Guild Wars 2

Here’s a possibly crazy idea (apologies if someone else has already suggested this, the topic searcher doesn’t think so):

Why not put the crafting stations back in Obsidian Sanctum? OS certainly doesn’t have any queueing problems, and I’d like to think it can be easily filtered out as counting towards wvw “activity.” Plus it removes the issue of using the WvW crafting stations without participating in WvW by moving them to a place that isn’t safe from attack. The more I think about it the more I like the risk/reward trade-off of being able to warp to/from WvW for crafting without losing your place in the PVE maps, but at the risk that you might be murdered if you aren’t on your guard while doing said crafting.

I’m sure others are going to talk about the reward values, so I’m going to talk about my next biggest criticism which is the gameplay and incentives. Because the rewards incentivize participating in as many events as possible, the optimal way to play appears to be to tag as many events as possible and then run to the next event. There is no incentive for staying at event until it is actually complete. There is no incentive for the players to spread out and tackle as many events as possible instead of grouping up into a few massive zergs and hitting the tightest cluster of events that they can find.

I think this behavior could be improved by making this event incentivized a bit more like the Silverwastes. Consider making the rewards scale based on how many total events in the entire map were completed, and use the player buff to simply track general participation (e.g. you don’t get any rewards unless you complete at least 2-3 events or something like that) then that should hopefully incentivize the players to split up more, and will also stop incentivizing leaving events halfway through to go to the next event.

I have been seeing this as well. Before the September patch, significantly reducing my graphics settings seemed to be a solution to surviving intense WvW or World Boss fights without crashing. But since the September patch the crashes in those areas appear to be back with a vengeance, even with the reduced graphics settings.

I too can provide all the crashes in my ArenaNet.log since the September patch, system information, etc. Just give me a place to send it.

According to https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Communicating-with-you/page/19#post4335997 we will hopefully hear an update soon.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

ananda.5946:

Chris, since you are actively posting in this about communication, can you tell us if the Mac client is being looked at? It crashes all the time in large events and there is no active support in the mac support forum.

If you don’t mind i will get back to you on this on Tuesday.

Chris

Hi Chris!

First of all thanks for all thanks for all the work you are doing on your personal time on this thread.

Now that Tuesday’s update information has been released, and the “Performance Updates” section is presumably what you were waiting for, did you have additional information on what this means for the mac client in particular that you can provide? Are you able to confirm that the crashes the mac beta client users were seeing were performance related, and if so that the performance updates mentioned today have been tested on the mac client and in fact reduce, if not eliminate, the problems?

And in order to stay on topic, would it be possible for this information to be communicated in the mac tech support forum where it best belongs instead of buried deep inside this thread? We would love any updates you are allowed to give, or even acknowledgement that ArenaNet is aware of and working on the issues with the mac client.

Hmm, it has been a while, but I think in order for PayPal to allow “instant” transfers from your bank account they have to “confirm” your bank account in their terminology. Back in the old days this used to mean that they verified the account belonged to you by depositing two random amounts to your account, both less than $1, and you had to confirm the amounts. I seem to recall that more recently they had hooked up with Yodlee or Mint or something to allow a faster verification?

Anyways, I recommend going through your PayPal account profile (banks, email addresses, mailing addresses, etc.) and try to “confirm” as many things as you can and see if that solves the problem.

Also, if you find phase 1 easy but phase 2 is flustering you, consider doing a few attempts of not even bothering to dps her in phase 2 and just running out the clock to get used to the phase 2 mechanics.

I think Liadri builds are highly YMMV since your play style is an important factor, but the build that finally “clicked” for me was:

Traits: 0/2/0/6/6 – Signet Mastery, Superior Arias, Empowered Might, Pure of Voice, Vengeful, Absolute Resolution, Purity of Body.

Skills: Signet of Resolve, Stand Your Ground, Hold The Line, Retreat, Renewed Focus

Weapons: GS/Staff (I found Staff way better for phase 2 since it pierces; my scepter shots kept getting body blocked by clones.)

