Guild Wars 2

I know it’s all rebuild and we’re supposed to love it but…..alas, I really miss the old LA. I loved the whole ship theme it had going on, it was really unique. Now it feels like it has lost its character. It’s not awful, but it’s definitely not my favorite city by a long shot anymore.

edit: I have to agree with the person above me, it doesn’t feel like a city anymore. It feels like a themepark.

Sogradde.8016:

coso.9173:

the amout of people that don’t have any idea about what they’re talking trying to pass as soe sort of expert on the topic is saddening.
I guess what they say is true, “the problem with closed minds is that they come with open mouths.”
your hairdresser wouldn’t even be able to mention his husband if it were not for all the advances in lgbt (a.k.a human) rights.
Do you think those rights were won because of people casually mentioning their husbands? or by people actively looking to fight for a more equal society?

I guess you have looked at the video I’ve embedded in my post. Is that how you picture “fighting for equal rights”?

I highly doubt that’s what he or she means. That video is highly disturbing and the kind of thing that needs to be stomped out. Children should never be sexualized in that manner period.

On a different note, while I hate tumblr and do feel it’s a cesspool of hatred and bigotry in its own right, I don’t think that’s what Anet is doing here. Nothing wrong with having a trans npc. Now if Anet goes all tumblr on us and makes a catkin transdogkin plutokin ranger npc then we’ve got serious issues.

I know weapon swapping is seemingly meta now and it seems to be pushing us towards the GS/Sword/axe build like in Brazil’s video, but is using an LB as your switch weapon instead of GS at least somewhat viable? I don’t really want to give up my bow.

And if LB is viable is it better to go LB/GS or LB/sword/axe. I don’t care about being a leet meta speedclear freak, but I don’t want to be terrible either.

Wait so being transgender is a lifestyle choice now? Most transgender people feel dysphoria at a very young age and there are studies that have been done comparing transgender brains with non-trans. A female to male transgender person’s brain is more similar to a male brain than a female one. Same with a m to f transgender being more similar to a female brain. How do you explain these things as lifestyle choices?

As for the npc….It’s fine that there is one, but I would say why not earlier? The timing of it seems rather gimmicky with the whole Jenner thing going on (sorry, I don’t have a high opinion of the Kardashian/Jenner crew).

Anyone know if it’s still worth being zerk for PVE?

root.9415:

All of you with stacks of spare skill points laying around must not WvW or build siege very much. I had to spend what precious few points I had left to rebuy skills I already had.

You didn’t have to “spend” any precious points. If you were level 80, Anet automatically gave you enough points to unlock everything. This is what we (WvW folks) god kitten wanted. The system they had before would have forced you to go out into PVE maps and do 65 skill challenges before being able to unlock all the skills you already had. Now, you don’t have to do that.

Seriously people it takes only a few seconds to unlock the skills again if you are level 80. It’s not a big deal. Stop acting like it’s the end of the world that you have to hit a button a few times. I’m just glad we have this system and not the one that they were planning on. If they put that one in THEN you’d have a right to throw a fit.

Calm down. Believe me I hated that data mined info too, but Colin confirmed that it’s not going to happen. Plus they are giving us a way to swap stats so anyone with boxes of useless stat ascended gear can finally change them to something useful.

obastable.5231:

I’m happy and I’m not, at the same time, because I just spent all of my scrolls and tomes of knowledge over the past week or two to make sure the characters I play most wouldn’t be gated out of the new content too much, as per previous announcements on the matter. Now at the last minute they announce the change and I find out I just robbed myself of a “significant amount” of spirit shards.

Thanks Anet. Color me unimpressed.

That’s not how it worked before. Before, you would get 400 hero points for just being 80. Then if you wanted to unlock the rest of your skills you needed to go out and do hero point challenges (at least 65). Nowhere did they say scrolls would count towards any of this. My understanding was that any points you have beyond what you got leveling up to 80 or through challenges would be turned into shards not hero points. This is the whole reason we were complaining, because it meant a character leveled through WvW with no maps/skill point challenges would have to run through these maps to get all their skills unlocked (even ones you had unlocked before the patch). And if you had alts, you’d have to do this over and over again. In fact, I didn’t bother using any of my scrolls and tomes because I knew they would not get me any hero points under this old system. Now it’s all fixed and we don’t have to do this anymore. I think you just misunderstood the way it worked.

