Guild Wars 2

Pandeh.5248:

lordkrall.7241:

Pandeh.5248:

Dunno why people buy these things. You need to gather 3000 ori atm to make up for the cost of the tool.

No one is buying it to earn money. People buy them for the convenience of never having to worry about having the right tool again.

Or you could just convert the gems to gold, and “for a long time, not have to worry about collecting anything at all”

The convenience!

Or, you could just buy the item and literally never have to worry about it ever again period. That’s why people buy them.

I’d like to get people’s opinions on this. At the moment, enemies attack very, very slowly. Slow enough that, depending on how you time it, you can go through an entire block skill and never be hit. Similarly, Retaliation is nearly useless in most circumstances.

I understand the advantage that slow, hard attacks provides: It makes dodges more important. At the same time, though, it also makes the flow of combat feel a little clunky and, as I said, really lowers the usefulness of most skills that are dependent on enemy action (retaliation, confusion, block, etc.).

Thoughts?

…he’s wielding a hammer right there in the trailer.

Things I’m excited for:
Any kind of specific information at all.

Wasn’t much of an announcement. They could scarcely have given less information. Why spend 2/3 of it on recapping material that the vast majority of people present are already aware of? Not worth waking up at a reasonable time on a Saturday for.

They had uneven numbers once. Why does having even numbers now make uneven ones an impossibility in the future?

And the Guardian is a heavy armor Monk.

Do you have some kind of point you’re trying to make? Revenant is obviously inspired by Ritualist.

A fix for conditions in PvE. More utility skills, heal skills, elite skills.

Just base game improvements that have been desperately needed for years.

These are better arguments, and I enjoy them. I agree that the game is lacking in challenging PvE content, and I regret that. However, I’d say that the ability of players to truly make characters their own (something that Arenanet touted quite a lot) outweighs the (relatively speaking) small portion of the player base that would min/max everything to the greatest efficiency.

Other options may exist than my entirely freeform approach, though. For example, removing weapon traits (+x% damage, -y% cooldown for z weapon) and making them separate. Can you make a compelling argument for forcing greatsword to power and sword to precision, etc.? That is truly a variety stifling agent.

Ah, cool, you’ve found something that works. That’s pretty cool, actually, and I’ll concede that point. Anyway, let’s go over something. Would this lead to min/maxing? Yes. Is there currently min/maxing going on? Yes. Is this current min/maxing less effective? Yes. Is it also incredibly stifling? Yes.

But let’s go over constructive things. An easy, eaassy way to fix your proposed issue is to simply have traits be structured into the lines for sPVP. In PvE and (dare I say) WvW, this wouldn’t be an issue. One, because PvE is not competitive, and two, because WvW is already home to great deals of natural imbalance, already.

As for “change something else,” you’ll note that the last time I edited my first post was before you even made your first one. I’ve changed nothing. You’ve simply misunderstood consistently.

GummiBear.2756:

EDIT, and while those stats of the guardian he mentioned might not be possible the traits alone would be the major factor to breaking balance. In fact in the first BWE it used to be possible to take any trait just of its line at 10 pt’s meaning 50%+ of traits wouldnt ever be used, and ppl were just doing builds like 10/20/20/10/10 or so ALWAYS and taking the best trait of all the lines, there was a reason they changed it to what we have now i think

Ok, apparently people are missing this part. A lot. Bolded and italicized.

For the first 5 Primary Attribute Points on a single primary attribute a player spends, and every 10 thereafter, they may select 1 Minor Trait from the list of all Minor Traits available to their profession for the given level of point investment (for instance, you must have 25 points into an attribute to use any of the 25 point traits).

Similarly, for every 10 Primary Attribute Points on a single primary attribute a player spends, they may select 1 Major Trait from the list of all Major Traits available to their profession for the given level of point investment (for instance, you must have 30 points into an attribute to use any of the 30 point traits).

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

So the overpowered guardian wouldn’t be possible, but the overpowered ranger still is?

Way to achieve balance.

Looking at it again, no. Pet Attribute Bonus is a primary stat.

Please read my post more carefully before jumping to incorrect conclusions.

My post has already been edited to remove the possibility of those scenarios, probably while you were typing.

That said, I knew the argument of “Min/Maxing would be required” would come up. Allow me to show you why that is not true: horrible builds are capable of running the hardest content in whatever team composition imaginable.

EDIT: Also, this: “300 healing power, 300 power, 300 toughness, 300 precision” is not possible. That’s 3 primary attributes at 300.

