Guild Wars 2

No to mounts.

Thelgar.7214:

Dolyak cavalry in WvW would be cool, but would be better implemented as siege.

Yes to this idea. The spirits of all of the slain supply yaks rise up and charge the door of a tower and then rampage around once inside.
Like that one event in harathi hinterlands. Nobody expects a dolyak rush!

There are Nydus Canals. This place was built for the zerg.

Sure wish we could be celebrating Canthan New Year in GW2 this week.

That is all.

ellesee.8297:

i think it’s ok to blame full condi built people. especially when a worm head is at 5% and you can’t help thinking if it might’ve died if 5 people in the group contributed more than double digit dps.

Those condi people are often the ones that kept the husks from facestomping everyone else trying to do the mechanic. Without them, you probably wouldn’t have even gotten to the second head phase.

Throwing this out there-
How about a training instance that can (must?) to be completed before taking part in these open world events where such a high level of coordination is needed?
I believe that in the Tower of Nightmares release, players were automatically sent to an instance when zoning into Kessex, so this should be possible within the game.

When zoning into Lornar’s, you go to the story instance:

Vigil NPC: “Hey, I know you are ready to get out there and smash some gears, but this is a case where we need to have all of out troops on the same page, otherwise we’ll all end up toast.”
Whispers NPC: “We’ve done some scouting and have a good idea of what Scarlet has in store. Other pact teams have made some holographic simulators of what you’re probably going to face, speak to Flappi when you’re ready to begin.”
Flappi: “Condescending Asuran intro”, then briefly explains mechanic of Warden 1 and sends you into a battle arena with a veteran version of the warden. Continue on with 2 through 5. Make it no armor penalty on death and let people retry as much as possible.

Pro:
-In-game teaching reduces need to rely on dulfy and outside sites to learn mechanics (yes, I know that mechanics are under the nameplate, but that seems to be difficult for some people to get)
-Ability to practice without a 2 hour timer and/or wrecking the event for everyone else
-Reasonable gearcheck to say “hey, being level 30 with that lvl 17 armor and lvl 19 sword really isn’t going to cut it here”. This gearcheck basically occurs on the platforms anyways, except by then it is too late to prevent failure.

Con:
-People will complain about having to do the instance in order to be able to do the boss. However, precedent exists in having to complete a basic solo instance in order to access the harder version (Canach’s lair, solo instance before Kessex tower)

Have at it.

Hamsome the pig was a hero during a recent marionette boss 3. Twice he got to “Search and Rescue” the Hurr Durr must 100blades Warden #3 warrior on my platform. We finished the regulator with 0:02 on the clock. We were the last platform and the chain got severed. If I had to stop and rez the war myself we wouldn’t have made it.

Probably been mentioned before in this thread or somewhere else, but -

Open world bosses of Wurm difficulty need to be in lvl 80 zones

I did wurm on TC a couple of times the other day and led a 3 or 4 man husk maintenance team a couple times with my condition necro. I explained what we were going to do and answered any questions that people had. I even mailed party members pizzas that I had laying around in my bags.

Out of the ten or so other party members over the course of a couple events, guess how many were also lvl 80? ONE. I even got a lvl 47, which isn’t even an appropriate level for the area of bloodtide coast where the fight happens! That poor guy was friendly and all, but he spent the ENTIRE fight dead. Many others were first timers to the fight. The wurm scales (well maybe, it is wonky as kitten) based on these people fighting, but they are just dead weight. In the end it can’t be fun for the underleveled to be dead the whole fight and it also frustrates those people who are leveled and geared when the ground is littered with lvl 45 bodies and the fight is turning into a cluster.

Tarnished Coast – sorry, can’t remember event time.

After finishing Cobalt escort, the commander asked people to stay back, well away from the cobalt wurm spawn point and we only ran in after the wurm popped out of the ground. The burn went RIDICULOUSLY fast and it ended up dying —> failure. All my other attempts, people usually rush in and stand around the spot where the wurm pops up and the HP has seemed to be much higher to the point where the burns barely scratch the thing.

