Guild Wars 2

I haven’t got it myself yet, but looks like the wiki has been updated now;

“The champion Risen drake spawns at the Melandru Reliquary after completing the event to “Power the southeast shrine” event"

So will try handing around there during the meta

The sudden new change of waypoint system on the new map did initially throw me a bit, and I still can’t really work out the reason for it. But given the size of the map and the fact it didn’t really take long to get the map currency to unlock them I didn’t really mind.

I’m all for having account wide waypoints, so in that respect they are good imo (and free is nice). If this is the way they decide to go for maps going forward from here then I won’t be too fussed, but would like a few tweaks made to them.

1) They need to be able to work as a WP from outside the map, as at the moment it means an extra loading screen to get to some areas. This is pretty important for us players who don’t have an SSD/have space on an SSD where loading times can be slow. No one likes loading screens at the best of times, so if I want to get to a part of a map then I don’t want to have to load to a main WP, then have immediately sit through another loading screen to get to the place in the same map I want to be.

2) No events that lock out the vendors to buy the shrines/new WPs. Getting the currency was fine, but having to wait for the vendors to be active while events finished was annoying.

3) Need to be linkable in chat, at the moment you (or at least I) can’t seem to link them in chat like a normal WP. If these replace WPs in new maps then we really should be able to link them to call out events like we do with WPs.

4) If we need to unlock 5 or 6 of these on a new map then just make sure the currency needed is obtainable to the same ratio as we got here, so they can still be unlocked reasonably quickly.

Alduina.9523:

Thank you for your replies. The one I was attempting, last night, was the one in Siren’s Landing. Towards the beginning of the jp, you have to climb a mast and glide to the ledge. I was not in combat mode or anything and I applied swiftness to my ranger to no avail. Someone in my guild took a quick look and he said that it looked like I was glitching. If that’s the case, what can I do?

If they meant it looked like you were skipping/stuttering/jumping ahead, that might have just been some sort of visual lag where on his/her end it just wasn’t updating your position smoothly. I sometimes see players gliding in front of me that seem to start glitching ahead or falling for no reason, then appear back ahead of me a few seconds later. (mostly when everyone is gliding on that last updraft at DS after the boss).

But I’m fairly sure that to those players the game is running normally and there’s no issue, and it’s just that the server>my client is getting some lag that’s causing their characters to appear like they are glitching to me.

Was also going to suggest the lean techniques, especially for the Siren’s Landing JP, as using lean techniques I only just made some of the glides, so I’m not sure if all of the glides on it are doable without that mastery. There was one in the Ember Bay JP I think I only just made with lean techniques as well, so this really does help a lot.

Knight In Shining Armor.1708:

When I land on a new map on day 1, I know absolutely Nothing about how to use these things

I don’t see what’s so confusing, all of these things say exactly what they do when you hover over them on the skill bar. And if for some reason you decide not to read what they do, it takes 2 seconds to click on them and see what they do.

Knight In Shining Armor.1708:

You gave us bouncy mushrooms that we had to grind to use.

Lol, “had to grind to use”, bouncing mushrooms is Itzel 1. There is no way that can be classed as a grind.

Knight In Shining Armor.1708:

When I dive into a new chapter I wanna get out there, get into the action, get things done. I don’t wanna have to hunt for little neutral skelks in out of the way places to get the nearest vista/poi/wp/whatever.

You don’t have to hunt for/use those skelks at all for pois, vistas etc, you can get map completion in the new zone without using them.

As fun as killing big evil dragons / elder dragons has been, I’m glad that they’re moving away from them (whether it’s permanently or just a break for a while).

I’ve enjoyed the dragon fights, but in the back of my mind I just keep thinking ‘realistically an elder dragon would just step on me and be done with it’.

So I think going up against a more normal sized and probably smarter (and still very powerful) opponent will maybe give a nice change to the battles and how things play out.

It is annoying when you buy something and it goes on sale a week later, unfortuenly it happens, not just here but in life in general.

However if it was listed and specifically said it was going to end and not be available next week, hence why you brought it, then it might be worth contacting a-net and seeing what they say, maybe they will help out somehow.

I would love it if there was another event / story arc that could give an excuse for a-net to hit the reset button on LA!

I doubt we’ll see the original back, but if it was destroyed again and rebuilt as something new again I’d be happy with that. Any new redesign & restyle can’t be worse that the current lifeless mass of dull greyish concrete, that feels about as atmospheric & soulful as a deserted soviet city! Sadly I don’t see it happening, but we can hope.

