were being retired, Colin (or another high level dev) said not to rule out the old sets EVER coming back; they could possibly bring it back for special occasions (e.g. Lovestruck weapons come back every Valentine’s Day).

If there’s a particular skin you have your eye on though, I suggest just buying it outright with gold, since there’s no guarantee of when the skins might be returning.

I still stick by my idea of giving players who pick “Random” when starting a match a special buff that doubles their end reward (up to the winner’s normal reward). This would mean that if a player wants the guaranteed maximum rewards per match, the best way to do it is to immediately hit “Random” the moment a match starts and then see it out to the end.

So, now that the Skyhammer changes have gone in (hammer now dodgable, floor break time increased, can’t break floors while in stealth), what are people’s opinions? Is it bearable, or even fun, now?

There seems to be a bug where the Candy Corn Elemental from last year is not counting as a requirement to enter the final instance, but I haven’t verified this myself. I’d report it as a bug and wait for a hotfix.

While I’m not as upset by these changes as some of you are, I’m almost certain that “monetization optimization” has played a part in it. Marketing research has shown conclusively that, when forced to purchase larger sums of tokens, people will end up spending more so as not to “waste” their excess tokens. Since I’m generally happy to sit on excess gems until something new comes up that I want to buy, this doesn’t bother me, but I can see why a lot of you would find this deplorable and manipulative.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m on your side. I DO think that the system should be more flexible so that players can buy/sell the exact number of gems they want.

Have people tried putting in any of the new Halloween items into the Forge? Stuff like the Batwinged Tonic or the Maize Balm?

I think you can throw any kind of karma-bought gear into the Forge in order to get a random item back. However, only items within the same level range and tier will be matched up, so if that item was, say, level 56, you can’t mix it with a level 80 blue accessory and a level 30 green accessory. They would all need to be greens near level 56.

Still, let’s not discount it entirely. It does seem to be in keeping with the theme of Halloween, after all.

Is that the only way to get the recipe? Does it drop, say, as rare drops from ToT bags as well?

Oh. That does indeed broaden the possible sources then. Bit misleading there, John.

Have you checked your material storage? Cobs have a slot there so if you hit “Deposit all materials”, it would have been tossed in there.

While I generally like the fact that Asura females are not sexualised in the way female humans/Norn/sylvari are, I do think it was a wasted opportunity not to be able to see one run around in the Noble Count outfit. She’d have been adorable. XD

That’s a neat idea, Konig! After all, Vael most likely would have had to provide some proof of Rurik’s death to Adelbern; he didn’t take Sohothin, so Rurik’s crown would have been another unique identifier.

As someone who only ever buys gems with cash, this change honestly doesn’t affect me in the slightest. But I do know enough about marketing strategies to recognise the trick being used, and I agree that the new system could stand to be more flexible. A sliding scale of gems/gold would be ideal, but something as simple as introducing lower denominations would also work.

Just a heads-up that the 2012 skins are back too. Kinda. There’s going to be a game-wide raffle where every player who turned in Foil Wrappers to the skritt NPC in LA gets a chance to win one of the 2012 skins (from a limited pool of prizes). Foil Wrappers drop from both ToT bags (unsure of the drop rate) and from Black Lion Chests.

I don’t mind old items becoming cheaper too. I’ve never been a big believer in exclusivity, and to my mind, people who pay a premium to get stuff early are basically just paying for the privilege of showing it off early. They’ve now had 12 months with which to show off. It’s safe to say that anybody who was willing to pay the initial inflated prices has already bought them. The logical thing now for any business to do is to lower the price so that they hook more buyers in. People don’t blink an eye when new Apple gadgets get cheaper as time goes by. Why should digital goods be any different?

Halloween has just started so I’m betting it’s because everybody is now farming in the Labyrinth/hunting achievements so less people are out in Orr and elsewhere.

If you’re talking about Reaper’s Rumble, sadly it’s not back this year. (Despite many of us hoping otherwise.)

Yes, chemiclord confirmed it in the other thread. You can also get them from ToT bags.

So while I know people who REALLY want the skins won’t be happy there isn’t a way to directly earn them, for everybody else, just do your normal activities and participate in Halloween. Turn in the Foil Wrappers, and then wait to see if you get lucky at the end of the event. You never know, you might get a massive windfall.

Another year of waiting to see if I can smack the Mad King upside his pumpkin head again then. :P

Right. That makes it much more palatable then. Locking it completely behind the gem store would have been unacceptable. While I STILL would prefer a way to earn the skins directly, I can accept the compromise so that people who want the skins to remain rare/exclusive don’t get cheesed off.

