Official AT Guild Wars 2 Guild Thread

[tygeezy]

August 20 Content Release Notes
LIVING WORLD
Clockwork Chaos
The nefarious villain, Scarlet Briar, has made herself known to Tyria! Chaos ensues as she unleashes her clockwork minions across the world!
Closing Ceremony

• Witness the high point of the Queen’s Jubilee! Attend the ceremony and hear the Queen’s Speech in the Crown Pavilion of Divinity’s Reach. It’s sure to end with a bang.

Clockwork Minions Invade

• Scarlet’s clockwork minions are invading entire zones across Tyria.
• Watch the World Event UI for new invasions.
• All overflow maps created within 10 minutes of the start of the invasion will host a concurrent version of that hour’s event.
• Complete additional waves of the invasion for an increasingly lucrative map-wide reward.
• Map-wide rewards are limited to once per account, per day, per map. For example, players who claim the map-wide reward for an invasion in the Gendarran Fields will only be able to claim invasion rewards in other maps until the following day.
• Complete all waves of an invasion to unlock a bonus battle with Scarlet.
• Defeat Scarlet for a daily world-boss reward of two guaranteed rare items.
• All possible maps will be invaded at least once per day.
• Invasions will not occur in Orr, Southsun Cove, or maps suited for character levels below 25.
• After the Clockwork Chaos release, the invasions will continue at a less frequent pace.

Scarlet’s Funhouse

• Scarlet has claimed and occupied a prominent structure in Tyria and twisted it into a demented fun house.
• Help Emissary Vorpp at the Crown Pavilion reverse-engineer Scarlet’s portal technology to find a way into her fun house.
• Defeat Scarlet to restore the fun house to its proper form.

Ongoing Festivities

• The Crown Pavilion and Queen’s Gauntlet will close for maintenance on September 3. Look for their return in the future!

Achievements

• Two achievement categories have been added to the Living World achievement group:
  • Clockwork Chaos contains all release-related achievements and the meta-achievement for this release.
  • Emissary Vorpp’s field assistant contains achievements related to the Living World story for this release. It serves as a guide to completing key achievements in the Clockwork Chaos category.
• Completing the Clockwork Chaos meta-achievement awards the player an Infinite Watchknight Tonic. Completing this meta-achievement requires players to complete 18 achievements from either the Clockwork Chaos category or the dailies related to the Clockwork Chaos release.

Exotic Drop

• Play Clockwork Chaos content for a chance at the exotic Twisted Watchwork Portal Device Recipe.
• The recipe requires a level 400 artificer. The ingredients are 50 Watchwork Sprockets, 50 Bowls of Salsa, 1 Unidentified Dye, and 1 Glob of Dark Matter.
• The Twisted Watchwork Portal Device is a single-use consumable that teleports the user to a random place in Tyria. The destination may be very rewarding, very dangerous, both, or anywhere in between.

NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT
World vs. World

• Trebuchet Mastery has been added to the Ranks and Abilities tab.
  • Increased the damage of trebuchet skills.
  • Disease Cloud from cow ammo now drains supply from enemy players.
  • Increased the radius of trebuchet skills.
  • New skill: Healing Oasis—Fires a shot that heals allies and creates a water combo field.
  • Basic shots that hit enemy supply depots will now destroy some of the objective’s supply.
• WvW Ability Points are now equal to the earned WvW rank of each character. All rank 1 characters will have 1 World Ability Point.
• Liquid World Experience is now available as a drop in WvW rank-up chests. When consumed, characters receive a set amount of WXP.

Culling

• Server-side culling has been removed from all PvE maps. More information on culling may be found in this blog post.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
Achievements

• The character-select screen now displays information about several achievement categories in addition to unlocked account medals.
• The watch list in the Achievements panel now supports drag-and-drop functionality to organize achievements.
• Additional visual and audio polish has been added to the achievements system.

General

• The amount of karma granted from consumable karma items has been increased. Karma boosts no longer affect the amount of karma gained from consumable items.
• The minimap and objective list no longer disappear when a character is downed or defeated.

