Guild Wars 2

Xiahou Mao.9701:

What kind of source do you need? It’s not possible. Writs of Experience cannot be used by level 80 characters, and Tomes of Knowledge give you a Spirit Shard when used at level 80. There’s no “source” needed to know that.

It doesn’t work.

And you’ve tried it?

Is it possible that with the update they Writs and Tomes got changed to allow to be applied to Masteries?

I would check for myself, but I get log in.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Neither Writs of Experience nor Tomes of Knowledge will progress Masteries.

Source?

I am not sure if it’s been asked and answered.
But do using the Writs of Experience gained from Dailies go toward Masteries?

For example, I have 20 Writs of Experience in my bank. All my characters are level 80. Would I be able to use those Writs to level up my masteries? Or do I need to just level them up “normally” through play? (i.e exploring, killing things, events)

Also, what about Tomes of Knowledge? Can they be applied to masteries as well?

Thanks!

Felix.3467:

Especially since they have overflow servers, why in the hell do we have so many servers when the majority of them feel incredibly dead? Wvw especially would greatly benefit from merging especially since even the high/full servers have nearly empty maps much of the time. Having coverage/people actually playing in the maps that exist would be nice, and yet anet is adding more to spread the people out even further. I want to play this game, but I find that the player activity is just.. very low. Too low. People are too spread out as a whole and it just doesn’t feel busy.

Speaking about PvE servers, mega server as already mentioned, is just that. All the servers merged together. Now much of what you may be seeing as far as “dead areas”, is A) you are in an “overflow” with an unknown number of “full” servers. B. ) You are in areas where there isn’t much going on, which leads to fewer people on said map. or C) The times you generally play are “off times” with fewer people on.

shion.2084:

There is another aspect to farmers that proponens seldom remember to mention and it will get potentially worse if there isn’t as much of a golden “faucet” say from dungeons.

While a farmer being wealthy will cause a rise in the rarer goods (as per the previous posting), they also do exactly what they tell you they are doing and lower the value of common goods. So for instance that minor sigil of bleeding…. there’s gonna be tons of them listed at the lowest price possible on the TP.

So what does this mean to someone who doesn’t farm? Well the goods they are likely to come across won’t sell for as much because farmers have glutted the market with them. And since you can’t get gold without trading too someone as readily anymore, this means your in a potentially worse position, beause not much your likely to come across through normal non-farming play is going to sell for anything.

Finally when a farmer bottoms out the market and people realize they might as well just go sell it to an NPC merchant…. that actually is the opposite of a gold sink, but rather generates exactly the kind of wealth that they argued they were combating.

Things never really mentioned….

This is true to an extent. But you also have to figure that the items that they sell that bottom out, like the minor sigils, is not just due to farmers glutting the market, but that no one wants them. As cheap as major sigils are, and most non-meta superior sigils, why would one want to buy a minor sigil? If you are leveling, you are generally getting new and better gear as you level up. Also with the rate that you level up it doesn’t make sense to go buy a new sigil each time you get a better weapon that matches your current level. By the time you are level 80, minor sigils are essentially worthless, not only in terms of value, but of practical use as well. Even at level 80, and not fully geared out with exotics, I am not going to use a minor sigil, when I can get a major or even a superior sigil for a few silver more.

That means, generally those buying minor sigils on the TP are people tossing them into the forge in hopes of getting rares, to forge again into superiors, or to sell the rares at a small profit.

And don’t forget that things like sigils and runes are not being swapped out or consumed on a regular basis. Most people will find a build they like and stick with it, or go meta. Either way it means that the demand for such things is extremely low, which results in prices bottoming out, and having an excess supply on the TP.

Aeolus.3615:

pdavis.8031:

Aeolus.3615:

for my exp that build would not last much.

That passive healing each 8-10sec interval looks good on paper, but RF is better and if traited also heals, another thing is if aint doing damage GTFO :P, defense easilly gets shatered by offense.

Like I said, the 5 matches I played last night I was largely untouchable. Held off 2 v 1 long enough to go through 3 sets of shout cooldowns. The only times I was overwhelmed fairly quickly was 3 v 1. Which no one is going to last long through anyway. During several matches the attackers ended up giving up, because it was taking so long. But as I said, the lack of cleanses do catch up in long sustained fights.

Yeah it doesn’t do much damage, but if you can stay on point you can prevent decap for quite a long time, and draw enemies off other points for rest of team to decap.

I do understand, i was not thinking as a guard, being dropping that class when i can do better job with others, since i have no problem making bunker run away or force them to die asap on point, reason u should take medi+shouts both traited, instead of signets, i would advice focus, but that is optional since many players dont know how to counter it and tend to kite/run (it is + 3 or 4 blocks to had to that build).

Somethign arround this, more block and condi cleanse

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeRlsAhShY1QwWIwPEHNE1dY3yAAXARQIknv6L/A-TpQWABOWGAg9HAA

The other variant would be use save yourselves to remove alot of condis from team , and then convert them to boons with contemplation of purity.

Interesting. But purity of voice and soldier rune 6 does the same thing. Do they stack, in that shouts now remove/convert 2 conditions instead of 1? At least with monk runes I can increase the uptime of boons. But if I were to rake virtues over zeal I lose Shattered Aegis, as well as the increased damage to GS and and symbols.

Also the contemplation of purity would be a better alternative to the signet for condi cleanse. Also, I might take Absolute Resolution over Supreme Justice in the virtue line.

But I do like the alternative you’ve propose. I’ll check it out and let you know.

