Guild Wars 2

Would just like to say that thanks to the help from here I finally got a boss kill and the track unlocked

Really amazing support from the community, so a massive thanks to the group that helped me through VG to get the kill last night! And thanks everyone for all the other offers to help as well!

Wow, thanks everyone for all the offers of help and advice as well Really love the community on this game!

I’ll drop a message / PM to some, thanks again all

Rising Dusk.2408:

Are you EU or NA? Some people here might be willing to train you to be able to beat the boss on your own without buying if you’re interested and willing to work with the group.

I’m on the EU server. If anyone does want to help out that’d be great

Fatalyz.7168:

From what I understand (I don’t pug raids, I run with my guild however), the best night to attempt to pug is Monday night, which should be reset night. Later in the week, it should be more likely to have more training runs available, or people who aren’t as rigid in their requirements.

I have also read forum posts about people who have gotten into training runs just by asking in /m chat in the Aerodome for training runs or the bosses I mentioned, and getting invites to try them out. You’re mileage may vary.

Good Luck!

Thanks for that info, I’ll make a point to check Monday nights, and check for the training runs toward the end of the week. That’s handy to know they’re the busier nights.

I’ll give asking in the Aerodome map chat as well then, the chat’s always seemed pretty quite in there (assume most are in party/squad chat), but sounds like it’s worth a shot! I’m sure if I ask on enough nights someone will respond xD

Thanks again for the help and info.

Fatalyz.7168:

killermanjaro.5670:

Hi all,

I’ve seen a few guilds that advertise selling raid bosses, and after some unsuccessful LFG (training) runs at VG I’m becoming quite tempted to give in and buy a raid boss just to unlock my mastery track.

So just wondering firstly, is buying a raid boss from a guild / the LFG tool something that is actually allowed? If it’s not permitted then I’ll most likely give it a miss, as I don’t want to do something that risks an account ban.

And secondly (if it is allowed), then does anyone have any experience having done it? As in recommendations for reliable guilds / groups to use? It seems the going rate is 120g-150gish.

I should add at some point I will try to do raids properly, learn the mechanics, sort a build / gear etc, but for now I’m just trying to get the track unlocked as it’s been bothering me. And though I’ve been told doing some of the escorts is easier to unlock the track than VG, using LFG there only ever seems to be “All welcome” or “Training” groups for VG, never the escorts, hence why I’ve only been able to try that.

Thanks in advance

Buying is allowed. If you are just after getting your mastery track unlocked, I would look into doing wing 3 boss 1 (event really ending in first boss, but by far easiest way to unlock mastery track), raid 2 boss 2 is really easy (Mursaat Overseer), and wing 2 boss 2 (Trio) is relatively easy for most pugs. I would give those a try before buying, if all you want is the mastery track unlocked.

Thanks for the info and advice. I’ll look into those to learn the mechanics etc, then see if I can find a group to join. I just haven’t ever seen any groups for the other wings that are open to all / inexperienced raiders, as they normally state only experienced / certain builds / classes / gear etc, which is understandable. But I’ll keep looking, it’s nice to know that buying is allowed though.

Hi all,

I’ve seen a few guilds that advertise selling raid bosses, and after some unsuccessful LFG (training) runs at VG I’m becoming quite tempted to give in and buy a raid boss just to unlock my mastery track.

So just wondering firstly, is buying a raid boss from a guild / the LFG tool something that is actually allowed? If it’s not permitted then I’ll most likely give it a miss, as I don’t want to do something that risks an account ban.

And secondly (if it is allowed), then does anyone have any experience having done it? As in recommendations for reliable guilds / groups to use? It seems the going rate is 120g-150gish.

I should add at some point I will try to do raids properly, learn the mechanics, sort a build / gear etc, but for now I’m just trying to get the track unlocked as it’s been bothering me. And though I’ve been told doing some of the escorts is easier to unlock the track than VG, using LFG there only ever seems to be “All welcome” or “Training” groups for VG, never the escorts, hence why I’ve only been able to try that.

