mathion.8549

I have a few QoL suggestions: 1. For collection items that are recorded in the account, and are already marked as "acquired", let them be tossed without the whole typing in their names part. That prevents people from thinking they're still actually useful for something important. 2. For collection items that are USED in some capacity, indicate that capacity more consistently so they're not just tossed. Some say "Crafting Material: (Profession) which is extremely helpful. But others used in recipes or for creating other collection items often aren't clearly marked as such. 3. Another suggestion is a "library" in the home instance (or a special inventory area in the bank) for all the books that can be collected. Some are needed for crafting, others for quests, and most are just "to read" and don't actually have value. If that's not possible adding, "May discard after reading" would be a great thing to add to them. 4. All of the account-bound "keys" should be in the inventory wallet where the map keys are. Like the tarnished keys, completed Aetherkeys, as well as things like black lion claim ticket and scraps. Plus the new Proofs of Legend. Individually, they're not that bad, but cumulatively, it adds up. 5. Finally, Tomes of Mentorship and unused writs of experience. The former are still possible to get, and the latter aren't. Perhaps something can be done to utilize them for those who have as many characters as they want (or, like me, as they can possibly get in one account) and where they've all reached Level 80 already. I like the idea of salvaging ToM's for a spirit shard. And maybe put the writs of experience in the Wizard's vault at a commensurate prorated cost for a Tome of Experience (say 1 astral cookie for 2 writs of experience as one example) so that extras can be used for something useful. Three full panels of my completely maxed bank are full of this stuff, and I'd LOVE to weed them out. I'd think having a space in the crafting items storage for the crafting items (or anything used in a "crafting" way) would be ideal, with "quest items" as a separate storage area like the wallet or even a new tab below the wardrobe storage in the account vault.

If you already have a skyscale, there are eggs. But you need to hit a LOT of nests. By my count, 18, before you get an egg. It's not locations that matter. It's the number of them you visit to check.

My genres are Sci-fi and fantasy. More than two dozen of them over the years. None sell very well, but I write because I enjoy it, not really to make money at it. I'd love to finish that Tyrian Travels story, since the world and characters and plot are already laid out, and would even do it for free. The OCD part of me wants to see stories that were started be completed sooner or later. Poor, little Vikki has been hanging with Alfhildr for five years. That's gotta be awkward. Worse, Vikki still doesn't have Momo back...

I really get that. The thing is, it's out there, there may be notes where it was going, and it would have been pretty trivial to have someone pick up those threads and continue the story to its conclusion. I mean, I've written a couple of dozen books so I know how story-writing goes. This story isn't a book (even assuming it's a long narrative). It's basically a short, first-person narrative that explores a lot of the people, places, events and such that add to the lore of Guild Wars 2. Assuming anyone knows where it was going or the main outline of the story, it's pretty trivial to finish it, and even include characters from players that were solicited back in the day (assuming those players are still active and OK with their characters being included in the story). A new influx of players from Steam accounts adds to the need for more backstory, even if that backstory is 6 years or more old, to flesh out life among the denizens of Tyria who aren't exactly "heroes", but just ordinary folks trying to get by in a world where the extraordinary is ordinary. It seems to me, socially speaking, that's a really positive message to be putting out there these days. All new writers would need would be the notes and plot lines from the original writers. I assume ArenaNet owns the copyright, so I don't think there's any impediment to having the story finished, except the for will to do it on ANet's part. I just find it disappointing they never got around to doing that.

About six years ago, there was a story track featuring a very self-conscious, exceptionally timid, and atypically modest Asrua named Vikki who created a device that could determine the lifespan of "livestock", including her pet moa Momo. No spoilers for anyone who wants to read it. It went to six chapters, ending abruptly mid-story in Divinity's Reach when Vikki ran into a Norn named Alfhildr, who was looking for the person who bought Vikki's device. There doesn't seem to be a follow-up on that. I dislike cliff-hangers with a passion, but five years is a bit long to be waiting for a next chapter. Any chance anyone knows what happened, or if that story arc was ever going to be finished?

