Guild Wars 2

Very interesting input, thanks guys.

You’ve found that pug groups generally can’t pull of portal bombs and similar mesmer tricks very well then? I think I’ve been quite lucky with that, our pugs seem to get what to do in those cases pretty well.

Whilst Guardians are the safe favourite as commanders, I’ve been wondering why Mesmers aren’t more popular as commanders.

Mesmers can match Guardians in terms of close range DPS, and at long range have more DPS. Survivability, the real important bit of commanding is pretty good on a Mesmer with a combination of clones, illusions, blinds, stealths and evades helping out a lot. But, the real bonus of a Mesmer commander is is the unrivaled group abilities. Portals into enemy keeps, null field, time warp, veil stealths.

So why aren’t there more Mesmer commanders? Would being a Mesmer commander make much sense?

http://lifeasadigitalsalad.wordpress.com

Life As A Digital Salad, a blog focused on GW2 that looks at all sorts of current topics.

Sometimes controversial, always laid back, Life As A Digital Salad is worth a look.

With all these changes I’m going to try to get the OP up to date with all the changes, please stick with me while I work on this.

Toli Rosca.9041:

My medium T3 armour doesn’t seem to glow :-/

Sorry about that, we had info on that a few posts back and I thought I had editted it to say that it doesn’t glow. I always thought it did, its a real shame that it doesn’t – its put me off buying it. Sorry the info wasn’t correct, I’ll update it now. I hope you like your T3 all the same, its a great armour.

tanf.8917:

makes no sense.. they need to make them all glowable sigh.. :<
Don’t let this topic die so maybe in the future we will get some sort of fix…

I really think they should all glow, its our special trait as sylvari – we glow! – and yet our cultural armours hardly feature it at all. I hope we get more glows as well at some point.

It seems this isn’t a popular opinion, but I agree with the OP.

I agree on a wider point in wvw though, that all players should respect somebody wandering solo who does nothing to you. I’m a regular wvw player myself and have often passed by enemies who are clearly afk and just let them be. That’s not what world versus world is supposed to be about, griefing people for having the ‘audacity’ to need to go afk briefly. In jumping puzzles I’ve often worked with ‘enemies’, because I have no grudge against them and killing them serves no purpose.

I’m pretty shocked by the responses to this idea aswell, that somehow wvw is the land of tough heroes and pve players are just whimps. Quit with the superiority complexes. World versus world is supposed to be about servers clashing in war to win. Sure there’s stealth tactics in that, like ambushing and scouts, but mugging people who pose no threat to you achieves nothing for your server’s effort.

World versus world is about your world winning by gaining the most points – individuals ambushing in the jumping puzzles like to pretend that they’re helping their server but they do nothing for the cause at all and is a sad indictment of the kind of lack of community spirit and morals that pervades many servers.

Its about time there was little more chivalry.

/wave

Junkpile.7439:

stjf.7180:

It’s been an interesting week, coming from a SFR member. We’ve certainly lost, so kudos to PS and VS for that. I’m not going to cry conspiracy, there certainly has been a lot of pressure put on us but that’s just shrewd strategic thinking from PS and VS commanders.

What’s really shown up for me this week is how broken the SFR community seems to be. We get a bit of pressure from the other servers, have a bad week as all servers do, and suddenly fingers start pointing. I’ve seen so many people blame pve achievement hunters for our failure – I’ve never seen another server complain of more people getting involved. Certainly VS for one seem to have the right idea, get them involved. I’ve never seen such well coordinated or large groups as those from VS, and the only way that happens is through involving all players from the hardcore wvw to the achievement hunting pve.

I’ve had some fun in small groups this week, especially on Tuesday morning where a small group of us fought bravely against huge VS numbers and came out with some victories. Frankly, though, I feel that the SFR community is broken beyond repair to the stage that I’m now looking for another server.

Funniest part is that players who actually try force some community thing are first ones who flee. Make guild, go fight and communicate other guilds maybe even PUGs. It’s just so simple.

I have a guild and we do try and fight. Most of my members have now given up on wvw though, not because of the losing, but because of the attitude of other players. I have tried communicating with other guilds, but generally they haven’t wanted to know when I offer a cross-guild partnership to coordinate together. We seem to have a real problem with guild elitism on SFR, which fosters the kind of divisive community spirit that ruins the server for me.

Its left me with the only option of trying to get random PUGs into a group to fight, but that’s difficult even when you’re not against the finely tuned fighting machine of VS. I enjoy it, but its not going to get us victories against our current rivals.

It’s been an interesting week, coming from a SFR member. We’ve certainly lost, so kudos to PS and VS for that. I’m not going to cry conspiracy, there certainly has been a lot of pressure put on us but that’s just shrewd strategic thinking from PS and VS commanders.

What’s really shown up for me this week is how broken the SFR community seems to be. We get a bit of pressure from the other servers, have a bad week as all servers do, and suddenly fingers start pointing. I’ve seen so many people blame pve achievement hunters for our failure – I’ve never seen another server complain of more people getting involved. Certainly VS for one seem to have the right idea, get them involved. I’ve never seen such well coordinated or large groups as those from VS, and the only way that happens is through involving all players from the hardcore wvw to the achievement hunting pve.