Plenty of folks have attempted this once or twice a day and are now running into double digit numbers of attempts without an event-wide win, myself included. Frustration is going to be the natural outcome of this. I have yet to even face bosses 4 & 5 because it is constant 4/5 generator fail on boss 2. Before EVERY attempt there was someone who succinctly and politely explained the mechanics of all 5 wardens. Commanders take the time to organize the numbers in each lane. During the countdown someone always says – in the next 5 minutes you can read up on the fight quick on dulfy.net and ask questions if you don’t know what to do. I’ve seen commanders ask people to /whisper them if you still have questions. Before going into the portal, commander says “ok, if this is your first time doing this you will need to (describes warden mechanic)”. Everyone asks ppl to bring the rez skills to help out.

IT IS NOT a problem of people failing to be helpful. Or even polite.

After all of that explanation, the time spend organizing lane numbers, even the “GJ lane 1” when the first chain gets severed, what always happens? I’m standing next to the broken regulator on my platform, we’re 4/5 with 40 seconds left and Naruto Ninjakillstab keeps getting downed because he insists on heartseekering into the minelayer warden II while he is still spinning. His buddy Legolas Bearfriend makes sure to kite in a nice wide circle around the platform to make sure that the warden never hits the mines, all the while plinking away to Invuln. Invuln. Invuln. Face, meet palm.

Then these folks go “oh it’s just a game, I don’t have so much time to play” but are happy to waste the limited playtime failing? Moreover, they think that it is ok to waste the time of the people who kindly explained the mechanics in the beginning? That is just flat out rude to the organizers/commanders.

What would be an improvement for the event? Let the finished platforms help the other ones. Even if we can’t go over to them to fight, add something like a small, ground targeted skill that can be thrown into the adjacent platforms:

Throw Power Generator Chunk – Toss a piece of highly charged debris from the broken generator. The discharge when it lands will shock allies, slowly reviving downed and defeated allies over N seconds. If the electrical discharge hits a warden it is briefly stunned for 1 second.

Shpongle.6025:

Mini Sparkles crashed the market. Way to stick it to collectors, Arena. GG,

Account bound minis in gamble boxes plus the whole “you have to buy the set of three twice and forge one of the sets to get the last one” stuff did critical damage even before mr sparkles.

Rather than open a new thread on the same topic, I’ll just add my 2 copper here.

Patch day experience – Get home from work, Yay new content!, download patch, read update notes and by the time everything is ready to go it is something like 6:40. WP to lornar’s to check out the new event. Overflow. Ok, whatever, at least there is a commander tag up. I figure out that there are 5 lanes, people start calling out “4 needs more”, “lane 1 only has 5ppl, need more”. After argument over whether lane 1 is on the top or the bottom someone asks “how many are needed in each lane?” Someone answers “at least 20”. I look around and count – about 12 others, uh oh. 5 minute countdown begins and at this point I am assuming that the “at least 20” guy is right and we have no chance of winning. Event starts and the “another group is fighting…” message pops up followed by the “attempt to sever a chain failed” message a little later. Someone explains that it is our turn to enter next. My platform had me and two others and we killed the front blocking champ. We look over and on another platform some poor sap got thrown in with the champ all by himself. Needless to say, attempt fail. Get nuked by the death ray at the end and end up with a bunch of those green codex junk whatever things as the only loot. Wow. The tower defense part and champ fight itself was fine What made it hair-tearingly annoying was that before it even started people knew that we had no chance to win. It is hard to have fun when you know/quickly see that the fight is futile simply because you don’t have the numbers.

tl;dr/summary – Event itself isn’t half bad. Knowing that you have no shot at winning because you got thrown in an overflow/didn’t wait an hour before start is unacceptable.

I’m not even going to go into my wurm experience.

How about not. Gift of exploration/mastery is pretty much the only thing keeping legendaries from being 100% gold grind or credit card warrior items.

Mystic – thanks for your work and willingness to share all of your research.

The tl;dr on this thread seems to be:
-Named exotic weapons with rabid/shaman/dire stats that ARE NOT specific champ loot bag drops WILL salvage with a chance to give the inscription
-Named exotic weapons with rabid/shaman/dire stats that ARE specific to champ loot bags DO NOT give the inscription. List of specific champ bag exotics here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_loot_bag.

