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[Proven]

On the boss schedule
This doesn't really affect me, as I rarely ever do World Bosses. If I'm in the area when it starts up, I'll run over and help out. Otherwise I'm probably waypointing out soon or am there with a friend. I haven't even touched a single World Boss in over a month. But I can see ANet's reasoning for it. After they put Account Bound limits for World Bosses, most of the flurry for the events happened in the few hours after reset, and then there was a very sharp decrease for the rest of the day. The schedule absolutely isn't perfect for everybody, which is part of the point, as it means less activity at one point in the day with the hope that more activity will be spread out over a 24/hr period. Combine this with Megaservers, and even if there's only one person per home server in Caledon Forest when the Wurm shows up around the crack of dawn, there should be 20+ people there along with veteran players zoning in to help make sure it succeeds and have it feel more personal for the newer players.

The other step was to make guilds more of a force in PvE both for providing content and a factor in the economy. All by making a number of the bosses summoned by a guild researched consumable. This also ends up being another self-organization for players along with a tiny PvE excuse to keep server pride.

However, it's possible that in the end none of this is worth the trouble players feel is being placed upon them.

On Megaserver sorting
So here's a simulation of what I think is happening. First, imagine a megaserver hosting a zone with 20-30 people across 5-10 different servers grouped together. It's a normally a relatively low population zone, so hardly anyone is in there. Then a World Boss spawns and people start waypointing in. The megaserver rapidly reaches its soft camp and an overflow is created. What happens next?

Possibilities:
1. A bunch of your friends got into the megaserver before the softcap, and that's why you don't see many of them in your overflow.
2. Because there's a rapid influx, there isn't enough time to give a thorough sort because the initial megaserver was tying too many servers together. A player needs to be given a server to connect to from the very second they select a waypoint; the loading screen is only for them loading and ANet does not want to slow them down from getting into the game.
3. Initially, only 5-10 home servers were the only servers in the entire game with players in that megaserver. With the influx of players there are now players from ~20 servers coming in, but the system doesn't want to divide up a server for every single home server because it doesn't know if the influx is a one time thing or will continue throughout the event, nor does it know how many from each server is coming. Part of the aim of the megserver system is to keep the number of servers spun up to a minimum.
4. Maybe 1 or 2 home servers have a significantly disproportionate amount of players coming into the zone as compared to all the others. So they're all properly sorted but all the other players get randomly sorted around those big home servers, essentially filling in their leftover gaps.
5. Who knows what else. It's the middle of the night and I can't come up with every possibility in 15 minutes. Some of the previous possibilities probably overlap with each other.

A lot of this can probably be solved by taking note of player trends on each home server as well as keeping an extremely low soft cap value (I'm thinking 30-40) for each megaserver before it requests an overflow be created for that zone. But assuming you want as few servers as possible per zone both for money reasons and keeping the zones as full of player activity as can be, a number of tweaks can't be done until the system hits live and you can see what your playerbase is comfortable with.

So events are still basically a zerg, they're just timed zergs instead of a spontaneous group that jumps around. Not an improvement, if you ask me.

See, this is a minor thing to bitch about, but it's still annoying so I'm going to anyways. I don't see what's so hard about clicking a trait slot and having a list (with names, even) drop down. Clicking a slot and then clicking the list, or clicking the list and dragging to slots, those are all perfectly fine functions too, but if I know what I want, I'd prefer it be a one-click affair.

So your issue is that the list isn't a drop down from the slot, and is instead moved to the side? Heh, I understand now. As for one click, in the previous system could you actually click and hold, place your mouse over the trait on the drop down, then let go to choose the trait?

 

[Morokh]

The new Trait UI is actually better if you want to browse before choosing something when you don't know all the Trait lines, and if their intention is to continue adding new Traits down the line, this version makes way more sense than the other.

But I don't like that you can't get to the Grandmaster traits before level 80 now, it drags the leveling experience further to endgame, and high level zones, as if the 60-80 part wasn't tedious enough ....

The thing that bothers me in the new UI is the wardrobe, going back and forth between equipement/wardrobe/and dyes isn't practical at all.

As far as World bosses go, I have a good variety of available events in the time I usually play, but the fact that events can now fail quickly if the pre-requisite quests fail, combined with the fact that they are on a fixed timer may become VERY frustrating.

Megaservers can be a hit or miss with them, I was doing one of them and someone pointed to the next as we finished, I teleported to the required WP and I was .... alone .....

For regular world events and leveling, no question about it it's very cool having other people around everywhere again.

They have a lot of things to polish, and I definitely hope they do it quick cause it's going to affect the way people can play in quite a bad way.

