Guild Wars 2

EverythingEnds.4261:

I knew the problem and I actually am not 100% sure, if my calculation is right, but yours is defenitily wrong.

The reason for this is, that the Proc chance of Generosity is already the Conditional Probability (P (A if B )) = 0.6 (or in words: 60% chance to trigger if a critical hit occurs)
What we are actually looking for, is P(A and B ) (in words: the probabilty that a crit occurs and Generosity triggers). Thus, we have to convert the formula from

_ P(A if B ) = P(A and B ) / P(B )_

into

P(A and B ) = P(A if B ) * P (B )

Given that P(A if B ) is the 60% chance of Generosity to Proc on crit and P(B) your Critchance, this results into my calculation of:
0.6 * 0.5 = 0.3

To proof that your calculation must be wrong, just think about what you actually were calculating. You calculated:
P(A if B ) = (P(A) * P(B ) / P(B ) this would always lead to the answer P(A if B ) = P(A), implying that P(A) would be independant from P(B ).

We are both wrong actually. And both right, to an extent.

You are testing for the wrong thing, but since one of the factors (the 60% proc of Generosity) remains constant, testing for concurrence gives the same result as testing for conditional probability. You test for the wrong thing, but get the same result since one of the factors is constant. This would not provide the same results if both probabilities would be dynamic, ultimately yeah, my bad.

Anyway, in a direct comparison, you would need a crit rate of 100% or more to transfer the conditions at a same chance then with purging.

There are two other factors involved here that are significant, one of them is very hard to account for using math, they are:

9s vs 10s cooldown
Transferring condition vs Purging it.

The 9s vs 10s may seem not significant, but after 2/3 checks, we are moving into territory where the negative effects proc on you. In other words, lets say if your crit chance is 70%, then you have a 80.5% chance of 1 transfer in 27 secs vs the 93.6% over 30 seconds (assuming hits at cooldown)

I don’t remember that much from my stats classes to extrapolate probability adjusted for time for both, but Generosity is 10% faster in its checks. Thats significant enough to be fairly effective if your cirt rate is in the 70-80% range imo.

Either way, Generosity requires a significant contribution to Precision to be as effective in its basic function – getting rid of conditions – as Purging.

The second factor that is purely situational is what gets transfered and to whom. Obviously there are so many possibilities here that its hard to even really consider.

And that was my main point – 70-80% crit chance requires serious stat devotion. It is not as clear cut a choice as OP seemed to say IMO, even though I failed at math ;P

EDIT:

Alacrity

has anyone tested if Generosity still “procs” even when there’s no condition to transfer?
In that case Purity might be more desirable, though I’d probably run both at once.
(and I still think that Purity – and Speed – would be more useful as proc-on-swap)

As far as I remember, cool-downs for any sigil proc start after its effect is applied/triggered, by that logic, if there is no effect to apply, there is no effect to trigger.

Or at least that is what would make sense. Stranger things have happened ;P

zaced.7948:

people that don’t play at maximum efficiency and are able to win every single game just deserve to be verbally trashed.

Yep. Guild Wars is serious business.

EverythingEnds.4261:

In addition, you probably are able to use both.

Even though, I’m using a crit build, I use Purity.

Maybe I suck at statistics, but regarding the probabilities to cleansen a condition with a hit are:
- for purity: 60%
- generosity: Critchance: let’s say 50% * Proc Chance: 60% = 30%

I actually like Purity and I think it will be good vs. Condis.
The chance of not triggering Purity within 3 hits are just 6,4%
The chance not to trigger Generosity within 3 hits are 34,3%

Your numbers are wrong. But so were mine. From the top.

For simple Purity, meaning a P of 0.6, using the binominal theorem your number is correct. The chance of having at least one success in 3 tests is indeed 0.936 or 93.6%

For Generosity however, you are using a wrong formula. Multiplication of probabilities implies a joint probability – this means that you would test Generosity even if you did not crit. This is not the case. You need to use Conditional Probability. – you are only testing Generosity if you land a critical hit, otherwise no test is made. This actually changes the numbers, since probability is weird that way.

For clarity, we use A = Generosity triggering, B = Critical hit. A is dependent on B, so

P ( A if B ) = P ( A and B ) divided by P ( B ).

Using your assumption = B = 0.5, A = 0.6, so P ( A if B ) = (0.5 * 0.6) / 0.5 = 0.6

Meaning that your example (I divided by the wrong factor earlier) is actually exactly on par with a pure Purity roll, 0.6 single or 0.936 chance of 1 hit across 3 tests.