Oh my god, seriously? Seriously? There is no contradiction. Read what it says again and stop constantly trying to find something to nitpick about.

ColinJohanson.2394:

A quick update on this one -> After feedback from presenting the original hero point count – we decided getting to level 80 will give you enough hero points to unlock all the core skills and traits entirely. Doing hero challenges (aka skill challenges) will simply allow you to earn all the skills/traits earlier before level 80. With the release of HoT, there will be options to spend the excess hero points earned from doing hero challenges in the world.

There are a number of other changes on 6/23 to make the experience from 1-80 more exciting, better-paced, rewarding, and fun as well after having the time to evaluate and player feedback from the updates last year.

-CJ

TY so much Colin!

This was such a huge issue for me and I’m very happy to see you guys considering our feedback. Having many alts that I leveled in WvW meant that I would have to run them through maps for skill challenges over and over again. I was not looking forward to such a tedious task at all. So this is just perfect! Thanks again.

What server are you on anyway? While there is the megaserver, it does tend to put you in an instance with server mates. I feel bad that some so called veterans are abusing newbies. Try your best to find a newbie friendly guild. Hopeful that will help.

That’s odd, print screen works for me to save screen shots. When you hit the button, you’ll notice in game yellow chat text saying that the screenshot was saved. If it’s not doing that, then I guess something is wrong.

I’m kind of surprised though. I’ve never seen that kind of behavior and I’ve been playing since launch. Maybe you’ve had the bad luck of getting into maps with especially trolly types? Even the last time in LA when one person kept spamming about a boycott, people were arguing with him but no one was really throwing out insults and ultimately we all just ignored and blocked the boycott guy. But yes, you will notice lots of arguments on both sides, for the prepurchase and against it. It’s best to just avoid the subject.

Yes, there is a screenshot folder.

Like others have said, the pvp folks…..they tend to be a rather, um…touchy bunch. lol. Just avoid talking to them and absolutely report every single one of them bothering you. Then block them.

nexxe.7081:

The only thing the Ultimate Edition offers is a discount on gems. That’s it.

No physical items, and nothing new compared to the Deluxe Edition. Only a fool would buy it over the Deluxe version.

Not true at all. The Ultimate edition is the best value out of all of them. $50 worth of gems plus all the goodies that deluxe offers. It’s an excellent deal, especially if you buy gems normally.

I think Tuesday would be an awesome time to start playing again. And trying out a new class would probably be a good thing for you as well. You absolutely do not have to wait for this HoT prepurchase thing to blow over unless you are one of those people complaining. Many of us are quite happy with our HoT prepurchases (and are veterans). You have the core game already, you might as well hop on and see the changes.

And don’t listen to any drama llamas saying the game is “dying.” That’s no where close to the truth.

I’m sorry but I HATE the system you describe. The good old WoW million button syndrome. I am bloody glad this game does not have that and never will.

And as a veteran, no I don’t feel cheated. I don’t feel it’s a slap in the face. I don’t feel I am “owed” anything.

It’s nothing else, that’s the only reason they are complaining. Because veterans are “owed” something apparently because newbies get the core game. -_-

No you get everything the Unlimited states you get regardless if you are a veteran or a newbie. For instance, my character slot showed up as soon as I bought Ultimate. I also got my beta slot back.

edit: On another note I totally forgot about the data mined extra bag slot. That doesn’t appear to have made it into the actual HoT prepurchase though. Which is a shame.

There never should have been an increase to begin with. Like Colin said, it goes against what GW2 is about. I’m glad they are not going through with it.

Zanshin.5379:

Greymelken.1892:

GW2 is so cheap for the content it offers.

It’s cheap because you are cheap and don’t buy anything. And you’re only thinking from your perspective of a cheap player. Do you know why you had the right to play for free and got content for free? Because somebody else paid for you.

I paid $150 for the CE when it was first announced. I’ve since bought countless things in the gem shop. I still don’t agree with the complaining that we veterans are somehow “owed” something. In fact, I went and bought the Ultimate edition as soon as Colin announced it. And the first thing I thought about when I read about the bundle was that it was a great idea for newbies and would help bring in new blood for the game. So even perspectives from players who have paid more into the game can be different.

