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question about the halloween quests

i was wonding who it was that had the idea to make the fouth quest repatable, and make it so you can turn the reword on on another charr, becuase who every it was, i wouild like to thank them from the bottom of my heart, my survior charr made r2 and is only 330k of xp away from maxing. so plese tell me who so I can thank them in a propper way, becuase they have save me sooooooooo much time fariming at xmas to max the tital.--Thedreadlordpie 19:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. I made it from right at r2 to Legendary in just 3 hours (and that was with a lot of afk/TV watching). So thanks. It was nice to finally get that title done. Karate Jesus 20:20, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

+1, and judging by the number of "LFG skele farming 30++" in ToA, I'd say approximately plus 10,000 more. -- FreedomBound 21:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this was (is) a real boost for pugging, and our alliance/guild even had skele farms going all the time, it was great and I had a lot of fun, thanks. Cracko 21:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

yes but it still begs the question who idea this was, wouild like to know.--Thedreadlordpie 22:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Since Linsey made the quests, I would assume it was her. Karate Jesus 14:00, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Apart from that it undermined the survivor title even more. (not that one can even say survivor had much left to it with kilroy and all) -- Salome 22:27, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Linsey created those quests, so it was her decision to make it repeatable. --Regina Buenaobra 02:01, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong I actually enjoyed the quests and the repeatable thing was a grand thing indeed. However just not sure the skeletons should have been tradeable via storage. -- Salome 11:32, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Kinda too late now, but you should keep this in mind in the future events. - J.P.Talk 11:36, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

skeletons of dhuum gone

So skeletons get implented to stop/slow shadowform abuse,they kind of work then they get removed. Should i transelate that in "Yes we know how to stop farming, but we rather not cause we like farming." becouse i thougt guildwars wasent suposed to be about farming. or does anyone have another explenation that i missed?(also does this mean that shadowform wont be touched in the future?)84.196.205.90 12:18, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

It might just have been a coincidence,Who knows if anet actually realises they nerfed UWSC to some degree Lilondra 12:45, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

lol wat, ofcourse they realise that.Cracko 13:50, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I would doubt that they did in fact realize it. Otherwise the skeles would have been in move strategically placed areas. Karate Jesus 14:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

oh come on, anet is not stupid. Cracko 14:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to know were these removed on purpose or due an error. Keeping them would be good to stop or even slow UWSC. - J.P.Talk 14:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I never said "stupid" cracko, but just keep in mind....these things happen often. Karate Jesus 14:25, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

...Too often :P - J.P.Talk 14:27, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Thing is, they have already nerfed uwsc in a way that its no longer a speed clear, by changing the terrorweb dryders, changing mob spawns and doing all kinds of things to make it as hard as possible. This was smart and its a little complicated to think of. now if you say that they might have not noticed that it completely kills uwsc, that just doesn't make any sense, else they would have made his skills Spells, etc. It is superobvious that they thought about this. and BTW: Too often? show me one instance where they nerfed something and didn't notice, and then i'll agree with you.Cracko 14:33, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Mantra of Resolve is the most recent one I can think of. They accidentally nerfed 600's and Raptor Farming and reverted it as soon as they got back to work. Karate Jesus 14:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, that's true. Cracko 14:50, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

And that same thing happens pretty often with PvP especially. Karate Jesus 14:53, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to miss those little bastards! /wipes tears They impacted nothing on my farming for ectos, in fact, they worked in my favour, 40 more ecto-dropping enemies /blows nose And boy did that drop ectos >:) Now, it's all back to the Speedclears and wondering when Arenanet's going to actually do something to promote group play, looks like we'll have to wait to the festival events to do that. NO SKELETONS, COME BACK, and bring your ectos, cos they were nice >:) ~~000.00.00.00~~ 20:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

You mean like when they buffed BA, then nerfed RtW, Hunter's Shot, and Flail because rangers did too much damage? is for Raine, etc. 20:22, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

(R.I) Ah,When we stop playing this game and move on to the next game open for ruining (read:gw2) we will all be able to laugh about this.Fail IS the best form of humor :) Lilondra 20:34, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's likely that Skeletons of Dhuum are intended to hamper SF (simply because of the clause in their skills "penetrates all defenses"), the Live team chose to add them in a lore-based manner, and now that the event is over they are reviewing data regarding UW farming and deciding whether or not to re-insert the Skeletons permanently. elix Omni 21:04, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

^ Reasonable assumption right there. /crosses fingers that they come back... I want your ectos >:) ~~000.00.00.00~~ 21:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Y'all needa stop windmill tilting. Some things they do are Concept/RPG. When Bob actually changes critters' skill bars around, it'll no doubt be unmistakable who and what classes they're aimed at. ...kinda like the Henchmen bars, the dude has the subtlety of a rhino whether he realizes it or not --ilr 21:18, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

"windmill tilting" first time I've heard that before. I learn something new ^_^ ~~000.00.00.00~~ 21:34, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a reference to the classic Don Quixote. elix Omni 22:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Something tells me that the removal of skelies was a mistake, because many mob changes I've seen have been reverted as well (such as a few random pop ups), and I recall Linsey telling me in-game that those small daily changes were meant to hinder UWSC. So I doubt they were meant to disappear - skelies and the pop ups I've seen. Although I haven't gone through all of the UW, it seems that all enemy changes were reverted, while ally changes (unable to use ghosts to block Aatxes for instance) are there still. -- Konig/talk 22:29, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Just talked with Linsey in game, she said that the removal of the added mobs was not intentional and they are working on fixing this. -- Konig/talk 00:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

And now they have returned. WOOT! Ectos here I come >:) ~~000.00.00.00~~ 00:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The Mad King's Steward, you may have noticed, also disappeared. This disappearance was related to the skeleton issue, but the Steward won't return till tomorrow. --Regina Buenaobra 02:03, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Awesome. Anet, you and your weird styles of approaching things <3. Cracko 02:06, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Anet fixed UWSC and solo farms for the most part, although I still see people forming UWSC groups so I dont know if it is still possible. But 600hp Isnt slowed down or nerfed at all in the UW. Is there a fix coming for 600hp in the future since it doesnt make sense that other farm abilities are nerfed(slowed down if uwsc is still possible) and 600hp isnt slowed down at all. Even better with the skeletons in UW which seem to have a high ecto droprate they can even farm more ectos in the same time. Death Sligher62.133.217.132 11:48, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

the issue was speed-clearing and not farming. since this 600hp thing can't clear big parts of the underworld it's at least most likely to be not looked at for a while. 128.176.178.20 11:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The Skeletons of Dhuum were part and parcel of the Halloween quests. It seemed perfectly logical to me that they be removed when the quests were. Perhaps they were anti-SF to prevent SF farming of the repeatable quest, Every Bit Helps.

The Waiting Game

This is going to be one hell of a bitch.

This has to be one of the most prime examples of how Arenanet's lack of communication causes un-necessary issues. There are people who aren't aware that the preparation time means days time, people are sitting around waiting for the quest to update, there are trolls and idiots compending an already confusing situation for a lot of players. Just go into some of the ToA districts and you actually see it happening: the confusion, the lack of information, the baiters and trollers making it worse. Would it be so hard, so truly difficult for one of you at Arenanet to just include an official message in the actual quest information... you know, directly in game where everyone with the quest can get it... saying something like "The preparations need some time, we are not talking about hours but days, so you don't need to be awake the whole night. ;)" ".... Or is that not a worthwhile thing... you know... combatting the confusion generated by this situation? Honestly, these things aren't hard, why are you guys struggling with common sense? ~~000.00.00.00~~ 01:01, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Some times I'm amazed people can actually feed themselves. We need restaurants to have signs over each table saying, "please move the spoon into your mouth". Erasculio 01:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am also amazed that casual gamers are unable to check the wiki for every single update and then, when realizing that there is not enough information on the update page, search the RC for Regina's Journal post about this. OR that they simply can't go to a forum and hunt through threads named similarly to "Last (?) Halloween Quest" and realize that that's obviously the information they need. Because apparently, having a life and being a casual gamer makes you the equivalent of an unsupported brainstem hanging out of a deformed monkey's ass.

On a side note, Eras, realize that some people would like the information to simply be on their log-in screen LIKE EVERY OTHER FUCKING GAME. Karate Jesus 02:41, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

We sure did get our great suprise for this halloween :/ - J.P.Talk 03:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

You forgot twitter, and the fact the the official wiki and ingame are the two places the information reaches last (if even at all), go figure. I lost count on how many times Anet employees post on twitter, guru and god knows where else, while their journals and other places on this wiki where it's supposed to go, remain silent. - Kherec 07:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's news to me that WoW has a time table on its login screen letting people know the hour each quest is going to happen; I wonder how that looks like on Aion's screen, too.

You forgot one option, KJ: not assume, by themselves and thanks to their own fault, that the quest would happen in the next few hours and thus not waste their time waiting on the Temple of Ages. Arena Net has not given any sign of that being required in order to do the quest; it's the players' own mistake assuming, regardless of the lack of evidence, that they need to do so.

Meanwhile, instead of using their resources to add in-game a notice to clear a misconception 100% originated from players, maybe it would be smarter for ArenaNet, you know, to use said resources to improve the quest so many people are waiting for? Like they are doing right now? Erasculio 09:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Erasculio wins this round, KJ. Even WoW doesn't have login announcements to tell people the timing of festival quests, you're supposed to like... read the quest log and stuff. IMO they could have added a bit more dialog to the voice of grenth to make sure people aren't sitting there waiting for hours, but they really don't have to do that much external communication for a halloween quest. -Auron 10:28, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yea, I didn't exactly make what I was saying clear. I didn't think they should announce the timeline for the festival quest on the log-in page. That was a carrying over conversation. I think that should have been put in the original update page rather than the playful crap we got that gave no info. The log-in page would be more of a place where you let people know that the quest exists and then link it to the wiki....which should have said the "days, not hours" thing in the first place. But, at least it was funny watching everyone in ToA freak out. Karate Jesus 15:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

i think the quest is gonna start on monday though InfestedHydralisk 15:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

If they finish it by Monday, that is. :D Karate Jesus 15:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah BlazeRick 16:26, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What the hell is the OP even babbling about?-- anguard 16:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

So it seems to me that a few people dislike being kept in suspense and would like the designers to be explicit about the timing. I'll certainly deliver your feedback to Linsey. From what I understand, she wanted this to be a fun, suspenseful interlude (and a few people have certainly taken up the spirit of the quest, because there is some good speculation going on in various communities) before the fireworks begin, but sounds like people would rather have details on timing. --Regina Buenaobra 19:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Reggie, I could be wrong, but I dont think anyone here meant that. I think they meant that it would be polite of you to make the whole game aware that the wait will be more than a few hours. That way the suspense can be fun without making people angry and frustrated. 66.90.104.129

The only way that we could make "the whole game" aware of the specifics of the wait-time is to change the quest text itself. The login screen suggestion is probably not something that would be approved because the login screen isn't traditionally used for this. Having both community managers go into a district and sit there for hours repeating the same information doesn't achieve the goal, because it only gives the info to English or German speaking players who happen to be in that district and that particular point in time. I agree that this issue appears to be a pain point for a few players. --Regina Buenaobra 20:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Again I could be wrong, as i seem to be one of the few who enjoys the suspense of this quest, but I think people would have been happy with the quest text being a wee bit more explicit, in that it might have mentioned being summoned to fight dhuum in a matter of days. That way making it clear to players who don't seem to like the wait. Just playing devils advocate here, as i said before, I quite like the suspense. -- Salome 20:24, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem with that being how, in a matter of days, the quest text would still be saying the event would only happen in a few days regardless of how it would happen in a few hours. Either Arena Net would have to change the quest text (for the third time), or they would have to remove the NPC significantly before the event arrives (which means less people would be able to participate). Erasculio 22:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Well, technically they could code the number in the text dialog to be a countdown, if the code side of the game allows for such things. I don't mind the waiting at all, as long as you have more than a few days to complete the next part of the quest. If the next part was only available for, say, only a day and I happened to log in to check on it 30 minutes before it starts and then not log in for another two days, then I'd see something to complain about. --★KOKUOU★ 22:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) A question on the quest: I understand that we will only be able to obtain the quest for a short period of time. Will the quest be available (or whatever we're waiting for) for only a short period of time also? Thanks!Underated 22:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Given the 'unique' nature of the quest, it literally being the only quest I've ever seen executing a real life wait time in such a manner (still question why, are you still making the quest up?), I would have thought a clearer defination of it would have been delivered (especially with it being considered a festival quest, yet the festival is over etc and so on). But, this appears to be done as a device to deliever suspense (?).

Regardless, I still question why putting the notification outside of the game was seen as more productive than actually putting it on the quest. I mean, you made the defination for people to see, because people wanted to know, why not just put it in the text for the quest itself? ~~000.00.00.00~~ 23:26, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

As I said before put a countdown for such events on the website,ingame or whatever just a clock. The Waiting Game starts over: .... minutes orso. Death Sligher 00:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Timer would only work if they themselves knew when it was going to start. For all we know the quest isn't actually completed yet, thus the uniqueness of this quest. We just don't know. It's safe to say nothings going to change, regardless. Just live for the suspense. ~~000.00.00.00~~ 00:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Very ironically, this - exactly this - shows how all the whinning about more communication was completely empty. We got a lot of "Baaaaaw, Arena Net should let people know when stuff is coming in-game!" from a very vocal minority, and we got exactly that - a quest to let people know about something incoming. The result? As expected, exactly the same vocal minority is making exactly the same complains about how there has to be more communication, how it's not enough, and etc.

