Guild Wars 2

Maybe your mistake in simply in the photograph you chose to upload…but that’s the Lava Sample, so it will do you no good trying to find the vent sample there.

It’s just going to be some new events, and some new story set in the Southsun Cove map they introduced back in November. The living story is not about changing mechanics like level caps, but about giving us something to do while giving the devs something around which to theme their patches.

I’ve “accidentally” afk farmed events for nearly an hour at times. As a beastmaster spec ranger I’m fairly superfluous compared to my pet anyway. So when I stood in an event spot, went to deal with my wife and kid for 45 min, and came back having completed about 7 events I didn’t really feel too badly.

I have mixed feelings about the last dungeon. On one hand it was incredibly fun, but on the other I know I could only have completed it by being there during the initial day or two. I don’t have a guild, and hate spamming for a pug, so I needed that crush of people standing around looking for a group.

Honestly e best option would be to have a solo option, with greatly reduced rewards, and a group option that has all the goodies. Reward people for playing in groups instead of punishing people for being solo.

PvE Only:
Warrior
Guardian
Mesmer
Ranger/Elementalist
Thief/Necromancer/Engineer

The holy trinity (warr/guard/mes) have a strong stranglehold on top-end pve activities, so they hold easy sway over their lesser brethren. Rangers do quite well in the open world, as do ele’s, so you tend to see them in the next spot. Necros and engy’s have still yet to find (and/or be given) a good niche role so they’re slowly fading to just the diehards with few people really rolling them as alts. And thieves…well they’ve all moved to either PvP or the nearest temple where they spend time praying against yet another nerf.

the dragons give the world breadth, but as they are basically featureless focusing too heavily around them makes things shallow. Concentrating on things like dredge, flame legion, centaurs, etc. helps give the setting the depth it so desperately needs. Besides, it’s not like you’re really so mighty – that cannon did all the work on Zhaitan.

Speaking of which: playing dragon whack-a-mole gets us into the same trouble as a lot of tv shows. You take out one big bad so therefore the next enemy must be most bigger and badder. After we take out a couple of increasingly difficult dragons what comes next? An evil amalgamation of all the Spirits of the Wild and the gods? Cosmic space whales with a taste for Orrian Fried Chicken? Michael Moore? I’m sure you get the point.

Starbird.4029:

Its Balance 101. If one class/race/spec etc. requires significantly more skill and investment to perform at the same level as another, then balance is squiffy and needs to be changed. The reason being, in a situation where skill is equal, the other class will probably have an advantage.

Sadly, you’re simply going to find a lot of people who wear their imbalance like a badge of honor. An engineer, for instance, puts in 10% MORE effort to get 10% LESS ouput…and it sort of ramps up from there. The amount of finger dexterity required to approach high end dps seems to be double or more that of an equally performing warrior. (meanwhile the warrior has concentration left over to devote himself to also buffing his group or something) But while you’ll find people complain that certain classes under perform, you’ll almost always hear the same people exclaim how wonderful it is that n00bs needs not apply for the class.

Ideally two things should apply regarding balance:
1. Equal effort receives equal performance: Better players SHOULD have an easier time than everyone else.

2. All weapons/styles of play are viable in the open world: dungeons/pvp/wvw may require certain things, but playing the game in general should allow single target/aoe versions of melee and ranged to play the game and be successful at all levels.

The only reason I haven’t bought one already is because I’m debating the likelihood of another style of unlimited pick being released in the future. I’m not too big on the pile of lava while harvesting, but a halloween themed one that released ghosts? Hell yes brother.

On the other hand, a mining pick is a flavorful fit for the current story line, while an unlimited gathering scythe fits more into something like halloween; so waiting now will only hurt in the long run….decisions decisions.

Killsmith.8169:

New QZ gives you +50% attack speed over 5 seconds. This is equal to 5(0.5)=2.5 seconds worth of attacks.

Old QZ gave you +100% attack speed over 4 seconds. This is equal to 4(1)=4 seconds worth of attacks.

New QZ provides 2.5/4=5/8=62.5% of the attack benefit that old QZ provided.

Nope.

As you tried to state, those numbers are + 50% and + 100%. Meaning it’s 5*1.5 and 4*2. Hence new QZ = 7.5 seconds and old QZ = 8.

All the people making comments like “you shouldn’t compare over different times” are actually making assumptions: you’re assuming that the purpose of the calculations is to show the damage difference over (for example) 5 seconds. The purpose of the OP is to show the damage difference over the duration of quickening zephyr. At that point, is is perfectly valid to compare 4s vs. 5s. If you want the other numbers, then Solandri has kindly provided them to you.

