Showing Highly Rated Posts By Bhima.9518:
Elite Specializations & Hero Point Feedback [Merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Bhima.9518
One of the things that puzzles me about this character-specific new spec unlocking is that, it goes against what Anet has been pushing for the past few years. Originally, much of the content and gating was character-based. Fractal personal levels were character bound, WvW ranks were character bound, Ascended gear was character bound. While this gating was likely defended at the time by many of the same people here defending the character gating of the new specs, Anet realized this was overall a bad idea because it actually REDUCES the game’s longevity instead of increasing it.
Seems counter-intuitive right? Making everything character based would increase the overall time a player needs to progress in the game. This should mean it would increase longevity. But what Anet likely found was that instead of this motivating players to play more, it likely frustrated them to not play at all. Their answer? Make all these things account based which did a few things:
First, it doesn’t cheapen the experience since, a player still had to get the WvW rank, the Fractal personal level and the Ascended gear. But what it DID do is dramatically reduce the barrier for playing alts. This opened the door for many players to be able to experience the game with a variety of different characters and builds. This actually promoted horizontal progression, as people began to play all these different styles of characters in all the different content. This had a HUGE positive effect on longevity for this game. Got a bit tired playing staff ele in WvW? Just hop on your Warrior and not worry about gimping your team since you have the WvW ranks. Want to try Fractals on a Guardian instead of Warrior? No problem, you can pass the ascended gear with infusions off to your Guard and your personal fractal level is shared.
The game design push to make things more account based instead of character based greatly improved the games’ fun factor and longevity. This pro greatly outweighs the “con” of a few players feeling like its “too easy” to get things, and clearly Anet thinks this is so as well or else they wouldn’t have changed these systems to be account based.
Hopefully, Anet will see the new spec unlocking in the same light as the other issues they have already addressed, and they focus once again on improving game diversity through account based solutions instead of character based ones.
Anet needs to build us a Walter White antagonist, not this Disney villian Scarlet.
Elite Specializations & Hero Point Feedback [Merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Bhima.9518
I understand people’s frustration, the game has been out about a day shouldn’t you have everything already? It’s what Anet has done in the past; why not now? 400 hero points should be like 40, right? To be real, I expected this hate outburst. Anet adds harder content and everyone who just wants their stuff now crawls out of the woodwork. Just chill. You have a right to complain but senseless hate won’t help. Make suggestions, offer solutions, and try to make the experience better for everyone not worse with venom. :/
Stop confusing arbitrary time gating as harder content. I see that equivocation in this forum all the time. The new spec unlocking is an arbitrary time gate, it is NOT “harder” content that is challenging or interesting. It is only a time-sink to get to the fun.
I think people are just being a bit over the top. So on the BWE we got it handed to us on a plate, did not have to do a thing for the Elite specs. Now we do in the full game. Get over it. I already have Full 100% on both Mes and now Reverent, in less than 4 days. When GW2 first came out it took me longer than that just to get one to 100%. Give it time, Mastery is the only thing that really slows you down, and it only has to be done once.
I would be disappoint if Anet changed it, it’s meant to be endgame.
The new specializations are NOT meant to be endgame. They are another way to play your character. Endgame is high level fractals, WvW, sPvP, Legendaries, Living Story installments and soon, Raiding. Getting a spec to make your character finally play somewhat different from the past 3 years is not endgame.
(edited by Bhima.9518)
Please please please ANET. Stand your ground. Weren’t Masteries and Unlocking Elite Spec supposed to take longer than getting to level 80 in the base game? Why are you folding to the elite spec complaints and not doing anything about the mastery farming?
They are folding on a game mechanic that promotes playing one main character… that is all they have done. They are being consistent by making this change, as it is consistent with other changes they have made throughout the past years to make the game more alt friendly which increases the longevity of the game. Get off your EQ horse.
Doesn’t the Ranger’s Healing Spring already do something like this and isn’t limited to just a few of the conditions and is also a water field that can be blasted? The sky really isn’t falling here people.
1) More skills to choose from
2) More sPvP game modes (CTF… do it already)
3) Allow for parties to join hotjoin pvp and mini-games. WoW got this one right… not everyone wants to get rolled in Arenas
4) More guaranteed ways to get ascended gear through I dunno, actually playing the game instead of just crafting (I don’t count the less than 1% chance of a box dropping in fractals)
5) Announce an expansion that gives us more land to explore, maybe a new class, increase the level cap, new weapon types, etc.
