Danikat.8537

My assumption is people who are able to do this know a lot more than I do about computers. It's the same when I'm at work, I send the IT department an error message that to me looks like someone alternated mashing the keyboard with random words from a dictionary, but they look at it and know exactly what the problem is. If the game crashes and I get that box asking me to say what went wrong I just put in what I was doing at the time. I'm pretty sure it sends the whole text dump bit anyway, but I think maybe the context could be useful. It's usually just something short like "I was afk in LA, reading the forum, I'm not sure what happened" or "I closed the game using the X in the corner during a loading screen".

> @"Eloc Freidon.5692" said: > What about this skin made them go with the name "Lunar-maned" anyways? Probably because Bearded Dragon was already taken?

It wouldn't surprise me if the way a lot of gem store skins come about is an artist does a bunch of designs, the people who create the 3D models make the ones they think are possible to do in the game, the best of them get chosen to go into the game and then the marketing team gives them names when they're going to be released, based on not just how the skin looks but what they're currently promoting. This is coming out at the end of the Lunar New Year festival, so they stuck the word Lunar in the name. That doesn't mean the artist who designed it set out to design an Asian style dragon and somehown accidentally drew that instead, just that it was an available design at the right time and someone in marketing wanted to make it obvious it's tied to the Lunar New Year.

Because Guild Wars has been advertised since the first game came out as not having a subscription, even a "voluntary" subscription would be seen as going back on that. On top of that if you spend any time on the Elder Scrolls Online forum you'll see numerous people complaining about how they feel stuck paying the subscription whether they want to or not because so many things are tied to it (mainly crafting material storage and bank space) that it's difficult to stop using it...at which point it ceases to be truly voluntary. And yet people are also constantly asking for more and more features to be added to it, even sometimes asking for existing things to be removed from the base game and made subscriber exclusives so they can feel like theyr'e getting their moneys worth...but no matter how much gets added it never seems to be enough. I much prefer the system we have now, where if you want a 'voluntary subscription' you can simply buy whatever amount of gems you think is reasonable each month and then spend them on whatever you think you should get for your subscription. Even better that way you get to keep all your 'subscription benefits' even if you don't pay one month.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > > @"Danikat.8537" said: > > I'm not sure of the specifics for the PS4 but I do know it can run Elder Scrolls Online, which is about 80GB and I think has comparable PC specs to GW2. (The Xbox One, PS5 and Xbox X can also run Elder Scrolls Online.) > > The official minimum requirements for Guild Wars 2: > CPU: Intel® Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz or Core i3 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 or better > GPU: NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GTS or ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT or Intel Iris 5100 > > Elder Scrolls Online minimum requirements: > CPU: Intel® Core i3 540 or AMD A6-3620 > GPU: DirectX 11 compliant video card with 1 GB of RAM (NVIDIA GeForce 460 / AMD Radeon 6850) or higher > > There is a sizeable difference in the minimum requirements between the two games. > GW2 GPU requirement is from 2006/2007 while ESO is from 2010 > > GW2 minimum requirements from Steam are much higher than the ones on the official support page > GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 or AMD Radeon HD 5770 or Intel Iris 600 series > Which puts GW2 requirements closer to ESO, GPUs from 2009, but still less than ESO > > Worth noting that the CPU/GPU on the PS4 is much more powerful than either game's minimum requirements Thanks. :) That's a good point too - there's a common assumption that consoles are less powerful than PCs and I think it is usually true that the newest top of the line PCs are slightly ahead of the newest Sony and Microsoft consoles when they first come out and the gap widens over the lifetime of a console. (I'm not counting Nintendo here because they've been doing their own thing for years, I think the last time they tried to directly compete with hardware was the N64). But very few games are designed to require a top of the line gaming PC (because relatively few people have one), and GW2 didn't require one even when it was a new game, so the fact that it's possible to make a PC which is more powerful than a console doesn't really say anything about whether consoles can run PC games.

