Maybe I'm an idiot, but....

[Vindex.9487]

I've bought every xpac, every living world season, and enjoyed playing through each story even though it was a story I consumed out of order and had to piece together at the end. I'm super casual, which is why I quit WoW after playing since release Novemeber of 04 until a year ago. I'm in my 40's, got kids, job, so I get a couple hours a night. I've played this game entirely solo besides open world events. I was excited about SoTO and the open world legendary armor. Finally, my chance to achieve the glory of wearing purples. 

I farmed rifts in Amnytas so long that I found myself dreading to login. So I took a break and worked on the gifts of fangs, blood, etc. I spent a lot of real money for gold to buy some of it. Now, after soto is over and Im well into the next xpac I hear something about convergences. A word I had heard before but assumed it was some sort of raid that static guild groups do. But, no....it was something I could have done and looted mats that probably took me days to farm doing all those tier 1 rifts. Nowhere in the story or expansion that I found that pointed me to "convergences". Wtf? How did I miss this? Is it possible to do it solo in the "open world" style map? 

I'm so ticked at this point I'm ready to buy the new FF14 expansion and maybe even the new WoW xpac and play through them to give GW2 a break for a while and decide if I even want to continue with this game. I'm sure a lot of you will say I am indeed a moron, but seriously, how did I miss this convergences thing? Anyone else felt this betrayal?

[Linken.6345]

46 minutes ago, Vindex.9487 said:

I've bought every xpac, every living world season, and enjoyed playing through each story even though it was a story I consumed out of order and had to piece together at the end. I'm super casual, which is why I quit WoW after playing since release Novemeber of 04 until a year ago. I'm in my 40's, got kids, job, so I get a couple hours a night. I've played this game entirely solo besides open world events. I was excited about SoTO and the open world legendary armor. Finally, my chance to achieve the glory of wearing purples. 

I farmed rifts in Amnytas so long that I found myself dreading to login. So I took a break and worked on the gifts of fangs, blood, etc. I spent a lot of real money for gold to buy some of it. Now, after soto is over and Im well into the next xpac I hear something about convergences. A word I had heard before but assumed it was some sort of raid that static guild groups do. But, no....it was something I could have done and looted mats that probably took me days to farm doing all those tier 1 rifts. Nowhere in the story or expansion that I found that pointed me to "convergences". Wtf? How did I miss this? Is it possible to do it solo in the "open world" style map? 

I'm so ticked at this point I'm ready to buy the new FF14 expansion and maybe even the new WoW xpac and play through them to give GW2 a break for a while and decide if I even want to continue with this game. I'm sure a lot of you will say I am indeed a moron, but seriously, how did I miss this convergences thing? Anyone else felt this betrayal?

it is not you have to join an instance with 50 other people and its on a 3 hour timer so depending on when you play you might never catch one mate.

[Mungrul.9358]

I agree it's not well described what Convergences are, even in the related mastery track.
Hell, I don't even know where to go to access them!

At least with Dragonstorm, it's right there in the Eye of the North.
And having yet to actually play one, I'm guessing the Dragonstorm comparison is the best one?

[Danikat.8537]

I can't remember if Convergences are introduced during the story, I mainly know about them from seeing people in-game talking about them and being in the Wizard's Tower when the portal opened for the public version or someone was getting a group together for it.

If you're a casual player and going for long-term goals like legendary armour it's a good idea to use the Wiki to find out what's required and what your options are, because (as you've discovered) you might not get all the info from other sources. There's pages for each item and often overviews for sets which list everything required to get them, then you can click the links to those items to find out where each one comes from. For example here's the page for Obsidian armour: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Obsidian_armor

10 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

it is not you have to join an instance with 50 other people and its on a 3 hour timer so depending on when you play you might never catch one mate.

Squads can also set up a private version which can be run at any time. That's how I got the weekly achievement last week, I checked the timer and realised there wouldn't be one running while I was online then checked LFG just in case and found a group just setting up.

Edited September 9 by Danikat.8537

[Vavume.8065]

12 hours ago, Vindex.9487 said:

Anyone else felt this betrayal?

What betrayal? ever heard of patch notes? I suggest reading them for any game you are playing.

[Vindex.9487]

1 hour ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I can't remember if Convergences are introduced during the story, I mainly know about them from seeing people in-game talking about them and being in the Wizard's Tower when the portal opened for the public version or someone was getting a group together for it.

If you're a casual player and going for long-term goals like legendary armour it's a good idea to use the Wiki to find out what's required and what your options are, because (as you've discovered) you might not get all the info from other sources. There's pages for each item and often overviews for sets which list everything required to get them, then you can click the links to those items to find out where each one comes from. For example here's the page for Obsidian armour: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Obsidian_armor

Squads can also set up a private version which can be run at any time. That's how I got the weekly achievement last week, I checked the timer and realised there wouldn't be one running while I was online then checked LFG just in case and found a group just setting up.

