Guild Wars 2

nacario.9417:

zideeffectzz.6379:

They sacrificed the ele’s animation and made the Legendary Long Bow/SB and the Flameseeker’s animation better…. Nice logic ANET

can someone enlighten me in what way did they improve the flameseeker’s animation?

They added footstep effects and an ambient glow that leaves a trail of New Krytan letters.

And you’ll be able to determine whether someone’s intentionally losing or just new/bad… how?

The Greyhawk.9107:

You know, I still don’t get what is going through Anet’s heads. If we (or at least most of us) could figure out that its not the size of the projectile but the splash particles that causes this so called “visual noise”, why couldn’t Arenanet? I don’t get how they can look at things like the auras as being in need of “adjustment” when they don’t contribute to at all to visual clutter. Why does any of these seem like a good idea to anyone?

Because the changes were specifically targeted at gameplay where that doesn’t come into play. It’s purely for esports; Colin said as much in a blog post earlier this year.

Fernling.1729:

Visual effect nerfs is something myself and many other players have been asking for since the game’s release. I stick by wanting the effects lessened. I do think a slider would be make things just peachy.

If I had to choose between nerfs or no nerfs without a slider, I would choose the nerfs. World bosses(and sometimes even 5 man bosses) just had too many effects to see the tell of certain attacks.

Too bad these nerfs did nothing for bosses because impact particles are completely unchanged and still scale with mob size.

Strang.8170:

“You are going to play revenant and you are going to like it, because we say so!”
-Arenanet balance team

Sure is a funny coincidence then that revenant’s behind a paywall.

Nina.4317:

why did they do this? can’t they add an option to make our own computer to display this?, or an option, for ppl to disable if it annoys them.
Nerf mesmer on abilities and now on visual effect…
Wow, we are hated so much

According to Colin, you’re killing SPvP if you’re against the visual changes.

ferdi.1452:

• They seem to post more on Reddit than on their own forums
• They nerf dungeon rewards because they don’t want us doing them
• They nerf various skill and spell effects

Do these guys even like what they create?

Most of them didn’t create any of that, it was people that left the company around the base game’s launch.

ANet probably wants to advertise the existence of leagues to people that do PvE/WvW exclusively.

The Reddit community finally managed to pry a response from Colin.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3v24hg/the_reduced_visual_noise_changes_have_to_stop_gw2/cxk2o2z

Khyan.7039:

E-sport will kill guild wars 2’s soul. But you know, money money money.

They’re absolutely insane if they think this esports push will turn a profit. They have to put up the prize pool, pay ESL to run the tournament, pay Twitch to advertise it, and pay the code monkeys to design all the new systems they’ve decided to utilize. If they pull in less than half the viewers of a Dota pro’s stream, how do they expect the advertising to keep them from operating at a huge loss?

Elden Arnaas.4870:

Colin replied to this issue on Reddit. On Reddit?!? Why would he reply on Reddit, rather than the official forum?
Here’s a quote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “I will say last time I saw the backlog of combat visibility cleanup work, the vast majority of stuff was along the lines of what you’re all suggesting below. More programming solutions at the systemic level and going after a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players rather than directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So why did they start with the stuff that would be more impactful to individual players VFX and plan to do the less directly impacting stuff(and give player options) later. To me that seems backwards. Wouldn’t you want to start with the more fundamental “programming solutions at the systemic level” and “a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players”. Then if that didn’t produce the desired results, resort to stuff that is “directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time”.
It seems to me that they’re working on this issue in reverse.

ANet rarely posts on the official forums unless they’re trying to market something. I guess the hugbox that the subreddit frequently is ends up being more appealing.

Halvorn.9831:

Personally I think that culling the visual effects hasn’t even gone far enough. I am tired of attending a boss fight in PvE and having to assume that the boss is underneath that white ball of nothing in the middle of my screen, while dozens of melee players drop dead because they couldn’t see telegraphs of the next boss attack.

Having said that I’d rather have a slider or at least a few distinct options like “tone down all effects outside of my group” or “tone down all effects other than the ones caused by me”.

That’s entirely the result of impact particles, which haven’t changed at all since 2013, and have only changed slightly since 2012. They stack and scale with mob size.

World War III.3869:

I got an idea. I just wish “someone” else thought of it sooner.

