Guild Wars 2

Going down that trait line really limits your other choices in terms of utility, so getting the most out of it really requires both shattered aegis and pure of heart.

We used to run the shattered aegis build as a hard counter to the heavy hammer train. it works well in that situation. We used it extensively in season 2, but then the meta changed.

As the T1 wvw meta has moved on to a more balanced comp and more spread out tactics, it’s become less useful due to the low range on communal defenses and shattered aegis. Also dps focus has shifted to necro wells, which makes it less effective as well due to the unblockable nature.

It still has some uses in very specific situations. like hills lords room choke where everyone is forced into a very small area and 5 shattered aegis guards in your zerg will down most their zerg instantly.

Zerker meta is just max dps for best efficiency, if they made all npc have 10k armor and hit super fast then everyone would just go all condi with just enough toughness to survive. But build variety would still be minimal.

Defensive stats will never be a critical part of the “optimal” pve meta due to the combat mechanics of this game. Specifically dodge/evade. The ability to mitigate 100% of damage on such a short cool down makes any defensive stat useless in pve.

Now there are ways to remedy this, but what would result would be another “meta” with the same amount of static builds/gear and also elitism. Which i believe is the key complaint against the “meta”.

To put this in perspective, the whole meta thing exists because a large portion of players are playing for the rewards, rather than the actual game play fun, which is fine. But understand that this mindset puts heavy emphasis on efficiency, as content is merely an obstacle on the path to said rewards.

While there are players that play “just for fun”, it is impossible to deny that one of the key mechanics that drive players to spend so much time effort and money on a mmo is the rewards (and the feeling of progression/superiority rewards bring).

spend a bit more for the MB and get a z series for overclocking. While some B series can, its not really designed for it.

the cpu is ok, if you upgrade you will probably only get maybe 10 more fps.

The graphics card is a bit old though, especially for high settings.

A 970 is a great card for the price. If you dont want to spend that much, the older 700 series nvida or the r9 amd cards are heavily discounted atm.

Shademehr.1397:

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

The key to understanding T1 is going to be voice communications. You will need to establish how voice comms work on your server and always use them. T1 will make no sense without voice comms.

This is a completely off-the-wall question, but what is the current capacity of the voice comms around T1-ish? In other words, how many concurrent connections do you have at one time? We’re rising through the ranks a bit on ET and we’re starting to attract more players because of it and I’d like an idea of what we might need capacity-wise if we continue to grow.

Thanks in advance.

BG TS is 1000 slots build for the old T1, numbers have dwindled considerably as of late though. During typical prime hours we can have around 300 clients on concurrently (1.5-2x more during seasons). Highest ever was during Teq with some 900+ concurrent connections.

it is part of the gw2 china vip system, they just made it an a la carte item rather than part of the vip monthly bundle of services. no new development was needed as our the na version already had all of the code.

Lag will depend on your carrier and your devices, but typically a mobile connection tends to have more lag than a landline wifi connection.

at 60 KB/s comes out to about 200MB per hour of game play for a worst case scenario

Filaha.1678:

What matters is that without a factual basis to back up their argument, they cannot say that mine is wrong.

Even with no facts, they can and will tell you that you are wrong. Welcome to internet forums =)

By responding with debate you are basically stating: bring it on.

Filaha.1678:

dodgycookies.4562:

Again you are trying to pin down people’s perceptions with definitions, which do not follow definitions or logic for that matter. Official statements don’t really matter, merely the mood of the player base.

No.

That’s not how this works. If you want to say that my argument is wrong because you disagree with the dictionary definition of a word, then you have to prove that your definition of the word holds any more authority than the dictionary’s. Otherwise, I can simply assert that the definition being used is purely made up by the people claiming it’s not content, and can therefore be ignored because there is no factual basis for the argument.

Gem store items are in game and buyable though gold to gem conversion, and under the dictionary would be considered content. But no matter how loudly you or Anet proclaims that it is content, a large portion of the playerbase does not consider it “content”, merely rewards.