Thank you Danikat. Y'all are absolutely right. I should have done my due diligence and researched it more. That's kind of my point though. It's never introduced in the story or gameplay that I've seen. That's not surprising to me because the horizontal progression this game offers leaves it up to the player to decide what path to take and how we get to whatever personal goals we have.

That alone is a shock to the system for anyone coming from another MMO where they lead you by the hand and point you to end game progression. I've come to terms with that in GW2 and since I've started chasing achievements I've found some purpose in the game. It just aggravated me that in an xpac I'm current with didn't hint at something that huge/cool. 

The little bit of time I have after my 5 year old goes to sleep for the night and an hour or so that I get in the mornings before she wakes up has to be spent researching and digging for information instead of taking advantage of my gaming time and actually gaming. This is a great game. I wish I had took some of my friend's advice 10 years ago and started on it back then. I really hope this community continues to thrive, and I hope Anet will work harder to help point us new-ish players to content. It's awful for you guys to work hard on content and any percentage of the player base never see it because they weren't aware of it. Even if it's only the morons like myself. And I know I'm not alone. 😔 

 

 

 

 

[Vindex.9487]

Oh yeah, I've also not been able to catch the meta even in Nayos or the new meta in Janthir. When the bosses spawn and I fly over to them there's never anyone doing it. I've tried LFG but the instance is always full and the wait time for queue is longer than it takes to do the meta apparently.  As for the SoTO meta, the 2 times I've made it to the end we failed lol. I'm going to hit up lfg more and try to figure it out. I'm a PVE lover and dungeons are my favorite hangout in other games. I'm going to vow to try fractals more often. Groups aren't that friendly to new players in fractals. If you fall behind you're screwed because they won't wait on you lol.

[Ashantara.8731]

17 minutes ago, Vindex.9487 said:

Thank you Danikat. Y'all are absolutely right. I should have done my due diligence and researched it more. That's kind of my point though.

Had you explored the Wizard's Tower, which is a vital part of SotO, you would have come across the Convergences portal. And update anouncements are linked in the game's launcher window where you log in to play the game. 😉

14 minutes ago, Vindex.9487 said:

Oh yeah, I've also not been able to catch the meta even in Nayos or the new meta in Janthir. When the bosses spawn and I fly over to them there's never anyone doing it.

People organize in squads via the game's LFG tool for map meta runs. Those map instances are filled up fast due to high demand, and when you don't join and hop on the map on time, you are left in an unpopulated instance of the map with the rest of the players who are not currently doing the meta.

[Cuks.8241]

Convergences are basically what was introduced with Dragonstorm in IBS. You have a public version on timer but also a private one you can enter at anytime with your squad.

You can see timers for the public ones together with all other meta events https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers

In Soto they also have a separate lfg channel under Soto where people will also look to fill up their private squads which are way more effective than public ones.

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

There was a story mission with Zojia where you go to the convergence map and fight something there while being taught the orb mechanic, right? I thought that story step happened before we went to inner nayos. Maybe there wasn’t enough attention called to what that story step actually was, but it was there. But like someone else has stated, read patch notes do basic research on the wiki and you’ll be more informed than 90% of gw2’s population 

[Tula.6021]

16 hours ago, Vindex.9487 said:

But, no....it was something I could have done and looted mats that probably took me days to farm doing all those tier 1 rifts.

I don't see how convergences pay off better.

T2 and T3 rifts pay off better, don't they?

Weekly rifts is also a thing you apparently missed

What pays off is a guild. I only knew about convergences from my pve community guild that does them every sunday and I only joined for the achievements.

[Randulf.7614]

- The story mentions convergences at the start of the Nayos act

- The wizards tower has a permanent message on screen about convergences

- The blogs talked about it a lot leading into release and after

- The event timer had it listed on rotation

- The achievement tabs have a convergence specific set in game. You can’t miss it if you are doing achievements 

- If you make tier 2 legendary, it mentions them again

- There’s a portal labelled and leading to them in the wizards tower 

- The Wizards Tower flashes a message on screen when they are ready

- LFG has a category for them

Now I get theres no big green arrow to them, but there’s plenty of directions to it without having to handhold (something many in the community have objected to). But there are plenty of in game - as well if out of game -nods to these 50 player instances. Some are more obvious than others, but certainly enough to encourage investigation by anyone hearing about them for the first time 

Blogs, patch notes, news pages, wikis - yes they are out of game, but out of game is a part of the mmo experience and always has been.

 

Edited September 9 by Randulf.7614

[Dean Calaway.9718]

18 hours ago, Vindex.9487 said:

Finally, my chance to achieve the glory of wearing purples. 

