maddoctor.2738

> @"Hans Yulian.6510" said: > What you are talking is true if the server instance you are talking about is the account server which holds the data of your characters, items, chat log, etc. But i am talking about the map server where everyone is doing their real gameplay, for example fighting tequatl, doing meta, pvp, fractal group instance, etc. This map server can be anywhere in the world, doesn't have to be in the US, where the account server must be in a single location. And this is where you are factually wrong. The data center that holds your data, characters, items etc must be in the same area as the map server, otherwise there would be heavy latency between the two. You cannot play in NA maps, while your data is in the EU, it's why you must pick a home world in the region you want to play in. The developers "played" with this idea, but due to the complexity of the characters in Guild Wars 2 they found the latency to be unacceptable (and/or the game unplayable). To use your definition, the account server is on two different locations (it's called the data center) one is in NA, the other is in the EU. Map instances in the EU have access to information of the EU data center only, and map instances in NA have access to information only of the NA data center. > You talk like you have ever host your own private server. What you are talking about here is completely irrelevant. They do have multiple servers (hardware) to host players, which can be seen easily if you use the ip command. They just have to be in the same region as the data center. Imagine a map server in NA trying to get your information when you open your inventory from the EU data center. That would cause heavy latency and they don't want that latency in the game, which is why they only allow map instances of a region to access the data center of that particular region only. To repeat what I explained above, EU map instances have access to EU data centers, NA map instances have access to NA data centers. > If you talk about hosting another entire data center, that's also another different story. If you take a look on how the business perspective, this approach must generate revenue also. so they have to make sure that this region will have enough players, and they also have to block any more people from that region to connect to the global server. Usually this approach is done if the country/region have a game company that want to sign contract with the game developer to do this approach. But now that the Asia region is not blocked to connect to global, means nobody want to host new data center for this game in that particular country/region. Then we get connected to the global server instead. There is no "global" server. To repeat once more: there are two data centers, one in NA and one in EU, those are separate and host the data of completely different players. The data center used for your data is based on your selection of home server when you first log in the game. If you pick a home world in EU, your data will be in the EU data center, if you pick a home world in NA, your data will be in the NA data center. If you want to play in EU, simply change your home world. Players in EU cannot play with players in NA, because their data isn't available on each other's data center. This means if they added an Asian server, those old players that pick that option won't be able to play with their friends from EU/NA again, which is another limiting factor of adding a new data center.

> @"ugrakarma.9416" said: > Im completing achievments left behind, and i did dive not into Strike areas yet; > > - anyone can tell me a list in order of dificult? > - how is the environment for pugs? > > but just to clarify im not a "new player', im just lazy/burned out to do hardcore content, sometimes i run T3 fractals and i find it ok difficult. in the past i did even an "migraine" achievment. > sry if i seem too lazy person, im just a older guy with no much "energy" left. Since you are completing **achievements**, Forging Steel is your best option because it has the largest amount. Also it's in the daily for Champions now meaning it is always fully populated. Yes it takes longer than others, but it's impossible to fail (only takes time), is full of achievements (most of the episode takes place in there) and is very well populated in the public version right now.

> @"Hans Yulian.6510" said: > It's mainly cost of a bit development, sysops, and server. They have to develop a user-friendly mechanic to switch map server, sysops have to setup the SEA AWS cluster, and they have to pay additionally for AWS node. But i still wish they want to do this for the player's gaming experience That's not how MMORPGs work. In order to provide instances in Asia, they'd need to add a completely new data center that is separate from the other two. The NA instances have no access to the EU data center, and the opposite. A new Asia data center would also have no access to the NA or EU data. The question then becomes if the population that will benefit from said data center would be enough to support the game in that region plus a minimum of 3 WVW servers. Then these players would need to abandon playing with their NA/EU friends, unless they pay for transfers in order to do so.

> @"Hans Yulian.6510" said: > should be US. > but regardless which region i use, the map server is different instance can be put all over the world. No that's not how server instances work. If your home is NA (which probably is) you will only be put in NA servers because that's where your data is. Guild Wars 2 has two data centers, one in NA and one in EU, the reason it takes 30 minutes for a region change is because your data physically migrates from one data center to another. Once the migration is complete you will only be put on the new region's instances. If you want to play on EU IPs, simply change your homeworld to one in the EU and your problem will be solved. Everyone that plays on EU home worlds is playing on EU server instances, not NA.

