Guild Wars 2 Catch All

I'm still baffled by Devona's Rest current rise, I'm assuming a few massive guilds transferred early in December, but no idea from where.

Tyops wrote:
AndrewA wrote:
Cobble wrote:

In fact the only real reason to server swap is wvw and that's lame.

If you like WvW, then Northern Shiverpeaks is a wasteland. I have zero regrets switching servers with my guild to get on a more WvW-focused server - it's been like night & day. (And it's not like we swapped very high up, which would run the risk of being lame.... we swapped from tier 5 to tier 4, and then have helped the server advance to tier 3)

NSP got kinda screwed with the who titan alliance fallout thing. That created a pretty big vacuum in WvW talented/oriented guilds on the server, and very few "good" guilds want to come back here.

Yeah - that really hurt, and no one was able/willing to step in and fill the void.

But beyond that, the commanders I dealt with on NSP were way worse than those on my new server in terms of communication and strategy, and random pugs/zergs are far less willing to contribute their own coin/time to the cause. WvW works so much better when people are willing to lay down their own siege, protect dolyaks, man keep walls, run supply, and so on.... when everyone is just trying to get in on the next big fight and avoiding the necessary "work", the entire server suffers.

AndrewA wrote:
Tyops wrote:
AndrewA wrote:
Cobble wrote:

In fact the only real reason to server swap is wvw and that's lame.

If you like WvW, then Northern Shiverpeaks is a wasteland. I have zero regrets switching servers with my guild to get on a more WvW-focused server - it's been like night & day. (And it's not like we swapped very high up, which would run the risk of being lame.... we swapped from tier 5 to tier 4, and then have helped the server advance to tier 3)

NSP got kinda screwed with the who titan alliance fallout thing. That created a pretty big vacuum in WvW talented/oriented guilds on the server, and very few "good" guilds want to come back here.

Yeah - that really hurt, and no one was able/willing to step in and fill the void.

But beyond that, the commanders I dealt with on NSP were way worse than those on my new server in terms of communication and strategy, and random pugs/zergs are far less willing to contribute their own coin/time to the cause. WvW works so much better when people are willing to lay down their own siege, protect dolyaks, man keep walls, run supply, and so on.... when everyone is just trying to get in on the next big fight and avoiding the necessary "work", the entire server suffers.

The few times I've been in WvW lately it's seemed more organized than it was a few months ago, but it does require someone skilled in herding cats. We also didn't seem to have hardly anyone playing in the early AM.

What do you have to spend money on in wvw?

duckilama wrote:

What do you have to spend money on in wvw?

Siege blueprints. You can acquire them without having to spend money, either by completing jumping puzzles, or buying them with badges of honor (tokens you earn by killing players from the enemy servers). There's also armor repair, which can get pricey if you die a lot (hint: you will die a lot).

Stengah wrote:
duckilama wrote:

What do you have to spend money on in wvw?

Siege blueprints. You can acquire them without having to spend money, either by completing jumping puzzles, or buying them with badges of honor (tokens you earn by killing players from the enemy servers). There's also armor repair, which can get pricey if you die a lot (hint: you will die a lot).

Yeah that was an issue for me when I first started WvW. it's a net money loss so it's hard to keep the casuals engaged. Now that I have a bit more coins saved up I dont mind spending on blueprints at all.

I have half a dozen blueprints in he bank from the JP. I get 2 every time. At first, 1s64c seemed bad, but vendoring 2 blues covers it.

duckilama wrote:

I have half a dozen blueprints in he bank from the JP. I get 2 every time. At first, 1s64c seemed bad, but vendoring 2 blues covers it.

Yes. But 1.64s is worth a lot less now than it was for the first few weeks after launch for the average player. Had to convince a new casual player at launch to spring for 2-4 blueprints a session and 5-8s worth of armor repairs when they have 20-50s to their name. These days things are different, but I think the damage has been done in terms of attitude/psychology.

duckilama wrote:

I have half a dozen blueprints in he bank from the JP. I get 2 every time. At first, 1s64c seemed bad, but vendoring 2 blues covers it.

It takes quite a few siege weapons to take a decently defended tower, let alone the keeps or the castle. Another reason people are hesitant to use up their own siege weapons is that they can't guarantee they'll be the one using them once they're built, and once the battles over, you can't pack them back up again.

Stengah wrote:
duckilama wrote:

I have half a dozen blueprints in he bank from the JP. I get 2 every time. At first, 1s64c seemed bad, but vendoring 2 blues covers it.

It takes quite a few siege weapons to take a decently defended tower, let alone the keeps or the castle. Another reason people are hesitant to use up their own siege weapons is that they can't guarantee they'll be the one using them once they're built, and once the battles over, you can't pack them back up again.