Thanks in advance

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I don’t see why we need to be concerned about them except as they are a symptom of a larger problem. They’re obviously short term contract workers from another dimension whose visa expired and they were deported back to their native reality. The Queen should be asked that a committee be formed to investigate if all taxes are being paid and if the visas were legally submitted and processed. I suspect Mr Gnashblade has not paid all taxes or followed all rulings since he’s so anxious to get his employees out of reach of any questions once their job is finished.

This sounds like it should be a story arc, where we’re sent in to infiltrate and investigate the working conditions and practices of the Black Lion Trading company. No doubt we’ll discover, and have to stop, the use of an ancient inter-dimensional magic that’s creating rifts between worlds to bring workers through illegally. Who knows, maybe all the ley stuff happening is a side effect of it all? Perhaps the Black Lion Trading company are the real threat to Tyria!

Put the dragons on hold, this should be the new living story arc xD

IndigoSundown.5419:

VaLee.5102:

This topic now has over one thousand replies and fifty times more views. That should say a great deal by itself.

Yes, it says that 25 people have posted 40 times each and check back frequently to see if they’ve gotten a response. This type of post tends to generate back-and-forth commentary where the same people say the same things over and over. Occasionally, new people post on one side or another, but the number is grossly inflated by the people who’ve taken an investment in the topic, one way or another. In other words, take the numbers with a grain of salt, as the forum utility which calculates posts and views pays no mind to how frequently the same people view or post.

And in addition to that it looks like this thread was created over a year ago, it’s just that it’s been rezzed recently so we’re seeing it again / people are clicking on it again. For such an old thread it’s a bit pointless to try and think the amount of views / replies mean anything. But also as mentioned in the post above, a lot of those are a few people just having back and fourths saying the same thing over and over again.

Stevieboy.4192:

Ayrilana.1396:

Stevieboy.4192:

The only time I have noticed a populated DS map is when the daily is there.
A lot of the masteries in DS are gated behind map progression.
I believe an achievement relies on meta completion too.
In fact more than one…

I find it populated every time at map reset. If I happen to not end up on a populated one, there’s usually one on LFG.

I guess it depends on where you live and what time zone you are in.
I live in the UK and DS is pretty much dead all the time, even when using LFG.
Staying up till four in the morning (my time) to complete a couple of masteries doesn’t really work for me.

Dead all the time? I’m in the UK and I’ve always found a populated map through LFG near the map resets. Certainly during the day, afternoon and evenings, haven’t tried looking from midnight till 4-5am though.

What I’d really love is the Tempest Staff Skin for my ele, as it’s one of the few staves in this game that I actually like the look of. The one I really want is Kasmeer’s Staff Skin, but it’s not available anymore

Daddicus.6128:

Vayne.8563:

You mean you can’t get onto a populated map and map while they’re doing the meta? It’s 100% possible.

He’s specifically asked about the mastery points.

To be fair he actually said “masteries etc”, which would imply other stuff as well, not specifically the mysteries. I would assume, the other stuff to be map completion related things as there isn’t much else. In which case joining a populated map to clear the meta makes the most sense to get access to all map areas.

Whenever the map starts a new cycle I always seem to be able to find a group on LFG, very rarely have a problem finding one with players in.

I’m sure it is possible to stealth or run around patrols to avoid them through if you want to go places solo.

The best thing I could suggest is hold out till the next sale. HoT seems to go on sale at 50% off a few times through the year (around the time of new living world episodes?).

I’m not aware of any ‘one upgrade for all accounts’ thing, as each account is individual.

The only other things is I’ve heard a lot of people saying HoT will most likely become free when the next expansion comes out, but I don’t imagine that to be any time soon. And wouldn’t like to say for sure anyway, as I don’t know.

Orpheal.8263:

Once you have completed a map to 100% for the first time, the “Map” of that place should become possibly to be bought from a new NPC, that sells the maps you have explored to 100% for some gold, so that you become able to unlock everything of these already explored again maps faster.

