Luthan.5236

I think the main reaseon is to make it harder to quickly get those currencies. For the s3 maps (as well as s4) you have different amount of stuff you can buy with them. The winterberries have some aquabreather ascended items associatd where you'd need to buy all 3 (each one a lot of berries!) to unlock all the skins. (Buying 1 is not unlocking all 3 weight classes for the skin.) That might be the reason why they are easier to obtain. Bloodstone Fen offers the highly valuable ascended trinkets that basically can change their stats for free (well only a little bit unbound magic ... which you will have tons of later). That is why this currency probably is considered the hardest to obtain. There are also minis, tonics, ... from the vendors. For season 4 I noticed that the amount of that stuff varies from map to map. I think Sandswept Isles did not have too much. So the currency was a bit harder to obtain there. Kralkatite Ore needs a ton for the weapon sets ... but it is easier to obtain than other currencis in s4. (Renown hearts give more and meteor at high level ... if you are lucky and someone is doing meteoirs ... gives a lot.) In Kourna you need 500 (+200 for the firt step) for an optional achievement. (Ascended banner back item which comes with a title "Dauntless".) Jahai has the armor set. I think grindiest probably will be the one in Thunderhead Peaks. Normal collection needs a lot of currency and then you have the ascended one that needs even more. (+ mini collections per each weapon). In the end it will serve as something that "forces" the player to stop. (Some actually might get exhausted by grinding the same stuff over and over and can't stop themselves. An obsessive-compulsive thing.) Also it will keep people playing the maps for a bit longer. (Having more population there.) Yeah of course ... some might make tons of chars (but that also needs char slots and levelling them to 80 maybe to not die that quick in the lv. 80 are) to still farm that stuff quickly which you can do per char (certain nodes) ... but they probably are a minority. Normally I'd recommend doing most map achievements there. Then just moving on and coming back to s3/s4 doing the dailies and buying stuff every now and then when enough currency is ready. (I actually did most of the map nodes + meta as well. But only while the map was on daily. Meaning a different map each day. Did not feel grindy then. I have must stuff from season 3 fully finished now. Including all home instance nodes and karmic retribution stuff.) Edit: HoT has content considered harder. And some metas that people like to farm cause they actualyl are f un - which keeps the people there. (I have finished most PoF achievements but still need to go back to HoT to do stuff there later.) The old core maps have stuff that can be done mostly solo. And some events in orr that are tied to later achievements that bring people back. season 4 maps 2 and 3 brought people back to the old maps. For the Tyrian service medal. And some world bosses that needed to get killed for the golem ascended back item as well.

Thanks. You might be right about the timegate. Though I think back then when it was released people might not have known about the later stuff (that later lots of map currency is required). I think you also could see it as "forcing you to take a break" - after the lengthy collection stuff. I guess most find this the most exhausting. If they did rush directly through the next parts withou a timegate ... even more people would complain about it being grindy ha ha. Though most threads that complain seem to be about the saddle and that map currency ... I still think the majority of the players will dislike the first steps more. The ones complaining in the forums are only a minority of players. As you said: From the reward tracks you also can get a lot of that currency. (I tried to do every reward track once in WvW/PvP ... which should give 100 - 50 per track per currency.) A lot might also enjoy those s4 maps and doing other stuff while getting the currency. I mean: They are not really complicated. Even without griffon (springer is enough) I guess it would not feel too painful to play normally there to get some of the other achievements. Then you can do hearts, nodes, meta. (Not only one of these. Some recommend to make tons of chars and do the hearts repeatedly with each char. Of course that would feel grindy if you do it multiple times a day in the same map.) There is also the recommendation to go to Icebrood to farm for Eternal Ice to convert it into s4 currency. (Which I did not do on purpose since I want to play in release order because of the story.) A lot of options. The main grind feeling probably comes from new players wanting to rush the Skyscale. Cause it is recommended by other players. And cause they want to go to the latest map. (Where they might be too slow if others with the Skyscale are farming in the latest maps and are moving much faster when a squad/commander is tagging up.) This might also be a bit the fault of ArenaNet ... but I guess they need that advertising to keep the game interesting: It focuses on putting expansions on sale when there is new story content (Icebrood) ... trying to advertise this latest story chapters even to new players. (Wanting them to go straight there.) So they go there. See everyone with the Skyscale. Think "now I have to get the Skyscale before I can start playing the game". Doing the grind ... geting bored. Forgetting (or not even getting to know) that ... in GW2 you can do most content in the earlier maps without mount (and later only with the mounts/gliding intended to be used there) and with exotics gear. Other than your typical gear treadmill game where it is "go to dungeon 1 farm it 100 times to get better gear to be able to to dungeon 2 / go to dungeon 2, farm it 200 1imtes" and so on.

