Guild Wars 2

frans.8092:

Hannelore.8153:

There’s nothing inappropriate about swimsuits. Anyone who believes that has obviously had their mind poisoned by overzealous cultural taboos.

Make it happen.

You’d look twice and pich your own arm if you saw someone at the busstop or in the supermarket (other then the camping variety) wearing wearing a swimsuit.

And what about on a Southsun beach where you’re automatically stripped to your skivvies the moment your toes touch the sand? What’s more appropriate attire there than bathing suits and bikinis?

Live a little. Social crusading is for the dullest of the dull.

Actual grinders start you on the treadmill the moment you leave character creation. GW2’s grind begins well after you’ve capped and it’s only required if you’re chasing optional stuff. Although some might dispute that with ascended gear being BiS, but I don’t feel left behind staying outfitted in full exotics, which don’t require grinding to attain.

I know you’re primarily interested in PvP and I don’t really touch that, but for PvE, I’d go with Thief. There’s almost NOWHERE you can’t get to running as a Thief due to your stealth abilities and almost no situation that you can’t get out of when it goes south. Engineers are great fun, Very versatile, very tough and very powerful. But they can’t loot the contents of a chest from underneath the nose of a Champion mob, by themselves. Thieves can. Also, Engineers don’t have an “oh s**t!” handle to punch out of a bad situation. When they eventually get overwhelmed (which can take some doing), you basically dig in and wait for them to bust your bunker. Thieves are greasy little kittens and good ones will always have an escape route available to them. Always.

Finally, if you like mobility, nothing tops the Thief. With the right build, you’ll be dancing all over the battlefield faster than your enemies can track you. It’s an exciting way to play (for me at least) since it can feel a bit like you’re dodging cars on a freeway. Any hit will likely do significant damage, so continually not being there when the hammer falls is very satisfying.

Again, this is just with PvE in mind. The few times of gone into WvW with my Thief, I’ve performed pretty well and found that I was nearly unkillable, even with my PvE build. I contrast that with EVERY other profession I’ve tried in WvW and ended up being a floor mat for the enemy to wipe their boots on. But these are just a handful of experiences and not nearly enough to make a recommendation on. I’m absolutely NO expert in PvP.

Mesmer is still my favorite profession due to playstyle, but Elementalists have one thing going for them that Mesmers can’t touch, nor any other profession in my opinion: they are exceptional mob taggers.

I play regularly with a friend of mine who runs a Mesmer and when I’m on my Elementalist, I’m literally pulling in twice the loot drops that he is due to almost non-stop AoEs. I run a Staff build that has increased AoE size and I’m able to tag just about everything within a 1200 range by cycling through each of my different attunements. It may sound like a weak reason to run a profession, but it made a huge difference to me in terms of money and gear.

So, like I said, I think Mesmers are more fun to play due to their complexity and their subtlety, but I can’t think of a single build that stands up well in a large group, at least not in terms of loot payoff. And one other thing, as someone above mentioned, Runes of the Traveller are almost a necessity for Mesmer’s now and those things, last I saw, where selling for over 13g EACH. A full set will run you almost 80g. That’s a lot of scratch for a new player. Solid Elementalist builds can be created using much more diverse, and cheaper, sets. Might be worth while building up an Ele as a farming toon in order to finance your Mesmer with the larger loot hauls you’ll be getting. Just a suggestion.

Finally, I won’t speak for either forms of PvP since I don’t run them.

Danikat.8537:

You have a few different options to buy exotics, and I’d say which one is best really depends on what you like doing.

• You can buy them with gold from the trading post
• You can craft them if you’re high enough level
• You can buy them from temples in Orr with karma
• Or from WvW merchants with Badges of Honor
• Or from dungeon merchants (in Vigil Keep) with that dungeons tokens
• They also drop from enemies, but very rarely so that’s not likely to be practical.

Or you can do a combination of some/all of the above.

Genbu.1705:

You can also buy exotic armor with karma 42K/piece. Not really worth it in my opinion.

I’d say it depends on what you’ve been doing before then, and what you like to do.

When my first character got to level 80 I had no dungeon tokens and very little gold but I had enough karma saved up to get a full set of exotics straight away. Coupled with the fact that I had so much because I had very little to spend it on it was easily the best option for me.

And if I didn’t have enough already I personally would much rather do events and dailies/monthlies for karma than run the same dungeon path over and over again to get tokens. The only thing more boring than that IMO would be the champ train.

I didn’t think there was any way to salvage runes from karma gear anymore. It would be such a colossal waste to spend up to 80g on one of the more popular rune sets and never be able to retrieve them again. You would need to be pretty confident that you’re never going to change that armor, ever again. The only reason I use karma for armor these days is to unlock the skins. I delete them immediately afterwards.

Chris.8206:

In the process of completing the entire map with my ele, and so after doing the Tribulation Rift vista in Silverpeak Mountains (the one with the scaffolding tower near the artillery barrages), I decided to do I bit of wandering. After a lot of poking around I found a path that I’m certain was never intended to be found. I was able to get to the top of the mountains high above the vista and reached places where the mountains just stopped and places I could walk inside of the mountains. It was a pretty cool experience and made me think: What other places in the game world have people stumbled upon that weren’t really meant to explored? I’m sure I’m not the first person to find this cool little nugget of the world, but wanted to share……

I’ve come across maybe a dozen of them since pre-launch, including a new one just a few days ago in Southsun. I’m not sure if it’s against the ToS to announce them publicly since it can be seen as a minor exploit, so I won’t describe them. Feel free to report it, although the ones I reported even prior to launch are still there. The two or three I actually checked, at least.

notebene.3190:

Hannelore.8153:

There’s nothing inappropriate about swimsuits. Anyone who believes that has obviously had their mind poisoned by overzealous cultural taboos.

