Guild Wars 2

Over a month and no post for "By Ogden’s hammer, what savings!!" ???

WASD for forward, strafe left, backward, strafe right
mouse turning with mouse2
weapon swap is on a mouse thumb button
weapons skills are on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
healing skill is q
utility on r, e, t
elite on shift+r
class specifics on shift+1, 2, 3, 4 [if the class even has that many, of course]
dodge is on v, but I normally just double-tap a direction
Nearest target is c, tab for next

If I get annoyed with t being a little bit of a stretch from the WASD position, I can easily throw in something like alt-R, alt-Q, alt-E or shift-Q, etc. That way my movement/skills hand never really moves.

In other MMOs, I made use of middle-click, a couple thumb buttons on my mouse, and the like as well. I have three or four mouse buttons I don’t really use in GW for action, so now I just have weapon swapping and auto-run bound there. I haven’t felt need to move from keyboard hotkeys yet in GW2.

----

But of course this is all just what I find comfortable / has been stuck in my head due to use for years in other MMOs. I think the best advice, really, is to disregard all of our posts and find what is comfortable for you and where you place your hands. Ideally, you should just keep in mind the following:
-- what keys are best for you to have quick access to your weapon skills and probably your heal?
-- are you comfortable using the keys around your movement keys? If not, is there a way you could re-bind your movement keys to make it easier for you to spam what spells you want to spam?

Personally, I’ve never liked the use of F-keys for hotkeys like it is by default. That’s too far a distance that it interrupts movement.
But I have used a mapping like I described above long enough that it’s just second nature to me, and I have no trouble running and jumping while activating any of my skills.

Actually more often than not I forget that Guild Wars 2 doesn’t let you cast while in the air, and my habit of running around and jumping (I think my characters all have A.D.D.) frustrates me when I try to also cast something.

I should’ve read this thread first.
I made a thread seeing if anyone had put together a list of any of our choices that actually affected the overall story rather than simply giving us mission forks, and it sounds like from this thread the answer is as I feared -- no, they don’t have any effect.

That’s how it’s felt while going through my characters’ stories, but I thought maybe I was overlooking something.

This is a general question from me to any/all of my fellow players, not groping for dev responses.

When completing "Through the Looking Glass" the other night, I saw that Tegwen and Carys were coming along to help us fight the Eye. I thought, "Oh, nice, I remember working with them after losing my mentor at Claw Island."

Yes, as a Priory member, after Claw Island I had previously elected to head out and find two sylvari who might help us out -- Tegwen and Carys -- in the mission "Shards of Orr".

But here in this Pact mission they are introduced to me by Trahearne as if we had never met, and their dialogue never calls back to our earlier meetings.

Interestingly, the hylek that appeared, as that was the race I chose to explore on this character, did remember our time together in their dialogue.

So this got me thinking:
What across our whole personal story actually carries through, and what was merely an illusion of personalization?

Some of this I think we all already know -- the selections you made at character creation affect which story paths you take in the first few levels, but once you head to Lion’s Arch to meet up with your order that is all completely forgotten. Just like what you do with your Order ends up being forgotten once it becomes all about the Pact.

But I might be missing little details! I would love to know if anyone has compiled a list, or started to collect information for one, about what meetings with NPCs and choices made when selecting between mission paths and so forth actually gets reflected in later missions or dialogue. I am hoping there is more that I have missed, but so far I am a bit disappointed in how little earlier portions of story effect later ones.

If there isn’t such a place, is the official wiki an appropriate setting to make such a page? Would there be any interest in laying this all out [though it likely would be spoiler-heavy]?

Sarisa.4731:

There is a glitch where some people who have completed their personal story often times don’t get an “exit” door in many instance areas.

hahaha Oh man that is so wacky. What an unfortunate bug! Thanks for the heads-up.

Focksbot.6798:

I like to imagine all my character’s conversations with him are only how he sees it in his mind, because he’s high on some kind of Sylvari drugs. What’s actually happening is he’s rambling about some nonsense, and my Norn character is sighing and shaking her head.

hahaha
This is terrific. I should give that a shot.

