HnRkLnXqZ.1870

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said:

> > Same as @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493", my experiences with her were not very good. But I will not stomp on her work, she did a good job. Every human has their own edges and preferences. You cannot be friends with everyone on the planet.

> >

> > I do miss one certain point however. Before she left, she created and started to fill the Guild Wars 2 and Forum Policies. This was probably one of the most annoying, tedious and also dangerous tasks on the forums. I totally understand that no one dared to continue this section. But if it was completed, it would have saved us (and them) a lot of trouble. It is not useless, the topics she managed to write are a huge help.

> >

> > A staff-member I really miss is Mr. Cleary. He engaged in the difficult and heated discussions, listened to our problems and answered the most important questions.

>

> Is not everything covered in https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/the-forums-code-of-conduct/

> Guild Wars 2 Official Forums: Code of Conduct (“Forums Code of Conduct”)?

>

> I, too, miss Chris Cleary, Chris Whiteside and Michael Henninger...among others.

Sorry, I deactivated the notifications a while ago and noticed this one a bit too late. But as the topic was necro-bumped again, I can answer this now.

The **Forums Code of Conduct** are the forum-rules. They are not really game-related and solve none of the conflicts and problems we run into while playing. The "Guild Wars 2 and **Forum Policies**" mentioned by me contain the words "Forum Policies." But if you open the link, you get to a small list of unique topics explaining game-related (not forum related) problems and issues. I did not name that section, but in my opinion the word "Forum" in that name is confusing.

The topics Mrs. Gray already cleared:

- RMT

- Dual and Multiboxing

- Buying and Selling Runs

- Macros and Macro Use

- Unattended Gameplay

- Third Party Programs

- Looking For Group Tool

If the section was completed or at least continued after Mrs. Gray left ANet, the list could have a couple of other controversial topics cleared which are heavily discussed over and over:

- ArcDPS: We do have Mr. Cleary's quotes scattered on these boards, Reddit and the old forums. There is no official summary of the situation, just a ton of puzzle-pieces. In addition Mr. Cleary is no longer part of ANet, so it would be questionable if his quotes are still valid. They could have added an article about this in the Third Party Programs thread or create a separate one. Those topics just pop up over and over, because there is nothing we can rely on. Just two sides smashing their heads against each others.

- Black Market trading: There is no official statement about this. The fact that this secret sub-community uses Mystic Coins, a designed **rare crafting material**, as phantom-currency to trade stuff off the market is delicate enough. The topics pop up frequently.

- Exploit Abuse: When a player finds an exploit that can be used to make profit, they claim ownership of that exploit. They make videos, offer teachings in LFG for gold, spread the exploits to a wide audience of players. This is the current situation for several years now. Technically it is exploit abuse, which is equal to cheating. There is no official statement, so parts of the community assume "if it was not fixed yet, I am free to use it whenever I want."

- Target Blocking: Which occurs on the forums once every month at least. Those players who enjoy dropping boxes of Fun and other objects at locations with NPCs, for the purpose of just annoying other players. Is it allowed? Is it legal? We do not know. If it was not prohibited officially, with a warning about certain sanctions if you get caught bloody-handed, this would be less of a problem.

- Wintrading

... ect.

You get the idea. If those important topics were addressed separately in that sub-section of the forums, there was a lot less meaning to interpret. We could focus on the more important topics instead of engaging in the same repetitive discussions over and over - which lead to no result at all.

Dailies like this:

- daily fire extinguisher

- daily mortar builder

- daily civilian evacuate

- daily golem repairs

- daily destroyer slayer

Each with a separate reward, completing three of them completes a meta-daily with better rewards. Complete 5 meta-dailies, get a choice for a Dragonslayer Weapon, selectable stats, exotic.

Make the events inside the DRM count to the map daily events.

Let us purchase a Karmic Retribution buff that only works in DRM.

Give us reward-tracks for each allied faction, allow us to pledge to one of the factions to progress those reward tracks. Every red orb collected grants progress to the reward track.

Add more recipes for the new currency or give us an option to exchange it for LW3/4 currencies.

You've probably noticed that I do not use Bloodstone Dust with my eaters/gizmos. Reason is the same as for the Quartz gathering and charging:

Piece of Skyscale Food

Not as rewarding as it used to be, but easy to craft with the Mystic Forge.

