Guild Wars 2

I think crummy/irrelevant loot is ANet’s way of convincing us that loot doesn’t matter.

My suggestion: bring a friend along when you do the quest.

The odd thing is today I did the exact story quest I did in BWE2. It worked fine back then.

It’s the annoying one where my street-wise thief so eagerly turns everything over to the cops. Soooo stupid.

The key to the bosses is not to take the big hits. There’s a bunch of ways to accomplish it. You can not get by treating dungeon encounters like dynamic events in the open world.

I ran with 3 Els, a thief, and my ranger. Whizzed thru sub 20-min run, yippee fill the bags and your bar.

It’s not like you need a defensive anything, just coordinated party.

So whatever guardian build you like to play will work just fine for CM-Story.

It is what it is — all the way from 1-399 Jewelry is treated differently from the weapons and armor crafts. And so it continues at 400.

I’d hope ANet makes use of the massive amount of data they have available to them to see how many guardians (and each other profession) have each weapon combo equipped. If there’s one that’s not being used, especially in the settings it’s intended for (say sPvP weapon that very few actually use in sPvP), that’s the compelling evidence that there’s something wrong with it.

We all have our suspicions. ANet (hopefully) has the data that provide the answers.

I really haven’t had a gear upgrade that was super-noticable in game play.

But it’s easy to keep your gear up. Just go trading post, get stuff that’s a copper or two above the vendor price. Buy it. Wear it. Sell it. You’re out a couple of copper.

In other games (e.g., EQ1), instead of having gold farmers, the funds for RMT came from things like described here, say spending 32c on all store-bought mats to make bread, and then selling it to NPC for 40c. Gold-seller creates bots that do it repeatedly and build their fortune. I don’t know why it was mentioned in the state of crafting address, as it’s a mundane point. And the bit about exploits… just made me o.O

you’re the dev, make your game right, eh

Hopefully next time they’ll spend a little better thought on writing the “state of the economy.”

Artificing
/15char

I think the point of crafting is cuz it’s there.

It is stupid to make something that takes 8 trophy items to make the inscription, each with a market value of a silver or two, plus the raw mats, and create an item that has a value 1/10th or less than its ingredients.

Except… no one wants to say “I’m only 130 tailoring,” we wanna be the 400/400 stud.

Fact is no one is holding a gun to your head. If you’re not into it, just gather mats. You’ll be richer, and rest assured that your guild mates will eagerly craft stuff for you if for some reason you ever want it.

Even if you bought all the utilities you could, that’s about 170 skill points. There’s ~200 static ones in the world, plus the 75 you get leveling up.

And as noted above, you keep on earning them past 80.

I don’t see how creating a use for junk hurts lower level vs higher level. Now a player with only low-level can sell stuff to higher lvl players who can easily get the ectoplasm. Whereas before you just had butter, soft wood, etc to vendor.

Any of the crafts that take the blue items for insignias (armor/leather/tailor) or inscribed dowels (weapon/arti/huntsman), you reach points where each skill-up takes ingredients that are ~15-20 silver on the TP. If you farm them, then you’re not spending the cash, but if you farm them you could have sold ’em for that much…

Arti has the potions which helps a lot.

Jewels and food imo

Most modern MMOs aren’t constrained by rectangular maps.

Moreover there ARE games in the world that manage a seamless connection of zones, such as where you could walk back and forth between Queensdale and Kessex Hills all along the border without having to endure a loading screen.

GW2 is not one of those games. It’s a shame, it’s a bit of old-fashioned kludgeness, but it’s not game-breaking, imo.

I can see rewards from a lvl 40-60 dungeon not comparing to doing an 80 zone, but I’m betting they’re better than you’d get if you killed mobs in a 40-60 zone.

I think of the blues and greens as a couple silver pieces in disguise, not necessarily hoping for top end stuff, but getting the funds to buy top end stuff.