In other words, if your crit chance is above 50%, Generosity is a better idea. If it is bellow, you are better off with purity. This is of course assuming GW2 has an ideal probability calculator, which does not exist. Having the crit chance a bit higher to combat any calculation errors when it comes to random rolls isn’t a bad idea.

EDIT: And, of course, keep in mind that the cooldowns are different on them too, meaning that one gives more time for the condition to mess you up and your target to run away.

SoloQ = I play with random people. Sometimes they are bad at what they do. Sometimes I’m bad at what I do.

It happens in pretty much any game and as was mentioned, its not like it does not happen in say random dungeon or even the fail-able world events and pretty much any other facet where random people are grouped together and someone has an inflated ego.

The fact that its competing with other players probably isn’t helping either.

Flumek.9043:

Any power build has some crit. Any condi build has “enough” crit, just to get the cheezprocs.

Only bunkers (altough dont forget even cleric guard with scpeter#2 got the vigor prety often) are left out, but theyre not something that is meant to kill u.

Conditional probability suggests that you need to have a crit chance of at least 60% (and not streak) for Generosity to have the same “raw” chance of kicking off as Purity. 60% is a fairly considerable chunk of the stat pool, hence the extra “kick”. Thats the major difference, one is a probability stacked on top of probability, but with an extra kick, the other is “playing it safe”. I don’t see the problem?

sPvP dailies are gone, there is only one category for dalies now that inlcudes PvE, WvW and sPvP ones. Or do you not see that category at all either?

Samo goes for monthlies.

The good news is that every daily is counter regardless of where you are, so for example killing players ups both the count of general kills and player kills, etc.

Hands, legs and everything else behind this on my part. Now that we are using gold and getting random loot or might want to get skins or other stuff from the AH while in the sPvP area, both are a welcome addition.

Nenthil.4312:

Clicking IS an issue. Bags, essences, tournament rewards, food for daily, buying more obsidian shards and I can go on with the list. It isn’t issue for me thanks to the macro I have. Still I don’t understand how hard can it be to place “hold alt double/right click” mechanic for using/buying multiple things. We already have that with dividing stacks.

I just cannot see this as an argument against… Well anything. Not to mention you do not do all of those at once. Maybe a double click is just a natural motion for me. Or I do not care. But if you indeed want to use this as an example of how sPvP was pveized, I can’t really say anything else.

Nenthil.4312:

I get you point about new GM and skillpoints. I kind of agree with you that it shouldn’t be free. BUT this system is not without flaws. It should work in a way that you have easy access to resource on lower lvl, and as you progress through the game cost are getting higher. That way that resource won’t be worthless. Good example in game are WP costs, as you lvl up they get higher, so when you are low lvl you still can afford it. Since gold is account bound and skill points character bound, it seems illogical to force the same price (in skillpoints) on newly created characters.

Not paying attention. PvP skill points and level ups are drops. Transferable drops. They serve exactly the purpose you describe. I have a stack of them myself for Mt lowboe PvP char.

Nenthil.4312:

As for transmutation charges, I agree that it is fairly easy to get them and I accepted the fact that I will need to pay for transmutation in pvp. It is ok.

Not reading, again.

No. You. Won’t. Have. To. Spend. A. Dime. On. Charges.

At worse, you will have to play an hour or two to get a few rewards. Or save gold, which is now the primary monetary reward for PvP for the 150 gems for a 5 pack.

Nenthil.4312:

What is wrong with this system is that PvP players need to pay for something they DON’T want. They had their customised look in PvP and now they need to “pay” to get it back.

No. They. Won’t.

See above.

Nenthil.4312:

I won’t even mention weapon swap between PvE and PvP…

Nope.

PvP weapons, like all other PvP gear and buids have their own window now. Its independent from the hero panel. They have their own slots in the PvP panel and everything.

Not to mention we are talking about pure PvP players, unless I missed something.

You haven’t actually played post patch, have you?

Nenthil.4312:

All in all I think merging PvE/PvP equipment was a bad idea. It would be better with just introducing wardrobe feature and leaving separate equipment modes for PvP and PvE. That way PvE players would have to pay do get their looks to PvP and vice versa.

That’s exactly how it works. You just use your PvE gear as a starting point. That’s why PvP showers you with transmutipn charges. So does PvE, all old tokens are converted to charges too.

Again, c**p like what?

sPvP haeventuallransmute charges on a silver platter.