Arena Net should have learned by now that most of those demanding "more" of something will never be satisfied, as this example perfectly shows. Instead of wasting their resources writing, localizing and coding the placeholder of a quest that we have today, Arena Net should have simply stayed in silence and implemented the full quest once it had been finished. Would people have complained? Yes, exactly the same users who are complaining now. However, players wouldn't have wasted their time, Arena Net wouldn't have wasted Linsey's and Joe's time, and Regina wouldn't have to waste her time talking about this here and on the GW forums. Silence often is golden, while talking often (just look above) is trash. Erasculio 01:38, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

wUT? ...granted your post is already pretty long, but you're gonna need to elaborate on how exactly you made that logic jump from point Alpha to "they're all Malcontents" Gamma. Us "whiners" who you don't have the stones to name individually for NPA reasons, wanted DETAILS. We were already getting "communication" in the form of generalities and time-frame promises 99.9% devoid of substance. The part where communication needed to be beefed up was on DETAILS and in this case, Null-IP has a point. I don't condone his word-choices, but this quest & info gave us absolutely nothing in the way of details. I don't think even You could come up with a more cryptic leap of faith E.T.A. in-text-form even though your own post here certainly shows I'd be a fool to doubt you...
--ilr 02:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Funny how I don't even have to name people for someone to identify himself with the designation of "whiner". Spare me the excuses - "more" communication, "more" details, it all boils down to wanting a vague "more" that, as being exemplified here, won't ever be enough. Arena Net should learn that not all players are going to be pleased, no matter what they do, and that acting is more important than talking. Erasculio 03:02, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

What the hell are you even going on about, Eras, this has nothing to do with "more" information, I don't know where you're getting that from. At it's core, this still boils down to why Arenanet make a quest that requires a 'couple of real world days' for it to update ( a first for Guild Wars ) yet put that important piece of information outside of the game rather than in the game where, if you think about it, it would have been far more effective. There's building mystery, suspense and all that jazz but no sense of mystery or suspense would have been shattered by putting the information they put everywhere else in the quest log itself. ~~000.00.00.00~~ 06:34, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Heh, "this has nothing to do with "more" information" goes in direct contradiction to "yet put that important piece of information outside of the game". That's the cause of this problem - after the epic rants we got about how Arena Net should add information about incoming news in the game, they decided to do exactly that, and surprise, it doesn't work.

Let me spell it to you slowly: Arena Net could not say in-game that the quest would take a "couple of real world days" because after a "couple real world days" the quest would still say the same thing. It's perfectly viable to say it outside the game since on the wiki and on the GW forums people know exactly when Arena Net said it, so it's easy to guess when the quest will happen.

Again, the epic rants on demanding more information, especially in-game information, are completely pointless. The game has not been made with that kind of design in mind, and changing the game in order to make it viable would not only be extremely irrelevant (improving the game is more important than wasting resources talking about how to improve the game) but also a waste of the few resources Arena Net has (improving the game is more important than wasting resources talking about how to improve the game).

What's the lesson here? If Arena Net does not give information in game, a very vocal and very small minority will complain. If they do give information in game, a very vocal and very small minority will complain plus Arena Net will have wasted resources they could have used into something more important. It is rather obvious what Arena Net should do. Erasculio 11:30, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Eras, I'm sorry but I think you are over simplifying. Yes I agree no matter what anet do their will be peeps who bitch and moan about it, however their is a sizeable chunk of people who do not fall into the "lets bitch and moan about everything" camp who would appreciate a modicum of extra information. I'm one of those people and I know their are many others.

To be blunt, I think the quest dialogue was fine and I don't understand why people are complaining about it, as a bit of patience goes a long way and I do agree with you that people complaining about this, do seem a tad on the moan'y side. When the Reaper told me to go away and come back later, I just assumed it was days and not hours.

I think the quest dialogue could have contained a cryptic reference to when it will continue by making use of the many fixed point events that fall in this time period, for example Thanksgiving or Guy Fawkes night, that way the quest would always have been accurate with no need to change over time. (for example it could have said that they plan on staging there attack against dhuum 3 days after the night of Fawkes or 2 days before the feast of thanks and so on and so forth...)

However all of this is quite by the by, simply put Eras, you continue to lump everyone who wants more information into a minority of discontents which simply is neither informed, accurate or fair and is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. True this quest is something stupid to moan about but most of the people I know in game are informed and understanding adults (the joys of being in an adult guild), who enjoy being treated as such and they appreciate being met half way by anet in communication. However in regards to more important aspects of the game, they do not appreciate being ran round the houses with vague comments and then being told later that it was them who misinterpreted anet, not anet which dropped the ball. (see the current issue arising with the lack of a published skill update after it was expressly stated that doing so would be part of the move to the bi-monthly skill cycle). So yeh Eras I agree, bitching and moaning about a festival quest is just that, bitching and moaning, however having a valid complaint about crap communication in regards to actual things (skill updates and game content) should not just be lumbered in with that. -- Salome 12:02, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

"Arena Net could not say in-game that the quest would take ... the quest would still say the same thing." Of course the dialogue would say the same thing, why is that an issue for you? It's literally text in a quest stage, dude, you're waaaaaaay too over-thinking what would actually be required for all this. Guild Wars can update mutiple quest stages at once, Eras, it also crosses out text because requirements have been met and brings up new text where avaliable. All quests dialogue stays the same, however in situations where requirements are met the game updates it to be necessary stage, in this case it would just cross out the time reference stage and go to the next one, leaving the reference in the history, just like every other quest in the game. For people taking the quest after the preparation time, if it's still avaliable, it would just update twice once you talk to the Voice the first time. "It's perfectly viable"

And, I'm sorry if this seems moany, but I spent a large portion of my day in game, when this quest first came out, directing people to Regina's journal page so they could see that it was going to be a few days before it updates because people didn't, like Salome and others, immediately assume it meant it was days away, and the common thing I heard was why they didn't put that in the quest instead of just leaving it open and putting it out of the game. So that's part of the reason I posted this in the first place. Suspense, fun, treats all that good stuff is all well and good, but they can be handled better, especially seeing as how people don't necessarily see it how Arenanet may want it to be seen. ~~000.00.00.00~~ 12:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Salome, I'm not saying every complain about communication is invalid. I'm saying the very long rants we got about how Arena Net should add more information about future events in-game are invalid, since that's outside what the game can currently do, as is being exemplified. Plus, every demand for "more" - as in, a vague definition of "more" that isn't detailed - has to be taken with a grain of salt, given how the amount of said "more" needed is controversial at best. A good example of this is the storage problem - plenty of people kept asking for "more" storage, but without specifying how much storage they wanted, anything Arena Net did could still be seen as not enough.

000, the quest text doesn't change in the way you're claiming it does. There is no quest in which the NPC who gives the text has a different quest description based on the time; in other words, if a character who went today to the Steward to get the quest for the first time saw a notice about how he would have to wait a few days, a character who went to see the Steward in a few days would still see the same notice since the NPC dialogue doesn't change. What the game crosses out are the objectives once the quest has been added to the quest log, not the quest description. You could ask Arena Net to implement such thing as a new feature, and then we go back to wasting resources that they could be using to improve the fight against Dhuum, not the quest about telling people to wait for the battle against Dhuum.

I do agree with you this could have been handled better - Arena Net shouldn't have made this quest at all. They should have simply stayed in silence until the real quest were done, and then implemented it without wasting time with this "Waiting Game" thing. Which is the exact opposite of what some rants were telling them to do. Erasculio 12:46, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with most of your post, but I vehemently disagree with your assumption that they cannot add more information in-game. If anything is important enough to warrant a journal post or guru thread, it should be mentioned in the login notes (mentioned, not talked about in great detail). If people are interested in getting the full scoop, they can follow the link on the login announcement screen that goes to the Journal post.

For this quest in particular, there was another option for in-game information - the quest dialog. The NPC says "come back later," but it could have easily been written to say "we will be awhile in preparing for this glorious battle, don't hang around this outpost waiting all day," and that would have given people the right idea without telling them a specific number (or even saying "days"). People bitch about everything, but there are little things ANet could do that would go a long way to alleviate the confusion these things cause. I'm not talking about spending 500 man hours making some new in-game announcement system, I'm just talking about tweaking what they're already putting into the game to be a little more informative. This doesn't have to be a huge ass effort - they're good enough at wasting their time on their own. I just suggest things that have the best payoff for the least amount of work. Y'know, the opposite of what happened with the hench bar contest? :/ -Auron 13:12, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

@Salome: Just wanted to say thank you for the thoughtful write up. I don't think this event qualifies as must-have Details either. I simply took issue with Era ...well, acting like Erasculio as usual I guess. There's just no need to be so divisive over this. At some point he needs to recognize (or atleast pick his battles better) that assurances of more details were made by the live team and that so far; many people aren't nearly as convinced as he is that Anet has lived up to them yet. And always labeling those people "whiners" only makes the situation worse in the long-run for the very people his actions are most sycophantic towards. But I guarantee that we will turn around and show much gratitude to Anet the instant they reverse this course. --ilr 02:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I like the quest and the suspense. Granted, I won't be one of the (stupid) people sitting in ToA/ZKC/CoS waiting for the next step. King Neoterikos 02:57, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Regina, When the Dhuum battle goes live will there be an annoucement on the guild wars website much like the mox quests? Dero Ahmonati 15:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Skill Balance for November 2009

I know you've all been pretty busy working on multiple projects lately but I was just wondering when we'd hear about the upcoming skills balance. It was posted that we're see portions of the updates changes a month in advance. October was quite busy with the Halloween updates so I was just wondering will we see the updates ahead of time this month or will be just get the update in the next few weeks (or next month) without warning. Usually y'all have the updates out within the first 1-2 weeks of a month but that time has come and past. Since skill updates have become bimonthly, it seems likes it's been forever since the last. Thanks in advance, Magic Talk 22:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought the skill balance updates were every 2 months now? --Robot 00:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

it is but we are supposed to have a suggested skill update and we should have had it about 2 weeks ago as that was the whole point of going to a 2 monthly cycle rather than 1 monthly cycle. -- Salome 00:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Wait until January. They're enjoying the new Bspike/Sway meta too much. (and if you're thinking, "Wait, didn't they nerf those." No...they didn't. They only thought they did....) Karate Jesus 00:57, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

@Robot: Last update was in September. Magic Talk 01:52, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I was actually thinking that for Sway, I knew bspike was back in its latest mesmer related form but didn't think sway was, then again sway is always back, just shows I've been obsing too much gvg and not enough halls lately. Tidas 02:01, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why you'd want to obs tbh most of the time its the shame !!!! playing with the same !!! build against the same semi-active !!!! guild.Most of the time I just use it to talk to some friends lol :p Lilondra 19:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Not saying anything about the skill update won't make players feel connected with you arenanet! --Boro 13:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally I liked the new builds, even if they screwed some things up sometimes. But then again.. if they don't try, how do they know things won't get better. There have been some skills they've changed in the past and made them much better then what they were. I wish it was still monthly. Constantly creating and updating my builds was fun imo. Magic Talk 17:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The design work on this continues to progress. There are a couple other projects that Live Team are working on that are planned for a future update (which I am not permitted to talk about yet), and juggling those different projects impacts time spent on a skill balance. I want to reassure you that progress is being made on this, however (for what it's worth). --Regina Buenaobra 20:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Can we still expect to hear a preview of the changes a month ahead of time, or are you guys waiting for the Test Krewe for that? Karate Jesus 21:06, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Regina. Magic Talk 01:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

New Halls map and GvG tier. BlazeRick 20:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Guild Wars losing players, poor chices, and all when the end is near.

Ok, I'm not sure if Im in the right place or not, but I have been waiting for linsey to log on so I can talk to her for a while now. I am not sure why the recent changes to the game have been happening, but I and many others are really are not happy. I fail to understand when many people are going back to wow or moving on to aion and other games, why anet/gw would make changes to the game that only cause more people to leave. I love gw, and have played for a long time, at this point Im having trouble staying loyal to the game and thinking that gw2 will not be a game I buy. It has alway been a complaint and a frustration for many that it is hard to make money and get things done in game due to the time and ability, i.e. zrank 20,000 keys. I have seen about 15 friend leave the game in the last month, not counting the people that I enjoyed playing with over the years leave cause they just get frustrated. With gw2 coming out soon and people trying hard to get there titles done, buy armor, get weapons, and other things. why would anet/gw make game play harder and much more costly. Most people have a hard time getting enough ectos at 4 to 5k, now ectos are costing even more. It's difficult to get one character elite armor from fow for the majority of the players, now you are making it harder, more costly, and to time consuming. Why would people want to play a game in which it is to hard to build there characters up and get the things offered in the game. One goal I had early on in the game was to get my sweet title, not knowing what I was getting into I spent a lot of time farming for sweets during the holidays. It took years and hours and hours of farming, and I still had to end up buying some of the sweets in game. If a title or something is offered, why is it unreasonable to spend time getting on days offering drops to be able to reach your gaol. Why play a game that makes it next to impossible to accomplish the things offered in the game for just one character, let alone if you want to build up many charaters. Anyone can create a character that can farm, making the game fair to almost all players, so why would you take away farm runs, or easier ways to get stuff or accomplish things in the game. Many people are just throwing up there hands and quiting the game cause the costs are being driven through the roof or it's being made harder to do it by playing the game. This is a game that is suppose to be fun, people like to build up the different characters they have, they like having certain weapons, mini's, and title. What is the time and cost of getting elite armor from fow, what if you have two or three character you like and want elite armor for, what if you want those charaters to have titles, what if you want this charater to have this weapon or that? Don't you think that 500 ectos for one weapon is a lot to ask or going to force people that want them to turn to buying gold and ectos from online companyies? Keg farming was taking away, which cause less characters to being able to farm, not finding ways to make more characters able to farm. So, should I, who wants to work on my ranger, sin, derv, and necro have to move to building up an ele, tracking down all the skill, spending more gold on armor and weapons this late in the game so I can keep working on sweets, wisdom, and tresure hunter titles? Why should I or anyone play a game that is next to impossible to do or accomplish the things offered in the game? I love gw, but I am at the point of giving up on the game, and Im tried of making friends with people in the game only to watch them get frustrated and quit. These seem like poor choices anet and all of you are making when the game is nearing its evalution to gw2. I thought that at the 4 year changes you were starting to see that for most of the people that play with the time they have, that the game was more then a bit unfair. I'm certainly glad I didn't buy any extra character slots at this point, for why should I when I can't even get the things done with the characters I have. I'm not shocked that people have stopped playing and moved on to other things. Why are the cost being driven up, skills being change, not just fixing bugs, this late in the game. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Wild Ranger Drizzit (talk).

