Guild Wars 2

Are we seriously going to have to wait until HoT launches? That’s ridiculous. The trait system has been broken since April 2014 and players have been begging until they cried for a change.

My sincere hope is that when they info dump the new Mastery system, they’ll do a major patch shortly after to implement it and give players a bit of time to feel it out before the actual expansion launch.

Vayne.8563:

IIvIIozzie.9250:

Caithe’s actions are a pretty absurd thing to defend. She makes no real attempt to save the life of an innocent from this psychopath, and instead decides to murder with the approval of the murdered. Does the fact that Wynne tell’s her to do it make the act acceptable? That Wynne decides on the spot that this is the best option instead of the two of them defending themselves from the incoming attack is flat out bizarre.

Those that are defending Caithe’s decision let me ask, would you do the same? Would you really choose to kill your friend/relative instead of defending them? Is that what you think love is?

Except that’s human morality. Sylvari don’t really have the same idea about death, and more importantly, she was fulfilling Wynne’s Wilde Hunt by Winne’s request, which is important to a Sylavri.

But put this another way. Suppose she decides to protect Wynne instead and Faolin defeats her. She tortures Wynne, gets the secret and the secret gets out.

The only way to protect her race at that point, the only failsafe way, is to kill Wynne.

It’s entirely possible in Caithe’s mind that Faolin could beat her if it came to it.

It might even be more simple than that. Where was Wynne going to go? Maybe she escaped that particular moment, but then what? Spend the rest of her life on the run from Faolin? Wynne obviously wasn’t capable of hiding for years and years. Would Caithe have spent the rest of her life defending Wynne?

If she turned to fight Faolin, Star NPC Problem aside, Faolin is a tough cookie. Like Vayne said, Caithe might not have been able to take her down and then Caithe would have fallen for nothing.

Ismial.3825:

I’m just… disappointed, really. That’s the only word for it.

Disappointed that the writing team thinks it’s a good idea to drop something like this on a playable race two years in. If this had been open knowledge upfront, I’d be serene with it.

Disappointed that they think it’s a good idea to throw gasoline on the fire so all the players salivating for an excuse to get their pretend-racism on can go into a feeding frenzy, in and out of character.

And more than a little disappointed that I’ve spent so much time and effort doing RP and painting sylvari. The latter in particular feels like a lot of wasted time right now.

The writing obsesses over the main species I play nowadays (making players of all the other ones feel shafted), yet they do it in such a way that just keeps throwing them under the bus and feeding the CAN’T TRUST THEM CABBAGES crowd.

There’s a chance that the writers might be able to pull this off in a way that makes it palatable to me (and I strongly suspect the end will be okay). But the trip to get there is looking so unenjoyable that I really don’t know if I want to stick around for it.

It might not have been explicit, but it’s been very heavily hinted at since launch – look at Malyck; look at the Pale Reavers; look at the dichotomy of Dream and Nightmare. The hints only got stronger as LS 1 progressed; it didn’t just get dropped on us last Tuesday.

Something that people haven’t really been looking at is the possibility that Scarlet wasn’t completely corrupted (yet).

Maybe what she saw in Omadd’s machine gave her the knowledge that her destiny had been entirely laid out for her: either by her true progenitor Mordremoth or by the Mother Tree. There were hints all along that Scarlet was trying to discover if she had any free will at all and she was determined to be more than she had been intended to be.

Yes, it’s clear that in the end her intention had been to awaken Mordremoth. But was that her end goal?

My question has always been, why did she build the Marionette? Scarlet was insane, but there was a method to her madness. I believe it was to use in the fight against Mordremoth. Could her people (by way of her) prove that they were more than the dragon’s minions?

I believe the Pale Tree has indoctrinated her children with Ventari’s teachings in order to prevent them from being Mordremoth’s direct puppets, but that doesn’t change the fact that they must live under that directive or risk becoming dragon minions. Nightmare isn’t an alternative to this situation; it’s probably actually Mordremoth. That’s not much of a choice and Scarlet sought to change that entire system.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

It was a good ending.

The only down side is that ANet is still enamored with the darn twigs. twig twig twig twig It would be nice if the Charr or Norn or, heaven forbid, humans were the hub of the story instead of the boring twigs.

Hey, human, you got a whole game all to yourself. Stop complaining

The season will wrap, ArenaNet will be silent for four weeks, we’ll find out that there’s a Feature Patch coming in April that will introduce a bunch of new features and major overhauls to existing systems, followed by an announcement for WvW tourny 4 running May-June, and LS 3 starting in August.

Just my guess.

For some of you in the bell choir, it could be that you’ve bugged and for whatever reason you actually can’t play the notes correctly. This happens to me in 2 out of 3 instances. I’ve had to spam-load myself into the chorus every day since launch in order to actually play any notes at all.

I’m not going to lie, I rock at the bell choir. I know it’s not that after getting perfect scores twice in a row I suddenly lost all ability to hit glowy bubbles. There’s a very clear glitch that I can’t reliably reproduce.

And I sympathize with people having a hard time with this activity. Last year it took me 10-15 rounds of abject failure to get the timing down – hint: it’s later than you think it is. Don’t listen to the music because that just throws you off.

If the Wintersday jumping puzzle was required, I would rage quit right along side the rest of you. I suuuuuuuck at jumping puzzles

KorbanDallas.7389:

The question here isn’t about it costing less, it’s about the worth of the LS episode. In that account, I agree that mostly all these story entries aren’t worth the cost of 200 gems – the value just isn’t there. I wasn’t particularly happy about paying 800 gems for a unbreakable pick – but it was worth ever one of those gems when I no longer had to constantly switch to mine things, replace broken picks, or deal with it in any way beyond just hitting “f” to interact. A new character slot for 800? Sure, I mean, I’ll get to play the entire game over again with that character in a new style (and possibly some new story selections), and that’s gonna get me at least 20 hours of time if I go for completion. These LS episodes though… I mean, before the whole Carapace armor thing, the rewards were pretty much laughable, and the story took a whole of 30 minutes to an hour to beat – sure, you could get replay out of it with the challenges if you’re that kind of person, but is that really worth 200 gems?