PvE always needed a transmutation item. And also gives them out. You can also buy them. With in-game currency (post gem transfer)

You are ignoring how the new system, combined with the new PvP reward system works. Consistently.

Literally nothing has changed, save a bit of initial effort if you didn’t get enough charges from levels and for free. And that’s probably not even a days worth as, again,sPvP is relatively generous with charges.

I am sitting on 50+ charges after modifying 2 characters multiple times.

Anyway, that’s what, the 3rd time I said the same thing? I’m out unless something new pops up here.

EDIT

@Nenthil

So clicking is not an issue. Great.

As for the lvl2 chars, you can lvl them up via pvp drops too. You yourself said, eventually. Both level ups and sp are items that you can store for alts.

And no, I see noting wrong in having to put a little effort to unlck new stuff. GW1 had that too. Might be the crux of our issues.

Oh yeah. I forgot about the lvl up scrolls. They drop too. Auto level up in PvE or wvw.

Nenthil.4312:

silencer.5028:

PvP reward chests of all types drop skill point skillbooks that automatically give you 1 sp on use. Next?

Which requires you to play a while on newly made character or get out of mist, put skillpoint scrolls in bank (from inventory of you regularly played char), relog, go to bank, click through 100 of them if you want to buy all of GM traits (thank you razer for you macro options on my mouse!) go to trainer and buy new traits.

Can you see PvPers problem now?

Good solution would be to make skillpoints account bound, but then lvling up a new char in pve would be to easy with all skills available from the start.

Lol. If having to spend not even 5 mins transferring stuff between characters, is using you and you have to use a macro for 100 double clicks, I don’t know what to tell you.

You will not unlock all of them at once. You will not use more then 2 at a time. They are not essential to any and all build.

True, mists could use a banker.

But lamenting over the plight of switching to an alt and back which isn’t even 5 mins sounds silly IMO.

We are approaching the end of our discussion, I don’t think I can convince you and vice versa. Such is life.

Yep, I did my dailies purely through sPvP too. Did condition removal, matches played, player kills and general kills (both work in PvP), then started doing salvaging from reward tracks, but got 3 skill point books from chests before that. All done.

Hammerheart.1426:

silencer.5028:

Charak.9761:

People who purely PvP want nothing to-do with the PvE aspect of the game.
People who do mostly PvE will only hope into maybe 3-4 games for daily.

And the current system does not force either to do PvE or PvP. It just combines the cosmetic aspect and now regular currency and loot is used as rewards for both. In that aspect, PvP players are showered with stones as track/rep rewards and can also"farm" repeatable reward tracks for the monies to get cosmetics. Just like PvE players, but in their own neck of the woods.

What don’t you understand? PvE players got a basket chock full of goodies this patch, while PvP (as usual) got unnecessary obligations thrown into our laps. Our lockers were fine, having lvl1 alts was the best way to play all the classes and learn them in PvP, and now we have to PvE to unlock the newest GM traits? It is a big “kitten you” to the sPvP community.

Though I do like the account wide dyes.

See above answer. PvP gives you both SP and currency for the GM skills.

You also will reasonably use 2 at once. And its not like the new traits are a matter of life and death.

Hammerheart.1426:

How about the fact that the GM traits are unlocked by spending 20 skill points? That’s for each new GM trait, for each trait line, on each character. PvE affects PvP in too many ways as it is, and this patch only made it worse.

PvP reward chests of all types drop skill point skillbooks that automatically give you 1 sp on use. Next?

Charak.9761:

People who purely PvP want nothing to-do with the PvE aspect of the game.
People who do mostly PvE will only hope into maybe 3-4 games for daily.

And the current system does not force either to do PvE or PvP. It just combines the cosmetic aspect and now regular currency and loot is used as rewards for both. In that aspect, PvP players are showered with stones as track/rep rewards and can also"farm" repeatable reward tracks for the monies to get cosmetics. Just like PvE players, but in their own neck of the woods.

Sirendor.1394:

Justin ODell.9517:

Thorn.7963:

Could you at least tell us WHY you did this change? It seems so pointless.

To bring PvP in line with how the rest of the game works.

PvP was about the only thing that seemed ‘similar’ to GW1, because everything was automatically unlocked. The point for it was, as I remember, to make it competitive, with everyone having the same means.

It saddens me to see this power creep in form of traits/skills/leveling. Why are you doing this?

Um, gw1 PvP did not come with everything unlocked, at least at its inception. You unlocked stuff via PvP currency or PvE.