I told you to take a break. Because you sound frustrated and very burned out. That’s why I said “for a while” not permanently. That was not even remotely an attack on you. I do apologize if you misunderstood. I wasn’t telling you to go away forever, just to step away from it for a bit.

Then why the freak out and complaining about the prepurchase by people? The constant “but I don’t want to buy it yet, there’s no info!” That’s a ridiculous thing to say. Just wait until there is info.

And now you resort to ad hominem attacks. Nice.

Again, no one is bloody putting a gun to your head to buy the game NOW. There is no rush. None whatsoever. There isn’t even a release date out. You’re going to have to just be patient.

Quite frankly it sounds like you need to step away from the game entirely. For a while at least, if you haven’t already.

I really can’t stand the people saying “oh but Anet have released virtually no information on this expac.” And yes, I’ve seen people post exactly these words on reddit or elsewhere. That is just complete BS people. They have released a decent amount of info. They’ve had countless blogs and streams the past few weeks and will continue releasing blogs and doing live streams. Just because they haven’t revealed ALL of the information does not mean they have revealed NO information. For some of us, the information is enough to decide to make the purchase.

And if they still haven’t talked about what is most important to you….so what? Bloody wait to buy HoT then. No one is holding a gun to your head demanding you buy the game now.

Only if they increase the amount of choices for the daily. It’s bad enough having 2 fractal dailies. Imagine 2 fractal dailies and a jp daily in one day. Ughhhh….

But more choices would be nice. I miss costume brawl daily.

Ah, I didn’t notice that they offered boxed too. Though it still stands that if you buy a box right now, it certainly won’t be HoT.

Hmmm, it’s very disappointing that there is no proper CE.

If you go to the store and buy a box, then you will NOT get HoT. Make sure if you really want HoT to get only a HoT edition and not something else. Just a note, HoT will not have a physical copy. It only comes in digital, so if you buy something physical it will not have HoT.

If you buy HoT edition from Anet now, you can start playing the core game immediately (if this is for a friend). The safest thing for someone to do is just save up and buy it from Anet.

I’m glad I decided to chuck my crappy stat ascended boxes in the bank. I was wondering what I was going to do with them….

Malediktus.3740:

In China it costs around 50 USD. But the difference is it comes from the shop and not from the player economy

That’s really distasteful, but not surprising given the company running the game over there. That’s the way they do business.

Oh god, that video was so bad. And the bizarre thing is all the videos that they showed us prior to that one were really great. Like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8GAQGVh-JA
Which is when we first heard Fear Not This Night. That’s still my favorite version of the song.

If they just went along the same lines they would have had a great promotional tool. Instead we got this really cringe worthy thing.

The uproar over prepurchase has bee over the top.

My god when I went to by my Ultimate I looked at the “includes core game” thing and was like “wow, that’s a great deal for newbies. It should help bring more people into the game easily” and went on my way with my purchase. It did not even cross my mind that I as a veteran was being “cheated” or disrespected or anything else. Then I go on reddit and the forums here and see all the pitchforks out.

The 10% ascended change (which is thankfully not happening after all) upset me far more than this. Hopefully, the devs don’t let things get them too down.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just want to clarify since I saw this come up a couple of times in this thread and we haven’t actually released our full official patch notes for 6/23 yet….

Ascended Gear will be staying 5% better than Exotic Gear. Gear beyond the tiers we already have are not going to be added and our existing tiers won’t change, they won’t be our main end-game form of progression for your characters/account for all the reasons we’ve covered before – it isn’t what we think Gw2 is about.

Masteries is being added to PvE to help provide this system as our form of progression for PvE moving forward, and the WvW ability system exists for WvW and will be what we use to expand WvW in the future.

To more directly answer some of your point….We are adding a system that lets you change the stats for your ascended gear (weapons and armor) next Tuesday – which will cost a combination of 10 spirit shards, piece you don’t want anymore, 5 ectos, and an exotic insignia of the stats you want to convert to. Legendary Gear will remain the gear that can freely change stats any time.