I despise the current LA so much I go out of my way to avoid going there, I don’t even do fractals that much because it means having to go to LA first. Though that’s also partly because LA takes longer to load for me than anywhere else, so I get put off at the thought of a long loading time, just so I can then load into fractals (why can’t we join from anywhere in the world & cut out loading into LA?!)

Achievements are for the account, not character specific, so you can use alts to work towards the total kills etc. The wiki also mentions using alts in the notes part.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guide_to_Slayer_achievements

Fluffball.8307:

Some people do that for newbies, were you asking for help in map chat or something? Either way, pretty weird for them to not send a note like “welcome to gw2” or something with it.

They do? With this kind of amount? Wish I knew where those people were when I was starting out lol.

Personally I’m not a fan of the new design, the thing that pops up when you hover over the tabs at the top (like promotions, style etc) feels really annoying. The whole thing also feels more sluggish as well, in terms of scrolling and switching tabs etc.

The preview improvements are nice though, it’s nice I can actually preview stuff after searching for them now, rather than only in certain tabs. Being able to preview the harvesting tool animations might be nice, but it’s not really an essential thing.

I don’t know for PvP & WvW as I don’t play those modes, but in PvE (I don’t raid though) I enjoy staff, and I get on fine doing lots of solo stuff. You just need to be a bit cleaver with where you place your aoes, and use things like Unsteady Ground / Static Field etc to slow mobs down so you can drop a big aoe on them. For solo taking Glyph of Elementals and popping an Earth Elemental really helps too, that’ll soak up plenty of enemy attention and give you time to drop some hard hitting attacks. You could always take Arcane Shield and use that to cover the slow cast of Meteor Shower too.

And while this may not be optimal for DPS, or a meta build etc, I find for soloing with staff in HoT maps taking Arcane > Final Shielding is really useful for surviving, that saves my bacon a lot! As does having a Superior Sigil of Energy in one of my staff slots.

I used (probably wasted) mine straight away on my already level 80 character because I wanted the shared slot it took up lol

I would definitely find number 2 useful, anytime I join a squad on LFG then travel to their map I’m always in a different instance and have to then join the right one manually. And as I’ve had to move the game off my SSD loading times aren’t exactly lightspeed anymore, so cutting out having to go through an extra loading screen would be nice.

I see, thanks for all the replies and the info

Hi,

Is there anywhere to register for taking part in any betas that might be held for the new expansion at some point? I’m just assuming there will be some nearer its release?

Does anyone know what the process was with HoT? Were there betas, how did you get to take part etc? If there were did you get to keep any progress/mastered etc earned during the beta, or did everything get reset so everyone started fresh when it launched?

Thanks

I’m probably still not really quite getting what you mean, but from points 2&3 on that last post it sounds to me that at the moment you’re playing the game purely to make gold to buy things (be it LS episodes, skins or whatever), but because there’s the option of spending real money to do that you feel that negates the point of actually playing the game to earn the gold?

Personally if it’s got to this point “what bores me more; 8-16 hours of work or 800-1600 hours of grind…”, where you’re actually having to decide weather work or playing the game is more boring, then it might be time to take a break from it and actually play something else just for fun! (and possibly investigate a job you might actually enjoy doing lol).

On points 3&4 I’m not entirely sure what it is you’re planning to buy in terms of gear / maxed stats anyway. Ascended stuff doesn’t take that long to get in game, and if kitting out in a full set of ascended stuff feels like a grind, then maybe you need to play different modes/do different things in the game to mix things up a bit. It’s my understanding legendary stuff doesn’t have any stat gain (maybe I’m wrong), so from a max stats point of view ascended is fine.

As for;
“4. “if you have the money, and you want to stats, why not just spend the 2 days at work?”.
because its a slippery slope, if i start spending several houndread of € just to get gear, it will constantly pressure me to just buy more and more, and when i’ve bought everything then what is the point of playing? i am just throwing money at the dev so they give me digital pixels instead of giving me a fun experience of which i was searching in the first place.”

