Guild Wars 2

bearshaman.3421:

This topic (and possible solutions) are being heavily discussed in other threads. I admit to laziness in not rehashing it all here. Apologies.

I know, but it´s all over the place at the moment, didn´t see one thread that focuses only on that build diversity problem

Hey,

a few words before I get started on the main topic. As soon as we got to know about revenant, I got really excited, the whole idea of the class sounded totally awesome and I decided instantly to make it my new main. I was so hyped, that I finally took a look at GW1 as I wanted to learn about that whole lore stuff with the legends and because I wanted the title ‘Legend Of The Mists’ for my rev (and even got that stuff done )
I also immediately prepared full ascended equipment and collected a lot of heavy armor skins and weapon skins of weapon types the Revenant can use that I was missing.

As we got to know more and more about Revenant, I started to get worried. No weapon swap? Fixed utility spells? Now that we actually got to play it, I´m certain: the Revenant has no customizability at all and is incredible boring because of that at the moment. Despite loving the whole theme of the class, I won´t ever play it when it comes out if they don´t fix that issue, which will probably be really difficult. As it is now, it just isn’t fun.

Now I´ld like to discuss with you how the issue could be fixed.
A few things that I think could improve the situation somewhat, but not totally fix it:

- Legend swap needs to be instant:
Revenant has no weapon swap because in theory he has access to a fair amount of skills he needs to keep track of. However, because the long (awesome) weapon swap animation, he actually does not have proper access to his second skill skill bar when he needs it.

- Make weapons multi purpose:
I mean, just why? You decide to not give a class access to weapon swap, as he already has access to a second utility skill bar, each with a completely different role to fulfill. But then these weapons only support one particular play style each?!

- Give each legend a few additional skills to choose from:
If we get completely locked out of utility skill choices, nobody will enjoy playing the class over a long period of time. Also, not every skill makes sense with both melee and ranged weapons (example: jalis´ chain skill)

- A LOT of trait synergy and meaningful choices:
If we have a really limited legend skill pool, we still need some meaningful choices that have the potential to change up our play style. Sounds obvious, but is probably really hard to do.

- Resource management needs to be both difficult and rewarding
As it is now, energy just feels… clunky I think. Not totally sure how this could be done, maybe a bigger energy pool? However, making it feel less clunky should be doable. However, energy management needs to be more: we can´t swap weapons? Then we need something else to keep us busy and make the gameplay fun, meaningful resource management would be key here I think.

These were the ones I was able to come up with on the spot. What do you think could be done? Really want this class to become as awesome as I think it deserves to be

First off, I think, like many others, Anets current design philosophy of not communicating anything beforehand needs to be completely redone, it just isn´t up to todays time. Take the crowdfunding success of Star Citizen as example, as it has one of the most open developments I´ve ever seen and the people seem to love it: They communicate everything completely open, besides the actual storyline, they even communicated the upcoming release of the first playable version Arena Commander months beforehand, without being afraid that they couldn´t keep what they said. And it happened: they didn´t manage to get it finished in time, it got delayed by two months or something, but people weren´t angry, as they did very frequent updates on the problems they were fighting with. Also they´re doing a complete summary every month what the different teams have been up to and it´s great, the money (indicating their success) just keeps coming in, what clearly shows two things:
- That a communication strategy like that can work
- It´s what the people want.

Another great example is Eve Online: they ask their community what feature they want next and how long it will most likely take to realize it and how big the risk of failure is, and then it´s up to them, or some representitives, to decide. Eve Online has one of the most hardcore fanbases ever.

For GW2, maybe big polls regarding the game and it´s future (with small rewards for answering them?), announced on the front side and on the launcher would help with finding out what the people really want, maybe on a regular basis like once a month?
Fact is, something needs to be changed, drastically, Anets way of communicating with us in the last two years was, in the eyes of many, many people, a complete failure.

It´s okay to announce a feature and then to call it off, as long as you keep us updated and always explain why! I think that´s the lesson Anet, like many other publishers, needs to learn to keep us costumers satisfied.

Oh you mean like you can’t mix different stat combinations? Yeah, sadly it is like that.

Just click on the pvp build buttom, the stats depend on the amulet you hace chosen there.

Sticky pls + try to put something like this into an ingame tutorial!

