Guild Wars 2

Aeonblade.8709:

As long as the rewards are comparable between solo and multiplayer dungeons, this is a step in the right direction. Other wise, I don’t even see why they would make a solo dungeon.

Why should the rewards be comparable if the multiplayer one is explicitly supposed to be harder? The point of making a solo dungeon is so that people who don’t want to do 5 man dungeon won’t feel left out of a particular part of the story arc, not to give everyone an easier way of getting the same rewards.

PopeUrban.2578:

That’s like buying a professional championship trophy and skipping the season altogether. Sure, you have the trophy, but it’s lost all of its meaning.

Again, the majority of cosmetics should be easily acquired, but hard content should have at least one unique award (like they are adding for SAB hard mode FYI)

This is a good way to put it. The “everyone gets a trophy” trope should not cover everything.

PopeUrban.2578:

The pervading concept that everyone should have easy access to every reward ever is flawed. Everyone should have easy access to power but cosmetic rewards are a different matter. There should exist shinies that are only obtainable by a few players, as long as these aren’t the majority of all items in the game.

Man, i sure needed you in the thread i started about wanting challenge for awesome looking stuff!

seems like including a solo mission and a group one is the best possible thing they could do, realistically. I had mentioned this before in one of the threads complaining about the F&F dungeon since i don’t think making a single dungeon that scales AND is challenging/interesting is viable.

generalraccoon.3857:

I get the idea that challenging to obtain =/= heavy grinding. At its basic principle I can approve of what the OPs intention is. Problem is who gets the say on what is “challenging enough”? This is likely a VERY subjective issue and therefore there will ALWAYS be some who feel it is too hard and some who feel it is too easy.

sure, it’s always going to be pretty subjective. After all, there are some people who can solo Arah. I think its pretty hard to argue that 2 hours of wandering around to get the “hardest” reward of the story so far isn’t a challenge by any means though. I hope they second half adds something a bit more substantial.

Difficulty is subjective, and while I get that this does not make the OP an elitist so to speak, I also don’t think anyone against the notion a ‘lazy entitled person’.

To be clear, i don’t necessarily think anyone in particular is a ‘lazy entitled person’ for simply disagreeing with me, i was merely trying to illustrate how stupid a particular insulting, hyperbolic statement was by flipping it around.

Farzo.8410:

Only thing I dislike about this is that the achievement tab spoiled the whole story in mere 15 seconds reading them…

I actually like that you get a sense of whats going on from the achievements since it whets my appetite for what comes next. If it wasn’t for the mention of (the villian) or what he has done in the plot, i probably would have no clue or story interest in being at southsun beyond just killing karka and grabbing loot. I mean, telling us the wildlife is dangerous or crazed doesn’t exactly mean squat on a island where the mobs have been dangerous and crazed since the day they were added to the game. Telling us upfront that (the villian) has been doing (stuff that’s spoiled in achievements and item descriptions) gives me something to look forward to in the next update.

Milennin.4825:

Yeah, we should totally make people grind a 100 hours and then make them gamble their fortune away in the Mystic Forge to give them a chance for the new backpack.

Why do people in this thread keep assuming that grinding or rng are the only way to put out “exclusive” items? They could put out some hard content for people that want it and want exclusive rewards that aren’t based on ridiculous RNG or easy party favors.

Someone who has the “Dungeon Master” title, for example, has put in their time doing some of the more challenging content of the game without necessarily grinding at all. What if you actually got an item for challenges like that? What if, for the Southsun cove events, there were a few easy to get event items (like the Censer?) and there were also a handful of difficult bosses or event instances that dropped mystic forge parts for those who wanted hard mode and better reward?

I’d like to see some dungeon-style 5 man content where you do more than a kill a series of adds. More puzzle-like things and coordination along with killing stuff. The ghostbuster boss they added to AC was an alright start.

Jamais vu.5284:

The only concern I have with it is if it replaced the regular town clothes slot-wise. I’m not huge on RP or “immersion” (though the Quaggan backpacks bother me), but it’d be weird if I saw someone (or rather, hordes of female characters) standing around in the middle of a city in swimwear.

