Guild Wars 2

Tenth
Hylek
Koda

Likely one of those next.

@alanis

No one I know was “recruiting” anyone. The discussion on TS when we were losing was never about recruiting more people, it was about playing better. Not sure where you get the impression that we want all these people. They make those of us who are dedicaed , original supporters of JQ wait in queue, or in my case not play at all because I can’t afford to be in a two hour queue.

Sorry didn’t take a screenshot. But for an update…I logged in about 30 minutes ago. HOD and SBI had around 90 going each, JQ had the rest (500 something?). I believe we were ~40,000 up (almost double the next one).

I logged into the game, looked at the score. I asked my guild “Hey what borderlands are we in?” They said “Green but we aren’t doing anything…just hanging out at spawn chatting because we own it all”. I logged off. So much for WvWvW in GW2 WvWvW is why I’m here…this is just sad.

How about this:

Add an achievement for fully exploring PvE zones. It WOULD NOT be the “100% map exploration” achievement…but more like a “100% PvE zone exploration” achievement. Then keep the true 100%.

If you are happy with PvE exploration you get an achievement for it…but if you really want 100% you still need to explore 100%. (Don’t be a completionist if you don’t want to do what it takes to complete it)

Marko.4065:

I absolutely agree with this proposal. There is no harm in it and viable PvP leveling kept me playing WAR for much much longer than I would have otherwise.

For all you dogmatic naysayers, I take it you have only one character you use in WvW. Now imagine the pain of leveling a WvW alt through WvW only (painful, slow and pointless really – you’re taking a valuable spot from a fully decked 80) or having to grind PvE so you can eventually PvP. Both are unacceptable, at least for me. Frankly I don’t see a point in insisting a game should be boring and frustrating to be “rewarding,” no point at all.

/shrug Give us sPvP xp, put an “/xp off” option for the masochists and that’s it. And while you’re at it, do something about WvW xp gains and specific rewards as well. The model you have now is reminiscent of early WAR days which didn’t end well for RvR after the initial novelty enthusiasm. Unless WvW leveling and reward model gets fixed (and it’s dismal at the moment, both in quantity and quality – the lower level you are the less xp you get which is absurd) you’re looking at a ghost town in a couple of months if not weeks.

I played my first character through PvE to 80. I leveled my alt to ~level 10 (took about an hour, hour and a half) and have been in WvW exclusively since then. He is level 51 now. I have had no problems leveling in WvW, and it has been quite fun. In terms of the time “played” on my alt to reach level 51…yes it is longer than my main took in PvE to hit the same level, but only by about 50% (taking like 1.5 times the amount of time, approximately). THat’s not bad, in my opinion. Especially if you subtract out the time I wait in queue to get in WvWvW while hanging out in Lion’s Arch.

You know…I"ve spent over 80 hours playing PvE in this game…I really wish PvE game you at least a LITTLE bit of glory. I hate going into PvP and thinking “Man, all these other people have all this glory, but I have nothing because I’m spending all my time in PvE”. It’s frustrating. Why can’t PvE give me some glory?

In all seriousness…they are sticking to a system they had in GW1 which, in my opinion, works well. There is a competitive, non-level and non-gear based PvP system and then a SEPARATE game where there is PvE and PvP (WvWvW). Think of them as two separate games. I’m really glad for you that you are rank 30 in PvP (I have no idea what that means, because I’ve never done a single sPVP match), but that doesn’t earn you any PvE accolades, just like I wouldn’t expect any “glory” for doing PvE.

Setch.2398:

It is not supposed to be a ‘lottery’ but people have been spreading that around as fact when they see their friends get in before them. Last I read Anet was looking into that issue.

Last time they commented on it was like a month ago, at which point they were “looking into it”.

I don’t really see how hard it is to count. Keep track of who hits the “queue” button first…and make a list. When space opens up, let the first person in etc… etc… It seems rather basic. It’s just a list.

How MAJOR issues like this haven’t gotten fixed is beyond me. I have to wonder if this would be the case if we were paying monthly. I know they claim they still have a larger team than most P2P MMO’s, but I just don’t see the results of that team.