6) a wardrobe system that is equitable to Anet and the players: IE a system like DCUO, except that, to unlock a specific skin forever it would take two lvl 80 transmutation crystals. That way Anet can still make money, and players can collect a ton of skins and unlock each one forever for two crystals per skin.
7) Don’t need a 7th, I feel these 6 would make this game pretty close to my ideal without being impossible to implement.
(edited by Bhima.9518)
On demand protection is better than armour.
Not really. You have to swap out of your damage rotation (save for LH) just to get this “on demand” protection you covet. Easier to just have decent hp and decent toughness to begin with.
There is an adjustment period for playing HoT versus the old Tyrian content. But, just like when the new Teq came, people complained that it would only be doable by a fully organized group. For a short time that was true, but the playerbase overtime adjusted to what the fight takes and now, Teq is on complete farm mode. The same thing will happen in HoT’s open world content. It just requires a bit more overall focus and skill right now, but if people stick it out for a just a bit… learn how to build their characters in a playstyle that works for them and the content, they will be able to overcome the increased difficulty and get completely used to it.
This trailer really is the perfect mesh of the original, extremely time consuming painted cut scenes (ie: the ones right when you make a character) and the in-game engine cut scenes. One of the best cinematic trailers in video games… your team should be really proud.
Honestly, the same thing could happen in guild fractal groups, or really any content that has a player restriction on it. Hell, this happens in sPvP… you sit in Ventrillo with the sPvP group, and wait till someone drops out, or you scrape together 1 or 2 other guildies and pug the rest. I sympathize with the problem, but there is no easy fix to it.
Expansion overall has been fun and I welcome the HP change for my alts. Auric Basin is the most beautiful looking zone in any MMO I have played. The Artistic direction and execution in this game always impressed me, but this expansion has raised that bar. So far, I feel quite pleased with this expansion and I look forward to slowly working my way through it with 4 other alts.
The server system has proven to just not work in the long run. Anet now has more than enough playtime data to create alliances based on a cluster of a few servers. Basically take One Tier 1, one Tier 2 and two Tier 3 servers, combine them into an alliance and give them a name. Base these server clusters off of the performance data/coverage over the past few years to try and create balanced alliances. Likely should also reset/re-organize the alliances every 6 months based on the data to optimize skill/coverage balancing as people play more/play less per server.
Yeah, I know the whole: play for your server thing (which, in a sense you would STILL be doing, but you would be a part of a larger system), but WvW is waaaay too set in stone at this point. There are 2, maybe 3 servers that ever duke it out at the top, with no real surprises/interesting turn of events because of the current system. Also, those on lower pop servers just have a bad WvW experience when they fight servers with better coverage. An Alliance system like I described that is constantly balancing every few months should, in theory, have a better chance at creating more equal playing fields and thus, more interesting and lively WvW.
The WvW staff large group build that is most effective is this:
0/0/20/20/30. 20 in Earth gives you Rock Solid, which is the best 20 trait you could ever hope for in large group wvw simply because its on-demand stability for your group. Gear wise, don’t waste gear slots for clerics. I’ve tried a clerics build and the added tick healing was not worth the wet noodle dmg trade off especially since the bulk of your healing is done through your team blasting your water fields. I have a mix of valk, knight and soldiers armor with zerker and cavalier trinkets and weapons. (aim for 16k+ hp with food, 1600+ toughness, 3k attack, 30% crit and whatever you can get with crit dmg ~50%-70%) Run full cantrips and Ether Renewal.
While the Liadri fight is challenging and alot of fun, I feel the mechanics continue to reinforce the current meta in pve: use all zerkers. They need to give people a reason to trade off dmg for survivability, but its difficult when the mechanics one shot you no matter what you are wearing.
Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.
Is this really a bad thing for the Ele? I mean, only today someone showed me not to underestimate Scepter/Focus. Even if I wasn’t playing a class I was familiar with, he still showed me how a skilled player could turn a loathed weapon combo into a major asset.
Yea, the skill-ceiling on the ele is VERY high. However, there is the whole risk vs reward thing. Even playing at the skill-ceiling you will be barely par with other classes played at the mid-level. You literally have to outplay your opponents just to keep up.
THIS.