The problem with saying you should adapt your build to what you're attacking is that's not really practical when playing. Even if you have different weapons and equipment and a relevant build all set up and ready to go you still have to start attacking the object, realise it's not vulnerable to any/most conditions, back off until you're out of combat, swap everything over, attack it, then swap back after you're done. Admittedly that's easier than in many games but it's still a pain to keep having to swap. Part of the problem is that it's so inconsistent and unrealistic. For example the destroyer fissures which appear in some of the Dragon Response Missions are vulnerable to burning in spite of being made of lava. But then some in other places (which might be the visually identical destroyer burrows rather than fissures) are immune to burning and I think most other conditions. Some objects bleed in spite of not appearing to have any blood, others don't. As far as I know it's not documented anywhere so the only way to find out is to attack it and see what works, and that leaves you in the situation I explained above. If it was consistent or predictable that would be a big help. The easier but boring way to do that would be to say either all destructible objects are vulnerable to all conditions or none of them are and then make sure it's consistent across the whole game, which would still be a big piece of work for someone at Anet to implement. A better approach IMO would be to make it realistic - so for example wooden objects burn but don't bleed, lava fonts (of all types) don't burn or bleed but maybe they're vulnerable to chill, and so on. But that would take even more time and in some cases it might still be necessary for players to experiment to find out what works. Those mursaat pillars in the Ring of Fire for example - what are they made of? (I think they're called jade, but I doubt they'd solid chunks of stone.) Which conditions would affect them?

> @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > @"Danikat.8537" said: > > And no, the certification process wouldn't prevent the kind of problems Anet typically fixes in follow-up updates like events not starting, enemies having too much health, skins not previewing correctly, or unexpected packs of hyenas appearing. It's pretty basic - the main priority is making sure the game or update is what it says it is, isn't a virus, won't break the console, and follows some basic standards like warning you not to turn it off when it's saving because it could corrupt the data. > Things like "events not starting" or "skins not previewing correctly" can absolutely fail a Certification test. Depending on the platform and severity of these occurrences Sony, or Microsoft will absolutely fail a certification submission based on what you might consider some minor things. > The process is not just to determine if the software is malicious or unstable. The user experience runs very high on reasons for cert failures as are legal (such as data collection and privacy) and localization (translation). > User interface issues such as menus that do not work as expected are a common reason for certification failures. Loading screens have limits on how long they can be, progression blockers will fail certification and even ensuring that the game's content does not violate age ratings are all part of testing. > Certification testers will test online titles (such as gw2) under a variety of network conditions to ensure that a title gracefully handles things like disconnection. Even some incorrect verbiage on a disconnection message can absolutely fail an certification submission. For example if a certification tester were to run into the "7:11:3:202:101" error this entire title would likely fail the Certification pass requiring a fix and costly re submission just because of the language used in the error message. > A game that offers too many achievements in the Xbox shell or PS Trophys will fail Certification. > >That process takes a minimum of 2 weeks > This is not accurate. I'm not knocking the certification process (I think it's a good idea), I'm just trying to head off the usual conclusion some people jump to when that's brought up as a barrier to releasing a game on console, which is that it would actually be better for everyone (even PC players) because the game would be forced to be completely bug free. Console games can and do have the kind of bugs we see in GW2, even after going through the certification process. It might be because it didn't happen during certification or it's requires a very precise and unusual set of circumstances which no one testing it managed, but when you get tens of thousands of people playing it a few hundred of them will trigger that bug. Or, as was the case with several of the examples I picked from recent updates, it's not obvious it's a bug unless you know how it was intended to work. When Anet fixed the bug which caused a massive pack of OP hyenas to spawn during one of the Lunar New Year events some players actually complained, because they thought it was intended as part of the challenge. If a boss has 30k health and needs at least 3 competent players to take down the only way to know it's a bug is to know it was supposed to have 10k health and be soloable, otherwise it looks intentional. Likewise the only way to know the Lunar New Year gloves weren't previewing correctly was to unlock them and then compare the actual skin to the preview - something certification testers are highly unlikely to do for each equipment skin in a game. > @"Oxstar.7643" said: > > @"Avatar.3568" said: > > > @"Astyrah.4015" said: > > > > @"Davidm.2419" said: > > > > Do you think guild wars 2 will be on playstation 4 and nintendo switch > > > > > > switch? unlikely. ps4? not likely either (unlikely because they'll need to rewrite the engine and optimise it for the ps4) > > > > > > GW2 for the new xbox and ps5? unlikely as well unless arenanet wants to invest on out-sourcing a company to do the porting to console. hardware-wise the new xb and ps5 probably outperforms the typical super-budget/entry level gaming pc setup > > > > I bet it wouldn't be that hard, both have a x86 CPU, bundle the game with the dx12 proxy and than you only need to add proper controller support > > Switch is a much weaker console than ps4, owing to its handheld nature. That's why, for instance, there is no monster hunter world on it. Too big. > In a similar vein, I'm unsure how well consoles would handle this game. It's not a small one, after all. And even if its possible, I do not, not, NOT!!! not - want this game to suddenly be limited in development because it "has to work for consoles" or updates to take longer due to "multi platform development". I don't think the size of the game would be a problem, it's "only" 49GB and even the Switch can handle up to 64GB on the newer cartridges. Alternatively it can install games to an SD card and run them from there, with a maximum card size of 2TB. (For GW2 I think making it digital only so it's installed on the console, or on the Switch an SD card, would make the most sense because then out dated files can be overwritten instead of having to duplicate data that's on a non-writable cartridge or disk.) ([According to Capcom](https://www.usgamer.net/articles/capcom-explains-why-monster-hunter-world-isnt-on-the-nintendo-switch) the main reason Monster Hunter World isn't on the Switch is because it was in development for 4 years before the Switch was announced, and porting it over would have taken too much time, although processing power is mentioned as one of the things they'd have to consider. But then they made Monster Hunter Rise instead.) I'm not sure of the specifics for the PS4 but I do know it can run Elder Scrolls Online, which is about 80GB and I think has comparable PC specs to GW2. (The Xbox One, PS5 and Xbox X can also run Elder Scrolls Online.) There probably would be compatibility issues however. I know there's some differences between the console and PC versions of ESO, but I'm not sure how much of that is design choices vs. practical considerations. For example the console version has far fewer options to add or customise tabs in the text chat box, and I doubt that's because consoles can't handle a customisable chat box. It probably could be made to work, but it would take extra time and therefore money (because the people doing this work need to be paid) and may either mean a console version is always lagging behind the PC version or that updates take more time.