Also, sPvP does not use any PvE stats. The only connection between sPvP and pve are gear and weapon skins. A lvl 1 weapon is the same as a legendary, sans skin. In fact, sPvP nolonger uses the Hero panel at all for its stats and builds. Just like in GW1 for Adventure chars, though using those in PvP wasn’t the best idea iirc.

Kambo Rambo.8561:

silencer.5028:

Kambo Rambo.8561:

When I log in, why was my PvE skinset/outfit chosen by default? PvP focused players lose ALL skin progression, PvEers did not. PvPers have to use transmutation charges to get back to what they looked like before the patch, PvE’ers do not. If you think this is fair then ill be kitten ed. Why the discrimination?

PvPers are showered with transmutation charges on a regular basis. PvE players
, not so much. Plus, you get 5 for free.

Not that a simple chocie-on-login or entry to the mists which set you want to use wouldn’t hurt, but its tad too late for that one now.

Strangely enough my glory points cant be converted into gems to buy transmuation points. Fortunately PvEers can! Yay for them!

Which is probably why glory points no longer exist and you get silver for playing, plus the advancement pathways give you loot you can sell or salvage for money. Just like!e dem pesky pvers. You can even buy/get skins that way.

You don’t get any beyond the 5 free ones from the market and a varying number if you get ranked up. The former need to be claimed, the latter you get from rank up chests.

Most reward paths I’ve seen also have one charge as their 2nd stage reward, probably more of them hiding later.

But you do not get any free ones just for entering the mists, barring the mentioned rank ups if you were high enough prepatch.

Kambo Rambo.8561:

When I log in, why was my PvE skinset/outfit chosen by default? PvP focused players lose ALL skin progression, PvEers did not. PvPers have to use transmutation charges to get back to what they looked like before the patch, PvE’ers do not. If you think this is fair then ill be kitten ed. Why the discrimination?

PvPers are showered with transmutation charges on a regular basis. PvE players
, not so much. Plus, you get 5 for free.

Not that a simple chocie-on-login or entry to the mists which set you want to use wouldn’t hurt, but its tad too late for that one now.

Reports seem to be varried. What I have seen:

Unclear if this is a bug or feature.

Progress seems to stop around step 10,11 or 12. If this is intended, this indicates this is based on x games/wins.

Solo/Team queues progress normally, according to some. If intended, signifies a cap on hotjoins.

Seems counter productive, if intended/true of course. I’m sure the solo/team queue people will be thrilled by the outputting of hotjoiners just wanting to farm rewards. Its already skewed towards the queues anyway reward wise.

If this is a bug, whatever. Needs a fix.

If this is intended, then ANet seems to be still clinging to their eSports idea and trying to for all people towards the solo/teams. Which is a terrible idea IMO, especially now that sPvP has PvE rewards, people who want a relaxed, Grundy experience should be kept away from the “pro” folks, no one will have a good time, especially in solo qs otherwise.

Well, except those who like rage. There will be plenty of that.

I struggle to understand this one myself. There already were “dedicated” spots for 5v5 matches, ranked games.

Yes, there are 8v8 and 10v10 custom servers, luckily, but if ANet wanted an unranked tournament environment, they should have done just that – add an unranked queue.

On top of that the 5v5 servers have a 20 player limit. I join a 6/20 one, by the time I load there are 4 spectators and full teams.

I was under the impression that hotjoins were supposed to be sPvP lite, the higher player counts were part of what made them fun and different. Why add redundancy since a dedicated 5v5 mode already exists and offers better rewards? Outside of the custom servers (that someone has to pay for one way or the other) hotjoins seem pointless now.

An issue that is somewhat serious that I’ve noticed. Rewards from the loot chests from the progression tracks are scaled to PvP level, which seems unfair.

At the moment if I play on my PvP only lvl 6 char, unless I want low level garbage (low lvl mats as opposed to 400 ones and bellow level 80 salvage junk, meaning no chance for rare salvage), I need to switch to my level 80, collect the stuff and open it, then switch back.

This seems severely unfair in terms of rewards, especially for people with pvp only chars. Since PvE visuals are now tied to PvP, PvP only chars have no chance for rare matsmtuey would need for some of the crafted visuals.

That’s not even mentioning the payout if you market the mats. And the ectos.

And yeah the lack of shoulder options without, albeit brief, leveling is annoying too. But the chest loot rewards seem a more serious issue to me.

Fort Aspenwood just did the same thing. Looks like a global bork.

