Guild Wars 2

Naqaj.6219:

Anise, obviously.

Think of it, she’s a master Mesmer. Clones & Phantasms …

Definitely Anise

Habib Loew.6239:

Issue #1 was the easiest to deal with because we can basically just throw money at the problem. When we first started down the road toward removing culling from WvW I took a bunch of bandwidth measurements and then went to the executives and said, essentially, “Hey, if we disable culling our network traffic will increase by X%. Are we ok with that?”. The answer I got was a clear and unambiguous “yes!” So issue #1 isn’t a problem after all.

Thanks for the update but if this part of the issue has been dealt with why has culling gotten worse? A couple of days ago in my tier all 3 servers were battling in the Stonemist Lords Room, I circled the room for probably 5 minutes without a single enemy or enemy siege rendering. I then went down and thats when they began rendering. Why did it take going down to render?

dreztina.4820:

I have literally never had a single guild vs guild fight in this game. If you run as a coordinated guild group, your only option for decent fights is wiping large numbers of zergers. There’s just no group competitive scene, especially when one of the servers is Yaks.

Its all 3 servers. My guild was trying to get a small group going last night in EB but we couldn’t because of the zerging from Ebay and Mag.

I congratulate you on your actions.

Erasculio.2914:

morrolan.9608:

So why provide any rewards at all then? Why have exotic armor which is better than what you get in the course of doing the game etc etc

To give people a feeling of progression and of change as they play through the game. Not to pretend players are donkeys chasing carrots dangling in front of their faces.

But if playing the game is enough they shouldn’t need that sense of progression.

Erasculio.2914:

The main reward is the experience of having fun while playing the game. If you want to grind – play not to have fun experimenting the game, but rather play through mediocre content just to get a reward in the end – there are lots of other MMOs out there exactly like that.

TLDR: if you didn’t enjoy reaching completition, you shouldn’t have done it.

So why provide any rewards at all then? Why have exotic armor which is better than what you get in the course of doing the game etc etc

Vorch.2985:

<insert Gem Store conspiracy here>

/sarcasm

imo, if the dyes were account wide, the drop rate would have to be decreased to compensate. Otherwise, their price on the TP would plummet as time went on. And then this topic would be about why dye drops are so low.

As I and others have already said dye drops are so low already that it has exacerbated the issue and that they are so low that they should be made account wide to compensate. I doubt I average 1 drop a week now doing mainly dungeons and WvW at lvl 80.

Krosslite.1950:

As I have said.

It is the players that need to get out there and do and look for this stuff.

They have gotten use to dungeons and pvp and thus lazy.
We all need to get out there and explore a little and we may get a big surprise once we do

What incentives are there to do that with a lvl 80 character, especially with the poor loot drops in the open world compared to dungeons and fractals? Simply exploring the world with any objective isn’t enough for most people.

Cam Ron.4170:

Had this game for a week and this is the first mmorpg that doesn’t feel like a complete grind. Experience for exploring new places? Brilliant. XP scaling with levels is cool too. You can basically do whatever you want in PvE without feeling like you are wasting time and missing out on experience. I love the events and haven’t even tried dungeons yet (i’m a level 23 thief). sPvp is fun as hell too., although another map or too would be sweet I haven’t even played WvW yet, but many people seem to like that better. Anyway, I just wanted to say how thrilled I am with GW2

You haven’t reached lvl 80 or endgame yet, just wait.

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

My interest in this thread topic isn’t as much about missing great loot. My game account is one of those typically ‘unlucky’ accounts and because of that, I’m not as profoundly affected by this issue as others. But the point of my participation is that, being a low-value-loot player, any decrease is going to further gimp my drop values.

How can you be permanently unlucky? Do you think you’ve been hit by permanenet DR?

Aproposs Of Fire.4056:

So let’s assume for this discussion that player population has increased dramatically (I understand that there are possible arguments against this – but also consider that ANet has not reduced the number of servers). If this is the case and that the population increase has diluted the loot tables:

I’d hate to think my loot drops are affected by other players, that would be seriously poor game design. I know that if an enemy hasn’t been killed for a while that apparently his chance of dropping higher level loot increases, I find that bad enough.

I’ve got PVT gear on my level 80 and his survivability is great. I’ve got 30 in firearms and alchemy as well so he’s quite tough.

Dayra.7405:

morrolan.9608:

For those mentioning culling its clearly not an easy fix.

Nevertheless, it is the most important one.
A PvP where you never see your opponents before either you or them are dead is superfluous.

I agree with that, it should be anets top priority.

