Guild Wars 2

I really like some of the hairstyles, but would prefer the option to remove the accessory that goes with it. Specifically, in my case, the female human hairstyle with a flower attached.

I have no idea if this is even possible, and even if it is, it’s probably not high on your list of priorities… But it would be nice. : )

UnseeN.4928:

At first, the invasion was cool. Really felt like the world was being forced into submission with all the mobs running around.

But this whole reward system messed this event up big time.
I’d say, get rid of the champs, or even better, make them drop no boxes.
This would motivate people to go on with the real intended event instead of just grinding.

Besides, i think the loot if far to much anyway.

My two cents.

This is a fallacy in logic. It would not motivate them to do the event as intended. It would motivate them to not do the event at all, and return to farming something else (such as Deadeye).

Farmers are there specifically to farm – if you remove the farm, the farmers will leave. This is not actually a good thing, despite what people seem to think.

Please just let people play the way they want. This goes for both sides. If you don’t want to zerg, don’t zerg. If you do want to, do so. It’s nobody’s business one way or another, and nobody should be giving anyone any trouble, on either side of the line.

It’s tiring listening to this back-and-forth between zergers and non-zergers. Play the game. Have fun. Stop bothering one another, stop whining and complaining about people who have different play-styles than you yourself. We are all trying to enjoy ourselves – just because the methods vary, doesn’t make them any less valid.

If someone is being verbally abusive or exploiting game mechanics, report it. Simple. Done. Move on.

A combination of Feathered and Winged armor. : )

SynfulChaot.3169:

CaitlinJF.1720:

I don’t understand what is so bad about account-bound gold? You can use is on your main or your alts. What’s the big deal? o.o

Seriously, can someone explain this to me? I keep seeing it popping up in these forums but I quite honestly don’t get it.

If it’s account-bound, then if I run that same content on an alt I won’t get the larger end reward.

Oooooh, alright. That makes a lot more sense. Though I think the point of that is to get people to branch out and do multiple dungeons (on any of their characters), rather than continuing to run the same single path constantly. It isn’t about punishing alts.

I don’t understand what is so bad about account-bound gold? You can use is on your main or your alts. What’s the big deal? o.o

Seriously, can someone explain this to me? I keep seeing it popping up in these forums but I quite honestly don’t get it.

I know that the more cynical side of the community tends to be very vocal, so I thought I would take a moment to say a quick thank you for all of the new content, the awesome innovations, and the hard work you put into this game! It’s obvious that you’ve been listening to many of the things that people are saying, critical and otherwise, and taking the time to make necessary changes.

I, personally, am pleased with all of the new features that will be added in the next update, and excited to see the future of GW2. I’m also quite happy with the pace at which these updates are being released.

Keep up the quality work. : )

If you’re looking for some fast paced melee, I’d suggest trying out the D/D Elementalist making use of the new Fresh Air trait. You won’t be constrained to putting 30 points in Arcane, which will give you a lot of flexibility in exactly what kind of build you want to make. I’m in no way an expert on Elementalists, but I think my Ele is pretty tanky. You have to be fast, and you have to kite constantly, but the damage is nice, you’re close range, you have a ton of mobility, and about a kagillion skills and combinations to cycle through.

If you don’t like being that squishy, however, I’m also playing a shout-build warrior that uses sword/axe and is focused on condition damage. I do a heck of a ton of bleeding damage constantly, plus decent base damage throughout. Warrior is by far the easiest class to tank in, in my opinion – you do high damage, you aren’t squishy, you can hit a lot of enemies at once, etc. etc. My warrior is my go to for solo’ing anything and everything.

I think the Ele is more “fun”, and can be super powerful, but the warrior is less complicated and far more lenient.

CMF.5461:

As I said, the book does not require you to make a decision to try to impact the story. The bad guys do what bad guys do and the good guys do what the good guys do, you just watch and observe.

I did not say that villains have no place in a book or a game, I was directing the attention to why are we motivated to like or dislike certain characters within those stories and games.

Many people are voting for evon because they think he is more interesting the keil, even if “evil”, fair enough.

Some people are voting for evon because they like what he offers (cheaper prices on the BLTC and a fractal that they are interested in).

Others may be voting for evon because they don’t see anything wrong with what he does and agree with the fictional characters decision making.

Choices made in a video game with NPCs do not typically effect anyone at all. BUT, an online game has many different interactions that continue on with real people that invoke real emotions and thought.

By proxy, some people may be upset of a certain candidate wins over another. Now they will not have as strong of a reaction as they might have if this were a real election with real people, but you put stake into one of these candidates and effort towards helping them win because you choose “that” side. If your side loses, in some way people may view that as “they” lost as well.

