Seera.5916

> @"Nurgle.6597" said: > There are indeed people manipulating the markets and something should be done. There's a wp video ( ) where these people openly talk about what they do, hearing that they have millions of gold manipulating the market while I'm just playing the game normally and never had more that 1k gold in my 6 years of play time was sickening. Made the whole game seem pointless to me, the rich only get richer while the rest of us play in the mud (just like in real life). That's a video on gold farming. If you've been playing for years and consistently gold farm, you're going to be wealthy in game and have loads of mystic coins. Mystic coins have trended up in cost slowly over the years so it's not out of the question that a player would hoard the Mystic coins that they do receive knowing that the gold they'll get from it will increase significantly over the long term. Key word there is long term. Players like Wooden Potatoes took a gamble that the mystic coin would significantly increase in price over the life of the game and invested in mystic coins by holding onto the ones that they sold and possibly buying some when prices dipped over the years. That's not market manipulation. That's getting lucky with an investment. Wooden Potatoes could have easily made a bad investment and ANet could have flooded the game with mystic coins and severely lowered the price that players are willing to spend on them. The trading post covers both EU and NA. It's too large for any market of with the supply level of mystic coins to be able to be manipulated.

> @"Ailuro.2780" said: > > If it's optional, players will by and large most likely not do it. Leaving the same problem you're describing in place. > > Why would they not do it? It's the choice of between reading text and not playing the game, versus engaging in the game. > Here the argument that "if it's optional" doesn't really work considering if you weigh the two, it is way more fun to actually learn in the game than read the wiki. > Sure, it's subjective but speaking from my own experience, more people would choose to learn it in the game than read from the wiki. > > > Don't need in game tutorial sessions to learn that the higher DPS you have the faster you kill things. That most would call the game insulting their intelligence. > > There are different ways of achieving this due to the difference in weapons and professions. > Letting the players understand exactly how to achieve a higher DPS from a specific combo and understanding their trait lines is not something insulting. > > I'll say this again, many players come to end-game content with no clue what is the right weapons for them to achieve a high dps, much less knowing about combo effects in their chosen profession. The argument I'm coming from is there is more than enough evidence of people simply having to copy template builds and just forget about everything they've played with prior, it shows that they have poor understanding of the game mechanics. This is exactly why I disagree with: > > > the game does a good job of teaching the necessary skills > > At the very least, if the game did a good job of teaching the necessary skills, then players would have to change a couple chosen traits in their specialization because learning that is pretty time-consuming. As far as I'm aware, a majority of new players who reach lvl 80 don't even understand why they should use a greatsword over axe/mace as as a warrior in PvE modes. Why would they not do a tutorial mission that's voluntary? Number of possible reasons including, but not limited to (usually players have a combination): 1. Boring. 99.9% of straight tutorial sessions are boring. 2. Time constraints. If you had an hour to play would you rather play a tutorial or play the actual game and make progress on whatever your goals are? 3. Belief that they are smart enough to not need a tutorial. This is for both players who truly don't need a tutorial and those whose ego prevents them from doing the tutorial when they probably should. 4. Don't like tutorial missions in general, even if put in as part of the story (some single player games even have mods made to skip those mandatory tutorial missions). Players already know that understanding their trait lines make for better builds and that there are multiple different ways to go about the same thing. Again, putting in tutorials to teach players this is insulting the intelligence of the players. I personally don't like when games insult my intelligence about basic things like that. Not every player has a desire to do max DPS. Most just want to be able to achieve their goals. GW2 makes it so that for most goals, you can achieve it with just viable builds and doesn't require players to master their classes to obtain max DPS. You seem to want the game to hand hold players to mastering their classes. The game should only teach players their classes. Those who want to master their classes to do max DPS will put in the work themselves to do so. Whether that's pouring over the traits and skills and doing build crafting on their own or going out to build sites to research which build is the best and fully learning it and the why the builds were made the way they are so that they can adjust accordingly when patches release that change things or when new content that requires different skills to kill than their current build has. But GW2 is aimed heavily at casual players. Casual players generally have low interest in min-maxing their build and just want something viable. They are just fine taking the min-max build and playing it however well they can, even if it's not perfect, even after patches are released or new content added. Some may also lack the math skills needed to really understand the math behind the build to fully understand why certain choices were made. Some players may not have the time to master their classes and simply just want something viable so that they can obtain their goals without having to face too much failure. As to what weapons a player should or should not use, rule of fun should always prevail. Players should play with the build that is the most fun for them. Whether that's a min-max build or a cobbled together viable build that doesn't share anything with the meta build. Yes, that means that some players choice of build will mean that they shouldn't PUG certain content and should make clear to those they run in groups with that they're not running meta so that players can decide if the content is still doable with the build the player has. For instance, at least a few years ago it was doable to do low level fractals if two members were in Clerics gear and not traited for high DPS either. That was me and a friend in a group of friends. But the friends we were running with knew what our builds were. This was my first MMO and my friends helped me find a build that would give me room for plenty of mistakes. I've since outgrown the build.