Make it happen.

I’m not disagreeing with you, just pointing out that some things have ‘changed’ a little bit in the past 5-6 months (in my case, a running animation and some clothing I liked), a little here, a little there, with no offered explanation as to ‘why’ (when they are asked).

The only thing that might shed some light on this new philosophy were a few phrases one of chose to use in responding to the clothing changes. Appropriate and healthier game.

So, I hope your request passes their new guidelines.

I hope those guidelines aren’t something ridiculous like the Bechdel test. The way you mention it, I detect the high, sweet, rotten aroma of Sarkeesian wafting off of it.

It’s not that gems are functioning as expected because he need only show that the gems were purchased with the express intent of using them for those items that have now been changed.

The trouble is that Arenanet, no doubt, has a clause in the ToS (I’m not looking it up) that allows them to make any changes they want to the game, regardless of player approval. Changing the functionality of in-game items that required real money to obtain, falls under that clause.

Sadly, the only recourse we have is to stop buying gems from here on out. But when you think of it, there’s power in that too, IF players choose to exercise it. And that’s a very big “if”.

RyuKaiser.7302:

To be honest, I’m already sick of this transmutation bullcrap. I’ve kept this game on my harddrive despite not playing it very much. Why? Because it has potential. Because it is fun. However, if everything’s going to be tied to the godkitten gem store, then I’m not putting up with it. DCUO gives me this system for free, as does LOTRO, as does several other games. Hell, even Diablo rolled this out for a tiny in-game fee (though it could be better implemented).

A lot of people don’t seem to realize that GW1 actually had a free wardrobe system. You buy the skin in the cash shop and you have unlimited use of it on any character, at any time, including in combat, FOR NO ADDITIONAL FEES. That was the system many of us expected coming from GW1, but were disappointed with in GW2. It’s also the system that I was expecting to see implemented with this update.

When you’re paying $10 for nothing but an arrangement of pixels on your screen, getting nickel and dimed over when you are able to display it is abusive. I really thought Arenanet had learned that with this update. Again, my faith is misplaced.

Aeonblade.8709:

So, heresay and rumors. Wait until you get your hands on a game before you start bashing it for it’s decisions. The decisions were made for a reason. And the reason they haven’t released videos detailing every little facet of the game is because it’s still a closed beta, like it or not.

Come on guys, we know better than to judge a book by it’s cover at this point. If we did that no one would of ever played WoW, GW2, or any MMO because of what “some dude that I know said this thing.”

Personally, I’m gonna withhold any kind of judgement till release day, both for WildStar and ESO. But to say GW2 has nothing to worry about from either of these games is silly. Elder Scrolls IP alone is worth more than everything ANet has ever done. Do not underestimate the power of 10s of millions of fans. Will ESO suck at release? Who knows. But make the judgement for yourself, and think for yourself when the time comes.

Here’s the thing with ESO. It’s based on a franchise history absolutely devoted to catering to the player as an individual, so much so that modding became as important to these titles as the release themselves. ESO cannot play to this franchise strength, therefore these 10s of millions of fans are theoretical only because they are making a game that requires them to treat all players the same way.

There’s also the fact that the lore that supports the Elder Scrolls games is totally bland and banal. The fantasy is so stock that you could pick up a half dozen cheap fantasy novels from a second hand store, rip a random page from each, shuffle them and end up with the main plot for the next ES game. It really is that derivative. And for that reason, there’s just not a lot to look forward to with ESO. The same yawn-inspiring stories, but told through far more homogenized gameplay.

Wildstar actually does look intriguing, but I’m off subscriptions forever. I just ain’t going back, no matter how good a game is. The major reason I’m still playing GW2 now is because after the lulls in my interest, I can hop right back into the game without skipping a beat. No stupid reactivation hoops to jump through and no more payments required. GW2 makes it easy to return to. Sub-based games give me impediments. Now I just preempt those hurdles by not bothering in the first place.

Peetee.9406:

PVStar.3658:

Behellagh.1468:

PVStar.3658:

Of course it won, there’s was no competition in 2013 for MMOs.

Peetee.9406:

Testament to how bad the MMO market has become when a ‘C-’ title can claim to be the best of the bunch.

And thus the naysayers appear. This is why we can’t have people over.

Did I call GW2 a bad game, or even talk negatively about it at all in my post? No. I simply stated GW2 won because it had zero competition, which it didn’t. The fact that a game released mid 2012 won GotY for 2013 shows that nothing worth mentioning even came out in 2013. They had to choose something, so they chose the most successful recent MMO that’s been released.

I wasn’t speaking poorly of GW2 either.

I think a ‘C-’ is a fair grade to give Guild Wars 2 at the moment. This was a game that I gave a solid ‘A’ to at launch. But when you consider all the limitations they’ve put on players since launch, such as DR, one-a-day dungeons and world bosses, the aoe cap, the removal of free 1 day transfers, and the nerf to karma. The game (in my eyes) was clearly better at launch than it is today.