Specific cases:
-There are no exotic weapons that can be bought on the TP that can salvage into a Magi’s inscription
-It is unknown whether items created by fixed Mystic Forge recipes (x mystic coins, 1 eldritch scroll+other stuff)). However, they tend to be relatively expensive compared to the price of the inscription.

Other sources of inscriptions:
-Items bought with dungeon tokens can yield the inscription/insignia if they have the right stats (I have not yet found an exception, has anyone?)
-The account bound exotic items dropped in fractals also yield the inscription/insignia if they have the right stats.

Unfortunately, if you need an inscription or insignia for crafting and want to try to salvage it, you need to do your homework to avoid wasting gold.

EDIT: Removed note about Ugly Stick based on two reports of successful rabid inscrip salvage.

I might be the only person to say this is fun – Southsun Cove. Can be challenging or relaxing depending on how you feel that day. Nuke some skelk for an easy day or go fight the champ skelk on the boat near the beach for more challenge.

Somehow collecting an entire 5 piece set of the Settler’s Keepsake/Ring/Amulet drops from Southsun was heaps of fun, even though they’re typically less than 1g/ea on the TP. I have nearly two entire sets now, even though I’m not sure of what build to use them with. Birthday booster FTW. I really miss exciting drops in this game and even the “near miss” feeling from GW1 where you’d get a q9 tac Echovald or something and it would end up with something stupid like +10 armor vs plants.

Karka queen is a well done “advanced” event that requires player cooperation, but not to the extent of Teq where 2 dopes can wreck it for everyone.

Toss in (IMO) the best open world JP and some hidden things (how many even know about the shipwreck treasure?).

So I guess it boils down to – Combat that is flexible enough to adapt to how focused I feel like being that day, loot rewards that are different from just another guaranteed yellow to salvage, exploration nooks and crannies with interesting stuff. And crabs.

Mystic.5934:

I didn’t realize specific exotics could be got from champ bags O.o I guess they said that much – I just didn’t pay attention cause I never have one drop, you know.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fallen_Adventurer%27s_Backpack
wiki says it can give: Impaler (Berserker), King’s Remembrance (Magi), Lord Taeres’s Shadow (Berserker), Monsoon (Magi), Song of the Temptress (Clerics), Super Hyperbeam Alpha (Berserker)
so far your theory holds true!
other items champ bags can drop that sound familiar: Guild Defender, Scepter of the Highborn, Occultist Flame (not specified which bag it comes from, but it’s in the gallery)
Checking the others I listed:
Defiant Blaze = chests from FotM, MF, chests in dungeons, random drop. clearly that’s where a lot of inscription-giving exotics come from, yet no Shaman’s
The Ugly Stick = MF, daily dragon chest, random drop. less clear, but still fairly common place to get exotics, no Rabid

There is a slightly more general list and table on the generic champ bag page http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_loot_bag. I’ll see if I can pick out some “favorable” inscription salvage candidates that are not on your list to test.

Could it be that none of the named rabid/magi/etc. weapons salvage into the inscriptions? Has anyone successfully pulled an inscrip off of a named exotic?

Regardless of whether the champ bag hypothesis is correct, it would be nice to get some sort of dev confirmation that this is/is not working as intended. IIRC the guidance was that non-craftable weaps/armor with the right stats can salvage the inscription. This guidance is clearly not the case. Furthermore, it requires too much out-of-game forum & wiki digging to figure out that “oh, actually that rabid exotic won’t work”.

Mystic.5934:

snip

There are several exotic weapons that don’t give inscriptions even though they should:
Guild Defender, King’s Remembrance, The Ugly Stick, Poyaqui’s Noggin, Occultist Flame, Scepter of the Highborn, Defiant Blaze, Faithful, Monsoon, Dire Pearl.
I’m not 100% sure, but out of 10 salvages each (5 with each kit), I got 0, so I’m pretty sure and don’t want to keep testing = 0.0559%

Sure wish I read this yesterday before I nuked 10 king’s remembrances with a blsk hoping to get a rabid inscription. I needed the dark matter anyways, so it wasn’t a total write off. So we can make the data 0/15 on King’s remembrance with blsk.