> @"Hans Yulian.6510" said: > right now my ip is 18.205.170.223 which is again US server. maybe it's possible that they try to connect us to the nearest server/most populated , you know that sometime in a very small amount of player map server, they offer us to move to more crowded region (so that they can take down that map server and save some money, AWS charge by the uptime of the EC node anyway). > > maybe my connection also worse to europe than to US, who knows.. The game tries to connect you to a server in the datacenter you selected. What's your home world? Is it NA or EU? When you get the offer to change maps it doesn't change your region, you stay in the region of your home world, just go to a different instance of the same map. I've used the ip command multiple times and I've never seen an IP that is not a european one, this means you probably play from a home world that is in the US.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said: > And they probably didn't like that some items ended up getting priced above the trade cap. Maybe the posts about increasing the cap will stop now, as it's rather clear Anet doesn't want it.

> @"Armen.1483" said: > Conclusion: best way of getting into raids is making friends ! I agree completely, making friends is the best way to start raiding. I started raiding many years ago, in a different game, but it all happened the same way I started in Guild Wars 2. I was playing with a group of friends, friends I met in game mostly, that we all wanted to see what this "raid" thing was. Then we started playing together and created an actual good team. That's how I prefer to do my Raids, I'll FIRST join a community, then Raid with that community. Even if it was never created in order to run Raids to begin with. Fun fact: out of the 10 people in my original Raid squad, the one I cleared all Heart of Thorns Raids with, 4 of them never run Fractals, not even T1, and never run Arah either. Their first introduction to instanced content in the game was Vale Guardian on its release day. Another 2 never reached T4 in Fractals and had very few Ascended pieces. And we killed Deimos with CM active with that same team. And that was the same in every game I raided in. I've never joined a training run, a raid discord or a raid community in any of the games I've raided in. I joined a guild (not a raiding one), found friends and raided with them just fine.

> @"moony.5780" said: > When i played the game at release i remember like monster waves of 100-200 because there r 40 player around. It was a huge big massacre. And when it were only 5 player, the groups were still so huge that everyone could land a hit. But that time unlocking weapon skills was faster and lvling up slowlier. Maybe its because i played staff elementalist back then, but i never killed stuff in 2 or 3 hits. Today i saw a lvl 3 necro killing a lvl 4 Bandit in just 1 sec with axe nr 2....and it killed the only monster comming from this event....and there were 3 people around.....1 monster for 3 people? not even a ventran or any stronger monster... You no longer unlock weapon skills, they are instantly available now, the moment you equip a weapon, back on release you had to use a weapon to "train" with it. Leveling speed in Core tyria (for new players) is the same as nothing really changed, experienced players will level up much faster, taking advantage of everything the game has to offer. Mob numbers in events didn't change either. That level 3 necro was probably a high level player that was downscaled, although Axe 2 does deal a lot of damage. If only one mob spawned and the event ended you must've been there only near the end, events tend to last some time and multiple mobs will spawn over their duration.

This has been going on since release, although it became more pronounced with the addition of ascended and of course elite specs. But the single biggest offender is the mount engage skill, a player with a mount can 1-shot an entire group of mobs, while a fresh player doesn't get any chance to fire a single shot. > @"Hesione.9412" said: > Or, as I have suggested in a thread long ago, stop the events in central Tyria being a daily for level 80 players. This! Sending end-game players to lower level zones has benefits as it makes the zones feel alive, new players will get to see other people, but I think the potential drawbacks far outweigh the benefits. Especially on starter zones, "complete events in Plains of Ashford" is a terrible daily.

> @"Dirame.8521" said: > Funny. I guess that's what you get when you don't make your game challenging from the get-go or you don't build a proper difficulty curve into a game. It's sad to think that players won't be getting anything like Liadri again. By design, there is no actual difficulty curve in this game. You can play Path of Fire before Heart of Thorns, you can play Episode 4 of Season 3, before Episode 3 of Season 3. The entire game can be played out of order, that's the way they monetize it. That's why it's impossible to have an ever increasing difficulty curve as they will never know with which content a player will start, so one episode might be really hard, next one easy, next one hard, there is very little consistency, but that's by design.

