Guild Wars 2

Thanks Jockum. Now my transfer to the Whiteside server is even better justified. Oh well. They know what we want better than we do. That’s why so many have left….hmm….

Made it to level 8 Leveling isn’t too bad. More interesting than heart quests or fetch quests.

Combat is surprisingly easy. I’m running a Stalker, and Stealth + Analyze Weakness + 2x Impale with a couple autos thrown in is taking down world bosses solo O.o Meanwhile I see ranging Spellslingers taking 10s to kill a single trash mob xD

It’s fun though, and I imagine it will get harder at higher levels. Things like False Retreat look like they’ll lead to some really fun gameplay as things ramp up.

NoTrigger.8396:

http://www.twitch.tv/aaritv

gonna summon a secret worldboss (2 40 man raid bosses) in the open world for artifact weapon imbuement soon if anyone wants to watch. not sure if the boss will bug out or not since nobody has seen it before.

Congrats on that sweet kill :P

Iris Ng.9845:

Where is the end game now?

PvF — you’re playing it

You can create toons on both Whiteside factions with the same account, though, right? I’m prolly gonna start with an Aurin, but there is definitely a Chua in my future.

Minigrump.4961:

what faction are you? dominion or exile?

I went with dominion since I love the chua.

and dlonie i would love to run stuff with you. heck even while levelling (i could roll a toon for the exiles if you aren’t dominion)

I talked my wife into playing it, too, and I think we settled on Exile. Those Aurin…so cute. I haven’t rolled a toon yet (download didn’t finish last night, and now I’m at work. Boo.), but my ign should be ‘dlonie’ there as well.

Maybe we should start a guild for GW2 dungeoneers looking for something new. Obvs Exiles. That’s what we are, for kitten’s sake.

“The Forgotten Tyrians”

Trice.4598:

I really hope GW2 get HoT right and give us instanced contents.

You gotta wonder though, how’s it gonna be after HoT?

If we get instanced content, do you think we’ll see them maintain it, tweak it, tune it, etc? The original dungeons rarely see their many bugs fixed, then Aetherpath flopped and they didn’t bother trying to fix anything about it. Then we can talk about fractal leaderboards and ascended chest drops…

Even if they do add new content with HoT, do you think they’ll take it seriously? (Not being snarky, seriously looking for opinions)

But I do seriously like the idea of having him use an existing or new melee attack at melee players instead of the projectile.

But let’s face it — ain’t gonna happen.

I think that what ArenaNet should really do about this is completely ignore it.

They should just not comment on it and if they must fix it, they should wait at least a couple of months, leaving their players in the dark the entire time, wondering if the HoT content will see similar levels of maintenance after it gets pushed out.

I think that’s the smart business move here.

Minigrump.4961:

@no trigger I am NA.

Same, maybe we can run some stuff after I level

just need peeps to do it with that do not mind having a scrub around until i learn how to play properly and get better

I’m really hoping to be able to find a newbie guild (not a teaching guild) to do the raids with. A bunch of inexperienced players trying to figure it all out for the first time sounds fun

Hopefully there are a few around. Shouldn’t be too hard, honestly, with the F2P announcement opening things up.

And OMG the housing, how I missed the housing. I believe i just spent 2 hours today playing around in the hoverboard skatepark i built around a year ago when the game first came out.

O.o

The housing looked cool, but that’s a whole new level. Nifty.

I think i am fanboying too much about this game :/

Nonsense — it’s pretty refreshing to see excitement on this forum again. Besides, this’ll all be gone once a mod catches wind of it. Maybe I’ll get enough infractions for a permaban from this place. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

NoTrigger.8396:

Do they seem to give a flying kitten about PvE balance?
Do they introduce large bugs/regressions and then completely ignore them for months/years? (e.g. Alphard, Necrid Bolt, slaying potions, Arah WPs, etc)

yes, more than about the pvp balance. timetravel is their dungeon and raid lead designer. he is on our teamspeak every single week to ask for feedback and stuff. also the devs are really cool. if you have a problem, find timetravel somewhere in a twitch stream (he is watching every day during and after work) and he will help you out.

there is also feedback threads on forums for every single dungeon and raid.
bugs are generally fixed in a hotfix patch in the same week or if the bug is really hard to fix in a bi-weekly patch.

if they kitten up something really hard, for example make a boss unkillable (happened in ds 40 once), they even go so far to despawn this one boss for your raid instance until the bug is fixed.