I like the idea of aerial combat, I'm still disappointed that the skills from Bloodstone Fen only work in that map, I'd love to be able to use them in other places too. But I think it's unlikely EoD masteries will involve gliding because then they'd either have to duplicate the one from HoT or require you to go through HoT first to unlock gliding. Maybe it's my own lack of creativity but I can't think what they could add to movement that we don't already have, without it being completely broken. Climbing would be cool but we can pretty much do that already with the springer and skyscale, plus I think it really needs maps designed for it to be worthwhile. Not just with ledges and things to facilitate climbing but with things to find on your way up (or down) and places which aren't accessible in other ways. We get a bit of that in HoT and PoF, but then we can already reach those places (and some we're not meant to get to) with gliding and mounts. It wouldn't surprise me if most of the masteries are like the non-gliding HoT ones or Season 3 and IBS masteries: needed for the story and useful for accessing some parts of the new maps but not something you can or would use everywhere. But I think they'll also need a 'hook' for the expansion - something in addition to the new story and maps and the elite specs to make players go "I want that!" and that will probably be a mastery. I'm not sure what though, although I'm leaning towards it being a non-combat and non-movement option. Combat masteries which affect the whole game are too likely to cause issues with power creep and I think we've got all the movement options covered. Maybe something like housing or companion NPCs? Personally I hope it's not fishing because I've played a lot of games with fishing and at best I've found it a tolerable mini game to do for the rewards and then never again.

I'm not sure this is relevant but the base game was released at the end of August, HoT in October and PoF in September. That might just be a coincidence but if there's business or practical reasons for that timing then it seems likely EoD will release around the same time of the year. Personally I'm expecting announcements in April with more information on the expansion and some clues as to when it's coming out, and that it will be released by the end of the year at the latest, but that could be wrong. But I'm not in any hurry. We know IBS will continue until April so I don't need to know what's coming later until then, and we know the expansion is being worked on so we'll get news about it at some point. I don't need to know all the details until I want to decide if I'm going to buy it, and the earliest that could happen is when they start offering pre-purchase. At the moment I think it would be convenient for me if pre-purchase was available in mid-late May and the expansion released in early August, so that's what I'm hoping for, but I have absolutely no reason to expect that, it's just what would fit best around other stuff going on in my life.