 

[Ashodin]

I really don't see the issue with World Bosses unless you're playing the game all day. It's nice to pop on, see what's happening according to the schedule, and make it. Yes I see how specific bosses you want to fight may be out of your reach now, but that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make to make this work (for now).

All bosses are just X(+1) reward anyway. You'll get either 2 boxes, or a rare, or a rare and a box. Either way, it's not as important what bosses you fight as it is fighting the bosses when you're online. Yes that means less choice, but it's all we have right now to make the compromise for megaservers. It's either this or the general feeling in the game for players is that it's dead.

Map chat is going to get absolutely stupid as communities start to merge and new players return and such. It's a temporary thing as the megaservers start to weight players and communities together into specific maps. It's probably not going to happen overnight.

Trait UI is different, but not annoying to me. I don't usually remember the names of traits and such, and the only ACTUAL niggling part is I keep trying to click the slot of the trait instead of the entire trait line to view all traits. That's the only thing.

And I don't mind the wardrobe, but I think they could have had a sort of system where you had tabs instead of the Menu -> Wardrobe -> Menu -> Equipment.

If it was Equipment <-> Wardrobe <-> Dye etc, it would be faster.

Specifically to Retro I'm getting the vibe that the game is doing a lot of changes really fast that are screwing with your perception of how the game was working before (getting a super vibe from you of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"). I can see ArenaNet's perspective of wanting to fix the "problem" that players think the game is dead though. They NEED to fix this perception, as the more players that think the game is dead, the more will leave because they believe it to be true.

One of the most common complaints in this thread (and I imagine elsewhere) is that leveling up is terrible because there's hardly anyone anywhere.

 

[Mxrz]

Love the patch, all good for me. My biggest problem is I keep wanting to make all my characters walk around in a black & white armors. I wish I could find a really bright green. Otherwise, every character is going to end up looking like a storm trooper.

Did Arah with one of the D&T guys. Watched him straight up beat Lupi down solo, good stuff. I thought I was a decent warrior, but this guy was on another level. I have much to learn.

 

[Sajjaja]

Love the patch, all good for me. My biggest problem is I keep wanting to make all my characters walk around in a black & white armors. I wish I could find a really bright green. Otherwise, every character is going to end up looking like a storm trooper.

Did Arah with one of the D&T guys. Watched him straight up beat Lupi down solo, good stuff. I thought I was a decent warrior, but this guy was on another level. I have much to learn.

Speaking of crazy players, I was in a PVP match on Legacy of Foefire and this one engineer got to our lord. So 3 of us start to fight him while he's fighting our lord and he runs from the lord, and stays alive for a good 2-3 mins with all 3 of us on him. I eventually branch off to recap points because I realized he was buying time due to us having more points, but damn... he was bobbing and weaving like crazy.

I'm starting to see the appeal of PVP too. I just played like 3-4 matches after hitting the "Play Now" button and it was pretty fun. I'm not entirely sure what changed in PVP other than item organization but it seems more balanced. That or its a placebo effect and a case of timing. Oh are matches 5v5 now? Maybe that's it.

 

[Morokh]

I really don't see the issue with World Bosses unless you're playing the game all day. It's nice to pop on, see what's happening according to the schedule, and make it. Yes I see how specific bosses you want to fight may be out of your reach now, but that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make to make this work (for now).

All bosses are just X(+1) reward anyway. You'll get either 2 boxes, or a rare, or a rare and a box. Either way, it's not as important what bosses you fight as it is fighting the bosses when you're online. Yes that means less choice, but it's all we have right now to make the compromise for megaservers. It's either this or the general feeling in the game for players is that it's dead.

While it may not matter much in terms of rewards if not for Tequatl's specific items (some people won't be able to do it anymore while they at least had the option to guest elsewhere before) they basically traded the player population 'fix', for cutting many people off some end-game content, that's hardly an ideal solution.

 

[CrimsonN0]

I'm starting to see the appeal of PVP too. I just played like 3-4 matches after hitting the "Play Now" button and it was pretty fun. I'm not entirely sure what changed in PVP other than item organization but it seems more balanced. That or its a placebo effect and a case of timing. Oh are matches 5v5 now? Maybe that's it.

I jumped into PVP due to the Balthazar Back Piece or whatever and it varies.
I'd say I'm pretty terrible at PVP, but my team still managed to win multiple times like 400-40 despite not ever communicating with each other.
Theres also the fact against some teams I manage to stay alive for like a whole minute while stuck in the middle of 5 enemies by myself, but in another game, just 1 dude can instantly down me.