> @"Mediados.5783" said: > Hi so i havnt played in a while. As an old veteran player it was quite offputting when they released the patch that reworked the campaign system so i was wondering: Has there been any patch that would allow a player to raise the campaign difficulty? I want to be challenged like back then when you ran to the boss naked because your armor was broken from the many deaths. I think you don't remember it very well. The only place people run naked back on release/beta was in dungeons, and that was because they allowed corpse rushing in the first place. Die, waypoint, dps boss, die, waypoint, dps boss until you win. That was what created the challenge back in the early days but that was "fixed" very early. Since you are talking about campaign, I assume you are talking about the core game story, that is easy on purpose, it's where new players begin their experience. Remember you can skip the core game story on your alts, start your next characters directly in the expansion (once you reach 80 of course) and you will have the challenge you want.

Considering the "voice/dialogue of Tengu", I find it impossible for Anet to add Tengu dialogue to all past content. If, still an IF btw, Tengu, or any other new race, is added to the game, it will have to "start" at the point it's added. Especially considering the living world, which so far has been fire and forget, when was the last time they added/changed something to old living world episodes? Nerfing amazing farms doesn't count. So I find it impossible for Anet to go back to past living world episodes (or even expansions) and record voice lines for Tengu. This isn't like adding a new profession, adding the Revenant made no sense lore-wise, as the "first Revenant" was supposed to be Rytlock, after he entered the Mists. But at least that wasn't a big development problem, as adding all the dialogues would certainly be. If Tengu are added to the game, their story will begin with the content they are added in. This includes voice lines, and probably armor sets too.

> @"lare.5129" said: > they think: "Metal provides near-direct access to the graphics processing unit (GPU), enabling you to maximize the graphics and compute potential of your apps on iOS, macOS, and tvOS. Building on an approachable, low-overhead architecture with precompiled GPU shaders, fine-grained resource control, and multithreading support, Metal further evolves support for GPU-driven command creation, simplifies working with the array of Metal-capable GPUs, and lets you tap into Pro power of Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR." > https://developer.apple.com/metal/ > So they think it's something to be used exclusively by their products ("tap into Pro power of Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR") so not really worth considering it as an option for any developer.

> @"Jay.5128" said: > Just noticed this forum after I made a post. > but cant seem to edit or remove post I made so yeah. > > **Ability to see in other characters inventory when open inventory or crafting** > > Don't know if been stated before having the ability to see in other characters inventory from like a small drop down menu pretty much a glass window you cant open basically shared inventory slots but you cant touch with a search function. I just feel it be QoL when looking to see what you got and haven't out side of bank tabs and Crafting storage. saves you having to log in out like 40 characters to find what your looking for. > > Am guessing the tech might be there as of the shared inventory's why I am kind of putting it forward as something that maybe can be done. The tech is there and this can be done already using an external website like gw2efficiency, it even provides a search function. You can type for example Dragonsblood Dagger and it will tell you which character has that weapon (or if it's in the bank). Having that kind of functionality inside the game would be absolutely great, but while waiting for it (if it's even implemented) we can use the alternative for now.

> @"BnooMaGoo.5690" said: > > @"Sobx.1758" said: > > > @"BnooMaGoo.5690" said: > > > I've been playing for almost 6 years. > > > I can continue possibly if I go through Nvidia meaning I can play one hour a day for free or I can pay another amount to buy a membership. > > > Not sure what I will be doing. > > > You can blame Apple & there might me some truth to it but that's between the businesses. > > > Where does it leave the player? > > > > > > Koda the judge & kodan the jury > > . > > > Yes I could use Bluestacks or some other windows emulator. > > > But that seems counter-productive. > > > It's like how bad do you want to play, customer? > > > Not my idea of customer service/player support but I have a few decades of life before the internet & video games. > > > Thanks for the tips. > > > > Just curious... have you made a similar complaint/thread on apple's forum > > Just curious... why did you respond to this? > Apple's forum? > Which one? > Are you going to suggest buying a pc next? > This isn't about whether pcs are better than Apple despite any attempts to guide the conversation there. > It's about ArenaNet choosing not to support a platform going forward period. It's not ArenaNet that chooses not to support a platform going forward, but about a platform that chooses not to support Arenanet anymore.

