Guild Wars 2

Data miners found a Harp instrument and Box of Chocolate costume brawl toy for what it is worth.

That is a remarkably clever idea.

Promoting and failures from making Mystic Clovers were my best ways aside from just buying them outright.

Batercus.6257:

Scarlet wins….

Hah!

But seriously… network error and cannot log in at all.

Wintersday in GW1 was ALL about Grenth and Dwayna. I’d be surprised if it didn’t make another appearance at that time.

Almost all the Halloween items came back.

Hmm… maybe it is just chrome…

You guys probably already know, but the HoM site has been pretty messed up for some time now.

Any chance it will be fixed?

Have you guys considered have your bug repository be public in some fashion?

I am not saying players should be able to add to it, but it would be great (speaking as someone who has worked on develoment/QA stuff) if I could search known bugs and either see team commentary and know it is being addressed, that a fix is in progress to address them, or reference them in forum posts so the folks watching this forum can quickly find it and update with new/relevant data.

Just a passing thought that someone likely mentioned long ago already. XD

I got it purely for cosmetic reasons on my Engi (since he is my main).

Between it, the Consort Harvester, and a Chop-It All, I am a high tech materials gatherer.

(For that same reason I avoided the Jack In The Box harvester like the plague. Hella ugly. My necro likes the Bone Pick and Toxic Axe though.

This deserves as much attention as the hobo sack issue. Putting it back on the front page.

Karl McLain.5604:

Profession Changes
Engineer:
We feel that the engineer is in a decent place right now, but we did take this opportunity to scale down a few outlier skills in terms of potency. Net Turret’s immobilize duration has been lowered to reduce the amount of lockdown after a Supply Crate drop, and Poison Grenade’s poison duration has been lowered to account for poison field stacking.

• Net Turret: Decreased the immobilize duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds on the basic attack.
• Poison Grenade: Reduced the poison duration per pulse from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Box of Nails: Reduced the cast time from 1 second to 3/4 second.
• Box of Piranhas: Reduced the cast time from 1 second to 3/4 second.
• A.E.D.: Reduced the cast time from 1 second to 3/4 second.

Overall, most of these changes are not a big deal one way or the other. What is surprising is to see focus on toning down a class that is riddled with bugs and design philosophy dissonance.

• The most glaring bug to an entire line of skills for the class are Turrets. There have been dozens of threads in the Engi and Bug forum with countless lines of research and detail that has gone mostly unrecognized.

• Hobo Sacks continues to be a distraction from a design philosophy (horizontal and cosmetic progression) standpoint. The meta of more than half of the Living Story events has been a back item that most engi’s will never see. Between the shield covering it and then the hobosack, why even bother? And if you do leave it on, you have to deal with horrible clipping. In the engi forums there is an 11 page thread that has been going on for a year with the last red comment six months ago.

• Ascended and Legendary Weapons again attack the class on two fronts. Cosmetically, we never see them because we have our kits on, and more over we don’t get anything from the damage increase of these items. We are running level 30 fractals with people using high power weapons while our kits are locked into being scaled to exotic. What incentive to Engi’s have to pursue this high end game equipment when both the cosmetic and gameplay aspects are nullified by using skills the class was designed around. Again, there is a 7 page thread in the engi forums with a comment from Colin 9 months ago saying this was on your radar, but still hasn’t been addressed.

• Elite Skills for this class still really don’t feel elite compared to other classes (And I know they have their fair share of problems too). Moreover, since the one skill that every Engi, more or less, has to use because the others are not worth it is the one that both the developers and players see constantly feels too strong, the parts that go into it are weakened as you try to adjust that elite. So, not only are turrets frustrating because of bugs, they become even more worthless as stand alone deploys. If you really want to tone down Supply Drop, then make the turrets be different assets. Call them Supply Drop Rifle, Net, Healing, and Flame Turret so the independent versions can at least try to remain competitive for a place on the utility bar. Also, make Elixir X and Mortar more competitive or do away with them entirely. Especially Mortar. No one uses it and no other party member has ever said “OMG deploy the mortar for me” like they do, say, Ele conjured weapons. Which, while inconsistent (but recently somewhat improved) at least have a purpose or can even compete to be your primary weapon.

• Trait & skill synergy and diversity. I know this is a longer term thing and all classes need spit and polish, but many engis only consider 2 maybe 3 builds per game mode (PvE vs. sPvP vs. WvW) to be competitive. Turrets and gadgets are weird/broken or in the case of the later only have one standout option (rocket boots). Traits are either have really good synergy with weapons and skills, or are just completely ignored cause they don’t or cater to gadgets and turrets that many folks don’t want to touch. I am not saying all engi traits need an overhaul, but it is confusing to look at where some traits are and what they effect in relation to our reasonable assertion to how the class is “expected” to be played. By expected, I mean your design philosophy.