The devcare is real. I was browsing their forums last night, and they’re very involved with their community. I was freaking out to my wife, who’s playing EQ2 + ESO, “OMG they actually just helped somebody out, right on the forums!” “Holy crap, they’re acknowledging bugs in the last patch and working with the players to fix them!” “They have feedback threads that actually see dev activity!”

She just says “Wow, you GW2 guys are really starved out there. kitten . Is it really that bad?”

Yeah….

That timetravel guy is all over the place. It’s great to see that level of care going into a product.

Jerus.4350:

Wildstar f2p sounds interesting, I’m tempted just to buy it now, but a night out drinking with friends simply sounds more interesting to me

Well, yeah :P

combine that with 6 day workweeks right now, yeah, doubt I’ll end up picking it up.

Ugh.

I only really keep up with GW2 for the friends I’ve made and the dreams of what GW2 could be if they broadened their scope. Can’t help but feel I’m not long for this place, but I’m not one to announce that I’ve quit, I’ve done it before in other games only to come back and I don’t like being a liar if i can avoid it.

That’s what’s kept me here for at least the last year: The people. But there are fewer and fewer of them around. And most that remain don’t want to run anything…ever. Hell, I don’t even want to run anything anymore these days…

And as for “I quit” posts, well…here’s mine xD I ended up finding a regular duo partner and that eeked a few more months of fun for me. But now even that’s gotten repetitive.

I don’t necessarily think a big “I quit” thread is necessary, but I do appreciate it when dungeon folks leave a note on this thread when they go. It’s better than just wondering “what the hell happened to X” several months down the road. Well, not that there’s any reason to wonder, the answer is always: They got fed up and bored and left…

We’ve discussed this before, but seriously — so much wasted potential.

Caithe’s Dagger and the new Chain Sword are the last two items that had me really wanting to get them for style.

Haha, that’s funny, we must have similar tastes — the only cosmetic item I’ve gotten from the gem store was Caithe’s Dagger, and then the other day I was about to grab the whip sword, but I noticed the handle is a crappy color that doesn’t match any of my toons :’-(

That’s the thing about GW2. They do a little of everything, but nothing well. The two most publicized aspects of the game, fashion and story, aren’t even that well done. Still can’t dye weapons, and the LS is a joke that stopped being funny 2 years ago. PS? Well, they’ve left it broken for what, a year now? idgi.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Theres only one issue. I saw that F2P players wont be able to invite nor create a guild..

You may have missed this in the walls of text :P

NoTrigger.8396:

dlonie.6547:

The thing I noticed about the pay model is that it does seem to have some rather large drawbacks for free players — only 3 TP listings instead of 30, free players can’t have guild invite privs, etc…stuff that would really make it hard to be an active without a sub. But I’m cool with treating the free account as a trial, which is sorta what it sounds like. You may not have to get a sub, but you’re gonna want one at some point.

you dont need the optional sub. and for the guild thing, the way you can handle it, if you are guild leader you can activate an option so 8% of the gold income of the members goes to the guild bank. from that money the guild leader can purchase credd to activate the optional sub. np

So you can buy the sub with in game currency, and if you start a large enough guild (while paying for a sub?), it sounds like it common for the guild to pay the leader’s sub eventually.

Interesting perspectives, thanks for sharing them.

I like immersion as well, and I’ve been getting that from DA and ESO lately. I’m not really expecting it from WS — it just looks like a fun, silly story, which is fine with me To be honest, I’ve never found this game to be very immersive at all. The GW books are great and have a nice story to them, but the game just doesn’t present stories very well, IMO.

I’ve never been much for the cosmetic side of things, which is very likely why I’ve been unhappy with endgame in GW2. I mean, I don’t have any armor that wasn’t bought with dungeon tokens tbh…I’ve laid down a bit of gold on dyes, but that’s about it, lol.

It’s interesting to me, given GW2’s track record, that the cosmetics would be enough to keep people playing. I just don’t share any piece of that mindset, I suppose.

