Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure what the difference is in posting to LFG saying: This is a Training Run, We Would Like XYZ, and then people joining it vs. posting to TLFG and selecting a “role” to join as.

In both situations you either need some very tenacious individuals who will learn mechanics through trial and error or someone with some prior knowledge of the mechanics. Just getting bodies together isn’t enough.

Let’s take a popular PUG view of VG as an example…

1. You need a tank .
2. You need some form of boon stripping.
3. You need some condition damage.
4. You need to do enough DPS to kill the guy before enrage meaning about a 60k group dps average.
5. You need some folks to run to green circles.
6. You need some healers.

If this were the case, than you could make your imaginary queue with 6 roles. However, thanks to GW2 having a rather flexible system, this is NOT the case.

1. You need a tank.
You don’t NEED someone dedicated to being the tank. Anyone can tank. If you can’t take the heat of “tanking” VG’kittens, just run him around constantly as a dps or whatever you like. You don’t NEED to keep VG constantly in unlit sections, you can easily heal through them if everyone is on the same page or you decide to bring an extra healer (or 2, or 10..)

2. You need boon stripping.
While you do need a form of boon stripping, LITERALLY ANYONE CAN BOONSTRIP WITH THE APPROPRIATE SIGIL. Of course other classes have boon stripping available (engi throw mine, necro corrupt boon, rev mallyx, etc.) but anyone could fill this role.

3. You need condition damage.
While you do need some condition damage, practically every class does some small amount of condition damage even if they are power based. You can use the slightly less common strategy and have your group attune to red and run to blue and let your power classes’ inherent condi damage slowly kill red as you cleave blue and then green. So, how many condi damage slots should your TLFG queue have? If your dps are a bunch of power engis or scepter guards, you could probably get by with 0. Pretty much any other comp would only “need” 1.

4. You need “good” dps or enough to kill before enrage timer.
You don’t NEED enough dps to kill before enrage, but you will need to be able to survive enrage if you don’t have the DPS. We’ve seen interesting strategies such as stacking a team with heal tempests or revs and simply doing terrible dps but surviving the enrage to eventually kill. Will your TLFG tool account for alternative strategies such as this? And to preempt claims of “well a training group shouldn’t be using such a strategy”, Why not? Who is to say they shouldn’t if that is the way they wish to learn and get their kill? And what is considered DPS anyway? Practically every meta build (and most non-meta builds) can achieve 6k dps. From my own testing, practically every meta build and most non-meta builds can achieve 6k dps…. without any outside buffs.

5. You need a green circle squad.
You don’t NEED a green circle squad. As pretty much everyone is aware, distorting green circles is a fairly common strategy as is simply ignoring the greens and “bracing for impact” with healers or a combination of these strategies as a safety net. Such strategies can be very beneficial to learners seeking a kill as it removes a mechanic they need to keep track of. How will your TLFG tool account for this?

6. You need healers.
You don’t NEED dedicated healers. With the right group composition and “friendly” healing skills (healing turret, healing spring, ventari tablet, wash the pain away, countless regen sources, healing mantras, etc etc etc.) almost every class can, some with little to no sacrifice, provide a healing source for everyone else which is enough healing to secure a kill.

This isn’t super secret hidden knowledge, I know, but with so many variables, making an automated TLFG tool would not only be silly, it would discourage new players from coming up with their own strategies that may actually work better for them/their group. Having all this flexibility and the leniency of raids and their mechanics is what makes the fights so interesting. It is a puzzle to solve with many interesting solutions and taking that away from players by saying you MUST play role XYZ for training, is awful.

So again I have to wonder what benefit, if any, this form of “automated” LFG would have when you really do need the communication and customization to work within a system as flexible as gw2’s.

Engineer is LITERALLY designed for this.

While being pounced by Samarog, you lose stats from some source. Possibly your runes, sigils, and food. IF you are broken out from his pounce your stats return to normal. However, if you happen to die during the pounce, your stats will stay messed up. I was able to fix this by logging out then back in but have heard other ways as well (reequipping all your gear and food.)

Was able to reproduce easily and consistently. Simply get pounced on Samarog and check your hero panel.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZOXL_-RhG0

Have you tried this (downsampling)?
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=509076

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• The entire map is HIGHLY dependent on large group content. From the camp capture to the karka queen, there is very little you can do on your own or even with smaller groups. Unfortunately, there is also little incentive to do anything on Southsun, leading to a downward spiral where these days none of the events get done.

This just isn’t true. Yes, I’ve yet to see someone solo the queen, but otherwise everything is completely doable alone. There is plenty of incentive. Its fun, its different, its more challenging than the average encounter. Unless of course you mean some sort of monetary gain? The karka shells from killing stuff are worth a pretty penny.

