Guild Wars 2

Just about everything the OP hated are things I really love about the game. Clearly this wasn’t the game for him, and that’s fine.

Only weapons are from that vendor and there are no recipes.

The dev pointed out in that thread that all exotic = all other exotics of the same level. All rare = all other rares of the same level.

All 80 exotics are the same as far as the forge is concerned. The easiest to obtain are just as good as the hardest.

Also, exotics give a better chance than rares and higher level items give a better chance than lower level items.

It was pretty fairly spelled out.

At this point, the problem isn’t the puzzle but rather the lack of feedback to let people know they can cross the bridge after one failed attempt. trucker: if you read up earlier in this thread it is pointed out that you can just die and then respawn on the other side of the bridge. This was changed from the original version where you had to keep trying until you made it.

I agree with IceBlink: what is the problem with giving out rewards that are even remotely good? If completing a map gives 2 random exotics, why couldn’t the personal story? Still confused as to the logic here.

It does seem like a very strange design decision to take something that can only be completed once on each character, takes a massive amount of time and effort, and is actually quite harder than much of the rest of the game and hand out vendor trash at the end. This is supposed to be your character’s story about saving the world (well, as a sidekick). Considering the amount of time required alone you’d think the reward would be pretty dramatic.

I mean, the fact that it was bumped UP to 78 greens is just sort of funny to me: what was it before? And then they had to reduce the total number of items you could get from 5 to 3: why? Was 2 extra greens gamebreaking somehow? That’s like 3 waypoints.

I agree that the minimum you should get is a single exotic weapon of your choice with the stats of your choice. Giving a main + offhand as an option would be even better. If you wanted to throw about 5 random 80 rares on top of that, that would be pretty reasonable, too. I’m not sure what is being protected by reducing the reward so much.

This should have been fixed on Sept. 24 according to this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/story/End-Story-Loot-spoilers/page/3#post228973

“End of Story Loot bags improved to only give green or better lvl 78+ gear.”

If you only got two blues then something is wrong; you may want to enter a ticket in-game.

Many good thoughts on this thread. I agree quite a bit with Lori’s post above. As others have stated, they seem to have balanced the missions for someone well-versed in a melee class.

I sincerely hope that respecing isn’t required to pass a mission: the gold sinks are already incredibly tight. I also like the idea of deaths in story missions not breaking your armor for the same reason.

In my own experience, as a necro about 3/4ths through I’ve managed (we’re tougher than most clothies) but there have been times when the difficulty becomes less fun. What these times mostly have in common is a new mechanic that is introduced for a difficult battle/area without time to practice. (And the stupid wind puzzle of death in one mission.) These situations definitely seem like you need another person (which I’ve not done) or they expect you to die and try again (which is less fun).

Regardless of difficulty, “infinite waves of enemies” is a poor storytelling mechanic in any medium. My (first) claw island experience took forever because I’m a relatively low damage character and everything would respawn before I finished killing them and could move from a spot. Getting to Mira took quite a long time.

I’ve just hit 70 and I’ve used exactly 1 rune, which I got as a story reward. No reason to bother with runes pre-80 for PvE.

Grinding to farm rares is terrible, I agree: that’s what the trading post is for. Unfortunately this means you won’t be able to craft until you’re 80 and/or on alts, but it’s much easier that way.

I also love the idea that the rare mats used determine the stats on armor: what a truly flexible crafting system this would create!

It is really, really hard for people to understand just how randomness really works. People want to look for patterns – it’s how we all live every day. But just because something happens to you 100 times in a row doesn’t mean ANYTHING. If 100 people come to this forum and post that something happened to them 100 times, that STILL doesn’t mean anything. Think about the scale here: things are happening to millions of people millions of times per day. Your personal experience with random number generation doesn’t amount to more than a grain of sand on a beach.

The devs haven’t changed anything. Not only that, but then they specifically said they didn’t change anything. Sorry.

RNG. It’s the source of all your joys and all your sorrows.

It is really, really hard for people to understand just how randomness really works. People want to look for patterns – it’s how we all live every day. But the thing a lot of posters don’t seem to understand is that just because something happens to you 100 times in a row doesn’t mean ANYTHING. If 100 people come to this forum and post that something happened to them 100 times, that STILL doesn’t mean anything. Think about the scale here: things are happening to millions of people millions of times per day. Your personal experience with random generation doesn’t amount to more than a grain of sand on a beach.