Combine our very low health, low defense and poor damage then go against other classes and just see how easy they have it. High health, great defense and damage that makes ours look pathetic.
They dont even have to be good to beat a ele most of the time and THAT is the problem. We have a very high skill requirement just to be as good as at best a person bashing buttons on another class and Anet thinks this is okay…
Poor damage? I think we aren’t talking about the same class.
Poor damage? No. Poor easy damage? Yes. A scepter/focus ele’s damage comes from a very obvious combo that requires a VERY high cooldown skill to hit (phoenix), then they swap to air for bolt to the heart, have to teleport onto your head, then mash 2,3 in Air. When you see an ele swap to fire attunement, you know its time to dodge. BAM! You’ve just negated the majority of their damage and now they have to wait an eon for that cooldown to come back. This combo does mad damage, but it is unreliable to pull off against anyone decent, and the cooldown is prohibitively long. Since they also have 30 into air, they most likely have low toughness, low condi removal or no evasive arcana.
Don’t forget that your crafters actually have to BE level 80. You can craft any recipe at any level as long as you have the skill required for it… why do they add yet ANOTHER barrier to craft celestial armor?
^ Because if something is there permanently it is more or less abandoned a few weeks or so after release. If on the other hand it is temporary people will keep doing it before it will go away sooner or later.
… just like the way no-one runs CoF anymore because it’s been there since the start of the game?
If something is fun (or – at least – rewarding) people will keep playing it. People don’t play Keg Brawl not because it’s permanent, but because it’s not especially fun.
I don’t play Keg Brawl because, like ALL the mini games, I can’t actually party with my friends and play.
To be fair, no expansion for ANY game has had as much content as the original game because no expansion gives you 8+ new classes a 5+ new races and they almost never give you the same size/number of maps to play on. This also has to do with development time of a new game versus the development time of an expansion. GW2 was in development for well over 5 years… HoT was in development for what, 2 years at the most?
Ele has best burst in the game. This burst is actually strong enough to 1shot warriors.
And you have now downed one player, but you have no stability to finish him, EVERYTHING is on cooldown and you are paper. Its a gimmick build that is no different from the bursty gimmick builds like a Thief has. Of course a Thief can actually finish someone off when someone else is around and actually be able to get away.
Auric Basin is easier than Triple Trouble which actually requires a guild to take charge and explain all the mechanics before hand. The game is what, not even a week old? Give it some time for a greater portion of the population to understand the meta event fights. Just like Teq seemed REALLY hard back in the day, but is now on complete farm mode. People will get used to it.
I really think you guys are so grateful for a change – any change – that you’re missing a few things that point to this not being much of a compromise.
1) Hero points are still account bound.
2) They are still gated behind some masteries.
3) You are still forced to spend Hero Points on ALL your skills and utilities before you can even unlock the elite spec.
4) The elite specs are all earned in a linear fashion – which means you MUST spend your hero points on traits AND SKILLS that you may never even use.As it is, 250 HP is easier to swallow versus 400 HP, true…if you only have 1 or 2 alts to grind. But once you hit 4-5 alts and up… this is still a HUGE amount of grind.
100% agree with this.
This works for a few characters, but when it comes down to it, it’s still 25 HP locations. I’m sorry, but the thought of grinding these out on my alts is completely offputting. I have 28 fully geared, functional level 80s that I made to add flavour to my playing experience. I mean, there is NO way I’m going to do it on all of them, but even considering every profession grinding 25 of these gated, unsoloable points makes me not want to play. Of course, nobody should change things just because of one person(arguably the majority), but bear with me here. They only cut it down by 15. And this is not factoring the amount of HPs per map, nor does it factor that many of these HPs cannot be solo’d and are mastery gated. So you STILL have to pretty much do most of the maps, just not 100%. People are so happy they were noticed, that they aren’t recognizing what they actually got. I’m not saying I don’t welcome lessening the burden, it’s just that it changes very little to the overall issue people were upset about; people waited 3 years using the same old boring builds with the same old boring skills and wanted to play the new content with the new spec. It defeats the entire purpose if you STILL have to do most all the content just to be able to unlock it, right? Am I missing something here?
Now I know GW2 has historically been a VERY alt friendly game, and that is by design because it increases its longevity without having to add new content. But, you gotta admit, you are definitely on the outlier side of things with 28 level 80’s. I expect most faithful players of GW2 to have between 3-8 total level 80s that they play regularly… 28 is definitely a rounding error in terms of number of people that actually have that.
