Guild Wars 2

Ukerric · Dec 31, 2012

Izo_sl said:
Never tried it. Is GW2 F2P or?

P2P. You pay for the game like a normal game, then you don't have any subscription afterward. The gem store (gems purchased with $/?/?/whatever or traded in-game for gold from those who paid) gives you additional stuff, like extra bank, extra char slots, some random stuff you can get in-game (but rarely), town clothing, etc.

What's it like game wise -wow'ish or?

Maybe a bit Riftish. It has little healing (you survive or die - in a group against a boss you need to rotate aggro usually). The entire game is based on random events happening that everyone can participate to if they're around just like in Rifts - you get rewarded as soon as you've participated "enough". Anyone can attack mobs, and you always get full xp and loot, no matter who attacked it (but you need to do something like 5 or 10% dmg at least). There's ONE quest line from 1 to 80 with branching according to your race, class and decisions when creating the character or during the quest.

Levels aren't very important: you get downlevelled when in a low zone so you don't instakill a level 10 mob at 70 (and you can loot level 70 loot off it, so you can play with some friends or their alt in a level 10 area without "wasting your time on grey stuff"). You get uplevelled in PvP (and competitive PvP, you automatically have all skills and the same equipment - your pvp level unlocks new looks).

You've got 10 skills at any one time, and that's all (maybe 2 or 3 more from pets). You can change which skills you have by swapping equipment or replacing skills slots, but you if one of your skills is not on the button bar, it's not useable, period.

There's no PVE "end-game" stuff, most of the best equipment could be gotten outdoors, thru crafting, or the item casino (Mystic Forge). That's slightly less true with the Fractals dungeons. Raiding start at 12, you can get involved in big boss fights that require a dozen or more persons, but the chest you get from there gives a couple items to everyone - usually better than most of what you find at random, but not much better.

Caliane · Dec 31, 2012

That guildcast vid is very much correct on the end game outdoor pve be a large disappointment.
Just like Rift, they seemed to completely fail at really taking advantage of that DE, or Rifts on a large scale.

Guildcast nailed it, in saying, it should have required team work. Guilds organizing massive raids on world bosses, etc. Not a 2h timer for a boss spawn. Which requires no coordination to take down.

Orr should be like a week long push through the world. requiring multiple guilds to coordinate, hold down their beach fronts, push forward and spawn the dragons champions that require even more coordination to beat. massive outdoor raids.
Honestly, massive disappointment.

On the nose with most of what they said in that vid. Except maybe instanced raids. No, the hatred of raids is beyond just the loot treadmill. its loot treadmill, time investment, and management.
The larger the raid population, the shorter the time commitment needs to be. (or have seemless hotjoin.)
Outdoor raids have seemless hotjoin. Look at wvw. if you have 30 people raiding stonemist, any allies can join you in your raid at any time. So those players who may not have the time to invest 2-5 hours for a raid, can take part in it, nevertheless. Instanced you can't do that. Traditionally, anyway. if you redo "raids", ala the winter festival jumping puzzles, where people CAN hotjoin your raid instance at any time, that might be something. Or think WoW, battlegrounds, you could que with a 8 man group, and have people hot join you.
Allowing this, you would of course have to avoid, 1 person can wipe everyone else mechanics. Which are shit anyway, so yeah.
5 man instances, of course can have longer time investments, as its much easier to get 5 people to sit down for a longer period at once. Frankly, I think I would look into designing dungeon crawls that allow coming and going much easier.

Campa · Jan 2, 2013

To me GW2 is a lot like how Vanilla WoW was looking back at it today, they have a good base game and some good quality content but they are lacking a bunch of systems around that base that we've come to expect in a MMO today. They've gotten away with it because the base game is easily the best since WoW, especially for the casual MMO player which have become the mainstream, and because they've been able to keep up this monthly content patches. But they've reached the point where they need to expand that base to expand the game's appeal because the monthly stuff won't maintain its appeal if it is just more of the same.

We'll see what their intent for expanding WvW & sPvP are over the next couple of months. Won't comment on WvW but for sPvP while I realize they are focusing on eSports features atm I would hope they plan on doing something for casual sPvP as well. More modes, more maps, bigger maps with more players, etc... (ala WoW-like BGs)

As for PvE, 2 ways I'd like them to expand it are:
1) making hardmode versions of the zones (or a subset of a zone kinda like how the personal story instances work) targeted towards large scale & coordinated PvE
2) adding something akin to GW1's Hero/Henchman system, in essence making an even easier mode for dungeons so people can solo/duo them and fill up the party with Heroes they've collected/unlocked & equipped

Of course they have plenty of things with the base game they need to fix as well so who knows when we'll actually start getting real PvE system expansion.

