Guild Wars 2

Agreed on point one. It would be SOOOO much more convenient if you could complete achievements account wide once one character has completed the story.

Braham does need a buff, honestly. :P He’s the only one of the Biconics who doesn’t have some unique abilities of his own.

Rox: Uses a weird medley of shortbow and longbow skills. Has a unique Barrage that also inflicts poison.

Marjory: Nothing too unique here, but she can dodge roll at least.

Kasmeer: The most OP of the Biconics. She can Blink across gaps, create portals without needing to be at the locations, and use Time Warp with apparently no cooldown.

Taimi: Haven’t had too much opportunity to study her combat moves yet, but I do know she has some skills unique to golems, such as the ability to give all allies Protection.

We’d really need to know what are the completion %‘s of the current achievements before we could make a decision. I have a feeling that the casual playerbase (i.e. the ones who don’t really bother with achievements and just take whatever pops up normally when they do stuff) has largely ignored the LS2 ones. (Didn’t ANet’s own stats say once that 80%+ of the player base has less than 3k AP? That’s very telling.)

Speaking for myself, the Chapter 1 achievements were pretty easy to get. The Chapter 2 ones are tougher. I might actually need to team up with others to get a couple of them.

Heh, yeah, I’m in a similar situation. I’m coming up to 17,500 AP, yet I still haven’t been to the level 70+ maps, I’ve never played CoF, HotW, CoE or Arah, and I still haven’t completed my Personal Story.

I actually ended up as a Steam Ogre for the 2nd console. I didn’t get a Steam Minotaur at all. What happened there??

“Logic-circuits-overwhelmed. Commencing-explosive-shutdown-in-5. 4. 3. 2. 1. MBLAARGH!”

Yeah, I have one Fossil that I got out of a chest, but since I don’t want an Ambrite weapon (bugs give me the jeebies >.>), there is absolutely nothing I can do with it. It’s account bound, so I can’t trade it. It has no vendor value, so it can’t be sold. Converting it to a specific Fossil? Still account bound. Go through the entire process of crafting an Ambrite weapon? Still account bound.

Ideally I’d like to see either the Fossils OR the Ambrite weapons become sellable. This will depend on what ANet wants to encourage more; the ability for crafters to “profit” by introducing another rare item only they can make and sell, or increased demand for Ambrite/Geodes as players who do want the skins have to spend time in Dry Top farming Geodes and buying Ambrite.

Personally I’d be satisfied with Gantt having a new tab where we can trade Unidentified Fossils for Geodes and/or Ambrite (because then at least the Fossils have value, rather than something I can do nothing with except Destroy), but I think it would be best all around if I can trade them and make somebody with poor RNG luck very happy (and making some extra coin for myself).

Sadly ANet nerfed the Dust Mite event today. No more multi-chances for Charged/Onyx Lodestones.

Ah well. I still kill all Dust Mites I come across anyway. And also the Skritt for their bags of shinies. Charged Lodestones can come from those too. (Although, if you really want to heavy farm level 80 Skritt, the best place to do so is in the NW corner of the Borderlands map in WvW. Lots of fast respawning Skritt, and hardly anybody ever goes there, so you’re not likely to be bothered by enemy players.)

Kotone.6597:

no no no no, we must go to the Eternal Armory

/thread

Nothing can top this one. NOTHING. XD

I’m presuming that after CoE, the Pact and the Orders become aware of the existence of a probable 6th Dragon, and that either ancient lore or recent research turned up the name of Mordremoth. As Commander of the Pact, the PC probably sat in on one or more “information sessions” about the latest research on the Elder Dragons and picked up the name that way.

I do agree that there should have been a better way of revealing Mordremoth’s name to the player though.

Rengaru.4730:

Zaxares.5419:

[…]

So Player A ended up getting more points based on what they did in the match, even though their team ended up losing. I think this would motivate players to be more willing to join the losing team.

We actually had a personal reward system at the begining.

All it did was cause players to farm their points by doing stupid stuff like caping points with 3+ people or chasing enemies off point to get a kill (and a possible re-cap of the point they just lost).

We did? Didn’t know that (only starting playing PvP in the last few months).

And if that’s true, wouldn’t it still be better than the situation of everybody dogpiling onto the winning team, or constantly team-swapping or using Spectator Mode to force autobalances before joining the winning team? At least this way people are actually playing, even if they’re playing in non-optimal ways.