If I remember correctly with HoT the end of the preceeding Living World season was the announcement. When you finished the last episode of season 2 you got a teaser trailer for HoT and that was the first we knew of the expansion. Then PoF was announced a few days after the preceeding season ended. I think they told us EoD is coming earlier than planned because there was a fairly negative reaction to not having a paid expansion after season 4 (not just on this forum, it got media attention too), but that meant announcing it when they didn't have much to tell us beyond the fact that it's coming and the absolute basics of the story. But the time between PoF being announced and being released was also pretty short. The last episode of Season 3 came out on 25th July 2017, they announced that they'd be announcing the next expansion on the 27th, did the big announcement event on the 1st August and it was released on 22nd September, so just under 2 months from one release to the next. I'll be surprised if EoD is released 2 months after IBS ends, but I think it's entirely possible they'll start giving us more info around then and it will be out before the end of the year.

I've got a new one to add: some people make mistakes because they're trying to play GW2 as if it's another game, likely the last MMO they played. Last night I was doing a public Dragon Response Mission on my ranger, using sword/torch against the boss and afterwards I got a whisper informing me that "hunters" are a ranged class and should stay "in the backline" at all times. Which is especially amusing considering the usual objection to inexperienced rangers in GW2 is they stay too far back to be much help to the rest of the group. I did explain that GW2 doesn't have dedicated ranged or melee professions and it depends on what you're doing at the time, which is why all professions can dodge. But all I got back was "lol whatever. you do you" which I assume means they're certain I'm wrong but not interested in discussing it any further.

I know the PS4 and Xbox One can run Elder Scrolls Online, which has comparable minimum PC specs to GW2 but seems to be a lot more demanding on low-end PCs. But there's other complications too. For a start all software updates on consoles have to be approved by the console manufacturers to make sure it is what it says it is (aka not a virus) and doesn't cause any major problems (that's why you don't need antivirus software on consoles). That process takes a minimum of 2 weeks, longer if any problems are found and it has to be fixed and resubmitted. The software developers also have to pay for that certification. The end result is that companies tend to hold off on doing updates, even bug fixes, until they can bundle a lot of them together so it's worth going through the hassle of getting it approved. So if an update comes out and then there's problems with it you'll have to wait until the next scheduled update for that to be fixed. It would be useless for festivals for a start. And no, the certification process wouldn't prevent the kind of problems Anet typically fixes in follow-up updates like events not starting, enemies having too much health, skins not previewing correctly, or unexpected packs of hyenas appearing. It's pretty basic - the main priority is making sure the game or update is what it says it is, isn't a virus, won't break the console, and follows some basic standards like warning you not to turn it off when it's saving because it could corrupt the data. It can pick up on genuinely game breaking bugs (as in the kind of things which crash the entire game or server) if they come up during the testing process, but more minor bugs will be let through.

I think it's very unlikely. Anet have never said anything about a console version of the game and if it was going to happen I think it would have come out before now.

A full set of exotic equipment with matching stats would be useful, and it doesn't need to cost much. If you open the Trading Post. select armour or weapons and click the cog icon next to the search bar you get a bunch of extra options, most importantly you can search by stat combination. That lets you see all the items with the stats you want, which gives you much cheaper options than if you search by the stat combination name. Doing it that way it's possible to get a full set of level 80 exotics with beserker's stats (one of the most popular combinations) for just over 5g in total. You can also craft it, buy it with karma from the temples in Orr (only a few stat combinations are available that way though) or with badges of honour in WvW or dungeon tokens, or a combination of methods if you don't have enough of one currency. But what's more important than the level and rarity of your equipment is having the right stats for your character. What those are depends on what you're playing but for example if you've chosen skills which don't cause many/any damanging conditions then Condition Damage is useless for you and Power would be very useful because that boosts direct damage. It would be better to have rare quality equipment with useful stats than exotics with stats you're not going to benefit from. Even more important than that is understanding the game mechanics - how your skills work and how to use them effectively, how to dodge and kite when necessary, how to use crowd control skills to break enemy definance bars, how to find your way around the maps and work out what to do and so on. A lot of that you'll likely have learned anyway by levelling it up and as long as you're willing to take it slow at first and pay attention the expansions and other level 80 zones are good places to practice.