I'm not sure this is really necessary. Making ascended armor is pretty straight-forward, and you can always buy the ingredients if you need to speed up the process. You just need to craft daily and make sure you have the mats you need for the next day. I say this as a player with 71 characters. Ever since ascended armor/weapons/trinkets came out, I've been gathering map currency, mats and making pieces for my characters. This last week, I completed ascended items for all of them. All weapons, trinkets, rings, backpacks, amulets and armors for 71 characters, including at least one underwater weapon and ascended breather, are ascended or legendary. (Off Topic: I have no idea if anyone else has that many characters in the first place, or if they also have their critters suited up the same as I do - most do legendaries. I just found ascended to be far simpler. And, yes, I have some OCD tendencies.). It's been a bit of a grind, but it's not difficult by any stretch. It just takes some planning and an hour or so per day for mat gathering. Most of that gathering can be done while doing other things like mapping, metas, waiting on world bosses to pop and stuff like that. That's what I typically do. With ascended armors and weapons so simple to do, overall, I don't see a compelling need to be able to upgrade exotics. Exotics are trivial to make. Ascended armors aren't trivial, but then, they're account-bound, which is also very non-trivial. If you want soul-bound ascended armor, that somewhat improves your stats from exotic, I could see that being a thing, even if (IMHO) it's a waste of mats to do if you can't equip the armor on any character within the armor class. But I don't think it would be fair, or reasonable, to allow exotics to be upgraded to ascended armors with all of the characteristics ascended armor enjoys.

My belief is that salvaging exotic armors between 72-80 yields the best results. That's to say about 70%-80% return on items. It doesn't seem to matter if they're crafted or drops. I typically go to the TP, select armor, sort by exotic, then sort by price, with the lowest at the top, then scroll down to find the cheapest salvageable armors. They're typically in the 25-27 silver region. Today, I was a bit tired of being low on dark matter, and needed to make a few weapons. So I purchased 100 of the cheapest level 72-80 exotic armors. As it happened, they were light armor shoulders and helms. I then maxed out my magic find as much as I could. I've experienced better dark matter yields with high MF, but I don't have any proof in the Wiki that it helps. It's entirely my opinion based on my experience. Then I used four Black Lion Salvage Kits to salvage them all. Of the 100 armor pieces, I got about 78 DM (plus a crapton of ecto and some T5-T6 mats). I think I had 21, DM to start (though it might have been 11) and ended up with a total of 99. Keep in mind, this wasn't reliable every so often. I had seven non-DM salvages in a row quite often. So most yielded none, about 40% of them. About 40% yielded one. The rest yielded 2-3. I've seen 4 before, but that's very unusual. Back to back multiple DM salvages made up the difference in numbers. So, to sum up, armors seem to yield best results compared to trinkets and weapons. The best yields com from level 72 and above. I base the purchases entirely on lowest price exotic armors available (irrespective of crafted, or not). I put on as much MF as I can, and salvage with BL Salvage Kits. I can't say there's no better outcome, but this has worked for me fairly consistently ever since ascended armor was a thing. If you can find a better yield, I'd love to hear that recipe!

<chuckles> Reminds me of those superhero shows that have those lengthy transformations during which, for some mysterious reason, the foes don't attack. Would that GW2 foes be so accommodating.

Actually, I do, exactly the same ones in the same slots. I only noticed the problem after noticing that my minions despawned on mount. It was consistent into and out of water, the minions would disappear, most notably the GH and the health minion, who have dedicated slots for them. In checking back just now, it appears that part has been restored to functionality, which makes it much better in the situations I posted about. But when this issue arose a week ago, both mounts and water were killing minions for me. Now, the water isn't doing it, but the mounting still does. I haven't played an MM since the issue first started, so didn't know the water part was fixed. It wasn't a week ago when I was mapping Hilrathi.

Not quite that. The cooldown happens on mount. Not dismount. So if you stay mounted long enough for the cooldown to end (like 60 seconds for the FG), then dismount you can summon them immediately. Well, sort of immediately. At 1.5 seconds per summon, and 5 minion utilities, that's 7.5 seconds of standing there tossing tennis balls into the air while the foes eat you. Unless you dismount outside of agro range, do your tennis ball tossing, then walk into agro range, odds are you'll have to fight before you're done. Plus the minions being dismissed entering or exiting water just BLOWS CHUNKS in those places where the water is just deep enough to kill off your minions, but doesn't let you equip underwater weapons. Sure does take away virtually all of the reason for a necro to have a mount at all, as well as sucking all the joy out of the game. It would be tolerable if this is what it was, and always has been, and nothing changed. But like taking back basic freedoms, once you have it, you don't want to give it up.

There IS a dismount skill for all flying mounts, in addition to a stealth skill, but I believe it needs to be trained as a mastery. I recall getting it, but don't remember if it was unlocked when it came out as an update (part of mount mastery) or as a new mastery to get.