> @"Ailuro.2780" said: > > @"Seera.5916" said: > > The problem is that type of content assumes everyone needs to be hand held through how to play the game and doesn't want to learn through other means. > > I would hate having to go through the tutorial stuff you mentioned. Tutorial sessions are never like the actual game. They're boring and players will just use skill until they find the one that works and won't figure out why it works vs why others won't. Players want to get to the game or get back to the game. Not play a mandatory tutorial. > > As described through the pre-existing examples of the "tutorials" in town and around the beginner maps, those are completely optional. I do not support the idea of mandatory tutorials. That would go against the nature of the hands-off approach in the levelling process of guild wars2. > > > The game would be better served by having actual missions or quests in game have new mechanics put into them that organically teach things that players need to know. > > The mission you described is a great idea, and like another person commented on an incentive to get a chest. Here you said: > > > make NPC's mention the fact that it needs some crowd control and they can use the "CC weapon" to apply some if too much time goes by without progress. > > It would be very easy to weave in either the story or around the maps bosses having critical weaknesses and the NPCs saying something. As you already know, the training golems exist and are great to practise rotations with however from my experience, most players never know they exist till they're mentioned by another player. > > > doesn't want to learn through other means. > > Bringing back what you said, this is the essential thing. There should be the freedom of choice to the player that they can go to either the wiki OR in the game with an NPC OR learn with friends OR learn with friends and they can practise alone when they want but the integration of the idea of practising skills and being conscious of what they actually do is not a well made option in my opinion. > > Players who prefer the wiki and videos can do that, but not everyone wants to learn this way. > If it's optional, players will by and large most likely not do it. Leaving the same problem you're describing in place. The major basic stuff should have means in game to teach it near when it would be appropriate. Don't need in game tutorial sessions to learn that the higher DPS you have the faster you kill things. That most would call the game insulting their intelligence. To me, short of CC usage, the game does a good job of teaching the necessary skills for the game and does not need any major overhaul.

The problem is that type of content assumes everyone needs to be hand held through how to play the game and doesn't want to learn through other means. I would hate having to go through the tutorial stuff you mentioned. Tutorial sessions are never like the actual game. They're boring and players will just use skill until they find the one that works and won't figure out why it works vs why others won't. Players want to get to the game or get back to the game. Not play a mandatory tutorial. The game would be better served by having actual missions or quests in game have new mechanics put into them that organically teach things that players need to know. Like the first mission that has a break bar, make it so that players need to use some CC to break the bar to make the enemy defeatable and have a weapon on hand that the player can pick up that has that. And make NPC's mention the fact that it needs some crowd control and they can use the "CC weapon" to apply some if too much time goes by without progress. At this point, they would need something like the dodge roll thing in order to achieve the same purpose as it's probably not worth it to modify the story to fix that and you'd need a way to get players who have played through the story on all of their characters that they intend to take through the story. I hate tutorial things that take me out of the story in order to complete it unless I'm going for like advanced tactics. But basic stuff like you're mentioning, needs to be weaved into the story or missions in an organic way. The mission Hidden Arcana in LS2 does this perfectly. Each of the mini-bosses teaches a mechanic that's needed to defeat the final boss.

> @"SASHI.7260" said: > > @"Seera.5916" said: > > Where is the proof that it's not simple supply and demand? > > Just look at the statistics and that gigantic wall for the Mystic Coin (I already provided the link on my previous comment). It's not hard to see. Especially if you are a BIT aware on whats happening outside of the Trading post (such as on reddit and discords). > > Someone went mad cause they got banned on the Trading Discord for RMT that they sold 32+ Chak Egg Sac at max gold value just to get enough liquid gold to put a giant wall on Mystic Coin just to kitten the market. Now said WALL keeps moving from 1.8g to 2.0g because of that trend. (Obviously you would defend that "How I know its not just random people but only one person? Can you show proof?" and my answer to this one is simple, I do not have. Just numbers to look at.) > > The price on Mystic Coins at that time was floating at 1.5-1.7 per piece. Ever since that wall came up. it went from 1.8 to 2.0g in just a span of like what? 3-4 months? And now it fixed itself at above 2.0g since there are 3 sets of walls preventing it to go down (444,732 on 2g, 17,554 on 2g5c, 89,988 at 2g,10c) > > Tell me if that is NOT market manipulation (Obviously me pointing at the fact that people erect WALLS of buy order that is not feasible by the market to overcome based on the supply and demand statistics). Or are you implying that hoarding and market manipulation is supply and demand? > > If you really want a theoretical / speculative answer then this manipulation is directly involved with Legendary Armory since those rich people who only trade outside of the Trading Post started hoarding legendary weapons. How to hoard a lot more? Simple, inflate the currency they are using (Mystic Coin) since by doing that, they could pay LESS Mystic Coin for 1 Legendary Weapon (only at most around 900 MC per Legendary Weapon) > > This would ALL be avoided for years if Player Trading via Mail/Guild Bank was NOT ALLOWED at the very start. There is a reason why Player Trading was not implemented here and there is a reason why TP has a 5% posting fee and 10% selling fee. And that is to avoid this very incident. > > Edit: Woops. Did not know that would BOLD the letters up One person can't manipulate a market this large. Anything one person did would be quickly corrected unless the price they raised it to was the actual equilibrium price and they just shortened the time it took the item to get there. So again where is the proof that it is market manipulation and not simple supply and demand?