- grab login-rewards, select do-able WvW dailies + 3 easy PvE dailies

- 1-2 WvW dailies (Veteran, Sentry, Guard Slayer, Monuments)

- Write MotD of my guild, 3 PvE dailies + short explanation/links, LW map links, PSNA

- Gathering Guildhalls

- Feeding my eaters: 6x Unbound magic, Empyrial Fragments + Dragonite Ore (until I am out of one), 6x Volatile Magic, sometimes Star of Gratitude (when I still have 250+ Fragments)

- Grabbing my Quartz Crystals from the bank

- Farming Quartz Crystals in Dry Top, doing the Crash Site JP on the move

- Head to Crystal Oasis, get up to Glinth's Legacy (Skyscale) and gather the Quartz there

- Head to the home instance, gather all nodes and fuse my collected quartz for a Charged Quartz Crystal

- Head to AB for the daily Provisioners Token (Auric Ingot)

- Head to Caledon Forest, collect my daily Krait Key

- Collect 1-2 sunken Treasures

- Head to Jaka Itzel, farm Flax

- Rotate through my other chars, farm more flax

- Back on main, back to Rata Sum: Salvage, sort, sell, clear inventory

- head to work

Looks like a lot of work, but you become quite fast when you keep doing this for months. I mostly do that to wake up properly.

If I have enough energy to play in the evening, I usually follow this priority:

PSNA > Daily LW3/LW4 (only maps I like, only tasks I enjoy) > map meta / bounty run / guild activity / Ley Anomaly

**Sunken Treasure Daily**

Collect your daily Krait Key and loot one of the Sunken Chests. It does not look like much at first. But every Swim Speed Infusion is ~ 20-25 silvers worth. A single chest can loot up to 2-5, whenever you finish the entire chain you get 5 additional Infusions.

**Flax Farming**

There are several variations of this. The easiest setup is parking a number of characters below Jaka Itzel and gather the Flax every day. Flax Seeds are worth 2s each, you can gain 8-11 seeds from a single character, depends on buffs and luck. You can refine the seeds into Vials of Linseed Oil, which take less space to store. The Oil is used for Guildhall upgrades and certain weapon-crafts. I usually collect a small stack of oils and keep it in my storage/bank for a backup-money.

**Ley Anomaly**

When you play in the evenings, this can be a also an option. Just check the Event timer and head to the map of the next Ley Anomaly ~ 5 minutes before the event starts. You can also check the LFG, there are often squads in the Central Tyrian Squads or Worldboss tab. Thanks to how well our classes are balanced (did not say the evil word with p :P), the Ley Anomaly melts quickly nowadays. Many maps take it down on the first try. Just make sure to tag it before it dies. In several cases it died so fast, I barely got copper participation. It is basically 1 free Mystic Coin per day.

It would be nice if the /ip command gave an additional info about the life-span of the instance. For example

/ip Ip address(es): 18.197.61.52 - 0d 16h 24m 52s

It would also be nice to have a map-expiration-timer on all maps. As we cannot switch map-instances or force opening a new one, locked maps with bugged events should not exist for eternity.

"We only want good ~~fights~~ kills."

Pistol Whip does not mention the evade in its tooltip, both in the wiki and ingame. If you use the skill frequently, you know about the evade. The wiki also informs about it in the very important, but often ignored, **Notes** in the bottom of the article.

> This skill's evasion effect is not listed in the skill facts.

> ...

> The attack is two-phased:

> - The opening hit is a single-target stun (Movement will not interrupt this part).

> - You will then Evade and cleave 4 times (Moving now will cancel the skill). The evasion window lasts for ~1.25 seconds.

Please read carefully and maybe run a field test before you spread something.

I'm already happy they stopped balancing our skills for competitive AND PvE. We lost a lot of great mechanics and skills, just because someone in sPvP or WvW felt offended. But as @"Dantheman.3589" already pointed out, who cares? It is only Engineer, let alone Core Engineer. Holo worked from the first day. It is beginner-friendly, most mechanics are self explanatory, it does not rely on combos at all. It is basically not even a real Engineer, more fits into a Warrior/Guardian hybrid.

