Dungeons/etc do work across servers but I don't think they work cross-region :'( I can't confirm it for sure one way or the other, never having tested it.Thanks! Seems I'm not as bad as I thought compared to the average player
Fractals and dungeons can be done in groups across server borders, right? If so, I'll possibly post again on that topic, maybe I'll find a group to complete my first ever monthly here.
I guess I could always find join random people on Gandara to accomplish it, but I prefer Teamspeak/Mumble for coordination.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Guild Wars 2 |OT2| Funding An MMO Entirely On Quaggan Backpacks
- Thread starter Teknopathetic
- Start date
- Status
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
They do NOT work cross-region.
Not in game right now, but if they're talking about the ring I think they are it was pre-order and not digital deluxe.
Love it. I always find charr to be super cool to look at. Shame there are more humans running around.
Whoa. There's a lot of backpedaling there. I look forward to seeing it compiled.
Oh, one thing I've been meaning to ask, can you give a breakdown on the torch? I haven't been able to figure it out all that well, from how much burning damage it does to how to consistently use it.
One mechanic I really do like on the Guardian is how you can explode skills to do something extra, but normally I don't like using those types of skills myself...
Noisy Ninj4
Member
Just leaves more opportunity for a unique charr look, especially if you don't stick to a "brand" of armor.
I will almost certainly never see a doppelganger of my warrior. That's a good feeling.
My cousin is down there right now for school. She says it's beautiful. Live it up.
100%ing the Citadel is painful... It seems that every PoI, Vista and Waypoint has its own instance, really hard to see from the map how to get anywhere.
Missing one PoI right now, driving me crazy. The one right north to Bane Waypoint if anyone is familiar with it.
Did a short session of WvWvW today.. and you were right. Can be lots of fun! Managed to get 24 kills, mostly in smaller groups. Once even at a 1on1. Felt intense
And realized that I will have to switch servers to get 100% map completion. No way one server will "own" the territory of the others (or all of the eternal battleground) so I'll be able to get everything done.
Means 2 weeks of not playing PvE with my friends if they don't want to switch (noone of them has the 100% goal) :/
How did you guys do it?
Oh, I see! If that's how it works, I can just wait until all 3 areas have been assigned. That's not so bad. Thanks for explaining
And forget about the PoI in the Citadel. That one really has its own instance ^^
Okay, here's thing thing about WvW. Stormbluff Isle is one of the top servers. We are in the top bracket. And usually we come in first place. Your color and bracket (which you can check on the official forums or on this site: http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA) is decided based on what place you're in. If after last week's match, your overall ranking on the leaderboard places you top in that particular bracket, you're Green. Blue gets second, and third place is Red.
So the primary reason why we haven't changed color in weeks is because for weeks, we were coming in as the top server in the top bracket. This past week, with the Lost Shores event, Sea of Sorrows (this was something I found funny) made it into the top bracket as the third place team, and then ran away with the competition even during the weekend. They got first place, and knocked us down so hard that we came in third. So we're Red for this week. A lot of WvW commanders are in this week looking for revenge, so we'll probably come out in first place and be Green again next week.
Now, when it comes to 100% completion, it's actually not so bad. Throughout the day there will be times where our more spread out world coverage will mean that we will own all the territories in one land. Because of this, I've completed the WvW maps on three different characters having never transferred off of SBI (it's a nice small bit of experience to help whenever I start rolling a new character and get WvW fever below level 20).
But, if you want to get something deep into an enemy's territory, and you only have time to play for a few hours a day, and those few hours coincide with the prime time of some WvW community on one of the other servers, you might have some waiting to to do. I will say that the enemy teams start to give up and things die down on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, so if there are enough people online you can push a force and grab a keep real quick for the vista inside.
Zyrusticae
Banned
They really shouldn't have released any ascended gear without first having many, many potential routes for acquiring it outside of FotM/the Mystic Forge.
At least they're working on it...
At least they're working on it...
Reddit liked my blog post on boss design, so I figured I'd post it here for some more discussion:
A week and a half in, Im at difficulty level 31 in Fractals of the Mists. Truth be told, Im feeling a bit of burnout at this point, so this will probably be the highest I push for some time. But now that I have a solid amount of experience in my belt, Im a bit more interested in looking at what the new feature in Guild Wars 2 did right and what it did wrong. Specifically, Im interested in looking at boss mechanics.