Last I checked, Orr was still a barren wasteland, ravaged by 2 end-of-the-world scale events (drowned by Abaddon, raised by Zhaitan), I don’t see it coming back to anything close to livable lands any time soon. Spiting populations between 2 alternative Orrs seems pointless and counter intuitive to MMO design. Making changes to the area to reflect the Story makes no sense for players who did not complete the story.

Or, in other words, this is not a Single Player game where you can do drastic scenery changes over the progression of the plot. Now, areas that do not have any “storyline” plot to them and being prepped for addition of new areas are a different story, but even they will probably reach a “final” point that will be pre-defeat of respective Dragon and stay there.

All GOTY/RPGOTY or whatever else awards are as reliable as the press that is behind them. Which is to say not very much.

Love seeing the typical disconnect – My game gets a bad review, its because the press is corrupted/bought/evil. My game gets a prize, its a sign of pure excellence and professional gaming journalism.

It is a worthless trinket (and I mean all “prizes” given out by websites/mags at this time of the year) given out by people who have long lost and creditability and have a depressingly low ethic standard.

As for GW2 deserving it or not, everyone will judge it by themselves I’m sure.

Like most other sets, full zerker warriors take skill and adaptation to work properly. 5 sigs in dungeons can bite them in the kitten though, having 1-2 stun breakers and Endure Pain is typically a better idea but that also depends. Ultimately, the trade off is that a mistake usually costs you way more.

But if a war knows what he is doing, he will not “faceplant on every mob”, even in dungeons, even with a 5 sig build. Been there, done that.

The heart of the problem is, I’d by what I can tell anyway, the fact that due to the abundance of gs/5 signet/zerker warriors it is way, way easier to find one that sucks at what he does.

Outside of dungeons though? A 5 sig zerker war plows though Orr and anything else outside of group events like hot knife through butter.

Which version you are running? Clear you cache and make sure its not something on your side.

I am running Opera 12.10 build 1652 which updated itself a few days ago and is the current version according to Opera itself and have no trouble accessing, logging in, writing or any other issue with the forum and didn’t have so since the update.

Computer RPGs, be it in single player or MMO form (though this applies more to the latter since in a SP RPG you can typically “imagine” you are whoever you want and there is no one to stop you), are not made for Role Play. This excludes typically fan run and maintained “shards” that have strict supervision and lore enforcement.

Of course people try to do that in various MMOs, some are more suited then others, but it always comes down to the fact that since there is no equivalent of a DM from table top RPGs to watch over, maintain, enforce, reward and punish players for their efforts, the results are typically hilariously drama generating and typically end with a multitude of conflicting concepts about the lore, not even mentioning rips from other works of fiction.

That is not even mentioning that without said DM to keep the world interesting and provide challenges, most RP in MMOs brings itself to playing house or exploring the same dungeon for the 100th time, more reminiscent of LARPing with a grindy element then actual PnP like RP, only with more players. Most NWN RP servers for example are mostly people just larping with each other, with some “evil” stuff going on on the side.

No company that wants to make money would carter solely to RPers (again, there are some MMOs that did it better then other. Most of them are now defunct or a shadow of their former selves, surprise surprise) and it is hard to blame them, since typically mentioning that no, you cannot play Lord Vampire Brooding Demigod BMF since it does not fit to the game world gets you called an RP Nazi and immediately ignored.

On a personal level, “imagining” your own personal storyline or whatever is by all means possible. Hells, if you have a few like minded players you can probably have some fun on agreed upon rules between yourselves. On a grander scale it is not viable for any MMO that wishes to make money. I am fairly certain that anyone who ever ran a “unofficial” server with enforced RP rules or played on one for a longer time can see why. There is no enforcement of character concepts, there is nobody to make the world react to the “meta” RP situation, there is nobody to resolve conflicts, etc. The players themselves, for various reasons, are typically unable to come to any consensus.

Why should the daily reward compensate for player death?

I frequent Orr whenever I play, I am actually in the foum minority that likes the area for all its ups and downs. I also die from time to time, unless you warp across the map, a typical cost of dying is around 3s (1.6 for repairs, and whatever you pay for wping).

You can literally make that back doing a single defense event in a 70+ area, or by mining a few Mithrill nodes. 5 minutes total.

Its how no sub fee games generate extra income, f2p or b2p. Additional stuff is available via gambling, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game without a sub that wouldn’t be pure pay to win that didn’t have some sort of random “spend $$$ for a chance for unique looking stuff” element to it.

Don’t want it? Don’t play.

You have actually tried to make the one recipe that was removed, see

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Update-Notes-November-01-2012

Martin Kerstein

The Mad King is gone, and he has taken his chest with him. The Mad King Chest can no longer be created.

