Dev Update: Dyes, Item Stacking

My necro's once shiny silver armor is now a crappy grey, and my mesmer's golden hue now has a funky green tint to it. Could we possibly go back to the way the dyes were? I really don't want to spend that much time trying to get my armor back to the way I liked it. I know, this is a minor complaint in light of how great NF is, but it does irritate me.

I think healers and casters are supposed to run.

Why does every W/Mo think that every character, every foe in the game is supposed to sit there and fight them head on?

Running is strategy no matter who does it. And like all strategies, its beatable. If something starts to run, use a snare skill or a crippling skill. Protector's Strike is pretty good as well as Bull Strike. When the mobs just sat there and attacked you, a good portion of the skills were not useful. I mean, you would only bring cripple or snare tech to save your monk from a charging warrior.

I know it can really be annoying if your not prepared for kiting enemies.

I have problems stacking commendations, totems, and equipment requisitions too. I pmed you my character name a few minutes ago, hope everything gets fixed soon.

Thank you!

Gaile, perhaps they can fix this? The dye that is spawned from that quest has value: 25 versus the normal dye value of 1.

Please read the threads in the Heros Ascent section about Heros ruining PvP experience, then please at least aknowledge that you read them because it is ridiculous.

thanks Gaile. This is gonna solve alot of my grief

That "To Dye For" quest is still bugged. I've seen people complaining in Kamadan that they can't accept the reward, and I've seen it first hand since my wife can't accept the reward, either. She keeps hitting the button to accept, but nothing happens.

Same here. That quest is bugged and needs to be fixed.

Overall, I've noticed a LOT more bugs in NF.

Hooray for dye stacking! ^^

Also, I love the new mixing preview window--now that I know how it works.

Loving Nightfall. The scenery and music are beautiful. Factions was ok, but the majority of scenery was dark or monotonous compared to Nightfall. The contrasting colours of red desert and green trees and spectacular skylines are fantastic. Kudos to the art team.

I play PvP, so I know what kiting is. The PvE creatures do NOT kite. They run. And run, and run. You stop chasing them, they keep running. You turn around and head the opposite dirrection, they continue to run.

EDIT: By the way, I play necromancer primarily, not a wammo.

Just as a side note, when you try to complete the quest, it takes your flowers but does not give you your reward. Hopefully once they fix the quest, those that already had their flowers taken can still accept it without getting more.

Bingo. Kiting !=running. The monsters don't simply kite, they either turn around and run straight away, or run straight forward into and past your group. Then they run, and run, and run. Sometimes if you stop chasing them, they'll turn around and come back and then let you kill them. Other times, they'll come back and as soon as you target them again, they'll just start running and running again. Sometimes it's okay, but sometimes with things like healers, it's a big problem. Especially when you're fighting the higher level stuff, and there's more than one monk to heal the group because then is when you really need to take the monks down first.

Had the same problems with the 'To Dye For' quest myself. I seems to have got bugged since they removed the Halloween event.

It worked fine a couple of days ago on one of my other characters.

Thank you to those who sent information about the stacking issues. I don't require any more reports at this time, but you definitely helped us solve this problem.

Yes, "To Dye For" and "Missing Shipment" are both on the bugged list. I have requested an update on their status but don't have anything to share with you quite yet.

No, the reward dye from "To Dye For" cannot be turned into a stackable dye. Sorry, it's a different item, and has a different code, therefore we'll just have to adjust to storing that single unstackable dye. (Solution: Use it first.)

Incidentally, I hope everyone is having a good time with the dye drop weekend. I'm finding that I do notice a definite increase in drops. I'm still pursuing the elusive white, but I've gotten 2 browns, 3 oranges, 2 greens, 2 silvers, a yellow, a red, and a purple (!) this weekend, so I'm feeling pretty good about the event.

I'd like to see one instance where this happens. I play almost every
day for at least a few hours, and I've never seen this.

We've already covered snaring, crippling, interrupting, and knock
downs as strategies. None of them work for you? Or you just don't
want to use them?

Hephaestus Ram, you really haven't seen that happen? It seems to happen a lot to me. I've been playing my Dervish, and probably 2 out of every 3 enemy monks will just start running wildly. I actually switched my build to include several cases of cripple just because of this. Yeah, the cripple works well, but it cuts into my damage potential.

And you gotta love that fact that when I'm running a hench group, I'll be using my war, and I'll have 3 monks. No heals. Seriously. They'll heal everyone else, and I'll get a pity heal every maybe 15 seconds or so, if I'm lucky. I dunno if that has to do with the change in the AI or not, but it sure is a dangerous thing, seeing as I seem to take more hits than other people are claiming wars do.

So far, I haven't seen any problem with enemies pulling off of the wars. You guys are thinking about the fact that these are computers. In real life, if the war runs in and aggros, and then the more damaging and more dangerous back line moves in to attack, I dunno about you, but I wouldn't stay fixed on the warrior. I myself would go running like hell and take out that healer, or that nuker, or whatever else as quickly as possible. I mean, sure, there are some limits to what actually the AI should be thinking, but it DOES make sense that they'd run for the thing with the highest threat to their health. Casters would go after the nukers and mesmers. Melee would go after monks and necros probably (because of debuff curses), it just makes more sense that way. What doesn't make sense though is the fact that they do just randomly scatter, and maul anyone they please. That seems like an oversight to me.