-CJ
(Edited to clarify weapons and armor)

Yay! Ty so much Colin. You really made my day. I was really unhappy with the 10% thing and am VERY glad you are not raising it. Was afraid this was going to be a new thing….raising that percentage every expansion, which is not acceptable to me.

And now allowing us to change stats on ascended through the mystic forge is bloody awesome.

So much crying it’s unbelievable. I bought the physical CE of GW2 almost as soon as it was announced. Been playing since launch. I do not see the issue here. So newbies get the core game, so the hell what? It makes it that much easier for them to just jump in and that’s a GOOD thing for this game. We need new blood.

Now the standard edition not having a slot is a bit weird, that’s something Anet needs to rethink. But other than that, there is no problem here. Already bought my Ultimate.

I’m shocked that so many actually thought it wouldn’t be $50. I was expecting that price, so it didn’t surprise me at all. The only thing that did surprise me was the standard edition not having a character slot.

Now the ascended thing…..that is another story. That’s one change that kittenes me off. At least nerf the mats needed for damask please. Cloth ascended has always been way out of line. And no, please don’t do the opposite and make the other ones obscene like damask. -_-

I really hope it’s as Zen said and is just a huge troll. I would hate to find out that oRNG was cheating. Hopefully, Anet can get to the bottom of this for certain. It’s pretty despicable of OP no matter what though. He obviously sought to rig the game, whether or not oRNG accepted that aid. And now, well if it’s true then oRNG is done for (including innocent members that might have not known anything) and even if it’s not true, this kind of libel will have people doubting oRNG’s integrity.

ShelBlackblood.7826:

Hi there,
I try to keep it short this time!
So after Southsun Cove, Dry Top and the Silverwastes, with the last two being literally a prelude to HoT, I wanted to ask if this is the “future” of how all lvl 80 maps will be like in HoT. Heart Quests are pretty dead by now and we get decreasingly Vistas + Skill Point challenges. It’s all about rushing between Dynamic Events.

The beta map was rather confusing and felt a bit like a less optimal Silverwaste copy. And since the events on the map are essential to unlock masteries; I can’t see all my 8 characters + the revenant to grind events all day long right now. Maybe I will do that with 2 characters, but that’s all the event grind I might want to do, seeing how slow the EXP gain was during those 2 hours.

So… no more “classic but likable” heart quests in the future…?

Hearts were never supposed to be in the game to begin with. They were just added in leveling zones for people coming from other MMOs who needed hand holding. Orr doesn’t have hearts and it’s clear level 80 zones are never intended to have them. That’s fine with me as long as the events are plentiful and interesting. And masteries are account wide, so no you don’t need to grind on all 8 characters. Just one.

Well, that_shaman’s data mining turned up some nice armor skins that even have elite versions. I’m guessing the regular versions will be easier to get and the elite ones will be harder and probably require some grind. Which is perfectly fine imho. It’s not unlike how things were in GW1. They need to put out good amounts of in-game armors though that’s for sure. I would LOVE to see more cultural armors too.

The game you seem to prefer is not GW2 and never will be. THANK GOD.

Those things you criticize are the very things that make GW2 a breath of fresh air in this genre. And it has nothing to do with being “easy.” Anet definitely could put in more challenging content for players. That’s something many are asking for and will hopefully be addressed in HoT. But they can still do this AND still have these systems you describe that promote community instead of creating a toxic environment where the last thing you want to see is another player.

And treadmill PVP sucks. But I suppose if you are a ganker than you obviously dislike having a level playing field. But this isn’t the game for gankers really.

Ralanost.8913:

Considering how many people hate outfits, I don’t think this will be viewed positively. On the other hand, I’m looking forward to all the new armor sets with HoT.

I think the amount of people that “hate” outfits is largely exaggerated. A loud minority. Anet is obviously making money off these outfits else they wouldn’t keep releasing them, so somebody likes them. I myself, like outfits just fine. There were costumes in GW1 and they were great. The one thing I would like Anet to do, is to make head slot customizable. Allow me to wear my cute bear hats with my winter dress. Allow people to use their sunglasses with their outfits. That would be really awesome.

Overall, I think that armor skins in-game is a good thing. Let’s just hope they give us a decent amount.