Gear: A mix of Soldier’s, Zerker’s and Zealot’s not because I had a plan but because the first armor set I made was Soldier’s and I’m slowly switching to Zealot’s/Zerker’s. I’d say ideally as much Zealot’s as possible because both Vigorous Precision and Empowering Might both trigger on crits and Selfless Daring and Signet of Resolve both scale incredibly well with Healing Power.

Strategy: You can speed phase 1 up by a lot if after throwing the first orb you use GS #5 on the clone next to you, run over to the second whirlpool (typically on the opposite side of the arena and annoyingly close to a wall) and use GS #5 again to yank the clone in.

For phase 2 don’t actually worry about hitting Liadri too much; keep her targeted and spam Staff #1 in her direction, but focus most of your attention on moving to safe spots as close to the center of the arena as possible, avoiding clones (if you see a clump of them you can use Virtue of Justice to blind all of them and then run into them to clear them out), and keeping an eye out for rifts (if a rift is close, Staff #1 can 1-shot it without having to even target it). Use whichever shout is off cooldown for condition cleansing and you’ll end up with an insane amount of swiftness . Try to avoid using Virtue of Resolve unless you plan on refreshing it with Renewed Focus since its passive is helping your endurance regen.

If she isn’t dead by the time you have ~10s left you could consider a final burst by switching back to GS and meleeing her down, but I never had that problem.

Best of luck!

There seem to be a couple sail-cart things at all the refugee camps now. Were these here before?

This sounds like a great idea! Not sure if I’ll be able to make that time, but I hope it is very successful and spawns more that I may be able to attend.

That was amazing!

Nageth.5648:

Also the special apple/command symbol next to the word “command” was replaced with a (?) on step 2 of the PRAM reset instructions.

If it is helpful, the correct symbol (⌘) is U+2318 in unicode and ⌘ in HTML. The unicode one seems to be converted into a ? during posting (though it works ok in the preview) so the HTML one should probably be used instead.

Nageth.5648:

Yeah, I’m assuming we’re stuck with cider here too (so I’m not going to ask for high textures and whatnot since cider pretends to be 32 bit windows).

Argh, I had blocked the fact it only knows how to do 32-bit out of my memory… guess I need to update that item on my wish list!

I am going to write my list assuming that a native (non-cider) client is a pony that is unlikely to happen in the near/medium future; so these all wishes for the existing cider client:

1. Resolution of the existing crasher bugs that have been in the cider client since launch…. or at least for a very long time. — Hopefully the mac support people have a better feel for these since they crop up in the forums week after week, but in my particular case it would be the “dstBits” or “lockedRect” crashes that seem to occur when you have graphics settings cranked up and are in a place with a whole lot of models and spell effects, such as WvW zergs or living story content. This would be the single biggest QoL change for me because it would mean I would stop crashing in the middle of events and boss kills and losing credit for them.

2. Fix the trading post / gem store loading issues. — I feel like I am playing the lottery every time I try to load up the trading post or gem store… sometimes it works… sometimes the spinner just spins forever… sometimes it loads the gem store tabs but not the rest of the content, etc.

3. Investigation into major performance bottlenecks. — I have a 3.2Ghz quad-core xeon (Nehalem), 16GB of ram, and a GTX 680 with 2MB of vram. It is no pro gaming rig, but it should be pretty reasonable. Instead, if I sit still in front of the mystic forge, set the graphics preset to “Best Performance” and change the resolution to 1024×768 it is just barely able to get over 50fps… this is pretty miserable. I understand that cider is having to translate DirectX -> OpenGL so some performance is always going to be lost… but 50fps while subsampling 1024×768 on a GTX 680 with the lowest possible settings is just crazy. It has to be getting tangled up in something else. (Attached a screenshot)

4. It is 2014… surely TransGaming has made a 64-bit version of cider by now so that we can use more than 4GB of memory and have High textures and stuff… right? If not, please post their customer service phone number and all of us will be glad to call and complain directly to them.