Please, please, PLEASE make PvP unlocks accountbound. It was a fail desicion and everyone knows it. It was the same with WXP for the WvW people, you even changed it with this patch. It was exactly the same with WXP, the devs who are in contact with the community even said themselves that they don´t know why decided to go for it, exactly the same as now.

But apparently Anet does like to repeat their mistakes and scare people away who decided to take another look back at GW2.

Yeah as you can as example salvage and gain levels now with only doing pvp, too.

How about increasing your droprate by a bit after each daily-chest without ascended item (not counting rings), maybe depending on the fractal level you´re doing, something along the lines fractal level * 0,2% with reset after an ascended non-ring drop?
It isn´t much of an increase, small enough so the economy won´t change much, but at least a run without loot doesn´t feel like completely wasted time anymore.

But is unifying the game mods really that much work that it can´t be done? With the newer living story patches we had npcs we needed to stomp etc too, Anet is probably slowly moving into this direction. They develop their systems one by one for the living story content and once they´re satisfied with them they start to apply them to the old dungeons one by one.

MonMalthias.4763:

constantLogic.3486:

dukevonart.2691:

@constantLogic

snip

There needs to be way more work done on pve to bring more people back to it other than simply “make it more like pvp.” You have to account for people soloing, or very limited parties that don’t include a main DPSer like war, for example. There’s a reason why the only honestly viable options left to most are guard, ele, and war. It’s a depressing state that could be band-aided by upping the damage even further on things not flat-dps (condis) to compensate to some degree for the larger health pools, or providing a decent flat dps build for every class while they worked on a better solution, but like I’ve said over and over, it would require a split of pve and pvp balance, which I still firmly believe is necessary., if not permanently then until real progress to provide balance across all modes is made. Not once have I argued the need for a better AI, but I will also stand by what’s being proposed here is near absolutely out of the question as it would require a rewrite of the AI, or at the very least a very good, hard look, and that’s just not something they’re going to do. The game is out, and has been out for a long time now, and I see people asking for work on things that would not immediately generate revenue.

Here’s the thing. In PVP, every single profession has a role. Even Necromancer and Ranger – oft-maligned – they play roles and can run builds that provide a team with the tools they need for success. That Rangers and Necromancers are niche in PVE is because the mechanics they were designed for – sustained hybrid direct/condi DPS with survivability through range control (or evade frames in melee) for Ranger; and Condition manipulation as well as strong support and/or damage through Wells for Necromancer. Indeed, Ranger and Necromancers have had an entrenched place as the fourth and fifth member in most teams since Quickness was nerfed as combat has shifted to a slower pace.

constantLogic.3486:

With all that being said, I can tell I’m not getting anywhere as far as discussion, so I’ll respectfully agree that the AI and skills need to be looked at, while respectfully disagreeing that such drastic measures will ever be taken on this game. I’ve watched as they continually moved further and further away from what made this game enjoyable for me, and I can say with some reasonable degree of certainty that they don’t give enough of a care to do much more than what I’ve suggested, if even that as they haven’t even cared a wit as they pushed, for example, necro further and further out of ever being viable in pve to the point that it’s become a punchline and grimace more than a respectable class (please remember I’m speaking strictly pve here). I wish they did, but you’re all honestly expecting too much from them.

May I be pleasantly surprised, and at the very least receive a cleave.

At the risk of going off topic, I will say this: Making PVE closer to PVP will actually make classes like Ranger and Necromancer have greater impact. Part of doing that means reducing the huge health pools of mobs to be replaced by heals, boons and other active defenses. That Ranger and Necromancer have extremely high sustained damage – often hybrid between direct and condition – will only be supplemented by these sustained damage outputs over-riding mob boons, heals and active defenses instead of huge health pools emphasising huge Critical Damage hits to reduce in appreciable time. Indeed, full DPS Warriors, Thieves died with the end of the Quickness meta as the loss of Quickness meant that Warriors no longer could 100blades or Heartseeker everything to death before active defenses could kick in. This is what is meant by bringing PVE closer to PVP.

As for Necromancers receiving cleave, that is a thread all of its own. I would suggest that you start one; I know that there are more than a few PVE Necromancers out there that would be ecstatic at the implementation of such. Having said that, the whole stack-and-cleave phenomenon is something that can only be eliminated – and for good reason – if the mechanics of dungeons change from being a slog (or a skip) through rewardless trash mobs on the way to the boss; to something closer to Path of Exile where every mob has potentially useful loot; and fully clearing maps is always more rewarding than just skipping to the boss.