In addition to the reasons already given not all veteran players do HoT content (or any content) regularly. I've been playing since 2012 with only relatively short breaks, but I don't have time to do everything all the time and it's been a while since I've done some of the HoT metas. I can't remember the details of all of them and if I find myself doing one at short notice (which does happen) I might well make mistakes if there's no one explaining what to do.

Reports aren't automated. You won't see someone immediately disappear because they've been reported so now they're banned, it has to wait until someone from Anet reviews the report and their actions and makes a decision. (Also that decision might be to warn them or issue some other kind of penalty, especially if it's a first offense.) For people afk farming that can involve someone from Anet whispering them and trying to contact them in other ways to see if they're genuinely afk or just not moving around much right now. With bots they've said previously they ban them in 'waves' - they wait until they've identified as many of that type of bot as possible and then ban them all together, so it's harder for the people running the bots (who likely have a lot of them) to work out how they were caught and update all their others to avoid detection. It won't stop them forever of course, but it makes it more likely they have to start over with a whole bunch of new accounts instead of just losing one and fixing all the rest so they can keep running.

> @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said: > I also have a quick look on the discussions page quickly, to check if there are significantly more discussions started than visible. I wouldn't use that as a way of judging posters, because the count isn't accurate. The first time I looked at my profile, when I hadn't created any discussions at all, it showed I'd created one. I never got an answer about how or why that happened but I kept an eye on it for a while and the number of 'phantom discussions' crept up over time. As far as I know I've only had 2 or 3 topics deleted but the list on my profile only shows 81 and the count says I've created 110. Also posts can be deleted for quoting or "directly refering to" posts which break the rules, so anyone responding to a thread with posts that are going to be removed runs the risk of also having their posts removed. You don't get an actual warning or get 'infraction points' for that, but it does mean you end up with a post deleted. Especially if the whole topic is deleted. Personally I prefer to judge posts entirely by the content of the post itself. The reactions can be useful as a quick way of gauging general opinion among posters, but I don't think anyone's opinion is more valid just because they post enough to collect lots of reactions. Or maybe I'm still put off the idea after spending time on forums where that was pretty much the sole deciding factor in arguments. If someone with 'forum rank 3' says yellow is their favourite colour and someone with 'forum rank 8' says they prefer blue then the admins would enforce the decision that blue is better than yellow because the "more experienced" poster has determined that to be the case. (That's not a real argument, but the real arguments were equally subjective.)

> @"Hesione.9412" said: > Where do you see your points? You have to be using the mobile version of the forum, then you go to your profile (or anyone else's, it's public) and it shows them. But I can't remember how to switch to that version (I know it can't be done but I can't find the option anywhere). I think it's the default if you use a phone to visit the forum though. I can see both because in normal years I'm away from home a lot so I have the forum bookmarked on my phone and use that when I can't get to a PC, or times like now when I want to compare the two versions. (BTW you have 982 points.)

It's a complicated post count. I don't think anyone knows exactly how the maths works but you get points for posting replies and starting topics, for getting thumbs up and helpful responses and for getting badges. But getting thumbs up and helpfuls are basically a result of posting, and badges are a result of posting and getting reactions. So ultimately the more you post the more reactions and badges you get and the more points you get. > @"Randulf.7614" said: > If you mean the stars, the simplest way of looking at it is your level of participation on the forums. The more stars, the more you interact (comments, replies etc) on the forums (max 4 stars) For some reason points only show up on the mobile version, and only on your profile. But I'm pretty sure it's the same system as the stars. Probably getting stars is based on how many points you have, but I'm not sure how many are required for each one and there seems to be a time gate too. (In case you're curious you currently have 17,070 points.)