The nade-nerf was inevitable. Everything that can be used by Holosmith is in risk of being balanced sooner or later. The only refuge we currently have are the F5 skills, because they are blocked by both Elite Specializations. This includes the infamous Moa xD. It is a down-toned version of the Mesmer skill. As long as no one manages to figure out an exploit to spam this skill more frequently, it will not face a balance-patch. If Holosmith can ever access it, they patch it within 1 week.

As long as they refuse to touch Holo, the downward-spiral for Core continues. I mean they even nerfed the Supply Crate, after almost 8 years. Holosmiths discovered it = nerf! I've seen the threads complaining about it, instant win button, sure. In the hands of such a powerful Elite Specialization it was too powerful.

It would be less of an issue if the developers would read our class-board. We know they read the sPvP sub-board very carefully. o/

When I logged in last night, I was looking forward to the changes. Quickly checked the patch-notes, no LW content!?

Went to the Eye of the North, checked the NPCs. Ebon Vanguard arrived and the old badge-vendor had a new Dragon Mastery Crystal. Bought that and ... nothing happened. I think I received a little karma, but tier 3 of the mastery track was still locked. After some chat in the map, I learned the **Dragon Mastery Crystal I** re-spawned in the vendor for unknown reasons, but I would need **Dragon Mastery Crystal II** to unlock the next tier. So I basically wasted 20 badges, among many others who did the same mistake xD.

Note: If you have Crystal Forger unlocked, **do not buy the Dragon Mastery Crystal I** that returned to the vendor!

Quickly checked the Asura Gate, same DRM as pre-patch. So I assumed they only added the Ebon Vanguard as communty-event. Checked the Event ticker, true. Then I looked for the new skins and stuff, realized that Ebon Vanguard Weapons are also sold in the City of Ebonhawke and I missed to unlock them until today. So I went there, purchased the remaining skins with karma and went back to the EotN.

There are four skins worth to unlock:

- Ebon Shoulders

- Ebon Epaulets

- Ebon Pauldrons

- Hawk Trident

The Hawk Trident appears to be a brand new skin, added to the Weapon Set. Looking at this, the skimmer-dive ability and the underwater-skill-rework we had a while ago, I think we may see some more underwater-content in the near future. At least I hope so.

The shoulders are nothing new. There was a chance to get a Shoulders of the Ebon Vanguard Choice Chest from the Shiverpeaks Strike Mission. I did not own any of the skins so far, so I welcome this alternative method.

A really positive development: Ebon Vanguard dailies are really user-friendly. Both Enemies and Special can be done in Fields of Ruin.

- Ogres are found around Hunter's Gorge

- There are plenty of Events on the map, including the Guildmissions why may (Bountys tested = work) count as well. In addition, there is the Ogre Wars meta-event chain that contains several events and plenty of Ogres to slay. Opposite to many other meta-event chains, this one resets within 20 minutes after completion.

The balance-patch was a little bigger this time. The Gemstore stuff also looks nice. Content wise, the patch was a little lack-luster. But they did not really announce anything big. Looking forward to the Wintersday 2020, which should arrive in a week or two.

> @"Lilyanna.9361" said:

> For the love of god can we stop pushing this lie and beating a dead horse. This is so visibly disgusting now.

So far, your side has not come up with any serious explanation at all. We know they suddenly stopped with raids, not bothering to tell us. Then started with the development of Strike Missions, which were designed to introduce players into raids - knowing that there would be no further wings. Now they stopped with the Strike Missions, heading to DRM. There is obviously a drastic drop in difficulty, skill and coordination requirement with every step. Making the instanced content easier to access for players which a lesser focus on high performance gameplay. The current step even moved away from the group-requirement.

Now I am eager to listen to the truth, from a raider perspective. What is the true reason behind this development? Why did they stop with raids? Why did they stop with Strike Missions?

My hopes rest on the power-creep at the moment. If they continue this madness a little longer, we might be able to run a few raids with the same difficulty as we run dungeons at the moment. Without a dedicated raid-team, it is only a matter of time till the difficulty gets downgraded.

A story-mode without rewards would be great. Like the story-mode Dungeons, no badges. But without that above mentioned raid-team, it may not happen at all.