I’ve had some fun in small groups this week, especially on Tuesday morning where a small group of us fought bravely against huge VS numbers and came out with some victories. Frankly, though, I feel that the SFR community is broken beyond repair to the stage that I’m now looking for another server.

Wiz.1543:

stjf.7180:

Thank you for all the new responses – the more we get the more accurate we can be!

T2 glow with screen
Edit: Light armor

Thank you for the screenshot and congratulations on the bifrost. I’ve been told by quite a few that male T2 light doesn’t glow, and bifrost does cause the character to glow when wielded – so I won’t change that for now before I get some more info.

Thank you everyone for the information, its great that everybody’s still interested to see this list.

TY for the congrats on the bifrost <3 most awesome ele weapon imho.

Here is a screen with t2 armor without any weapon.

You can see some glow but you can debate if thats skin of part of the armor.

Thank you for that screenshot, it definitely does look as if there’s some sort of glow on t2 light and it does look linked to your personal glow. I’ll update that, thank you.

wizzard.1295:

stjf.7180:

I can’t really see any glow in those pictures, maybe if you have a picture which better shows it I can then change it? Thank you for input though!

Better?

Thank you for the screenshots, they’re much clearer. I can see that the arms and bulbs at your waist have some sort of glow, but it doesn’t seem linked to your personal glow. There’s definitely something faint there but I don’t think its enough to add to the list – if someone buys it expecting a glow they’d probably be disappointed.

Thank you for all the new responses – the more we get the more accurate we can be!

Argodis.2514:

I can confirm that Medium Female T1 armor does glow.

I can’t really see any glow in those pictures, maybe if you have a picture which better shows it I can then change it? Thank you for input though!

robbo.8235:

Male Medium tier 3 doesn’t glow. It’s just bright and stays the same whether its dark or not.

I always thought it did glow, and was told repeatedly that it did, but some further research shows that you are right, it really doesn’t glow. What a disappointment that that’s another off the list. Thank you for the info though!

Defora.3694:

Female light TA armor glows (or allows sylvari’s own glow be seen trough). Chest has glowing spots on arms&back. Skit’s front panels glow.

Thank you gemnscout for this info as well. As its fairly subtle, but especially as it always seems to be white rather than linked to your own glow colour, I won’t add this to the list at the moment. It’s looking like we might need a special category for special case glows now.

Wiz.1543:

T2 glow with screen
Edit: Light armor

Thank you for the screenshot and congratulations on the bifrost. I’ve been told by quite a few that male T2 light doesn’t glow, and bifrost does cause the character to glow when wielded – so I won’t change that for now before I get some more info.

Thank you everyone for the information, its great that everybody’s still interested to see this list.

Thank you again for all the responses. Please do keep the information coming.

If we get more information on TA armours I’ll update the OP with a list of them. As of right now we know that Male Light glows, but Male Heavy doesn’t. As far as I know Female Heavy doesn’t glow either, but that is just based on a brief glance at someone in it this week. If anybody reading this has more evidence, and hopefully some screenshots as well, please do share them here!

Thank you Red Jay and gryphonwing for the updates, I have both of those armours, and although they do glow ever so slightly it’s really very minor when compared with the fantastic glows of, for instance, Female Tier 2 Light. I didn’t want anybody to read this thread and get the idea that they glowed, buy them and then be disappointed. So, with that in mind I’ll leave them as no glow. Thank you for the info though!

Thank you for all your responses, I’ve updated the OP accordingly.

On the male T2 medium, it turns out I’ve been living a lie. I was convinced my ranger had worn it since he reached level 80 months ago. I’ve found out, thanks to your helpful responses, that I actually went for T1. So, you’ve also helped me to discover I was deceiving myself. Thank you!

I have female T2 heavy and have never spotted any glowing, but I can imagine that I could have easily missed a subtle glow on the back and stomach with her current dyes. I might leave that as a ‘no glow’ simply because it’s so subtle that it’s easily missed – and it might mislead people if I say that it glows.

Thank you Golgathoth for letting me know that some TA glows for sylvari. Does anyone else have more details on this? If we have more posts I’ll add that as a seperate little chart showing which glow/don’t glow.

Thank you again for your responses and please do keep replying, and if possible posting pictures of your lovely glowing sylvaris.

Thank you for the response Renske. I’ll update the OP right away with the info you’ve given me. I think some of the armour on the character you posted in the second screenshot was tier 2 medium, but I’m not sure. I’ll leave tier 1 medium as it is for now until we get some more evidence together.

It’s interesting what you say about TA light and some T2 staying brighter in darker areas. Two characters that I play often, one T2 female heavy and one T2 male medium, both don’t glow but the T2 male medium seems to be much brighter in dark areas than the T2 female heavy. That could of course be our graphics being strange!

EDIT: This compendium was completed before the changes to sylvari cultural armours happened at the start of November. I’ll try to update it in light of all the changes, and changes in the future, but please stick with me as it’s become quite complicated. Thank you!