Gratz on getting the Skyscale! I am doing everything in release order. Got the Griffon first. And you explained how you liked your Springer in Dragonfall ... for me the Griffon was even more helpful there. He he. The thing with the currency farm probably depends on the playstyle. For me it only will be (once I get to that part, currently finished just the Newborn Skyscales) buying those items. Cause I have gotten the currency just normally while doing the achievements in those other maps. (Spent some time there instead of rushing.) Dragonfall actually feels the most boring/grindy with only the meta to grind. I guess it depends on the player and what he needs/wants. (People here helped you and this might be a nice reference for other new players that find this thread.) Also how fast you can accumulate gold. (Cause the Griffon costs a lot of gold in a short amount of time. People that have lots of gold might just go for the Griffon first. Because if you have the gold there is not much to grind there. Just a few events.) On the length of collections for Skyscale: From what I have read in the wiki ... the later ones will be more fun. First one (Newborn) felt a bit grindy too me. Cause it was onyl collecting items in the map. (The most boring type of content.) And a lot of it without other stuff in between. Here I even did the feeding of the medicine and gathering of the scales without guide though. Helped to get used to the map a bit - like you explained already. Eggs though ... I would not recommend it to anyone to do that without a guide. Players playing strictly without using guides cause they want to find everything by themselves might have a hard and frustrating time there. I gave up after looking for half an hour for the 3th or 4th egg ... until the guide made me find it easily and I noticed that I flew past there a few times. The yellow item name didn't appear though ... must need you to get much closer than the scales needed to see them. Also the hints are more vague. Basically just the overall region. There is always to remember: When this content was new (no guides yet) lots of players played this map since it was the latest map then. And they probably helped each other when everyone was doing the Skyscale and looking for stuff. So using guides when playing now ... is just fine I guess.

I remember the mission where you ported to Korna. Played it recently a few weeks ago. You have Blish's arm and you need to teleport around later. I easily managed to port outside the instance so I couldn't even get the warning before getting removed. Was annoying when it was near the end of the mission. Ha ha. (Especially when going for achievements.)

So ... I have just arrived in season 4, chapter 6 - and the last map there. Already could try a borrowed skyscale from the story step that unlocks the roosts in the map. (And it actually felt a bit boring for me - I have unlocked the previous mounts in release order and didn't push straight for skyscale. Will see if I get used to it later when using it more.) The first steps seem a ton of stuff to do. (Even if you skip JPs with the item.) Probably doing them slowly. (Still feels much more painful than the griffon. Griffon was a bit fun since it was not too much.) For the currency: Well ... once I'm finished with the previous steps I will just buy the saddle items with the currency I accumulated from playing the maps normally. (While doing all the achievements there.) Must have been a problem for people back then at release when they spent all the currency for skins, minis, etc. and then skyscale got released and they had to farm 250 of everything again. But that were getting it later could just have saved the currency and not rushed the maps. Of course if you go straigh to chapter 6 to unlock the collection you will start with 0 in every currency and it might feel grindy especially if you just want to unlock the mount and ignore all other content (achievements in those maps). I didn't do Icebrood Saga yet. So no Eternal Ice farming and buyig s4 currency. Yes: I play a lot. And 1-2 weeks that I spent in each map for completing most of the achievements ... is a lot. And people playing less per day might need a ton more time for completing those achievements. Then again: At the beginning I did not even pay attention to gathering all the nodes. The just 250 should not be that much ... especially if you decide to to it all at once - having access to all 6 maps. You can go to all of those maps daily. (Or just a few of them . Then the next ones. If you have less time.) Remember: This is the high-end latest mount and supposed to be expensive because has unique features. (Gaining altitute above the starting point and bein gable to stay in air at one place when not moving.)