This is already way to TL;DR so I’ll stop here.

Moreover, I’ll reserve judgement until the full preview is released much closer to the patch for more specific commentary. Right now, what is shared and planed feels a bit too nebulous to try and get down into the weeds over.

• Still like the ele attunement icon idea if you decide to hide the hobo-sack.

• Another thought. Maybe have kit graphics be more driven by the race of the engi? As an Asura, some of the kit art (not just the sacks) seems very Human and Charr influenced (Read: crude). Maybe have the T3 cultural weapon person sell something that is effectively a kit skin to replace the default stuff? While this still competes with the notion of using backpiece skins (a popular meta reward) I’d seriously pause if my Engi Kits could suddenly have a more Asuran aesthetic.

• Recently switched to the Storm Wizard backpack skin on a whim. Dear lord, the clipping. Make it stop.

• Sorta unrelated, but as many of us also use shields, the option to hide them while not in combat/drawn would also be nice.

• Also recently got The Quip. The grenade barrage change is a nice touch, but it would still be nice to see a more complete graphical integration of legendaries and kits (aside from the not getting damage value issue).

It does not stop gemstones. It does however appear to stop the chance to get the extra ore piece that guild bonuses and boosters increase. All nodes I have mined with the new pick (with the exception of iron, which was always weird) have only given me 3 ore of that type. Nodes I mine with my molten or bone pick still give me that extra piece without issue.

Dev response:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Celestial-Ferocity-nerf/page/5#post3567442

Dev response:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Celestial-Ferocity-nerf/page/5#post3567442

Another small anecdotal sample:

• 36 Iron Ore
• 12 Silver Ore
• 24 Ori Ore
• 87 Mithril Ore
• 41 Sprockets
• Opal Crystal
• Chrys Orb
• Chrys Crystal
• Sapphire Crystal
• Sapphire Orb
• Beryl Crystal

This is with the guild resource banner buff and 48 hour guild wide buff. I got no double strikes for extra ore. All piles were divisible by 3.

Interesting…

Quarktastic.1027:

I love how the forums blew up so quickly over this, without anyone actually testing the pick to see what it really does.

I’ve been using the pick for the better part of a day, just running around mining nodes in Orr and Sparkfly Fen. I’ve noticed that I never seem to get multiple ore chunks from a single swing with this pick. Rather, I get one ore chunk and a sprocket. So my running theory is, the pick replaces the bonus ore chunks you would normally get from nodes with watchwork sprockets. If this is true, the pick is far less “pay2win” than it appears.

Now that you mention it, I think you are right. That is interesting…

I’ll pay attention when I go on my resource run tonight.

Maybe I was unclear in my post, or maybe some chose to ignore it, so I will say it in bold, again.

The 20% that I stated was calculated based on a sample of approx 130 pick strikes yielding about 30 sprockets. There is no actual or meaning data/metric that determines the actual amount. Moreover, since it is RNG, each strike has that success or fail. In some cases, all three strikes gave me a sprocket. In some cases 12 strikes yielded none.

Please stop using that number as a fact, cause it is not. And until someone is willing to waste the time to do it for science I would recommend not referencing it as a cornerstone to your argument.

Also, could some of you please share where you received your omniscience? Your ability to rattle off with such specificity and confidence what is coming and how it is coming is truly something to be marveled. Either that, or you are committing the one of the common fallacies of “begging the question”, “straw man”, “arguing from ignorance”, or “appeal to probability”. Take your pick.

Also, people can already “buy” legendaries and the means to get ascended gear. Drop a couple hundred bucks on gems, wait until Tuesday morning when the gem to gold ratio always spikes above 6G, cash them in, and go on a shopping spree. You’ll get what you want and introduce “manufactured” gold into the economy doing FAR more damage than this pick or other items like it ever will.

I just wanted to snip this out of my post in the much longer thread going on in general discussion.

“As the person who posted the “20%” number on Reddit I feel partially culpable for it being used here over and over. As someone with an Engi I grabbed the pick right away purely for thematic purposes. That sample and derived percentage was based on a late night iron ore run where I pulled in about 130 mineral resources (iron and silver) and had about 30 sprockets as well. I’d hardly call this a meaningful data set, or meaningful money (I am whole 3s richer for it). It is notable, however, how quickly one person’s limited experience became a fact though. It is, like many other items, likely driven by RDM and I could have just been on a hot streak. To wave it around as some hard and fast number is a little ridiculous.”