RNG is RNG. Your millage can and will vary.

You’re right. It is basically impossible to level an armor profession and a weapon profession at the same time without going bankrupt. (The only exception is artifacing but that’s because you can level it by making potions instead of making weapons.)

Unless cooking or jewelcrafting is your second, you can expect to wait until 80 (or an alt) to level a second craft.

Just as a follow-up, level 60-65 netted me about 1g. What I’ve learned is that the way I like to play is just extremely unprofitable. 100%ing zones, WvW, saving all the mats you gather for crafting, and honestly doing any crafting at all are all terrible for your bottom line. If you want to make gold, put all your mats on the TP, don’t craft at all, and do everything you can to run from event to event. Doing hearts can be useful, but nothing is as good as events from what I can tell. I haven’t sold my mats but otherwise I just ran around completing events and vendoring drops (after checking the TP of course, but 95% of drops are already on there for 1c above vendor price – i.e. a net loss of 15%) and that is how I started actually making a tiny bit of money. Also, never waypoint anywhere.

mulch, you’re right: I have noted that you can get all the crafted gear you want right now for coppers above the vendor price, making -renting- equipment thousands of times more profitable than -crafting- it. I hate that it works that way (i.e. makes crafting worthless), but it does.

Ugh, I hate to do it, but I will probably just skip crafting for my last 20 levels and come back to it once I can afford it. It sucks because I wanted to play the game a different way, but I guess that’s what alts are for.

One thing to keep in perspective is that this limit is NOT affecting “95%” of players. It’s only affecting people who are extremely efficient end-game farmers, which is by no means even a simply majority of players – it’s probably not more than a (very vocal) few thousand. The majority of players probably aren’t even level 80 yet. All told, this is a big problem, but it’s not affecting the entire playerbase.

Additionally, the thing that makes this problem frustrating is not really even the DR itself, but rather the tiny handful of people (probably not more than a few hundred) who were able to profit enormously before the DR was really set in place. People keep comparing themselves to the guys who are already holding legendaries, but if the DR had been this strict since day 1 I don’t think everyone would be so upset about it.

Ultimately, if you are frustrated, the best thing you can do is focus on another area of the game until it’s fixed. Level up some alts or something – that’s my advice. Banging your head against the wall doesn’t help your head or the wall.

@Scera: I do all of those things, too, except where I should be making more money (gather more, waypoints less, 90%+ events). I think your post could also be summed up as “skip crafting.”

@Mastermind: Thanks, that gives me hope that I can be back “on track” shortly!

Still more responses that boil down to “skip crafting.”

@Hawken: My experience is different than yours. I think jewelcrafting and cooking have their own eccentricities, but trying to level one weapon craft or one armor craft – even without doing another profession – has proven impossible for me simply with “mats found.” I’ve had to go to the TP (or guild mate) every time to avoid going back and farming (even after 100%ing the zone I went through and being several levels ahead). It’s not even the gatherable mats (except cloth of course), but the blues. If it weren’t for everyone skipping crafting altogether, blue mats would be a gold a piece.

Thanks for all the responses, everyone. This thread seems to confirm that if you try to craft it is very likely that you will not be able to keep up with the gold sinks. Hopefully skipping ahead a few zones will get me back on track, even if I still have to go back and buy mats!

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a “how do you make money” thread, because I know the answer: you don’t. You either flip things or you play a lot; otherwise you’re poor. I really was just curious as to how many other people were feeling the crunch. I guess it’s just a little frustrating because it seems like Anet is trying to tune the game for the rushers but when I just play a few hours a week and like to explore, I feel like I can barely keep up with the gold sinks.

I wish 100%ing a zone (including the finish bonus) was enough to craft a single tier of even one profession to completion, but it just isn’t. For every tier I’ve had a guildie’s help or I’ve turned to the TP. And I guess that’s the point, but it just makes the other gold sinks seem even more weighty.

@Blacklight: I’m sure you’re right; if I hadn’t spent anything on crafting I’m sure I’d have scraped up to 2g by 60. But I’d also still be making tier 2 crafting items at 60.