The stuff they’ve put in so far has been stopgap. Anet has told us that the living story is a fairly new idea, and it took them a little time to get the development groundwork in place for it. Rather than give us nothing they have us something for 2 months. It also allowed them to talk about this initiative while they prepared to roll out the big guns.

I think the alliance exists because both groups have been pushed into the same mountains. Neither the norn or the charr treat the dredge very well (not that the dredge are doing them any favors), and the flame legion probably represent the least objectionable ally. The Sons of Svanir likely wouldn’t work with anyone considering how “master racey” they are.

Bri.8354:

In my opinion this can be achieved by decreasing the aggro pets draw while toughening up their health and damage reduction. This way the rangers pet could be very resilient without creating situations where they could hold the attention of and tank enemies.

In addition, a pet attacking should not make NPCs considered to be in combat. This way players cannot send in their pets alone to take down an enemy; a player needs to be fighting the NPC as well otherwise the NPC will gain health recovery.

That’s a pretty good way of destroying beastmasters though. A major point of playing that way is the ability of your pet to hold most of the mob’s attention.

Mercucial.6759:

LordByron.8369:

Mercucial.6759:

Except for those that want to chase items with better stats.

But it’s all about you amirite?

If you want grind you bought the wrong game…
Your fault….

Also getting the +10 atk ascended weapon to kill the mob with +10 defense is really something players need….

Except everything in this game is a grind.

But I never said I was a player who cares about chasing higher stat items, because I don’t. But some people enjoy the feeling of working towards something that makes their character stronger, so let them enjoy it.

The problem is that their fun negatively impacts everyone else’s. a gear grind doesn’t just give the “strivers” something to do, it plants the idea in all others’ heads that their character is not complete, and that instead they must go grind in preparation to have fun. Even when a person decides to ignore the new items there’s a nugget of disappointment since they have been locked out of a portion of the game.

(Note: I’ve said several times in other threads that I don’t believe ascended does this. It does remain to be seen if they continue the treadmill once the “I’ve finished my ascended now I’m bored, where’s the endgame!!” threads start appearing though.)

I would get rid of most of the branching, and instead give the story more depth. All of the human arcs, for instance could easily be combined into a single storyline that, like Mass Effect, has extra bits or dialogue based on bio choices. The chief failing of the story is that it is shallow. We meet people, but don’t get to know them; we see places, but don’t learn about them; etc.

Neural.1824:

Anonumia.2817:

Once a character hits 30-40 for the personal story, the motto becomes “Undeads R Us.” From this level and up all the mobs are undeads. I know it has to do with the story and all, but it has become so monotonous. I did all the personal story quests with my first L80 character, but that ended the storyline questing for the other characters. I just can’t bring myself to go through tons of undeads again. Anyone else feel the same way?

Actually, while I enjoy GW2 and will continue to play, I am disappointed that so many MMO’s in general these days seem to have run out of ideas for the end game bad guy types.
I think that’s why I like Sea of Sorrows so much. Many of the creatures are not of any undead variety (i.e. Karkas).

Undead are a core pillar of the Soulless Triumvirate: the three things that can be killed without remorse in video games everywhere.
1.undead
2.n. @. z. i. s. (stupid filter)
3.mimes

Nothing much to add to this, but I wanted to say that I came to nearly the exact same conclusions as you. I think a similar amount of time in the the future (with a bit of number tweaking on anet’s part) people will feel the same way about the current guild mission uproar.

The only problem is that jewelcrafting is pretty well useless now. That’s rather unfortunate.

Circle of life just seems to increase your starting downed health a little more. If you’re hoping to bring more support with this trait, then I have to say that your group would likely be happier with you on your feet than you lying there with a healing spring.

Terkov.4138:

Remove distance req, change dmg… do what you want. But DON’T touch fire rate. I like full animation, when character moves hand to quiver. It’s (should be) slow firing and hard hitting weapon, so don’t make it 2nd shortbow.

Yes actually, the firing rate is fine. The other difference this gives with the short bow is less use of combo fields. Unless you’re popping #2 you just aren’t getting much out of them with longbow; which is fine. Let short bow machine gun through fields, but let longbow #1 hit like a truck (even an unloaded mid-sized pickup) to compensate.

For starters they should look at removing the range differential in damage. Unless you’re just spamming “3, 2, 5, Swap” the longbow is useless for anything other than an easily controllable boss fight. Past that, I think that longbow should simply do a little more reliable damage than shortbow, and shortbow should pull even or ahead if flanking and spec’ed for condition damage.

