Guild Wars 2

Donari.5237:

Andrige.5609:

I did however find Ember Bay… lacking. The thermal tubes/wallows mastery falls flat in general, mostly because it’s annoying to know if a location requires a thermal tube to get there, or not. If I had to give one QoL thing about this kind of travel system, is to allow us to see where they lead to by hovering over the thermal tube on the map. HoT maps was an absolute mess of wallows and nothing to help me “get them”.

Just like with the wallows, the tube points in a straight line and usually ends at another tube. Look in the direction of the tube arrow to see the next tube on that line. You’ll be shot there (and if you don’t glide before you land in it, you’ll get shot out of the next one).

I know that it works this way, but back when HoT launched those icons and their purpose was really hard to read. You could see an arrow on the mini-map, but their endpoints were usually on the other side of the map. Some areas where nearly inaccessible without the wallows too, which made exploration frustrating as you couldn’t actually go to the place on the map and expect to find your way. You had to go to some other, arbitrary location much further away to get up there.

The scenario for any given location with a wallow/thermal is, according to me:
1.) it’s a shortcut, but you can get there using other means like walking or jumping there,
2.) it’s actually required you use the wallow to get there, but you can’t know that until you’ve hugged every wall first,
3.) you don’t even get how wallows/thermal work or have the mastery, and give up going there entirely.

I’m just pinpointing that compared to many other features, the wallows/shortcut mastery is cause for frustration, and could be improved upon. It’s not so much for me any more. I use the icon arrow and can make a reasonable guess where I’ll land after resorting to viewing the large map. But that might not be the case for newer players who can get stuck on step 2.) or 3.) fairly easily.

But it’s not all gloom, the thermal tubes are still much better as you get to travel across the landscape and know where you are in relation to where you just entered the tube. You can even abort the travel mid-flight by using gliding! It’s much better than wallows that teleport you and in turn leaves you disoriented.

Anyway, this is besides the point of the thread, but I felt like defending my first post. x)

The instanced story content was great, as the dialogue and the combat sequences were unique and really fun. I wish that Taimi’s holodeck was a bit more difficult, or offered some harder mode (I’m getting Liadri flashbacks), but I smirked at the idea of letting us learn the enemy behaviours this way. It was smart, and developed the characters too. I am actually excited to see more of this from Taimi’s toolbox. Thanks for respecting the story threads too, it’s interesting to see that the characters doesn’t only exist to be by your side, but have their own life.

I did however find Ember Bay… lacking. The thermal tubes/wallows mastery falls flat in general, mostly because it’s annoying to know if a location requires a thermal tube to get there, or not. If I had to give one QoL thing about this kind of travel system, is to allow us to see where they lead to by hovering over the thermal tube on the map. HoT maps was an absolute mess of wallows and nothing to help me “get them”.

But the biggest culprit to me was that this island felt like it did not take itself seriously. The well manicured dwarf thumb (and the second living dwarf to date not even getting the “mouth flapping” treatment when speaking), the non-existant threat of the island erupting (it got quenched in a cutscene, I felt no inkling that I was in actual danger up to that point), the skritt that cannot become a serious part of the world despite having some potential, and the circus with their “free” skins that felt like a botched gemstore set you realized no one would buy. I’m aware that some might enjoy these skins immensely, but to me they’re just as off as the rest of the island.

So to conclude, I think the instanced content and narrative has improved immensely. But I kind of wish you’d try to maintain the same excellent sense of world building when you… you know… add new maps to the world. It felt off to me, and for that I prefer Bloodstone Fen to Ember Bay.

I stopped playing a while ago due to the HoT content, but I was interested in seeing how gliding was implemented in the rest of the map. There is a suggestion in my criticism so please bear with me.

So I updated the game and got into for a bit and enjoyed the gliding, but quickly realized I would very much like it if I could get the Advanced Gliding Mastery. However the only way I can level it is by going into the Maguuma areas which I honestly do not like and I have around 1.5 million experience (!) that I need to earn in Maguuma. I went back there, saw no events going on after visiting every map, and logged out again.

So, my suggestion as a general game balance thing is to allow Silverwastes and Dry Top count as Maguuma areas for the sake of earning experience for masteries.