I like that in the time I took to post three more people replied with essentially the same response: skip crafting.

I always vendor blues or check out if they’ll sell for an actual profit on the TP. I always do events and gather constantly. I don’t buy gear on the TP (well, I did once – but that was because it vendored for a few copper less than what I bought it for).

So far crafting seems like the real culprit on two fronts: first, it’s incredibly expensive. Second, since it also grants you levels (which is nice), you can outlevel an area much more quickly. I’m sure running around in an area 15 levels below my character level is causing me to lose out on more profitable drops/events, but on the other hand it allows me to actually gather the mats I need.

My plan for the future is to skip to a 60-70 zone and see if that makes up the difference. It’s just hard when the gold sinks are tuned so tightly that unless you’re flipping on the TP it’s really hard to make money. (I guess that’s why you can also pay to get ahead?)

Glad to know I’m not alone in this.

@mulch: I find my experience to be different than yours. I use every blue mat I find and then some, and I never have enough cloth. In WvW events never function. I have never seen a “guard a caravan” or a “stay here until workers are finished” event ever do anything. The only time I have had an event work is when you capture something, and you can’t really do that without a zerg. Also, waypoints may be free but they don’t exist unless someone buys them.

@Swagmag: I don’t really have the ability to corner a market since I didn’t already rush to 80.

@Windwalker: As I said, I hate to just wait to 80 to craft. I’d like it to be useful while I level. I’ve already resigned myself to just one profession since leveling two is impossible. But certainly I agree that skipping crafting altogether is much more profitable.

I’m just wondering because I just hit 60 on my first character and I cannot afford the training manual – not by a long shot. I’ve spent some on crafting and the level 40 manual (which I was just barely able to get at 40), but I don’t buy anything or waste gold. I try to walk/warp everywhere and avoid waypoints as much as possible. I sell everything (and try to sell on the trading post when it’s profitable) and only salvage the cheap stuff. I do about 95% PvE, some crafting, and a tiny bit of WvW (but I can’t do it much since it’s so expensive to play it – repair costs are high and you don’t really make money doing it; I’ve never bought a single upgrade or siege weapon). Haven’t had enough time to try a dungeon yet. At this point most of the waypoints cost about 1% of my net worth. I’m sure I must not be doing something right, because I’m constantly dirt poor. My only thought is that I tend to be constantly over-leveled for my area since I like exploring and 100%ing maps. I’m guessing I just need to skip way ahead to a 60-70 zone and maybe the events will start to give more than a few copper? It seems like this will still come back to bite me though since crafting is so expensive. Without exploring the right areas I’ll never get the drops I need which will end up costing even more when I have to use the trading post. I hate to just wait till 80 to craft but I’m not sure how else you can afford it?

Just wondering how others have done. It seems like a lot of people (or at least all the vocal ones) rushed to 80 and flipped a bunch of stuff on the TP to amass vast fortunes, but for those of us who hate both of those things I’m wondering when/if you actually make gold. I’d like to buy another character slot one day but that seems laughable right now.

It seems odd that the majority of names in this thread actually fail the naming guidelines… Sometimes on more than one point…

So, ultimately, the question for this thread is: is a “nothing” return from the mystic forge a bug or an intended possible result?

I am reading the dev response to say it is a bug: correct?

Mini-pets and town clothing for karma would be great! Personally I am wondering if there won’t be some major town clothes expansion at some point – either through an actual expansion or a patch or something. The entire town clothes system is just a neat idea that hasn’t happened yet.

Currently karma serves more as a sort of “round out your equipment” equalizer while you’re leveling in PvE. If nothing good drops, you can usually buy something useful from a heart vendor. At the same time this system is somewhat flawed because you have no way to know what you can get from any particular vendor. And even if you find something cool, you’d have to write the location down to know later. And then when you’re done with the item it’s rather anticlimactic to just have to destroy it.

More use for karma other than things that cost a zillion points would be nice! Using it for more unique crafting is a step in the right direction, too.

Personally, I have the opposite opinion of many in this post: I think people playing at off-peak hours should gain more points, not fewer. This will incent more players to stop playing at the exact same time. This reduce queues and makes the game more interesting / competitive at all hours, instead of just a few each day.

