Guild Wars 2

I am upset about the thief as well. I just got a pair of Zojja’s Revolvers, and the very next day, I am weaker than I was before.

The loss of Riccochett means that in PVE, I have no good area of effect skills. The exploding arrows do damage, but the area is much smaller than the Ranger’s Barrage.

Thieves’ have short melee weapons and short ranged weapons. It would seem than Arenanet listened to a highly vocal group of people an made changes based on that.

I feel bad because I originally bought Guild Wars 1 to play with a friend. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t my thing, but when I saw Lion’s Arch, I wanted to play the game for myself. I enjoyed playing the game when I bought it, but Arenanet has made so many heinous anti-player choices, that it’s a much less enjoyable game that it was last year, and because he still likes the game, we are having tension.

I also feel bad because my posts were sanitized on the board to remove and quell evidence of my dissatisfaction over the new “Lion’s Arch.”

I don’t think it just that, as Lion’s Arch’s rebuilding, does coincide with the expansion release.

My issue is: I like artistically designed video games. The problem is: how can you encourage anyone to put real art in a video game, if even the spirit of it does not endure?

I’ve once worked in a video game company. I don’t work there now, and have no affiliations, and own nothing to that company. Moving past that…

A producer once tried to get me to understand the commercial aspects of commercial art. It’s art for money—right? Anyway, to prove a point, he took a stack of concept drawings, crumpled them up, and threw them on the floor, as I stared with disgust.

Now, it comes back to the fact, that I like creativity in my video games. I pay good money for it. As I said, I thought that old Lion’s Arch was a good piece of video game art. The new one, not so much.

If anything can forever be replaced with anything else, what is the point of putting art into it?

Other than the artwork and programing code, you are just sending packets back and forth across the internet.

Please allow me to continue to express my opinion and feedback in an appropriate place.

I should think that Lion’s Arch now has the bare minimal of nautical to even claim it has any. Orr is way more nautical now.

Only Arenanet could know the true purpose for making the new “Lion’s Arch” an artless boring an expansive swath of concrete, the likes of which will probably be forgotten.

I don’t see the reasoning. Guild Wars 2 already had several cities that looked just like new “Lion’s Arch.”

The old Lion’s Arch was the most imaginative and creative piece of video game architecture I have seen. Themed for a seafaring city, it being made of old ships hulls was a creative application of existing materials. While result was not always sound architecture, in that some of it would have been structurally unsafe, it did represent that video games can be a meaningful art form.

When it comes down to it, it is a struggle for anyone to arrange a collection of zeros and ones to create a virtual environment that conjures an emotional response in a person. The previous Lion’s Arch was one of the few such collection of triangles and textures that, to me, was art.

In the destruction of Lion’s Arch, the players were supposed to hate Scarlet, but with the rebuilding of Lion’s Arch and the removing the more artful aspects, I am taken out of the game, and it is not Scarlet I hate so much, but ArenaNet.

It’s your game. You can manipulate the zeros and ones to do anything you want from it. It’s up to me to decide whether or not I am going to pay money to observe your future effort.

I remember watching the release and pre-release videos of Guild Wars 2. I remember seeing the Lion’s Arch. I bought your game. Now, I feel there is no city in Guild Wars 2, that is the old Lion’s Arch’s creative equal.

I hate the concepts, for Lion’s Arch.

The city depicted would have looked good elsewhere.

I felt that old Lion’s Arch theme was one of the most imaginative video game cities ever made. It was one of the things that sold me on Guild Wars 2. It was a statement on just how imaginative video game art could be. As an ex-game designer, the re-purposing of ship parts was such an awesome sight, that when I first saw it, I actually shed a tear. My congratulations to the original development art direction and execution.

With that stated, I don’t mind the original being destroyed in order to tell a story, but the new concept art doesn’t as closely fit a seafaring city. I think that Lion’s Arch should have been made with a theme resembling what was there.

As someone who also bought and played the original Guild Wars, I am seeing a pattern: Make the user care about something—and destroy it. It’s a good plot device, but I worry that ArenaNet is going to run it threadbare.

I also feel this bad thing, thinking about it all, with the coming of the expansion, and ArenaNet destroying of the Seven Wonder of Guild Wars 2, like a male cat killing all the kittens to make the female more receptive of its offspring.