I haven’t really tried out much else besides the gliding, so my view is very limited, but it was also just about the only thing that interested me in this patch unfortunately. I’ll take a look at The Shatterer overhaul some other day.

I really love color and the texture from the brushes makes it look deliciously ‘sketched’ and GW2-esque in style. Nice work!

Thanks everyone! Glad you liked it!

Took me about a month of devoting many evenings between 30min to 4 hours after work. Had a bit of a block though with the coloration of the fur specifically.

Drew it in Photoshop. I had bought a fur rendering tutorial that also gave some neat brushes to use, so I figured I’d give it a go. In case its interesting, I had the foresight to make a progress GIF which you can look at here.

Drew this image last december and showcased it on reddit. Took a while to complete since I was trying some new rendering techniques, but happy with how it came out.

Full-res image (10.000×6.000) if you want to look at it like super up-close.

’#3 does only give its leap finisher effect when the each of the leap lands in a field, as opposed to just pass through a field. This leads to less successful leap finishers overall.

Hammer quirks:
‘#2 and #4 skill on hammer seems to be queued abilities, meaning that the autoattack has to finish before it can proceed. Ideally I’d want to see that #2 and #4 has highest priority since its a reactive defence. It does feel sluggish when the auto has to finish.

’#3 does only give its leap finisher effect when the each of the leap lands in a field, as opposed to just pass through a field. This leads to less successful leap finishers overall.

‘#4 does seem to block more than it should at times – I’ve noticed ‘block’ messages up to a 3/4:th of a second after the skill was finished. Not entirely sure what causes it (lag?) since the channeling of the effect has by then definitely ended. It’s nice, but I wonder if it shouldn’t be reflected on the tooltip if so.

‘#2 whirl finisher seems entirely pointless since it does only produce one projectile. Ideally I’d want to see more projectiles, because that low an amount of projectiles is not useful enough to warrant concious decision to use it for that in a field.

‘#3 is in general a bit of a loose canon. At times it simply doesn’t hit the target, but I’m grateful you made the collision detection generous enough that it usually does connect its hit however. There are some edge cases though where you just veer off in another direction however.

Traits:
My honest opinion is that the traits are not interesting enough for an open world / PvE oriented player like myself. Super Speed and Stability sources are so scarce and unreliable in duration, and many times enemies in the open world simply do not attack fast enough or move around enough that stability and super speed feels like it has a place. I can however appreciate the Juggernaut synergy, but that’s really where my appreciation for this trait line ends. The Function Gyro is also a mostly unnoticeable mechanic unless players around you are downed, so its not that impactful for general play. I do like it however, and use it any time I am able to.

However I want something that feels fun, noticeable, and worthwhile for PvE play that defines the Scrapper a bit better in that area of the game. Right now I consider the traits a net loss, but a worthwhile one to get access to that sweet hammer. E.g. Impact Savant increases the stun duration on three skills by a nearly insignificant amount. Its not defining for the Scrapper and not noticeable.

Utilities:
Bluntly put they are not useful enough for me. The toolbelts are fun and I found myself enjoying the mobile water field in particular (seriously I think you should maybe reflect if fields are movable in the tooltips since this is now a staple to the combo system?). However, when I came to my senses, the Healing Turret is simply the better option.

I have the highest hopes for the Shredder Gyro for condition builds and its unique mechanical effect, but its lacklustre in its current implementation. I hold no interest in the Purge Gyro, Sneak Gyro and Blast Gyro (this is a less reliable version of Throw Mine!). I have hopes for the Medic Gyro, as it can be activated instantly for a good heal that you can rely on. The sheer cooldown, dysfunctional passive AI heal effect, and no condition cleanse however makes it a non-option for me in its current iteration.

The cooldowns needs to be lowered overall for all gyros, and according to engineer’s playstyle I believe detonating a gyro could be a blast finisher too. I would love if some gyros were brought back to the drawing board as targetable effects, just to avoid relying on AI pathfinding which rarely works out.

I have faith you can make improvements, so I wish you luck on tweaking it. It’s a hard task to adapt something to so many areas of the game, and I’m sure I’m ignorant to many perks regarding the specialization in e.g. raiding. But right now, I feel Scrapper stands to be improved before it becomes great.