Also see https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Halloween-Item-Availability-in-Gem-Store-After-the-Event for more information about what will be available till when.

Considering that GW2’s world is distinctively not steampunk, I’d be surprised to see steampunk elements in it. Even the Charr, who probably come close to a steampunk aesthetic are much more heavy industry themed. Not all industrial revolution fantasy settings have to be steampunk settings and I am actually very happy to see a different twist on objects that are typically used in steampunk settings.

In other words, you seem to be looking for something that is not part of the GW2 world as it seems to be intended form a visual side.

If done in sequence without leveling in between your personal story will very quickly out-level you.

Ultimately, you will need to gain 2-3 levels each time you complete a step in the storyline before you are level appropriate for the next step. Do heart quests and dynamic events around the area that the next step points to and are around your level. Heart quest xp/money rewards are not scaled, meaning its best to do them around your level range. Dynamic events scale their rewards, based on both how close to your level they are and what level you are. If you run out of those, move farther or to other zones of the same level range (which I had to do like once I think) and come back to the personal story when you are ready.

It is absolutely normal for it to outlevel though, you are not doing anything “wrong”

Methesda.5198:

I would actually consider asking your friend to move to a lower pop server.

I remember reading that there is an overflow for the servers, that act like shards of the main server. If the server you are trying to get on is mostly full, you may find you never get to see your friend, as one or both of you is in the overflow.

If that is the case, if they are in party they can join each other in the same overflow. This used to be bugged, but is now worked out. All members of a party that are in an overflow get the “go to regular server” option at the same time as well so they can go back to the no-overflow map.

As others have mentioned, you will need to be patient, or just both pick another, lower pop server.

Confusion uses a different formula in sPvP then it does in PvE and yeah, in both cases it is a function of Condition Damage. It activates each skill use, so dot/aoe’s are the best counter for confusion if you cannot purge them fast enough.

They are a challenging class to fight, but their godmode is diminishing due to both skill adjustments and rising knowledge on how to deal with them.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

You seem to forget that Anet didn’t hype their game. The players did.

With Blizzard, they advertise all over the place. They throw ads everywhere from television to random websites. Blizzard hypes their own games up.

Anet didn’t do all that. It was the players that brought up all the hype and tossed it around everywhere. They didn’t spend millions on advertising, and instead, let the players spread the word.

For a game that doesn’t advertise everywhere, I’d say it did pretty darn well and will continue doing well.

This. You literally couldn’t start a conversation about any MMO in a public or semi public forum without someone coming in to tell you what a great revolution GW2 will be and omg omg. Then you would look at what those people were saying about GW2, took a look at what the devs of the game actually said about it and predict the resulting crash and burn.

Honestly, it is better then I predicted it to be. Not that typical marketing newspeak did not play a role in the hype snowball, but I seriously got the impression that they lost control of the fan-hype avalanche and tons of misconceptions that grew as a result.

MMO companies usually don’t give out precise numbers, unless its muddled down PR releases boasting sales (and usually being very generous with them), the amount of divining it causes usually hurts the game in the long run.

Of course, the divining going on without those numbers can be equally damaging, but thats probably a different debate completely. Considering no monthly sub, it might be mildly trickier to determine retention (though not impossible, for instance it could be done via unique account logins in a given day/week/month/etc) most MMO companies prefer to err on the side of caution on this regard.

Angelus

To each his own is what I say..people are different. Brain experts popping up all over the place here…..

This is not a question of people, its a question of how your brain works. I could have sworn I actually saw newer research on the topic, but here, after a brief moment of google-fu:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/1202-tracking_your_team.htm

The key abstract:

People can focus on more than three items at a time if those items share a common color. Psychologists at Johns Hopkins University have demonstrated that when players wear uniforms, it allows spectators, players and coaches at major sporting events to overcome humans’ natural limit of tracking no more than three objects at a time. The common color of uniforms allows them to overcome the usual limit because they perceive separate individuals as a single set.

This comes straight from the body of the research itself, I was not able to find the actual data for free anywhere, but the method and results is very briefly described there. Name tags let you pick out enemies and target them, but I don’t find myself tracking neametags in intense close quarters group combat, but rather the characters themselves to be able to try and mark their attacks.

The jersey idea given here seems like a reasonable compromise to me. Upon creation/registering for a tounrey a team picks its color either out of presets or the colors available to its leader from the same hue group. They also select a “backup” color form a different hue in case both matched teams use the same hue as their first pick. Seems more or less the middle of the road between it not creating chaos and adding some customization and personalization to tPvP.

