Celeste and Allona are joined by special guest, Hunter, of huntersinsight.wordpress.com! They were all saddened that there was nothing to talk about this week…wait…pretty sure it was the opposite of that. Be prepared for Feature Patch Feedback Madness™!

Allona

• 
  
• Keyfarmed my face off. Well, maybe 10 runs over a few days. Got nuthin’ special.
  
• Made the mysterious vine backpiece … now for step two …
  
• Did a few more fungeons … which was fun!
  
• 11,500 cheevo chest!
  
• ~whispers~boughtacommandertag~whispers~
  
• Got my monthly cheevos already!
  
• Tested out the new levelling. While not cheering to the rafters, I’m not as upset as some folks … in that I’m not overly upset at all
  

Hunter

• 
  
• i have a story
  
• got my 15k chest…
  

Celeste

• 
  
• Snuck in a few more Keyfarms
  
• Got my 7.5k chest
  
• Finished Puzzle Jumper for Monthly
  
• Started a Charr Ranger to try the new changes. We are not amused, ArenaNet.
  

Livestreaming Wednesday’s at 9:30pm EST/6:30pm PST at twitch.tv/mmoreporter.

You can also subscribe to the audio version of the podcast on iTunes! Remember to rate and/or review Guild Wars Reporter.

If you haven’t logged in yet to check out the changes, I recommend checking out BogOtter’s Preview video as it’ll give you a good idea of what to expect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y312p68sK4k&feature=youtu.be

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-September-9-2014/first#post4380305

• 
  
• Trading Post
  
  • 
    
  • One (side) tab for everything, most of the big menus are now switching on top rather than the side
    
  • Delivery Panes is on the bottom of all the menus so that you can see what you’ve got coming very easily
    
  • New categories, filtering, and search by profession
    
  • “Minimum buy and sell prices are now vendor value + 15%.â€
    
  • Something that was shared during the latest POI episode was that you can get a more streamlined trading post experience if you type in I am Evon Gnashblade into the search field (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2g0epu/i_am_evon_gnashblade_mode_will_you_be_using_it/)
    
  
  
  
• Wardrobe Improvements
  
  • 
    
  • Search by name with equipment and skins
    
  • outfits are on their own page, showing both locked and unlocked skins along with how they can be attained
    
  • PvP finishers tab got the same treatment
    
  • Miniatures can be added to wardrobe, similar to how minis were dedicated in GW1
    
    • 
      
    • You can still use them from your inventory but there’s a few other bonuses if you dedicate them.
      
      • 
        
      • Adding to achievements (would you have to commit them to the wardrobe to qualify now?) – yes
        
      • They’ll travel with you through portals if you have them equipped on the right tab. (If you just double click them, they won’t stay out)
        
      
      
      
    • They stack in your bags now
      
    • Culling in the Advanced Graphics menus if you want to turn off ALL minis (including your own)
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Item Rewards
  
  • 
    
  • Crafting backpacks
    
    • 
      
    • You can get the recipes from your crafting discipline trainers/vendors
      
      • 
        
      • C: Some of these are really awesome but I hate that almost every backpiece clips with my stowed weapons
        
      
      
      
    
    
    
  • New discoverable recipes on the low end of crafting disciplines
    
  
  
  
• Item Collections
  
  • 
    
  • We talked a lot about this last week and it’s come into the game just as we thought it would.
    
  • Collect stuff, finish collections, get rewards. They’re found all over the place! The freebie start one is in the Grand Piazza of LA for the spoon collection.
    
  
  
  
• New Runes and Sigils in PvE and WvW
  
  • 
    
  • there’s a bunch
    
  
  
  
• New Combat Log
  
  • 
    
  • For those of you that are concerned with min-maxing or just watching the data stream past, there’s a lot more options now
    
    • 
      
    • I like the incoming/outgoing healing option a whole lot
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Structured PvP
  
  • 
    
  • Glorious Reward Track – earn one piece at a time by completing the reward track multiple times
    
  • PvP sigils added: Bursting & Impact
    
  • PvP runes added: Resistance & Altruism
    
  • PvP Amulet added: Assassin
    
  
  
  
• WvW
  
  • 
    
  • Siege Golem Mastery
    
  • Siege Disabler
    
  • Account-wide commander tag – yellow, red, purple and blue commander icons for any/all of your characters if you buy the tag for the now 300G price
    
  • Fall tournament (9/12 – 10/10)
    
    • 
      
    • C: Have to go grab your points/rewards after each week or else you may miss out on them
      
    
    
    
  • “Dead players can no longer linger on the ground indefinitely and will be forced to respawn at a portal keep after 5 minutes.â€
    