Also, this compromise will make it relatively easy to get the new spec on at least 3 characters no problem. Pick the 3 you want to play the most, get those specs, enjoy the game then go back to unlocking the specs on a few others. By then it won’t feel like a chore to unlock a few more characters.
I dunno what you guys are complaining about. Got the achievement in a week and played about 2 hours everyday.
There’s a big difference between “difficult” and tedious, unproductive grind. Perhaps if you actually read the thread you’d know what “we guys are complaining about.”
I still don’t get why people feel the urge to comment on kitten they don’t read.
Exactly this. When coordinating your server, not all guilds just jump into EB to flip SM for the achieve. Most of the dedicated WvW guilds are doing what it takes to stay competitive, like dedicating guilds to the borderlands while larger ones handle EB. This is the right way to play WvW, but the wrong way to get the achievements.
SPvP release wishlist: (we can dream right?)
3) Standard models enabled for all pvp modes
So much this. Anet makes some very strange decisions that really bog down the experience. They obviously see this as an issue enough to make it an option for arenas… just let us do it in every spvp mode!
While they are at it, take Courtyard off the poorly implemented pay arenas and put it back into the regular rotation. Every other map in the game feels exactly the same because they are all designed for 5v5 conquest. Doesn’t matter if its Khylo, Foefire, Cheesehammer, etc… the game dynamic/meta is the exact same with these maps. At least with the deathmatch, you actually have 5 people fighting side-by-side against 5 other people. It also allows different builds to permeate, and become viable because you don’t HAVE to be a bunker-condi to be successful. It also allows you to play right next to your friends, instead of sitting on your thumbs and holding a point like a good soldier.
raids which have been stated to have a 15% chance drop rate for an ascended box per boss (so ~2 group members will get ascended loot per boss per week). Even at it’s height, fractals were nowhere near that rate.
I just looked up KING’s droprate research. I’m seeing 4.2% weapon, 11.9% armor, 11.7% skin.
Now, you can definitely argue that a Fractal 50 takes a lot longer than a raid boss – or at least once people figure all them out and start farming them – but let’s not be misleading about the droprates in Fractals.
I don’t think you are reading that properly. Armor and weapons are all well below 2% in that data, with weapon boxes topping out at 0.3%. 4.2% is for golden weapon skins, not ascended weapons and 11.9% isn’t even in the table… maybe you are looking at the ring droprate?
Legendary gear has the same stats as ascended gear. /thread
^This precisely. Legendary armor is NOT a new gear tier. I don’t know why people still can’t wrap their head around this.
Besides Hotjoin needing to have the imbalanced teams to get fixed, I agree with you Faeyd. Keeping the matches always 5v5 with the same game mechanic (Conquest) makes for a pretty stale experience as far as variety is concerned. Those 8v8 matches are a fun frenzy, and the dynamic is completely different than playing 5v5. There is no reason hotjoining can’t have both. While they are at it, it would be nice if Anet actually made a map that could accompany 10v10 or 15v15 to further diversify what the meta is. Builds would be all over the place with different gameplay maps AND different numbers of players per team. This would, you know, actually make the game more diverse and FUN.
agree, elite unlock should not be done easily, game experience in the long run will suffer.
This is the new meme around here, and I want to squash it with some reality. You and others feel that, by making this faster/easier, it reduces overall playtime in the long run because you can get your spec sooo fast now. What you and others here fail to understand is that, Anet has already been down this road of making things difficult/time consuming to unlock and they realized (likely through actual data analysis) that prohibitive gating of content REDUCES longevity in this game, not increases it.
By reducing the barriers, especially for alt play, the game actually increases longevity in the long run. Hell, just look at the Mastery system: its account based! This is the reason Anet has ALREADY made changes in this direction over the past few years including: Making WvW Ranks account based, making Fractal personal levels account based and making Ascended gear account bound. Now, the point isn’t that things need to be account based, the point is that the barrier for play on other characters should be low as that is the easiest way to dramatically increase gameplay diversity. Once you understand this, you will understand why Anet has made this change.
Guys you literally CANNOT grind for Hero Points; they are unique, in different locations and cannot be repeated. Elite Specs cannot be achieved with grind (why do people keep saying they are grinding for Hero Points?).