Before the game was out I could sort of see the logic in anet’s decision but now I can’t. Dye drops happen too infrequently (for me at least) which means that I won’t come close to getting all dyes even across all of my 5 toons. They should be changed to be account wide.

For those mentioning culling its clearly not an easy fix.

Easy changes:

1. Winner of a tier goes to the next tier up loser goes down regardless of rating.
2. Orbs brought back with PvE benefits.
3. Make the minor changes needed to stop people using the exploits to get into Hills and DB.

Why not expand it to include any dungeon instance?

Culling is worse than ever. Yesterday all 3 servers in my matchup were battling it out in the Stonemist Lords room, I ran around for at least 5 minutes with no enemies or siege rendering at all, they didn’t begin to render until I finally went down. It was just ridiculous.

America.9437:

Anet is smart. They put elements of different MMO’s into the game and will let the playerbase decide where to take it. They have an open world, dungeons, fractal progression, WvWvW, sPvP. The playerbase has spoken. They want fractals and dungeons. They want an pyramid economy. They want a lobby game. They want their gear grind.

I agree with you about the economic aspects of mmos and the way it forces the hamster wheel style of OCD game design but players are only doing fractals and dungeons because of the loot not because its what they want. Make loot drops equal everywhere and see what happens.

Elthurien.8356:

I can’t understand why a development studio would spend the better part of seven years making such a huge virtual world and then neglect it with future content updates by focusing on instanced fractals and dungeons.

This. I understand the issues with bots but the open world is the selling point of the game and the aspect that is cl;early the most developed.

DancingPenguins.9875:

What can be done? DROP THE RATING SYSTEM. Mix up the matches, people are tired of fighting the same people months on end where the results are pretty much set in stones before the week begins. WvW has become dull and predictable when it should not be.

This is definitely an emerging issue and I’d like to see an arenanet comment on it. I’d rather see culling fixed first though.

Notus.5769:

Your problem was being bested when you normally best your opponents, not a lack of bodies. Christmas didn’t only happen on Yak’s Bend.

I might be wrong but I would have thought xmas would have affected DBs asian contingent significantly less than YB or Mag. What I do know is that numbers this week for YB are up by a substantial margin over last week. OTOH reading about Mag’s strategy YB clearly got its strategy wrong last week as well as being affected by less numbers.

Dokem.2634:

Resurgidos [RES] is a small latinamerican guild that decided to move from Sorrow’s Furnace to Yak’s Bend less than 1 week ago. We are enjoying wvw in a much healthier way now.

Welcome I’ve seen you guys about, you’re doing a good job.

kanikani.2430:

What is most ironic about this is, take your level 80 to a level 15 zone, you will get mostly level 70-80 drops.

This. Theres a clear inconsistency here. I hope this isn’t deliberate by anet because if anything loot should be better in WvW to get people to play it.

Guild management tools. They were in GW1 why were they not ported to GW2?

Kyosji.8961:

Yesterday I spend a total of 3 hours in my normal gear and 4 hours in my MF gear. In that time I found the following when I was jotting them down for this test:

Normal gear (3 hours 0% base MF/30% from food):
2 rares
9 greens
14 blues
about 42 crafting mats

MF gear (4 hours 170 base MF/30% from food – total 200):
0 rares
7 greens
12 blues
around 30 crafting mats

Seriously something wrong with those numbers

I hope you and the OP have raised support tickets, its the best way to get anet to look at it.

CassieGold.7460:

Nirvash.3018:

How much does it cost to get to lvl 80? with gold?

I’ve been looking at this since I’m spam crafting an alt past 30-40 levels… feels like some of the crafts cost very little (1-2g) while some cost quite a bit more (4-5g), though I’ve never spent more than that to max a craft, I do also have mats that I collected to offset the cost….

If I had to estimate, I would say 4g / craft for an average, or 32g to max a character…. that’s approximate though, and I’ve never maxed Huntsman or Leatherworker

I’m about to hit master crafter and this is about what I’d estimate it as as well.

Tarnished Coast, they greatly outnumbered us but conducted themselves well both in game and here.

kendokken.3257:

IMO the drop rate for <80 mats should be ALOT higher. I never understood the reasoning behind making players speed throughthe 1-80 levels and REDUCING the drop rates to near 0. Players should be gathering enoughmats to at least make their own gear in 1 craft profession possibly even both of your chosen professions. There is no reason for the crafted gear to be cheaper to buy than the mats to make it.

This, the drop rates for mats are far too low. It basically makes crafting into nothing but a levelling tool and worthwhile only as crafting at lvl 80. Was that really the intention?

To Stephanie how can we provide data when we had no reason to track it before 15/11? This comes across as a stalling tactic.

