Friendly Advice From an (attempted) Returning Player

[IndigoSundown.5419]

I can appreciate that someone might find going through the items from three birthdays on several characters to be tedious.  I think, though, deciding that that process requires a lot of bag space is a player-manufactured problem.  That said, I can understand that the oodles of stuff GW2 hands out can be daunting, though this is hardly unique to GW2 in the MMO genre.

 

The thing is, there have been many times over the life of the game where players (many) complained on the forums that the game didn't feel rewarding.  What they almost always expressed was the lack of excitement in drops from mobs/events/whatever.  ANet's response, when they did respond, was to say, "We want the game to feel rewarding!" then shower players with more incremental rewards such as the game has featured since day 1.  While this may be appreciated by some, it did not address the issue the complainers were bringing up -- so, the issue continued to be raised.  However, I haven't seen it come up in a while.  Maybe that's because I don't play the forum very much anymore, or maybe it's because those inclined to complain have given up or gone elsewhere.

[Sinmir.6504]

I thought the birthday gifts were just a nice way of giving you something. At most 11 items in one gift? 8th anniversary for example.

Boosters, use or store.

Teleport to Friend. That can be very useful,  For example I wanted to use a character that hadn't started HoT to get map exploration in the Heart of Maguuma. LFG, join a Verdant Brink squad, Teleport to friend. I'm in. Store the extra ones and used as required.

Dedicated Dye kit. I'd recommend using the wiki for Dye kits. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dedicated_Dye_Kit  With Dedicated Searing is the most valuable. Triumphant https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Triumphant_Dye_Kit  Justnow choosing Jormag then Permafrost is most valuable. If you have Permafrost choose awakened then Tar, ad so on.

Birthday card. 5000 karma if you consume it. Consume

BL Statuette: That has quite a lot to choose from. Useful to save up. Stack them in one inventory slot for one character,, or in your bank.

 

That's all the gifts every character gets, the rest are one timers.

Aniversary Backpack: Choose a skin, unlock it. You can consume to apply the skin to your back piece or destroy it, the skin will be unlocked either way.

Aniversary Weapon Pack. Same as before. Weapon skin unlock of your choice.

Aniversary Amour Pack: Same as the weapon and backpack.

Guaranteed Wardrobe unlock: Consumable.I always just use as I get them. You might want to save it until most of the cheaper things are unlocked, then you'll have a better chance of an expensive skin.

Bithday Karma enrichment: Can be applied to an ascended amulet

Amulet of Celebration: Can use the enrichment on it if you wish. A free ascended amulet that lets you choose the stats. Not bad, not bad at all as the stronghold lord would say.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Sinmir.6504

[Artemis.8034]

I have to agree the sheer amount of junk that collects after just one event is ridiculous. Bag space is at a premium I wouldnt care so much but the cost of one bag slot is a bit high. If they made slots account wide that would be better. I get it the veteran players have all this gold that they can convert to gems and buy bag slots , well for new players and players that are returning from many years its not working. Thats what turns new players off, but thats fine anet is content with just keeping the vet players instead of adding new ones too. This game is for people that play long hours everyday, you cannot get enough gold to support your account if you only play an hour or two every couple of days. Im sure there is some secret to gold earning in this game the vets know, but the rest of us struggle to get above 100 gold.

[Sobx.1758]

53 minutes ago, Artemis.8034 said:

I have to agree the sheer amount of junk that collects after just one event is ridiculous. Bag space is at a premium I wouldnt care so much but the cost of one bag slot is a bit high. If they made slots account wide that would be better. I get it the veteran players have all this gold that they can convert to gems and buy bag slots , well for new players and players that are returning from many years its not working. Thats what turns new players off, but thats fine anet is content with just keeping the vet players instead of adding new ones too. This game is for people that play long hours everyday, you cannot get enough gold to support your account if you only play an hour or two every couple of days. Im sure there is some secret to gold earning in this game the vets know, but the rest of us struggle to get above 100 gold.

mmorpg isn't a single player game and servers don't run on air. Expecting to have everything immediately unlocked for free while playing an hour every couple of days seems kind of weird.

"New players" don't have a lot of birthday gifts to "deal" with. Returning players either have their accounts -at least- slightly developed (not even talking about spamming new bag slots, getting 20 slot bags isn't exactly that hard and already provides some significant space for the purposes being discussed in this thread) or understand what to do with the items comming from the birthday packs to the point of not really being a hindrance in the first place (since most of them stack or can be straight up cleared from inventory). If those "returning players" don't have either of that, the chances are they logged in during release beta event, created some characters, logged out and now ""come back"" to the game just to complain about all the free stuff they got. Can't help but see this whole thing as a little bit ridiculous, but might just be me.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Artemis.8034]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

If those "returning players" don't have either of that, the chances are they logged in during release beta event, created some characters, logged out and now ""come back"" to the game just to complain about all the free stuff they got. Can't help but see this whole thing as a little bit ridiculous, but might just be me.