Ronin.7381:

narwhalsbend.7059:

BrunoBRS.5178:

narwhalsbend.7059:

BrunoBRS.5178:

we got through two continents before we saw the tarnished coast and far shiverpeaks in GW1. i’m willing to miss some tyrian regions for some more years in favor of cantha :P

I don’t need EotN parts, just all the Prophecies areas.
Don’t YOU want to know if the statue of the female warrior in the Crystal Desert is standing or not? Huh? Is it not killing you inside?

prophecies is the one campaign i never played well, i played the first couple missions on a trial, got past the searing, did like one or two missions (didn’t even realize henchies were a thing, so i was soloing the kitten out of those charrs), and ran out of time.

when i actually bought the game, i bought factions, then EotN, then nightfall. then GW2 came out.

Prophecies was the best though.

Agreed. The amount of intrigue and not just your typical, “Nice guy turns out to betray you.” was very enjoyable and unique.

Are we forgetting about a certain Vizier? Or the White Mantle?

Yeah. While it’s nice that the Biconics are not racist towards me, it would have been understandable (even logical), if they gave me a sideways look and go, “You’re not gonna go all Scarlet on us too, right?”

T4/5 Dry Top maps are indeed VERY profitable. It’s similar to the Gold Boss Blitz runs, really. It’s getting into one that proves a bit of a headache if you play at off-peak hours like I do.

Sooo… The latest patch said that it fixed a bug that removed Belinda’s Greatsword. Does that mean it’s back in the Wardrobe, Belinda in the story instance has it again, or something else?

Yeah, if you’re going for a Legendary, make the Clovers first. You’ll no doubt get a lot of T6 mats doing that. Supplement it with Laurels for Heavy Crafting Bags, and then do dungeons/farm for the rest.

I don’t disagree with you, but people are still buying Silk at their current prices, so obviously the economy is able to bear the cost. The higher prices also mean that more money is being sucked out through TP fees, so while I personally would like to see a correcction, I have a feeling JS is not going to do anything about it in the short term.

Is it a “problem”? No. But is it unfair to light armor crafters? Yes, I’d say so.

I like the idea for a “Fruiting Cactus” node. Would definitely support that.

Well, the poll shows that almost half of the respondents think the current achievements are fine, and those who think it’s too easy or too hard are about even. More don’t even bother with the achievements; they’re probably just in it for the story or the loot.

So, all of that put together means that achievements are fine and should stay as they are.

Welcome to my world. I’ve also gotten one, but I don’t like the Ambrite weapons, and at no point in the economic chain can you sell the Fossil or an Ambrite weapon. All we can do is destroy it, which seems really stupid considering there are posts from unlucky players on the forums raging that they’ve opened dozens of chests and still don’t have a fossil.

This kind of imbalance is exactly what trading is supposed to solve!

Yes, she was a reckless airhead… But I still liked her the best of all the Order mentors. Yes, even more than Tybalt. :P

Nah. If you do the Fawcett JP in Harathi Hinterlands, you’ll see ghosts of humans, Asura, Norn and Charr, indicating that all of them have spirits/souls. Sylvari are the notable exception in that we have never, ever seen a Sylvari ghost.

Which would actually make me really sad if Sieran’s sacrifice basically meant she’s doomed to oblivion.

Nah, that’s not how it works. Taimi is by far the most popular of the Biconics. By GoT law which states that any popular character WILL die, that means she’s also the first on the hit list.

Ironically, that means Braham and Rox, the first two Biconics introduced, will end up living the longest.

Well, I do agree that it isn’t in their best interest to over-incentivize gem sales too, but that’s mainly because it creates a negative impression among players that the company is “pushing microtransations”, which tends to drive players away. (Case in point, there were a number of people upset by the whole “did you know you can buy gold with gems?” messages in Gnashblade’s posts in recent weeks. They saw it as ANet trying to lean on them to buy gems with cash.)

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.

What Smooth is proposing is basically ANet giving further incentive to players to start buying gems with cash, which would also ease the exchange rate and actually make life easier for those who buy gems with gold. (And I’m actually arguing against giving these players completely exclusive items that can’t be acquired anywhere else. I feel that would do more harm than good.)

