Cyninja.2954

> @"Linken.6345" said: > Do frostfang and reskin it with astralia skin. This. Should have specifically mentioned this because that's what I was refering to when ststing: you can make 2 Frostfang for the price of 1 Astralaria. If you want the Astralaria skin, fine (I have it too). Then instead of makeing a 2nd Astralaria, just make 2 Frostfang. The cost is near identical, but you end up with 3 legendary weapons total instead of 2, and TTL.

The amount of sets you need is directly related to the amount of builds you want to play which use differing sets/stats. This can increase even further with additional game modes like WvW, where builds are built often drastically different to their PvE counter parts. Instead of asking how many sets other players use, just ask yourself:"what do I want to play?" and that should get you the answer. The bare minimum for PvE would probably be a power and a condi set IF you are interested in anything raid or challenging related (though fractals work for the most part as only power). Then if you want to play a support occasionally, that would be another set all together with potentially on a different class. In general, the more roles players fill in content and type of content players play, the more sets they will have. This is directly related to an accounts age and wealth since acquiring more sets costs gold and/or time. Exotic versus ascended armor is negligible. Weapons and trinkets are advised to be ascended, but can start off as exotic. Only exception would be fractals where the required agony resistance should be met, which will likely require ascended armor for anyone not a fractal veteran.

> @"Gorani.7205" said: > > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > > @"Gorani.7205" said: > > > I never had problems in HoT and PoF (the later which I have not played extensively compared to older parts of the game). I even could unlock the Skimmer diving without having to do more mastery points. The "blue" mastery point line id definitely different to the older ones. > > > > You mean the mastery points which were all dumped at once with expansion release as part of a complete package? I wonder why that might be different compared to an ongoing season which deploys content in steps.... > > > > Have you considered the different breaks points with each episode release and how it has become progressively easier to leave out points? Let me answer that for you: no. > > > > As detailed earlier by me, we have literally just broken the total required mastery point barrier with this release. Every mastery point added with future content updates is now optional and adds to flexibility and choice as to which mastery points one can go for. > > You have a point there, but e.g. with the exception of doing Tarir over and over again, I don't think that HoT achievements / mastery points were tied to something very repetitive (like do Verdant brink meta 50 times). I also did not have to do a layered collection to get mastery points (just imagine the Orders ascended backpacks or machined weapons). and you have all unlocked? All the gold rewards? Those certainly can be grindy, especially the harder ones. The reason you don't perceive the the HoT and PoF masteries as grindy is because you likely skipped the grindy or difficult ones due to spare amount of mastery points. As mentioned, those are increasing with the progress of this season/saga. It also means that chances are high that, given enough spare points, that same experience will be true for the saga. The main difference is in perception while the saga releases. So all I can offer myself is comfort in a sense that there is no reason to panic given the release approach so far.

> @"Gorani.7205" said: > I never had problems in HoT and PoF (the later which I have not played extensively compared to older parts of the game). I even could unlock the Skimmer diving without having to do more mastery points. The "blue" mastery point line id definitely different to the older ones. You mean the mastery points which were all dumped at once with expansion release as part of a complete package? I wonder why that might be different compared to an ongoing season which deploys content in steps.... Have you considered the different breaks points with each episode release and how it has become progressively easier to leave out points? Let me answer that for you: no. As detailed earlier by me, we have literally just broken the total required mastery point barrier with this release. Every mastery point added with future content updates is now optional and adds to flexibility and choice as to which mastery points one can go for.

> @"KeyOrion.9506" said: > Hard to do Twice-Told Legend, if you can only craft it once. You'd have to just do First Generation weapons and you'd have to use the dropped precursors or one dropped precursor and one crafted of the same. Still, Would have loved to have had two Astralaria's on my ranger for Axe/Axe, but now it pretty much says I can't. It's not like we're gonna sell the 2nd gens since we can't. Overall the costs are still up there, and it really shouldn't effect anything that much at all. You could make 2 Frostfang for almost the same cost that another Astralaria would cost you. The legendary items need to be account bound for being able to get Twice-Told Legend, thus there is almost no scenario where you can sell any legendary (the exception being Twilight and Sunrise, of which either could be crafted twice, used to get TTL then forging one or both of them into Eternity and selling that off).

