Rasimir.6239

As a matter of fact, ANet have shown plenty of times that they are looking at those statistics themselves, and acting upon them if the result isn't up to their expectations, and nobody has better stats on participation and success than ANet does. Apparently they don't find TT too hard to beat, or they would've adjusted the encounters. Personally I'm not into boss/meta events, and I only ever got one wurm head kill by stumbling upon an organized map by chance. I still have plenty of mastery points left over after finishing all the core Tyria masteries. Are you sure there aren't any other points left for you to pick up except the few that you mentioned? Fractals for example have several easy ones, some of which you can even solo on t1 if grouping up isn't your thing. Anyway, I do see plenty of advertisements for organised wurm kills in game, not just in the lfg, but also advertised on other maps in the hour before the event starts, and I know from friends that those usually succeed easily (on EU). If you insist in getting the left-over points from the wurm, it is doable on EU, as long as you are willing to look for people that know what they're doing and aren't just yolo-ing along for the fun.

Reminds me of how PvE players used to be able to buy Gift of Battle from a vendor with Badges of Honor they got from achievement chests ... until the vendor was retired in favor of a GoB reward track. No more GoB without participating in WvW. The difference being that people have to unlock the dungeon gift vendors once, while they have to repeatedly play WvW for more gifts.

You can put groups into lfg without intending to lead them. Put something like "looking for help with challenge modes" to attract both other players looking for help as well as those looking to assist. It's not a guarantee, but at least a lot easier to get things started than just trying to catch a group another person put up.

Let me see if I understood this correctly: to play challenges, you either wait for a cm group to appear in lfg that you can join, or you try to solo the thing? Have you tried starting your own "daily cm" group and putting that into lfg?

Please stop putting words in my mouth and twisting my words to suit your narrative. Thank you.

That's not what I mean by "non-linear progression". What I mean is that story is just one way to progress in this game, and in no way required (or even all that helpful) to progress your account to where you can choose the "endgame" you enjoy. Story in this game isn't something you absolutely have to do first (or even do at all). There's much more to this game than story, that's all I've tried to say. And for the record, out of the six accounts in my family, only two where here for the majority of the living world. The other four have picked up living world episodes from the gemstore at various times. Neither of them however was into story much, so they didn't beeline for picking that up, but only got it later, at their convenience.

That's the problem with this whole discussion: everyone of us sees a disproportionate amount of like-minded players simply because those are the players interacting with the same kind of content we do. Several people, in this thread and others, have challenged the opinion (and it is just that: an opinion) that the majority of players are reward-driven. If you base your main argument on anecdotal evidence (as in: the players you see in game, that like to play similarly to you), then I'm sorry to say that it's not much of an argument. I'm obviously playing with different interests and goals than you, because what I see in game doesn't support your argument of "most players are reward-driven" at all. I do however support the opinion that this game has a lot of systems attracting the exploration-driven players and that it's one of the game's strengths, but at the same time that makes it harder to make the game reward-centric (since, as has been explained before, long-lasting rewards are bound to be grindy, which is a sure way to tick of a large part of the exploration-driven playerbase).

There are quite a number of skins and miniatures that you can only gain through raiding. Whether you like them or not is a matter of taste (e.g. I was "lucky" to drop the Vale Guardian greatsword once, which is hands down the ugliest gs skin I've ever seen 🤣), but to say there are no unique rewards to be had from raiding (or even just "no unique rewards outside of pve legendary armor and its unique skins) is plain wrong. That said, I doubt adding more unique cosmetics to raids would change anything. Just like the existing ones, people would play a bit to get them (or even just outright buy them with their stockpiled li/ld/shards/whatever), then turn back to complaining that the gamemode isn't rewarding. One-off cosmetics simply don't work as longtime motivators.

From what I remember, gameplay didn't really change a lot for DS, if at all. I encountered failed tower phases way beyond that. It wasn't until the condition rework and/or PoF specialization power creep that I noticed the clear times significantly shortening. What they did do for DS with the big HoT rework, as far as I remember, was mostly making the vendors accessible that used to be locked behind a successful meta at release.

As a matter of fact you need machined weapons for every single HoT specialization collection, and at the release of HoT you could only get the plated weapons that unlock the associated machined weapon collection from a vendor that was only available at the end of a successful DS meta. When they did the big HoT rework about half a year after release, one of the things they did was add vendors to the start of DS that sold the same stuff as the vendors at the end of the meta, including plated weapons and specialization inscriptions. The HoT collections also did (and still do) a noticable amount of crystaline ore to complete, which I remember being a lot more difficult to farm without meta back at HoT release than writs of Dragon's End are today (since you get those easily from the pre events without the need to actually do the meta).