So far it’s just experience, karma, and some titles as tangible rewards. I’m enjoying it as a pseudo extension of the personal story though. The slow buildup hasn’t bugged me in the least, and Anet has said repeatedly that the pace will increase going forward. The first couple months were slow because they had just sort of come up with the idea and implementation of the living story, but wanted to give us SOMETHING while they were producing the meat of the content.

Sadly I would say the definition of grind is a legendary weapon. I can’t think of an example of anti-grind that is so apt and pithy though. Absolutely every blogger/youtuber I’ve come across who has commented on finishing their legendary has stated something along the line of, “finishing this almost killed my love of GW2”.

Haven’t ever had a problem getting chests, though I can’t say I’ve never left the zone in between. What that anonymous person said may very well be true, though it’s possible some other bug reared its head.

While we’re on the subject of pet stats….

1. I suppose it’s intentional that hyenas have 1/2 the Power of other canines since you can get 2 at once, but figured I would check.
2. Is the polar bear supposed to have a couple hundred more Power than other bears?

Male #9 with the spike “hair”. Now the only problem is that he looks more hardcore than his faux-british, aristocratic voice makes him sound.

dallywolf.1906:

What if we can get a new pet that would be more useful in a dungeon. Have it lay down combo fields like bonfire and stay in front of us and between our target. I think most pets should have this type of skill that assists the ranger. Wouldn’t be that far of a stretch to have spiders throw a gas cloud or drakes a flame wall to shoot through to give us extra damage.

More combo fields would always be welcomed, but spiders currently have a 4 second poison field on a 20 second countdown. There is also a kind of devourer that does it as well. (goes to check the wiki…) It’s the whiptail devourer poison cloud ability.

I’d say don’t give up hope yet.

I’ll paraphrase Robert Hrouda (dungeon designer) from his thread in the dungeon section where he said that just because they {Anet] aren’t responding doesn’t mean they aren’t reading. When they respond it tends to shift the direction of conversation, and they’d rather let us talk and just watch where it goes.

I have a little bit of faith that Anet will walk back some of the egregious nature of this beast in future updates. They took a massive shift in the style of their events from Lost Shores to Wintersday after all. I wouldn’t expect it in the March update since that has been in the pipeline already for awhile, but I would expect to see adjustments come around in April/May.

Just take stock of your own goals and see if they align with this game. I was fairly angry at yet another time gated piece of ascended gear being introduced. After I calmed down I decided that I was in GW2 for the long haul anyway – I played GW1 for 7.5 years after all – so a month here or there wasn’t going to matter by year 3. The same with guild missions, I don’t need them “RIGHT NAOW!”, because hopefully I’ll have plenty of time to fiddle around with them in years to come.

On that note: any small-medium sized guilds on Ehmry Bay recruiting? I’ve been in a guild of 1 since my friends quit in September, and it’s rather lonely…. :P

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Possibly, but it’s also possible that they can do something similar and/or be inspired by your ideas. I don’t think there’s any reason they can’t use at least a similar idea from yours, if not the same.

I should explain.

Writers are usually highly discouraged from listening to a fan who has “this idea for a character” or reading fanfiction (even if it’s really good) because you run into a very real legal matter over where the material originated. I don’t know if it falls under “plagiarism” specifically, but you can get in a lot of trouble for even subconsciously winding up using someone else’s idea in your material.

I’d put Gold down that there’s similar provisions in software/game design preventing them from directly taking or in other ways apparently modifying, something submitted as an unsolicited idea.

I know this reply is several pages old, but I just started back scanning through the thread so sue me.

It’s actually very common in many forum ToS’s and other similar places around the world to have language in there that makes any ideas or contributions you put into the forum (or suggestion box, or whatever) to be the property of the company and to absolve them from responsibility of compensation to you. So it’s likely you signed away the rights to use that idea to Anet in perpetuity. No making your own game with that system.

I would settle for better scaling and loot systems, and a greatly reduced waypoint cost as a way to get people PLAYING in the newbie zones. I couldn’t care less if they were there for leveling or not.

capuchinseven.8395:

It’s not the patches that annoy me, they could very well be patching and polishing some classes first, even those that don’t need much love (WoW did something like this way way way back, one class at a time). It’s the total and utter lack of communication that is getting on my nerves.

Even if it was just a “we feel ranger is fine right now”, at least I’d know where I stand.

Colin said in a recent interview that they are now using metrics to see what people are using, what they aren’t, and will gather info on what needs to be balanced based on that. So, if you want something to be fixed then stop logging on you ranger. If you log on anyway, then unequip your great sword. At the very least, fill up your bar with signets since they are the closest thing to decent utilities rangers have.