If you want to experience the full story ... then in order of release (s2 first) I guess. Unless it is okay for you to just play them in a different order. Personally I think some of the s3 maps look nicer than s4. (Few in s4 are cool as well though.) Afaik s3 is recommended for farming ascended trinkets. s4 for the skyscale mount. (Where you need access to all the chapters/maps.)

Depends on the taste as well. I did not like Joko and other stuff that much. I recently enjoyed Kralkatorrik the fight in chapter 5 (not the last one still need to do that). For fractals the Sunqua boss. Open world the Triple Trouble. But yeah if a lot of people are there ... in open world it is just zerging. Hard to see what is going on. Except for a few missions ... I completd most story up until chapter 5 of season 4 (have played in order of release and not finished chapter 6 and later stuff yet) without dying too much. (Only the optional achievements are a lot harder. And some probably need a group. There is in season 4 chapter 2 some golem you need to kill in 3 minutes for an achievement. I doubt I coul solo that when even in the dulfy vid I think she had a group ha ha.) Stavemaster Adryn pwnd hard and I died a lot - first time I did him. (In HoT story.) And in core store only back then in 2012/13 with my first char with not that much knowledge about my char and no elite existing and outdated gear ... some misisons with lots of trash mobs pwnd a bit. Other than that I do not remember many hard bosses. Maybe for new players that rush straight to the later content ... where it expects that you have full exo at least and understand a bit about your class/profession. (+ maybe being able do adapt the build to the situation ... where you need a bit of knowledge) Edit: Instead of "dungeon training" there are fractals. If I remember correctly they were intended for people that found dungeons "too long". Then quickly seemed to have replaced them cause of the better rewards. Until later raids and strikes (for people that think raids take too long) got added. Fractals T1 really are not that hard. And very short. I usually try to avoid group content where you need to look a group first. (Everything group-wise besides open world.) But fractal rush got me into fractals and I play them until T2 now without trouble. (Not even meta builds.) Not many toxic players ther ein T1/T2. (I had feared worse. Out of fear of getting flamed for not being good enough I usually tried to avoid the group content.)

Don't need an auto expand for all. Since I do not regularly need to switch between a lot. But remembering the last expanding settings would be nice. Or - as also suggested - opening and selecting the one for the zone where you are atm automatically. I also would have preferred a different order and/or grouping. For example: Where do I go when I want to complete a story achievement I can't solo? To the "Story Journa" ... the sectip specifically for achievements ... or just to the relevant map. (Maybe "Story journal" only means the old core story. The expansions have story and maps seperated for achievements. For the living world all achievements are in 1 section. So you'd probably want to just use the map lfg if you want to do achievements for that story parts even if it is about the instanced story content.) Just "map" and "achievements" would be enough. (Every story chapter under achievements, every map under the map. + some extra for achievements not related to the map and for the world bosses, ect. where maps might change if a train doing them.) Some stuff (I think guilds for example) also have only 1 item in that category. A bit inefficient. For the raids/strikes/fractals, etc. i'd just group them into one category. (Group/party play content.) In general: Maybe more individual items but less categories. Good order can still make it easy to find stuff. Maybe option to hide stuff you rarely or never use.)