Aeolus.3615:

for my exp that build would not last much.

That passive healing each 8-10sec interval looks good on paper, but RF is better and if traited also heals, another thing is if aint doing damage GTFO :P, defense easilly gets shatered by offense.

Like I said, the 5 matches I played last night I was largely untouchable. Held off 2 v 1 long enough to go through 3 sets of shout cooldowns. The only times I was overwhelmed fairly quickly was 3 v 1. Which no one is going to last long through anyway. During several matches the attackers ended up giving up, because it was taking so long. But as I said, the lack of cleanses do catch up in long sustained fights.

Yeah it doesn’t do much damage, but if you can stay on point you can prevent decap for quite a long time, and draw enemies off other points for rest of team to decap.

Your right…I was trying to remember the sigils I used. I changed to sigil of generosity instead, which I think I am using, but can’t exactly remember ATM.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeRlsAhShYrQwTIQTEHzD19ef0Zo2AJQAgzhioKA-TpRDABaXG44DBAGPAgo2fgujAAAnAAA

Ok, so I was playing around and trying to come up with a bunker/support build.
After a little messing around, I came up with this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeRlsAhShYrQwTIQTEHzDVtBSgA4evP6MgzhioKA-TpRDABaXG44DBAGPAgo2fAgTAgAHBAA

Basically I run around, blocking the kitten out of everything, throwing aegis around like it’s candy (which also heals and does damage when removed) and basically remaining untouchable.
Play about 5 rounds of unranked with it, and found it to be pretty kitten good. was able to successfully defend 3 v 1 for quite some time, 2 v 1 for even longer, and 1 v 1 near indefinite However, its lacking a bit of condi cleanse.

Anyone got any ideas to perhaps tweak it a bit so it still retains its legendary god mode bunker status, and gives a bit more condi cleanse?

Love to hear what you think!

Behellagh.1468:

T6 yes because it’s needed to craft exotic but precursors (and legendaries) are purely a luxury item and shouldn’t be factored into any inflation calculation.

This is true. But what gets me though, is precursors and other luxury items are often used in reference to “the horribly broken economy” in this game. (Not this thread, but the QQ about things costing too much threads.)

I wonder why that is? The same type of people when looking at the real world economy, see the prices of everyday items go up, could care less about the prices of yachts, motorcycles, luxury cars, etc. and seem to understand that such things are not really much of a factor in the general economy as a whole. But if it’s a precursor, or highly sought after skin, it’s “Inflation!”…

Ensign.2189:

pdavis.8031:

But failed to determine the cause of such increase.

Who cares? He’s trying to get an empirical measure of inflation, and is doing a pretty good job of it. Understanding what is contributing to the inflation rate may be interesting but is outside the scope of the project – in fact, without a reasonable empirical measure of inflation there is no empirical basis for any causal inferences on the factors contributing to inflation.

I disagree. Spending habits certainly play a factor in tracking inflation. If certain markets are increasing in price, finding the cause of that price increase is important. Instead, if you simply show that prices are increasing, without examining the “why”, all you have is a list, or a chart, that shows prices are going up. At that point it’s easy to say “See!? Prices are going up because more gold is entering the economy, and not enough is leaving. This is classic inflation!”
It then becomes a theory and an opinion, and not anything more.

Cyninja.2954:

pdavis.8031:

“Careful here, this is untrue. aproximately 28% of that gold leaves the economy. More gold in the gem-gold exchange leads to more gems getting converted to gold. The gold is not removed, it’s merely in a different state and will eventually reenter the game economy. The only gold removed here is the one for the 15% tax both ways.”

Yes and No. Yes the tax completely removes the gold from the game. Yes the gold used to buy gems is in a different state, but lies outside the game economy. However, considering the the amount of gold it takes to buy gems, and with the general steady increase of that amount, one can easily see that much more gold is being spent on gems, than gems being spent on gold. Of course there are some minor fluctuations here and there. With this trend, and with the gem prices continuing to rise, there is not much of that gold returning into the game. Thus being outside of the game it’s not effecting the economy at all. And so until it does make a return into the game due to gems converted to gold, it is essentially removed from the game, as it’s not effecting anything.

Again, no. The only thing this is indicative of is that the ratio of gold to gems is growing more unbalanced. Since gems can be bought with real life money (a major factor of them to be exact) and we have no data on how many gems enter the exchange, all we can say is that the ratio between both is growing. This has absolutely no effect on how much gold is spent on gems or how much gold is entering the game economy.

For example, if suddenly no one bought gems with real life $$$ and converted those to gold, the gold-to-gem price would spike even though no more or less gold was getting converted.

Same goes for if suddenly 3 times as many gems got bought and converted to gold. Even if the amount of gold converted to gems got doubled, prices for gems would still fall.

I am thinking we are essentially saying the same thing concerning the gem exchange.

If not, then let me put it this way.
The gem exchange has a pool of gold, and a pool of gems. Every time someone uses gold to buy gems, the price of gems for gold increases as the pool of gold increases, and the gem pool decreases. Each time someone converts gems to gold, gems are added into the gem pool, and gold removed, the price for gems for gold decreases.

Imagine it like a balance scale with gems on one side and gold on the other. If you add gold, and remove gems, whats going to happen to the gem side? It’s going to go up. (indicating increased prices). And if you add gems to the gem side, and remove gold, the gem side goes down (decreasing prices)

Gems bought with real money don’t come out of the gem pool, and have no effect on the ratio of gems to gold, and gold to gems. Therefore, the ONLY factor in determining gem prices on the exchange (both ways) is whether or not people are buying gems with gold, or gold with gems.