    • 
      
    • A: Can we add this to PvE, but put a timer of 20 to 30 seconds on it? ;P
      
    
    
    
  • “Players can now continue gaining world experience rank rewards after reaching rank 10,000. However, they will gain no additional WvW ability points.â€
    
  • “All boons are now removed when entering a siege golemâ€
    
  
  
  
• Level-Up Guide
  
  • 
    
  • Part of the new player experience
    
  • Skill unlock requirements for certain professions are different in order to keep them playable, elementalist (attunements) and necromancer (death shroud) are mentioned specifically
    
  
  
  
• New Player Experience
  
  • 
    
  • You do tend to level faster and the curve has been improved for the first 15 levels in order to get you to the stuff you really want (weapon swapping and skill unlocks) as soon as you can
    
  • Story steps are unlocked in chapters at 10 level increments and keep you in the story as much as possible
    
    • 
      
    • There are problems with the later chapters being reworked and some of them appear to be in the wrong order according to players who are in chapter 7-8. Some quest lines appear to have been dropped completely either for brevity or flow (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2g02mx/the_personal_story_doesnt_make_sense_since_the/)
      
    
    
    
  • A more humorous approach to people’s reactions to the new player experience: http://orrator.com/post/97136186939/public-education-overhaul-not-making-the-grade
    
    • 
      
    • C: It certainly makes it less confusing but it also makes it extremely dull and turns the experience more towards a themepark than a sandbox.
      
    
    
    
  • A reaction from a new(ish) player to the changes: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2g04i7/how_a_player_of_about_2_weeks_feels_about_todays/ckede4w This hits the nail on the head. That instant love that was there the first time I started a character wouldn’t have been there for me if the new system was there.
    
    • 
      
    • A: I have no idea how I would have felt if this was my first introduction to GW2. Probably would have rolled with it and loved it, tbh.
      
    
    
    
  • Verene’s evaluation: “If it was being noted that new players were struggling with certain things, then more effort should have been put in to explain these things – not delaying when they come into play, which I just see being even more confusing for newer players.†– http://thepaletree.net/2014/09/10/the-new-player-experience/
    
    • 
      
    • A: I mostly agree here. Largely even. I suspect it may still be confusing, but in different ways, to new players; but I’m not super sure.
      
    
    
    
  • TriggerSad on twitter had this to say: https://twitter.com/TriggerSad/status/509738812680187904  “At the end of the day, the new system was made with good intentions in mind. There are some things in this game that needed to be taught better (i.e. Dodging & the Downed State), but the current system can at best be seen at unnecessarily time-gating core features to a character’s leveling progression, to at worst insulting a player’s intelligence. Fact is we don’t NEED to be taught how to play after making our 4th-5th alt that isn’t anything specific to a character’s profession. However, streamlining the system to make it same across all character’s causes more harm than good. Each profession plays differently. They were designed specifically with that in mind. However, with the extremity in which all of these level gates were handled, I can’t say that this new system teaches better than it hinders.â€
    
  • DistilledWill boils it down to this simple sentence: “It really doesn’t take an expert to know that hiding key features from new players so as to teach them how to play the game is just arse-backwards†– http://dwpgaming.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/gw2-why-your-opinion-on-new-player.html
    
  • If you want to see “all†the level rewards with the new system, check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_UWu6YL4F8
    
  • BREAKING! Colin posted on the official forums:
    
    “I just want to quickly add, there are some errors on this chart of how stuff is unlocking, as well as 1st character vs. account unlocks when some of these systems were carried between regions. We’re trying to identify what happened and repair those things assigned the wrong account/character fields, as well as levels.â€
    
    https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Misconceptions-regarding-Level-gating/first#post4392666
    
    • 
      
    • Immortal.3647 asks the million dollar question “just revert this kitten to how it was before…. why would you destroy a running system†https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Misconceptions-regarding-Level-gating/first#post4392750
      
    • Paradox.1380 points out:
      
      A handy list I made after making a new character on a newbie account I bought during the sale.
      
      • 
        
      • What You Can Do At Level 1:
        
        • 
          
        • Dodge
          
        • Dye Armor
          
        • Harvest Materials (go into the city when you get outta the first story and buy some Gathering Tools from a crafting master)
          
        • Craft Items (just talk to the guy like before and learn the discipline)
          
        • Use the Trading Post
          
        • You can Visit Vistas AND PoIs you just aren’t directed to them.
          