 

[Zeroth]

The Frostgorge Train also didn't deserve a nerf, as it wasn't disrupting anything in the same way the Queensdale one was. I don't care for champion trains, honestly, but I don't think it was a problem as long as there was some level of skill involved (i.e. Queensdale is lazy people facerolling easy enemies, Frostgorge was not).

I believe the change to boss trains wasn't quite related to attitudes, but to the player economy. They already stated in a patch they were nerfing the money rewards from bags in order to hold the gold inflation, so if I were to guess I would say they nerfed boss trains so that crafting materials follow this gold reduction. I do expect them to create some replacement to that (in the form of the upcoming reward system, perhaps?), but for now they probably want to tight things up.

Venthus pointed out that this change mostly hurts those without much money, since the trains were the most efficient way to earn money without much need of investment in gear. I agree, but it's also worth noting that any change that intents to make money harder to come by will inevitably hurt those without much to begin with far more than anyone else.

 

[Arkanius]

Malchors Leap now has megaservers
This is new right?

 

[Ceres]

Actually, thinking about it. Guild events are going to be a nightmare. We already almost always run into another guild or two doing the puzzle when we do our missions and that's just SBI guilds. So now we're going to need to deal with guilds from 23 other servers that also do Saturday night missions?

 

[Kos Luftar]

Maybe we should start doing them Sunday Night and makeups Monday night.

Let's wait till Saturday too see how crazy it gets before we send death threats to ANET.

 

[Retro]

The other step was to make guilds more of a force in PvE both for providing content and a factor in the economy. All by making a number of the bosses summoned by a guild researched consumable. This also ends up being another self-organization for players along with a tiny PvE excuse to keep server pride.

Except it's 10k influence per fight (GAFGuild usually generates about 5k a day) and because there are no longer timers the guild either faces that fight alone, potentially wasting the summon or has to notify map chat worldwide. Which is fine, but I doubt it's something we'll be able to do on a regular basis as long as the influence cost is so high and the best way to generate influence (buying drinks) was gold-based which has also just had its kneecaps taken out.

We also have missions and guild buffs to generate which comes out of that 5k a day.

So your issue is that the list isn't a drop down from the slot, and is instead moved to the side? Heh, I understand now. As for one click, in the previous system could you actually click and hold, place your mouse over the trait on the drop down, then let go to choose the trait?

Yep, like I said, it was a small gripe but it's one of those little things that seemed to have been changed when both methods could have been included. I'll get used to it, but it still feels like "change for change's sake" which is never a good approach. And yes, as I recall you could click and release for traits.

I really don't see the issue with World Bosses unless you're playing the game all day.

What? It's the complete opposite; it's an issue if you don't have all day to play, because some world events are occurring inconvenient times. For example, Karka Queen is at 9am server time when people are probably at work, then 6pm when they're just getting home and not again until 3am when they're asleep. That means for some people who enjoyed that fight, they'll no longer get to see it (which is a problem because one of the Grandmaster trait unlocks is tied to her). Likewise with Tequatl (7pm is slightly better, but if you miss it, you're looking at either 4:30am or 10am).

People who play all day are able to do any boss they want because they're not restricted on time like normal people. How you came to the complete opposite conclusion is baffling.

Yes that means less choice, but it's all we have right now to make the compromise for megaservers. It's either this or the general feeling in the game for players is that it's dead.

But it isn't an either-or situation, because we haven't seen a reason why a schedule was the only way to handle the changes needed for the Mega-server system. Obviously the timer-based approach had to go away, which is fine because I never liked the idea of bosses being on timers either (it was still too close to a schedule for my liking). But I haven't been able to find a blog article, interview or forum post that gives a real reason for why a schedule was the only way to handle world events.

The method to summon the Karka Queen was functionally more in line with Guild Wars 2's design principles; instead of a timer or spawn window, there was simply a zone-wide Meta Event that required coordination across four separate, distinct objectives before she would appear. To prevent it from being easily farmable, successful completion results in an long cooldown (80 minutes). That worked nicely, and felt like the kind of thing Dynamic Events were supposed to be and are often criticized for not being. I haven't yet heard a solid reason why world events need to be on a schedule when the potential for players to trigger them repeatedly is already kept in check by the once-per-day-per-account loot system (which is still in place).

Trait UI is different, but not annoying to me. I don't usually remember the names of traits and such, and the only ACTUAL niggling part is I keep trying to click the slot of the trait instead of the entire trait line to view all traits. That's the only thing.

That's literally the only thing they've changed that bothers me. I have other issues with the trait system as a whole, but of the changes that's really the only one that bothers me. Unless you want to count the uninspired unlock methods, but that's not really a change so much as an addition.

