Guild Wars 2

I can attest to the above. I tried a couple of times to get the achievements solo. It took me about maybe 6 tries before I got the “ensure no one dies in Concordia” one, but the Butterflies and Viscera one just kept on eluding me. I then posted a LFG, got 4 more peeps, and we just STEAMROLLED the boss. Seriously, it was over almost before I knew it.

I’d say all of the achievements can be done solo, some if you’re really good, but if you’re having trouble with it, team up.

Which only makes my case that I think the achievements are fine even stronger, I feel. They are trickier to get solo, and you can attempt them solo for more of a challenge, but regular players can team up and still get it fairly easily.

Now if only that dang On Swift Wings achievement would work…

^ I don’t disagree with this, as long as there is enough diversity so that different playstyles CAN be generally valid alongside each other. For example:

You have a Warrior. You have a myriad of weapons (swords, hammers, axes, maces etc.), mechanics (shouts, stances, banners) and builds (DPS, condition, tank) available to you. A good game that encourages diversity means that no matter what TYPE of build you go for, you will still be effective in the game.

A bad game that stifles diversity means that, through myriad factors like enemy composition, skill synergy, and the need (or lack thereof) for different roles, one type of build is inarguably better than the others, leading to the dominance of that one build across one or more game modes. It could be as general as “No need for defense when you can simply kill the enemy so fast that defense is irrelevant”, or as specific as one weapon or mechanic being so underpowered that nobody ever uses it.

It’s fine when you have bad builds that are a result of “If you want to use Traps, trait for it and not pick a weird mishmash of traits with Spirits and Pets instead”. It’s not fine when you have a game environment that just says “Traps are bad. Never use them.” or “Traps are too weak compared to Signets. Never use them.”

Oh yes. And I’m not saying that players who attack other players in Obsidian Sanctum are doing anything against the rules. But from experience, I think it’s safe to say that the subset of players who really like doing JP’s (that is, they’re willing to do it every day) are usually not the same players who like doing PvP (or at least, they generally don’t like being attacked while doing JP’s).

I enjoy a good PvP match or WvW battle, but when I’m in a JP, I’m there to do the JP, not to fight. If I keep on getting ganked while in Obsidian Sanctum, my first response is to simply leave and come back later. My time is precious; why should I waste my time and effort in Obsidian Sanctum if I can’t do what I’m there to do? Multiply this effect across hundreds of players, and you can see why an empty Obsidian Sanctum is the natural result of players ganking each other in there.

I think that speculation ghosts will disappear entirely from the game is highly misplaced. They are woven so deeply into Hearts, events, ambient dialogue and multiple maps of the game that removing them entirely would require incredible amounts of work. What’s more, it would also be removing a large part of Charr “culture” for new Charr players.

BrunoBRS.5178:

on the other, i feel like the backlash of another soft retcon will have the entire lore community up in arms and demanding bobby’s head on a stake. plus, it would beg the question “why the hell didn’t rytlock do this years ago?” he knew magdaer was there, he knew the prophecy, and he had sohothin with him for as long as we remember. i hope, albeit without much faith, that they’ll tackle this.

Well, as I said, maybe Rytlock just didn’t know how to do it. Maybe he did try, but being a Warrior, he just didn’t have the magical training to do it properly. Nothing happened, and so he dismissed it all as a hoax.

Now, perhaps Priory research on Magdaer, based on documents salvaged from Orr during the Pact’s invasion, has finally unearthed the ritual needed to undo the Foefire, and Rox brings knowledge of this ritual to Rytlock.

If the Dragon’s Reach trailer is anything to go by, it seems that Braham and Rox are going to be playing more pivotal roles in next week’s chapter.

It will almost certainly be back, perhaps as part of a new once-only PvP Reward Track similar to the Balthazar backpiece. Be patient.

Jovel.5706:

As someone who has all of the skins from the HoM, all the points, and GWAMM, it bothers me to think that people who are not even competent enough to buy GW1 right now, play the game for what it is; a game that’s still enjoyable to this day, and earn the rewards as they were meant to be, want to instead skip the whole process with a swipe of their credit cards. Nobody “missed out.” Everyone is still more than welcome to go to GW1 and earn them just as I did, just as you did, and just as everyone else did.