> @"battledrone.8315" said: > wow. if ncsoft really had another project, wouldnt they had hired a new team for it, so anet could focus their resources on this game?? No, why would they hire an entirely new team? Arenanet had the same resources and focus allocated on Guild Wars 2 as they had before those new projects started. The extra people hired where working on the new projects, and the number of those still working on Guild Wars 2 was the same (if not higher) than before. > and ncsoft is a huge company, they surely would have the resources to finish a project with a a few hundred employees, instead of just ditching it , and taking a loss We don't know exactly why they ditched the project. Plus NCSoft has ditched many projects in the past, I've been in numerous closed beta tests for NCSoft games, and let me tell you, a lot of them never got released. > perhaps you are happy to pay for vaporware, but i am not You are getting the exact same developer effort you always had. The new projects did not drain the resources from Guild Wars 2, they were -extra- additions.

A simple forum search would show you there are multiple threads on the subject

I can understand posts like this one but it's not that Arenanet gave up on Mac OS customers, but Apple gave up on Guild Wars 2 (and other applications). Instead of asking Arenanet to do something that is beyond their control you should instead ask Apple to implement proper APIs for the Mac OS so other applications can be used there. After all I'm sure you spend more money on Apple than Arenanet, and THEY can do something about it.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > Given that GW2 keeps putting more and more emphasis on Open World activities, grinding and stupidly low RNG rates, > it keeps growing closer to the "typical Asian grindfest" rather than being the opposite. > While I was ok with Legendary collections, because they were supposed to be something special, I definitely disagree how some of the newer collections are handled. The worst offender in my opinion is the DRM Stormcaller weapons collection. Well said, and if I may add the "grind" for mastery points as well. I have this wish that when we get the rest of Champions we'll have an easier way to get the DRM collections finished, which could eventually lead to more players running DRMs regularly. Maybe when we get the full experience the problems we see in DRMs will vanish, or maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part.

Out of curiosity, which instances would you want to turn into visions?

> @"Raknar.4735" said: > BDO is a MMORPG that is doing great even without a focus on instanced content, that's my point. And it's doing well **not** because it doesn't have instanced content, which is what I pointed out. I don't know why someone would get so confrontational about it, I merely provided an observation that although BDO is doing well, without having instanced content, it's not the absence of instanced content that is making BDO a success. You didn't even dispute that (why would you?) but instead kept insisting on your previous argument, which mine doesn't really invalidate does it? Your argument of "BDO doing well without instanced content" and mine of "instanced content isn't what makes BDO a success" can actually coexist and be accurate at the same time... Peace out Edited to make it shorter

> @"Raknar.4735" said: > BDO mobile revenue =/= BDO revenue. Also completely missing the point that is just about BDO, not mobile. Right. The game launched in 2015 and the company announced it reached 1$ Billion sales in April 2019. The game reached 1.7$ billion (+700 million) from April 2019 to September 2020. So 4 years (45 months) to reach 1$ billion and 17 months to get another 700 million. That's a massive change in revenue in late 2019 plus 2020. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-09-10-black-desert-online-has-made-usd1-7bn-in-revenue-to-date You can also check their revenue reports where they tell us where their income is coming from. These are the percentages coming from PC: Q1 2019: 31% Q2 2019: 27% Q3 2019: 31% Q4 2019: 33% Q1 2020: 35% Q2 2020: 44% Q3 2020: 46% As you can see the revenue percentages of Pearl Abyss coming from PC have been on the rise. Given how their other game (EVE Online) has been mostly stable (with much lower numbers than BDO) it's easy to say that this difference is because of the emerging PC revenue in late 2019 and 2020. > It being a wasteland in 2019 isn't actually true, would like sources on that. Someone asking for sources when providing none for their arguments... > So yeah, has a lot to do with instanced content. Lineage 2 has no instanced content... look where it is now. You see this argument of "the game did well because it doesn't have instances, the other game did badly because it did have instances" doesn't really work. I was indeed mistaken about the game being dead in late 2019, more like 2018, the game earned 234% more money in 2019 than in 2018, a figure that only increased in 2020.