The Glory of the Legion Masteries, because they got mentioned, require 0 involvement with the map besides going there daily and donating some resources. It might take a month, but you will get the achievement done that way. Anything beyond that to speed up the process is voluntary and will significantly speed up the process. Meanwhile the total mastery points available have yet again increased this episode. The total mastery points required to unlock the 3 tier of Dragon Slayer costs 2 points, meanwhile a total of 6 new mastery points were made available (4 for simply channeling the mastery point in a DRM missions, 2 behind achievements). This makes the sum total of available currently spare mastery points increase to 16. The total amount of visible but not accessible mastery points required to complete the Dragon Slayer mastery line is 15 now, which for the first time makes players be able to achieve more mastery points than required for finishing all masteries. Given each and every episode so far has introduced more mastery points than were required, and we are still off some way from the end of this Saga/season, I'm not seeing the issue.

> @"aleron.1438" said: > I haven't seen that 600 Tyrian seal offer neither for the infusion ?!? And I checked it each day and got the 3rd mastery on day 1. You might not have checked post patch on day 2. As mentioned, some friends only saw the infusion after patching the game that day. It has not been on the weekly vendor since for me.

> @"Shane.4023" said: > > @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > > If your goal is do do open world, boss trains, Living World and personal story, then a level 80 boost can be a good thing. > > > > However, if you want to participate in end game content: raids, WvW, sPvP, Fractals, etc, I would recommend working your way through leveling by either doing map completion, or personal story activities. > > > > It teaches you actually how to play your class, you learn about your skills and some of the nuances. > > > > But that’s me. > > > > ?? > > Thanks for the help and info! Um, how do I purchase more Level/Character Boosts? Also, what is that Level 80 Ticket in the in-game shop used for that I can purchase for 2000 Gems? Further thoughts and help appreciated :) All your answers would have been found on the wiki, which would have come up with a simple google search: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Instant_Level_80_Ticket has to be placed into a shared inventory slots, then turns into a: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Level-80_Boost which is what you have 2 of in the 2 shared inventory slots as bonus for purchasing both expansions. The recommendation given by Strider Pj.2193 is sound. You should level at least 1 character to 80 and get familiar with the game. What point is there being level 80 if you have no idea how this game plays or if you will enjoy it? That said, you are free to make your own choices and boost away. My personal prediction: you will be overwhelmed, bored and eventually either restart or quit the game. We've seen it happen before often enough. Feel free to make the obligatory "what am I supposed to do at max level?" thread in the players helping players forum, or google/look up some of the past ones there.

> @"Kanok.3027" said: > I can tell all you whiners talking about the devaluing of the Maguuma Lilies, it probably won't change much since the rate is still garbage tier. Been gathering since yesterday and only gotten one. Technically that is better than before since I would get every maybe 2 days or so. Your precious gold will stay the same. I think you fail to understand how macro scale drop rate changes are meant to be taken. A change of this scale does not mean YOU personally will see a lot of more drops. The drop rate changes needed for such subjective observation would have to be huge. The drop rate change is intended to increase the overall supply of said material into the games economy via a multitude of players. Thus reducing the cost on the trading post (as has happened). In fact, farming for this material makes even less sense now since you could easily instead farm gold and then BUY the material at its new lower cost off the trading post. You can of course farm the material your self, but would still be subject to drop rate rng for now a significantly lower value item. Sorry but your approach just perfectly shows off how players don't understand what such changes are meant to accomplish. On the subject of rare infusions. Yes, there are a multitude of reasons which can be behind this decision unrelated to purely increasing supply into the game or creating a significant price change, one of which could be to send a warning to gray market traders out of game that every item is subject to change at the developers whim and thus going overboard with speculation can lead to bitter disappointment. Thus being completely unrelated to the supply entering the game. It could also be in order to force a select few items back into the trading post and reduce out of game trading, which would make the most sense if introduced gradually as to not create to big a market shift and give players time to approach the market differently. Overall the changes seem to indicate that the developer WANT players to make use of the trading post, which is reflected in all adjustments made. While at the same time streamlining and reducing convoluted mechanics in acquisition of stats, which in turn makes sense when aiming to get potentially new players into the game with an expansion or steam release.