As someone who has all the skins, do you really want these rewards to be thrown into the gemstore? You may not like exclusivity when it comes to certain items so your alternative suggestion is throwing them in the gemstore? In my opinion, as opposed to yours, that is taking two steps back in the wrong direction. The gemstore should not be the most rewarding aspect of GW2, placing the HoM rewards in the gemstore would only support that. “I don’t feel like earning this” is not a big enough reason to justify them being slapped in the gemstore or made easier to acquire.

These rewards are exclusive to GW1 players and that’s that. We all knew that dedicating stuff in the Hall of Monuments would give us something special in GW2 way before GW2 launched. All of that work cannot be devalued now, or ever. Instead of releasing Guild Wars: Utopia they ditched GW1 and spent the rest of their resources on GW2 so without us there wouldn’t even be a GW2 right now.

I didn’t say that I wanted them to be available on the gem store, just that I wouldn’t mind if they did become available. Perhaps one day, if ANet shuts down the GW1 servers, then I think there would be a stronger case for the HoM skins to show up on the gem store. But for now, as you said yourself, players who want the skins have the opportunity to get it themselves by playing GW1.

To me, “earning” something is all in the mind of the player. As an example, in GW1 I earned my Legendary Survivor title the “proper” way. I created a brand new Paragon, and then took him through all 3 campaigns, both NM and HM, and doing all the missions and all the quests, even the super-dangerous ones. And I succeeded, getting my Legendary Survivor title somewhere mid-way through Nightfall.

And then, Eye of the North came out and trivialised the title through Fronis dungeon runs.

Am I upset that my title was no longer as exclusive as it once was? Not in the slightest. I KNOW that I earned it the hard way; that’s something nobody can ever take away from me. I don’t care how another player earned their Legendary Survivor, and I don’t care how they think I earned mine either. I did it to prove to myself that I could do it, not to show off to others. Likewise, if I ever get a Legendary in GW2, it’ll be because I like the skin and think it would look great on my character, not because “it’s a Legendary”.

Whenever people say that more players having access to their exclusive stuff ruins the item, that says to me that they’re not appreciating the item on its own merits. What they REALLY want is to be part of some rare, exclusive club, to feel superior to those that aren’t in the group. And I don’t think that’s a positive thing. You shouldn’t need to rely on the validation or acclaim of others.

We know that the Zephyrites headed west after they left the Labyrinthine Cliffs, although no one knows why they were heading that way. (Both Cantha and Elona, the other two major regions of civilisation, lie to the SE and SW of Tyria.)

I mentioned this earlier in this same thread, but again, I think people are getting too hung up on the whole “rightful king of Ascalon” bit. Remember, it’s just a legend. Rumor and superstition. There’s no guarantee that you have to be the rightful king of Ascalon, or even human, to undo the Foefire’s curse.

Both Magdaer and Sohothin are not even Ascalonian in origin; they are powerful weapons from ancient Orr. For all we know, all it takes is someone with the right knowledge/will wielding one of them to undo the curse. Perhaps Rytlock could have undid the curse himself years ago if he’d just known how to do it.

It might not be a gem store thing. Rather, suppose that talking to the NPCs in your Home District after completing certain parts of the PS will have them give you a small gift of cloth or leather scraps once every one or two days. (Think of it as their way of “contributing to the war effort”.) That way, anybody can earn it.

It’s well known that Rytlock is wielding Sohothin, Rurik’s sword, although just how he came about it is a mystery to this day.

T6 nodes ever showing up in the Home Instance is doubtful, but we may possibly get T4 and 5 nodes.

Personally though, I’d rather there be a way we could get cloth and leather “nodes” in the Home Instance.

I’ve been using my Badges to unlock all the T2 Cultural Weapon skins for my Wardrobe. Just finished off unlocking the last two skins a few days ago.

Not sure what I’m going to spend them on now though…

I do like to see more “realistic” weapons, but I think it’s fair to say that there is an incredible variety available in the game already. More options can’t hurt, but if you browse through the Wardrobe when shopping for a new skin, you might be pleasantly surprised by what’s already available.

Yeah, I know, but I was referring more to the general Toxic Seedling clusters that just show up in Kessex Hills without needing to complete an event first. (And even so, getting one measly Toxic Spore for completing an event seems like an insult.)