Positives

• The game felt rooted in its world. A wealth of lore was exposed in a pace that I could decide myself, and NPC interaction that felt endearing (the people in the library) and real (their conversations felt relevant, e.g. Ogden’s questioning).
• I was not lead by the nose! The library was just a huge accomplishment to this. The ‘lead’ team of Marjory/Kasmeer took a step back for once, and let me do my own thing. They were there still however, and only really spoke when it felt appropriate.
• I was impressed by the gameplay that felt thought through and varied in a way I have not seen in quite some time. It wasn’t particularly hard, but it felt fresh and exciting. Found myself saying ‘cool!’ for the crystal cavern – both on gameplay, lore and presentation. Also – observing Kasmeer and Marjory from behind the crystal walls was a nice way of line delivery.
• I’m not a former GW1 player, so I don’t know the background of this universe as well as some. But to finally be able to take in the wealth of world lore in this update felt exciting, and I went through the whole library.
• Loving the attention to Rox’s former warband – it made her more real. I would love to be able to delve deeper into the character’s lesser traumas and imperfections as opposed to only the major character defining ones (e.g. Braham and Eir). Keep these tie-ins alive and kicking, allow me to be amazed that maybe two months later, I’ll be awarded for knowing about Rox’s former warband member. Take the time to expand the characters like this, and I’ll like ’em even more.

Negatives

• Marjory and Kasmeer surely felt more educated on matters regarding old lore than they previously were. They were vessels to enrich the lore in the crystal caverns, but it also felt a bit like they were out of character for all of that.
• I’ll be honest, Belinda as a character is probably the worst of our cast of characters. She was introduced out of nowhere as a tool to further the story in a certain part of the world (“I’m going to Brisban Wildlands to investigate…”), then swiftly killed of, then turned into an actual object for little reason than a power-fantasy of having a literal ‘soul blade’. I guess it is essentially another Caladbolg, but so far all of these ‘powerful weapons’ have not left me impressed. That stays true for Marjory getting some incredibly oozing green daggers (promptly on the gemstore later mind you) from a boy on the street that was murdered – and now she wields a katana with the soul of her sister in it. Just… no. Not even close to impactful.

Suggestions
Just more of this. I’m going to buy gems to support this patch and what it stands for, because I want more. My only wish is that you keep this level of quality up, and remember to know your own nods to characters and the sub-stories that occur and honor them at every possible opportunity.

And if you could, please talk to your gameplay team about making a revised ‘Tower of Nightmares’. I so want you and your team to take another try on the patch that got me actually whispering strangers in-game to participate in epic adventure together up a tower. Kindly consider this.

Great news.

My one suggestion regarding PvE is the lack of meaningful crowd control. Dreaming away, adding a ‘elite PvE control’ that is class-specific to be used when the Defiant armor is down would at least diversify the classes without destroying the current class balance. Its added on top of the current game. I think Wildstar got a more meaningful crowdcontrol mechanic with interrupt armor. Putting it in bullet-format:

1. In dungeons/raids the player can access a new PvE Control Elite slot.
2. This does not share slot with current Elite skills.
3. These skills can only be used when the enemy has no Defiant armor on them.
4. The strength of the skill can be tuned to be greatly exaggerated to regular skills in the game, allowing players to control more difficult foes for longer periods of time (10-30 seconds or so).
5. Once ability is used, Defiant is reapplied.

This is because I believe that if GW2 is at fault for not making classes desirable in PvE.
No one brings anything unique to a group that could make or break a run. I also believe thats the reason why I in WoW got MANY more requests to join a group for doing dungeons/raids – simply because they wanted my class there. Maybe even NEEDED me to be there to proceed. Urgency is the greatest conversation starter!
They could simply look on the guild roster and see a Druid on there, and ask on that merit alone. That then lead on to great adventures later on with them, allowing me to be exposed to new players.

Because I don’t think the motto of ‘bring the player, not the class’ has really worked out on a social level. So please, make my class unique! Make every class more niche and desirable at some point during these coming raids!