Syntax.9602:

Yeah there are some things that gives you credit.

But damaging walls and doors or defensiv siege-weapons earns you nothing. And even if you kill one guy within the tower you sometimes get nothing or only bronze.

Just compare to players, and think about who should get gold:

Player 1 builds a ram, manned it and smashed the door, after the door gets destroyed he goes up the walls and drives away some off the defenders and revives an ally.

Player 2 was autoattacking the door the whole time (maybe he was even afk), waited until it was open and did nothing but running into the tower.

The reason why Karma-Trains are so popular is that while Player 1 risks getting no reward at all Player 2 will get full credit for sure.

^^ Exactly. The mass zerg runs out up the Tower Lord because honestly you have a high chance of missing out on any credit if you go to the walls and take out enemy players, or stay at the gate and cut off reinforcements. Actually being useful weakens your reward (That is a trend in WvW unfortunately). You rarely need more than 5 people attacking the Tower Lord but instead he gets zerged en masse because that is how you get “gold”

What prompted me to make this thread was fighting over a Tower for 30 plus minutes and getting ZERO credit because I never made it to the Tower Lord. INstead, I stayed at the gate and kept the enemy from coming in behind us. I get zero credit.

In the past there have been countless times where I do the same routine at a Tower but happen to leave the circle (after killing the Tower Lord) and I get silver. Compared to times where I run in at the last minute and BARELY make it into the circle and get gold.

The same thing happens with supply camps…typically as long as I make it into the ring before it completes I can get gold even if I didn’t do ANYTHING at the camp….but god forbid I leave the circle after killing the supply camp leader…I typically end up with silver or worse.

Maybe I’m just unlucky? To me it seems like the circle AT A MINIMUM gives you one level of contribution, and in some cases decides whether it triggers at all.

The game puts far too much emphasis on being in the “green ring” in order to get credit for taking a tower. You can be manning a catapult for 20 minutes taking down a wall, then fight tooth and nail in the courtyard of a tower while your teammates go up to the tower lord and when they take the tower you can end up with nothing.

Even if you do fight the keep lord, I’ve NEVER received gold without standing in that ring…Why is the ring the most important part? Unless there is a pitched battle for the ring (which happens in garrisons/keeps sometimes, but not often), the ring is the LEAST important part.

Ya I think they have said it isn’t really a “line” and it is kind of messed up. However they said that a few weeks ago and I’ve yet to hear any news about a plan to fix it…seems like it would be a priority.

As I said in another thread, I honestly log out of this game almost immediately after logging in more than half of the time I try to play. I only play this game for WvWvW at this point and I just can’t stand around for multiple hours before I do anything. I don’t have that kind of life in the real world (or lack thereof?). If I log in and hear people with queues in the hour+ range, I log out. I can’t just hope that I’m one of the “lucky” people who get in quickly.

Ya unfortunately for JQ WvWvW has become the “Game for those with too much time on their hands”. For normal people who can’t stand around logged into a game for an hour+ before you get to do something…WvWvW is impossible on the weekends.

I’m very glad Arenanet decided to take the “free to play” approach. I honestly log out immediately about half of the time I log in (because I ask, hear about bad queues and realize it’s not worth it). If I had to pay monthly for this…I wouldn’t. Luckily I can just let it sit around for when I happen to be able to play at off times.

While I’m not saying the mortar is awesome, just to point out one advantage it has over grenades.

Its arc allows you to place it in wvw such that you don’t have to be on the edge of the wall, risking DMG and death, to hit enemies. You can place it back and safely hit people since it fires over. Grenades will hit the wall in front of you.

The DMG is low, but at least you tag a lot of enemies and if other people kill them,..you get xp and loot. Selfish I know, but still semi useful

Geek,

While I agree that system sounds more convenient, it also seems to lend itself better to the style of wild star, from the screenshots I’ve seen. That game takes a much more cartoon/colorful take on a game world, in my opinion, so that giant red and blue circles isn’t that distracting.

