Guild Wars 2

Honestly just debating if I want to log on this afternoon or not for the lost shores kick off.

I was looking forward to it when they first announced it. Had all my exotic gear on my main and was building on a second. Also starting to look at collecting stuff for a legendary some time way way in the future and looking forward to doing it.

A new dungeon sounded like a good idea, especially one that got harder the further you went but gave decent rewards for lower levels too.

Invited a friend for the free trial weekend with the intention of playing together and introducing him to the game.

And I will say I do like some of the bug fixes and the upped rewards for bosses in dungeons and was pleased with the progression it would allow my to gradually outfit all my toons with exotic gear.

But as of this afternoon, everyone will be wanting to do the new dungeon and it is going to require the new gear to get in there with the promise of even more higher stat gear late – plus legendaries to be buffed.

So what promised to be a fun afternoon is now a rat race to get new gear to participate in content and my gradual saving for my legendary now becomes something that feels like it “has to be done.”

Meh – this is exactly the kind of game I don’t want, a game where you accomplish achievements only to have more “progressive” achievements (and in the form of rings etc at the moment, which have absolutely no visible effect and value ONLY in stats) thrust on you rather than choosing multiple paths to personal satisfaction (ie – enjoying working for looks instead of slaving for stats)

Mark Twain: “Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

When play starts to feel like work it’s time to give it a rest.

So, I’m thinking I’ll go watch a video this afternoon and check in tomorrow to see how things are.

I’m surprised these MMO players are dissatisfied with the latest patch, said no person ever. Business as usual “This game with millions of players isn’t tailored to ME!” Considering I’m not paying a subscription fee, I welcome any content and patch. No MMO will ever be perfect, but I always appreciate ArenaNet’s effort.

Distaste.4801:

This patch addressed nothing that truly needed fixing.

Condition damage is still lackluster compared to Direct damage in both scaling and PvE viability. The limits on bleed stacks, poison/burn duration, etc is just downright dumb. When putting down a poison/burning field for others to use HURTS your damage you know some designer screwed up big.

Burst damage is still sky high. If you want skill to be involved in a fight this needs brought down so most fights last 15s-20s. Who thought 60%+ crit and 100%+ crit damage was a good idea?

Class bugs from beta still not fixed.

Certain classes in a state that is absolutely laughable and shouldn’t have been released like that.

Class base health and armor need rebalanced. There is no logical reason why some classes have 8k extra health and heavy armor and others don’t.

Trait system is still forcing players into traits/stats they won’t use or don’t want(huge reason some classes are in bad shape).

Healing scaling not even close to damage. I want to make a class that does tons of self healing but since heals scale so terribly it isn’t viable. I can get hit by a 20k burst but healing isn’t even close to that.

Traps in PvP show up as giant red circles…not much of a trap then is it?

They seriously need to get a team of at least 8 people together to work on classes and combat. Every single aspect of this game(PvE, SPvP, WvW) deals with classes and combat, it is a HUGE part of the game. How they thought only 2 people was smart is beyond my comprehension. I want to know where the developers from pre-launch that understood what MMO gamers wanted went to. This patch is like they looked at what people wanted and just went the opposite direction.

I am truly glad PlanetSide 2 comes out next week because at least I will have something to do while ArenaNet gets it’s act together.

You’re the man.

I’m getting drops from white-named critters.

Now I’m sure there’s something wrong with the drop system.

my 2c:

- I think it is correct to first fix bugs and then balance classes.
It is greatly wrong to balance professions when skills are bugged and don’t work as intended.

- disappointed by items progression (and worried about future level increase)

- precursor changes are almost a joke.

- more loot from champion is ok.

I posted my feedback in this thread around 12 hours ago..went to bed…

woke up and its deleted….

if you can’t take negative criticism/Feedback don’t bother asking for feedback from the community.

This is one thing that Puppys me off, feedback being deleted..

If my feedback gets deleted (Feedback=improving the game) then i may as well delete my account…why should i bother spending my time & Money on a game when Feedback gets deleted and bugs wil NEVER be looked into?

I have seen Hello Kitty Online put out bug fixes and better content than GW2 atm……and that is just bad >_> (Not to say I play that game, but it has better organisation than Anet atm…..)

roostapro.9827:

I posted my feedback in this thread around 12 hours ago..went to bed…

woke up and its deleted….

if you can’t take negative criticism/Feedback don’t bother asking for feedback from the community.

True. Same with me, i even offered to help them for FREE with bugs, but i got deleted post and INFRACTION LOL, and not once i disrespect anyone or swear. I just offered my game design skills for free to help ANET making better game, and lose all those annoying bugs that aren’t addressed at all.

