Guild Wars 2

ArchonWing.9480:

It’s the new way that games are going, only requiring you to purchase the latest version. It’s ultimately the best choice for an aging game.

Vets already have had access to achievements that will never be accessible again, and any number of items that have become much more difficult to get (read: mystic forge weapons), as well as free unlocks of living story. Conversely, a new player would have to pay gems or money to unlock the past 2 seasons of living story, several zones, and also not have had the benefit of the snowball effect of so called “old money” and Daily Rewards. I’d make a strong claim that previous economic imbalances have favored older players.

As someone that started a few days after release, the best way to show appreciation to me is to maintain the game and continue to make improvements so it runs as smoothly as possible as well as listening to concerns.

Also, I’m pretty sure one did get a free character slot for HoT, if they pre-ordered and owned the core game. I never paid for my 9th slot, nor did I buy any of the deluxe editions.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

For all players who registered the core Guild Wars 2® game prior to January 23, 2015 and who upgrade their account by prepurchasing and registering any Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns edition before Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns‘ launch, we will add one additional character slot to your Guild Wars 2 account.

Yes, they eventually added the character slot to pre-orders, but only after they got SAVAGED in the press for their perceived miserable treatment of existing customers.

OriOri.8724:

That’s a lot lower than I thought it would be. I feel like the most common one I see is 181 (well soon it will be 186)

Active players are more likely to be seen, and also more likely to have a higher number of points.

Inactive players are drawing down the average while also not being seen which would create the façade of a higher average.

OriOri.8724:

While its not particularly fun if you need an entire stack, you can at least go out and earn your lodestones through map bonus rewards. You can’t do that with MC at all, and no map bonus reward includes leather

Hardened Leather does appear as a map bonus reward (just not this week).

Plautze.6290:

Doing the same over and over again doesn’t exactly sound like casual play to me, more like a grind. But then again, “casual” seems to mean different things to different people. To me, it means having 1 to 1.5 hours time each day, in which I want to do what I want instead of working on a checklist to grind out my gold. When a game (which is supposed to be fun) becomes a chore, something is utterly wrong.

So, all your math aside, you seem to have another idea of “casual” as others have. Let’s leave it at that.

The good news is that casual players don’t need 100g worth of light armor, so the cost to make it doesn’t really matter.

HenryChinaski.4732:

mtpelion.4562:

Not to mention the fact that MORE people will be buying Sigils if you made this change. Right now, I NEVER replace the Sigils in my Legendaries. If I could swap them for free, I’d be on the market for a whole new batch of them.

I think Player who want to optimize there build change it now and Player who dont care about will not change it after .

If your optimal build requires a very expensive Sigil, you aren’t going to be dropping a Ghost Slaying sigil on top of it just to do an occasional Ascalonian Catacombs run.

And again, if they are concerned about devaluing Sigils, they need only make them salvageable and the problem is immediately solved.

Not to mention the fact that MORE people will be buying Sigils if you made this change. Right now, I NEVER replace the Sigils in my Legendaries. If I could swap them for free, I’d be on the market for a whole new batch of them.

Considering 95% of all Sigils are already listed at vendor price, what possible harm could this do?

Make Sigils and Runes salvageable if you are concerned about prices dropping for the few that still have some value.

That would wreak havoc on the economy. Multiple reselling of the same item results in currency being removed from the game multiple times. Without that, inflation would be rampant.

So it appears that the Rune/Infusion feature added with the Legendary Armor is NOT going to be applied to Sigil/Infusion slots on Legendary Weapons?

The Chinese game is different, in that you have to buy everything (cash shop x 1 million). In the US, you DO have to post the odds if you have gambling involved, but since you can participate in every aspect of GW2 for free (no cash required other than buying the game), none of it constitutes gambling.

NikeEU.7690:

Every class has either easy access to perma swiftness or has an IMS signet or trait. This is a bad idea.

100% uptime on a boon is a bad idea.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Wanze.8410:

Can you remind me again, what that problem is?

Don’t feign ignorance. The farm did absolutely nothing to address the price of t6 leather and you know it. Hell, the announcement about the farm did more to the prices than the actual farm did! (even if only temporarily).

Why would a farm that is participated in by a minority of people who want to satisfy their own demand affect the prices on a Trading Post?

Removing the demand of a few players who want to farm their own materials isn’t going to have a measurable impact on an economy filled with thousands of players that hate farming and would rather play how they want to get leather.

For the record, 100% of my Mystic Coin buy orders have been filled to date, so the idea that there is a shortage of supply is false.

1g per MC is not an outrageous price for a pure luxury item, and it hasn’t prevented me from making profits on the items I craft with them.

Tesla.5182:

I have been a player for a while now yet never have found out how to get a glider would love some help with this Thanks

Have you been to the first HoT map and started the expansion story line?