OS is the officially sanctioned place for GvG, but the posts above made me realise that if it’s already full of competing guilds, other guilds who want to GvG have nowhere to go. So yeah, if that’s the case, go ahead and GvG behind the windmill if you want.

That’s a general symbol for the Bandits, and depending on which Human storyline you picked, you learn that it’s actually a throwback to the White Mantle as well.

Have you considered the fact that it’s players like you who like to attack people just trying to get through the JP that’s discouraging them from coming in the first place?

Hmm, so you propose two different copies of Borderlands/EBG for dedicated WvW players and “randoms”? I’m not opposed to the idea, but I’m not sure if ANet wants to split the player base like that. (Besides, it could be argued that EotM is already there for those who want “random” WvW.)

People are getting too hooked on the “rightful king of Ascalon” part, I feel. Remember that it’s just a legend. For all we know, the power to undo the curse of the Foefire simply lies within Magdaer and Sohothin themselves. They are powerful Orrian artifacts, and the truth of the matter may be that anyone who possessed them and had the knowledge/ability to do so could lift the curse at anytime. (Adelbern, of course, wouldn’t since he wants the curse to remain. Rytlock may simply have been unaware he could actually do so until recent events inform him otherwise.)

In any case, I very much doubt that Rytlock will succeed completely. Either the attempt to break the curse fails (“You are not the rightful king of Ascalon…”), or it only partially succeeds, freeing certain ghosts who are more intelligent and free-willed, but not those who are firmly stuck in the past or simply refuse to let go of the curse (i.e. Adelbern).

Thanks for sharing this info with us, Lorea.

As someone who has all of the skins from HoM, I honestly would not mind if ANet opened it up to the gem store. Frankly, I don’t care what other players are using, and I’m not a big supporter of exclusivity. If the move makes players who missed out happy, and ANet gets some extra profits, then go for it. I got my skins for “free” as a nod okittennowledgement to my years spent playing GW1, so I don’t feel ripped off if someone wants to come along and pay money for them.

Please do this! It’s sooo annoying trying to harvest my wood and clicking on the Obelisk shard each time. >.<

You must do a lot of world boss trains. O.o

So I purchased the Basic Logging Pack last night (I like filling out my Home Instance. Don’t judge me! >.>), but when I went into Salma District last night, I found that the Tukawa Sapling is more or less sitting right on top of my Krait Obelisk Shard. This is awful landscaping design! I keep on clicking on the Obelisk when I’m trying to harvest the tree, and I can tell it’s going to become super annoying very quickly.

Please move the Tukawa Sapling away from the Obelisk and closer to the other trees, and in return, I won’t send you out to find another shrubbery and place it next to the first one.

20 is not necessary. You can get him to 19 stacks and still get the achievement. But aside from that, everything Novaan said is correct.

The best way to do it is to have everybody stop attacking when he blocks, aside from 1 – 2 people designated as the stack buffers. Disable autoattack and manually click the skills to make sure you don’t over-attack.

Wait till Subject 6 is down to about 5 – 10% health first, then wait for him to block before building the stacks. Then, drop Time Warps/FGS etc. and burn him down as fast as possible once he stops blocking.

I just hope they don’t pull another Aetherpath and replace P2 with a new one. >.> If they’re going to introduce a new dungeon path, it should be in addition to the old ones. (A completely separate instance that you can enter by talking to the NPC out the front.)

I’d definitely support them being tradable. I don’t really like the Ambrite skins, so there’s absolutely nothing I can do with the Fossils I’ve found. >.> At the very least, make it so that Gentt trades us Geodes/Ambrite for the Fossils, although I still think making the Fossils tradable would make people happy on both sides.

Good. I could use a bit of a breather. x_x I’ve been putting my mapping/dungeoning on hold so far to do the new content and achievements. Having SAB back for the break would be great too!

Very interesting twist! I’m looking forward to more Charr and Norn being in the spotlight this time around. They’ve been a bit neglected in the Living Story so far. I also look forward to seeing Destiny’s Edge get involved again.