A “large portion” of the playerbase is wrong, then. Even if one did not consider gem store items to be “content” because there is no activity required to obtain them, then the activities undertaken to acquire the in-game content certainly is.

“Content” is not defined as you wish just because you want it to. Content has a very clear definition.

Yes it has no factual basis
and yes you may assert the opinion of the a large portion community to be wrong,
and yes of course you can ignore it.

You can conclude that legendaries are content and thus requires grinding, but many people here will still disagree. Despite all the facts you have.

That is just fine, but it will not change said opinion. You can argue until your keyboard breaks, but it will not change people’s opinion

But you chose to post on the forums to get feedback, and the voice of the community responded. You may be dismayed at the response and confused, but you have to accept it for what it is. A bunch of people with pretty entrenched opinions that are different than yours.

This is PR and public perception, in the where opinion trumps facts, and 1+1 does not equal 2.

Again you are trying to pin down people’s perceptions with definitions, which do not follow definitions or logic for that matter. Official statements don’t really matter, merely the mood of the player base.

Gem store items are in game and buyable though gold to gem conversion, and under the dictionary would be considered content. But no matter how loudly you or Anet proclaims that it is content(along with links to merriam-webster), a large portion of the playerbase does not consider it “content”, and will call them merely rewards or QoL services.

Players will define what they like and what they deem to be worthy of their time. If they like the activity it is now “content” if they like the reward but not the activity it is now a “grind”.

And while yes the mystic forging of a legendary is unique, it is not an activity that is quite unique or special enough to change the perception of many players.

If you have not heard that definition of content before, then welcome to the community. lol. Each game/community has its own perception of the definition of content that often morphs a lot., The current “popular opinion/definition” for mmo players is what i posted before.

Edit:(not really a “definition” persay, just my attempt to put into words the “feeling” of what a large portion of the community considers to be content)

Filaha.1678:

And no, I want to know where is this objective definition that an activity that is contained in a game is not, in fact, content. The activity in this case being the acquisition of a legendary. How is part of the contents of the game not part of the content?

The key argument here is what the definition of content is. But there isn’t one. The definition of content vs not is defined by the community and currently the popular opinion among many gamers is that unique activities are content while rewards are not.

You may disagree which is perfectly fine, and from your position gw2’s “endgame” is indeed very grindy. But also understand that others do not have the same definition and thus perceive the experience that gw2 offers in a different light than your own.

Many perceive unique experiences/activities (fights,lore,environments,etc) to be content. Anything else is generally considered an optional grind.

Because nothing in the process of making a legendary is an unique experience it is not considered content. Everything you need to do is from other parts of the game and is accessible whether are you working towards a legendary or not.

For example there is no special fight only accessible after you assemble the parts. Which is also why many other skins and gem store items are not generally considered content either, merely rewards(except for buying past LS chapters).

Raids, and to a lesser extent, dungeons, are not done merely for the rewards but for the process and experience of gaining said rewards. The fights themselves (and the lore associated) are considered content as they are typically unique experiences/activities not in other parts of the game and not accessible unless you raid. However, rewards that require multiple run throughs of the same dungeon/raid etc are not considered content but rather grinding for rewards.

It a fickle state of mind, “fun”. Easily gained but not easily kept.

as for internet requirements,

it not so much about speed as most mmos do not use a lot of bandwidth. The more important part is ping (latency) and that depends on many factors including your isp, your router, modem etc.

Most basic recommendation is that if the modem or router is more than 4 – 5 years old it might be time to replace it.

if you have an nvidia graphics card with an older version of geforce experience installed, that could be the issue.

There was an issue with shadowplay/streaming overlays and sweet fx, but that was fixed in an update. So check to see if you have any driver updates.

its probably the gpu

gts 250 is very very old.

it is a great time to upgrade as last gen mid ranged cards are heavily discounted atm

good build. i agree with sir squishy about changing the 760 for a 970

only other thing i would change is the cooler. I hate corsair link control software and would rather go with the h110 over the h100i.

Or go with a high end air cooler if you only plan to do a mild overclock.

a gtx 970 is an excellent value and will probably last until your next rebuild with skylake (or cannonlake).

imo there are no “good” monitors on the market, only compromises, no matter the resolution.