I wanted to start a threat dedicated to the Sylvari cultural armour glow. I love the cultural armours and have owned a fair few, but trawling through the forums I’ve never been able to find a list of exactly what does/doesn’t glow. So, I’m going to start a list in this OP that everyone can check on if they want to know if the armour they’re about to buy glows or not. I don’t have evidence for every single tier of armour, so if you know any I’ve listed are wrong, please post (ideally with a screenshot). Anyway, without further waiting here’s the list:

Bold = glow, underlined = no glow

Heavy Male: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3
Heavy Female: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3

Medium Male: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3
Medium Female: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3

Light Male: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3
Light Female: Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3

So, I hope this helps and please do post if you have any other info. We’re also trying to piece together exactly which bits of Twilight Arbour dungeon armour glow on a Sylvari but we need more information on this, if you know anything please do post. So far we have:

Heavy Male
Heavy Female

Medium Male
Medium Female

Light Male
Light Female

Note: with the light TAs it looks like they will always glow white regardless of your glow or your dyes.

I also really like Order of Venvardis’s idea for jumping on the back of moving mosshearts. I imagine it’d be difficult to do from a game developer point of view, but maybe if they could work it so it wasn’t too much effort we could have that as well – it definitely sounds fun! I’ll include it in the OP

I thought today would be a perfect day to inject some life back in to this idea. We still have no city jumping puzzles other than in LA, but today has marked the end of the Great Collapse in Divinity’s Reach which was one of our ideas for a jumping puzzle.

Amongst all the business in DR, it got me thinking about the idea again and I really hope we eventually get city jumping puzzles. There’s still plenty of opportunities for jumping puzzles in DR, I’m really glad to see the garden idea is still getting lots of positive attention. I think the new Crown Plaza offers great potential for a jumping puzzle in itself.

Having nearly completed all of the jumping puzzles in game at least once (I know I’m fairly late to the party on that, but some have vexed me for a long time :P) I really am itching to go and do more. I want us all to have more jumping puzzles and I want us all to be able to see the cultural cities from a new, beautiful, perspective. I really want this to happen, so please post your support if you agree and lets keep this idea going.

I’m pretty shocked at the response I got to my elitism post earlier. I certainly didn’t mean to provoke any sort of storm like this. I don’t mean to be airing dirty SFR laundry on this thread, and I apologise to JS or Kodash people witnessing our little dispute.

I definitely understand the benefits of teamspeak. You can’t explain a faint attack for instance in team chat with quite the same efficiency. I also don’t think its elitism to use teamspeak, I don’t judge anybody for using it. What I was trying to get was that not everybody can use teamspeak or wants to. I know most computers can run it, that’s not my main concern (although I do have guild friends who’s computers have crashed when trying teamspeak with heavy gameplay going on). What I’m really getting at is that many people don’t want orders barked at them through teamspeak.

Aside from the abuse that females get on teamspeak, how do you think someone who has a job and is at work all day long feels when they’re told that they have to go on teamspeak and listen to someone barking orders at them. Not everybody wants to use teamspeak. That doesn’t mean that nobody should, and if it helps those who want to use it coordinate better than that’s good. What I am pointing out is that since this week’s new match up there are too many people requiring teamspeak. Those who back-seat command when a commander is not on teamspeak is another symptom of this.

Its not teamspeak that I’m having a go at, its the worrying change in the community spirit symbolised by the increasing requirement to have teamspeak. Non-teamspeakers are a valuable addition to any team, I worry about side-lining them. I want our community to stay together as one and be strong, not be split between those who use teamspeak and those who don’t.

I’ve been having great fun with my guild friends in this new tier, I think everyone in SFR is glad to have some real fun for a change.

I definitely have been noticing some changes in the SFR community since the drop though, like Farzo mentioned.

Farzo.8410:

Hopefully Seafarer’s Rest will continue doing good.

Some players are trying to alienate casuals and pugs by forcing them to join Teamspeak, and completely leave them out of any information if they don’t join, hiding the Commander Tag and everything.

Sure, Guilds are strong, and can do well, but remember that there are a lot of randoms that join your zerg as well, increasing your numbers even more.

Just saying, do not alienate casuals and pugs. The Random player is pretty much everything that keeps the server strong.

I’ve been noticing the teamspeak elitism creeping in since we dropped, suggesting that elitists had given up on SFR wvw and have now returned. The reality with teamspeak is that it is exclusionary, i.e. not all computers can cope with that and a blob in wvw as well. As well, with teamspeak, the amount of abuse and/or inappropriate advances you get if you are female on it is atrocious, and certainly ruins the community feel that wvw should promote. As for the argument that those not on teamspeak die quicker and do not follow the commander well, firstly the commander tag is there to be followed and non-teamspeakers do follow it and secondly, as a non-teamspeaker myself, i rarely die before those on teamspeak – we stand or die together. Relying on teamspeak and isolating those who don’t use it is really not productive and I hope the teamspeak elitism that’s returned to SFR disappears again soon.