1)Seperate PVP skills(GW1) from the PVE versions(GW1), that way you don’t have to nerf something in pvp and it screws up something that’s fine in pve. Same with WVW.

2)Same with the effects.

a)In PVP, we can shoot each other with BBs, silly string, and microscopic confetti.

b)In PVE, we can shoot Satan’s flaming balls at LEGENDARY Dragons. Because sparklers and bottle rockets just won’t get the job done. Just don’t have it scale as much?

3)Raids?? Give squad leader ability to toggle visual effects down or something, idk.

4)????

5)Profit

Pay me my $200k.

They’ve said no to skill splitting because they think it’d be too confusing for new players. Everything is and will be balanced around SPvP.

I assume the idea is to try and advertise leagues to the people that do PvE/WvW exclusively, since I don’t see people that never leave Heart of the Mists caring about whether or not they could show off their kitten if they went to LA.

Ganathar.4956:

LovelyVirus.9432:

oshilator.4681:

The e-sports ship sailed on this game 3 years ago.

And Anet has yet to realize it.

These ‘visual noise reductions’ are just more proof.

Trying to make this game become a MOBA game . Good job Anet !
Look at League of Legends , each champion just have 4 skills , 1 passive and they have to blances them every patch by nerf , buff their skills or remake them as a new champion with new skills and passive . For GW2 , i can’t imagine how they can do it ….
Anet should focus on WvW , Event , contents , storyline …. in game than trying to make MMORPG become MOBA .

You are right, Esports are precisely that because they don’t have that many abilities, which makes both understanding them and watching them easier for viewers. No matter how much the visuals are toned down GW2 will never be an Esport because it is not simple enough. The visual clutter is merely a symptom of the complexity if the game. The balance patches are also not frequent enough.

I think that the devs should stop being so adamant about GW2 becoming an Esport and focus on the strengths of their game, instead of giving them up for a pipe dream.

So you’re saying they should remove skill slots 6 through 10? c:

Misguided.5139:

Adula.3698:

Flameseeker… got new effects

What? Didn’t notice anything and nothing listed in the patch notes.

Footsteps and blue aura with a trail of New Krytan characters.

Lord Kuru.3685:

GoZero.9708:

I think it’s hilarious just how badly they understand some things, such as the aura change. They were supposed to be obvious and easy to read, otherwise people would miss them being up.

Seriously this war on visuals has got to stop. I want to play on pretty MMO not a failing esport.

How hard did they nerf the auras?

http://imgur.com/a/nDCNK

Gutting visuals in the name of #ESPROTS, better buff legendary particles. :^)

adormtil.1605:

“apexis dailies” what does that mean?

It’s a reference to WoW.

Alin.2468:

There is a response from ArenaNet.

Bandit Sniper bundle was released on November 24 and since then price for Shadow Abyss Dye dropped from 194 gold to 140 gold. Also, price for Shadow Blue Dye dropped almost instantly to 50% from 20 gold to 10 gold.

These are facts. This is ArenaNet’s response of bundle success.

Yup. So long as the whales keep spending, they can ignore every other player and still turn a profit.

But unlike GW2, FF14 lets you disabled friendly particles completely. Hell, 14 probably has the best options menu I’ve seen in an MMO.

thisisit.6954:

Better still, why don’t you learn to program, then you take a “couple of hours” and do it for them?

Well it wouldn’t involve programming, it’d involve animating. It’d be relatively small changes to a handful of existing animations, really just rotating the pelvis, making sure it doesn’t cause any conflicts, and hitting save. I don’t know if there’s any specific stuff internally that would make it more difficult than that, but it should be pretty easy.

I read the first sentence and expected it to be about that one idle animation they removed.

Xyonon.3987:

Well the AI thing would be amazing really. It’d look much better and let us expirience a cooler gameplay. Yet the problem is the AI is lacking. AI in general isn’t something bad if it’s good AI ofc :P

Yeah, the AI in this game has always been atrocious. The problem is they added another mechanic dependent on it without making any improvements, making the entire skill type dead on arrival. I don’t know if they somehow didn’t recognize that or if they just didn’t care.

BigBadUrf.9214:

The best solution i can think of is for gyros to work as function gyro – stuck to you and the aoes will be stuck to you as well even when jumping etc. (for stealth, healing gyro). As for blast gyro and shredder gyro, they should fly to the closest enemy and not just explode aimlessly when enemy dodges. For now they are pretty useless.