Note I firmly believe that only a small proportion of players who currently buy gems with gold could EVER be convinced to start buying them with cash. More than likely, if the exchange rate got too intolerable, the majority of these players would either stop buying gem store items altogether, or simply jump ship and go to a different game.

No, you’re a bit mistaken how it works.

1. To unlock a Living Story 2 chapter on your account, you need to log in during the two week period and click that big green star in the right corner. (If you can’t log in during this two week period, you can buy it with 200 gems.) This is account wide.

2. Once unlocked, you can freely do that chapter whenever you like on a level 80 character. Characters who are not level 80 can’t do that chapter, but it will become available to them once they reach level 80.

3. When the story is completed for the first time on a character, you unlock the ability to replay it and complete achievements. This is character-specific. Note that while completing the story on each character will give you rewards once per character, the rewards for completing the achievements is once per account only.

So basically, you have nothing to worry about.

They might possibly make a return with the next Dragon Bash, whenever that may be.

Only insofar as more people buying gems with gold drives up the exchange rate, which then makes it more appealing for people like me to buy gems with cash and sell them to you guys. In that sense, it may increase the amount of people buying gems with cash, but it’s STILL the people paying cash that are actually paying ANet’s wages and expenses. The people buying gems with gold are still not contributing anything extra to ANet’s coffers.

On an unrelated note, the exchange rate hit 100 gems for 9.6 gold yesterday. Sooooo close! That Emperor title is almost within reach now!

“Eaaaaaaasy now… Better?”

You know what this means, guys… Playable centaurs confirmed!

I got one from the 2nd chest I opened in the new area of Dry Top. The worst part? I don’t even want it! I’m not interested in the Ambrite weapons, but I can’t sell or give away the Fossil. Dentt doesn’t even offer me anything else for a Fossil apart from the Ambrite components!

As others have said, Zhaitan may be dead, but the magical energy he embodied is not gone. More than likely, it was simply transferred to another of his minions, most likely Tequatl, who is now in the process of evolving into the next Elder Dragon of Undeath. (Held back a little by the heroes who fight him in Sparkfly Fen.)

It’s an MMO. People have the freedom to make whatever character they want, as long as it’s not openly offensive. Yes, the Super Saiyan Charr are immersion breaking, but so was the Sailor Moon Senshi team, the gigantic naked Norn with a bright pink mustache named Dr Dance Queen, the red fro’d human who was the spitting image of Ronald McDonald, and the all-black/red fiery armor dude named Xx Darth Slayer Xx. And you know what? I still had a good laugh at all of them (except Darth Slayer. That was just unimaginative :P).

As a RPer, I love immersion probably more than most, but total immersion just can’t be found in an MMO. If I wanted total immersion, I’d play a single player RPG.

I believe that you are A Commander in the Pact now. You’re still the first and probably most high-ranking of the Commanders behind Trahearne, but you stepped down to continue adventuring after the defeat of Zhaitan, and Trahearne’s since appointed new Commanders to fulfill different roles.

Agreed! Sometimes I’d like to look up one particular weapon or armor set, instead of having to search through all the different categories. Being able to search for skins in the Wardrobe would be a great QoL update.

Chili Peppers are used in a wide variety of cooking dishes (from the typical “chili” dishes, to more exotic ingredients like Stir-fry or Spicy Cookies). Trouble is, they only drop in 1’s or 2’s, and only from Herb nodes in Ascalon that also share drop tables with Peppercorns and Garlic. (Along with additional herbs in higher level areas.)

All that results in a high demand for Chili Peppers, but a limited way to provide supply.

I do think it’s silly that Chili Peppers are that expensive, by the way. I think ANET needs to do to them what they did for Vanilla Beans; increase their prevalence in the loot table, and up the amount to 3 – 5.

Nah. It’ll be a Quagganado, just you watch.

“CoooOOoo! Coo? CoooooOOOO!”

After playing a bit with the content last night, I’d also like to add that I wish the Unidentified Fossils were tradable. I’ve previewed the Ambrite skins. I don’t like the look of them, but now I have one Fossil that’s account bound and there’s absolutely nothing I can do with it. It has no vendor value, so I can’t sell it. The identified fossils are also account bound, so I can’t sell those either. Even if I went the entire route of crafting an Ambrite weapon (that again, I don’t want), I STILL can’t sell it. It is literally a worthless, useless drop to me.