Also on the teamspeak thing, I’ve also been noting an increase in the numbers of back-seat commanders in SFR recently. The amount of people who, especially if the commander they are following is not on teamspeak, question every single move they make is increasing at a worrying rate. Frankly, you don’t have to follow a commander; if you don’t like their tactics then stop following them and stop back-seat commanding.

I really don’t want to put a downer on it, I’m finding the new tier fantastic fun compared to the dull viz-fest of tier 1, but the returning elitism in the SFR wvw community is really beginning to concern me. Please can we cut it out and remember that this game is for fun.

As a SFR fighter, I’m very glad to be in T2 now. You guys have your fair share of blobers and arrow cart cheating, I’m sure some of our guys probably do it too for which I can only apologise, but you are nothing compared to Viz.

I especially want to give a shout out to the people involved in the fantastic battle in the south of Kodash’s border last night, went on for a long while and was a great contest between Jade and SFR. Despite being outnumbered slightly we managed to edge the battle in the end, and it was a great feeling to see that last Jades running away from us in fear. My guildies and I had great fun raiding the camps up in the north of the map as well, there wasn’t a dolyak getting through for a good hour or so. Viz would of zerged us to death at the mere sight of a raid into their territory, so I thank you for the good contest.

I hope we can keep this tier together for a while, its turning out to be a really good fun week of fighting. Lets keep it continuing!

I’m glad everybody is still loving the ideas of city jumping puzzles so much. I just wanted to share an anecdote about the idea: a RL friend of mine was relatively new to guild wars and was a late comer to jumping puzzles. Having done a few he asked me where they were in the cities, to which I could only reply that for whatever reason there isn’t any but everybody wants some!

Please keep commenting and sharing this idea so that we can make it happen!

This is continuing to seriously affect my play. Every time I log in and play I die at least once from jump looping or get the fall damage bug. They have to be linked and I hope such a serious bug gets a response soon, its really negatively affecting play which I’ve always otherwise enjoyed.

Having happened to me on my flamethrower engi the other day it also happened to a guildie ranger yesterday. So far the only guildies reporting this problem are medium armours, especially the engis. I wonder why its only affecting us?

Been posting on the ‘jump looping’ thread which has just been merged with this (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/jump-looping/first). That was getting at a similar problem, I’ll copy the OP of that below:

’Since the latest patch, I have been finding that after a large jump or a fall, my character is warped back to their original position before jumping again. I know this occurred previously in orr, when jumping towards an invisible wall, but this is occurring in the pirate and troll’s end jumping puzzle now. Also on vistas. The other members of my guild have also had this occur.

This continues even after death, and only stops if I manage to run out of the original path before it loops again.

There seems to be no correlation between character race or profession and no skills are used before jumping. I have no idea why it keeps occurring. I can’t really take a screen shot as it just looks like I’m jumping.

Any help would be appreciated.’

I’ve been having this problem a lot, just doing the jumping puzzles today for my monthly out of 5 I had looping problems on all of them (in one case 4 out 4 attempts got looping before I gave up).

We had someone post a video of exactly what happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsANqpVNKIM. – although this is more your damage bug, in our case its glitching so that you character does the same jump again and again until the cumulative fall damage kills you.

Its not a problem of damage the bug that we were talking about, but it probably is related to yours. One of the poster on our thread had an idea that its part of the teleporting code gone wrong, which would cover both of our bugs. Have you guys been having this same problem?

Thank you for everyone’s continued support. I’ve updated the op to include a few more of our ideas, but please keep coming up with them. The more we come up with hopefully the closer we get to these puzzles becoming reality!

I had this on my engi yesterday doing path 3. I thought it might be something to do with my weapon kit because I run with a might stacking flamethrower build, so I dropped my bundle only to be left with duel pistols which I haven’t traited for at all as my only skills. It meant I was all but useless for the rest of the dungeon when I had been doing quite high damage, especially on burrows.

Hitting 0 does nothing and seeing as the tool belt skills are still there skills 6-10 must be as well, they must be be covered over by a glitchy transformation for engis.

A solution to this bug would be great.

XxTAFxX.6741:

Sure i got screenshots.
This is at 2am when we lucky to have 15-20 players on eb and this is viz every night.
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/908/gw033x.jpg

Like i said they only come out when the odds are against us.
Also not insulting those players it’s a fact they only fight when the odds are against us.
it does not take skill to do that tbh.

wvw is a mess atm even i’m going to stop playing until we drop down at least.

I think this screenshot sums it up pretty well. I’ve seen zergs that size even later in the night than 2am and what can a medium population server like SFR do against that? Deso and SFR can only field a fraction of those numbers at those times. At peak times we could match it, but then of course Viz are mega zergs at that time (I’ve seen zergs that were bigger than my screen from a long distance away at peak time from Viz).

Its no fun being swept away by hordes. They’re well commanded, but the only skill involved in that for Viz commanders is moving big groups coherently around the map quickly – other than that they needn’t fight well once they get there. I’m not surprised Deso and SFR are fed up, and as a member of SFR I fully support our drive to drop down a tier, it can only be more fun than this tier one mess.