It’s been suggested since the spec was revealed on stream, and as far as I know the idea’s never even been addressed. Irenio seems to really like the AI.

Vayne.8563:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Vayne.8563:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Vayne.8563:

They’re not ignoring anyone.

cough visual nerfs [merged] cough

They talked to us about visual nerfs. It was in the patch notes. In fact, they nerfed the visuals specifically due to long term complaints about noise in battles and not being able to see what’s going on.

The visual nerf complaints is a tiny minority of posts compared to the noise posts.

The visual nerf thread is now longer than other threads where anet have responded and it’s still growing when just a little communication from anet could soothe the savage beast. Curious, don’t you think?

I think it’s curious that you haven’t bothered to add up the dozens if not hundreds of threads over the years complaining about not being able to see. It’s been a major concern for a long long time.

And how many of the pages in that visual nerf thread are people arguing for it?

Except the nerfs they’ve done have done nothing to improve visibility, and if anything have made it worse because the particles are too muted for people to notice them. The impact particles, which are particularly awful, are also completely unchanged.

Daharahj.1325:

I can’t believe a 3 pages long thread with 123 replies wasn’t enough to draw out an answer from a dev.

Also a thread in general discussion that’s at 257, no response their either. Just gotta keep their heads in the sand and wait for it to blow over.

The only aspect of scrapper that’s worth anything in PvE is traits, mass momentum and perfectly weighted in particular. Everything else is flat out worse than the same old pistol/pistol condi build.

Azure.8670:

I said this earlier in another post

I fully expect AA, Glint heal, and shield 5 to get nerfed.

other than that I see buffs across the board coming, especially mallyx

Hasn’t Roy said previously that he was totally fine with power Shiro/Glint being the only viable build, back before people started using Mallyx again?

Celtic Lady.3729:

Tigaseye.2047:

I, personally, find complaints interesting (even the rude ones!), as I feel they shed light on possible issues and hold the most sincerity.

So do I. Honestly, I’d rather wade through a thousand complaint posts than read a handful of ones BSing about how Anet can do no wrong.

No disrespect to Anet, of course.

“One complaint is worth five compliments” -Naoki Yoshida

It seems like ANet only uses the official forums(or complaint threads on Reddit) when they need to sell something, to make it seem like they’ll improve their transparency this time around. It’s all just marketing in the end.

People have been pointing this out since at least BWE3 and nothing’s changed. I’m not counting on any improvements until next expansion.

Ephemiel.5694:

If the problem is hubris and overconfidence, then Kralkatorrik HAS to be one of the hardest Elder Dragons to take down because he’s the only one that was close to death, but survived thanks to Snaff getting killed first. He HAS to know that some people can actually be a match to him.

Hopefully this means he’ll try to do a preemptive strike against the specific race that invaded his mind and almost killed him: The Asura.

I imagine the Kralk storyline will be focused around the charr(because of where he was asleep) and/or humans(because of where he ended up). I don’t see how he could get his forces to the other side of the continent without being forced to contend with one of the other dragons.

Sulfarius.1756:

We really need to start seeing some red post into this thread. Not one that just says “Oh we’ll look into it” and two months later nothing happening. I’d really like some statement, some explanation why they thought these bundles were an excellent idea to put into the gemstore other than “GIVE US MONEY”.

I’m not about to let this thread die out either, not until there is an official statement of Anet what their plans are for the current bundles and future outfits to be released. It’s time to reveal if stuff like this is what you have planned for the future of this game, if this money-grabbing F2P business model is really what you want to chase after. And please, do not say “It’s just comsetics so we think it’s fine”. The whole end-game is based on collecting cosmetics so in GW2s case it’s no excuse.

ANet rarely says anything of substance unless they’re trying to sell something. Maybe when they start advertising LS3 we’ll get an answer.

eMKay.4028:

It actually seems like the Dragons’ weaknesses are connected with their biggest strength.

Zhaitan’s strength was the ability to raise corpses from the dead – furthermore his own body was composed from the corpses of other Dragons and thus his biggest weakness was his physical form as we were able to tackle him head on.

Mordremoth’s biggest strength seemed to be the ability to influence others and control minds through the Dream and thus his true spirit was rooted there. He could always regrow himself should his physical form be destroyed (Mouth of Mordremoth) and to completely finish him we had to go inside the dream and destroy his true form. In conclusion his biggest weakness was his mind that was sheltered within the Dream.