> @"scerevisiae.1972" said: > It's blatant market manipulation. > > High wealth individuals are propping up the market price of MCs to fuel RMT trading with gold sellers. > > I'm frankly amazed Anet are not doing anything. I've heard multiple rumours of people who do nothing but flip items and sell stacks of MC to RMTs for real world $$. Where is the proof that it's not simple supply and demand? There's proof out there for it to be simple supply and demand. I've yet to see anyone come up with any proof that it's market manipulation. Rumors are not truth and therefore can't be used as proof of market manipulation.

> @"Crystal Paladin.3871" said: > comparing the timegated strictly one per day T7 crafting materials and mystic coins, it seems mystic coins price is justified to some extent. > looking at gw2spidey.net, mystic coin price jumped to 1.83gold on jun 15 2020 jumped up 20 silver with huge volume of buy orders and the buy orders keeps increasing rapidly but the sell orders volume is stagnant(from nov 9 2020 to present day) > looking at timegated strictly one per day t7 mats, > Spiritwood plank -> sell orders exceed the buy orders by almost 2x > Deldrimor steel ingot -> meeting the supply demand scale and sometimes sell orders exceeding buy orders, with one exception around may 11 2020 > Elonian leather square -> unknown spike around may 18 2020 for buy orers otherwise it somehow balances the scale > Bolt of damask -> the sell orders try to keep up with buy orders but buy orders are higher always..(do ppl play light armor profession more ? idk) > > > what really confuses me is that, even though t7 mats are strictly one per day timegated(rarely u get some from some chest - not guaranteed like mystic coins when u do CMs) why are their sell orders volume is atleast acceptable level when compared to mystic coins which makes me think are the buyers keep buying them and just deleting them? or place a buy order for 200k+ mystic coins and delete gw2 account on the same day? Players hoard mystic coins. Players don't typically hoard the other time gated materials. Think of hoarding mystic coins like having some stock. People want to sell at the max price. If the price of a stock is generally still rising, most people won't sell. But once it reaches what could be a peak or once it starts to fall, people will start to sell it. The same is likely happening with mystic coins. Players don't want to sell their hoard now if in a year, the cost will be say 2 gold, 50 silver.