“If I don’t want a tonic, can I get a gem refund for the purchase?
Customer support will be able to fulfill gem refund requests only for town clothes that become endless tonics. Such requests must be made after the Town Clothes system changes take effect; refund requests cannot be processed prior to the April Feature Build. Customer Support is not able to fulfill requests for refunds other than those related to Town Clothes that become endless tonics. This means that town clothes that become skins are not eligible for a refund.”

From https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/45944258-Town-Clothes

Can I ask if we’ll be able to receive refunds on town clothing?

I will not want to have these items if this is the way it will be, I purchased these items with the intent of creating the look I wanted. If I can’t have that, I’d much rather have my gems back.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Ohoni.6057:

Nothing about the new content teaches players how to play better, it just requires that they DO play better,

That’s a fair point. Thanks. I’ll think about how to incorporate better direction in future content.

Hey, that’s great to hear. It’s one of the things I believe the game sorely needs, speaking from experience playing with friends that bounced off the game. So I’ve put in my thoughts about the lack of low level dungeons into a thread.

It would fill the dungeon-gap for those below lvl 30, and a good opportunity to teach players about dodge/combo-fields and all that early on, as well as offering a fun and challenging experience during the first hours of play.

Wardrobe functionality for PvE — That will make me want to collect skins even though I don’t plan to immediately use them. Make Transmutation Crystals (or rather ‘Wardrobe Ticket’) add a skin permanently to the wardrobe, and make it withdrawable for free after.

New animations for characters — If I’m not mistaken animations are not resource intensive for the game client and its performance, and letting players change their idle, run, sprint, walk, combat stance animations will be a meaningful alteration (as opposed to the dance-book) for your character’s identity.

Cornellious.1435:

GW2 doesn’t discourage you from grouping, but it doesn’t particularly encourage it either. Even when playing with other people, it feels like you are just soloing next to them. This is the case in open world, or even in dungeons. There is very little in the way of team dynamics (not even talking about trinity type roles). What little interplay there is, is not required or encouraged by the mechanics or dungeons of the game.

Honestly for anyone looking for interesting cooperative pve style gameplay, GW2 is not the game for them, and they were wise to leave early, because GW2 is not that game, and never will be that game.

Exactly. That’s the drawback of the game’s design.
But an MMO is an everchanging product, so I don’t think its pointless to think that the game could be different in the future. And there is group-play to be had — I do it all the time on my engineer — but it’s far from straightforward like the traditional roles.

For example if ArenaNet were to one day say that ’we’ll add in single-target support weapon for class X’, I think we’d see a huge shift in how the game plays.

Scrambles.2604:

i hear ya, OP. I had trouble getting my friends into this game as well, except it was in the PvP side.

Yeah, pvp is super accessible because they give you a full lvl 80 character, but a new player has no idea what to do with that lvl 80 character, and it is very overwhelming.

I can’t speak for PvP but that’s another beast entirely. You can program AI to be friendly to newcomers, but other players just see more fodder for the K/D-ratio. :P
Maybe that’s something for someone else to make a suggestion about?

Scrambles.2604:

I think low lvl dungeons would be welcome and i would most definitely do them on alts before lvl 30.

I used to be all about ragefire chasm in WoW, and you only needed to be like lvl 8 to get a genuine 5 man group experience.

That’s pretty much what I believe as well. I’d love to have this hot-spot, going there with my alts and getting some much needed player-interaction rather than hearts/event grind that quickly gets old.

And that’s just ridiculous how true that is about level 8. At level 8 in WoW you’d probably have even less than what you have in GW2, but still there’s this dungeon.

Scrambles.2604:

In GW2, you only need to be lvl 30 to get berrated in AC for not being lvl 80, haha.

Pretty much! When you’re level 30 with only offensive gear (again, you’re just levelling in the open world where enemies are easy, so why not?), you’re going to have a bad time. :|

And that’s after (for the sort of player I’m talking about with little time available) a week or two of just levelling.

I’m way too invested in this topic, but… anyway…
I’ve added a ‘pitch’ to the OP that explains how I envision a low level dungeon. If you’re interested.

There’s a lot of vitriol in here. Just putting that out there.

I’m just looking for reasons as to why this game has not managed to keep any of the 8 or so friends of mine that tried out the game. This is what I have considered, thought and advocated for a long time as being part of the reason.