144hz is only available on TN panels, which sacrifice so much color (depth/accuracy/gamut) and viewing angles.
IPS is limited to 60hz so you sacrifice fps for better colors and angles.

supposedly 144hz ips is coming, but who knows when actually decent panels with good color accuracy will get the tech.

the current sweetfx fix is to move the 3 files into the bin folder.

However, currently this does not work with the latest nvidia geforce experience, so you either give up shadowplay/shield streaming, or give up sweetfx

Uninstalling geforce experience allows the game to run with sweetfx

edit: latest geforce experience update (ver 2.1.3) supposedly fixed the problem, but i have yet to test it.

It works, but only in super tight fights like on walls, or lords rooms hills, etc because the range us short and shatter aegis range is even shorter. it is super situational. Also as there is no aoe limit you get smashed by retal.

the problem with using it is that it is comparatively ineffective in open field, so you should be running another build, Then you have to know when to use it, communicate to other guards to switch, and then have time to get OOC and switch traits. This last part often requires time you dont have.

That being said, 5 guards who switch when trying to assault/hold hills lords room choke can turn the tide.

probably a ram issue, as 4gb is cutting it close. Turn off reboot on BSOD to see a code.

for lower end laptops to play games with, i would get an amd apu rather than an intel unit as the integrated graphics on the amds are significantly better. The Intel hd5xxx series are pretty capable, but are only offered on high end ultrabooks/macs, at which point buying an actual gaming laptop (with intel cpu and discrete graphics) would be better.

dpi scaling for high res screens will always be an issue in pc games and software in general until an basic intel integrated graphics chip can drive a 4k monitor fairly well. or until the 4k tv drops below the 1000 usd price point, at which point console games must adapt as well.

This is the point where a resolution becomes truly “mainstream”. As gamers we are so accustomed to high end hardware that we forget that even having a discrete graphics card is a luxury to many people who play.

As the steam hardware shows 1080p is barely a standard. Many desktop units/aios are still shipping with 900p and the standard 500usd laptop monitor is still 768p as intel hd4xxx units still cant drive even casual games at 1080p with playable frame rates.

13fps on that system is too low, there is something wrong. Probably your pcie connection staying at 1x rather than 16x

the newest monitors have dc modulated leds for flicker free backlighting. Pretty much a requirement for the gaming models that have high refresh rates or are gsync capable.

The h/b boards oc in the same way z boards do as intel left loopholes in the microcode lock that have yet to be patched. However they typically cannot change the base clock and have less power phases. Also the fsb is oced in many cases to use 1600 or higher ram because the pentium k technically only supports 1333.

I suspect this was an “intentional” loophole specifically for the pentium K but somehow also allowed the unintentional non z overclock of the i5/i7 k’s. There was supposed to be a patch but no one has seen it yet.

Personally i think that the fix is an all or nothing type, and that to fix the i5/i7 k oc on the low end boards they also needed to remove the overclocking of the pentium k on the same boards. And after seeing the massive uptake on the pentium k + h/b boards, decided it wasn’t worth it to anger all those customers (who might upgrade to better chips in the future) to fix a problem with such a small part of their user base. Very few people imo would spend 250 on a 4690k and not pony up the little bit extra for a z97 board.

many non z boards can overclock the pentium K.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2389948

Albeit not as well as z97 boards, though at under 60 USD its decent for a budget build. Especially now that pentium k’s are around 60 USD as well. 120 for a new cpu/oc mobo is a great deal these days. And much more worthwhile than spending money on such an old platform

you are better off converting gems to gold and buying the skins you want rather than spending it on keys in hopes for a ticket

high rez character textures can lower fps as well.

Though posting your specs would help.

I personally run U3011s and am ok with the 60hz refresh. I have tried 144hz monitors but quickly returned them due to the TN panels color accuracy and color shift, especially at larger screen sizes.

A lot of the mainstream 1400/1600p panels (like dell ultrasharps) available are for A/V production work. Thus most use ips (or variation of) panels for color accuracy but have max refresh at 60hz.