Except: Many of the HP’s are hard locked behind Masteries, therefore… grind out that XP to get the mastery to get the HP. Or, take all your alts on an HP tour of central tyria. This to me is a grind, as it is not a fun use of time though will be a requirement to get the new spec as soon as one can to actually use it in the new content.
For the past 3 years, GW2 has been VERY alt friendly through its design. The HoT expansion turns that on its head. It is a needless time gate for what is one of the premiere reasons people paid money for the expansion to begin with. There are already enough goals and things to do in GW2 to absorb one’s time, we don’t need an arbitrary one just to get to the fun.
If you are playing casually, you can play your ele in a variety of ways and be very effective in all PvE encounters. I find D/D to be the most fun for open world pve, but staff, scepter, and focus are all just fine for this as well.
If you want to pvp, your options become more limited to say the least.
Guys you literally CANNOT grind for Hero Points; they are unique, in different locations and cannot be repeated. Elite Specs cannot be achieved with grind (why do people keep saying they are grinding for Hero Points?).
Except: Many of the HP’s are hard locked behind Masteries, therefore… grind out that XP to get the mastery to get the HP.
And you can unlock the full spec with access to Gliding, Updraft and Bouncing Mushrooms – this does not take long and you can get the experience from brand new event chains repeating nothing for a grindless Elite Spec.
Anyone telling you that you need to grind is lying or forcing themselves to do something silly.
That is true on the characters that you have full core map completion on, but any of your other characters… you’ll be left with either grinding out masteries to get the extra HP in Maguuma, or going back into central tyria to grab the HP’s you’ve already gotten on a plethora of other characters before. It feels like preparing to have fun which is exactly what a grind is to me, and it is one of the things GW2 originally did a good job in its game design to diminish. Again, I don’t mind the mastery system (though I agree with the OP that you should just get basic gliding right when you enter Maguuma), but gating the new specializations with 400HP is a needless contrivance that just wastes time and diminishes the alt-friendly nature of the game.
Honestly, GW2 is the cheapest MMO to play so, I don’t really see the issue of fracturing the player base since, for over 2 years all anyone had to do to play all the content was buy the box once. An expansion likely wouldn’t be released for yet another year so… that $60 got players 3 years of having the current content. I don’t see an issue with adding a $40 expansion, and I believe it would have a greater impact on motivation for people to play and for former players to return. Plus, some of the changes to the expac would likely also be included as patch download for the original game.
What should be in an expac of GW2? My wish list:
- 2 new weaponsets per class (doesn’t need to be entirely new weapons like a halberd or 2-hand axe… but take the existing weapons and give other classes new skills with them like an Engineer with a Hammer for instance)
- 4-6 new zones
- Bring back the Heart quests for the new zones. I know they get alot of flack, but I actually enjoy doing them on my alts
- 2 new open world raid bosses to start with (more as time progresses). Maybe allow guilds to open a personal overflow of the fight so they can get their guild in there first, and then bring in non-guildies to fill out the ranks
- 2 new dungeons with 3 wings each
- 2 new fractals
- Re-vamped WvW system that combines two servers on one team based on active wvw server participation. The WvW maps would have to either be increased in number, or increased in size/objectives to deal with the influx of players per match. This would allow the really low pop servers to be joined with Tier 1 servers like BG, JQ and TC. The middle servers like Yak’s Bend would be paired up with another mid-level server in the hopes of evening out the playing field.
- add 2 new battlegrounds that are NOT conquest (ie: A Capture the Flag battleground). Also consider making those battlegrounds optimal with larger numbers of players (ie: 10v10, 15v15)
- Revamp hotjoin sPvP to allow partied players to queue in together. Take Courtyard out behind the paywall (freaking horrible decision to do this in the first place)
- Increase level cap by 10 levels (I’m on the fence about this… though, I am still conditioned to enjoy level based progression)
- Increase the ways in which players can obtain ascended gear. As of now, crafting should not be the only truly viable option to get ascended weapons and armor. You should be able to get, at the very least, tokens from fighting Teq or Wurm or high level fractals to then save and spend on ascended weapons and armor
(edited by Bhima.9518)
Overall, the presentation and dialogue was much better in this episode than others. Someone else mentioned, and I think is right, that there wasn’t enough dialogue or story between Marjory and Belinda to make their close relationship feel legitimate. That first chapter could have had a bit more dialogue to enhance their bond and our feeling that this is legitimate.