I largely agree. The chapters, maybe Episode 5 aside, have not been worth spending money on. The quality of the writing isn’t there. I like the rewards though and I find the Carapace armor kinda cool. The thing is, the rewards aren’t THAT special and you can complete the Carapace sets without having to do the story at all.

More off topic about it – the part that bothers me is that this was supposed to be a game without a subscription fee, but in order to play the game without logging in during every event and still play the story means you are gonna be paying – particularly with new players. It’s certainly nice that the story segments are available (as the first season is gone to the wind), but the behavior itself comes off in that money-grubbing light that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Yeah, they need to make money, but it feels like if the already expensive-feeling gemstore isn’t making them enough, maybe they should just switch from the living story over to the classic form of “60 $ expansions for new story content” instead of this other one that feels like it’s punishing people for not playing.

You’re right, it can be seen as either a punishment or a reward, depending on perspective. I wouldn’t call it a “subscription” though, as you seem to indicate that the story isn’t worth playing, so it’s content you wouldn’t even touch, and everything else remains accessibly in it entirety without having to pay additional costs.

Back on topic, 200 gems is a great price for a chapter, in theory. For this story, however, it’s not that I think 200 is too expensive, it’s that it’s not worth spending money on, period. Add to that that you can’t buy exactly $2.50 worth of gems and you end up with a real incentive not to buy.

Zaklex.6308:

Just to point out again, not all of the episodes have ended in a cliffhanger, which is: “A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.” Let’s use Ep. 7 as the example, did our character get left in precarious or difficult dilemma? No, we weren’t, it was neither precarious or difficult…just a stone door locked behind some magic. Did our characters have something shocking revealed to them…here again the answer is No. What we were left with was far from a cliffhanger, but instead just a point of the story where the actual ‘cliffhanger’ like story will be or should be revealed in the next episode.

You may not perceive a stone door locked for decades by magic as a difficult situation, but our characters clearly did. They had to go to the greatest source of knowledge in the (accessible) world to try and figure out what it even meant, and then open it. On the other side of the door is a secret that might possibly save all of Tyria.

Just because the tension maybe wasn’t built up to a degree that we as players feel the gravitas of this situation doesn’t mean this isn’t a cliffhanger; it’s just a weak one.

“Lend a Helping Hand” – While down-leveled, complete an event grouped with someone of the event’s level

“A Friend in Need” – Complete a group event while grouped

“RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH” – Bow down to a cultural leader

“Village Hero” – complete an event in a village or enclave

“Liberator” – complete an event to defend or rescue captives/thralls

“Wait, You’re Still a Thing?” – Talk to a member of Destiny’s Edge

“Dragonslayer” – defeat a dragon (Zhaitan included)

“Pick Up Your Room” – pick up ten different bundles/complete a bundle collection event

“Triathlon” – Kill Invaders in the Mists of three different tiers

“Super Mario” – complete a jumping puzzle

HtFde.3856:

The “do 4 events in” are a bad design – all it leads to are overcrowded maps and frustrated melee players who see enemies melt ebfore they have even spawned – add to this that in low level areas events to not scale properly – so you have still like 5 grawl in stage II of the ice shaman regardless of the 50+ players …

As a melee it is very hard to score a hit so that you get recognized for the event and for new players it is next to impossible to get recognized because a true level 5 does way less damage than a fully geared downscaled level 80.

So it would be better to have things spread out (like with the vista or the mining) and make it "do 4 events in the Shiverpeaks, Kryta, etc.) which would not lead to all that clustering.

Forgive me if I’m seeming rude, I’m really unclear on this point, don’t most people carry both a ranged and a melee weapon? I understand melee being your primary play style for serious events, but for tagfests like these, wouldn’t you want to have a ranged weapon? You listed Guard in your signature, so you have access to the Lootstick, no?

I noticed we’re lacking Carol of the Bells, which was also a request. Just so happens it’s my favorite song in the world, so here’s a basic arrangement of it!

It sounds nice on the Unbreakable Choir Bell, but I don’t have any of the other instruments to try it out on.

There needs to be a check in the PvE dailies – 1 world boss OR dungeon/fractal task per day. Make sure this double Fractal task never happens again.

How the heck do you have that much gold??

It sounds like yes, you got nerfed. Sorry that happened to you, but I’d guess you’re more of an outlier in this case. I spend a lot of time playing this game and yet I still don’t understand the urge to go out and get every daily achievement every day forever…

SHM.7628:

Preface: I am not by anymeans harcore. I’ve leveled 10 toons, they are in exotics and ascened trinkets. I don’t PVP, Craft, do JP’s, dungeon run or WvW with any regularity. I don’t consider myself casual, but judge for yourself.

I’ve done the events and PS ad nausium. Some are great fun. However, I’ve never gotten a good piece of loot from one. I certainly haven’t from mobs or chests. I’m geared so if it isn’t something special then its junk to me.

From what I understand leveling, loot, drops and chests are far better in other modes of play.

There’s a ton of in game things that are either useless or unobtainable to me. Take MF I am at about 100%. realisticly, I’ll never max it out. It took me about a month to realize I’d never make significant progress in crafting or my legendary due to time constraints. How is that fun?

I like working towards stuff but the stuff has to be meaningful. In other games you could beat specific bosses for a chance of something unique like a weapon or armor set. That would be fun.

I was doing the wintersday stuff and I though, “why am I doing this?” There’s nothing I really want. The few nice items that I wanted were mostly out of my reach. I got so much junk I was destroying it. I could have sold it for 2 copper on the TP, but why?