Just to give an example of my own. Last night a mixed group of guild friends, some allies of our guilds and random hangers on managed to break out in the Deso borderland (all of the south of the map being Viz at the time). We managed to siege a castle quickly and take it before their zerg could arrive, taking down more than our own number in defenders. Less than 2 minutes after we took it a huge zerg turned up, outnumbering us at least 3 to 1. We held them off with little difficulty, they washed against the castle like water. That was the most rewarding victory I’ve had in wvw for a while. Then of course they got an even bigger zerg to roll over us not 5 mins later, nothing could have held against that number with a group of 4/5 superior catapults bombarding us. That zerg was bigger than probably all of our fighters in all servers at the time, what could we do? It can’t be fun for Viz to do that and its not fun for SFR.

Viz, you’ll soon find that no-one wants to fight against you with these tactics, which I fully appreciate are what the current game structure calls for – but it simply isn’t fun, for us or for you. Eventually it will get to a stage where tier one is Viz and 2 other servers which race to drop down back to tier 2 where the real fun happens. What fun will it be for Viz fighting against servers that have already decided to give up? That will be all of your own making when it happens.

Coming from SFR, we’re fed up of being washed away by mega zergs from VS. They’re not particularly clever, more about getting numbers around the map quickly (which I recognise as a skill in itself, especially keeping such mega zergs together as one I know is very difficult). There’s not much to be done when VS can always field more at any given time, especially night time when both us and Deso are practically wiped on a typical night.

I think everyone on SFR finds it incredibly boring being in the top tier and we just want to drop down and play wvw for some fun in tier 2. That’s why we have no strategy right now, we’re purposely avoiding it to drop down asap. Of course, there’ll always be some people who want to go down with a fight, hence the occasional fight back off our server (not that I’ve seen many last more than an hour this week). That’s up to them, but its not going to change our overall drive to drop down a tier for some real fun.

I can only wish that VS find an opponent who likes being trampled on by hordes for fun, we certainly don’t.

I’ve had this happening lots since the latest patch. I had it in all 3 LA jumping puzzles, so badly that both me and my guildie died even though we made the jump first time, it decided to loop us and drop us onto a flat surface.

I’d really like to know whats going on with this, its been happening lots to me and my friends recently.

Good ideas for the Grove. I was just wondering about the Grove in particular because all the other cities have ready made areas already existing within their cities, like the Great Collapse, that would just have jumping puzzle ledges added to them to make them into a puzzle. The Grove is the only one I can’t think of with a ready made area for a puzzle other than a mushroom puzzle up one of the central roots. I think incorporating the puzzle into the existing city infrastructure is far for preferable than making a new area in the city.

Any more ideas for the Grove?

I’m glad to see the idea’s are still getting such positive responses. Hopefully with this kind of unanimous support for the ideas they might eventually happen.

TAPzilla, I know the bit you mean in Rata Sum. I made it down to the bottom of the core of Rata Sum before, you can jump down from ledge to ledge most of the way. So that definitely feels like its ready made.

A mountain climb could be brought in to a Hoelbrak jumping puzzle. That might be a good one for a relatively simple puzzle.

The Grove probably does need to be vertical, but I’m not sure exactly where it could be with the current layout. Currently there’s the jump where you can wear goggles and dive right down, which might work as a mechanic in the jumping puzzle there. I’m just not sure where the puzzle could be integrated into the place. There’s the one high point at the very bottom where you climb up mushrooms to reach it, perhaps a simple one could use that idea and have mushrooms up a large tree. Underwater/underground would definitely be a good way of integrating it in to the city, good idea.

I think people would do them, although probably not huge numbers. The puzzles would always probably have a couple of people doing it at once, although ti would probably only be slightly noticeable in increased numbers around in the cities generally, but I think even that would be worth while.

We have lots of ideas for the Black Citadel, Divinity’s Reach and Rata Sum. What about ideas for puzzles in The Grove and Hoelbrak?

Thanks again for the support for my ideas everyone, your input helps no end as well.

I definitely think, as Seera was getting at, that there needs to be a few jumpng puzzles in each of the cities, which allows for some nailing biting ones on the outskirts of Rata Sum balanced with a relatively less nerve wracking puzzle in a messy lab in the depths of the city (with possibilities for Asura tech being involved in that). That way, as well, people can be spread out throughout the cities to give them some life back.

I definitely think the puzzle is the reward in itself and that the chests should be just like any other jumping puzzle chest.

I’ll update the OP with the new ideas for puzzles that people have put forwards and I’ll credit you for your ideas where I can.

I guess a lot of people do the WvW jumping puzzles for the badges of honour, but hopefully city ones would get that kind of traffic as well even without the draw of badges. It sounds like there’s plenty of support for them at least, so I think they would be fairly busy.

I was thinking about the integration point. I was thinking the Black Citadel has a ready made jumping puzzle in the Ruins of Nolani, but it feels separate from the Citadel and I was really hoping for puzzles that felt involved in the core of the cities. I think they’d definitely have to be integrated into the heart of the cities to work, not on the far outskirts. Generally my ideas achieved that, at least I hope so!