I am fairly sure the bulk majority of people don’t “REALLY” care, and it is just a game.

But taking a deeper look into societal interactions can be interesting.

There actually have been quite a few studies on MMO video games and human interactions. As well as the media interest in online bullying and various social media networks.

Just go search up sociological interactions in online video games
or something to that effect and you can find all sorts of abstracts and dissertations. Now which ones are valid or not, is up to you.

This game is, in essence just a chat room. It is a social gathering in a digital world. They just gave us things to do in this world so we can do more than just chat with each other.

Sure thing. I am not saying that there aren’t a lot of social interactions and psychological things going on in this game. I’m saying that you can’t compare the choices we make in a video game (i.e. whether we vote for Kiel or Evon) to our moral compasses in real life. There is no connection. For most rational people, we understand that this is just a game, and that it effects no one and nothing negatively. The same with in a book. (If I were given the choice to remove the villain from a book, I wouldn’t do it – does that mean that I am evil at my core? Nope.)

If there are people, however, who do take these characters and this storyline extremely serious, who are overly invested in their characters, and who weigh the choice of their vote deeply, and who do believe that it truly matters, and that it will effect them negatively if they lose… Well, that’s there business. But as far as the general populace goes, this election cannot be considered a “social experiment”. It isn’t.

CMF.5461:

Bad comparison with the reading a book and villains.

When you are reading the book, you are passively following along with the story. Typically you have the bad guys who put up a fight and the good guys struggle to survive and overcome the challenges.

A book is certainly an apt comparison! Why? Just as I don’t want to read a book without a villain/obstacle, I don’t want to play an RP game without a villain/obstacle.

Comparing your choices in a video game to your choices in real life, however, is impossible. The two are fundamentally different concepts, and don’t connect with each other in any useful manner. If I choose to make “evil” choices in the video game, it doesn’t mean I would want to make the same choices in real life (even if I thought I could get away with it). The “evil” choices that you make here don’t negatively effect anyone. Not yourself, not others. It only changes the path of the fictional story. A video game, much like a book, is a way of exploring other possibilities, a way of immersing yourself in an entirely different world and traveling routes you normally wouldn’t, or couldn’t, in your daily life.

This election is not a social experiment, and cannot be construed as one.

CMF.5461:

Unless you are making your decisions on a coin flip or some sort of random third party decision making, your own personal experiences will influence your outlook on what is an acceptable decision.

So since these are decision that we are making as individuals and we all have a different outlook on the scenarios, then yes this is a social experiment.

It is just a game, but you are a person driving those decisions within the game.

There won’t be any real consequences for any of our decisions, so we can take this as a pass to do what we want. Now the question comes up, is doing what you want really what you would do deep down, but social norms stop you?

There is a motivator behind every decision, which leads us to expect a positive outcome. Unless you are a masochist, but then the positive outcome is the bad :p

So now that you realize that you are making decisions, are you happy with your choice? or does something bother you? If something bothers you, then you are doing the opposite of what you would do in the real world, and this is a safe place to do that without suffering backlash.

If it doesn’t bother you, then that is acceptable, either for kiel or gnashblade, that is what you align yourself with naturally, so they are compatible with your own ideals.

Nonsense! When you read a book, you generally want there to be a villain (or at least some sort of obstacle that needs to be overcome). If it’s all a bunch of goody-goody heroes with nothing to do, it gets boring quite fast. Does that mean that I want there to be a bunch of villains sending trouble my way in real life? No! Certainly not. You cannot compare choices you make in a game to choices you would make in real life, because they simply aren’t compatible.

I’ve played RP games previously where my character was a psychotic murderer. Does that mean I would choose to go out and murder people if I thought there would be no consequences? Hell no.

Blackwyn.8127:

Conclusion
This social experiment is simply to test the human nature. Do we go for the ‘good’ guy which offers crap. Or do we go for the ‘evil’ guy that offers good stuff. Simply put, are you willing to sell your soul to the devil just for your rewards?

Not really an effective “social experiment”. This is only a game, and unless you take how the story unfolds for these characters very seriously, it won’t effect you much one way or another. I think Evon is the more interesting character, but I’m not voting for him simply because I’m not interested in buying black lion keys.

Either way, you are hardly “selling your soul”. : P

I’m voting for Kiel for one reason and one reason only. Personally, I think Evon would make a far more interesting choice as far as story goes, and I am rather curious about his fractal, as I never actually played GW1. But I won’t vote for him, and here’s why:

The price cut for the black lion keys won’t mean anything, because during that time, people will be buying gems like crazy, and that will hike the cost of gems up high enough that it won’t matter if the keys are discounted or not. I’m not interested in RNG items in the first place, I certainly have no intention of doling out real life money, and making gold in game is already tough and time consuming as it is, to waste it on something that may or may not give you anything worthwhile.