Hawkmoon.5849:

Now they want players to basically do the research for them, by submitting more data that shows a change in drop rate. While some players have probably accurately tracked this, very few (myself included) anticipate part of our gaming experience as needing to tell the developers something is seriously defective, and then having to prove it ourselves.

How the hell can we do that unless we were tracking it before 15/11? When we had no reason to.

Nuka Cola.8520:

“not good enough” is one thing and pathetic is what it really is. GW2 should win the award if the least rewarding game ever made.

This, anet doesn’t seem to understand how to implement a proper reward system.

pulseharmonics.8514:

I can see this being easily implemented using the Mystic Forge, it would actually be quite simple -

Back -
250x Badge of Honor
50x Glob of Ectoplasm OR 50x “Conquest Token” (purchased with Karma in WvW)
240x Philsopher’s Stone/40x Crystal
1x “WvW Relic Tier1” (dropped randomly like the mist essences – high chance from castle/keep lords, moderate from towers, low from supply camps, minimal from yaks and sentries – combined with a crafting material to determine item attributes)

OR

1350x Badge of Honor
1x Gift of Battle
240x Philsopher’s Stone/40x Crystal
1x “WvW Relic Tier1” (dropped randomly like the mist essences – high chance from castle/keep lords, moderate from towers, low from supply/mercenary camps – combined with some material, maybe a lodestone or core, to determine item attributes)

This makes the back piece take, in theory, the same amount of effort. The only difference is that people would have to earn the badges instead of having the option of purchasing them off the TP.

So in other words implement a grind to get statistically superior gear.

Harbinger.8637:

Speaking of dyes does Redemption dye exist?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dye

Yep I’ve got it and love it, best looking gold colour in the game.

cannedflame.3597:

Our guild was so impressed with YB, that when we were forced to migrate servers from TC due to an influx of friends and family getting the game over the holidays (and TC is full), we chose YB as our new home. We are small, so we likely won’t be changing how WvW is, but we hope you will enjoy having us anyway!

Welcome please don’t take this week as the norm we’ve been badly affected by xmas.

Preacher.4836:

Please listen and understand that DB does not and will not condone cheating.

Some leaders must. The worst part of what happened is that we we drove Mag off the map we painstakingly set up siege defence across many towers and ensured it stayed refreshed, only to have that siege destroyed by what must have been players exploiting to get into the towers and keeps to destroy the siege in advance of the DB main force which duly arrived just after the siege was destroyed, coincidence I think not.

Rhyis.7058:

If they means Mag, yeah, that’s exactly what happened. ’Cause Yaks got golem rushed.

Ah I see so those people using exploits to get through the gates on Hills inner, Garrison and Sunnyhill before they were down didn’t happen. Yes I personally witnessed it happening, yes I reported some for it.

The Goat.1940:

@Morrolan.9608 this is not the place to QQ about exploits,

Don’t see why not, anet don’t do anything about complaints. Are we supposed to find the Dragonbrand community server or something?

Rhyis.7058:

Did this Yaks dude just call golem rushing cheating?

No

Arcadio.6875:

YB now should be stronger than DH at their prime. I am aware they have fallen, but that is not my point. DH at their prime could probably still beat current Mag and current DB or at least do as well as YB is doing now.

Just to be clear when did you last play DB? Because in the Asian/Oceanic timeslot they are incredibly strong at the moment, fielding multiple zergs across at least 3 maps. This completely nullifies the main advantage YB had over Mag and Ebay hence why we aren;t doing well and its probably compounded by the xmas holidays. Right now DB would beat FA.

If you want to get more players into WvW simply make the loot drops from other players (not NPCs) much better, at least on a par with dungeons/fractals.

Ljiona.9142:

I just don’t get it. WvW was one of the unique features of GW2. It hasn’t been done since DAOC and tons of people were excited about it. After release, it gets totally ignored. It was your bread and butter. I do not understand why they focus on PVE…if we cared about that, we would play WoW. sPvP is the same thing. I just cannot understand why MMO companies over the last 10 years self-destruct. Is there something in the kool-aid you drink?

Yep I agree it staggers me how similar the live GW2 support is to the way Bioware supported SWTOR, poor balancing, not listening to fans…….. The lack of support for WvW is just another symptom which is a pity given how it should be a huge part of the endgame, dynamic ever changing PVP gameplay. As it is the no. of players from my guild who WvW is a quarter of what it was a month ago, and if the only thing in Feb is character progression they aint coming back.

