Guild Wars 2

Does the large vet karka’s jump/knockdown attack have an immediate followup that also knocks down? I’m 90% sure I’m not dodging too soon…and even get the “evade” during the dodge when they land on the stomp. But I still get a knockdown (or a “block” if my aegis from virtue has come back up) after that attack. It’s possible that the timing is off beteen the jump animation and the actual KD, but I don’t think that’s the case.

Valmarius.4150:

I think the difficuly is great. I (Guardian) can take on two small Karka’s at once…but it’s a fight for my life. And it’s great fun. People getting one shotted by projectiles? Dodge it. Having trouble with bigger mobs, or groups? Get with a group yourself.

Please don’t ask for the difficult to be lowered. One challenging map in the entire game is surely not too much for you.

The damage itself isn’t really the problem I see, it’s the timing of the volley attack. You can’t avoid it all using 2 dodges, which can make it a bit of issue with professions that don’t have a lot of endurance rebuilding options (like guardian). If a second mob aggros (or respawns) nearby, your main option for avoiding a hit has already been used up.

Speeding up that attack, or making it fewer projectiles with higher damage, would mean that you have to react faster to it, but could avoid it all in a single dodge. For those not reacting fast enough, the skill becomes even more deadly. This gives the same challenge/difficulty, but with a more reasonable way to skillfully deal with it.

I do like the challenge given in this zone, but I don’t like when the creatures abilites create a situation of “you’re going to take this damage, and there is nothing you can do to stop it”. The smaller karka present this situation in groups, and it is always there with the large karka’s perma-retaliation.

Overall I do like the zone, but there are a few aspects of the mobs that could use some work. I think they’ve all been mentioned before, but I’ll add my own list to it.

The smaller karka’s volley attack.
Not really a problem at all with a single mob, since you can see it coming (it’s usually their opening attack anyway) and dodge most of the damage. But with a couple of them, you can’t really dodge more than a single volley. They can also be very dangerous in a group fight if one behind you decides that you look fun to shoot at.

The large veteran karka’s retaliation.
Close to 400 damage per attack (over 700 on a champion) with a 1 minute duration is just way too much. Mesmer is really the only profession that has a viable means to deal with this; several utility skill options. Necro has a skill as well, but only if they use a focus in one of their weapon sets. I was exploring Southsun on my guardian with guildmates; ranger, engi, ele, and thief. The thief and I both have traits that can (conditionally) remove a boon, but that would require significant (build-breaking) trait point redistribution to use.

alanis.6094:

Wildclaw.6073:

alanis.6094:

Sounds like you just weren’t among their “most dedicated” customers.

The whole reason this thread is 10000 posts long is very likely because whoever was pulling the strings didn’t care about their most dedicated customers. They thought they already had them in their pocket, so why cater to them. Better to cater to the “swing” players that weren’t decided.

Perhaps someone should have explained that that strategy only works if there only are two games to choose from, and one has to get chosen.

I was making a joke about how Linsey Murdoch characterized who their “dedicated” customers were…

“As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.”

I’m in that group Linsey is referring to. My main character has a full set of exotic gear, and I have a couple alts in partial exotic. I am perfectly happy with this situation. Yes, I want Sunrise…eventually. But there is no “Legendary wall”. What about destroyer or corrupted weapons, swords like Volcanus, Foefire, or Vision of the Mists? Are those not steps between exotics and the “legendary wall”? Sure, they are exotics themselvse, but with unique skins and they are pretty hard to get…many taking some of the same items required for a legendary.

Cayafas.8290:

@mrstealth: Arenanet has usually been rather adamant about not being pressured by ncsoft and getting to employ their own vision. I seriously, seriously doubt we can write this off to ncsoft making arenanet change the game against their will.

You are absolutely right about that, in the past Anet has been pretty much left alone while NC seemed to focus on other projects (like AION). But NC’s focus seems to have shifted a bit onto Anet’s turf. And now we have Nexon owning nearly 15% of NCSoft, and a former Nexon producer having the “Monetization Producer” position within Anet. There is more of an outside force influencing decisions now than there was a year ago.

I agree that this is likely NCsoft’s doing, with pressure coming from the Nexon camp. I actually feel bad for the devs that we all see, because forces from higher are making them to be liars. I would like to think that the dev team feels the same way many of us do, but I know that they would never be allowed to show that without losing their jobs.