I think many people, especially in the later posts, forgot what the OP was about and only replied based on the, not accurately chosen, topic title. They are talking about the lack of hype and how the living world doesn't pull players in, although the quality is there, even gives an example of a high quality "quest" in Jahai Bluffs. And I agree finishing the Elegy armor collection was a good experience. They aren't saying that the living world is terrible... but I guess the word "flop" in the title can lead players to think otherwise, especially those who don't bother to read the actual posts. There are many high quality collections (GW2 version of "quests" from other RPGs) that have well written dialogue and some interesting developments. Also some meta events (before you repeat them a thousand times) have interesting storylines and ideas. Episodes can be hit or miss in that regard. As for the "Hype" part, I think they overhyped the game in the past, especially pre-HOT, and are now very cautious about it. Which leads to the other end, lack of hype. We only get a trailer 1 week before the release of an episode and that's it.

> @"battledrone.8315" said: > but those other developers arent on anets payroll, and arent funded by THIS game. when we were paying anet, they didnt invest much of the money here, but in other projects. in short: we paid for something, we didnt get. there is a word for that behavior, and it isnt pretty one. i would love to hear , when thos other projects started, > how many years they went on. and if ncsoft were paying for it, then anet didnt have to fire them either. You are paying NCSoft (not Anet), just like every players of an NCSoft game. Then it's up to NCSoft to spent that money on projects. And I will repeat that's how Guild Wars 2 was created in the first place, with money from games like Aion, Lineage and Lineage 2. That's how gaming works because video games are expensive and take years to create, which is why video games are investments. And beyond that, Anet released GW2 with at most 200 employees, and reached 436 employees total in early 2019 (before the layoffs), then went down to 293 after they laid off 143 employees. Notice that they still had (after the layoffs) more employees than they did have on release or during HOT. And given Anet's revenue was in a decline, we were getting more than what we were paying (compared to the past) So get your facts straight

> @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > > > And then you end up with 9 other inexperienced dps roles, no healer, tank and support. Or you will have to make sure all required roles are covered, everyone knows what they need to do, and specific players take some specific roles if those are present in encounter (like mushrooms in Sloth) > > > > To be fair though, if those players looking to Raid took the time to play through the earlier instanced content available in the game, dungeons, strike missions and more importantly fractals, especially higher level ones, they shouldn't have a problem filling most of those roles. > Oh, i don't know. Dungeons were perfectly fine with 5xdps, and i suppose most people running them now are still doing it that way. Even most of the t4 fractals are designs that were made before healer/support use became assumed in a group. So, no, even many people that _have_ done the earlier instanced content would not be prepared for running all the different roles raids require now. Honestly, even many raiders don't run all the roles. So, if you just ask for 9 people, you are most likely to end up with 9 of people that have the most common role - dps. Unless someone puts an effort to ensure all the roles are covered, that is. Am i wrong here? > > Even most people doing the strike missions are likely to have only some dps builds. And those that _do_ have multiple builds with different roles are probably raiding already. > > > Even dungeons, which are much simpler, can teach you how to dps, at least if you want to succeed at them without trouble. > The dps standarts of dungeons are much, much lower, though. A group doing only as much as consistent 6-8k dps will breeze through all dungeons with no problem whatsoever. Well, with no dps-based problems anyway. Your post included "9 other inexperienced dps roles", which is what dungeons can teach, the rest of the roles aren't really needed in dungeons, that's where higher strike missions and high tier fractals come in. Consistent 6-8k dps is fine for most Raids too, especially true for the starter ones like Vale Guardian. If you ask for 9 people in a guild that doesn't run either of the above, you are unlikely to get the different roles covered. If you ask for 9 people in a guild that already runs T4 fractals and strikes like Boneskinner and Whisper of Jormag you are more than likely to get the tank and healer roles you require, otherwise the same guild wouldn't succeed in those either. Plus to go back to Vale Guardian, once you beat the 3 adds before the boss you should be set in terms of build diversity and roles required. > Some people indeed do that. I don't think though that the existence of those people detracts anything from arguments of those that _have_ been doing all the inermediate content, or even those that have actually been raiding. Those that have been doing the intermediate content and have actually been raiding shouldn't have trouble getting 9 people together to continue running raids. Provided of course they've been doing the intermediate content and the raiding with the same guild. If they didn't, then it's up to them to pick up the pieces and become the "leader" to lead the rest of the guild through Raids.