"Arghhh...*grunts in furstration*...Monthly's

So I have been doing alot more of WvW. Doing WvW is what I like to do, its how I like to play mostly. Getting daily's done in WvW is usually doable without to much trouble. Doing monthly, impossible. Dungeon runs required. Ok, I like Dungeon runs once in a while. Its got a mini Raid feel to it. I had done four of them, five required for monthly.

I had been putting it off knowing I could get to AC and run Explorable with out to much problems. I started about 2 hours before the reset for the month...which I didn't know was going to happen so soon in the day. 

AC is much harder now with the revamped bosses, so my groups kept dying and quiting. I head to LA desperate to get my last Dungeon run done before I had to go to work for the evening, not knowing I had only 25minutes left to complete before Anet reset monthly.

 I get the word that its about to reset, head to...I forget the dungeon, firey place with firelegion about. Quick and easy runs to be had there according to some folks in LA, only takes about 10 minutes to finish a run. I hadn't unlocked the waypoints in the area yet so I pedal my self over with a run build on my guardian. I get there five minutes before the server switches monthly. I know its to late now. No way to get into a party and do run 1 for explorable there. My monthly soon resets and now I am out of a whole bunch of laurels.

 Mad at myself for waiting until the last of the month. I'm mad at the server switching monthly's so early in the day before the month actually ends. There is no timer on those daily's and monthly's so you don't know exactly how long you have until its to late. This happned one time on a daily when all I needed was one or two more rez's to achieve it when in the early evening it switched on me while I found a place to rez folks. I was seconds to late.

So my beef is with myself and the lack of timers on those achievements. It would be nice to know whether to start doing them or if time will not allow it. Its a bummer to have your work wiped out in front of your impetent procrastinating hands. Now I know. I don't need a timer now. Exactly at 5pm my time, things reset. 5pm for monthlys on the last day of the month. I can mark that down, take a mental note. It won't happen again. But it shouldn't have happned in the first place if I had proper time notifications to begin with. Arggh.

 Another thing, I don't like Anet forcing me to play a certain way to get the best gear. Why can't we get monthly's done strictly WvW and PvP. Forcing PvE dungeon runs is making me sour on them. I want to want to do them, not just because of a monthly achievement. There, now I have vented and get over it. Its a game, its meant to be enjoyed and not stressed over. I just don't like my fun time to feel wasted, I have other things I could do.

Easy way to remember when they daily/monthly/WvW (on Friday's) resets. It is always at 4PM Pacific Standard Time (or 0:00 UTC Coordinated Universal Time).

I have to disagree with you about ArenaNet "forcing" you to play in a certain way. Doing the Daily and Monthly Achievements is just one more avenue to get some gear. These achievements were implemented to let those that only play casual PvE to get some good items from doing normal things you can do just by playing a little every day. If you have to divert your attention to complete them, these are really not meant for you. There are gear just as good that you can get from PvP, so if that is your main objective on the game, I'm not sure why you are bothering with the PvE Achievements anyway. The most interesting gear you can get from these come from the Laurel vendors in form of Ascended items with are mainly directed to those investing on Fractal Dungeons. Again, if you have a dislike for dungeons, there's not much need to worry about these. While there is an temptation to recommend not to wait until the last moment to complete these (I actually completed my monthly within the first five days of the month without much sweat), my real recommendation is: focus on what you actually like. Focus on the Daily PvP e Monthly PvP Achievements, which can be completed strictly through WvW and structured PvP, just like you wanted, and give you materials to craft PvP gear.

They are still working on modifying the daily's to be more varied, I expect the monthly system will get a similar revamp since it is pretty much the same system. Missing the monthly is the same amount of laurels as missing a week and a half of dailies. Those missed laurels may feel big, but you'll still be done earning whichever item a weekend or two later.

