Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the information Sold Out. Have not been following news on anything HoT related, so was not aware.

Having done some testing, I’m fairly certain that AlphaK explained the bug very well, about 1 month ago:

AlphaK

I have a good hunch that all the traits that cause a cast/summon create issues with the skill queue. The prime offenders being “Swirling Mists”, “Static Discharge”, and “Illusionary Inspiration”.

I suspect that while being auto casted, these are treated as a skill added to the skill queue after the first skill is pressed causing the second skill pressed to be ignored as if you were attempting to queue a third skill with the first skill + autocasted second skill from trait.

This would explain why it primarily affected Mesmers and Engineers.

Please look in to this bug. It’s very frustrating, and is completely destroying some builds.

Could this be related to a bug I’ve described here?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Can-t-activate-skills-in-fast-succession

Since the specialization update (about a month ago), I and several other users have been unable to activate skills rapidly after each other, as we used to be able to. Several threads have addressed this issue, but the problem have yet to be acknowledged by ArenaNet. There’s even a video showing the bug.

Somehow, we are currently unable to activate skills in fast succession. As seen in the video, it’s like we never tried to cast it at all. No weird cooldown or blinking skill, it simply doesn’t register our button press. It’s unclear what causes this, but people speculate it has something to do with skill queuing. For me, it’s very noticeable after a weapon swap, after Illusionary Leap, or after summoning a Phantasm.

From what I can tell, most users have this problem when playing either Mesmer or Engineer, but it is likely not tied to any specific profession, as I – and other users – have experienced it on multiple different professions. It doesn’t seem to affect all users either, as I’m one of the only ones in my guild who have experienced it.

It’s definitely not my ISP though, as there has been no change to that, and my initial problems perfectly coincided with the specialization update (like all other users). Also, skills with no cast time still works perfectly.

This bug is extremely frustrating, as it’s pretty much impossible to play any sort of PvP or WvW. For someone like me, who rarely ever touches PvE, it means I literally can’t play the game at all.

As seemingly lots of users are affected by this, some sort of reply from ArenaNet would be much appreciated. Until then, it’s not even worth trying to play.

The updated idea does indeed take Baldrick & Chichos concerns into account. As a roamer myself, I’d love to see something like this implemented. I’m all about the fight, and don’t care about PPT or loot in any way, so any mechanics that’ll split the zerg up, or somehow make way for smaller groups to have fun fights, I’d love to see in the game.

The zerg-farmers are likely not going to like a system such as this, as it would make it harder to attack and capture, and somewhat easier to defend, given some capable defenders (And we all know people would rather attack, as this is where the loot is).

Another point I’d like to make, is that a system such as this would weed out the bad commanders from the good. Good attacking commanders would have a set strategy for taking multiple capture points (splitting up into specific groups), and good defending commanders would have strategies for defending. As it is now, there’s really no difference between commanders, as all they ever do, is put down some siege, and smash their way through the structures. There’s not a lot of tactical decision involved.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

You are saying the zerg will split in 3 groups but what’s the incentive for defenders to split? If defenders are not splitting the zerg will stay together and we’ll have the same fight as we have now.

If the zerg stays together, they wont be able to capture the Keep/Castle? So naturally, the zerg will have to split up, in order to contest multiple capture points. That was the entire point of OPs post.

But I assume you’re worried that the ’Defender-Zerg’ will just camp one capture point only, thus forcing the ’Attacker-Zerg’ to stick together, in order to actually have a fighting chance. While that is a legitimate concern, it will not happen in reality, as no one would ever dedicate such a force to defending. Just look at how often people defend stuff now - nearly never.

displacedTitan.6897:

Please point to a game that is b2p and is very competitive.

CS:GO

displacedTitan.6897:

if you want pure competition, DOTA/LoL/CSGO are all out there and totally free

CS:GO is not free

It would be very helpful if people read the post, instead of the just the title, before commenting.

@Prysin
Your comment is way off. Yes, playing with friends can promote teamwork in many different forms. Rotating correctly, spiking, CC’ing, Lord Rushing etc., but that’s not the point of the thread. Please read my previous, rather lengthy, comment for clarification. It’s not about teamwork in general, but about the interaction of skills between professions.

@SaintSnow
Again - you missed the point. Granting someone a buff is not teamwork. It’s assistance. Thus, your comment about making SoR give allies the same buffs, proves how you didn’t understand the point of the thread. Please clarify how I’m able to interact with a Venom Buff, other than simply activating it on a hit. Please tell me what skills I can use to interact with the Supply Crate, other than what I would normally use to kill someone.

Team support is not teamwork. Hence why they’re called two different things. Get it?

You have to understand, we want interaction between skills. I use skill X, you use skill Y, these two skills create an effective interaction. It’s really not that hard to understand.

EDIT:

SaintSnow.6593:

So what you’re saying is you would like to see more skills that allow other players to interact with? Things like portal and IoL for example get the most benefit with coordination, which seems you want more of. That only happens with communication which is non existent in hotjoin/solo que and even in team que if it’s just a PuG.

You are close, but not quite. Interacting with the skill itself is not a requirement, but a definite plus. If you’ve ever played Dota 2, then consider: Enigma’s "Black Hole" + Shadow Fiend’s "Requiem of Souls". Two skills interacting with each other to create the perfect combo. That is what we want more of in Guild Wars 2.

An example from LoL - Courtesy of a guildmate:
Amumu’s "Curse of the Sad Mummy" + Miss Fortune’s "Bullet Time"

Shockwave.1230:

I think warbanner, time warp, Lich, and the tomes are the skills you’re looking for then.