I think the best time to join a guild is when you know what you want from one. A guild is primarily a group of people, the game gives them tools to communicate and some useful features like guild halls but what defines them is the people and how they interact, so each guild can be different even in the content they play and how they promote themselves is almost identical. Therefore it's important to know what you're hoping and expecting to get from them in order to find the right guild for you. Some things you might want to think about are the type of content you like to play and would like to do with your guild, and whether you want to do it on an ad-hoc basis or on some kind of schedule, whether you're looking for casual, newbie friendly players who will accept anyone in their groups or more progression focused players who expect everyone to be using the best build they can manage and to be open to suggestions to improve it, and things like whether you prefer voice chat or text chat. There's no right or wrong answers to those questions, the important thing is that you'll find guilds to accomodate any combination of preferences you can think of, and it's important to know what you want in order to find the right one for you.

I agree with the suggestion to get the converters. Some of them take a while to get if you don't have a lot of time to play, but it's a one-time thing and then you've got the item forever and you don't have to do it all in one go because you won't lose any progress if you stop for a while. But I also agree with the suggestion to delete them if you've got too much and need to free up the space before getting converters. You've managed to get enough that it's a problem, presumably without trying, and you're aware of what they're used for and know it's not something you're going to do any time soon. So you're not really losing anything by deleting them, and if you do need them in future you'll be able to get more the same way you got the ones you have now. > @"Furious.1205" said: > As for the Skyscale Materials. too bad you can only buy FIVE per account per day, they can't at least cut the time to acquire these in half? 22 days to get all of them Which materials are these? If you mean the map currencies required for the saddle then you can get far more than 5 of them per day. You can buy bundles of 5 from _each_ heart vendor on the map (so for example the Inscribed Shards can be purchased from each of the 5 heart vendors in Kourna), plus 5 from the vendor in Dragonfall and 10 from the eternal ice vendor in Bjora Marches or Eye of the North (assuming you have enough eternal ice, but that's quicker to get). You can also gather them from nodes on the maps and from events. Of course it wouldn't be practical for most people to do all of that every day, but on days when you have more than a few minutes to log in you could do a couple of hearts and buy the currencies you need, or just do a quick loop around the map gathering from any nodes you see. You'll almost certainly get more than 5 just doing that, and it will be on top of the ones you're buying once per day. I can't remember how long it took me to do it in total but I'm fairly certain it was less than 22 days, if you exclude the days when I couldn't log in at all, or only for a few minutes.

> @"MrForz.1953" said: > > @"mercury ranique.2170" said: > > I think the main issue with any japanese style sword added to the game is that the combat itself is not based on japanese combat styles and those kind of swords are based on precise that. > > Honestly given the large variety of weapons skins nobody can ever be pleased. Nobody bats an eye when it's about a zweihander, a rapier or even a effing candelabra as it should be. But somehow it's an outrage when it touches katanas. It would be nice if games with a variety of swords (and other weapon types) could do different animations to suit the different types of sword, but I think it would be a lot of work for minimal benefit. Especially in a game like GW2 where you've got 5 different races, and each profession that can use swords generally has different animations for their attacks as well, so it's not just 1 set of animations but up to 45 of them (if all 9 professions get swords eventually). Given that you can't really spend a lot of time in combat watching your character and there's no guarantee most players will even use a katana style sword skin (especially while they're only available from the gem store) I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. It sometimes bothers me in single-player games without a character creator where there's just 1 character to animate, but even then it depends on the game. Breath of the Wild for example I think should have done it, because they even have descriptions stating that different swords need different techniques and that some double-sided ones were created to accommodate soldiers unfamiliar with single-sided katana style swords...but they all work the same anyway. Plus it would make the massive variety of swords in that game feel more justified. One option - going back to GW2 - could be to sell the animations in the gem store alongside the skins, but I'm not sure how players would react to that, especially since I suspect the animations would make it much more expensive.

Anet have never been inclined to change their announcement or release schedule just because another company is releasing something. Probably because there's _always_ another game or expansion being released soon or just been announced and people who are excited for it assuming everyone else feels the same way and everyone is going to stop playing everything else when the new thing comes along because that's what they plan to do. It never actually happens and scrambling to rush releases and announcements to react to every other announcement would make Anet's plans even more confusing than they already are. Personally I would have said the Final Fantasy expansion is a bigger deal in this context, because I've seen more people talking about it and I know more GW2 players who play Final Fantasy than either of those two. I don't know anything about Ashes of Creation and last I heard New World was still hovering somewhere between an MMO with not much to do and a disorganised battle royale and the only thing Amazon were sure about is they want it to be a tech demo for their servers. But that's subjective too - that's what I know from my friends and what they're interested in. What we can say is there's been dozens of new MMOs and expansions to existing MMOs released in the past 8 years and none of them have caused Anet to change their release schedule or had a noticeable effect on activity in GW2, so it seems unlikely these ones will either.