Guild wars 2 seems far more subdued, and I just don’t know how giant filled in colorful circles everything would look…think about WvW battles…maybe 30 aoes going off in total…it would be sheer madness.

My main is an asura who never did the story and didn’t encounter a single issue with map completion until the straits. He was around 75% when that happened.

Again, I wouldn’t mind if story was required from the beginning, if there was some clear indication. However to go 75% through completion, get to level 80 and only then encounter the first poi that is blocked…that is just frustrating. Unneccesarily so.

Again,

The problem is to my knowledge this is the ONLY thing in map completion that requires thE story. One single poi.

If it were four maps worth, like wvw, that would be different. Or if like every dungeon had pois…also different.

It is screwed up that you can literally
get to 90+% completion and then be blocked by a single poi. They need to be internally consistent and just remove it….or add way more exploration requirements for story, so that they are consistent. The first 70 levels does not lead you to believe you need to do story. Its annoying that they change at the end for one poi.

I’ve never actually noticed the aoe ring around the wall..I’ll have to look again.

Johnny,

The achievement isn’t 100% completion. It is 100% MAP completion. There is a difference.

As an aside,

Anyone know an easy way to identify friendly vs enemy walls/mesmer shields in wvw? ,maybe I’m blind but they see, to look the same. I’m never quite sure.

Okay I ran into this same poi and here is my take, sorry if I am repeating someone.

The fact that you have to do the story IS NOT my biggest issue with it. What I find more annoying is that for the first 70+ levels I was fully capable of exploring many zones to 100% without doing the story. The game lead me to believe you didn’t need to, since I was up to 70%+ map completion and never needed to before.

To me the issue is consistency. Underwater objects are all over the place, so it is expected. Every wvw zone has many pois…its not like one odd man out. This POI he is referring to is the first line I encountered in the entire game that requires the story. It is annoying because it is a complete 180 from the rest of map completion. Its just not consistent.

Edit: as an aside…depending on your profession there is a way to get to it without the story. Its not a legitimate path…you kind of squeeze through. AFAIK only some professions can even make it, cause it requires a skill that jumps you forward. YouTube it for a video.

Nurvus, I really like that. It kind of has some elements of the rune master in the lotro expansion…where you can like build up power in two directions, and that defines what skills you have available. I like the east Asian spin you put on it.

Seriously though…very cool idea. Nice job. I would love to see a martial arts style profession added.

Mubarizun.6435:

You can see that my previous posts were irritated at the drop rate of these things. I only ever got maybe 4-5 in hours of play. But that was when I was using dual maces and having fun locking people down.

I recently switched to a burst GS build and now I’m positively drowning in the badges. I don’t have any worries about not having enough for the next arrow cart or etc.

This makes me think that the drop rate indeed is related to the damage you do to the enemies (not always though, most of the time).

It also makes me worry about this drop rate punishing people who don’t go straight DPS.

THe drop rate definitely punishes people who don’t go straight DPS. That is why I haven’t played my support spec 80 guardian in 2 weeks. My below level 30 Engineer nets me better rewards because I can “tag” a massive amount of enemies with grenades/flamethrower, and get more credit. Am I being as useful to my team? Not even close…but the game doesn’t reward you based on how useful you are being.

Honestly in the beta weekends when I read they were spawning them at our feet I thought “hey that isn’t too bad, that should make it pretty reasonable”

Then I got and game and realized that there is at least a half second spawn delay, the bag itself doesn’t appear for another second sometimes, the bag spawns at the BEGINNING of your roll if you are rolling midkill, and there are sometimes random delays for when you can hit the f button and pick up the loot.

Honestly if the whole “spawn at your feet” worked well, it wouldn’t be THAT bad (obviously I still prefer autoloot), but the fact that even with a spawn at your feet mechanic at least 80% of the time by the time the bag appears to me I’m at least 5-10 feet away…ya it kind of defeats the purpose.

Vayra.3290:

Monsoon.2589:

Any reason why can’t badges or loot be given automatically in wvw so that we can focus on pvp and not looting?