These elites you’d save for a team fight and require coordinating with your team to be able to land these effectively.

I think you’re absolutely right, and we’re merely suggesting changes to some of the lesser used (or very selfish) skills, since we would like more coordinated teamwork in the game.

I can see guys didn’t quite understand the point KrisHQ was trying to make, so let me make it clear for you.

Targeting an ally != Teamwork

The examples both Amir and Shockwave gave, are simply skills which happens to target allies when used. Using a Warrior shout, or activating a Virtue, has nothing to do with teamwork between people, since they only require the action of 1 player to be effective.

You’re both right, that the listed skills are most effective when also hitting allies, but that’s far beside the point of the OP. Even though no allies are nearby, you’d still activate those skills for the selfish effects they give. As stated, there’s no teamwork involved in activating a skill, and then randomly hitting an ally.

Now, let me explain the concept of the OP, by drawing parallels to moba games like Dota 2:

The Enchantress have a skill called "Nature’s Attendants" in which "A cloud of wisps heals Enchantress and any friendly units nearby". This skill is similar to that of "Virtue of Resolve", since both skills heals the user and any allies within range. The Enchantress will never wait for a ’perfect opportunity’ to activate this skill, as the benefit to oneself is easily powerful enough to justify the use. Having it hit a teammate is ’just’ a bonus. All this is similar to Virtue of Resolve.

On the other end, we have a skill like "Black Hole" from the Enigma. This reads: "Summons a vortex that sucks in nearby enemy units. Enemies affected by Black Hole cannot move, attack, or cast spells. The closer units get to the center, the more damage is dealt." Using this skill when you’re on your own, is rarely a good idea. Spamming it, so it’s potentially on cooldown for a big fight, is extremely risky. The Enigma will almost never use this skill if he has no allies around, as the benefit is too low.
This would be similar to a skill such as "Time Warp" in GW2.

With this comparison, I hope I cleared up what KrisHQ was initially trying to say. We need more skills (Elites) like Enigma’s "Black Hole", where skills are able to interact with each other (and require multiple people for them to be considered effective), and fewer skills like "Nature’s Attendants", which are strong on its own, and simply slightly better if they hit a teammate.

Remember, for it to be considered teamwork, it has to require the action of multiple players. A Guardian using "Light of Deliverance" to clutch-heal a teammate, is excellent individual skill on the Guardians part. Not teamwork. A Mesmer using Time Warp, just after a Ranger popped Entangle - that’s effective teamwork.

Such possibilities are already in the game, but KrisHQ is suggesting skillchanges to unused (or selfish) elites, to facilitate even more of it. Hope that helped.

Narkodx.1472:

Necro needs to be more like Warrior

Narkodx.1472:

I do not want that cheesy crap anyway

I am not the only one seeing this, right?

Instructions were unclear, I only learned how to spam #1 with Staff.

wow
very skill
such spam

haviz.1340:

Terravos.4059:

I see one average player fighting 2 uplvls, a fresh 80 thief, and a subpar 80 thief who actually has some food.

Congrats

Do you have any clips showing decent fights in wvw? Something that doesn’t involve condition bunkers.

Will this do?

Ridiculously bad. No more hardcounters please. If I wanted to play Rock/Paper/Scissors, I’d do it elsewhere.

Locuz.2651:

Adian.8756:

Higher level? Really? I’ve been ranked since the introduction of the leaderboards, with about rank 100 being the highest. I’ve had a consistent 60% winrate, and played with players from Paradigm, CC, AKGL etc. My current group consists of one player who’s currently rank 16, and one who’s rank 120. I’ve played almost sorely PvP and WvW since the betas, without ever playing Hotjoin or Zerging.

If you can boast better results than that, then I’m all ears. Until then, I suggest you go watch any of the ’pro’ streams (like Teldo, Helseth or Ostrich), or simply take a look at the countless threads from former pros (Xeph comes to mind), who left the game because it was too easy, and too braindead.

Ranks dont mean sh...in this game :x

99% of the pros in this game arent really that pro to be honest. They are where they are due to the lack of competition. Its a bit like the early TBC arena days where we would get to 2100-2200 with 0 losses since we where some of the few that where try harding it.

I completely agree. A true professional in any game, is one which can run you over with little to no effort, and who has a huge impact on any game he plays. Those doesn’t exist in GW2, the same way they exist in CS, Dota or Starcraft. I’m pretty decent in both CS (DMG for those who know) and HoN (1900 MMR), but I’d still get completely wrecked if I ever played the pros.

In GW2, I’ve won 1v1s on multiple occasions against the acclaimed "pros", and even beat their premade teams with nothing but random PUGs. Can you imagine 5 randoms playing against NiP in CS, or EG in Dota2? The pros would win 100 of 100 games.

Silentshoes.1805:

Dunning Krueger Effect. Things feel simple when you don’t understand them in depth. You don’t know what you don’t know.

I see this with my kid quite often.

Great input - that truly made way for discussion. So let me get this straight, you understand the combat in depth? And I don’t, because I’m not playing a high enough tier, contrary to you? I must say, I find it kind of ironic how you mention the Dunning Kruger effect, without realizing you’re a victim of it yourself. You’re being a condescending know-it-all, without actually providing any proof of your statements, acting like you’re better than most, while having no history to back it up - the exact cognitive traits The Kruger Effect explains.

I’d like to hear who exactly you find worthy of judging the current combat mechanics, and how players like Xeph or Helseth does not fit your criteria.