One of our GW2 designers, who isn't sure how or where you got his email, actually forwarded me your message on Monday. Thanks very much for your detailed feedback, and we'll take that on board.

We appreciate that you took the time to send our designer a private message as well as post the same message on my wiki page to ensure we got it. In general, we would prefer that if you do send an email, it goes to community@arena.net, so we can route it to the correct people. The designer you contacted doesn't work on GW1. --Regina Buenaobra 20:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

FFS people, if you're gonna rant, atleast use a readable format Well that's terrific, this TL;DR crap gets a response but the questions about green remnants and next skill update's notes go unanswered... --ilr 20:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you heard of the other half of the game? It's called PvP. Try that for a change of pace. Also, prices of materials, runes, dyes, etc are all based on the player. They change due to supply and demand. Anet really doesn't have anything to do with those. King Neoterikos 22:11, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I could easily create an equally sized rant on how awful what I just read was, but it's late so instead I'll make it into bullet points.

• Use indents and paragraphs, please, it will make it easier for people to be able to disagree with you.
• If all titles were easy to get, you would reach a point where you had nothing to do.
• Noone is forcing you to get titles, of minipets or fow armour, I recently got my first set of fow armour after three and a half years of playing, after which I didn't start crying because I didn't already have fifteen sets and a stack of ambraces.
• Ectos used to be higher in price, they were pretty stable at eight thousand five hundred when I first got into that market, and guess what, people were still playing and getting their fow armour and the like, I've heard it used to be higher than that still.
• A great way to contact Linsey is to post this on someone else's page.
• All of the high end content such as minipets, armour and weapons are meant to be prestigious, and your 'I want it now' attitude will get you absolutely nowhere.

Feel free to leave the game, you won't be surely missed, Good Night. Tidas 00:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

That's true, I've never read someone in team chat or all chat or whatever chat making someone feel bad because they don't have fow armour, or any other item of prestige. I never realised that. --smøni 00:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't read any of that....mainly because it's too big, but lolhaveyouheard?bigguildsaredisbanding. I was kinda hoping the dying process would have taken longer :/ Karate Jesus 03:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

To get gw back into shape alot would need to be done.But they just don't have the resources so obv the game is dying Lilondra 05:32, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you know that on plan 9 you can mount an ftp server as a file system? Isn't that crazy? It works just like a hard drive! The only difference you or any of your programs will notice is the fetching speed.

On a related topic, thank you, MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS (and oft-stated, and oft-ignored). –Jette 05:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes many people (like me) have left Guild Wars. Its not because of any lack of "responsibility" from AreanaNet but rather the fact that no game can provide limitless hours of playing time. Most players have either quit, or just PvP. ArenaNet does not have to have a game content every year because there is no subscription model. Guild Wars is a pay once play forever type game so you cannot except the level of content found in a game like World of Warcraft or Aion because they have subscriptions.

Plus no one is forcing you to buy GW2, its your choice. They are currently working hard on it, and like Final Fantasy 13 it will get here when it gets here. So until then play another game, get your titles up, PvP or do whatever you want -- except blame ArenaNet which has almost nothing to do with it. --Dominator Matrix 08:59, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

this game is geared towards the young and jobless markets...we...people that work DO WORK WEEK ENDS do NOT benefit from the "special weekends" why not have it the ENTIRE WEEK? As for as elite speed clears....i dont really care either way what happens there i dont really do them when you finally do learn it NERF! oh well move to farming i say or accomplish your titles. Anet has stated that there will be no mmore new content unless deemed fit. true there are alot of story lines that could use a better ending or made more elaborate. but since Anet has pulled 100% OF THERE TEAMS TO gw2 unless UNLESS something really strikes their fancy then they might spend the 50 days and nights putting in something new. i do wish they would add alot more to the orignal GW because GW2 will not use a mouse just the keyboard. im not hip to that so when i accomplish all that i can in the original i most likey wont get GW2 unless they put the mouse back in. i really love GW and to be honest its the only MMO i ver played and been playing well over 4.5 years. i know they kinda screwed up on the game engines or they used what was available at the time of release and it cant be carried over or patched to GW2 that im sorry for. i wish it could be. i dont want to leave the game, but when i have had over 60 people i played with on a daily/weekly basis leave just this year alone i get a lil sad. i dont like WOW and i dont make enough to pay for a monthly subscription for aion. i have to work nearly 6 days a week full time and a second parttime job just to feed a family of 3, im not alone in this take a poll. for the working people we get left out of just about all the "good stuff" cause its offered on weekends only.....AGAIN why not make that the entire week, so many of us can participate. there more i like to say but i just got home from work and have to get 4 hours of sleep b4 going to the next job. maybe i can type more then..... --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Talo Highpriest (talk).

When I read this...I can't delay to answer...I've been playing Guild Wars for 3 years and I must say that it's the game that'll last forever inside me. I never really got bored of it. I needed a few refreshments so I bought WoW and Aion to check them out. I've stayed on WoW for 3 months,stayed on Aion for a month and you know why? Some people cannot afford to pay for a game every month,even though they want to play it. And that's why GW lasts forever for me,because even if I leave it for a month or two,I always come back to it.GW compared to other MMO's has a lot of qualities. First of all it's simple,then we have extremely smooth movement,smooth moves,smooth combat,beautiful graphics,music,sounds.I was really disappointed with Aion,I expected a lot more.

It's your choice if you don't want to play GW...and stop complaining. ANet really done a great service with putting no fees to both GW and GW2. 93.86.31.184 10:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

"Anet has pulled 100% OF THERE TEAMS TO gw2" When you include blatant falsehoods in your comments, it's hard to take any of it seriously. The Live Team is 100% dedicated to working on GW, and has little if anything to do with GW2. Not only that, but they added an additional full-time designer to the Live Team in August. As for adding new content, well, we have all sorts of new content, the new Codex Arena, the PvP henchmen, all the new Halloween quests that brought about permanent changes to the UW (which aren't even finished yet), Nicholas x2, all the Zaishen stuff in April... and there is still more to come. None of that would have happened if as you say, they have pulled 100% of their teams to GW2. It may not seem like "much" but considering the game is 4.5 years old, it's a lot more than you get from many other games that old. Also, your comments about what GW2 will or will not have are purely speculation at this point since none of those kinds of details have been released yet, unless of course you have a crystal ball. I have also had long time GW friends stop playing, but that just opens up room to meet new people, and believe me, there are new people joining the GW community every day. As for games being designed for the young and jobless, well, you will find that a lot of people that play games have jobs, and still find time to play, I'm sorry you have to work weekends, but Halloween is a week long event, and Wintersday is 2. The rest are geared to the majority of players. -- Wyn talk 12:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Basically in agreement with Wyn. If anything however the weekend events are geared for those who have jobs. (not having a job would render waiting for the weekend a pointless affair) In waiting for the weekend it allows most people who work mon-fri jobs (which is the great majority of people) the ability to utilise the weekend bonuses. If you don't like this, then the advice is to get a week day job rather than a weekend job. I myself do a job which requires a great deal of my time and I work well into the weekends most weeks, however I still get to enjoy the weekend event when I'm free and if it's something I REALLY want to do, then I plan in advance and make sure my schedule is free for the weekend. (also just as an aside, how does mouse movement work in a truly 3d environment? You can't swim underwater in a point and click manner) -- Salome 17:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Salome, isn't it obvious? Guild Wars 2 devs should be working on integrating gesture-based depth controls to allow for click-to-move. I mean, we certainly don't want them balancing skills, pre-planning events, or bothering with detail-rich content. ··· Danny Pew Pew 19:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Except, Wyn, as you pointed out, they only hired one new designer. Only one. If they were really serious about adding new content to GW1 and keeping it going for people as well as help Linsey and the rest of the Live Team have a bit more sane workload, they would have hired at least 3-4 new designers instead. Not that anyone in the playerbase who isn't a 4 year vet would even have had a chance at getting the job anyway. And maybe with more designers they might actually find it possible to respond to us in a timely manner and not leave us in the dark all the time. --Nathe 22:12, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Having more minions doesn't necessarily make anyone spend LESS time locked away in their Towers... --ilr 04:40, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Only one. That's a 100% increase from what they had, so I would call it significant. -- Wyn talk 13:42, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Except that they could have hired more, and had a 300%-400% increase instead. Why do you keep missing that? --Nathe 13:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Nathe, you seem to have this idea that, in a non-PPM video game, ANet would somehow manage to have enough money to hire more than one designer. Unfortunately, most people don't like to work full time for free, so they have to compensate their designers. Also, as confusing as it may be, people generally get paid what they're worth. Sure, ANet might've been able to hire 2-3 high school drop-outs to assist the team for the same price, but I'm gonna go ahead and assume those high school drop-outs probably couldn't collectively produce a decent, functional, non-plagiarized idea if you gave them an entire year to do so.

Though, I'm not sure why I bothered to write this. No one on this wiki seems to understand that Guild Wars is a product made by a business whose goal is to make money. ··· Danny Pew Pew 19:44, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's to bad that many couldn't come up with any really intelligent argument. There is no really any point responding to tidas's comments because it's unintelligent, illogical, and doesn't relate to the issue or point of which I was hinting at. If a person has played the game for four years, has put in the time and work, they should be able to obtain most of the things the game has to offer. It's not as simple as supply and demand setting the cost for certain items in the game. I wish it was, but it's not. There isn't really one thing you can tie the over all issue I was getting at, and regaurdless of players not caring if people leave or quit the game, Anet does or should. I never said that getting things done or obtaining certain titles shouldn't be a challenge, one reason we play the game is for that reason. But, there is a differance between challenging and impossible or unreasonable. There is no reason why people that play the game like me hours and hours a day or for someone that plays a couple hours a day, can't accomplish close to the same things if they have been playing the game for years and years. With the coming of gw2 and the game rapping up, anet shouldn't be making changes to the game that raise prices and make it harder for people make money. It was like with the four year changes, they created new ways to get points and items like sweets and party points. It was a good change, and I had thought that gw was finally seeing that some of the things were a bit unreasonable. I offer help to many people in the game, I hear what people are saying, they get mad because its to costly and time consuming to do much. There is not anyone thing I do in the game, I try to take advantage of as many aspects of the game as I can, and I agree that some of the things are unreasonable. They should not be taking away farms or making changes to the game that are causing prices to go up. If I wanted to I could buy almost all the titles I'm trying to get, but why should I? Where is the fun in that? Take Zrank or the sweet title, and really do the math to think about how much farming you would have to do to reach max. Even expecting people to buy the title is crazy, but why shouldn't people that play on a regular basis be able to reach those titles just playing the game. Anyway, if people don't want to really talk about the real issues I'm bring up, then there is nothing I'm going to say that is going to make a differece. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wild Ranger Drizzit (talk • contribs) at 18:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC).

Honestly I agree with some points, but every1 just cant have everything. I will never see a mini mad king's guard in my inventory. With what 20 added to game and 6 million + accounts it seems a little too rare. I do feel everything should be obtainable IG. If its not it shouldnt exist(mad kings guard for example), but everything else is a joke. The traveler made sure of that.--SirBoss 19:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, firstly, I am unintelligent and illogical, therefore any comments I make are forced to follow suit, and secondly, all rpg games have some element of grind. Almost all games of any genre still require time invested, which means that yes, people that have played more often will on average have accomplished more, as they have had more time in which to do so. I am not saying it's impossible by any means to get any or all of the titles, and technically it isn't. It's just that in reality it will take you a relatively unsurmountable amount of required play time.

Now if your saying you want the required time to be shorter, then that just brings me back to one of my original points that no player wants to reach a point in the game where they have absolutely nothing to strive for. PS Apparently the unintelligent part of me still wants you to break up your big walls of text. Tidas 01:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

If one has gotten most everything on a character and still wants to play, one should just make another character and starting getting all that stuff on him/her as well. But yes, I think much of the grind does seem to be unnecessarily long. --Nathe 13:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

"Anyway, if people don't want to really talk about the real issues I'm bring up..." Okay, what ARE the issues you are bringing up? Items/titles too expensive? No fun to max titles? People should be able to max titles without 'grinding'? Goals impossible to obtain? --Arduin 15:28, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, most of it it's a rant, but it's true that it seems that the one putting prices in some things must be a serious grinder. No way I'll get the big backpack for all my characters for example. And now that ZC can be used to get weapons, the backpacks are no longer the 'best thing to get', and there is no reason to keep their prices so high. But they will stay like that. They will probably try to make the game last 2 years more with that added. MithTalk 17:04, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

The Login Screen

So you guys finally decided to catch up with the times. It's nice to see that there was an update, still haven't cruised over the notes yet, but I was even more impressed when I saw it show up on the Login Screen. I don't know what I feel happy for: our constant pestering if Arenanet to catch up or the fact that it's finally there. Still, I'd like to say I appreciate the addition, please give my thanks to whoever decided it was time to put it there. --~~000.00.00.00~~ 08:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

As with most things in the company, it would be inaccurate to say that one individual decided that it was a good idea to have something in the login screen. This company is not an authoritarian one, where one person comes up with a course of action, and then everyone works to make it happen. What happened was the community department went to the developers to discuss it and push for it over a period of time. I've always wanted the login screen to provide much more information than it has been doing, and way more information than it is technically capable of doing. I checked with Joe on just how much programming would have to be done to create a well-designed and information-rich login screen. It's a lot of time and resources, and it is not on the top of the priority list. I've been bringing this issue to their attention for a while, but it wasn't until recently that I've been able to get traction on it and justify that we really, really need to have a link to the Game Update notes on the login screen. Martin and I have been discussing the design of the GW2 login screen as well, and we both have very strong opinions on what should be included there and what players expect to be there. --Regina Buenaobra 01:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

i don't know how you guys are going to do the log in screens for gw2 but don't make the same mistake you made with gw1 and build the newer log ins off the old one so we can have the old log in screens if we want to in gw2. on this topic its much welcomed and a about time thing for me seeing as i requested this Way long ago before i made a long on for wiki even.- Zesbeer 01:53, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Players know there was an update because the game will update itself, but it's always a good idea to put a link to the update notes in the login screen, so people insterested can go directly there and get more info. Some people have never visited the official site, and other don't even know that you can hit F10 and input searches for the wiki. MithTalk 13:46, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

What's your opinion about countdowntimers for live ingame events, this could resolve the time issue. 84.80.151.136 15:18, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Could you also push to have the login screen replaced? EotN has been out for more than 2 years now... it's gotten more time to shine than any of the other logins did. I want the Canthan one back, where you stand on the pillar.  :/ I know this question has been answered before, but it's not like you guys threw out the maps when they were rotated... wait, did you? –Jette 16:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Would be epic lol if they did... --Boro 16:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I still think that even if choosing is out of the question, there are 4 seasons, and each login screen fits each one of its seasons:

• Spring: Cantha
• Summer: Istan
• Fall: Ascalon
• Winter: Northern shiverpeaks.