Ever thought about joining Anets game design team?

And what about PvP only skins like the masquerade armor?

Yes please make the Queens Gauntlet permanent, was the best content that got added to GW2 ever, even thought you had it after a day… Something like that in the major citys would give you something to watch as well while waiting for something to happen.

We need one about Dungeons and how to fight the zerker meta, how to make them not the best answer for everything. And we need one about the creation of actual difficult content.

What if you would only have celestial amulet and what you’re choosing is only the gem?

How about collecting a list of stat combinations that we want to have as an amulet? Maybe if we make a list with the important combinations that get used now they´ll have enough time and convert them into the new system.

Come one you just ruined it…. you should have photoshopped a precursor drop into the picture.

You could gamble for Infinite Light, it´s ca 700 gold worth in PvE and I think it´s called Runic Blade or something in PvP. To craft it you need (no guarantee though):
– Phoenix token
– Sword token
– Arcane Crystal
– Arcane Dust
You can get the Phoenix token with luck from salvaging T2 cultural armor. It´s risky, if you´re unlucky you wasted your glory, but with luck you can save yourself a lot of gold. If you want to play safe though craft Arah or buy cultural.

Yeah doesn´t sound too bad to keep the map without water.

Yeah would also be interested in the answer.

Malcastus.6240:

If they think new players are slow of mind and can’t fathom the way things work in PvP, how do they think it’s in WvW and PvE, where things are much more complicated.

No more putting on an amulet with no precision and hoping to gain that little extra from the jewel that you desperately needed to make it work. The reason people used jewels that are different from the amulet, is because it DOES matter, even how tiny the difference might be. Take that away and you’re alienating existing players and not making a visible difference for new players.

We don´t need neccessarily gems as long as they give us a big enough choice of amulets though.

That it´s mixed feedback isn´t really true. In the thread you linked to it´s about stats having too big of an impact, especially the fact that some stats are multiplicative. The reason of complain in this thread is that you only allow black and white builds with the new amulets aka bunker, zerker and condition builds without doing hybrids. I agree with both, what we need is a smaller range of customisation, it shouldn´t be that power builds have 300% the damage of bunker builds, it should definitely be toned down to 100% or maybe 50%, would make balance much easier, too. And in the range of customisation we have then, these 50 or whatever %, we should be able to do with them what we want. The issue of having less hybrid options, say like combining a zerker amulet with a soldier gem, goes in the opposite direction.

The “meta builds” wouldn´t be a must have anymore, because one might more likely accept a 10% difference in theoretical effectivness in exchange for a built he feels more comfortable with then with 50% or 100%.

So, how to achieve this? Offering a lot of hybrid amulets, maybe even take out the black/white stat distribution amulets. Perfectly would be a whole rework of the stat distribution between base stats/trait stats and equip stats. While toning down the range of customisation you would actually achieve more build diversity, not just in PvP, but in PvE too.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I disagree with some players about the runes. I think the new restriction to runes works. It works, because instead of players mixing three runes for the absolutely best boon duration set, it’ll make them want to specialize on specific boon runes instead. The restriction to runes actually increases rune diversity. It also works because there are so many runes to choose from. And finally, with the best effects now being put towards the end of the set, there’s really no reason anymore to make us click on each rune 6 times, when we can just click on it once.

The removal of jewels, however, creates a new problem: it degradades the potential viability of hybrid builds. But there’s another solution to that problem, that won’t require anet to revert back the new amulet system: add more hybrid amulets. Because only two of them exist.

Why are hybrid amulets so necessary? Why did jewels added build diversity? Because they PREVENT EXCESS. That’s why.

For example, an offensive elementalist can’t exist with additional vitality and toughness points. Those points can be gained through earth and water magic lines, but if the player invests too much on them, they won’t have the offensive points required. So what must the player do? Relying on runes’ stats only fixes one stat, and even then, it might be a bad idea if the lack of an offensive rune were to undermine their build greatly. So what else can they do? They need a bit of toughness, a bit of vitality, a bit of healing power, from equipment’s stats. And light investments on water/ earth traitlines, coupled with jewels, allowed this.