Feedback on patch:

New content: Great.
Class fixes: None.
Class Balance: Poor.
New gear: Blasphemy!

Again, contact me, i will compile the list of bugs to be fixed, free of charge

Now i will again get some :" do not post if you aren’t contributing" infractions for no reason.

TheIronFistOfDeath.3016:

I’m surprised these MMO players are dissatisfied with the latest patch, said no person ever. Business as usual “This game with millions of players isn’t tailored to ME!” Considering I’m not paying a subscription fee, I welcome any content and patch. No MMO will ever be perfect, but I always appreciate ArenaNet’s effort.

I appreciate their efforts too, I really do. But indecisive and constant nerfs that forces ALL my characters to change my gears and play style? All within a few months of release? You think my full exotics are cheap?

Furthermore, Anet HAD a great game since GW2 launch.

But you know what? I think they ‘overlistened’ to the players and changed basically ANYTHING some baby whiners were crying all over about. They need to have a set perspective on how they want GW2 to work, making at most, tweaks, not radical additions within 2-3 months of releases.

GW2 should revert to Beta if Anet can’t set a perspective on how this game is going to go in a long-term period.

I like the dungeon changes so far.

As far as elementalist specific changes, you guys do realize you added more bugs than you fixed, right? And the listed fixes only half of them actually are true (and they’re all the ones aimed at pvp healing nerf). I do understand your priorities for this patch but it would be nice if you could give us some idea when the new bugs you introduced will be fixed and when the listed fixes will go in game. Thanks.

Skaven Zverov.2984:

roostapro.9827:

I posted my feedback in this thread around 12 hours ago..went to bed…

woke up and its deleted….

if you can’t take negative criticism/Feedback don’t bother asking for feedback from the community.

True. Same with me, i even offered to help them for FREE with bugs, but i got deleted post and INFRACTION LOL, and not once i disrespect anyone or swear. I just offered my game design skills for free to help ANET making better game, and lose all those annoying bugs that aren’t addressed at all.

Feedback on patch:

New content: Great.
Class fixes: None.
Class Balance: Poor.
New gear: Blasphemy!

Again, contact me, i will compile the list of bugs to be fixed, free of charge

Now i will again get some :" do not post if you aren’t contributing" infractions for no reason.

No class fixes? What? Some critical issues still exist, but there were definitely quite a few fixes.

And I don’t really care if any skills or professions are OP, too hard to handle blablabla.
Anet, if you wanted to nerf multiple skill’s damages and durations 10-50% EVERY SINGLE PATCH, this is not the time anymore I’m sorry, you had multiple BWEs to restructure everything. Now we’re at an official release. You don’t just mass nerf skills and professions every week on official release to ‘feel the flavor’.

No class fixes? What? Some critical issues still exist, but there were definitely quite a few fixes.

Yup, you are right, some of them are done, but most of them aren’t touched. My bad saying there is none, but, they aren’t addressed enough.

For example, Thief stealth, thief inconsistent Inf Arrow ( you can’t even teleport from ground to stairs in WvW, for example – talking about props stairs, not ground one), teleport elevation, obstructed on plain field on open area, channeling skills with homing missiles that hits thief in stealth ( i am not talking about positioning in stealth, i am talking about skills that are pursuing you even when player doesn’t know where you are ), rooting in place, etc. I play mainly Thief, and i still see these bugs, and hope there isn’t much more. Big list is already compiled at my PC, but there is nowhere to post them for someone to see, and check. AND FIX.

I am not doing this because i want to whine, i want to HELP. Building better games, that is my motto as GD.

Worst class balance I’ve ever witnessed. Been playing MMO’s for 8 years.

No compensation was even given for the DD or C&D nerfs on thief. Basically this patch is just a huge troll, and it worked, because my jimmies are so rustled I’ve left the game for now.

TheIronFistOfDeath.3016:

I’m surprised these MMO players are dissatisfied with the latest patch, said no person ever. Business as usual “This game with millions of players isn’t tailored to ME!” Considering I’m not paying a subscription fee, I welcome any content and patch. No MMO will ever be perfect, but I always appreciate ArenaNet’s effort.

This is pretty common. The guys who have no intention or desire to spend money will just take whatever they get… since it’s FREE.

But the guys who have spent HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS on this game (and were perfectly willing to spend hundreds more) based on a vision and team with a history are just whiny babies.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Ahh Balance/fix drama. Hilarious.

Most of the skills have been fixed to work as intended. This isn’t a nerf.
Elementalist got buffed extremely in the conjure weapon section.

