Ayrilana.1396

Your idea of making areas more open world would break those areas. They were not designed for that and would make many titles meaningless.

I'm confused. What do the queue limits for guild siege have to do with the TP? It sounds as if someone is upset and arbitrarily taking it out on those who sell siege using a baseless claim that they're all bots.

Showing their age compared to what? You’re not going to get anything close to the level of modded Skyrim.

> @"AenimaEx.7306" said: > It isn't ridiculousness, because laurels are limited too. And If really someone hoarted laurels, why he / she should not could spend them in exchange to WvW Skirmish Tickets? > And you need Badges of Honor too. So its unlikely that someone from PvE massively converts laurels into WvW Skirmish Tickets. It is ridiculous and you're not seeing that as you're so focused on how you would benefit from it. You're not seeing the impact it would have on the game. I'll do the math for you as you're just focusing on laurels and badges being limited but ignoring how many players can acquire. You can get 55 laurels per month (4 weeks). You can get almost 700 badges just from the skirmish chests from the skirmish reward track. They're also very easy to get as there are numerous sources for them. Infusions require 5 laurels and 125 badges. This means you can get upwards to 11 infusions per month at a cost of 55 laurels and 1,375 badges. You're asking for the ability to refund them for tickets which would be 45 tickets. This would mean that players would gain an additional 495 tickets per month or ~124 per week. Now here are some other issues with this. There are players who already have large amounts of laurels and badges saved up. Being able to buy infusions and then refund them for tickets would mean that they do not actually need to do WvW. Players who do not want to do WvW to the extent of obtaining all of the tickets every week just need to farm enough badges and then wait it out until they have enough laurels. WvW would see a population drop. I can't say how much as I don't know how many are there solely for tickets. I would have no issue if the infusions could be exchanged for other infusions **but with a cost.** Stat swapping ascended weapons/armor has a cost so these should as well if the option was made available.

> @"AenimaEx.7306" said: > Hi Ayrilana, > for that case Anet must determine how the infusions got acquired. > RL comparisons are not quite appropriate here. The comparison was relevant to show you how farfetched such a thing is. You rarely see such a thing IRL, as well as in most games, so it's unlikely you'll see it in GW2. Your suggestion would undermine the acquisition of tickets. Save those infusions for another build later in time. Use laurels and badges for your next set.

> @"Eloc Freidon.5692" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > They may be new and/or not know that the game has a wiki that is well documented. > > > > _(And in response to your likely follow-up response to that: I know)_ > > The wiki was not well documented on this point. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Essence_of_Luck_(legendary)#Contained_in Considering you didn't mention these methods of acquisition but only on it not being able to be crafted.

As far as I'm aware, the cap is per enemy team in the area. You cannot load up on siege in your area to the point that you can't build any more in an effort to prevent enemies from building their own siege. Spawn points are blocked to everyone.

If people could freely get refunds then the cost eventually becomes irrelevant. There are other means to acquire those infusions which would undermine the existing means to acquire tickets if player could freely buy those infusions with one set of currency and then exchange them for tickets. If you bought something IRL, and then later on have no use for it, would you go back to the store asking for a way to refund it?