First, there ARE bosses that drop unique armor/weapon sets – Tequatl and Triple Trouble both have (small) chances to drop unique Ascended items. It sounds like you don’t like the RNG though, so maybe you’re looking for something like the dungeon armor? Yes, it only drops from dungeons or PvP, though folks in various threads have offered suggestions on mixing that up. Or maybe the Silverwastes’ Luminous armor, which is exclusively PvE and not excessively grindy? Last season, Scarlet had a chance to drop Scarlet’s Kiss and Scarlet’s Rainbow – the only mega-amazing drop I’ve ever looted.

Second, what would be an example of good/special loot, in your mind? Does it need to have a fancy skin? Be expensive? How should it be earned? Clearly “a chance” to drop from a boss isn’t enough. Would you prefer a reward track? I certainly would! Try not to use a precursor as an example, since that’s been discussed ad nauseum.

Finally, what would be a good example of progression? What are your goals in playing the game? If the answer is just “to have fun,” then what do you enjoy doing?

After the new daily update, I’ve lost even more hope for this problem to be resolved in anything approaching a reasonable manner. The concept of “level appropriate and open-ended” seems to have completely evaporated.

I know it was strongly hinted that the trait system will be receiving a significant overhaul yet again, so it will take a while for it to roll out, but seriously, does it need to take a year? This should be first priority for “features.”

The window goes away if everyone jumps right back in. I’ve been caught with my hands on the mouse opening the bonus chests because suddenly everyone was ready to go!

Stop being elitist and go open a Wintersday present. Have a cookie. You’ll enjoy the hilarity a lot more.

PS this is my most favorite activity in the history of the game. I looked forward to playing it all year. Please please please make Bell Choir a permanent activity.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Activity: Oh, okay, let’s see what’s up this fine morning. Southsun Survival, are you kidding me? Most boring thing ever, pass. (If Bell Choir had counted for me, I wouldn’t have had to comment on this one.)

Claw of Jormag: Huh, I wont be online anymore 100 minutes from now. Pass.

Caledon Forest Events: Yeah, sure, easy. And utterly stupid and not even tangentially something I would consider doing today. After completing it 9 times, I have no desire to visit content like this on a level 80.

Shiverpeaks Miner: Quickly and easily done, but not something I would be doing today as I have no plans to play in the Shiverpeaks.

All 4 WvW: WvW isn’t interesting this time of day. I’m never much inclined to play it anyway.

All 4 PvP: Haven’t done that in ages, and there’s a reason for that. It didn’t do anything for me.

That’s 12 things I have no interest in doing. And I would like to know why Bell Choir didn’t register for me while it did for you.

Bell Choir only awards Daily Activity if you play through the end of the freestyle round at the end. Also, you don’t have to do anything BUT the freestyle to get credit. It’s confusing because you get credit for the Wintersday daily after just one piece. It was the same way last year.

On a side note, what DID you plan on doing today?

I like your suggestions, especially #2.

Thinking in a more general fashion, or for those rare AP hunters who don’t have level 80 characters, perhaps tying the dailies to a region, instead of a specific map? It also helps open variety. For example, if the dailies were assigned to Queensdale, asking for a JP complete means “Do Demon Grub Pits.”

Map-specific dailies that require events have also led to the problem we’re having in Caledon today and Queensdale a few days ago: saturation of down-leveled 80’s wiping events in seconds.

Seconded on adding a few dailies per game mode as well.

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Here’s an issue I’m not sure anyone else has raised. If I missed it, then just add my voice to theirs.

One of today’s PvE tasks was Caledon Forest Events. This is a starter zone. So, the “enticement” to get players to go do events there results in 30 or more down-leveled 80’s competing to kill 6-8 level 8 mobs.

It’s my opinion that if you’re going to draw a bunch of players to one zone, then the scaling on your events needs to be dramatically improved. Why? I recognize this is subjective, but mobs that melt before they can do anything is just not good gameplay. In fact, it’s terrible gameplay. This is the same issue you can also see in Cursed Shore with events like the defense event after second beacon in the Melandru chain, with mobs dying the instant they become vulnerable to attack. Except, in Caledon there are fewer mobs.

I definitely think event scaling needs to be revisited.

So, SO agreed. The Caledon Forest events just melted. Fortunately it seems to have a very high turn-over rate and a decent event density. Plus collection events tend to scale pretty effectively.

Iron Marches was a pain because there just didn’t seem to be enough events running aside from the Mordrem ones.

I can also agree less specificity would benefit everyone. Make it Kryta or Maguuma Jungle, rather than Queensdale and Caledon Forest. Use X wins, instead of “Win as a Ranger.” Don’t require specific world bosses; it’s too time constraining. I’m just praying that Teq and Triple Trouble don’t show up as dailies. PLEASE don’t do that.

Otherwise, I think the new dailies are neat!

Zaklex.6308:

felessan.9587:

~Snip~
Episodic works might have an over-all story arc (they generally don’t), but each chapter (or two) is a self-contained narrative with incident-action-resolution included. Most modern serials work this way, but Star Trek is my favorite example.

~Snip~

If you’re comparing it to episodic TV, yes, most shows are like that. If you want to compare it to episodikittenerature then not all works are like that, I’ve read several(Wheel of Time and Venus Prime come to mind) that didn’t have the self-contained incident-action-resolution narrative over a chapter or two, let alone an entire book in the series. Sometimes you had to read 3 or 4 books(in the case of Wheel of Time) to get that complete narrative.

I’m actually talking about how we tend to define “episodic” vs. “climactic” when discussing literature. My point was that the plot is generally labeled “climactic” when it’s working towards the resolution of something set off by one singular incident – Lord of the Rings, for example. Episodic works don’t have a singular resolution – generally ancient literature; look at Beowulf.

What I was trying to get at was that I have no idea what the plot of this story is. It seemed like our inciting incident was the awakening of Mordremoth, but the focus for our characters hasn’t been on that story anymore. There have been plot twists along the way, but they just linger and don’t actually “twist” to anything.