I’d like to know. If I can mail someone while there are 60 people around me fighting and if I get traits and all other currencies automatically then why not get badges automatically…like Honor in that other game.

They wanted to this, afaik. There was a dev post during one of the BWEs that explained the problems with it (mostly dealing with a full inventory), if they can sort that out true auto-looting might be implemented.

The post in beta didn’t spend that Mich time explaining why it couldn’t be done, it just briefly mentioned a full inventory as an issue.

To be honest it seemed like kind of a cop out. There is already a system in place when you loot things and have a full inventory. A window pops up with the loot. Why that can’t hapkitten beyond me.

EvilZombie.6801:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir_Gun

Alchemy

Deadly Mixture – Deal 15% extra damage with a flamethrower or elixir gun.
Fast-Acting Elixirs – Elixir skills recharge 20% faster.

NOTE: Elixir skills from the Elixir Gun do not receive the bonus from Fast-Acting Elixirs.

BRO don’t fighting over it

It doesn’t comment on HGH or potent elixirs, so I assume they don’t synergize either right?

Jnaathra….

Clearly doing a non-PVP centric aspect of WvW is more “honourable” than facing your enemies in battle.

Just to add my experience.

I have around 1700 skills. I have 150 badges. That’s a pretty depressing ratio if you ask me.

EDIT: I should add I’ve never spent any badges. “Trying” to save them up in a vain attempt to actually buy something…but at this rate I’ll be making progress by Christmas 2013.

Hymnosi.5928:

im saying, if you get there with 30 seconds left, I wouldn’t expect a reward.

Even if in 30 seconds I kill 4 or 5 enemies? I’ve gotten rewards in situations like that. HOwever, I’ve also NOT gotten rewards in seemingly similar situations. I don’t really see a connection.

For instance right now I’m at Bay. I haven’t left the inner gate so I’ve been there for the entire timer. I’ve defend through 5 timers or so, I’ve killed something on every timer and I’ve only had a reward for 3 of them. Two just counted down and nothing happened.

Hymnosi.5928:

All events have a short timer, regardless if you contribute or not. If you get there too late, you wont get credit.

I run into this when I run into the grenth event slightly too late, and have had it happen on the Claw of Jormag event as well.

1. I’m ONLY refering to the events to defend a keep/tower

2. I’m talking about being present during the timer, and killing enemies during the timer. It was my understanding that those two things were the requirements to get credit. I seem to meet those requirements but only SOMETIMES get a reward (bronze or anything). About half the time the timer runs out and nothing happens, and then it resets.

Aristio.2784:

Read the skill. It’s classified as an Elixir in-game.

Edit: I guess that isn’t a real answer to your question though. So I don’t know for sure.

Ya I guess what I"m asking is perhaps they wrote them as elixirs but never really intended them to be affected by those traits.

For instance the trait that says elixirs cause damage technically says “THROWN elixirs cause damage”, so I assume that excludes the elixir gun. Perhaps they intended for other traits to say “thrown” and they left the word out?

HGH and Potent Elixirs. Do either of them affect the elixir gun?

EDIT: I’m in WvW right now and not level 80, otherwise I would go into the mists and test. SOrry.

Since beta weekend one I have continued to sporadically not get credit for defending a keep. I know you are required to kill an enemy (you can’t just rez/help your teammates), but even when I kill enemies (including getting xp/bonus xp) I sometimes get no reward when the timer reaches zero.

I’m unable to figure out exactly what is different about the times I get nothing versus the times I get something. Perhaps I’m not getting “enough” kills?

Aristio.2784:

It’s supposed to, but it’s bugged right now. The Elixirs on the Elixir Gun are technically Elixirs, but the devs haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Have they confirmed that it is supposed to, or are they planning on changing the names so they aren’t affected?

Oh and in addition…does the trait that makes elixirs deal dmg include those elixirs in the elixir gun?