Even if we choosing them is out of the question and they must go with the updates, I bet many people would love to see remade versions of them coming back once in a while with the seasons. Of course it's a lot of work for something so irrelevant, but still...MithTalk 22:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

@jette they did apparently every new login screen was built off the old one so they didn't keep any of them <--that info was from pax09- Zesbeer 00:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

What. Who just throws away perfectly good content like that? Are you seriously trying to tell me that some numbnuts just said "derp derp let's scrap this one, we'll never need it again?" Also: that's crap, because even if they threw away their own copies, the originals are still in the gw.dat files of the old CDs. The original Prophecies disk installs a campfire login, Factions installs a Canthan login, etc. I could likely dig it up myself if I was bored enough, but I'd need some sort of guarantee it would be used for something.

Great, now this is making me nostalgic, and I know even if I can find a good deal on an army-surplus tank I can't get the original content of the game back. I'm going to go huff some paint and try to remember when Tombs was both called Tombs and actually fun. If anybody lives near Bellevue, someone graffiti a not awesomeface on ANet's building for me. –Jette 18:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

a few things first

1) In your journal, you mentioned that there are going to be some changes with Shadow Form. Now, I often use the perma-Shadow Form build to farm holiday items, green weapons for my heroes, drops to sell to merchants so I can buy runes for my heroes, and tomes. I've heard about the Underworld buff in addition to a new boss, Dhuum in order to combat ecto farming and UWSC. I'm a bit mad at this, but that doesn't really affect me much. Frankily, this is because most of my money maker involves killing Raptor Nestlings and selling the purple and gold rarity loot instead of the Underworld (and even if I ever want ectos, I usually farm them at Tomb of Primeval Kings). Are the changes going to involve some compensations to perma Shadow Form farmers or is it going to be some plan that makes Shadow Form unmaintainable or to the point that farming with Shadow Form is impossible (i.e. having it end after x amount of attacks or spells)? Now, I'm going to assume that every single farming build mentioned in Pvxwiki will get nerfed judging by the wording.

2) A big concern I have with assassins is that this class is virtually useless in PvE situations other than maintaining Shadow Form for farming or tanking purposes? Are you looking around this class to make them more useful in PvE, or you are just going to ignore the class.

3) Apparently, Wintersday is coming up within a month. Are there any plans in the team that would bring this holiday to Cantha? Or it just the same as last year with no big differences? I mean, I did like how Wintersday was brought into Eye of the North areas, but I think it would be nice to bring Wintersday to Cantha (continent mostly based out of East Asia). I mean, it is based out of Christmas, and it is considered to be a secular holiday nowadays. If you look at Japan, Christmas is celebrated widely. Or are there any plans to include elements of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa to appeal Jewish and black Guild Wars players respectfully?

4) Is the team have any plans to include a super-boss (thinking of Menzies) in Fissure of Woe to combat speed-clears (like adding Dhuum into the Underworld)?--Dark Paladin X 15:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

TBH Raptor nestlings are easy to farm using tons of builds,SF is just one of them (and proly isn't even the quickest one aswell) so I don't get the point.I mean they shouldn't have given perma in the first place Lilondra 15:30, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Well I know for certain that the W/N Hundred Blades Mark of Pain build for raptor nestling farming is the quickest. But, it requires good amount of timing and can be complicated to use. I think perma Shadow Form build is the safest build to use when it comes to farming Raptors. But nerfing Shadow Form to the point that it is virtually useless in farming or cannot be maintained will make Assassins have a hard time finding a group when it comes to PvE (as maintaining Shadow Form is what makes Assassins useful in the first place).--Dark Paladin X 16:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Well,Then learn to hundred blades ? I mean once you get the hang of it its not that hard anymore.TBH updates shouldn't be changed because some people refuse to learn diffrent ways.Then about the use of sins in PvE I would say they are usefull.I admit their options are more limited then other professions and their design is bad but Critscythe,Moebius death blossom spam,Jagged-Fox-Death blossom spam (wich btw has alot of optional elites) and AP sins (nukers,daggerspikers,...) are all viable builds for general PvE (since PvE is reduced to guild and H/H for missions).FoW and UW are proly going to become a problem,I'd like to compare it to not being a assassin or monk now. Lilondra 17:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Ohhhh boy:

"W/N Hundred Blades Mark of Pain build for raptor nestling farming...it requires good amount of timing and can be complicated to use". You best be joking.

"maintaining Shadow Form is what makes Assassins useful in the first place" Yeah, funny thing about balance. It's more important than class promotion.

"Are the changes going to involve some compensations to perma Shadow Form farmers" Yeah, them poor assassins have very difficult lives, what with 6 children and a mother with Alzheimer, they really need all the support they can get!

"Now, I'm going to assume that every single farming build mentioned in Pvxwiki will get nerfed judging by the wording" That would be horrible, I agree.

"Hanukkah and Kwanzaa to appeal Jewish and black Guild Wars players respectfully" WE NEED A MENORAH IN RATA SUM. Their time is better spent doing useful things. NuVII 18:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

1. I am sorry, who is supposed to compensate players who don't use permaform to farm? You assassins have it easy for so long, whereas other professions are waning in comparison, please compensate us for the time we wasted not farming with permainvincibility and mindless 1-2-3.
2. It's called critscythe and DB/MS, and it's much better than you expect it to be. You know, don't be that frog in the well, and actually start experimenting with viable builds. Pika Fan 18:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Been a while since I played PvE, let alone a Sin. Does Critical Barrage still work? BlazeRick 19:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Add a few tablespoons of splinter weapon, and yeah, it does. NuVII 19:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, across from a 90% chance that Shadow Form will get nerfed and me holding a riot in many outposts and cities across Tyria. I can't think any other easy to use builds to farm Raptors. I mean, maintaing Shadow Form has been around for about one and a half years as opposed to the 55 monk builds that have been around since the game was first introduced (and they should have nerfed THAT a long time ago). So Shadow Form has been around for about 20% of the Guild Wars gameplay history. Besides, Linsey Murdock stated that she would rather buff monsters in a particular area to slow farming builds rather than hurting farming builds. I mean, nerfing Shadow Form will end alienating those who use the build for farming purposes. Buffing Underworld and Fissure of Woe is one thing. Nerfing the entire build another thing. Nerfing Shadow Form, you just nerf:

• Feather and Piles of Glittering Dust farming for Essence of Celerity and other crafting materials
• tome farming of a particular profession
• killing bosses for green weapons to equip to your heroes.
• getting the money and materials to buy runes, weapons, and max armor.
• Raptor Nestling Farming
• getting collectibles for cool EotN gloves/masks and even for Nicholas the Traveler
• ToPK runs
• Wisdom title
• holiday items
• speed book runs

Now I'm just going to assume that every single solo and team farming build in Pvxwiki will get nerfed by ArenaNet to the point that it is impossible to solo farm. But anyways, I hope they are going to add new and interesting things for Wintersday and it would nice to add things relating to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa to show multiculturalism and diversity in Guild Wars.--Dark Paladin X 20:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

And it is wonderful to nerf all those. --Boro 21:00, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If they nerf farming people need to play together again:). 84.80.151.136 21:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

But there are people who want do all of these the easy way in Hard Mode. I mean without good farming builds, it would takes weeks to get max armor, MONTHS to get the runes you want, and YEARS to get Obsidian armor or filling up your Hall of Momument (which I considered to be the most expensive thing ever since Obsidian armor was introduced). And even setting up builds and armor for my heroes is expensive as well. It takes about 10k to buy all the runes and insignia needed for Discordway.--Dark Paladin X 21:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Christmas is not secular, that's why they celebrate Wintersday in Tyria. It's meant to encompass all the various winter holidays, both religious and cultural. Oh yeah, and iirc, black people can be Christians. :O elix Omni 21:25, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Christmas used to be a Christian holiday, but it is considered to be secular since non-Christians celebrate it [1], even Wikipedia mentions it. Heck, I'm a Buddhist agnostic and I still celebrate Christmas. And I know a few Christians who don't celebrate Christmas. I think ArenaNet should include the said holidays as mentioned to appeal to a larger audience.--Dark Paladin X 21:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Omg, since Wikipedia says so, it must be true. Everyone is welcome to celebrate Christmas, but it's still commemorating the birth of Christ. That will not change, ever. More importantly, you seem to have missed the part where Wintersday is not Christmas. elix Omni 21:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I know that Wintersday and Christmas isn't the same thing, but Wintersday IS based out of Christmas. Also, I know Tyria continent is supposed to be based out of Europe and such, but why do also have decorations and people in Elona celebrate it (which is based out of Africa). Would it be fair to also have Wintersday being celebrated in Cantha (continent based out of East Asia).--Dark Paladin X 21:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Can we get back to the nerfing stuff? Christmas is about christ. get the fuck over it. Wintersday is about Dwayna VS Grenth. Get the fuck over it. Cantha has dragon festival/New year, Tyria has Wintersday/All hallows eve. Get. The. Fuck. Over. It. Anywho. Nerfing farms = Bad. have you ever tried to get all 250 Superb charr carvings with heros and henchman? yeah that doesnt work Mkay? Btw, SF is not the problem. People are the problem. Nerf shadow form and i guarantee someone will find a way to farm money in a week and a half. may not be quite as fast, may not be quite as efficient, but if you give it time people will start altering it and perfecting it untill its EXACTLY like any farm. Leave shadow form alone. or better yet: Touch of dhuum+Target looses all enchants+ "this seems to go through all defenses" = GG. Sins have shadow form for a reason. so they have an oppurtunity to tank. Ill say it one more time. Get the fuck over it. Briar 21:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Omg, since Wikipedia says so, it must be true. Everyone is welcome to celebrate Christmas, but it's still commemorating the birth of Christ. That will not change, ever. More importantly, you seem to have missed the part where Wintersday is not Christmas. elix Omni 21:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

1) In your journal, you mentioned that there are going to be some changes with Hall of Heroes. Now, I often use the mathway build to farm fame, to add that title to my hall of monuments and grow my epeen. I've heard about the map changes in addition to a new party size, 6, in order to combat fame farming and gimmicky builds. I'm a bit mad at this, but that doesn't really affect me much. Frankily, this is because most of my fame farming involves carpet bombing and and abusing other gay crap. (and even if I ever want to hold halls, I usually abuse sway or bloodspike). Are the changes going to involve some compensations to experienced HA players like myself, or is it going to be some plan that makes fame farming or to the point that farming with mathway is impossible (i.e. removing the cramped maps)? Now, I'm going to assume that every single farming build mentioned in Pvxwiki will get nerfed judging by the wording.

2) A big concern I have with necromancers is that this class is virtually useless in PvP situations other than bloodspiking for farming? Are you looking around this class to make them more useful in PvP, or you are just going to ignore the class.

Thanks for you attention Regina! NuVII 21:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Lol, did you just reword what I said in the first post to put into your point of view? I mean, it is better to just change the skill bars of the mobs rather than nerfing an entire build. Raptor farming doesn't have much of an impact to the Guild Wars economy as opposed getting high-end items like ectos. In fact, I still can't think of a good build to use to farm Super Charr Carving lol.--Dark Paladin X 22:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Religion even corrupts the GWW. BlazeRick 23:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

And nerfing SHadow Form just makes farming holiday items impossible.--Dark Paladin X 02:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

My War/N Raptor farmer begs to disagree. -- Large 03:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

frenzy+vow of strenght even sidagrees 127.0.0.1 03:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I laughed pretty hard when you used the word "compensation". Shadow Form was a viable farming skill long before the perma buff. I farmed greens with it, and I farmed raptors with it. I'm sure you'll find a SF green farmer build and a few SF raptor farm builds if you search the archived builds on PvX if you don't believe me. Assassins are good PvE professions nowadays. It's just player mentality that they are only good for SFing. Try looking at other skills and playing for yourself. I've been playing my Assassin for 3 and a half years now. And finally - Wintersday is Wintersday, not Christmas. You seem to be getting those confused. Cantha has the Canthan New Year and Dragon Festival while Tyria and Elona have Halloween and Wintersday. It's 2 to 2, what's wrong with that? — Poki#3 (talk) 04:13, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm still farming with my mesmer and no(!) not putting the build on PVX bladiebla. Just in case they want to nerf it XD. in reaction too:---And nerfing SHadow Form just makes farming holiday items impossible.--- by Dark Paladin

ohnoes i wont be able to farm holiday items anymore! lol sf very balanced right? InfestedHydralisk 22:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

"I mean without good farming builds, it would takes weeks to get max armor, MONTHS to get the runes you want, and YEARS to get Obsidian armor or filling up your Hall of Momument" - lol, you seem to have no idea of the game. It's very easy to get X in PvE just by playing, you don't need to farm at all.. poke | talk 06:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Lol, poke told him to SFTU. I'm a happy nuke. NuVII 08:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Your a nuclear Bomb With a smiley face on top of it ? Lilondra 20:05, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I still don't see why don't you use the Meteor Shower Nuke.