I'm getting the vibe that the game is doing a lot of changes really fast that are screwing with your perception of how the game was working before (getting a super vibe from you of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"). I can see ArenaNet's perspective of wanting to fix the "problem" that players think the game is dead though. They NEED to fix this perception, as the more players that think the game is dead, the more will leave because they believe it to be true.

One of the most common complaints in this thread (and I imagine elsewhere) is that leveling up is terrible because there's hardly anyone anywhere.

Yeah, you don't need to point this out to me in boldface and caps like it completely escaped my attention. Empty zones have been a problem in MMOs for almost as long as there have been MMOs and of course it needed to change. I'm not convinced it's an either / or situation where world events absolutely have to be scheduled for mega servers to function.

It's not a matter of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" so much as it's "don't break the camshaft to fix the carburetor." You kind of need populated zones and flexibility to accommodate player schedules. Especially when something as simple as your kid waking up or your wife needing help can mean you miss an entire event for the day (Karka Queen went down in something like 5 minutes last night).

Unrelated, but there's also the problem that the world event schedule isn't communicated to the player in anyway in-game. The timers weren't either, but at least the API existed. You need to go look the schedule up on Dulfy or follow players in map chat now, and that latter method involves a lot of hurry-up-and-wait.

I believe the change to boss trains wasn't quite related to attitudes, but to the player economy. They already stated in a patch they were nerfing the money rewards from bags in order to hold the gold inflation, so if I were to guess I would say they nerfed boss trains so that crafting materials follow this gold reduction. I do expect them to create some replacement to that (in the form of the upcoming reward system, perhaps?), but for now they probably want to tight things up.

Venthus pointed out that this change mostly hurts those without much money, since the trains were the most efficient way to earn money without much need of investment in gear. I agree, but it's also worth noting that any change that intents to make money harder to come by will inevitably hurt those without much to begin with far more than anyone else.

I personally dislike champion trains and only hopped into the Frostgorge one if I needed a quick kill for the daily. I just know that some people liked to play the game that way and it's gone now, without any real replacement for it. Of course it was very likely the easy rewards that brought most people there, but the game is currently tightening up it's high-level content without really compensating for it.

I mean, not only does it hurt players without much money, but it also hurts players without much time. The guys who can spend all day playing can hit up the world events whenever they pop up, but the guys who can only log in for an hour or two each night are at a loss. For a game that's supposed to be about playing your way and doing what you enjoy every minute you're in the game, it just seems like the change is a step in the wrong direction.

If it derails the Queensdale train though, the sacrifice was worth it.

Maybe we should start doing them Sunday Night and makeups Monday night.

Let's wait till Saturday too see how crazy it gets before we send death threats to ANET.

I agree we should wait and see, but I have to strongly disagree with changing the schedule. We spent a lot of time asking people what their preferences were and seeing what worked best for people in multiple time zones. Sunday night is going to mean a lot of people will miss them because they have work the next day. Monday Night means people in non-US timezones aren't going to have any missions they could make. I know on Sundays we get a lot of people who are actually stayed up late to do missions because in their timezone it's the middle of the night.

 

[Ceres]

Except it's 10k influence per fight (GAFGuild usually generates about 5k a day) and because there are no longer timers the guild either faces that fight alone, potentially wasting the summon or has to notify map chat worldwide. Which is fine, but I doubt it's something we'll be able to do on a regular basis as long as the influence cost is so high and the best way to generate influence (buying drinks) was gold-based which has also just had its kneecaps taken out.

We also have missions and guild buffs to generate which comes out of that 5k a day.

I mentioned this previously but Harlowe is trying to work with guilds to spawn Taco at the old standard reset time. If GAF can be one of several guilds assisting, it could easily become a weekly rotation. http://www.stormbluffisle.com/index.php/forum/non-wvw/3360-sbi-tequatl-post-april-15th-patch-updated

And as I also mentioned previously, this change hurts event guilds like TTS the most. They've said that the server influence won't merge until the end of the year so they're screwed trying to gain influence for a guild that people across 24 servers often only rep during the event itself. I don't think people realize just how split up their influence is across servers as I even saw people on reddit saying this would be great for the guild. Unless they reorganize the 7 guilds so that everyone on the same server is in the same guilds, they're not going to gain the influence needed to spawn their own a whole heck of a lot.

 

[Proven]

Can someone tell me how exactly and by how much the Frostgorge train was nerfed? I know there was a gold reduction from champ bags, but was it really that much? Did some of the champs get changed?