I like the ideas of Mini Games in the cities as well, Pixelpumpkin. I hope both that and this idea happen some time, it would make the racial cities something really special.

An outside one on the Black Citadel could work. They could even make a reference to the death star, with the end being a conveniently sized ‘air conditioning duct’ that you have to drop through and onto a platform for the chest.

A junk filled lab in Rata Sum could work really well, although I’m not too sure about the maze aspect.

What do people think the reward for a city jumping puzzle should be?

Thanks for the positive feedback guys!

I think there’s definitely space and enough interesting ideas to do more than one in each city, so maybe more than one (with one being a bit trickier than the rest) would be good, like Seera says.

Do you think it would make much difference to encouraging people out from Lion’s Arch to the other cities? I’m not sure it would made too much difference, but even a little difference would help.

7/10 – it doesn’t quite work as a Sylvari name for me, I tend to like more gaelic sounding names personally, but I like how unique it is and congratz on getting a single name!

My female guardian is called Rhyfelwen – its a corruption of the welsh word for warrior.

‘This rose has thorns. Here they are!’ is a personal favorite on my female guardian when she gets retaliation. I adventure with a Norn Guardian often and we joke about his equivalent ‘Hmmmm, feels nice’ and which of one sounds funniest.

The Moletariat is pretty awesome, I remember smiling when I heard one of them say it. It just interests me why they do have a society like that from a lore point of view.

Thank you, that explains a lot of the questions I had about the Dredge’s lore. Although, I still don’t entirely get how they went from slaves crying out for their freedom straight to a communist collective, it seems rather a leap to make in a short amount of time.

First of all, I want to make it clear I have no problems with Communism, I’m asking this out of curiosity and nothing more. That said, it has struck me whilst adventuring that the Dredge seem to have been designed with something of a communist theme to their lore. For example, you face veteran dredge commissars in events and in the Priory story line you come up against Directorate Chief Spalaxinov. You also hear dredge miners saying things such as ‘you have collected for the good of the collective’ when wandering about their mines.

What my question is really is why have the dredge developed what appears to be a communist society?

Thank you for your reply ensoriki, its interesting that you also enjoy Elementalist and Engineer. What build do you use out of interest?

Would it make much sense to have stealth utilities with a S/P & SB build then?

I’ve been playing as various professions and have tried all of them at some point. I’ve hit level 80 on my engineer and my elementalist and decided to return to my very first character, a ranger that I left at level 40. The trouble is, the ranger is so boring, so frustrating and so broken that I’m finding it awful to play as. So, I wanted to see what the thief profession could offer me instead?

I’m not a great fan of stealth on games, but I feel I could get used to the GW2 thief stealth mechanism. I would probably run a SB and S/P build, but I wondered what you would recommend on traits and utilities? I like versatility, being able to hit powerfully (whether through power-bursts or conditions I don’t really mind so long as I can see myself making a difference!), and being able to support my allies in a meaningful way.

Most of all though, would you recommend me to re-roll as a thief? If I had no emotional attachment to my ranger I would probably of changed weeks ago, so I really need you to sell me the profession!

I’ve always been a big fan of conjured weapons. I’ve always used them and find them great fun to play with.

I agree with some of the points you make about Frost Bow, but I think the important point is that its situational. I find Frost Bow pretty useful in wvw and some pve group events, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a general purpose conjure, its probably the 2nd weakest if you ask me. Its probably best to ignore earth shield as well, that is a waste of a utility.

However, I have always used lightening hammer from the moment I unlocked it. Its a great weapon that has some very very handy control effects. It also covers area damage with lightening storm, its an all rounded very decent weapon if you ask me. Plus, there’s nothing more fun than wielding a huge hammer made of electricity.

Fiery greatsword I’m also a big fan of, with a nice range of abilities from the closer melee to area effects. I generally prefer lava axe though, the fact that its more range focused appeals to me but again, its got a nice range of abilities.

I think, overall, conjures are a great addition to the elementalist profession and what probably puts it as my favourite profession of all. I think mainly though that conjured weapons provide a welcome change from the standard elementalist model, and through my experience generally allow you to stop kiting as both staff and d/d often end up in sticky situations. They make us more versatile, and add a fun twist into the profession.

I’ve tried pretty much every class to at least level 20, so I thought I’d give you my impressions of each one.

Engineer – my engineer was my first lvl 80. I’d recommend you ignore most of what the engi forum will tell you, because even despite several nerfs they are still great fun with some good builds and good versatility in there. By the sounds of things you would like the grenade build, which is amazing in wvw and in large events. People will tell you that the grenade build is dead after the latest nerf, but I still run it and I can tell you that its still a big hitter and good fun. Dual pistol is probably your only option for main hand weapons though, which is a bit limiting.

Warrior – I find warrior pretty boring personally but I am slowly leveling one up with a fairly unusual build. It focuses on shout utilities, which has some great buffs for you and allies. But the real interesting bit is that I run a rifle/longbow build. Its not so great in pve (although rifle is pretty op in pve). In wvw though it has some great potential, with longbow being very useful in sieges against groups and rifle for everything else. With the shout utilities it can be a pretty handy build. I like it personally because I hate melee in RPGs usually, so I’d recommend giving it a go.