He has a personality?
He’ the most flat, reading-from-a-script voiced character in the game. Even putting aside how our story becomes his story, he fails to evoke much emotion in me. I dig the idea of a scholar being forced into a position he’s not comfortable with, leading troops into battle and organizing raids on an enemy, but Trahearne never "sells" it to me.

I’d expand, but the last time I wrote about things I didn’t like in the story the thread got infracted. I must be too passionate about my disappointment.

Sarisa.4731:

Have you completed your personal story?

What?

No, really — this is an honest question! What does the personal story completion have to do with an instanced area failing to provide the typical “exit” door/green circle?

Guild Wars had even less stat progression for gear. Most of the game, especially once the expansions started coming out, occurred at max level. I think it’s great that this is more or less the same for Guild Wars 2, though the leveling experience is obviously much longer and more interesting. Playing the various aspects of the game to enjoy them is better, to me, than turning dungeons or other activities into things I feel I "have" to do to progress my stats.

Posting to say that on the first run through, no additional waves spawned at the gate. If I had video recording software installed, I’d have recorded myself running all over the map looking for an extra risen. I figured maybe one decided to climb a tree, like in "A Light in the Darkness". No go.

So then I read in this thread about being downed. Second attempt, I let myself get downed, most of the poor NPCs I had saved the first time died, and then more waves spawned. So I guess we have to play poorly to advance? *shrug*

When we view a thread while logged in, there are little squares with a +1 in them to up-vote posts.

They all seem to be colored red to me. When I click one, it turns gray. To me, intuitively the colored version should be the “you’ve clicked this and voted on this post”, but functionally it appears to be the other way around.

So I want to confirm that red is the default, and gray means I’ve clicked on it?

Also when coming back to a thread that I have done this in, the forum doesn’t appear to remember which posts I had previously clicked on at all.

Black Dragon.3784:

This does sound cool, 1st off and just because you might not like it, your one in a thousands

Is that supposed to be some kind of, like, argument against my post? After asking us for our opinions on your post? Especially amusing is the "nah uh you’re wrong" at the start of the sentence followed by the implication that my differing opinion is just one in a sea of thousands but yours is somehow not.

In any case, I am not a "bang out" player or whatever, and I’m quite content knowing that there are several karma, cultural, and dungeon skins from which to choose that all have appropriate endgame stats before I make any plunge down the path for a legendary or two or five.

I reiterate that the addition of stats or functionality to these weapons would make them unbalanced, especially if those spells are of any use in farming mobs or mowing down players.

On the tangential topic of children/adults: Actually don’t the kids have more free time than those working and doing "adult" things, like cooking, cleaning, paying bills, working overtime, maintenance on their homes, and so on?

You can do this with costumes in the first Guild Wars.

But here even in town if you are the type who likes to jump down ramps or the like, boom, you took a tiny amount of damage - better put that armor back on.

For a game that emphasizes the coolness of skins over the rush to get better numbers and provides many different armor looks [especially at max level], I would think there wouldn’t be anything wrong with displaying costumes in combat.

Add my vote for this, as well. I dislike having my target change due my shifting of the camera angle in combat.

I also want to give support to the mention of not having target changes activate merely on mouse down but instead go with click.

Tab targeting certainly feels worse than in the original Guild Wars, and definitely, to me at any rate, not as useful as it is there or in other MMOs. I find myself getting to my target quicker just by mashing "closest target" as I run into battle or clicking on the enemy (though with right-click also selecting targets for whatever reason as I move my camera view I also tend to highlight allies in melee range).

edit: Yes, the amount of times it tabs to some random mob, especially when it does it to a neutral/yellow mob, not even in the fight is frustrating, as well!

I use first-person for screenshots a lot in MMOs. I like taking snaps of scenery without people in them. As it stands I have to find ways to not have my semi-transparent character in the way or just incorporate myself into the shot.