Mal.1670:

Sigh. The more I think about it the more I just can’t understand how somehow could go on a long vitriolic rant about the most creative mission design we’ve seen from Arenanet in a long time. Seriously if you enjoy the story enough to be playing the new content, you should enjoy discovering more about the most important characters to the story. And cut scenes don’t hold a candle to actual gameplay. I don’t get why it has to be any more difficult than that.

I played it hoping I would enjoy the story. I didn’t. Aside from Episode 5, LS2 has been a huge storytelling let down.

Yay for liking the game still I had so many of the same complaints you did when I first started playing. I was super lucky to have a friend walk me through most of these points, and now I do the same for other players when I can.

Crafting takes a lot of heat, and I’ll admit I was just too dumb to figure it out for the first two characters I made. In general I find there’s not enough in-game explanation for things. Yes, you can turn to a guild or friends to explain things, /but you shouldn’t have to./ But I never felt like I had any problems without crafting at all. The only reason I invested in crafting was to reach 500, which took me well over a year for all six armor/weapon crafts.

The trick with crafting is map complete. Complete zones level 15-65 and you get a good stack of crafting mats as a bonus, plus you get decent drops from mobs along the way. Seriously don’t sweat the mats.

Which materials are you referring to specifically? There are some great online resources that have more information, or you could ask here (though clearly some people prefer just to be openly hostile…)

The achievements for the Living Story stuff are designed to be very difficult. In the past, players complained (quite loudly) that the achievements were too easy to get and so they didn’t feel like they “achieved” anything. Whether these achievements just toe the line between “difficult” and “ridiculous” is up for debate. I didn’t struggle with the Wild Rodeo achievement, but I almost couldn’t complete the champ fight on challenge mode and I certainly never would have completed it without getting hit by wind or sand without massive help. In the end, they’re not required, which is why the reward for completing all of them is actually pretty nice (free ascended armor? yes please).

Vayne really does know his stuff, and if you want I’m more than happy help you out too.

PeterFries.1057:

Xter.6271:

I really feel disheartened by this 6 week break now.

I hope I don’t sound unsympathetic to your plight, but as a content creator and dev, we could have a lot worse problems than our players being impatient to find out what happens next. If it helps, I am as impatient as you to have our next episode get released, and as hopeful as you that you will really like it.

The problem isn’t that we have a huge mid-season break (again) it’s that we’ve had two over only 7 episodes, the last two of which were minuscule by comparison.

Add to that the season feels unfocused because it’s not clear what kind of story, or what story for that matter, you want to tell. By this I mean, is this story supposed to be climactic or episodic?

The key difference between these two things hinges on this: chapter structure. In a purely climactic story, a single chapter does not have an incident-action-resolution structure, but it’s generally more clear what the story is leading up to. Murder mysteries are the typical example.

Episodic works might have an over-all story arc (they generally don’t), but each chapter (or two) is a self-contained narrative with incident-action-resolution included. Most modern serials work this way, but Star Trek is my favorite example.

I say it’s hard to tell what the plot is because we’ve been thrown several major curves over the entire arc of the Living Story. By the end of the first season, we knew that: Scarlet had learned about Mordremoth and was trying to do something about it. Was she trying to wake him up? Was she trying to destroy him? Why build a giant weapon like the Marionette? I still don’t know. Either way, we awoke him when we stopped her. It seemed at the time our entire next season would be focused on Mordremoth. We were told at that time to “buckle your seat belts” and prepare for something epic; Lion’s Arch got busted up, and then nothing happened. We knocked over Scarlet, got more questions than answers (seriously) and were left to stew for months.

The first half of LS2 focused on that pretty effectively. Still, we know nothing about how the dragons are connected to the Eternal Alchemy, why things are falling out of balance, or what we should be doing about it. Rytlock vanishes (good hook for a future plot, because it doesn’t seem important for this one.)

Then in the second half, suddenly the Pact showing back up and preparing to destroy Mordremoth becomes a backdrop setting and our story veers wildly away and we start chasing an egg. Suddenly it looks less and less likely that Mordremoth is focus of the season anymore (as strongly suggested by the end of LS1).

Again, we’re told to “buckle your seat belts” but now whatever grand finale is being promised either won’t be the one that we’ve been led to believe we were chasing all along (a fight with a dragon) and there STILL will be no resolution, or it will be so rushed it will completely ruin the climax.

TL;DR:
What am I watching here, Lost?

I use the daily achievements for quick XP boosts when leveling characters. I haven’t leveled one in a while, but if I ever get back to it, it’ll be sad to see I can’t do that quite as easily (I can’t take a sub-75 to Malchor’s or Maguuma Wastes).

Otherwise, this looks great on paper! We’ll see how execution goes.

Rozbuska.5263:

Daily monthly change looks very cool for me. But log-in rewards? WTF? I know you want keep players coming back but this idea is bit too much dont you think? Rewarding players for participation ins?tead of win is generaly bad idea and its something kitten ruining game industry.

But what is “winning” in this case? The only way you can fairly judge someone’s playing is to call all play equal. Otherwise you end up over-specify what “playing” is, which disenfranchises some part of the playerbase who is actively playing your game. Do RPers get the short end of the stick because they go into a map and talk but little else? Do you have to kill a mob to be “playing?” Do you have to run one dungeon to get your daily reward? If I just want to log in a craft a shload of jewelry, does that mean I’m not actually “playing?”

I get where you’re coming from, in that you feel no one should be given something for nothing. Where is the line though? Someone’s “nothing” is another person’s “something.”

I didn’t start crafting until my third character, when I had a huge pile of mats to work with. Not intentional, I just didn’t feel like I needed it. I still don’t think I missed anything.

The first tier takes longer to break out of than the other tiers, and tier 2 tends to be the hardest in terms of materials.

OP – you asked if that 5% makes a difference for end-game: not really.