Actually I think as the blueprint's owner you can bump people off for a certain amount of time. I'm pretty sure this is not at all well enough advertised.

We're mostly vulnerable to the transfer game, when LoM left us, it hurt.. that was one of four WvW-focused guilds we had left.. now we're down to three, only one of which is large and consistently active. ONE.

Meanwhile most of the servers we used to fight to draws received large influxes of big WvW guilds and we can no longer compete with them.

Motivating casual players to get involved in WvW doesn't really help us if they just jump ship for "better tiers" once they do start liking it.

Edit: double post.

Stengah wrote:
duckilama wrote:

What do you have to spend money on in wvw?

Siege blueprints. You can acquire them without having to spend money, either by completing jumping puzzles, or buying them with badges of honor (tokens you earn by killing players from the enemy servers). There's also armor repair, which can get pricey if you die a lot (hint: you will die a lot).

The other expense is upgrading keeps/camps/towers. I was upgrading a tower last night - was costing 10+ silver and 200+ karma a shot.

Cobble wrote:

Its the same reason i don't do much pvp, there just isn't enough a sense of overall progression. I mean, its fun and all but My primary motivation to even play is character advancement and I don't feel much of that in Pcp or wvw. There is definately some but not enough where I feel motivated enough to spend the time.

WvW is lacking rewards (aside from the satisfaction of server success) at the moment for sure.... and there's a large portion of the MMO playerbase that plays these games for tangible rewards. Apparently a patch in February will address this, although there is no ANet statement on how exactly. Even just a selection of gear to buy with badges of honor (not weapons) that have some interesting stats would be enough to get more people into it, I think.

AndrewA wrote:

WvW is lacking rewards (aside from the satisfaction of server success) at the moment for sure.... and there's a large portion of the MMO playerbase that plays these games for tangible rewards. Apparently a patch in February will address this, although there is no ANet statement on how exactly. Even just a selection of gear to buy with badges of honor (not weapons) that have some interesting stats would be enough to get more people into it, I think.

That february patch makes me nervous. Too many people are expecting too much from this one. It may actually be a make or break patch as far as a large chunk of the existing population is concerned. WvW, sPvP, Guilds, class balance, Content, I cant imagine they'll be able to deliver on all the fronts.

Hey, just wanted to make a shout-out for all the Guild Wars fans in this thread to go over and vote in the GWJ 2012 Game of the Year Thread here:

I can totally understand if you don't want to name GW 2 as your top game (I didn't btw), but very few people are putting it in their top 10 for 2012 which is very sad considering this game's quality.

To me wvw is only for satisfying my monthly quota. That's about all it does for motivating me. When I try to play it for more it seems to just be a circle of you take this and ill take that with little consequences.

In the time it takes to be involved in that revolving door i can run some fractals, Earn some more instance tokens for some better gear or generally move forward on that slow grind to my legendary.

Its the same reason i don't do much pvp, there just isn't enough a sense of overall progression. I mean, its fun and all but My primary motivation to even play is character advancement and I don't feel much of that in Pvp or wvw. There is definately some but not enough where I feel motivated enough to spend the time.

AndrewA wrote:
Stengah wrote:
duckilama wrote:

What do you have to spend money on in wvw?

Siege blueprints. You can acquire them without having to spend money, either by completing jumping puzzles, or buying them with badges of honor (tokens you earn by killing players from the enemy servers). There's also armor repair, which can get pricey if you die a lot (hint: you will die a lot).

The other expense is upgrading keeps/camps/towers. I was upgrading a tower last night - was costing 10+ silver and 200+ karma a shot.

Cobble wrote:

Its the same reason i don't do much pvp, there just isn't enough a sense of overall progression. I mean, its fun and all but My primary motivation to even play is character advancement and I don't feel much of that in Pcp or wvw. There is definately some but not enough where I feel motivated enough to spend the time.

WvW is lacking rewards (aside from the satisfaction of server success) at the moment for sure.... and there's a large portion of the MMO playerbase that plays these games for tangible rewards. Apparently a patch in February will address this, although there is no ANet statement on how exactly. Even just a selection of gear to buy with badges of honor (not weapons) that have some interesting stats would be enough to get more people into it, I think.

I enjoy WvW for the zerg. I think that comes from being an old DAoC player that started RvRing at level 11 when I got my first insta-cast heal. I'd latch on to some higher level melee player like a remora to a shark and essentially double their lifespan. There were some glorious zerg-v-zerg battles, and this was back when the rewards for RvR were that you got to kill (and be killed) by your fellow player. That's it. Combat against other human armies.

The journey was the destination.

Kids these days with their fancy gathering bonuses and expectations of in-game rewards ... why in my day the reward for playing a game was that you got to play the game.