Yes, it ends today.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/halloween/Mad-King-Says-Timing

Did a lot fewer people than I thought realize that the dungeon was our chance as players to help ensure the Mad King didn’t break out of his realm / his curse that limits him to once-a-year in Tyria [i.e. Halloween]? Act IV, a throwback to GW1 Halloween, is possible because of containing him in Act III (i.e. you can’t leave the dungeon open and still do the silliness in LA).

I dunno; I felt prepared for the dungeon going away, but I read everything related to the event that was posted.

The Mad King still makes jokes at dwarves’ expense. So he’s still OK in my book despite ruining the fountain.

If you’d read the first post, you’d see Lilo had tried stepping down and re-representing while troubleshooting already. Guild stuff can be buggy and has been since the launch, though I can offer no suggestions as to why. I myself sometimes can’t get NPCs such as the guild banker to talk to me despite representing a guild at the time.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I worked way too hard on that thing to throw it away! That would make me cry. Haha… spent a lot of my free time on it actually. You know it has 4,000 frames of animation, and I had to hand track every single frame that a splash happened on every single fish for the audio guys to sync it up.

For what it’s worth, I am glad it will return and was hoping as much. I was even wondering if our defeating the Mad King to pacify him might motivate him to use his great power(s) to restore the statue. At first, when he appeared at the start of Act IV, I thought maybe the fountain was returning then (but it was just some stone to cover the hole).

The fountain is very intricate and detailed, and your work has not gone unnoticed. It’s quite the centerpiece.

Freyar.3254:

Probably won’t happen. Even then what’s to prevent a faulty mouse being the cause of all wishes to reverse purchases?

At least if you sell the item back you’d have at least exactly enough to buy it again.

Edited my original post ’cause I probably came off as argumentative or condescending, and that was not my intent.

For anyone who hasn’t seen this before -- and it’s been around at least since the Headstart weekend, unfortunately -- I definitely can understand doing a double-take.

I hope no one actually purchased these intending to wear them as gloves. Here’s why:
-- in the TP, they would show up if you filtered by the legging slot and will not if you filter by gloves/hand items
-- If you hover over them in the TP and your inventory to see the tooltip with the stats and are on a medium-armor class, another tooltip with your pants should appear for comparison, not your gloves
-- the are named "pants" pretty clearly

I definitely want them to fix icons like this, but fellow players don’t go by icon alone when buying items.

This doesn’t sound interesting.

What "space in between" are you talking about? Guild Wars endgame is about appearance, not stats. The legendaries have terrific detail but are not more powerful than other exotics / skins. It sounds like what you’re intending is to have another tier of weapons that have additional stats, so boo to that.

And if you don’t mean for them to have additional stats, why would anyone want weapons that incurred additional repair costs if there was no tangible benefit?

Agreed.
When I first started playing, I bought some new sets and put what remained of tools I out-leveled in my bank for when I started out on other characters. Then I realized that they were character-bound and had no vendor value, so that was fun.

There are very few headpieces I actually displayed in GW1 due to the "makes you bald" aspect. Even if there was a default rendering of hair that differed from my chosen to show it being mostly tucked under a hat or still coming out from under the hat in some fashion, I’d be down.

Often the response is "this prevents clipping with the various hair styles" as rendering the hat/helm over hair would do, but maybe make the hair part of the helm/hat design if possible, if you get what I mean.

I bought some gems to up my bank storage and get another character slot, but I have been eyeing the costumes this Halloween as well. The departure from the GW1 method of making them account unlocks that I can acquire at my leisure keeps me from doing it, though.

The HoM vendor proves that it can be done in this game. I’d love to see a similar vendor for hats, costumes, town clothes, whatever.

Malediktus.9250:

More and more town clothing is getting added to the game, so it would be nice to have an account wide NPC who collects all the hats and special town clothing pieces from the gem shop, similar to the NPC we had in GW1 for holiday headwear.