Few things with that;

a) If you run the risk where buying gems/using real money on the game could spiral to “several hundred euros just to get gear” then you really need to get some self control and be more careful with money.

b) As mentioned kitting out in full stats gear shouldn’t need any money and takes not long in game, so I’ll assume here “gear” might mean skins as well. In which case why do you feel the need to buy everything in the game? Just pick things you like and aim for those.

c) “…and when i’ve bought everything then what is the point of playing?” From this it sounds like your goal playing this game is to collect every single possible skin and item ever to have appeared on the gem store/in game. Which again goes back to why do you need them all? But also if the reason you play is just so you can buy all this stuff and for whatever reason your not having fun on the journey to doing that, then again I’d seriously look at taking a break from the game, finding a new reason to play , or moving to a game you find fun because of the actual mechanics/story or gameplay etc.

d) “i am just throwing money at the dev so they give me digital pixels instead of giving me a fun experience of which i was searching in the first place.” First thing, yes skins are digital pixels that serve no real benefit, but again why throw money at them if you don’t want them? They exist as an optional purchase for people that like the look of them and enjoy kitting their character out in some new outfits/skins, so when brought for the intended reason it’s not really throwing money away as you’re buying something that enhances personal enjoyment/experience/immersion in the game.

As for the last part of that quote, the devs haven’t given you skins etc instead of a fun experience. Yes the devs make skins etc (which help financially support the rest of the game), but they haven’t done this instead of making a fun game. They’ve provided a massive game, with lots of different modes, methods how you can do things etc, which is the fun experience for people to enjoy.

In fact you’ve even mentioned 3/4 of your playtime is funtime? So I’m not sure why you don’t just focus on doing whatever those things are in game and drop this goal of obsessing over gold / buying everything, which is what seems to be the cause of your boredom in the game. Just play because metas are fun to do, the world is fun to explore, pvp, wvw or whatever you find fun, gold will still accumulate and then it’s more fun to spend because you think about your purchase more carefully.

Hope some of that makes sense, but as mentioned at the start maybe I’ve missed the point your getting across.

*also don’t mean for anything above to sound harsh or anything, probably just my poor wording if it comes across that way ^^

I can’t say I’ve ever once encountered this thing where commanders (or anyone), has asked someone to leave a map, I’ve just never seen it happen once in chat at all. Even if someone asks for help with a HP during the meta the worst I’ve seen are simple “time for meta” or “lol not now” type messages (which is fair enough, blunt but not offensive to anyone).

The only map I’ve seen the occasional argument like this in has been a non HoT one, The Silverwastes, where I’ve seen the odd argument over weather it was a CF or meta map first.

I assume this is some sort of error or glitch as all other HoT & LS maps are still listed individually as they were.

Verdant Brink is still there, but for some reason it now reads as “Open World Content” or something like that, so check there and you’ll still see listings for Verdant Brink.

Maybe it’s some sort of prep for the expansion, so we don’t end up with loads of individual maps in lfg, perhaps all the HoT ones will be grouped under a single “Open World Content” tab. But it could just be a bug as well.

Feanor.2358:

killermanjaro.5670:

I agree with all that has been mentioned above by the others. But I get how annoying it is when comms don’t remove their groups once the maps full, obviously sometimes they might not know, but if they’ve been told by someone it’s full and they still don’t remove it then that’s wrong imo.

Maybe when a map is full there should be some trigger that automatically closes all groups listed in LFG for that instance of the map. Or perhaps something that automatically notifies the comm via a broadcast message that it’s full. Or even something that just marks the group on LFG with a “map full” icon so people can see at a glance that they are unlikely to get in.

Of course I don’t know how complicated those are, or how much work would be involved to implement any of those, but I think something like any of those could help with things.

I usually end the LFG when somebody says it’s full. However, sometimes you can miss the message due to being occupied with an event, organizing, or explaining the mechanics to newcomers (that are still found occasionally). All I’m saying is: just keep in mind commanders are also human and they will be caring first and foremost for their immediate tasks rather than the QoL of players on another map instances.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I know most comms are good and do remove when they realise it’s full, and messages will get missed from time to time so they won’t always know. But there are some out there who seem to leave groups on there even after acknowledging it’s full, thankfully it’s only a minority that do this though (at least in my exp).

All I’m saying is some sort of fail safe wouldn’t hurt , in that even if when a maps full the game just automatically put an icon on the group in LFG to indicate that then at least players can see at a glance which groups are full. So if for example you looked during AB meta and there’s 10 groups listed you could see at a glance which not to bother with.

Ragnar Stormcaller.6253:

If there were WP’s near all the major bosses, then it wouldn’t be an issue, people wouldn’t lie there defeated if they knew they could be back in the fight in 20-30 seconds.