DRM look very promising. Content that can be done solo, in groups or in a public anonymous mode. Different rewards depending on the difficulty-selection, but easy story-access. I hope after Raids & Strikemissions, this one will prevail.

Navigating in the LFG is already a bit confusing. It is hard to find the correct tab in this very long list of options. Then you accidentally close the window and everything is gone again. So I want to request two minor changes:

1.) Give us a favorites option to bookmark certain LFG tabs.

2.) Add the LFG helper option from the Dungeon entrances to Strike Missions and Dragon Response Missions.


Here is a preview of how it would look.


The LFG link from the dungeon NPC leads automatically to the correct tab, so you avoid searching it in the long list. DRM may sooner or later get their own tab, as well as other new content.

The first positive thread about Dragon Response Missions, where people share why they like this new feature. But I guess we did not have enough negative threads, so people continue to talk about how much they dislike them. What I have seen so far, many of the negative complaints are a bit shortsighted.

Things I like about the DRM:

- engaging and interesting NPC dialgue

- easy warm-up events which make you familiar with the territory and the situation

- moral boost mechanic, which rewards you for completing these tasks

- time limit is short enough to be challenging for solo-runs

- challenge motes can be done solo as well, which is really nice

- the old multi-area AoE attacks returned, have not seen them in ages

- modified attack-pattern for the bosses, but not too difficult to learn. No lethal 1-shot attacks to punish players.

- public versions do not rely on squads/parties, so the meter-people are on their own

- the loot is OK, no Tarir-Multiloot obviously

- they feel engaging, almost like the LA evacuation/assault events

A few basic hints, most should be common-knowledge already:

A common complaint I always hear/read, **the missions take so long**. You can speed the escorts up a lot. The NPCs can be buffed with Swiftness and Superspeed. Tell your party-members not to stack at the leading NPC, else they consume the speed-buffs (boon-prioritization). You do not have to catch all of the NPCs, you only need the lead-NPC. The others will magically move with the same speed. Classes which can help with this are Elementalist (Tempest) and Engineer (Scrapper). Superspeed has no real purpose in PvE, but it works amazingly well with NPC escorts. I used this strategy in the Drizzlewood Coast already, works great.

The spawn-locations of the NPCs are all scripted. So you can use the Raptor-Engage and other pulls, together with your meta-dps to speed up things quickly.

The United Legions Waystation works in the DRM, so you can even speed up the final encounter with the boss. If you run solo, the EMP is powerful enough to take down the entire break-bar. So you can focus on DPS and sustain in your builds. Or bring a healer and do it Fractal Style.

The player started events require 1 player to start. So you can split up and let the fastest of you, preferably with area-Swiftness/Superspeed trigger the event while the others already camp the exact spawn-locations of the next NPC attack.

Regarding that "long" waiting time at the intro-missions:

- you do not lose progress even if the destroyers regain-control over the area

- you can park your characters already at the next scripted spawn locations and just let one player camp at the starting-spot (see above)

- we are talking about 3-4 minutes of extra time. If you RL 24h schedule gets messed up with this already, maybe re-think your time-management?

- Daily Destroyer Hunter is permanent. It can be completed easily in the intro-section and gives nice rewards. If you are really short in time, just do that and leave the DRM.

They already decided that we do not deserve any of the cool boons, so they gave use Superspeed. There are not many situations this really comes in handy. If they decide to remove Superspeed from us again, because certain players have doubts, there is not much left they replace it with. I've been looking forward to the first player who starts to complain about the only true group-boon of Scrappers. What group-boon would you give us in return?

If we sell MP directly for gems, we turn GW2 into yet another P2W Microtransaction Hell. There are already plenty of games like that on the market.

But we could unlock the entire Masteries via the gemstore - on trial. Not granting full access.

**Example: Glider Mastery**

You pay X amount of gems to unlock the entire Glider Mastery on trial. The costs vary, depending on how much you have already unlocked. Every stage that gets completed by the gemstore unlock counts as trial. If you just miss 1 MP to unlock Tier 3, Tier 3- Tier 6 will be trial.