> @"SASHI.7260" said: > I like how > > 1) Some people not even using the Trading System of the game. > 2) Hoards a majority of the mystic coin market. > 3) Goes into Mail Trading over a 3rd party communication line using MC as major currency. > 4) Inflates the prices so much by limiting the amount in the trading post (as seen on the statistics from gw2bltc - https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/19976-Mystic-Coin at 920K Demand over 31K supply as of this posting) because why would I sell it over the TP when I can use it as a conversion method to get other stuffs over a 3rd party communication line (i.e Discord, Reddit) without paying for taxes. > 5) Makes a gigantic WALL @ 2g flat (444K buy order - already half of the demand and was originally at 1.8g but well, gotta inflate those riches) by using the same funds obtained from said 3rd party communication line to make it more expensive over said 3rd party communication line. > > and is still NOT Price Fixing at this point. > > But hey! According to ya savvy economist on this thread, Its simply the basic law of supply and demand right? nothing wrong with it. It's simply the flow on the price. It will always go up when demand goes up. > > Edit : Added a small set of texts somewhere Because supply and demand is a much simpler explanation for the rise in cost. And most of us believe that the simplest reason is the most logical. Legendary weapons prior to the armory announcement were on a single character only. Meaning that if you had Eternity you could only have the actual Twilight greatsword on one character, even though greatsword is a meta weapon on a number of classes. Also, it's not expensive or complicated to change stats on ascended gear and most people don't change their build multiple times in a short period of time. So most players don't currently go for legendary weapons unless for the cosmetic due to the above. With the announcement of the legendary armory, more players are interested in making a legendary as it will be usable on different classes. So demand went up for mystic coins. ANet has not increased the supply of them. Meaning that over time, the price was bound to increase to the new equilibrium price. ANet does have to be careful with anything that would lower the cost of mystic coins due to the hoarding tendencies of players. They increase the supply too much in an effort to lower the price and players may mass sell off their coins in a race to get the most from it before it hits its new low. Tanking the market for mystic coins which will do who knows what to the other markets as the crash may increase demand for things the mystic coin is used for, especially in large quantities. If they go after the items the mystic coin uses and make them less desirable, that would make players mad who made the item for how it was and may be upset that that was changed. So that's not the way that ANet is likely to go if they feel the cost of the coin on the trading post is too high. No one has given any proof that the coins were purchased by players who had nefarious reasons for buying them and not for actual usage or even investment. Someone just getting into the game, I'd say hold onto some mystic coins and possibly even purchase some (for those asking for things that hold value) even if it's not something you'll ever use, the price has been slowly trending up over the years and therefore a purchase today would be much more valuable in a few years when a new player would need gold to buy things they do want if they don't need the mystic coins themselves. I for one hold onto 250 and only dip below when I need the coins for something. Most players don't use a third party site for selling their coins or buying items. I know I don't. If an item isn't on the trading post, then oh well. I don't personally want to risk getting a bad middle man and be out my coins and not get the item I want. Yes, those communities do punish and ostracize those who scam others, but unless they've been discovered, they could still be there and that's not something I want to risk. Plus, I know the trading post tax is there for a good reason - a gold sink to help keep inflation down to a minimum.

Class wise, play whatever you want. Whether or not you can solo the story missions will depend on your skill level and the demands of the story step. But all are designed to be doable solo.

Number of reasons. A majority of players may fall into one of the following categories: 1. They are playing that content for the first time. 2. They're returning after a long break and they're rusty with the builds they are playing with, which may not be that cohesive anymore depending on how long the break was 3. They're having a bad day and are just dying more than usual or missing mechanics 4. They're playing a character with a significant change in play strategy than they're used to. Whether that's because they've just switched a character's build or playing a new class, it's a new thing for them and they aren't as fast as they were on their other character/build.

> @"Linken.6345" said: > > @"Zaoda.1653" said: > > I've always wanted a race change contract, whether or not it's ever going to happen is another question. I remember Anet saying it would be difficult re: personal story. > > > > I think the main solution would be to just make it so that the personal story gets reset to the new race that the person has chosen. Problem solved! Now let's try solve something harder like world hunger. > > You are speaking as they never said that they cant reset personal story before. > They have said that. > > http://dulfy.net/2015/03/31/gw2-personal-story-restoration-update/ > > Edit > If you dont want to read the link here it is. > > >Q: Why can’t I reset my character’s Personal Story progress? > + A: The Personal Story was not designed to be replayable. Attempting to adjust a character’s story progress introduces a wide variety of bugs across various content and game systems. We investigated different solutions for partial and full story resets. In all cases, the changes led to unpredictable results in many different content types, including permanent blocking of story progress. To expand on the tendency for the personal story to break, at one point they decided to rearrange some of the chapters in the personal story. They announced it far in advance so players who were concerned about things could either stop prior to reaching that point or finish the personal story. They changed it, and there were countless people who got their progress bugged out. Their fix was to revert it back to the way it was at launch. Which bugged other people out. Including me with a character that had completed the personal story before the first change had happened. That character got set back several steps and I had to do the final mission with her again. As a result, I have 1 more pact token than I should.

I vote no. I wish they had never made the gen 1 legendary weapons trade-able.

> @"yoni.7015" said: > Why don’t play a single player game? This is an MMO. Maybe because they saw an ad or a promo somewhere and were interested in the story and wanted to play the game. Not everyone likes to watch someone play the game. Maybe they don't have much time they can guarantee they can be around for enough time to do group content so wants to make sure that most of the game can be done alone so that if he has to leave in the middle of something then he is only inconveniencing himself and not others as well.

I'd be fine under the following: Only permanent bans lifted. If the account got a temp ban, the player has to deal with it No roll backs. So if the hacker liquidated the account, then oh well. If a player doesn't want to put forth the effort to secure their account to the highest amount possible, then they forego support putting forth the maximum possible effort.