Hypothetically, if there were 0 gold sinks in the game at all No TP fees, no WP fees, no vendor prices, etc. and lets say that not a single person ever used the exchange. No one ever bought gems for gold, nor converted gems to gold.

What would happen to the exchange rates as the amount of gold in game increased?
Would the prices of gems for gold go up according to how much gold was in the economy?

Cyninja.2954:

I can’t agree to this. To much speculation on multiple fronts.

Fact 1:

- directly gained gold increases the overall goldsupply in the ingame economy

Fact 2:

- anything farmed to be sold on the trading post reduces the total goldsupply in the economy due to taxation

Speculation 1:

- people who farm dungeons spend more gold on buying things from the trading post

Speculation 2:

- people who sell things on the TP are more likely to buy things as well thus having more gold removed

The only things we can be sure of are the facts. The speculation part is just that, speculation, no matter how probable it might be.

I’d say most people do a mix of things. Run some dungeons, run some Silver Wastes, do some world bosses, do some champ farms, etc. Very few people farm 1 of those things for 6-10 hours straight.

The only thing we can be sure of is inflation du to more gold entering the economy, everything after that is a wild guess.

pdavis.8031:

or on gems, which completely removes the gold from the game.

Careful here, this is untrue. aproximately 28% of that gold leaves the economy. More gold in the gem-gold exchange leads to more gems getting converted to gold. The gold is not removed, it’s merely in a different state and will eventually reenter the game economy. The only gold removed here is the one for the 15% tax both ways.

All me to retort.

“Fact 1:

- directly gained gold increases the overall goldsupply in the ingame economy"

I agree with this, and said so in my post. How could directly gain gold not increase gold supply?

“Fact 2:

- anything farmed to be sold on the trading post reduces the total goldsupply in the economy due to taxation"

Also agree. That’s why the TP taxes are a gold sink. It’s designed to remove gold from the game.

“Speculation 1:

- people who farm dungeons spend more gold on buying things from the trading post"

So let me ask this. If people are farming dungeons for gold, and are not spending it on the TP for various skins, mats, etc. what are they doing with it? Are they sitting on it? If they are just storing it in their wallets, then it doesn’t have any impact on the general economy. It only becomes a factor in the economy when it is used to purchase items.
The whole idea behind farming dungeons is that it is faster and easier to obtain the desired items on the TP than counting on RNG for the drop. Therefore, those who farm dungeons for gold, are doing so in order to get gold to buy items off the TP. Either high priced mats, expensive skins, or whatever. If I want that 300g helmet skin, the best and fastest way, without buying gems, would be to farm dungeons and then buy it.

“Speculation 2:

- people who sell things on the TP are more likely to buy things as well thus having more gold removed "

Ok consider TP flippers. They buy one thing, sell it, and buy more things. Also consider the average player. They get a drop, decide they don’t like the skin, don’t need it, etc. and sell it on the TP. They then take that money and put it towards something they do want or need. Of course it may not happen right away, but ultimately they sell and they buy. This is the very nature of the Trading Post. This is a fact. It is not speculation to say that “people buy and sell things on the TP”. Of course they may be a few outliers who refuse to use the TP at all, and prefer to gain everything by farming and gathering, but a vast majority of players will use the TP at least once in their game career.

“Careful here, this is untrue. aproximately 28% of that gold leaves the economy. More gold in the gem-gold exchange leads to more gems getting converted to gold. The gold is not removed, it’s merely in a different state and will eventually reenter the game economy. The only gold removed here is the one for the 15% tax both ways.”

Yes and No. Yes the tax completely removes the gold from the game. Yes the gold used to buy gems is in a different state, but lies outside the game economy. However, considering the the amount of gold it takes to buy gems, and with the general steady increase of that amount, one can easily see that much more gold is being spent on gems, than gems being spent on gold. Of course there are some minor fluctuations here and there. With this trend, and with the gem prices continuing to rise, there is not much of that gold returning into the game. Thus being outside of the game it’s not effecting the economy at all. And so until it does make a return into the game due to gems converted to gold, it is essentially removed from the game, as it’s not effecting anything.

Xyrus.6037:

fireflyry.7023:

Eliminating gold would just shift focus from garnering reward for doing pretty much anything to reward for farming the mat that everyone has replaced gold with.

This I agree with. If you take out gold, the problem would simply arise in another medium of exchange. Worse, a barter system would be open to all kinds of potential exploitation.

I concur I played a game without a currency system, and instead had a barter system where you traded mats. It was near impossible to determine the “value” on any particular material. Thus, when looking for another type of material I needed to upgrade my armor, I had to find someone who had what I needed, and then come to a trade agreement. But with no way to tell if said items were rare, or “valuable” one could easily exploit people by claiming desired material was rare, and worth much more then initially offered. This happened to me, and shortly after I traded a bunch of stuff, I ended up getting multiple of what I needed as common drops. Plus it was very time consuming and boring waiting around trying to find someone who had what I needed.

No don’t remove gold. Keep it as it is.

DennisChrDk.9823:

I actually forgot to update the post, but it should be fixed now.

@pdavis.8031
Some of the thigns you pointed out is actually adressed in the edits. You mentioned that you think that most of the inflation is due to a rise in demand? I agree that it’s a mix of multiple things, but I would still say that some of the reward changes had a very big impact. Something like the changes to dungeon must have have a huge impact and the gold supply would have risen a lot. I don’t think you can just ignore something like this.