To any of the developers that do not like this change in direction,
Make your voice heard in the only way you can. There is a lot of talent among you, and I’m sure there are plenty of game studios that would love to have devs that are willing to go against the idea of just making more gindy MMO clones. Anet was that company for many years, but that is changing now.

Pukknub.7368:

if you check this img you can see a ring with similar stats but without the agony resist. And with an empty infusion slot.
https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png

I could be mistakes though. I don’t really give a kitten about this ascended gear tbh. And didn’t read a lot about it.
Other people seems to think it’s the end of the world though.

Yes, that type of item is exactly the problem we are complaining about. It already has better stats than the exotic next to it, and will get even more stats when you add an infusion to it. Again, infusions are not just agony resist. http://www.gw2db.com/items/72478-versatile-mighty-infusion

Pukknub.7368:

GADefence.5634:

“My guess is that ascended gear won’t make a big difference. Barely visible if my calculations are correct.”

Your calculations are completely wrong : For one, infusion adds agony and other stats and ANet already said both are going to be increased over time.

Here is an ascended ring: http://www.gw2db.com/items/71354-khilbrons-phylactery
and here is an ascended ring with infusions: http://www.gw2db.com/items/71374-khilbrons-phylactery-infused
Same stats except agony resist.

Ofc things can change in the future. I just made some calculations assuming they wouldn’t change it.

I’d love to see some calculations or somethign about how it will unbalance etc. I’m tired of people just assuming it will.

Why start complaining about items that they might change in the future?

That’s a ring with built-in infusion/agony resist. That ring has no infusion slot. Other ascended items will have all of that PLUS an infusion slot, that takes an infusion upgrade. That infusion upgrade has infusion/agony-related stats AND also increases other base stats (like power, toughness, etc)

edit: upgrades like this one http://www.gw2db.com/items/72478-versatile-mighty-infusion
That is a low-level “fine” quality Infusion adding +5 to power, and we’ve already been told that exotic(and maybe even legendary) quality infusions will be added later.

Crater.1625:

And there is more than one build that I would like to play at maximum power on those characters, that each require equipment with different stats.

These are things that I can do with the current Exotic maximum, and cannot do with Ascended equipment.

I fall into the same group, to a greater extent. I like to play differet builds on my characters…but I also like to do this on more than just one character.

This type of grind it takes to get this new gear doesn’t make it viable for the vast majority of us to do on more than a single character. This destroys one of the best things about this game (and one of the things I loved in GW1) and hated in almost every other MMO. I don’t want to go work on my alts when my main character is still SO far away from “max” gear that takes hundreds of hours to obtain.

There were even some pre-release blog posts and interviews with devs using the ease of making alt characters as one of the selling points/fundamental elements of GW2. Why go back on that now and send this huge “kitten you” to all of us alt-a-holics?

Gingelyr.3648:

These ascended items are replacing my medium term goals, not adding new ones. Instead of working towards a sweet-looking weapon, now I’m going to go grinf Fractals so I don’t get locked out of future hard content.

I’m in pretty much the same spot now. Why should I bother getting a new weapon for it’s skin, transmuting it with another exotic, when I know that it will become outclassed in the near future? That would be wasting a currently “max” exotic -and- the transmutation stone.

Best case scenario would be getting a skin I like with stats I like as well…and still having to waste the trans stone later to upgrade my “max” weapon to the “new max” that Ascended adds.

I got this game because I (like a lot of us GW1 players) like the idea of “max being max” and everything else being cosmetic. GW1 went on this way for 7 years, and there wasn’t a fit thrown over it. This was one of the selling points, one of the “key features”, of GW2 drilled into our heads by the devs before release.

Now, just over 2 months in, the weapons we’ve been working for that were supposed to be “max” forever are set to be replaced with better items. There were some nice skins I was looking to replace my current exotics’ style with…now I have no desire to get replace those common/basic exotics’ skins because I know it will be outdated/outclassed in an upcoming update.

This was supposedly done because “too may” players were getting Legendaries/etc, and now have “nothing to do”. I say this is -their- fault for rushing their way to what they knew was the end-point of progression. These players are not the majority (how many Legendaries have -you- seen in-game?) There are plenty of other games for these types of players, GW2 doesn’t need to become like every other MMO for them.

What happens after these players get their ascended gear (which they will again rush to get as soon as they can) and have “nothing to do” yet again? Anet says Ascended is the final tier of weapons, but they said that about exotics(stat-wise) just a few months ago. They went back on their word once, what assurance do have this won’t happen again?