> @"Espada Seraph Phoenix.6129" said: > I gave this post a thought; I don’t know how this system works, but I can identify the problem what I think what you mean to say. > Is this post about you wanting to play WVW with guild members from other servers, correct? > > I think it would be a good thing to do if the servers are full. I don’t know if the spots are occupied or not with lifeless accounts. If so, sure, why not? > In my previous guild, the issue was that I wanted to do WVW with my guild members; however, we could not do WVW together because of the servers. We can play PVE together with the guest function, that was great, but we could not play WVW together. Because I already did a transfer, the next transfer costs money I cannot spend. My guild members could still do a change for free, but the server was full. In the end, I quit the guild. Because at that time, I played WVW more than PVE. > I can say things as make changing servers free. But that would be impossible :P. > > Have a great day ^^ > As others have mentioned, WvW population is done only with players actively playing WvW. So even active PvE only players aren't a factor in WvW server status.

> @"Halandir.3609" said: > > @"Sobx.1758" said: > > This is not gw1 forum btw :D > > True - But since there is no official Guild Wars forum and this one is hosted under the "guildwars2.com" domain it seems appropriate to direct questions and concerns regarding Guild Wars in this direction. Especially since Anet have chosen the "guildwars2.com" domain as an outlet for Guild Wars news such as: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-guild-wars-anniversary-celebration-begins-tomorrow/ > > (Also: Guild Wars never had a 1 attached btw :D) It's also not uncommon for the 1 to get added in later on even if only informally to help reduce confusion when the specifics of the topic are broad enough where it could be either. Such as in The Sims series. Many players refer to the original game as The Sims 1 to avoid confusion so that people don't think they're talking about the series as a whole. As for the topic, if they are still selling it, they should do the bare minimum with regards to support. I've never played the game and don't know enough details to know if they do or do not.

@"Sol.6340" No one is saying you shouldn't be upset. I would be upset in your shoes. Whether it was because I played on a Mac or if ANet was discontinuing support for Windows. What people are saying is that the reason for the discontinuation is due to a choice that Apple made. So yelling at ANet isn't going to change anything. Because they aren't the ones to blame. I'm sure ANet looked at the cost it would take to take the Mac client and make it compatible with the hardware/software Apple is continuing support on. I'm sure if they had unlimited funds and time, that they would have gladly made the changes required to make the game work on the new OS. But they likely ran the numbers on the estimated expenses and the estimated profits and compared it to the estimated loss of income that dropping those not willing to do workarounds to continue playing and decided that it would cost them too much to make the changes. Larger companies may have the money and manpower to make the changes necessarily. But unfortunately, decisions like these hurt smaller gaming companies who don't have the time or money to continue support.

> @"Westenev.5289" said: > > @"Seera.5916" said: > > But the OP doesn't mean that. > > Yes, the OP didn't mean that. And, funnily enough, I wasn't replying to the op. I was replying to "the first post you mentioned". And I reread the posts to make sure it wasn't a reply to a commenter instead of the OP. Your post that I quoted was the first post that mentioned playing WvW and hating PvE.

> @"Westenev.5289" said: > > @"Ashen.2907" said: > > I am not sure that any of that is easier than clicking on the TP icon, selecting desired stats, and spending gold. Similarly, I don't think any of your examples are easier than spending karma at a temple heart vendor. > > Good luck finding a temple heart vendor for: > > Marauders. > Minstrils. > Trailblazer. > Vipers. > Sinister. > > Sound familiar? Probably because they're some of the most commonly used armors in WvW and PvE. And you can't buy them on the trading post. So, I ask you, without listing any of the methods I have listed... > > ... how do you buy these stats off the trading post? What is your easy acquisition method for a person who admits they hate PvE and want to WvW? But the OP doesn't mean that. No post mentions that they hate PvE and want to WvW. The post I've quoted is the first place that mentions hating PvE and wanting to WvW. Which means we're talking in general for this thread. For the average player. And the average player plays PvE. Just accept that exotics in general, for the average player, are easier to obtain than ascended. There may be a handful of stat combinations where ascended is easier to obtain, but that's not the case for most.