“Extremely”? You do realize that conjured weapons have a time limit, a charge limit, disappear under a variety of other conditions, and lock us out of attunement switching, right? Even if a temporary stat increase is greater than all of the downsides, we don’t even know how much that increase is, so how can you use the word “extreme”?

FrizzFreston.5290:

Nerfed evasive arcana? LOL that skill still works the same except it’s not a finisher.

Which is the only reason people used it. The skills that it procs have the same names as other Elementalist skills, but do not do the same things at all. Heck, the one is the Elementalist’s best known blast finisher and it no longer does that.

It made sense to not have EA be a blast finisher even when the it was on cooldown and didn’t proc the skill. But to remove blast finishing entirely, leaving only watered-down, vaguely-like-the-real-skill skills in place?

Or how about Tornado, our top Elite skill. It was such a terrible skill that people used it and immediately canceled it to keep the stability buff. AN fixed that bug.

To be honest, I’m a level 50 Elementalist who is bored. I have every single skill except the two 30-pointers at the top of the Elite skills and neither one of them is good enough to waste the points on. I used to go after every skill challenge I could find, but now I don’t care one way or the other. So the only thing I’ll accomplish between level 50 and level 60 is getting to the point I can finally use Grandmaster traits… and the one at the top of the Arcana trait line has been nerfed so hard it’s not worth getting either.

FrizzFreston.5290:

MEsmers being fully nerfed? i only see portal being nerfed significantly and giving phantasms and moa form a less unfair impact on opponents. Plus every other class needs line of sight, I dont see why the mesmer, who has 23576 ways of deluding the enemy needs a mechanic where they can hide behind walls.

You almost have a point, but still don’t understand. What Mesmers were abusing was not needing LOS to throw phantasms into the tops of walls in WvW. Unfortunately, LOS is so poorly implemented in this game that Mesmers now have issues casting a phantasm up a flight of stairs and Elementalists have issues doing Ride the Lighting across level fields.

FrizzFreston.5290:

But on the other hand they buffed prestige and phantasmal mage. and finally made phantasm recharge work properly. Yet people scream “mesmer nerfs”

The buffed the direct damage of Prestige, which benefits Mesmers very little.

The bottom line is that this patch was mainly a handful of fixes to the easiest things to fix, along with a bunch of tweaking tool tips to reflect whatever (sad) state spells actually were. Fixes, like for Mesmer portal abuse, didn’t actually fix the underlying problem. Heck, various morphs, like Elementalist Tornado, were fixed to close loopholes that were the only thing that caused anyone to use them in the first place. Would’ve been better to also do something to buff them so that people want to actually fully use them.

I’m not screaming, and I won’t leave the game, but this big patch spent WAY too much time on content and way too little time making things actually work properly and reasonably.

Distaste.4801:

This patch addressed nothing that truly needed fixing.

Condition damage is still lackluster compared to Direct damage in both scaling and PvE viability. The limits on bleed stacks, poison/burn duration, etc is just downright dumb. When putting down a poison/burning field for others to use HURTS your damage you know some designer screwed up big.

Burst damage is still sky high. If you want skill to be involved in a fight this needs brought down so most fights last 15s-20s. Who thought 60%+ crit and 100%+ crit damage was a good idea?

Class bugs from beta still not fixed.

Certain classes in a state that is absolutely laughable and shouldn’t have been released like that.

Class base health and armor need rebalanced. There is no logical reason why some classes have 8k extra health and heavy armor and others don’t.

Trait system is still forcing players into traits/stats they won’t use or don’t want(huge reason some classes are in bad shape).

Healing scaling not even close to damage. I want to make a class that does tons of self healing but since heals scale so terribly it isn’t viable. I can get hit by a 20k burst but healing isn’t even close to that.

Traps in PvP show up as giant red circles…not much of a trap then is it?

They seriously need to get a team of at least 8 people together to work on classes and combat. Every single aspect of this game(PvE, SPvP, WvW) deals with classes and combat, it is a HUGE part of the game. How they thought only 2 people was smart is beyond my comprehension. I want to know where the developers from pre-launch that understood what MMO gamers wanted went to. This patch is like they looked at what people wanted and just went the opposite direction.

I am truly glad PlanetSide 2 comes out next week because at least I will have something to do while ArenaNet gets it’s act together.

Quoted because it sums up how I feel and is better written that I could have done at the moment.
The only point where I differ is on the healing front… I am fine with no dedicated healers, and the advertised no holy trinity.
But condition damage (bleed stacks which have been discussed on the forums for more than a month), class bugs, trait bugs, etc. are just awful.

Ulari <—disappointed

Natural.7013:

Most of the naysayers to more progression are casuals correct? Also, if a few million bought this game and only a few thousand are upset then very well could be most of you are in the minority.