While a lot would WP if there was one closer, sadly many lazy players still wouldn’t, Shatterer and DS boss being prime examples, WPs are right there literally seconds away, yet lots still stay dead calling to be rezzed instead, and of course there’s the afk lot that stay dead & keep getting rezzed.

I only really do PvE where I use this as a wall to slow mobs down, so I was expecting a smaller radius to be a downside. But thankfully I haven’t really noticed a difference, still seems just as effective when placed well.

I agree with all that has been mentioned above by the others. But I get how annoying it is when comms don’t remove their groups once the maps full, obviously sometimes they might not know, but if they’ve been told by someone it’s full and they still don’t remove it then that’s wrong imo.

Maybe when a map is full there should be some trigger that automatically closes all groups listed in LFG for that instance of the map. Or perhaps something that automatically notifies the comm via a broadcast message that it’s full. Or even something that just marks the group on LFG with a “map full” icon so people can see at a glance that they are unlikely to get in.

Of course I don’t know how complicated those are, or how much work would be involved to implement any of those, but I think something like any of those could help with things.

This is a really tricky thing to sort, as it’s one of those things where the problems caused by dead people being lazy or afk, not so much the rezzing system itself. I hate the people that just stay dead for virtually a whole boss fight, as mentioned above, it’s not a scaling issue, it’s the fact that several active players go to rez them which lowers dps & cc on the boss.

Where it’s most annoying are things like the end of DS where so many people afk or just stand there managing inventory not giving a crap about the event, and yet people keep wasting time rezzing them for them to die seconds later again.

But even with that in mind I don’t think an auto rez after x seconds would be entirely fair either, as if a boss is only at 5-10% and somebody who’s been fighting dies fully, then I can understand them staying dead for a few minutes till it’s killed so they can be rezzed after it.

Maybe the removal of the rez option for fully dead people while in combat that has been suggested is the best way, even if it’s not a perfect solution. Or perhaps some sort of debuff could be applied to people who have been dead for x amount of minutes as an incentive to WP rather than stay dead. For example if you stay dead for more than 5 mins, then when you get rezzed you have a debuff of -10%MF for 15mins or something, just some noticeable effect to put people off staying dead. Maybe the debuff could even get worse the longer you’ve stayed dead.

I also think the 2g reward for doing on average 10-15mins of small stuff is plenty. If anything there’s a small feeling of guilt for getting rewarded for just viewing a vista or farming a few nodes and basically not actually doing anything lol.

That said I won’t exactly be complaining if rewards go up.

I’ve no idea what I must be doing differently, but I’ve not once had a problem with them. I just glide above one and sit back with a coffee while it takes me to wherever it goes. I find the opposite problem, where getting out is harder as you have to disable the glider and drop quite a bit below before it lets you out and doesn’t suck you back in. In places like Bloodstone Fen I find getting accidently sucked into the ley lines a pain as well, as the detection radius of them seems quite big.

Kalendraf.9521:

Takashiro.8701:

Playerbase complains that they want challenging open world PvE content.
Anet gives them TD (and VB) where you can’t straight up rum from point A to point B but actually have to think about what you’re doing.
Playerbase complains they can’t half afk through the content anymore.

More a case of (a vocal minority?) of the playerbase asking for challenging open world PvE content, ANet deciding to use that as an excuse to go on a tangential Z-dimension map-making frenzy, and then a significant portion of the playerbase discovering that Z-dimension maps are overly confusing, annoying and not fun to play.

To be honest I don’t think anyone can really say with any certainty that it was a minority that complained they wanted more challenging content, or that it’s a significant amount of the player base that don’t enjoy layered maps. As no one knows numbers of how many players like this, wanted that, don’t like this etc.

Drawing conclusions that it’s a significant amount that don’t like something based on forums etc is pointless as people are only more likely to post / complain about something they don’t like (be it wanting more challenging stuff or layered maps etc), those who are fine with it will generally just carry on as normal. So even if there’s 100 threads complaining about something on a forum that could still be a tiny percentage of the overall player base.

So many great maps to choose from,

So top 5 for visuals.

1) Queensdale – I just love the look of this map! The scenery is stunning, the small towns are great, and seeing DR from the outside is a great sight too.

2) Caledon Forest – Again great scenery, and the floating spiral JP is a quite impressive structure with all the floating rocks.

3) Divinitys Reach – My favourite city with lots of interesting things to look at in it. Love the pavilion area, especially during festivals.

4) Metrica Province – The Asura stuff around the map looks cool, also like the general terrain.

5) Lornar’s Pass – The snow and mountains are great.