> @"Westenev.5289" said: > > @"Seera.5916" said: > > But LWS3 and LWS4 are a far aways off for a new player. So is level 450 crafting. They won't have been able to stockpile the daily limited items like existing players have enough in advance to make ascended crafting cheaper or quicker. > > > > Exotics are going to be the quickest and easiest way for new players to gear up on average for most content. Then they can work towards earning ascended gear of the stats they want - if they so choose. > > > > Once you're established, you get whatever level gear in the way that's most fun for you. Which is a wide variety for both exotic and ascended. > > > > But you can't just claim ascended is always cheaper and easier than exotic. For new players, exotic will always win short of anything that needs laurels to buy if they haven't been buying a lot with laurels while leveling up. > > Did you know the cost of 400 armoursmithing is 25 gold from scratch? +6g for 500? > Did you know the cost of 400 leatherworking is 23 gold from scratch? +14g for 500? > Did you know the cost of 400 tailoring is 23 gold from scratch? +6g for 500? > > Not an unreasonable cost for a returning player. I seriously suggest checking out gw2crafts. > > I suggested Living World ascended trinkets specifically because it doesn't require laurals and bitterfrost frontier is quickly farmable if that's what you want to do (while the other lws3 maps are much more long term and casual friendly). This is also where you'll see the most difference in stats, and also the most difficulty in finding the correct stats for your build. And I was NOT talking about a returning player. I was talking about a new player. As in someone who literally just got their very first character to level 80 new. Once established, players should choose the option that's best for them. Whether they go for cheap/quick or expensive/long. For my elementalist, I've been going from exotic weapons to legendary weapons. And legendary weapons are definitely not the quick/cheap way to get ascended level stats. Your initial claim was that ascended gear would be quickest and cheapest method for all players. I countered saying that it wouldn't be for new players due to the fact they start with nothing.

> @"Westenev.5289" said: > > @"Seera.5916" said: > > > @"Westenev.5289" said: > > > > @"hihey.1075" said: > > > > > @"Westenev.5289" said: > > > > > > @"hihey.1075" said: > > > > > > > @"Westenev.5289" said: > > > > > > > Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic. > > > > > > > > > > > > I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats). > > > > > > > > > > Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories. > > > > > > > > > > Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols. > > > > > > > > > > Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep. > > > > > > > > > > Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger. > > > > > > > > > > Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore. > > > > > > > > Thanks, but I still do not see how all these are more easily achievable (in terms of time/gold cost) than exotics :/ > > > > > > It seems daunting, but in reality it's one or two months of playing how I want with a variety of activities I float between whenever I want a change of location. Plus, if you get into wvw, some stats like celestial or marshals can be difficult to obtain as exotics (and if you're crafting, why not just make ascended?). > > > > > > If there is one takeaway though, I really want to stress the winterberry farm in lws3 ep 3. > > > > > > And, I want to note that top tier players continually prove game knowledge trumps stats. So long as you have the correct exotic stats, you can easily outdps someone in ascended gear who buttonmashes, picks bad weapons and generally doesn't know what they're doing. > > > > But that's still more time than it would take to get a full set of exotics. That's where the question comes in. > > > > Now there may be cases where some stats are quicker/cheaper to get as ascended vs exotic, but that's probably not the case for most stats. > > > > And for new players, exotics will always be quicker and cheaper because new players would most likely have to get the appropriate craft level up to 500 before they could craft what they need, or reach the point in the story where they can do those achievements, or earn enough fractal ranks to get ascended gear drops, etc. > > That's true for Armour, which is why I recommended 2 sources of ez exotics (preferably bladed, because the collection awards a piece of ascended if I recall correctly). Verdant Brink is also a popular meta, so getting event participation and crowbars shouldn't be a problem. Heck, I'm pretty sure you can buy exotic berserker armour off the TP for less than 10g. Statwise, armour is worth less than the weapon or trinkets, so ascended armour shouldn't be the priority if you're looking at running berserkers. > > But for Trinkets, I believe lws3 and lws4 offer extremely easy ways to get stat selectable gear. Unless you're getting Berserker, this is easily the easiest way to get trinkets without laurels. Speaking of Berserker, 10 pristine fractal relics isn't a big ask for rings - so much so you can arrive at tier 1 fractals and do the dailies with level up rings. You'll have the rings in a week, one day if a friend carries you through t4's. > > Getting 500 crafting is fairly cheap, laughably so. Gw2crafts has trivialised crafting. But for what we need, 450 is fine - I can't stress how good it would be to begin getting into good habits like stockpiling things like charged quartz or spools of elonian thread. Doing this is practically why I can make ascended armour on demand. > > Praying on RNG gods to get ascended gear isn't a great plan, esp since you need ascended gear to get enough AR to run t3 or t4 fractals, and people could live their lives without ever seeing a tequatl hoarde. Raiding might be an option, but in that case there is no rush for ascended gear. Better to focus on what you can do rather than rely on luck. But LWS3 and LWS4 are a far aways off for a new player. So is level 450 crafting. They won't have been able to stockpile the daily limited items like existing players have enough in advance to make ascended crafting cheaper or quicker. Exotics are going to be the quickest and easiest way for new players to gear up on average for most content. Then they can work towards earning ascended gear of the stats they want - if they so choose. Once you're established, you get whatever level gear in the way that's most fun for you. Which is a wide variety for both exotic and ascended. But you can't just claim ascended is always cheaper and easier than exotic. For new players, exotic will always win short of anything that needs laurels to buy if they haven't been buying a lot with laurels while leveling up.