This game will lose concurrent players without more progression. You literally have to play an hour a week at best and still hit 80 in a month with full exotics. WvW is stale in current form, Spvp is near dead and the current dungeons are boring zergfests with no reward drops. There is hardly anything to do.

They want more then a niche like GW1 was, but I bet it’s gonna be just that without making more things to do that take time to,get. This isn’y Bf3 or CoD, it’s an MMO…make it one.

Only a minority of players visit game forums to begin with. The more casual a player is, the less likely they are to use forums on account of being casual. Of those that do visit these particular forums, the majority seem to oppose gear treadmills. It was, after all, a major selling point of the game. This game was aggressively marketed toward casuals so why would it attract more hardcore players instead?

I don’t think there’s enough hardcore stat chasing players in existence to sustain the number of MMOs that already cater to them. That’s part of why so many MMOs fizzle out shortly after launch. They keep fighting over the same limited audience, and most of that audience gravitates back to WoW. And even in WoW, casual players are still the majority, aided in part by its place into pop culture. Even most people who don’t know anything about gaming have at least heard of WoW.

Also, if WvW and PvP are stale, and dungeons are boring – how does better armor fix that? Why would you even care if you had better armor if you consider the content you’re using it for is unsatisfactory to begin with?

Heck, that’s why I sharded my purples and quit WoW. The content was boring, up to and including most raid encounters, and topping charts due only to stats just isn’t very satisfying. At the end of the day, pushing buttons is pushing buttons. The level of immersion and the company you keep are what give any MMO its flavor.

MithranArkanere.8957:

I’m getting drops from white-named critters.

Now I’m sure there’s something wrong with the drop system.

Me too! I got a nice green from a little rabbit that I accidentally caught in my AOE. I thought I was hallucinating. o_O

Some initial feedback after playing my elementalist last night:
1. Cantrip mastery only affects the time on Mist Form’s tool tip. When used, the cooldown remains 75 seconds (and not 60 seconds like the tool tip reports). Noted in PvE / WvW, not tested in sPvP.

2. Evasive Arcana’s blast finishers were an incredibly fun mechanic and I’m surprised it was unintended. It seemed well thought out and balanced in comparison to other classes that could easily produce higher stacks of might or other buffs for comparable duration with a single skill click that doesn’t sacrifice endurance. With the previous version of Evasive Arcana, endurance became a risky resource for buffing allies and dodges had to be timed and aimed correctly to see benefit. In my opinion, it took real skill and required much finesse.

I’d suggest revisiting the unintentionally fun mechanic that Evasive Arcana’s blast finisher added to the game.

I can pretty much understand the need of LOS to summon illusions. During my proficuous use of iBerserkers in WvW I always knew the bat would come someday.

On the other hand the block/blind/dodge illusion summoning negation really sucks, particularly if you like to summon then for some utility, some which are not working btw.

But I really, really, really would love to know why my phantasms damage went down, there is nothing about it on the patch notes… Is it a bug? unintentional change? Stealth nerf? Some official information would be wonderful.

I’d suggest separating class nerfs from content updates in the future. Twenty-four hours ago, I was looking forward to Lost Shores content. Now I’ll spend the weekend either finding a new working Ele build or, more likely, just doing something else.

I’m really disappointed by this patch. I know that nerfs happen. I’ve played MMO’s a long time, and nerfs happen every patch. It’s part of the reason I roll so many alts, and work them up a little bit at a time: to remain mostly nerf proof. Devs nerf one of the alts? That’s fine, I still have 3-4 others.

Not this time. Elementalist, nerfed. Mesmer, nerfed. Thief, nerfed. Guardian, nerfed. Healing, extremely nerfed.

We had a quickittentle meeting last night with the 50+ people in our guild that play. We’re collectively dropping the game for now, at least until the next (highly disappointing) patch to see if ANet can a) allocate more than 2 people to balance testing and b) get some balance changes right for a change. In the meantime we’ll play Planetside 2 for our WvWvW desires.

Thank you ANet for the fun, but these kind of patches…particularly in a free-to-play game where I have no incentive to stick around outside of things being fun and rewarding…are moving your game in a direction that we simply don’t enjoy.

I am very happy about the dungeon changes.

I’m already a fan of dungeon, but all the silver rewards from bosses made it a treat!

I just wish they slightly lowered the level 80 loot requirement to about level 40 because of the importance of Blazerige Steps as a “Dragon Zone”, and I wish the loot chance was 50% or even 75% instead of 25%.

I really think the change to the max people that can be healed is very bad, it’s gone from one extreme to the other (from to many, and now to few).