I agree that the dungeon reward changes have increased the gold supply, but with the increased supply, also comes with greater velocity of gold in the system. The way I see it is that people are making a lot of gold running dungeons, but that gold is being spent on the TP in greater amounts, which reduces the amount of gold in the economy, or on gems, which completely removes the gold from the game.

As most people will advocate using the TP over farming for mats, this leads to more people farming gold, which leads to the removal of gold (15% from TP fees) as they buy what they need. Which increases demand, which increases prices. Those people doing the selling will often turn around and buy what they need, which further reduces the gold, and increases demand on other items, which increases prices.

In a very short time, with multiple markets moving so rapidly, it’s not unreasonable to assume that much of the gold made on dungeons, or SW, or other farming activities, is just as quickly being removed through TP fees and other gold sinks.

DennisChrDk.9823:

The other way to obtain excot i actually not something I’ve considered. But I’m not sure I understand the rest of it, about taking this into acount. Do you think I shoud lower oricalcul, gossamer etc. weight in the basket? Because compared to the other items in the basket, tier 6 items is used in so many more recepies, for sigils and a little for ascended armor as well. When you craft from 400-500 you only craft excoti weapons/armors so the amounts you use is much higer.

This is true. But one should consider the varied uses of those mats. Sure many recipes call for T6, but at the same time, you need to look at how many of those recipes are being used. Take Reaper of Souls for example. It takes 100 vials of powerful blood to make. But how many people are making the Reaper of Souls? According to GW2 spidy, it only has 5 supply, but a demand of 31. This tells me that there is very little demand for the item, but even less people are making it.

So when considering the weight of T6, you should be keeping such things in mind, as that will effect the outcome of the numbers.

Pwnerer Ownerer.7195:

can u get back to the desktop when it does the black screen?

Negative. I still hear sounds and it seems that the game is still running, just no screen.

Carl.9837:

Hi, my PC keep crashing when I have gw2 on. I can’t stay on for a while.

I have windows 10 64bit
Intel i7-6700k CPU @4.00GHz
16gb ram
MSI Geforce GTX960

But for some reason the game keep freezing the entire PC. I did all the possible tweaking but still the same any help will be surely appreciated.

Same thing here. It usually only happens to me when I am doing Spirit Watch PvP. Been looking for a solution for awhile. Any help would be appreciated.

Mines been doing it for awhile too. Just actually had it happen. However it doesn’t do it after I log in. It only seems to either reboot entirely or just give a black screen while I am on Spirit Watch in PvP.

I was reading an article about having to reinstall windows 10 from a USB when blackscreen and reboots are happening, but I am loath to do that just yet. I want to see if there is another issue.

DennisChrDk.9823

Nice work!
You certainly put a lot of time and effort into this project.

However, I also have a few concerns.
First, You attribute the price increase of the items you’ve put in the “basket” to “inflation”. Which, as you defined as: “a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.” But failed to determine the cause of such increase. It seems to be implied that such an increase is due to the increase of gold in the economy. While an increase of gold supply may certainly be a factor, one also cannot ignore the demand on such items, that also increase the price.

With many new players into the game, it stands to reason that as they level up, they are going to want such things. And because there is more demand for them, the price does increase, as they are willing to pay more to obtain them. I would argue that much of the price increase is largely due to demand, and demand alone, rather then more gold in the general economy.

Second, concerning exotic crafting. For many players obtain exotic equipment, especially for players with multiple characters, its far easier, cheaper and faster to get a full set of exotic using karma, pvp reward tracks and dungeon tokens then it is to craft a set. This also effects the prices. That should also be taken into account when considering inflation rates. I am of the opinion that one of the major reasons people are crafting exotics, is to level their crafting discipline in order to get Ascended gear. To which most people either salvage, forge, or sell at a loss in order to recoup the cost of crafting them.

And finally, I don’t believe that gem conversion should be included. It is completely separate to the general economy. The price for gems from gold is only increasing because many people don’t want to spend real money on gems if they don’t have to. You generally start seeing spikes in prices when new items are introduced in the gem store. Which again have no real effect on the general economy. The general consensus of the gem exchange is “Buy gems for gold, it’s easy and cheap. But don’t buy gems for gold because the exchange rate is terrible.” Which only leads to higher prices. With such an attitude, one can reasonably figure that even if the general economy was 100% perfect and stable (that is 0 price increase from launch day), gold to gem prices would still increase.

Coulter.2315:

Again I will say; they know what’s coming. <- reading something and saying “oh noes everything will be broken” when THEY know the new reward structure coming with HoT and you don’t is just ignorant doomsaying.

You must be new….
I’ll clear things up for you. Here in the forums, it’s all about “doom and gloom”. Every change is “horrible” and will destroy the game. Fractals and Ascended were added, “It’s going to ruin the game!!!!!” Daily and Monthly activities added, “It’s going to ruin the game!!!!” the New Play Experience, changes to stats and leveling, “It’s going to ruin the game!!!!” Changes to daily log in rewards, “It’s going to ruin the game!!!!” Etc.

Nearly any and every change that has been proposed, and implemented has been met on the forums with strong knee jerk reactions. After the implementation, there was some complaints, but most of those had to do with bugs and other issues that came along with it. After about a month or so, everything went back to normal, and people complained about how OP X class was, or how RNG is bad. Things quieted down, and no one talked about the changes they were so against. Almost as if once the bugs got worked out, and they got used to it, they found it wasn’t so bad after all….