Story

• “Last of the Giant-Kings” – Korag is now flagged as a veteran to match his difficulty.

Profession Skills
Elementalist:

• Signet of Restoration: The signet effect will now play at the start of the cast for this skill.
• Glyph of Elementals: Removed an unnecessary range fact.

Engineer:

• Flame Turret—Overcharge: The skill fact now displays the correct radius.
• Elixir Gun—Elixir F: Added a bouncing skill fact to the base skill when it is traited with Rifled Barrels.
• Thump: Updated the damage skill fact to more accurately reflect the damage done.
• Jump Shot: Fixed a bug that caused the vulnerability applied by this skill to be unblockable.

Guardian:

• Purifying Ribbon: Added a skill fact for the number of bounces.
• Signet of Wrath: Added a damage skill fact.
• Faithful Strike: Updated the healing fact to display the correct value. Added a radius skill fact.
• Bane Signet: Added a passive skill fact and changed the knockdown fact to display the correct duration when this skill is traited with Perfect Inscriptions.
• Signet of Judgment: Added a passive skill fact that is also updated when traited with Perfect Inscriptions.
• Signet of Mercy: Added a passive skill fact that is also updated when traited with Perfect Inscriptions.
• Signet of Wrath: Added a passive skill fact that is also updated when traited with Perfect Inscriptions.
• Virtue of Resolve: Updated the buff skill fact to accurately display the healing per tick.
• Hammer of Wisdom: Updated the damage facts for this skill as well as its Command skill.
• Sword of Justice—Command: Fixed an issue that caused the Command skill to go on full recharge without activating properly when used without a target.

Mesmer:

• Power Cleanse: Removed the range fact as it was unnecessary.
• Mind Spike: Fixed a bug where this skill was checking for a boon on the mesmer instead of on the target. The extra damage will now be correctly applied when the player’s target has no active boons.
• Moa Morph/Tuna Morph: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to appear unselectable while underwater.
• All Phantasms: The ghostly effect on phantasms should no longer fail to show up in low graphics settings.
• The Prestige: Fixed an issue that caused the blast finisher to occur at the point where the skill is cast, rather than on the mesmer.

Necromancer:

• Putrid Explosion: Added an unblockable skill fact to indicate the skill’s functionality.
• Bone Fiend: Updated the range skill fact to indicate the creature’s actual range.
• Lich Form: Updated the skill fact description so that it doesn’t indicate it removes spectral forms.
• Plague Form: Updated the skill fact description so that it doesn’t indicate it removes spectral forms.
• Chill of Death: Changed the radius skill fact to a range skill fact.

Ranger:

• Swoop: The charge portion of this skill no longer spams “miss” while running toward an enemy.
• Juvenile Lynx—Rending Pounce: Updated the bleed skill fact to display the proper amount of bleeds.
• Frost Spirit: Added a radius skill fact.
• Cold Snap: Added a radius skill fact.
• Sun Spirit: Added a radius skill fact.
• Solar Flare: Added a radius skill fact.
• Stone Spirit: Added a radius skill fact.
• Quicksand: Added a radius skill fact.
• Storm Spirit: Added a radius skill fact.
• Call Lightning: Added a damage skill fact and a radius skill fact.
• Crippling Talon: The projectile thrown will now travel the full distance when traited with Off-Hand Training.

Thief:

• Infiltrator’s Signet: Updated the signet’s effect to properly follow the thief when activated.
• Flanking Strike: Removed a redundant damage fact.

Warrior:

• Seismic Leap: Fixed a bug so that this skill will now properly be a blast combo finisher.
• Rampage—Dash: Fixed a bug that allowed the character to move further than intended.
• Whirling Axe: Updated the skill fact to include a radius.
• Banner of Discipline, Banner of Strength, Banner of Defense, and Battle Standard: Updated these skills to properly display their duration. Battle Standard now displays the casting range of the skill.
• Banner—Sprint: This skill will now properly strike a target when it reaches the target while underwater.
• Kill Shot: Fixed a bug so that this skill will no longer drain the energy of a target that reflects it.