And I know it's a lot of influence per fight. It's where the whole self-organization part comes in. You'll need enough guilds to spawn it a few more times a day each day. But I am curious as to how much influence all the other guild missions we do cost combined. Are there any you guys skip doing?

I'm also surprised from Ceres' link that SBI is already to the point that we're starting Tequatl spawns as early as today.

I don't like any arguments about the schedule that mentions the API. Yes, the schedule is horribly broadcast to the players in the actual game. But so was the API. The only difference is that after several months of being live, several people made several web programs that made it easy to keep track of everything. With a schedule, all you need is someone to do the same thing again with an additional auto-check of your computer's timezone.

I do agree it'd be nice if someone like the City Heralds could let you know which of the next four or so bosses were going to spawn. "This just in, Soldier. I hear something is going on at Maelstrom. The volcano is showing unusual activity. Go check it out. For the Legion!"

 

[hythloday]

But I am curious as to how much influence all the other guild missions we do cost combined. Are there any you guys skip doing?

The regular guild missions take 200 influence plus either 24 hours of build time or 2000 influence to speed up (Some take 12 hours of build time). I generally opt to speed them up, so we can use the actual build time for the good buffs that take 24 hours or more to build and are more expensive to speed up, like gold and magic find.

The only missions we skip are the Bounty Training and the Guild Trek. They give influence and merits but no commendations. We can probably work a Bounty Training into the rotation for the influence boost but they have a very long build time which I don't feel is always worth it.

 

[markot]

Everyone needs to fail the mega destroyer event once at the channelling part. It's super cool.

 

[Nemesis121]

Honestly megaserver is great idea but the meta bosses tied to the grand traits should be every hour just for a month or so..having to wait 3 hours is BS..

 

[Retro]

I mentioned this previously but Harlowe is trying to work with guilds to spawn Taco at the old standard reset time. If GAF can be one of several guilds assisting, it could easily become a weekly rotation. http://www.stormbluffisle.com/index.php/forum/non-wvw/3360-sbi-tequatl-post-april-15th-patch-updated

I probably sound rather selfish, but it's harder for us to shoulder the cost of an entire Taco fight each week just so other guilds can get their nightly scheduled Taco run in at our expense. We don't have people sitting in every zone spamming guild recruitment messages, nor do we have any kind of horrid representation requirement, so our influence generation is obviously lower.

I see this as just another unforeseen consequence of having the current schedule where large events like Taco only happen three times a day. It forces this sort of "Do you want to benefit the community or do you look out for your own guild's well-being" that seems completely at odds with the "Play how you want, with who you want" philosophy. The kind of thing that is tearing communities apart and forcing them to look at their individual needs rather than the benefit to the community. I'd be all for scheduling a night where GAF gets on and does everything to trigger a fight so everyone can do it (and for a long time, GAF was the only guild spawning Karka Queen), but that's a far cry from sacrificing influence for everyone else. And I don't like that this sort of mercenary-like calculation even has to cross my mind in a video game. Not one bit.

But I am curious as to how much influence all the other guild missions we do cost combined. Are there any you guys skip doing?

Hythloday handles guild buffs and the mission queue so she'd probably be able to give a better answer, but we spend at least1600 influence a week for missions. But that doesn't include hidden costs like Asuran Outsourcing so we can be building an extra mission / buff, nor does it take into account speeding some things up (which can be 2000 influence a mission itself) so everything is set for buffs (including WvW buffs on Fridays) and missions on the weekend. She also does a good job of making sure we have extra missions available in case we fail one, as well as making sure we have both Tier 1 and Tier 3 bounties (we usually do the T3 ones for Makeups since there's a larger selection of bounties to pick from)

I don't like any arguments about the schedule that mentions the API. Yes, the schedule is horribly broadcast to the players in the actual game. But so was the API. The only difference is that after several months of being live, several people made several web programs that made it easy to keep track of everything. With a schedule, all you need is someone to do the same thing again with an additional auto-check of your computer's timezone.

I agree, neither is ideal, which is why I absolutely favor player-triggered events. As for your suggestion that City Heralds could call out the boss schedule, I think I'd much rather see a UI element that isn't tied to a specific location.

For example, have a list of all the major world events that you can mark to receive notifications for, accessed via a red "Boss" Icon near the Event Tracker. Whenever those events occur, the icon would flash to get your attention and give you a "Show me" option to find it directly on the map. As an added benefit, the same UI could also track which events you've done that day so you'll know if you've gotten them all.

 

[Edvardelis]

Honestly megaserver is great idea but the meta bosses tied to the grand traits should be every hour just for a month or so..having to wait 3 hours is BS..