Hey! Hey, get off my lawn!
*grumble

jdzappa wrote:

Hey, just wanted to make a shout-out for all the Guild Wars fans in this thread to go over and vote in the GWJ 2012 Game of the Year Thread here:
I can totally understand if you don't want to name GW 2 as your top game (I didn't btw), but very few people are putting it in their top 10 for 2012 which is very sad considering this game's quality.

I think I placed it third behind Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead. I love Guild Wars 2. Lots.
And I just cooked my first blueberry tart today!!

duckilama wrote:
AndrewA wrote:
Stengah wrote:
duckilama wrote:

What do you have to spend money on in wvw?

Siege blueprints. You can acquire them without having to spend money, either by completing jumping puzzles, or buying them with badges of honor (tokens you earn by killing players from the enemy servers). There's also armor repair, which can get pricey if you die a lot (hint: you will die a lot).

The other expense is upgrading keeps/camps/towers. I was upgrading a tower last night - was costing 10+ silver and 200+ karma a shot.

Cobble wrote:

Its the same reason i don't do much pvp, there just isn't enough a sense of overall progression. I mean, its fun and all but My primary motivation to even play is character advancement and I don't feel much of that in Pcp or wvw. There is definately some but not enough where I feel motivated enough to spend the time.

WvW is lacking rewards (aside from the satisfaction of server success) at the moment for sure.... and there's a large portion of the MMO playerbase that plays these games for tangible rewards. Apparently a patch in February will address this, although there is no ANet statement on how exactly. Even just a selection of gear to buy with badges of honor (not weapons) that have some interesting stats would be enough to get more people into it, I think.

I enjoy WvW for the zerg. I think that comes from being an old DAoC player that started RvRing at level 11 when I got my first insta-cast heal. I'd latch on to some higher level melee player like a remora to a shark and essentially double their lifespan. There were some glorious zerg-v-zerg battles, and this was back when the rewards for RvR were that you got to kill (and be killed) by your fellow player. That's it. Combat against other human armies.

The journey was the destination.

Kids these days with their fancy gathering bonuses and expectations of in-game rewards ... why in my day the reward for playing a game was that you got to play the game.

Hey! Hey, get off my lawn!
*grumble

I think it's a very small lawn, judging by the degree of success of the reward-based mechanics (last decade of MMOs and guild wars 2 dungeons or fractals), but I couldn't agree more.

In fact this has made me very conflicted about what I think should be the future of WvW. More incentives seem necessary but it's a double edged sword : it would attract more players and hopefully keep the game healthy in terms of population which is essential, but it would potentially tarnish WvW with unwanted "MMOness" (grinds, and people playing to pursue a personal objective instead of playing strategically for the team).

Regarding this month's Monthly Achievement:
You have to discover 30 jumping puzzles.

You do not have to complete 30 jumping puzzles.

In Lion's Arch:
Sharkmaw Caverns, aka Weyandt's Revenge: You only have to approach the initial jump, you do not have to jump into the mouth. Confirmed on 2 characters.
Troll's End, aka Norn-foe: You only have to drop into the well and swim down a bit. Confirmed on 2 characters.
Urmaug's Secret: You only have to walk into the back cave, just past Urmaug. Confirmed on 2 characters.

So, just in LA, you could whip out 15/30 in about 15 minutes for this part of the Monthly, assuming 5 character slots.
2 days, 5 characters, 15 minutes each day, about 30 minutes to finish out this part of the Monthly. By far the fastest part of this Month's monthly.
If you don't know where they are, I'll be glad to show you any time I'm on.

Of course, if anyone wants to actually learn how to do them, I'm glad to show folks. The chests scale, so each day I can hit all 3 in about 15 minutes, now that I've found a surefire way to not die going into Sharkmaw.

I'm also happy to show folks the Borderlands JP. It's a bit more time consuming than the Lion's Arch 3, but more fun, IMO, more beautiful, and you get a few badges of honor and some siege plans, in addition to normal chest gear loot.

Edit to add: Trigger for Borderlands JP: Right before the initial jump through the waterfall, on the long pointed ledge. You don't even have to hop into the waterfall. Confirmed on 1 character.

duckilama wrote:

now that I've found a surefire way to not die going into Sharkmaw.

Oh. Please share. I went back to do that again about a month ago and after dying 3 times in a row, never went back.

You go down the far right side. I'll gladly show anyone that wants to see ingame. You drop to a ledge on the far far right. Then you drop again to the stalagmites on the far far right - possibly even steering into the right wall. No damage taken so far. Then you just waaaaay out to the left, towards the middle of the waterfall so you (hopefully) land in the middle of the water. I actually fell through the big skeleton last nite and took no damage.

AndrewA wrote:
Tyops wrote:
AndrewA wrote:
Cobble wrote:

In fact the only real reason to server swap is wvw and that's lame.