I thought Trahearne’s dialogue was MUCH better than the majority of the personal story. The voice actor even seemed to deliver the dialogue with a bit more emotion, just the right amount to make him feel like a true General but not too much to make him a Metzen-esque type of character. Honestly, I think his character is much improved, even though you only see him for a brief moment.
The polish on the ambient dialogue is also quite good, and I like the changing of the camera angles to make it feel a bit more cinematic.
The Library is also a great touch. The length of the stories were just long enough to glean something substantial from them, but not too long that you didn’t feel like reading through it, or choosing to not read another for fear of being crit in the face with a wall of text.
Love Canach as well.
no need to be magical to do some elemental damage with bow, just light up your arrow with fire and you have a fire elemental skill, no magic used! exept if you create fire with your own hand (or else) xD
What? Not even close. Warriors have far superior DPS. Guardians are great at stayin alive but you don’t ‘tank’ in this game.
Warrior have every skill that prevent the ennemie to do damage against you (knockback, anti-control skill, shake it all), while guardian have AOE skill that do way more damage than the knockback of my warrior.
/facepalm
Warriors are the kings of DPS.
two words: Hundred Blades
Another word: Axe
Guardian’s hammer #2 does good dmg, but a Warrior’s adrenaline skill with hammer does the same damage, guaranteed to crit (traited) and stuns enemies on an 8s CD. Warriors also have hammer #3 which doesn’t do a ton of dmg, but it is instant… whereas guardian hammer builds only have #2 for quick damage.
I have fully geared a guardian and a warrior. Play them before you make stuff up.
Meet the new meta, same as the old meta, just more meta.
Really it was most fun in pvp I have ever had in GW2 except team queues with 4 friends…..Why did ANET deleted something that was fun for most players? I remember 8vs8 was full all the time and 5vs5 were quite empty because guess what? It was not fun and 7vs8 is way better than 4vs5.
Think about it ANET.
Agreed. There is literally no reason to NOT have hotjoin randomly have 5v5 or 8v8 matches as it does change up the dynamic of the game. Also, to those that want only 5v5, there are two other types of ways you can have them: queue solo arena or queue team arena.
I think Anet should take more risks and more creative liberties with Hotjoin in general as it is more of a training ground/casual non-chalant form of pvp play (ie: bring out different game mode maps, change up the team number sizes randomly, change some of the rulesets, and bring back Courtyard from the depths of that ridiculous custom arena paywall).
This game is not conducive to esports because it looks and is too complex to follow as a spectator. It just looks like a spam salad of AOE’s, and for those that don’t play or only casually play, its near impossible to follow versus a MOBA, or a game like Hearthstone.
If esports didn’t work for the most popular MMO ever made, it sure as hell wouldn’t work for GW2. Definitely not GvG which would be even worse as a spectator.
Just adding another voice of agreement to this thread. I played pretty solidly for 5 weeks to get this achievement. No… I didn’t hunt out the achievements the whole time as I was working first and foremost to help my server. Even still, the extra time and effort put in to get this achievement was easily the time equivalent of 3 monthlies which are normally done playing extremely casually in 3 days. The rewards do not even come close to matching the effort. Noone is looking for more power than what is already available… but it really wouldn’t break the game to give people an ascended weapon. Not a fan of having the only sure-fire way to get one through crafting since crafting is the least interesting content in this game. Anet needs to fix their poor item distribution throughout the game. They can do this and still maintain balance pretty easily.
I completely agree with this change. It needs a serious CD reduction. A lot of warriors used endure pain when it was at 90s cd just as a lot of eles use armor of earth at a 90s cd. Wars got a CD reduction to 60, and they use it about the same amount. I’m fairly certain eles would still use it about the same amount if it was changed to 75s or so. 15s is really not that big of a deal considering its at 90. Though, I will admit, I can’t stand using Armor of Earth unless I have 20 in water for the CD reduction. If it was brought down, it would reduce the necessity for water traitline, which is something A-net wants to do, right?
Honestly I find Endure Pain more useful than Armor of Earth because when running in a group I often get stability from others, but having a 100% direct damage reduction skill while still being able to attack is amazing. The fact that its only 60s compared to Armor of Earth’s 90 is just comical.