Just food for thought: if you can immediately finish a challenge mode, where was the challenge? Some players are more than capable to finish these CMs first try, which already puts to question how hard the CMs actually are. If you are struggling, maybe this "challenge" will lead to some improvement as player. That said, some of the visual noise which prevents visibility of damage circles is tricky in this fight.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > @"Nephalem.8921" said: > > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > > > @"TrOtskY.5927" said: > > > > People used to ask for a full gear ping and if you weren't running full zerk you weren't joining the group. > > > I was running the Altruistic Healing bunker guard completely fine then, and noone ever called me on it (even though, as i have learned much later, the dps of that build was next to nil). Sure, some groups asked for gear ping, but there was enough groups doing the very same content equally succesfully that didn't that it was not a problem at all. > > > > > > > You did lvl 50 with such a build? It was dead weight. Actually ive seen lots of players getting kicked for that and kicked a few myself. > Oh, _now_ i know this was a dead weight. I didn't know that then - i mean i knew its dps was lower, but was unaware of _how_ lower it was. And my very point is that _it never came up_. Nobody ever commented on it. It took me a looong time to realize something was wrong, and i had to find that out completely on my own. > > And yes, i _was_ doing level 50's. > > So, while i do know there _were_ groups like that, i am a bit suspicious about claims that the practice was all that prevalent. > It was that prevalent if you were running this content daily. Maybe this was also something where NA and EU differed. I can only speak for EU and as someone who was running fractals daily always months at a time, it was very common to have to ping gear. Not every run, but given I recall having o ping very frequently and players not showing up on certain classes at all, it was not something rare. Also again, the "50"s fractal meta was AFTER the first revamp with HoT, which suffice to say was long after fractals were added.

> @"Randulf.7614" said: > Previous events have moved the items from there to the other vendor after the event and increased the cost in the other, permanent currency. It’s hoped the same will happen here The infusion was available on the discounted weekly vendor yesterday for 600 Tyrian Defence Seals (for comparisons sake, a chest was offered the day before for 14 instead of 15 tokens. I thus assume the discount is between 5 - 15%, probably dependant on the item). The weekly vendor requires mastery rank 3 to access, a few guild mates of mine had to install the patch before it became visible to them. I was able to buy one without issue. Not sure this means the infusion will be on the regular vendor, but I'm sure it will cycle back into the weekly vendors stock. > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said: > Some players already have the Stone Infusion, so it's definitely possible to acquire. Yes, see above.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > @"TrOtskY.5927" said: > > People used to ask for a full gear ping and if you weren't running full zerk you weren't joining the group. > I was running the Altruistic Healing bunker guard completely fine then, and noone ever called me on it (even though, as i have learned much later, the dps of that build was next to nil). Sure, some groups asked for gear ping, but there was enough groups doing the very same content equally succesfully that didn't that it was not a problem at all. > The dps and essentially the healing was nil. Unless you were running this AFTER agony resistance and ascended gear availability was changed, which was quite a bit after fractals were added. Healing was meaningless in fractal boss fights because agony resistance was not high enough to prevent 1 shots from boss agony attacks, which initially could and had to be dodged for survival. So my guess is: you weren't running fractals at the top end. Which is fine, but means you are not giving an accurate representation of what "endgame" fractal groups looked like. Which this discussion has moved towards given how no one cares what people run in T1 or T2 or even T3 currently.

> @"The Boz.2038" said: > No, we're not going back to 2012. This. > @"kharmin.7683" said: > I fail to understand what purpose this proposal would serve. Also this. We HAD mandatory traits in the past. Offering a pool of traits without the limitation of having them in a trait line, thus limiting access to them would lead us full circle. The assumption that this would not cause a lot of unbalance, or at the least not a lot of extra work load is flawed. You are suggesting an additional trait line which would work essentially exponentially balance wise on top of the current system, that by mere mathematical logic would mean a TON of extra work and balance.

> @"lare.5129" said: > but event long time is ONE week. > stone infusion price 75. Per day possible collect 10 Deldrimor Support Mark > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marshaling_the_Deldrimor_Dwarves > so what the reason put it for vendor, if possible collect only 70 if do everything ? ?? Going by the website you linked (with dailies for 21.1.2021): - 1 support mark for donating - 3 for doing the daily DRM missions - 5 for completing Forging Steel - 1 for killing 20 destroyers - 5 for donating 5 times daily That alone adds up to 15 tokens per day no? 7 days per week would equate 105 tokens just from those dailies.

When most players say they want changes or improvements to a weapon, 99% of the time all they mean is damage. Hammer on guardian has a lot of utility on it, at the expense of damage. Give in the damage area, and the utility might have to go. Meanwhile I would prefer just some small changes to the auto chain. The 1.25s cast time of the 3rd swing is brutal and feels clunky especially after two 1/2s wings. Could use some testing as to what "feels" best, but going with my gut I would try something along the lines of: 1. Hammer Swing 1/2 cast time (1st in the chain) 2. Hammer Bash 3/4 cast time (2nd in the chain, cast time increased by 1/4s) 3. Symbol of Protection 1s cast time (3rd and final in chain, cast time down by 1/4s) This would keep the overall duration of the chain similar but redistribute the cast times to a more even ramp up. Again this is just going with my gut, obviously this would have to be tested.