> @"Messenger.7450" said: > Of course there's a difference, in the same way that there's a difference between a guy who gets one-shot and the guy who goes down in two. The other guy has a bit more margin for error. > But in the context of Snowden Drifts DRM CM, the practical difference is not much- yet the difference in stats between pure DPS and slightly-less DPS-centric may be great enough to doom a player's or group's attempt at succeeding in the timed challenge. So someone in full defensive gear has a bit more margin of error. What's your point? At first your seem to downplay the difference and now you're seemingly trying to do the opposite. You don't need pure DPS builds to succeed at that CM. They certainly help but they're far from a requirement. > The difference being that that the Destroyer of the Great Bridge's fire tornadoes are still far easier to evade and do far less damage than the damage in Ryland's fight. The question remains of why the others- while challenging enough- can be more readily accomplished, while Snowden's remains frustratingly difficult. Far less damage, yes. Easier to avoid, not really. As I stated before, the attacks are predictable and well telegraphed. The issue with Snowden was the boons which made the boss do significantly more damage. Without boons, the boss isn't that bad. I've stated this several times so I suggest that you try it and see what I mean. The CMs have been gradually stepping up in difficulty which is a good thing. > Nevertheless, it's an additional highly disruptive mechanic that help push Snowden's difficulty and resulting frustration too far. A boss getting boons if people don't CC isn't new. It's a penalty for not breaking the breakbar. A boss having a breakbar that really has no meaning is a waste. The breakbar for the Field of Ruin one being a good example as I didn't see any penalty for ignoring it. > This is relevant since we're comparing Snowden Drifts DRM with others, especially where you say Snowden's isn't so bad as to need change by citing how Gendarren's, Fields of Ruin's, and Thunderhead's supposedly are just as bad and frustrating to players. > If both Gendarren's and Snowden's have this mechanic but the latter throws in this additional effect where it makes the fight more difficult yet doesn't make sense, then all the more need for the Snowden DRM to be reviewed by ANet. Again, the main issue is that the Snowden boss has boons which makes his attacks significantly more damaging. Try the boss fight without it having boons. Doing actual DPS and not failing mechanics is important as well. > The "Not as many" from you I'll take as additional confirmation of Snowden's being an outlier. The "more than you were letting on" indicates to me that the other DRM CMs remain challenging enough to count as an achievement, and thus be fair. Let's say you have three fractals with each gradually stepping up in difficulty. The third one, being the more difficult, would not be an outlier. The DRMs have been stepping up in difficulty, and the Snowden one is far from being an outlier when considering the bug with the boons. > And yet not too hard that a PUG can't get it done, and can be done consistently enough to give someone a Top Responder achievement. People have said they've done it in pugs. > Two Elite destroyers always spawn in that part of the DRM, but you can skip the both for timer purposes. Clearing all the others will still let you move on to the boss. Two don't spawn all the time. When I did it solo, I could skip one elite at most. When I tried to skip both, and all other mobs were defeated, I had to go back and kill one of them wasting time. > This is where we disagree. You blame other people for failed attempts at getting Snowden Drifts CM done. But is it really other people? Or is it that the Snowden Drifts DRM itself with all challenges turned on is too hard? It's a combination of the bugged boon thing and the players themselves doing poor DPS and failing the mechanics. > We have 6 other DRMs to compare it with. Those others' CMs provide challenges for players to overcome- but they are overcome. And each of those DRMs have varying degrees of difficulty with Snowden being the more difficult. Snowden has been beaten by solo and grouped players. > At the same time, we know there are technical problems with Snowden Drifts. There was the bug that cause Ryland to automatically get all his boons and NOT get stunned when his breakbar is broken. That EMPing him still causes this to happen despite the patch makes raises the question if this was meant to discourage the use of EMP in the DRM, but such is not consistent with other DRMs that don't penalize EMP. The attempted fix implies this was not intended nor does it make sense for a consumable added in IBS to be discouraged. > One of the adds in Ryland's fight can banish players to outside long enough for him to reset and get all his health back, and he's spawned twice during the fight. "During the fight" meaning inbetween the boss phases with the portals. Adds don't spawn when you're fighting the boss. It's potentially another bug. > It is more difficult to avoid the scattered high damage attacks in Ryland's fight than with any other DRM's boss, and yet the consequences of failing to do so are worse. Not really. There's always a safe spot inside the boss or right next to it. > You yourself said you're waiting another two weeks for a fix. The fix being with the breakbar and not the CM itself. > Agree to disagree, my position is that the Snowden Drifts DRM needs to be re-examined and tweaked to match the other DRMs. The other DRM CMs provide an adequate enough challenge IMHO to be worth their achievements, but Snowden Drifts DRM goes too far in difficulty. It's a gradual step up from the others. It doesn't need to be tweaked simply because it's the more difficult out of all of them. As I said before, try doing the boss without it having boons.