I’ll throw this question out – Does anyone know if it is true that all of the champ loot bag exotics with relevant stats do not give the inscription when salvaged? Or do some work?

Credit where credit is due- I believe that it is the only forum that has a post with the words: “prybar some faces”

Can’t really read this whole thread – skimmed first few pages and last pages.
My votes:

-Hate the sub-class idea. It’s either stronger (and therefore will lead to LFG War-BestSub ONLY) or irrelevant in the current trait system. And the idea that I can only wear a certain class armor if I specialize a certain way? No thanks. Others have typed out the long arguments, I don’t need to do it again.

-Love the skin locker/wardrobe ideas.

-I would love to see more things along the lines of the fractal weapons – account bound rare stuff from specific content. I’d like to see dungeon or event exclusive skins (for example like the items in the last column here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dungeon).
The thing that I feel this game lacks is any sort of excitement that something good will drop. Aside from a precursor, nearly every weapon or armor drop is straight to the TP/MF flushed/salvaged. The exclusive temple jewelry drops like Signet of Grenth are neat and on the right track imo, but you can’t see jewelry.

-Housing I’m indifferent to. A hall of monuments style thing in the home instance might be neat and would fit with the achievement focus that the game seems to have taken on.

Step 1. Get a gold bar and some tungsten
Step 2. Drill hole in gold bar, fill with tungsten.
Step 3. Melt and re-cast the drilled out gold into another bar. Use some to cover the drill hole on the original bar. You now have 2 gold bars!

On topic: Going for a swim off of southsun in skelk and barracuda infested waters is quite profitable. t6 and t5 scales and blood rain down.

zMajc.4659:

Check prices for gems for gold and you’ll see that demand for grem store is at an all ime high. Doeasn’t look like a decline to me.

This means demand is at an all time high in terms of converting in game gold to gems. Or, conversely that demand for gems & gold in real money terms is relatively low.

Boysenberry.1869:

Solo’d the hybrid on a minion Necro. The minions only died when adds wailed on them for quite awhile. I don’t think I took a single point of damage from the boss itself. “Thankfully” there are lots of adds and eventually toxic trees to prevent you from being able to press 1 and go afk.

Safer Saviour.9685:

Solo’d on a Beserker Necro. Honestly, the adds were more of a worry than the boss. I just had to watch where I stepped and manage my skills right in order to deal with said adds… the boss itself wasn’t a big worry.

Solo’d on a Rabid condition Necro to complete the trifecta! Epidemic took care of the adds lickety split. Fight wasn’t too hard, I never really felt in danger, but later phases weren’t completely brainless either.

The spinny dagger attack seems like it lasts a long time, I thought that the hybrid had bugged out the first time I saw it. Made it really easy to stack up the bleeds.

I’ll second a lot of the pros
-Non RNG/gamble box weapons
-No stupid “Push f 50 times” achievements for grind sake.
-Skill based achieve that awards a mini? Yay. Moar please!
Strangely, in the update that has players quite literally run through a maze they seem to have dropped a lot of the cheap “train the rat in a maze”/skinner box garbage that wasn’t really fun, but just trying to keep people logged in longer. I hope this launch turns out to be successful, after day one it certainly feels like one of the best updates.

My main con has to do with other players
-Oh, you just meticulously fought your way through 75% of a level with two friends? Here comes some Kilroy idiot and his train with a bunch of elites and some vets. And he sets off every mine spore for good measure so when you dodge away from these enemies you get blown up. Hell is other people.
-5s warp cost is a little much when the Kilroy above gets you killed since you have to pay to wp and repair armor anyways
-Scarlet’s play by play LS recap cutscene was pretty corny IMO

Working as intended.
There is a reason that the login screen was changed from the medals to the 5 or six progress bars labeled Upcoming Rewards.

Referring to the serious side of addiction for a second – Daedalus Project is an interesting read on various aspects relating to the topic. This one refers to Everquest, but I think we can all relate to the line – "People who don’t play EQ don’t see the appeal in clicking “COMBINE” in front of a forge for hours."