The only reason you’ll need Ascended gear is if you want to tackle the very high-end dungeon, Fractals of the Mists. Ascended gear allows access to a specific kind of resistance (Agony resistance) that you can’t get by any other means and is necessary for anything but beginning Fractals.

I also really disliked playing as Caithe for the centaur fight. Having all my entire build thrown out the window and tossed into a melee-only fighting style that I strongly dislike (I prefer to swap between melee and ranged weapons) was really annoying. Yes, Caithe’s skills are super OP with high damage, reflects, constant dodges, and low CD. I am also apparently one of the minority that also loves Caithe as an NPC. I still didn’t like playing as her.

The Asuran lab was fun because the stealth puzzle was intriguing and challenging and you could avoid combat entirely.

Khisanth.2948:

Zaxares.5419:

So is this “Not So Secret” 2.0? If so, I’m looking forward to it!

Not nearly as horrible as “Not So Secret”. If you die it doesn’t force you to restart from the beginning. If you die you corpse doesn’t end up in completely random weird positions where nobody can find you.

The jumps require less precision, that’s for sure.

I had to start over though, if I died. I may have missed something other than the obvious Skritt Tunnel that leads back to the WP.

Yaaaay! I want the Apostle armor so bad

Four hours for the first run (disconnected about 11 times>personal problem) and it was niiiiightmarish. I can say with confidence though, disconnecting does NOT force you to start over. The “Milestone” buff has a 24 hour duration and doesn’t go away if you log out. It only stacks when you trigger a flag you haven’t previously passed so you can keep track of how far you’ve gone and you can’t pass the first flag 9 times, then port to the end.

I will say, the thing that makes this particular puzzle horrible is actually the “puzzle” part, not the jumping part. Running with a group was really nice because it was actually a challenge to navigate (the way forward is often straight down, instead of the obvious but impossibly difficult path forward).

Once the mighty Dulfy gets a video up on her site though, it won’t be nearly as hard.

Pros:

• easy-moderate jumps, with very little precision required
• Milestone system helps you track your progress
• Milestone system is forgiving for disconnection and needing to log out mid-puzzle
• Mesmers cannot shortcut the entire puzzle (need 9 Milestone stacks to open the final chest)
• four chests, in reasonable locations!
• helpful resurrection system
• no mobs to fight
• challenge will greatly decrease with experience

Cons:

• length. (mod warning joke goes here)
• in-game rewards are lacking (guaranteed yellow, green, and two upgrades from final chest, 3 AP and an infinite tonic for the achievement)
• Mesmers can’t shortcut the entire puzzle
• mid-path faltering is extremely unforgiving
• Milestone 8-9 feels longer than any other leg of the puzzle
• paths in above section are extremely narrow. Slipping will force you to start over.
• Golden Badges hidden throughout, including at the final chest.
• challenge will greatly decrease with experience

Happened to me just now too. Ticket submitted but I haven’t heard responses from the last time this happened. Can we get some dev attention to this one?

Yes, the story progression is exactly what I’m talking about. Hidden Arcana is the last instance from LS 02×05.

Another thought on this topic: can we get the ability to join party members in story instances already in progress? I was running Hidden Arcana with my husband a few days ago, he was the instance owner, I DC’d, and we had no way to re-group. Fortunately it was early in the instance so he just logged out and we started over, but it was annoying none-the-less.

Strongly seconded on the event credit idea Allied. I was doing one of the Silverwastes defenses and DC’d about half way through, re-logged immediately just in time to see the defense end and not get any credit. I’m not really going to miss 4 bandit crests and a bag of blue gear, but it’s the principle of the thing!

OP, I agree with most of your conclusions, but your post is extremely biased. Hint: you can’t have a “consensus” that starts with “I think/I feel.” Also, “topic has been discussed at length” is not a new conclusion; isn’t that what your whole thread is about in the first place?

You may want to change out “consensus” for “Current state of affairs” or something. Couch your conclusions in terms of what is officially known and provide links as evidence.

Is there a way to develop a save-point system so you can re-enter an instance if you disconnect from it? I’m not tech-savy so I don’t really know the limitations on this, like how to tell the difference between involuntary DCing and cheating death by quickly closing the game.

I’ve been running Hidden Arcana on all my alts, but this last time through I’ve been disconnected four times at various stages in the instance. The last time was after all the combats, but before I could talk to Ogden and claim credit for it. Infuriating.

I’m sure this has been brought up before, but… broken search and all…

Sytherek.7689:

Gaile,

Don’t let the obsessives and forum warriors get you down. There are millions of people enjoying the game and playing. Happy players are playing, not posting.

Well, I’m posting as a counterpoint (probably lost in the rancor) to the incessantly unhappy. Nothing ANet does will satisfy the hardcore dissatisfied.

I’d love to know what’s coming. I understand why you don’t tell us. People have unrealistic expectations of software companies that they do not apply to car makers, TV shows, authors, construction, or other industries. No one (almost) demands Ford have a public detailed five-year plan, or that an architect make detailed plans available to everyone who might someday walk into the new building.

TL;DR

Pretend you’re Marvel Studios and announce the titles of your movies through 2018. It pays off. Seriously.

I too want to thank and congratulate Gaile. She’s fantastic and wonderful and I love seeing her posts everyday.

I’m of a different mind when it comes to roadmapping. I work as an artist and admin for a theatre company and I liken a player base to a patron base. Comparing a game to Ford is a bit different because you can’t realistically expect someone to buy a car every year. Ford’s business model doesn’t function with that expectation.

I get exactly what you’re saying that people on the outside (our patrons) don’t need to know every detail of what we have planned. They don’t need our production meeting schedule, or our design schematics, or the prompt book, or all the director’s notes.

12 months out, you can bet we don’t have a cast, or designs, or probably anything staged; we probably have a director and if it’s early in the season, we may have a concept that we can talk a little bit about. But patrons need a hook, so we announce details when we can. We do NOT wait until opening night to announce the title or who’s in the cast.