Kudos to Anet for stating that all players are equally valid, and I hope they do not change point values for people who play at off-peak hours.

HabibLoew.2590:

In WvW one of the things that we see exacerbating the issue is this: From the moment a character is first reported to your client to the first moment that your client is able to render it a non-zero amount of time passes. During this time your client is doing things like loading textures from disk, which can be (at least in computer terms) fairly slow what with all that accessing of spinning, physical storage media. So that means that a character who is moving towards you can potentially appear first at a much closer point even than the one at which they were reported because, of course, they were still moving during that load time.

Why not at least show something – even a person-like blob – that doesn’t need to load various armors and whatnot from disk? Just keep a generic “attacker” in memory all the time. Sure, this doesn’t solve the problem, but it’d be a lot better to know where someone -was- even if you didn’t know what they were doing/holding/wearing.

When the game started, you could sell them back to the vendor for a pro-rated amount. At some point right after launch, you could no longer sell them and they became soulbound. Additionally, there is no warning that they are soulbound when you purchase them. I assume this was a “fix” for some sort of problem that was discovered with selling them (maybe they sold too well?) and no further action has been taken to date.

Account-bound would be much easier to deal with, especially since you can get gathering tools from chests that can be opened by any character. I have some gathering tools that are just wasting bank space because I opened a mystic chest with a low-level character and no one else can use them. Also, the tools are restricted by level anyway so it’s not like you could really exploit anything.

Thanks for the response!

That’s a shame; I was hoping the difference between a noble and a street urchin (for example) would be pretty big – at the least, where you personally lived should be different. I like the idea that various NPCs come and stay in the area, but more changes would be better.

A are the only ones that can get grating in my opinion because those are not on timers. The greetings are caused by player interaction and that is what can make them happen so often.

Do the personal instances change based on your starting story pick during character creation?

Thank you for continuing to keep tabs on this.

Someone else suggested getting an F button (like F2) that despawned a selected minion.

Maybe F2 could select the minion with the lowest health, and F3 could desummon them. (That might also help with knowing when to blow your blood fiend or bone minions.) Or maybe F2 could cycle through minions. Any of these ideas would be better than nothing, and the F buttons are currently quite lonely for necros.

(Quote button is missing again)
“- Spread out undead waves so that only 1 can be active at a time, and reduced their numbers a bit”
Ah, now that’s a good fix – I think that will help a great deal. I noticed that trying to ignore the waves and focusing on the boss got me into trouble fast, but I thought they were infinite. Keeping it to one wave at a time means you can try either strategy (boss focus or kill waves) without getting swarmed.

This was a very challenging encounter, to be sure. I died a few times, but fortunately I could just pop back up in the throne room away from the mobs and the boss never healed. The NPCs are much better for this encounter, at least (well, Logan is, although he still died a lot). My quickly-developed strategy was to kite like mad and use the lifepull constantly and the armor bubble while lifepull was on cooldown. The other abilities were too difficult to figure out while you’re constantly dying (and since they use health you just die faster), so I just used those. I admit that while it was quite a difficulty spike, I actually enjoyed the “new weapon” mechanic, since it made the fight different from others. I agree that being able to practice before you started would have been nice.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Oh, and once you go in. You need to pay for waypoint travel to get out.

At least for my personal story instance, you can walk back to the entrance area and there is a green star that allows you to leave without teleporting.

Ha, finally a place where minion master necros shine! I find that (instant-death jumping puzzles aside) I’ve been able to complete the story missions successfully, although they certainly push me pretty hard, and I’ve learned to NEVER do them underleveled. Typically I find that the “mass mobs” missions (which honestly are about 1 in 3 missions, and I found a lot especially during the “lead up to choosing a faction” missions for humans) go in two phases: first, my minions and the NPCs all charge into battle. I fight and do what I can, and then I suddenly discover I’m all alone: the minions and NPCs have all died. Fortunately I can resummon the minions, and all that killing has typically left the remaining mobs spread out fairly well, which allows me to kite/snipe them. If you can drop out of battle to heal up or rez an NPC, that helps a lot. Then there’s usually the boss left, for whom NPCs are indeed worthless.