They may be new and/or not know that the game has a wiki that is well documented. _(And in response to your likely follow-up response to that: I know)_

> @"Firebeard.1746" said: > Also, I think it's stupid allowing F2P accounts into competitive game modes (especially ranked). The cost of punishment is severely decreased in that environment. Just make a new account. There’s no evidence that the botters/hackers/whatever are using F2P accounts. Players cannot probe this on their end. Bans are not just account bans of the account used. This has been highly evidenced. > @"Firebeard.1746" said: > Well when someone keeps suiciding mid and won't respond to the question "who here is not a bot" it makes one wonder. That’s not evidence. That could be someone who doesn’t know better or just doesn’t care at that point. Ignoring you doesn’t mean that they’re a bot either.

> @"Messenger.7450" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > You don't really need defense for that fight other than dodging the two attacks and walking around the other. If players are circled around the boss then technically some of them wouldn't need to dodge one of the attacks and even move. There's really not all that much else going on in the fight. Just watch the videos of it. You don't need a pure DPS build but you do need to do reasonable DPS along with everyone else in your group as well. I see people average 6-7K DPS which is essentially me standing on the boss with my number 1 skill pressed down. > The "perfect defense" I mentioned _IS_ dodging and moving, as in perfectly dodging and moving throughout the entire fight. The point being that players with more fragile builds will have to do it constantly for the entire duration of Ryland's fight to have a chance at succeeding. At the same time, even toons with high toughness can easily by downed by Ryland's attacks. > You state players with fragile builds will have to do it for the entire fight and then state that those with high toughness will also be easily downed. You appear to imply that there's a difference between the two in the first part but contradict yourself in the second. You have three seconds to react to the multiple circle AoE attacks by moving to the save spot next to the boss. If you're standing inside the boss, you can just ignore the circles altogether. You have two seconds to be ready and execute your dodge for the expanding circle attack. The cone attack occurs faster so you have about a second to react but you can simply circle strafe the boss and potentially not even need to dodge in the first place. That attack is only really damaging because the boss has boons. > > The Gendarran one comes close. The reason the attacks deal so much damage is because he has boons. Assuming the breakbar was fixed, I'm hearing mixed reports, then it's a failure by your group to break it. It's also helpful to have boon removal whether through your class' abilities or with the sigils. There are no adds during the fight, as those occur inbetween the phases, so I don't see where you're getting that. > The Gendarran boss' attacks have a clear, predictable pattern: he does a charge followed by his four-direction tornadoes which move slow enough to be avoided even by melee fighters, and don't really stop ranged attackers. > But Ryland's attacks are scattered all over the place. > Ryland's breakbar was fixed based on my own experiment (see above), but only for non-EMP CC. > As for adds, the portal phases spawn not just Elites but also Vets. It's quite possible to kill the Elites to start a new Ryland fight phase without killing the Vets. With all challenges turned on, the Vets are at least a pain, at most the killing blow to down you and get you to fail. > Funny enough is that players still constantly get shot up into the air by those tornadoes so I find it surprising that you claim that they move slow enough to avoid and yet you cannot react quickly enough for the Snowden boss attacks. The attacks are predictable. You have three rounds of the multiple AoE circle attack followed by an immediate expanding circle attack. This combo occurs every 30 seconds. The expanding circle attack and cone attack have a cool down but I haven't paid enough attention to their timing. Make sure the vets are all killed first then as they have lower health. Ignoring them and the continuing on with the boss fight is your group's own fault for choosing to make things more difficult. > > The WP is fairly close. It takes less than 10 seconds to get back into the fight. > 10 seconds is a big DPS loss in a boss fight with a timer. > Then don't die? > > It's an annoying attack and not one you normally see in the game if ever. I'm not sure if there's a way to avoid it. > More to the point: should it even be there? I wonder if it's a bug. > You don't see that with the Gendarren boss; his tornadoes will toss you into the air for fall damage and take you out of the fight for a few seconds. > The Elite Shamans send you out of the building long enough to put both you and them out of combat; you can race back in on your mount but he's already reset and gotten back all his health. And sending you outdoors by throwing you up with blizzard-tornado doesn't even make sense. > It could be a bug as people claim it only happens when you get toss to far up into the air. I dunno. As far as I'm aware, that attack is single target but I haven't paid much attention to it to confirm that. I never said anything about the tornadoes not tossing players up in the air and taking them out of the fight. I don't see why you chose to include this and assume that I didn't know that attack as well. > > People have issues with Thunderhead Peak due to poor DPS and not breaking the breakbar. People have issues with Fields of Ruin because of poor DPS. Groups that I were in failed quite regularly which prompted me to just solo the later than take part in the pug roulette. > But how many compared to Snowden? Tony above says he has all the Top Dragon Responder except Snowden. Same with me. > Thunderhead Peaks gives players the right tool to break the CC bar in the instance itself, and it doesn't "prohibit" the use of EMPs. > Fields of Ruin's boss isn't hard; his case is more about clearing the Destroyers ringing the center of the instance quickly enough so you have time to fight the boss (TIP: skip the Elite mobs; there are enough Vets and ordinary Destroyers to count). > Snowden Drifts DRM CM is overwhelmingly the most problematic. It's the most different of the DRM boss fights because of so many small highly scattered AOEs and attacks being thrown out. It downs and defeats players too easily compared to the others. Even if you compare how things fail with the other DRMs, they don't fail as bad as how people fail in Snowden. Not as many as Snowden but certainly more than you were letting on in your post. Thunderhead Peaks does provide that except a large number of groups don't CC the boss regardless. DPS is also a major issue when clearing the destroyers and on the boss itself. Yes, the Field of Ruin boss isn't hard. The issue is that players lack DPS which makes clearing the destroyers and the boss fight itself take too long. You can skip one elite but if there's a second one then you have to kill it. At least this was my experience solo. Snowden is a problem because of DPS and players failing the mechanics (as well as the boss having boons). The attacks are not being dished out in the matter that you're claiming. Watch the videos of the attacks or pay attention to them when you're doing the DRM. There is somewhat of a pattern. Snowden is a step up from the others and something players need to learn to adapt to. They should watch videos and see just how spaced out those attacks really are and how much time they have to react. Or they can do that entirely in game by doing the DRM over and over.