> @"Westenev.5289" said: > > @"hihey.1075" said: > > > @"Westenev.5289" said: > > > > @"hihey.1075" said: > > > > > @"Westenev.5289" said: > > > > > Depending on the stats you're after, it's actually cheaper/easier to get ascended gear rather than exotic - this is doubly true for trinkets. And outside of Fractals, you could probably do content in rare or exotic gear - the DPS isn't all that different so long as your stats are damage orientated and you can play your class adequately. > > > > > > > > > > > > > Can you provide examples of this? I am having a hard time figuring out how Ascended equipment is easier to obtain than Exotic. > > > > > > > > I am genuinely interested because, as a returning player who stopped right before HoT, I am in the situation where I do not know how to proceed to update my gear (which was fully ascended) with the best stat choices for min-maxing my performance. > > > > > > > > > > Ring: Fractals, 10 pristine for red ring of death and the other one (berserker stats). > > > > > > Ring, Backpack, Accessory (unique, any stat): Pick up lws3 ep 3 from the gem store. You will unlock bitterfrost frontieer. Farm winterberries, you should get about 70 per character per day if you do hearts + chests. More characters helps here, and the farm is fairly quick with mounts. Use the winterberries to buy accessories. > > > > > > Ring, Backpack, Amulet (unique, any stat): I recommend bloodstone from lws3 ep 1 since they're stat swappable, but takes FOREVER to farm. But, in general, lw is just great for farming at least one type of ascended accessory. PvP also has realistically obtainable stat swappable accessories if you want to casually dab into the ranked season for lols. > > > > > > Backpack: Lots of achievements give one. My personal favourite are the PoF banner support achievements. If you're stuck on what to go for, pick ad infinitum - it'll take you through the steps to make a beta infused backpack with 2 infusion slots you can keep. > > > > > > Weapons: Elite spec weapons are probably the easiest to obtain off the top of my head. If they're the wrong stat, throw them in the mystic toilet with the exotic inscription of choice. Caladbolg is also a fun miniquest and a nice send off to traehearne, and can take the form of a gs, sword, scepter, shield or dagger. > > > > > > Armour: pvp is an option, but realistically just throw money at the problem. Use gw2 crafts to get 450 tailor (light), leatherworking (medium) or armoursmithing (heavy). Begin making your daily materials. In the meantime, you can get exotic stat swappable armour from verdant brink (bladed armour) or berserkers from the cathedral of silence in cursed shore. > > > > Thanks, but I still do not see how all these are more easily achievable (in terms of time/gold cost) than exotics :/ > > It seems daunting, but in reality it's one or two months of playing how I want with a variety of activities I float between whenever I want a change of location. Plus, if you get into wvw, some stats like celestial or marshals can be difficult to obtain as exotics (and if you're crafting, why not just make ascended?). > > If there is one takeaway though, I really want to stress the winterberry farm in lws3 ep 3. > > And, I want to note that top tier players continually prove game knowledge trumps stats. So long as you have the correct exotic stats, you can easily outdps someone in ascended gear who buttonmashes, picks bad weapons and generally doesn't know what they're doing. But that's still more time than it would take to get a full set of exotics. That's where the question comes in. Now there may be cases where some stats are quicker/cheaper to get as ascended vs exotic, but that's probably not the case for most stats. And for new players, exotics will always be quicker and cheaper because new players would most likely have to get the appropriate craft level up to 500 before they could craft what they need, or reach the point in the story where they can do those achievements, or earn enough fractal ranks to get ascended gear drops, etc.

> @"m k m.2014" said: > > @"Andrej.4293" said: > > I've been just doing the story of this game so I haven't really expanded much upon everything. I found out that you can apparently get a Mini Snow Owl pet with 2 Miniature claim tickets which you can buy for 10 statues. > > I currently have 4 statues, but like 15 chests. So I'm just wondering if there is any way to get keys, preferably without spending much irl money... > > > > Thank you for the help. > > > And never buy keys, it's a scam, spend $100 and only got t6 bags, unistall for the moment > It's not a scam. Only buy keys for the feeling of surprise you get when you're opening the chests. Don't buy keys with the hopes of getting some rare or super rare drop. You're just asking to be disappointed because it will take more keys on average than you're likely wanting to spend to get it unless you get lucky.

