Guild Wars 2 Catch All

Stengah wrote:

I found the time sensitive updates dissuaded me from logging in as I didn't have time to finish the new content before it disappeared.

This exactly!

I'd love to be able to get back in and run through all the dungeons, even try the fractals, but the constant, do it before it goes away was a real turn off.

Stengah wrote:

Well, you don't have to leave the GWJ guild to join the ZoS one, so it's not exactly a move. ;)

Although this is true, I wont be popping back and forth to manage build queues and guild buffs. I still check in daily, mainly to see who's on and who I can pull over to ZoS.

I agree the timed content has pros and cons. I would do unspeakable things for a Factions style expansion right about now, and I think GW2 needs it more than the devs are willing to admit.

Tyops wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Well, you don't have to leave the GWJ guild to join the ZoS one, so it's not exactly a move. ;)

Although this is true, I wont be popping back and forth to manage build queues and guild buffs. I still check in daily, mainly to see who's on and who I can pull over to ZoS.

I agree the timed content has pros and cons. I would do unspeakable things for a Factions style expansion right about now, and I think GW2 needs it more than the devs are willing to admit.

So how can I get an invite. I have been on and not seen very many people in GWJ either.

Tenebrous wrote:

So how can I get an invite. I have been on and not seen very many people in GWJ either.

It's a simple matter of posting a short profile on their recruitment sub-board (http://www.zealotsofshiverpeak.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=63) and then having a quick chat on TS.

The turnaround time has been really quick for me.

Finished the wvw league meta today.. a few hours spent trebbing stone mist culminated with a rush into the lord's room for a 3 way fight.. which we won! they were so busy fighting each other that they never saw us coming =)

later, upon inventory inspection I discovered.. an ascended weapon kit!! and it's the right stats!

GrandmaFunk wrote:

later, upon inventory inspection I discovered.. an ascended weapon kit!! and it's the right stats!

Giggedy.

And what stats are those? I remember reading that because of how some of the scaling works for damage, condition damage bases benefit noticeably less from the bump in stats from an ascended weapon.

Assassin, which sadly does not benefit from extra crit damage. all told I believe it was an extra 3 power and 4 perception, plus the better damage and the infusion slot(took wvw power)

I have pretty much the same problem. I got completely burned out on the content that kept rolling out, I kept chasing achievements, and at one point, my dynamic changed (because of work, mostly), and I just can't keep up.

It would probably take an expansion to bring me back at this rate, same here.

It's somehow really reassuring to me that I wasn't the only one that was discouraged from playing GW2 at all because there was too much content to complete.

I'm only human, and there are only so many hours in a day. And there's the pile. I love that they're crafting such a beautiful, dynamic game, and I'll always love it for that reason, but it's too much for me.

However...
Guild Wars 2's next update is beginning to look a lot like WintersDay @ PCGamer
[size=8](Nope, this link wasn't sponsored by Mr. Cory 'Demiruge' Banks)[/size]

I pretty much stopped playing because there were so many achievements I was never gonna get because I missed out on some living events that the carrot on the end of the stick disappeared for me. Oh, and my alt-itis. God, I'm so bad at that.

Gad just ignore pieces of the content. Its like a buffet, you don't have to eat everything there.

Eleima wrote:

I'm only human, and there are only so many hours in a day. And there's the pile. I love that they're crafting such a beautiful, dynamic game, and I'll always love it for that reason, but it's too much for me.

However...
Guild Wars 2's next update is beginning to look a lot like WintersDay @ PCGamer
[size=8](Nope, this link wasn't sponsored by Mr. Cory 'Demiruge' Banks)[/size]

You did not need a PC gamer link for that.

Tenebrous wrote:

Gad just ignore pieces of the content. Its like a buffet, you don't have to eat everything there.

Eleima wrote:

I'm only human, and there are only so many hours in a day. And there's the pile. I love that they're crafting such a beautiful, dynamic game, and I'll always love it for that reason, but it's too much for me.

However...
Guild Wars 2's next update is beginning to look a lot like WintersDay @ PCGamer
[size=8](Nope, this link wasn't sponsored by Mr. Cory 'Demiruge' Banks)[/size]

You did not need a PC gamer link for that.

I know, but I liked the article and it was just for fun.
I know I don't have to do it all, but it's just so tempting. Kinda awful when you have OCD and completionist tendencies.

Elycion wrote:

It's somehow really reassuring to me that I wasn't the only one that was discouraged from playing GW2 at all because there was too much content to complete.

This is something that has been raised many times on the main boards and something that they are keenly aware of. They have been doing better and the last 3-4 living story updates have been substantially less heavy. In most cases it has been possible to complete enough of the content to get the "special" trinket in 2-3 casual evenings at most.

That being said they are committed to having living story updates on a 2 week cycle, and that's clearly not for everyone.