> @"Messenger.7450" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > @"Tony.8659" said: > > > Problem is we really can't attack head on, Ryland keeps throwing stuff all over. Timer is counting down and still waiting to attack how about Anet reduce that. > > > > It’s really not that bad to deal with. The multiple circle AoE’s can be avoided by walking to the safe spot which is fairly close if you’re in melee range of the boss. The expanding circle attack can be dodged right before it completes. For the cone attack, you can just dodge it. > That's easier said than done. Even if you know what to look out for, there's so much happening so quickly in this fight. And even if you're supposed to get the fight done quickly anyway- requiring a pure DPS 'Zerker stat-style build- you need to keep up a perfect defense for too long for anyone with pure DPS stats. > You don't really need defense for that fight other than dodging the two attacks and walking around the other. If players are circled around the boss then technically some of them wouldn't need to dodge one of the attacks and even move. There's really not all that much else going on in the fight. Just watch the videos of it. You don't need a pure DPS build but you do need to do reasonable DPS along with everyone else in your group as well. I see people average 6-7K DPS which is essentially me standing on the boss with my number 1 skill pressed down. > > There are other AP that you can do if it’s too difficult for you. > The thing is that Snowden Drifts DRM makes **a huge leap in difficulty** compared to all the others that came before it. None of the others' boss fights has you trying to watch out for so many things at the same time. Also, much of Ryland's fight deals a lot of hard-to-avoid damage to squishies, like the KD-followed-by-an-ice-spike. That's telegraphed, but you're also trying to avoid Ryland himself and any other Frost Legion/Icebrood. > The Gendarran one comes close. The reason the attacks deal so much damage is because he has boons. Assuming the breakbar was fixed, I'm hearing mixed reports, then it's a failure by your group to break it. It's also helpful to have boon removal whether through your class' abilities or with the sigils. There are no adds during the fight, as those occur inbetween the phases, so I don't see where you're getting that. > And if (or when) you get downed, the ice attacks being thrown from the center will target you and put your Bandage into cooldown. It's range is pretty wide, so any downed players who aren't helped by their team is going to have to WP and run in... The WP is fairly close. It takes less than 10 seconds to get back into the fight. > ... which is another annoying thing because when you use the WP, **you're always spawned facing away** from the Owl Lodge! It's disorienting even if you know and expect it, and it slows you down even further. > It's an annoying thing. I also have issues with that when doing adventures as it always faces you away from the direction that you actually need to go. > And there's also my beef with the Elite Shaman's Ability to send you outside the building. Really, I <3 you ANet and I <3 this game, but that is just kitten poop. > It's an annoying attack and not one you normally see in the game if ever. I'm not sure if there's a way to avoid it. > From what I see, almost no one has any problems with getting Top Dragon Responder done with the DRMS- except for Snowden Drifts'. It's one thing for achievements to require work and skill and be of a certain difficulty, but Snowden Drifts DRM CM goes too far with everything it has. People have issues with Thunderhead Peak due to poor DPS and not breaking the breakbar. People have issues with Fields of Ruin because of poor DPS. Groups that I were in failed quite regularly which prompted me to just solo the later than take part in the pug roulette.