EDIT2: AND, if you have a problem with the system that can very easily be tweaked out, then say so. I’m not saying “ARENANET THIS IS THE IMMUTABLE SYSTEM WHICH YOU MUST USE.”

EDIT3: Sorry if I sound confrontational.

Alright. I have some issues with the trait system. Namely almost the entire thing. And let me tell you why!

Structure: The trait system, in my opinion, is far too rigid to the point of impracticality. It is streamlined in the worst way. This become apparent when you look at lines like, say, the Mesmer Domination line:

• The tree is Power, and yet it provides Condition Duration as a secondary stat. Why? Power and conditions do not interact.
• The tree almost exclusively buffs the Greatsword, despite Mesmers also benefitting from Power when using a one-handed Sword or many other weapons.
• The tree buffs Signets, despite only one signet (Signet of Illusions) seeing any real benefit from Power. I do realize that this is only a 10 point trait, but really.

Those are just three examples. Let’s look at the Necromancer Death Magic line:

• The first two minor traits in this line only work in any real capacity for minion masters, though the major traits (along with toughness, itself) provide excellent bonuses to any other spec of necromancer. Why put spec-specific traits in the minor slots?
• Both of the 30-point major traits are minion-specific.
• This line has a near monopoly on staff traits (this is part of a larger issue).

Again, just another three. But let’s get down to some bigger themes.

Weapon Traits: There are many weapons in this game that many can use. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to tie particular weapons to particular stats. Some fit (Necromancer scepters with condition damage), but many don’t, or don’t have to in the way that they are (Mesmer swords with precision, Guardian hammers with toughness). All that this ends up doing is limiting player choice and creative/fun build variety.

Overall Locking: If I am a Guardian, why can I only have Greatsword attacks heal me by investing 30 points into the power line? If I am a Thief, why can I only gain initiative on Signet usage if I have 20 points into the precision line? If I am an Engineer, why do I need 30 points into toughness/healing to have longer ranged turrets with 15% more damage? A great deal of traits have no necessity of being where they are, or limit build variety just be existing in lines.

I’d like to keep this post short, so here is my proposal:

1. Remove the lines completely.
2. Starting at level 11, characters get 1 Primary Attribute Point and 1 Secondary Attribute Point per level. Each Primary Attribute Point can be spent for 10 of a primary stat, up to a maximum of 300. Each Secondary Attribute Point can be spent for the equivalent for each secondary stat as they exist in the lines. Important thing to take from this: Primary Stats and Secondary Stats are no longer bound to one another.
3. For the first 5 Primary Attribute Points on a single primary attribute a player spends, and every 10 thereafter, they may select 1 Minor Trait from the list of all Minor Traits available to their profession for the given level of point investment (for instance, you must have 25 points into an attribute to use any of the 25 point traits).
4. Similarly, for every 10 Primary Attribute Points on a single primary attribute a player spends, they may select 1 Major Trait from the list of all Major Traits available to their profession for the given level of point investment (for instance, you must have 30 points into an attribute to use any of the 30 point traits).
5. In the end, no player would have any more stats or traits than they would if they used the line system. They do, however, gain much more flexibility and creative options to truly make a character their own.

IMPORTANT DESIGN NOTE: Removing the lines would obviously make the Trait System very daunting for many players. For this reason, I recommend its removal be an option that is given to players who wish to have this level of customization, while allowing players who just want to play to keep their trait lines.

I am open to your opinions and input.

It’s been a month, but I’d actually like to bump this to the top. I was planning to make a thread almost identical to this suggestion.

Perhaps have an option to either have the lines (for people who don’t want to spend forever on their builds) or to turn the lines off. For example, I can think of no reason why Mesmers who want to make a power build are given traits for Greatsword but not Sword or Pistol, for example. There’s no reason to force this kind of separation.

Zeivu.3615:

So users can cheat at Vistas? So they can get around a much needed gold sink? So they can give the bird to the enviroment’s programmers? Screw Mounts. If it’s such a big deal to you, go crawling back to blizzard and their pandas.

I also disagree with them, but I disagree with your tone even more. Responses like this create a toxic atmosphere and should be stricken from the community.

Thinking on it, I’m going to have to say no, actually. Let’s first look at the equations involved, comparing it to bleeding.

BURNING: 4.1 * Level + 0.25 * Condition Damage per second
BLEEDING: 2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage

Examine the numbers, and we get a few observations:
- Burning, related to condition damage, is 5 times more powerful than bleeding.
- Burning, related to level, is over 8 times more powerful than bleeding.