How can you play it if it's dead? 😉 Joke aside, you vastly overestimate the crowd you're playing with in relation to the whole playerbase. If I went and extrapolated what this game's playerbase is interested in and likes to play from the people I regularly play with, then instanced content, gold per hour, and "exclusive" rewards would be a non-issue, because next to noone out of the people I play with is interested in any of that. I don't presume that the people I play with are representative for the game's playerbase, but likewise neither are the people you play with. The playstyles and the kinds of content we enjoy automatically lead to us interacting with a disproportionate number of like-minded players, but you really shouldn't make the mistake of thinking who you meet in game is actually representative of the majority of the game's players. Besides, where is it written that only instanced group content is "endgame", and that each MMORPG needs to implement this exact same kind of endgame?

Do you realize that it took month if not years after HoT release until Dragon's Stand meta got to the point where people (outside of maybe a few dedicated communities) could consistently beat it in less than 90 minutes? I remember that map and its meta being virtually inaccessible to me back then, even though I had more time to spend gaming than I do today, quite unlike DE now.

Inflating rewards in one type of content only will shift the focus of the game by shifting the way players feel about their time commitment in different parts of the game. You can already do this, nobody's stopping you but yourself. It does reward you, just not as extensively as you'd like. Those "worthless flashy items" didn't look as worthless last time I looked. Rare infusions and other rare cosmetics are one of the foundations of this game's economic system, which then is a foundation of the game's reward system. This game's economy is a very involved, intricate thing, that manages to allow people to exchange the loot they gather in their gameplay to exchange for the things they'd like to have. It ultimately leads to lots and lots of people feeling "rewarded" and feeling that their shiny of choice is accessible to them. Rip out a major contributor and there's a good chance the whole thing comes crashing down, with all kinds of collateral damage for the whole game and all players that play it.

I think what you're missing here is that progression in GW2 is unlike any other MMORPG you might have played before. Linear progression is pretty much restricted to leveling your first character or two, and even then you have a variety of ways to do so outside of story. Most of the progression in this game is non-linear. You can (and have to) choose the gameplay you want to play, with whatever's available to you. If you enjoy the story that's great, having story inside dlc content isn't exactly something new in non-subscription games either. ESO does it (and you really can't get around that without either buying the DLC or paying for an "optional" subscription), LotRO does it, I'm pretty sure most if not all non-sub games with a story emphasis have some kind of DLC system for their stories. Living World DLC in GW2 consist of a lot more than just story though. Each episode beyond season 2 comes with access to a new map (or at least half of it in the case of Icebrood Saga), lots of new events, achievements, rewards, tons of exploration possibilities. Story really is pretty much just a minor part in most (if not all) living world episodes. As such the price tag really is reasonable compared to similar games, especially once you get to the point where you can get them through in-game gold. Playing GW2 like any other MMORPG out there is possible, but you're really missing out if you play this game with a "standard MMO" mindset. Once you realize that you don't pay $100 for the story, but rather for a ton of content way beyond the story that can keep you busy for years, you'll understand why many people on this forum are "confused" about your post.

Or you could play the rest of the game, instead of restricting yourself to a very small, niche part of this game's "endgame". GW2 endgame isn't about running instanced group content in a continous loup, the way many other MMORPGs are set up. Instead, there's lots of other things to do, and many players are here precisely of this setup. If instanced group content is the only (or even just the main) part of what you like about GW2, that's fine, but you'll have to accept that that's not the main focus of endgame in this game. Changing the game's focus to areas that are already covered by other games, and as such changing the target audience, doesn't seem like the best idea, especially 10 years into the game's lifetime. While this might actually grow the population doing instanced group content, I somehow doubt it'll be a positive to the game's total population.

In addition to that you can also open a portal between Arborstone and Lion's Arch by training the Arborstone mastery track.

Nice read. Where can I sign up for the book series of this? 😄

You can do all that (including getting pretty far into fractals) easily without ascended armor. This is not a game where equipment is going to carry you, and only max-tier equipment is viable for endgame. On the contrary, at start ascended won't save you if you don't get a grasp on the combat system, and once you've got that grasp, you can easily do open world and story content including most (if not all) achievements in that content with sub-optimal builds of exotic and even lesser quality. Get exotic armor, try getting a hang of the game, enjoy open world and instanced content alike, and you'll have enough resources and currency to start getting ascended armor in no time.