Sheol Owl.1096:

They care, and they care a lot. It has been made clear that WvW is “their baby” and as such are making some very exciting changes to be available in Feb. Here is but one of many interviews where they have given information regarding their plans. I just wish more people would focus on the positive, rather than just spreading negative all the time. :/

http://gamingbolt.com/guild-wars-2-interview-we-talk-to-areanet-about-how-the-mmorpg-has-been-doing-post-launch

I don’t see that that says much about WvW. Their plans for Jan and Feb undoubtedly revolve around PvE rather than WvW especially with that recent interview where one gets the impression that the only addition to WvW will be character progression.

So basically they’re allowing what should be perhaps the driving force in people coming back at endgame to die on the vine.

How many times have we heard that culling is being looked at, its obviously just an extremely poor design that I doubt whether can be fixed now.

Stale matchups – what on earth is the problem with revising how matchups are determined, perhaps the winner goes up and the loser goes down, at least then there’s variety.

New maps are needed, maps that allow greater tactical variety to come into play.

Character progression is coming but probably too late.

Peetee.9406:

I think your definition of pay to win and my definition are different.

Tell me how his ‘bought’ lvl 80 is stronger than your lvl 80.

Well a lvl 80 who reaches it and buys exotic gear is stronger than someone who won’t pay for gold and is in greens until he can farm enough mats.

Be that as it may I agree that it isn’t pay to win. However its still a poor situation.

Many players have experienced experienced significant loot rate drops since recent patches in open world events is this a bug or ‘working as intended’?

Why were the drop rates from ads in the Jormag event nerfed?

There is significant player unrest around the diminishing return system especially given that the majority of bots have been eliminated, what are your future plans re this system?

Some players have experienced magic find gear seemingly reducing their chance of getting higher level loot, is this a bug?

In the last AMA you stated that the crafting cost of crafted ascended gear would be reduced. A minor change to the loot drop rate of 1 ingredient has been changed leaving ridiculously high requirements for other ingredients. This looks like you were merely paying lip service to the original complaint. Will this be addressed further and with other craftable ascended items when they become available?

The ingredient cost in terms of gold or time to farm the mats for apothecary gear is extremely high for gear that merely has slightly different stats from other exotic gear and is otherwise the same as other craftable gear can this cost be reduced or the loot drops on the ingredients be increased?

What are your plans to get people doing open world dynamic events at level 80 again?

Will you be adding more dynamic events to Southsun cove?

Kalaster.9014:

Crafting, I think we can all agree that it’s very time consuming if you wish to farm the mats and not have to pay money for gold for mats. But however, let me play devil’s advocate for a second. This is a f2p game, so how does Anet make money without subscription? Cash shop, Gems, and converting gems into gold. So, for instance, if crafting required less mats, then there would be no motive to go buy gems for gold. instead, not a single person (atleast not as many as there are now) would buy gems for the mats needed, thus Anet would not be making the money needed to keep this game running, to bring out new content, and pay their staff. However, i do think some tweaking needs to be made, either lessen the amount of mats needed to craft by a little, or up the drop/ salvage rate by maybe 20%.

I disagree with this, when crafting to make basic exotic armor and weapons, we should not have to resort to buying gold or grinding to get the mats needed for them, and indeed this is what anet originally promised. If we want special items sure.

Iavra.8510:

You got all apothecary recipes automatically unlocked. At least i got them and never bought any recipe to learn them.

Yep, of course when you have a look at the ingredients required you’ll never actually get a chance to make one given the stupidly small drop rates of the mats.

The issue is that they promised to look at it and make it make it a minor grind and they’ve basically paid lip service to that promise. Its still a massive grind or cost.

It does not bode well for obtaining further ascended gear when it becomes available.

It also makes it clear that anet do not want us to be able to craft high level items.

Twil.6307:

Guild Wars 2 just doesnt seem to have a grip or something to do outside of logging in for dailies, a couple of events with your friends and guildies. Guild Wars 1 I felt like I always had something to do, and something to work towards, whereas in Guild wars 2 now, I find it hard to log in because there isnt as much to do.

WvW is a suggestion

Subtle.4596:

Soooo … wonder how you Ebay just got into our garrison keep on YBBL?

We LITTERALLY JUST watched it happen… Care to explain?

Hope you got screenshots and reported them.

RyuDragnier.9476:

An easier way to deal with this would be to make the dragons like the dungeons. Diminishing returns per repeat of the same dragon within a day. Meaning your first time for the day you fight Jormag, you get some good loot. Second time, the loot gets less rare, third time, you won’t get rare at all. Do this, and it fixes the problem with farmers.

Sorry I don’t even see how doing a dragon event every 3 hours even constitutes OTT farming that requires any nerf. To me this response from anet pretty much beggars belief and is an indication that they’re getting way too carried away with this DR rubbish.