If I can get away with it, Sandstorm. Bigger area, bigger domoges, better line, and meteor needs an elite to work anyhow. NuVII 21:38, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

It's funneh cuz even a lol_Ur_Bad choad can farm for Elite Armor & Holiday items without SF. Take me, I've never farmed raptors, never been to the UW, and don't even own Factions but I got Elite armor on all 6 alts, KoaBD title, and 80 rainbow canes still left over from last Xmas. ...& Soon as I get my next 6 Bday presents, I'll also have a full HoM and that huge gay bird that comes with it. WTF else could ya want?? --ilr 00:02, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Dark Paladin is a good example of user that thinks that farming is the only way to get stuff. Sorry, I got all things you mentioned and excepting some weapon upgrades and some skins that are hard to find inscribed, I got everything I wanetd playing normally. And even got cash to pay for every single skill in one charater, and all primary profession skills in all characters. You'll be surprised how many gol you get if you don't leave all items but ectos and gold req+10 weapon lying around, but take them to outposts and identify them. And when one of my characters gets a new Hero or armor, I go to a rune trader and buy an entire set of runes, it's quite afordable for most of them. It doesn't take "months", and it's slow only for Superior Vigor runes for thei higher price and a few other runes, such as Superior Death or Superior Healing. You don't need to go perma, perma works to well, and you are too used to it. Remember the guys in the floating chairs in Wall-E? It's something like that. MithTalk 05:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Remember when ectos cost around 10k-15k and even SUPERIOR monk runes cost around that as well as many "perfect" weapon mods? Well, you should thank farmers for bringing the prices down since it makes them more affordable.--Dark Paladin X 16:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Remember when most PvE groups consisted of a balanced spread of professions and even mesmers and "useless in PvE" assassins found a role in some groups? Well, you should thank farmers. NuVII 16:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Remember what those Superior Monk Runes were used for? Remember how awesome salvaging stuff was before Nightfall? Remember all those gold sinks there were in Prophecies? 24.197.253.243 17:42, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

PvE sucks anyway and balancing it won't change that. Why even bother? Dark Morphon 17:07, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Mesmers? You must be joking, no one needed a Mesmer in their party. Only Warriors, Monks and Eles. Assassins where even more useless because they couldn't tank, and that was the only melee role desired. — Poki#3 (talk) 17:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Linebacking says no. --Boro 18:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

So in just general PvE What exactly do you *need* a SF sin for ? I think its about nothing since sins now have enough skills at their disposal to block,blind,... .Their damage also got buffed so tbh the tank argument isn't anymore like that.Yh nobody needed a mesmer but tbh mesmers are awesome anywhere however it takes XX damage for the average pve player to realise that (I guess thats just my opinion) Lilondra 19:12, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Fastcast renewal nuking, zzzz... NuVII 20:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

YEAH! but exhaustion 'URTZ! --Boro 22:00, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not advocating that SF has to stay, because Assassins don't need it. I'm just saying that not everything was so fine and dandy in the old days. People rather take a Henchman into the party then my Assassin. Those where horrible memories. — Poki#3 (talk) 07:14, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

And now PUG parties won't take your Assassin unless you're an SF tank. Will the memories from now be any better? --BramStoker (talk, contribs) 12:07, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. The sooner we get rid of SF the better for the players. --Boro 14:09, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

So once again Anet caters to the handful of people crying for a nerf despite the tens of thousands quite happy with the current function. The effect will be even higher ecto prices giving even more wealth to those with multiple stacks and and putting obsidian armor and chaos gloves farther out of reach of new players. A nerf this late in the game only stands to benefit the wealthy, its the George Bush tax cut for Guild Wars. Before I'm accused of being poor, I assure you, I am not. I'm thinking only of the benefit of the game. Major nerfs like this frustrate players. Some of which will leave the game. New players may be discouraged and leave the game. No one leaves the game over perma making things easier and cheaper. In a game where more players leave each month than start afresh, one would think that nerfs which increase the bleeding would be undesirable. In conclusion, perma shadow form has been allowed to exist for a very long time. Its too late to take it away now. Just leave it be. 98.220.126.134 02:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Stop being terrible. :D –Jette 02:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Pvelol. BlazeRick 07:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

IP: Fixing an old mistake will always be benefical to a game. --Boro 08:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

You know, 90% of the people posting on this subject are either A) Poor asses that cant farm worth a shit or b) Game-Balance-Whiney-Babies. to the first party, People spend hours, Weeks, DAYS farming for these ridiculously low drop rate valuable items. And just because YOU dont wanna spend YOUR time doing the same thing your gonna punish them. all they want is to make a little money and have some nice gear and you cant f*cking stand it because they walk around with obby armor and you dont have sh*t and it ticks you off that they have better stuff than you do. To that party, You should really fucking get over yourselves cuz your spoiling our fun. To the other party, this skill does not grant ANY form whatsoever of invulerability. It is not sturdy. there are MILLIONS of counters, and it takes ALOT of time and practice to master. im not talking about the kind of master where you solo a few baddies in tombs for a first time. im talking about the kind of master where you farm a boss that does an AoE 405 Damage spike in hardmode. Not every Tom dick and jane can do that alright? There are TONS of ways to counter the build. there are TONS of areas that arent farmable. Hows about instead of yanking EVERY MOTHER FUCKING WAY TO MAKE MONEY IN THIS FUCKING GAME how about ANet introduce a REAL gold sink instead of a piss ass excuse for a gold sink like chaos gloves. i mean cmon, My 9 year old brother knows that if you dont introduce a real gold sink into a game instead of a shitty excuse for one like the armor then people are bound to start ammasing ridiculous ammounts of money. what are we supposed to do? buy TWO sets of the TERRIBLY skinned obby armors available? Instead of ruing the farmers fun why dont you fucking sit down and figure out a way to make something expensive that people actually WANT. But hey, why try to make it fun for everyone when you can just bend to the will of the whiney spoil sports. *rolls eyes* as soon as shadow form is nerfed im fucking leaving arena net and going back to WoW. At least in WoW they introduce some new shit once in a while instead of just taking everything away from their players at every turn. Briar 09:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I have 4 sets of elite armor on my PvP ready Mesmer, super sexy shields, almost all skills and will have Obsidian armor before this Christmas. I also have 13 titles maxed, one of them being Canthan Vanquisher. PvElol. Also, what are you crying about leaving a game that has been dead for the past two years? I'm sure the 300 people left playing will be very sad to have to let you go. BlazeRick 09:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Briar, I'm a terrible player and even I have mastered clicking 123, or just 12 every so often. Besides, there are many more broken skills left to abuse if shadow form gets taken out. I'm sure eventually you'll stop crying in the corner after the nerf and find a new farm build to defend without reason but with lots of swearing instead. Tidas 10:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

"You know, 90% of the people posting on this subject are either A) Poor asses that cant farm worth a shit or b) Game-Balance-Whiney-Babies" - not really. 99% of those complaining are Shadow Form farmers who are sad because they suddenly won't be able to press 123 to continue to inflate prices way over those who play the game, as opposed to farming the game. It's only expected that those who are going to lose their most valuable toy would cry...And thus, it's only expected that Arena Net has already decided to ignore them after having decided to nerf SF. Erasculio 10:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

lol you say im the one thats crying but really? why is shadow form being nerfed? because its ruining the economy? nope. Because whiney bitchy people that dont wanna actually work for some nice shit are throwing a fucking temper tantrum cuz they cant have what they want. Im fighting to keep things as they are. your the one bitching about "Baaawww broken skills". Why dont you actually try farming for a while and find out how easy to get these "Inflated" items are. See how "Easy" they are to get. And btw the economy is inflated because nobody has anything to spend their money on once they get the armor they want. It might not be AS inflated without shadow form but it would still be inflated. no matter what you say. Briar 11:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

"Because whiney bitchy people that dont wanna actually work for some nice shit are throwing a fucking temper tantrum" Wait, so you're saying using Shadow Form takes effort? BlazeRick 11:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

"See how "Easy" they are to get." - bots can farm. Bots, something without even a brain. Is that how you want to measure your skill? By claiming you can do something so extremely complex that you don't even need a brain to do it? See, SF will be nerfed. But the players won't - which means, if a player were skilled while using SF, he would still be skilled after it had been nerfed, and thus able to adapt. It's the fact that Shadow Form does not need skill that is making people complain, because they will lose the skill that allows their lack of skills to actually farm.

"It might not be AS inflated without shadow form but it would still be inflated" - in other words, it will be better. Not completely fixed (yet), but better. Hence the incoming nerf to Shadow Form, regardless of all the "fucking temper tantrum" from the SF farmers who soon will lose their toy. So far no good argument has been presented to keep SF as it is; claiming that the economy is inflated because there's no gold sink is a joke, as giving more incentive for people to farm would only lead to even more gold entering the economy. Erasculio 11:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

(reset) i wasnt talking about skill. i was talking about grind. it takes mind numbing ammounts of hours to grind out these farms enough times to get anything decent out of them. Your all sitting there crying like everytime we go into a dungeon or go into underworld we get the rarest skins available or even complete it. Bots can farm feathers outside bergen hotsprings. Bots CANNOT do underworld or ANY of the dungeons where there are nice things available. No that is people. Thats people pouring inane ammounts of time and aggravation into running the same place over and over again praying for a decent drop. and when i say "as inflate" i mean ectos would be 8k instead of 6. people will still be using them because once again, ANet ONLY takes and RARELY ever gives them something to do with the money they built up. And yes some people do enjoy farming. But after the SF nerf theyre just gonna switch back to monk (which btw is just as if not more easy) and then your gonna whine and bitch and complain about monk farmers. Then theyre gonna nerf monk farmers and rit spirit spammers will come into the limelight and your gonna whine and bitch and complain about rits and whine and bitch and moan because farmers farm and you dont feel like farming which is why your poor and cant afford anything nice. So keep crying and ANet will just remove every skill from the game one by one untill everything in this game sucks and then you can cry about how this game isnt fun anymore because all of the skills are crappy and dont do shit. Briar 02:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Briar, you hit nail right on the head. I couldn't agree more. Now if only someone from the nerf team would read it... 98.220.126.134 03:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

@Briar: Any game mechanic which offers a method for players to solo/gimmick farm as easily as they do (speed clears, soloing dungeons/speedbooking, vanquishing, etc) needs to be nerfed. When nobody looks for anything but Assassins for 90% of UW groups, and when almost exclusively those groups are successful at completing the UW at all, even with an UW difficulty buff specifically targeting permas, it's practically as if, as you say, "all of the [other] skills are crappy and don't do shit." Your comment on the farmers just turning to other methods just proves how many things need to be nerfed or changed. Anybody who has played this game for long enough knows it's broken and it's going to remain that way for the foreseeable future without a major overhaul of...well, practically everything. And as that's not practical, we still want to have the game as close to some semblance of balanced as possible. The problem is not farming; the problem is gimmicky, PvX copypasta, 1-2-3 for hours on end farming. There are many ways to take care of the economy and farm time that you're so worried about (gold sinks and/or manipulation of drop chances, for example) to counter the changes a nerf to SF would cause. Just because more problems will arise out of us solving current problems doesn't mean we shouldn't try to solve them, it just means we have a shitton of work ahead of us if we want this game going in the direction we (and apparently ANet, as well) envision.

Also, go back to WoW and see if ANet really truly cares. You've already paid for the game. --[-Kyoshi-]::[-Talk-] 04:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I got about halfway through reading your post and laughed at you. Thanks for proving my point. All your gonna do is bitch and moan and complain untill everything in this game sucks from being nerfed. GG dude. GG. Briar 04:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I was facepalming at you about halfway through reading your post, but that doesn't prove my point, nor does your laughter prove yours. The feedback forum is for pointing out things that could be improved and methods through which to improve them. Call it what you will, but this "whining" is a statement of my opinion of what the game should become. You've neither stated nor proven that my points are even bad points, just that you think I'm whiny. That's great, but personal attacks are not legitimate arguments. GG yourself. --[-Kyoshi-]::[-Talk-] 05:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING,... lol there were ways to play gw just fine before SF. And what takes more "skill" as you put it, doing things with an sf team or with normal builds? And yes, uw is still possible without a single sf or tank in your party. So why have SF remain this way? Because it's takes "skill"? (btw I have a sf sin too, still want it to go) And no, not everything sucks after a nerf, you just find a new way to farm. You could get everything you get playing SF, by playing something else. And the poor and whiny thing is funny, it reminds me of the ways to prove a woman was a witch. If your rich, you'r a crybaby, and if you'r poor it's because you don't want to work. Sf'rs want to stay rich, or don't want to work (doing it the slow way), see what I did there? --Ellisia 06:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

"hats people pouring inane ammounts of time and aggravation into running the same place over and over again praying for a decent drop" - yes. And isn't that a bit...Pathological? You complain that people don't want to work for "nice things", but unless you really don't like your work, you can get "nice things" in real like without your "aggravation". Why do you think it's normal behavior to choose to, in a game (which is something meant to be fun), agree to suffer through farming? Even worse, you claim Arena Net needs to add more gold sinks, which means you and yours farm more than you need to, which means you submit yourself to, in your words, the aggravating grind because you want to, as opposed to there being a point in it. That sounds more like a disease than an opinion, and thus Arena Net is only doing you a favor by removing the farming tools - not only you won't have the influx of gold you have now (reducing the inflation of prices, as you mentioned yourself) but also such pathological behavior will be put in check. Erasculio 08:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Google for "Zero Online", and play 5 minutes of that thing. It's the supreme puregrinder. Each level takes the same time as all the previous levels together. yet still people play it. Why...? Well... most (or at least many, I hope) of us play Guild Wars, so it may a little hard to understand. I think it's all about the numbers. People like numbers going up. In one Guild I was a long time ago, there was one player that had one account filled with gold, and he still wanted more. The store filled, several mule characters filled with gold... and if you asked him why, he would falter while avoiding the answer, and begun talking again on how he would get even more... For me that's a bit weird. But you'll be surprised of how many people is like that. MithTalk 21:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Virtual avarice? Funky. But grinding the opposite of ANet's philosophy, at least with respect to Guild Wars, so Shadow Form needs a change or a strong counter, one way or another. Signet of Disenchantment could do with a buff and more monsters using it. *smirk* --[-Kyoshi-]::[-Talk-] 21:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

What is the point of changing every challenging area in the game because 1 skill is causing trouble? Also, to the guy who thinks nerfing farms is bad: This game used to be skill-based. If you were good at the game, you won. If you sucked, you stayed in TH Keep. Sure, some gimmicks existed like the 5-man FoW teams, but they were used to get mats. They were really slow. But now, we have permanent invincibility, absurd damage skills every profession can use, and more invincibility gimmicks. Why should they exist in a game based on skill? It is only logical such gimmicks are nerfed.