Racial:

• Asura
  • Pain Inverter: Replaced the range skill fact with a radius one to more accurately reflect the skill’s function.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Minimap is now always centered and cannot be panned or zoomed.
• Secondary objective icons for tournament maps have been repainted for clarity.
• Map art for tournament maps have been repainted for clarity.
• Downed icons no longer overlap profession icons.
• Spectate camera icons no longer steal mouse focus from capture point icons when not visible.
• Profession icons are now a fixed size regardless of map zoom level.
• Player icons now show names in their tooltip.
• Removed the capture point text from the map.
• All capture point icons now properly show their name in the tooltip.

World vs. World

• The Outnumbered buff now provides a 25% boost to all WXP gained.
• WXP rates have been increased across the board. All activities that award WXP should now reward much more.
• The Siege Decay buff is no longer visible to hostile players.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• The Zodiac Weapon Skins are now available for purchase from the Black Lion Weapon Specialist. This weapon skin set is inspired by the classic Guild Wars Zodiac weapons. For one month only, until September 16, these weapon skins cost only 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket. Claim Ticket Scraps can be acquired by opening Black Lion Chests. Black Lion Chest Keys are available in the Gem Store in the Consumable category for 125 gems each or a pack of 5 for 450 gems.
• Mini 3-Pack Set 2 is now available in the Gem Store in the Minis category for 300 gems. Open this pack to get three random minis from an entirely new set of miniatures! Each pack contains two common and one uncommon mini from set 2. Collect all 46 new minis! The Mini 3-Pack Set 1 is also still available for anyone looking to complete their set 1 collection.
• The Permanent* *Twisted Watchwork Finisher is now available in the Gem Store in the Upgrades category for 500 gems. This upgrade gives players unlimited, account-wide access to this twisted finisher.
• The World vs. World Experience Booster is now available in the Gem Store in the Booster category for 150 gems. This consumable grants 50% more WvW experience for one hour.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...Update-Notes-August-20-2013/first#post2662731

 

[zinfamous]

hmm, zodiac weapons in the gem store now. Some of the nicer skins from GW1, though I wish they weren't BL purchases...or RNG. well, who am I kidding? everything is RNG now.

 

[GaiaHunter]

hmm, zodiac weapons in the gem store now. Some of the nicer skins from GW1, though I wish they weren't BL purchases...or RNG. well, who am I kidding? everything is RNG now.

GW1 zodiac skins are better looking (for each game and probably overall) than GW2 zodiac skins.

So no worries.

I wish they decided to make more permanent stuff you could buy in the cash shop instead of trying to push lottery boxes.

When I say permanent I say like unlock skins that you could withdraw whenever like the zenith ones.

 

[zinfamous]

GW1 zodiac skins are better looking (for each game and probably overall) than GW2 zodiac skins.

So no worries.

I wish they decided to make more permanent stuff you could buy in the cash shop instead of trying to push lottery boxes.

When I say permanent I say like unlock skins that you could withdraw whenever like the zenith ones.

yeah, I had irrationally assumed they would be moving towards this model, especially with the gem store skins.

Or, I mean, why not actually add a bunch of new skins to the game via drops? Yes, we get this now with the champion drops, which is nice, but I'd like to see something that is more directly targeted--Dragon armor/weapon sets that drop rarely, and only from the dragons, or particularly rare skins that drop from specifically assigned mobs or boss types associated with those mobs.

As to the latter--we do have that, but nothing new since the game released, and none of these are particularly rare or really worth anything in the market. We need a damn crystalline sword that is impossibly rare and worth about 3k gold!

 

[NoSoup4You]

These content updates are developing into just massive farming frenzies. You're either in there following the pve zerg or you're falling behind...

 

[zinfamous]

^ Hey, the dungeon updates fixed inflation!

oh, wait...no it didn't.