• Even moving around the map in general needs groups. The enemies and enemy distributions are tuned for large groups, meaning that single players, if they can survive at all, can’t actually engage or farm, but just have to run past everything.

What? Some sections with multiple vets can be tricky and you have to watch your agro but everything is so spread out that you can really pick your fights here.

• Karka in particular are enemies that are designed for group engagements; a single person cannot in general reasonably engage a full-size Karka in a reasonable amount of time, and the density of them easily leads to inadvertently aggroing multiples. We even see this on Ember Bay, where the Karka beach is avoided completely except for events.

See above.

• The jumping puzzle is generally considered the worst in the game, and is often intentionally avoided, even when it is a daily.

One of the best in the game.

• There is absolutely no story connection to any other part of the game. No active story content has anything to do with it, nor will any likely have anything to do with it in the future, and none of the content on the island creates any compelling reason to visit or return.

The consortium.

• The map has insufficient rewards for the level of effort it demands. Even karka trains, once a thing, have mostly fallen apart as the one reward that could attract people, Karka Shells, is just not sufficient.

One of the best maps in terms of scenery, interesting enemies that cater to a different skillset…. these are more than enough reward. The shells, scales, and blood are just icing.

Your argument seems to be based in large part that the map doesn’t offer you enough opportunities to make money. You miss all the good things it has to offer.

I’m curious how some of you make it through a day.

Stick with engineer imo. I can’t speak for fractals as I do not play them but for the other two categories…

Condi engi has been and continues to be top tier dps if you learn your rotation well. This will have you a spot on all wing 1 encounters with plenty of helpful utility for your team.

Power engi is also rather high dps and will almost certainly have higher dps than the average pug ele given its incredibly simple rotation, though a more appropriate comparison is to a thief. Xera is great for engi. Sabetha is also good as a cannon runner, rifle 5 serving as a “blink”.

Solo is where engineer really shines as you have a solution (sometimes very creative ones!) to practically every situation lurking in your skills and traits.

Cristalyan.5728:

With other words you spend a lot of gold to be able to GIVE something to the team. If in your world the first action seeing a person trying to be generous is to laugh – not a discrete smile, but a laugh in the face – no wonder you have difficulties understanding the subject of a topic.

Altruism is a myth.

stephanie wise.7841:

are you sure it was the first time you went to that npc in the same day? once you buy you cannot buy from same npc vendor until the daily reset.

100% sure. If you look in the video the heart is not yet completed. It completes, and then I go to purchase. You cannot complete these hearts more than once a day.

I have been farming petrified wood on multiple characters pretty much every day and this annoying little bug keeps popping up.

The NPC does not have the wood available to buy after completing the heart.

I finally caught it on video. This has happened to me on multiple NPCs, specifically the one at Skritt Anchorage and the one near the Furnace Chamber.

It seems to be random, most of the time they all sell the wood, sometimes one will not, sometimes two will not.

https://youtu.be/AN9mdQBa0yQ

My take on this. A quick mock-up.

https://youtu.be/v4c7Wc1GB3g

1. Heal support is not required for anything in the game, including raids. You have other options wherever a fully heal focused character would be used. You have the option of playing it, yes, but then you only have yourself to blame if you play it and don’t enjoy it.

2. Your proposed changes seem to mainly remove skill/strategy from the healing equation. I suppose that would mean “smoother” in the sense that it becomes idiot-proof when every heal becomes “wash the pain away” and warrior shouts, but it also becomes much less rewarding mechanically speaking and would require a severe reduction in numbers.

3. There a couple builds/tactics that accomplish this already in the game that you can try out.

Shout Heal Warrior

Healing Engineer (med kit or flamethrower+edf+reaper vampiric aura)

Healing Elementalist

Just wanted to stop in and say thanks. You inspired me and I just started pvping 3 days ago. I’m determined to play only warrior and have been having great success using your build.

Wish me luck through Diamond and beyond!

Sounds like a lot of extra work for practically no gain.

Financial suicide.

I have this issue from time to time as well. Seems like a texture or something just doesn’t load. Happens most often for me on Sabetha’s flamewall arrow and VG’s green lightning circles. Usually fix it by:
1. Zone in and Out
2. Restart Client
3. Do Nothing. It will randomly “pop in” at some point and then stay for the rest of the time.

I think everyone I have raided with has had some sort of visual glitch at one time or another so I do not believe it to be a mac exclusive issue. My specs are “good.” gtx 970 16gb ram oc’d i2500k.

Haven’t had any issues with pugs. Have done several successful “no coms” runs using LFG and otherwise any new or people struggling with mechanics have been very upfront and most of the time people are ok with giving them a couple runs to get acclimated.

Organized groups however…

Lots of people get stuck in a mindset of X is the best or Y is the only way to do something. I run as a part of many organized groups throughout the week and each one has different strategies and even different preferred “fallback” strategies if something goes catastrophically wrong. And they all clear at about the same speed, ~1 hour.