If you want to salvage a stack of something (e.g. crafted potions) for research notes, there's a "salvage stack" option on the research kit. If you want to consume a stack of research notes, there's a "consume all" option on the stack. The only situation where you have to click multiple things is if you want to salvage non-stackable items like helmets or jewellery. There's no way an auto-clicker can help you here. Right now it's a trade-off between optimizing price for the cost of having to click tons of low-note things, or optimizing time/effort by researching fewer high-yield items (less clicking but higher price per note). Personally I'm on the fence on the topic of research notes. I think I can see what they're trying to do here, but they've totally underestimated the power that min-maxing has over a substantial part of the population. For those that try to min-max, research notes certainly are a nuisance.

Putting one item into another category doesn't change the items properties. What you're asking for is like putting a picture book onto the shelve that houses the blueray disks and expecting the pictures to then be displayed as a movie (or at least slide show) on the tv automatically. For any object in game to be dye-able by players the object itself needs to be prepared. Every mount skin is prepared to take dyes in specific places (dye channels). Chairs aren't prepared for user dyes, and changing them so they accept them is far from trivial.

Sorry, but that's not how rng works. There's people that buy a lottery ticket every week and never win anything substantial, and there's people that only buy one in their whole life and hit the jackpot right away. But that's not what I tried to say. What I tried to say was: random activities fell easiest if you don't concentrate on them. Don't count how much bait you used, don't count how many days you tried. Don't expect to finish a goal that involves rng in a set timeframe (much less asap). Instead, put that kind of achievement on your mental "nice to have" list of things you keep in mind when doing other activities. Fish at a couple of holes when you're in the area for map completion/world boss/resource farming/whatever else you enjoy that day. Do it again next time you pass such a fishing hole on different business. As you rightly said, you're bound to catch the fish eventually. Random is random, and no matter how likely or unlikely and outcome is, it's not guaranteed. If you manage not to fixate on getting this one random drop (no matter if it's a fish, a god's statue, a drop from a specific enemy, wahtever), you'll find that it feels much easier to finish stuff. Time spent being worried or frustrated about rng results not happening in your favor in my opinion is time wasted. Random results are nothing you can really "work towards". It's likely that most if not all such results will happen for you organically (and as such will not be memorable), but there's simply no guarantee. Sincerely, a person who still has a number of such achievements on her mental "nice to have" list but has finished a surprising amount of them without taking much notice of the time and "effort" involved

My opinion: you're trying to force rng results, which imo is a recipe for frustration. I'm not quite sure what information is on the wiki, but I can tell you that I caught them all simply going by the information available on the fishing achievement tabs in game (that is favorite bait, time of day, region and type of fishing hole, and minimizing conflicts with other potential catches). I did not however try to catch them all in one go. I enjoy fishing, but only in small batches. I rarely fish for more than 10 holes in one go, often a lot less, which makes the whole thing feel a lot easier than it would feel if I'd try to force a specific catch. I'll often just fish in the region that iss daily for the day, and stay on for a few more fishing holes once the daily is done. I honestly can't tell you how long it took to get all the fish for this achievement (I really wanted that turtle for my home instance 😉 ), but I did catch them all in the space of a few weeks, probably less than a month. I know of one or two that seemed elusive, but they would turn up after a few days anyway. One thing I would recommend avoiding is leaving the "difficult" ones (that is the ones with the most restrictions, e.g. the dawn/dusk one from Ascalon) for last. It feels a lot easier to catch them if you just go there every couple of days and try inbetween catching other stuff (or better yet, playing other stuff), than if you know it's the last one missing and burn yourself out focussing on nothing but this one fish. So my advice would be: don't focus on the achievement. Try for the missing fish whenever you have downtime and feel like it, but make sure to change things up and not fish until you're frustrated. They'll come eventually, and looking back it'll make no difference if you caught them all in a day or a week or a month. Once it's done, it's done.

Sorry, but there are thousands upon thousands of cases all over games with player-to-player trading that prove that this is false. There's "confuse the buyer until they no longer thoroughly check the trade and get scammed", there's "scam the new/inexperienced player that doesn't know how to properly check the value of the item that's being traded", there's a multitude of other ways being used all over the internet to rip off people in player-to-player trade. Personally I vastly prefer this game's trading system over any other game I've played because it ensures fair prices for everyone. No matter what server, what region, what map you're on, you have access to current market prices for everything and don't have to waste your time researching prices and haggling with potential buyers/sellers.

Chaos Crystal Cavern Not So Secret Coddler's Cove just to name a few. I've seen people miss the last jump(s) on all of these before.

What breather did you try this with? According to the wiki, the crafted ascended breathers can in fact be stat-changed (although only to stats that have crafting recipies available in the first place if I'm not mistaken).