Guild Wars 2

LOL I love the ole “well Anet says that doesn’t exist” excuse, what company in their right mind would admit that there are lucky and unlucky accounts? None! I believe something is borked, as I having the same experience as the OP, my new account see’s a massive difference in loot drops, so much better in fact I rarely play my old one anymore. I remember the first Xmas after launch, there was a patch that caused major RnG issues. Anet said at the time the usual “its your fault”, “theres nothing wrong with our loot system”,“not enough data” blah blah blah, meanwhile many of were only getting gray items for well over a month while others were flourishing in loot, few months later Anet admitted there was an issue and fixed it. I believe there is still something very borked with the coding, RnG is nt RnG.

Who would have thought such a basic common sense thing of being civil, polite and respectable of others could be such a hard thing? Has this community gotten so bad that they have to thrift through the US Constitution and ANets TOS to try and justify why its just fine and dandy to verbally abuse, wish harm and ill will, or berate others lifestyles? Its a just a video game, play , have fun, be nice!

No such thing as precursor drops, those can only be bought with gold and or credit cards.

Softspoken.2410:

Wetpaw.3487:

Suggestion Anet: Make some really nice looking WvW map completion exclusive armor/weapon skin vendors!

With the current legendaries being pushed a little further away from WvW and into the exclusively PvE territory, I agree that there should be some more high-tier rewards that are exclusive to WvW. I’m not sure how you would gate this (Not just through Badges of Honor, that’s for sure) but it doesn’t seem like there’s a gear/equipment way to show off supreme WvW skill and dedication.

Could use the mastery ranks to gate it, would be nice to get something other than a green trident , blue shoulders and 10s every time I open a rank up chest. 632 ranks now, all I ever see are green tridents, blue shoulders and 10s, and occasionally 10 BoH.

I am kinda torn on this, part of me is happy for the PvE crowd now that they do not have to play the content that makes them uncomfortable or they do not enjoy doing anymore for their Legendaries. The other part of me being primarily a WvW/Spvp player has me raging in jealousy that if I ever decided to go for a Legendary I am practically forced to abandon my preferred play modes and have to do all the content I do not enjoy doing. Feels a bit unfair, but whatever’s, I guess Gratz! on the big win PvE peeps!

When I saw that Anet comment I instantly thought of and can possibly see Stronghold turning out like this.

“Hey kids if you like Gw2 Spvp than your gonna love Stronghold!”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lheimroo.2947:

But god help you if you decide to achieve anything; then it’s grindy as hell.

If Anet doesn’t have a giant red alarm going off at hearing that thought process I don’t know what would cause the giant red alarm to go off.

. . . really? Anything?

Jumping puzzles? Completing your Personal Story? Doing dungeons . . . once, for the title? The boss achievements? Map completion? Wardrobe, for things lower than Rare? These things are grindy?

Fighting (and beating) a champion with nothing more than you and whatever you can bring in with you, because you want to prove you can? This is grindy?

Taking Stonemist Castle in a three way battle which makes the game bog down pretty harshly, going on fifteen minutes of back and forth . . . barely hanging in there and when you can picking up people on the edge of the battle? That experience is grindy?

Getting a few of your friends together to go knock down each of the Temples in Orr on a whim because you’re all bored and want to do something? That’s grindy?

Logging on one night and chilling out in Divinty’s Reach with some total strangers just roleplaying about all sorts of minor things? This is grindy?

. . . but, by comparison, the titles in this company’s previous entry into gaming? This isn’t?

I’m at a loss here.

I enjoy doing most of these things as well, a lot of this is fun challenging content and its a very rewarding on a personal level, but heres my issue and maybe this is a whole other topic but why is zerging down a risen chicken in Orr with 40+ players more rewarding than solo’ing a champion or finishing all the jumping puzzles or spending several hours fighting 2 other servers over Stonemist? Why are mindless task so much more rewarding than anything remotely challenging in this game? This is something that has baffled me since launch and ultimately led me to why I have the mindset I have and why I don’t bother trying anymore for the shiny stuff. From a personal achievement perspective my shelf would be full of tall miraculous trophies its just a bit bothersome that my characters have nothing to show for those accomplishments.

Devata.6589:

Deadcell.9052:

I personally do not find the game all that grindy, its the RNG tied to the grind that is the killer. You can essentially play this game forever and not progress what so ever, especially when it comes to legendary’s, if you have bad RNG like myself and many others the road to a legendary can feel like an endless hopeless grind as there’s nothing one can do to progress towards that goal besides farming gold in hopes the in game economy doesn’t price you out of the items you need. Ascended weapons and armors are a bit more forgiving but again requires another boring time gated gold grind if you have bad RNG. I personally find the bad RNG in this game to be the main cause of why this game can feel so grindy at times for its vanity items not so much the grind itself. Its only saving grace is its all voluntary not mandatory. I have all 8 classes with minimum of 3 builds for each, it would take me 100 lifetimes to get them all geared in legendary’s and ascended if I was lucky enough.