The “Adventures” thing describes what I’m looking for in a game to a T: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iphgBVtf2HA Repeatability with choices that matter and take you down a different path each playthrough (think replaying DA). Hopefully it’s not a bunch of fake “diamond” branches that just end up in the same spot regardless of choice, as many games seem to make these days. That diversity in replay…that’s what grabs me.

And I just watched the raid video, NoTrigger. Freaking awesome. Gonna watch the other now

Jerus.4350:

deSade.9437:

The graphics and the sh—- erm, sci-fi thingy disgust me, but I may be persuaded to try out the game, if the combat’s engaging. But it has to be stellar to make up for the sh— the rest.

This, my main problems when I was looking at it was the graphics, the whole big shapes thing, then the design of the classes (I don’t know it just felt a little more strait forward, less situationally OP tricks, which is good, just I enjoy really knowing how to use those tools in the right situations, though I only dabbled and I may be really wrong on this).

But…

content

PvE balance

PvE maintenance

mmmmm

And you crazy mofos are complaining about the artwork. smh :P

And lastly, I just don’t know if I can get motivated to play another MMO and climb that hill of knowledge again, it was tough with GW2 and I’m no where near as knowledgeable or as good at this game compared to my older games. Kinda feel like it’s about time to say goodbye to MMOs for me.

:-(

Odds are good that this game isn’t as deep/complex as some other games, in combat or lore, so that may be while you don’t feel as knowledgeable It’s not that you don’t know much, it’s just that there’s not much to know.

Just did Those videos are hilarious. Thinking of stalker, sounds like fun.

I think some of my guildies might still play. I’ll ask around and see what faction they’re in.

Sigh. Guess I should call out of work tomorrow…

Thieves can bring smoke screen and contribute to projectile defense, too. It’ll help if you can get on voice chat with them and coordinate reflects. I think it’s more fun that way, too :P

Oh, anything I should know that the official class descriptions etc won’t tell me? (Read: Are there any “necro” classes?)

Cool.

lols, I just went to their dev tracker. I wanted to count how many dev posts were made in the last week.

I stopped at 50, and hadn’t finished counting today’s posts O.o

http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/devtracker/

What madness is this?!?!?

(ok, seems like most of it was replies to the F2P announcement thread, so this is exceptional, but still. We don’t even see an acknowledgement of “Hey, we completely kittened up the main storyline, we should do something about that” until 8 months later….)

Awesome, I hope they do continue them. Sounds like that’s the intention :+1:

And yanno, I even participated in the API CDI. I guess it just felt different since it was more technical and so disconnected from gameplay that I didn’t really think of it as a CDI >.<

deSade.9437:

Whoever has to pug, well… [something intelligent]

Interesting point.

Re: stressfulness of FotM, I get that. The RNG of not know whether you’ll enjoy or despise the next hour (or three) of your life is enough to keep me away from them. Remember prepatch dredge?

Yeah. kitten that. I’m sure most of us can still remember that feeling of pugdread.

Yeah, ok. kitten it. Sold.

It’s $20 atm for the box and a month sub. Well worth it just to satisfy my curiosity.

Scifi isn’t my bag, and sure, the art is on the silly side (which is fine with me, honestly), but it sounds pretty kittening nice compared to this wasteland.

°_° indeed. That bit reminded me of Hrouda. Before the dark times. The “before” times.

Is it safe to assume that there are currently no plans to continue the CDI series now that Chris Whiteside is no longer with ArenaNet?

He seemed to be championing them, and I’m guessing that in the HoT development fray they’re still “on the table”, but buried quite deeply.

Can anyone provide a link to where ArenaNet has addressed this since his departure, or if it’s not been answered previously, perhaps they could address it now?

NoTrigger.8396:

dlonie.6547:

Anyone want to share their experiences with WS combat, content quality/quantity? I’ve heard it’s improved quite a bit since launch, so I’m curious how it is today since I’ve not heard much since launch.

what exactly do you want to know?