That would improve multi character friendliness in GW2 again and it would add some kind of new gold sink into the game for those people, which want to save some time by buying exploration maps.

win win for everyone + new gold sink. What do we want all more???

I love this idea of being able to buy maps for alts after you’ve done 100% map completion on some characters! This should be added as a suggestion topic or if there’s a thread ideas that devs read! Like you say it works for everyone, if you want to do map completion from scratch you can, or if you want to then you can buy it at cost. I wouldn’t even mind if you could buy a ‘full 100% complete map set’ via the gemstore (Still with the criteria it only works if you have at least done 100% on one char first).

Yeah if you are able to reinstall that might help, maybe on one of the updates somehow it got corrupt. If that, or rolling back to maybe drivers from 3-4 updates ago doesn’t work then maybe run some sort of realtime performance checker or recorder in the background, so when it crashes maybe you’ll see a spike or something there that might help narrow down the issue.

I agree it’s annoying, as I’ve been waiting for Kasmeer’s staff skin, as it’s my favourite looking staff skin in the game, but from what I gather it was only on the gem store a few years ago and I missed it (don’t think I was active on the game the the time).

I assume through they keep to the rotation as it freshens things up and by limiting times things are available it encourages people to buy there and then, which no doubt is effective.

I actually contacted support last week to see if I could buy Kasmeer’s Staff Skin as a one off (have them take the gems out of my account and credit the item), but sadly this doesn’t work as they said no They basically said although it’s not available it may be available again in the future, but I can’t buy it out of rotation.

Can’t say I’ve had the issue either. I’m also in the latest Nvidia drivers, but using a GTX660, so might not mean much as the combo is different. Have you tried rolling back to an older driver just incase? Also any other games doing the same?

Chad.6104:

killermanjaro.5670:

I must be missing something here, but are we talking about normal achievements here, like ones you get generally 5-10AP each for? How the hell is it possible to hit 15000 a day?! I must be misunderstanding.

He’s talking about the cap on the total number of AP you can get from doing dailies and from the old monthlies. Once you get 15k AP from dailies/monthlies you can no longer get 10 AP/day from doing dailies.

Ahhhhhh, gotcha. That makes one hell of a lot more sense than what I was thinking of lol

I must be missing something here, but are we talking about normal achievements here, like ones you get generally 5-10AP each for? How the hell is it possible to hit 15000 a day?! I must be misunderstanding.

Personally I can’t really see any need for adding mounts, or any real gain. I doubt they’d be much quicker than running with swiftness, plus we have gliding which I think is a lot more fun, and quick with lean and advanced gliding masteries.

I’m not really sure mounts would look right either, especially due to having to fit and look right with all different races. You could say have different mounts for each race, but from a development & Gemstore point of view I’m sure if Anet did mounts they would want universal ones that could be used by all.

The worst thing though is imagine how much more cluttered areas of the game would be during world bosses or metas. On top of that there are the performance hits to consider, minis are already hidden after a certain point to help. But if 150 people have mounts, that’s a lot more meshes to render, and a hell of a lot more draw calls.

Struct.7453:

I was thinking more on the lines of Rurouni Kenshin style

What a sakabato reverse blade? :p Or more like Aoshi’s twin kodachi? Either way I would love it if we could get any Japanese weapons into the game! Also good to know there’s another Rurouni Kenshin fan playing the game!

Tom.6478:

Sorry….you misunderstood me.

I meant I could do a raid even though I would be lousy at it. There are no prerequisites to do a raid. The worst player in the world could at least try it.

With this current event, Anet has decided some can’t even try.

That’s my complaint.

There are no prerequisites for raids etc as they won’t spoil the story for anyone. The current event I believe has the prerequisite to complete HoT because it contains spoilers for anyone who hasn’t yet finished it. So it makes perfect sense, otherwise players without HoT, or who haven’t finished it could inadvertently find the event and discover things that ruin the story for them.