Boss design in Guild Wars 2 has definitely not been the strong point of the game. Anyone who has done the other dungeons knows progression is bizarre and a lot of bosses are nothing more than dodge-and-kill fights akin to the simplest boss fights in other MMORPGs. So fractals were ArenaNets chance to show some improvement.
At level 31, I feel I have a good enough grasp of the content to gauge if ArenaNet succeeded or failed. To give the too-long-didnt-read summary, my verdict is ArenaNet succeeded at improving, but failed at going far enough.
To give my verdict some context, I think good boss fights exemplify one or both of two key elements: variety in mechanics and phases. Both keep bosses fresh as they keep going, and both can provide twists in challenge. The two ingredients provide logical progression throughout a boss fight, which keeps players feeling like theyre accomplishing more and more as the fight goes on. If theres a variety of mechanics, players typically feel like theyre conquering more and more odds as the boss gets lower and lower in health. With phases, clear mid-fight progression is added as players transition from one act of the boss to the next.
The problem is that, as the game stands, too many boss fights lack either of these elements. Take the Jellyfish Beast in the underwater fractal. What makes players say that the fight is too long, even with the electric cage mechanic? Its not that the fight takes an extraordinary amount of time; it clocks in at three to four minutes, which is standard in fractal encounters. Its that the boss has few mechanics electric cells that can be used to shock it, an AOE pull that applies agony, and jellyfish adds and the mechanics remain static throughout the fight. That makes players feel like theyre doing the same thing over and over for much too long.
Same thing applies to the final bosses in the dredge fractal. When I first started fractals, these two fights seemed fun. They assigned one player to a unique role pour lava and involved coordinated kiting from the group. The problem is the mechanic is repeated almost mindlessly for three to four minutes. Its pretty much the only mechanic in the fight, barring some dodging and AOEing here and there. Theres no progression or twists.
In contrast, theres the colossus fractal. Ignoring any exploits, the entire fractal is essentially a multi-phase boss fight centered around seals: Kill a legendary mob, which drops a hammer. Use the hammer to break two seals while handling adds. Destroy another seal while dealing with more mobs. Break two more seals while managing mobs that heal them. Finally, eliminate the last seal while fighting a legendary mob and adds.
Some might complain the colossus fractal takes too long relative to the other fractals, but I think its the perfect build-up. Mechanics get more and more complex, players change roles as the hammer is traded off, and it all culminates with a big fight at the end.
In between the colossus fractal and the dredge and underwater fractals, there is some middle ground. Among these, the Legendary Imbued Shaman in the grawl fractal gets to be one of the more interesting fights at higher levels as the transition between fighting the boss itself and dealing with its bubble shield and adds becomes harder to deal with. However, the fight ultimately remains static. The encounter makes players repeat the same task over and over, and theres no notable mechanics except the high difficulty of dealing with transitions.
Thats the big problem with boss design in Guild Wars 2. Too often the boss fights feel like an unchanging dodge-and-kill. Too much of the time a boss is difficult because of numbers, not mechanics. In the end, too many of the bosses dont feel like bosses; they feel like mobs with greater health pools and damage.
Moving forward, its definitely something ArenaNet can fix, especially with the promised dungeon revamp. For now, I appreciate Fractals of the Mists as a wonderful medium of content and progression, but some parts leave a bit to be desired.
A week and a half in, Im at difficulty level 31 in Fractals of the Mists. Truth be told, Im feeling a bit of burnout at this point, so this will probably be the highest I push for some time. But now that I have a solid amount of experience in my belt, Im a bit more interested in looking at what the new feature in Guild Wars 2 did right and what it did wrong. Specifically, Im interested in looking at boss mechanics.
Boss design in Guild Wars 2 has definitely not been the strong point of the game. Anyone who has done the other dungeons knows progression is bizarre and a lot of bosses are nothing more than dodge-and-kill fights akin to the simplest boss fights in other MMORPGs. So fractals were ArenaNets chance to show some improvement.
At level 31, I feel I have a good enough grasp of the content to gauge if ArenaNet succeeded or failed. To give the too-long-didnt-read summary, my verdict is ArenaNet succeeded at improving, but failed at going far enough.
To give my verdict some context, I think good boss fights exemplify one or both of two key elements: variety in mechanics and phases. Both keep bosses fresh as they keep going, and both can provide twists in challenge. The two ingredients provide logical progression throughout a boss fight, which keeps players feeling like theyre accomplishing more and more as the fight goes on. If theres a variety of mechanics, players typically feel like theyre conquering more and more odds as the boss gets lower and lower in health. With phases, clear mid-fight progression is added as players transition from one act of the boss to the next.