Just because the cost of keys will be discounted, doesn’t mean it’ll be cheaper – the cost of gems will rise with demand.

Hmmm… I’ll consider trying a mix then. Now just need to make bunches of gold. Hah!

As for still going for 30 Arcana, I don’t think it’s necessary. I’m doing quite well with my current build – much better than I ever managed to do with my previous Arcana build. Really enjoying the change. : )

I am totally loving the new Fresh Air trait! But I have a question – now that we have a lot more flexibility in our viable builds, which gear do you think works better (for solo’ing PvE) – Knight or Berserker?

I’m currently running a full Knight D/D Elementalist with a setup of 0/30/30/10/0 and all sigils on healing and utility. Took the Earth Grandmaster trait that lets you keep the passive effect of sigils even after activation. I noticed immediately that I’m way more potent (and durable) now that I’m not dumping 30 points in Arcane, so I was curious if I could manage to make the switch to Berserker – for Crit chance of over 60% and Crit Damage over 100%. Concerned about the drop in Toughness though.

I ask this here because I don’t have the gold to drop on an entire new set of gear for the sake of experimentation. : P

PS – I am NOT a skilled player. I do okay. And I stick to solo’ing around PvE.

I am wondering if there are any plans in the makes to fine-tune and/or change the crafting system in the future? I ask this because right now, the crafting system is rather bland, and each of the various disciplines is essentially a carbon copy of one another – just change cloth scrap to wood plank or metal ore and other than that it’s all the same (with the exception of Cooking).

I would love to see a level of difficulty added to the mix – something that would require at least some amount of “skill”. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, obviously – from timed roulettes or other mini-puzzles that determine the success/failure or even quality of your crafting. It would make crafting that much more fun and in depth, rather than picking an item from the menu and immediately making it, assuming you have the required materials.

I would also be pleased to see more variety in recipes, since what we have now is essentially a very plain direct progression from one level to the next, and most recipes have little to no connection to one another. It would be cool to have something like a “crafting tree”, where there are multiple paths to take to create items, and where some recipes are interconnected (which you see to some degree in the Cooking discipline already!).

Plus, if crafting is made more difficult, it might serve to right the market a bit. As things stand now, in almost every circumstance it is more profitable to sell all of your crafting materials than it is to sell anything that you make.

So, curious to know if this is even on the “To Do List” or not!

Why in the world would you not want to play a Ranger simply because it’s a favored class for botting? o.O I don’t see how that should effect your decision at all…

There’s nothing to feel dirty about. It’s very easy to tell who is a bot and who isn’t, so it’s not like you’ll generally be mistaken for one… This is one of those odd “sensitivity” issues that I just can’t fathom.

I’d like to second this. : ) I visited Orr for the very first time yesterday, and while I found the area entertaining, I was a little disappointed to see that literally all event mobs died before they even spawned. People know the exact locations of spawns and simply spam their AoE skills there so that the moment something pops up, its automatically dead again.

It would be nice to see more mobs that required actually fighting.

Thanks for reading it! : P

You have a good point and I totally agree. I don’t want the market to turn into something where everyone has a ridiculous amount of spare gold to toss around. Obviously that would make gold in general a lot less worthwhile and the value would drop drastically.

What I mean more is that you either need to give players a small bump in their expendable income, or you need to reduce the prices of certain common costs. For specifics, I’m talking about the cost of using Waypoints, which at level 80 seems ridiculously inflated when you keep in mind the costs of everything else you also have to pay for. Armor repair and traveling costs should probably get at least a little cheaper and, if they don’t, players should at least have a little bit more money on hand to use them.

As it is right now, I feel that unless you are doing a lot of grinding, you don’t usually have the luxury to afford these common things while still being able to upgrade your gear, craft, so on and so forth. : ) So basically, I’m suggesting only a very small change, not a large scale one.

This was long. I wonder if anyone will read through it all, let alone a dev. : P

Anyway, please remember before you decide to flame me, these are my OPINIONS and are subject to change. I am not flailing my arms whining and screaming that my way is the best and everyone else is stupid and should go to hell. If you think I’m wrong, then fine. If you explain why you think I’m wrong, I may even come to realize my mistake and agree with you!

These are only my thoughts, please don’t murder me (or anyone else) based on them.