Let’s plug in numbers. Assuming max level (80) and 1500 condition damage:
BURNING: (4.1*80) + (0.25*1500) = 703DPS
BLEEDING: 2.5 + (0.5*80) + (0.05*1500) = 117.5DPS

Now, let’s assume 25 instances of 1-second burns are applied immediately, along with 25 instances of 1-second bleeds.
BURNING: 703 damage/sec * 25 sec = 17575 damage
BLEEDING: 117.5 damage/sec * 25 sec = 2937.5 damage

Unless the formulas for each of these conditions were changed, bolded because that’s a very important factor, making burning stack in intensity rather than duration would make it an incredibly powerful burst mechanic that isn’t mitigated by toughness, since it’s a condition. Take, for example, an engineer’s blowtorch ability. That’s an instantaneous 6 seconds of burning from 3 stacks. That’s 4218 damage over 6 seconds. If it were to stack with intensity, that would be 4218 damage over 2 seconds, instead. So, instead of having a DPS of 703, it now has a DPS of 2109. See where I’m going with this?

25 stacks of bleeding for 2 seconds would deal 5875 damage, or 2937.5 DPS. That’s with 25 stacks, as compared to the burning’s 3 stacks.

So, repeating in summary, burning would only be able to stack in intensity without being horribly broken if the underlying formula were changed considerably. And since burning and bleeding are essentially no different mechanically (all they do is deal direct damage over time), they cannot share a stacking mechanic without leading to balance issues.

I hope this was informative.

Ashlar.2519:

I have to agree that there really is no need for it. If you are interested in the look of someones armor, then ask them. This avoids all the harrassment from a certain sub-set of players that like to mock others as not being good enough based solely on appearances.

I have met a vastly larger percentage of people who never respond to anything anyone says than people who will not only respond, but engage in a conversation complicated enough to explain their gear.

I have also met virtually no one ever who just randomly insults people based on their gear without any sort of provocation.

I can agree to this. A good convenience feature.

This isn’t a suggestion, but yes, he can.

Actually, thinking on it, you should get two attribute points per level. One for primary attributes (vitality, toughness, power, etc.), one for secondary (condition damage, healing power, etc.).

This was also implemented in World of Warcraft to alleviate the immense number of tokens you could end up with. It’s simply a matter of convenience, and it’s already been shown with skill points that this is possible (since you can buy things from Miyani with them).

The title screen must come back, if only for one reason. If you get disconnected from the server entirely, the whole client closes and leaves you with the launcher.

I fully support this line of reasoning. One attribute point every level, starting at 11, one minor every 10, starting at 15, one major every 10, starting at 20. This would truly allow for a greater degree of build customization without forcing certain stat combinations. For example, I main a necromancer. The fact that I need to go into the death magic line for toughness and staff traits, thus forcing me to get minion master minor traits, even though I’m condition build, is more than a little off.

Bumping. Again.

That’s the thing, though. PvP and PvE weren’t always separate in GW1. There used to be arenas in cities that you could participate in to level. Even if sPvP for leveling will never be an option, it would be very, very nice to have some kind of quick, short-term goal oriented PvP to take part in to level. As it stands, the only PvP leveling option is “run around an immensely large map and siege castles for incredibly protracted lengths of time.”

Does no one else really have any input?

I’ve been thinking of this exact idea for a while now and going “God, ANet could’ve gone this direction and it would’ve been so much better.” It’s nice to see someone else willing to put it into eloquent form. +1

Yes, but then you aren’t forced to look at the front page of the gem store repeatedly, thereby burning the image of being in the gem store into your consciousness, thereby making you ever so slightly more likely to consider buying things.

I mean, here’s an ALTERNATIVE SUGGESTION:
A separate mode from sPvP, still balanced, except it provides experience(/karma?) INSTEAD of Valor. So you can’t level and gain valor at the same time.

BEFORE I BEGIN, LET ME FIRST CAPITALIZE AND BOLD THIS STATEMENT WITH THE MAIN WORD OF THE TITLE: ALLOW

Now that that’s out of the way, I feel that it is slightly unfair to claim that players would be able to level the way that they want. To put it simply, I prefer sPVP to leveling via hearts and dynamic events. It’s a good way to unwind, and it doesn’t have the scaling issues that WvW has. For example, a level 12 character going into WvW has no elite and only one utility skill, not to mention the scaling differences based on gear for that level. I’d like a fair PvP leveling experience, frankly.