Silentshoes.1805:

Adrian and DeeJay,

Those who have taken things to a higher level know better and are probably smiling as they read your posts about how easy it all is.

Higher level? Really? I’ve been ranked since the introduction of the leaderboards, with about rank 100 being the highest. I’ve had a consistent 60% winrate, and played with players from Paradigm, CC, AKGL etc. My current group consists of one player who’s currently rank 16, and one who’s rank 120. I’ve played almost sorely PvP and WvW since the betas, without ever playing Hotjoin or Zerging.

If you can boast better results than that, then I’m all ears. Until then, I suggest you go watch any of the ’pro’ streams (like Teldo, Helseth or Ostrich), or simply take a look at the countless threads from former pros (Xeph comes to mind), who left the game because it was too easy, and too braindead.

Silentshoes.1805:

Dee Jay.2460:

Every class in GW2 is easy to play.

Some are just easier than others.

The challenge in GW2, the element of skill if you so like, is entirely derived from your ability to make it succeed in a team-fight.

Playing a class well isn’t much of a challenge.

So it really doesn’t matter what you play as long as you work well in a team-scenario.

They only seem simple when you just look at the main attacks and simple defense.

I think when you play more classes and learn some more sophisticated attacks and defenses with them, as well as combo field use, you will see some are challenging to play at their highest level.

Stop kidding yourself. Nothing in GW2 takes any skill. Dee Jay is exactly right, that the only thing requiring half a braincell, is knowing what battles to take, where to attack/defend, and positioning during fights. Everything else is just: close eyes, smash keyboard.
There’s no such thing as sophisticated attacks – and combo fields? If you consider those hard to use, I have some sad news for you.

We’ve been saying this for ages, but no one seems to be listening.

ArenaNet have said, on multiple occasions, that they want to make the game more newb-friendly, and that they don’t want players to have ’nothing to do’. Basically, another way of saying: "We would rather cater to low-skilled casuals".

The forums have continuously been screaming for;
- Less AI
- Less condition spam
- Less passives
- Less vigor/endurance
- Less autoattack damage
etc.

And what did we get?
- Another Spirit
- A new condition (Torment)
- Cooldown reduction across the board
- More conditions on certain professions (Burn on Necros, which they never wanted)
- Stronger passives (Healing Signet, Traits)
- New passives (Mesmer Heal)
etc.

We basically got the exact opposite of what we wanted. Geez, thanks ANet.
OP, I agree completely - GW2 has too much of everything, which results in nothing being impactful on its own. I doubt it will ever change though, as ArenaNet seems to have quite a different view on the game, than us PvP’ers do.

garethh.3518:

When it comes to skills ’how should i use this skill right now’ and ’which of my skills should i use at the moment’ is basically the MMO gameplay style. Saving/timing next to every ability is EXTREMELY moba.

Where GW2 goes wrong is that it is based on conquest which points out how shallow and unengaging every other part of the game is since it’s a bad MMO map type. It forces small/scattered fights and boring roles (afk’ing at a back point/bunkering) those put extreme focus on each spec in and of itself...

You’re insinuating that a MOBA style PvP would be bad, and that the traditional MMO style is good. However, that’s just not the case, is it? GW2 was advertised as a PvP game, a would-be successor to GW1, with an eSport future. How many MMOs have ever had an eSports scene? Exactly 0, that’s how many.
Doing things differently is not bad, but not necessarily good either. We all hoped GW2 would be different, and I believe that’s why people are so disappointed.

I do however sort of agree on your Conquest point. It’s not a great gamemode, as it promotes idling on point, avoiding fights and building for 1v1s.

Haha. I like how you presented your discussion; ’Agree with me, or suck at the game!’. Classic.

And no. It wouldn’t solve anything major.

Leeto.1570:

KrisHQ.4719:

Malcastus.6240:

Good luck nerfing all the other classes without causing en epic uproar by the community.

If people actually care for the game, they would quickly realize that it would be for the best. People that start QQ’ing because "their" profession get nerfed, are the same people who want an "I win button". The game is better off without those people, so yes, they should go ahead and nerf the professions and just ignore the uproar.

The question is do they want to nerf multiple specs for seven profs instead of buffing one.

No, they don’t - but they should. Players crying for buffs to any profession, simply does not understand the term Powercreep. And apparently, neither does Anet. This is the reason that the oldschool Bulls Charge/100Blades meta was far better than the condition-spam one we have now.

Every single horrible spec that has ever surfaced in GW2, was the result of buffing certain professions. Dhuumfire Necro (Terrormancer), SD Thieves, Spirit Rangers, 100Nades, Signet Warrior (Hambow), PU Mesmer, Beastmaster Bunker, Immortal Mesmer etc.

By now, one would assume that people would be able to see the pattern. Stop buffing everything to match what is currently OP, stop adding hardcounters which eliminates skillful play, stop reducing cooldowns to promote even more spam. Look, when conditions are overpowered, nerf them. Don’t give every single profession access to more condition removal, or add ridiculous counters like Diamond Skin. Stealth is being abused? Don’t add ’Revealed’ to one skill, or add WvW traps. Nerf the ability to enter stealth instead. Guardians and Eles have too many boons? Oh, I guess we’ll add spammable boon stripping to the Thief, and the Thief only. That’ll fix things. Yeeah, nope.

People will always riot when ’their’ profession gets hit. Human nature. Players want the maximum reward, for the minimum effort. You can’t change that, but for the better of the game, Anet should not cater to it.