I agree. I had just made a great MM and was having fun deploying my army via mount and the next day, all of a sudden, I didn't have that ability and died, repeatedly, because I was jumping into mobs and had no ability to pull up minions while being stunned, dazed, pulled, knocked down and ultimately turned into fertilizer. Now, I just won't play those characters until this issue is fixed. It's too time-consuming and hazardous to one's armor to have to constantly wait for your timers to count down and then respawn everything in the middle of a fight. Plodding isn't an option, and this happens GOING INTO AND OUT OF the water, too. Which really baked my biscuits when taking on the veterans around one of those swim speed boost chests, thanks. Necro minions should never despawn. Those on a timer, well, I'd be less inclined to worry about that because they WILL die after a set time and my play-style is to call them as needed. Unlike it is for necros, it's not like ele minions stay up forever or until killed, after all. Having made my case (along with many others) about how unhappy the necros (and to an extent the eles) are about the destruction of their minions from just getting on a mount, (and going for a swim), what I really want (other than this to be fixed ASAP), is some official word about when that might happen. I DO get that chasing bugs is a problem which doesn't lend itself well to a timeline, but a ballpark would be good. Failing that, turn the ability to keep minions spawned when mounting or swimming back on and work on the issue while whatever exploit someone has devised is plugged up. Punishing the entire GW community for the kittenhattery of a few is not a good game plan there.

I believe the suggestion about player-muting of the weapons visual effects of other players has been made, one which I heartily second. Turn them down to basic attacks, or just eliminate them for other players (or have the option for full, muted and off). That way a player can SEE what's happening around them a lot easier. In many instances, especially in crowds with spawns, I can't see the ground to dodge attacks that, if I could see the ground, I could otherwise dodge, because other player effects obscure the attack effects. This has a detrimental effect on my armor and introduces me to the ground way too often for comfort. Right now, I have to play with effects turned down or off, and it's still often overwhelming and impossible to see when a dodge-able attack is about to strike. I have a decent computer and graphics card, but it's not that it's rendering things badly, it's just too crowded by other visual effects. I'd expect that reducing the visual impacts of other player weapons effects would also vastly improve frame rates in larger boss fights (where the FPS goes to low single digits at times) as it tries to process way too many visual effects at the same time. Having control over how intense the visual effects of other player's weapons attacks appear on screen would be a HUGE quality of life improvement for everyone.

As it happened, it did. So they're consistent in the giving one slot per expansion above the cap. But only if you pre-purchase it, I think. I bought HoT after it came out (I had done the beta and was traumatized by the smokescales at the time, so decided it wasn't an expansion I wanted right away), but I got PoF (mounts) and EoD (I loved Cantha in Guild Wars 1) ahead of the release. I didn't get an extra slot for HoT, but did for the latter two, and I hadn't reached the cap when I got PoF. That's speculation, of course, but the only expansion I didn't get before the release was HoT (which I still loathe, though gliding has saved my behind several times in the game), and I didn't have an extra slot until after I got PoF early, even though I was still below the official cap at the time. Call it a pattern, if not a certainty.

I'm curious about an apparent policy regarding character number limits in the game. Currently, the total number of characters one can have per account is 72 (69 for Tyria, +1 for HoT, +1 for PoF, +1 for EoD, presumably if each of the latter three was pre-purchased before release). While I get that recycling a character who's outlived their usefulness is a thing, there are a lot of places that are easier to farm if you park a character (or 20) there to farm it, so it's not like extra characters are useless, even if you can only play them one at a time. With 9 new elite specializations coming out, there will be that much more variety to the game. 5 character races each with 36 potential professions (1 core, 3 elite specializations each once EoD is out), gives you 180 different builds without once overlapping anything. When the game first came out, it was a total of 45 characters who all had only a core profession (with an additional 45 for each new specialization). The specializations have expanded a LOT, but the limit on character slots hasn't. For a "quality of life" issue, one would think that the maximum number of character slots per account would be enough for one build from each core profession and specialization for every race. But it's less than half that. I'm curious why that limit exists in the first place, since you can only play one character at a time. Failing a sound technical explanation, I'd propose raising the limit to at least 180 once EoD is out. I'd also suggest adding a search by name function, since finding one particular character gets challenging after about 22 characters, let alone 180. And for those who will inevitably ask why do this, I'll just say that some folks love the character creation process, and don't want to waste their time doing that by killing off that character to make another one. Besides, some of the rewards for birthdays are great, and having a lot of characters helps build up otherwise limited amounts of things the presents come with.