Hmm, I suppose there are a few things:

- What are the differences/similarities between combat in GW2 and WS?
- Do they release new endgame content regularly? How much (approx # of raids, etc) and how often?
- Is the lore significant, or just sort of background filler? (Just curious, because I’ve never even heard anything about it :P)
- Do they seem to give a flying kitten about PvE balance?
- Do they introduce large bugs/regressions and then completely ignore them for months/years? (e.g. Alphard, Necrid Bolt, slaying potions, Arah WPs, etc)

well loyality points are earned by purchases or optional sub. optional sub doesnt really give you stuff that you need, just % on currency rewarded and so on. the f2p version will have the normal values we have now. so optional sub isnt needed either.

The thing I noticed about the pay model is that it does seem to have some rather large drawbacks for free players — only 3 TP listings instead of 30, free players can’t have guild invite privs, etc…stuff that would really make it hard to be an active without a sub. But I’m cool with treating the free account as a trial, which is sorta what it sounds like. You may not have to get a sub, but you’re gonna want one at some point.

after your first step in GA you will never look back and feel like you wasted your life in gw2.

Already there — since ArenaNet continues to indicate that they really don’t give two kittens about maintaining instanced content or keeping their players informed, I’m ready to go. They’ve had plenty of time to try to fix things, and it’s quite clear that it’s just not going to happen.

Are you having specific troubles with any particular encounters?

Otherwise, all I can suggest (as a casual FotM’r) is to use Black Powder frequently and intelligently to help your team survive in melee.

ikr?

Anyone want to share their experiences with WS combat, content quality/quantity? I’ve heard it’s improved quite a bit since launch, so I’m curious how it is today since I’ve not heard much since launch.

Heh. I’ve realized that this thread is just a halfway house for GW2 combat addicts looking for their next fix.

Subscribing will definitely have some non-trivial advantages, but I’m happy about this because I’ve wanted to check it out for a while. I’ve just heard a lot of negatives and didn’t want to have to pay to try it out.

It sounds like they’re trying to avoid making a P2W scenario, but we’ll see how long that lasts :P

Well, WildStar just got a lot more compelling.

tl;dr, WS is going F2P “sometime this fall” (no date given).

Chasing kiting enemies is OMG fun.

/s

It is a bad excuse. If ArenaNet can build an MMO, but cannot figure out basic asynch access patterns for locking a shared resource, then something is seriously wrong. If that was really a limitation for them, you wouldn’t be able to buy items on Sell Order on the TP, or even just withdraw anything from the guild bank, etc etc, since those have the same issues with simultaneous access.

I’ll translate their excuse from PR marketing speak into plain english: “We don’t think it’s important enough to put developer time towards.”

That said, I’d love to see it. Or at least, just the ability to double-click items to deposit/withdraw them, like the other bank interface. Dragging items around is quite slow when doing bulk transactions, and there are noreally shouldn’t be any differences on the backend between a double-click transaction and a drag transaction. This would also make it much easier to workaround the guild-bank-stacking issue, as items would stack properly when withdrawn into the player’s inventory.

I wish to inform the necessary individuals at ArenaNet HQ that this change in behavior is still affecting the live servers, and we have still not received any word whether the change is intentional or not.

It would be greatly appreciated by the remaining dungeon enthusiasts if anyone at ArenaNet with the appropriate knowledge would be so kind as to shed some light on this change, as we have been waiting for information for several patches at this point.

It would be a nice gesture towards the oft-neglected dungeon community to simply comment on

1) The reason the change occurred, and
2) The current options being considered by the development and design teams.

If it’s going to stay as-is, so be it — just please let us know. We’re not demanding a change or fast action on your part — we understand that creating new content is a higher priority than maintaining existing content and HoT development is exhausting ArenaNet’s limited resources. We simply want to know what’s going on with our favorite boss in the game.

spoj.9672:

To answer your question. Yes. Elite specs are HoT only. Core spec changes are for everyone.

Ah, cool. Thanks for the clarification. Hopefully they put a decent amount of attention towards balancing the core classes against the specs. But even then, CoE is going to feel like AC after that change unless they revamp the downscaling (which frankly has been needed for a while now).

I sincerely do hope we see something compelling for this community in the expansion.

Was it the Lupi one? If so, they’re probably just sick of hearing about it.

“Don’t make us do our jobs!!!! No!!!!!!!!! Stop reminding us that we as a company suck so hard we can’t even comment on whether a change is intentional or not! Arrrrrggggghhh!!!!!!!”….Infract Post

NikeEU.7690:

One can dream.