Yes! This would be terrific for swapping around among costumes / town clothes you own.

Yeah, I liked the horns, face paints, and cat ears in GW1, as at least with those I didn’t have to shave my head. :P

Do it again.
You’ll have several chances at the hat again today/tonight.

I’d actually be surprised if nearly everyone doesn’t get this title, especially considering the pumpkin carving and jumping puzzle aren’t required.

Qelris.6901:

How did you get it?

When the Mad King appeared, there was a round of Mad King Says as he teleported around the area where the fountain was. At the end, a chest appeared on the, hmm, west-ish side of the grand plaza, containing the hat.

OK Act IV with Mad King is pretty great. The doors, the fact that we still get to play Mad King Says despite less emotes, and his stupid puns are great.

I miss him playing Rock-paper-scissors, but meh. Thanks for keeping Guild Wars Halloween going strong, ArenaNet.

That’s how hats worked in GW1, so this isn’t a surprise.

Interestingly, if you sat in water or looked at your character through tall grass hair would also disappear.

buzzkapow.8465:

The people i was on vent with at the time can verify the amount of f-bombs that came out. But there was laughter behind every one. I kept reminding myself that it’s a game, and i could leave anytime. Which i did after the first 2.5 hrs. Then i came back and finished.

[…]

Laugh about your failures. I made it almost all the way to the top twice, and then on one run managed to fall through the second set of stairs (the one with the hole in them). Silly mistakes happen.

High-five. That’s the best mentality to have about these kinds of things.
Good general tips, as well, for anyone still working on the puzzle.

The events were pretty enjoyable. I certainly participated here in GW2 more than I did in GW1, where I usually only logged in to get the festival hat or see if I liked that year’s costume.

Speaking of the costumes, I would prefer a costume system like in GW1 where it unlocks for any character on your account. I still haven’t gone through with a purchase because I don’t think I want to spend the money on just one character / have to swap around one costume / have to get multiple copies if I want it on more than one character.

----

In any case, the various aspects of the Acts have been a lot of fun, in my opinion.
- The labyrinth is great. I like being able to walk in there, zerg mobs with a bunch of people, joke around, and fight champions and giant candy-corn elementals (those jerks, they used to follow me around Kryta and help out!).
- The clock tower was a blast. From the various falls as I failed through the first time I crashed through to the top and onward to additional completions, I’ve liked it. But I was already happy to learn that jumping around in the world, something I do anyway, was made into a gameplay element, so I may be biased toward liking jumping puzzles. I, for one, loved that it was done with other players around and not in a solo instance. The joking around and good-natured complaining helped ease any frustrations and made the wait between attempts more enjoyable.
- The Reapers thing was neat, gathering pumpkins and helping skeletons beat the other side. Fun, playful PvP is nice, especially since my Guild Wars PvP career has been pretty minimal across both games. I look forward to seeing what else we get (roller beetle racing returns?).
- The Mad King popping out of the fountain was cool. I was wondering what was going to happen with the paranormal activity readings in LA. Fighting him isn’t too bad, though it gets kind of grindy after you do it several times. I hope we still get to hear his dumb jokes and have him kill everyone who fails to laugh, etc. in Lion’s Arch during Act IV...
- The scavenger hunt was neat. I liked that the Act II part actually had some more action before just talking to the NPCs involved. I appreciate the back slot upgrade! The negative here is being on a lower-level character; for a few of my alts, I was dependent on other players also gathering the pieces as I couldn’t even scratch some of the enemy mobs. But playing with others during this event is half of the reason why it’s been fun!

-----

I’ve never been a fan of random luck lockboxes in games, but I also did not spend any money on that, so clearly it wasn’t an issue for me. I am glad that there were other things available and that these were just one small part of all that was offered. And that there are ways to get the special skins thanks to players being able to offer them for sale to one another.