If they are going to have such a small amount of people be healed (5) then they need to put in smart healing ASAP, IMO it certainly should never have been unlimited but at worst it should have been lowered to 10 people when no smart healing system is in place.

Also not a fan of how selfless daring got its healing power reduced and then on top of that a 50% PvP reduction aswell. I mean at it’s base level (level 80 and 15 points to get it) in PvP it will heal 139.5 per dodge, that’s borderline useless.

Ulari.9547:

Distaste.4801:

This patch addressed nothing that truly needed fixing.

Condition damage is still lackluster compared to Direct damage in both scaling and PvE viability. The limits on bleed stacks, poison/burn duration, etc is just downright dumb. When putting down a poison/burning field for others to use HURTS your damage you know some designer screwed up big.

Burst damage is still sky high. If you want skill to be involved in a fight this needs brought down so most fights last 15s-20s. Who thought 60%+ crit and 100%+ crit damage was a good idea?

Class bugs from beta still not fixed.

Certain classes in a state that is absolutely laughable and shouldn’t have been released like that.

Class base health and armor need rebalanced. There is no logical reason why some classes have 8k extra health and heavy armor and others don’t.

Trait system is still forcing players into traits/stats they won’t use or don’t want(huge reason some classes are in bad shape).

Healing scaling not even close to damage. I want to make a class that does tons of self healing but since heals scale so terribly it isn’t viable. I can get hit by a 20k burst but healing isn’t even close to that.

Traps in PvP show up as giant red circles…not much of a trap then is it?

They seriously need to get a team of at least 8 people together to work on classes and combat. Every single aspect of this game(PvE, SPvP, WvW) deals with classes and combat, it is a HUGE part of the game. How they thought only 2 people was smart is beyond my comprehension. I want to know where the developers from pre-launch that understood what MMO gamers wanted went to. This patch is like they looked at what people wanted and just went the opposite direction.

I am truly glad PlanetSide 2 comes out next week because at least I will have something to do while ArenaNet gets it’s act together.

Quoted because it sums up how I feel and is better written that I could have done at the moment.
The only point where I differ is on the healing front… I am fine with no dedicated healers, and the advertised no holy trinity.
But condition damage (bleed stacks which have been discussed on the forums for more than a month), class bugs, trait bugs, etc. are just awful.

Ulari <—disappointed

Oh I don’t want a dedicated healer, I just want healing to be a viable option for sustaining fights. Take my thief. If I stack all healing gear and use my heal that heals on hits, with 300 healing I heal for 103 per hit and 1k healing I heal for 149 a hit. 700 points of healing and it only scales for 50 hp? Same goes for the healing sigils(water/blood), they will heal for like 400 where the sigil of air will hit for 1k.

Heals suffer the same way conditions do except worse. They are scaled lower, cannot crit, and stack in duration. Then there is the fact that there are a lot more damage abilities than their are healing. Healing should scale equally as well as damage at the very least. I should be able to use my thiefs on hit heal and outheal a 3 stack of bleeds but honestly I can’t. 1 thief DB without any condition damage will apply 3 stacks of bleeds for 10s at 42.5 per tick x 3 per second for 127.5 per second. Even with 300 healing and doing 1 hit a second I can’t outheal it and that’s ignoring the direct damage it also does lol.

Hope I fleshed that out for you. All I want is a bit more healing(not a healer) tossed into combat for some more build variety. I mean at least then classes with poisons would have something worth using them for.

I agree the change to healing was bad, and somewhat even unnecessary.

As a shouter Warrior, I cannot reliably heal my allies anymore.

Feedback is a two way street that developers love to forget.

You want more feedback? Go answer our concerns properly in that thread first → https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads np PR crap this time.

Distaste.4801:

Oh I don’t want a dedicated healer, I just want healing to be a viable option for sustaining fights. Take my thief. If I stack all healing gear and use my heal that heals on hits, with 300 healing I heal for 103 per hit and 1k healing I heal for 149 a hit. 700 points of healing and it only scales for 50 hp? Same goes for the healing sigils(water/blood), they will heal for like 400 where the sigil of air will hit for 1k.

Heals suffer the same way conditions do except worse. They are scaled lower, cannot crit, and stack in duration. Then there is the fact that there are a lot more damage abilities than their are healing. Healing should scale equally as well as damage at the very least. I should be able to use my thiefs on hit heal and outheal a 3 stack of bleeds but honestly I can’t. 1 thief DB without any condition damage will apply 3 stacks of bleeds for 10s at 42.5 per tick x 3 per second for 127.5 per second. Even with 300 healing and doing 1 hit a second I can’t outheal it and that’s ignoring the direct damage it also does lol.