As the person who posted the “20%” number on Reddit I feel partially culpable for it being used here over and over. As someone with an Engi I grabbed the pick right away purely for thematic purposes. That sample and derived percentage was based on a late night iron ore run where I pulled in about 130 mineral resources (iron and silver) and had about 30 sprockets as well. I’d hardly call this a meaningful data set, or meaningful money (I am whole 3s richer for it). It is notable, however, how quickly one person’s limited experience became a fact though. It is, like many other items, likely driven by RDM and I could have just been on a hot streak. To wave it around as some hard and fast number is a little ridiculous.

Two sayings immediately spring to my mind — “When you see hoof prints, look for horses, not zebras” and “Never attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by carelessness or stupidity.” To assume you understand ANet’s motivations on creating this item gives anyone a level of arrogance (or omniscience) that is, frankly, reckless. (Your use of the dollar sign, BTW, hearkens back to the old Apple/PC Wars of the 90s, so sorry if you thought you were being original.)

This community, like all MMO communities, is galvanized by and coalesces around drama/controversy because of our emotional attachments to our effort expended. We don’t want to see that effort go to waste cause then it would mean our time has been wasted. Even I concede I have done the same recently with regard to the proposed critical changes and celestial gear (before you clever people looking to score internet points going digging through my posting history). But, I find it interesting that people are up in arms about a convenience item that has a cute gimmick related to the LS as being P2W, when the fact is that the game, since it’s inception, has had a Gem => Gold system that allows anyone with a large enough bank account to get a legendary in a day for about $300. Moreover, that process inflating the economy with the introduction of “manufactured” currency.

So far all I have seen is a rash logical fallacies and very little, if any, compelling data or reason to support that this thread is little more than a knee jerk reaction. I’d like to think a red will nip this in the bud, but us screaming at each other and trying to prove who is more clever by arguing over points that are mostly unsubstantiated in any meaningful way is hardly going to see any meaningful resolution.

231 replies. 5 pages.

On page 3? I don’t think so.

Naz.2607:

I wish ppl would stop trying to get rid of the ‘downed state’ in GW2. It’s unique & works well with many aspects of this game, leave it alone.

Unless you are an Engi.

Agreed. People are getting into the weeds of theorycrafting stats, but the real crux of this issue is the good faith relationship between the gamer and developer. One could also look to their stated design philosophy to diversify builds and equipment build outs and how this only further hurts that initiative.

Specifically, Celestial crafting is unique in every sense compared to other prefixes. A uniqueness exacerbated by the ascended crafting process. Those of us who have completed or nearly completed ascended celestial armor in good faith that it was going to remain stable as there was no indication it was going to change.

Somewhere, ANet understands this, cause with other major design changes there has been compensation or ample warning in some form (See: Glory removal & MF changes). As it is, most people took the MF changes to celestial in relative stride, have forgotten about it, or never knew it had it.

In the end, because of this “breach” of good faith, ANet either needs to assure Celestial gear owners that the gear will either be compensated in some genuine way, or that we will be able to choose a different prefix like with MF changes.

My 2 copper anyway.

Not to be a snot, but a red really should just nip this in the bud or make a formal feedback thread.

Bugged on Fort Aspenwood as well.

I normally don’t like to whine or complain about these sorts of gaming minutiae, but this is really unacceptable. After people have been pouring gold and time into crafting ascended (and doubly timegated in the case of celestial) gear, you make a change like this? The MF change, while certainly an annoying poke in the eye, was not the end of the world for me, personally.

I would really like to see a red address this issue either by assuring us that ferocity will be a straight over change (like zerk) or there will be other stats changed/added to celestial to make it remain relevant to the meta.

Thank you for your consideration.

Pretty please? With quaggan tears on top?

Asura Engi: Qwerkk

Generally PvE with some WvW. Spec and gear to be versatile, flexible, and responsive to what party needs. Worked really well for me so far.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqelIqqbHxSdF17ICIF1HAISR+ZZfe8WpFEC-jgCBIgBBbEkEBgIIhJfFRjtMsIasqaER1qkYGcDZ2mLqSBo1uK-e

Depending on what is going on, I will swap in fire forged and juggernaut with FT instead of Elixir B.

I also will swap in BK depending on what is going on and then SF seems like the clear choice.

What is the general feeling post patch?

Relevance.

/15chars

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

nor is it meant as a deliberate exclusion of the engineer profession.