Does this trait effect “Elixir” skills in the elixir gun? If so, does it stack with the trait that decreases elixir gun recharge, so you can get a total of -40% recharge on 3 of the skills?

Nice read. Though i take it that means they haven’t commented on anything specific yet. Other than a Halloween event, I imagine then we won’t see new content until maybe the end of November…since you normally get some info at least a few weeks before.

Not saying they should have said Anything by now, just curious if they have and I didn’t notice. Game has been out for more than a month now, have they mentioned anything about the first content update they are planning? I love the frequent patches with fixes…just curious what their Update plan is, and what is in the works.

Halloween dynamic events?

I have to agree with most people here. Unless you are asking to get rid of them completely (which I don’t think you are, and in would disagree with that to if you were), it is weird to want map completion to, you know, not include completing the map. If a vista is there, it fits in map completion.

Jumping puzzles now are different IMO, cause they are sorta “off” the map…since they are hidden and don’t show up on the map. Those make sense to not be included in map completion.

Don’t expect them to respond to this, or change it. I have a feeling they are pretty much set on their ways.

Which is why my level 80 support guardian is sitting in the corner collecting dust. By level 15 my engine salt could get more badges and loot than him, in the same amount of time.

I agree with putting a limit on the number of players ablE to use a portal. Exploits or no, I don’t think 40 people should all be able to teleport EN masse to a location with no way to stop it.

As it stands all you really need is for everyone to be in team speaking and paste king…it that much coordination. If it was limited to say 6 players or something, it could still be significant AND it would require far more impressive coordination for larger armies because you would need to time multiple mesmers.

I mean seriously though…when you look at buffs and debuffs In this game they all have a max player limit. The portal is kind of an odd man out in that you can portal everything and everyone with absolutely no limits. That should change, imo

Draygo.9473:

I dont support dots on minimap.

War is based on deception. To decieve the enemy must have imperfect information.

Dots on the map is perfect information and should never be added.

I agree that deception should be apart of “war”….however it should be deception that we all have control over….not deception in the form of the game deciding seemingly at random who can see enemies and who can’t….like selective stealth that no one has control over. That isn’t deception, it’s just “chaos”.

^^ I also agree with Enenion.

Like pretty much EVERY other skill in the game that affects multiple teammates…the portal should have a limit to how many people it can teleport. Allowing 30 people to all use it simultaneously is just silly. It should be limited to a specific number of players before it closes. Or perhaps a specific number per time period (“Can only teleport 5 players every 10 seconds” or something…I don’t know exactly how long the portal lasts).

iformidable.3051:

As an alternative, i do remember somebody suggesting showing enemies up on our minimaps instead as red dots.

While that would be nice…it still wouldn’t allow me to attack them.

As it is when I get into those fights where my teammates are telling me in teamspeak that we are “surrounded” but I see absolutely no one…all I can do is spam my ground-targeted attacks and hope I’m doing something useful….Meanwhile my screen is filled with green teammates…which I can’t really target or do anything directly to…so the fact that they are all showing up is kind of pointless.

But like the other person said…it probably wouldn’t work anyway since the problem is about loading the players and not about the number of “characters” on screen at once. Regardless, this is hopefully one of the highest priorities right now. Fighting in a battle where my framerate is in the 40’s, but for some reason I can’t see my enemy….it’s just ridiculous. I remember someone saying that holding ctrl should show their names…that doesn’t seem to work either.

Regardless of how much damage I do with flamethrower…I gets me plenty of loot bags in WvW since I can hit pretty much everything in front of me very easily with the first skill.

I know I could be doing more damage using other kits/skills…but unfortunately the way they designed their reward system the most important thing for rewards is the ability to “tag” enemies with just enough dmg. The flamethrower seems to fit that use perfectly…so I get a lot of use out of it.

That being said, i would like to see it actually be more useful…I do occasionally feel “bad” that I’m not helping my team as much as I could be…but then I see the 10 loot bags around me and I don’t feel as bad anymore. Until they fix their reward system, I’m going to design my character in the best way to benefit from the system they have in place, no matter how flawed it is.