I’m personally very sorry that it came out to be that way that no friends of mine sticked around, and would love for ArenaNet to consider this as an issue. Playing together in WoW was much more encouraged and straightforward right from the start. Guild Wars 2 has so much more, but there’s no real way to experience all that within that first period of play. And part of the solution — according to me — would be low level dungeons.

Anyway, I’ve made all the points I wanted to make regarding my opinion. People are dissecting part of what I want to talk about rather than the big topic, so I’ll bow out. I’ll update the OP to clarify if need be.

So thanks for the discussion, but now I have some christmas presents to collect!

ZeftheWicked.3076:

That’s basically because lvl 1-30 is the “getting used to the game” stage. You unlock weapons skills, 2nd weapon set, slot skills, start with traits, and at magical level 30 your last ulitity slot (elite) becomes unlocked and usable.

Before that it would be like sending a first day recruit to the front line.

I might not have explained this well enough in the OP, but my friends are not those with time to spare to go from level 1-30, just to see that there’s dungeon content. That could take weeks.

Saturn.6591:

If someone WANTS to learn to dodge, he can also do that in open world. Go to a mob of your choice, try to kill it without getting hit once. Feeling good? Try killing it in melee-range without getting hit once. Done? Go to a more difficult mob, try the same. Why would you need a dungeon for that? Especially given the fact that if you fail to dodge in the dungeon and are instantly dead like someone proposed here, it would become very frustrating over time. In open world, that problem doesn’t exist unless you really overestimate your skill.

Also, no group content below lvl 30? Ever tried solo-ing the Krait witch in Caledon Forest? I’ve found myself or others asking for assistance in map chat more than once before. Same counts for other bosses and/or events. Of course that’s not a fixed party like in a dungeon… but if you want to do that together with friends, nothing stops you. You don’t need a dungeon to form a party with friends.

So when I’m playing together with someone, trying to show how exciting this game can be, I’ll ask them to go up to that moose over there and avoid its attacks?

Or we’ll go up to a champion enemy and try to defeat it, but how long would that fun last? Or even, how feasible is that to do with only two people, one or both being a complete newcomer?

Everything you say is true, but it’s not the most fun or rewarding option for this sort of player I’m talking about. And most certainly doesn’t make for the best impression of GW2’s PvE content.

TheDaiBish.9735:

There are a few mini-dungeons out in the world for levels below 30:

• Flame Temple Tombs
• Provernic Crypt
• Goff’s Bandits
• Beggar’s Burrow
• Don’t Touch The Shiny
• Tears of Itlaocol
• Old Oola Lab
• Verarium Delves
• Windy Cave

Thanks. However, don’t you think its odd that you’d probably have to look at a wiki using the right search-word to know there are mini-dungeons in this game?

I’m very happy that they exist and aren’t advertised (joy of exploriation, and I’m an explorer-type player myself), but they might as well not exist for newcomers to the game. And for those savvy min-maxing players, I’m also going to bet that their rewards are sub-par/not enough and thus, not really interesting to them while levelling.

I think a dungeon that is properly advertised at early levels have a much, much better chance of forming groups of players that might stick together while they level.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

I think its kinda pointless without having your full range of skills or any traits to be having dungeons below level 30… it takes hardly any time or effort to get to level 35 (maybe a week?) for AC and a few runs thru you’re leveled up for a different dungeon… and if they haven’t found out about dodging and combos from looking thru the command list at keys or actually reading their skills then its a good time to learn because while everything in the game is easy you really make it a lot harder on yourself not using those mechanics just because you don’t need em for the first 20 levels or so and I doubt you’d get any better rewards in a super low level dungeon like that then you would in open world pve so forgive me if it seems a bit pointless.

The thing is that my friends don’t even give this game a week. I’m a 25-year old with friends around the same age, and giving a week of playtime is often not even close to possible. They’d need to feel interested within the first co-played session, and feel that there’s more to it after that first session.

And they know about dodging, but as it goes AC has much, much harder hitting enemies. If you can’t read the timing of the enemies (it’s a bit too early to know the tells, especially with all the particle effects cluttering the screen), can you blame people for not using dodge very well?

lordkrall.7241:

The dungeons is supposed to be the “elite” content of the game.
And they are not available until lvl 30+ simply because they need people to have a clue before they enter, which is much more likely at lvl 30 than at lvl 10.