CedarDog.9723:

You’d think that the jungle would be full of plants. Guess most of what’s there is made from plastic, astroturf and the like. Kinda like, what kinda idiot had the idea that chopping down saplings is a good one? Most normal people chop down mature trees and leave the sapling to then grow into mature trees before chopping those down. And speaking of trees, they’re all over the place, but I guess Tyria is having a tree shortage. And getting hard wood out of pine trees? Maybe Tyrian Pine trees make hard wood, who knows, but the nodes don’t say “Tyrian Pine Sapling…” I could keep going. :P

Lol. And to once you have the hardwood from pine, the logic further continues in that you get one plank from 3 logs. Pretty sure normally it should be the other way around and you get a few planks out of one log xD

kimtingen.6472:

As usual.. There’s always those that misunderstand, trying reading it again and this time look at “teaming up” as “partying up” As in joining a party.

And NO! I do not expect to soloing any of the bosses! But maybe you should take your time to read my previous post instead of skimming through it and perhaps think a little before you post, hm?
I did point out that the other world bosses are too streamlined and lack randomness and I also said they could be more difficult. They could certainly use some random elements to freshen them up and make things more interesting and difficult, and IMHTGO difficulty on all world bosses SHOULD scale with amount of players taking part in it, But that being said, there have to be a bottom line of how many is required to succede.
As for variety… Randomness give you just that.

Weather you word it as teaming up or partying up, it’s the same thing, these events you are working with other players, the only difference with partying / squading up is clicking join squad on an lfg, once you’re in it there isn’t any difference to having to interact with strangers if you don’t want to. If for some reason you really don’t want to stay in the squad then leave once you’re in, though as others have mentioned staying in the squad is more helpful for the comms and for the odds of the event succeeding.

Hence why in part I used DS as a mention, realistically you need to join a squad via lfg to find a map that has a chance of success, so in that regard it’s no different to the TT event.

And no, I didn’t skim over your message, yes other world bosses could be made more challenging, and have more mechanics etc, which would be nice. I understand what you are saying in that other world bosses could have some more challenging mechanics etc which would give variety, and yes it would give a bit more. But then you are saying your definition of variety should be limited to just that, and shouldn’t extend to having at least one world boss that requires an organised effort.

kimtingen.6472:

Ah I see.. So it’s either team up with strangers, or GTFO, I guess it’s the latter then, or just hope for a lucky break. sigh

I’m of the opinion that, if tactical coordination to the degree it is on this boss event isn’t required on the other boss events, then it shouldn’t be required on this either. Maybe what the game really needs is a tactical mode, so that those that like that can get that type of game play. I’m not saying the boss events should be easy, in fact many of them could use a work over, more randomness and higher difficulty to them would be nice. Most of the bosses feel way too streamlined. All I’m asking for is that this boss event is dimmed down, just a little bit on the difficulty at each worm site.

Ummm, just to clarify you’re saying that you wouldn’t want to join an organised map because of teaming up with random strangers? What so you know every single random person in an unorganised map?! All world bosses are working with strangers! In fact a lot of metas are too! Seriously what’s next, you expect to solo all three lanes on Dragons Stand?

Also you say because coordination isn’t need on other world bosses, it shouldn’t be on this one, there is a thing called having variety and different challenges!

Randulf.7614:

Open community run it once or twice a day on the EU. They have voice chat to get you in easily since they have ways to get their own map, but you can sometimes get in by luck or lfg.

I think that’s who I normally join when I do the event, they all seem really great people and it’s always a nice relaxed and fun run (normally successful too). Also if anyone is shy, don’t be put off by the mention of voice chat or teamspeak, as you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, it’s mainly so you can listen to the comms instructions and things can be organised better

If you are on EU servers there are a couple of communities that do organised runs daily, often they will go around maps and post in map chat about it about an hour before to give notice. It is normally best to join their teamspeak to be sure you jump or can taxi into the correct map, they don’t always show on lfg as it’s better if people are on teamspeak for instructions. I’ve run with them quite a few times and they have an extremely high success rate, got all my achieves that way.

I personally like it how it is and don’t think it needs a nerf, it just needs a organisation and people to understand how the event works, if those criteria are met then chances of success are pretty high.