I gave up trying to bring logic and reason into the forums, most people don’t care about “facts” and “logic”, and so will just ignore you, or try to discredit or ridicule you.

Welcome to the Guild Wars 2 forums!!!

There are a variety of legit reasons one would leave a hotjoin match. And none of them have anything to do with the current score, team comp, or anything else. As others have said, they do it for practice, or to test a new build. I myself will jump in to practice now and again. I often jump into hotjoin for something to do while I’m waiting for a teammate to come back from a break. In the latter case, I will quit the match when teammate comes back, regardless of the score.

I would say it’s a combo of a lot of new players, and the update to the world bosses with double the HP, and crit spots.

I just made all my characters with the same surname. But like lahmia said, rename them.

Lord Kuru.3685:

pdavis.8031:

Just for posterity sake: Last year, when they changed how the PS worked with the NPE, people were claiming that the prices of Black lion skins would sky rocket due to the “nerf” of key farming. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RIP-keyfarming-merged/first)

From what I can tell, the price of the skins has remained pretty steady, the only major changes are when the item is no longer available.

So I don’t believe that this change will have too much of an effect on prices.
Plus with an increased drop rate in open world, it might actually help drive prices down, as essentially, you are introducing more keys, thus more skins, to the general population, rather then the small handful of key farmers.

That’s because people discovered they could keyfarm as much as before, just with the added cost of crafting to level 10. And skin prices did go up as a result of this new cost.

Prices did go up yes, but not so much as predicted in the thread I linked. Overall, though those prices have remained fairly steady with few peaks and dips.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

pdavis.8031:

Just for posterity sake: Last year, when they changed how the PS worked with the NPE, people were claiming that the prices of Black lion skins would sky rocket due to the “nerf” of key farming. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RIP-keyfarming-merged/first)

From what I can tell, the price of the skins has remained pretty steady, the only major changes are when the item is no longer available.

So I don’t believe that this change will have too much of an effect on prices.
Plus with an increased drop rate in open world, it might actually help drive prices down, as essentially, you are introducing more keys, thus more skins, to the general population, rather then the small handful of key farmers.

I’m not so sure the previous change actually affected key farming that much. With crafting to level, writs and tomes, the people who wanted to key farm continued. They just had to make some small changes to their routine. The only ones it discouraged were those to whom key running wasn’t something they did routinely. I know the change didn’t slow me down once I changed how I got to level 10. I could do one a week, one a day or several a day, as I pleased. And sometimes I did 2 or 3 a day. If I wanted to grind, I could get a skin a month, or less

This however is a completely different kettle of fish. No matter what I do, I can only do one a week. If I do my one a week, it will take me 7-8 months to get one skin. (Assuming 30 keys to get 10 scraps).

It’s the difference between key farmers doing enough key runs to get up to 12 skins to sell a year, to 1 or 2 a year. That’s quite a nerf. If it’s key farmers that were supplying a noticeable quantity of the skins then there won’t be as many from key farming.

The previous change mention didn’t really have much of an impact on key farming. I agree. However, the sentiments in that thread were the same as they are here. That due to the change, the prices would skyrocket and become unavailable to most players. (Which didn’t really happen).

I maintain that even though you can only farm 1 key a week, by increasing the open world drop rate, you open up the pool of available keys to a lot more players (potentially the whole player base) then just key farmers, or those making new characters, which I think we can agree was a small minority of the players. Thus, if more players have access to more keys, then you are increasing the amount of scraps and tickets available, which in turn increases the amount of skins available, and thus reduces prices.

Just for posterity sake: Last year, when they changed how the PS worked with the NPE, people were claiming that the prices of Black lion skins would sky rocket due to the “nerf” of key farming. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RIP-keyfarming-merged/first)

From what I can tell, the price of the skins has remained pretty steady, the only major changes are when the item is no longer available.

So I don’t believe that this change will have too much of an effect on prices.
Plus with an increased drop rate in open world, it might actually help drive prices down, as essentially, you are introducing more keys, thus more skins, to the general population, rather then the small handful of key farmers.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

tomlin.8204:

3 years in and there’s STILL no option to ‘sort’ items in your bag or bank. Clicking “sort” would group all similar items next to each other – weapons, armour etc. My bank especially is a horrid mess of random items and empty spaces that I shouldn’t have to tidy myself. Unnacceptable. If 10+ year old mmo’s can do it, so can GW2.

Agreed, especially that very last point you made. These things should already be available to players, yet it’s not just players that would benefit from this. People at Anet play the game, too.

There are bags that do this automatically.
Oiled packs, automatically add junks items.
Craftman’s bags automatically add crafting mats.
Equipment boxes automatically add in equipment according to tier (masterwork, rare, exotic)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bag

Lambent.6375:

pdavis.8031:

Lambent.6375:

Mo Mo.1947:

Julie Yann.5379:

dom.2748:

No, they should be banned. They are intentionally causing harm by placing hostile portals at locations where they can’t be seen and where people will be pressing F so they end up taking it without their knowledge.

Don’t think they should get banned but Anet should make it so portals don’t take priority over siege weapons/blueprints, chests, trap activators, etc.

Lol get banned, as if… They could maybe change the interaction priorities, but isn’t there already a controls option to set AoE loot to another key? If not they could make that option.

Either way, people should thank troll portaliers for waking them up. If you take a portal without thinking or autorun up to chests slapping the F key all the way you are droning too hard.

ALSO, portals have a slight activation delay. The completion effect and sound happens before you can actually use it, so if you see that pink disk and hear the glamour just stop spamming F mindlessly. Problem solved.