> @"Tony.8659" said: > Actually instead of doing all of this, over and over since I have enough gold for about 3 legendaries, I can just put up in a raid LFG and pay them if they will do it :D Uh huh. Three Legendaries worth probably a total of 6K gold which equates to around 200 hours at a generous g/hr rate. Each CM takes 15 min at most, so with five a piece and seven so far, that’s slightly under 9 hours. It helps to not rely on gross exaggerations to criticize the content.

> @"Tony.8659" said: > Problem is we really can't attack head on, Ryland keeps throwing stuff all over. Timer is counting down and still waiting to attack how about Anet reduce that. It’s really not that bad to deal with. The multiple circle AoE’s can be avoided by walking to the safe spot which is fairly close if you’re in melee range of the boss. The expanding circle attack can be dodged right before it completes. For the cone attack, you can just dodge it. > You think it's easy to put up LFG snowden all cms and win LMAO . Only have 2/5 done since the update launched. All other DRMs are done 5/5. I refuse to try it again with pugs who cannot so a decent amount of DPS and keep failing the mechanics. THAT’S the reason that groups are failing in that CM and others. I had to solo the Fields of Ruin one several times because of how terrible people were. To be honest, all of the CMs are likely easier to do solo over grouping with random players. > If they think this is accessible for everyone that want's the achieve points , they must be on another planet xD. It’ll be accessible once they actually fix the breakbar thing so that you can prevent the boss from getting boons. Or groups can just bring boon removal. There are sigils for it so any build can do this. > I feel bad for newer players that want the achieve points in the story but Anet makes some of the DRMs extremely hard. DRMs are not fun at all, if I didn't need the achieve points (940 left until 30K \o/) all DRMs I wouldn't even bother at all with. There are other AP that you can do if it’s too difficult for you. > Just do the story and next... Been here since April 2012 1st public beta and pretty disappointed in this living story chapter and most likely we get the same come March then I think May again. Grind Wars 2 lol. If any of this content is in the new expansion, or even remotely close to it I am skipping over all of it, and focus on the story only. Doing five CMs is hardly a grind.

> @"acdspydar.8920" said: > > @"Menzo.2185" said: > > BUT the score DID NOT reset. I was winning, now I'm losing by far 181 victory point. kitten!!!!! > > But does winning even matter anymore? nope...........

The breakbar fix should help as the boss having those boons increases its damage output while also decreasing the damage players can do to it. The easiest solution seems to be to bring a necro to constantly strip/corrupt the boons.