Exotics do not drop until lvl 60+ and thus they can’t really drop in low-level dungeons.

The fact that you state in your post that you had a horrible experience with AC due to lack of knowledge from your fellow players would suggest that making dungeons even lower would be incredibly stupid, even if they were to focus on learning people to dodge (however you would do that if they failed to understand it while playing the game earlier), it would not really end well anyway.

I’m not proposing that this dungeon is part of the regular rotation of dungeons. Ideally they would probably not even give rewards worthy anyone’s time unless they’re at the appropriate level. A low level dungeon is not ‘elite content’, just as much as a Personal Story instance isn’t. Think of it as a Personal Story instance that is balanced around group play, learning new players the mechanics, showing non-trinity players how to work together and rewarding people with good gear while they level.

And the biggest thing I have not mentioned yet, is that for all intents and purposes, Guild Wars 2 is a single-player game up to level 30. There’s no incentive to think that “There are other players around me, and we all want to do this. Group?”.

You roam around, ticking of check-boxes (PoI, Vistas etc) and you don’t need to group for any event. You got check-boxes to take care of, right? They got them too, so lets just split ways here.

On that tangent, let me just say that The Nightmare Tower was an EXCELLENT example of how you’d want to encourage group play. I’m going to be honest, but I’m older and less sociable than I was playing WoW. During that patch I made tons of groups, adding lots to my friendslist and having more social interaction than any guild I’ve been in. Tear that apart as you wish, but that’s just how that sort of group content got me more invested.

Hi, this is a big question for me personally, and I hope it gets picked.

One of my biggest gripes I have about Guild Wars 2 is the lack of low-level dungeon content. I do not count Personal Story instances as good dungeon content.

Ensio summarizes what I’m talking about very well:

Ensio.8172:

The OP is looking at things from the perspective of people who are completely new to the game, and quickly find out that it isn’t their cup of tea, especially if coming from WoW-style MMOs.

And it’s not hard to see why that is if you’ve played WoW or others similar to it in structure. Adding more simpler, streamlined low and mid level dungeons wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, if you make clear that they are meant as learning experiences, tutorials. They could grant a decent amount of experience as well, so new players would be drawn to them.

PvE players tend to like dungeons, and want to level up in them.

My pitch:
I would have liked to offer my friends a challenge that would take what they’ve learnt so far (during the same first session of play) and say that at level 15 they’d get <insert thing here>, but it’s not going to be all that easy. We’ll be able to use many if not all combo-fields and finishers as they are part of the dungeon itself (because several classes lacks combo finishers/fields), dodge rotating bars (like the Aetherblade boss) and for the first time (for real now) try our best to make sure we stay alive by supporting each other through skills and reviving.

It’s going to be linear (some familiarity to other MMOs is not a bad thing) and it allows me and my friend(s) to effectively test themselves during the same evening of play, and get some good loot for our levelling once we finish it. I’d see this low level dungeon rather as a ‘game pitch’, that tries to squeeze out every last bit of cool gameplay it has to offer in an accessible and fun way. It would be repeatable, and have some sort of side-goal that encourages you to improve yourself the next time you try it out.

It would also congeal many new players to one place as well, forming groups and possibly friendships. And for experienced players making alts would also come here (the XP and gear rewards are good enough incentive) that they’d join groups with inexperienced players, maybe teaching them a thing or two.

Thematically it could be an asuran or charr training facility gone rogue, meaning there’s lots of spinning, whirring equipment. Jump-pads, malfunctional test dummies, veteran trainers barking out orders/tips and so on. Of course I’d rather have something that plays better into lore though, but that’s for someone else to think of.

P.S. I think it would be wise of the devs to take notes from the (in my opinion) success of Tower of Nightmares when it comes to encouraging grouping, as well.

To explain:
It’s one of the best way to play together with friends at the early levels, as it lets you focus toward a common goal that is very rewarding for your current level.

In my opinion, I think a non-scaled dungeon (note: not really balanced for lvl 20 and up) that is balanced around the smaller set of skills and more emphasis on learning new players how to dodge and use the combo system. Something that is repeatable (dungeoneers ideally would like to level through dungeons alone) and gives a noticeable reward (exotics or rare for low-levels).