But destroying it seems like such a waste when I KNOW there is someone, maybe many someones, who would be glad to buy it from me. Making these tradable would make both of us happy.

At the very least, ANet, make Gentt trade something like Geodes or maybe even Lumps of Ambrite for unwanted Fossils so we can at least convert them into something useful if we don’t like the Ambrite weapons.

^ This is true. DDoS attacks have nothing to do with the security of the servers the games are on. A bank can have ultra-high, casino-level security on its doors, vault, tellers etc. But they can’t do anything if somebody got 2000 guys to queue in front of the bank so that you can’t get in to do your banking, which is basically what the DDoS’er is doing. The best the bank can do is tell its customers to go to a different branch (direct legitimate traffic to backup servers) until the attack passes.

@lawfan: That just makes me roll my eyes really. You don’t like a game? Fine, don’t play it. But why take down the servers? That’s a bit like somebody not liking a TV show and instead of just changing the channel, they opt to go bomb the TV station.

I did say “bad/novice DMs”. I run a Rogue GMPC in my tabletop D&D game due to having only 3 players, and nobody wanted to be the trap monkey.

When I saw Drooburt’s corpse in Prosperity, I picked up the fallen Elixir of Heroes bottle next to him and drank it to his memory.

You know what this means, guys… Playable centaurs confirmed!

I think it means “Game Master Player Character”, a reference to tabletop RPGs where a GM will sometimes have their own character in the party (usually because there’s a shortage of players to fill needed roles). The pitfall some bad/novice DMs do is giving their GMPC a prominent role in the story (e.g. they are the heir to the throne, the Chosen One destined to slay the Dragon) and basically treat them as a favoured child to the point where the other players feel overshadowed or sidelined.

I believe that the Dry Top diving goggles does not count towards the Dive Master achievement, as it has its own separate achievement. Same way that the “Best. Dive. Ever” and “The Goggles Do Nothing!” do not count towards Dive Master.

With the amount of events in Dry Top now, getting to T3 is not particularly hard, and T4 can be achieved with some coordination between small groups of players. T5 is still pretty tricky to get unless you have a map that is dedicated to getting it though.

Here’s the reward breakdowns:

Tier 1 – Only lockpicks available.
Tier 2 – Lockpicks cheaper. Nomad’s insignia/inscriptions available. Ventari’s insignia/inscriptions available. 30 min cooking recipes available.
Tier 3 – Lockpicks cheaper. 30 min cooking recipes cheaper. 1 hour cooking recipes available.
Tier 4 – Lockpicks cheaper. All cooking recipes cheaper. Ambrite recipes available.
Tier 5 – Lockpicks cheaper. All cooking recipes cheaper. Ambrite recipes cheaper.

The recipes are apparently available at T4 too. If the map really becomes deserted, ANet might even reduce it to T3 or T2.

Thanks for the info and timers, guys.

Does anyone have a screenshot of the new T4/5 vendors? I’m interested to see what the new prices and items are.

Missing doesn’t remove the charge from the Hammer, right? If so, yeah, it’s not that big a deal.

Patience, guys. When the Aetherblade Retreat first came out, everybody went crazy wanting Mai’s Rapier. A couple of months later, we did indeed get it from Champ bags.

Wanze is right; it’s permanent, so you have all the time in the world to get it. But that said, I would support them becoming tradable.

^ What Vayne said. There were WAY more available skills in GW1 (something which my “collect them all!” personality loved), but the truth of the matter was that the vast majority of the skills were mediocre and never saw any use. Orison of Healing was the baseline Monk healing skill that all other heal skills were compared to, but no decent Monk worth his Protective Spirit EVER carried it on his bar.

What’s more, as Vayne also pointed out, having an abundance of skills didn’t prevent the end-game from devolving into the “if you’re not running meta we will kick you” stagnation. My Assassin basically had to do everything by herself with Heroes, since the only real use for an Assassin in end-game content was as a perma-Shadow Form tank, which I absolutely refused to run. (I made an Assassin to stab things with daggers, not to be a tank!)

If GW1 didn’t have Heroes, which allowed me to do the content by myself, I would have quit GW1 long ago instead of staying with it and loving it for 7 years.

Basically, the problem with low build diversity is not with the availability of skills. The problem is that the game’s design still favours Damage over Support or CC. There is little reason to run the latter two when Damage roles can do the same job, but much faster and more efficiently.