Sviel.7493:

If you implement a ‘negative to escalating combat sizes’ as a literal negative buff, people will be upset to see other players join them. It would not be hard to do more harm to a party with your presence than good if you’re new. Anet has also stated they’re not going down that path.

Instead, we should look for ways to make smaller combat sizes naturally more beneficial. SpellOfIniquity’s idea doesn’t allow for this as it’s just pure combat and thus numbers are always a boon (unless you include a negative buff). This is where objectives come in. Depending on their number, what it takes to accomplish them and how spread out they are, they make splitting up into smaller teams a better choice in many situations. You have leeway in the details of the objectives but removing them altogether isn’t going to work.

The concept of breaking up zergs appeals to me as well, but I agree that a straight up negative buff would probably create more problems than it would solve.

A total rework of the AoE/condition/boon systems could help. Right now a zerg can stand in as much fire as it wants due to all the boon sharing and group healing going on in a stack of people. If conditions/AoEs have much larger target limits and boon/buffs were redesigned to be mostly for single players rather than groups we could naturally spread out the zerg without punishing players for grouping up.

If I could redo WvW, I’d try to find a way to incorporate all servers into the same conflict, thus eliminating a lot of the population imbalance issues. The main items are:

1. Smaller borderland maps that connect to 6 other maps (i.e. a hex-shaped grid map that connects into a hex-grid, kind of like a Catan map). Each map consists of a central castle with 6 towers at the borders. Control of the map’s castle makes the whole map switch to your team color. Team color maps that are adjacent to each other boost the supply delivery rates of each other (a blue map that is surrounded by blue maps would have 6 times the delivery rate of a blue map that only borders 1 other blue map. A blue map that is completely surrounded by red and/or green maps would have NO supply deliveries at all, since they are cut off from friendly maps. Managing supply would be a matter of controlling contiguous territory, not capturing camps and escorting Yaks.

2. Removal of most Way Points. Maps that have fully upgraded castles or are completely surrounded by friendly borders would have a WP for all allied players to use. If no friendly/allied WPs are available, Home Server players can WP to their home server, even if they don’t control the castle (they’d WP in at a border nearest a friendly map), which can act as a “breakout” mechanic for teams that are getting stomped badly by distributing the players (instead of forcing them to res>charge into the maw of prepared defenders).

3. Simplification of siege into a 3 Defense (Shields, Ballistae, Trebuchets)/ 3 Attack (Shields, Catapults, Rams) rock paper scissors system that basically requires a balanced use of all types to successfully attack or defend a structure. Prevent Attack siege from being built inside towers/castles or Defense siege from being built outside towers/castles (I might even suggest limiting defensive siege to fixed nodes on the walls). Siege damage to players would be eliminated (catapults and trebuchets would still knock players back).

4. Rebalance of walls/gates so that attacking walls is generally seen as too time consuming against fully upgraded structures, but OK for basic ones.

5. Fully “safe” maps (with all 6 borders friendly) should have some events pop up so that players who are focusing on upgrading/defending backline maps have a way to earn rewards.

I think that the decision to pit 3 servers against each other was short-sighted and based on the assumption that all servers would not only have equal populations, but would have equal participation in the game mode. By interconnecting all of the servers, the players can now space themselves out as needed to capture and control smaller maps. This would promote more targeted goals which in turn promotes more active conflict and thus more enjoyment for everyone.

The focus on crafting goes hand in hand with the focus on the Trading Post being the primary means of acquiring crafting materials. The reason is to keep the economy healthy and to allow you to play any kind of content and still be able to get rewarded for it.

The “Play how you want” philosophy requires rewards to be distributed this way.

Just curiosity here, but if YOU could redesign WvWvW from the ground up (i.e. throw out 100% of what currently exists), how would your vision of a “perfect” WvWvW work?

Forcing players to play kitten builds just so you can hang on to an old, unused “balancing” mechanic is a symptom of bad design choices, not a feature.

All +25% movement traits, skills, and runes should either ONLY apply while in combat or should be removed from the game. Out of Combat movement speed, again, is out of combat, thus any discussion of “balance” is irrelevant.

Ayrilana.1396:

mtpelion.4562:

Ayrilana.1396:

Isn’t OOC movement speed itself a buff? We can boost it now but then people will be asking for it to be boosted again later.

It’s a buff in the same way that Magic Find is a buff, and if you recall they completely redesigned armor a while back to prevent an OOC buff from being part of the build dealing with combat.

So we’re already buffed for being OOC and not people want that increased further? What’s going to stop them asking for yet another speed increase years later? I also think that a lot of things in the game are balanced based on how movement speed is currently.

