5301

And then later on when Treesus meets you again and is gifted the cool sword, your previous interaction in retrieving that sword is not acknowledged at all.

That’s exactly the sort of thing that makes the story pretty bad. Individually there are some good characters/interactions/storylines, but the linkages between them are mostly incoherent.

5302

the secret world

5303

Yeah, not sure why Tom didn’t mention TSW. Just figured he considered the story multi-player rather than single-player (I did everything solo).

For the record, I also think GW2’s personal stories to be quite disappointing and the game’s theme/lore as a whole to be relatively bland. It’s really the level of polish, unique and varied gameplay, and continued support that keeps me coming back.

5304

Seconded. TSW is head-and-shoulders above every other MMO in this regard. They also managed to blend the personal story with the area-based quests more effectively than any of their competitors.

5305

On another note - apparently for WvWvW, they are going to reset the rankings with the coming reset to implement a reworked rating system (AN is unhappy about how it takes over a month of play for servers that gain/lose population to absolutely destroy or get crushed on their way to their appropriate matchup).

Everyone’s interpretation of this (and AN have given no indication that this is not true) is that:

  1. All servers already have their ranking reset for this weeks matchup
  2. Performance in this week’s matchup will use the new rating system to determine next week’s matchup

This…could make for absolutely disastrous next couple weeks. We’re probably going to move to T1 due to our current beatdown of IoJ and DR and we really do not belong there. And the current T1 servers, since their matchups are close, are likely to end up in the middle tiers to cause havok for the next few weeks while they make their way back.

Seriously, this sounds absolutely stupid.

5306

I hate them now. They used to be a reward for playing 20-40 minutes a day. Now they’re like a quest that resets everyday. And an annoying one at that.

5307

It is stupid and it is going to lead to weeks and weeks (if not more) of ridiculously unbalanced matchups, which only in recent weeks has been resolved.

Let’s hope their new rating system will help alleviate this at least a little.

5308

My understanding of why they felt they had to reset the rankings was because of the end of free server transfers. I’m not an expert, but it was pretty clear that mass server transfers were having a pretty large effect on server performance in WvW. Resetting it now kind of makes sense to me because there were likely some servers that were way off where they would have been without transfers in play.

5309

My little engineer, who has been 80 forever, I decided to go ahead and finish his personal story. Who was the genius that decided that the final mission has to be completed as a group? This late in the game, are there people who even want to do that? I’m fine with a long, epic quest, put it in a dungeon, but the rest of the way it was fun(-ish) to complete these only to have this road block thrown at you in the end.

I’m torn now, do I play one of my many alts, or do I work on completing the map for him (61% currently) and hope to join a random PUG that wants to get it done someday?

5310

This. On some servers, most of organized PvP population left to other servers. Having such servers slowly trickle down the rankings could screw up the matchups for weeks.

I guess it’s a lose-lose situation either way, it looks like they think a big shakeup is a lesser evil.

5311

What? Really? The last personal story mission is a mandatory group thing? Is this true for all the races?

5312

I was in a similar boat. Savior was gw2lfg.com. It took less than a minute to find a group. Getting it done was another story… it is a loooong dungeon; probably 45 minutes to an hour to finish. And the loot/reward was underwhelming.

But now I feel like I’m finished with the game and can move on to something else. I’ve got my 100% World Completion medal, a full set of exotic armor, and I’ve completed the personal story. I have been grinding for a legendary weapon, but that is turning out to be more work than fun, so I think I’m done with GW2 for a little while. After 280+ hours, I feel like I’ve got my $60 worth.

5313

All in all I’ve gotten tremendous value and enjoyment in gw2. I still can’t decide on my main. I got a warrior to 80, but frankly I find it pretty boring. I am working on a necromancer now, a lot more interesting and hopefully they expand the viable builds by the time I hit 80.

5314

The racial part of the personal story ends at level 30, when you pick an order and move on to that part. From level 62-80, the personal story quests have identical choices for all characters. That’s not to say that everyone runs the same quests, because there are different quest lines depending on the choices you make.

5315

Actually this trickle down effect has already been happening for weeks. The tiers are pretty much now settled or would be next week under the old rankings system. Which makes the anet decision look silly.

5316

I was specifically talking about the mass transfers that were occurring right before the free transfer deadline last week (Jan 28th?). Some servers lost most of their WvW guilds, some gained lots new ones. There is nothing settled about WvW at the moment.

Look at Kaineng, for example. They were in the last tier for months and this week they are raping tier 3. All because a bunch of dedicated WvW guilds came there in week 3 or so. Also look at Isle of Janthir plunging.

I guess, arguments can be made both ways, however, it’s clear that ANet didn’t just make this decision because they felt like it. They saw the number of transfers in week 2-3 and decided to start from a clean slate.

5317

What I love is that no matter what is set up by an MMO, there will always be a crowd of people who will actively break the spirit of the law to give themselves an advantage. Crafting, WvW, whatever, what is it that compels people to destroy others enjoyment in order to enhance their own? People suck.

5318

What is this tier stuff for WvW? WHat does it affect and where can I see it?

5319

Basically winners and losers. The servers that consistently (previously jade quarry, blackgate, sea of sorrows and a couple others) and just hav each other to battle for the top spot. There is a website out there that tracks it but on a bus so hopefully someone with better Internet can search and post.

As a player it doesn’t mean anything to you except server pride. The system is designed so equally capable servers should be matched up with each other as frequently as possible (supposedly). When I used to be on emhry bay we would routinely get steamrolled by a server and would be matched up with them again after reset.

5320

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups/#NA
http://mos.millenium.org/matchups/evolution/na

That’s demonstrably false though. Look at the score differentials for this weeks matchups. The only stompfests going on are Kaineng, Ehmry Bay (us), and Sorrows Furnance. Everyone else is in a contested matchup at this moment.

  1. Kaineng started their rise 5 weeks ago when a bunch of Stormbluff Isle guilds moved over. Another week or two and they’ll be stable in T1/T2.
  2. EB, Crystal Desert, Yak’s Bend, and previously Maguuma are more or less stable T4 servers. The odd one out that gets gets bumped to T5 stomp those servers. Maguuma seems to have replaced Isle of Janither in T3 right now, and IoJ probably will be stable where it currently is.
  3. Eardon Terrace and Ferguson’s Crossing have always been stomped on.


I just don’t see the end of free transfers effect. All the server movements you see playing out and stabilizing at this moment were started weeks ago.

Now, AN does have a very good argument that

  1. a math change to the ranking system should necessitate some sort of ratings reset
  2. a math change was needed since server rankings take too long (ie/ Henge of Denravi’s 2 months of being permanently stomped in their fall from T1 to T7) to move when large numbers of people transfer

But with the information we have right now, they are doing it in the most hamfisted way possible that will throw the near stability we have right now into another month of ranking chaos.

I sincerely hope they’re setting ratings by hand rather then resetting them all to the average and having that play out. Otherwise, our next matchup has a very good chance to be:
Sorrow’s Furnace (Tier 7/8)
Kaineng (on their way to T1/T2)
Ehmry Bay (T4)

Yeah…that’s a balanced matchup. And with the current T1 servers ending up scattered into the mid tiers, this would take another 2-3 weeks of ROFL-stomping to settle (assuming their new ratings system actually gets servers to where they should be faster).

Again, something of a reset is probably the right thing to do, I agree with that. But from what they’re writing, they seem to be oblivious to the problems that might happen.