Adding a quick ZoS update I logged in a bit earlier that usual yesterday, closer to eastern time prime time and there were 55-60 people online. I dont think even launch weekend we broke 50 on GWJ. I know some people find completing the content more fun with people, so seriously consider coming over, we have people. Yesterday night was dungeon night and we had about 3 dungeon groups running on top of having at least 10 people running around WvW.

Tyops wrote:
Elycion wrote:

It's somehow really reassuring to me that I wasn't the only one that was discouraged from playing GW2 at all because there was too much content to complete.

This is something that has been raised many times on the main boards and something that they are keenly aware of. They have been doing better and the last 3-4 living story updates have been substantially less heavy. In most cases it has been possible to complete enough of the content to get the "special" trinket in 2-3 casual evenings at most.

That being said they are committed to having living story updates on a 2 week cycle, and that's clearly not for everyone.

For me its not really that there's too much content, or that it was too 'heavy' in each content patch, it's simply that it goes away. They put all this effort into designing content, and if am just too busy with work or too into another game at the moment, I won't ever get to play it. I would much prefer a model where when have that urge to be playing again, I have a wealth of content to go through, instead, when I get that urge, and check what has happened in game, I see so much stuff I missed, and the urge goes away.

Infyrnos wrote:

For me its not really that there's too much content, or that it was too 'heavy' in each content patch, it's simply that it goes away. They put all this effort into designing content, and if am just too busy with work or too into another game at the moment, I won't ever get to play it. I would much prefer a model where when have that urge to be playing again, I have a wealth of content to go through, instead, when I get that urge, and check what has happened in game, I see so much stuff I missed, and the urge goes away.

Yeah that concern is definitely something that they are aware of ass well, it was brought up and acknowledged many times during their recent discussions about the living story with the player base. Remains to be seen if / when they plan to do something about it. I give them full marks to trying something somewhat different regarding content delivery in MMOs, but I think they are sticking to it a bit too long... probably to the detriment of the community.

Edit: Saw Thursday's application to ZoS. *Joy*

I've been playing GW2 since the beta weekends. Started with a whole crew from WoW days most of which quit 1-2 months after live for various reasons. Small crew left (less than 5) of local friends. We are on Kaineng in a private guild that has mostly played WvW especially during the recent season system introduction but we also have played our share of PvE. We are potentially are looking to move servers/guilds. I'm interested to here what the Northern Shiverpeaks WvW experience is like as well as the general state of GWJ in GW2. Here are some contextual details:

- We play 9-12 EST Sun/Mon/Wed with little weekend regularity. Some of us also play Tues/Thurs

- Kaineng is bronze tier and tied for third from the bottom. The server success status doesn't bother us so much as the wildly imbalanced representation in WvW. There are (many) weeks where we are significantly outmanned in all maps. It is not uncommon to login and find no commanders on any maps. We are somewhat split between enjoying 3-4 man roaming looking for small engagements and zerging. I particularly struggle on nights when heading out looking for small encounters yields nothing but running into much larger groups. Does NSP have a server teamspeak and is it well attended? Does the GWJ crowd WvW regularly?

- For PvE we almost exclusively guest to Tarnished Coast for world bosses. Kaineng is all but dead in these respects. PvE is obviously less important in server choice because of the guesting system. Still curious if you gals/guys guest regularly on NSP for the same reasons or if you find the server fits your needs in this regard.

- Our guild is a very small operation between five people of which two regularly don't play. Most nights we either ....
- Join the zerg in WvW if one is active
- Look for small WvW fights with a normal group size of three. We did this a lot during season one farming yaks & sentries
- FoTM/CoF/AC pugging two group members. Usually is fine but it would be great to have like-minded regular 4th and 5th group members
- World bosses/champ farm. Again we guest to TC most of the time

So given that dump... what is NSP like? We are all fans of the podcast and fully qualify as gamers with jobs. I see Elycion posting in this forum who in particular helped me out on a bender of Dark Souls that might have been the best gaming experience I've had in the past few years. From a server transfer standpoint I've been pushing TC as a target server simply because it is the unofficial role play server (not to role play but this seems to give TC some extra stability in the crazy world of mass server transfers). However I'm concerned, mostly from a WvW standpoint, that gold league isn't for us. Very interested to hear what you all think

HI Mesa...

So first to cover the essential, the GWJ guild itself is in transition as you might be able to see from the posts above. We are still a good number of active GWJers on GW2, and many of us are on NSP. However, to be able to reliably log on and play with other like-minded players in an active guild some of us have elected to migrate to the Zealots of Shiverpeak [ZoS] guild. I made the move a week ago myself and yo be perfectly honest I wish I had done it sooner. ZoS is a solid well attended guild with nightly dungeons and WvW groups etc. All of these groups are usually well attended on TS. If you come to NSP I highly suggest you join us there.