No more than everyone standing around in city in their underwear, which has been an option since the beginning.

biofrog.1568:

Given the inflection in Regina’s wording, I some how don’t think that we will be the ‘bashee’ and are more likely to be the ‘bashed’ ;-)

Wouldn’t the “bashee” by synonymous with “bashed”? I think you mean “bashee” and “basher”.

alcopaul.2156:

Keep Fused Weapons as Rare (the rarest as ever) as possible for it is the only pride of those who don’t/can’t afford to get a Legendary or even a 500g weapon. We could not make money out of it anyway (so they can’t be used to manipulate the market). We will just rely on the thought that it can’t be gotten anymore. Think of the rare minipets of GW1 where limited amount was just issued to event winners.

Please A.NET

Over time, legendaries will be ubiquitous and Fused will remain at a fixed number.

And Still can’t be used to manipulate the market..

As they say, “the best things in life has no monetary equivalent.”

A.NET, come on! lol.

I feel the same about the greatsaw, which is likely even rarer than the fused GS because you had to get it specifically drop from a chest instead of universal ticket. I hope it doesn’t come back in the future.

SirusDibley.3716:

Well done to those who were lucky enough to get a ticket , now that fused tickets have been concluded does that mean a fused GS is worth more than a legendary ?

discuss

I feel like i see the fused GS all over the place. Every time i do a world boss, i see 3 at the minimum. Part of the problem is that teh GS is the most popular skin, so its very likely that more tickets were cashed in for GSs than any other weapons type

I feel for LameFox. There is a major lack of reading comprehension in this thread.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So the answer is really yes to both, it is living world content, and it could come back again in the future with new rewards.

My big question is if rewards from previous holidays will come back the second time around. It would be a shame for people who spent a lot buying certain items to suddenly find the value of those items plummet as they become far more common upon re-release.

kokocabana.8153:

You just invalidated your own argument. You want a prestige item that is hard to get so there are less players with it, but at the same time you want it to be easier to get so you don’t have to grind.

I said you shouldn’t have to grind one thing. You can make something hard to get without forcing people to grind one piece of content over and over.

EX: Soloing a dungeon is hard, but its not a grind. Requiring Gift of X from each dungeon requires a lot of work but barely requires you to repeat any one dungeon path. Having a series of hard boss instances that you must complete to gain a mystic forge component is challenging without requiring a grind. There’s plenty of ways to make things more challenging than “collect samples, talk to 5 npcs, here’s your exotic skin”.

Drakonis.4579:

RNG items aren’t prestige items, they’re RNG items. Getting a lucky dice roll doesn’t make it any more prestigious.

The only reason i used the term “prestige item” in the first place is because someone from Anet used the term to refer to rare items obtained through RNG or other means in another thread, so i’m only borrowing a term someone else was already applying to RNG loot. I said i thought RNG was garbage anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

Barabbas.8715:

I hate elitists who feel the need to exclude others from having cool gear just so their fragile egos can be stroked a bit.

And i hate entitled people who don’t want to work or overcome a challenge instead of getting a hand out. This is the kind attitude that has been dragging this game down since people read the phrase “play your way”. Some folks feel that apparently means that everything should fall in your lap no matter what you do and legendaries should be mailed to you for logging in.

Lafiel.9372:

If it was super hard to get, chances are, you won’t be the one to get it, thus, your thread would then be, WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GET, like those precursor complaint threads. Be happy that everyone can enjoy this cool back piece and not a hipster who says, “it’s not cool because it’s mainstream”

Lol. “If someone argues against X, they must also argue against X too!” That logic is hillariously bad.

JanNier Kryn Yaren.7968:

It’s this kind of mentality that ruins the fun of the game and made Anet create RNG to try instill some kind of “prestige”

You actually quoted where i said “While the RNG weapon drop scheme is complete garbage” and your retort is “It’s this kind of mentality that ruins the fun of the game and made Anet create RNG”?? Are you kidding?

I just wish they would “prestige” type items that weren’t pure rng. something like the fully upgraded fractal capacitor, maybe with less grinding one thing

Luthan.5236:

Also too many other achievements…

Such a fail. Might be the first time I’m just ignoring all that stuff and doing other things… don’t want to stay the whole next weeks on that map to do all that stuff.