And yeah, I read a lot of stories about enemies mauling monks a lot, and that seems to be even worse than the random attack syndrome. I play a monk a lot myself, and I personally wouldn't want to be the target of a 15 man mob suddenly all rushing at me at once. Heck yes, I'd go running too ;P

I'm one of these people you talk to him you hand in the quest hear a noise check your inv and thers nothin there hes still got ! over his head so you talk again and accept yet again... nothin happens and he remains there taunting you with the reward..
so i decided to abandon and retry completed the mission for a second time and nothin happens again ¬,¬ i also had the problem with the rune traders mission and cannot pick up shipment of ink havnt tried that again yet

I know the feeling... I was playing the only healer in a group, with mass degen going on, and I nearly gave up from the nausea the camera was causing.

There should be some sort of way to toggle that on and off. Y'know, for people who enjoy feeling like the world is spinning, and those who prefer to keep their lunch down.

Or is there one already? I haven't checked lately.

Glad to hear about the quests.

But dye drop weekend for me is mostly a bust. I have gotten 1 purple and a blue and that is it. Not sure why unless this is the times I am on.

I only got 1 green dye... are you sure that it's double rate instead of *half* rate?

I got no dye drops in Elona and I played quite a bit on Sat. Eventually I went back to prophecies and got 2 dye drops.

Lemme guess... you used a cyclone axe hit? .... it's friggin 98% worthless for PVE use now and was it ever a great thing for PVP? Seems just another skill down the toilet that used to provide lots of fun for players. I don't use my axes at all anymore and really miss it already. Sad, another nerf. Hopefully it gets people to buy the expansion more as intended eh?

What are you talking about? Cyclone axe has always been worthless.
It's not an AOE now and never has been. It has never been any good
except in conjunction with something like Apply Poison. If you ever
thought it was any good by itself, you were just deluding yourself.

4 to 10 damage on all adjacent foes? ... that's nothing

Heph cyclone use to be able to charge a 0 adren bar to full in a single 5 energy swing. Now using it causes everything to scatter causing you to lose aggro. As a tank I use to use cyclone all the time to keep my stances charged up as well as my eviscerate. Skills are only as worthless as the people who can't figure out how to use them. And by way thats +4-10 damage on all adjacent foes which outside of yeti smash and crude swing is more AoE damage then any other Warrior skill your going to find unless you want to waste your Elite.

I'm glad the quests have been fixed, as my wife and I were waiting to take our new characters through them.

My guildies and I thought the running casters were both frustrating and hilarious at the same time. We adapted to it, though I don't recall how, we just did whatever was needed I guess.

But I have one little gripe I haven't seen mentioned on here, though tied to some of them. I too have felt like the majority of enemy attention is payed to my character, but I sort of expect it, I am after all the nuker. I can't really complain there, I do the same to the enemy, take out the damage dealers and monks first, mop up the rest.

What I can say is different and annoying is after I set my target and we take it down, the warriors will already be mixed in pretty well (as others have stated) and the rest of the enemies step up closer. Soon I'm spiked by a half dozen rangers and paragons, and being chased by dervishes and warriors. Most of the time this is not a problem since I have ways of dealing with them, but when I was assaulting the Fortress of Jahai, on the very top with that ele boss, I got spiked hard and died. Well, also not normally a problem, in the past my henchies know how to handle themselves pretty well. But this time, Oh My God... they pissed me off! I have to send them back to boot. They did what I've never seen them do before... they panicked! They just started picking random targets and lost all sense of a plan. I don't know if anyone's ever noticed, but in the past, your henchies will still fight with some sense of a coherant plan, taking down targets one at a time, almost as if they could read my targets (I'm not sure if the can, but I guide anyways). But this last time, they literally each started attacking seperate foes while the enemy AI just ripped them appart, as If the enemy was following a better AI program than my own team. I had to set new targets for my heros manually each and every moment to keep them going.

Did anyone else notice this change? It's like when they lose their leader they become like teanagers with the supervisor out to lunch. I'm always adapting, but this annoyed me.

Edit: some spelling... might still be some some there...

I keep seeing people saying that it causes scatter,,, I just have not been
seeing that happen at all. I use it with Tiger Stance and Triple chop, and
never see any scatter.

I think I read in one of the update notes that they changed the enemy
AI so that melee attackers would not bunch up in a battle anymore, is
it possible that this is what you're seeing?

It's also possible that someone else is useing an AOE like Mark of Pain,
or Zealot's fire on you that's causing the scatter.

PS.
Lord Lobo... It's been my experience that low armor/hp players get priority
attention from mobs. If you have a lot of superior runes equipped, and the
others in your group don't, it's like putting a bullseye on your forehead.

Yeah, I read that somewhere, and it's been my experience as well. Makes perfect sense if you ask me. Why should we not expect sound tactical decisions from the AI? No, I think you missed the point of my post. It was hidden in there somewhere, as big as the post was.

My point was that the henchmen you command fall on bad tactics if you die, something that I remember them not doing as severely in the past. In past battles I could rely on them to still work as a team to take down priority targets after my demise, but no longer. After I fell in battle, my team split their focus and each attacked a separate target, rendering them completely ineffective while the enemy AI still worked on one target at a time, bringing down my henchmen in an efficient manner. That is something that is obviously not balanced. If we are to be outnumbered and out leveled at every turn, I expect at least some balance in the system (I fully realise that the human component tips the scale a bit, but when it comes down to it, I expect a bit more from my heros and henchies.)

I had no issues stacking my reward dye, this is after the bug update fix.

Perhaps the dye got changed to a normal one????