The thing I found interesting: Even the NPCs were worried that the ship motif would not return.

ArenaNet, you got me. I spend my money. Now, I feel bad for it. It’s not only Lion’s Arch, but so many post-game changes rotted so bad, that I find myself yearning for the game that was, and dread the expansion that I may not buy now.

I do remember when thieves could run a bit faster, and also before a time when low Orians did the AOE ring around themselves, which both changed how I play.

Trancid, I am sorry that you would judge my skill soley by the shape of my gripes.

One of the pleasures of being a thief, is to sweep in do a lot of damage, and revive others, so naturally, I would dislike a situation whereas I would become a liability needing to be revived. That’s not to say that I don’t fight until I am backfighting.

The thief can stealth and res, stealth from resing, as well as protect buff and res.

My build is optimized with pistol mastery, sidestrike, and riccochet which admittedly don’t hit as hard as the daggers, but with duel pistols, 2 unloads can do a lot of damage to the front of crowd, letting me think in broad brush strokes, as well as taking down bosses, by circle-straifing around their backs.

Two unloads do 16 shots each with a 50% chance of ricochet. Each of ~8 ricochets have a 50% chance of ricocheting themselves, so I think it will likely hit: one for 16, two for 8, 4 for 4, and 2 for 2. The cool thing about this: it’s not a central attack. Bear in mind that this is a suicide attack for some Karka that seem to have reflect, but I hadn’t bothered to study which skill does, cause, as pretty as the island is, I’ve never liked it there, and I am out of there after the Karka Queen has done her thing.

Dancing daggers can only hit 3, which means that if I use them in an event, I am not likely to make a lot of drops. What the thief needed was a better AEO attack, such as the daggars.

The shortbow and pistols are pretty short ranged. A Ranger can knock an enemy right out of my range, but everyone knows that.

So, what I’ve asked for was thief consideration for a few events, appropriate legendary, a little better dagger action, or perhaps a little better range; what thief would not want those things?

Visually, the Golumn event looks good, but it’s not at all fun for me.

Is it a fun event for you?

Deceiver, you are wrong.

I often do entire events by myself, rarely have trouble taking veterans by myself. An hour ago, I was fighting a champion event by myself, and had warn through 1/3 of him before others came.

I’ve found the thief effective with pistols “front-lining.” With bouncing bullets, it might be the only profession that often kills sideways instead of deep.

When they first added the AOE rings in Orr enemies, the ones with they were likely to control medium armored-melee weaponed professions, as heavy armored characters could stand in it, but medium armored characters could not.

Please do the golumn event, and report back how it went for you ; )

I’ve played a thief in GW2 since a week after the game came out. There are several instances where the thief seems not to have been play-tested, at all. Often it is the combination of AEO attacks, the thief’s medium armor, and short range armament, spell disaster for the thief.

The worst is the Golem Mark II event, where the sweeping ground attacks will kill a medium armored character, yet even the thief’s short-bow cannot reach from a safe place. I won’t even play this event, because it’s not fair for the people who might save me. Where is the fun in that?

There are others in the fractals. Once again, it is usually the ground AEO attacks the will kill a thief.

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I suspect that seasoned first person shooter players, like myself are drawn to the thief character, and play with more mousing/keyboard skills, because we are used to having to circle straif and aim—only to drive up the average damage by class, promoting you lower that damage, and thereby making the thief harder for beginners to play.

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I wish that I could use daggers/swords more, but they are no match for a thief’s pistols with bouncing bullets, which attack on a wavefront. I wish the dancing-daggers damage was increased enough, the character can have better AOE capability. In one-on-one fights with PvE, the daggars work well, but in an event, the shortbow and pistols hit more enemies harder, and safer, which is a shame because the thief’s dagger-animations are great.

I wish I could do with dual-daggers what the short-could do in an event, but functionally, they can’t.

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I wish that the thief and perhaps other characters can use more than 2 weapons, but we can only swap 2 in battle; I wish we had three.

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This is minor, but I don’t like any of the legendary weapons. An assassin-like character, with a pop-gun? To my sensibilities, the only thief-like legendary weapon, is the Incinerator, but because dagger-fighting doesn’t make a lot of sense for the character, I’ve pretty much lost interest in obtaining a legendary.