When you enter a new map, you will see a Glider Mastery Icon in your buff-bar with an ammo-counter. Let us say for the trial, the counter will be 50. What consumes a charge:

- opening the glider (if Tier 1 is trial)

- using an Updraft (if Tier 2 is trial)

- leaning with the Glider (if Tier 3 is trial)

- using Stealth Gliding (if Tier 4 is trial)

- using Advanced Gliding (if Tier 5 is trial). In this case, the endurance-bar automatically refills when it gets depleted. Every refill counts as 1 charge.

- using a Ley Line (if Tier 6 is trial)

What happens when the charges turn 0? All trial Masteries are disabled until you switch maps.

_I was there Gandalf. I was there, ~~3000 years ago~~ in 2016._

Highpass Haven, waiting for Seis Burnheart to show up. Yep. Been there, done that. Cya next tuesday o/

> @"Silvia.9130" said:

> What I would like is this thread not to turn into a useless 'battlefield' between raiders and non-raiders but rather a constructive conversation that could help improve the experience and bring more players into raids.

>

> What I would like to talk about is: why people who don't raid, don't want to raid. Tell our reasons, explain our point of view — possibly in a polite way.

1.) The system is build around the meta. The enrage timers leave not much space to errors or improvisation. You can out-heal certain mechanics nowadays. But there is basically just one scripted way of doing things. If you do not have the proper team for it, you will suffer and fail. In Dungeons and even Fractals you have space to improvise and if an encounter takes 40 minutes, you are not wiped after 10.

2.) Roles can be taken by several classes. But a few jobs are limited to 1-2 professions only. Some classes can be the 2nd Healer, which sounds as nice as being the 3rd wheel. The squad needs a dedicated healer with the right class, then you can play a less effective class doing the same job just worse, because your class is not designed to be that good. Support with boons is even worse. And then there is the FB, which can do many roles simultaneously at expert level. You look down on yourselves, realize your class/specialization offers nothing useful and decide not to give it a try. Maybe re-roll on a Guardian.

3.) As long as you are not an expert or have an almost full group, the LFG is useless. It is a group-finder for farmers. The KP system, which is often criticized, is not the root of all evil. The farmers just want to run with experienced players only. Had tons of discussions about that topic as well. After my last, I decided to advise new players to ignore the LFG for raids straight and just look for a guild that does training-runs. The entire debate is a huge waste of time for both sides.

4.) After 8 years, we have several classes which can do great damage in long-range combat. BUT we are still stuck with the stack-meta. Boon and Heal range are too narrow to allow ranged-combat. No party will risk taking your with your longbow/rifle build. Play melee or you are out. At this point, I do not argue with the raid-community. It is just bad design. Having ranged classes, but not supporting them.

5.) Resurrection of dead players is impossible. The meta for DPS classes is 100 % glasscannon, so as long as you are not in a team of experts, you can scrap this. Been in a couple of raid-trainings. You basically wipe constantly until you memorize the combat-mechanics, then keep trying to get as less players killed as possible. Some of the boss mechanics have instant-kills. If the healer gets killed, the entire squad does /gg. The /gg emote is probably the most used emote in the game.

-

tl&dr; The raid-community is not the reason I avoid raids. I just cannot get along with the design. I enjoy GW2 for many reasons, but raiding just feels like a different game with a GW2 paint job. Looks great, but does not work for me.

Was kicked out of the game and client constantly fails to log in. (EU)

In order to make this post easier to read, I hid all previews in a spoiler.

The Requiem Armor is one of the special armor skins which have a glow-effect that can be dyed. This allows you to work with a lot of skins, which are normally horrible to match with anything else. When looking at the dyes, the **glow-slots** are located in the _shoulders_, _gloves_ and _boots_.


Starting with the five most challenging glow headpieces, which are normally a pain to match with other armors. Those are Zephyrite Sun Helm, Zephyrite Sky Helm, Zephyrite Lightning Helm, Bloodstone Crown and Bloodstone Visage. After a some tests, I figured out the following matching glow-colors:

>! 

>! Note: I made a mistake with the naming. The **Sky Helm** in the picture is actually the **Wind Helm**. Noticed too late :S.

Here is the complete color-scheme I used for the glow-previews.

>! 

> @"Zereqiel.8249" said:

> Anything but masks that cover nose and mouth.