Yet, it’s still the best game on the market. That truly is a testament to how bad the rest of the games on the market are. That’s not an insult directed at GW2 so much as the rest of the market.

I would give it lower marks at release than now because they’ve actually addressed a lot of irritations that I personally hated. Making more things account bound has been a godsend for currencies. Permanent gathering tools, likewise. Then there’s more than a year’s worth of content updates to the game through Living Story that should make every other MMO out there blush in shame. And remember when there was NO choice in dailies or monthlies and a lot of folks got stuck having to run content that absolutely hated? There’s a lot of the profession balancing that’s been done so that now, professions and builds that were laughable a year ago are now viable. Finally, there’s all that guild-based content that wasn’t in the game at launch.

But I’m not saying there’s not a lot more needing to be done. For instance, without a bonafide expansion on the horizon, Living Story will be a bit of a joke in terms of new content over time. They’ve done an awesome job keeping the world flowing and changing, but really, it’s time for a new dragon foe and that’s not something I think can be pulled off through LS. Oh yeah, and medium armors sets … I mean, C’MON! More trenchcoats? Are you serious?

When I look at all these things and compare how much ANet has done since launch, with the amount of effort other developers put into their online worlds over a similar time frame, no other game comes close. My hope now is they keep running with it and don’t slack off and also, end up giving us a proper expansion. It’s needed. I hope they have just been playing coy about it.

rozcinana.7249:

Yeah, it always seems to feel like certain people get all the luck… But you never know, all that bad luck and you might get 3 dusk drops in a row tomorrow!

Turtle Dragon.9241:

I heard anyone with a “2” and “9” in their account number is cursed with extremely low drop rates of precursors.

dang it! it all makes sense now. no wonder i had to work to farm the gold to buy my precursor.

Some people DO get all the luck. I’ve been playing tabletop games for almost 40 years and I’ve rolled countless sets of dice. There are people who get lucky with stupid frequency and others who couldn’t roll a 7 on two d6s to save their lives. The trick is to learn if you are one of those extremes. If you were born under the sign of the horseshoe, exploit it. If instead, you were born under a sign reading “Horse Crossing – Watch Your Step”, accept it and stay the hell away from games of chance. Complaining about it isn’t going to change anything. After all, it’s the guys who win, who design these games with suckers like us in mind.

A few of my friends bought the game at release and none of them still play. They prefer their stale but familiar mechanics to the new stuff. And really, they never gave it much of a chance. A few weeks maybe before they put it down. Months after release I got another friend to try and he’s still going today, but that’s one out five.

Personally, I can’t imagine ever going back to rooted combat again after the fluidity of GW2. It reminds me more of playing Battlechess now, than an MMO.

Ayrilana.1396:

Don’t be surprised if they have something like last Halloween where you need xx,xxx amount of snowflakes for an item.

I should have enough snowflakes by the end of Wintersday … 2016.

Thief is my fall back character, although I play all professions. And I’m such an altoholic that sometimes, I play them all in the same night. No joke.

I like my Thief for two key reasons. First, combat is fast, mobile and unforgiving if I get lazy. No other character that I play moves as much in combat or is so reliant on properly executed combinations. Second, stealth. I can go anywhere on the map, grab any node or any chest, out from under the nose of any champion, without taking a scratch. It let’s me simply skip confrontations that I just can’t handle alone or simply don’t wish to waste my time on. Given how empty maps are these days, you just can’t rely on other players being around to help with tough encounters anymore. It’s nice to have the option of ignoring those fights altogether.

I’ve complained about the mapping achievement requiring involvement in PvP pretty much since day one and I’ve had a lot of ignorant responses to it, some going as far as trying to convince me that WvW isn’t actually PvP. You’ll never convince many PvPers that you have a case here because of a very widespread superior attitude that you don’t deserve any kind of achievement because you don’t get off on playing Punch & Judy with other players. It makes you a scrub.

That being said, I now have one character at 99%, despite my dislike for PvP, and I fully intend to get the full 100%. I’ve also taken many months off from the game since I started so it hasn’t taken a year to reach it. I’ve only really been working on those WvW maps for about three months, putting maybe 2-3 hours per week into it.

So here’s what you do…

Create a character that focuses on evasion and stealth. I’d recommend a Thief because you can go for extended periods in stealth, enabling you to skirt many encounters, even against other players. Take skills that give you the best chance to disengage and increase your movement.

When you enter WvW, look for the maps that your server has the most control over and go there. Go to locations that your server controls and pick them up. Watch chat and find out where the action is at and then avoid it. At least until the location is captured, then run and grab it. Alternatively, find a zerg and follow it around, staying in the rear with the gear so you can bail out if you encounter a bigger zerg. You can also parasite off it and grab some easy loot and XP if you have ranged weapons.

Then be patient and be an opportunist.

Eventually, you’ll have access to all the locations on all the maps as the worlds alternate in the rankings. It’s kind of tedious and not exactly what you want to be doing with your time, but it does make it possible to grab that stupid achievement with a minimal amount of interaction with enemy players. There’s only one real speed bump here. If you happen to be on a perennially losing server who just can’t capture WvW locations for you, you’re screwed unless you swap to a better server.

Don’t feel guilty about joining WvW and taking a spot from someone who actually wants to play in it, then leeching off the work of others. You didn’t design the achievement requirements and didn’t want to participate in the first place. You’re just playing by the rules they’ve set out for you. Be selfish and unapologetic since that’s too often the attitude that you get in response to your desire to remain in PvE.