I bring this up because once people learn how to do something a certain way, it becomes difficult for them to accept that there could be an alternative that could work just as well or better depending on the specific situation and the ability of the rest of the group, which leads to hilariously ignorant arguing. So, a player that typically performs well suddenly is doing poorly and has no idea why and is doing nothing to fix their issues because “this works with my other group” effectively making them a leech/faker.

I haven’t had this issue ever come up in a pug group and the inexperienced players I’ve encountered haven’t established their biases yet meaning they’ve been open to trying different strategies based on the classes we have available at the time. I’ve actually had LESS issues with pug groups because of this.

I don’t doubt there are leeches out there, but it is rare enough that I haven’t yet encountered one in a pug, and raiding is literally all I do in this game.

sounds great ty

But what do I do when there is another player on the point? I just die

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

Kraggy.4169:

I’ve logged in three times on two PCs and can’t see this popup .. when during login/character loading did it appear?

Given that doing all the world bosses take 4-5 hours depending on when you start and those that conflict with time slots (eg. Teq. plus Jormag) a three hour reward nerf is crass.

So I launched the game and as the game was loading the character select screen (ie the screen was still black) the text appeared when the UI first started to load. When the UI loaded completely, the pop-up went away.

It does seem similar to the China restrictions. Seems strange to impose them on us now though.

This happened so quick that I wasn’t able to grab a screenshot, but today after I patched and launched the game there was a pop-up about some sort of anti-addiction system. I was only able to read it briefly before it went away, but it said something about reduced rewards after 3 hours of playing and then some sort of further reduction after 5 hours of play.

What is this all about?

Having the same issue but for the opposite reason. We clear the bosses the first day shard cap the next, and then no one wants to run it for the enjoyment of it : (

You have already crafted this item.

It’s super hard. Not many people can do it which is why the backpack holds so much value and prestige. You know if you see someone wearing one it was earned through countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears. I think DnT posted a guide on it awhile ago but I wouldn’t try it to be honest. I broke two fingers attempting their advice. Best leave it to the gaming gods.

Have completed Sabetha multiple times. Can confirm 100% that at least two of those were without deaths, possibly others, and have not received credit for The Eternal.

Both times were after multiple tries. Both were on instances that were opened at Sabetha (ie. didn’t do the whole raid in one go). Different characters. Neither were my “first kill”, but the second was my first kill after reset for this week.

Video proof (i am Pastiche):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm2CqopQqms

Just completed one about.. 20 minutes ago. Attached a screenshot with lack of credit. No video unfortunately.

Warrior: Great for soloing and every group will want at least one. Has great standard damage and condi damage builds for variety. Heavy armor and healing signet gives you nice lazy survivability. Elite spec makes you feel kitten.

Elementalist: The general king of DPS. Quite squishy. Surviving open world in HOT can be difficult for new players on a standard staff build. Many options and advanced tricks for things like blast finishers (swapping weapons in the middle of rotations) give you lots of room to improve. Elite spec adds an extra DPS button that wrecks older content and is good in new stuff as well. Many groups want multiple Tempests.

Thief: Very good DPS. Quite squishy. Niche roles in current content but still certainly viable. Most of their old roles have been replaced by the true master class…

ENGINEER: Best class. Can do everything. King and Queen of being awesome. Make one today.

Mob AI is invuln.

No, but you should buy it because it is the superior game that will give you many hours of enjoyment.

It was planned this way so you have something to do when HoT releases full of bugs with stalled events and unfinished areas and such, which is fine with me.

Asura, but mainly because the animations.

There is a hidden room in AC full of turkeys.

Asura = Everything

“Nuke Em’ From Orbit”
Full Zerk.
Scholar Runes.

Explosives: Glass Cannon, Shaped Charge, Siege Rounds
Firearms: High Caliber, No Scope, Mod. Ammo
Tools: Static Discharge, Takedown Round, Kinetic Battery

Rifle
Nades, FT, EG, Mokitten

odge something, double Orbital Strike on your flamethrower field + heal blast + ft blast+ eg blast= 21 might

No idea if thats better then just doing double nade barrage but it looks cool

Rising Dusk.2408:

Crysto.7089:

I only made two statements.
1. Words mean things to different people.
2. One activity could take the place of another it terms of the fulfillment you get from said activity. (ie. I enjoy activity A because B! ANet introduces activity C which includes B! I now prefer activity C.)

Which of those do you disagree with and, please, explain.

If these are the only points you’ve made then they contribute nothing to the discussion. Please, if you would like to discuss what you’re going for here, PM Gern and hash it out there. Keep the discussion here about raids and their general value and not the nitpicks of the implementation or principle of the thing.