None of which was what i was talking about. I was talking about bag space and storage compared to all the junk that gets tossed at us over a short period of time. How new players are not going to want to buy 1 bag slot per character at 10 bucks a pop because hey we are new, we dont have the gold reserves to buy gems that way.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

3 hours ago, Artemis.8034 said:

None of which was what i was talking about. I was talking about bag space and storage compared to all the junk that gets tossed at us over a short period of time. How new players are not going to want to buy 1 bag slot per character at 10 bucks a pop because hey we are new, we dont have the gold reserves to buy gems that way.

Cool, but off-topic.  Most posters are addressing the OP's lament.

[Maltyrius.2961]

I feel your pain, OP. Played the first two years at launch; played some other MMOs up until three months ago when I came back and jumped into HoT. 
 

Took me six weeks to get my inventory fully worked out over my four 80s. 
 

And, while I’m here: Pocket Raptors, WTF?’ 😳

Edited January 2, 2022 by Maltyrius.2961
Typo

[Rasimir.6239]

2 hours ago, Maltyrius.2961 said:

And, while I’m here: Pocket Raptors, WTF?’ 😳

You should've seen the posts when HoT first launched 🤣.

 

Pocket raptors caught all of us unaware. You'll get used to them eventually, and find that they really are harmless if you know how to deal with them.

 

Now those mushrooms that bowl you over out of the blue ... those I may not get used to in a thousand years 🤪.

[ShadowCatz.8437]

5 minutes ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

You should've seen the posts when HoT first launched 🤣.

 

Pocket raptors caught all of us unaware. You'll get used to them eventually, and find that they really are harmless if you know how to deal with them.

 

Now those mushrooms that bowl you over out of the blue ... those I may not get used to in a thousand years 🤪.

Small, but fast and grouped mobs like Pocket Raptors, are rather easy to kill (each PR have low health pool), if you are a bit aware about where they usually can be expected in HoT maps. Most hostile NPCs spawn the exact place in game world, so after some experience you should know where those might be found.

If you see one or two Pocket Raptor, use #1 (autoattack or skill with short CD) to see if there is more and use an AoE and heal yourself when needed (make sure that you don't have heal on CD before attacking). Autoattacking work as a taunt so if there is more around you will see them and be able to kill them. It is when player is surprised that those can kill players.

Mushrooms can be handled if you use skill with Stun breaks (or have access to Stability which reduce how other hard CC will have an effect on you). The knock down effect is what make Mushroom potentially dangerous as it take time to get up from ground (skills will be locked) into standing again.

If you look at Mushrooms attack you will notice that they have a short charge up before they attack in a straight line and then turn (also a delay) to start next attack. The real threat is when there is several Mushroom at once that cross paths with different attack sequence and when they die will explode which creates an AoE poison field that you need to avoid standing in or dodge into.

Mushrooms can be soft CC with Chill, Slow or any other movement impairing conditions or hard CC with Daze, Stun etc, so there is tools to reduce how many you will have to fight at once, if you use them on the right time and have the right range for those skills.

In general HoT mechanic isn't that hard to learn, if you just bring the right tools and give yourself time to observe what is going on. Add to that all expanstion and living world seasons have map based tools like Bouncing Mushroom you can use to jump up from (even with soft CC), gliding that you use to get a short stealth (to avoid getting hit from Vines that can shot ranged projectiles) and when player get mounts also unlocked other features that can both replace HoT mastery (Springer work much the same way that Oakheart's Essence, Bouncing Mushroom or Updraft) as you can get away from ground to get both higher up and away from danger.

Build that have both access to ranged skills (that includes weapon type that are mostly ranged) and melee skills (in general those skills do more damage, but also place player in more danger) will also reduce problem with certain NPCs.

Very much of HoT maps design where designed to both introduce Gliding and on how to make use of it (movement between different layer of maps from the dangerous underground Vines that can kill you very fast if you land there, up to diferent ground levels and into the sky area where there is updraft and floating islands that work as base for Hero Challenges and some bosses).

As always when HoT where brand new map we had also larger zergs roll over everything, the same thing happened in PoF and we will probably see the same thing happen when EoD maps will be finished in February.

Larger groups on maps also means there will be a verdy different feeling for how maps work as with more players doing maps, the less threat those NPCs will pose. Pocket Raptor isn't a big deal for a zerg bombing an area and the same for every other map. It is first when player is alone or or very few that those type of NPCs can become a problem as there will be less of passive support from boons (as long players stay in range of sharing boons) and how multiple conditions from different players can add up on each target.

If somebody have problem with those maps with less population then take look at Daily achievement to see if there is an event chain that is a part of that map (for getting some reward from Daily or AP in general) which make more player doing the same content or use LFG. There is also https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers  that can be useful to see which phases those maps have for being more populated and when to expect more people being around on those maps.

[Gehenna.3625]

4 hours ago, Maltyrius.2961 said:

I feel your pain, OP. Played the first two years at launch; played some other MMOs up until three months ago when I came back and jumped into HoT. 
 