One last thing. You may not find WvW to be as bad as you think once you get more experience with it and a better understanding of how it works. If you play cautiously and stay aware, you may not find it as loathsome as you feel it is right now. Even after my initial aversion to it, I find myself voluntarily jumping into fights just because I’m nearby, instead of ignoring them and going for the next location.

But that’s me and unlike some PvPers and ANet themselves, I respect the fact that others want nothing to do with PvP at all and shouldn’t feel strongarmed into participation because it’s the only way to pursue what is, at it’s core, an explorer’s achievement.

Good luck and don’t be stat padding for someone else. Get your achievement.

Cina Reas.6938:

Tribio.8531:

Immensus.9732:

…thats hasnt finished the “my personal story” because is boring, even thought i got 3 lvl 80 characters?

I have finished it on one of my characters, just out of curiosity..

I found the story in Guild Wars 1 more captivating than the one in GW2.
I remember staring at my screen with tears in my eyes when Rurik’s head was bashed in by the Stone Summit.. However, when the dragon was messing on Claw Island and all that, I couldn’t be kitten d whether or not Trahearne would die or not..

So true. But for me it was searching for Lady Althea.

I’ve 5 80s and only ever suffered through the story once. I will never bother with such poor content again.

Althea’s Ashes. Take all of the emotion I felt through all of the personal story missions I’ve played in GW2 (been here since the first beta weekend) and they don’t hold a candle to what I felt when I learned about what happened to Althea. Also, being a Mesmer made the blade sink that much deeper.

Something fundamental was lost between the storytelling in the first game and what we have now. I can’t say exactly what it is but I just can’t bring myself to care about any of the NPCs or what becomes of them. They’re just background noise to me.

Technically, GW2 is superior to GW1 in almost every way. All it’s missing is a soul.

eekzie.5640:

Kimyrielle.3826:

@IceVyper – if the OP had simply asked for more gear variety, I’d be among the first to support that. But that’s not what they asked for. They asked for removal of a a piece of armour they disagreed with for personal reasons. I -completely- tolerate people who don’t want to wear skimpy armour, but these people need to develop some tolerance of their own instead of trying to force their personal views on everyone else by getting the developers to remove revealing armour from MMOs entirely.

I asked for a simple minor alteration that doesn’t undermine the armor in any way.

generalraccoon.3857:

oh god, this is still up.

1. This feels like… an attempt to bank in on the recent Flamekissed issue to either a) feel glad abt themselves for also being able to “affect” the game to their liking by screwing aportion of the community or b) to get some form of payback on some segment of community over the mentioned issue. I do hope im wrong because if it is, its in poor taste.

2. Why is it there are still attempts to say its “not abt my opinion” when the entire thing is abt opinions. Fact is this wouldnt seem odd enough if it was a regular discussion of opinions.

3. And for the fun of it, to reply one of the Qs up there. I do not haf medium human t3, because my friend has it, and i dont want to dress our toons alike. my friend bought it because of liking the design, specifically more so for the underboob. Had my friend not have it, i would certainly have gotten it… for the same reasons. I’m not using this as any part of an argument about majorities or what not.

1. Simply not the case.
2. I’ve already explained why. Asking the same question over and over again does not help your case.
3. Like I said, this is not about personal opinions of whether or not the armor is good looking.

If they accede to your unreasonable demand, I’ll have a demand of my own and that’s to have every single gold I spend on that armor set, returned to me. I bought the armor that appealed to ME not the one that appeals to you. I’m not interested in your little cosmetic alterations because I’m satisfied with what I have. I don’t want it changed. Understand?

Exxcalibur.6203:

**"Paternalism" comes from the Latin pater, meaning to act like a father, or to treat another person like a child, limiting some person or group’s liberty or autonomy for their own good.

Stinks of marxist socialism to me. The last thing the game — ANY GAME — needs is more nanny state controls on it’s player population. Hard to believe there are people who embrace the stripping away of their freedom, but of course, it’s usually not THEIR freedom at stake, but someone else’s. Their true colors emerge once the stick gets so “unfairly” applied to their own backsides, a concept they can never seem to envision, even while paving the way for it to happen.

Living Story is the stuff you do between expansions. LS does NOT replace expansions. It’s the content that my gem shop purchases are paying for and I’m well satisfied with the value I’ve been getting from it. It’s also 100x more than any other game has ever given me for an equivalent subscription cost. But I want more meat and I’m ready to pay for it.

I’m expecting every dragon remaining will have its own expansion, complete with multiple, well fleshed out new zones and accompanying personal story leading up to the final battle. For instance, Kralkatorrik complete with the entire Crystal Desert and a big swath of Elona, with a personal storyline running through the heart of it. It’s what I’ve been expecting since I learned about the dragons and the mechanics of the game, and despite the comments I’ve heard to the contrary, I still expect it. LS can’t do something like that justice and I’d be disappointed if ArenaNet tried.

And ANet takes one square between the eyes.

@Maz
Thanks for that. It sums up my feelings on what has become of the Gem Shop pretty succinctly. I’ve always been a little miffed at the pricing, but not so much that I ever felt I was being disadvantaged. It was just over-priced, like most things today. But it’s the gambling — the kittening gambling — that really irks me.