The journals mentioned: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conspiracy_of_Dunces

> @"AgentMoore.9453" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > @"AgentMoore.9453" said: > > > There were some definite improvements made, though! I like that the Challenge now requires people to actively participate > > > > I just tested it this morning and you can still indeed not participate for the majority of the Challenge. I had done the rat challenge, turned in three things which gave me silver event completion credit, ran around the rest of the time without getting credit for the other challenges, and was able to open the large chest plus two of the smaller ones. If someone wants to not participate, they most certainly are able to as they were last year. > > So you contributed less and got less loot than people who contributed more - sounds like it's working as intended! > No different than last year. What they did was essentially an illusion. Instead of getting more loot from the large chest by having multiple stacks of the buff, they let you get the additional loot from smaller chests with those stacks. It’s about as more rewarding as when weapon/armor drops were put into containers. > Technically they could require a certain amount of buffs before you're able to open the big chest (though the loot tables don't seem very different between the chests) to try and cut down even more on leeching, but I think that'd just annoy people and you'd still have leeching players. No measure will ever completely eliminate them, but it's definitely more cost effective to participate than to sit on your thumbs this year, which is what I meant. The downside to that is it would penalize innocent players who join an instance that’s already in progress. The entire Celestial thing seems to take around 12-15min. One could also do just enough to earn participation for each individual challenge, AFK until the next, and then get the same rewards as those who participated the entire time. So they could theoretically only spend around one minute of that time actually doing something.

> @"AgentMoore.9453" said: > There were some definite improvements made, though! I like that the Challenge now requires people to actively participate I just tested it this morning and you can still indeed not participate for the majority of the Challenge. I had done the rat challenge, turned in three things which gave me silver event completion credit, ran around the rest of the time without getting credit for the other challenges, and was able to open the large chest plus two of the smaller ones. If someone wants to not participate, they most certainly are able to as they were last year. All Anet really did was prevent the players that did not participate at all from getting credit through enemy kills using their pets/minions. It didn’t eliminate players from doing enough to get completion credit for one challenge and then going AFK for the rest.

> @"Kelly.7019" said: > I agree that probs not much will ever change. but since its been 8 years now and people are clearly getting tired of them i wouldn't mind seeing brand new festivals based on new things like maybe LW story releases? For the following year(only?) you could have celebrations in some way relating to that LW map/story content and bring renewed interest back to this map for a period of time while also not having the same boring things each year in old celebrations. The issue with this is that not all players have access to those maps and giving them temp access can possibly circumvent the need for them to unlock them.

> @"Messenger.7450" said: > Going down the boon-stripping route, I tried [superior Sigil of Absorption](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Absorption) and/or [superior Sigil of Nullification](http://https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Nullification) on my Berserker's rifle. I thought about going that route when I eventually get in the mood to solo it. > More than his 25 stacks of Might, it's Ryland's Protection that's the bigger problem since CM runs are on a timer. I can see that since isn’t protection the lowest in priority to be stripped? > Ryland is a melee fighter, so staying away and always moving is enough to keep players alive. I tried it solo and it did make a difference, stripping boons often enough, but sadly wasn't enough for me to make it. :'( I even tried to 2-man it with those runes, me a glass cannon ranged Berserker and with a Deadeye, but it wasn't enough. My attempt didn't work, but maybe those two sigils can help other people's comps? :/ The issue with ranged is that it’s usually inferior to melee DPS. With how terrible the average player’s DPS is in melee, it’ll be even worse at range. With the CM having the timer, this causes an issue. Doing the fight in melee isn’t that bad so long as you’re not just using your dodges at whim. You use a dodge for the large expanding rifle AoE and another for the cone attack. The smaller circles that surround much of the room can be avoid by walking to the side of the boss which is safe. There will always be one side of the boss which is safe.

Have you attacked anything at all with those weapons equipped since creating the character? Have you applied skill points to unlock your abilities?

> @"Danikat.8537" said: > The challenge thing which happens in the middle of DR involves team work. It doesn't need a lot of coordination but the objectives and progress are shared. (That's why they updated it so you have to participate - people were leeching by joining the activity and just standing in a corner waiting for everyone else to finish it for them.) > You technically had to participate enough to be able to open the chest. I believe it’s still the case this year. EDIT: Just went in to test it and you can still very much AFK just like last year. I did the rabbit event, turned in 3 things for the silver medal completion, avoided getting credit for anything else, and was able to open the big chest as well as two others. So those who just want to do the daily and/or grind that repeatable achievement can still AFK for it.

> @"Blude.6812" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > So another two more weeks to wait for an eventual fix. > > Wishful thinking?? > Pretty much.