As others have mentioned, we might also see the other Dragon factions getting involved, such as the Icebrood or the Branded in conflict with the Mordrem. (Jormag and Kralkatorrik probably won’t appreciate a new rival on the scene stealing their magical buffet.)

My guess is that Rytlock’s attempt to break the curse either fails (“You are not the rightful heir of Ascalon…”), or it only partially succeeds, freeing certain ghosts who are more intelligent and free-willed, but not those who are fiercely stuck in the past (i.e. Adelbern).

Either way, I’m guessing Rytlock does it either to deny Mordremoth an additional source of magic to consume (remember the book in the Ley Line Hub with the theory that ghosts are just magical energy constructs?), or because the Charr desperately need reinforcements to fight back against the Mordrem invasion.

I doubt it would affect the entirety of Ascalon. If it worked (big if), it would mean that ghosts would basically vanish from the game, altering dozens of Hearts, events, the Ascalon Catacombs dungeon (which isn’t so bad since it’s effectively an instance frozen in time, like the Personal Story) and essentially mean that new players would miss out on experiencing a large part of Charr “culture”.

My guess is that Rytlock’s attempt to break the curse either fails (“You are not the rightful heir of Ascalon…”), or it only partially succeeds, freeing certain ghosts who are more intelligent and free-willed, but not those who are fiercely stuck in the past (i.e. Adelbern).

Either way, I’m guessing Rytlock does it either to deny Mordremoth an additional source of magic to consume (remember the book in the Ley Line Hub with the theory that ghosts are just magical energy constructs?), or because the Charr desperately need reinforcements to fight back against the Mordrem invasion.

I feel that the Toxic Spores should not have been confined to just Kessex Hills. The destruction of the Tower of Nightmares spread the spores far and wide on the winds, with the result that every single open world map has at least one or two Toxic Seedling nodes. It thus rewards farmers who like to go roaming across the entire map.

Eventually the Tower’s wreckage is cleaned up and the last of the Toxic Alliance defeated or slain, but the spores from the Tower could remain difficult to eradicate for generations to come.

While I don’t use the Basic Salvage Kit, I use the Salvage-o-Matic, which supposedly has the same percentages as the Basic Kit, and I have noticed that the return rate of upgrades is unusually small too. I suspect the two kits use the same script, and it’s definitely possible that it is bugged.

Then again, this isn’t that big an issue to me because a while back, the Matic was bugged and returning an abnormally high amount of upgrades. It actually got quite annoying having my inventory filled up so quickly with cheap upgrades. :P Still, I agree that this is something that ANet should look at.

Thanks for the update, Stephane. I’ll still give it a go when I attempt the Concordia achievements tonight, but if I don’t get it, I’ll just wait.

Hmm… I do agree that a Minipet slot, completed with a minipet inventory similar to how Rangers can choose which pet is in the slot, would be a great QoL update. So, /supported I guess.

I wouldn’t mind seeing more ability to customise the Home Instance. More harvestable nodes, for example. Somebody once raised the idea of creating your own “garden plots” where you can purchase 3 – 9 spots and plant a cooking ingredient of your choice in each one, harvestable once per day.

I’d also like to see those little mementos you get for completing the Personal Story get displayed in the Home Instance, and maybe more NPCs show up whom you can talk to once a week/month to receive little bonuses. “Hey <X>! How’s the Vigil working out for you? While you’re here, take this. It’s a little extra cloth that I made for you. Hope it keeps you warm on those cold nights in the wilderness!”

Celestina.2894:

I still have nightmares about Danika shudders

What about Chain Smoker Rhea?

Dayra.7405:

If your G/AL supports that you have to think about the question: “Am I really in the right guild/alliance?”

Guilds can kick member, so whats the difference? Is it abused? How long does a guild exist, if it does so? Project that to an alliance, a WvW-alliance is only successful if it manages to unite several thousand people, abuse is watched by the people and to much abuse let an alliance collapse faster than a server today.

Just pointing out that I am not in a guild that condones these sorts of activities. But I’m sure there are troll guilds out there that, if presented with evidence of their members’ mischief, would simply laugh at you and tell you to report it to ANet if it bothers you.