You all may not have meant it to exclude a class deliberately, but it has. An extra bone you could have thrown Engi’s to allay the fears of getting an end game content drop that we may end up vendor trashing is how will it be bound, if at all:

1.)If you intention is to make it soul bound, then it will be tremendously frustrating to see it pop into my inventory instead of a different exotic level drop.

2.) If it is not bound, then at least I know I can put it up on the TP and make some cash toward something I want.

3.)If it is neither and account bound, I’ll still be likely frustrated, but then at least maybe I can use it on an alt… some day… if I happen to get one to level 80.

I appreciate your apology, and hope that all the devs can take away from this the general frustrations of Engis as we are continually excluded from content by the nature of how our class is designed. This, as it stands, is just lemon juice in an a series of open paper cuts.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Just because the rune set isn’t relevant to us that doesn’t mean that there’s no reason/reward for Engineers to run Fractals.

If this is your exotic drop (soul bound no less) as an engi more than a few times, it will be exceedingly frustrating over time, and potentially discouraging to running fractals. Aside from something like runes excluding classes (any class for that matter) being a bit silly, making content rewards essentially useless to a class seems a bit clumsy and needlessly obtuse.

Additionally, it is compounded by the fact that they appear to have gone out of their way to fix this issue with other drops such as fractal weapons where you will be able to select the skin you want, rather than having a soul bound item you may never use. Moreover, with the devs focused on balance fixes to promote build diversity, why then would you exclude a class, any class, from this design culture.

These design and implementation decisions seem inconsistent (not just with this rune set), but this is something that I think we all, on some level, have come to expect regardless of class. No amount of hubris from the devs or “pro” class players can cover them either.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Shall we give Kits to all other professions so they can properly utilize Rune of the Engineer?

Ah. I see. This must be part of that new initiative for the players and devs to be thoughtful, polite, and engaging with one another.

I’ll toss my vote into the hat as well. I was hoping to use this as my underwater skin only to be pretty disappointed that you couldn’t.

Is completely unusable by our class:

“The Rune of Resistance grants bonus toughness, a reduction in condition duration, and aegis upon using a signet.”

Or… we are getting signets… which I doubt.

Thanks, ANet. =/

As an Engi, I am a fan. +Power +Condition and 3 stacks of might for 20s when using a heal skill? With a Sigil of Battle? I am able to keep about 15 stacks on might just by myself.

nomnomnomnom XD

Most people have said, quite well, the issues facing Engis (their scaling with Asc and Leg weaps, trait confusion, gadget and turret issues, etc…), so I won’t rehash these arguments. I would say, that addressing and shoring up some of these things first might have a more effective result than just rearranging deck chairs in the trait trees. If a class or it’s abilities performance are fundamentally bugged or crippled by inconsistent design then changes in this one area really hold little or no potential effect.

While I am encouraged that there is more direct communication from the devs, I am at the same time discouraged when I see language like “We wanted to maintain the engineer’s core roles while still increasing build diversity” and see some of these changes. Reminds me of a line by a Mr. Montoya. I would actually be genuinely curious to see what the devs feel the “core role” of the Engi is because when you consider the sum of its parts, not even many Engi’s have a clear idea of what that is.

That said, I did want to throw out there that the Reserve Mines trait is pretty useless with the current state of mines. Much like the Mine utility skill that sees enemies walk right over top of them and they never detonate. Increasing the “sensitivity” and radius on mines would be a welcome change not only to the utility skill, but this minor trait. This speaks to my original point of fixing the buggy or erratic performance of existing skill/trait implementation before trying to “fix” something else.

PvE (Selfishly):

1.) Weapon Damage not being applied to kits. Why should engis bother for ascended and legendary weapons?

2.) Hobo-Sacks & Shields. So much of the end game is cosmetic based and yet Engis loose out on showing off an entire slot (with some of the cooler textures) by either equipping a shield or using a kit.

3.) Class Balance & Builds

I just wanted to take an opportunity to chime in. As someone who has now S-ranked SAB (with the exception of the bugged W2 bubble ach) here are my thoughts. I should also add, I missed SAB W1 as I was on hiatus so it was great to get a chance to play it. So, without further ado:

1.) W1 is fun. W2 is long.
W1 is a bite size and delicious throw back to a time of gaming long since past that many whippersnappers never had the chance to experience. The subtle nods and visuals to these classics games and genres was a pleasure.