What this game desperately needs are items that are earned purely through skill based activities, this game sorely lacks that.

You start with saying you don’t find it that grindy to then come with the ‘complain’ that describes the grind many people are complaining about.

“there’s nothing one can do to progress towards that goal besides farming gold in hopes the in game economy doesn’t price you out of the items you need”
Well thats the grind so many people here complain about, not only for legendaries also for toys and cosmetics in general this is the case but yeah a legendary is the extreme version of that I guess.. That and the ascended stuff.

“What this game desperately needs are items that are earned purely through skill based activities, this game sorely lacks that.”
And that’s what many of those complaining about the grind are asking for.

What you describe is exactly the grind people are complaining so much about here.

I guess I was complaining and didn’t realize it LOL, the reason I felt this game is not that grindy is because I learned a long time ago that grinding in this game is a complete waste of time, I personally found I made no strides what so ever in what I wanted to achieve and no longer do it. All those vanity items like unique skins, ascended stuff, legendary’s etc I basically look at as unattainable and no longer waste my time trying for those things, I just log in, do what I enjoy, mostly WvW and PvP and log off, completely ignoring any and all things that would be considered grindy, I guess its been so long with that mindset I no longer look at Gw2 as a grindy game.

I personally do not find the game all that grindy, its the RNG tied to the grind that is the killer. You can essentially play this game forever and not progress what so ever, especially when it comes to legendary’s, if you have bad RNG like myself and many others the road to a legendary can feel like an endless hopeless grind as there’s nothing one can do to progress towards that goal besides farming gold in hopes the in game economy doesn’t price you out of the items you need. Ascended weapons and armors are a bit more forgiving but again requires another boring time gated gold grind if you have bad RNG. I personally find the bad RNG in this game to be the main cause of why this game can feel so grindy at times for its vanity items not so much the grind itself. Its only saving grace is its all voluntary not mandatory. I have all 8 classes with minimum of 3 builds for each, it would take me 100 lifetimes to get them all geared in legendary’s and ascended if I was lucky enough.

What this game desperately needs are items that are earned purely through skill based activities, this game sorely lacks that.

teotl.7418:

Guild Wars was my first real MMO, so of course I had to buy Guild Wars 2.. I’d only been waiting 5+ years. My issue is, I’m scared to play it. I’m scared to get into it. I don’t want to love a game (and I could really LOVE this game!) so NCSoft can just trash it like they CoH. I still love ANet but I do NOT trust NCSoft.

However, I noted that Guild Wars is still running.. no content updates (as far as I know) but it’s not been shut down. Did ANet make sure that won’t happen?

My friends and I were all CoH players.. we won’t touch anything having to do with NCSoft except the Guild Wars games.. can someone.. re-assure me? =/

Your safe for a very very long time, Wildstar is next on NCsoft’s chopping block and even that game will be years before it closes down due to them having to try and milk any profit they can out of it to cover their losses. You will get your moneys worth and then some out of Gw2, best value for the dollar. And by this time next year you will you will be complaining like everyone else of why Anet did this?, why Anet won’t do that?, where’s Anet? etc etc etc lol.

Some cool stuff with this xpac so far but how in the world is Anet going to be able to meet the balancing demands with the current classes and builds, what ever their hero version class would be (ranger able to become druid for ex.) and the new class. It takes them 6+ months for balance updates now for 8 classes, with soon to be 17 classes will balance and class updates only be a once a year thing?

With that really being my only concern really looking forward to the new game mode, I am a big fan of Mobas so this is looking like a fun option.

lordkrall.7241:

darkace.8925:

26 months after release, World of Warcraft had received:
– 2 new playable races
– a new battleground
– new PvP modes
– flying mounts
– an increased level cap
– 45+ new skills
– 11 new zones
– 8 new dungeons
-1 new crafting profession
– a new campaign

In the 29 months since release, Guild Wars 2 has received:
– 3 new PvE maps (whose combined area is about that of a standard map)
– 1 new WvW map
– 1 new PvP map
– 9 new skills
– 1.33 new dungeons (that’s counting Fractals)
– two new mini-campaigns (one of which is no longer available)

So, what was it you were you saying about long-term memory?

I count 4 new PvP maps. Courtyard, Temple of the Silent Storm, Spirit Watch and Skyhammer.
One which includes a new PvP mode.