Svarty.8019:

Chrispytoast.3698:

1) It is a PvP area
2) There is no way to walk into WvW from other zones. You must use an Asura Gate.
3) All PvE exploration can be completed solo while WvW requires groups to take points.
4) If one team remains first for weeks, other teams will have a hard time taking their points to get the exploration.
5) WvW is separated from PvE just like PvP is but we are not required to get PoI in PvP

This is in no way me crying that it is to hard to get these points. I just think that having WvW required for a PvE achievement seems flawed.

This is like saying you shouldn’t have to do PvE to get components for a Legendary weapon.

Hmm… maybe they should make the legendary weapons per-zone-type, so if you do a long list of things in PvE, PvP or WvW you can make a legendary that can only be used in the relevant zone.

Except 90% of the game is pure PvE. That would be like buying CoD and complaining about having to shoot things. Seems pretty dumb to buy a game only for the 10% of it that appeals to you. That’s what this weak argument amounts to. Please use a better one.

Exploration has nothing to do with the Punch and Judy antics of PvP. It’s about visiting new places and seeing new things. I guarantee there’s nothing new involved with attacking or being attacked in WvW. Nothing. New. At. All. Let’s just stop promoting that fiction, please.

Elbegast.6970:

I can’t go on playing. I log in, see that my personal and F&F story are incomplete and get so discouraged that I just log back out.

I couldn’t get enough of this game a week ago. I was having a blast. Once I realized that I had to do a group dungeon to finish the stories, I lost all motivation to play.

If every ‘living story’ and ‘personal story’ is going to end in a 5 man dungeon, I’m done with this game. I left WoW because I was sick of grouping up to complete content. I thought GW2 would be different. I guess I was wrong.

The problem I have with it is that the game is deceptively solo-friendly for much of the leveling experience. There’s no indication that you’re suddenly going to be tossed into a 5-man instance at the end of YOUR PERSONAL story. It’s doubly irritating if you aren’t the one to launch the instance because you’ll end up being a bit player as someone wraps up THEIR epic saga. You get credit for it sure, but it’s no longer your story. Pretty lame way to end it and I’m still surprised that no one figured what an irritation this would be to players who might actually have immersed themselves in their stories.

The F&F end dungeon was expected, based on how so much else added to the game since release is group oriented. Doesn’t make it any more palatable to end a long running storyline that players could complete without the need to be joined at the hip to other players, with a climax that does require it, but it’s not unexpected.

ANet seems to like experimenting in social engineering with their players. Like maybe they can change the soloists perspective by enticing them into something over a few months, then requiring the final door to be opened by a full committee. It hasn’t worked with PvP (WvW maps and World Explorer) and it won’t work with group content. I’m sure they’ll keep trying though. After all, inside every gamer is a sociophiliac PvPer, waiting to come out, despite what we might say to the contrary.

bhagwad.4281:

Olba.5376:

Lol, changing all the skills and traits that we have which currently relate to stealth to be about invulnerability would be hilarious:

• Hide in Shadows: Gain Invulnerable, Regeneration (4s) and cure Bleed, Poison and Burn
• Shadow Refuge: Create a pulsing refuge at the target area that heals allies and makes them invulnerable
• Hidden Killer:100% critical hit chance while invulnerable
• Meld with Shadows: Invulnerable skills last 1 second longer
• Hidden Assassin: Gain might for 15 seconds when you go into invulnerable
• Shadow Protector: When you make an ally invulnerable, they gain regeneration for 5 seconds
• Shadow’s Embrace: Remove one condition every 3 seconds while invulnerable
• Hidden Thief: Stealing grants you 2 seconds of invulnerable
• Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Regenerate health while invulnerable
• Fleet Shadow: Move 50% faster while invulnerable

Please tell me this is a big troll thread.

I’m actually dead serious. I would prefer to fight against an invulnerable thief as opposed to a stealthed one.

Based on non thief feedback this seems to be the case for almost everyone too.

Is there a rationale for invulnerable Thieves? Like maybe they can whip out a bloody great hoplite shield to hide behind? Or they are sporting their own body weight in steel armor? Is there a reason why Thieves should play like Guardians, only better? I mean, aside from how much they frustrate you with all that blinking in and out of view?

The Thief profession is SUPPOSED to be slippery as ^@$#, not a bunker. Other professions are designed to bunker up, Thieves aren’t. They’re quick, greasy, irritating little opportunists that can’t survive a straight up fight. The fact that so many people are whimpering for mommy when they see one slip into stealth, tells me the profession has been designed properly.

Every profession has it’s unique feel, supported by their mechanics. The Thief has that too. Quit trying to turn them into generic versions of everyone else and start learning to deal with them on their terms, the same way you would with Mesmers flooding you with decoys or Rangers kiting your melee-based kitten

Thieves do die. Maybe it’s just players who spend more of their time understanding how they operate and less time whining about it, who are getting those kills.

Sounds like a lot of people just want the Thief to be visible so they can wail away on them without having to anticipate what the Thief is doing.

Thieves were designed as a squishy, all or nothing profession. They were designed to rely on being able to pick and choose their fights and to not perform well in a protracted slugfest the way many other professions ARE. If you replace stealth with some other damage mitigating mechanic, you still end up with an opponent you can’t touch for short periods of time, only you’ll be able to see them. I guess that’s more comforting to some — like children afraid of the dark.

I’m not playing anywhere near as frequently as I used to, but trying other MMOs has been a complete wash. Even though GW2 has lost much of it’s shine for me, it still makes others look archaic and dreary.