I farmed rifts in Amnytas so long that I found myself dreading to login.

Were you using several sets of equipment and did you find yourself swapping between them often on several different characters... ?

Because I'm gonna bet no, you had your characters set up in Exotic and/or Ascended with 1 set of stats that you never change out of, but you heard about the classic cope "omg, legendary gear is sooooo great, the Quality of Life I tell you!!!"

Congratulations, you sank a load of time in something you don't actually need because you were led to believe it would be so great once you got it only to realise you just set it and forget and it would have been 100 times easier to get Ascended everything, and now you're burned out and just wanna quit.

I've heard over a dozen guys by now with the same story and these forums still try to sell legendary gear to people that have no use for it...

[Vindex.9487]

13 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

Were you using several sets of equipment and did you find yourself swapping between them often on several different characters... ?

Because I'm gonna bet no, you had your characters set up in Exotic and/or Ascended with 1 set of stats that you never change out of, but you heard about the classic cope "omg, legendary gear is sooooo great, the Quality of Life I tell you!!!"

Congratulations, you sank a load of time in something you don't actually need because you were led to believe it would be so great once you got it only to realise you just set it and forget and it would have been 100 times easier to get Ascended everything, and now you're burned out and just wanna quit.

I've heard over a dozen guys by now with the same story and these forums still try to sell legendary gear to people that have no use for it...

Dean, yeah I have 3 sets of ascended I crafted from armorsmithing. I play Revenant. I have a set of ascended berserker, a set of celestial, and I just recently finished an ascended set of vipers. You're saying that's all I need? I mean I play condi spear vindicator currently with either celestial or vipers. I played renegade up until recently when I found vindicator. I'm working on learning herald rotation. I hear that quickness herald is useful in groups, but I'm much more comfortable on renegade or vindi.

 

[Vindex.9487]

I appreciate you guys who have taken the time to guide me on my gw2 journey. I'm such a boomer. I watch mukluk and teapot. They always read patch notes and I hear them twice from those guys. A lot of it are things that I don't understand. They don't exactly spell out specifics due to the fact most of their viewers are in the know I imagine. Either way, I will try to be more vigilant and research more. It's good to know that it's a necessary thing for the community, so I will follow suit. 

[Randulf.7614]

Just now, Vindex.9487 said:

I appreciate you guys who have taken the time to guide me on my gw2 journey. I'm such a boomer. I watch mukluk and teapot. They always read patch notes and I hear them twice from those guys. A lot of it are things that I don't understand. They don't exactly spell out specifics due to the fact most of their viewers are in the know I imagine. Either way, I will try to be more vigilant and research more. It's good to know that it's a necessary thing for the community, so I will follow suit. 

I find the patch notes can be poorly presented here. Especially skill changes which are difficult to conextualise if you aren't memorising the name and previous tooltips of every skill in the game (which I certainly dont). They are useful to read for changes to QoL, world polish etc though. 

I would however read the blogs and new posts on the homepage - most of which are linked from the launcher. They will guide you to upcoming features better

[Dean Calaway.9718]

18 minutes ago, Vindex.9487 said:

I have a set of ascended berserker, a set of celestial, and I just recently finished an ascended set of vipers. You're saying that's all I need?

Yes, and remember you don't need to have all your characters on Ascended in a hurry, Exotic gear is more than enough to clear any content even raids, and the ones you really like you can slowly work into upgrading from Exotic to Ascended.

And all that process is orders of magnitude easier than grinding for Legendary that only the top players make good use of with a min maxing pre battle build tuning approach.

 

[Chyro.1462]

Legendaries do have their value, but you shouldn't let the grind for them ruin your enjoyment of the game. They can be a long term goal if you want the QoL they offer (like if you can use them across multiple classes to easily swap stats to adjust for different builds, or if you really like the fashion game and don't wanna pay transmutation charges all the time to swap skins since its free on legendaries) - but they are a luxury, not something that is required at all. You can take your time, there's no rush in getting any legendary. Just do the related content as long as its fun to you, take breaks and do other things you enjoy more if it becomes too much.

And if you find its too much work, it's totally fine to drop it entirely. Exotics and ascended (the latter mainly for fractals cause agony infusions) are all you need to play all content in the game. You can do any non-fractal group content in full exotics, its more important to have the right stats with a proper build and know to play your class than having the miniscule stat increase from exotic to ascended. And legendary doesn't make you any stronger than ascended gear, just more flexible with being able to swap stats anytime.

Edited September 9 by Chyro.1462

[Vindex.9487]

One more thing guys, what is "dragonstorm"? I've never heard that term.