The main reason for fail maps is because most randoms either don’t understand the event mechanics, or don’t work together / listen to anyone trying to organise things.

The other problem is lots of people don’t realise you need to really get into a map early to open squads etc to get people in and organise it, too many think they can turn up 5-10 mins before and taxi people in, but that’s just too late.

I was a bit disappointed once I found out I had to do the raid track to get back my repeatable xp bar as well. I wouldn’t mind getting into raids, it’s just I hate to think how much xp has gone to waste by me not having completed one.

There are sometimes raid groups on the lfg that do say ‘all welcome’ or ‘raid training’ (I noticed more on Sundays), I’ve tried a couple but none of the groups successfully cleared one But they were at least friendly, so I did learn some of the mechanics etc. I think there are also some guilds out there who specialise in helping people new to raids, I’ll probably just wait until my guild runs a training session.

Like you I’m not actually bothered about the spirit I shards, I just like seeing the xp bar go up and something happen at the end of it, I just don’t like the thought of wasted / meaningless xp while it’s locked.

aandiarie.7195:

It’d be nice to be able to refine the search by things you already have unlocked like amors, dyes, recipes, minis, etc for the tp. would make things much better!

I second this, would be very useful to have this feature.

I would also quite like to be able to have a watch list / favourites feature as another tab, so I could add say 20-30 things I buy often, or things I can’t afford that I know I’ll buy later, that way I wouldn’t have to keep searching for them each time. I guess I could technically put in a 1 copper buy order on each so they are all under the orders bit, but an actual watch list would be better.

I’d agree that maybe it would be worth putting into maxing some crafting to 500 and creating some ascended gear, will come in handy if you decide to do high level fractals etc.

Depending on what you like, it could be worth saving for weapons / skins as well. That’s what I’m now saving mine for, I use a staff and there’s only about 5 staffs in the game I like the look of, which all typically happen to be the ones that cost 300-600g! xD

Another option to consider, is converting some gold to gems to buy some upgrades, for example if you want another bag slot, I think you could currently change about 110g to 400ish gems (I think those amounts are about right) to buy one off the store.

It does seem to be an odd thing to do. I was in the map exploring the other day and noticed all kinds of insults and abuse being shouted at people who were doing the event. I can see how people could get annoyed if they’ve been trying to get the achievement that needs it to fail, but it doesn’t really justify the amount of abuse in chat, especially being that what I saw in the chat was basically 5 mins of a couple of people calling everyone idiots (along with all kinds of swearing and abuse) for trying to do it, and when someone doing the event asked why to let it fail they just got more abuse, not an explanation of why they didn’t want people to do the event.

A lot of people won’t even know there’s an achievement for letting it fail, so will of course try to do the event, which makes perfect sense as it’s the natural thing to do. Having an achievement like this does seem to create a lot of unnecessary fighting and abuse, from what I’ve seen mostly from the ones who need it to fail. I think having things that need to fail is definitely bad for the community / game.

I just want a Shiba inu, I’d pay many gems for a cute little Shiba!

A good idea! Let’s show them some appreciation and support for all the hard work and effort they are putting in!

All these people moaning at them and complaining about them really kittens me off, they don’t seem to realise how hard it is, and how much work, goes into releasing a patch / big update at the best of times. Throw a snowstorm in to knock out the power of course that will cause issues that mean more work is required to fix things, check things and get everything ready, and that isn’t A-nets fault! There is no point them rushing the update out before taking the time to make sure it’s all working properly, otherwise all you complainers would just kitten about it anyway!

In conclusion; A-net, most of us really appreciate and understand what you are going through, and how much work you are putting in, all to bring us something that we will enjoy playing for many hours So please try to ignore any negativity from the kittening idiots who are too ignorant to understand unexpected things can happen and cause delays.

We are happy to wait A-net, we understand how manic it must be there right now, and we are sending you our support!