I can only laugh at the people who are crying about profession-nerfs, in a random thread created by a player. All professions in this game, needs to be ’nerfed’ to some extent. Continuously buffing skills and traits, as well as reducing the cooldown on everything, is what created this spammy no-skill meta in the first place.

In a game with no mana/energy, cooldown-management is the only skillfully thing anyone needs to focus on. And yet, ArenaNet keeps reducing the cooldown on UP skills, instead of increasing the cooldown on the OP ones.

While I didn’t read the entirety of your post Swagg, you seem to understand what this game needs in order to improve the gameplay. Kudos.

Is this not your 3rd thread with this title? Please stop this non-sense spamming of yours, and leave balance discussion to people who don’t play hotjoin.

Guardians are bad roamers? Haha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A_EAToDbd0

I beg to differ.

Sure. Rock/Paper/Scissors is ’balanced’. It’s just no fun.

It’s really sad to see, that 90% of the people posting here, is either screaming for rewards, cosmetics, gamemodes, buffs, nerfs or simply ’balance’. Gamemodes or rewards will not make the game more enjoyable - It will have the same stale combat that you’re used to. And screaming for buffs, nerfs og balance without any reasoning or suggestions behind, is literally just saying; "I want my profession to be stronger than the rest, so I can win with no effort".

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyways, here’s my questions for the stream.

1) How are you going to reintroduce skill into PvP? As of right now, PvP is all about spamming, AI and passives. Little to no skill involved.

2) Are you content with PvP having a Rock/Paper/Scissor balance? Like Diamond Skin completely countering condition professions.

3) Why do you continue to reduce the cooldown on lesser used skills, instead of prolonging the cooldown on the overpowered ones? Cooldown reduction leads to power-creep and a spammy meta.

4) Will we ever see some drastic changes to skills and balance? Like; reducing the damage of all autoattacks, redesigning all passive traits, changes to how condition damage is calculated, reintroduction of charged skills, etc.

5) Any plans to change the way conditions are currently used? What I mean is that, the best way to use conditions as of now, is simply applying as many as possible at any given moment. People don’t use conditions because of the debuff, but rather as a way of preventing burn/bleed from being removed.

Please do consider answering harder questions about mechanics and balance, instead of solely catering to those who scream for superficial changes. Thanks.

Been discussed here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Defeated-State/

Colly.4073:

How is playing a sceptre/torch Mesmer with endless clones and lots of invisibility skills abusing broken mechanic? They are perfectly legitimate skills and actually takes a fair bit if skill to use the build.

Hahahahahahaha. No.

Jamais vu.5284:

Adian.8756:

You seem to have misunderstood my point. WvW shouldn’t be work. It should be fun. Not work – fun.

No, you misunderstood the point I was making. You’re clearly below my level of conversational depth. Goodbye.

Oh dear. Well, you can’t argue with self righteousness, so I’m not going to bother trying.

Jamais vu.5284:

Give up? I don’t want a legendary or an ascended piece.
I’d
I
I’d
I do
I[…]

Alright.

You asked me specifically, and yet, you’re apparently amused that I answered on my own behalf. Right. Gewd job.

Good thread, good points Arkas. Allow me to shamelessly copy/paste a large post I made about the state of PvP some 2 months ago, as it seems to fit nicely in here.

Lower Autoattack Damage
- As of now, simply spamming #1 is a very efficient strategy. The base damage is so high, that any profession can apply immense pressure, by nothing but their autoattack. Add conditions to that (Ranger etc.), and entire fights can be won by spamming #1, and nothing else (Spirit-Rangers).

Remove all passive traits
- There’s absolutely no counter to these. If I dodge the Dhuumfire proc, it doesn’t reset/go on a cooldown, it simply trigger on the very next attack. Regardless of how well I play, Dhuumfire will hit me every single time. The same thing applies to passive healing/condition removal. There’s no counter, and it promotes brainless play. Removing X conditions every X seconds is not rewarding skill. It’s lazy design at best.

Adjust Risk vs. Reward / Melee vs. Ranged
- In general, the Risk/Reward ratio is way off. Pretty much everyone is running ranged builds, as they deal equal damage, with the added bonus of being at range. Ranged skills should, in general, be ’worse’ than melee. This is how Risk/Reward ratios work: You’re sacrificing the ability to kite, for a bit more added damage (In Melee), or: You’re sacrificing a bit of damage, and gaining the ability to kite (In Ranged).
This section should also cover mechanics like Warriors Adrenaline. Missing an adrenaline skill has no risk. If you miss, there’s a small internal CD. I propose; If any Warrior F1 skill misses, the Warrior loses all Adrenaline.

Fix the effectiveness of AoE
- There’s simply too much, it’s too strong, and it’s too easy to land. Make more AoE act like the Warriors Whirlwind Attack. Reintroduce Charged Skills (These are great, as their Risk/Reward ratio is excellent), and reduce the overall damage of AoE skills. Preferably, introduce some kind of diminishing return on them, like: 100% damage when 1 enemy is hit; 90% damage when 2 is hit; 80% damage when 3 is hit, etc.

Redesign Elites - They should be gamechanging
Look at how Dota 2 / HoN / LoL incorporates elite-skills. A well placed elite can change everything. There’s an absurd amount of skill involved in these, as placing, interrupting, positioning etc., all decide the effectiveness of said elite. In GW2, a Warrior will spam Signet of Rage every single time it’s off Cooldown. No one really notices it, and no one cares.