If you are going to compare, at least compare truthfully.
You also seems to include stuff for the WoW count while ignoring stuff for the GW2 count.

He was almost right with 3 if you consider how Anet deleted the Capricorn map lol.

Based on Gw2’s history up to this point I will be very shocked if it is an expansion, I just don’t see it. The only things I see being announced is a heavier focus on living story, a few systems being revamped and cleaned up, a few feature packs, some class adjustments with a few new abilities here and there, maybe a zone or 2, minor stuff for WvW and Spvp. I see Anet making a console (Ps4, Xbox 1) version of Gw2 long before an expansion pack. LOL hopefully I am wrong as I would love to see a legit expansion pack but Anet and Ncsoft have trained me very diligently to keep expectations down.

blur.7905:

Deadcell.9052
Anet will use this as its excuse to implement the Red vs Blue vs Green system it had mentioned to “combat” match manipulation.

Where did you get this new Red vs Blue vs Green system from?

Was mentioned in the last CDI and was really the only topic in that discussion that the Dev brought up and replied to several times, which means IMO it was on their radar and even though the majority of the post following said they didnt like it, based in Anets history it will most likely be implemented lol.

Distaste.4801:

Ross Biddle.2367:

SqueamishMoose.9216:

It’s clearly shown that Blackgate can win against either team when they are separated and when they aren’t allied against us. I personally don’t care if we get double-teamed in the off-season, because it doesn’t matter. However, it seems rather unfair to me that Blackgate is getting double-teamed during a tournament, where the score amounts to a reward. It’s pretty much impossible for us to win if it isn’t going to be a fair fight.

Can you define a “fair” fight for me? I’d <b>love</b> to see what BG comes up with within the context of it’s victories.

Just to start, I’m on IoJ server.

I’d love to know what context you’re even talking about because BG has beaten both TC and JQ when they aren’t together without colluding with another server to do so. They even beat them both in round 1. Even if you want to bring up the 2v1 in S1, that was purely due to ArenaNets terrible matchups, the basics of that agreement were JQ can’t win W1 or they’ve already won the season. It had nothing to do with hating JQ, it was purely so the other two servers at least had the chance at winning.

This 2v1 isn’t because either server is at a huge disadvantage and they need to band together to compete. All 3 servers are a relatively fair matchup as far as WvW matchups go. This is done purely out of laziness, cowardice, greed, and trolling. JQ and TC were too lazy to put in extra effort to win so they decided to take the easy route and go for a 2v1 to get the rewards with the added trolling bonus of keeping BG from doing anything since the matchups were fair to begin with. It’s pathetic really that both JQ and TC that were respected servers had to resort to such tactics. I really don’t know what JQ and TC are trying to accomplish here because it just makes them look bad.

I am from BG and absolutely love the 2v1, it makes things a lot more interesting, season 1 was a bore and I really had no plans for coming back for season 2 until a few remaining guildies told me to check out whats going on in WvW, I could care less about PPT so I have been hooked because the fights have been a blast, its a lot more fun when the odds are stacked against you.

But back to topic, unfortunately what JQ and TC are doing IMO is not making them look bad its going to change the game, Anet will use this as its excuse to implement the Red vs Blue vs Green system it had mentioned to “combat” match manipulation. So with that I am going to have my fun while it last, this may very well be the last season of server rivalries.

somsom.5201:

Dahkeus.8243:

Dr Ritter.1327:

I really don’t care if somebody sucks because they can get better, but why the hell would you play your first few matches in tourney pvp and not hot join….

Why not? There’s no sign on the outside of these game types that says that this isn’t for new players. In fact, there’s an MMR that’s supposed to pair players with similarly skilled players, so new players are more likely to get paired with players that are also new.

That’s actually NOT how it works for new players and MMR. The current MMR system artificially inflates them to somewhere in the ~300 ranked area.

So for someone legit ranked in the 2-300 range, it kittening sucks being paired with legit new players who are merely added into that range due to a lack of games played. Have fun 3/4v5ing the majority of your games like that, because that’s what I’ve been faced with since the patch.

The simplest answer is to block new players from entering solo/team queue until they’ve played 50-100 games of hotjoin. That’s not too much to ask and it would weed out those who don’t give a kitten about PvP/learning the game in-general.

So before you say, “relax bro, just teach”, have fun playing with the player I was teamed with earlier today who said this little gem,

“How do I go back to PvE?”…mid-match. Of course they tried leaving, and were reconnected, upon which they were confused and kept asking how to leave the game. ANet: put a BOLD notice saying what Game Browser vs Arena means.