5. Not a complaint/issue but since you said these could be anything, thank you for continuing to support the mac client even if it isn’t a high priority! I would be very sad if mac support was dropped.

With everything scheduled is there any way we could get an in-game UI to see the schedule or at least which events are currently happening / about to happen instead of having to shell out to a web browser and constantly refer back to this post?

These trait changes sound really cool, but one thing kind of worried me a bit and I couldn’t find it asked/answered already in this thread:

“Refunding traits is now free across the game: refund your traits any time you’re not in combat or in a competitive PvP match!”

Is there going to be a new cooldown on this? Or is the new meta for fractals/dungeons going to be to swap traits for every boss?

Came here to report the same problem. Glad to see it has been identified and scheduled for fix already!

Thank you for the update and summary Allie!!!

Unfortunately this thread seems to have gotten partly hung up on sustain vs. burst and power creep discussion instead of exploring other ideas. Allie, would it be possible to provide a little direction to the discussion? Any ideas in the last 10 pages that you all think are interesting and we should explore further?

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Ahh, ok. Thanks for clarifying that.

I say this half-jokingly, but we would like to present Ranger sword skill #1 as a great example of how to make something more risky. I bet, for example, Warriors would be more hesitant to use Hundred Blades if it locked them in place without being able to dodge for the duration.

Prysin.8542:

Hard math says pet doesnt even hit 1/5 attacks over a 60 second period in any PvP/WvW encounter.

PvE mobs are immobile, and thus, hardly ever a issue

Fair enough. The PvP/WvW issues are more or less covered by the pet AI issues and/or permastow suggestions peppering the thread. My point was more that, even with a perfect pet that always hits, our sustain damage appears (to us) lower than the sustain damage of more bursty classes, which is counter to the idea that we are one of the best sustain damage classes in the game.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

The sort of definitive sustain damage in this game seems to be weapon skill #1, which has auto attack enabled by default, and typically has no real cool down. Skill #1 is what you use to “whittle down” enemies. Skills #2-5 all have cool downs of various lengths (or in the case of thief, they take initiative whereas skill #1 does not), which make them inherently bursty. So one would expect that a bursty class would have lower skill #1 damage and higher skill #2-5 damage, while a sustain class would have higher skill #1 damage, but lower #2-5 damage.

However, as pointed out in numerous posts above, Ranger weapon #1 skills seem (by our rudimentary calculations) to be significantly lower DPS than the #1 skills of more bursty classes… so much so that even if you add in an optimistic +50% DPS from pet, we still aren’t out-damaging the bursty classes. Unfortunately, it is difficult to talk about this without hard math, which players don’t really have access to in this game. :/

I am really liking this Aspect idea, let’s keep brainstorming about it. Here are my random ideas:

What if the Aspect replaced the existing (and generally agreed problematic) F2 skill? What if it functioned more like an Engineer’s toolkit and replaced the player’s 1-5 skills until they either hit the weapon-swap key or actively used the pet again?

I am kind of envisioning a standard bearbow ranger sniping away, when his target (NPC or other player) gets annoyed and rushes the ranger thinking him an easy target once in melee range. The ranger suddenly merges with his bear and becomes much more formidable in melee having gained the bears hardiness as well as biting/swiping/mauling with increased attack power etc.

Obviously it needs to be balanced a bit because it’s kind of like giving rangers the ability to switch to additional weapons beyond their standard 2… and it’s possibly encroaching too far into the Engineer’s toolkits mechanic, but it sounds like a lot of fun to me.

Specific Game Mode
?PvE

Proposal Overview?
Make pet F2 skills originate from the player.

Goal of Proposal
?The vast majority of the ranger pet F2 skills suffer from interruption by the pets own AI and exceedingly long wind-up times, which causes them to feel very out of place in GW2’s active combat system and in the worst cases downright hard to use effectively. Since both of these problems seem rooted in the pet AI and client/server communication, I propose making these skills originate from the player instead.