Also, I am not poor. I happen to be good at this game instead of relying on rediculous farms. Koda Kumi 11:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

They shouldnt be nerfed because skill only matters in pvp. in pve theres wiki. Where you can look up and completely tailor a team build to each individual specific area. And anyone that does ANY eotn dungeon can tell you that theres no such thing as inviciblity (please see soulrending shriek for more details) The point is AI is AI. It doesnt take any skill to beat AI it just takes decent tools and a bit of homework. Shadowform is a decent tool thats all. so is protective spirit spirit bond spell breaker and any other skill that is popularly used depending on the area. You wanna nerf something for because its a gimmick? thats fine. PvP does not equal anything close to pve. I bet you anything that with the skills guaranteed to stay as they are for the next month or i could come up with a speedclear for every single area in the entire game. That INCLUDES UW. Which btw im working on something better than mobway right now (manlyspike is a strong contender). Ill let you know when im done with the next gimmick so you can cry about that and have it nerfed too. ^.^ Briar 09:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

oh and btw idc anymore. I took a little time out and bought a few stacks of ectos so go ahead and nerf SF. In fact id kinda like you to do so because once you do im gonna be so ridiculously rich its not even funny. Keep the rich rich and the poor poor. Love you too ANet. <3 Briar 09:18, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Isn't it funny how those who are complaining against the incoming nerf are the so-called "rich" who are going to be kept rich, as opposed to the "poor" who would be kept poor? Erasculio 09:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Lol@the idea that PvE was ever about skill. That's a lie. It was always that fucking easy. If you lost you just sucked so badly that even Henchman AI would outdo your amount of skill and IQ. All the areas are the same: You take your random spambuild and spam till your opponents die (the "skilled" and "balanced" approach), you spam your spambuild designed to stay alive no matter what enemy you face (sabway, Imbagons etc.) or you take a tank and nuke anything that touches him (most of the builds used in DoA). None of these "strategies" involve any thought or strategical positioning at all. Stop denying PvE sucks balls when it comes to skillful play because quite simply put, that's how things are. You don't play PvE because it takes skill, you play it because you're a mindless farmer that wants 239758934k gold, because you like the storyline and lore or because you just like to screw around with crappy builds and less crappy builds. Dark Morphon 15:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Just because shutdown and prekiting isn't neccesary doesn't mean its not viable.Lilondra 15:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

That may be true but that doesn't mean PvE takes any skill whatsoever which was my point. Dark Morphon 15:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I now see two arguments that gimmicks in PvE make it omgwtfeasy to win. Thanks for proving our point? I don't know how you come to the conclusion that imbalance means we shouldn't change anything. --Kyoshi (Talk) 20:35, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Apparently you are missing the point. EVERY build in PvE is a gimmick and it's omgwtfeasy with EVERY build to win. Prove me wrong with an example or hold your silence. Dark Morphon 13:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Unlike in PvP, in PvE you will always find the same builds, and there is always a chance for any build to meet another build that will beat it 100% of the time, regardless of the skill of the player. Because of that, builds are designed to beat an entire area, and some builds may even work in more than one area. Make all monsters have 4 fixed skills, 1 monster skill and 3 random skills, and you solve that... but you will also need to allow changing builds in explorable areas, since the same build won't always be able to beat an entire area in that case. Too much change... MithTalk 14:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

If you're serious about giving PvE strategical value you not only have to change about every monster skill bar but also greatly improve their AI. If you don't people will ALWAYS abuse the AI. You're wrong by the way. If you want to make PvE reliant on skill you would want to pose players with a psychological threat where you have to think about positioning instead of just spamming till you win or tanking and nuking all foes attacking the tank. There's nothing wrong with a standard build as long as players have to adapt to situations to effectively use them. Still, in order to make PvE about skill, you would have to turn the entire PvE world upside down. My question is: Why? PvE was never about skill, why start now? What's wrong with having a format that doesn't take skill and is instead light-hearted fun? I really like to take a break from the competitive nature that PvP has from time to time. If you value strategical play, balance PvP instead. PvP is by default reliant on player skill and will therefore never suffer from AI problems as your most important foes are other players (H/H aside). Dark Morphon 15:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

DarkPaladinX:

1) We don't have details to release publicly regarding the planned changes.

2) As far as I know, there aren't plans currently to make the changes you brought up for the Assassin profession, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't be looked at in the future.

3) No plans for Wintersday in Cantha.

3) Not that I know of, but I'll mention it.

--Regina Buenaobra 21:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Sugar title

Hey Regina. Back when the Wisdom and Treasure Hunter titles were made account-wide, it was announced that none of the other character-specific titles would become account-wide too. I completely agree for most titles, such as drunkard, party animal, and all of the pve ones. However, the sweet tooth title has the same issue as the Treasure Hunter and Wisdom ones. Unlike party animal etc, many of the sweet tooth items are consumables that are actually useful for play. Just like when people complained that they couldn't open chests or ID golds on a character that wasn't going for the title, people now can't use very helpful consumables like Pie or Candy Corn (or many dp removers) on characters that are not going for the title, because it would be wasting points. I believe this is the only title where this is an issue (as drunkard, for the skills, is negligable). It would be VERY helpful and just generally fantastic if the Sweet Tooth title was made account-wide, for the same reason as the Treasure Hunter and Wisdom. Thank you for your time. Ailina 20:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree to a certain point. The drunkard should never be account wide although it would be nice. The sweet tooth title is a pain but the useless items that just give you a sugar rush in town are too easy to get during events. So you dont have to just use items that are useful in game. Not to mention if you were actually going for the title you wouldnt use those items for the fact that they are useful. You want to get/buy items that you can just click away on the stack and get all the points at once, which as I said are easy to get during events esp if you are farming or doing anything in game that requires killing mobs. Drogo Boffin 20:24, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Making the HOM account wide essentially makes the benefits of all titles account-wide. I know, not every character can display the character-based titles, but at least they can all have the statue in the HOM and carry the benefit on into GW2. (Satanael | talk) 20:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

No. There is only 1 title related thing to change, and that is more clearly displaying the Drunkness level. (and maybe buffing Four-Leaf Clovers). — Poki#3 (talk) 21:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

who cares. - Wuhy 21:55, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

@Drogo. There are only 7 "worthless" sweet tooth items (aka those that are only for in-town use), while there are 14 items that grant sweet tooth points and are actually useful. Saying that "you want to get/buy items that you can just click away on the stack and get all the points at once" assumes that the person going for the title has ridiculous amounts of time to farm for those items during certain events and/or has ridiculous amounts of money to buy 10,000 sweet tooth points. "The sweet tooth title is a pain but the useless items that just give you a sugar rush in town are too easy to get during events". No, ALL sweet tooth items are fairly easy to get during events, but there are more events that give useful sweet tooth ones than useless ones. Halloween, for example, gives only useful ones, yet that is a major holiday that many people farm for the goodies. If people won't use the useful consumables for the title too, then why have them give sweet tooth points at all? Just like how people ID gold items for reasons other than just the title (possibility of perfect mods, higher sell price, etc), people DO "use those items for the fact that they are useful". It's just the exact same situation as the Wisdom and Treasure Hunter titles.

Also, @Satanae1, this has nothing to do with HoM. It has to do with the points being spread out among several characters, thus making it harder to get the title on one char.Ailina 02:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually Sweet Tooth is not like the Wisdom or Treasure Hunter Title Track, maxing the Sweet Tooth title is not beneficial for your characters, Wisdom Title track gives you a salvage bonus and the Treasure Hunter Title Track increases your retention rate of lockpicks when you get higher ranks. There is no reason to make it account wide, except for beeing able to display it on any of your characters. Qaletaqa Hania 03:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually making it account wide would make the title easier to get because people wouldnt have to think or use any logic when choosing when to use items. Drogo Boffin 03:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

True, but getting the title does not give any benefits in-game unlike the Treasure Hunter and Wisdom title. It's a "prestige" title, a useless one, just like the party animal and drunkard title. Qaletaqa Hania 03:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yup. Drogo Boffin 04:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, making the title account-wide has nothing to do with being able to display it on any character, and everything to do with making the points count towards the title no matter what character they're used on. You still have to "think" or "use logic" when using sweet tooth consumables just as you do when using any consumables, based on the supply you have. Making the title account-wide would just make it so that you can use items like Pumpkin Pie just like BUs on any character, without worrying about wasting title points.Ailina 04:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

If the 'item consumption' titles gave any kind of bonus, for example, increased duration or potency of the effects, such as more duration for sugar rushes, extra morale bonus, increased faction cap or even an emote; then it could make sense, since you would be compelled to use all items in the same character to concentrate the bonuses and get at least one character with a good bonus instead many with low bonuses. That's the reason behind the change in Wisdom and Treasure hunter. People felt compelled to identify, use keys and lockpicks and salvage with a single character, otherwise the points would spread and so the bonuses they give, that was quite annoying, having to change characters any time you want to salvage or identify, and having to save all keys to use with a single character. But what happens if you use consumables with different characters? You get the effects in different characters, and that's all. No character will benefit more or less due to a higher rank in the title. As it is right now, it's only a 'gold sink' title. The more characters you want with the title, the more gold you'll have to spend. The only reason to make it account wide would be if they had any kind of effect, which they don't. Ask for them to have an effect, and after they get an effect, you can start asking for them to be account wide. MithTalk 15:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not a gold sink, as it's not bought from NPC-s. --Boro 16:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It can be. -- FreedomBound 16:31, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yh but nobody buys red bean cakes from players let alone merchant since they are way above the price you'd pay for festive items that aren't available all the time Lilondra 18:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

A consumable you use means an amount of gold you won't get from another player by selling it. Currently there are no other uses for consumables. You use them, you sell them, or you keep them. If you use them, you destroy 'wealth', if you sell them you retrieve wealth from another player, and if you keep them, you waste storage space. Also, some items like red bean cakes DO drop in festivities, and you can still sell them to the merchant if you want the cash instead the points. MithTalk 21:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary for ANet to make it account-wide. Just make your Assassin your main and you should never have any reason to use sweets on anything else. ··· Danny Pew Pew 19:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Please never stop contributing. ---Chaos- (talk) -- 20:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

LoL, sarcasms on teh internetz --ilr 00:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

You clearly do not understand the intimate relationship that Dandy and I have. ··· Danny Pew Pew 00:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

T.M.I. --ilr 01:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I laughed for a long while, my comment was very sincere. ---Chaos- (talk) -- 12:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok back to the OP - Please read User:Linsey Murdock/FAQ

"Q: Will "insert random title here" be made account wide?"

"A: No. I have already evaluated the titles in the game when developing the big title update in November 2008 and I have decided that there aren't any reasons compelling enough to warrant additional titles being made account wide. That includes the Drunkard, Sweet Tooth and Party Animal title tracks."

I don't know why people just can't accept No for an answer. -- Wyn talk 13:05, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, there aren't plans to change titles, but this is a common request that the devs are aware of. --Regina Buenaobra 21:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

What's up with the Mini/EL tonic trend?