The Champions announcement has Lunar New Year noted as content for February of 2021. https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/the-icebrood-saga-champions/ As always, for most events an announcement is made 1 week before. Randulf.7614 summarized this and which dates are likely nicely.

Seems very convoluted for at best a minor benefit IF we omit and completely ignore the repercussions to the games economy as well player goals to work towards. If we factor for those, I see this as mostly a detriment to the game. The current itemization and design is already very complex and difficult for new players to get to understand without a ton of outside reading (as well as understanding what is all possible). I don't consider ideas for primarily alt accounts a top priority. When players create alt accounts they already have: - a main account they can use to help the alt account out, - hopefully a lot of general knowledge of how to efficiently and fast achieve goals on their alt account - potentially a social structure or community in game (guilds, friends, etc) to help them out - all the benefits that come from an alt account (dailies, login rewards, etc.) there is no reason to help out here in any way at the moment.

Why do players assume that reducing the reason to play the game is always a good idea (or in any way a good idea)? I never get that. If you don't want to do fractal challenge modes daily, then DON'T. Stop slaving away on content you do not enjoy or do not want to play at that point in time. While at it, stop trying to ruin other players fun who actually enjoy the content. Making current fractal rewards weekly, aka simply increasing them 7 fold but only available as weekly reward, would make this already very rewarding content by far the most lucrative content in the game bar none. Also your assumption that this would help new players in any way is hilarious. Never in this game has reducing the time players spend on content helped the general player base. Agony resistance is an issue? Simple math: A full set of 150 AR, besides the ascended gear which is required, costs around 120 -130 gold. At 20 gold per day for running T4 fractals, that's about a week worth of gold provided from the content for the content. That is with calculating for all 150+ AR coming from infusions, which is not even needed. Hardly insane grind for am MMORPG. The comparison to raids is plain bad. Raids have serious issues with repeatability reasons past the first clear in the week. Why is this in any way a good idea to transfer this issue to fractals? > @"Alita.8142" said: > And that is all I wanted to say, what do you think of these ideas or what else would you change about fractals? Honest answer? I think they are pretty bad and not well thought out bordering on just being greedy for rewards with minimal effort.

> @"ViperStrike.1574" said: > Is it not possible for gw2 to kind of limbo account that has been inactive for a long time? > For example: when the account has not been used or logged in the game for at least two years, > it gets removed from the homeworld and put into limbo*—creating space for an active player in that server. Not needed. There is no server system for PvE. This game runs megaservers where all PvE players from the same region (EU or NA) can play together. > @"ViperStrike.1574" said: > And we started a new guild with each other some old some new players. We have a blast playing PVE. However, we can’t do WvW on the same server, > resulting in them having no interest in playing WVW. We have been talking about them switching servers when space opens up. > WvW server population is determined by ACTIVE players participating in WvW. Accounts that are not entering WvW or fully inactive are not part of the calculation. The shifts in server population are due to guilds and players transferring between servers for WvW purposes, most often close to the 2 month re-links which happen. This is again only active players only and is often driven by new server links or lack thereof. > @"ViperStrike.1574" said: > One of my friends, who played Guild Wars 2 from the start mentioned that several players in his friend-list have been inactive for six years. These players still occupy a spot in the homeworld, where its status is "full". I was lucky to join when the server-status changed to very high for a brief time. > But this has not happened for quite some time as far as I know. > Your friend is incorrect and should know better IF he has been with this game for so long. If you want to play together in WvW you have following options: A. don't bandwagon on a full server. That server is considered full for purposes of balance and as such is closed to further players B. transfer to the partner server in case that one is not full yet C. organize and transfer to a lower population server as group D. wait until the next server re-link and hope that the server you are on opens up, or gets a new partner server which is not full If you want to play PvE together you have following things to watch out for: make sure you are all playing on the same region (EU players can't party with NA and vice versa, only the trading post is shared)

> @"Danikat.8537" said: > As other people have said I think it's a shame they're so obviously rushing it because of the complaints about not having another expansion after season 4. For one thing I always thought one of the strengths of Anet was that they're willing to experiment and do things on their own schedule, but apparently having established a 'pattern' of LS season, expansion, LS season, expansion, they are now required to rigidly stick to that or get accused of killing the game. > I don't think complaints factored into that decision. I'm pretty sure cold hard numbers in term of revenue were to "blame" for their decision to change their approach. Given the revenue was at an all time low and not recovering. Players give way to much credit to the forum drama and bs. If revenue was up and the game in a good spot without an expansion announcement, I can guarantee you the forum mumbo jumbo would not have mattered. It's just in this case the forum mumbo jumbo coincided with a huge drop in players willing to spend money.