There are ways to accomplish this that would make it clear that what you’re doing is for PvE progress and not PvP progress. For example, allowing a player to use the PvP mystic forge to transmute their rewards into experience or karma. Before you jump down my throat for that karma via PvP reference, let me explain a bit better. If you were to level solely in sPVP from 1-80, you would have no gear in PvE. Ergo, either karma or gold is necessary to gear up from that, and I don’t think many people would enjoy sPvP damaging the PvE economy. And before I get the predictable response of “then people will just farm sPvP for karma and it will be unbalanced and blah blah I have no imagination,” they can balance it so that it gives roughly the same amount or a bit less as dynamic events. This is not beyond the scope of their abilities.

Thoughts? And yes, this post was very condescending. I feel I have to be to counter the inevitable, incredibly predictable counter-arguments.

Fluffycalico.2715:

There are no raids! Also more people is not more complicated and harder. In 99% of games a raid needs 1 tank 1 healer 1 dps and mage that know what they are doing called officers. Everyone else just needs to be in vent and listen. There is nothing more noob friendly than large raids where you just listen and everything will go great. With 5 people they can’t carry someone’s dead weight which is perfect. With the limit of 5 each person has to do their job…the way it should be.

I’m going to repeat back to you what you just said, but in its purest essence. “If Guild Wars 2 were to implement any kind of dungeon system for more than 5 people, it would necessarily, absolutely be identical to the raids of other games.”

IKShadow.4582:

well WvW should be about mass PvP and not PvE and easy mode leveling char.

I don’t find above ideas extreme at all

WvW was advertised as an alternative leveling method and casual PvP experience. Locking out lower levels would harm the overall experience of leveling how you prefer.

A simple idea. Add GW2 codes as purchasable items in the gem store (full price, of course). Using Gold -> Gems, this would allow players to get their friends into the game without them paying personally (though, of course, the gems have already been bought, and thus the game paid for). This would increase the spread of GW2, and it would thus increase the number of people playing which means more people buying gems.

An issue with a dungeon finder would be the specificity of it. You can certainly run most dungeons with most comps, but problems arise. For instance, if two or three condition damage specced players are in the same dungeon, overall damage drops tremendously due to the limits on condition damage. If a dungeon ends up with 4 melee specced people, then you have a team that explodes when a boss sneezes. In most games, you just say “Tank, 3 DPS, Healer, go,” which is really where the trinity shines and more freeform approaches fail.

I’d like to think that a browser to pick people from would be nice, but then you’d have to somehow have people describe themselves and it all gets very complicated.

I suppose if the dungeon finder had some kind of algorithm for matching players by reading each character’s stats, traits, etc., then it could work, but I can barely fathom the development of such a beast.

tl;dr If a dungeon finder were implemented, GW2 would have an abnormal amount of kinks to work out compared to other games.

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

The rewards need tremendous improvement for the difficulty to remain what it is. You should never leave a dungeon with less than what you entered with.

That’s part of the challenge. You have to be good at the game in order to come out positive. Dying is rightfully a punishment.

You should never come out worse off than you were before unless you absolutely blew chunks the whole way. Like dying 18 times to the first boss before quitting bad. It can be difficult, yes. It can be insanely difficult, even. But the difficulty shouldn’t come from lack of forgiveness. You should be rewarded for victory, not kicked while you’re down.

You are rewarded for victory, with your well deserved “salvage gear”, silver, and dungeon tokens. But you’re also punished for dying constantly, and honeslty if you die so much that you come out negative with the current rewards, you deserve it.

Do you happen to know what kind of psychological effect this has? It’s the difference between “I keep dying. Guess I’ll have to rethink and do better.” and “I keep dying and now I’m out a ton of money because I’m being punished. I think I’ll go play some other game.”

The death and lack of reward is enough “punishment” to make people get better. Actually punishing them for not doing well when the content is difficult is absolutely absurd.

The only unique thing you get from dungeons is tokens for the token gear, which isn’t required to do other content in the game. If a player can’t afford to do the dungeon then they don’t do the dungeon, there is other content in the game for them; easier content.

I never suggested anywhere that the dungeons should be made easier. They should be made so that they don’t punish you. Which is not the same as making them easier! There is a tremendous canyon of difference between ease and forgiveness. “Try again!” instead of “You suck, moron!”

There needs to be a penalty for failure, or else failure is meaningless. If you removed the penalty for death from dungeons and removed meat rushing so that when the group died you had to start over, it would be easier because it’s more forgiving. I don’t want the game to hold my hand, I want the game to tell me “If you want prestige and to come out with some extra pocket change, you better shape up, or else this prestige will cost you a bit more than just in game time.”