Guess I’ll be doing a lot more farming in the Labyrinth this year.

Before I give my verdict on this one way or another, I need a confirmation. Is the ONLY way to get Foil Wrappers by purchasing Black Lion Keys? That was my initial thought, but I’ve seen some posters suggesting there are other ways to get them.

Huh. Never thought I’d actually see an in-game raffle. I’m not fundamentally opposed to it, although I would have preferred a way to earn the skins directly.

Anyway, people here have mentioned that you don’t need to spend gems to get the Foil Wrappers. Can you provide more info here about how these wrappers are obtained?

Jumping early is the way to compensate for your lag, but it’s a bit of a random guess since you won’t know exactly how far behind you’re lagging.

As someone who only ever bought gems with cash, this new system doesn’t affect me in the slightest. (In fact, it kinda makes it more convenient for when I buy gems to trade for gold, since I often sell the gems in the same 400/800 etc. bulk packages that I bought them in.)

BUT, I do agree that making the new system more flexible would be a good idea. Allowing people to purchase gems in 100 step increments (or maybe even smaller), seems like a fair compromise.

We do know the following clues:

1. It’s something Zomorros has never had before, suggesting the output item is a completely new item or one that hasn’t been droppable before.

2. His “Lemark” clue suggests that one of the four input items is purchased from a merchant, and that it’s “ghostly”.

3. Minis are not part of the inputs.

Didn’t all serious dungeon sellers already use proxies anyway?

Thanks Maclaine!

I’m a bit surprised that they’re allowing us to reacquire the achievements again (will I have two “Blood and Madness” categories in my Historical folder now? Bleh.), but on the whole, I’m pleased that newer players have the opportunity to experience the same content us older players did.

Mounts already exist in the game. See the Broomstick, Sonic Tunneling Tool and the Magic Carpet. I’m OK with more of these being included as long as they don’t provide in-game benefits over normal players.

Mmm, I don’t know about that… On the one hand, I do agree that ANet should always do its best to promote and fair and level playing field. Players taking advantage of insider information to profit, for example, should never be allowed. (e.g. Someone has a friend who works with ANet. He learns about the Treasure Hunter/Exotic Hunter collections a week before the previews go out and takes the opportunity to buy up the more rare items so he can charge a king’s ransom for them when the update goes live.)

But at the same time, once information hits the public domain (such as when dulfy and other sites published previews about the new Collections), is it really fair to penalise those who are willing to spend extra time and energy doing research and keeping themselves up to date? To flip the situation, one change I was vehemently opposed to was how during SAB: Back to School, ANet made it so that the bonus bauble chests you could dig up became once per account per day. This made it extremely hard for me to gear up my 5 alts with the new SAB gear, because even though I could do the content 5 times, I’d only get rewarded for it once. To my mind, if someone is willing to put in 5 times the work, they deserve to get 5 times the reward.

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s nice to see someone on the other side of the fence finally admit that the “aren’t needed” argument that get thrown around a lot is frivolous.

Actually, I’d say I’m probably closer to being on your side of the fence. My ideal game would be one where a player could earn anything they wanted in the game via a moderate amount of work. “Prestige” is a dirty word in my world; you get an item because you like the way it looks, end of story. There are no account bound items; EVERYTHING is tradable. Scarcity is very shallow; you want a Charged Lodestone? Go kill a Champ Air Elemental. It drops one every time you kill one. Legendaries? You get awarded one for completing the Personal Story; after all, you killed an Elder Dragon! Isn’t that supposed to be a legendary feat?

But at the same time, I realise that a game like this would probably not be very popular. It seems that a large amount of players like to feel superior to others, whether it’s by exclusive skins or titles or having more gold/AP/stats. If they do not have a way to express this, they will either construct a way, or they will leave for another game. And sadly, that won’t be the basis for a commercially popular product.

I haven’t sat down and actually looked at what’s bypassable and what isn’t, but I’m pretty certain that at the end of the day, you still need to craft your own Vision Crystal to craft Ascended weapons/armor, which means that you can’t escape needing some Obsidian to craft the various Bloodstone/Empyreal/Dragonite mats.

The Cultural weapons aren’t “needed”, no, but then again, that logic could also be applied to anything in the game. You don’t NEED Legendaries. You don’t NEED Ascended gear when Exotics are more than sufficient, unless you’re doing Fractals at 10+ levels. You don’t NEED any kind of fancy aesthetics.