> @"voltaicbore.8012" said: > > @"Hesione.9412" said: > > > @"voltaicbore.8012" said: > > > @"Hesione.9412" in particular, on the one hand you make it sound like you're okay with the game not catering to everyone who can't clear content as designed (whether it's due to disability or otherwise), but on the other hand that _this_ particular achievement should include precisely that sort of catering. Can you elaborate on what should qualify an achievement for the latter sort of treatment? For instance, is it the fact that it includes one of the few exclusive in-game-achieveable skins? Is it the fact that it's a holiday achievement? Or simply that it includes a JP? > > > > > > For me, anything with a JP in it deserves to offer an alternative completion option. I have no physical disabilities relating to performing any gameplay tasks, and successfully completed the Wintersday JP and most others with what I'd consider a reasonable amount of effort. _I still absolutely loathe JPs with a passion_. As such, I would welcome an alternative achievement option _anytime_ a JP is in the list of things needed to do. I don't care what the reward is, I just hate JPs that much. > > > > This is somewhat off-topic, and I think deserves its own thread as this one relates to the Wintersday JP specifically. > > > > The problem here is the exclusive in-game-achievement skin. Now, coming to the wording, I don't mean exclusive as in "only the top 1% of players will get this" (definition A). I mean exclusive in that "these achievements, most of which must be completed within the Wintersday festival [the drinking 10,000 drinks doesn't have timing, it only has type], must be completed" (definition B ). > > > > The game has exclusive (definition A) titles. An example is Fractal God/Fractal Goddess. Another example is God and Goddess of the Arena, or God of WvW. Heck, even Yakslapper (again, WvW). To suggest (as some people, not you, have done in this thread) that getting the Wintersday shoulders is exclusive (definition B ), is almost breathtaking in its audacity. > > > > To break my argument down. At this point I am restricting my argument to the _easiest_ of the three titles I mentioned earlier: Yakslapper. I don't realistically see that any player is going to get a friend/partner/family member do the very long set of activities required for these titles. Although, if they have a friend/partner/family member who wants to kill 2500 yaks for them, have at it. Assuming a yak spawns every 2 minutes (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Talk:Resource_camp), and the same enemy camp can be "camped" over the entire time, that is _a minimum of_ 83 hours that the player's friend has to sit there to kill a yak at once side. If they can kill two yaks then that is about 42 hours. Even _only_ taking into account that camps flip, these times are very optimistic. These titles are very likely obtained by the player themselves doing the activities that contribute to the title. Thus, Yakslapper is an exclusive (definition A) title. > > > > Now, back to the Wintersday JP, many of us had other people do the JP for us. So we got the skin with effort on our part (repeated failure) but someone else was able to tick off that requirement. Somebody else who is good at JPs can knock three out in quick succession. Worst case scenario: assume the JP takes 30 minutes to complete (the maximum time the JP instance is open: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winter_Wonderland). That player would take 1.5 hours to complete three jumps. Now, compare that time to how long it takes to get Yakslapper - and I have created unrealistically short times in which to obtain Yakslapper. > > > > Thus, the holiday-related skins are a fashion-wars item that shows either: > > 1. the player did the JP three times, or > > 2. _somebody else did the JP for the player_. > > > > Which then comes back to the point: the skin is _not_ exclusive (definition A) content. It is exclusive only in the sense of definition B. A lucky player can get a friend/partner/family member to do the JP for them. Thus, the skin is _not_ an indicator of ability/mastery for this JP. Thus, locking the skin behind a JP penalises _players who can't get others to do the JP for them_. > > > > So, finally, who is penalised by having skins locked behind JPs? Answer: players who can't get someone else to do the JP for them during the time of the festival (definition B ). > > > > Which then leads to the question: why have a JP as required content for the skin? If there needs to be X number of activities rather than X-1 (achieved through the removal of the JP from the list of requirements) then some other option could be substituted which will more likely be done by the player themselves. An example: build n snowmen, with n as whatever number. > > Thanks for the elaboration. I wholeheartedly agree that the skin in question is definitely a Definition B type of exclusive, which in turn means I agree that there is no value in refusing to offer alternative routes. > > Also, I happen to think this discussion is supremely relevant to the thread. After all, you've been operating under the framework that there are different forms of exclusivity, and one form deserves to remain exclusive while the other can reasonably be argued to deserve alternative completions. Much of the pushback against you and OP in this thread immediately resorts to just mashing both forms of exclusivity together, resulting in the same old slippery slope argument where the person asking for a Definition B exclusive to be made more accessible gets accused of wanting Definition A exclusives watered down. Those two definitions really are quite distinct, but that distinction is usually lost on people until made explicit. > Except in this game, every single item can be turned into definition B of exclusive. So yea, any watering down of exclusives would put others at risk, too. However, for this particular one would the following compromise be fine: Instead of the item for Winter's Presence being rewarded at Tier 3 along with the AP, what if the item was rewarded at Tier 1, but the AP remained at Tier 3. That way those going for Winter's Presence but are disabled just have to get lucky one time instead of 3, but leaves some reward for those who manage to do it 3 times in place.

> @"sorudo.9054" said: > give it a month ;) And then they'll be loving it and having a blast!