I understand that you don’t want NPCs doing all the work and the players just coasting, but maybe if the NPCs at least had more health, that would help some people? Even if they did not do more damage?

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

All classes have “Bandage” as their #4 downed skill, it will self-heal but it will stop if you take any damage. So if you’re “safe” but dead, you can bandage yourself to life.

So with the update, if you fall, you can two things:
- Let time run out, and go to the checkpoint (which is now past the bridge)
- Bandage yourself and try again

No need to leave the instance.

Thank you for that reply and please see my post at the bottom of the previous page for a response.

Signet of Forums.4397:

Wasselin.1235:

Also it’s annoying to be in a “downed” state when there is no one around to revive you and you aren’t attacking a mob.

That’s what downed skill 4 exists for.

I missed this post earlier – WHAT? You can just hit 4 to revive when you’re alone? Oh man I wish this was in a tutorial or something! I thought it just signaled to others that you were downed – that’s all I got from the tooltip from the handful (before this quest) of times I’ve been downed. I never messed with it again since it seemed so worthless. That makes this whole experience even more humiliating…

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Added to 9/24 update:

If you’re knocked off the bridge, your checkpoint will be set on the other side, so you can accept the death and bypass the puzzle, or try it again by reviving at the start. (You’re downed if you fall so you can self-revive.)

Wow, that would have saved me a lot of frustration. I just did this quest today and I came to this forum knowing there would be a post about it because it was really frustrating – easily the most frustrating thing I’ve done in the game so far, and I’ve done my share of vistas. I wish I hadn’t completed the quest now, since it took multiple deaths before I realized I was destroying my armor and it was better to just remove it.

Also, how do you self-revive? I found the 10-second “wait until you’re dead” after you fall part to be particularly annoying as well, since you get teleported out when you fall but you’re in a downed state. There is nothing around to pull life from, so how can you do anything but die? Also, what would your choices be in the future patch: checkpoint (past the timing puzzle), or leave the instance and start over?

I’m glad to see there is a fix to be had, and figured there would/must be: considering that the jumping puzzle immediately after it – that does NOT kill you for failing – insultingly gives you a path to follow and before you could possibly complete it there is also a way to bypass it, I supposed you’d have to fix the first part (which is much worse) as well. I will add that dying repeatedly and then being given a bypass for the easier part really added insult to the injury (although I don’t begrudge the bypass for those who simply hate jumping puzzles).

shizo.5698:

Dont know if a bug, but:

summoning minions underwater is so much faster than on the land.

I don’t think it is, since mining also goes much faster underwater. Hard to say.

Thought on minion AI: I noticed that before level 30 I had very little trouble with minion AI. Minions were very responsive to attacks. However, as soon as the flesh golem entered the picture, suddenly minion AI got a lot worse. It wasn’t until the flesh golem was part of my skill bar that pets would suddenly stand still for a full second or two before attacking (or sometimes never attack).

I’m not sure if it was related or not but it seemed to me to be related.

natsos.3692:

To be honest I returned after some more testings, and I think we have a new build winner,wells.

Build

Tip:Gear up for power-toughness-vitality

I like this build because it also synergies well with a MM build as an alternate (it uses the same trait trees that MMs need).

Someone claimed that precision seemed to increase the number of crits from minions, but this hasn’t been verified. Due to stats on minions being completely hidden, it’s almost impossible to tell without extensive testing.

Anecdotally the answer does seem to be: not at all.

The funniest thing to me is that yesterday wood could be bought for ~22c each, but planks were selling for 5c. I’m guessing the price was driven down by people who just used wood to skill up and didn’t use all their planks?

Allso.5093:

Okay you need 77 Mystic Clovers which I guess makes sence considering 7 is a lucky number. That means it will take arround 900-1000k karma for the entire legendary.

There you go: see? Not nearly as bad.

Good luck!

LinseyMurdock.4165:

Agreed. They should be Account Bound. I’m looking at getting a fix for this into an upcoming build.

Hooray!

Is there any reason gathering equipment is also soulbound instead of account bound (and not shown to be soulbound until after you purchase it)?

There is one advantage to having a satchel over having 6 pieces of armor: inventory space for storage. You can make one for an alt and it doesn’t take up as much space.

Glad to know that ANet is finally calling this a bug after weeks of people questioning it!