I think I’m just going to shelve MMOs altogether once I stop playing. I just can’t go back to those old, tired mechanics that other games cling to, ever again. Just going to have to raid the old Steam library again.

An avatar isn’t necessary for communication. It’s merely a design choice and it could have been done less overtly.

Now you can move along.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last saw it work. My gem total won’t display either. I can only find it now through the Hero pane.

I hate it. First, I can’t stand the Risen. They’re just a pain in the kitten to fight. Second, it’s ugly, dreary and soul sucking. I know that’s the point — I mean, how else should it look? But that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable an experience. When I want to play in an 80 zone, I go to Frostgorge. I realize only a small slice of it is actually at level 80 so the farming is worthless, but it’s a 1000x prettier than the alternative.

I’m specifically leaving out Southsun because there’s nothing to do there and karkas are almost as irritating as Risen — plus the veterans hit like champs. Fighting them is pointless.

Adine.2184:

legion.7518:

I’d guess that 80% of players dislike the Charr .

I dont know about 80% but i can tell you that a lot of people who played GW 1 were taught for 7+ years that the Charr are evil and should have been wiped off the face of Tyria 250 years ago . Do to this very correct view i would fathom to guess that a lot of people refuse to play Charr

11 toons. 0 charr. I’ll never forgive them for Lady Althea.

Vayne.8563:

Actually, I wouldn’t even want to play a game with elves. I can’t stand them. And I’m not alone.

In fact, mmorpg.com has a column called “No Elves Allowed” about all the things that are traditionally in MMOs that the writer just can’t stand to see any more of. Ever hear the term “played out”?

Fantasy is a very very broad catagory. It’s long past time it’s expanded beyond elves and dwarves. I’m so glad they’re not in this game (and that Anet killed off the dwarven race in Guild Wars 1).

Elves are in the game. The fact is that Tyria’s sylvari closely resemble the aldryami from the world of Glorantha, so much so that they could have been lifted directly from it. The only real difference is the lore. And elves don’t seem to be the only concept that might have been borrowed from Glorantha.

Sylvari are elves, just not the ubiquitous Wal-Mart version.

Buy your gear from the TP while leveling and sell your mats for gold. You’ll be able to keep yourself well-equipped for a fraction of the cost of actually making the gear yourself. That way you’ll also have a decent nest egg built up when you hit 80 and start looking at exotic gear options.

If you are going to craft, never choose Chef for your starting character. You’ll need tons of ingredients from all over Tyria, from starter to end game zones, plus a lot of extra storage space for intermediary ingredients (food you craft that can be used in later recipes). Don’t bother with it until you can access those maps at the very least. Better would be to play your first character for a while and collect as much as you can, then choose Chef for your next character, so they can take advantage of all the collecting done by your first.

Choose a first profession that will allow you to AoE farm effectively, later in the game.

Those are the three things I most wish I’d known when I started.

Think of hearts as if they are sign posts, leading you from area to area on maps. Like you were told, events are the “quests” that you should watch for. And repeating them doesn’t hurt either. Just because you’ve completed an event before, doesn’t mean you should ignore it when it pops again. You still get XP, cash and karma for it, no matter how often you repeat it.

Besides that, leave no gather node un-harvested and make an effort to complete the maps. All those POIs, waypoints and vistas add up, while also delivering a decent bonus when you finish the entire map. You don’t need to travel to other starter zones, but why not? It’s all content. I have a level 55 Guardian that’s spent probably close to 75% of her time, just in the various starter zones.

Lastly, crafting is an excellent way to level up. In fact, until you get close to the discipline cap, there’s not a lot of other use for it. But the bottom line is you don’t need for leveling. It’s just a shortcut that essentially allows you to trade gold for levels.

Murderin.8269:

Adine.2184:

Murderin.8269:

A game without a subscription will never die.

This is a false statement . it depends on the quality of the game and the financial soundness of the company . Many free games have gone poof over the years

I figured that was obvious. Anyway neither of those apply to GW2 in the first place.

Unless there are serious developmental mistakes this game will be active until Guild Wars 3.

They’ve been making serious developmental mistakes since launch. Doesn’t seem to have had much of an adverse effect. Though it’s hard to tell without subscription numbers to use for a relative comparison. The hiring page is pretty much the only clear evidence that ANet isn’t hurting.

Benty.7140:

Just started the game…

Right. You just got here, sport. You don’t develop a thousand yard stare over night. Why not wait a few months before spouting off about complaints people have, so you at least have some amount of perspective, upon which to form an opinion? I’m guessing your comments about mounts, level increases and terrain, will have turned into “whines” (your word, not mine) by summer, if you’re still around They’re pretty close to it now.

Torgal.8345:

I don’t know if I really will keep playing GW2, considering the road Anet is going.
It’s really getting a pay-to-win game. Yes I know you don’t need the skins as they wont improve your stats or anything, but frank an MMO is about getting new gear and style items. But hey I need to invest real money for that..

Seriously?

I’ve had a change of heart myself when it comes to what P2W actually means. I think it’s relative. In this game, the “win” is the fluff. That’s what most of us are shooting for. New skins and new goodies that generally have little or no impact on combat. So much of that stuff is now dependent on the cash shop where you have to pay to access it.

These weapons are probably the most egregious example of making people pay for their “win”, because now you have to gamble with your real dollars. You could spend $50 on gems for keys and still may not get what you wanted. Some folks will just drop more on gems and keep trying, which is why the system was designed this way. Other folks can smell the scam and simply elect to “lose” from the outset, saving their money rather than using it to reinforce the loss.