Speaking from personal experience, I’ve tried to play this game with friends. All of which have fallen out of it. It feels like the PvE content does not have any good hooks for anyone below level 30, and unless they’re the immersive/explorative/completionist type, they’ll not find anything fun to do during the early levels. Savvy people likes to set aim for gear they’d want early on, and use that as motivation to keep playing so they can earn that gear. But there aren’t any!

And even then, I’ve had horrible experiences with my real-life friends playing AC, as they aren’t as aware of dodging and the combo system. Because why would they? They’ve haven’t needed it while roaming around the open world as warriors/guardians/hunters.

I’d like to see content that lets me show new players what the combat is, what its potential is, and how group-play in this non-trinity game actually works.
I want a reason for forming a party with strangers very early on, creating a hot-spot for the newcomers and experienced alike to learn and teach.

And to speak like a heathen, one particular friend from my time playing that-other-mmo-that-shall-not-be-named (edit: World of Warcraft) expected there to be low-level dungeons. And I agreed. He stopped playing as well.

What is your opinion, community?

These are my biggest concerns about the Living Story:

• Lack of low level dungeons.
• Scarlet Briar.
• Lack of Activity-grouping.

I will elaborate it point-by-point below:

Lack of low level dungeons.
I have a friend who tried the game out, but was confused at what he is supposed to be doing. The heart events take too long, the dynamic events are far and few between, and the content we experience is not hard enough to get his adrenaline going. Most games uses the holy trinity to get them set and comfortable with group content at an early level, Guild Wars 2 does not. My proposal is low level dungeons that start from something as early as level 5 or 11. I personally have played AC explorable dungeon two times and that’s it of my dungeoneering since release! AC explorable became a joke at our expense, we felt unfairly treated, and by the time I said “Should we try another dungeon some other time?”, all I got was a resounding “Nah”.

(Please don’t take this like I want the content to be easier, I just want more easier content on earlier levels)

For the sake of creating healthy groups of friends and companions, and in my case, keep my real life friends playing beyond level 15, I think low level dungeons should be a thing. They don’t need to be hard. They don’t need to reward level 80 players. Just make it fun for those who are not used to the game, get them hooked for the next dungeon. Level 30 is way too late, and the threshold is way too steep.

Scarlet Briar
To explain, I don’t think Scarlet is an interesting character. Scarlet Briar is unmotivated and from nowhere decided that she wanted to be a rebel, and became such an all-knowing and powerful character the moment she was introduced. She is sylvari, which means that she has no parents. No upbringing. No trauma. No previous relations. She is insane, not showing any signs of humanity. Rox and Braham on the other hand are relatable and have a past. Why doesn’t the villain?

At the first patch, I already felt detached from her. The fall of an individual that brings him/her on the darker path, is what makes a villain interesting. Then when the Living Story kept on tacking on (previously) interesting mysteries like the Molten Alliance onto this bland character, I was disappointed. It felt like a cop-out, that you could not come to an interesting conclusion, and went on with creating yet another character when there is already such an absolute abundance of them from Personal Story. It has only continued down this path, which has made me increasingly uninterested in Guild Wars 2’s way of storytelling.

Lack of Activity-grouping.
Lack of grouping in activities, it has been said. But going at an event with only guildies, or playing with a friend, needs to be fixed. I feel like I’m playing with NPCs half the time, and I have no reason to bring an offline friend in to play with me. Halloween is the latest example where I hyped up the activities from last year, only to find that the one activity that was doable with a friend (Clocktower) is now also inaccesible.

I know your company has a stance on making it fun for everyone, but you have to understand the nature of an MMO should not to be to shy away from grouping.

Thanks ArenaNet, I wish you luck with the Living Story.

I definitely see the need for a Turret Kit as mentioned in this thread. It would solve a lot of things, as I’ve never seen the need for the lousy turret and the mediocre tool belt skills they add.

The problem I can see with it is that every engineer would throw down all turrets at all times however (high return for one utility slot).