Basically they split the "magic" into conditions and boons. And both have 2 stats each: Condition duration and condition damage. And the boon duration and healing power. (Most boons use only boon duration. Healing power - besides for the direct healing - also used for the regeneration boon I think.) The toughness and armor I think counters the direct damage from power. While vitality is against the conditions (I think they just affect the health directly bypassing toughness and you can just counter with more health pool) ... similar to I think "constitution" in some Pen and Paper rpg. (Where there are checks agains illness, poison and stuff ... based on this stat.) Best to check the wiki for details: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute

I got the problem once in the past. 2019 or so when I returned after a long break. (Before that I played from release until end 2013 and bought every now and then and didn't have problems.) Since the problem I had 2019 ... I never had the bug again. I wrote to this support back then. Got fixed before the support replied. (Maybe they did something and I just noticed before they could write a reply.) You should ask the support if it happens when selecting the payment options for gems. I think they have a different support staff for this - since an external company (Digital River) is involved. And there might be security features acting up for some accounts/regions ... every now and then. For me the bug appeared after selecing the payment method. I don't rememember what had happend exactly. Just know that I could not get to thte last page (where it explains that the browser will get opened do finish payment.) I think there was an error message before that. And I repeatedly tried every options on a few different days. And it was a sale. Few days later with my favorite stuff still on sale It finally worked then.

If something is very profitable ... a lot of players will do it. Then it will get less profitable over the time. Selling high and buying low can't work forever. Unless one of the players buys all the coins. Puts them at a higher price. And no other players undercut him by large. (They will probably match the higher price as close as possible to also earn well.) The problem is when there is a huge demand and players also increase their buy orders. If they kept them lower (bigger gap between highest buy order and lowest sell order) ... the sell orders might go lower. With a bigger gap they will expect to sell slower. (Which might not be okay for everyone.) So putting iit a bit at lower price on sale. ArenaNet of course likes if the price is high. An incentive to "play" the game. (I. e.: You could farm the coins for yourself. Or for selling them. Instead of buying them for gold on the TP. And as they are limited ... there might people willling to pay for a 2nd account upgraded with expansions. To earn coins there and shift the coins and/or profits to their main account.) A guy buying all the coins ... could as well end up with a loss. If a lot of his coins get "stuck" at the TP. (With him having to recall the orders by losing the fee you needed to pay to place them.) If af the higher price still al lot find it attractive to undercut him to sell lower. (And with a higher price a lot more might want to actually sell.) And the guys hoarding coins to use them for trades via mail: They can have fun ... until they get scammed and lose a lot. (Where ArenaNet might punish the scammer - I think it is forbidden to scam by ToS - but they won't refund the lost stuff to the guy that got scammed since this isn't a supported trading method. That is why the TP exists in the first place. To don't create too much work for the support.) / Stuff being too rare that it would cost more then 10k probably was not intended and does not occur too often. (Some people ask for changes of drop rates instead of changing TP coin limit. Which is a better idea.)

Confirmed! Currently only Wasmaa (Hesper Jasso) event spawned ... again and again. I have started this map a about a week ago. I think I saw people announcing Pepperseed when the map was on daily the last time. (Checking this later since now it is on daily again.) The daily probably makes it possible for a 2nd instance of the map to generate. Especially then the meta is up and lots of people try to go there. Could lead to the event being possible on fresh map. There also was ... like yesterday or 2 days ago ... the Pepperseed guy waiting with event up when according to the supplymaster only 3 requirements had been fulfilled. (Wasmaa not ready.) My guess is that the order of doing the events could lead to the bug. It probably needs to finish this following escord to restart the whole chain. And maybe doing Wasmaa last will bug it. (Where it only repeatedly spawns Wasmaa.) If doing all but Wasmaa + 1 other thing first ... then doing Wasmaa and then completing the last requirement quickly ... maybe it will work. Have not done that much research on this yet though. Just a guess for now. If there were simple checks after each of the pre events (to check if the other ones were finished as well ... then starting the following event) this bug could happen if there is no such a check after the Wasmaa event. Easiest probably would be to constantly have timed checks for spawning this. (Or a manual trigger when someone is talking to the supplymaster.)