I think Anet just needs to change the starting point, no reason to add requirements. But its simple logic, and every sport does this, you start from the bottom and work your way up. I think WoW did this well with Arena ratings, you start from 0 and work your way up to as high as your skill can take you, placing anyone in the top 300 is just absurd and unfair to everyone veteran or new. Its like saying I want to play baseball and they start me me in the MLB even though I only have a little league skill set.

I personally do not understand why the toxicity has been so bad as of late in the Spvp community, I must have blocked and reported at least 50+ players since patch for verbal abuse and harassment, it feels like almost every match I see someone just bashing and cussing out other players, not sure if they are veteran players or not but IMO doesn’t matter. If they are veterans/experienced players I don’t get why they waste their time in solo q and hot join, you have Team Q to be as competitive as you want with the players you want without the worry of newbie/less experienced players to hold you back.

As far as newer/less experienced players who are willing to learn they are kinda in a bad spot now, I see many asking for help or asking what they did wrong just to get raged and cuss’d at, I wish I was able to offer advice and tips to these players but I am not in a skilled enough position to feel comfortable doing so, theres many times a situation will occur where I find myself not knowing which way to respond, 90% of the time I would ask for advice just to get raged/cuss’d at lol.

Attitudes need to change or Spvp will find itself back where it was a week ago with no one playing.

Aidenwolf.5964:

JustTrogdor.7892:

Lord Kuru.3685:

There is indeed hope:

Before: zero competition —> zero effort on improving GW2
Now: competition on the horizon --> all sorts of features and fixes

for GW2’s sake, I hope the competition does well.

You do understand that all these ‘features and fixes’ were probably months and months in the making don’t you? Or do you think that Anet is blind and suddenly realized ,“Hey TESO/ other MMO is here let’s work 24/7 to catch up!” If you think the later, well, I guess you don’t understand how long it takes to make updates like we are seeing now. If you think Anet wasn’t aware of other MMOs on the horizon and what they had planned over a year ago then I don’t know what to tell you.

You do realize that TESO and Wildstar have been on the radar for longer than that right? They knew they were coming and it’s no coincidence that the feature pack is dropping at the same time as those games release.

This is one of the things that made WoW famous, if you look back at every xpac and major patch WoW released it always coincided with either a major game release or a big patch to who ever their closest competitor was at the time. Competition is good! Hopefully Anets focus will be feature patches for the foreseeable future, living story was interesting at times but in my opinion a huge waste of resources, if you look at the game before and after LS there has been little to show for the dev teams efforts. Never to late to fix something, heres hoping all this new competition makes GW2 more awesome!

Dante.8456:

Well the good news is that I suspect the precursor problem will be fixed soon. It was stated that it was originally intended to be part of the April 15 feature pack but was delayed because of an overhaul to the rewards system. So I don’t think its unreasonable to assume that it will be implemented in the near-ish future.

Only system I remember them saying for precursors was a scavenger hunt system which they just recently scrapped. Legendary system in a desperate need of a revamp, hopefully one day a features patch will come along with a new fresh way for earning them along with a hefty new batch of Legeendarys. One can only hope but this is most likely years away.

Tiger Ashante.1792:

I haven’t tried WS so can’t comment, but as some have also tossed ESO into the frey, i can comment on that since i did participate in the last 2 ESO betas.

I used to play a lot TES games, like Morrowind and Oblivion and more for nostalgic reasons than anything else, i was so looking forward to ESO, but was very undecided after they announced their payment model….it seems terribly expensive, full box price + sub + cash shop! omg really! And i didn’t like that a whole race…well at least the look of one…was locked behind a paywall even b4 the game released!

I was excited when i got beta invite so i can finally make a decision one way or the other and i have. Not getting it, not for now anyway.

As much as the world was nice and some really nice quest plots, the game was sooo bugged it was awful. almost every quest was bugged where i couldn’t progress and this worried me greatly being only 2 weeks b4 release (although some pple were saying that we were playing an old build but i’m not sure if that was true or not and if it was, how strange to do that for their last beta)?

Leveling was snail pace. I played a lot during the 2 weekends it took me both
to reach lvl 10! Now i don’t mind slower lvling but that was way too slow for my liking. The UI was awkward, the combat was awkward, the animations ugh. But i will say this, if it was b2p, i wouldn’t think twice buying it, just coz of the great story, interesting plot quests and ofc being able to explore a whole new world.

Anyway, it was a relief to be back in gw2, it was like coming home…..but…. i’m sad. i really need some new zones in gw2. I’m mostly a pve person and love exploring and i’m bored. these days, i just log in for my dailies and log out /sad face. and now with the daily AP limit which i’ll reach with 200 AP more, i’ll have no reason to log into gw2, unless they open up Tyria and i may well move onto other pastures, regardless whether they’re greener or not.