I did a fairly relaxed map completion of dredgehaunt yesterday and ended up doing a bunch of events for priory scholars. If anything it showed how pointless DEs are – they reset in 5 minutes, I’m still a nobody to the NPCs even though I singlehandedly cleared out all of their camps/guarded them while working/etc so they could get on with digging. My total reward was a few silver and a bit of karma. Considering the time it took, it was only a tiny fraction of the gold/hr obtainable through other activities. Some sort of rep/fame like OP suggested would have been nice, although I’m wary of an Eye of the North type rep point grind.

Even better – I’d like to see some sort of “adventure log” like the old GW1 books. Put a page for each of N-number of different DEs that fit a common theme, like the priory work in dredgehaunt. Pages get completed when I complete the events (maybe make me talk to an NPC at the end so I have to stay to complete and people can’t just tag and run away). Let me cash an unfilled book in for coin based on how many different pages are filled. If I completely fill it I can take it back to Priory HQ and it becomes a token for a soulbound Ancient Dwarven Weapon Skin (NPC: “Hey, I can tell that you really helped out our efforts. We found these weapons during the work that you helped support. It is only fair that you share in some of the spoils.”).

Pros: Encourages people to do many different DEs, spread out in the world.
Additional opportunity for lore development/storytelling
Potential for unique rewards that tie in to actually doing something and not just farm gold—>TP —> buy

Cons: I’m sure that by the third day there would be a zerg train to optimize the “do these X events to make the most gold”. Might have to time-limit book redemption 1 per day/week/month.
Books take up inventory space.
Probably others…

Leveling crafting to 500 is absolutely the worst part.
GW2 Crafts will give you an idea of what you’re in for. Roughly 150-175 gold per crafting profession and then the actual costs of the ascended weapon itself on top of that. You need something silly like a total of 750 ori and ancient wood per profession. Sure you can gather mats yourself, but the time/opportunity costs are the same.
(fair warning: soft/seasoned/hard wood gathering for spiritwood planks sucks)

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

thehipone.6812:

I end up doing achievement related stuff that I don’t enjoy mainly because of the “never to be seen again” opportunity that exists with the 2 week release cycle and subsequent poofing of content. Want that quartz node? – better do it now because you can’t get it in a month.
Want that meta-achievement reward mini? – you’d rather play in a close WvW matchup this week instead of doing random Jps to find kites/caches? – too bad, do the JPs now or you can’t get the meta.

This is sort of exactly what I was talking about. The only person pressuring you to get those things is you. The world is not going to end if you don’t get the node (also want to point out that they never said there wouldn’t be another chance to earn one), or if you’re missing a few minis in your collection.

Yes, I understand, you have the completionist bug. I know that feeling, I had it too. It can be beaten, but the only person that can the make the choice to play any other way is you.

You don’t want to play any other way? You want to get everything, you want to be a completionist, you say? Well, then that is your choice too. Buckle down and slog on.

How you play, what you choose to do are all choices made solely by you. You can choose to slog through content you don’t like for a useless shiny, or you can choose to ignore it because it’s not to your taste. No one else can make that decision for you. Not even Anet, they can entice you, but they cannot make you.

Trust me, I get it. In the strict economic sense I have made the judgement in some cases that the desired reward outweighs the slog. I play a bunch, but I’m not really much of a compulsive completionist. I’ve happily ignored SAB, Tequatl and TA updates and in those cases determined that the reward did not outweigh unenjoyable content.

My main beef is that, in most cases, what makes it unenjoyable is the deadline. I have deadlines at work. I play this game to blow off steam after work. If I’m sitting at 200/250 aetherblade kills I’d happily wait until I naturally got 50 more whether it be a week or a month from now, but if it’s the Monday before the next release the choice is to either grind it out or miss out. Sometimes I choose to grind it out, sometimes I skip. I know I make the choice. BUT Why does the need to make this choice exist in a game? What’s the good argument for cramming things in and imposing deadlines in a game? To prop up server numbers to make the login stats look better? How are players served?