On the positive side, no dungeons are required for the March monthly! I too am more of a WvW person than a PVE person, and when I do PVE it's mostly map completion, events and hearts, etc... Dungeons hold no appeal for me and I've yet to do one in GW2, which means I've yet to do a monthly (until now!). I've not been all that fussed about not being able to do them without running dungeons, but I'm super-excited to be able to finally complete one! I do think they'll eventually make the Monthly "customisable" like they have the Daily, given that it's got the same tick-box UI.

I'm so glad dungeons aren't required for March's monthly! I don't run dungeons so haven't been able to complete any of them.

Thanks for the feed back. I'll take a look at this months requirements now.

For future reference to all of those that may want to complete the monthly but really dislike running dungeons, there are a couple of options out there for you to make it relatively painless; There are scheduled dungeon story and explorable runs by various guild members multiple days every week (some of which are designed to be quicker and more clean-cut than others). If you can attend just ONE of these runs once each week, you will pretty much have your monthly dungeon requirements completed without a lot of effort in a very simple and friendly all-guild environment with someone that knows what they are doing helping to guide you through the whole way, so even if you have never run a dungeon it won't be a terrible experience. The other option is to simply pick ONE day of the month (like a weekend that you don't have to work) and say to yourself "okay, today I am just going to suck it up and do my five dungeon runs and be done with it." Then that day utilize helpful guild members, the website www.gw2lfg.com, or Lion's Arch hunting to find groups and burn through your 5 dungeons and call it done. You can technically complete 5 runs in under 3 hours easily depending on your groups and chosen explorables. If you would like, send me a message and I would even be glad to help you put together dungeon runs right in a row where I will simply lead you through the 5 you need really quickly and then you can be done with it. If you would like to, send me a mail and we can schedule a day to knock it out, no problem. PvE is pretty much all I do, i'm not big on WvW or PvP so dungeon runs are my thing and I am more than happy to help others get done what they need to for these kinds of things. As a final note, remember that Fractal dungeons do not count towards the monthly when that requirement rolls back around again!

I agree, I also noticed that the daily "group events" does not consider capturing a keep or even the castle to be a group event. If these are mean to be pve then there should be alternatives for people who wvw primarily. At least the kills daily counts each person as a different type. I have yet to finish a monthly since I don't run dungeons that often, no matter how much I want the gear from twilight.

As mentioned, technically the Monthly ended exactly on time. Resets happen at 0:00 UTC, which ArenaNet uses to determine the actual start and end of a "day". So, the Monthly did end on time. Not your time, or my time, but on world time.

A "group" event must be labeled as a "group" event. All the events have labels attached to them and just because it takes a group to do them doesn't make them a "group" event. So you have to watch how things are labeled. For the new monthly it is just "event" completer. And WvWvW is great for that - and for "Veteran" killer - so many veterans. I am already more than 50% done with this monthly and it wll be only the second monthly I will have completed... and the only reason I will finish this one is I have one character that can craft "master" level stuff - unfortunately it is dyes - and it costs me a pretty coin for the ingredients. But I want to finish this one. I don't do dungeons... I don't do Fractals. I do WvWvW and PvE in the open world. It is my choice not to do the other stuff. I have fun ... I do the things I enjoy.

You should /bug that, Ohmnom. I didn't realize the WvW events were not labled as (Group), I've never really had a reason to notice. Anet needs to know, though.

I've been a giant dungeon chicken, but guild members have made doing them quite fun! Come join in one of the dungeon events--it'll make it fun and painless for you. :)

» Edited on: 2013-03-02 20:55:27

I am 60% complete already with this month. Just need dailys and master crafting and I'll be done. This month is much better for WvW peeps. :)

Cliff... You are soooooooo right about that. I'm down to one daily and 12 more items to craft. I love this monthly - most of my "event" participation and "veteran" slaying was in WvWvW. It would have been much harder without doing it there. Most of the events in WvWvW are labeled as "World" events I think. I'll check it more closely when I go in today. "Group" events are not as common as "World" events since these events scale and can sometimes be done solo. I pay better attention to the WvWvW stuff today and make some notes - I'm usually too busy to pay attention to the label on them.