And dream we shall.

:-(

But maybe if I put 3 points in Acrobatics it’ll get bigger?

Also, I should add re: HoT w/o instanced content, the specs are going to absolutely wreck the existing dungeons. Think they’re faceroll now? Wait until the specs land.

If they don’t add new instanced content to challenge the new specializations, then that’s just the final nail in the coffin for the only content I really enjoy in this game.

Jerus.4350:

Ok, i give, forums you win. Type a long response about how raids could be complex and actually create the content people seem to want in this game promoting defensive builds, focus on control, support at a premium all while not artificially punishing DPS or using gimmicks to just force diversity… and… forums eat it

I hate that. I try to make sure I put any long posts in my clipboard before pushing “Reply” just to prevent that :P

I don’t think I’ve ever had a short post get eaten, either >.<

spoj.9672:

For example. I will be buying it for the new elite specs and the story. The new WvW and stronghold stuff is an added bonus that I may try out and enjoy.

Are elite specs, etc only available to folks who buy the expansion? I was under the impression that they would be enabled for all players regardless to keep things balanced (especially since the new specs are quite OP compared to the existing classes!).

Also i dont really get why people say “if theres no instanced content i wont buy it”. Who are you kidding. You are clearly invested in the game if you follow news, still play and read these forums. I seriously doubt someone like that isnt going to buy it. Unless they plan to quit. But if you havent quit already then what makes you so sure you will with the expansion.

Personally (since I was the one who said that :P), I will get it when it’s cheap, or if enough of my friends are actually still around when it launches. As it stands, out of my 100 or so friends, maybe 3 are on at any given time…If HoT makes people come back and stay for more than 5 hours of gameplay before remembering why they left, I’ll probably buy it sooner.

I’m invested in the game and want to see it improve, but what I’ve seen so far isn’t compelling enough to make me want to go out and pay anything more than ~$15-$20 for it right when it comes out. I see more open-world zergs, “challenges” that aren’t challenging, and some new visuals (which I’m sure will be absolutely breathtaking). It’s not so much that I’ll never buy HoT without instance content, but I’m certainly in no rush to go play a new Dry Top.

Alls I know is they announced HoT and talked about “Challenging Group Content”. This was followed by a series of interviews where they were asked point-blank, “will it be instanced”, which they dodged like crazy. Since then, they haven’t even mentioned the “Challenging Group Content” in passing.

My tinfoil hat is telling me (in a quite pleasing baritone, I might add), that they saw the community, pundits, and forums all react to the ‘Challenging Group Content" with hopes that it would be instanced, while they had plans to make more VW / Marionette type encounters. Now we wait to see: (1) Will they go back to the drawing board and give their community what they want? Or (2) will they quietly continue developing open-world clusterkittens and push them out, continuing downplay the “Challenging Group Content” components, as they have since the announcement. Or, (3) will they surprise us with "Here’s a set of new dungeons!" in one of their “deep dives”?

I hope for the third option, but the company’s attitude and direction as of late has me leaning towards door #2.

Enaretos.8079:

I still believe someone missclicked that host :w

I was kinda doing AC P6 and then CM bugged, not very OP to show on official stream :s

Help old man Jenkins here out with your youngin’ whippersnappin’ newfangle’d twitchamajig….

what are we looking at here?

A’ight, lets do this.

So many warm fuzzies this morning.

I agree, it’d be ideal if their UI handled bulk transactions better (take it from someone who regularly lists 10k+ items on the trading post…), but we haven’t even gotten a “use all” option for stacks of, say, luck yet. They ain’t gonna add this.

So far the best workaround I’ve used that doesn’t violate their “one input event per action” rule:

1) Download XMBC: http://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/XMouseButtonControl.htm
2) Line up windows so the confirmation button is aligned with the item you want to buy.
3) Remap scroll up and/or down to click (or double click if you feel ballsy).
4) Go nuts on that mouse kittenty.

<3

Now if only ArenaNet would stop driving us away…sigh.

Sandpit.3467:

Have you tried logging on?

I think this was meant as snark, but it’s actually fairly solid advice.