I'm just not going to bother. I wasn't running Tequatl anyway, getting in after the server reset was too much of a hassle.

 

[Retro]

I'm just not going to bother. I wasn't running Tequatl anyway, getting in after the server reset was too much of a hassle.

And see, this is one of those things that the schedule doesn't solve; you still have to sit in Sparkfly for 45 minutes to an hour to fight Taco if you want any chance at beating him that night. I suppose the idea behind Mega-servers is that it will condense everyone into populated mega-servers game-wide instead of empty overflows for each individual server, which would be great if it worked exactly like that. I can't verify whether it's still possible to end up in a 'bad' copy of Sparkfly, as I was lucky enough to get into the SBI main attempt last night.

I think I'll purposely sacrifice my attempt tonight and zone out and back in to see how a random, extra instance handles it (assuming, of course, I'm playing at Tequatl O'Clock). But really, there's always going to be that chance that you end up in the worst possible Mega-server because of the kind of capping issues Proven mentioned in his post earlier. But now the stakes are higher because if you miss it or it fails during 'primetime' (which isn't primetime for everyone, but never mind that for now), you don't get a chance for another nine and a half hours. Which means for most people it's one chance per day for what's probably the coolest fight in the game outside of Living Story updates.

And they still have the one-chest-per-account-per-day system in place, so even if he spawned every hour on the hour, you still couldn't reasonably farm him.

 

[mingus]

Love the patch, all good for me. My biggest problem is I keep wanting to make all my characters walk around in a black & white armors. I wish I could find a really bright green. Otherwise, every character is going to end up looking like a storm trooper.

Did Arah with one of the D&T guys. Watched him straight up beat Lupi down solo, good stuff. I thought I was a decent warrior, but this guy was on another level. I have much to learn.

algae i've found is a nice shade of bright green, but got damn at that current price.

 

[Hawkian]

That Harlowe post Ceres linked to:

Update! Due unforeseen but highly favorable circumstances, we'll be able to go back to our normal kill time sooner than expected. Starting Thursday, April 17th, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled Tequatl!

I don't have the cliff's notes to explain how this is possible but that's what it says

 

[Ceres]

That Harlowe post Ceres linked to:

I don't have the cliff's notes to explain how this is possible but that's what it says

I saw you call me Kos! How dare you! *leaves guild*

;_;

 

[Hawkian]

very sleepy and I knew it was on one side of retro's big post but didn't read carefully before clicking, sorry

 

[shysaursoft]

Seems the community has already developed an entirely new train that's multi-zone, due to the loss of Frostgorge. If people want to grind, they'll make themselves a grind.

Also: all the game needs now is a UI element that shows which world boss is active, and which one will be active next, with WP links to each.

I haven't looked at the schedule well, but I'm taking it they didn't lay it out so it's an offset? Bit of a pity - would have been better if the whole chain kept moving forward or backwards an hour a day, so if you played only one hour a day at the same hour every day, you'd eventually see every world boss.

 

[nataku]

I really dislike the way the default hero panel looks like now. All that blank space with just the three options looks terrible. Almost like it's some sort of glitch and info isn't being loaded correctly.

I don't see why they didn't just make Equipment the default view and then had tabs along the top for each option or something similar.

 

[Complistic]

I really dislike the way the default hero panel looks like now. All that blank space with just the three options looks terrible. Almost like it's some sort of glitch and info isn't being loaded correctly.

I don't see why they didn't just make Equipment the default view and then had tabs along the top for each option or something similar.

Had the same thought the other day. Seems like something easy they shouldn't have any problem patching. There's no reason to leave it blank.

 

[hockeypuck]

Actually, thinking about it. Guild events are going to be a nightmare. We already almost always run into another guild or two doing the puzzle when we do our missions and that's just SBI guilds. So now we're going to need to deal with guilds from 23 other servers that also do Saturday night missions?

If Anet is smart then they'll separate maps to server-specific at super popular times like Saturday primetime, for example.

I really dislike the way the default hero panel looks like now. All that blank space with just the three options looks terrible. Almost like it's some sort of glitch and info isn't being loaded correctly.

I don't see why they didn't just make Equipment the default view and then had tabs along the top for each option or something similar.

I was so confused that I thought my stats weren't loading. I asked around gchat like a fool and everyone was so kind to ignore me and let me discover my errors to minimize embarrassment.

 

[Nerokis]

If I bought an item from the Gem Store previously that is labeled "Skin", then I can apply it to any weapon or armor without it costing a transmutation stone, because you're just applying the skin to the item as a consumable. If I want those items in my wardrobe, I either have to use them first or waste that free application.