Enemies in HoT maps are more challenging, but given the story situation / events for them that’s sort of the point, the environment should feel a lot more threatening and hazardous for an individual to wander around in.

I died a lot when I first arrived in Verdant Brink, which frustrated me, but then I realised I just had to pay more attention and be a bit more cleaver in combat. Now I have no issues, and I play solo ele, so you can survive and explore the maps with a more squishy class.

Personally I think the more challenging maps not only make sense for the story, but also help people become better at combat. You just can’t expect to wade into a large mob, stand in one place and kill them with a couple of attacks and no effort, like you can in most of Tyria.

I’ll agree some hero points you can’t solo, but being its an MMO, you should really expect to have to team up with some people for things from time to time. Just put a call out for help with a hp in map chat, this game has a great community and there are always people who will respond to help (obviously no so much during a key meta). Half the time for the unsoloable hps there are always people asking for help, so team up with them when they do. Use the lfg to start a party, join one of the hp runs that are frequently there.

Of course it’s your choice, but to me it seems pretty backwards that you will take a break for ‘a year or two’ just because there are a few things you can’t solo.

nottsgman.8206:

I was just wondering when I complete all except the raid track then will my xp go back to a repeatable bar so I can gain xp and spirit shards again?

no, you need to unlock and complete the raid tracks too to get the repeatable bar + spirit shards.

Ah ok, thanks. Guess I’ll have to get into raids then, I do like the idea of them, it’s just most of the lfg don’t really want raid beginners in their groups from what I’ve seen, hence why I haven’t yet. I’ll see if any in my guild will organise some.

Haha, what a nice sentimental farewell to multi loot that was.

Hi all,

I’m currently just a few mastery points of finishing my last HoT mastery track, which will just leave the raid track (currently locked as I haven’t gone to raids yet). I was just wondering when I complete all except the raid track then will my xp go back to a repeatable bar so I can gain xp and spirit shards again?

Or will I need to unlock and do all the raid mysteries before that happens?

It’s not a major thing, and to be honest I’m not actually that bothered about gaining the spirit shards, it’s just it feels a bit unsatisfying gaining loads of xp for nothing to happen, so it will just be nice to see a bar going up again xD

Or, actually maybe they could add a ‘tail’ section to Mordremoth which appears on one set of islands at the same time that the head is attacking. So that way all sets of islands would be involved, so for example head attacks top set, top islands attack head, bombs appear on mid, mid run bombs, tail piece appears on bot, bot can attack tail to help with dps.

The mechanics and rest of the battle could work as they do now, but the extra ‘tail’ part could just be an additional way to damage Mordremoth. Mordremoth’s health would probably need adjusting or balancing for it, but I’m sure something like this could work.

Hmmm, I kinda of see what the op is getting at, there are a lot of moments where a lot of people are just having to wait around. But that said when the map actually works together I quite like the fight, as having each lane stick to their set of islands sort of gives a feeling that a whole army is coming together to take down Mordremoth.

In the parts where you’re waiting around (say your on south islands & Mordremoth is attacking top), I think maybe Anet were intending that to create a tense feeling while your wait (if not on running bombs) , as you watch the fight on the horizon hoping that squad does their job right, while being ready to defend your set of islands when the action switches to your area.

But you are right, it does seem most people seem to end up standing around going AFK, which annoys the hell out me! I get sometimes people might have to AFK for a short time for a reason, but the amount of people that doing in DS seem to be doing it because they can’t be bothered and don’t give a kitten. At the very least they could go AFK at a WP so people know how many in the arena are active on each island. And so randoms don’t waste time reviving them (but that’s a whole other issue, why people res dead people there to start with).

Maybe the islands not in action do need something more to try and stop that happening / liven things up to engage people more, perhaps small waves of enemies dropping in or something.

I agree with the crafting route for armor and weapons, I play mostly solo PvE (LFG for metas like DS) and I ended up crafting all my armor expect my coat, which I used the reward for the Leyline collection achievement for. (though maybe AB multi loot stopping will make some of the currency more time consuming to get)

For my staff I again crafted it, though typically within two days of having crafted it I got two ascended weapon drops, one from Teq, one from TT! (now used them for dagger & trident) But I’ve done those events loads and those are the first I’ve had, so would stick to crafting first.