Unless you don’t see the pink disk due to a combination of it being slightly obscured by other objects/characters, and not expecting anyone to place a portal there.

The megadestroyer incident was just used as an example since I happened to accidentally catch it on video, you’re not addressing the fact that some mesmers use these portals to disrupt events like Teq/wurm mid way, which has nothing to do with looting, and “stop spamming F” does not solve.

I have to agree with those that are saying it shouldn’t be/isn’t reportable.
All that it takes to avoid a portal is a little bit of awareness. While you may not be able to see the portal itself due to a variety of reasons, the activation itself changes color and text…it’s not all that hard to miss.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Portal_interact.jpg

So again, instead of just randomly smashing F (or whatever key bind you have) maybe take 1/4 of a second to glance at the dialog that pops up to see what it says before pressing the button.

If its orange and says “loot” then you are good to go.
If its orange and says “activate”, depending on what you are doing, you may or may not want to press F at that moment.
Same for “use”, “examine”, “talk” “Greet” etc.

As for troll portals in general. I never take a portal, unless the Mesmer is in my party, and I know them. Random portals at bosses and in open world never lead to anything good.

Unfortunately this doesn’t help when people place portals on jump pads so you have to wait before you can use them, and have to opt to run if you don’t want to wait.

I suppose clicking on the jump pad, and watching for the prompt to say “activate” is a bit too much….

ZanchinFissure.7981:

pdavis.8031:

You mean something like:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Essence_of_Gold
That gives you a +2% increase in gold find every 28 days just from logging in?

No not like that. That adds to your total like achievement chests do.

I am not sure what you mean then…

Unless you are talking about making Gold find work similar to how Magic Find works, in that you have to collect and consume a large amount of essences in order to increase your gold find by 1%.

You mean something like:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Essence_of_Gold
That gives you a +2% increase in gold find every 28 days just from logging in?

Lambent.6375:

Mo Mo.1947:

Julie Yann.5379:

dom.2748:

No, they should be banned. They are intentionally causing harm by placing hostile portals at locations where they can’t be seen and where people will be pressing F so they end up taking it without their knowledge.

Don’t think they should get banned but Anet should make it so portals don’t take priority over siege weapons/blueprints, chests, trap activators, etc.

Lol get banned, as if… They could maybe change the interaction priorities, but isn’t there already a controls option to set AoE loot to another key? If not they could make that option.

Either way, people should thank troll portaliers for waking them up. If you take a portal without thinking or autorun up to chests slapping the F key all the way you are droning too hard.

ALSO, portals have a slight activation delay. The completion effect and sound happens before you can actually use it, so if you see that pink disk and hear the glamour just stop spamming F mindlessly. Problem solved.

Unless you don’t see the pink disk due to a combination of it being slightly obscured by other objects/characters, and not expecting anyone to place a portal there.

The megadestroyer incident was just used as an example since I happened to accidentally catch it on video, you’re not addressing the fact that some mesmers use these portals to disrupt events like Teq/wurm mid way, which has nothing to do with looting, and “stop spamming F” does not solve.

I have to agree with those that are saying it shouldn’t be/isn’t reportable.
All that it takes to avoid a portal is a little bit of awareness. While you may not be able to see the portal itself due to a variety of reasons, the activation itself changes color and text…it’s not all that hard to miss.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Portal_interact.jpg

So again, instead of just randomly smashing F (or whatever key bind you have) maybe take 1/4 of a second to glance at the dialog that pops up to see what it says before pressing the button.

If its orange and says “loot” then you are good to go.
If its orange and says “activate”, depending on what you are doing, you may or may not want to press F at that moment.
Same for “use”, “examine”, “talk” “Greet” etc.

As for troll portals in general. I never take a portal, unless the Mesmer is in my party, and I know them. Random portals at bosses and in open world never lead to anything good.

Sister Swiftspell.1869:

I’m not sure if your goal is to get threads you don’t agree with shut down, or you merely struggle to formulate arguments without the need to label and denigrate. But you seem to have an ongoing problem with anyone who questions or is untrustworthy of “authority” and their right for choice (or to ask for it)… Really, you should be more concerned with why this upsets you so much…

@phys – Well said…

My goal is to present the truth and the facts. The problem I have with such threads is that they are filled with misinformation, a strong bias, and straight up lies. This upsets me. Part of the reason is that there are many new players to the game that come to the forums, see stuff like this, and often don’t do the research to find out if its true or not. Then those players are filled with a sense that Anet is actively trying to hurt their players.

I don’t often label or denigrate, but yes I do sometimes. It might be something I should reconsider.

But it’s not trying to get threads I disagree on shut down. It’s making sure that the information presented is accurate, and truthful. There are too many people who cling to an idea and take it for gospel truth, without doing any research whatsoever, and are taking disgruntled peoples word for it.

As for “authority”, I have no problems in questioning authority, but I strongly believe that it should be done with respect, regardless of the authority. It’s not something that is prevalent these days. And something that is not often seen here in the forums.

dom.2748:

mtpelion.4562:

Anyone else have the sneaking suspicion that some people are opposed to SMS because it will make it harder for them to steal other people’s accounts?

Maybe I’m just a cynic, but when you can’t form a coherent reason for disliking something it always makes me think the worst about the real reason you are opposed to it.

No, I’m opposed to it because giving my phone number to corporations is contrary to security and safe internet use. Which it is allegedly promoting. Just like I won’t give out my phone number to random people on the street. I don’t need people I don’t know calling me when anet sells my phone number. You can make baseless unproveable claims that they don’t sell phone numbers but that is meaningless to me and to anybody who knows better than to trust a corporation with their personal information.