This may be a question better suited for Linsey, but I doubt she has time to answer. Lately, it seems like every contest/new content has a reward that's either a new mini or a new EL tonic (mini Mad King's Guard, Mini Smite, Mini Dhuum, EL Reindeer tonics, EL henchmen tonics). Now, I love new content and have no problem with new minis or tonics, but they're just....inaccessible for normal players. I know that you guys have moved more toward a PvE focus over the last few years, but it would be nice to see some time spent on making content/skill updates/anything for PvP players and low-end PvE players. It just seems that high-end PvE is getting a hell of a lot of focus lately, which is kind of ironic considering that you guys seem to be on the verge of nerfing speed clears...which is the only way to afford this new content....that's all I'm saying. Karate Jesus 17:40, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

They like making things that 20 accounts out of 6 mill+ can enjoy. --SirBoss 19:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

6mil+ accounts? Haha, Good one... — PmaN 19:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Your right should have been "units" sold. Doesnt change the fact that the great majority wont get them.--SirBoss 19:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Not really. GW has sold quite many copies (afaik), but only a fraction is active anymore. ---Chaos- (talk) -- 20:47, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Why are you going off-topic again? @OP - they're not supposed to be accessible for everyone, they're supposed to be special rewards. What's wrong with them? If someone has some kind of obsession that they need to have every single miniature in the game or something then maybe, but seriously... And I also think that a new mini or tonic is a pretty quick job. "You have one tonic/mini, you made them all". Just tweak a number, change the name, and make an icon. Double check for bugs and send in for translation. And finally, the items are not for PvEers, but for GW players. You can enter the art contest regardless of being PvE or PvP. You can't use them in PvP battles, true, but you know very well why that it, and any other prise would be banned there also... unless your idea of a prise is something like a bunch of tournament points so you can unlock a PvP skin... I don't think it is. Oh, almost forgot to tell you that you seem to have forgotten that PvPers got a pretty big update recently too. — Poki#3 (talk) 22:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Your right it introduced henchies with the same bars as hero's , new unobtainable tonics, and a arena that is plagued by the same bad balance as any other arena (well worse most of the time).Thx alot for that ! Lilondra 06:23, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) LOL, what is this, Whining Day? And what ridiculous whine is this, anyway? Since when is a contest part of "high-end PvE"? Since when do people need to "afford this new content" when the most important part of content added recently was the fight against Dhuum, which is, you know, free? Since when "high-end PvE is getting a hell of a lot of focus" given how it was given a single update recently, and the lack of PvE updates was something there was a lot of whining (guess by whom?) about? Really, you may be trying your hard to whine as much as you can, but it's not even barely making sense anymore. Erasculio 10:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

wut? Karate Jesus 18:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Such a well thought out and insightful answer. How many baaaww sections do you create per day? And what did I tell you about just using the angry sadface?: >:,(

It would go like this:

Baaaaawwww I'm butthurt over stuff
>:,( -- KJ

Not that hard, is it? -Cursed Angel 18:57, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Given the recent years' reaction from players that they wanted more in-game prizes, we just thought it would be a nice thing to do. Linsey came up with the idea of making a new mini and tonic rather than recycle old ones. --Regina Buenaobra 20:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I asked this once already, but noticed it was archived

Can we still expect to hear a preview of the changes a month ahead of time, or are you guys waiting for the Test Krewe for that? I seem to remember hearing that there will be a December skill update, so I'm assuming we wont be hearing a month in advance as was suggested. Karate Jesus 20:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that TK is pretty much up and running I think it can only be assumed they will be "testing" said things in the coming days/week. Doubting any "preview." — PmaN 20:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm becoming really inpatient waiting for any at all PvP skill updates :< ---Chaos- (talk) -- 20:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

If they're using the TK, that's fine and all...I mean, I know it took them longer than they wanted to set up the TK but that could have been said for anything they've done lately (The Waiting Game, anyone?). I'm just getting tired of this, "We're going to try things this way now" and then them never actually doing it the way they say they're going to. Ideas are great, but ideas are just ideas until someone actually does something with them. Karate Jesus 20:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Wasting your time even asking this guys... I give it 1½ weeks from their announcement before they go live, and none of our so called feedback will be acted upon. They may use it as inspiration for re-tweaking later on but ultimately they discard the entire point of using the player base to improve designs during patching. And the only purpose of the test krewe is to find more bugs/exploits ...atleast that's how I've seen this kinda thing work in every NcSoft game. I'll eat my hat if Anet breaks with that tradition. --ilr 22:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I hope your hat is made of some seriously toxic material. -- Wyn talk 13:16, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Is it just me or did wyn rly get alot more agressive.Not saying she's not right about it I'm just suprised Lilondra 13:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

...lolbbq, #3'd in mah pants --ilr 21:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

As we near the 7 month anniversary of the XTH being down...

Will we hear anything.....at all?.....just a tiny bit of info? Karate Jesus 20:50, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Forget Forget ! Forget ? Lilondra 20:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to forget! Noes! Karate Jesus 20:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

10 e she does answer like that Lilondra 20:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If we're both betting on the same side, how do we win money? And I hope not. It's been down for a loooong time without information and how long ago did we hear that they had the correct number of points? 2 months ago? Karate Jesus 20:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The Waiting Game Lilondra 20:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Rewards: ToT bags, UW scroll, and....OUR TRPs?! WHAT?! Lol. Karate Jesus 20:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Anything you can do ...

And no, I'm not going to talk about the norn-quest, I'm going to bring up the subject of your attempts to stave off speedclear efficiency and how it is affecting everyone else.

Farming builds utilize game mechanics to it's full potential, gaining efficiency at an exponential rate doing so compared to normal builds using the same mechanics. By going after farming builds, you are forced to come up with combinations that break those mechanics, or to simply pull out all the stops in terms of damage done or enemies spawned. This usually hits the people playing the game normally like a sledgehammer, while merely inconveniences farmers, at the very best just slows them down.

To take the recent changes to The Underworld. The skeletons were a detriment for solo-assassins relying on Shadow Form to survive, but in no means a deal-breaker. Farming builds easily adjust to this to work around it, with just some minor setbacks as far as time was concerned. You also changed the spawns for some of the quests, forcing normal parties to split up into two groups more often. Again, farming builds can easily adapt to further split, while the regular teams are not as fortunate. For most normal teams splitting up while still facing strong enemies is harsh. Normal teams don't have the luxory of having near invulnerable party members to care for, but instead they are under extreme pressure having to heal and protect everyone.

Farmers already go through these areas faster than normal teams, aquire better drops than you would completing the whole thing in a party. Speedclear teams also reap the rewards a lot faster than normal teams, hence why they occur in the first place. The problem is that the changes doesn't cause a detriment to do speedclears, it in fact gives you more and more reasons to. By making normal play even harder and speedclears just mildly affected, you're increasing the value of speedclears as they'll be even more time-efficient comparably speaking. Not to mention easier than normal play, again, comparably speaking.

Elite areas are barely worth it for their special drops as it is. They are high-end farming zones, because normal play through these areas rarely give enough special drops to make it worthwhile. It's not uncommon to only get a handful of ectos for the entire party, while finishing all the quests. For a normal party it takes a couple of hours, perhaps even more. To come out of that with perhaps just that one ecto from the end-chest is hardly inspiring. That's of course only if you actually finish. Should you fall on one of the many deal-breakers in The Underworld and fail before finishing, you more often than not end up with nothing, despite having finished several quests.

Now I have no idea how to give elite areas back to the people, without allowing farmers and speedclears unchecked access to the goodies. But as it stands, I just want it to pay off to strike up an alliance party with normal people and trudge through The Underworld for a few hours ... not everyone likes to farm.

I would like to hear your view on this Regina, as a community manager.
- Kherec 12:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely. I said this over on the skeletons of Dhuum page, and I'll say it here: permanent invincibility is a BAD THING. It's not a problem with the Underworld. It's a problem with shadowform and the supporting skills that allow an individual to achieve permanent invincibility. And as I said over there - I want to know if this sort of negligence [with regard to balance and game mechanics] is symptomatic of all of Anet and NCsoft games or just GW1... because I have no interest in playing GW2 if all I have to look forward to is a single outpost filled with "Charr W/mo R9+ reputation gimmick build only for SC" while the rest of the game is completely empty. 65.207.54.194 15:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Of course it is impossible to balance any area around an invincibility skill such as Shadow Form, it will hurt everyone else more than the farmers - I play Monk, oh look at how happy I am when my Protection spells do absolutely nothing to help my team against skeletons. It's very simple, they would just need to nerf Shadow Form and any other potential subsititutes (Obby Flesh, etc, I dunno), but it seems like a 'political' decision towards the community...--Sensei 16:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yep, but they dont nerf it at the moment so it seems they have profit from it if people keep SC while it keeps them ingame and they won't lose players who are gone play other MMO's I guess. Which also use tactics to keep players in their games. So they say nerfing SF is no option but slowing it down can be done. Since people will keep farming anyway. Because if they slow it down it is slowed down for all farmers. So they dont stop farming. But if they nerf it they maybe quit the game. Death Sligher 20:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

They've barely slowed it down at all, and it won't be long before a new UWSC build is put together to buildwars the skeletons. The high-end PvE community is, if nothing else, creative and determined. 74.50.104.2 21:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

This game isn't like other MMO's with degenerate camping & farming though... --ilr 09:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC) ___ ← moved to Feedback_talk:User/Ilr (discussion way off topic with ad hominem chatter)

(reset indent) It's almost been a month Regina. Is this something you can't or won't answer, then just say so. Otherwise I'm still eager to get a response. - Kherec 11:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Aw... I was hopping you'll continue the sentence with "...I can do better". It's no fun will that wall of text. People should take the time to make jokes all the time, otherwise no one will take them seriously ever. Now... you are a bit wrong. Changes devised to halt farmers do not always affect normal players, and changes made to empower normal players do not aleways benefit farmers more. Let's take the best example of all: The ritualist. After the last PvE change, ritualists are fun to use , yet no way as exploitable as many other farming combinations. You can still stand in the middle of a bunch of melee enemies without trouble, but you won't have a full party of ritualists using those gimmicks, because spirits balance themselves by not allowing more than one spirit per party. What does it mean? That changes can be made to benefit the 'normal' players without really benefiting farmers, rushers, runners and other players that follow 'unsupported' playstyles. The hard part is finding the right change. And that takes time and testing. For the time... well... they had a lot already... and for the testing, they should have put up the Test Krewe since 2005... but the Asura didn't exist by then, XD. Still, there are many ways to halt unreasonable speeds... like putting timers, doors that require everybody to be nearby, little parts that force some members of the team to specialice against something instead just bringing an overall farming build... many of them are already implemented in many dungeons and some elite missions. And most of them are much more annoying for a Speed Clearer than for a normal player.MithTalk 21:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

While you're quite right in most of what you're saying, this particular change to The Underworld didn't really hit the farmers much, it hit everyone else a lot harder for the reasons I mentioned above. Elite areas have a very delicate spell-immunity issue, that affects everyone. Take the Skeleton damage, that ignores all skills ... an invincible farmer isn't hurt as much because that is their only source of damage, while normal teams suffer greatly by the added damage. They are already taking damage from everything the farmer is already avoiding (or already compensated for) so it has a much, much greater impact on them.

- Kherec 22:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

What they should really do is to make any form of farming nonviable for all elite areas, then have end chests drop more items. Increasing the drop rate of rare items along the way helps too. Pika Fan 23:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Easy enough. Just make enemy groups semi-balanced or more varied within an elite area, but have certain anti-gimmick things on them _{oh and also nerf permas}. --[-Kyoshi-]::[-Talk-] 00:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

That wouldn't be a good idea. Arena Net has always aimed in the opposite direction - if something is used often to farm a single place, it's ok; if it's used in few places, it's usually accepted. If it's being used everywhere, then it's a problem, and that's what's happening now. But "everywhere" doesn't mean "all 'elite1 areas'", it means literally everywhere. If Shadow Form were not viable in any "elite" area but were used everywhere else, to the point of any group doing a mission requiring assassins instead of anything else, then it would be a far worse problem than SF being used to farm ectos and only ectos.

I agree with increasing the rewards on the endgame areas for normal play, and of course the enemies there could be better (that applies to most of the game). But the most important thing is nerfing the gimmicks, IMO, not only thanks to the endgame, but mostly important for everything that becomes before it. Erasculio 00:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I went through the entirety of the missions in the game, in Hard Mode no less, and rarely (if ever, it's been a while since I started) had a perma in my group. They're most often used for farming, not missions and quests, and they would just be used for more low-end farming if they weren't viable in elite areas anymore. I doubt they'll ever be considered a staple in missions until Warrior armor is nerfed. --[-Kyoshi-]::[-Talk-] 00:43, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

That's not what Linsey described in the PAX panel... Erasculio 01:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't at PAX and I haven't heard much about it. What description are you referring to? --[-Kyoshi-]::[-Talk-] 01:40, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

All you have to do is visit some missions and outposts where people usually gather for a Zaishen quest. Open the party panel, and the two things most people will ne looking for will be "perma" and "monk". MithTalk 08:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The PAX videos have been available here; I think the long question about SF is in the last one with the Live Team. Linsey mentions how it's being used for everything, not just farming the endgame. Erasculio 09:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

@Mith: Like I said, I haven't noticed that many permas around, or demand for them, in Hard Mode. I used Zmissions to forward my Legendary Guardian title, so I have a lot of experience in doing that. The things I saw most were a) mostly-balanced groups with 1-2 monks and a spirit spammer and b) the occasional Discordway duo. Maybe it became more prevalent as I finally got the title, as I really haven't done them too much ever since.

@Erasculio: She said it's starting to be used for more things, but again, I haven't seen it used as prevalently as some people suggest. Basically, its uses are greatly limited in areas where creatures have even the slightest ability to heal themselves, or where damage goes through target-spell and attack protection; here it can only function as a very efficient tank, and in some cases a decent snare, at best. It's extremely hard to kill things solo with any kind of character if they have an efficient method of healing themselves.

This brings me to an idea for a pseudo-nerf that I just thought up. Simply adding healers to elite areas could force permas into a situation where they can't solo things anymore, and where gimmick groups would have to be much more balanced and less gimmicky and take much more time to clear things on the whole. Adding non-spell enchantment removal would render them almost useless without skillful and coordinated play, though it's clear from the video that's not what they want. There are a lot of ways this could be addressed, besides adding entirely new enemies that "penetrate all defenses," which apparently hasn't hurt it that much. --Kyoshi (Talk) 17:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, my question isn't about whether or not Shadow Form should be nerfed, it's about how they go about it. I just want to know if they truly think about the balanced teams when they do, as it often seems like they don't when changes are made to enemies or game mechanics "to counter certain farming builds". They usually end up just hampering balanced teams more.

So my intention is to bring this up and hopefully get a response from Regina on the subject.