Now to play in;

1) Dragons Stand – I enjoy the meta, lots of action & combat
2) The Silverwastes – Again I enjoy the meta, no idea how people enjoy CF runs though, tried one once & was braindead after 10 minutes!
3) Auric Basin – Still something fun about Octovine, also the map looks great
4) Verdant Brink – I didn’t enjoy it at first, but now I enjoy the meta and night bosses.
5) Draconis Mons – Will never understand what all the fuss is about layered maps, especially this one, with the thermal tubes & gliding it’s easy to get around, there’s a lot of events, and Oakheart’s Reach + gliding = fun.

Visually The Grove, Rata Sum & Hoelbrak get honourable mentions. And gameplay wise Ember Bay for the frequency of events, though I’m not a fan of the fire maps visually.

Try a post in the raid or players helping players forums to see if a kind group can help you unlock the track. I posted in one of those about how I was struggling to unlock the track and got a lot of messages & DMs from quite a few people who were up for helping. With the help from one of them & a party from his guild they helped me easily kill VG to unlock it, I even actually did reasonably well in the fight & survived to tell the tale! They have my eternal thanks!

For me;

1) Southsun Cove – It’s really dull, the terrain is boring, and there isn’t much to do or see. Shame as I do like the beach resort bit at the first WP, but it’s tiny and there’s nothing there. Would have been nice to see more of the sort of environment along the coast. (should be said I missed a lot of LS1, so maybe it was more interesting then?)

2) Lions Arch – For me it takes a bit longer to load than other maps (had to move game off my SSD), and that puts me off going there. I wouldn’t mind if it was worth the wait, but I hate the look of it since the redesign, it’s a dull, grey, soviet era looking theme park. I don’t use the mystic forge much, but i brought the portable one just to minimise having to go to LA. I actually don’t even do fractals much because they mean having to load into LA first (shame we can’t enter from anywhere in the world after joining a party)

3) Frostgorge Sound – Not a massive fan of the design on this one, the right hand side is quite nice, but everything left of the mountains from there just doesn’t feel fun to wander around, not even the dredge bit. Also kittening quaggan race!

4) AFK Frontier – Strange one this for me, sure winterberries are great, easy to grab and useful, there’s some unbound magic, there’s lots of icebound chests, there’s champs & events. But I just don’t enjoy this map, on paper it has a lot of stuff going for it, but I find I just don’t find it fun for some reason. To me it’s a useful map, just not a map I really enjoy.

5) Fireheart Rise – I’m just not a fan of most of the terrain and environment here, so I’ll only come here if I need to for a daily. I do like the JPs here though.

I was tempted to put Black Citadel in there, but it is an interesting environment / design, so maybe it’s just the smell of the Charr that puts me off going there :p

I’d love it if we got an update to have a proper nighttime across Tyria, having an actual dark nighttime like Dragons Dogma and Skyrim etc would be great! Really changes the atmosphere of things, and makes the games actually feel different as you play. Weather it’s pitch black and our characters have a lamp or just very dark with moonlight, either would be brilliant!

As an ele it would be quite satisfying to see my fireballs glow in the dark and light the way into the distance xD Also a lot of weapon & armour effects would really get a chance to shine at night.

At the moment we have daytime & daytime, it’s barely noticeable the difference between them.

Is it really needed? I’d really say they only come with the commander tag as you only need them in larger squads which only comms can create.

I mean dungeons etc there’s only going to be 4 other people with you, so are markers really needed? Could always just ping a location on the map, and even with strangers it’s not that hard to coordinate with a group of 5, even in fractals.

Open world I can’t see the need for it, as any world boss / event where they are useful, like TT, DS etc, are ones that need a lot of people, so having markers for, or even having a 10 person squad is a bit redundant there. Events that need/are useful with markers will generally have comms tagged up trying to organise things anyway, in which case should really be in their squads.

Sure in raids they could be useful, but generally most people who are into raids most likely already have a comm tag, or at the very least will be players where 300g isn’t exactly going to break the bank.

Dawdler.8521:

…..On a desktop, just a decent screen, CPU and graphics card is $200 a pop. And thats as budget as it gets, not very future proof.

That’s a good point I didn’t take into account when I posted a minute ago. I worked on the assumption we were talking of $500 just for the tower. If she doesn’t have an existing monitor, keyboard, mouse etc then the budget would probably best be used to look at a fully preowned setup, as that would be stretching it for new.