No, Guild Wars isn’t subscription-based, and so it’s not a perfect analogy. Once someone buys the game, Anet has their money and since it’s free to play after, they don’t have to work as hard at retention.

But someone is most likely to go to a show or pick up a game if 1. there’s major name recognition involved (branding or advertising) or 2. their friends recommend it. Not having enough of a preview or exciting your base is a sure way to kill name recognition and word-of-mouth, or worse, turn it all negative.

Bugabuga.9721:

I’ve created an alt account to see how New Player Experience would go and absolutely agree that trait acquisition sucks big time. Basically you have to buy them at total cost that is more than what was going on before.

Regardless of what some people say, asking for dungeon completion (even story mode) is kinda masochistic. You’re basically locking that trait away until character levels up significantly and then comes back and does story mode dungeons to unlock stuff (and on every character too!).

And even if you try to buy it, until you reach level 80 skillpoints are kinda limited, so this feels extra drawn out and character is starved of skillpoints (and total money, should someone experiment with “all” traits).

I wonder how many players as a result end up with level 80 that basically has only small subset of traits available. You can’t really experiment because of this. It also goes against “build diversity” too.

When character is lower level, some trait unlocks (especially if you’re doing EOTM) result in a funny situation. “You have unlocked this trait! Want to open your traits panel and select it? [ disabled yes ] [ NO ]”

Having an option for old ‘buy book for just (reasonable) amount of gold’ would certainly be great.

If someone unlocks all traits via books, you still could highlight certain traits if player completes the requirement and haven’t tried it before (so the PVE event/dungeon/whatever is either unlock or a ‘reminder’ for the first time they do it)

I think it’s been so long now we’re forgetting that the trait changes aren’t part of the NPE, strictly speaking. The trait changes released in April 2014, and the NPE was September 2014. Going on 7 months now and no overhaul. Boo.

Personally tested and can tell you that you can buy harvesting tools from the vendors in the major cities and you can use them at level 2. The harvesting nodes have just been relocated out of the level 6 and lower spots of the starting maps. Seeing the date on the OP, guessing this is no longer relevant anyway.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, I’m back. About Harry Potter…

I think that the whole basis for the presentation in this and other threads about communication has a few pillars. And it’s one of them that I’m thinking about. J. K. Rawlings wrote a series of well-loved books, and I am sure (although I didn’t follow it) that people gave feedback to her on every release, heck, probably every nuance of every release, and that they also provided suggestions for future books. It’s a natural thing: People were highly invested in the series, loved it a bunch, and wanted to know more, or to have input.

In that small sense — and yes, that’s only part of the communication question — I don’t think I’d want our team to communicate about the game’s direction. Like, “Yes, so in the future, all frogs will become sentient, treble in size, and take over Lion’s Arch, leading to the elimination of all non-amphibian races. Yep, yep, that’s where we’re heading with the story.” NOTE: This is NOT where the story is going. This is only a wildly-improbable scenario offered for purposes of… umm… providing a wildly-improbable scenario.

My question: Do you agree that it’s good to not share that sort of information, information related to the actual direction of the game saga as a whole?

If so, then my sense is that you want to know more about the nuts and bolts.

• “Are you looking at XXX new feature?”
• “Do you intend to improve ABC functionality?”
• “Is ### working as intended, or is it bugged, or will you incorporate player feedback to change it?”

Again, this is a small part of the discussion, but I wanted to make sure I was looking at that part accurately. I wondered if generally, no one is asking about the whole “Tell us where the story is going” bit.

Yes, you’re right that we don’t want plot spoilers. We want to know that there’s a direction for the game, and a 6-12 month preview would probably be sufficient. What kinds of content are we going to get beyond the LW updates? Updates on the various types of content people keep asking for (classes/professions, races, continents, skills, SAB, dungeons, new sPvP maps etc.) are what we want.

Namely, ARE any of these things going to happen? We don’t actually know that they are. Development has been much slower than the player base anticipated. At least it seems that way because we don’t know what’s actually in development.

I know the current strategy is to tie all PvE development into the Living World framework. And from that, I get that you can’t really reveal much without actually spoiling the plot.

For example, say you want to release the Tengu as a playable race. Announcing that specifically might be too spoilerific for your tastes because it strongly indicates where the story is headed, so instead say “over the course of this story, you’ll be gaining access to a new playable race” and leave it at that. At least we know it’s coming and we know it’s happening within the time frame of THIS story.

A friend of mine finished his third level 80 toon last week, then turned to me blankly and said, “ummm, what now? What else is there to do?” I had absolutely no idea what to tell him because he’s basically new and missed all of the LW and there’s no roadmap beyond that.

For anything that’s more feature-based, just announcing it when development starts is a good plan. Again, we don’t need specifics, but knowing something like “We’ve started cooking up something that will help with server population imbalance” or “We’re planning a major overhaul to the trait system.” (I suggest this because I, like everyone else, have no idea how long ideas spend in development at Anet, because we never hear anything more than two-ish weeks in advance.)

I’ll use Traits as another example, since that’s the hill I’ve apparently chosen to die on. Telling us that serious efforts to redesign the system have begun would be a god-send right now. Saying something like, “Don’t expect to see any changes before April 2015” would even be something.

And to really help avoid this “I can’t find the link to XYZ quote, they never said that!” just sticky these kinds of development posts.

TL;DR – No spoilers, just tell us what is actually in development.

misterman.1530:

Oh. Man. I can just see it if mounts were in the game: “Ooo…I want that pink, fluffy spider mount, he looks so cuuutte!” Gah. Please. Spare me that.