There are a few TN 1440p panels for gaming specifically that will suit your needs that can do 144hz, like the asus rog swift but again the colors are bleh at best but acceptable if you really need the higher refresh.

the frame rate limiter is buggy, i set it at unlimited and turn vsync on which caps my fpsat 60 anyways without tearing.

i agree with the 750ti, excellent upgrade from the fermi based 630.

save for maxwell (nv 900 series), temps and power usage are apparently super low

you probably dont need a new video card, just overclock your cpu more (or upgrade cooler so you can overclock more), otherwise the performance is within expectations on high settings.

Or you could get a whole new mobo/cpu combo, but that’s a lot of outlay for maybe another 15-20% performance. Not really worth it if you are happy with performance everywhere else.

just lower settings if you feel performance is lacking in wvw/zergs. turn off dynamics shadows (low or none) and reflections, lower character limit, and shaders to medium, and maybe LOD to medium if you feel like it.

my bet is the power supply, everytime i have seen a TDR is from a failing group voltage regulator on the 12v rail.

you can play in integrated gpus especially at lower resolutions. Just not that one, as the 3 generation old sandy bridge mobiles chips have only hd3000 igpus.

Ivy bridges HD4000 is probabaly the minimum to get playable frame rates. The Haswell 4400 and 4600s can get 40ish fps with medium settings at 768p and while 5100/5200 iris and iris pros can get around 60fps on medium at 900p

Yes your cpu is probably limiting your fps, and possibly your gpu is on the edge as well. Its the monitor, you upgraded to a whole lot more pixels so the gpu and cpu both have to process alot more data.

Gw2 isn’t as graphically taxing as other modern games, but more pixels on screen also means more shader and texture processing and more cpu draw calls in general.

Also single 7970 ghz edition could barely run modern games at 60fps on ultra at 1600p in the first place.

sirsquishy.8531:

Skenderbeu.9102:

Hi there! Please help

I have an i7-2600k OC@4.3 Ghz together with a GTX 750 and it runs smooth as silk CPU-wise and FPS is OK at times but can drop heavily.

Anyways I got a GTX 760 now and needed to upgrade my PSU up to 500W but went for 600W and everytime I try to overclock my i7 it doesn’t exceed past 3.6 Ghz, why is this? It is very disturbing… having spent so much money on GPU+PSU only not to get results, I am very disappointed…

Could someone please explain this to me?

Thank you very much! :p

its probably the new PSU. Look at the labels on both PSU’s and compare the Amp delivery on 3v, 5v, and 12v rails.

I am willing to bet the new PSU has weaker amp delivery.

Rather than check the labels try to look up the review testing from reputable sites. My bet is on the new psu having group regulated rails rather than fully independent.

Skenderbeu.9102:

No, no, no, the FPS issue has always been there and I’ve strongly considered the GPU being at fault here, thank you for clarifying it for me once more, thank you so much. Also how come all the X60-X80 GPUs in the GTX series are so much better than the X50 ones?

Because the higher end chips have more silicon transistors. 570 had 3 billion while the 750 has 1.8 billion. With twice the texture mapping units,render outputs and memory bandwidth. In terms of (stock) performance its about 1.5-2x faster than a 750. (For comparison, a current gen 770 has 3.5 billion transistors and a 780ti has 7.1 billion.)

While new more efficient architecture and higher clock speeds can make up some of the difference in performance, the “high end” 570 isn’t quite old enough yet to be outdone by a low end card.

medium settings with 40 ish fps in less demanding areas, 10-20 in large zergs

considering you have no discrete gpu on the yoga, you are much better off running at 1600×900 as the integrated hd4600 doesn’t have the power to run gw2 at such a high resolution

The 4to1 scale down is the exact reason why lenovo chose the 3200×1800 native res in the first place. At 13.3" 900p has 138 PPI and is still higher density than a 1600p 27". and due to the exact scale down, no fuzzy images either.

gui resizing text issues has not been fixed

prebuilt machine. So probably no connectors for gpu

Best option is the gtx 750ti. Get a version that has no 6 pin connector and is short. Evga makes a decent version with these features.