Cantatus · Jan 2, 2013

Campa_sl said:
We'll see what their intent for expanding WvW & sPvP are over the next couple of months. Won't comment on WvW but for sPvP while I realize they are focusing on eSports features atm I would hope they plan on doing something for casual sPvP as well. More modes, more maps, bigger maps with more players, etc... (ala WoW-like BGs)

To some degree, I think it would've been smart for them to say, "Ok, we're releasing the game, but sPvP is just in open beta." Because, that's largely how it feels. They're really interested in the eSports thing, so I suppose it makes sense to be fairly conservative with how it's approached, but I think they had things a littletooscaled back. Meanwhile, the more casual PvP players don't feel there's much to work towards in sPvP nor that there's enough variety.

Campa_sl said:
As for PvE, 2 ways I'd like them to expand it are:
1) making hardmode versions of the zones (or a subset of a zone kinda like how the personal story instances work) targeted towards large scale & coordinated PvE

That, and they need to reexamine how scaling down works. There really isn't much reason nor incentive to go back to old zones when it means a) less chance at level appropriate loot b) no nodes for level appropriate gear and c) lower rewards from dynamic events.

I did recently read that Orr was supposed to be somewhat of a raid zone, but that supposedly it was tuned down in beta due to complaints. Personally, I really wouldn't mind seeing an open zone that is so difficult that it requires people working together. That's one of the things I really enjoyed when the game first came out. It felt more like what dungeons should be like - people working against big events and tons of mobs, rather than just fighting enemy after enemy that has a lot of hp and hits hard.

Zaphid · Jan 2, 2013

Cantatus_sl said:
I did recently read that Orr was supposed to be somewhat of a raid zone, but that supposedly it was tuned down in beta due to complaints. Personally, I really wouldn't mind seeing an open zone that is so difficult that it requires people working together. That's one of the things I really enjoyed when the game first came out. It felt more like what dungeons should be like - people working against big events and tons of mobs, rather than just fighting enemy after enemy that has a lot of hp and hits hard.

Given how many people bitched about WvW being unfair when you are playing against people in different timezones, I can't imagine how much excitement fighting against an enemy that is always on would cause. I think the biggest problem of Orr is that it's really three different zones, so unless you have active guild, you have no way of knowing what's going on in a different place. There's simply no way to coordinate people without some sort of regional chat, because a zone only gets filled with people during prime time, at least for most servers I assume.

Seeing as a part of monthly achievement for January is to solve jumping puzzles, I don't expect many changes

Lenwen · Jan 2, 2013

Zaphid_sl said:
Seeing as a part of monthly achievement for January is to solve jumping puzzles, I don't expect many changes

There's no need to actually finish the jumping puzzle. You just need to get to the start of it. It also work across multiple characters. I had this one finished within 30 minutes.

Caliane · Jan 2, 2013

Cantatus_sl said:
To some degree, I think it would've been smart for them to say, "Ok, we're releasing the game, but sPvP is just in open beta." Because, that's largely how it feels. They're really interested in the eSports thing, so I suppose it makes sense to be fairly conservative with how it's approached, but I think they had things a littletooscaled back. Meanwhile, the more casual PvP players don't feel there's much to work towards in sPvP nor that there's enough variety.

That, and they need to reexamine how scaling down works. There really isn't much reason nor incentive to go back to old zones when it means a) less chance at level appropriate loot b) no nodes for level appropriate gear and c) lower rewards from dynamic events.

I did recently read that Orr was supposed to be somewhat of a raid zone, but that supposedly it was tuned down in beta due to complaints. Personally, I really wouldn't mind seeing an open zone that is so difficult that it requires people working together. That's one of the things I really enjoyed when the game first came out. It felt more like what dungeons should be like - people working against big events and tons of mobs, rather than just fighting enemy after enemy that has a lot of hp and hits hard.

end game crafting recipes not using low teir materials seems like a GIANT oversight to me. (except for cooking of course, which does)

Crafting Dusk should require you to farm the shadow behemoth or something.

If the major bosses of a zone required DE's being pushed to spawn them, you would then have people going back and doing those DE, pushing a zone constantly.
The downleveling would keep this balanced, and so new players coming into those zones feel like part of this push, and not just standing around watching a level 80 solo a boss.

And yes, I really expected Orr to be a raid zone. Like 1-2 weeks of serverwide coop to push and hold the zone. Assaulting keeps. Mini bosses. Till a finale "world boss".

Mr Creed · Jan 2, 2013

Caliane_sl said:
end game crafting recipes not using low teir materials seems like a GIANT oversight to me. (except for cooking of course, which does)

Crafting Dusk should require you to farm the shadow behemoth or something.