If you like WvW, then Northern Shiverpeaks is a wasteland. I have zero regrets switching servers with my guild to get on a more WvW-focused server - it's been like night & day. (And it's not like we swapped very high up, which would run the risk of being lame.... we swapped from tier 5 to tier 4, and then have helped the server advance to tier 3)

NSP got kinda screwed with the who titan alliance fallout thing. That created a pretty big vacuum in WvW talented/oriented guilds on the server, and very few "good" guilds want to come back here.

Yeah - that really hurt, and no one was able/willing to step in and fill the void.

But beyond that, the commanders I dealt with on NSP were way worse than those on my new server in terms of communication and strategy, and random pugs/zergs are far less willing to contribute their own coin/time to the cause. WvW works so much better when people are willing to lay down their own siege, protect dolyaks, man keep walls, run supply, and so on.... when everyone is just trying to get in on the next big fight and avoiding the necessary "work", the entire server suffers.

This has not been my experience recently. The main problem in NSP is gaps in play time, US working hours are horrible, and general consistent participation. Commanding, like everything else is a learning curve, and it is not like there is OCS in GW2.

Plus, if I remember correctly your guild, according to its own explanation, did not leave because of the quality of the WvW, but because other guilds expected it to solve their problems, as if your officers could not say "Solve your own problems" to these people.

Just want to shout out to the New Years Day folks who participated in the Southcove Shores excursion yesterday. We had 9 (or 10, not sure) of us in 2 groups that just rolled through up to the big Karka champ, mining and harvesting along the way, with the main goal to mine the rich vein up at that champ. Of course, with this group, we proceeded to take the champ down with ease (and a few rezes). Then a couple of events and waypoint visits with one jumping puzzle.

Thanks for letting me tag along - it was fun!

Tenebrous wrote:

Plus, if I remember correctly your guild, according to its own explanation, did not leave because of the quality of the WvW, but because other guilds expected it to solve their problems, as if your officers could not say "Solve your own problems" to these people.

That was certainly part of it as well - albeit a part I cannot vouch for since I'm just a grunt.

Cymbrogi wrote:

Just want to shout out to the New Years Day folks who participated in the Southcove Shores excursion yesterday. We had 9 (or 10, not sure) of us in 2 groups that just rolled through up to the big Karka champ, mining and harvesting along the way, with the main goal to mine the rich vein up at that champ. Of course, with this group, we proceeded to take the champ down with ease (and a few rezes). Then a couple of events and waypoint visits with one jumping puzzle.

Thanks for letting me tag along - it was fun!

And then afterwards helping me with Tixx - hopefully I can solicit help again tonight to finally get the toy and the title

Still, I'm very glad I switched servers, you are a great bunch of people!

The karka farming train was tons of fun and definitely made me wish we could get big guild groups like that going more often.. we are a force to be reckoned with!

GrandmaFunk wrote:

The karka farming train was tons of fun and definitely made me wish we could get big guild groups like that going more often.. we are a force to be reckoned with!

Cymbrogi wrote:

Just want to shout out to the New Years Day folks who participated in the Southcove Shores excursion yesterday. We had 9 (or 10, not sure) of us in 2 groups that just rolled through up to the big Karka champ, mining and harvesting along the way, with the main goal to mine the rich vein up at that champ. Of course, with this group, we proceeded to take the champ down with ease (and a few rezes). Then a couple of events and waypoint visits with one jumping puzzle.

Thanks for letting me tag along - it was fun!

That was an absolute blast!
I didn't really expect my offhanded comment about the Rich Ori node to lead to a 10-man romp through Death Valley. I ended up with 18 Orichalcum, several Ancient woods, a dozen-ish Passion Fruit, quite a few bloods and whatnot.

Also, that last village/outpost we ended up at... the champ with chest is on the back side of that island, opposite the bridge! It was right kitten there!
The chest contents were pretty weak, but I was able to run in, open the chest, ignore the champ and run far enough to lose aggro up by the bridge.

I'd really love to do more crazy "hey, let's all go be stupid together for 30 minutes!" things.
Maybe we could get a "let's go do map exploration in WvW" group together to get PoI, Vistas, etc sometime.

Between our storming the Karka island, helping folks find and complete jumping puzzles in LA and Borderlands, doing dungeons with 3 GWJ Guardians(!), I've had a great few days in GW2 recently. Tons of fun when done together.

Thanks again to everyone for going.

P.S. I'm sure we can pull together another Tixx run, Cragmyre. Only reason I didn't offer to go yesterday was your group filled up so fast.

Cragmyre -

I expect to be on tonight (I'm central time and "tonight" means off and on between 5pm and 9:30pm). Shout out in guild chat and I'll be happy to go visit Tixx as many times as you need.

Ah, the irony!! I'm trying to get people to run Tixx right now!! Curse that GMT+4...