        • WvW or PvP (Use Hot Keys to open the panels or go to LA from Home City to access the Asura Gates)
          
        • Can Use Wardrobe just open it up
          
        • Can use Minis
          
        • Can Access your Bank/Guild Bank
          
        • Can Access the Guild Panel Hit G
          
        • Can do Jumping Puzzles (I did Morgans Spiral at level 3 and the secret troll one at level 2 just to see)
          
        • Can Map Complete and get rewards for it.
          
        
        
        
      • What You Can’t Do:
        
        • 
          
        • The Combat stuff is true and locked behind a leveling curve that is significantly increased (It only took me 30 minutes to get to level 10 where all my weapon skills for ALL weapons were unlocked)
          
        • At level 13 about 45 min into a new character I unlocked my first Utility skill and as such unlocked Skill Point Challenges. Also, you can use Knowledge Scrolls at any level to learn new healing skills if you don’t like the first one.
          
        • You also unlock the 1-10 Personal Story at ten and can do the whole arc at once. I did that at level 13 and it got me to level 17 and have a LOT of nice goodies and included the Black Lion Key.
          
        • Diving Goggles in Starter Zones (Item bundle, this one is weird but meh)
          
          https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Misconceptions-regarding-Level-gating/page/2#post4393292
          
        
        
        
      
      
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Hardware
  
  • 
    
  • AlienFX hardware things… I guess that’s good for folks that want to backlight their monitors
    
  
  
  
• Guild Unification
  
  • 
    
  • FINALLY.
    
  • NA/EU is still separated but at least we’re united as continents
    
  • Guild Bank is open to all people on all servers (in your region) so I can finally see that there’s a billion sigils in MoCK’s vault
    
    • 
      
    • A: Take them! For the love of all six gods, use them!
      
    
    
    
  • Vaults are going to be reduced down to the server that had the largest number of slots but it has to be moved over before all of that can happen so when an extra vault is emptied it may disappear.
    
  • Influence has been combined and refunded if there was a conflict/repeat
    
  • “The price of starting a new guild has been raised to 1 gold.†Interesting.
    
  
  
  
• Bug Fixes
  
  • 
    
  • various slight changes to different areas unrelated to the feature pack
    
    • 
      
    • gendarran, kessex, sparkfly/tequatl, queensdale, fields of ruin
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Crafting UI
  
  • 
    
  • “Recipes visually stack, and players can now return to recipes by clicking on them.†This means that you can open multiple recipes in order to complete the more complex ones
    
    • 
      
    • C: This is the feature that I didn’t know I needed, I seriously undersold this when we spoke about it on the show
      
    • A: See! Didn’t I say this would be amazing!
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• General
  
  • 
    
  • “Players are now moved to valid positions on entering maps, preventing players from being stuck inside structures built while off-line.â€
    
  • “Removed the commander buff.â€
    
    • 
      
    • C: I never understood what the point of this was?
      
    
    
    
  • World boss target selection improvements: tab priority, click selection, and “World bosses can now be selected by clicking on the corresponding health bar in the event panel.â€
    
  • Obelisk in the human home instance has been moved so it isn’t perilously close to the one tree! YAY!
    
  
  
  
• Megaserver
  
  • 
    
  • “Joining a map while representing a guild that has an active mission now triggers a special algorithm that dramatically increases the likelihood of joining the same map copy as your fellow guildmates.â€
    
    • 
      
    • C: has an active mission… Damn. I was really hoping this was for all the time.
      
    
    
    
  • Volunteer’s blessing – if you don’t volunteer and the map closes, what happens? Do you just not get the buff?
    
  
  
  
• Dungeons
  
  • 
    
  • No more dungeon instance owner, the map will only close if it is empty
    
  
  
  
• Fractals
  
  • 
    
  • Fixed an issue in Cliffside with the Cultist Hammer
    
  
  
  
• Items
  
  • 
    
  • items that are changed with the wardrobe are now renamed with the right skin
    
  • “Selecting a salvage kit now highlights all salvageable items in the inventory.â€
    
  • “Double-clicking a stackable item to deposit/withdraw from the bank will now attempt to merge it with existing stacks first and place any remainder in the first empty slot.â€
    
    • 
      
    • C: This is such a wonderful QoL issue that I didn’t know I needed it as badly as I do.
      
    • A: AAAAHHHH! Love it!
      
    
    
    
  • “Created a new mystic forge recipe that accepts Mini Risen Priests of Balthazar.â€
    
  • “Increased chance of Monkey King loot drops from bosses in Dry Top.†Interesting.
    
  • “Steel and Seasoned Wood weapons are now properly named and have a new set of skins associated with them.â€
    
    • 
      
    • A: Interesting … I want to check these out now.
      