Fix the way Condition Damage / Conditions work
- As of now, you only need 1 stat to deal great damage through conditions, and that’s ’Condition Damage’. If you wanted to spec into power, you’d need: Power, Precision and Critical Damage. This means, that speccing in to Condition Damage, leaves you a lot of stats to put in defense (Healing, Toughness, Vitality). Again, there’s no risk. You get the damage as well as the defense with conditions.

I propose something drastic: Make Burning and Bleeding the only conditions that deal damage over time. Make Torment deal 0 damage to anyone who stands completely still, but up the damage if they move (Like Bloodseekers Elite, from Dota). Make conditions, and condition removal, less spam-able, by either;

a) Increasing the cooldown on skills that inflict conditions, or
b) by removing conditions from a lot of skills.

This would promote a meta, where conditions were to be applied effectively and situationally, and removal-skills saved until completely necessary. Imagine using Poison just before an enemy heals, Blind before the big Churning Earth, Chilled right after (to prolong the cooldown), Vulnerability before a burst, Weakness when he’s out of dodges, etc.

Clearer animations on important skills
- A game-changing skill should be accompanied by a very visual animation. Give us a chance to dodge / block / interrupt that skill. Churning Earth is an example of a good skill, while Signet of Spite is an example of a bad skill.

Reducing Endurance regeneration
- I saved this one for last. It’s a huge problem at the moment. Dodges should be preserved and timed, but the endurance regeneration is so high, that the best use of dodges, is to spam them. All passive endurance-regenerating traits / skills needs to go. Sigil of Energy needs to go, Vigor needs to be toned down.

Jamais vu.5284:

Adian.8756:

As evident in this thread, people ’grinded’ or ’worked’ for this loot-chest. They didn’t find it fun. They spend their valuable time completing mundane tasks in order to satisfy their need for virtual colors. How exactly is that spending their time in a valuable manner?

It *would have been* time spent in a valuable manner if the reward was right. It’s the basic principle behind the thing called *work* -- which not only applies to life sustenance but to any kind of non-instantly gratifying venture you can pursue in life.
How hard to understand is that?

You seem to have misunderstood my point. WvW shouldn’t be work. It should be fun. Not work - fun.

Jamais vu.5284:

Adian.8756:

Look I get it. I get wanting to pimp out your character. To want to look good. But I just can’t get myself to waste my time being mad, bored, frustrated and alike, to eventually end up with pixels on a screen which hold no real value or meaning. My life is way too short for that, I’d much rather be happy as much as possible.

Is that your rhetoric when you with defeatism give up on acquiring that legendary? Or an ascended piece? Or even a cultural armor? Because you’d have to do "meaningless tasks" to get them?

Give up? I don’t want a legendary or an ascended piece. They are worth nothing to me. And if I ever decided I wanted something specific, I’d just play the game casually until I had the materials/gold needed. I’d never farm or grind for pixels - ever.
I do actually possess Infinite Light, but I never farmed to get it. I simply played the game on/off for about a year, while saving what little currency I earned, doing what I enjoyed.

NargofWoV.4267:

Adian.8756:

Righteous.4307:

Adian.8756:

@Righteous

That’s the thing though – for a lot of people voicing their opinion in this thread, WvW has not been fun. It’s been work for them. It’s been a sour experience that they had hoped would be ‘rewarding’. Especially those coming from PvE to complete the achievement. Go look at the “Was Season 1 fun?” or “Is Season 1 a disappointment?” threads. From what I gather, the majority of WvW’ers didn’t actually enjoy themselves.

So that begs the question – why play then? To which most people would probably answer “for the rewards”. And in doing so, we’re back to my original argument. Play to have fun, not for virtual materials.

This is a video game. Luckily be both fun and rewarding. The topic of the thread isn’t “Why do we play video games?” the topic is “Was the WvW Season One reward chest adaquatly rewarding?” Most people (myself included) feel that it was not. Although, I had a blast, and would have been playing WvW anyway because it is the gametype that I most enjoy in GW2. However, for the longterm health of WvW as a gametype and what a WvW season could have meant I do feel that ArenaNet dropped the ball.

Except it was neither fun nor rewarding for a lot of players. And we apparently have totally different definitions of the term ‘rewarding’. To me; having fun, winning and being challenged is rewarding – a bunch of pixels is not.

So, like I didn’t play Mario Kart to get new vehicles, I do not play Guild Wars 2 to get shiny swords.

Well, you are obviously in the extreme minority. One of the reasons Communism doesn’t succeed is the lack of a personal reward component. Reward is the basis for most of what we do in our lives. Particularly when we have been programmed to receive such, yea Pavlov was on to something.

I’m in the extreme minority because I play to have fun? Yeaaah – I’d like to see some numbers on that please.

Also; lol @ accepting you’ve been programmed into enjoying hamster wheels. Hahahahaha.

Righteous.4307:

Adian.8756:

@Righteous

That’s the thing though – for a lot of people voicing their opinion in this thread, WvW has not been fun. It’s been work for them. It’s been a sour experience that they had hoped would be ‘rewarding’. Especially those coming from PvE to complete the achievement. Go look at the “Was Season 1 fun?” or “Is Season 1 a disappointment?” threads. From what I gather, the majority of WvW’ers didn’t actually enjoy themselves.

So that begs the question – why play then? To which most people would probably answer “for the rewards”. And in doing so, we’re back to my original argument. Play to have fun, not for virtual materials.