I know I just replied, but it turns out I didn’t need a month to sleep on it. 15 minutes was enough to make me realize that I need that month for other things. I’ve never played an elder scrolls game for instance, and I need to get cracking so I can have a handle on the lore come ESO launch.

Well, I’m debating whether to uninstall or just sleep on it…for a month. That answer your question?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Blacklight.2871:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sowin.5187:

And they added Precursors to the drop table for Guild Missions . . .

an even bigger carrot to entice people to join larger guilds.

Or, alternatively, a carrot to entice people to work on their smaller guilds rather than take the easy way out.

Also, Precursors are supposedly available out of any loot draw which can drop Exotics.

Not likely. Players ALWAYS tend to take the path of least resistance. That’s human nature and it’s going to manifest itself with a vengeance in the case of guild missions. This is because we aren’t comparing the easy path to the hard one, we’re comparing the easy path to the AREYOUkittenINGSERIOUS! path.

Ehhh . . . I guess I’m either an idiot or a masochist (or both) but I’m not feeling the problem is insurmountable. Nor do I think this is going to be utterly terrible to experience.

(I’m guessing it’s the meds.)

I don’t have a problem with waiting a little longer while we (my guild) focuses our effort on building to get there. I don’t have an issue with other people enjoying the new content before me/us. In short, I don’t need to be first to the door for this. And I wonder what’s wrong with not being first to the door when we’re not looking at a limited supply of things to do. It’ll still be there a week, two weeks, a month from now.

If it were just the guild missions I would be right there with you. I have bigger things to worry about in my life than how well someone else is doing in a video game. I can just hang out and do other peoples’ guild mission in the meanwhile. However, they are also gating yet more ascended rewards behind these guild missions. It’s one more tier of grind in a game where I wasn’t expecting to grind and…I’m honestly not sure how much more I will endure.

bluejay.6739:

Why should your 15 people’s worth of effort get the same rewards as a guild with 45 people’s worth of effort. Are you 15 people some how MORE SPECIAL so that there effort should be worth more?

Because those 15 people are every bit as important as your 45. This isn’t real life. We aren’t building bridges, or raising armies, or any such thing. Man-hours != direct rewards. We are playing a video game with artificial, arbitrary reward mechanisms that SHOULD be designed to reward all invested customers equally.

Go read the patch notes in the news section.

Other than the the bad stuff we know about I was left saying “that’s IT?!”. When you’re only going to do 1 patch a month you should probably fit a few more fixes and/or balance changes than that. (god when I got to the ranger section I about died…)

cesmode.4257:

Folk.2093:

I dont see why fractals keep getting left out since the rings became abailable; I’d like to get the amulet and accessories by doing fractals sometime soon.

Dude, that makes too much sense. And we are in the business of making absolutely no sense here.

Nah, Anet is in the business of kicking us in the junk.

Seriously, every time I see some sort of interview or blog post I let myself get sucked back in a little bit and start thinking that everything is fine, I’ve been overreacting, and I just need to spend less time browsing the forum. (the latter is undoubtedly true, I always walk away feeling worse than when I got here) Then the next nugget of truth comes out, and I’m kicked back into the depths of misery.

Screw you guys, I’m going home.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Just wanted you guys to know that these are also available as guild mission rewards as well. You can get them as random rewards from completing missions or from the commendation vendor.

Just wanted you guys to know that saying something only costs $10 at a shop down the street is a really kitten poor reason for charging $100 at the vending mahine. I thought you weren’t trying to put noob traps into GW2?

Secondly, can you even get the guild commendations if you are a solo or small guild player and thereby locked out of kicking off guild missions?

In between “it’s dead Jim” and “0MG this is best evar!!” is “doing just fine thanks”. I think I can handle that.

The interview was transcribed from an audio recording of a lunch session. Just prior to the quote they were talking about adding other weapons. At first reading I thought this could have been a person who simply got a question in a bit late. The other possibility is a person jumping in on the “let’s make weapons more interesting” segment with something they thought would be cool. Colin’s interpretation, given context, and decision to just keep going with his train of thought are completely understandable.

Overreacting fans overreact.

On Ehmry Bay it’s hit and miss. Sometimes I can’t swing a cat without hitting people, sometimes I barely find anyone around. The funny part is that it isn’t even dependent on time or area…it’s just that random.

I’ve been having a a blast playing my ranger so far. I love the multiple sources of health over time, mobility, dancing between melee and ranged combat, etc. However, it struck me yesterday that I could do everything I do now with less effort, and far better, if I rolled a warrior instead.