And now we also have new “unique” items dropping in dungeons with new stat combos. What happend to every stat being readily available and not relying on RNG/drop rates? Do we have to repeat the dungeon 100 times because we keep getting boots when all we need is the helm from the set?(speculation, as I don’t know what the actual items are, or whether they can be sold on TP)

…and this is after we were assured before release that legendary weapons would be no more powerful than exotics. I at least expected them to hold off on this change till the Ascended stuff was available.

steelwolf.9864:

It’s deceptive of them for using a MF item, if you calculate the MF increase for stats the ascended ring has +49.4 total item stats than the exotic, meaning non-MF rings would have about this much of an increase.

I was a bit curious as to their choosing a Magic Find stat ring to show off on that blog. I do think it was at least partly to hide the larger stat difference that the major stat has. It also shows of MF, which is a pretty popular stat among the farmers/grinders(their target audience for this new content/gear), but at the same time is a stat that others (especially those concerned about WvW imbalance) will shrug off as a “pve stat that doesn’t matter.”

That’s 5 for the minor stat (Magic Find is taking the larger “major” stat) on a piece of jewelry. If Power or Precision was the major stat, that would be a 10 point different They are going to end up with full gear of this tier. Parts like a weapon or a chest armor have -much- higher plus stats. It will be much more of an issue when an Ascended Greatsword is giving 30-50 power more than an Exotic.

I don’t care what she wants to call it in her blog post, this is gear grind/treadmill. I put an alt in exotic armor and trinkets last night…and in 3 days the process of that being obsolete begins.

This is not what we were promised over the last 5 years. This is not taking what I loved about Guild Wars and putting it into a persistent world. This is adding one of the things Guild Wars was great for -not- having.

This is going to drive away so many casual players that were expecting (because Anet told them so) an experience like GW1, where you can drop the game and pick it up a few months later without a problem. Now they get to come back to find all their gear obsolete.

For the players that want gear grind “progression” there are plenty of games for you. Every game doesn’t need that. Just because -you- rushed to getting your Legendary, doesn’t mean that everyone wants gear grind. If it was a “one size fits all” issue, there would only be one MMO period, because everyone would be happy there. If the game doesn’t fit your wants, find a new game instead of throwing a fit for changes that the majority does not want.

edit: And before anyone questions it, I’m not a casual player, but I’m also not a 24/7 farmer/grinder(and I absolutely refuse to ever do a speedclear). I enjoy the game for what it is…a game to have fun in, solo or with my friends. Over 1k hours in GW2 and quite a few times more than that in GW1 over the last 7 years.

Arah was bugged last night on Henge of Denravi. I know it was fine earlier in the week, as guildies have done a few runs there. But for now, there is an escort event stuck at the bottom of the Promenade stairs, and a door preventing dungeon access even though the waypoint is not contested.

I’ve not heard the “WOO WOO” sound bug for a week or two, but it seems to have been repalced (for me, at least) by sounds going missing in similar situations. A large portion of the sound effects just stop playing if I’m in a fight that involves more than just a few players/enemies.

There is an easy “test” if you think you’ve encountered this bug. Open the main options (or any other window with different tabs, such as the Hero window), and check to see if the tab-swapping sound effect still plays. It’s also very apparent with certain skills, thief’s Unload being one of the most obvious as most of the gunshot sounds are silent.

Fortunately, fixing this is easy, but it will quickly bug again if you’re in anything bigger than a solo fight. Go to the sound options and change the quality slider, this seems to reset the sound. You can immediately put the slider back to where you want it, it just has to be moved to fix it.

I’ve done the Ossuary once or twice solo, and didn’t have any total wipes, but the NPCs were a bit of trouble a few times. I got lucky and noticed the unmarked champ roaming the outer ring while walking out from the center area to the first altar. Even with waiting for it and the veteran knights to be cleared out of my path to the alter, the NPCs were still managing to back-aggro the knights as they patrol by behind me(while I was still on the altar).

Going from altar-to-altar, I avoided the outer ring and went back towards the center and found another straight path out to the next, as someone else previously suggested. In doing this, I did lose sight of the champion and it came very close to patrolling around into the NPCs while I was at one of the altars.