 

[cronos]

Free trial is up, and will be this whole weekend until Sunday midnight PST.

 

[GaiaHunter]

^ Hey, the dungeon updates fixed inflation!

oh, wait...no it didn't.

If you buy gems with gold you should be safe against inflation.

 

[Nintendesert]

Playing the free weekend, I don't know which character to play. I tried a ranger and a bear and it seemed ok. The combat and pacing take some getting used to.

 

[videogames101]

i hit 80 in 3 days after gw2 was released, then got bored extremely fast

so i thought this game died after the week of release because there was nothing to do but grind simplistic end dungeons for armor with cosmetic bonuses only or grind eco for legendaries or participate in the non-existent sPvP scene because there was no way to organize matches

is it worth reinstalling?

 

[NoSoup4You]

i hit 80 in 3 days after gw2 was released, is it worth reinstalling?

Probably not, if you got to lvl 80 in 3 days you're an uber hardcore gamer and I don't see this game keeping you engaged for too long. Although since June they've been releasing solid new content on a bi-weekly basis so that may be worth checking out... but again you'd probably churn through these updates in one day which takes others (like me) a week+... so you'd be back with nothing to really do.

You might like Fractals, they're probably the one aspect of the game that caters to the hardcore crowd.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well after giving this game a couple month rest, I came back this past weekend. The character culling fix is a VERY good change for the better. I also like the changes for groups running dungeons (not needing to all be on the same stupid overflow server). I havn't really run many dungeons yet (just a few fractal runs for dailies/monthly), but these are nice changes. Inflation is still ongoing, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would have been (ectoplasm is still around 25-30s, most legendaries are still in the 2000g range aside from the greatsword).

I am glad that they seem to have cut back on the equipment grind/stat creep, and instead have been focusing on vanity/looks like they originally said they were when the game was in pre-production.

 

[JeffMD]

i hit 80 in 3 days after gw2 was released, then got bored extremely fast
[/B]

I call BS...

First runs generally run long, around 120 hours because you pretty much don't have enough materials for a significant amount of tradeskill leveling.

Alts can then be leveled up quicker using tradeskills by using money/materials gained from your first run through.

 

[zinfamous]

I call BS...

First runs generally run long, around 120 hours because you pretty much don't have enough materials for a significant amount of tradeskill leveling.

Alts can then be leveled up quicker using tradeskills by using money/materials gained from your first run through.

There were several players that did it over that first weekend--no time off, running from event to event and doing story missions.

Money was definitely hard to come by early on, but some of those first 80s had guild's backing them up with cash, so they could level...for whatever reason.

 

[Fallen Kell]

So how many of you stored up gear boxes (from the Living World Events) for use to extract magic find from the greens that they typically drop? I know I have about 300 or so boxes stored, as well as another 100-150 greens that I collected from the events I ran this weekend (I would have had a LOT more had I realized it sooner that the boxes stacked and that it was an extremely easy (storage wise, as well as farming wise) way to get ready for the magic find changes. I had been simply opening my boxes and selling the junk greens and blues as I received them for Friday, Saturday, and even part of Sunday until it dawned on me to save them until today (I did make 100gold still selling what I did sell plus the event bonuses).

 

[zinfamous]

So how many of you stored up gear boxes (from the Living World Events) for use to extract magic find from the greens that they typically drop? I know I have about 300 or so boxes stored, as well as another 100-150 greens that I collected from the events I ran this weekend (I would have had a LOT more had I realized it sooner that the boxes stacked and that it was an extremely easy (storage wise, as well as farming wise) way to get ready for the magic find changes. I had been simply opening my boxes and selling the junk greens and blues as I received them for Friday, Saturday, and even part of Sunday until it dawned on me to save them until today (I did make 100gold still selling what I did sell plus the event bonuses).

zero.

I'm a bit tired of the grind wars fests--I like today's update to general game play...but at the same time they release another 2 week grind fest with the return of SAB. this is getting annoying.