This is a video game. Luckily be both fun and rewarding. The topic of the thread isn’t “Why do we play video games?” the topic is “Was the WvW Season One reward chest adaquatly rewarding?” Most people (myself included) feel that it was not. Although, I had a blast, and would have been playing WvW anyway because it is the gametype that I most enjoy in GW2. However, for the longterm health of WvW as a gametype and what a WvW season could have meant I do feel that ArenaNet dropped the ball.

Except it was neither fun nor rewarding for a lot of players. And we apparently have totally different definitions of the term ‘rewarding’. To me; having fun, winning and being challenged is rewarding – a bunch of pixels is not.

So, like I didn’t play Mario Kart to get new vehicles, I do not play Guild Wars 2 to get shiny swords.

@Righteous

That’s the thing though - for a lot of people voicing their opinion in this thread, WvW has not been fun. It’s been work for them. It’s been a sour experience that they had hoped would be ’rewarding’. Especially those coming from PvE to complete the achievement. Go look at the "Was Season 1 fun?" or "Is Season 1 a disappointment?" threads (or this one even). From what I gather, the majority of WvW’ers didn’t actually enjoy themselves.

So that begs the question - why play then? To which most people would probably answer "for the rewards". And in doing so, we’re back to my original argument. Play to have fun, not for virtual materials.

Aeonblade.8709:

Adian.8756:

Aeonblade.8709:

KrisHQ.4719:

NargofWoV.4267:

Finally, since "rewards" are all over this game, it begs the question, with your attitude why are you playing a reward based game? Go play chess.

wut

You said you didn’t need rewards, victory was reward enough. For the rest of us, that’s just plainly not true. MMORPG’s as a genre depend on rewards for time invested.

So as the poster said, Chess or another PvP game with no rewards would be a better fit for you

You want rewards and shiny pixels because you’ve been conditioned to wanting it. What kind of ’rewards’ did Red Alert, Warcraft, Frogger, The Lost Vikings, Donkey Kong, Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Mario 64 etc etc. give you? Hm? We played those games because they were fun - we played to win, to improve, to beat that one obstacle that required extra effort. You want rewards because you’ve been brainwashed by the modern gaming industry - by the skinner box. Easy satisfaction - just push a button, and watch how your ingame pixels become more colorful.

It’s incredibly sad to see how many people who’ve been captured by the world of vertical progression and virtual work. Games are no longer about having fun, as evident in this thread, and the way modern games are built (skins, perks, achievements, power-progression, levels, unlocks etc.). It’s easy to see why developers go down this path, but it’s getting increasingly sad to see zombies slaving away in an online world, for non-existing materialistic gain.

Dress it up however you want to, I prefer to get something for my time invested beyond just "cause it’s fun".

I played Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye to get better at the game sure, but we were much younger than and much more easily entertained.

My favorite games, even back then, were RPG’s, where you collected gear and powers. I know it’s hard to comprehend that some people actually enjoy getting rewards for doing something, but some of us need more purpose for our time other than "just because."

My time is more valuable, to me, than just doing things to do them.

You say your time is valuable, and yet, you spend your spare time working for materialistic pixels in a video game. You choose to spend what little spare time you have, to continue working beyond real-life work and/or school.

See, this is what I don’t get. I would present the very same argument - my time is valuable, so I choose to spend it wisely. I don’t play ’just because’, I play to have fun, to be challenged. So in turn, I use my spare time to have fun. I don’t find my real life chores particularly fun, so I’ll be d_mned if I have to be mad and frustrated in my spare time as well.

As evident in this thread, people ’grinded’ or ’worked’ for this loot-chest. They didn’t find it fun. They spend their valuable time completing mundane tasks in order to satisfy their need for virtual colors. How exactly is that spending their time in a valuable manner?

Look I get it. I get wanting to pimp out your character. To want to look good. But I just can’t get myself to waste my time being mad, bored, frustrated and alike, to eventually end up with pixels on a screen which hold no real value or meaning. My life is way too short for that, I’d much rather be happy as much as possible.

Aeonblade.8709:

KrisHQ.4719:

NargofWoV.4267:

Finally, since "rewards" are all over this game, it begs the question, with your attitude why are you playing a reward based game? Go play chess.

wut

You said you didn’t need rewards, victory was reward enough. For the rest of us, that’s just plainly not true. MMORPG’s as a genre depend on rewards for time invested.

So as the poster said, Chess or another PvP game with no rewards would be a better fit for you

You want rewards and shiny pixels because you’ve been conditioned to wanting it. What kind of ’rewards’ did Red Alert, Warcraft, Frogger, The Lost Vikings, Donkey Kong, Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Mario 64 etc etc. give you? Hm? We played those games because they were fun - we played to win, to improve, to beat that one obstacle that required extra effort. You want rewards because you’ve been brainwashed by the modern gaming industry - by the skinner box. Easy satisfaction - just push a button, and watch how your ingame pixels become more colorful.

It’s incredibly sad to see how many people who’ve been captured by the world of vertical progression and virtual work. Games are no longer about having fun, as evident in this thread, and the way modern games are built (skins, perks, achievements, power-progression, levels, unlocks etc.). It’s easy to see why developers go down this path, but it’s getting increasingly sad to see zombies slaving away in an online world, for non-existing materialistic gain.

piffdaddy.8014:

Adian.8756:

piffdaddy.8014:

Adian.8756:

Not all of us want dueling in the game. At least not in the open world. If it’s in some kind of arena, I’m totally cool with it however.