I end up doing achievement related stuff that I don’t enjoy mainly because of the “never to be seen again” opportunity that exists with the 2 week release cycle and subsequent poofing of content. Want that quartz node? – better do it now because you can’t get it in a month.
Want that meta-achievement reward mini? – you’d rather play in a close WvW matchup this week instead of doing random Jps to find kites/caches? – too bad, do the JPs now or you can’t get the meta.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I did WIK on 14 characters. Because, I could. No time gating. It was fun. It was lore, connected to the Prophecies storyline, and beyond that, setting lore for a lot of this game. It was long, involved, had goals that had to be met before even attempting it. I consider it a “living story” because it did, indeed, permanently change the game for those who had completed it. It was compelling enough to do 14 times.

I haven’t found a living story yet, here, that is worth repeating, or even able to be repeated, given the time constraints and the “per account” completions. A lot of them I look at and dismiss outright. Others, I may do an element I stumble across but I do not pursue them. The update notes are enough, for me, to say “no, thank you” because the results are meaningless.
—snip—
Thanks for the opportunity to comment, tilting at windmills or not.

I was going to comment in the context of the GW:Beyond War in Kryta and WoC releases, but it seems that I’ve been beaten to the punch. The team responsible for those releases crushed it. The story made sense, missions were challenging , mission loot rewards were pretty good, zones changed. PLUS you could catch up at any time or replay it with an alt. If you wanted the WiK Oppressor skins you could collect the tokens at your own pace, no need to grind them all out in a 2 week blast. I assume that WiK was the trial run for the LS in GW2,I don’t know how it went so off the rails.

If the 2 week schedule is non-negotiable because of the publisher demands, then you really need think about how to address the permanence question and at least give people a chance to catch up.

As much as I detest the term, “management of expectations” related to the living story has been fairly poor. This sort of relates to the red post relating to what elements of TV should be incorporated. One question that needs to clearly be answered is:

Is the LS a vector for advancing the MAIN world story (i.e. dragons) in lieu of an expansion or is it supposed to be blasts of episodic content (maybe with a separate sub-plot running through different episodes)?
If the former, then the current LS is too random and disjointed to make it clear to a player that we are heading in a direction that advances the main world story. Maybe there is a payoff or major plot twist coming down the road, but are we really expected to wait a year for main plot to even start making sense? I wouldn’t watch a TV show that did that.
If it is supposed to be episodic content, then the current structure is not terrible, maybe just tighten up the in game storytelling and have some resolution, even if it not the final resolution. Flame and frost did this fairly well.

tl;dr - I thought I’d be fighting dragons on an epic quest to save the world. Instead I’m fighting bozo(ette) the clown every other month.

Other
The WTK (What the kitten?) factor.
The lore of the world is one thing that seems to draw players to the game and gives them a real sense of immersion or even personal investment in the world. And then electro steampunk pirates fall from the sky. And then Harley Quinn Scarlet shows up with a laughably unbelievable backstory. And then the notoriously most xenophobic race is forming alliances.

tl;dr - Suit: “Guys this steampunk stuff is hot right now, put it in the game!”
Dev: “Ummm…..it doesn’t really fit with the world or our story plans and will come completely out of nowhere.”
Suit: “I don’t care, make it happen.”

This post is too long already, so I’ll just sum up some other thoughts.
Pacing - Are 2 week releases chosen because there is simply too much good quality stuff for you guys to get it all in or because someone looked at trends in hours played per player, server population or other metrics and wanted to try a cheap way to jack them up? Have you considered that you’re burning people out and sacrificing long-term good for short-term gains?

Achievements overload and reliance on Ach as motivation
Proper way to do it is: Fun content —> Achievement for playing fun content.
Wrong way: Content is repetetive/quickly completed/boring --> Add a limited-time achievement to drive people to do it anyways. May be somewhat related to pacing comment above re:metrics and desire to keep people on at any cost.

Gemstore stuff hasn’t been too bad. I know you guys need to pay the bills. I think gamble boxes prey upon the weaknesses of some and personally find them a little unsavory. Armors, town clothes, finishers, minis – keep ’em coming.

Just wait until Kasmeer gets “infested” or “Sarah Kerrigan-ized” by the toxic spores. Then we can truly call it Zerg wars.