Does the fan spin properly at 100% when benching? with say prime 95 and uniheaven? Or is it gw2 only? If its only gw2 it sounds like a problem with the main group voltage controller on the integrated psu circuit.

If its not the main voltage controller and the temps are that low and still you got smoke and high fan speeds, It definitely sounds like the fan voltage controller. Either the circuit itself failed is burning the board or it is pushing too much power into the fan from a failing cap (lower resistance than spec) and slightly melting the motor housing.

sounds like the fan voltage controller or perhaps the fan starter capacitor is degrading.

Yes a metal based conductive epoxy similar to those used in aerospace industry. A lot closer to solder than the typical glue epoxy.

And in engineering terms, its properties can be categorized as a “solder” despite being an epoxy. And has more better thermal conductivity than the paste used in the mainstream 1150 chips but less than a pure metal solder.

Thermal conductivity for solders typically run from 40-60 W/mK while conductive epoxy can be as high as 30 W/mK. Compared to the typical less than 5 W/mK for a thermal grease.

It is not all bad though, it takes less heat to apply than traditional solder which is better for thermally sensitive chips especially as the die shrinks continue to happen.

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-core-i7-5960x-de-lidded-haswell-e-uses-soldered-tim.html

First sentence, solder based on epoxy. ie conductive epoxy.

http://www.nag.co.za/2014/07/28/rumor-intels-haswell-e-chips-will-use-conductive-epoxy/

Second paragraph explains that euro regulations on heavy metals forced the change.

sirsquishy.8531:

And the 2011v3 Haswell-E CPU’s are not any better at gaming then the 1150 Haswell-K Series. So you do not even need a top end Socket/CPU to get the best performance out of this game, just one of the 3rd or 4th gen unlocked cpus pushed as close to 5ghz as you can get.

The E chips were always better overclockers due to the soldered IHS (4.8 on a 4820k easy) rather than TIM and a slightly better binning process. However due to EU regulations on the use of heavy metals in electronics, Intel has stopped using the lead/tin solder they used on the sandy/ivy bridge-Es and have switched to using a highly conductive epoxy. The thermal performance is slightly better than the consumer grade TIM, but not enough to offset the extra heat more cores output which makes the new haswell E’s actually overclock slightly worse than their ivy predecessors temp wise.

the only exploitive item on the gem store are the key to open the (Black lion) gamble chests. Gambling is extremely addictive and exploiting that facet of human psych is pretty easy and very lucrative.

Other than that the game isn’t really designed round whales, but more around the average casual player that spends less than 10 hours a week playing and about 10 dollars a month on new skins. None of which are necessary to access content.

It is the shift away from rewards for the players that choose not to pay with real money that has that part of the population upset. But if there are enough moderatly paying players to populate the game then, the non paying players aren’t really a priority. Access to content is not limited as a form of marketing but rewards are limited to promote gem sales.

While technically there is value to the developer in a potential future sale, the majority of those complaining in the forums tend to be those who will never spend additional money on the game (because of financial reasons or just moral objection), and are typically ignored

yes bootcamp is well worth it if you have access to a copy of windows. but if you have to pay the 120 usd to get a copy then probably not. Performance is about 25% better in windows on my rmpb 13 with 5100 iris graphics

Exodius.3087:

If what u say is true….then any laptop with gt750m or higher should be able to run it lol, and MANY laptops have that.

and a Q series quad core. Most laptops cpus are dual core, even the i5/i7s. The only intel laptop cpus that have true quad cores are those with HQ/MQ/MX series processors.

These are rare due to cost and also power consumption, as any laptop with these parts uses a lot of power, are bigger and heavier due to cooling requirements, and has short battery life compared to their dual core U/M series counterparts.

I would put in a ticket and try to get those 200 gems back. They are pretty good about refunds for the most part.

you will need an application isolation software (like that softxpand) or a virtual machine to run 2 on the same computer.

And your hardware will run 2 copies, but you will get a lot lower performance on both.