So because you don’t like dueling, we shouldn’t get this feature that EVERY MMO HAS? Think of all the epic pvp videos that could be made of duels in the beautiful pve world…lots of people did this with other games. If you went to the wow forum and said you don’t want dueling you would be LAUGHED AT. If you don’t want to duel you check the option that says block duel requests ORR just decline the duel option when it pops up. The people who are against dueling are mostly bads who dont want to have to face the embarassment of declining a duel. Even though the duel is only for fun…no rewards attached at all.

Hahaha. Wow, that escalated quickly. Way to pass judgement without knowing who you’re talking to. I’ve most likely been ranked higher than you ever will in sPvP, and I solo/duo roam on a regular basis in WvW, winning 1vX & 2vX’s constantly. Not wanting dueling in the open world has nothing to do with me being afraid of losing – otherwise, why would I accept it in an Arena? Haha.

The real reason is actually an aesthetic one. I’d hate to have the beautiful world of GW2 ruined by PvE scrubs dueling everywhere. It goes against the lore and the design of game, unless it’s done inside some kind of arena.

Now go be shallow somewhere else. Thanks.

You diss “pve scrubs”, but then you go and talk about lore…kind of ironic is it not? And just because you can kill pve scrubs as a roamer on a stealth class does not make you good nor your opinion fact….also spvp leaderboard has been a big joke before the reset and now many people do not play, so again farming pugs does not make you good or validateyour opinion on dueling.

I play Shatter. No stealth.
Never played Hotjoin nor SoloQ. And if you call AKGL Phantom or Paradigm pugs, then sure – I “farmed” pugs.

piffdaddy.8014:

Adian.8756:

Not all of us want dueling in the game. At least not in the open world. If it’s in some kind of arena, I’m totally cool with it however.

So because you don’t like dueling, we shouldn’t get this feature that EVERY MMO HAS? Think of all the epic pvp videos that could be made of duels in the beautiful pve world…lots of people did this with other games. If you went to the wow forum and said you don’t want dueling you would be LAUGHED AT. If you don’t want to duel you check the option that says block duel requests ORR just decline the duel option when it pops up. The people who are against dueling are mostly bads who dont want to have to face the embarassment of declining a duel. Even though the duel is only for fun…no rewards attached at all.

Hahaha. Wow, that escalated quickly. Way to pass judgement without knowing who you’re talking to. I’ve most likely been ranked higher than you ever will in sPvP, and I solo/duo roam on a regular basis in WvW, winning 1vX & 2vX’s constantly. Not wanting dueling in the open world has nothing to do with me being afraid of losing – otherwise, why would I accept it in an Arena? Haha.

The real reason is actually an aesthetic one. I’d hate to have the beautiful world of GW2 ruined by PvE scrubs dueling everywhere. It goes against the lore and the design of game, unless it’s done inside some kind of arena.

Now go be shallow somewhere else. Thanks.

Not all of us want dueling in the game. At least not in the open world. If it’s in some kind of arena, I’m totally cool with it however.

aussieheals.6843:

Adian.8756:

Phaeton.9582:

It’s probably just so new players aren’t overloaded by skills as they become more numerous. I’ll be surprised if it takes more than 15 matches for a class to unlock...

I already addressed that in my first post. There are no "new players". Pretty much everyone starts out in PvE, and will learn all the skills there. And if some oddball happens to go straight for PvP, he’s probably an avid PvP’er from another game, and would want all skills from the get-go.

hahaha does anyone else remember all those ’High ranking WoW players LFG’ when the game was released. A common misconception is that someone good at another PvP game is going to be good at this, it’s a completely different beast. Even some top GvG guilds from gw1 were horrible at gw2 pvp.

Would you read what you actually quoted? Nowhere did I say, that PvPers from other games would be good at GW2. I merely said, that PvP’ers from other games, would want all skills unlocked from the get-go.
Now stop spewing out junk, if you can’t even be bothered to read what you reply to.

Avid: having or showing a keen interest in or enthusiasm for something.

Phaeton.9582:

It’s probably just so new players aren’t overloaded by skills as they become more numerous. I’ll be surprised if it takes more than 15 matches for a class to unlock...

I already addressed that in my first post. There are no "new players". Pretty much everyone starts out in PvE, and will learn all the skills there. And if some oddball happens to go straight for PvP, he’s probably an avid PvP’er from another game, and would want all skills from the get-go.

And lets just use 15 matches pr. skill as an example. Imagine that ANet have added 20 skills by the end of 2014 (so, in a years time). If someone was to buy the game then, he’d have to play 300 matches in order to unlock all the skills. 300 matches before he has an even playing field to the rest of us. This is straight up vertical progression in a game advertised the opposite.

Again, I can’t believe you’re okay with skill-unlocks, merely because it’s the lesser of two evil.

While I agree that the condition meta is slowly fading away, ArenaNet dealt with it the wrong way. Instead of actually nerfing conditions, they just gave everybody extra condition removal. This promotes power-creep, because; in order for conditions to be strong again (lets assume that ANet would want that), they’ll have to add even more conditions into the game. It’s a vicious circle:

Conditions are bad? -> Add more Conditions
Conditions are too strong now? -> Add more removal
Oh, conditions are bad again? -> More conditions
Etc.

This is the definition of power-creep, and this is why the current meta is just spam spam spam spam.

Proven.2854:

Adian.8756:

As I mentioned in the CDI thread, this change is beyond stupid.
To the people who think “Well, it’s not that bad”, consider this:

1. If you can unlock all the skills really quickly, then what’s the change for? It has no impact on the game (except a principle one), and thus, there’s no reason to add it to the game and spend resources on it.
2. If it’s difficult to unlock the skills, then new players, or alts, will be at a distinctive disadvantage from the get-go. It removes the even playing field that sPvP was advertised to have, and as such, it should not be added.