I would that amount should be enough to get a system to run this on, of course not on max settings, but certainly enough to have an enjoyable and playable experience. Just be aware though that if your friend wants to play other games then she might find after a year or so she’ll end up having to upgrade.

Something to consider when you spec and price it up, in that I’d personally prioritise having a good processor & reasonable motherboard as they’re more of a pain to upgrade later. And make sure you’ve got a psu that will be likely to handle an upgraded graphics card later, otherwise you might go to upgrade it only to find you then need to replace the psu too. Just thinking ahead a bit will potentially save haste and costs if she decides to upgrade in a years time.

It might also be worth looking to see how much it would be to build one without a graphics card, then save money by picking up a used old model card off of eBay etc. Something like a GTX660 is still a reasonable card that should be fairly cheap preowned. Of courses it’s not the latest or most powerful, but it’ll still be enough to run most things at medium / high settings for a low cost.

I’ve generally found the community to be really friendly, as mentioned above though sometimes people in HoT may not respond quickly as surviving requires more focus if you’re in the middle of something. Sometimes it might also look like a call for help in map chat is being ignored if there’s no answer, but that’s not always the case as often if I see someone I need of help and I’ve not been able to respond straight away then I’ll just drop a whisper to see if helps still needed, or just send a party invite. Same when I’ve asked for help, I’ll often get a whisper or party invite rather than see a reply in map chat.

In HoT maps I do still see frequent HP runs in map chat and LFG also, so there’s still a lot of help there too.

If you’re on EU servers and I’m online feel free to drop me a message if you need help with some things. I’m not exactly a brilliant player, but I can provide a bit of extra firepower to help you out lol

Fivona.5061:

EDIT (07.06.17)

Nothing will stop them i guess… LOL (Check screen shot below)
Anet next patch please.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Lake-Doric-Change

This change made me happy. It is nice to see Anet trying to prevent game mechanic abuses atlast.

My question is… What will you do about Bitter Frost Frontier Necro AFK Farming ?
Also many other minor zones.

I noticed the same, in the same spot, when I went there this morning, it now looks even more stupid having a tonne of them stacked on the top of the gate! I hope Anet notice and extend the treb range.

TheAgedGnome.7520:

The Glider masteries panel is still confusing to me, since it says I am at 62% on Glider Basics and it states the requirements as 3 points. I’d interpret that as not having Glider Basics, but I guess it is intended to mean I have some Glider Basics*.

Can you upload a screenshot of your mastery panel on the gliding tracks?

Glider Basics does only need 1 mastery point, are you sure 62% doesn’t just mean you’ve trained 62% of the track toward being able to spend the point on Glider Basics?

On EU servers I play at all kinds of hours during the day and evening and all of the maps seem busy, with plenty of groups / taxis on the LFG for metas and HP runs etc. Just remember to use a timer site when you want to do Dragons Stand, so you can find a group and get a map before that meta starts.

How the hell do you end up with a PC of that spec then still have to question if a game will still run on it?! Dropping the sort of money that PC must have cost, you must have at least done a bit of research on specs / components, certainly enough to know it can basically run anything!

That’s a beast of a PC! Wish I had that sort of power haha

Certainly for the story and a very large portion of map exploration / map completion you can get it done solo, as that’s what I did. But be aware some things like certain HPs, or to get to certain masteries you probably will need to team up with others (unless you’re insanely good maybe). So for some HPs I joined a HP train on the LFG, and for one mastery point in Tangled Depths I partied up with another solo traveller through map chat to clear out a mob around it.

At the moment there still seems to be plenty of people in the maps at most times during the day and evenings up to about 12-1am (EU server), and there still seems to be groups/taxis on the LFG for HoT maps/metas. And often I still see lots of people doing HP runs or people teaming up in map chat to get HPs done. Beyond 2am I’m not sure what things are like though.

I could maybe see Dragons Stand being trickier to find a group if your looking at 2am onwards, as after the one that starts around midnight finishes I’ve occasionally asked in the map if people are up for doing the next run and often a lot tend to call it a night there (normally I do too). Maybe for that meta you might have to wait till weekends of days off to find a group if there isn’t one at night during the week.

In terms of how you found HoT difficulty wise, I think that might still be similar, as I don’t think any updates have changed difficulty of enemies etc (I could be wrong). But I’d say give it a shot again and try to power through any initial frustration, as once you get used to the map layouts / enemies etc it does get more enjoyable.