Trinkets I farmed winterberries in bittefrost for my aqua breather, one accessory and a ring. Farmed ember Bay for petrified wood for my backpack. Used LFG to do fractal dailies for a few days to get pristine fractal relics for one ring. Then got one accessory by commendations through guild missions (was going to get it by petrified wood in ember bay, but I happened to get invited to quite a friendly guild). I have a feeling I purchased something with laurels too, maybe the amulet.

nottsgman.8206:

killermanjaro.5670:

Endless Soul.5178:

It’s ok to walk from point A to point B, instead of running.

This might sound a really stupid question, but can you actually just walk in this game? As there are times I would actually like to just slowly walk from one place to another rather than normal running / movement speed.

yes, you have to set a keybind for it in the options, but it does exist

Excellent! I’m doing that later then

Endless Soul.5178:

It’s ok to walk from point A to point B, instead of running.

This might sound a really stupid question, but can you actually just walk in this game? As there are times I would actually like to just slowly walk from one place to another rather than normal running / movement speed.

FrizzFreston.5290:

If someone plays 5-10 minutes every day for a total of 35-70 minutes in a week gets more rewards than someone whole plays 2 hours just on one day every week, then yes you’re obviously disadvantaged. Even more so, as there some very specific rewards are tied to the login rewards.

I wouldn’t really say they are disadvantaged, as someone who plays 2 hours on one day a week is still going to get rewarded for their playtime (events, dungeons, fractals, whatever they are doing), and of course still get a login reward for that day. I see the daily login as more of a loyalty reward, it’s just a small something as a ‘thanks for taking the time to turn up today’ sort of thing.

I just can’t really see the argument for, ‘I can’t / don’t want to / don’t have time to login everyday, so there should be a system where I can be given the same stuff but on my schedule’ because that’s basically the mindset of ‘I can’t do x but should have the reward anyway’, and that just isn’t how anything should ever work.

If that logic / mindset was applied to the game then you would have people arguing, ‘I can’t do 2 hours in one go for metas like DS, so there should be a way I can get those rewards in 5 mins to suit my playstyle’, which of course is a ridiculous thought, but it’s no different to ‘I want the daily login reward even though I don’t login everyday’.

At the end of the day the daily login rewards are there to reward players who have the commitment / dedication to turn up each day, if someone doesn’t do that they can’t expect the reward. Likewise if someone can login in each day, but can’t play for a couple of hours in one go, then they shouldn’t expect to be able to get rewards from events designed to reward you for your playtime.

Also I should add I personally don’t believe the daily login reward is there to entice people to look at the cash shop. In that to be honest ArenaNet take quite a laid back approach with getting people to the Gem Store, in that it’s not pushed in your face during the game, there is nothing on the HUD advertising stuff, they don’t send you in game messages when stuff is added, on sale etc. Of course they would like people to buy stuff on there, but they don’t proactively try to get players to it.

Personally I think the current setup makes perfect sense, you login daily, you get a daily reward for your time (I say time, I mean the 1 minute it would take to login and claim the reward).

Sure as it is now, if you can’t login one day, or don’t want to, then you miss out. But that’s how it should be. The daily login reward is basically a loyalty system, it’s there to give something as a thank you to the people playing (or just logging in) each day.

And to be fair a lot of players who are doing a few hours each week probably won’t need that volume of rewards anyway (like you said). Plus the game isn’t exactly short on other rewards you can go after, there are plenty of events, fracals, world bosses, dailies etc, which for play sessions of a few hours at a time are all easily obtainable.

*Edit – And thinking about it, being that these are rewards you get by simply logging into the game and not actually having to do a single thing, how exactly do you want to be able to get a months worth of these rewards in one sitting? By logging in and out of the game 30 times? By just logging in and have the game reward you a reward chest for each day of the upcoming month so you can open them whenever you feel?