I tried to PM this to you but your inbox is full. Apologies to the thread owner and readers.
——
Your comment contributed nothing to the discussion. If you thought you were preventing some fight or off-topicness, the issue had already been resolved when the OP clarified himself to mean that raids in his topic meant X. You have now successfully derailed the topic.

My quote was not even targeted at Gern, it was targeted at Nyspar (as you will see he was the user I quoted) who claimed to disagree with me when I made no statements that any logical person could disagree with. Obviously, some clarification is needed in that case. To have a reasonable discussion both parties need to strive to understand what is being discussed.

My other statements were questions to further discussion and to perhaps enable the OP to consider his own understanding of the term raid. Posing questions and discussing outcomes is by very definition a conversation.

Your post served no purpose but to incite a response and, well, here it is.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Crysto.7089:

Gern.2978:

Open world boss fights are not raids, and cannot ever be a replacement for raids

So what is a raid? It’s an instanced , dungeon type encounter that requires a minimum of 10 people.

I disagree.

The word “raid” has the connotation of difficult group content that requires — as a group — lots of coordination, and — from each member of the group — high levels of skill, and knowledge of game mechanics to defeat.

Open world boss fights in GW2 require either none, or extremely limited amount of this.

The OP has already established the meaning of “raid” in the context of this thread. Your and my opinions are irrelevant regarding the definition, at least in this discussion.

Gern.2978:

The question is: Would you do raids as I described them.

Sure. I’d try any new content for free. Can’t say with certainty that I would enjoy it or stick with it but I’d at least try it.

Nyspar.6103:

I agree with Gern, and disagree with Crysto. Raids need to be instanced.

I only made two statements.
1. Words mean things to different people.
2. One activity could take the place of another it terms of the fulfillment you get from said activity. (ie. I enjoy activity A because B! ANet introduces activity C which includes B! I now prefer activity C.)

Which of those do you disagree with and, please, explain.

Because language is such that words hold different meanings for different people.

As a semi-rhetorical question, why would content with the same parameters only with 9 players not qualify as a raid?

Why could open-world content NEVER EVER be a replacement for a raid? Depending on each person and what they want to get out of a “raid” of course it could be a replacement. In fact, it meets all of the requirements set forth here, other than instanced.

It’s an instanced , dungeon type encounter that requires a minimum of 10 people. They typically have scalable difficulty, and challenging fight mechanics that require communication and coordination of everyone involved.

Now, if you wanted to frame the discussion by saying specifically that when we talk about raids in the context of this thread, raids refer to X… that’s another matter.

Gern.2978:

Open world boss fights are not raids, and cannot ever be a replacement for raids

So what is a raid? It’s an instanced , dungeon type encounter that requires a minimum of 10 people.

I disagree.

What is your favorite UNLOCKED title you don in this game (optional: why)?
Southsun Stalwart. Memories from back when living story was on track to be something great.

If you could choose to wear ANY title what would it be?
Yakslapper

Pick a title you genuinely respect when you see a player with it and give a reason why this title reflects a positive feeling.
GWAMM. A fellow GW1 vet. You don’t “accidentally” get GWAMM. Takes a ton of time and dedication.

Pick a title you dislike seeing on a player and provide a reason why this title impacts you negatively.
Don’t take titles seriously enough to care.

Make up ONE title you would like to see implemented into the game and provide a brief description/objective on how to obtain it or why you would like to see it as a new title to obtain.
Multi-tiered title for completing all the jumping puzzles/explorer achievements. The best content the game has to offer deserves some recognition
Bushwhacker, Pathfinder, Trailblazer

sweetfx was my issue which is ironic because now that i can get in, i don’t want to play without it.

hope they fix that before the expansion

DarkOcean.8746:

You need to delete the bin folder (or remove SweetFX/GemFX). This is so frustrating. This game looks so washed out without them.

This worked, unfortunately.

Yea I got bored so I started playing some new games.

When there is more stuff to do/experiences to be had, I’ll come back.

You shouldn’t be forcing yourself to play if you’re not enjoying it/being engaged, that’s called an addiction.

Same issue. I suggest playing a different game.

Been on initializing since the patch hit.

I actually like how it looks with post-processing on high, all the neat effects and bloom and such.

HOWEVER, the stupid outlines it puts on the characters means I always play with it off.

It should be more customizable, being able to select which aspects of the post-processing stuff you want.

NPE’s target audience identified. Welcome friend.

Why would you want ANOTHER layer of DRM?

There were threads nearly everyday complaining about a lack of loot and then anet went full kitten and we ended up with our current system. The real problem was a lack of intermediary valued loot. ex. Theres precursors and then theres everything else. There are a few bits and bobs here and there but your chances of getting anything beyond a rare and the occasional exotic are slim to none.