> @"judeobscure.2537" said: > i consume games and stories at an excruciatingly slow pace and know i won't have the time and stamina to blast through lvls 1-80 and the story repeatedly which is why i'm considering this type of playthrough. i'm hoping to increase the quality of the experience as per my preferences. but i'm very ignorant of the combat mechanics and game systems so i'm trying to educate myself a bit more first, although i'm sure i'm gonna run into some things i don't count on. > > permadeath sounds appealing too, but i'm afraid like pacificterror.7805 was remarking, i'm just not skilled enough, nor do i imagine i would have enough time and stamina to play through again if i died near the end of my story. I don't think this would be an effective way to learn the games systems, because it means missing out on at least some of them. For example one of the things which makes a big difference to your build is the stat combination on your equipment; whether you use defensive stats or focus on pure offense, and whether you choose direct damage or condition damage. But many of those options are not available on basic equipment, most of it just has beserker's stats (power, precision, ferocity) which is one of the more popular ones but it's not right for everyone and restricting yourself to just that means you don't get a chance to see how different your character could be with other stat combinations. Also GW2 isn't the kind of game where the rarity of your equipment makes a massive difference. Having better equipment helps of course, but you can't ever reach a point where you can 'out gear' content and it becomes easy just because you're using the best equipment so I don't think there's any need to avoid using higher tiers because you're concerned you won't get to learn the mechanics. You still need to dodge, kite, use crowd control and make effective use of your attacks no matter what equipment you have. I definitely wouldn't recommend attempting a permadeath run as a way of learning the game. I know I said it helps me think about the game differently, but that's coming from the perspective of someone who has been playing for years and developed certain habits which I tend to stick to. If you're trying to learn the game that kind of restriction would be an unnecessary barrier - it means you're likely to end up repeating the lower level stuff over and over and never get to the point of experiencing many of the more complicated parts. If you want to learn the game my advice would be to take it slow, don't try to rush to level 80 or worry about getting into 'end game' activities or learning farming routines or whatever, but play it as it's designed. Try out different weapons and stat combination as you're levelling up, use runes and other upgrades when you get them to see what kind of difference they make, pay attention to what your skills do and try swapping in different ones as you unlock them, even if you don't think they'll be useful (you might be surprised). This game relies on player skill - knowing the options available to you and how best to make use of them - so experimenting with different options and seeing how they work in different situations will be very useful. > @"judeobscure.2537" said: > > @"Danikat.8537" said: > > Do you mean basic as in only white quality equipment? > > Thank you very much for taking the time to respond, Danikat! This is exactly the kind of information and insight I was hoping to get. > > Yes, you're right, I meant basic/white items and equipment. > > Are there parts of the games that for all intents and purposes basically unavailable to you now because of the self-imposed limitations we're discussing? > > Is accessing and completing the more difficult areas/content a part of the challenge, or do you feel there is a hard limit on what can be achieved using basic/white tier items and armor? > > I was wondering where the limit is and meant to add that to my original post. I feel if I did hit a limit with what I could accomplish in game using basics/white, that I would then consider going to the next tier of item. I'm curious how unbalanced the relationship between player and content is. I've always heard mmo players complain about the games being too easy (overpowered items, zerging, monster/boss design, etc.) and felt this would be a good way to address that problem. > > Based on all your play, what tier weapon and armor would be the minimum required to clear all content? > > Will you play EoD this way? > > Do you still play without these rule variants on other characters so you can experience the parts of the game that are inaccessible when playing basic+permadeath? > > How would you characterize your motivations for playing GW2 (lore, combat, exploration, social, etc.)? Have you experienced everything in GW2 that you're interested in? I'm not sure if anything is impossible when playing like this, I know other people have done things like naked dungeon runs, and a friend of mine did Dragon's Stand where everyone started out naked and was only allowed to use armour dropped during the event. So I assume doing it in basic equipment would work, but it's not something I've tried myself. For me the social side would be more of an issue - I'd never join a group on a character like this without letting them know what I was doing, but I'd also want them to understand I'm doing it for the challenge and not expecting them to 'carry' me or go out of their way to protect my character. So I think I'd only do it with guild members and only after discussing the situation first. To be clear this is something I decided to do because I've been playing this game for almost 6,800 hours over more than 8 years, on 11 permanent characters and dozens of temporary ones and I like to find ways to make it different. It's like playing an RPG with a party system using just 1 character, or the Nuzlocke challenge in Pokemon, a way of making a familiar game different (and harder) for a repeat playthrough, not a normal way of playing. If I get to level 80 and finish the personal story on one of these characters I'll keep going and see what else I can do, but it's not my main way of playing or my first priority for new content. > @"judeobscure.2537" said: > I'm curious how unbalanced the relationship between player and content is. I've always heard mmo players complain about the games being too easy (overpowered items, zerging, monster/boss design, etc.) and felt this would be a good way to address that problem. I think thats common to all games, especially ones without difficulty settings. It's almost impossible for developers to make a game which is equally difficult for everyone because what Player A finds easy Player B might find incredibly hard. It's not always linear either, there might be other things Player A really struggles to do and Player B does without really thinking about it. In other kinds of games it's rare to get major balance updates so if the difficulty isn't right for you then you just have to put up with it, but MMOs are constantly being updated and skills and stats can change dramatically over time so players are more inclined to ask for the changes they want, and I think the ones who find it too easy are more likely to be vocal about it. But I wouldn't worry about that in GW2 unless you find it's actually a problem for you. If you're finding the game too easy then it might be worth using lower tier equipment to reduce the effect, but I wouldn't restrict yourself to only basic equipment unless you really thought that was necessary. > @"judeobscure.2537" said: > Based on all your play, what tier weapon and armor would be the minimum required to clear all content? I don't think it's the minimum possible, but if I was looking to make a character who could do everything but with a bit of extra challenge due to not using the best equipment I'd go for rares (yellow) or maybe masterwork (green).