The problem is that, as the game stands, too many boss fights lack either of these elements. Take the Jellyfish Beast in the underwater fractal. What makes players say that the fight is too long, even with the electric cage mechanic? Its not that the fight takes an extraordinary amount of time; it clocks in at three to four minutes, which is standard in fractal encounters. Its that the boss has few mechanics electric cells that can be used to shock it, an AOE pull that applies agony, and jellyfish adds and the mechanics remain static throughout the fight. That makes players feel like theyre doing the same thing over and over for much too long.
Same thing applies to the final bosses in the dredge fractal. When I first started fractals, these two fights seemed fun. They assigned one player to a unique role pour lava and involved coordinated kiting from the group. The problem is the mechanic is repeated almost mindlessly for three to four minutes. Its pretty much the only mechanic in the fight, barring some dodging and AOEing here and there. Theres no progression or twists.
In contrast, theres the colossus fractal. Ignoring any exploits, the entire fractal is essentially a multi-phase boss fight centered around seals: Kill a legendary mob, which drops a hammer. Use the hammer to break two seals while handling adds. Destroy another seal while dealing with more mobs. Break two more seals while managing mobs that heal them. Finally, eliminate the last seal while fighting a legendary mob and adds.
Some might complain the colossus fractal takes too long relative to the other fractals, but I think its the perfect build-up. Mechanics get more and more complex, players change roles as the hammer is traded off, and it all culminates with a big fight at the end.
In between the colossus fractal and the dredge and underwater fractals, there is some middle ground. Among these, the Legendary Imbued Shaman in the grawl fractal gets to be one of the more interesting fights at higher levels as the transition between fighting the boss itself and dealing with its bubble shield and adds becomes harder to deal with. However, the fight ultimately remains static. The encounter makes players repeat the same task over and over, and theres no notable mechanics except the high difficulty of dealing with transitions.
Thats the big problem with boss design in Guild Wars 2. Too often the boss fights feel like an unchanging dodge-and-kill. Too much of the time a boss is difficult because of numbers, not mechanics. In the end, too many of the bosses dont feel like bosses; they feel like mobs with greater health pools and damage.
Moving forward, its definitely something ArenaNet can fix, especially with the promised dungeon revamp. For now, I appreciate Fractals of the Mists as a wonderful medium of content and progression, but some parts leave a bit to be desired.
I like torch a lot, the #4 skill Zealot's Flame/Fire has nice range (1200) and decent damage over time on it. The burning damage for it (either before or after throwing it) last 3 seconds I believe. But on a boss where you want to keep distance it provides a decent DoT from a safe range or in a group of foes without using it a second time you can keep burning up on 3 people (the wiki page says within 150 range and the first burning last 6s). But the best part of torch is the #5 skill Cleansing Flame which is basically a 400 range fire breath attack. Does 10x 1,000 dmg to anyone in the path and cleanses conditions on allies. It's a channeling ability, but you can move during it as well, so as things move around you can readjust your flame.
Overall I like the torch, I usually off hand it with my sword or scepter, it doesn't offer the protection that focus or shield does, it's pretty much pure damage, but cleansing flame is really handy in some situations. (For example AC Path 3 it was very helpful.)
As for exploring the skill like Zealots Flame, it depends, in a group of enemies I normally just use it once to keep 3 of them with burning on them, to where if fighting one enemy I generally start it, let it burn them once and then explode it.
In WvW the torch is great for defending, less helpful attacking. But when the enemies are coming over a choke point like a bridge, you can do some nice damage to a group, I got my first kills in WvW by just using it whenever it was up this way. I haven't really done much sPvP, but I would imagine it's not the greatest there where 1v1 battles are more likely. I feel like the torch is more helpful when there are large groups of enemies.
That's just my feel on it, I used a focus and shield a little, but just didn't like them as much as the torch.
Noisy Ninj4
Member
One group I was in wondered if he was actually checking his NeoGaf threads.
This was a great post that I had read this morning. I can agree with a lot of whats been said there. Im finding a lot of improvement in FotM over their current dungeons and with more feedback I can see ANet improving the dungeons further easily. Not even the WoW dungeons were very great at vanilla release...and in some cases a big PITA to go thru (who remembers raiding Scholo and UBRS way before MC was implemented?), but they eventually iterated to where they are now.
I can see ANet start to figure that out and look forward to further iterations on their current dungeons as well as future dungeons/fractals that they'll be releasing into the wild.