Mesmer – I’ve only just started a mesmer so I cant really comment much, but there’s a lot of things in the mesmer to appeal to those who like elementalist.

Thief – I really hate thieves. They’ve too melee focused for me and I have always hated stealth classes. There are viable range builds but I could never get on with them. The lack of much ally helping abilities other than stealthing really put me off thieves for good.

Guardian – good fun to start with, and you’ll very rarely die, but at higher levels you feel pretty useless. If you like focusing on helping friends then you might like it for the utilities, but you really will sacrifice damage dealing at higher levels unless you also like charging in with your greatsword. The complete lack of any useful range was a deal breaker for me as much as I enjoyed my guardian at lower levels.

Necro – I really enjoy my necro. I run a pretty standard condition focused build, using staff/scepter and staff. There’s some great area control abilities, huge condition damage and even some handy friend buffs. Death shroud is very handy for increasing survivability as well. I’d definitely recommend a necro, but it might take some time and few levels to really get into the swing of it.

Ranger – My ranger was my first character but I just had to abandon them they were that bad, even though I really liked the character and the design. The bow skills are ok at best. The utilities are rubbish though, unless you trait very heavily many will be pretty pointless. I loved my ranger in GW1, but there’s something about GW2 rangers that really really doesn’t click for me. The trait lines are scattered all over the place as well, you’ll struggle to get a really solid build out of them. I’ve always been meh about pets, and if you don’t have one of them with a condition curing ability you’ll be doomed to suffering conditions.

Overall (and apologies for how long this post is), I’d recommend trying out an Engineer (focusing on the builds you find most fun – grenades is still good and fun despite what people say) and a Necro. A warrior range/shout build might be for you, but I do warn you that warriors are really really dull. Avoid guardians, thieves and rangers at all costs. I hope that helps you out. At the end of the day I fear none of the other classes will quite match how much fun you can have as an elementalist whilst also being able to be incredibly supportive and dish out devastating damage.

chronus.1326:

The alternative equals a game of soccer where everyone has a ball and the illusion of difficultity is defined only by the size of the goal.

Guild Wars 2 not only does not promote teamwork but downright promotes solo play because of the heavy repair cost penalty that you get if you fail.

This generates elitism even among people who are masochistic enough to team play, which alienates the bottom tier of a community, which is usually 70% of a community, which then is further alienated by the extending top tier of armor sets that Nexon is forcing down people’s throats now.

In the end what remains?
The lore and the story is as long-lasting as any single-player game’s and the e-sport PvP is a different animal that strives no matter what the game’s system is (thus it should never be a target group which a game is catered to).

It will live the lifespan of a singleplayer game then with the last apologist gone and everyone finally recovering from Post-purchase Rationalization it’s gonna die the death of apathy like most of the other mayflies in the genre.

The novelity is ilusionary.
The “new things” are actually not objectively better than previouisly.

I can completely understand why this is so hard to accept.

It’s because it is so absolutely horrible compared to the first one that everyone is looking for the candid camera staff to jump out and scream “You are on TV!”.

It is so bad that it is unrealistic. It is not something that anyone would expect from ArenaNet. People are looking for some kind of an incomprehensible divine masterplan, or something of the sort, because even that is more believable than just screwing up this hard.

“It must be our fault for not comprehending their vast intellect and how this game succeeds in everything imaginable”

“We must be not playing it the right way.”

Well… uuhh…
No.
It’s just bad.
That’s it.
That’s all.
The end.

Credits.

Surely high repair costs promote teamwork more than soloing? If soloing you’re more likely to be overwhelmed by mobs and die. As a group you are far more likely to survive, and therefore not pay so many high repair costs. I actually think high repair costs is a good factor in that sense.

You seem to think the story, max levelling and getting the best gear is all there is to a game. On an online multiplayer like GW you can do all sorts of things, go adventuring with a friend and have fun. As lunastra said at the top of this page, their guild does hide-n-seek nights, quizzes on lore, themed gatherings, wvw nights. You can do all sorts of things together, and that GW facilitates us all to be able to have fun with friends in a beautiful setting is what makes it a fun game to play.

I for one will play the game for much longer than a single player game. I’ll drop in to wvw matches or wander around with friends in years to come, and I’m sure there are thousands who will do likewise. Perhaps we are also the thousands who play the game to have fun with hide-n-seek nights and the like.

There were some things that I liked in GW1, double profession was something I liked. The reality is though is that that could never work in the GW2 engine, and I’m fine with that. There’s plenty of variety within classes to keep me amused. If I get bored of my engineer I’ll swap to my elementalist (who couldn’t enjoy playing around with the lightening hammer!).

I’m not looking for a divine masterplan of any sorts. GW2 as you see it now is GW2, any changes are going to be minor tinkering or new areas. I like that, I like GW2 as it stands and the fact that it is so busy with so many servers suggests that many people think likewise.

chronus.1326:

Fatfox.4915:

chronus.1326:

Fatfox.4915:

I think GW2, is at the end of the day, what each individual user makes of it.