- Kherec 08:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Kyoshi, I don't think you understand. The reason why SF is used everywhere isn't to solo farm, but rather to act as a tank. Take a look at any of the many groups that are seeking to use it everywhere, and you'll notice that the majority of them are actually damage dealing groups using the assassin as a perfect tank. That's how SF has been used for a long time now (Slaver's Exile has been done in such way from the beginning). It wouldn't make sense to add enemies with more self healing as that's not a problem now, and would only slow down normal gameplay; and between changing nearly the entire game and nerfing one skill, it's only the obvious path to nerf the one skill. Erasculio 08:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

"Take a look at any of the many groups that are seeking to..." Again, I don't see it around nearly as often as you seem to. Nerfing the skill is fine with me, to be completely honest. I'm just suggesting alternatives, since in that interview they clearly said they're hesitant about outright nerfing farming builds; and for the addition of healers I mainly meant in solo or all-perma-team farming areas like the Underworld. Then again, seeing as I haven't been able to complete it with a balanced group, or complete it at all for that matter, it's hard for me to judge it well, I'll admit. --Kyoshi (Talk) 20:43, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

This is actually a really good point, i mean, what this conversation was actually aimed at. Whether or not you advocate a nerf of perma-farming as a whole kherec is right. the underworld has just gotten harder and harder to do WITHOUT permas in your group because you need like 12 different tanks to hold aggro and keep the many fragile NPC's from dying. If i may make a radicle suggestion, Find the middle ground here, instead of nerfing permas AND making UW MORE impossible than it already is, Nerf perma's high rate of invunerability and make areas like the UW and FoW a bit easier to do. Require less of a split team basis. If these areas werent so crazy convoluted then i wouldnt feel the need to advocate perma. But their so damned difficult and bass-akwards and confusing that its nearly impossible to do them without a tank that can stand up to absolutely anything. in fact ive never been able to complete any elite area (with the exception of the deep and thats only because we were using steel wall method) without a Spell invincibility tank. Be it obby flesh or perma or SB tank (which is basically a 600 without a smiter if you dont know). Perhaps if these areas didnt REQUIRE such an insanely overpowered tank there wouldnt be as much of an outcry when you nerf perma. I still feel that nerfing any and all way to farm high end gear is wrong, because some people enjoy farming, and its f*cked up to take that from them when all they wanna do is get some nice gear. And i still advocate perma, but only because UW and FoW are so ridiculously confusing and difficult that if you dont have a perma tank then you might as well kiss your 1k for entry goodbye because theres no way in in the bowels of hell that that they can be completed with a PUG group and it would be mind-numbingly difficult with even a very experienced and coordinated team. Perhaps here you see a middle ground where everyone can be happy. The whiners get to wave bye bye to shadow form and the people that wanna grind out underworld over and over wont need it and can instead take a warrior or an imbagon. ^-^ Briar 14:57, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

<<the underworld has just gotten harder and harder to do WITHOUT permas in your group because you need like 12 different tanks to hold aggro and keep the many fragile NPC's from dying>>

It is just as hard as it was, you just need to pay more attention to aggro management. But as there are still people who think rangers should pull, I can imagine others thinking UW got harder.

<<Perhaps if these areas didnt REQUIRE such an insanely overpowered tank>>

They do not. People just have trouble thinking up anything outside the tank & spank team with 2 healers.

<<and I still feel that nerfing any and all way to farm high end gear is wrong, because some people enjoy farming>>

So, because 'some people' enjoy the rediculous state of the game where you can rickroll the first 2 elite areas of the game, it is okay that they can go on and get ectos without any trouble? You really have low standards for this game.

<<because UW and FoW are so ridiculously confusing and difficult that if you dont have a perma tank then you might as well kiss your 1k for entry goodbye because theres no way in in the bowels of hell that that they can be completed with a PUG group and it would be mind-numbingly difficult with even a very experienced and coordinated team.>>

UW and FoW were created before assassins (and SF) existed. And even longer before Deadly Paradox, Glyph of Swiftness, and Essence of Celerity existed. People completed those areas back then. What was your point again? Koda Kumi 16:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

AI also sucked back then. And half the builds that people have used to play this game have been nerfed because people whined that they were too overpowered. Your talking like anything that existsed before shadow form makes a damn bit of difference because they created an entire mob and many new spawns for the express purpose of stopping the powerhouse that is the shadow form tank. Anything and everything that existed before shadowform is null. The game is not now what it was then. Your argument is invalid. Briar 16:57, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Read better. You said UW is rediculously difficult without a permasin. It is not. I have been in enough teams that did not have a perma and still completed it, you just have to think outside your usual tank & spank strategy sometimes. Koda Kumi 17:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I think YOU should read better. Your entire argument is hinged on the single fact that yes, UW and FoW have been done before the shadow form tanks conception, however, what im trying to say is that SINCE its creation, it has become so warped, re-done, re-vamped, and intensified that you NEED an invicible tank to keep the insane ammounts of mobs that pop up every 10 feet or so at bay and away from the many important, though entirely to fragile, NPC's. And ill say it one more time, theres a difference between a highly experienced, highly coordinated guild group doing it, and some PUGs that are stumbling down in the dark for the first time. This crap doesnt STOP perma. it just makes it more and more necessary to have a tank, or 12, that can stand up to just about any ammount of abuse and come out looking pretty. Briar 21:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No. Since its creation, the only things that have been changed, aside from simple bugfixes, are the addition of Dying Nightmares (which do not have any impact on groups larger than 1), the addition of Dhuum skeletons and the of course Dhuum himself. Also, more good players left the game or play less often, so it seems to have become harder because you have to team up with idiots more often. Koda Kumi 21:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

"Since its creation only things that have changed.... are the edition of dying nightmares..... and dhuums skeletons" Thats when i knew you had no clue wtf your talking aboout. GG. Briar 22:18, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I just love accusations with no supporting evidence. — Jon Lupen 22:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If i had any clue how to post links i would. But seeing as i dont *shrug* oh well. I will just be happy with the knowledge that i am right and somone else is just doing whatever they can to make me sound like im wrong when they dont have the slightest clue what theyre talking about. I honestly dont care whether s/he knows what s/hes saying. The point stands that these updates have drastically inhibited people running balanced teams and have proven to be about as effective as a bug bite against SC teams. Briar 22:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[2] -- Large 23:18, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Spell-immunity is one of those issues that more or less forces the use of Shadow Form. Back in the day, Spell Breaker was self-sustainable, so you could get it in other ways. Now you're stuck with slow-moving Obsidian Flesh builds or Shadow Form, where Obsidian flesh is inferior due to slow moving and vulnerability to non-spell skills.

While a Nightmare by themselves is harmless and dies fast, it's not always they show up in a nice and controlled manner. What if you're facing a horde of other enemies, like wild swinging Aatxes and said Nightmare just stripped all your protection spells ... tough luck? Same goes with the mass-interrupting and enchantment stripping mesmers. One on one they are easy, but combine them with a group of dangerous damage dealers and the situation is quite different.

If they truly had wanted to slow down speedclears, while trying to preserve it for everyone else, they could simply have changed the quest-requirements. That way you couldn't split up in several teams and finish several quests at once. Normal teams would be unaffected by this, as they usually take the quests in turn, but speedclear tactics would be drastically hampered. Now this example may not be bulletproof, but there are plenty of ways to stave off speedclears that doesn't involve making the area more difficult or slower for normal teams.

And about the argument "they did it before" ... it's rather flawed, as the enemies didn't behave the same, the skills have long since been changed back and forth and in the case of The Underworld, several spawns and even new enemies have been added. And while I'm sure it'll still be possible to finish elite areas even if Shadow Form is killed, the question about whether or not these areas will be too difficult is still there. There's a point where things become too time-consuming or too difficult, where Anet (for the sake of balance) cannot reward players enough for the difficulty, for fear of creating über farms. And I definitely think this is where The Underworld is heading. It is simply too time-consuming without gimmick builds and too difficult to be worth it. And it's just ironic that despite their efforts, speedclearers still rule The Underworld, now even faster than they were before (relatively speaking, compared to normal teams) even though the time it takes to finish is longer. This because normal teams are much, much slower (if they even succeed).

- Kherec 12:31, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Briar, "I am right and you are wrong" is not a good way to get your point over. If anything, it makes you sound like a jerk.

Kherec, of course, some skills have been changed, but players have received more and more options throughout the years. Party-wide consumables, PvE-only skills, and a huge spirit upgrade mae PvE significantly easier. If, even with those methods (I like to call the first 2 cheats), UW is still difficult... Is that not just the point of an ELITE area? Koda Kumi 16:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes of course, it shouldn't be a walk in the park. But their approach on staving off speedclears clearly backfired, as they are as quick as before (well, almost anyway, if you take away the fight with Dhuum they are pretty much on cue as before) ... only people not running a horde of sins were truly affected by it. So if they goal were truly to slow down speedclearers, they need to rethink their methods.

Plus the reward they added to the chest is something only those farming the chest over and over will ever see ... so basically they countered speedclearing by adding drops pretty much exclusive to farmers?

- Kherec 16:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Kherec dude i freakin love you man! You are so going on my page as "Someone that doesnt suck". Kherec is totally right. While it may be POSSIBLE for a normal team to complete the underworld, It has become so slow, and mindnumbingly difficult that going through all that trouble for one lousy ectoplasm is just ridiculous to ask of a player. I completely agree with him. All these new additions to the underworld, and the new items in the chest, have only promoted speedclearing. Because now if you DONT speedclear it becomes far FAR more trouble than its worth. And on the topic of nightmares its not JUST your protection enchantments. Its ALL your enchantments. Including anything you have to hurt those nasty Aatxe. (probably the third most annoying creature in this game). Its just become so incredibly difficult for anyone NOT doing a speedclear that no one is interested in doing it the normal way anymore. If they could kill off the mindblades, nightmares, and skeletons, and then nerf shadow form, it would fix everything. People in a normal team would have a fighting chance here to get it done in UNDER a day and a half and speedclears would be set back milennia. I implore you ANet. Listen to the wise words of kherec. O.O Briar 21:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You realize people were doing speed clears of UW with obs flesh eles long before permaform got buffed....right?--TahiriVeila 21:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

<<And on the topic of nightmares its not JUST your protection enchantments. Its ALL your enchantments.>>

Oh no, we cannot kick any if the 40 skills our team currently uses for pure damage and use those slots for support, right? Because then we have to think outside of our tank-monks-nukers formula which is superior to everything else! Koda Kumi 22:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

And why is it the first place you go is to a tank/Monk/Nuker formula? because it works. Alot better than anything else. Briar 23:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll let the developers know how you feel about the issue regarding accessibility, UW, and speed clears... But a lot of the time developers will just have a different opinion from players on certain issues, and sometimes this will be reflected in the game. --Regina Buenaobra 00:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Regina, that's all I ask. - Kherec 07:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Armor Greens

Will the hero armor green drops (Primeval, Deldrimor) be affected for this weekend's event (double elite cap exp and double green drops)--Sageofprofession 17:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The details say green items from bosses. King Neoterikos 23:00, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

So wait... Does that mean Neoterikos' response is the answer?? I'm not complaining, IE: in the Shadow Nexus for instance it DOES make sense b/c I think it explicitly says that you can only get the Armor drop from the Portal d00des who are bosses. But what about other Challenge missions that have far fewer boss-rank mobs? Not to mention that it's not a "drop" like other drops are, it's more like a Quest reward where the armor is automatically placed in your inventory... Anyone know of any still-ongoing Wiki-research topics on this matter? (before this topic gets whooshed away entirely) --ilr 00:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

XTH - when?

Hello, its almost half of year since you shout down the xth, 3 month since xth agent gone for vacation, and few weeks since we heard last news. What is going on? Is someone even working on it? Or its just another forgotten project? (Titus andronicus 12:28, 25 November 2009 (UTC))

personally i think anet has two trains of thought on the xth one is that a lot of people like it and it was a widely use serves the second is the devalue of zkeys and the impact the xth had on the market. my hope is that the reason the xth has not come back yet is becase of the devalue of zkeys. because when zkeys first game out there price was at around 5k a key then the title came out and people really noticed this and started to farm the xth for zkeys and thus the price of zkeys plummeted to around 3-2k and only recently have they gone back up to there starting point of 5k each. if they bring back the xth i think they either need to drastically lower the amount of reward points you get or come out with something else that is of value that the reward points can be used on. (also a side note the reward point system was put in place to off set the price of pvp skins and items now they lowered the cost of that stuff so the high rewards from that system should be lowered to reflect it.)- Zesbeer 13:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Btw, it's been more than half a year. It's been around 7 months. And they're never going to fix it. Otherwise we would have heard something by now. They're hoping we forget about it. Karate Jesus 18:13, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The link to XTH (from favorites) is down. Page says that most probable causes are: page is being worked on, page has a programming fault. I'm still hoping. Not holding my breath though;)Nizab 19:14, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

That's happened more than once. It could just be general site maintenance for all we know. Karate Jesus 23:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

L2 high set while abusing lolenergy management ? Lilondra 07:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Bumping this issue again. Our last update was August....it'd be nice to hear something again. Karate Jesus 21:07, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

HAHAHA. She skipped over this section. Karate Jesus 21:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say, but there is no news that I can discuss in public about XTH. I'm sorry that this answer doesn't satisfy the request for information... The Live Team is aware that players continually ask us about XTH... But unfortunately I have no news. --Regina Buenaobra 00:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

/sigh. Well, maybe before the first year anniversary of it being down? Can we have an in-game event to celebrate the XTH's fail if it's still down after a year with no word? Karate Jesus 04:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately theres no news about any news of news about XTH. Typical. Titus andronicus 20:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Dreadspawn Maw

Could it be a reference to the original Sarlacc Pit? - J.P.Talk 02:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Ponos Fett ... j j jam it in .....(iow: this discussion is fraught with peril and should be avoided) --ilr 08:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Watch out with the link: 18+ content ahead. --Boro 19:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

It's possible. A lot of our employees enjoy Star Wars. -- Regina Buenaobra 22:26, 2 April 2010 (UTC)