Edit: typing error

Give TESO about 6 months and it will be F2P, they are in cash grab mode and will be milking the subs as long as possible, soon as subs drop below a certain level they will be F2P, I cannot find the article but that is there business plan.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Taka.1264:

Hi all,

juste finished ACp1 and i’m here to express my frustation… Well, the thing is, I did p1 with pugs … fine.

We arrive in the scepter part, I solo this part, so all the 4 others people stand here and do … nothing… Fine again BUT , one man, a war, drop dusk from the chest (me, I got 3 blue like always ….) !!

At this moment I’m like WTF man, what’s your mf ? He said “120%” … And he had like 3300 ap …

I know rng is rng but I can’t accept the fact that a player who just stand here and do nothing when I’m doing the stuff got dusk …

It’s so frustrating since I’m, for about 2 weeks now, saving to buy dusk (since I know I don’t have a lucky account) and POUF, in front of me a random guy drop it … Currently, I’m not feeling rewarded for playing this game …

ps: sorry guys for my bad english, it’s not my first language…

There is ZERO REWARD for playing this game, welcome to GW2 where the only ones getting anything are the makers.

Kinda have to agree here, very punishing RNG system and not worth putting effort towards things like Legendary’s. I just log on, play for an hour or so, get my daily done and save my gold, I just do what ever I’m in the mood to do without any expectations. There are good accounts and bad accounts, those of us with bad accounts sooner or later have to make the decision to either just grind it out 1 copper at a time to progress, quit the game, or just say screw and take it for what it is and just play knowing you will never really get anywhere.

I have to disagree with many posters in this thread, I personally found, from my Beta play time since November, Wildstar to be a very fun and solid game. It has a lot going for it, dungeons are very challenging and rewarding if played right, battlegrounds and arenas are fairly balanced, competitive and rewarding, the player housing is exceptional and there is an abundance of questing, open world events and enough exploration opportunities to keep one busy for a long time, and the crafting system is fairly well thought out and interesting. The things I like most so far is its not rng based like GW2, you actually earn better items by defeating challenging content, there is no mindless champ/karma trains and waiting for that lucky lottery drop to progress your character. The only negatives I found so far is the gear grind, it is vertical progression based, lots of UI clutter in pvp, not as bad as here in GW2 but bad, and for some the cartoonish graphics (which doesn’t bother me a bit, I find it adds a fun factor). I don’t dislike GW2 by any means it has its place, but Wildstar is no slouch and will do just fine.

Logged on today after about a 2 month hiatus, was greeted to a wonderful 3 games in a row of 4v5’s logged off and won’t be back till the features build as long as it is before June 3rd (Wildstar release), going to spend time their no matter what as it is a game I am very interested in after the multiple betas I have played. This features build would have to be very good, and I mean very very good in order for me to spend any significant amount of time with again. I am really hoping that this features build is a new start and sets Gw2 back in a positive direction but after a year of many disappointments and questionable decisions I am not feeling to optimistic. As far as buying gems for me personally those days are over, I spent enough and really feel I have got nothing in return for my money. I will always return for short periods of time to check things out as long as they keep the servers on, but there would have to be many changes in order to get me to be a everyday gem buying player that I once was.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Forzani.2584:

Apparently you didn’t read what I posted.

That’s why this topic should probably stop for a bit until we see a red post outlining what they see here and where they’d like to take this.

^ This, these CDI’s can be productive it just needs guidance, look at all the CDI’s that Chris Whiteside runs, they are awesome, he is constantly involved and helps guide the conversation and seems to take a lot of pride with the topic at hand. But it could be worse, WvW CDI is now what 6 or 7 days since last post? Spvp was so dead in responses its now buried pages deep in forum topics. I think they need to only do 1 CDI topic at a time, I appreciate the ambition of trying to tackle multiple topics but the rest of the staff seems to be spread to thin to have a productive conversation with.

I am ok with vertical progression as long as there is a reason for it and it is earned through meaningful, interesting, and skillful ways. Gw2 there is no reason for Ascended, none of the content warrants a higher statistical tier, even in Fractals they could of easily accomplished the necessary agony resist through sigils and runes. The game was not designed for V.I, and Ascended was implemented in the most boring non skillful way possible, they just added a heavy grind for the sake of grinding. Bottom line is if you want a game that offers V.I just about every other MMO on the market does it much better, Gw2 was supposed to break away from the traditional MMO design, its sad that the majority of MMO’ers these day only know the WoW model and are unable to adapt to something different, and unfortunately forced an unnecessary change to Gw2’s design.