Edited September 10 by Vindex.9487

[Vindex.9487]

I took the advice and searched dragonstorm. I'm at a loss for words. I was playing when this released. Wtf? And we have to fight Braham. My lord guys, are there any guilds recruiting? I promise I'm not as big a dummy and n00b as it seems here. I clearly need some guidance and group play. I did progression raiding in WoW for years before the family came about. 

Edited September 10 by Vindex.9487

[quake.9023]

On 9/9/2024 at 9:51 AM, Vindex.9487 said:

I've bought every xpac, every living world season, and enjoyed playing through each story even though it was a story I consumed out of order and had to piece together at the end. I'm super casual, which is why I quit WoW after playing since release Novemeber of 04 until a year ago. I'm in my 40's, got kids, job, so I get a couple hours a night. I've played this game entirely solo besides open world events. I was excited about SoTO and the open world legendary armor. Finally, my chance to achieve the glory of wearing purples. 

I farmed rifts in Amnytas so long that I found myself dreading to login. So I took a break and worked on the gifts of fangs, blood, etc. I spent a lot of real money for gold to buy some of it. Now, after soto is over and Im well into the next xpac I hear something about convergences. A word I had heard before but assumed it was some sort of raid that static guild groups do. But, no....it was something I could have done and looted mats that probably took me days to farm doing all those tier 1 rifts. Nowhere in the story or expansion that I found that pointed me to "convergences". Wtf? How did I miss this? Is it possible to do it solo in the "open world" style map? 

I'm so ticked at this point I'm ready to buy the new FF14 expansion and maybe even the new WoW xpac and play through them to give GW2 a break for a while and decide if I even want to continue with this game. I'm sure a lot of you will say I am indeed a moron, but seriously, how did I miss this convergences thing? Anyone else felt this betrayal?

it takes more time and effort to write this long paragraph thn to stumble upon convergences.

[Randulf.7614]

8 hours ago, Vindex.9487 said:

One more thing guys, what is "dragonstorm"? I've never heard that term.

Dragonstorm is the final part of the IBS story. There is a public group version which spawns every couple of hours or so in Eye of the North. It is one of the 4 big "Dragon metas", but the only one that is instanced

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 9/8/2024 at 7:51 PM, Vindex.9487 said:

I've bought every xpac, every living world season, and enjoyed playing through each story even though it was a story I consumed out of order and had to piece together at the end. I'm super casual, which is why I quit WoW after playing since release Novemeber of 04 until a year ago. I'm in my 40's, got kids, job, so I get a couple hours a night. I've played this game entirely solo besides open world events. I was excited about SoTO and the open world legendary armor. Finally, my chance to achieve the glory of wearing purples. 

I farmed rifts in Amnytas so long that I found myself dreading to login. So I took a break and worked on the gifts of fangs, blood, etc. I spent a lot of real money for gold to buy some of it. Now, after soto is over and Im well into the next xpac I hear something about convergences. A word I had heard before but assumed it was some sort of raid that static guild groups do. But, no....it was something I could have done and looted mats that probably took me days to farm doing all those tier 1 rifts. Nowhere in the story or expansion that I found that pointed me to "convergences". Wtf? How did I miss this? Is it possible to do it solo in the "open world" style map? 

I'm so ticked at this point I'm ready to buy the new FF14 expansion and maybe even the new WoW xpac and play through them to give GW2 a break for a while and decide if I even want to continue with this game. I'm sure a lot of you will say I am indeed a moron, but seriously, how did I miss this convergences thing? Anyone else felt this betrayal?

I don't know what to tell you except that you should try to make it a point to click the release notes link when the launcher has you download any major patch so you can see what is being added to the game.  You might also keep an eye out for the developer updates ahead of major patches where they discuss upcoming new features.

[Mungrul.9358]

Just to follow up, I also appreciate all of the info about where to find Convergences, but this has also served to highlight one of my current issues with the game.
I had no idea about all the sign-posting regarding Convergences in the Wizard's Tower because I do my best to spend as little time there as possible.

For some reason, even compared to Mistlock Sanctuary, Wizard's Tower takes a lot longer to load then any other instance in the game, so I do my utmost to avoid it (and my system is FAR from slow, with GW2 installed on an NVMe drive).
Possibly player count, possibly map compexity, possibly a combination of both. Whatever it is, something about this map needs optimising.

[kharmin.7683]

30 minutes ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

Just to follow up, I also appreciate all of the info about where to find Convergences, but this has also served to highlight one of my current issues with the game.
I had no idea about all the sign-posting regarding Convergences in the Wizard's Tower because I do my best to spend as little time there as possible.

 

I get it about Wizards Tower.  I don't visit their either.  But, as has been mentioned earlier in the thread, there have been several other ways in which Convergences were 'advertised' so I'm not so sure we should be so quick to blame the game for this 'issue'.