These events are fun for a few days, but ANet is just unloading massive quantities of junk onto the market. But sure, had I thought more about it, I would have just saved the boxes, but as it stands, I couldn't bring myself to log in over the last 3 days or so because these things are wearing me down.

One of the other ATers mentioned to me the other day that the actual GW staff (those from GW1 and the primary development team for GW2) are all gone now, having been let go by ANet. Of course, this coincides with this ongoing living story and Grind Wars 2 business. My concern is that the focus has shifted from adding new content (a new campaign, classes, etc) to simply adding these rotisserie RNG events to fuel gem purchases.

I mean--I understand the need for gem purchasing from ANet's perspective, but couldn't solid, "hold-to-our-original-promises" releases do that just as well?

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, to be honest I thought the thing that was originally suppose to sell gems was the blacklion chests, and adding additional things into them during certain events (like the shield skins from the Halloween update last year). But I think they screwed up on the RNG percentages and people said it was stupid to need to open that many chests to find the drop (I think people were opening multiple hundreds of chests just to get one shield skin!). It if was something like 40-50% drop rate, I think more people would do it and it would result in a lot more keys being sold = more gems being purchased.

 

[zinfamous]

Well, to be honest I thought the thing that was originally suppose to sell gems was the blacklion chests, and adding additional things into them during certain events (like the shield skins from the Halloween update last year). But I think they screwed up on the RNG percentages and people said it was stupid to need to open that many chests to find the drop (I think people were opening multiple hundreds of chests just to get one shield skin!). It if was something like 40-50% drop rate, I think more people would do it and it would result in a lot more keys being sold = more gems being purchased.

people are nuts. I recall during the Southsun event some idiot complaining all over the forums that he spent 500g on gems to open those chests, that he bought form the gem store, and never got a ticket for the weapon skins (those are also the ugliest skins so far).

There are actually a lot of people in this game that seem to have no qualms about tossing away cash for a chance to get limited skins.

I think what happened is that with the first couple of LW events, ANet saw a huge profit from gemstore purchases, so they basically canned the real Guild War team and refocused priorities for endless grinding. ....Of course I hope I am wrong on that, but the last 2 or 3 months have left me increasingly skeptical with the long term direction of things.

 

[GaiaHunter]

One of the other ATers mentioned to me the other day that the actual GW staff (those from GW1 and the primary development team for GW2) are all gone now, having been let go by ANet. Of course, this coincides with this ongoing living story and Grind Wars 2 business. My concern is that the focus has shifted from adding new content (a new campaign, classes, etc) to simply adding these rotisserie RNG events to fuel gem purchases.

I mean--I understand the need for gem purchasing from ANet's perspective, but couldn't solid, "hold-to-our-original-promises" releases do that just as well?

That isn't exactly true. Some people left sure, but some of the big names that left, left in 2009 or so.

And GW2 is bigger than Prophecies+Factions and possibly Nightfall combined and lets not forget that by factions you had the same 8 professions you have in GW2.

Have they done mistakes?
Yes.

Ascended equipment, selling skins as 1 shot use instead of unlocks like the zephyrs, etc.
But GW1 had its mistakes as well.

I can almost guarantee that a substantial part of Anet is working in an expansion, regardless if they sell it as an expansion or just release it.

 

[zinfamous]

That isn't exactly true. Some people left sure, but some of the big names that left, left in 2009 or so.

And GW2 is bigger than Prophecies+Factions and possibly Nightfall combined and lets not forget that by factions you had the same 8 professions you have in GW2.

I don't think it's anywhere close to being that big. Prophecies and Nightfall alone were quite huge. GW2 certainly has more maps than any of those--but travel time from one to the next would take far longer in GW1. I think GW1 seems smaller only because of the much shorter level cap of 20. With factions, this could be done in a day. Prophecies took quite some time, though. Of course, one could theoretically level their alts in GW2 in a day, as well.

I hope what you say about expansions is true--though I doubt they release it free...wouldn't make much sense.