I like the current mix of dungeons, fractals, strikes, raids. Though dungeons seem dead and I have not done strikes so far and I probably won' get into raids. Fractals are nice though. Fractal Rush last year got me into doing them. Nice tiered and making it easy for beginners. Open world has a few harder meta events that need coordination. (Core world bosses it mostly is zerging though lol.) The dragon response missions are - from what I have heard, have not tried them yet - not too interesting. (Maybe only to grind for a few skin/collections. Then moving on to the future content. Probably not really end game content then.) WvW and PvP is replayable and interesting cause you fight other players and not some stupid AI mob. Though not everyone likes PvP content. Still I'd like to see more updates there for "endgame" (= replayable stuf). For the PvE part I'd love some more and greater meta events. Would be fun if Lion's Arch got attacked and some merchants, etc. got locked and people needed to do meta to unlock it again. (I still remember Warhammer online where it was included in the PvP ... or realm vs. realm how iirc they called it ... where the enemy main city was besieged and certain vendors were unavailable I think.) Orr had that nice stuff with the statues where it if i remember correctly was connected to different maps. (Disabling temple in 1 map disables all of the statues of that god and that statues could be in other maps as well.) Metaserver implementation seems to have removed this though. Something like that would be interesting. On a harder scale. If it could be somehow implemented with meta servers. (Maybe leaving 1 instance of a map and going to another 1 could lead you to an instance that is connected to the previous one. Opening a new instance should open another "set" of all of those connected maps.)

Depends. Back then I found it nice. At release. When I came back 2019 mid (stopped end 2013) and started a new revenant later beginning 2010 ... I still enjoyed leveling normally and getting used to the new class/profession. The low level map also takes into account that you do not have high level gear. (Someone pushing the char to 80 getting exos and then starting from low level map to do story and map completions ... will steamroll a lot more than someone that constantly has outdated gear - when not always upgrading every few levels while leveling normally.) It also is a lot about exploration and stuff. For the challenge you probably really want some high level meta events and bossers (or better raids, fractals and so on).

I have played the game from release until end of 2013. Then from 2019 until now. (So I had a huuuuue break.) Played everything in order of release. But I can understand that new players quickly want to get the mounts. (Once you have the mounts you probably never want to play without them. Even in core maps ha ha. Still was a nice experience to play as it had been intended back then at the individual releases when certain maps did not have mounts/glider.) For learning the class/profession and getting used to the game ... the core personal story and some of the core maps ... are a good idea. This will get the player to level 80 leading him from his starting area to Lion's Arch and from there to orr. (With some minor detours depending on the story choices.) Later: PoF is unlocking the mounts + it is considered easier than HoT. (As experienced player I could solo all of the hero points there. While in HoT a lot need groups to do them. New players though might still find it hard in PoF to to solo some hero points. I sometimes saw requests for help. Might be because of less experience and less good gear when rushing directly to these maps. Or it depends on the class/profession.) So I'd say: A bit core to get used to the game. Then PoF for the mounts. And then it depends. (I guess some players just go for the gameplay. While others want to experience the story in order ... which leads them to also visit the maps in release order.) Edit: It should be possible to do that until the next expansion gets released. As long as you don't plan on doing all (or most) of the achievements on all the older maps + getting minis and skins. For me it took a looot of playing (still didn't play as much as a classic "no-lifer") to get from s2 to end of s4. (When I started playing 1.5 years ago doing stuff from s2 onwards in release order.) But I tried for most of the achievements + minis and stuff from map vendors (season 3 for example where it needs currencty). With some months of kind of a "break" where I played a bit more WvW and only did the dailies on s3 maps. I ignored the grindy collections (full weapon set for achievement) but got most story stuff and most of the map stuff from s3 onwards. (HoT maps a bit missing more. Going back there later.) So for playing leisurely without the pressure to do all achievements it should not be hard to get map completions + finishing the story steps.