I feel hugely rewarded for doing dungeons. I can’t match the xp (except perhaps taking a keep in WvW, but you can’t repeat that at will), can’t match the gold.

berries.7016:

DonQuack.9025:

How are people losing money is another thing I want to know. This game practically throws money at you.

It is in the post. Dying and repairing from it. The thing preventing me going broke is the actual issue I’d like altered slightly. Not wanting to do the dungeons saves me the repairs.

Here’s the conflict in this —
There’s a bunch of people doing these dungeons and making huge money, to the point the word “exploit” comes up. With my mid-50s ranger, I’m clearing over a gold per hour, not counting what’s on the trading post. My guild is using the dungeons to buy commander books (100g each).

I fully admit the first couple runs were difficult. I never had one that repairs approached the finishing reward, but they were long and hard and frustrating. When we bring people who’ve not done them before, they prob’ly die a couple of times, even with coaching.

But… I did 4 runs today and didn’t die once, and am not by any means gifted at video games.

There IS a learning curve. It’s best to climb it.

I run dungeon below my level a lot and get rewards that scale with level, including the xp and silver.

Your first dungeon run or two will be hard. That’s ok, cuz you’ve never played a game like GW2 before. Even worse is if you played some other MMORPG and are trying to do GW2 like that other game. You have to learn.

After you’ve learned, the dungeons are not terrifically hard. We have as many complaining that there’s not enough challenge as we have complaining that it’s stupid-wtf-nochance hard.

It’s not the gear that matters. It does matter a bit what utilities you have, and you can make good/bad choices for traits. On your way into the dungeon, make good choices, but even if you’re wearing greens and blues, your gear is fine.

What really matters is learning the playstyle of GW2 5-man

I would like to see the dungeon currencies combined or made exchangeable. Part of why people keep repeating the same dungeon is that’s what it takes to get your set.

It’s already in game to be able to have a trading post vendor wherever you want, with the item you get from chests or buy from BLTC.

I could’ve sworn you get copper/green-wood/jute/rawhide up to lvl 20, i.e. half way thru the 15-25 zones. That’s what would make the most sense to me. You don’t want iron etc. to start at 25, cuz you want to bank up a bit of mats before you can craft/equip it.

I think the system works pretty well the way it is. Crafting is for alts, IMO.

I really like the idea of buying additional crafting “slot” for gems, for convenience or to let someone feel more special. Obviously ANet has to store the info what recipes you know on inactive crafts, so the info must be readily available.

Even with both a huntsman and an artificer I find I have surplus wood. I do hit every tree I see when I’m doing a zone.

O.P. Note that from your level onward, you can buy gear from the trading post instead of crafting it yourself, and generally you’ll pay just a tiny bit over the vendor resale value.

So for a silver or less, you can “rent” a complete set of armor (or weapons), and focus your mats on one craft.

Being in a group or not doesn’t affect anything in-game except putting a marker on your mini-map, which if you’re all at an event isn’t particularly helpful.

How do you see this limiting zerging or making things more fun? I’m not sure if the suggestion is to make it easier to group, or to limit rewards for events to groups of a limited size.

I think so too. My guild has squad ability, but it’s limited to 50 members, so people get left out.

Something like this would be nice, even if it were a high-tier thing for a guild to purchase.

Do you really think ANet’s having trouble understanding what the issue is when you report a player with the current system?

Or is the trouble that it’s not a one-click solution?

Seems fine to me.

IMO if it can’t be traded, even to other characters on the same account, if it can’t be equipped, it shouldn’t take a bag slot.

Your first time doing anything, you’re prob’ly not very good at it.

Think you’re gonna walk into WvW with a group of newbs and take a keep? Think you’ll stand a chance against a practiced, coordinated team of sPvP?

After you’ve done a couple dungeons, you’ll have learned (hopefully) how to play them. I play 2 diff character types and don’t find myself dead very often, haven’t had total wipe since the 2nd time I tried one.