I feel Gw2 would have been just fine if they just stuck to what they originally advertised and stayed the course, but we will never know now, they had to choose between a player base who accepted for what Gw2 was and a base that could not, they chose the ones who could not. Only time will tell if it was the right decision.

DevonCarver.5370:

The removal is to address the manner in which it is communicated in game. There will be a requirement to reach a rank in WvW prior to purchasing the Gift when we are able to provide adequate messaging to let players know why they can’t purchase it and what they need to do in order to be able to purchase it.

Sounds like a simple tooltip issue, don’t know what needs to be “re-evaluated” or why even removed. I personally believe you guys just caved to the pressure from the PvE crowd because they felt it was “unfair” they had to step outside their style of gameplay for a whole week or 2 and actually work for their Gift of Battle, which lets been honest has been a free handout for almost a year now.

Think its time to remove and re-evaluate the PvE portion of earning a Legendary to make it fair for the everyday WvW player.

LOL I don’t get the point of this thread, you can still “earn” your gift of battle without ever setting foot in WvW, all you need is laurels and badges which you can “earn” just doing achievements while PvE’ing, only problem (which is really not a problem) is its a bit more on the time gated side if you lack laurels, so sadly you can’t have it right now, but chin up! 40 days and 2 monthlys should be more than enough time to get you your 60 laurels and enough AP to get everything you need, and you never have to step foot in WvW!

There is no grind for Rank 30, especially if your primarily a PvE player, all you need is 1500 badges which you should have a huge surplus of from achievement chest and 30 laurels, and boom your done in as fast as you can click the Wxp things open.

Good to see some Necros still willing to try things out and theory craft a bit, not many Necros left doing this sort of thing. Not your best vid Rennoko but still enjoyable and appreciate your efforts to attempt something new.

I am personally looking forward to Jinx’s video whenever he post one, based on his “constructive” feedback it very well could be the greatest Necro WvW video of all time!
No spam, No stats, perfect positioning, rotation’s, and utility usage you know ALL those things he says Rennoko is doing wrong, it will be a feast for the eyes!

kittenball.1086:

Hate to be the guy to suggest making the game more like World of Warcraft, but do any of you remember the epic weapon quest chains in Vanilla WoW? As a hunter, I was after Rhok’delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. The quest had me traveling across Azeroth, dueling powerful demons before I was able to obtain it; a true test of skill and knowledge of your class.

I haven’t played WoW for over 5 years, but this was a memorable experience that stuck with me long after I stopped playing…something you just don’t get with crafting.

So basically, +1 to the idea for an epic quest chain to acquire precursors. Would be so much better than throwing insane amounts of materials at a forge.

I was a Hunter in vanilla WoW and that quest chain was by far one of the most fun experiences in any game ever! I actually made a second Hunter just to do it again. Something like that was what I was expecting from Anet at launch, sadly what we got was a Legendary system based on gold farming and luck, laziest design I have ever seen in gaming for an endgame weapon.

On a side note I love how players who have “earned” their precursors demand “earning” a precursor to be the hardest thing ever for everyone else so they can feel special, meanwhile majority of them were just blessed by good RnG that day and probably “earned” it by zerging a risen chicken.

How much of an increase? Right now feels like a .00000000000000000000000000000000001% chance a getting a drop, I hope the increase is not as lame as a .00000000000000000000000000000000002% chance. RnG has been brutal to me

300g into Mystic Toilet, 2800hrs of gameplay, 0 precursors. Heck even T6 mats drop like exotics for me, almost never!

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

another thread of pvper wanting to get some pve stuff without working on it or play the content it was intended

The day it was able to be used in WvW it was no longer “PvE stuff”, so it is now “content it was intended for”. I only see 3 fair options here:

1- Remove Ascended from WvW.
2-Give WvW and Spvp its own unique pathway to Ascended Armors and Weapons.
3- Require everyone to earn specific ranks in WvW and Spvp to unlock Ascended pieces to finish their armors and weapons. Its only fair, a PvE’r never has to step out of their preferred playstyle to earn Ascended like a PvP/WvW’r has too.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Well considering that Necromancers were STRONGER before Dhuumfire was introduced that says something. While it is good, the counter that it has had having so much nerfed and then itself being nerfed several times has FORCED people to use it.

I agree with this, I run more “old school” condition builds, 0/30/20/0/20, 0/30/10/0/30, etc, very rarely do I use the dhuumfire trait, even though though the damage output is significant, I prefer a bit more survivability and steady bleed pressure. The problem is since Dhuumfire was added builds that do not use Dhuumfire have been nerfed significantly, less bleed pressure, lower survivability and more hard counters. So yeah like many have said as a condimancer you are almost forced to use it to be effective.