I play about 90% WvW now (I leveled my first guy up to 80 in PvE, now I’m switched to PvP). I don’t find the skill system lacking at all.

Getting skill points/leveling up helps me unlock more utilities. Every utility skill for me, givekittenreater variety with which to assault the enemy. Depending on the group I’m running with I’ll swap out utility skillls on the fly. And even traits are very cheap to respec so i will respec quite often just to adjust my strategy to the enemy I’m facing.

If you are just finding one set of skills and sticking to that for 50 levels…perhaps you need to look into different builds to enhance your utility in different situations? I realize the PvE content is quite easy so maybe it doesn’t feel necessary there…but at least in WvW it can be very helpful.

Rise.9702:

Me too. You basically can get all your skills in about 20 minutes in the beginning of the game lol. So yeah I like this idea greatly.

You can get your elite skills in 20 minutes? Impressive.

Okay I know this isn’t ideal or anything…but I wonder if they could add an option to place enemies or friends at a “higher priority” for rendering? Like you could go into your options menu and choose which one has higher priority.

Since the game isnt’ about healing/supporting your teammates, and you don’t really have skills that target them…I would MUCH rather see my enemies than see my teammates. Would it suck to not know how many teammates are backing me up? Sure, but not as much as it sucks to not know how many enemies are attacking me.

I love it if when a large enemy zerg was coming up on me my teammates slowly disappeared in favor of spawning the enemies so that I at least knew what to attack.

Like I said, I know it isn’t perfect…but maybe it would be easier to implement? At least for the time being. There is nothing worse than being in a large group of teammates asking in local “Are we fighting? How many are there? I see no enemies?”. I had that happen for literally 5+ minutes…kept getting hurt in the middle of a “fight” with no enemies. I would have gladly made my friends invisible just so I could have a target to attack.

I’m sure this has already been mentioned for but I really honestly need to ask:

Who designed the search function in Trading Post? I’d really like to talk to this person and figure out how they forgot the ability to search armor by type? (Light/Medium/Heavy). You can search by body part…how did you miss such an integral and important filtering tool? What was going through your head?

I’m really not trying to be mean…but if it was someone’s job to design the search system for the trading post, and they forgot that….how were they paid for their job? It seems so incredibly obvious….I honestly can’t even imagine how it could have been forgotten?

draculthemad.6273:

There is a lag spike when a large group travels through a portal. If they spawn inside the vanguard, most of it may be dead before people start to be able to see them.

Currently, a mesmer can drop a portal exit instantly from stealth. Even if you DO kill the mesmer at that point, he’s already done his job.

If there was a cast time on it, there would be at least some hope of dropping or interrupting him before he could finish casting.

Or what if the portal ends if the mesmer is downed? So mesmers can’t “suicide run” a portal. If they plant a portal but are immediately downed afterwards…the portal is gone.

The thing with spawning at your feet, as other people have mentioned, is that there is a fairly significant delay (at least half a second). In a game that ENCOURAGES movement…that just doesn’t work. Far too often I am dodging away in the time it takes for the bag to spawn…so I see the bag a dodge roll away from me…typically in the direction of the enemy so I either A. Lose the bag or B. Have to be make a “suicide” run, hoping I don’t do, while spamming f so I can pick up the loot. It’s just screwed up.

I wouldn’t mind as much if I knew that badges were auto-looted…the rest of the stuff is usually junk…but I HATE thinking “Oh that bag might have 2 badges!” and then I try to suicide run for it…typically to just find out it has “1 claw” or some other trash loot.

So ya…in short…spamming f never really works for me because I’m constantly in motion and by the time the bag spawns I’m already away from where I was when it was “Spawning”, forcing me to run back to get it. That is just messed up. This should have been fixed LONG ago…like before the game was released. No excuse.

If you are talking about the puzzle in the sky with portals…

You didn’t have to start over. If you respawned and went back to the entrance, you can talk to the robot and he can teleport you to the stage you were on. Not sure how long that action lasts…but I definitely died trying that puzzle and he teleported me back a few times.