Do you need to explain the professions to get your friends to try the game? Couldn't you describe the game in general and then let them try out professions for themselves and find the ones they like? But if you do want to describe the professions I think it's important to bear in mind that none of them really fit the archetypes from other games because there's no such thing as a ranged or melee profession (all of them can do both) and no dedicated tanks or healers. All professions have the option to be more focused on support but that's usually about providing boons and other useful effects, and crowd control on enemies, than simply redirecting or healing damage. For example thematically a necromancer is similar to other games (although it might be necessary to point out that necromancy is not considered evil in Tyria, it's treated like any other form of magic) but they can play quite differently. They have a lot of melee weapon choices and relatively high health so they're as likely to be in the middle of the action absorbing damage (not quite tanking because there's no aggro management) and dealing it out as on the backline casting spells from a safe distance. Similarly 'archer with a pet' is one option for a ranger, but only the pet part of that is true of all rangers. They are currently the only profession which can use a longbow and a shortbow, but they can also use greatswords, one-handed swords, axes, daggers, staves, torches and warhorns and one of their most popular group roles is as a healer/support build (using the druid specialisation), with melee DPS a close second. Personally I'd focus on how they play rather than the themes. For example a warrior is a good choice if you don't want to deal with too many buttons at once. Their profession mechanic is just 1 button which you basically activate whenever the bar is full and a lot of their utility skills are either passive or relatively straight-forward boons or crowd control. At the other extreme both elementalist and engineer have 4 profession skills and need to use all of them frequently, plus switching between different sets of weapon skills (elementalists do this with attunements, engineers with kits) so there's a lot more to do in combat. Some players hate that, some love it. But as I said originally my approach is always to describe the game in general, including how combat works, and encourage new players to try different professions and find the one they like best. I've had bad experiences in the past with people trying to push me into playing what they had decided I would like best (even with people who know me and my preferences) so I'm never keen on doing that with other people. I think it's better to let them find what they enjoy because you, and they, might be surprised by what that is.