I picked up a second account a few months ago during the $10 sales, and my toon on it is already level 57 — even though he’s never left the trading post.

Login rewards are OP. You can level your toon completely just by logging in.

deSade.9437:

Yeah you better level up. And be quick.
Honestly, I dunno what the fuss is all about. Surely there’s no fuss with me since I suck at dungeons, but I suck in a funny way. So they say at least. I make the stupidest mistakes and then go crazy on ts.

Sounds like me :P

…. anyone hyped for HoT? The more I play in stress tests and betas, the less I’m optimistic. I haven’t seen anything that could catch my interest for more than a week.

Let’s just say that at this point, I don’t even plan on buying it when it releases. If they decide to add some decent instanced stuff or I start seeing old friends return and stay for more than 2 hours, I might change my mind. Otherwise I’ll wait until the price drops to about $10 :-/

If all we’re getting with HoT is another SW/DT, then no thanks. Didn’t like those the first time around….

Blasts are far more valuable than other finishers. The others have their uses, but I’ve never swapped a utility/weapon/etc so I could have access to a whirl/leap/projectile finisher, nor have I ever really felt like things would go better had I slotted one. Meanwhile, there are countless times that I’ve brought a skill or weapon just to have a blast — and if I don’t have any, I feel like I’m not pulling my weight on stealth/might stacking/etc. I don’t play my ele much anymore, but the last time I checked the metabuild, most of the utilities and heals were chosen specifically for blasts. I haven’t seen any other finisher come close to that level of usefulness.

That said, it’s not something that I think they can really fix, or at least, I don’t have any suggestions to improve them. I think that the blast finishers’ popularity is due to their ease-of-use — you don’t get moved away from the group (leap), you don’t have to aim or worry about positioning (proj), and you don’t have to depend on RNG to land the combo effect (whirl). That simplicity of just “stand in the field and have it 100% work” is hard to compete with.

Fields are in an “ok” spot in my book. Not terrible, but not well balanced….but acceptable. Some are far, far more useful than others, but there is at least some reason to use a variety of them. Still, Fire >> Smoke/Lightning > everything else. Weakness from poison fields can be situationally handy if you’re running with a lot of new players, condition removal from shooting through a lightfield has haved my kitten in a few situations, but the benefits just aren’t as useful as might, stealth, and situationally, swiftness.

Thanks guys <3

And I do have an EU account! I got one in the last $10 account sale. It only has one toon, though, and he’s never left Rata Sum. He just crafts and TPs allllll day…Made it to level 57 without touching a mob though, thanks to login rewards lol

Once he gets hisself up to 80 (and once I can even think about logging in without getting bored at the thought) I need to do some dungeons with you fine EU folks and see what all the fuss is about >.>

And sick sucks. Boo.

Oh now I’m excited! The unknown! ~\o/~

Don’t mind me. Had to put my cat down today, feelin’ pretty kitteny :-(

edit dat troll language filter rubbing it in. Thanks ANet.

spoj.9672:

You act like its surprising that the open world stuff is like that.

We still dont know anything about the “challenging group content”. Or what they are doing to fractals. So theres really nothing new to talk about. And its pointless worrying.

I sincerely hope you’re right.

Bahaha, well it’s got a little of everything, so it must be good, right?

Yay for carpal tunnel bags. What was in the question mark dealie?

Frifox, stahp…That hurts to read…

I swear, every time I think about logging in to do dungeons, somebody posts something that reminds me how bad an experience it is these days. I seriously didn’t think it would have actually gotten worse while I’ve been away :/

Stompy.1387:

When I’m bored, sometimes I will join a group of complete first timers and carry them through Arah. To make it more fun, I limit myself to no chat, only emotes. (/e emotes aren’t allowed) I usually do this with path 4, but today I was only able to find a p1/2 group, but it was still pretty interesting..

For starters, they didn’t even know about the detonator to blow up the mobs. In path 1, when I killed them they thought I did some crazy move to kill them all (this is after soloing Ooze/Champs after they all wiped). They didn’t learn about the button until path 2…

Also, somewhere along the way, I picked up the nickname “Legendary Mime Unicorn Thief.” I like it.

This is so awesome xD Love the chat.