Took me six weeks to get my inventory fully worked out over my four 80s. 
 

And, while I’m here: Pocket Raptors, WTF?’ 😳

They made a good change since then. In the first few years they used an inventory space for each blue, green and yellow gear piece. Now they've made it so that they are stackable by making them as containers when you get them. So know all the blue/green/yellow gear that drops automatically stacks in one place in your inventory. That makes a HUGE difference. So really it's a lot better now than it was before. 

[Gibson.4036]

10 hours ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

You should've seen the posts when HoT first launched 🤣.

 

Pocket raptors caught all of us unaware. You'll get used to them eventually, and find that they really are harmless if you know how to deal with them.

 

Now those mushrooms that bowl you over out of the blue ... those I may not get used to in a thousand years 🤪.

Mushrooms are so much worse than pocket raptors.

As for birthday presents, leave them in the mail until you’re ready to open them.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[ovenglove.9528]

I played since launch and around 3 years ago stopped opening birthday presents, they are still in my mail. I don't have to deal with it.

[robertthebard.8150]

On 12/31/2021 at 2:52 PM, Artemis.8034 said:

None of which was what i was talking about. I was talking about bag space and storage compared to all the junk that gets tossed at us over a short period of time. How new players are not going to want to buy 1 bag slot per character at 10 bucks a pop because hey we are new, we dont have the gold reserves to buy gems that way.

...and I didn't buy them, all at once, and I didn't use gold to do it.  Instead, I treated it like a sub, and spent 15 or 20 bucks a month on the game.  I also learned to craft the bags, as fast as I could, which is pretty fast, if you're playing the game at all.  I haven't had to spend gold on materials either, all I had to do was play the maps that drop the materials I need.  There were no insurmountable obstacles to starting out as a new player, which is why I'm always surprised to read how much of a struggle it should have been for me.

I still don't have all the inventory slots on any characters, but I do have a mix of 18 and 20 slot bags, which aren't even the largest bags I could get, but I haven't messed with learning the bigger ones, because I don't need them.  An 18 slot Invisible Bag, with a mix of 18/20 slot bags gives me plenty of space to play the game, along with opening up some bank storage, which is account wide.  I don't own all of them either, I don't have all of the possible crafting storage unlocks either.  If they made the cooking ingredients that are labeled as Ingredients go into the crafting storage, I could free up 2 bags in storage though.

But let's compare:  In swtor, I have to spend Cartel Coins, the swtor equivalent to gems, in order to unlock mounts, outfits and weapon skins for my account, after I acquire them.  Other unlocks also have a per character, or per account option, but the account option costs more.  Here?  Mounts, outfits and weapon skins are unlocked for my account for free, once I unlock them by playing the game, or buying a skin, whether it's from a vendor, or the Gem Store.

In ESO, if I want to be a crafter, I either have to micromanage my inventory like a champ, or pay the sub, so I can have the crafting bag.  I don't remember how the mounts are handled, but the skills associated with them are per character, and can either be done by logging in each character daily and paying a stable once per day, for one of three skills, or by purchasing them from the cash shop.  It seems to me that, instead of being a burden on "new players", the system here is actually player friendly by comparison.

[Gibson.4036]

Agreeing with Robert the Bard. There's absolutely no need to buy additional bank slots.

An 18 slot invisible pack is 3g, and with 3 more 18 slot bags at 2.5g you've got plenty of bag space for a little over 10 gold. That's a week of doing dailies. It's plenty of space if you consistently vendor trash, salvage, and deposit materials.

If you don't have a character of high enough level to do dailies, you won't be getting enough loot to need that much space anyway.

I took a several year break from the game and came back to three or four birthday presents across 10 characters. I wanted to carefully choose my dyes, so I just left all the presents in the mail until I was ready to decide. It took a couple of hours because I very intentionally went through and tried the various dyes on my characters to make sure I knew which ones I wanted, but it was fun, because I was getting all these really cool dyes!

The idea that birthday presents are somehow a ploy to get us to buy more space is bewildering to me. There are definitely design choices intended to get us to buy more space, like recipes that require many stacks of certain mats, but I don't think birthday presents are one.

[Embered.5089]

If you're going to quit because you have too much stuff, could you give me all of the stuff before you quit? ~.^

[codesherpa.1275]

Are we supposed to take this post serious?   Oh noes, free stuff that I don't even have to open, the pain and misery.  I uninstall game now, lol.  🤪

[Monarc.9726]

It’s not really that big of a deal because you don’t have to open the items in your mail. They will still be there when you’re ready, or just delete them if you don’t  want to take the time to deal with the loot. No mail will effect your gameplay experience, unless you want it to.

 

That being said, this game does dump a lot of stuff in bags. Like many, I have an alt just to use as a bank, and that’s not a good use of a character slot. It’s also a lot to keep track of.  At the very least, make max stack size 500 as default. It would also be better if collection items that have no value were added to the collection without needing to take up a bag space, just to be later deleted. That’s just an annoying extra step.