Out of combat movement speed should be UNIFORM for all players, unless you are using Swiftness. I’d prefer uniform at +25% so that it takes less time to walk places, but uniform at the current base would be fine too as long as swiftness is the only way to increase your speed above that of another player.

Ayrilana.1396:

Isn’t OOC movement speed itself a buff? We can boost it now but then people will be asking for it to be boosted again later.

It’s a buff in the same way that Magic Find is a buff, and if you recall they completely redesigned armor a while back to prevent an OOC buff from being part of the build dealing with combat.

Can’t you still purchase items from the Tier 1 tab even when you are at a higher tier? I seem to recall being able to do that in the past (granted, it’s been a while since I went to a Dry Top merchant).

I would rather they simply increase base movement speed to the 25% threshold and then update all of the traits/skills/runes that grant it to do something else.

Base movement speed should be a strictly QoL out of combat effect. If you want to run faster in combat, we have a buff called Swiftness that you should be using.

Locking it behind Raids isn’t necessarily an issue, as long as the locking is a simple matter of currency farming (like the Gift of Battle). If using a currency system, literally any player can fail every week but still eventually buy the things they need (or beat a few easy ones each week and fail the rest to speed things up).

If you actually limit access to only those players who beat or repeatedly beat all the raid wings, that’s the kind of bad game design that most of us left other games for when we first came to GW2.

T6 materials are a pretty fluid market. The supply doesn’t stick around long so things should rebalance pretty quickly. Keep putting in your buy orders at the price you want to pay and they should eventually fill.

They are all about what I expected. So while I’m not “disappointed”, I am certainly underwhelmed.

Also, the next person who adds a trenchcoat to this game should be fired on the spot.

Mysteries that remain a mystery for too long become “pointless things we no longer care about”.

Other than the few times you redo map completion, nothing draws you there to remind you that a mystery is present, thus it isn’t a mystery any longer, just background art.

Khailyn.6248:

I would have to agree with Ragnarox. If this applies to legendary armor it should apply to legendary weapons as well being on the same gear tier and taking similar amount of effort to attain. Now whether it would even be possible since legendary weapon coding has been in game for months/years is another thing. it may not even be possible without a lot of work on ANs at which it just wouldnt be worth it.

I’d argue that it would be several orders of magnitude MORE worth it since Legendary Weapons are available to all players while Legendary Armor is available to 5-10% who raid.

I like the idea of Team Deathmatch, best of 3 rounds, no respawn/rez, and solo queue only.

Cristalyan.5728:

mtpelion.4562

He never says “play how you want and get the same rate of rewards as everyone else”.

Can you show me where during my post I ever said “play how you want and get the same rate of rewards as everyone else”. ? If you distort my words (you main a mesmer? ) even when quoting directly form Collin’s interview, I don’t think I have any chance to make you understand that all the supporters of a change in MC acquisition method dislikes this aspect: no matter how you play, you get the same amount of MC (because ANet gives an equal number of MC every month to any player.

Even if the number of MC can be slightly different due to RNG or the player being forced (play how WHO? wants) to do a certain content, taking into account the large number of MC you need, the result is almost the same: At the end of the month you have only a tinny fraction of the MC you need. And you are forced to buy. Or to wait over 20 years if you don’t want to buy.

So, a part of the players are not content with this "play how you want and get the same rate of rewards as everyone else” (in the same manner you are not content with this too) and they asked for a way to acquire MC by playing and not by waiting or buying.

By reading the posts you can understand that every single person writing here is aware that different amounts of effort means different amounts of reward. And nobody disagree with this.
Exception from this rule are the MC. No matter how much effort you invest, the reward is the same: 20-50 MC per month. So, in this matter, a lot of players (like you) are not happy with this " no matter how you play, you get the same reward as everyone else". And asked for a change.

Thanks for agreeing with us.

You were disagreeing that playing any content you want, selling the rewards you get, and using the gold to buy Mystic Coins was a feature of “play how you want”, when the reality is that it is probably one of the BEST examples of “play how you want” since every player in the game has nearly identical access to Mystic Coin generation.

For the first year of holiday events, I assumed that since every other MMO I had played (including GW1) just repeated them each year, I didn’t need to worry about doing everything in my first year since they’d be back…

They really pulled the rug out from under us on that one.

Speaking of racing, any chance the Moa races can make a return? I’ve still got tokens to turn in…

I just felt the need to come in here and echo the others who have said this is probably the worst idea in GW2’s history.

Trading stalls belong in hardcore RP games where there aren’t systems of any kind and the whole world runs on the player’s imaginations.

For people who want to play a game though, it’s akin to asking ArenaNet to remove all the skills and just make a game where we have to pretend what each of our keyboard keys do.