IMO they should just revert the Necro back to the day before Dhumbfire was added. Since Dhuumfire was added build diversity has been drastically reduced and so many things have been unnecessarily nerfed, traits, abilities, etc all things that would have never needed changing. It has done more harm to the class then good and I think it’s time the powers that be swallow their pride, admit fault to the bad design and get rid of it.

I very rarely use Dumbfire in my condition builds but I really like the change, my concern is that being it can only proc in DS with a 10 sec CD using LB which is easily dodgable IMO it is not worth the 30 pts to get it.

I still think the easiest and quickest way to balance the Necro is to revert it back to the day before Dhumbfire was added. I personally felt I had so many more build options, but I guess that is a whole other discussion.

PvE is in desperate need of reworking, Beserker is a fun playstyle the first few times running through something but after a while it gets so painfully boring just stacking in corners blowing stuff up, its probably the main reason why 90% of the bosses in this game have a zillion hp. I haven’t ran a dungeon in months for this reason, its just boring.

Kevan.8912:

WRay.2391:

spiritus.7983:

Kevan.8912:

vertical progression binds me to a sense of inferiority, grind like a necessary work to be done for a mandatory aim.

tell this to “dedicated players”

I believe you meant “dedicated grinders” here ? If it’s a gameplay then I will definitely leave this game. For now I’m just hanging here waiting for results of CDI thread.

so am I.
the only reason to write here is waiting for any concrete news about the future of the game. (and the other is that there isnt an mmo i like atm, just wait for Q1\2 2014)
although, I wonder if there’ll be any and if these news will be somewhat trustworthy.

Many of us are waiting for the news to see what direction this is all going for the upcoming year. IMO there is nothing good coming to the MMO this year, everything seems to be just more gear grinding themeparks. Hopefully this year Anet focuses on all horizontal progression and get things back on track to the original goals they set forth pre- launch.

Kevan.8912:

anet had to do a choice. i think they indeed chose the second population…but are still trying to keep a foot in both camps. (or call it a compromise)
but IMHO it won’t last long.

It’s not going to last long, players who are into the whole vertical progression thing will get their gear and will be screamming and QQ’ing again because there is “nothing to do”.

Anet underestimated the player base at launch, they needed 1000’s of more skins and a better thought out horizontal progression system in order to keep to their original promises and ideals to cater to the original player base they were shooting for. They received too many players who only know the WoW playstyle and were expecting a free to play WoW, thus they had to make the comprise to cater to this player base so they added a bandaid fix with Ascended to buy themselves time. I believe alot of the rage could of been avoided if Ascended was available to earn through multiple styles of play instead of the linear timegated grindfest that has been presented to us.

I personally have only seen nothing but negative effects to this decision, once being a part of 2 major guilds with at point had 100’s of active players is now a great wall of greyed out names, and my main guild is down to only 10 active players on a good night. I am still somewhat enjoying the game, ignoring the Ascended thing has helped greatly but a big part of me is still very annoyed with the decision.

Dungeons are in desperate need of changes, for far too long players have been just gearing full zerker, stacking in corners and auto attacking their way to victory, it has become so painfully boring for me that I have not run a single dungeon in months. Hopefully if there is a nerf to the zerker playstyle its with the dungeon mechanics only. As far as Ascended gear goes, yeah this is one of the biggest issues many players have right now, if or when ones builds/gear setup gets nerfed to uselessness they are presented with a nice 6 month gear grind to become viable again.

I personally love Rangers, I wanted so bad for one to be my main but sadly could never find a build or play style I could get into and get comfortable with.

I enjoyed season 1 and would like there to be a season 2 BUT I think Anet needs to focus on the population balancing first, spreading out the crowd is a must for any type of competitiveness.

I chose to ignore all the Ascended weapon and armor stuff, if it drops for me great otherwise its way too boring and grindy of a path to earn BiS gear, there are better uses for my time and gold than sitting there hitting a “craft it now button” or trying to gather 17000 silk scraps. I have yet to feel at any disadvantage playing, I don’t play fractals, very very rarely do dungeons, usually just WvW and a couple world events and thats it.

I personally do not believe Ascended to be the last tier, I have a feeling there will be many more and until Anet proves otherwise I am not wasting time and resources chasing a carrot.