Let me give a few examples:

• Berserker Amulet (light vitality investment) + valkyrie/ soldier jewel and 10 earth (light toughness and vitality/ healing investment) + the old divinity runes, would allow them to give the base survival they depend on, while still specialize them in power.
• Alternatively, Valkyrie Amulet + Berserker Jewel and 10-20 Water + the old divinity runes, would give them light toughness, light vitality and decent healing power, while still allowing them to specialize in power.

But those two examples become more complex when taken into account that valkyrie amulet offers critical damage but not precision. A zerker jewel, divinity runes, 20 points in air and sources of fury could offset that disadvantage. Fortunately, the new sigil of accuracy now offers +7% critical chance instead of 5, and I assume the divinity’s runes overall stats are going to be buffed, so this one might still work.

When jewels are taken into account, it’s easier to prevent excess. What I mean by excess, here, is that jewels make it easier to give to builds just enough stats to keep the builds viable, and then all the remaining stats to what the build specializes at. Now, with the removal of jewels, to several builds, there will exist an excess of vitality, or an excess of toughness, etc, that will buff some stats more-than-enough, at the cost of very important stats that, in their abscence, can potentially ruin those builds.

So we need more «half-hybrid/ half-specialized» amulets. PvP will only offer exactly ONE amulet like that: valkyrie. We need more. “One” is too low of a number!

Something more like this: (major) offensive stat (minor) defensive stat 1, (very minor) defensive stat 2 and something else, or vice-versa, with a major defensive stat instead.

These kind of amulets will allow builds to just have enough of specific stats they require to be viable, while still specialize at what they want, in order to be… viable!

This^^

It would be really nice to get a sign that Anet is still following this thread and didn´t just read the first two pages

@MonMalthias: You, Sir, are my hero, it´s incredible how much time you put into this forum topic, it´s really great that someone “stands up” and writes down exactly whats wrong with GW2. Many players notice it, many complain, but most of the people who exactly know what needs to be done are too lazy to do what you´re doing here. Maybe you should put that PvE mirroring PvP topic and the fact that the content is too easy into the opening post and change this topics title to “Everything that´s wrong with GW2” and basically make it one giant pool of perfectly comiled feedback for Anet.

Well complain all you want but another hardcounter taken out of the game is a great thing. Yes, some form of compensation would have been nice, but at least they’re removing that kitten that prevents any sort of serious pvp.

I just can’t get what Anets thinking about making trait unloxks characterbound. Didn’t they just finally change almost every key system in GW2 to be accountbound as the players wanted? Why would they as they introduce a new system make the same mistake again? WHY?!

I think people are so afraid of perplexity cause of how long it remained unfoxed in WvW, if Anet sould just do a small hotfix if its really OP after like 3 days since patch everything should be alright, at the same time Anet can prove that they’re aware of the fact that their current balance system of towning op builds down after half a year because they want to “let the meta settle” is a complete failure.

Well, I think GW2s PvE could work if they just focus on giving PvE mobs better tooös and improve their AI. Look at PvP, it works there, too. Why? Because of CCs, the need to finish of enemys, condition damage that every build needs to adress in some ways, cause you get debuffed, because the enemys use buffs that you need to cleanse etc.

In my opinion GW2s greatest potential lies in build experimenting, lile in GW1, but you need build diverdity and changes for that. I don’t think I’m the only player that took a break for over a year because of that. And then, when we have that build diversity, we need greatly rewardong content that is incredible hard, so that the players are forced to push their builds and skills to the utmost limits.

Transmutation charges also achievable by playing PvP without needing to convert gold to gems?

As the title says, I would like to collect awesome skins in this thread, especially ones that are worth a lot of gold, to get them before the “feature”-patch hits:
Example:
Infinite Light – ca 700 gold:
– Phoenix token (I think you get them by salvaging T2 cultural armor)
– Sword token
– Arcane Crystal
– Arcane Dust

The problem is how Anet advertised this patch. Expectations were to high because we aren´t really getting any permanent content at all. If you take a closer look, the only real content we got is this:

- Fractals (nice idea, but rewards still way to low on higher levels to be worth many players time)
- One dungeon path
- One new WvW queue map
- An empty zone because no real content in it

Now remember: this is the only new stuff since game launch, which is over 1,5 years ago. All the QoL changes that are coming now put the game in a state that it should have been in since release, but it isn´t new content.