I’ve been a pretty stalwart defender of the gem shop and a heavy user. But this is getting absurd. Paying real money to gamble is where I draw the line. I won’t even buy lottery tickets because I recognize a scam when I see it. And I can see another one right here.

No Walking.6349:

Kaeden.6952:

There is a trinity,

It’s called:

Damage
Control
Support

ROFL, oh ok. So that must be why I can AFK any boss in the game outside of fractal lvl 30+ This includes all the world bosses and guild bounties.

No, we need a trinity.

You can’t actually, but thanks for the hyperbole. Nothing could be more effective at shredding your credibility.

Completely agree with points one and three, and can see where you’re coming from on point two, although I still believe the difficulty of attaining gold isn’t all that huge.

Guild Missions are a disaster. Dungeons are not a disaster, but they could have been more forward thinking with them. They could have applied scaling to them as well, which would have allowed people to run them with reduced difficulty, but also for reduced rewards. But ANet wanted to be able to appeal to the raider types who absolutely thrive on being able to put themselves up on pedestals so they can turn their nose up at the heathen masses, without even tilting their heads. To some extend, ANet succeeded at this, but as it is with every raid ever created, once players learned the dance steps, their dungeons were put on farm mode.

Other players who might not be so quick with their fingers or aren’t looking for a tough run, don’t have many options. Grouping with superior players can easily result in a quick kick and grouping with other less-than-average players makes completing the dungeon unlikely.

But instead of implementing scaling to make sure that everyone has a shot at seeing all of the content, dungeons were tuned towards the upper levels of the skill scale. Which makes some folks quite happy (<psst> and I mean those raider arses again), because they want to be able to keep some people out of their exclusive little club.

And scaling instances is HARDLY a new concept. They’ve had that in DDO for ages, where you can select the level of difficulty you want to experience before jumping in. It’s simple stuff IF you want to make sure that all your players are getting the experience that suits them. If you don’t give a kitten and only care about the skilled people, you design for them alone.

Guild missions have been handled in largely the same way. They were designed to exclude large swathes of the player population, which makes those where aren’t left out, feel a little more special about themselves. Again, hooking it to a proper scaling mechanic would have prevented ALL of this garbage, but ANet has decided that some content should be exclusive to some players.

It’s very backward thinking and we should expect more from ANet, but I’ve been following this game for years (literally) and have finally come to realize that these devs aren’t the coolest kids in the class anymore. That’s personally why I’m not all that active anymore. What started off as a dream game has been ground down with bad decisions and inhibiting mechanics that just suck the life right out of it. I still enjoy the beauty of the world. In fact, I LOVE the world of Tyria. I just don’t enjoy playing in it very much anymore.

Vol.5241:

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

Legendaries require Badges of Honor because you’re expected to put some time into helping your server to earn them.

As it stands, the WvW JPs encourage lazy PvEers to slowly grind their BoH over a month or two rather than invest in a few rounds of WvW and actually contribute as was intended.

People who camp the JP for the sole purpose of griefing PvEers are trolltastic heroes. WvW is large-scale PvP. The JPs are on WvW maps; the JPs are PvP. If you can’t manage fights along course of the puzzle, you’re not skilled enough for any kind of PvP. If you get killed by campers at the end and your response is to come on the forums and moan about it rather than going out and getting Badges of Honor by aiding your server and PvPing in a PvP zone, you’ve got a chronic case of childish entitlement.

I’d really love it if Anet removed Badges of Jumping or put some kind of required WvW contribution with a daily reset before you could access the puzzle.

A lot of the lazy PvE crowd don’t realize WvW JP’s are the most inefficient method of farming badges. Anyone who plays on Friday nights know that you can get well over 100 badges in 4 hours. Not even including the rest of the weekend.

Frankly I think 500 badges is too little, compared to the other components of a legendary.

Yeah, the last time I WvWed back in September, I spent about 8 hours working on my monthly and came away with about 6 kittening badges. Might have been five actually. And that’s for 50 kills. With that ratio, you must be getting about somewhere close to 1000 kills a night. Impressive. Feel free to preen like only a PvP elitist can.

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

Legendaries require Badges of Honor because you’re expected to put some time into helping your server to earn them.

As it stands, the WvW JPs encourage lazy PvEers to slowly grind their BoH over a month or two rather than invest in a few rounds of WvW and actually contribute as was intended.

By the way, Scumbag, the fact that some people don’t dig being being bent over the proverbial barrel by another player, doesn’t make them lazy. Only an arrogant kitten would come to that assumption. And some people just aren’t any kitten good at PvP, but the way WvW is set up, being lousy at PvP means you go broke if you keep at it long enough. Can you understand now why some people don’t want to play your silly little Punch and Judy BS game now, Scumbag?

Unfortunately, the response “PvP happens in PvP” is accurate. It’s an open PvP zone and there’s nothing much to be done about it accept curse ArenaNet’s irritating persistence in trying to coerce PvE gamers into WvW with the lure of PvE shinies like achievements and puzzles. That’s not the fault of the enemy players who are being smart and doing absolutely nothing outside the rules. It’s the fault of the rule makers who are trying to push you into something, of which you want no part. They’ve been doing it since launch and I don’t see them changing.