Mounts ARE in the game. I’m guilty of exactly this :/ Flying Broom+Wicked Witch themed character=entire MINUTES of joy.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

felessan.9587:

Wolfheart.1879:

…
10) Witht he heavy focus being on the new content, would that push the changing of an older system (traits) further back in priority. With that, can any change to the system in response to feedback be expected in, say the next 6 months, 1 year, 2 years?
…

Perhaps some questions that Anet could mull over.

All great questions. I think I remember the specific answers to two of them, though I can’t remember where the original posts are.

4) The idea of locking traits behind increasingly difficult content is to provide a sense of progression. I think it is supposed to give a player more of a sense of reward as they level and as they explore. If the Adept tier covers level 30-60, the content in it should cover that entire level range, so you always feel like you have something of your level to do.

10/11) It has been said explicitly that company policy prevents them from giving time frames ever again. Gaile has said repeatedly that she (they?) understands our frustration with the little information we’re given and that we should trust that they are working on improvements. We’ve also gotten the closest thing to a confirmation we’ve had in over a year that something was going to happen with the trait system; it’s buried somewhere in this thread.

I didn’t see him asking for any specific time frames. He gave time frames stating we have been waiting for 6 months. At this point in time they should come out and say what they are or aren’t working on. Its not the living story so there isn’t any spoilers they need to worry about. If they honestly care about the players they should let them know if they are working on fixing some of the trait unlocks, or if they are looking at overhauling the entire system again, or if they think it is fine the way it is. Those are simple questions with easy yes or no answers that don’t need to have any specifics attached(even though we’d all love to hear them).

the only reason they won’t say anything is because no they aren’t fixing any more trait unlocks, no they aren’t going to overhaul the system again(or roll back to old version), and finally do they think its ok the way it is, doesn’t really matter because they aren’t going to do anything anyways.

Edited to add I feel this way because the white knights have told us things are this way and they aren’t going to change. And they would be the ones to know ;-)

I absolutely 100% agree with you. 6 months is an unforgivable amount of time to let something this ridiculous go on.

However, Wolfheart did ask for a time frame in question 10, and we all know that it will be a cold day in heck before we get that kind of information ever again.

I was only repeating what I could remember the devs having posted before. In particular, look at this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/43#post4359246

People who are under strict silence only make overtures like these when they’re trying to confirm something they can’t actually confirm. If we’re going to constantly call out the PR speak used here, we might as well look at both sides of the coin.

I have sort of the opposite problem. My first few characters I grabbed some names from a random name generator, and ended up using Rytlock as part of a few names not knowing who he was. I actually want to change the names.

Wolfheart.1879:

To re-iterate my concerns with my last post, and to do it in a less grouchy, rambling way (I get like that late at night. oops!), here are some questions which I feel are pertinent to this thread. Perhaps these questions could be passed along to the devs/whoever is higher up in these situations. The questions are based upon the trait system as it stands, aswell as recent Anet responses.

1) Give that one of the aims of the new system was to promote greater build experimentation, how do you feel the system has done compared to that objective?
2) Do you feel that the current way of acquiring traits, either through unlocking or buying, promotes that experimentation
3) Do you feel that the cost side of unlocking (probably more aimed at repeat characters) is a good balance for those levelling new characters and for new players.
4) What was the logic behind gating lower level traits behind higher level objectives?
5) Is it truly seen as unreasonable to ask for status reports on issues that have been a concern for over 6 months?
6) When it is stated that our feedback is being considered, what exactly does that mean? Is it just being filed away or is it being used to improve the system? Either way, how can we know, unless a meaningful update is given?
7) Do you feel the way in which these feedback threads from that time was handled, with the lack of response for months on end was handled appropriately?
8) With the obvious time pressures for new content, and as said with the post in the Communication Disappointment thread, is the addressing of a 6 month old a priority anymore?
9) How many people are working on the trait system at the moment? I understand that probably the same people do several jobs, so can there be some sort of statistic to show how much work has gone into the trait system from the development end in, say, the last 2 months?
10) Witht he heavy focus being on the new content, would that push the changing of an older system (traits) further back in priority. With that, can any change to the system in response to feedback be expected in, say the next 6 months, 1 year, 2 years?
11) If unable to answer that question, can you understand why that frustrates players and makes us assume we are being ignored? (that question wasn’t to put down a strict timescale, but to find an assurance that changes will happen. Can that assurance be given?
12) Would some form of account unlocking of traits, perhaps with a different cost that would be economical for altoholics, but enough of a sink to be substantial, be something that could be explored?

Perhaps some questions that Anet could mull over.

All great questions. I think I remember the specific answers to two of them, though I can’t remember where the original posts are.

4) The idea of locking traits behind increasingly difficult content is to provide a sense of progression. I think it is supposed to give a player more of a sense of reward as they level and as they explore. If the Adept tier covers level 30-60, the content in it should cover that entire level range, so you always feel like you have something of your level to do.

10/11) It has been said explicitly that company policy prevents them from giving time frames ever again. Gaile has said repeatedly that she (they?) understands our frustration with the little information we’re given and that we should trust that they are working on improvements. We’ve also gotten the closest thing to a confirmation we’ve had in over a year that something was going to happen with the trait system; it’s buried somewhere in this thread.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Soooo sorry! I asked about this and forgot to post!

Some time ago, it was noticed and reported as a “bug” that during cinematics, the “fidget” animations continued. So you’re seeing this exciting story bit about a dragon attack and, behind the scenes, your character is yawning and toeing the sand. It just didn’t fit.

So the animations were temporarily removed to be worked on and reincorporated in a way that allowed them to perform normally in the game but to stop (or maybe change) during cinematics. But getting to a place where the animations could be configured on a more fine-grained basis took more time than anticipated.

From what I understand, the team has the tools to reconfigure and re-enable the animations, but the team lead told me that naturally they’ll need to figure out when someone (or maybe more than one person) can be assigned the task. As it turns out, each animation bit needs to be reconfigured individually.