Please Anet, nerf champion money as much as you want but in exchange make events and heart events worth doing them, with this change you would make players play the actual content instead of champion farming all day.

Mystogan.4157:

Shhh dont make anet nerf aoe condi. Sing targ is only bad if ur in a party with more then 3 condi specs. If im going condi i usually go more vuln might bleed build for even more effectiveness. I feel that having max stacks on a boss is good but makes sure you hit the ceiling and you are not wasting your moves because hes at max stacks

No single target is also bad with only 1 condi specced char in party. 3-4k condi dps at most doesnt compare at all with berserker + might stacked dps.

Actually in PvE in an AoE-type of situation condition necromancers can easily dish out 15k+ dps thanks to epidemic, the only problem is the lacking single-target damage against bosses and structures in some situations.

Deified.7520:

This wont do anything.

If you really want this to have an more of an impact on it, here is what you should do.

Create a poll on some website for players to answer (make sure its a safe one). Spread the link to the poll around. Post something On reddit, other forums, post it ingame. make a post in the official forums with links to each of the other media outlets to show that when the developers see the poll, you’re getting replies from a lot of sources and not the minority that is the forum base. So if you were to post the poll on reddit, you’d put a link to the thread in your post on the official forums. Keep the poll going for a while. A week at the least to ensure that you get as many people as you can from all timezones.

Then you show the developers.

And if you do what he said make it so that there´s a option to differentiate between “against char bound and locked traits” and “only against char bound” otherwise a lot of people will probably vote with no.

I feel like if they´ll ever make them viable they´ll probably need at least another year for that.

I think this sums it up perfectly.

No, it isn´t the death of competitive gaming. LoL, the one competitive eSport game also has an unlocking system for it´s champions. What´s import is that you unlock them by actually playing the game, that it doesn´t take long to unlock the traits you need, but to unlock every trait there is can take some time, which is a good think

Wait what? This isn’t Accountbound? This just doesn’t make sense. Seriously that’s what’s going wrong with GW2 – bad managment decisions even thought the employees now better then that.

Yes, crit dmg nerv is 25%, what Anet said is that the overall damage output with berserker gear is 10% lower with these changes.

PvP Unlocks -yes, please, just like in GW1 or LoL etc, gives good incentives. But please make it so that doing PvP is the best thing to unlock them, not farming money in PvE or some stuff like that that doesn´t make sense.

Yeah. But as stated in the thread in the class balance forum about Anets balance policy: don´t wait to long before you fix it if it´s an issue. Don´t wait for living story updates before you change something, just do hotfixes if something seems terrible broken after the feature update. Small number changes, like healing signed being reduced in it´s effectiveness can easily be changed in a hotfix, especially if it´s as much of an issue as it is. Small, subtle changes while waiting for the meta to settle are okay – but then do these subtle changes immediatly and don´t wait for several months before you put them into effect, then waiting another few months to see if it worked.

Finally the attrition class gets some attrition. I just hope they wont need as long to make Power Necro in PvP viable.

6% is too low, it was hardly viable before in PvE but now there´s just no reason to use it.

Pls Anet, srsly, reconsider only 6% buff, it´s way to low.

Dude you´re so right, exactly that is why I stopped playing GW2 half a year ago. It´s so sad, because I believe that GW2 has the potential to be the best MMORPG out there, but at the moment all that potential get´s wasted by poor decision making. Only temporary content, ignoring of community-feedback, empty promises, balancing changes take over half a year to happen etc.

I just hope Anet doesn´t just ignore this. And, I hope, Anet posts in this thread another time, admitting their mistakes and promising changes. SOON.

Hmm yeah sorry, was a bit unclear. With changes I meant like a change about how Anet “treats” us necromancers and ignores our whole feedback, changes our class in a way that the whole necromancer community dislikes (looking at Dhoomfire) and always claims that the necromancer is an attrition class without giving us the tools to be that.

Pls push this thread from time to time, let´s try to get enough votes so that it´s representive to some degree.

I liked how they ended the necro part in the live stream after like 1,5 minutes. “Are we good on that one?” “Yes, I think were good on that one.”