Lol Wut? Too much stuff to do is bad??

When i saw the sclerite pack i was blown away by how sweet it was until i realized that everyone is going to have it. While the RNG weapon drop scheme is complete garbage, IMO, i’d like to some of the super awesome items have a little prestige because they are hard to get, whether that means completing harder content or gathering rare mats.

It sucks to get something super awesome and them immediately see 3 other people next to you with it when you port to LA.

Aurra.4971:

Seriously! First thing I did when I logged in was check the gemstore for swimsuits and nope.

I want to give you my money Anet!

Me too

Zyphent.2967:

If I have an infused back (Tome of the Rubicon (Infused)), and I transmute the look of this over that, does it keep everything of the Tome (including the infusion)?

yes. did that with the jetpack

Fiontar.4695:

The best answer is to make such dungeons scale. The story instances in month three of the F&F living story scaled and did so just about perfectly.

I have yet to see an instance of scaling in the game that works well. Usually, stuff like instances that get scaled down to 1 person are laughably easy compared to things designed for 5 players being played as intended by 5 players.

A more realistic option is to make the main story be all easy, solo missions like the F+F ones and the dungeon be a sidequest that is designed to work for 5 people.

It would have been nice if there was a carebear story mode the anyone can solo and an explorable one that assumes 5 man with higher challenge and better loot.

Oxymus.5241:

TerA has same armor system setup like Vindictus, armor look completely different on each race with same armor set. GW2 armor cosmetic look is the worse one I’ve ever play….if you ask 10 ppla with same classes then 7/10 of them wearing the same armor look just different stats….boring!

Doesn’t Tera require you to wear a whole entire outfit? Sounds like a far worse system than mix and match customization. I’ve heard from people who left Tera say that part of the problem with the game is that eventually everyone looks the same.

The problem is that there is no team making armor skins in the first place. lol

Overall, they need to work on finding ways to make encounters interesting without falling back on hp inflation. Its just far, far easier to do it in a dungeon since you can for the group to split and do different things in order to overcome a single challenge (dredge fractals, cliffside fractals, ghosterbuster AC path, etc…). I’d like to see them come up with some stuff like that outside of the dungeons, but i don’t have a whole lot of faith that it will and it’s far more likely we’ll see those types of innovations in dungeons sooner.

I agree with people who would like to see multiple ways to get through the story since it supports the “play your way” dogma, i just don’t want to see scaled dungeons be the answer since they have yet to show they can get scaling right at all.

Ryu.1368:

Map events are a joke for repetition, they’re a joke in the way of ‘challenge’ as you say, but bring more people in once place then the dungeons do.

And that’s proven to be a huge problem. Not only are huge events with 100+ people in one place less than a challenge, but they’ve also proven to be a technical nightmare. Lost Shore’s island building event might have been awesome if it wasn’t a lag fest full of invisible enemies and disconnects. Do any world boss and you’ll read people complaining about lag (and they’re hands are free to type all about it since you can hit the boss once or twice and get credit). More people /= better event.

The point about ‘failing in epic challenge in all but 5-man dungeons’ in itself is a joke. It inadvertently implies that adding absurd statistics to dungeon mobs is the catalyst to a true challenge (seeing as that’s the core method to the challenges of 5-man dungeons in question). If they made the map events challenging in the same way as the dungeons (or even basic adventuring), you can watch the population drop at heart-racing levels.

Dungeon runners have been complaining about hp inflation as difficulty for a long time and this latest dungeon, with a bosses that require movement and awareness over tank n’ spank (outside of the obvious stacking bug), shows that they can do dungeons without simply relying on number inflation for challenge. You also have dungeons where you need some people to fight while others open doors, hold positions or hit switches. You can’t have anything like that if the instances are assumed to scale down to one person.

But as you say, big numbers = challenge is a phenomenon you see through out the game anyway, so regardless of whether you advocate for scaling, dungeons or open world events, it is in no way a knock against including 5-man dungeon runs. In fact, you need to rely on “OMG huge numbers!” more in solo content and zerg bosses because they can’t rely on sophisticated coordination between individuals the way a small group can.