> @"Weindrasi.3805" said: > Icebrood Saga started out REALLY promising--the Prologue was the absolute best episode IMO. The episode immediately after when we first go to Bjora, and the interlude where we got to join Ryland's warband were also good. Everything else has been average to below-average. This. That said, I simply lowered my expectations overall, which prevents me from being disappointed. The moment the first champions episode launched in the state it was in, I was expecting 3 more along similar lines. As such the current one with slightly more diverse encounters and diverse tasks was a small positive surprise. I also did enjoy most of the content, especially the early episodes. I think a lot of players are simply focused on the Champions releases right now, which I hope will come together as a fleshed out episode by the end, and thus disappointed. The masteries were okay but not ground breaking. Then again most season masteries were underwhelming (Ancient Magics was near useless, Crystal Champion while immensely useful was nothing groundbreaking amazing but rather a fix to some intentionally left out mechanics) so in that regard the current ones did not surprise me. The way station and easy access to EMP for CC is probably one f the most useful additions for general PvE. I have enjoyed the story and am saddened that it is delivered in such short bits. I think this season/saga will be measured by how it ends and transitions into EoD in the future, and being mid season it seems unfinished (which to some degree makes sense).

> @"BlueJin.4127" said: > And this is a GW2 forum, where players are free to request features to "have it their own way." Disagreeing with someone on the forum is not the same as denying them their opinion. Just as you voice your desires, others voice concerns. In the end the developers will decide what they want to do or not. I haven't seen any one here saying you have to change your demand. Most were simply disagreeing with it. Given the 8 years so far and the recurring demands of some players for diverging or easier acquisition of Gifts of Exploration, the actually implementation of GoE into the games economy and part of it, and the continued approach of not offering alternative ways to acquire it by the developers, we can only assume what the continued stance will be. Obviously we can never be sure, so any player might voice their demands or desires freely, as most have done for the last 8 years with no success.

> @"Shadowmoon.7986" said: > There is a black market for the gift of mastery, usually it is around 500g. So players have defacto made the solution you are asking for. Also you can also just buy all legendary weapons that require gift of mastery outright, again it is usually 600 to 700g mark up from you getting it yourself. This. The demand of topic creator is already met. Both in terms of paying other players for their gifts and materials a well as directly purchasing T1 legendary weapons off the trading post. At current rates of gem to gold conversion (100 gems -> around 25g), this amounts to around 2k gems @ 500 gold. Even at 600 or 700 gold, this would still be below the offered 3k gems TC is willing to pay (2,400 gems and 2,800 gems respectively). Conclusion: there already is a cheaper alternative to acquire Gifts of Exploration than buying them strait from the gem store as suggested by TC with the added benefit that in case of purchasing T1 legendary items off the TP that gold is removed from the in-game economy. Close thread.

> @"Linken.6345" said: > > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > There could be an alternative to the system we have now, but that would cause just as many issues as it would solve. > > > > As mentioned by others, we had a group leader system when the game launched (this can be unrelated to the instance ownership which was also present at launch. A group leader dc could be handled in many ways today). It worked better in some cases, and worse in other cases. > > > > Suffice to say, it was abusable and was abused occasionally. Giving control over the group to 1 player means he can not only kick afk players, he can kick any one he wants. > > > > Raids require a far larger amount of organization, as such a central role or players being in charge makes sense. Fractals still have a majority vote system, which works in most scenarios except for fringe cases. Most other content is simply not difficult enough nor does it require this amount of organization to warrant handing over control to 1 player. > > > > That said, a friend of mine has already encounter a new type of trolling and this clearly shows what issues arise with "ownership" or control of 1 player over the party: > > A player who opened a dragon response mission disconnected at the very end (and given the current instance ownership, this results in every player getting removed from the instance). The player returned shortly after, very apolagetic about his disconnect and given he was very friendly the group decided to retry the DRM. Took 3 more "disconnects" at the boss for people to realize what a troll they had on their hands. Talk about a sad human being out to only make other players game experience worse. > > So not one time of these 4 tries anyone else spoke up to start the instance? I wasn't there. I can't tell you how this exactly transpired. The player who was "disconnecting" was the original group leader. Obviously with hindsight and 4 "disconnects" it seems obvious that some one else should have opened the instance. Given every player stuck around, they were confident in the party leader not intentionally leading them on. I'm sure each of them will be more distrusting in the future.