: D

5. Dungeon coins.

I’m a little uncertain about this. I personally find it annoying that you have to do the same dungeon fifty-kagillion times in order to get a dungeon skin that, frankly, isn’t that above and beyond oh-my-gawd-amazing in the first place…

Perhaps making the dungeon coins the same (as in, you get the same coin for every dungeon to buy any set you want regardless) would be a better idea. At the same time, to prevent people from farming the “easiest” dungeon, you might need to put in a system that prevents people from running the same dungeon multiple times within a certain time period.

Furthermore, with the coins being the same throughout the dungeons, you should scale how many you receive based on the difficulty of that dungeon.

Dungeon A → Moderate Difficulty → 30 Dungeon Coins (used to buy any dungeon set)
Dungeon B → High Difficulty → 50 Dungeon Coins (also used to buy any dungeon set)

This way people will explore all the dungeons and all the difficulties because the rewards will scale.

If you don’t want people to grind, don’t require them to grind by setting a ridiculously high cost and then telling them “but you can only reach that cost by doing one specific dungeon”. That’s counter-productive.

3. Account-bound Karma.

I think this is extremely self-explanatory. With the ridiculous amount of karma required to reach certain goals, making Karma account-bound shouldn’t even be an issue. The amount you have to gain is still the same, but you are able to spread that amount over multiple characters and play-styles. This way people don’t feel forced into playing one character forever, grinding and grinding and grinding until they are sick of it just to reach a goal. They have the ability to explore multiple play-styles with multiple classes and characters without being punished.

Really, this one is so obvious that I don’t even know why it isn’t already done…

4. Lower costs or increase income.

It seems like if you want to have any available income, you either have to be constantly farming dungeons or you have to cough up the real-life cash to convert into in game gold.

Crafting, gathering, salvaging, waypoints, repairs, equipment upgrades, everything costs money. That’s fine, but with the amount of money you currently make on a regular basis in the game, it isn’t exactly balanced. And what I mean to say is that it isn’t balanced for the people who aren’t constantly doing dungeon runs or popping off fifty quests in a row in thirty minutes. Not everyone plays that way. They shouldn’t get punished for it.

2. Area Scaling

This is similar, if not exactly the same. If you want to scale characters to an area’s level, that’s fine. But in doing so, you should also scale the rewards to the character’s level. This is done in some small aspects, like occasionally getting level 80 gear in level 15 zones, but should be more universal.

Now, this would require a fair amount of tweaking because level 80 characters have an advantage in low level zones that is immediately obvious. You don’t want them surging low level zones to get the same rewards as high level zones. You can fix this a variety of ways, the easiest probably being balancing the level-scaling itself a bit more so that level 80 characters don’t have as much as an advantage as they currently do.

As a lot of people are against level-scaling in general, this might be an extremely unpopular idea. I personally view leveling as an opportunity to unlock new skills and explore new areas, not as a way to make the content easier. I enjoy rolling back to a low level in low level areas, but obviously it isn’t for everyone.

If, however, you were to remove the level-80-in-level-15-zone advantage even more than currently, plus scale the rewards based on your character’s level (and the difficulty of the content, as stated in number one), you would encourage players to stop farming Orr and actually go explore the rest of the world as well.

1. Rewards scale based on difficulty.

Easy things should give “easy” rewards. Hard things should give “hard” rewards. If a quest takes a lot of time and effort to complete, you should get equally good loot, gold, karma, and experience (regardless of the level of the area). If a quest is a breeze and you blast through it in a manner of moments without a thought, you should get comparatively scaled down rewards.

This means that if you’re a level 80 character doing a particularly tough boss that takes a lot of effort, you should not get a bunch of level 43 blue gear out of it that sells for next to nothing and is completely useless to your character. If you are a level 80 character doing a high level quest that is nonetheless extremely, mind-numbingly easy, I don’t believe you should get massive rewards from it either.

This way you get aptly rewarded for doing things that deserve to be rewarded, and you place a natural incentive against farming fast, easy quests for high amounts of gold-karma-blah-blah-blah.

I don’t know how this system could be implemented or if it would even work if it was. But it’s an idea.

Arenanet envisioned a game that would avoid the many pitfalls of grinding – that would allow the players the freedom to do what they want, when they want, regardless of anything else. At the same time, as the system is currently set up, grinding is essentially inevitable for anyone who has a specific and demanding goal (such as crafting a legendary weapon or obtaining special equipment skins).

This, in and of itself, is not a problem.

There isn’t such a thing as a game that has no grind. You will always be “grinding” for something – grinding for the next level that will unlock the next skill, grinding for money to buy new equipment, etc. etc. etc. However, you can limit how tedious grinding becomes by opening up a variety of options towards obtaining the same goal.