I am also opposed to the alternative using winauth because well winauth is a piece of crap.

So is there a reason for your paranoia? Or are you just convinced that all corporations are part of a grand conspiracy to screw over their customers?

Take off your tinfoil hat for minute and think.
If you do not want to give your phone number out, you do not have to. Period.
Unless you bought your account within the last 8 days, then you do not have to have any type of authentication AT ALL. Period. And still have full access to everything.

From Gaile Gray (and already quoted numerous times):
“As ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien detailed in a recent announcement, ArenaNet is committed to protecting your game account.
Effective at 11:59 pm Pacific Time on August 28, 2015, all newly-created accounts will have SMS restrictions. These restrictions mean that you will not be able to use in-game mail to send items or gold, and you will be unable to access guild vaults. If you wish to eliminate these restrictions, simply add SMS or an authenticator to your account and the restrictions will be removed. Account created prior to August 28 will not experience these restrictions.”

Also as pointed out, there are other forms of 2 step verification methods you can use, NONE of which require giving out a phone number to anyone for any reason. You can also use Google Voice for the phone number if you want as well.

Google Authenticator is one of those apps.
You can use a google voice number in place of your phone number with Google Authenticator, but it’s not recommended, as you can get locked out.
There is a desktop version which does the same thing, but does not require a phone or phone number.
(http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-authenticator-for-desktop/25341/)

So there you are several options, including the option NOT to have it, and don’t require you giving out a phone number to anyone for any reason.

You can put back on your tinfoil hat now.

Match manipulation comes to mind. As well as trolling.

Think about it. Enemy server roll up a bunch of free accounts, and select your server. Then joins your your BL, creating a large queue. Now, they have free access to everything with little to no opposition. Because real players can’t get in.

At least thats my thoughts

Bomber.3872:

Just do following: Open TP, click on Buy item, at the sorting function click at rarities (for example) masterwork, order the whole by price (decending!): -> right now are like 50 green masterwork weapons on the TP for 20gold+ and around 10 for ~100g+-.
-> These are all leftovers from such deals

That may be true, however there are also a bunch of people who store gold on the TP using this method as well.

John Smith.4610:

You’ll notice that the items available are easily obtainable and the trading post is anonymous. If RMT wants to try to trade through the TP, our active TPers are going to start intercepting their 250g trades for fun and profit really fast. After that happens there’s no way for the RMT to confirm whether or not their buyer got their gold. The buyers can continue to ask for gold over and over if they want. When all this goes down the market for RMT becomes exteremely unstable, I look at it and giggle like a schoolgirl.

So essentially, trying to transfer funds from a Free account to a Paid account is extremely risky, to the point of not being worth it) I would also assume that you would be monitoring for such types of activity, and be able to shut them down with extreme prejudice?

adityac.5103:

Wow…I just spent my pocket money for the month on this game and now they make it F2P? This is ludicrous. And we have to pay full price of the HoT as well despite buying the first game? GW2 WILL lose players fast.

Not likely.
As you may know, the F2P accounts are highly restricted. Basically an extended demo. Whereas you get the full game. And everyone has to buy HoT regardless, if they want to play it.

Bomber.3872:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Bomber.3872:

Still the pure fact is that tp can be used by f2p accounts to get gold to other accounts.

If you’re just using the tradepost as a tradepost, you’re not moving gold to a different account. You’re trading.

No, you don’t understand the tradepost at all^^

Example: I buy on accountA one item for cheap, then on accountB (=f2p acc) all remaining kinds of this item. After that I list on accountA this one bought item for 1.000 gold and buy it with accountB (=f2p acc).
-> AccountA got gold transferred from a f2p account.

Wait, I’m confused.

Let me see if I got this straight.

Account A (Full account) buys say 1 green item. Then Account B (Free to play account) buys up the rest of the (potentially) thousands of stock. Then Account A lists that item (plus fees) for X amount of gold. Then account B buys that item, and account A gets the gold from the sale.

In theory it MIGHT work, however, that would assume that no one else was listing, or buying that item during the time of the transaction.

So what would happen if during the time between transactions of account A and B people list that particular item, for a much smaller amount? Or someone else buys the item listed for X gold instead of account A? (Thinking that for whatever reason that item is extremely popular, as they just watched the entire stock dry up, and speculate that the price might climb)

Also that’s assuming account B has the funds to do that to begin with. (To buy out complete inventories of anything, and to be able to buy the item account A listed). And assuming that Anet won’t suddenly notice that the entire supply of any particular item has suddenly been bought at once, and not take action. IIRC, JS said that people have tried to manipulate the market that way, but were “taken care of”.

Bomber.3872:

pdavis.8031:

-Limited access to the TP.

Of course you can get high amounts of gold to other people, even if there is only ONE item on the tp that can be bought or sold by f2p accounts.

It’s like flipping: Buy low, sell high.

Yes, but thats counting on NO ONE else buying that item from the time its listed, to the time the other account can get it. And with the spam controls on the TP, it increases the likely hood that someone else will snatch up the item before the intended account can. Also throw in TP fees, and it makes it less profitable to do that.

It’s possible, but not a likely scenario.

It’s not a rumor.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/SMS-Restrictions-and-New-Accounts/first#post5424976

Also they said:

If you don’t have a phone number you can still use the Google Authenticator option to secure your account with 2 Factor Authentication.