The confusing thing is that, according to Laranthir in DS, he’s continually regrowing his body anyway even though he SHOULD be dead. He says that, even though we killed Mordremoth’s mind, his body is still present and acting consciously, in which case… what was the point of any point of Hearts and Minds? Did it accomplish ANYTHING?

Aomine.5012:

So what the dragon best at turns out to be the dragon’s weakness then?

So far both dragons go down in the same type of fashion: killed by their own strength.

Let’s start guessing what’s other 4 dragons best at then.
Maybe Ice will kill Jormag.
Fire would kill Promodius.
Water would kill Bauble.
Crystal will kill Krik.

Sounds logical.

Some people have theorized that it’s related to their secondary spheres. Shadow for Zhaitan via Gorr’s tech, mind for Mordremoth via all the Dream crap.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

AegisRunestone.8672:

zenleto.6179:

Some people may need to do the PS again (including myself before anyone starts).. Zhaitan had a weakness and that was how easily his energy supply could be cut off. He was weakened enough that brute force could do the trick.

I wonder why people keep ignoring this poster? Geez, people.

I don’t think they’re ignoring it. It’s just that what you’re describing there is… attrition.
And that’s something any living creature is susceptible to, not just Zhaitan.

The Elder Dragons are described in the wiki as “forces of nature and primordial forces from the view of Tyrians, the dragons seem no different and just as unstoppable as a blizzard or earthquake.”

Clearly, they’re not unstoppable so the question is: what does it take to stop a dragon? It needs to be something significant or you run the risk of turning a “force of nature” into just some big monster that you can kill like any other monster, only with more force.

That’s where, I think, they made a mistake with Zhaitan. They depicted him as just another big monster you beat by applying attrition until he’s weak, then hit him hard. In doing this, they down-graded his facebook status from “force of nature” to “it’s complicated.”

I also think that’s a mistake they’re trying to remedy with HOT and the whole “weakness” thing. They’re trying to make the dragons seem so powerful again that no amount of physical force can stop them – unless you find the Achilles heel.
(That’s exactly how DS is described: as a distraction so the player can attack M’s Achilles heel: his mind.)
They’re trying to make the dragons again seem like forces of nature. Not completely unstoppable, but requiring something above and beyond what you would use on any other beastie.
At least, that’s my take on it.

If you talk to Laranthir during the Mouth fight, he says that DS takes place after Hearts and Minds. It really doesn’t make any sense, but whatever.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

jeezlaweez.6810:

1) We just used the same weapon Mordremoth used against the Dream in the retconed Sylvari Personal Story. (we all know it was retconed. It was a Zaithan minion. The Pale Tree states that)

Wait. I’m not sure I understand you. Are you saying the Sylvari were originally described as Zhaitan’s minions? Can you point me to anything that shows that? I don’t disbelieve you. I just haven’t heard of it before and it’s interesting. I didn’t notice anything in the pre-hot gw2 personal story that indicated this, but maybe I missed it.

The Shadow of the Dragon in the sylvari starting instance was originally described as a manifestation of Zhaitan’s influence.

Er, you really think glass cannon, mass momentum, expert examination, and perfectly weighted are useless?

Argon.1563:

Quite frankly, I think the idea of these dragons having specific weaknesses is ridiculous. Theres more than one way to skin an apple.

Because of this little point that was dropped into HoT, I feel like every expansion is going to revolve around the same plot trope. “Finding the weakness”.

I would have much rathered the dragons have no weakness, and the only way to kill them is with brute force, like we did with Zhaitan. According to ArenaNet’s lore writers the dragons are described to think, and exist in a way which we could never understand, so why is a concept as simplistic as a “weakness” being applied to these creatures which are supposedly so alien?

Im hoping they retcon or forget about this “weakness” deal. Why are Tyrians trying to progress magic and engineering in order to fight future dragons, if all we have to do is hunt around for their weakness?

But brute force campaigns require the story to be large scale, like the PS after the Pact’s formation, which would require actual resources being put toward the story. Why do that when you can put almost zero resources toward the story and have everything revolve around half a dozen cardboard cutouts?

Labjax.2465:

Lolyta.4582:

I’m just wondering if the choice as to who to kill off during the Personal Stories is made based on who is the most endearing and personable character in the game?