I hated HoT at first, but I powered through and after a while you just naturally adapt your playstyle to it without realising, which makes visits back to it a lot more fun. I think maybe what adds to the initial frustration (or at least it did for me) is when you haven’t got a lot of the masteries, navigation can be a real pain! But once you get those unlocked that again really helps with the enjoyment of the maps.

As for “Is there a place for solo players in GW2’s future?”, I would say yes for sure! As the LS3 maps that have come out after HoT seem to be a lot easier than HoT (though I found the last boss of the story on the Lake Doric map a real pain!), so I think they have taken into account that some people got frustrated with the challenge of HoT.

I’m mostly a solo player, so I certainly hope there’s a place for people like us! Hopefully you can get back into it and enjoy GW2 again

I still do them because I enjoy doing them, don’t really care about the rewards, XP etc. I find it relaxing to go back and wander around all of the different maps to just see what I come across. I find it a good way to unwind and just chillout.

If I’m passing through a town and it comes under attack I’ll help out, or if an NPC is under attack and no one else is defending it, then I’ll jump in and provide an escort to safety. If find doing things like that help me escape into the world a little more, my reward is simply that I’ve helped protect some NPCs and make their world a slightly better place

Other times I tend to go back to starter/lower maps to see if any new players need any help or advice, sometimes that means I just end up shadowing events as an observer ready to jump in and help if they request it or get downed (mainly on champs, HPs etc).

Just depends on why people play the game and preference in playstyles, people who have fun by always needing the content to be challenging or offering worthwhile rewards/progression probably won’t find it enjoyable still doing them. But I’d imagine there are still a lot of other players who, like me, still enjoy doing them for a whole list of various other reasons too.

Personally I’d still get it now, especially if you find it for a good price. As that way you’ll have time to explore, do the story and unlock stuff, get masteries etc, before the new expansion comes out. Otherwise if you decide to get the new expansion when it’s launched and haven’t done HoT then you’ll probably end up months behind by the time you actually get around to the content in the new expansion anyway.

Plus having a glider is instantly fun anyway And assuming gliding will still be a thing in the new expansion, then having maxed your gliding mastery track will be helpful for getting around.

I’d be happy with that idea, even if it did everything but left the hearts to do. (to keep players going to different maps, so maps seem more full to new players etc). Or even if all it did was unlock the waypoints and un-fog the maps, I’d still be happy, as having fogged bits and not seeing all of the map is what bothers me most when I make an alt.

Don’t get me wrong, exploring in this game is fun, and I love the world and environments. But having to unlock all the waypoints and make all the maps and map areas visible again is what puts me off making a new alt or two. Partly the thought of running around just to unlock the maps again annoys me and would feel like a tedious thing to do after having done it twice already, and partly if you have limited time to game then it just makes having to unlock/unfog areas again just to enjoy an alt not viable.

I’d even be happy if it was a gem store item, as others have suggested in the past, which would be only purchasable if you’ve done map completion on at least 1 character first. Or I think another suggestion someone made in a previous thread was to have a cartographer vendor in each zone, where for x amount of gold you could pay for a map to unfog and unlock all WPs (or everything) in that zone. (again only available after at least 1 character on the account has completed that zone)

Lol, Yup that’s pretty much all I see in that map. I know it doesn’t really effect me, but I really hate it! If nothing else just for the fact the sight of it ruins the look of the map I think.

I wish anet would just setup a radius around those nodes where if a player isn’t moving / is afk in that radius of the node then it kicks them out the way and back to the nearest waypoint. But from what I gather from reading other threads on it anet aren’t really bothered about it.

mooseface.3025:

Hi All…

Its all a matter of guess work on what you should try and try and try again. There is no consistency in the height or distance your character can travel. So we never really get to know the limitations to our character. To be able to establish with confidence “I can jump this distance or i can jump this height”. ..You can find yourself jumping to a height destination never possible before and fail at a height destination previously accomplished numerous times in the past. The same goes for distance.

And then there is the inclines…sometimes you can walk up that steep incline and sometimes you cant. More guess work.

To make matters worst it is often ridiculously unclear where to go next and what obstacle will support you. With the number of critical jumping moves required to achieve your destination, the process quickly turns to frustration.

I would have to disagree with this. When I first started playing I did really struggle with jumping puzzles, even the easy ones. I found it hard gauging jump distances, heights etc but with time and practice you do learn how far you can jump, how high and what the characters limitations are. The max height and distance aren’t random, but obviously the terrain, jump angles, speed, platform heights etc will add variances you have to account for.