Overall, I wouldn’t consider the quest to be hard, but putting in a hidden “walking death trap” that can easily turn this quest into a no-win scenario isn’t very fun. It would be nice if this was a challenging mob that really put your skills to the test if aggro’d. But as it is now, this champion is just a ridiculous “you fail now” timebomb waiting to ruin your quest.

The Veteran Risen Abominations in a few other story quests can be a bit of a nuisance, as well. I didn’t have any mission I’d label as too hard or impossible, but they are overpowered compared to the NPCs (these guys are supposed to be of some help, right?) and are not fun to fight because of their “cheating” unstoppable buff. In the story quest “Shell Shock”, they will either wipe the NPCs out before you can even put a significant dent in thier HP, or ignore the NPCs while you run in circles waiting for them to kill it. I like a good fight versus something that I have to dodge “big hits” from, but not an enemy that cannot be outran/kited and can take over 50% of my HP with every “normal” hit. I’ll go toe-to-toe with a champion, but I go out of my way to avoid a Veteran Risen Abomination.

Timberline does seem to have this more consistently. I checked a few other areas and didn’t notice it at all, including the southern part of Lornar’s which has an environment similar to Timberline.

Day/night effects it, too. During the day, the blur is pretty extreme at Kyesjard in the northwest corner of Timberline. An NPC standing within melee range had quite obvious blurring, and ones farther off were even worse. I couldn’t see any difference between blur being enabled/disabled at night in the same location.

I noticed this today playing in Timberline Falls. Not sure if the area has anything to do with it (I would assume not), perhaps I just noticed it because it’s an overall brighter area compared to where I had been playing recently. I have bad eyes anyway, so I may have just not noticed it. But now that I have, I can’t seem to not notice it. Disabling depth blur fixed it for me as well.

I assume it’s not GPU related, since I have an AMD card.
i5 2500 (stock speed) – Z68 chipset
Sapphire AMD HD 6950 2GB – Catalyst 12.8 driver

I just did The Battle of Claw Island on my ranger, which is is the second time I’ve done it solo. I’ve done it several times along with guildmates, and alone on my guardian. It’s a breeze with a couple people, and easy enough alone with the use of some rather bad tactics that should never be required.

There is one point that is very broken and poorly thought out. Reviving Mira on the beach is just annoying because she is in the middle of constantly respawning risen. Your order mentor (Forgal/Sieran/Tybalt) is probably going to end up dead very quickly, and Trahearne will die if you waste too much time. Even while your mentor is still alive, reviving Mira will get you a few risen friends. They don’t really hit hard, but you can get into trouble if you get too many, especially if some are the knock-locking Brutes. You will most likely have to abandon your revive attempt a few times to give yourself a chance to heal and distract the horde. This is where the problems start. Having to run in to “revive a little” then retreat (repeatedly) is not fun, it’s just broken. I should never have to abuse the aggro range/AI in order to complete a story quest, but here it is almost a requirement. And to make this annoyance even worse, by the time you’re going back in for your second revive attempt there is a good chance that your mentor and various other fallen allies are very near (if not on top of) Mira, giving you the extra task of getting the right NPC to revive (while you still have risen beating on you).

I do have to add that during my most recent run through this quest, Mira’s body seems to have moved to a slightly more convenient location. Before, she was always on the beach, on the far side of a risen spawn area. Now she is a bit farther up the hill/ramp onto the beach, but at the edge of the risen mob spawning area. She is easier to reach without training aggro along, but I had to revive her with the newly spawned mobs right on me.

The section after this (lighting the beacon) also has some similar issues with respawns. Trying to fight your way to the tower instead of just running should be a bit more of a viable option, but the risens’ quick respawns give you a good chance of having to fight the “same” mob after you have already moved on to the next. This is easily worked around by just running by them all and lighting the beacon. Another tactic, that like the rez/de-aggro/rez, should not be required in order to finish the quest.

Having to resort to tactics like these is just not fun, and I see it as quite an immersion breaker. Although I am not a roleplayer myself, I would imagine moments like this could be very detrimental to their enjoyment of the story quests. I would much rather be in combat trying to figure out how to use my skills to win, versus standing at the top of the hill trying to think of how to abuse the AI in order to win.

Try to pay attention to the combo pop-up messages. You are most likely triggering the combo finisher in someone else’s combo field, causing a different effect than what you expected. A finisher will only interact with one field, so if 5 other people have a field in the same area, any finishers will only be working with one of them.