Then our disagreement is fundamentally incapable of resolution.

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

The rewards need tremendous improvement for the difficulty to remain what it is. You should never leave a dungeon with less than what you entered with.

That’s part of the challenge. You have to be good at the game in order to come out positive. Dying is rightfully a punishment.

You should never come out worse off than you were before unless you absolutely blew chunks the whole way. Like dying 18 times to the first boss before quitting bad. It can be difficult, yes. It can be insanely difficult, even. But the difficulty shouldn’t come from lack of forgiveness. You should be rewarded for victory, not kicked while you’re down.

You are rewarded for victory, with your well deserved “salvage gear”, silver, and dungeon tokens. But you’re also punished for dying constantly, and honeslty if you die so much that you come out negative with the current rewards, you deserve it.

Do you happen to know what kind of psychological effect this has? It’s the difference between “I keep dying. Guess I’ll have to rethink and do better.” and “I keep dying and now I’m out a ton of money because I’m being punished. I think I’ll go play some other game.”

The death and lack of reward is enough “punishment” to make people get better. Actually punishing them for not doing well when the content is difficult is absolutely absurd.

The only unique thing you get from dungeons is tokens for the token gear, which isn’t required to do other content in the game. If a player can’t afford to do the dungeon then they don’t do the dungeon, there is other content in the game for them; easier content.

I never suggested anywhere that the dungeons should be made easier. They should be made so that they don’t punish you. Which is not the same as making them easier! There is a tremendous canyon of difference between ease and forgiveness. “Try again!” instead of “You suck, moron!”

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

The rewards need tremendous improvement for the difficulty to remain what it is. You should never leave a dungeon with less than what you entered with.

That’s part of the challenge. You have to be good at the game in order to come out positive. Dying is rightfully a punishment.

You should never come out worse off than you were before unless you absolutely blew chunks the whole way. Like dying 18 times to the first boss before quitting bad. It can be difficult, yes. It can be insanely difficult, even. But the difficulty shouldn’t come from lack of forgiveness. You should be rewarded for victory, not kicked while you’re down.

You are rewarded for victory, with your well deserved “salvage gear”, silver, and dungeon tokens. But you’re also punished for dying constantly, and honeslty if you die so much that you come out negative with the current rewards, you deserve it.

Do you happen to know what kind of psychological effect this has? It’s the difference between “I keep dying. Guess I’ll have to rethink and do better.” and “I keep dying and now I’m out a ton of money because I’m being punished. I think I’ll go play some other game.”

The death and lack of reward is enough “punishment” to make people get better. Actually punishing them for not doing well when the content is difficult is absolutely absurd.

Malthurius.6870:

DFAnton.5304:

The rewards need tremendous improvement for the difficulty to remain what it is. You should never leave a dungeon with less than what you entered with.

That’s part of the challenge. You have to be good at the game in order to come out positive. Dying is rightfully a punishment.

You should never come out worse off than you were before unless you absolutely blew chunks the whole way. Like dying 18 times to the first boss before quitting bad. It can be difficult, yes. It can be insanely difficult, even. But the difficulty shouldn’t come from lack of forgiveness. You should be rewarded for victory, not kicked while you’re down.

The rewards need tremendous improvement for the difficulty to remain what it is. You should never leave a dungeon with less than what you entered with.

Wow, what a post.

mulch.2586:

I thought there was a LFG system.

It is thoroughly unused, difficult to locate, and has dubious functionality or purpose.

mulch.2586:

I dunno – I figure /g works just fine, and pretty much anyone who’s so low on friends they need a LFG system, they prolly isn’t gonna work out to be a good party member.

Your experience is not the same as the experience of others. It’s nice that you have a guild willing to do dungeons, but that is not always the case. Many people prefer social guilds and would much more gladly represent those. Also, that last point of yours is absolutely asinine and undeserving of intelligent response.

mulch.2586:

I really think ANet’s plate is very full trying to get basic functionality in the game to work right now, without adding new stuff. Bugs enough with parties and guilds and squads…

Yes, there are bugs that must be worked out first. This has already been touched upon. But the very fact that the mentality of “they have bigger things to worry about” serves no purpose. It’s totally redundant. Of course they do. No one said this had to be moved to the top of the list. They’re just asking that it BE on the list. By the way. Forums are a persistent record (!!). They can see these suggestions even if they’re busy with other things.

Let’s all go around silently screwing each other ;P