I think they should move the Bleeds to Volley. That way, we can at least get some use out of condition damage on Rifle.

I don’t know about that, Liewec… From my experience with other online competitive games, what usually happens then is that players on the losing team just immediately ragequit the moment they see they are losing. (Or they just afk because if you have no hope of winning, then why let yourself get stomped non-stop when you’ll get loser’s reward anyway?)

This then results in Autobalance happening anyway (after which the swapped player has a tendency to quit/spectate too, probably because they don’t know that if you get Autobalanced, you get the winner’s reward even if you didn’t volunteer), or in a worst case scenario, it causes a cascade effect where the entire enemy team quits. (I know that if I saw my entire team quit, I wouldn’t bother staying either.)

Well, in the case of karma:

- It buys you T3 Cultural weapons, many of which can only be acquired via karma.
- It’s needed to acquire Obsidian. There are other paths for getting Obsidian, but a TP player still isn’t able to get it via trading alone.
- It’s needed to buy certain crafting ingredients and recipes. If a player wants Ascended armor, he’ll need at least a decent amount of it.

… Elaborate! Do you mean he has a new item he’ll throw out of the Mystic Forge at his whim, or that Zommoros will accept something new being sold by Miyani being offered up as tribute?

He means things like Karma, Badges, Fractal Relics, dungeon tokens etc.

I do a Fractals run every weekend. It normally takes about 5 – 10 mins to fill a group, but once that happens, I have no problem completing the run. (Takes about 40 mins to 1 hour on average.)

However, you only get about a gold + incidental good loot for that time, so most players tend to just Champ farm/World Boss Train/speed clear dungeons for better rewards.

I don’t think anybody’s condoning the actions of the historical Charr. Even modern day Charr who believe Ascalon is their land by right generally do think their ancestors went too far (although just like real life humans, they get their hackles up if you accuse them about it because it feels like a personal attack).

The thing is, at some point both sides have to agree to let bygones be bygones and start anew, otherwise the hostility and hatred will never die. One side or the other will feel that they have been oppressed, and continue the cycle of revenge attacks ad infinitum. It’s a bit like the situation in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. Both sides are refusing to back down, both sides refuse to co-exist with the other, which means that they’re doomed to keep on attacking each other until one or the other is completely exterminated.

Would definitely love to see something delving into the history and lore of the Mursaat.

The icon looks too “thick” to be a scroll to me, but it could very well be a spell/ritual inscribed on something more sturdy, like a metal plate or a pottery shard.

My personal feeling is that it’s still something to do with his crown (maybe a fragment of it), but I guess we’ll never know outside of someone from ANet coming in here and confirming things one way or another.

The Charr do have a militaristic society, so unless their culture changes remarkably in the time until the Elder Dragons are defeated, they will certainly seek out yet another enemy to conquer.

But that said, I think they have no shortage of enemies for a loooong time. (Ogres, Grawl, Krait, Centaurs, and going farther afield, Palawa Joko’s armies and possibly the Canthan Empire, if they’re still hostile.)

There is no Fine equipment bag though. We do have “Equipment Bags”, but that throws ALL equipment of all tiers into it.

I get around it by arranging my bags in the following descending order; Exotic, Rare, Masterwork, Equipment. That means that only Blues and Whites end up in the Equipment Bag (unless the previous bags are full, but that rarely happens unless I do a complete all-path dungeon run in a single sitting), but it’s still not a perfectly sorted loot collection.

I used to have 6 million karma. One complete collection of all T3 Cultural Weapons later, it’s down to 1.5 million.

The editor in me would like to see the different materials and their requirements standardized, yes. It bugs me on a deep, visceral level that Silk requires 100 bolts while Leather, Wood and Metal all only require 50.

Since a reduction in the Silk requirement would also increase demand for other cloth tiers, we’d need to address it holistically by boosting cloth acquisition across the board, such as having cloth items salvage into 50% more scraps, and possibly by getting them as rare salvage from harvesting plant nodes too.

Little indiscrepencies like Soft Wood Logs requiring 4 logs to refine into 1 plank (when compared to 3 logs for all other tiers) should also be looked at. The change was needed back in the day when there was absolutely no need for Soft Wood Logs, but the introduction of Ascended gear changed that.

Finally, to help level price imbalances across the different tiers, I’d also like to see downgrade recipes introduced. Prices between Rugged and Thick Leather would equalise extremely quickly, for instance, (and between Gossamer and Silk) and this would flow on between all different tiers.