None of these examples cover both, the **Bloodstone Crown** covers anything but nose and mouth. The **Bloodstone Visage** just adds a particle effect to your head and makes your eyes glow red. Anyway, there is more. Let us have a look at skins that leave most of the face untouched and try to match these with the Requiem Armor. Mostly focusing on variants which may fit to a Ranger.

>! 

>! Prowler Mask

>! Determination Headband

>! Carapace Mask

> @"Zereqiel.8249" said:

> And while we are at it, may i ask suggestions for a set that is going to match demon-haunted longbow and double axes.

The Demon Haunted Weapons are the Halloween weapons with the blue ghost light effect. The weapon-colors are grey-purple with blue eyes. The glow is blue-white. I even own a Ranger and a few of those skins. But looking at the clock and how much time this post already consumed, I will only do one preview with another helmet-option.

>! 

>! Nightmare Court Faceguard

It was a lot of work creating this, but I wanted to give you and the others and idea of the potential of the Requiem armor set. If you pick the dyes wisely, you can easily create a look that beats gemstore-skins.

I have a guess:

The tutorial is designed to prepare you for the adventure in GW2, which ultimately results in getting lifted to level 2. In order to reach the levelup, a total amount of 2,000 EXP is required. Upon completing the mission, the game makes sure you will reach the levelup, so it checks your current EXP and just adds what is missing towards 2,000. The more mobs you kill, the less additional EXP is required to reach level 2, which means you get less bonus EXP in the end.

Characters which are already level 2 or above get a fixed amount of exp. I guess it is a simple If query:

If level = 1

add EXP = 2,000 - Current EXP

Else

add EXP = 2,000

End

Looks a bit complicated and sort of overkill. Why not add 2,000 EXP straight? I assume the mechanic was used on more events and actually served a purpose back then. Maybe it was copy/pasted to the tutorial or they just forgot to remove it. As long as the code works, you should not touch it ^^.

Purchased the node on the first day, gathered every day so far. It is always 1 Prismaticite Crystal on the first strike, then 2x trash on the remaining strikes. Although I thought this to be impossible, it is actually worse than the Chilli Node from Grothmar Valley. It is also sort of annoying that you can only craft weapons with this currency. So far there are not any alternative purposes.

If they do not want to give me any more Prismaticite Crystals, because they want me to play DRM, fine. But putting trash for the 2nd and 3rd mining-strikes is a joke. Please put something useful there, something that justifies purchasing the node. Like Karmic Retribution, because the LW5/IBS already focuses on karma instead of magic. The other LW nodes all loot the related magic together with the materials. So why not in IBS?

Never use sarcasm/irony in an area, communication is only done with text. A lot of people will not get the joke, a lot of people will feel offended and some will react with sarcasm on their own which you may (or may not) be able to notice on your own - see above.

You want build-variety, but it should not have any impact.

It would be helpful if we could reach Cantha as easily as we can reach HoT. Either using a direct path from any of the nearby maps, or via a Guildhall. Path of Fire utilized the Lily of the Elon as a direct _path_, instead of _walking_ there. This worked out, but only for players who owned the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition of Path of Fire. Others either had to travel through the Guildhall, via Teleport to Friend or run the first Story Mission with every new character - which was rather tedious and caused a lot of complaints.

As a convenience lounge, the Lily of the Elon was a total success. So I believe we get something like that again. Cantha is far away from Tyria and Elona, what makes a direct path rather difficult. If they do it, we probably travel there via a portal. Maybe from the EotN? I would really like to see the Airship as a travel-option again, because I enjoyed the relaxing cinematic with Path of Fire and Fidus' company.

Same as @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493", my experiences with her were not very good. But I will not stomp on her work, she did a good job. Every human has their own edges and preferences. You cannot be friends with everyone on the planet.

I do miss one certain point however. Before she left, she created and started to fill the Guild Wars 2 and Forum Policies. This was probably one of the most annoying, tedious and also dangerous tasks on the forums. I totally understand that no one dared to continue this section. But if it was completed, it would have saved us (and them) a lot of trouble. It is not useless, the topics she managed to write are a huge help.

A staff-member I really miss is Mr. Cleary. He engaged in the difficult and heated discussions, listened to our problems and answered the most important questions.