That signet is so powerful XD You just aren’t using the right skills to make it work. Try calltrops, Death Blossom, Cluster Bomb with or without detonation and Poison Cloud. Try Pistol Whip.

Pistol Whip = 9 attacks that AoE 3 targets, you can make that a 4050 HP heal with maxed Healing Power if you get max targets hit. And you evade during the animation so you don’t take damage.

If you go healing power, try also Leeching Venoms trait. Or funnier, all the heal on stealth traits you can find and shadow refuge and friends. C&D with all those heals gets you nearly 2k HP each usage if you let the stealth finish naturally.

Regen buffs stack in duration.

Vladamire.2049:

nofo.8469:

warmonkey.8013:

nofo.8469:

Rangle.2539:

But all MMO need progression. New tier will give that progression.

Yer there has never been a successful MMO released without progression content, we need new tiers but patience, we need for the majority of people to have at least experienced ascended first.

lmao.

i mean you’re just so wrong i don’t even..

good god, but you’re just so wrong, haha.

keep talking kiddo, i’m sure your exhaustive knowledge of the last 3 years of the gaming market won’t let you down
haha

Really? Please list one.

I am more than willing to be corrected, just provide some substance please.

Dark Age of Camelot. There was no need to grind out raids or dungeons to get gear because everyone was on the same level gearwise. Sure you could do some dungeons but you didn’t need to, it was optional. Then along came this new expansion called Trials of Atlantis, which forced people to get new gear called artifacts and level them to be competitive in RvR (realm versus realm). Well a few months went by and look at that, over half the playerbase had quit.

Only that’s not true… not even remotely.

A. Gear Wise before TOA you had SI, which had raid dungeons in the form of TG for example for Midgard that had superior stats on weapons for example..Things you simply could not craft in the game. The Alb Dungeon had the sword from Apoc that was 6.0 delay for example..Which is still extremely nasty even today. TOA was an upgrade on this no doubt..But to claim that DAOC wasn’t about PVE and gear grinding before TOA is silly…I mean maybe if you were terrible and zerged all day, but for anyone who did anything Solo or 8v8.. you were going to be farming…

B. DAOC didn’t die because of TOA…How do i know this? Because DAOC increased in population by about 25k Subscribers for a total of a year after TOA was released….That’s right.. Subscriber Levels went up…When did Subscriber levels drop? When World of Warcraft came out.. an ENTIRE YEAR LATER…along with guess what..EVERY OTHER MMO..So to blame DAOC’s population drop on TOA is borderline silly…

C. The Beautiful thing about TOA was it opened up the Meta game to different strategies and weakness’s… Before you basically could cap all your stats..After TOA came out, What happened? people starting upping stats and working Artifacts into their builds..Problem is..You can only fit so many artifacts and stats into a build before you end up having to cut somewhere else…What area’s did people cut? 1 Matter Resists 2 Energy Resist 3 Spirit Resist. Guess What people did after that? people started working in Matter/Spirit Weapons into their builds, and using Sun Weapons. It also brought into the game the Age of Actual Caster Groups where before mostly people ran tank groups.

Multi Champion Groups running Battler/Banelord Dumps and destroying you horribly with Multiple Static Tempest Drops…oh look.. Extending/Kiting Now becomes standard in 8v8 to counter this (Instead of the 8v8 fights taking place in one area, Now groups are moving together and extending back constantly making the fight cover long distances… Healers no longer become the primary target’s in fights, but instead the DPS/Tanks who are chasing) This goes on and on throughout the game…Adding more choices to the combat didn’t weaken DAOC..It simply made it better, and opened up more strategy.

Who agrees with this guys? i played it, and i see 0 reason why i should play this for higher stats, i wouldve had as much fun if not more if i knew this was just cosmetic grind.

You also can say u disagree btw.

Sure thats a possibilty, to be honest I would do the dungeons even if there were no awards at all.

I haven’t tried it but agree. Would have been a nice alternative to the current exotic MF gear.

Having watched it in action (I’m not playing the game anymore), I agree. It looks really, really good, and like the sort of thing that would be a lot of fun to play.
The only downsides I’ve seen to it at all have to do with the incredibly feeble reward structure that makes launch-era dungeon token rewards seem generous (which would only be a minor issue if the rewards weren’t necessary to maintain maximum character power), and the arbitrary gating mechanics (that are largely only in place because of the arbitrary equipment requirements anyway).

If the rewards were entirely of a cosmetic and/or convenience* nature, this would be a fantastic update, and Guild Wars 2 would be off to probably the best start of any MMO I’ve ever seen.