W2 often gets called hard. It is certainly more challenging, but the spirit of W1 is still there. I think the devs tried to be too clever by half and forgot that their game engine is an MMO and not a platformer. Discrepancies in 3D terrain and hit boxes often led to much frustration. That said, if the W2 zones were more in line with the length of the W1 zones, this difficultly may not have been as apparent. It is sorta like increasing the HP and the attack power of a mob. It may only need one, and not the other. If these levels had been only more difficult, I think it would have been much more palatable. Pre-patch, I often found myself asking, “Am I close yet?”

2.) The Trouble with Tribulation Mode
In my humble opinion (and sprinkled with some indie game design/map generation experience) Tribulation mode’s difficulty and frustrations can be summed up in one word: Arbitrary.

I get what you guys are trying to do here. Very Super Meat Boy meets Super Hexagon meets classic platformers. Players are thrust into Tribulation mode and expected to feel their way through the level. In 2D, this is way more palatable. In 3D, with the afore mentioned terrain and hit box issues it starts it wear on you quickly when those two things fail to align properly. Add this to a continue coin mechanic (and by proxy the infinite coin) and you can see where folks just want to throw their hands up.

If I may be so bold, I would consider adding a three things in a future update: a tribulation tutorial offered by virtual Moto, a flute song that will reveal hidden dangers, and a consumable (for bubble baubles) that will give you a path to follow (similar to Dead Space). The flute song is something the player has to earn and if the price is right people can get the consumable. This also give baubles more value then they currently have. Which leads me to…

3.) Bang for Your Bauble
While I wasn’t here for the first SAB, I think taking away things like the shards, philosopher stones, and original SAB weapons/items was a mistake. Content should always be additive whenever possible. The former two items encourage end game folks to stay active in your addon content, the later just felt arbitrary. What harm is there in letting people get the original SAB items. This establishes a baseline in a purely color perspective. If you have a blue item, you have mastered normal mode. The additional colors establish overcoming Tribulation mode. Also, sitting on stacks of baubles (maybe a future wallet entry since they are basically dungeon tokens) with nothing to use them on is weird.

Best of luck on SAB W3.
-Qwerkk

P.S. – Unrelated to the SAB directly, if it was not for Josh’s open, receptive, and thoughtful comments this would have been a PR disaster for you all. Far to often, game devs would rather remain silent and it is just perplexing to see that happen. Especially in MMOs that thrive by having a strong and well informed community. I know that everything they say can seem/feel like Prometheus bringing fire to humanity, but that is only cause of how infrequently it happens; so people hang on every word. More frequent and meaningful dialogue, time permitting, changes the culture to a more reciprocal one, rather than one of hanging on every word.

… my two copper anyway…

Or worse, it can figure out that it is not supposed to be in there…

Jebus.

I am in the gong strike. That was the first thing I tried.

…and then this happens.

Please put a suicide or stuck command in.

This seems like a no brainer, but the balloon or the ability to drop the balloon dispenser from Trib mode would be pretty slick.

ellesee.8297:

buffs all around but you’re still not satisfied.
can you please go roll another class already

It’s a mixed bag of fixes that have been a long time coming (and still more remain) and buffs that... stabilize **puts on sunglasses*... a few holes in the design of the class.

To be frank, I would have been happier if everything is/was just fixed. That way, when they consider buffs/tweaks they are working from a proper baseline rather than they fix things after the buffs/tweaks and suddenly find they need to bang us over the head with a nerf bat.

I am not saying we need to be alerted to every world event when it happens, but it would be nice if the overflow instances were synced so that they could participate. I know you are planning to do this with Teq too, but it would be great if the others were pulled back in as well.

Another skin that, as a P/S Engi, I’ll almost never see. =/

Krag has the right idea for power builds, but Rabid is pretty excellent for condition builds.

Also, be aware that you will be pretty squishy if you go full berserker or rabid. So, you might consider mixing in some Dire or Soldier for some toughness and vit.

Main profession: Engineer
Favourite colour: Grey
Favourite animal: Osprey
Favourite mythical creature: Phoenix
Favourite school discipline and/or graduation major: Computers
Favourite type of vehicle (can be car brand or any vehicle, really): Motorcycle
Weapon of choice (can be one that is not in the game, or in the game but not used in the right context (e.g. Spear), but please specify if so): Chinese Straight Sword
Favourite ancient culture (greek, egyptian, roman, mayan, chinese, etc): Roman
Most important stat (Intelligence, Strength and Speed ONLY): Intelligence
Religion (including Atheism and Agnosticism): Atheism

Took the test and got Thief… then noticed it is not even possible to get Engineer and I had a sad.

Vick.6805:

To be fair, I also know people who have gone Akitten SAB just for the purpose of recording the music, so to each his own.

Save them some time and effort and send them here:

https://soundcloud.com/arenanet