I see absolutely no benefit in adding this to the game. ‘The number of skills are intimidating for new players’? You kidding me? Exactly how many new players do we see in sPvP, that have never set foot in PvE first? Zero. Exactly zero. And if someone actually does, he’s not some PvE scrub who can’t read skill descriptions.

I’m pretty sure it’s in there for the principle; both for the progression crowd, and as precedent in the future when they add however many new skills. I’m fine with this because it isn’t as bad as Ascended.

What I meant with “principle” is that; adding skill-unlocks to sPvP goes against what was initially advertised. We were promised PvP with a totally even playing field, and skill-unlocks goes against that principle.
Also, I can’t believe people are “okay” with bad things, as long as something worse is there. What the? They should never add bad things to the game – ever.

As I mentioned in the CDI thread, this change is beyond stupid.
To the people who think "Well, it’s not that bad", consider this:

1. If you can unlock all the skills really quickly, then what’s the change for? It has no impact on the game (except a principle one), and thus, there’s no reason to add it to the game and spend resources on it.
2. If it’s difficult to unlock the skills, then new players, or alts, will be at a distinctive disadvantage from the get-go. It removes the even playing field that sPvP was advertised to have, and as such, it should not be added.

I see absolutely no benefit in adding this to the game. ’The number of skills are intimidating for new players’? You kidding me? Exactly how many new players do we see in sPvP, that have never set foot in PvE first? Zero. Exactly zero. And if someone actually does, he’s not some PvE scrub who can’t read skill descriptions.

John Corpening.9847:

Regarding new skills, PvP will continue to have all existing skills unlocked for players. Only new skills will require unlocks. The number of skills currently in the game can be intimidating for new players. We would like to allow them some time to learn the base set while they work towards unlocking the new skills.

Please don’t do this. This may help the 0.1% of brand new players, who’ve never played GW2 before, and decides to start with sPvP. But it will also kill any incentive to create alts and experiment with different professions and builds. So, in catering to those 10 brand new players (who apparently can’t read skill-descriptions and haven’t set foot in PvE), you’re destroying a vital part of what makes sPvP in GW2 a unique experience compared to other games – the totally equal playing field.

I honestly see absolutely no benefit to this change, at all.

So, a full-fledged PvE update disguised as PvP. Wait, who asked for this? Reading the blog-post, this is what I gathered:

- We’ll se an influx of terrible PvE players in our tournament games, as they’ve come to farm gold.
- They removed the even playing field in PvP, as now, totally new players will not have access to the same skills as veterans.
- They removed any prestige PvP players had left, by making all armors buyable with gold (We all know who has the most gold).
- They are giving Skyhammer Farmers exclusive titles and finishers, and making them forever unavailable to the rest of us.
- They are adding more achievement points to PvP, which will also encourage more PvE farmers in PvP (Who does not play to win, but play to farm).
- They are encouraging people to farm PvE for skins, as this will most likely be the path of least resistance.

I support the ladder changes, but the rest of this blog is complete and utter bullkitten.
Also, when will the players who don’t give a crap about rewards, finally get some love? Like, fixing this horribly spammy and braindead meta.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

to me, a healing skill is only overpowered if it allowed a casual, average player to become godlike, cannot be defeated etc. healing signet does not achieve that, therefore healing signet is not overpowered.

Hahaha. 10/10. Good troll.

I can support this change, would solve a lot of things.

And while we’re at it; Players should only be able to reach downed state 2 times while being in combat. The third time they are downed, they would die instantly. Couple this with OPs suggestion, and roaming/havoc groups would actually stand a chance against the big blob (Plus, it would make 1vX fights a lot more manageable).

Ocelot.6053:

Ragnar.4257:

Keiel.7489:

I would say the only dishonorable people are the ones who use cheat via exploits, third party programs and/or purpose sabatoge another servers resources (man power, supply, VOIP).

Why?

I mean, if all’s fair in love and war, as people here are saying, why is sabotage or hacking any less honourable than ganking a lone guy with 20?

Because it’s against the rules? That’s not honour, that’s just looking after yourself. That’s like saying the reason you don’t burn babies alive is because you might go to prison.

Because those are not part of the intended mechanics of the game/simulation and might also be a violation of the EULA, (not to mention illegal in some cases). For the record, I would also consider realm spying to be cheating as well for the same reasons.

Ganking, taunts, camping, etc. All those are part of the simulated war as anet as designed it, and fair game regardless of what I personally think of those actions.

Don’t compare it to actual warfare then. There’s no rules in a real war, so by your comparison, there’s no rules in WvW either. Besides, emotes were not created to be used as a weapon in "psychological warfare", that’s kittened.

It’s ridiculous at best to compare WvW with a real war. And if you do, at least stick with it. All or nothing. Don’t create artificial exceptions in your comparison in order to further prove your point. Two can play that game.

We’re all playing a game. Most of us play to have fun. If your interpretation of fun is simulating a real war, fine - I won’t judge. If my interpretation of fun is simulating 300, a SWAT team or alike, you should accept that (It’s not, but it should paint you a picture of ’few against many’ aka. roaming).

milo.6942:

Adian.8756:

Let’s hope Anet listens.

ahh… young naiveté

One can hope. That’s all I got left.

@Ezrael

Thank you. Finally a player who has his priorities straight. Rewards, maps or gamemodes won’t help this game at all, but apparently, people don’t get this. Kudos sir, good post. Let’s hope Anet listens.