Maybe if untraited we could only place two turrets at once from the Turret Kit, and every minor trait in the Inventions line in addition to the current effect allowed for one additional turret to be placed. It’s breaking a lot of design consistency rules, but who cares at this point. Turrets are simply not wanted in its current form.

Oh, and if you weigh in-game whispers favorably to balance your classes (seriously, what?) you probably need to widen your sample a bit more!

Anyway, looking forward to some much needed attention to the class.

There’s an inconsistency between races/genders that headtracks targets when standing still. It ends when transitioning to the idle animation(s) it seems.

Note: This only applies when weapons are sheathed (out of combat).

Male asura does not turn head to look at targets at all.
Male charr looks at target but stops when entering idle.
Male human looks at target when in idle.
Male norn looks at target when in idle.
Male sylvari does not turn head to look at targets at all.

Female asura does not turn head to look at targets at all.
Female charr looks at target but stops when idle.
Female human looks at target but stops when idle.
Female norn looks at target in idle.
Female sylvari looks at target but stops when idle.

This is just something that has been nagging me since launch. I hope I’m not alone in this.

kidbs.8920:

Ishiga.6053:

kidbs.8920:

JonPeters.5630:

It is true that letting each player have a stack is unlikely to be the solution, however we do intend to solve this problem.

Why not? You can’t solve the problem if individual players can’t maintain their own stacks. How is it that other MMOs such as WoW and Rift can do this but you guys can’t figure it out? I know that DoTs in those games are handled differently (i.e. they don’t have the stacking mechanic that this game does), and that is why you guys are having such a hard time balancing conditions. The mechanic is just flawed and needs to be redone.

Players want to feel like they are contributing to damage and not just overwriting each other’s conditions.

Correction: They can’t solve the problem like you want them to.

This was already clarified in the interview. Conditions require bandwidth and parsing that many queries would be too much burden on their servers.

Again, how is it that other MMOs have figured how to do that? How does condition damage use anymore bandwidth than direct damage? I just don’t buy that excuse.

Their current system just does require a lot of bandwith. World of Warcraft had a limit of 40 on a target before Wrath of the Lich King, until that limitation was lifted. But that’s a very old and well developed engine by now. But anyway, you can stack 25 bleeds in GW2, and that’s only one type of condition. Imagine if every player could stack their own conditions? I can see why Jon says they have to find another solution if they’re still sticking with the stackable conditions.

It’s more a matter of flawed design. The idea is good though, but the amount of data it sends is just too much. Seems to be a case where a game designer wasn’t aware of the technical limitation and saw the appeal of gradually building up damage over time so you’re never punished for using the same bleed skill more than once. And it also gave the developers really fine control over bleed-skills (internal timer with varying durations, bleed strength by stacks).

Here’s a reddit-comment on the bandwith, take it with a grain of salt as I think it’s easy to exaggerate.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/196rii/comfirmed_nothing_being_done_on_conditions_cap/c8lezq6

I just have to chime in here to say that this is a seriously unacceptable design flaw. Most classes are partially built up around on conditions and then it doesn’t work when playing with other people?

What? How is this even remotely fair or even along your core philosophy for the game?

If this needs your entire system to be overhauled then just do it and deal with your losses. You can’t build an entire MMO that will be built upon for years and years on a broken design!

That was a very good explanation AuldWolf!
I wasn’t entirely sure how the naming actually worked but it seemed like I did a decent job in retrospect. Rawn (guttural) and using the modern naming method were my given name is “Flare” (engineer) and “Spirit” for the warband (meaning well, both the alcohol or the driving force to excel).

If I had known about the roman names I would probably have named him differently, but oh well.

While I play my male norn he will track targets (friendly or hostile) with no weapon unsheathed when I target them while standing still. In comparison, male charr does not and neither male sylvari. I’m certain there’s more.

I would personally like to see all races headtrack as it’s a neat and immersive feature, allowing for some fun screenshots as well (for example headtracking your friend who just took a wrong turn and is now plummeting into the lava).

I liked them mostly for their animations which have so much more character than the other races in my opinion. And that their starting area and plot feels much more like it has a real conflict, as well as the unique aspect of the warbands sold it.
And hey, they’re huge beasts with horns and guns.

davelid.1984:

Because I didn’t want to be the meat or the salad.

Close second. For sure.