Proposal Functionality
?Upon hitting F2 the effect described in the skill will occur immediately, just like a weapon skill, originating from the player. For example the Salamander Drake’s F2 will cause the player to breathe a cone of fire that burns foes, immediately and without wind-up, just like other existing player skills that breathe a cone of fire.

Associated Risks
?Pet F2 skills are weighted heavily towards short range attacks/effects. There may not be proper animations for players enacting all F2 skills (e.g. bites and claws). Porcine F2 skills may become redundant. This change would cause the ranger F2 mechanic to become a bit similar to the Thief Stealing mechanic, but with more determinism.

Specific Game Mode
?PvE

Proposal Overview
?Change Sword #1 chain to lower the skill floor and be usable with auto-attack.

Goal of Proposal?
The Ranger Sword #1 chain contains two skills with leap animations (Kick and Pounce) which cause the player to temporarily lose control of their character. When coupled with auto-attack, this causes the loss of character control for roughly half of the chain duration. This gives it a very high skill floor relative to all other profession weapon #1 skills, none of which involve the loss of character control to the best of my knowledge. I propose we bring the Sword #1 chain back down to the same skill floor as other weapon #1 skills.

Proposal Functionality
?Until underlying game architecture is changed allowing movement/dodging etc. during leap animations, I propose that the leap animations be removed from the Sword #1 chain entirely and that the Kick and Pounce skills in the chain have the same 130 range as the Slash skill.

Associated Risks
?This will lower the skill ceiling of the Sword #1 chain as well, which will disappoint players who enjoy that. It will also make the Sword #1 chain unusable as a gap closer and not be “sticky” to the target, as it currently is.

It may be a bit too late to suggest this, but I would personally find it extremely useful if ArenaNet kicked off the CDI on Monday with a brief, but detailed summary of their current vision for the Ranger class. Specifically I am very interested in knowing the intended roles/leanings of each weapon, trait line, utility skill type (shouts vs. traps vs. spirits, etc.)… and perhaps even pet species.

This would then allow us to start the CDI discussion of Ranger balance evolution with the following question: Do you think ArenaNet’s intended design of the Ranger is solid, and we need to focus on evolving the Ranger to meet that design, or do you think it is the intended design itself that needs to evolve?

I am still unable to purchase gems using client “Guild Wars 2 – 1.0.009112”

In addition I am seeing the mouse problems every now and then. I have a Logitech Performance MX, but I am not using the Logitech drivers, just the standard Apple drivers.

lordhelmos.7623:

I actually was wondering about this, I balanced it by nerfing the immob duration down from 2s to 1s. The longbow needs some sort of root to help control targets and allow the ranger to recover. This 1s allows the ranger to immob the target after a push back then use hunter’s shot to go into stealth to reposition. I think that this will really help with the ranger’s keep away game.

Another option (which I’m not sure if the game engine could handle or not) could be to make it so that at under 300 range it becomes a Launch instead of just a Knockback.

I clicked on this thread expecting all the cliche ranger redesigns of making the pet optional, magically fixing the pet AI, making longbow able to easily kill from 1200 without the other guy having a chance, etc.

Not only does it contain none of those, it contains some legitimately neat ideas that by and large do not seem inherently overpowered. +1 to you, good sir!

(The new point blank shot, though awesome, may be a bit too much… all other knockback skills on weapons seem void of status effects, and a knockback + delayed immob courtesy of the pet running up afterwards is particularly brutal).

Joriarty.4318:

Is there a way to do this on the Mac client?

It seems to work if you edit “/Applications/Guild Wars 2.app/Contents/Resources/CiderSettings.plist” and change:

<key>CiderGameOptions</key>
<string>--cmdline ""</string>

to

<key>CiderGameOptions</key>
<string>--cmdline "-testVerticalFov"</string>