In short, all accounts created AFTER Aug. 28th should have some sort of verification to help keep your account from being hacked.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95445077-Help-with-SMS-Authentication

Drow.2081:

My god doesn’t anyone have a link to what f2p’ers are allowed and not allowed. It’s not like it’s important or anything.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157?_ga=1.237679872.129741099.1441294715

Bomber.3872:

Leaa.2943:

Consider you can not sell anything on TP nor mail anything to anyone i don’t think that would be a problem

STOP spreading wrong and stupid informations!
I created and tested an f2p account. Fact is:
- F2p accounts can buy AND SELL a lot oft items (even some exo items) in TP.
- f2p bots can wash their gold via TP (means f2p accs HAVE multiple possibilities to geht items and gold to other accounts!)

Sadly I’m not at home right now and don’t recall if some runes/sigil were tradeable. I will try it in about 2 hours if noone else responds^^

I’m curious as to how you figure f2p accounts can get items and gold to other accounts?

-They are unable to send items or gold via mail
-They are unable to access guild vaults
-Unable to buy gems with gold
-There is no P2P trading available.
-Limited access to the TP.

Even if they were just gathering and selling mats in order to drive down the price, or putting in multiple buy orders to drive up the price, the pace at which the market as a whole operates makes trying to do that with common mats (i.e. T1-T5) and even T6, not very effective.

OP,

Your best bet would be to create a program yourself or find one that can analyze the data and organize it accordingly, and manually take the screen shots.

Then you can point the program to automatically grab any new files added to a specific folder (i.e. the screen shot save folder) and analyze them.

Or, manually take the screen shots, Just bind the screen shot button to something you can hit quickly and easily, and analyze and organize the data yourself at a later time.

Either way, it would have to be something that doesn’t in any way interact with the game, nor automate any function of the game (i.e. automatic screen shots).

Mastermavrick.2439:

I keep seeing people say all crafting has to be maxed here. I remember only needing two for when i made my Kudzu….am i missing something or are we being additionally snarky to people who don’t want to in any effort?

No, you still only need 2. And unless they recently changed it, you don’t need them maxed. Only to 400.

aszy.3804:

New to the game – greatly enjoying it.
I am aware that when my toon travels into a lower zone, the system ‘downgrades’ me to a zone appropriate level. E.g. if I, as a level 40, enter a 1-15 zone, I get punted down to 14 or so.
The question is this: is everything I own or do also downgraded?
Are my weapons doing a proportionately less degree/value of damage?
Are my buffs … etc.
Thanks in advance.
Al

Yes. In essence, all your stats (weapon and armor stats, Power, Vitality, Precision, etc.) are dropped down to the appropriate level.
However, depending on what your current level is, and what traits you have, you will still be significant;y more powerful then another at the same level.

For example. If you are level 40, you have more traits and abilities equipped and unlocked then a level 14. So in that level 14 area, you’ll still have those traits and abilities, whereas a “natural” level 14 won’t.

So you won’t be doing “less damage” as a downlevel, but you’ll be doing proportionally the same. (Actually a little bit more depending on your traits)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

pdavis.8031:

So, offering to provide a service to allow someone to gain something without effort and asking for recompense, is appropriate. Helping someone to achieve something they they are unable/struggling to do themselves and asking for money is inappropriate.

That seems like a reasonable rule of thumb. (Although I don’t see that there’s any way to “enforce” such a policy — buyer (and seller) beware.)

I don’t think they can enforce it. It comes down to human decency.

The best places for yellow creatures for leveling is in WvW. They are generally universally ignored, and there are some large groups fairly near to the spawn points.

If you do a rotation of each of the maps, you can get quite a bit of EXP just from those.
When I last did it, I tried not to stay too long in the area as you take up space on the server that could potentially be better used, and of course the bonus EXP drops quite quickly.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I wonder if these people go around heckling landscapers, roofers, and other service oriented jobs about how evil and morally wrong it is for them to be charging for their time and services… or is it just selling your time online that is wrong? you guys must reaaaalllly hate craigslist.

How dare you bring logic into the argument!!!!! :P

Apparently, IMO, those who think that people should be giving away their time and talents tend to have a more “altruistic” view of the world. In that everyone should always help each other out, and do things for each other and not expected to be compensated. The act of doing something for someone should be the reward in and of itself.

I myself agree with that TO AN EXTENT. Should people help others out, without an expectation of compensation? Sure. However, there is a time and a place for that. One can’t reasonably devote ones entire time to doing things for free, otherwise how will they live?
I also believe that “The worker is worthy of his wages.” Meaning that there should be compensation for services rendered, regardless of what services those are.

In this case, the one offering services (i.e. achievement/dungeon sellers) are doing people are service and should be compensated. They are allowing someone to get the rewards of whatever content without having to work for it. (read: offering a service).
They have every right to charge whatever amount they feel is appropriate.
However, if someone is struggling to do say a jumping puzzle, and asks for assistance, the one providing assistance has a moral obligation to NOT charge. (It’s like stopping at the side of the road to help someone change a tire, then charging them for it.)

So, offering to provide a service to allow someone to gain something without effort and asking for recompense, is appropriate. Helping someone to achieve something they they are unable/struggling to do themselves and asking for money is inappropriate.

dsslive.8473:

testpig.5018:

stat enhancements are not optional.

skins are optional.

Lucky for you, legendary weapons ARE skins basically, they have the exact same stats as ascended which can be gained from WvW, Crafting or PvE or even PvP (i think, not sure) so choose your favorite.

Yes you can get ascended from PvP.