For the most part, I think Arenanet did this well. You can gain experience from crafting, from exploring, from hearts, from dynamic events, from gathering, from dungeons, from reviving people and who knows what else. This is a wonderful system that encourages players to engage in a wide array of play styles and allows them to fall back on their preferred method whenever they desire.

Recent changes have…well… changed this. In the fight against botting (which I admittedly know almost nothing about) many people seem outraged by the box it puts players in. While that box isn’t so terrible, and I am in no way denouncing the company or the game in general, that doesn’t change the fact that constructive criticism has the possibility to improve the current situation.

So! Here are some suggestions. : )

Please reduce them. Soon.

Waypoints are clearly something that GW2 did -right-. Having to trek long distances to get from where you -are- to where you want to -be- turns what is supposed to be an enjoyable experience into something more like a chore. While I certainly believe that this game is very beautiful and engaging, and wandering from one area to another can be fun when you’re in the mood for it, Waypoints open up a whole new style of gameplay. Being able to jump from desolate Charr deserts to snowy mountaintops or verdant shore lines practically guarantees that the game will never get boring. Having the ability to go where you want, when you want without having to worry about losing your progress or having to spend a lot of time to get -back- to a certain place takes a lot of pressure out of exploration. Discovering a new Waypoint is a real joy, and knowing that you have a freedom to do anything at any time (as far as locations go) is a real joy. It essentially eliminates a lot of the “grind” by creating an environment where you can simply pack up and go somewhere else at will in the span of one small loading screen.

So please, please, please reduce the costs. I don’t know about everyone else, but at level 80 I don’t make enough to afford the utter joy of having the freedom to jump from one end of the world to the other regularly. I don’t “farm”, I don’t spam dungeons or kill the same world boss fifty times in a row. I don’t run around tagging every quest under the sun. I like to take my time and enjoy the experience, which might mean that my income generation is somewhat lower than others – I don’t know.

But I -feel- that Waypoints are a really wonderful and liberating system, and I wish I didn’t have to spend 3 – 4 silver (on top of repair costs, armor/weapon costs, crafting costs, etc.) to use them.

It’s such a small fix that would automatically reduce a significant amount of stress and really allow players to explore the world at their own pace and in their own style.

Thanks!

That happens a lot on the Elementalist, honestly. While you certainly -can- kill things fast in the right circumstances with the right setup, it’s not something you can take for granted. I often found myself avoiding certain enemies altogether simply because I knew how long it would take me to beat them and how little reward you get for doing so.

If you want to be able to kill everything in your path quickly (and on your own), then I would avoid the Elementalist. For the most part, it just isn’t going to happen… unless you are amazingly skilled or something.

I agree – the condition caps should be removed or altered in some fashion. If there are characters that aren’t getting rewards for bosses -at all- simply because all of their damage is being ignored and negated by a condition cap (which isn’t even a boss-specific trait like immunity or resistance), then obviously something is going wrong here.

I started playing a Warrior recently and was speaking with another player about how much I enjoyed using the sword. I was told that I should choose something else because that weapon was basically useless against bosses due to the same reason stated by the OP. I imagine it isn’t as big an issue for Warriors, since they do a fair amount of damage regardless of conditions and have a lot of weapon flexibility, but I sympathize with players who’ve had this problem.

Hello!

My very first character is a level 80 Elementalist and there is no doubt at all that I’ve enjoyed playing it quite a lot. The versatility of having so many skills and attunements to choose from is wonderful, though being stuck with one weapon set (and thus one range) can be a pain at times… especially in dungeons or against bosses.

I started out using mainly the Staff and then eventually switched to Dagger-Dagger which was, for me, much more entertaining since it has a much faster pace. Considering that I managed to get to level 80, do dungeons, participate in boss fights, clear maps, and so forth, the Elementalist class definitely isn’t impossible to play and too weak to bother with. It really depends on your personality, play-style, and the level of challenge you’re comfortable with.

That being said… I recently started playing a Warrior (now level 21) and the gap between the two classes is MASSIVE. I’m not a super-skilled player nor a really horrible one – I’d say I’m pretty average – and the Warrior is noticeably easier. I’m NOT saying that the Warrior is “better” (it may or may not be, I don’t know), but rather that the learning curve is much much much smaller than on the Elementalist. To succeed as an Elementalist requires a lot of thought, experimentation, and skill… As a Warrior you have a lot more leeway to make mistakes and still survive.

So it depends on how much effort you’re willing to put in! The Elementalist is a great class, but it’s definitely on the difficult end of things. : )

P.S. These are only my PvE thoughts. I haven’t delved into the world of PvP just yet so I can’t compare the classes in that light!