Angelus

Actually “My Brain” sees the “red” names a lot sooner then any colors.. especially over hills or around corners.

Which is exactly why the tags should only show up after you actually see the player, but thats beyond the point.

Angelus

with respect, completely disagree on this.

played many mmo’s, never noticed a body color before a name color

And you wouldn’t. Your brain does that for you so you don’t have to. You remove a possible conflicting factor by standardizing colors, which lets you focus on other things faster.

Nametags are a convenience, especially in close range encounters. Outside of situations where you shouldn’t be able to see them in the first place like the previous quote I’ve answered to, I am fairly certain that rainbow colored enemies with no consistency would contribute to situational awareness and tire you out quicker.

Your brain recognizes the contrasting colors way faster then it notices the red text above them. Not even going into the headache infusing color combos that are possible and the additional “distraction” your brain has to deal with during tight combat situations. It is mostly done on a subconscious level afaik, but enforcing color discipline for team play aids situational awareness and prevents any issues coming from “distracting” color combinations.

The “art” of discussion is bleeding out in the corner, both outside of the Interwebs and on it, where it wasn’t that healthy in the first place. There is a very hilarious paradox that while, in theory, Internet/text based communication removes plenty of factors that can negatively affect disucssion, the lack of said factors actually makes things worse overall, not better.

I have no idea how the “happy players don’t feel the need to vent on forums” argument factors into all this, but if I had to take a guess, I would probably agree that a person posting on a forum is more likely to have a problem with the game, wants to see something changed, clarified etc.

Then there is the whole “Its all just negative and pointless” fad that has been going around as well, additionally crippled by the completely unnatural understanding of what discussion is and how it works propagated by a lot of the “popular” sources.

Overall, if you know the principles of good, logical argumentation, know when to call it quits, don’t use trendy words like “strawman” , avoid extremes and generally approach everything with an appropriate distance, you will do fine. Internet Forums as a general rule do require a thick skin and distance to yourself, but that can be said about any sort of discussion medium.

Its the Black Pearl! They know you saw them now and will come for you at night

Seriously though, sounds like the ship is either an ambient moving “prop” that gets bugged or as suggested, related to an event (and presumably bugged).

What forums have you registered with the email?
What other services did you use it on?
Is it featured anywhere in public?

Sounds like you were just part of a random swoop of someone’s database of emails and passwords, considering the kitten poor security used on a lot of Internet forums or even more serious services, if you use the e-mail for anything other stuff that cannot be found via searching/accessing your profile, chances are that at least your e-mail is in some database somewhere.

Your attributes are not lowered. The white numbers are your base attributes, the green ones are the attributes after any trait/skill/etc mods (including downscaling where it applies). Everything is working properly.

EVE and UO both feature total equipement/gear/etc loss on death. In short, only in this case does open PvP make any sense at all and that is only when backed by strong sandbox elements.

WvWvW is “open” PvP, you can even gank people who are trying to get exploration, etc. Without total loss/sandbox mechanics (where said losses play a major part in the games economy and also make sure that the risk of oPvP actually offsets the silliness of it or serves a different purpose in general) open PvP servers are generally huge gank fests, further made unfair by gear differences.

Surprise, surprise the “harr open world PvP kill everyone” ego stroking tends to vanish much when one mistake costs you all your stuff.

In short, WvW lets you do all the things you can do with non-total loss MMO oPvP servers with the exception of only dealing with people aware of the danger and willing to deal with it. Sorries, no noob ganking and high school bully-like behavior for you ;P

Ladders, rankings, “high end” tournaments and anything else should only be launched after post-release balancing is done. They are utterly worthless imho before the devs have got a chance to both fix the bugs and adjust the general balance based on data gathered post launch. And no, this cannot be done in beta tests (unless its a softlaunch Open Beta), the population of such is typically too small.

Spending the initial post-launch month(s) getting to know the game, mechanics and possibly even helping with the post-launch work probably will help you skyrocket in the “hardcore” sPvP layers once they are ready. Just saying.

Pretty much the only utility of drop-ins in sPvP is some mindless fun/ganking/getting glory. People tend to do that with classes that are “easy”, especially against noobs.