Mist Form should also be reduced to 60s baseline. Hate to compare it again to Endure Pain, but it is probably the closest comparision. Both break stun, I believe the advantage to Mist Form is that you cannot take any conditions while in it or be controlled. The disadvantage is that you can’t actually do anything while in it except try to move away from the pain and hope they’ve swapped targets. Endure pain’s disadvantage is that you can still be controlled or hit with conditions, BUT it lasts for 4 seconds instead of three and you can actually still use your skills. Having used both, I can say imo Endure Pain is better and therefore, a CD reduction to Mist would not be out of line.
(edited by Bhima.9518)
Yeah this blows, elite specs had a level of prestige to it, something to work towards, have mastered your character to get.
Now you can complete the old content and basically have it finished. Zzz.
You are equivocating on the word prestige with desire/demand. No really… elite specs in less than 2 months time will NOT have ANY level of prestige to them. They will just be what they already are, another way to play your class. Prestige in GW2 is not a class mechanic, it is high level sPvP success, Tier 1 WvW, high level fractals, Legendaries and soon to be raiding. Those things will always be prestige in this game, a new playstyle, although desired, is not a badge to wear as prestige… Wielding Eternity is.
I decided I wanted to craft a new set of exotic wanderer’s armor. I worked to get all of the recipes, and once I had them, I found you need 60 linseed oil to craft a full set of oiled pieces to make the exotic armor. which means I need 1200 flax seeds just to make a set of armor with exotic stats.
I feel like I have no choice but to park every character I have at the flax farm and do nothing but farm flax, so I can have the armor.
I get that flax is the new hotness, and we need flax for everything, but can we maybe ease up a little bit on it, so that this doesnt become guild farms 2: the flax chronicles?
Yes, the material requirements for some exotic stat distributions are ridiculous. Another big offender is Zealot’s. You need 3,000 watchwork sprockets to make a full zealots armor, or purchase the Watchwork Mechanisms on the TP. Each mechanism is 18g50… multiply that by 6 and, not even including the other material costs, you are looking at over 111g for this exotic armor. Absolutely ridiculous.
Nope, all these people saying it was the right choice are here because they complained enough and now are getting their way. Most people who were happy with it probably didn’t bother defending Anet on the forums against this “I WANT IT NOW” attack. Anet should have stood their ground. I think the should reverse it and make it take more hero points cause I was able to max it out in 2 days which isn’t long enough for me. Go back to 400 points required and make the hero challenges give less points.
The reason they are changing it is obvious:
1) As Colin rightly pointed out: It was too much of a shock to their customers that originally expected to be able to play as their new specialization to actually have to grind out 200-400HP.
2) Look at the history of this game. Anet originally makes things gated behind character progression (just look at the original fractal personal level, Ascended gear, and personal WvW Rank points) but soon they realized that these mechanics actually REDUCE instead of increase the longevity of the game because they are barriers to a more diverse play style through alts. They have changed all those systems to be account based precisely so people can enjoy this content on a variety of different characters and builds.
This new change to the HP grind is exactly in line with the direction they have been trying to go that increases gameplay longevity by not gating your alts too much.
My 2 coppers:
I’m coming from the perspective that the Marionette was and is still the best boss battle Anet has made in GW2. It has interesting mechanics, involves some pretty heads up team work, could be done by any group dedicated to it and was on a pretty darn short timer to try again.
No gating: I STILL have nightmares over getting Onyxia attuned on Horde back in the day. It is a relic of the sub model of gaming that is there to be a time sink. GW2 gates literally none of the content, why start now?
Difficulty: There should be a range of difficulty depending on the raid. I think the Marionette is a good start as it was possible to complete it with a good group of casuals that worked well together. If you make it too hard and too time consuming, your raiding end game could fall into the Wildstar trap of being way too frustrating for all but the elite raiding masochists. We all know how Wildstar is doing in terms of retention regardless of how many of the hardcore raiders in this thread want to move GW2 towards.