Astralporing.1957:

By the way, looking at the quote, and the fact that “precursor building” is followed immediately by “and corresponding additional legendary items”, it’s entirely possible they don’t even plan to make current precursors craftable at all.

Honestly, I think that this is the best way to go. The current ones retain some value and “prestige” that is so important to people (personal opinion: lol @ prestige in a video game). Make the new ones only obtainable through the craftable/scavenger hunt path.

People will complain regardless of what happens, so I don’t feel like writing a big long argument.

Fungalfoot.7213:

I think we can all agree that the economy experiment has failed and that it’s time to bring fun back into the game. More farming isn’t the answer.

Logged in just to +1 this.

It’s great that there is an economist who gets to play virtual central banker. He seems to be keeping inflation in check reasonably well. However, it is a kitten game and the basic premise of farm more gold to buy what you want off TP just isn’t fun.

Just to add another vote – I’ve salvaged enough for about 50 dark matter and have never gotten more than 3 ectos. I do not believe that 4-5 is possible.

1. Conditions & Condition Builds doing trivial damage vs. objects and stack limits on world bosses
1A. Class Balance & Build Diversity

2. Ascended gear & associated crafting grind. I don’t think that the crafting of the actual weapons (empyreal/dragonite/bloodstone & even the time-gated deldrimor ingot and spiritwood) was terrible. Having to level to 500 at cost of 100’s of gold or gathering a bazillion ancient/ori was just a dumb add-on requirement. Expected addition of armor only makes is seem like the treadmill is spinning faster.

3. 2 week content cycle – too fast for stuff that disappears.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

what’s up with all those off-topic suggestions and wants? The topic at the moment is about the rotating questions and the polls. Not some “I want… blah”

This whole thread is a writhing monstrosity of confusion, out of sequence replies and random gripes. There are so many collaborative development “chefs” here that the final “broth” is probably going to resemble stale Skritt bath water.

Draco.2806:

Achievements are designed to be a psychologically compelling factor, so that’s exactly what they do.

I would say the use of achievements in any form is unethical in game design.

This.

I have more than once caught myself (usually running from pinata to pinata or the like) doing something that was absolutely no fun and finally said “why am I doing this”.

Challenging achievements are one thing (i.e. kill Boss X without doing Y), but mindless repetitive tasks are terrible abuses of psychology to try to keep people logged in. Or as I like to think – What would you doo ooo ooo for a progress bar?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNRiFBrX7Nk

So happy I have the Heritage armor to transmute over this clown costume.

I love southsun. Probably my favorite zone in the game. It is one of those places that gets really easy once you learn the tricks and get familiar with the local wildlife (reef drake tail raise = look out) Karka Queen gets done on my server (TC) most days. I think they got the coordination/individual vs. team contribution/timer/loot balance just right with this one. One person can’t ruin it (like a fail turret operator on Teq), but if too few throw eggs then you won’t make it in time.

It has probably the easiest JP in the game right when you land from LA = free chest. Another free chest on the boat right behind. More chests in the water and broodmother cave. t6 nodes. Lots of t5 wood nodes, a fixed location rich mithril node. The monsters rain t5 and t6 fine mats so there are plenty of places to farm, kill some time and earn 6g+/hr.

Vet karka aggro range could be toned down a bit. As it is now it is very difficult to find a spot to fight one where another one won’t come running over halfway through.

Southsun has a good loop as well if you’re willing to mix things up a bit with some gathering and events. I do a combined ancient/ori/blooming passiflora gather, reef drake extermination and chest run.

Port from LA —> easy jumping puzzle —> drop down and grab chest by the champ reef skelk —> kill drake broodmother event (another chest) —> grab the chest on the sunken ship guarded by the two vet sharks —> head up to karka hell and mine all of the ori/ancient wood in scoured plains/seashell hills —> wp to the camp next to skipping stones, do skipping stones, loot the two chests up there.

I’ll usually run it on an alt that I can leave at the top of skipping stones until the chests reset. Then log back on, grab the skipping stones chests —> WP to Owains and do the run backwards.