You can get a lot of skins that you apply to weapons or armors without needing stones/crystals before this patch. They're a one time use item. The new system unlocks them for multiple uses so you're not buying the same weapon skin 2 or more times which is great but if you trash the skin, you lose the free application and the first time you want to use it, you need to use a charge. So those of us who have been sitting on 40+ skins waiting to use them for particular alts are still stuck holding onto them if they don't want to waste charges when they're ready to use them.

Thanks for the explanations.

Yeah, this sounds like an oversight. I wonder what the ideal fix for this would be? On the wardrobe menu, an item has a gree/blue/whatever glow when it has a free charge associated with it or something?

 

[Ceres]

I really dislike the way the default hero panel looks like now. All that blank space with just the three options looks terrible. Almost like it's some sort of glitch and info isn't being loaded correctly.

I don't see why they didn't just make Equipment the default view and then had tabs along the top for each option or something similar.

Well it will leave it wherever you last were it seems. Not sure about after logging out though. I've been in the Dye area a lot so I'm constantly backing out and switching to equipment when looking to see if I got any good drops for my leveling warrior. They should be able to combine the equipment and wardrobe into one area. By default show all the equipment information. But then when you click helm, filter the equipment/upgrades you have available in inventory with the unlocked skins below that. They already have that somewhat setup in the wardrobe area where if you have a skin in your inventory, it will appear in its own area above the unlocked skins.

Additionally, I should be able to just select something within the equipment area to see dyes. I haven't noticed this available. So I put on new equipment, I need to go back to the top level menu and select dye to get into the dye area. I mean, this just seems like horrible UI anti-simplification.

 

[Moondrop]

It is much harder to complete the daily PvP-only today. Still possible.

It was only possible by consuming valuable resources better saved for later.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Boss timing site:
http://robocafaz.com/magswag/#/timer

 

[Retro]

Also: all the game needs now is a UI element that shows which world boss is active, and which one will be active next, with WP links to each.

I haven't looked at the schedule well, but I'm taking it they didn't lay it out so it's an offset? Bit of a pity - would have been better if the whole chain kept moving forward or backwards an hour a day, so if you played only one hour a day at the same hour every day, you'd eventually see every world boss.

So, a certain someone logged in this morning and was nice enough to talk a bit about their design choices for the World Events. He basically said that the API Timers were really popular and they didn't want to lose the clear timeline for when bosses would be up. He said the schedule isn't going to be perfect for everyone, but they're open to having events run more often and overlap more.

The reason I'm quoting you is that when I asked about a kind of "Global Alert" system, he said would make a lot of sense, possibly even with a marker on the world map for where they're occurring.

That gives me a little hope that this new approach is at least a temporary measure they're willing to tweak or improve with in-game alerts rather than hideous schedules in military time. I still don't like it, but at least I've talked to a dev who says it's still in a state of flux and is admittedly flawed.

Boss timing site:
http://robocafaz.com/magswag/#/timer

This is nice. Wish it were in game, but I also wish a schedule wasn't needed, but oh well.

 

[Trey]

New taco time works for me cuz I don't get off work til 930.

 

[Nemesis121]

This is nice. Wish it were in game, but I also wish a schedule wasn't needed, but oh well.

Timer being in game is long over due...

 

[Nemesis121]

Boss timing site:
http://robocafaz.com/magswag/#/timer

This site is wrong, timers are off..

 

[Hawkian]

Boss timing site:
http://robocafaz.com/magswag/#/timer

Think I'm liking this better: http://gw2.limitlessfx.com/ just a quick "what's coming up"

What time is reset again? I may try checking out the options for world event routes tonight just to see what's possible. Though it might be from bed as I am quite sleepy :>

I can understand the new round of complaints on all the various changes of course, but I am just lucky enough that none really affect my play all that dramatically. I do hope the biggest complaints will be addressed with time and tweaking.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

This site is wrong, timers are off..

Okay

 

[xenoflux2113]

Logged in last night "I'm not going to buy gems and waste them on something tonight, I'm not." I see the Winter outfit "ohhh I have enough gold to get gems for that." Way to make me spend my gold ANET. I just had to get that outfit for Jess.

 

[Hawkian]

winter outfit admittedly adorable

omg i wanna nap though.

 

[Proven]

Yes, I ask for my name to be changed back. Sorry for the confusion.

Yep, like I said, it was a small gripe but it's one of those little things that seemed to have been changed when both methods could have been included. I'll get used to it, but it still feels like "change for change's sake" which is never a good approach. And yes, as I recall you could click and release for traits.