They are just mighty awful at answering plainly and concretely. That first response to the first Ascended gear/treadmill inquiry gave no assured answer and restoked my own worries, so the reddit guy who assembled all the questions then reworded Chris Whiteside's answer into concrete answers and asked if Chris agreed with his summary, and Chris did. That summary should have been the first answer and then the rambling later on. Some of the ANet folk ramble on like a damned AV Club reviewer.
Here's the to the point summary:
They really need to learn how to get to the point.
That doesn't remove all worries though. If they think they can appease both vertical progression and horizontal progression people then they're chasing an impossible and pointless dream. The "shallow curve" is so pointless a curve that I don't understand the advantage of having it. They stated that GW1 had no progression but that isn't really true. There was still non-magic items, magic items and then max stat items. There was blue, purple, gold and green, with gold and green being max stat items. That's not so different than Guild Wars 2 at launch. The only difference was that there were more levels and and it took a longer time to reach max level in GW2 than it did in GW1.
So "the game already had progression" is sort of a negligible point by them, the same as the imaginary gap they spoke about.
i share feelings on bosses too. awfully boring. i seriously tab out on some bosses. like ghosteater
hockeypuck
Member
Argh, we got the Temple of Balthazar event going, but couldn't defeat the boss in time. I was making the mistake of rezzing everyone, when I should've been attacking the boss and only the boss the entire time. Plus I called out on map chat to protect the NPCs, when that phase was finished and they didn't need to be protected anymore. We get 10 minutes to defeat the priest and he just wiped the floor with us. Kos, Jepsen, Doombringer, it was a good run.
That Balthazar end boss is such an ass. It's so easy to instantly die in that encounter without having any idea what the hell happened.
Ok, I finally jumped into sPvP and did some hotjoin to test the build. I have an idea in my mind for if the Scepter was a backup and the main weapon was a Sword, or switching evenly between Scepter and Hammer for lots of annoyance (and using the Runes of the Elementalist, lol). But I promised a Scepter focused build and I've really come to enjoy the weapon, so here's the current state of the Radiant Rampaging Scepter Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRA...te8PIk/UpIe0HA;TwAg1Cqo4xwjgHLPOek8ssYYxWgpAA
I'm tired, so I'll do a rundown tomorrow, but the basic thing to note about the build is that it's a midline build. You don't want to get into the fray except to finish people off, or to swap to shield for a clutch knockback. You'll be using Scepter/Torch 90% of the time. You will learn to love Smite. You have multiple ways to tweak the build depending on your teammates and how much condition removal you need. If someone gives you fury your crit chance should be at around 95%, assuming Right-Hand Strength isn't bugged. And you do +15% damage to burning foes.
I upped this on Reddit earlier today. It really is a good post on bosses. The one thing I'd add, is that you can still make a boss interesting with a static moveset, but the moveset has to be large enough that it's similar to fighting a player. For GW2, that means 5-9 different moves with an elite that he can use when he gets to certain levels of health or something.
After playing some more, Torch > Shield > Focus, but that's just my preference. They're all really good.
It's almost always because he throws down Banners of Balthlazar that AoE one or two hit kill people. It's painful. The boss is setup so that you have to pretty much zerg it, since the time limit is so tight. At the same time, if you bring too many people, they summon a Champion Abomination. WTF?
I'm tired, so I'll do a rundown tomorrow, but the basic thing to note about the build is that it's a midline build. You don't want to get into the fray except to finish people off, or to swap to shield for a clutch knockback. You'll be using Scepter/Torch 90% of the time. You will learn to love Smite. You have multiple ways to tweak the build depending on your teammates and how much condition removal you need. If someone gives you fury your crit chance should be at around 95%, assuming Right-Hand Strength isn't bugged. And you do +15% damage to burning foes.
I upped this on Reddit earlier today. It really is a good post on bosses. The one thing I'd add, is that you can still make a boss interesting with a static moveset, but the moveset has to be large enough that it's similar to fighting a player. For GW2, that means 5-9 different moves with an elite that he can use when he gets to certain levels of health or something.
After playing some more, Torch > Shield > Focus, but that's just my preference. They're all really good.
It's almost always because he throws down Banners of Balthlazar that AoE one or two hit kill people. It's painful. The boss is setup so that you have to pretty much zerg it, since the time limit is so tight. At the same time, if you bring too many people, they summon a Champion Abomination. WTF?
hockeypuck
Member
Oh man, we did have an abomination show up (not sure if it was a champion). In retrospect I thought we didn't have enough people, since the only time I've been successful was when it looked like 200 people were fighting the priest, but if we really did have more than enough then the zerg was wholly ineffective, since we only got the boss down to half his health before time was up.