I still like this game, don't get me wrong--despite the type of content they've really put out a shitload of stuff for zero extra cost. Had this queen's jubilee been one of the earlier releases I would have enjoyed it more...I guess that by dragon bass and aetherblades, it has been wearing thin on me.

 

[NoSoup4You]

The whole GW1 developer conspiracy is silly, we'll never know either way how the game might have turned out differently so it's not worth wasting energy on.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I don't think it's anywhere close to being that big. Prophecies and Nightfall alone were quite huge. GW2 certainly has more maps than any of those--but travel time from one to the next would take far longer in GW1. I think GW1 seems smaller only because of the much shorter level cap of 20. With factions, this could be done in a day. Prophecies took quite some time, though. Of course, one could theoretically level their alts in GW2 in a day, as well.

You move considerably slower in GW1.

 

[aigomorla]

I call BS...

First runs generally run long, around 120 hours because you pretty much don't have enough materials for a significant amount of tradeskill leveling.

Alts can then be leveled up quicker using tradeskills by using money/materials gained from your first run through.

then u call BS on my character too as well?

And half the guild can confirm i got 80 in 3 days..

totally depends on if your a warrior or not as well....

My second lvl80 was done even faster... because AC dungeons was broken EXP for the work required... and so was CoF.
Use my lvl80 zerker up to final boss, then swap... then have minions err friends kill the final boss while u tickle it... and then repeat.. like CoF.

I was probably one of the first people on StormBuff with the AC sword... back when it was BROKEN... RAWR~ i was so mad at all the spent tears, cuz it was a lot harder farming for tears before the dungeon token fixes.

There were several players that did it over that first weekend--no time off, running from event to event and doing story missions.

Money was definitely hard to come by early on, but some of those first 80s had guild's backing them up with cash, so they could level...for whatever reason.

zin i did it in 3 days.
You remember me ranting at all of u guys to hurry the FAQ up cuz i was pretty much STUCK in cursed shore.
Then i started farming ori... and farming ancient wood, and then started crafting my orange... but all that happened AFTER i hit lvl80 in cursed shore.

Also the first lvl80 was 24 hours... he did it via crafting and help from his guild...
They fed him raw mats and gold, and he just sat there crafting gear for his entire guild...

Also cooking was broken too... u could litterally net 10lvls off the broken cooking tree at launch.

 

[NoSoup4You]

I'll weigh in quickly on this whole Living Story thing - I'm with Zin on pretty much every point he made. We've had a run of outrageously grindy content releases and yet it seems like the game has actually never been more popular. So it kind of leaves the future somewhat in doubt, will Arenanet stick with this grindy grindy content... who knows. They fixed old loopholes like CoF1 but introduced new, lucrative farm-fests like Crown Pavilion, the Scarlet Invasions and pve Champion zerg-fests.

I'll guess we'll have to wait and find out.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I'll weigh in quickly on this whole Living Story thing - I'm with Zin on pretty much every point he made. We've had a run of outrageously grindy content releases and yet it seems like the game has actually never been more popular. So it kind of leaves the future somewhat in doubt, will Arenanet stick with this grindy grindy content... who knows. They fixed old loopholes like CoF1 but introduced new, lucrative farm-fests like Crown Pavilion, the Scarlet Invasions and pve Champion zerg-fests.

I'll guess we'll have to wait and find out.

You have to have some farm spots considering the Ascended weapons mats requirements.

Anet should have just dropped the idea of trying to keep the vertical progression crowd, because:
a) they will not keep it (VP crowd is about exclusivity not 10% more stats that will still get you killed if you can't dodge);
b) it infuriate alt and build experimenters.

And isn't the crown pavilion out?

The Queens gauntlet, some of the labyrinthine cliffs achievements and the invasions (albeit the invasions don't make much sense and don't change the zone if you fail) are IMO great content.

The Tequatl revamp (17th of September pathc) also seem to be something in the right way.

If only those stupid pink items had stayed out of the game...