As to why I don’t think guilds should be allowed to kick other guilds or individuals from WvW, it’s because you could end up in a situation where the “pro” WvW guilds simply decide that WvW is for themselves only. GvG? Kicked. Dueling? Kicked. Just there to map for world completion? Kicked. Season 3 Tournament achievement hunting? Kicked. Just a “filthy casual”? Kicked.

I’d still prefer such power to be held only by authorised GMs who can at least verify any griefing or trolling in person, and who are held to account by virtue of internal CS review.

While 15 seconds is plenty of time for me with a little practice, I am not unsympathetic to the pain suffered by people with disabilities, motion sickness or the elderly. I do think that bumping up the duration of the Aspects to, say, 20 seconds or 30 seconds would be a fair compromise. (After all, for those of us who are skilled/experienced, we can often get to the top of the JP in way less time than that. Making the duration any longer wouldn’t really affect us at all.)

I use it to escape from losing fights or before stomping. By the time the stealth wears off, it’s too late for the stompee to do anything to stop me.

I wouldn’t trade my bald Asura Ele for anything else.

“Rocks and stones will break your bones!”

I wouldn’t mind, but WvW players generally hated having Living Story stuff like Toxic Alliance or Aetherblades show up, so I think the reception would be poor.

EDIT: Even though I think it would be HILARIOUS if the Legendary Sand Giant showed up in the middle of a blob vs blob fight and boulder-rained everybody. XD

Hope the devs can figure out a solution, but spies have been present on servers since WvW’s inception. What IS pretty lame though, is having members of the same guild on all three sides and coordinating with each other to do nothing but karma train. That’d be like a single mega-guild on all three servers in the same match-up coordinating to fix the match. It makes a mockery of WvW. >.>

What if the GL doesn’t care that one of their members is a troll? And if the offender is in their own personal guild? What then?

And no, you can’t give guilds the ability to kick other guilds from WvW. Too much potential for abuse.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Zaxares.5419:

Again, I do get what you’re saying. In order to get people to buy gems with cash, demand for gems needs to be high in the first place. But still, the ratio of players who are actually WILLING to pay cash for gems is quite small, as evidenced by the ever-increasing price of gold -> gems.

I think you’re putting it wrongly here. The ratio of players who are actually willing to pay cash for GOLD is quite small. And only those will bring the exchange rate down. I often buy gems with cash (I’ve never bought them with gold) but the only time I sold them for cash was when I had less than 100 left after a gem store transaction (most items are a multiple of 100 but some items are not, especially if they’re for sale)

Ah, good pick up! You are absolutely correct, of course. Right now, I’m in that same category of players; I buy gems with cash when there’s something I want from the gem store, but the exchange rate is not yet favourable enough for me to trade my extra gems for gold. (My trigger is when it reaches 100 gems for 10 gold. I’m waiting patiently for that day to arrive.)

1. Events are a good way to earn karma, especially with a karma booster/banner on. These days I usually get plenty in EotM, but doing Orr chains, world boss chains etc. should also work.

2. Activities are also a great way to earn karma. You get 1000 for a win, and 600 for a loss. Since activities these days tend to be largely deserted, it’s possible to get 1000 karma every 5 – 6 mins if you’re the only one in there.

3. The Tequatl fight, if you can get into an organised map, is also a superb way to get karma. You get 14k karma for a successful kill, not counting the karma from the multiple group events you’ll do in the process too.

4. If you do Fractals, doing underlevelled Fractals is also a good way to get karma. However, success will largely depend on the skill of your group, which can be unreliable if you don’t have friends or a guild that do Fractals regularly.

Hehe, I’m much the same way! I generally find myself wanting smaller pistols. Some of the pistols look so stupidly large on my petite female Mesmer. I’m currently using the Vigil pistol on her; before I used the Krytan pistol. I’m still searching for a small, compact-looking pistol that blends a look of magic/technology while still looking like a pistol. (So not stuff like the Torment pistol.)

Mmm… Undecided. I remember how Assassins used to have a different running animation to the other professions back in GW1. That was cool, but I’m not sure if it’d be cool enough to justify the work needed to create new animations and the associated back-end code for GW2.

Wurm and Teq are meant to be done by skilled, organised groups.

That said, I do think they should scale so they can be done by smaller skilled, organised groups, while retaining the same amount of difficulty as they do for large skilled, organised groups.