Agreed. Night needs more interesting things to occur. More variety. What you have isn’t a bad starting point, but it definitely needs a bit of work.

I like the Revenant. I must admit, when I first started out with that hammer I wasn’t a fan. But once I switched to mace/axe it really grew on me. I think it has loads of potential and can’t wait to see what the other core specs and elite spec will be like. I am hoping for a bit more synergy with the specs though. That’s definitely something that can be worked on.

I’m pretty sure they have the ability to do this if they wanted to. Let’s just hope they hear us and decide to allow this. I really would love to use certain other headpieces with outfits. We have so many cute hats in the gem store and you can’t even combine them with the outfits.

While I think map completion should be left as is for those interested in getting legendaries, I do think they need to make the upcoming “hero points” (the skill point replacement) account wide. I’m going through the process of running my alts through maps to collect the skill points so that I can unlock all my abilites and traits. It’s bloody miserable. I hate it. It’s fine for me to do that on one character, but to do it over and over again on alts is awful. And it’s something I should NOT have to do. Currently if I level my alts in WvW and primarily use them there I can unlock all my abilities without stepping foot in PVE. With this new system my WvW alts will now be forced into PVE even to unlock things I ALREADY have unlocked on top of the new elite spec (which is pretty ridiculous).

This game has always had a play the way you want thing going for it. It’s also always been very alt friendly. This new system is going against this. Now in order to get my abilities I HAVE to do PVE. And I have to unlock these things on every single character. Please Anet consider something better for the hero point system.

Crystallize.8603:

I can’t do my daily today because I’d have to go out of my way to do it.

Please make 3 Fractal dailys every day so I can complete my daily please.

Is this a joke? I certainly hope so. It’s bad enough when there are one or two fractal dailies, let alone 3. Some of us don’t play fractals. Now if they just offered more choices like they used to maybe both crowds can be happy. But we’re stuck with so few pve choices. They really need to bump up the amount of choices. Bring back dungeon choices. Bring back silly things like costume brawl. For me at the end of the day, it’s not a big deal for there to be fractal dailies because I also do WvW. But I imagine for folks who don’t do WvW and don’t do fractals doing the daily would be difficult. On the flip side people who love fractals and dungeons are sometimes stuck with no choices. I guess that’s what OP is trying to get at.

There are so many ways to counter a LB ranger it’s not even funny. OP you really need to look in the mirror and learn ways to improve your own play. LB ranger is fine and certainly does not need a nerf.

Jax.4903:

The state lottery is not a good comparison for getting a beta portal. Odds for getting all six numbers correct for those mega million jackpots are like 1 in 259 million. As they say, you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery. In addition, if GW2’s RNG system did work like a true lottery, what are the odds are repeat portal winners? Almost never, right?

Actually there are cases of people who have not only won the lotto once, but won it multiple times. Given that GW2’s RNG isn’t as insane as the lotto (they recently raised the chances to get the portals did they not?), it’s not surprising for people to get multiple portals. I don’t know what to say, I mean do you guys think there is some conspiracy to favor some people over others? Sometimes RNG is just RNG.

RNG is RNG. That’s not the answer you want, but that IS the answer here. I’m not sure why you care how many portals drop for other people, it’s not like that has any affect on your chances.

Harvest.2506:

There is no sense of Justice in Dragon Hunter, Its a Matter of Survival, not a matter of fighting for Morally. You could have just called it “Witch Hunter” and be done with it.

Now I understand you guys like to run your social experiments, or maybe have a cooperate head from NCsoft/nexon suggesting this , Thus making you unable to speak freely. So as a Free unbias person I can call your reasoning flawed. edit for (spelling/grammar)

No Thanks Jon.

This seems over the top. You honestly believe NCSoft came in here and said “hey you MUST name your guardian elite spec Dragonhunter!” I think they have better things to do with their time then worry about the name of a spec. I know people like to think NCSoft is behind every thing they don’t like about the game, but that’s just probably not the case. Sometimes Anet just makes choices and sometimes you just don’t like them. It happens.

It would make sense to have a medium wearing class be next. I have a feeling engie needs more work (hell they barely had core spec stuff ready). Hopefully it will be druid next and not thief.