Vulpis.8063:

panzer.6034:

Vulpis.8063:

By the way, where is this ‘epic group event’ you’re refering to? I’ve seen epic group events in several places in GW2, including the Maw and the Fire Elemental.

This is part of the problem with the demands for stuff that isn’t a 5 man dungeon. The Maw is a joke. Jormag is a joke. The Shatter is a joke. All of the soloable mission are a joke. Anet has shown a distinct lack of ability to make epic, challenging and tactical experiences other than in 5 man dungeons. If you have an idea for something epic that they haven’t already tried and failed at, that would be great.

Which makes me kind of wonder why you’re playing GW2, as opposed to a game that’s focused around that sort of content in the first place? Not trying to be sarcastic at all here—someone in another thread brought up the point of ‘If you don’t like dungeons, why not find a game that doesn’t have them?‘, and I’m looking at it from the other direction, given some of the people like yourself who seem to want only dungeon content.

When did i say i want only dungeon content? Things like Jormag give good loot and are fine, they’d just be terrible ways to cap something important because you can sleep through them. Same with the solo stuff. They serve a purpose, but they’re a poor replacement for challenging content that requires multiplayer coordination.

Jemmi.6058:

Noviere.7309:

I’m glad that they’re not adding armor with this update… not because I don’t want new armor, but because I’d hate crab armor.

But they could give us tropical bikini’s!

Crab bikinis

Vulpis.8063:

By the way, where is this ‘epic group event’ you’re refering to? I’ve seen epic group events in several places in GW2, including the Maw and the Fire Elemental.

This is part of the problem with the demands for stuff that isn’t a 5 man dungeon. The Maw is a joke. Jormag is a joke. The Shatter is a joke. All of the soloable mission are a joke. Anet has shown a distinct lack of ability to make epic, challenging and tactical experiences other than in 5 man dungeons. If you have an idea for something epic that they haven’t already tried and failed at, that would be great.

Kokocat.6045:

It’s been 250 years. Cultures change and evolve. Humans are a lot more technologically advanced, look at the agriculture, and so are Charr. Charr’s engineering and tech is stemmed from wanting be a powerful military force and global power.

Quite true. Imagine New York city in 1950: skyscrapers, cars, commercial air travel, etc. Then think about New York in 1700… think there’s a difference?

And we live in a world where people don’t control flame, make 100 foot tall ice sculptures or otherwise warp the laws of physics all with the wave of hand. In such an context, its actually more immersion-breaking that Divinity’s reach still looks renaissance-period instead of being a giant magitech metropolis.

Vulpis.8063:

panzer.6034:

People also forget that you don’t have to do the dungeon to see the story wrap up on the 12th. That, and you get the achievement simply by setting foot in the dungeon. Getting the finale of the story is completely separate from doing the optional dungeon content.

Wait…I set foot in the dungeon, and as far as I know, I did not get the achievement—I thought you only got that for completing the dungeon?
Or has this something that’s been changed in the last few days that I haven’t been playing at all?

i got the achievement the moment i loaded into the dungeon.

People also forget that you don’t have to do the dungeon to see the story wrap up on the 12th. That, and you get the achievement simply by setting foot in the dungeon. Getting the finale of the story is completely separate from doing the optional dungeon content.

None of the other skins from temporary events were available after the events were completely removed, so most likely you won’t be able to get those items anywhere but the trading post after the story arc ends.

The problem with the SAB skins though is that they were so easy to get they were completely ubiquitous. Go to any event that month and you saw 10 people running around with the same GS.

What they should do is make it more like the halloween mystic forge craftables or the fractal capacitor backpack. You have to work, gather materials, collect tokens, etc, and build it yourself. Make it challenging enough that everyone isn’t basically handed the skins like in the SAB, but not completely reliant on BS RNG.

Elbegast.6970:

I guess you missed the smokestacks on the Charr Siege Cycles at the Black Citadel. It looks like they were taken straight off a Mississippi River Steamboat. Not to mention the ‘cow catcher’ present on many mobile Charr constructs.