But it’s defieintly possible to learn what sort of jumps you can make, as I said I was awful at even basic jumping sections, but now I’m at the point where I can comfortably judge if I’m able to make a jump before attempting it. You do reach the stage where you know what you can and can’t make.

As for the routes, they are meant as puzzles which does mean working them out. But personally I think most of them are pretty straightforward or fairy easy to see the route through. Off the top of my head only ones like Ember Bay, the Silverwastes one, and whichever one that is with the 12 orbs are ones with unclear routes.

Thanks for the replies, those are workarounds I guess. It’s just though both can be tracked, that means manually having to add the dailies each time I login if I’ve already got other achievements tracked.

It’s not just the core dailies, but if I go to a LS map it’s nice to see the dailies there, but again if I have another achievement tracked then it means having to add them or check through the achievement panel each time rather than just seeing them at a glance when I arrive in the map.

Again not a big issue I know, but I think it would just be a nice QoL thing if tracked achievements could go in a separate UI list below rather than replacing the daily list. But I agree if it’s not a straightforward thing to do then time and resources would be better prioritized elsewhere.

At the moment adding achievements to be tracked / in the watch list overrides any of the dailies from displaying. Just wondering is there any way of getting around this?

As often I would like to add a few achievements to track so each time I log in they are on the list to remind me I’m still in the middle of them, but normally I don’t bother adding any to track as I find it too annoying losing the dailies from my screen.

I know it’s not a major thing, and I can just check stuff under the achievement panel anyway, but I can’t see why we have to sacrifice one list for the other, can’t tracked achievements just display below the dailies list?

HazyDaisy.4107:

IMO manned or unmanned map, if someone needs something in SW that spawns at a known location, then they should be at that known location waiting for it, period! No sympathy if they didn’t get a hit in because they were otw, and no judgement for those that did get a hit in. If you need it, you’re there, not only when it spawns, but well before ensuring that it could spawn.

I completely agree with this, however they can still go down too quick even if you’re at the right fort. When I was going for them I waited at amber, legendary spawned at the other end of the fort, I ran straight toward it but it was dead before I’d even covered enough ground to get in fireball range. Must have been max 20-25 seconds!

Don’t know if it was bugged, or if there were just lots of people doing insane dps, but I’ve seen this happen quite a few times at other legendaries too. So even being at the right for doesn’t guarantee someone will be able to get a hit in.

Zedek.8932:

Excelsior.

Fondly remembering “LANDSTALKER” for the MegaDrive. Wow, Nigel and Friday..

I remember being stuck trying to find a path in Greenmaze for days! Love that game though!

As for the actual topic, I personally don’t get the not being able to find things without YouTube problem. At no stage in the game, core, HoT or LS maps have I needed any help / guide / youtube video to show me how to get POIs, Vistas, MPs etc. Paths are pretty clear on the map, and in the case of a few maps it’s just a case of checking what level they are on. MPs & Vistas again I just go near them, look up and try to logically backtrace the route, which is pretty easy to do.

Also gliding makes things a lot easier to get to, I got most of the map completion done quite quickly that way, had it all done before I’d even unlocked Oakhearts Reach.

I will admit the first few days in the new map I did see people post in map chat how to get to x place, so sure there are some out there who can’t find things. But to be honest I also wonder how many of those are asking out of laziness, as most of the time the places asked for are stupidly easy ones, as in if they’d walked just in the direction of it then they’d have gotten it.

Ardid.7203:

IMO the current rewards are good for people that just port, and is nice that Mesmers and friends can help people to complete MPs, Pois and Dailys. However, I think JP should give better rewards to people who actually do them: they require time and skill, and are a lot harder than most world bosses that offer better gains for merely pressing 1111.

+1 for this.

I don’t see much wrong with people helping other players with portals, I quite like that this game has that kind of community. And if I don’t have much free time but want to quickly do my dailies then I’ll often make use of any portals around.

But on days when I’m not in a rush, I tend to actually do the JPs and not use any portals, as it is more fun and feels more rewarding, so for the times when people do put more effort and time in it would be nice to get an extra reward, even if it’s small. Also any JPs I’ve ever been to I’ve made sure to have at least completed once by actually doing them, so I can feel less guilty on a day when I use a portal xD

The only minor thing that bugs me are the amount of people going “portal?” in map chat, a) ask nicely, b) just go to the JP and you’ll see if there are people porting c) 90% of the time there’s 3+ tags on the JP, in which case do people really need to ask?