Comparing my experience with GW2 dungeons versus doing dungeons shortly after Rift launch, the GW2 dungeons aren’t harder and are less plagued with mind-numbing piles of trash mobs.

Groups in general are still very buggy. It’s just as bad if you’re trying to do DEs or whatever.

I will say, I crashed hard at the start of the final fight in a story-mode dungeon. Got back on-line, entered the zone, and my group had 4-manned the boss as slowly as they could, I wasn’t there for the fight, so of course couldn’t loot any of the corpses, but got the dungeon-completion reward.

There already IS a LFG tool. dimwits

massive wall of text unrelated to the forum

how big a team do you need for a 5-man dungeon?

I think it’s fine to have easy-mode in a game.

Even in this thread there’s sooo much whining about how “hard” dungeons are – if you decreased rewards then people would continue to still never learn how to make them easy.

There is the squad ability. We have a couple books already. Get your guildmates to cooperate and contribute.

Wouldn’t/couldn’t you know the feel of the culture and zone just as well if you did X dynamic events, rather than X renown hearts?

new USB keyboard $8.99 at Amazon

I bought one of those and have kept it with transmutation stones.

I don’t remember the exact NPC, but it was a karma merchant in the human starter areas — I think east Queensdale or possibly the start of Kessex Hills.

I find the renown hearts in a zone to be the least interesting, least innovative component. They feel like old quest-hubs like we had in every other MMORPG since EQ. Collect 10 legionnaire shoulder pads, reward me for every apple I bring, snore

Yet I feel obliged to do them, because they’re so prominent on my zone-completion, and cuz I want the chest.

If instead of having to do the hearts, perhaps zone completion could be tied to doing that same number of different dynamic events. That’d get players to actually explore what’s it take to trigger and follow event chains.

And I’d be freed of the chore feeling renown hearts bring. ^.^

well, those who like to play alts are making bank on jute

gather teen-level cloth drops, salvage, post to TP, go collect $$

either join em or pay them off

It used to be you’d do well hunting humanoids that drop loot bags. Now you’re better off going with a character equivalent to the level you’re hunting for, and hunting the mobs that drop the type you’re looking for, whether it’s scales or poison or what have you.

doesn’t help that so many loot bags that used to give jute (or other useful stuff) now give you pounds and pounds of butter.

The usually nifty feature — that whatever zone you’re in, most drops are for your level — this works against you if you’re trying for jute.

You need < lvl 15 cloth armor to drop to salvage. So you best do it with a low-level alt.

It’s a money sink — you’ll be more wealthy if you gather and let someone else do the crafting.

But it’s good for a lot of xp, some people find it fun, and it’s another dimension of the game to explore.

If you’re at all on the fence about whether to do it, hold off til you’re rich, and let your guildmates do the crafting for you. If you supply them with mats, they’ll happily make you stuff.

I started just hoarding the loot bags, hoping they’ll reverse the butter fiasco, and get us back to the old drop rate for rare crafting mats.

I guess if we got butter in addition to the old loot, that’d be fine. There’s just so much of it, lifetime supply in a half-hour of gameplay…

The only time I get a break-down of what happened is in sPvP, and it’s what other people did to kill me. So in that sense, it’s hard to tell how important combos are in the hard numbers, cuz we don’t have any hard numbers.

I hunt frequently with the same people, and do use the combos. They feel effective, but more importantly, they feel fun.

I think it works better here than I’ve seen it in other games (EQ2 and Rift). That you scale automatically is excellent.

Don’t think there’s ever any reason to make a big target instanced in GW2.

I wonder if there’s a bunch of dynamic event chains we never yet see that might spawn raid-type targets, waiting for us to discover them. Certainly something they could add as we go, too.

For a lvl 20 weapon to appear not red to you, you need to be lvl 20 and of a profession that can equip the weapon. Same with armor…