I probably wouldn't have used it, but I wish I had known about that feature.

It was only possible by consuming valuable resources better saved for later.

That for the foreseeable future you can get indefinitely in PvP in the same way you get them from PvE/WvW, biggest difference being that it's given to you as an item instead of going straight to your account.

Boss timing site:
http://robocafaz.com/magswag/#/timer

Deanykong has a site?

This site is wrong, timers are off..

It's off by 6 hours... It looks like he read the timezone your computer is set to, but then it checks the schedule as if you're in a Euro time zone? What are the next six bosses for someone not on EDT?

 

[gamergirl85]

Logged in last night "I'm not going to buy gems and waste them on something tonight, I'm not." I see the Winter outfit "ohhh I have enough gold to get gems for that." Way to make me spend my gold ANET. I just had to get that outfit for Jess.

Haha Im glad you bought it Jess looks adorable too!!

 

[Kos Luftar]

I saw you call me Kos! How dare you! *leaves guild*

;_;

What have I done to you?

 

[Hawkian]

Reddit tips on Wardrobe wizardry, dunno to what level this is common knowledge but I'm posting regardless:

Not sure if anyone else has discovered this yet, but I did by chance just tonight.
If you open the wardrobe at the bank, right click on a piece of gear and 'Preview' to open the preview window, you can then just single left-click on any item in your wardrobe to instantly preview it on your character in the preview pane. Also works for Weapon Only previews.

No more millions of right-click + previews while trying to find that perfect look! This'll spare me the carpal tunnel...

Even if you link the armor, you can preview by left clicking the item from the chat window! Maybe that's what the whole chat codes change was for...

Another thing to tag onto this: hovering your cursor over dye slots on your gear lets you preview the dyes without having to commit to them.

 

[Moondrop]

That for the foreseeable future you can get indefinitely in PvP in the same way you get them from PvE/WvW, biggest difference being that it's given to you as an item instead of going straight to your account.

Incorrect, if you're referring to skill points. Skill points were not a daily category yesterday. After the 3 obvious PvP applicable categories, the only possible achievements to complete were (1) Recycler, which would require some variable number of matches to reach 10 salvageable items that could take hours, and (2) Leveler, which would've required spending a Tome of Knowledge earned in PvP. Neither were practical or efficient means of achieving the daily.

Dailies can no longer be practically completed in sPvP and I don't know why you continue to project a different impression.

 

[Proven]

I was talking about Leveler. How long does it take for you to rank up in PvP? Are there not Level Tomes in the rank up chests?

Edit: And I didn't deny that it was harder to level up in PvP, especially on that day. Maybe I just don't give Level Tomes the same importance.

 

[Kos Luftar]

I don't know if you guys know this but I had to actually play a match in PvP before all my pvp items became available in the wardrobe.

 

[Ashodin]

Phew okay much reading done. Still no response from anet, so I can't play still.

Retro, my boss comment was more geared towards players who don't care what bosses are up when they log on. Just logging on and finding a boss is enough for them.

Also the bold statement was more towards everyone; I wrote the post just before bed (and was feeling harried by irl circumstances).

Now that that's out of the way:

Tequatl time
Is the time getting changed by anet? Or spawning will happen?

Dev response
See, I knew it was a temporary or ramshackle design. They wanted to roll out mega server and keep timers but inadvertently screwed it up a bit. If they had more overlapping bosses, then players could have more choice. The problem is that you'll have bosses up much more often than pre mega server, and it could get ridiculous.

 

[Mxrz]

Maybe Tequatl shouldn't be farmed daily. Its probably rich coming from someone who doesn't do world bosses much, but the world boss train always seemed a bit meta for a game trying to do away grindy elements.

When I was a newer player I felt like I had to do each world boss every night. It took up a chunk of my playtime, and had me feeling constricted. Then I broke out, discovered the fun of dungeons, fractals, wvw, pvp, etc. On the flip side, I have a friend that does nothing but world bosses, trains, and guild missions. All he does is complain about how bad or boring the game is. Its anecdotal evidence, yes, but I'd be surprised if we were the only ones.

algae i've found is a nice shade of bright green, but got damn at that current price.

I snagged it when it was cheap. its amazingly bright on my necro's HoM. But on the other things I've tried, it seems a little muted. Still, glad I have it.

 

[AFollowerNotALeader]

Well that sucks.

Yesterday BT broke our local exchange and say they won't have it fixed until Monday/Tuesday.

No GW2 over the Easter break for me.

Enjoy the patch guys. I'll be rocking back and forth on my heels miserably with no Internet except my cell phone