I personally enjoy and prefer WvW for my Gw2 pvp needs don’t need the badges, but when I get that itch to pvp in a more competitive setting I usually play Smite or Dota 2. I do dabble in Spvp once in a while to experiment with builds for all my classes but get bored quickly with there only being 1 game mode and it being very gimmicky and spammy.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Septemptus.7164:

4. THINGS THAT MONEY CAN’T BUY – legendaries and all that
Everyone will tell there are things that money can’t buy but relaying on RNG is the worst possible way.
I pointed it already so I will write it shortly.
We need stuff that aside from new skins added to the game will be only obtainable by doing certain things.
First of those would be new legendaries. Those needs to require a lot of effort but the effort you have to do by your own. You need to get rid of T6 mats, lodestones and all those items or make certain (maybe time gated) ways to get them with 100% accuracy.
So we could know that doing something for example 150 days will get us legendary item but it won’t be random. It will be something certain. You can add some RNG to it that could reduce basically the time, but you have to get certain results.
I think that you should get it tied with dungeons, challenges, titles, maybe achievements, karma and all those bound currencies and items.
The idea is that when you have a legendary item, you earned it time wise and challenge wise and it shows that you are at least decent if not awesome.
(not like current legendaries that can be bought or you can both mats for them because getting them by yourself is a RNG pain).
This can also be used for other items/skills etc.

Technically you have to do a lot of content already to earn your Legendary. The Gift of Battle makes you play WvW, the Gift of Exploration makes you do World Completion,…

BUT all this was mutilated by the decision to make the Legendaries tradeable.

You don’t need to actually play WvW anymore to get the Legendary stuff done, you just need map completion. The achievement chest give out badges by the hundreds.

Over the last year the majority of the horizontal progression in Gw2 has been locked behind RnG based Black Lion Chest. I understand that Anet needs to make money and all but I just feel it was such as wasted opportunity for interesting horizontal progression that would allow players to earn many of these epic looking skins in a more fun, meaningful , and challenging way besides swiping a credit card. I know you cannot give much info but is this something that could change in the future? Me personally I get a better sense of accomplishment knowing I fought and dedicated myself to the challenge to earn something than getting a lucky lotto ticket.

When I first played Gw2 on that last beta weekend prior to launch I was on the fence about buying and getting into yet another standard MMO, so I did some research and once I saw the Dev comment “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions…” I was sold, I was so tired of stat progression type games that I have been playing for 10+yrs. So I started playing and I was hooked instantly, I loved being able to try new builds and earn gear sets quickly on all my characters without the worry of being behind statistically, sure many of my sets were ugly looking at first but it would just lead me to the gem store to buy transmutation stones and skins.

Once Ascended gear was announced I felt like I was kicked in the ding dong and was immediately saddened knowing that if i were to attempt to earn this gear I would be unable to play around with gear sets at a max statistical level, I would now be forced into one character using only one build forever until I was able and willing to put forth the heavy time gated grind to earn another set. Now this grind would be worth it IMO if it was ONLY for the convenience of being able to change your stat setup at anytime and anywhere not for a stat increase. Many players say its only a small stat increase and not needed to play the game, exactly the point the stats are not and were not needed in the game.

I personally feel all progression should be horizontal, ones boost in power should be based on their skill and experience not by the +5 power on their axe.

I have had a mixed experience, didn’t really get into the whole spvp thing till a month or 2 ago but have seen both extremes. I have met hands down the nicest and most helpful players in the game in spvp, players who are willing to give advice at anytime and are fun to play matches with, on the flip I have also met the most horrible players (personality wise) ever, just very angry people who always yell, cuss at everyone, call everyone bad, send you angry tells and block you, its quite comical at times, players like these I immediately report and put on ignore. And whenever I get singled out by another player in their fit of frustration/rage I just send them a tell asking what I did/doing wrong and I either get a babbling raging idiot and therefore I block immediately or to my surprise I get an apology and some free advice and feedback to improve my play, this usually happens with the higher level players who are just frustrated with playing with us noobs. So I just find with this particular pvp community cooler heads prevail, just do your thing, and do your best to improve match to match, I am a long way from being a good spvp player but I do my best to learn and improve.

All I wanted was a Gold Title Belt to wear in WvW, a very disappointing day indeed!

So I am confused here with some of these post, why was earning exotics easily so bad? There is no content in the game that warrants a higher stat tier, some say Fractals but higher stats are not needed their either, something as simple as a rune sets/ sigils or jewels into your accessories with agony resist would have served just fine. Earning the best statistical gear should be easy, it offers variety and options to the player base, especially with an MMO where one balancing patch could destroy your build, I like knowing I can earn another stat set quickly so I can be competitive again.

Like this statement here: “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions…"

This is why most of us bought Gw2, Ascended goes against this philosophy in every way and until Anet offers the player base a variety of interesting fun ways to earn the best statistical gear in game Ascended will always be a big dark black cloud of negativity over Anets head.