*(When I say convenience, imagine a set of Exotic-powered armour that could swap between two stat spreads, outside of combat)

We’ve had a lot of topics on this subject, but I don’t mind throwing a bit more fuel on the fire…

Yes, totally.

I played dungeons repetitively in GW1. Some dungeons, not all of them. The ones I found fun. There were no super-special rewards other than fancy loot skins (that I mostly sold to other players). It was great because there was never pressure to do the dungeon. There also wasn’t a cutoff for “Okay, I got my raid gear, now I am done with this one…” It was just “What do you want to do tonight?” “Dungeon!”

I’m not touching Fractals. Way too much work just to get an obligatory stat boost. Killing my desire to play GW2 altogether. Which is super-sad considering how freakin’ avoidable that problem was. It’s like it just came out of nowhere.

ASP.8093:

I’m not touching Fractals. Way too much work just to get an obligatory stat boost. Killing my desire to play GW2 altogether. Which is super-sad considering how freakin’ avoidable that problem was. It’s like it just came out of nowhere.

I don’t get it, so you not going to run Fractals because it has new tier of armor, but you would run it if armor was only a cosmetic update?

Regizer.1763:

I don’t get it, so you not going to run Fractals because it has new tier of armor, but you would run it if armor was only a cosmetic update?

When you’re running a dungeon exactly 45 times (I pulled that number out of my butt) just to keep up with gear inflation, that’s work. I don’t play games to work.

But I’ll repeat content as many times as I find fun. The thing is, making something so obviously be work makes it unfun altogether.

Maybe it would have been fun if it was just cosmetic upgrades, maybe not. I’m not in a good enough mood to tell.

But what I am certain of is that, if it wasn’t fun, GW2 still would be because I could play something that is fun.

Regizer.1763:

ASP.8093:

I’m not touching Fractals. Way too much work just to get an obligatory stat boost. Killing my desire to play GW2 altogether. Which is super-sad considering how freakin’ avoidable that problem was. It’s like it just came out of nowhere.

I don’t get it, so you not going to run Fractals because it has new tier of armor, but you would run it if armor was only a cosmetic update?

Yeah, I don’t get it either.

Fractal dungeons (Or whatever you call it), is some of the best I’ve seen in the game.
Please, Regizer, do try it. All the other dungeons, pales in comparison.

The sheer amount of “oh crap” moments, to the amazing moments were you just have to stop for a bit to marvel at the design. Sadly, I only got to play through a few instances, but I’m going to jump back at it when I get back home.

Cheers ANet.

Manizach, the charr area was pretty mediocre and fails more than any other dungeon ive experienced so far, maybe ill see more.

Regizer.1763:

I don’t get it, so you not going to run Fractals because it has new tier of armor, but you would run it if armor was only a cosmetic update?

I know this was directed to ASP, but: Yes, I (and many others) feel exactly that way.

New direction being the additional gear Tier of course, these are my personal views and although I appreciate feedback please have the decency to read the post before replying with Stop whining. Cheers.

I really tried to get back into GW2 after this content patch, really I did.

A little background, I have 3 level 80’s (2 with several Exotic sets and a 3rd who I just started to gear up) I have near 3000 achievement points on my account so I participate in many area’s of the game, dungeons, Wv3 a littel Spvp etc. I tended to do a bit of it all. Before this patch I still felt that I had alot more to do in the game. I have 100% Map and most of the puzzles etc done, but there are still some dungeon paths I’ve not done, I had intended to level up at least two more characters to see the Charr and Sylv storylines and eventually gear out those characters.

After news of the new features hit I just lost interest. Pretty much over night.

Now I know the failing is mine. I know the new gear is not required to do any of the current content (Bar deeper FoTM runs) Yet I’ve been conditioned I guess over many years of playing MMO’s to chase the carrot. So the fact that its there means I feel obliged to jump on that treadmill.

I dont want to do that. My main attraction with GW2 was that I could log in and do whatever the hell I wanted and walk away feeling that I’d made some type of progress and had fun. I could run some DE’s, a Dungeon or go Wv3. Did’ent matter. I was still working on some cosmetic pieces that I wanted and felt I had goals to achieve when I logged in.

Sure you could now say that I have more goals to work on with the additional content, but this is where my conditioning comes in. Before anything I did was making progress towards my goals which were varied. Each goal, be it more achievement points, more cosmetic gear, more dungeon compleations, was different and had no real impact on any other goal. Would my new cosmetic piece make the dungeon easier? Nope. Would the extra achievement points aid in getting me more gold on my farming sessions? Nope.