Although I quite like the style and layout of Divinity’s Reach, I don’t mind if some of the city does get destroyed, rebuilt, or redesigned a bit. As long as they don’t go and LA it up!

Some bits of old LA were a pain to navigate and felt too cramped (those ships high up), but the new LA is just lifeless, it just feels like one big empty soulless concrete wasteland, rather than a main city / hub for people to gather. I like the layout, but the whole place feels deserted, and with the boring grayish / white colour everywhere it has a sort of eerie soviet / north Korea vibe to it. The old one felt busy, full of life and had a proper atmosphere to it. And stuff like that Lobster thing we have now, what the hell were they smoking when they came up with that?!

Maybe stuff like more npcs filling up the space would help a bit, like a busy market in the middle or something like that to form crowds. Or some days have a ship docked unloading stuff etc so the city is a bit more dynamic. Though I guess it could hit performance, so that’s probably why we don’t see that in the cities.

I don’t know if this is the right place to ask / suggest this, but am I the only one who thinks the ability to preview Gemstore items needs improving a bit?

It seems on the ‘Style’ tab things are fine, click an item in the list and you can see the preview. But if I type an item in the search to find it by name I can’t see any option to preview it, likewise if I look at Glider skins in the ‘upgrade’ or ‘specials’ tabs, you can’t actually preview them to see what they look like.

I know you can preview gliders through the Hero panel (which is what I had to do), but would it really be so hard for them to add an option to preview any item you click on in the Gemstore? Just seems that would make life a lot easier for people trying to buy things. Or is there already some way of doing this and I’ve just missed it?

On a slightly off topic second question, all of the various harvesting tools on the store, am I right in thinking you don’t have to wait at the node to harvest it once you use them? As I’ve seen a few people on game just run up, trigger the tools animation then run off straight away.

Hmm, I’m starting to see the problem. I just did an experiment which was to add one track and one playlist under ‘Ambient’ and it seems to have not worked properly.

Despite being set as ‘Ambient’ the custom track I added replaces the GW2 track on the title / character select screen. Then loading into DR (daytime) the default music kicked in, but only for about 20 secs then it went silent with no music (even by going to a WP in DR to try and force it to restart).

Heading out into Queensdale then trigged the custom track which was good, but going back into DR kept it playing instead of the default city music. Then I used a WP in DR which restarted the music, but again the custom ‘Ambient’ track, not the default one. This feels like it may be the start of a big headache :/

Amaimon.7823:

The custom playlist only works like once a week, so let’s fix that first, shall we?

Oh? Custom playlists don’t work reliably then? When you say it doesn’t always work does that mean the game ignores it and plays the default tracks, or just plays nothing so you have no music?

Loli Ruri.8307:

For the custom play list, what I did for the first track was to put a 1.5 second silent song there, to really make sure the list is random. Hope it helps if you wanna go that route.

I see I’ll keep that in mind. It may seem a silly question, but how does adding a track like that ensure the list is random?

nottsgman.8206:

I was mainly wondering if there was a way to pick a random track from a list, as in if I put 3 tracks on a battle playlist then will it play a random one of the three each time I got into a battle? Or does it just line then up and play one after the other? Also will a track automatically repeat when it ends?

the first song on the playlist is always plays first (during a playthrough), then it randomises. so, if you changed the battle playlist, when you go into battle for the first time, the first song is played. every time after that, the songs will be random.
I’m not so sure about when a song ends, but I think that a new random song gets played after.

also couldn’t find anything about if I can just add in tracks for say battle, but leave the rest as default

you can very much change only one playlist and leave all others as default. for example, right now I only have a custom playlist for the main menu (because I like listening to the SAB login music), but none of the others. all music in game still works perfectly.

I take it there is also no quick way to switch between default and custom music?

nope, there isn’t.

I see, thanks for the information there. I’ll start sorting some music to swap some out later (I actually do like the GW2 music, it’s just it’ll be nice to mix things up a bit). Sounds like some further in-game options to help with custom music would really be useful though.