To a point, yes… most definitely. Killing off the character that everybody loves is a common trope in storytelling to pull at peoples’ heartstrings. I’m guessing the only reason they haven’t done so with Taimi yet is because she’s a child and they don’t want their game to be known for killing children. The foreshadowing is in place though. It’s just a question of whether they’re willing to be that dark of a game.

They legally can’t kill Taimi without the game’s rating being jacked up and probably banned in some countries. She’s invincible unless she ends up an adult.

Agemnon.4608:

I just hope Zojja is okay

“Eir Stegalkin, the epitome of a strong woman more than holding her own in a man’s world,”

No, it’s an Asura world, gender doesn’t matter.

They’re almost never able to use Zojja because they can’t get Felicia Day to record, so I won’t be surprised at all if she’s killed off in the near future. I’m half expecting Caithe and Logan to die too just so they can make the entire story going forward the adventures of Diversity’s Edge.

Dawdler.8521:

rchu.8945:

tluv.5821:

No responses from anyone? This is great news!

What a coincidence when Devon Carver threads started yesterday.

I smell damage control, and I will believe it when t happens (which right now it seems like never).

I’m not buying what his selling, nor should you.

Damage control would be to actually release news about upcoming WvW changes.
Anet always do this about PvE/sPvP, why is WvW so secret?

So I cant buy that either.

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if we haven’t gotten specifics because they don’t actually have anything yet.

Coming soon to the gem store, spell enhancers to undo the visual changes. Only available bundled with a Mordremoth mini and Kormir outfit, because coherent themes are outdated.

Colin said they’re working on a WvW overhaul.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3u7bo1/no_hope_for_legendary_effect_on_engineer/cxcqyvo

I T E R A T I O N

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they get rid of WvW should they stop making money off of server transfers from it.

luzt.7692:

Won’t buy this crap, look at that outfit, disregarding its another “outfit” its also a mash-up of poorly matching pre-existing armor pieces with a little touch. Come on Anet!
And then putting it in a bundle, I thought finances were good after HoT.

Finances only matter if they’re being reinvested into the game and not pocketed. Also if the company is competent.

Vayne.8563:

You don’t just whip up a few dungeons. Creating a dungeon is a major undertaking. Anet is focusing on fractals, not dungeons for the future five man content. They said so. I wouldn’t expect new dungeons.

Too bad they’ve only made one original fractal since they were first added in November 2012.

Iason Evan.3806:

zorokai.1486:

@Iason Evan.3806 yup its only a bundle – they give you the following for 2000 gems
- Bandit sniper outfit
- Soul river glider
- Immortal weapon choice
- total makeover kit
- (5) shadow dye kit

i just dont get why its only in bundle form – i mean its clear they can release outfits and gliders on their own. This just feels a little greedy to only put the option of a bundle for 2000 gems (which is also 30% off..).

An option to buy parts would be soo nice to have. You cant even gift the bundle, which also kinda bums me out.

The frustrating part as a Ranger main is that this is exactly the type of armor that medium armor users have been asking for for ages. They totally ignore it and throw it in as an outfit that can’t be tooled around with.

The next QoL thing I want to see is them fixing their armor system so that it works better. That’s the only reason I can see that we aren’t getting new armor sets on at least a consistent basis.

If they aren’t going to include at least a fair amount of armor sets to earn in a boxed expansion, why should anyone buy the gem shop fodder that can’t be mixed and matched with pre-existing pieces? For $50 there should have been, at the very least half the amount of armor skins as in the base game included to earn. That’s not unreasonable when the asking price for the expansion was $10 less than the base game.

Heck, they should have put in 50 new dyes too and weapons and backpieces.

I’m willing to bet they made it(and strider and viper sets) a gem store item specifically because it’s the kind of thing medium armor users have been asking for more of for three years. “Here it is! That’ll be ten bucks. :^)”

The fireball change specifically doesn’t do anything to make things easier to read because the impact particle, which scales with target size, is untouched. All it does is make it harder for the ele to tell if they’re actually attacking without looking at their hotbar. Engineers had the exact same issue when they nerfed the orbital strike particles, to the extent that you couldn’t see if it was going off WHEN SOLOING.

leviathan.2148:

My bad, I was wrong. The rifle numbers still seem too low to me, but I’m convinced now that hammer is better damage wise. That excites me because it’s a great weapon

Which is why I’m afraid it’s going to get nerfed in the name of PvP balance.