    
    
    
  • “Fixed a bug in which some rare and exotic miniatures could be deleted without name verification†Ouch.
    
  
  
  
• Profession Skills
  
  • 
    
  • Too Damn Many to talk about. Read the patch notes, folks. Watch the skill bar video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c86ECLpcamo&list=UUP_FgMqOxp_VsM0UfrL-DxA
    
  
  
  
• Racial Skills
  
  • 
    
  • Most of them have been toned down to be less powerful
    
    • 
      
    • A: Now everyone can be as terrible as humans!
      
    
    
    
  • Bear and Leopard form skills have been redone as well
    
  
  
  
• BLTC Gem Store
  
  • 
    
  • The Miniature Chieftain Utahein and Miniature Svanir 2-pack has been added for a limited time to the Toys category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
    
  • Random Mini 3-packs from Set 1, Set 2, and Set 3 are all available for a limited time in the Toys category of the Gem Store for 300 gems.
    
    • 
      
    • A: This is pretty smart as a way to get TP prices under control.
      
    
    
    
  • Black Lion Chest Changes:
    
    • 
      
    • Removed the following items from Black Lion Chests:
      
      • 
        
      • Scroll of Knowledge (+1 skill point)
        
      • Essence of Luck (50)
        
      • Essence of Luck (100)
        
      
      
      
    • Basic Dye Pack drops rates have been reduced by half.
      
    • Added the following items as uncommon drops from Black Lion Chests:
      
      • 
        
      • Flame Dye Kit
        
      • Frost Dye Kit
        
      • Deathly Dye Kit
        
      • Toxic Dye Kit
        
      • Metallurgic Dye Kit
        
      • Lion’s Arch Survivor Dye Kit
        
      • Lion’s Arch Commemorative Dye Kit
        
      • Heavy Crafting Bag
        
      • Large Crafting Bag
        
      • Medium Crafting Bag
        
      • Utility Primer
        
      
      
      
    • Weapon Tickets and Weapon Ticket Scraps have increased drop rates.
      
    • All minis, backpacks, endless tonics, and permanent contracts have slightly increased drop rates.
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• We want to hear what you’re loving most about the feature pack! We know it’s not all doom gloom it’s just that we have some strong feelings about the changes. Tweet us! Facebook us! Tumblr us! Email Us! We’d love to share your opinions.
  

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/09/10/guild-wars-2s-living-story-season-resumes-in-november/

• 
  
• “The fate of Tyria hangs in the balance. The world’s races are uniting against the Elder Dragon Mordremoth. Their first lesson – there is no sanctuary.
  
  At the culmination of the first half of Season 2, Tyria’s leaders had gathered for a secret summit at the Grove, at the base of the sylvari’s sacred Pale Tree. They proved an easy target for Mordremoth’s forces, facing a surprise attack by the Shadow of the Dragon.
  
  Tyria’s heroes are now scattered across the world but in pursuit of one goal: how to bring the battle to Mordremoth. The secret may lie in a vision delivered by the Pale Tree moments after she was badly wounded by the Shadow of the Dragon.
  
  What did the vision mean, and will a united Tyria be enough to thwart the threat from this powerful Elder Dragon?
  
  The fight continues…â€
  
  • 
    
  • C: Makes sense as we’ll have halloween for October, presumably. And I suppose the living story will be on hold again as we get to Wintersday.
    
  • A: I thought they might leave it for January because of Feature Patch, Halloween, Wintersday …
    
  
  
  

Greetings magnificent podcasting mavens,

As the dust settles from the latest patch, I dare say that key farming can still be a thing. While it is no longer the 20ish minute mad dash through content, it can still be done moderately quickly.

First the new crafting backpacks now allow for an account bound level 1 back piece with your choice of stats. So from any character you have you can make a nice piece for your disposable minion characters.

Crafting for levels, with disposable minion characters we don’t want to lose value/money creating full items. To this end, refinement is the key make Bolts of Jute, Stretched Rawhide Leather Squares, and Green Wood Planks. It is important to watch the color of the respire when refining, when it turns yellow stop. Go to one of the other craft trainers and change crafts, this way you get the maximum experience(since you only get real exp at the crafting level up) from your materials.

An old good old key farm armor/weapon set should easily get you to level 10. Remember the new story will be level 10 for each step to the key. So the rewards are also elevated so you can get upgrades to help with the later steps.

Why still key farm? They added the special event dyes to the chests and lowered the junk. Also with the higher barrier/time sink to get a key the rewards value on the Trading Post will likely go up.

One of your many fans,

Particle Shift

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