All I would miss would be the pet…both a boon and a curse. Sure, some of the stuff I do in open world roaming would be more difficult, but dungeons and WvW would be easier. Heck, I could wear cleric’s gear on a warrior instead of berserker on a ranger, be able to survive without Lick Wounds, and likely still do more damage!

It seems like anet doesn’t want to introduce tiers any higher than ascended, which means that gearing will become relatively painless over time. Older players will catch up eventually, and newer players will see exotics as something similar to rares – just one more step along the road.

If vertical progression is solely through infusions (which offer paltry stat increases right now anyway) then so long as they either aren’t acquired via the Mystic Toilet, or don’t require insane amounts of mats, then it’s not really a big deal.

Durzlla.6295:

Chaosgyro.6023:

DaisyRogers.6837:

Shiren.9532:

Well with the suspension of belief I give to the game (fireballs anyone?) they really don’t bother me. I like being able to bring my cats underwater, even if my main water pets are reef drake (feedback OP) and salamander drake.

It’s an easily fixable solution, but if they did make cats and bears land only, a lot of rangers would be in for a rude awakening when they first do underwater combat (a lot of people’s first aquatic pet isn’t tamed until after hitting 30).

What he said, most of the starter areas have you diving under water well before you find a dedicated aquatic pet. Rangers are kitten without them. It is annoying yes, the cats particularly I am sketch over, but they are definately necessary.

You can get both types of jellyfish and the armorfish from Rata Sum and Lion’s Arch immediately after leaving the tutorial.

In Rata sum O.o? Where?

You can find Red Jellyfish just off the end the Dawnside Quay pier.

DaisyRogers.6837:

Shiren.9532:

Well with the suspension of belief I give to the game (fireballs anyone?) they really don’t bother me. I like being able to bring my cats underwater, even if my main water pets are reef drake (feedback OP) and salamander drake.

It’s an easily fixable solution, but if they did make cats and bears land only, a lot of rangers would be in for a rude awakening when they first do underwater combat (a lot of people’s first aquatic pet isn’t tamed until after hitting 30).

What he said, most of the starter areas have you diving under water well before you find a dedicated aquatic pet. Rangers are kitten without them. It is annoying yes, the cats particularly I am sketch over, but they are definately necessary.

You can get both types of jellyfish and the armorfish from Rata Sum and Lion’s Arch immediately after leaving the tutorial.

Gs5 and signet of the hunt both apply the same boon (along with the attack of opportunity trait) so they don’t stack.

You’re looking for challenge in the wrong place. You won’t find it in open world roaming. Hit up the temple events, dungeons, or high level fractals, and let the rest of us enjoy an Orr that, while never hard, is no longer a pain in the rear.

Diessa Plateau, and other charr areas too, are great places to get the healer requirement. There’s always a lot of patrolling npc’s that get killed by local wildlife. I’m sure they’re around to help with the feeling of a “militarized zone” or some such.

For veteran kills I’d head to a little track of land south of the Decimus Stones waypoint in Plains of Ashford or the skill point cave in Wayfarer Foothill’s Solitude Vale. Both have 2-4 quick respawning vets, and aren’t in very high level areas either.

Mats might be easier to come by once people stop saving laurels for ascended gear. The bags of tier x materials the laurel vendors sell could be the answer.

There’s so much they can do on the Tyrian landmass that I’m not bugged about Cantha. The awesome landscapes can be recreated someplace on Tyria itself. The tengu can already stand in for a lot of the cultural feel, while giving us a taste of more southeastern Asian architecture like that seen in Cambodia and Vietnam. The fun of maze like and vertical Kaineng can be slotted in about anywhere the dev’s imagination can put it. (Something dredge or skritt comes to mind)

That pretty much leaves the lore. I would like to revisit Cantha via a book or series of books. The lore could be packed in more tightly, while doing greater justice to a breadth of characters. The closest I would like to go in the actual game would be the dredge tunnel under the ocean. That seems like an ideal spot for the ultimate confrontation with Primordus.

The idea about the big meta events “dropping” laurels at the end is a pretty decent one, but ultimately flawed because of how ANet has handled things. Laurels are sadly balanced around a very slow rate of gain. Doing a couple dragons per day, plus your daily and monthly, would mean ascended gear in a very short time frame (not necessarily bad, but obviously not what Anet wants).

This sort of problem could have been avoided if karma had been worth something. It’s a character-bound, non-transferable currency that cannot suffer from inflation. Yet they’ve pretty much abandoned it. If the highest tier of rewards could be purchased with karma (or crafted using karmic ingredients) then open world “questing” would be it’s own reward, and on a similar scale of time/difficulty to dungeons and fractals. Only monetary rewards would need to be tweaked – in favor of open world – to put everything on a level playing field.