If the major bosses of a zone required DE's being pushed to spawn them, you would then have people going back and doing those DE, pushing a zone constantly.
The downleveling would keep this balanced, and so new players coming into those zones feel like part of this push, and not just standing around watching a level 80 solo a boss.

And yes, I really expected Orr to be a raid zone. Like 1-2 weeks of serverwide coop to push and hold the zone. Assaulting keeps. Mini bosses. Till a finale "world boss".

Pretty much sums up the dropped ball on the PVE side. DE chains could have been so much more then they are now. And I'm not sure A.net is actually aware of this and instead appeases the PvE crowd with random mini-instances. I'm curious to see what the big update in a few weeks brings, I think it will turn it around (for Vanguard) or sink it for good.

Zaphid · Jan 2, 2013

Caliane_sl said:
end game crafting recipes not using low teir materials seems like a GIANT oversight to me. (except for cooking of course, which does)

Crafting Dusk should require you to farm the shadow behemoth or something.

If the major bosses of a zone required DE's being pushed to spawn them, you would then have people going back and doing those DE, pushing a zone constantly.
The downleveling would keep this balanced, and so new players coming into those zones feel like part of this push, and not just standing around watching a level 80 solo a boss.

And yes, I really expected Orr to be a raid zone. Like 1-2 weeks of serverwide coop to push and hold the zone. Assaulting keeps. Mini bosses. Till a finale "world boss".

What you said sounds really nice, but you would have to carefully balance the rewards, because otherwise people would just come for the last part if they kept the contribution working as it is right now. Or, if it fails, you have people stopping playing completely or server-hopping thanks to the ease of transfering. It's actually very tricky to do, because you don't have many other games to check what worked. For example I thought WvW could also work as a series of battlegrounds where every day or 2 you move onto a new map with the rewards steadily increasing for those who participated from the start until you end battling for stonemist for 48 hours before the reset or something. WvW starting with a trek to the nearest point of contention could feel rather daunting for anyone not familiar with MMOs.

I agree about the crafting stuff, some materials have already dropped to their vendor price, even though they added the LA commendations that you can exchange for some useful stuff like black lion keys, but I heard the endgame items still have the best reward ratio. Overall they seem pretty big on making significant rewards either grindy as fuck or RNG based, I was hoping for more black moa chick hunts from GW1...

Skinner · Jan 2, 2013

Anet just mass banned the people who exploited the snowflake jewelry wintersday recipe that basically turned mithril ore into ectos.

Cantatus · Jan 3, 2013

Skinner_sl said:
Anet just mass banned the people who exploited the snowflake jewelry wintersday recipe that basically turned mithril ore into ectos.

The hell? I understood banning people for the karma exploit a few months back, but this sounds incredibly ridiculous.

Edit: Ah, this exploit was different than I thought. The pristine snowflake recipe took one ecto, unlike the other jewelry recipes which take three. I noticed that when the recipe first was released, but thought it might've had something to do with the rarity of the snowflakes or the facts that the stats are mediocre (+3% magic find, +12 healing power, +1% boon duration).

I guess the exploit was that it took one ecto to make, but you could salvage it for multiple ecto, meaning youcouldmake more ecto than you put in (though, to my understanding, that wasn't a guarantee since the amount you get back is random 0-3).

Even knowing that, this still strikes me as heavy-handed.

Skinner · Jan 3, 2013

I actually like that they banned them. Since you got on average 1.5 ectos per salvage, you always gained ectos. Using mystic kits you had only a 20% chance of losing the snowflake and if you used BL kits you always maintained it. So you really only lose the mithril ore and the occasional snowflake (the mithril ore at that time being close to worthless anyway) and you were able to pump out an almost endless supply of ectos. Like the 24 karma exploit, Anet said people were doing this thousands+ times and judging from reddit they seemed to have drawn the line at around the 50 salvage mark for a permanent ban (doesn't seem to be any temp bans this time. You got nothing or a perm). Reddit is hilarious to read atm and unlike the incident with the 24 karma exploit, Anet isn't in any mood to talk. All banned accounts have forum access removed and all threads made on the Anet forums are being immediately closed, locked, moved/deleted, and the offending accounts being infracted for breaking forum rules.

The only acknowledgement over the bans seems to be this:

Gaile Gray_sl said:
I've seen the numbers, and the damage to the economy could have been substantial, if the exploit wasn't closed down and if these people were allowed to use their ill-gotten gains. People whose accounts were terminated were the worst offenders. I'm talking a lot of ill gotten gains, and a significant risk to the economy.

Any time you take one thing and can make two, and then four, and then sixteen. ya gotta know that's just wrong. (I won't quibble on the odds, overall, doubling was not outside the rules of probability.) And to perform that action hundreds and hundreds of times? That's call "exploitation," my friend, and that's against the User Agreement, the Rules of Conduct, and all that is holy.