Sandboxes don’t make good MMOs.

I meant as a unique experience for individuals, not as in a complete sandbox, I don’t want people to start building all over the place and leaving their mark like some cheap housing scheme gone wrong XD. I think the optional bits are what draw some people to the game, as if they don’t want to do it, they can do something else that they enjoy and get an equivalent reward if that’s what they’re in it for.

I have no idea if we share the same idea of a good MMO, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure and all that.
MMO itself is a fluid term, so maybe GW2 is a semi- open-worldish-RPG-MMO-part-RTS-nonlinear-in-places-linear-etc-etc beast that aims to cater for a lot of different tastes and does fairly well considering.

Hopefully more content will be added to make sure that people who want to use deep strategy and team work can do, giving a reason to talk to others but that is still accessible to the generally soloing player, who goes “Hey I feel like working in an organised team today.”

It’s pretty tough to get the balance right, too much optional stuff and those that like to be guided on an adventure get bored, and too much compulsory stuff and people who like wandering and exploring of their own accord get bored. Same with grouping and solo. Good luck ANet!

Societies are built on rules and roles.
If you take those away they stop being societies.

I don’t really see what that has to do with what FatFox says.

Thank you both for your input. I’ve currently been using Ether Renewal as well, the CD makes it especially attractive for me to use and as you say, extra condition removal isn’t entirely wasted.
I don’t want to have to go so far into arcana to get evasive arcana, but I still think I’ve got enough healing with a collection of passive water regeneration, healing cantrips, dagger skill 5 as well as the heal skill.
I think mostly I felt I was missing something on the Signet, that it was far more awesome than I was seeing and that I was just missing something.
For now I’m probably going to still to ER then.

I apologise if this has already been brought up on this sub-forum but I’m new to the class, currently leveling up my Norn Elementalist as my 3rd character and having a great time. I’m running a D/D build, focusing on Fire and Water for most things with cantrips and conjure weapons as skills (lightening hammer has to be one of the most fun skills in the game!).
As great as I’m finding elementalist, I’m having a few issues deciding on which healing skill is best. I don’t need condition removal as I have that covered through other skills, which makes Ether Renewal semi-useful to me. However, the quick cd on ER is quick attractive. As for Signet of Restoration, I’m suspicious of just how much healing it can provide; especially when your in a bit of a mush and need lots of healing in a hurry. I guess that leaves Glyph of Elemental Harmony, but then when you take cd into consideration, and the fact that to be super-effective you really need to be in water, it just seems a bit lack-luster.
I’d appreciate anyone’s thoughts on this, as I’m loving the class and want to pin down which healing skill to stick with.

Lunastra.1098:

Well, I don’t think this will remove anyone’s problem, I just wanted to state I don’t feel like the game discourages grouping up with people and talking – at least for me. I tend to play with random people: I help them do hearts and events that I’ve done before, I chat with people on map chat, I chat with my guild.. I actually get stuff done & have fun while doing so! Also, if you feel like you can’t do anything with your guild, can’t you organize something? The guild I’m in has had quizzes (lore-related, for instance), hide-n-seek games, WvWvW nights (let’s go get our borderlands back!), fractals, dungeons, clearing areas such as Queensdale while helping other players in that area, a “charrs only”-night, roleplay-night..

Sometimes you can’t expect the game company to give you everything, but instead create your own content and your own fun with your guild or a group of random friends! After all.. Isn’t that what your community is for? Having fun and coming up with stuff to do together?

(Sorry, if this post seems completely meaningless)

That’s exactly what makes GW special to me. I’ve never known another online game where people would help each other out on things that they’ve already done or do any of the great things that we can do all together. Most other games I’ve played people just spitefully try to steal each other’s kills.

Zeldain.5710:

stjf.7180:

I think you miss the point really. You mention farming; what is the eventual aim of any farming? It is almost always for the attainment of something exclusive, for instance exotic armors. The narrow pursuit of exclusive items is not what GW is about, its about enjoying your journey through the world and through that journeying you are rewarded loot that allows you to progress with equipment that will stand you in good stead for the next areas. There is no need to farm, and introducing farming would be undoing much of what makes GW special to many people.

“The narrow pursuit of exclusive items is not what GW2 is about”?

Hello? Did you really say that? That is the ONLY thing GW2 is about… Legendaries, other skins, etc.

And there is PLENTY of farming to do within those pursuits, and ArenaNet is controlling them artificially… conveniently you can turn to the cash shop.

If not that, then what?

I did say that, and I certainly believe it as well. If it really is all about legendaries then why did they bother making so many areas? Why did they bother putting so much design and creative effort into each and every character model? They did that because the point of GW is to enjoy it, to enjoy the GW world.

You seem to get your enjoyment from farming and level grinding. If that’s what you like, there are plenty of other MMOs out there that would do that for you much better than GW can. As for me, I like the fact that I cant farm or level grind, I like discovering the world and crafting memories in that world when players come together. That is why I will continue to play GW.