Regarding the state of WvW on NSP... it's really difficult to say. We got the raw end of teh deal in the season. The servers around our skill/population tanked hard and bumped us up to the last spot in silver league. So it's been 7 weeks of unwinnable mathcups and outnumbered buffs. Once that is over I believe the style of WvW you like will be available, NSP has excellent roamers (some of the best according to our opponents, but maybe they're just being nice). We do not have constant zerg fests and to be honest that probably did us a disservice for our time in silver league. That being said population imbalances are an endemic problem to WvW and like Kaineng, if we get matched with a server too many ranks above us we have no shot.

NSP does have a server wide TS now but I have no idea how well attended it is now.

Of regular PvE content NSP is usually good with nightly temple + karka queen runs. WE did really struggle with the new Teq... but so did a bunch of other servers.

Tyops wrote:

NSP does have a server wide TS now but I have no idea how well attended it is now.

It's fairly well attended but sadly it's dominated by the Os commanders(most of which are immature, overbearing jerks) and their groupies.

GrandmaFunk wrote:
Tyops wrote:

NSP does have a server wide TS now but I have no idea how well attended it is now.

It's fairly well attended but sadly it's dominated by the Os commanders(most of which are immature, overbearing jerks) and their groupies.

Yeah my understanding is that on reset night ZoS and OS make an effort to coordinate, but the ZoS uses its own very well attended TS server.

So, Im new both to these forums and to this game, having just picked it up after getting pretty burned out on WoW. Having never played the original GW, what kind of learning curve am I looking at?

American Geeksta wrote:

So, Im new both to these forums and to this game, having just picked it up after getting pretty burned out on WoW. Having never played the original GW, what kind of learning curve am I looking at?

GW 1 and 2 are both entirely different games. I personally didn't think the leveling curve was that bad in GW 2, but the main thing to keep in mind is outside of your personal story, there really aren't "quests" per se. When you go into a zone, you'll see NPCs at hubs or "hearts" that tell you to go do certain things (kill this much stuff, chop wood, etc). Do all the necessary tasks and you'll get a good chunk of XP. But a lot of your experience will come from random events that pop up on the mini map.

Also, GW 2's combat is a lot more fluid than WOW, where you need to dodge attacks. It's been awhile since I played but I'm sure some of the vets on here can give you more advice. You've also started right before Wintersday, which is a fun in-game holiday.

Just like WoW, the basics were easy to learn but the subtleties take a bit more time. The game, overall is really accessible.

I only log in occasionally to PvP at this point. I ignore all of the temporary content and just use the game for siege warfare with some Spvp. Is ZoS willing to take Hardcore Casual gamers?

GoldenDog wrote:

I only log in occasionally to PvP at this point. I ignore all of the temporary content and just use the game for siege warfare with some Spvp. Is ZoS willing to take Hardcore Casual gamers?

Based on what I've seen yes, but I haven't been there long. Besides, who's to say you won't play more when there are more people to play with.

Tenebrous wrote:

Just like WoW, the basics were easy to learn but the subtleties take a bit more time. The game, overall is really accessible.

That was one of the first things I noticed, too. I didn't feel like I was in over my head; it guided me along and I picked up the basics pretty quickly. As JD said, the combat is more active and fluid, and requires your attention to stay alive, but never really feels overly complicated. Engaging, and intuitive.

Man, I should jump back in sometime.

so.. how about those "balance" changes, eh?

it's kind of ironic, I finally got my necro to rank100 last night.. and today it's not even viable for pvp anymore.

hurray for passive hard counters to entire builds. /s

What was your build? I read the changes but I've only played Necro a short time and with 30/30/0/10/0 so I don't feel I can really assess the impact.

I logged in for 10 minutes to do the final instance for the Tower of Nightmares, didn't think it was very good and logged out again. I think I might be done for the moment if it's living story only for the next 4 patches.

wvw: 30/30/0/0/10 hybrid, spvp: 10/20/10/0/30 fear-o-mancer, which are both better off than all-in conditionmancers... but so far the results are the same.. we have zero options against the Diamond Skin bunker Eles.. they just auto-win through passive abilities.

it's mostly frustrating because it's a change that runs against a lot of design principles they've been adamant about. (no hard counters, less passive abilities, no rock/paper/scissor class war)

Infyrnos wrote:

I would much prefer a model where when have that urge to be playing again, I have a wealth of content to go through, instead, when I get that urge, and check what has happened in game, I see so much stuff I missed, and the urge goes away.

That is exactly my thoughts, too.
Having the content disappear when you're only half-way through the story, and having achievements that are forever only partially completed and impossible to work on really killed my enthusiasm. Knowing that I would be unable to finish the updates before they went away meant I didn't even want to start on them.
All it'd take to get me back is to have the previous Living Story content (or at least future additions to it) be handled the same way Guild Wars Beyond was handled. One-time-only quests for the story parts, and repeatable quests that put you in an appropriately themed version of the maps so you could work on the more general achievements (item collection, enemy kills, item interaction, etc.).