Yeah, I love the Sylvari. They're pretty much all I play now.
You said you leveled a Necromancer second, what was your first class?
Also, your Guardian exploits in WvW - are they with an 80 guardian or are you leveling up as you go?
Leveling as I go. While the build works well enough for PvP I won't know how strong it is in WvW for a while. Level 19 as of tonight, depending on party members to do the spikes while I use immobilizes and justice for the setup.
I can say, with Smite having 1200 range and such a short cool down, life isn't bad. I can't wait to get to a high enough level for a Superior Sigil of Fire.
Hmm, I'm still trying to settle on a main. I keep coming back to Mesmer as I like the kiting, visual aesthetics, support, and ranged options they have but I've been meaning to try Guardian as well. I've got a (Sylvari) guardian all ready to go, so maybe I'll look at leveling one up through WvW and just try to stick with a zerg. I prefer ranged so looks like Scepter / Staff - though I may try hammer.
Will be looking forward to hearing more about your exploits.
edit: Whoops, I thought you were talking about your WvW adventures. Didn't realize you'd only been playing this in sPvP. Guess I won't be leveling it in WvW then. :/
That's a design on lots if bosses. Its cheap as fuck too. One hit kills should never exist and even worse when the game doesn't make it apparent why you died. The champ mob at the end of plinx is the worst. One shot kill which results in people running around so you can't melee ever. I always skipped or tabbed out with staff auto attack
Finally some Charr armor loving. And that looks awesome.
looks like char make overs are now available. doesn't appear too bad of a price.
video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDF4msCz3xc&feature=youtu.be
video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDF4msCz3xc&feature=youtu.be
Time to log into this bitch right naoooo
you will never be pretty
This is some great news for my unattractive characters. I like that it allows you to preview what you will look like with your armor on.
For real, I just spent 5 minutes searching through his recent posts to see if this was old news I missed. Congrats on the name.
Does this mean you sit down like the rest of us now?
Mr. Luchador
Member
One day they'll release those models that disappeared during Beta Weekends.
It works fine. Thinfinn did it in the middle of a fractal run and freaked us the fuck out
Noisy Ninj4
Member
Did he get -5 to his level from the disorientation?
No, the rest of us did. Suddenly his/her very protective Assassin's armor was showing some nice provocative underboob.
Yup, sitting down like a mere mortal. :-(
I actually was going to post "hope this means name changes come out next!" but thought it might be a bit ridiculous. In all honesty, "...The Sinister" was a goof name for a pack mule character and then it ended up becoming my main.
Zyrusticae
Banned
That is hilarious and awesome.
Snap gender-change in the middle of combat! Makes everyone go wtf?!, haha!
After hearing all the complain about EB JP camping, I was a bit apprehensive when I tried it today, but it turned out ok. No one was interested in fighting. There was one tense moment when someone from another server was on the same block as me in the dark room, we looked at each other for a bit, I did a /bow and moved on. (Me = Gandara v Abaddons Mouth v Drakkar Lake.)
That's nice when it happens. Seems rare when Jade Quarry is one of the servers, though.
br0ken_shad0w
Member
I waved to SoS players on two of the jump puzzles. A nice gesture and it didn't lead to any fighting. EB was actually tame when me, Harsgalt, and Kirito completed it. Same couldn't be said half an hour later when like 20 JQ players started camping and building sieges right at the entrance.
To everyone who only does casual sPVP and has limited bag space - avoid completing the PVP Monthly.
In addition to the award being 5 days worth of daily's, it grants 5 PVP salvage kits. That's 5 slots occupied by something I have never used in my life. :-/
In addition to the award being 5 days worth of daily's, it grants 5 PVP salvage kits. That's 5 slots occupied by something I have never used in my life. :-/
Never heard about EB JP camping. What is that?
I love that you communicated using /bow
Did a quest yesterday where one had to cheer and bow to some cows to make them feel good. Was a nice change to the usual routines (though the quest was tedious otherwise)
Doing well with my 100% world target (at 95 now). Due to Gandara being pretty good in WvWvW until now, I was able to clear about 50% of the Eternal Battlegrounds. Am over 50 kills now, the monthly doesn't count more. Enjoying it more and more, wouldn't have thought
- Status