The fact that a solid majority of casual PvP players (for whom the drop ins are intended) go with the least like of opposition and build FOTM characters is nothing new to MMOs. This will shift in tourneys if/when classes are balanced as much as possible and experimenting with the trait tree/abilties/weapons works as intended. Then again, the “hardcore” PvPers tend to stick to “tried” builds, but thats as much a question of an established team make-up/dynamic as it is the nature of PvP communities to extend certain builds believed to be “optimal” to a pedestal and ostracizing anything else (sometimes for good reason).

In short, casual/lazy PvPers “farming” glory via noob-unfriendly / percieved as OP characters is nothing new and I am fairly certain anet has better tools to gauge PvP game statistics then random screen-shots.

Image does not bear typical traits of shopping, few things seem a bit off, but not enough to call it a fake from the get go:

No timestamps on the loot drops makes it problematic to determine if it is a drop or someone just did some looting, went to the bank or any other source and picked up a Dusk, then went back to looting. This is mildly tin-hat theory though, but is easily enough done that making such an SS requires next to no hassle.

No shot of the actual loot drop appearing either in the corner with autoloot on or the loot bag with auto loot off.

The fact that its presented in a new tab seems mildly fishy, and a shot like this is easily doable if you have a dusk in your bank, mail, etc. anywhere. The question is why would someone do that, but it is the Internet and reddit. People do very stupid stuff for no reason there.

I would be skeptical, but again, I do not see anything from the get go that would let me call it a fake other then inner skepticism. On the other hand, there is nothing on that shot that would make me consider it confirmed.

Pretty sure its not shopped though.

I seriously doubt that the paid tournaments will drive the premades away form free tournaments.

In fact, since this is the Internet, I can more or less see pub-stomping done on purpose or for getting the chests. Tourneys don’t seem to be a place for pugging at all.

I am more or less fine with that, since if I want “easy”, casual play I do drop-ins, but I honestly can’t see how the supposed argument of ‘needlessly “separating” players by doing solo (or solo/duo) and premade tourneys’ works, considering the match making is cross server. It seems to scare away a whole set of players that might do and ultimately advance to the “hardcore” tournaments via joining a guild or a group later on. Getting rotflstomped by a pre-made in what seems to be an introduction to tournament mode seems counter intuitive. It scares away anyone who wants to learn how 5v5 tourneys work before even trying to do it seriously, or just people who want the “middle ground” between the randomness of drop-ins and set piece character of “hardcore” tPvP. I would definitely opt for a random tourney (or even just random arena, like GW1) option somewhere down the line.

What I am saying is that pugs should not be already more “punished” for pugging then they are just from the character of the beast by getting rolled over by organized teams just like premades shouldn’t be rewarded with free stuff just because they start with the very significant advantage of have a set-piece, specced set and possibly voice comm and/or tight strategy for the maps. If you add the “paid” part of Paid Toruneys, they will need to get stuff to get/buy/craft the tickets. Which, apart form the gem store comes from… Tournament rewards. Unless the ticket system is changed in some way, I can safely see low to mid level premades being forced to “farm” pugs.

Orr is a nice taste of things to (hopefully) come I think. Outside of the bugs, etc, most of the major meta-events, the shrines especially, but also the attack on the Gates of Arah or the invasion trains in SoD tend to nicely take the zerg mentality and punishes you for it. I sure hope that new content follows this and requires even more coordination and forward thinking to make the events fun.

Some high points that I remember:

The Shrine of Lyssa. The entire place is a huge zerg-punter, due to the requirement to hold the 3 power nodes while a team takes the main boss down.

The Shrine of Balthazaar. Oh hey, you are downed, I will res you in that big red aoe that instakills anything bellow 20k health.

The Shrine of… Uh… I forgot :X. The CS one that spawns the shades. Extra points for people who do know how to kill them, but either do not remove the shade killing buff (which stacks a very nasty debuff on you) or drag the boss right to the NPC that needs to stay alive.

The Gates of Arah, the “2nd” step after the invasion proper starts, swarms of Risen swarming form the top of the stairs! Well, that’s easy! Lets just zerg them before they get to the capture points. Oh wait, we should have left some people across the span of the capture point to guard it form the risen that spawn inside? Oops!

Mind you, most of those can be averted if you zerg is big enough, but I do hope that in upcoming content anet continues this trend of forcing fore thought, splitting up and coordination to complete the huge DE chains. I especially like the idea of a “building” invasion like in SoD, with the pre-events and performance during them give you better odds later on, or change something, but are a challenge to “perfectly” complete on their own. The meta-DE system has some interesting possibilities, even if you assume that most players will just zerg rush. It just really shines through in Orr, where events not only require you to do just a bit more, but also fail if you don’t, forcing a restart.