Cristalyan.5728:

Can you link something to prove this interpretation of the statement is true? Because look at what Collin (at that time – 2013 – still at ANet) said: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

Collin Johanson: “To make playing in our open world worthwhile, we’ll make it rewarding enough for players to spend their time there across all levels. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.”.

The key words are : Be able to …. Play the way you want …. reach the most powerful rewards.
Not basic rewards, but the most powerful rewards

I think you should reread the quote from Colin. He never says “play how you want and get the same rate of rewards as everyone else”. At no point in time did anyone at ArenaNet ever suggest that all ways of playing would provide the same rate of rewards, simply that they would all be rewarding enough that you can eventually reach the most powerful rewards. That is primarily accomplished through selling the loot you get to buy the loot you want.

To be fair though, expansions are not primarily designed to attract NEW customers, but to resell the existing game to existing customers thereby dinging their wallets a second time. That is why all the negative PR on the forums/reddit/map chat more than offset any marketing spin carried by the industry rags.

HoT’s main issue was that they failed to sell the existing customers on the expansion (price point, content, direction, etc.).

The time-consuming nature is definitely part of the reason that makes it such a money-saver though. If it was fast and easy everyone would do it and the prices would plummet.

It’s the same reason why you can usually make more by selling planks than you can selling logs. People don’t want to take the time to craft the planks themselves because it is more time consuming than just buying the planks outright.

Yannir.4132:

Ardid.7203:

Why would Kormir disguise herself as Lazarus? So GW1 fans don’t try to kill her?

Because if you have a charr protagonist, for example, you would be deeply distrusting of a human god. A mursaat is a more neutral figure, as they are more removed from recent history.

As a separate point, mursaat are not exactly evil but they don’t adhere to the same moral guidelines as humans do either. The reason why they were such great antagonists is that they are morally grey and a bit alien too.

The Mursaat were responsible for the annihilation of the Charr armies, making them an even bigger source of distrust for a Charr than a Human god would be.

Short answer: yes.

You can actively farm any material, sell it on the TP, and buy the Mystic Coins you want.

Having a high value but evenly distributed product like this gives new and poor players the ability to make some quick gold fast.

Rauderi.8706:

It’s not healthy for the discussion to be deliberately obtuse. -_-

Insignias are a part of the armor-crafting process to get to 500, making Ascended gear available. Even for crafting Ascended gear, the Ascended insignia requires the Exotic one. Even getting a loot box from a fractal, conversion through the Forge requires an exotic insignia.

Kuu’s statement happens to drive home the point that the leather component is entirely too costly and affects the entire playerbase.

Too costly for whom?

ArenaNet has already confirmed that supply is outpacing demand. The issue is that you don’t want to wait or buy them.

If you don’t PvP, then you are going to get a lot of crap games while the algorithm determines where you should be.

If you flip a coin twice and get heads both times, you might think that heads is 100% guaranteed. If you flip the coin 100 times though, you will get a more accurate result (50% heads). The same concept applies here. Play more games and the ranking will be more accurate.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

Most of the info you need is on this site.

Basically, Sigils are upgrades that you attached to slots in your weapons which do things in combat.

They have the following “triggers” which activate them:

1. Passive (always on, no trigger required)
2. Chance on hit (for example, a 30% chance to inflict Chill)
3. chance on critical hit (for example, a 60% chance to inflict Bleed on a critical hit)
4. On kill (either an instant effect like granting Swiftness or a stacking effect whereby each enemy you kill gives you more power)
5. On swap (for example, refill 50% of your endurance or inflict Bleed on nearby foes)
6. On Interrupt (for example, steal a Boon from a foe when you interrupt them)

I still wish they would just add a dye channel for hair color so we can change it whenever. Keep the kit for hair style changes.

Just to clarify:

BAGS have set drop tables that are NOT affected by the level of your character. Examples include “Heavy Moldy Bag”, “Light Miner’s Bag”, and “Medium Ritual Bag”. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Container

CHAMPION BAGS have a dynamic drop table that IS affected by the level of your character. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_loot_bag

With the massive availability of Quickness and the limited availability of Slow, I don’t think this is that big of an issue.

Don’t forget you can preview all of the female heavy armor by taking your character to a bank and going to the wardrobe tab.

Tornupto.2304:

mtpelion.4562:

Rangers aren’t there for their own DPS. Rangers are there for Spotter, Frost Spirit, and Grace of the Land.

You missed the point a bit. This thread is not about druid.

2/3 ain’t bad.

Rangers aren’t there for their own DPS. Rangers are there for Spotter, Frost Spirit, and Grace of the Land.

Think of Dragons as sponges. When they are awake, they sop up all the magic available until they are completely wet and can’t hold any more. When they are asleep, all that magic they sopped up slowly leaks out of them until they are a dried up sponge again.