I know the OP will disagree. But we've been more than kind, in the past, and everyone needs to own up to his/her errors and recognize: We all are part of the game economy, and those who exploit it are hurting the rest of us.

Exploit closed.
Worst offenders terminated.
That's what has to happen to make things right for all of us.

and the two Reddit Anet posts basically say deal with it.

The only thing that comes across as dickish to me is that Anet knew of this exploit immediately and within the first 24-48 hours they locked the recipe and eventually changed it, yet they waited weeks to ban the accounts who exploited when they banned the 24 karma exploiters within hours. They claim it was to protect the economy in addition to it being an exploit, yet they still waited weeks to ban the accounts.

bayr_sl · Jan 3, 2013

gotta protect that cash shop economy

Caliane · Jan 3, 2013

yeah, they don't ban if you did it 4-5 times.

They ban when you do it 50-1000 times.

Pyksel · Jan 3, 2013

Skinner_sl said:
I actually like that they banned them. Since you got on average 1.5 ectos per salvage, you always gained ectos. Using mystic kits you had only a 20% chance of losing the snowflake and if you used BL kits you always maintained it. So you really only lose the mithril ore and the occasional snowflake (the mithril ore at that time being close to worthless anyway) and you were able to pump out an almost endless supply of ectos. Like the 24 karma exploit, Anet said people were doing this thousands+ times and judging from reddit they seemed to have drawn the line at around the 50 salvage mark for a permanent ban (doesn't seem to be any temp bans this time. You got nothing or a perm). Reddit is hilarious to read atm and unlike the incident with the 24 karma exploit, Anet isn't in any mood to talk. All banned accounts have forum access removed and all threads made on the Anet forums are being immediately closed, locked, moved/deleted, and the offending accounts being infracted for breaking forum rules.

The only acknowledgement over the bans seems to be this:

and the two Reddit Anet posts basically say deal with it.

The only thing that comes across as dickish to me is that Anet knew of this exploit immediately and within the first 24-48 hours they locked the recipe and eventually changed it, yet they waited weeks to ban the accounts who exploited when they banned the 24 karma exploiters within hours. They claim it was to protect the economy in addition to it being an exploit, yet they still waited weeks to ban the accounts.

The delay was more than likely related to how long it took for them to identify who was doing it especially with the fallout that came from the karma exploit and I doubt they have the same number of resources on this as they did during that.

Tuco · Jan 3, 2013

I didn't get banned from either exploit things, but ANet takes all the fun out of the meta game of finding sploits before they fix them =\

Cantatus · Jan 3, 2013

Skinner_sl said:
I actually like that they banned them. Since you got on average 1.5 ectos per salvage, you always gained ectos. Using mystic kits you had only a 20% chance of losing the snowflake and if you used BL kits you always maintained it. So you really only lose the mithril ore and the occasional snowflake (the mithril ore at that time being close to worthless anyway) and you were able to pump out an almost endless supply of ectos.

I had forgotten you could get the snowflake back from salvaging. That changes thing some.

Though, Arenanet isn't entirely blameless in this either. It took themfourdays to fix the recipe. Either they need a better way of tracking exploits in the economy or they need better QA so mistakes like this don't get put into the game.

Zaphid · Jan 3, 2013

Cantatus_sl said:
I had forgotten you could get the snowflake back from salvaging. That changes thing some.

Though, Arenanet isn't entirely blameless in this either. It took themfourdays to fix the recipe. Either they need a better way of tracking exploits in the economy or they need better QA so mistakes like this don't get put into the game.

I can't imagine they couldn't put together some simple script that gives them average returns on salvageable items with all the different salvage tools and to keep an eye on the most profitable ones. Though the community can hack together better LFG tool than them, so I don't have high hopes. They could at least fix fractals so every other of my runs isn't stopped by bugs. Redoing the same level once or twice is so much fun !

Mr Creed · Jan 3, 2013

They arent blameless for the existance of the exploit, quite the opposite. It is entirely their fault since the source is even an oversight or design error and not a bug.

That said they made pretty clear how they intend to handle exploits, regardless of how/why they exist or are found. The message was "you do something to good to be true a hundred times over, you gonna get banned on first offense, no warning suspension". So anyone turning mithril into ectos 50+ time knew damn well what risk they are taking. I'm not even saying doing exploit, but given the policy the company has set forth for exploits, if you get caught you should suck it up and not whine on reddit that you were only cheating a little.

Caliane · Jan 3, 2013

yeah. "Exploit early, and exploit often" is completely bullshit. and its crazy that other companies let that shit fly so much.

Guild Wars 2

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Too old for this shit

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shitlord

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Rasterizing . . .

I got Tuco'd!

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