TL;dr: This change is coming, as soon as it can be scheduled and prioritized. Naturally, some matters that are higher on the priority list but this project will be scheduled as appropriate.

Bam! Twice in a row! Did they finally snap the tether?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Not next year, no. Not months from now, no. It’s coming, and it’s coming very soon.

In fact, I’m going to a review in less than an hour, although that doesn’t set a release time quite yet.

What I wonder about is this: What if someone says something is coming “in the next couple of days” or “within the next week” or “by the end of the month” and then testing reveals an issue that delays the implementation? Would you rather hear something rather specific, like “in the next couple of days,” even while you know that it could change for reasons outside our control? Or would you rather hear “soon” and not have as solid an expectation, but also take on board that the implementation is a top priority (as was mentioned in the thread about the Currency Exchange changes)?

I feel that either answer isn’t perfect, so I’d welcome your insights. You should know that I truly do understand that “soon” is frustratingly vague and I argue against.. I mean, “I gently speak in favor of alternatives…” whenever we can use something more meaningful. On the other hand, saying something more specific can result in flaming “You promised it by XX time!” comments, because even a casual possible release time could be adopted as an absolute date/time/time zone promise.

Thoughts?

The way I generally take vague rough estimates is like this:

“A couple of days” means anywhere from 1-10 days, usually 2-5.

“A few weeks” is like 1-4 weeks.

“A few months” is 1-3 months.

Anything beyond that is “within the next quarter/season/year.”

If estimated development/implementation time doesn’t pan out, I like to hear “X feature hit a snag with (broad Y issue) and we’ve had to delay for another (Z amount of time) or so.”

“Soon” is the most aggravating word possible because it could mean any of those things.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

If you can try it again, please do!

And were you grouped when you did that? Because as mentioned above, if one party member lands an early tag, then that will carry over to the entire party. That’s how I’ve been getting my Maw credit, one person I travel there with has trouble getting event credit from the Svanir guards event, so she fights the southern shamans event while I do the guards and portals, and she waits to hit the Shaman once he becomes vulnerable and I’m starting to run back.

It definitely does require big zergs for the loot issue to be seen, though. Most of my playtime is during NA prime time, so it’s something I notice a lot. I assume that due to Megaservers that events like Maw are still crowded the rest of the day, just on less total servers, but if there’s a similar number of servers with just less people per server, then it might not wind up being as noticeable.

The number of unique loot tags per critter can’t be too high, though. I’ve missed loot from Veteran Arid Devourers in Dry Top, and I’m pretty sure that map has a lower population cap than other maps due to its smaller size. On that topic, does anyone know how many players can be in one Dry Top map at once? That might help us narrow down exactly when the loot cutoff is, because it can still happen there.

For mobs that are actually world bosses, I never have a problem getting loot unless the game bugs and fails to reward the daily bonus chest. I have never not gotten a champ bag from the Svanir Shaman. It doesn’t matter when I start attacking him, how much damage I do, whether I am grouped or not, done pre events, etc. If I can tag him, I get the drop. Yes, I play during NA prime time too. My suspicion is that it isn’t based on numbers.

However, I regularly get denied champ bags from the war dogs during the Modniir Ulgoth event. I’ve found grouping helps that tremendously for whatever reason. I also tend to get exotic bags, rather than rare or masterwork bags when I’m grouped. Maybe it’s because of the 5-10% initial damage window or because of the 5-10% damage you need to inflict to get participation credit, but grouping helps either way.

The only events I group for are ones that have non-boss Champ spawns that drop bags (Ulgoth, some of Jormag, Krait Lab, etc.) or ones that I know have a high chance of DCing me (Teq and Triple Wurm).

Thanks John for starting this thread!

It’s been mentioned a few times, but I think I prefer PvP Reward Track-style tracking as opposed to tokens because determining “success” is highly subjective. Also note, this idea won’t really work for precursors; I’ll leave that kettle of fish to someone else to dream up.

Maybe we could have a few different tracks: “world bosses,” “x variety champ bag,” “teq,” “triple trouble,” “ambrite fossils,” “fractal weapons,” etc. Each one would tick up based on completing/opening something that has a specific unique reward.

In order to keep some of the grind down and to help people who have fewer alts, I’m suggesting a generic “World Boss” track where any boss that has the potential to drop a unique Exotic item would get lumped into one huge track; then when the track is the full the next boss that you defeat would be guaranteed to drop its item. I know for items like the Commissar’s Manifesto and the Pendant of Arah, it would cause prices to plummet, but would that really be so bad? It would also allow more free play of a specific caliber than just grinding the same event over and over again. Especially helpful since some of these events are perpetually bugged or misunderstood…

“X Variety Champ Bags” would reward you with a special loot bag that would drop your choice of possible named exotic. For example, if I open a ton of Shell Pouches, after filling up the track I would have my choice of Bonetti’s Rapier, Arthropoda, or Rockweed Spire. Right now I count 12 tracks that would be good, but those could be reduced by associating a weapon with only one track.

I do! I’ve lost so many hours to the character creation screen… Then you get in game and before you know it, you’ve lost an entire day to the wardrobe!

In regards to what OP said, my friends (both new to MMOs and otherwise) were having real challenges with things like bank and crafting as well. Changing the labeling on some of these items would help immensely.

For example, right now crafting materials aren’t all labeled as such. When a player first starts, there’s not an easy distinction between crafting materials and trophies. Giving them the descriptors “crafting material” and “junk” would make that difference much more clear. Plus it would take the guess work out of the “sell junk” button at vendors. Before you come to understand what it does, there’s the question “is this item important? Should I be keeping it for something? It says ‘trophy’ so what do I do with it?”

Second, an optional crafting tutorial would really help things get going. Every player I personally know (including myself) had to be shown exactly how to discover recipes and craft weapons. Maybe each master crafter could have a simple walkthrough that you can opt to watch, like the heart scouts.

Yes please! I bought all 1425 in one go. My mouse nearly broke