Guardian’s ideas were closest to the best in terms of how the raid is activated. Should be an instance of a zone for the guild… then fill the ranks with the public through the LFG tool. This can be attempted once per day by the guild through the guild missions. In parallel to that, these raid bosses spawn separately on a timer in the open world in their respective zones once per few hours. This gives everyone the opportunity to try it without hoping to either join a large successful guild, or being at the mercy of the LFG tool. Can only get the ascended gear box once per day though. This will help stretch out the replayability a bit so people aren’t just putting the Raid on complete farm mode. Speaking of rewards…
Rewards
1 Ascended gear box with a guaranteed piece of ascended gear. A small chance at a unique skin and some gold. If you’ve already received your ascended gear box for the day, you get an exotic loot box with a guaranteed exotic item. With the amount of professions and builds, I can see raid bosses being rewarding for a very long time. Could even set a loot table for specific raid bosses (ie: Dragon X only drops ascended gloves, boots, daggers and swords, Dragon Y drops ascended chest, legs, greatsword and staves, etc.).
Group Size: Should be designed for open world in mind FIRST… because of this, it needs to be catered to the 60-150 amount of people.The guild controlled versions are the same, the difference is that the guild can at least get their whole guild into the zone first, then fill out the ranks with the LFG tool. Obviously the bosses that spawn in the open world are a free for all like they are today. Having Anet spend all their time on 8-15 man content locked away in an instance is just not what this game is about, as it could quickly devolve into a more elitist splintered community.
What happened to good MMO players back in EQ1 days where the fact that it took 6 months of playing 6 hours a day to get one weapon was a good thing. And being given all the best gear in the game from 2 days of easy mode dungeons was a bad thing. Everything has flipped around….
Those people grew up, moved out of their dorm, got a job and a family. There is a reason why punishing games ala EQ1 have a small player base: Most people do not want to play games that require that type of time investment. I remember playing EQ1 for about 2 weeks (before WoW was much more than a rumor). I decided I wanted to try my hand at blacksmithing. As I worked a little on this I did the calculation of time it would actually take me to be good at blacksmithing in EQ was roughly the same amount of time it would take me to be good at blacksmithing in real life. No thanks, I want no part of that type of time investment and, it looks like the marketplace for these games shares my opinion.
If you make it too hard and too time consuming, your raiding end game could fall into the Wildstar trap of being way too frustrating for all but the elite raiding masochists. We all know how Wildstar is doing in terms of retention regardless of how many of the hardcore raiders in this thread want to move GW2 towards.
it would be nice if people like you would get their facts straight.
the people who left wildstar didnt leave because “the raid content is too frustrating”. they left because of bad design decisions outside of raids.
you probably havent even touched the game and yet you are trying to judge, thats not ok.and the wildstar raid content is full stop the best raiding content any MMO has ever released.
GW2 could make it even better. but not if people are constantly crying because they want to faceroll through the content and get loot handed out for free.this guy speaks the truth:
http://www.reddit.com/r/WildStar/comments/29173s/getting_epics_is_too_hard/cignw1gIf only a small percentage of the GW2 playerbase will actually enjoy that type of encounter, then the larger majority will ask: where’s MY content? The vast majority of GW2 players are casual gamers/hardcore-turned-casual-gamer
people who dont want to faceroll through content are asking “where is my content” for 2 years now. but that doesnt count right?
and who tells you that casual gamers cannot enjoy raid content?hardcore players arent hardcore because they spend 8 hours a day to play dress up wars 2. they are hardcore because they spend it in combat.
the hardcore content vs casual content discussion is a complete waste of time.
I know enough about Wildstar as my friend was one of the server’s first to level cap. He and his guild got pretty far before people just started bailing out, with the typical guild drama that happens in a game that had a pretty brutal attunement process, loooong raiding sessions to beat your face against a boss for hours at a time hoping to at least get the boss to less health than the last attempt. I’ve been there before as well. Was in a guild that was the 2nd guild on the server to take down Chromaggus and Nefarion in Blackwing Lair. Casual MMO gamers could not do these things because they didn’t have the time to commit to do them. Its the reason why WoW has the LFR now and flex raiding. MMO gamers have gotten older, we no longer live off of a PELL grant while gaming in our dorm.
Guild Wars is dress-up wars with a few decent challenges in PvE but nothing like what us older MMO vets were used to. This is fine, as this game actually allows the entire community to complete the content while still holding down a full time job while taking care of your wife and kids. I think Wurm is a pretty challenging fight in a casual raid environment and I think that level of difficulty is about right for this game and the majority of the players.
If you want serious challenge in GW2… that takes hours of your day consistently, you should really just PvP or join a Tier 1 WvW server and do GvG in Obsidian Sanctum. Or go play WoD.
(edited by Bhima.9518)