ForGreatJustice.3452:

jazzllanna.1278:

Hmm ok lol. I got worried with the insider trading post from earlier this week :P- has my thoughts going all conspiracy theory lol.. I thought maybe I should stock up for some reason yet to be see :P

Here’s a hint:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Xunlai_Electrum_Ingot
Read the “trivia” entry.

But the item description says refined from silver, gold platinum.

I’d guess that the high price of iron needed for the deldrimor steel ingots exerted some upward pull on copper, since you can upgrade copper —> iron in the forge with decent results.

Behellagh.1468:

Treeline.3865:

I’d have to agree with OP for the most part. While the Gold -> Gem price is entirely player driven, the pure cost of a Gemstore Item is.. Well.. Pretty high!

As any example, one of the infinite tools = 800 gems. That’s almost 15 dollars in a pure buy. Optional sure, convenience, sure. But wow. That is a lot for never having to buy a pickaxe again in a computer game.

800 gems is $10 US.

Purchasing gems in GBP or EUR is about equal to US$13.

Prices are at the point where the monetization team estimates that Price x # of items sold is a maximum. I’m sure that students/kids perceive $10 to be too high. Older players with a 75k/year job, not so much.

I love how Snowden Drifts isn’t even on the list. Maybe when I get home I’ll take an alt on a run through there to check for some chests and pick strawberries. I’m convinced that Snowden is the least played zone in the game and therefore needs a big hug.

EDIT: real life kinda kept me from this. But all I found was:
Snowden Drifts
NE part of Darkhoof heights – Grand Chest guarded by Champ Snow Troll Leader
Only other one was in King Jalis’ refuge.

I did many event chains and kept an eye out for caves, tents, etc. that may hold chests but didn’t find any. However, I did find an Asura who is afraid of owls, a sleeping Dolyak (I let him lie) and a fishing pole in the lake.

My Nec is an Asura, but there is a long, proud tradition of Norn Necromancers
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Avarr_the_Fallen

The actual ascended stuff does not take too many of the t6 basic mats. The spike is related to the need to level up crafting and the need to discover or re-discover exotics. I’d short ancient wood if I could. Ori didn’t spike quite as sharply and there’s still the possibility for jeweler 500, so that may see some sustained elevation in price. There are TONS more people running around gathering now though, so we’ll see.

MokahTGS.7850:

I’m not asking for a nerf…but I’m asking for something to be done with Bloodstone dust. There is too much of it. It is account bound so it’s not sellable on the TP. Your collections tab only can hold 250 of it which I maxed in about an hour of champ farming.

Either allow us to vendor the dust we don’t want or make it tradable on the TP or reduce the amount that drops, or something. All the other materials drop much less frequently so some balancing needs to be done.

Maybe ease up on the champ farming and do something else?

Altie.4571:

Why would anyone purchaes gems with money when gold is free?

Time is not free.

So in the screenshot at dulfy.net
ascended mats storage
we see lots of the materials used to illustrate the crafting of the ascended greatsword. The mats in columns 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 (bottom) and 10 are all used and are easily identifiable.

I think at this point it is safe to say that we’re eventually getting ascended armor. Column 6 looks like thread on the top and maybe Elonian leather squares on the bottom. Column 7 looks like cloth and maybe a bolt of Damask on the bottom.

Any ideas what the stuff in column 2 is? How about column 9, top row? Possible ascended jewelry crafting (speculation)?

Share your ideas, wild conspiracy theories, random guesses at the names of the mats.

Solo a few Vet Karkas at one time. Make sure you get one of the “Lays eggs. Immobilizes” and one of the “Transfers Conditions” ones. Toss in a third one that aggros while fighting the first two because of their huge aggro radius.

Fun times.

What lvl is you character and what lvl is the ring?
If you have the lvl 64 or lvl 72 version you won’t be able to stick a top tier gem in it. The upgrade’s level needs to be equal to or less than the ring’s level.

Launch is most fun. Launch in WvW near a cliff is 10x fun. Therefore

Engineer (The King of Launch!) for Personal Battering Ram
Guardian for Banish

The other launches just don’t have the same wonderful visual effect of the ram head punch or hammer home run swing.