---

While Act IV hasn’t quite come yet, I am worried that our inability to play musical instruments (/guitar, /drums, /violin, /flute) or play rock-paper-scissors has diminished our Mad King Thorn experience!

edited to add more detail and some formatting

I thought I would love having dual pistols on my thief, but I quickly fell in love with the "active" style of dual daggers. And then once I got the second weapon set and played around I discovered the thief’s use of shortbows, and, well, needless to say I forgot about pistols.

That said there are certainly traits available to make them viable on a thief, and kiting is pretty easy. You can still be quite the dashing rogue / coy spymistress while unloading a double blast of your barrels!

I don’t have an engineer, so I cannot accurately say it’s more or less doable.

BrunoBRS.5178:

cross race breeding is not happening though. and it’s creepy (inb4thecharr/asurafanfics)

OUR LOVE WILL BE ETERNAL HOW DARE YOU!!111!!shiftone!!1

No but honestly, without even trying to touch upon the subject of actual procreation, I don’t see anything wrong with cross-race relationships.

It would be awesome if I could give you a piggy-back ride to the top of the clock tower. I enjoy re-running it. Though we may fall off once or twice in the process. Occupational hazard and all.

I am not on your server -- Crystal Desert for now -- but if you are on and that whole "Join.." option in the party window works I’d be happy to smite your enemies/obstacles.

edit: or I guess that only works with Overflow. Hrmm.

I’d appreciate being able to log in and go back to whichever thread I was viewing. The current setup makes us log in each time we come back to the forum (unless we leave our browser open, I guess), so I often don’t log in until I see a thread I’d like to respond to or feel I can add to a conversation. But then I have to go find the thread again (not difficult, of course, just annoying).

Alternatively, let us tick a box "Keep me logged in" like on any vBulletin, phpBB, invisionfree, etc. forum board, please, if possible with this forum software.

Personally, I think "Axe Sushi" is a much more entertaining name.

Oh, embarrassing. Of my various characters, my mesmer is the one I’ve played the most. You’d think I’d realize that Feedback works like that and not just on those within it.

Junkkis.5137:

Asura should be only npc race, not playeable. they dont even have boobs:/

Wow. I hope that’s not a serious post. :P
Here I was thinking it was refreshing for the team to have included non-human races that weren’t just slightly different humanoids.

Edit: On topic, though, no you cannot ride my charr characters. Well, unless you’re nice. Maybe dinner and some flowers first.

"Magnetic Aura" for elementalists (staff, earth-attuned, skill 3) also reflects projectiles and causes you to take no damage, for what it’s worth.

Mesmer’s utility skill "Feedback" will also do this for any enemy within its area of effect.

So perhaps "Retaliation" just needs a slight edit to not use "reflect", as these skills reflect and prevent the damage.

I’ve lost out on a chest or two ’cause of this. Bummer.

Yareon.2835:

you’re level 1: you can delete and remake the character without losing anything

haha Exactly.
But, in any case, I am surprised you can enter PvP or anything like that while still in the tutorials. I would have thought they’d have limited those kinds of interactions until after you get into the world proper.

pdg.8462:

I thought everyone was whining about not being able to zoom the camera out enough. Now you got what you wanted and it’s a “bug”?

As you can see in the above posts, they all seem to like it. However it is not a permanent option, nor is it something one can do on purpose with the interface options and camera controls. So, yes, it’s a bug that this occurs, regardless of any players’ desires for a further-out zoom.

I actually came on just now to post something like this. Whenever I hear those iconic Guild Wars theme notes being sounded out by the bells, it never fails to bring a silly grin to my face. I agree with the use of "sentimental" here. It’s such an amazing little addition to Lion’s Arch, and I want to hug whoever added it.

I also am curious if there’s any way, aside from just recording my audio when I hear it, to get that sound clip. I’ve been considering its use on my smartphone for reminders or something (though I don’t think it’s loud enough to make a good ringtone).

Yeah, sorry, should have made that more clear. I can /cry on a female sylvari with sound as well as the animation. I currently don’t have an open slot to make a male to try, so I cannot say with certainty that it will or will not also work for male for me.