I live near a Ford factory. There are similar smoke stacks and they certainly aren’t powered by steam. Besides, seeing a cowcatcher means that the game is somehow saturated with Victorians using steam-machinery, i.e. steampunk?? That’s a ridiculous non sequitur. I realize that its trendy and cool to try to throw “steampunk” around like some kind of perjorative, but it just sounds like grasping at straws when its used so erroneously.

Technology (lasers, tanks, teleport pads, guns, etc.) just kill the immersion for me. I want a return to the “bland” elves/magic/swords D&D cliche. This game is supposed to be a fantasy mmo; not science fiction.

The game obviously isn’t “supposed” to be a bland D&D cliche because they never developed it that way. Fantasy doesn’t have to be arbitrarily limited to elves/magic/swords to be fantasy in first place either.

You’re entitled to like the aesthetics you like in your fantasy, but you can’t claim that what you like is the true “fantasy” and what Anet makes is something else (oh, no machines make it unpure!). Also, if you’re looking for the bland elves/magic/swords D&D cliche, there are a million other franchises out there that cater to you, so please don’t demand for something a bit more unique and slightly outside the box to be dragged down with all the other derivative, forgettable fantasy background noise.

It gets grating when people keep staying “steampunk” over and over and over to describe something it doesn’t apply to. Nothing is steampowered and there is no Victorian aesthetic to the game. There is precisely zero “steampunk” in GW2.

That said, generic dragons + elves fantasy has been done to death. Yeah, its popular but its tired and developers shouldn’t be afraid to step up and take things in a different direction.. I’m glad GW2 is franchise that isn’t afraid to go against the regurgitated tropes and cliches of magic/Tolkein/elves/bland.

The real trick if they don’t want to cap a story line with a dungeon is replacing it with something equally epic. So far they haven’t shown us they can do that. We get huge laggy zerg-fest mass events like Lost Shores or anemic, underwhelming solo content. If they are going to make something other than a 5 man dungeon, they’re going to have to do it completely different from what we’ve seen.

Tornix.2180:

ugh most likely will end with another fungeon like every other update Anet have done. more struggle to find groups to do it, more boring grinding to get the ultimate prize at the end probably a hat. just more crap to do

I’m trying to figure out if you’re joking or not

Hopefully the southsun arc ends in a dungeon because that’s really the only way they can do something challenging with tactical depth that’s really epic. They tried to do a massive DE finale and it was the most horrible failure in the game’s history. They’ve made plenty of solo instances and they simply can’t be made epic because they need to scaled down for one person. They NEED to finish off with a dungeon because its the only was to make something interesting and challenging that works.

I just want a new dungeon and new armor sets

Stuff like this need to work like the fractal backpack; i.e. you work hard at different things and build it yourself. It isn’t handed to you purley with RNG.

Until they start making rare exclusive stuff that you actually have to WORK to achieve, i’m going to continue with the strategy i’ve learned since halloween:

1. Build up gold through running meta event and bosses, selling exotics and ectos if need be.
2. When a new, exclusive item drops from a limited time event. BUY IT ON THE TP IMMEDIATELY, even if its expensive because the price will only go up.
3. Profit.

Hope it comes with armor for a new dungeon

Not too bad. Second time i ran it, i was the only one in the group that had done it before and my only advice was to kill MF first and dodge a lot. We did it without wiping.

Silver Halliwell.4735:

I do believe you need one of these mate

I immediately thought of a completely different internet related activity when i saw this XD

Mine’s been running for 6 hours. No luck…

i was just saying i wish they looked less human/elfish than they do

The chocolate cake metaphor isn’t that great. Its more like the game is Taco Bell. Now, taco bell has a huge menu of stuff to eat but sometimes they come out with limited time stuff like the doritos locos tacos. If enough people demand doritos locos, then they make it a permanent menu item, but that doesn’t stop you from ordering the million other things on the menu.,

I know guildies that have 2 more laurels than they should. They said something was glitched when the system first rolled out and for a couple days you could double up

One more that uses the T2 chest with the T3 legs!

Halloween seems popular!