The gospel according to ANet is that everyone is a PvPer, whether they know it or not, and they are going to do whatever they can to show us the error of our ways. Unfortunately, all they end up with is a lot of kittened off PvE fans, who actually know themselves better than ANet does.

Just write off those JPs if you don’t like screwing around in PvP. Same goes for legendaries. They aren’t meant for you. You still have the other 90% of the game to yourself, with no worries about Scumbags kittening with your enjoyment.

I’m having all sorts of success with my Flamethrower, so much so, that I almost never leave it. I find the damage is solid, it works against single or multiple opponents, and there’s plenty of defense and mitigation to keep me out of trouble. That means I can more often plant my feet and soak the damage, rather than trying to keep from being hit. I even stopped using pistols and switched to the rifle, just to have that many more escape options. Plus, I just like having Jump Shot immediately available for moving around the map. Going into my inventory to swap my pistols for the rifle, then back again, is just a pain in the backside.

I know how unpopular the ol’ Flamethrower is, but for my style of play, it seems to be ideal.

My FT Engineer has become my default farming toon. It may not be the most efficient at tagging, but it does well enough and it’s survivable as hell, meaning I can do a lot more with it than JUST farming. Flame Blast does great damage and I often see it stripping half a mob’s health off in one shot. Being able to do that with multiple foes means I can get through them that much quicker with that much less risk.

And I enjoy playing it. That’s more important than anything else. Being effective at farming is gravy.

Legendaries were a goal of mine early on. Then I discovered the PvP requirement for them and had to shelve the idea permanently.

Had to give the OP a +1 just for his TL;DR.

As for the topic, I never saw much of a reason to get bent out of shape about ascended gear at all. It’s as accessible to me as it is to anyone else, which is the only thing that would concern me. Length of time to acquire it is not relevant. I’ll get it when I get it, if I get it.

Iruwen.3164:

Villious.8530:

Hoodies? Really? What’s next…….Nike and Sketchers shoes? Talk about breaking immersion. It just seems as if Anet is just wildly shooting in the dark with no real direction.

I just tried the clothes ingame and there’s absolutely nothing “immersion breaking” about them, unless you think the fact that a hoodie is actually called a hoodie does that. They absolutely don’t look off, maybe try yourself instead of just ranting based on what you read.

I just checked them out last night too and I came to the same conclusion. Perhaps if they’d called them “Hooded Vests” instead of Hoodies, folks wouldn’t have gone off about them.

Which doesn’t change the fact the boxing gloves are still stupid, aviator’s cap – is – still (those previous three words together triggers the auto-censor, hence the hyphens) stupid and bunny ears is still stupid. But to be fully transparent in my hypocrisy, I own a pair of bunny ears. Which basically just means that stupid is relative and it’s none of my business how people choose to doll up their toons. If I don’t like it, I don’t have to buy it, but I should at least be tolerant of dissenting choices.

Now, wasn’t there a rumor about a french maid costume being added to store…?

Couldn’t the OP have been shortened to: if you like WoW, this game isn’t for you?

Which is still complete nonsense. I liked WoW, I like mounts and I have goals — just got my T3 cultural armor for my Thief, which is something I’ve wanted since like day -5. The 700+ hours I’ve spent in this game tells me that the game is in fact, for me.

Why can’t you agony merchants just go somewhere else if you can’t be happy here, instead of putting on these histrionic displays of misery? Just go. It’s what emotionally adjusted adults do.

Phoenix.3416:

This is the problem I have with comments like this, 5 people is a party not a guild.

Destiny’s Edge disagrees.

The single most important and well-known guild in all of Tyria, consists of all of five members. Funny how ANet is doing everything they can to wreck tiny guilds like this, when they themselves are the ones who established the precedent for it.

It bothers me for about a second after I read it, but then I don’t think of it again. For my part, I give all my characters names that fit the lore or genre. I don’t RP but I do like creating characters that have a bit of depth, or at least depth that I perceive. If I were to name them something goofy, I would lose interest in them pretty quickly.

Trying to get three or four small guilds together to do a bounty simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because every guild will be forced to run the bounty multiple times (once for themselves and once for every other guild), while receiving no reward for it. Four guilds, 1h minimum time to complete (realistically an hour an a half), 1 set of rewards received. That’s a pretty crappy incentive. How many large guilds would feel those rewards are worthwhile if every active member in their guild had to burn an hour and a half to get them?

Right now, there is sweet kitten all in terms of scaling happening for bounties. 10-person guild, 20-person guild, 50-person guild, it doesn’t matter. Bounties could be difficulty scaled to the number of online members of the guild when it is triggered. I’d say rewards should also be scaled in this way too.

Also, why is it necessary that there is an absolute failure state when the timer runs out? Why the hell not just start reducing rewards when a guild runs out of time instead of losing the entire bounty? Maybe a 5s reduction each minute they go over time would be enough of an incentive to move quickly, while not completely screwing those really small guilds who really have no chance of completing it under the wire. They’ll lose some decent cash, but the whole kittening circus won’t be a complete wash for them, like it is now.

There are a million and one different ways that ArenaNet could have approached guild missions that would have provided a better experience to everyone involved, and would have been far less destructive to the viability of smaller guilds. They chose not to implement these, which tells me may have other motives beyond simply providing more PvE content. I still believe they are using guild missions to re-engineer the community into something other than what it was. And whatever the new ideal is, it’s not meant to include small social or casual guilds.