Now of course there is new gear. From my mindset it becomes a priority since getting that new gear (Irrelivent of how much better it is) will make anything else I do in the game slightly easier (at best) or level the playing field (in Wv3) back to the status-quo at worst.

Therefore Arena net has prioritized my playtime for me. Getting the new shiney becomes the most desirable objective to me. Again I know the failing is mine, its not REQUIRED that I have that gear, just the fact that its there drives my desire for it. In order to do that small % better in any dungeon run, in any Wv3 encounter, in anything I do … means I desire that gear.

It makes me a prime example of the rat in a skinner box. I know it. You know it. Bottom line it does not matter. I’m aware that its my own failing but since that addition of this new gear makes me feel that my other endevors in the game (whatever they were) are now less relivent, less important, it limits the way that I would go about playing the game. Until I have the new shiney I will prioritize my time on obtaining it. So gone is my … just log in and have fun … attitude and instead I look at a gear grind treadmill that I’ll be jumping on.

Other games do the gear treadmill better. Therefore if I am going to be on one, I’ll take the better one

This post may sound like a whine but really its not. I KNOW the failing is mine in the way that I approach the game. I am a goal driven kinda guy, Yes I was that raider in WoW and Rift et-al. I was the guy who had 100% raid attendence. Its just the way I am wired. I will miss the freedom I felt I had in GW2’s. Where I could just log in a do as I pleased and walk away feeling that I had progressed in some way.

ALot of people were complaining about the lack or progression at end game, I never felt that way since I made my own goals and worked towards them. Had the new dungeon been added with the same tier of gear and just cosmetic improvements I’d have been a happy camper and continued to play as I pleased, Now that I feel as if I have to grind the new tier, I’ll just move on.

I wish all the current and future players the best and again admit that the failing in how I approach the game is mine, Arena-net are changing the game as they think best and I wish them well with thier game, its just no longer for me.

Peace all.

If they put in a “LFR” system and a way to see peoples gear i’m kinda happy with it.

Being serious too.

I like FotM as a set of challenges. It’s basically what ToC in WoW: Wrath wanted to be, but without the fail. Very little in FotM wastes your time – some of it certainly takes more time than others, but you’re constantly in a state of achieving something.

What I dislike though is that FotM gear is…well, FotM. I have no idea why Anet decided to put FotM a full tier above Exotic, without providing this tier to other progression paths. I don’t especially dislike gear treadmilling, but what I do hate is content progression, especially when there isn’t a gated requirement. I’m running around as a GS Ranger in Vigil gear with some Lv71 blues and I did just fine in FotM. And since gear stats don’t have THAT big of an impact, I don’t see this changing any time soon.

Problem is, by having something be explicitly better than anything else, you’ve also auto-marked the content as being the only thing relevant. If anything, this actually turns all prior content into cash grabs via transmutation stones.

In before the merge with the thread that shall not be named (or read by anyone in Anet, apparently).

To answer your question: I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened to Anet. All I can say is that I feel what another poster termed extreme nerd breakup. I feel betrayed and I am definitely not the only one.

Irnhide.3428:

If they put in a “LFR” system and a way to see peoples gear i’m kinda happy with it.

Being serious too.

Indeed your entitled to your opinion and it seems that the Devs view of the future is more inline with your’s than mine. Thats fine and I’m happy that you like the new features and direction that the game is taking.

A question to you though,

Were you aware of the pre-release statements made by the company? Can you at least appreciate why those of us who seen those statements are a little irritated at the new direction the game is taking?

It’s great for you that the game is progressing in a direction that you like, however for those of us who took A-net at thier word, this about turn leaves us feeling kinda bitter

Irnhide.3428, cut that crap already.

OP, the failing is not yours. If there’s a gear that is slightly better, it is better nevertheless. And it was not supposed to be that way.

I understand how you feel. It’s why I try to avoid gear treadmills because I know that, if I find it enjoyable, I will get addicted to that game.

Good post, good thoughts. (but the misplaced apostrophe in the title drives me nuts… =P)

Luckily they aren’t re-prioritizing your time (I totally agree with your viewpoint on this matter) all at once, full-blown. They’ve only introduced a couple new items, meaning the grind for gear will be gradual, as items are released, rather than all the items being available now. That’s at least a bright side to a rather dim prospect.

Woe to the player that joins once the full Ascended set is out.

Wish it was visual rewards only and not stats. The dungeon is a lot of fun without having to worry about who will be the first to get the best gear, whether your group is geared well enough or should you kick someone out, and whether or not we need gear score to check people before we deem them good enough to play with.

Yes it would. And it would have had the added benefit of being consistent with the stated design philosophy of the game. They would have got two birds with one stone.