Showing Posts For DirtyRich.4903:
If risen made it all the way up to LA, I am sure they must have pass through southsun cove.
The karka scared them away.
Well I hope they were summarily smacked upside the head.
Or maybe they can experience diminishing rewards with their paycheck…
The biggest flaw is that it encourages giant server zerging. (not your normal zerg, but when an entire BL just masses up in one giant blob running from keep to keep pressing 1)
I feel like this is also the root cause for many of the other “flaws” and should be addressed first.
Agreed. So, the question reverts to why the zergs form. This is a social game designed around players cooperating, which pushes players to group. Zergs provide herd protection, and as others have noted, provide better loot because players can tag multiple enemies. It is also difficult for players to capture the keeps without a zerg, and the hourly fluctuations of server player numbers places a large emphasis on rushing to capture keeps when a server’s uptime begins since they are almost always lost during server downtime.
Keeps need to be strengthened against zerg rushes with siege to allow outmanned defenders a real chance to hold a fort during server downtime. Whenever I’ve played WvW, keeps are usually captured in less than 10 minutes… camps and towers in less than 5. I have honestly never seen an evenly-matched keep siege. Damage and protection buffs for defenders on the wall, Vet NPC squads that can be sent out to defend the keep, increased supply cost for siege weapons, etc. Keeps should have more defenses – perhaps place towers within keeps to provide multiple tiers of defense. Maybe flame-shooting traps could be placed in choke points inside the keep to break up a zerg if it enters.
Attackers need to have a good reason to capture and, more importantly, defend supply camps and towers. Perhaps players can receive buffs based upon how many their server holds, or the defensive keep buffs can be tied to the number of camps the defender holds. Imagine if a server-wide zerg is sieging a keep – the defenders could instead go guerilla to recapture camps and towers to weaken the siege to the point of being pointless. Players from both sides will be encouraged to spread out to defend/capture camps and towers to keep the advantage for their side.
The removal of the AOE limit would reduce the herd protection that zergs provide, but this may be unavoidable due to technical constraints.
Server population cycling can.really only be solved by massive, useful outmanned buffs or spawning NPCs to take the place of absent players. NPC squads could spawn at camps, towers, and keeps based upon how outmanned the server is. They would defend the location, and commanders could recruit them to follow them into battle elsewhere. If they die and the server is still outmanned, they would respawn just like players.
Essentially, each campaign to capture a keep should feel like a PvE meta-event with multiple steps. And just like them, capturing a keep should provide similar rewards – chests. Better loot would pull more endgame players from farming dragons in PvE.
Players really have two motivations – surviving and loot. Right now its safer and more profitable to hide in a zerg. Until ANet finds a way to change that, the zergs will continue to rule WvW.
(edited by DirtyRich.4903)
There is no reason at all for a server to defend anything…WvW is pretty much exclusively about active player uptime. Each server takes their turns trading camps, towers, and keeps, because with significant difference in player numbers at any given time, one side will always be able to zerg the whole map in little time.
Besides technical gameplay issues (lag and queuing), the mechanics need to change to encourage players to spread out. How about a server buff based upon the number of owned camps? Defending players on the walls in keeps and towers should get buffs for projectile attacks. Make the keeps inherently tougher, but give the attackers the ability to overcome the defensive advantage with buffs from capturing (and keeping) supply campus and towers. Set a character limit for each tier (this could simply be the number of players on the server with the most active players in WvW), and during server downtime replace absent players with veteran NPCs that can follow commanders.
Responding “One time, at band camp, there was this Guardian and he completely pwned me!” does not address the points I made.
Every class has a viable source of “decent” ranged damage except guardians. The only real long range weapon that a guardian has is useless in pvp and wvw.
Every class can do “decent” condition damage in pvp and wvw, except guardians because their sole damaging condition is easily wiped. They even lack many of the non-damaging conditions.
I just want the same opportunity to explore multiple play styles as other classes do.
Guanglai -
How is guardian the best ranged DPS in PvE? As for melee, being tied for third puts it in the middle of a pack of eight, not exactly a stellar accomplishment.
As for WvW, you’ve reduced Guardian’s effectiveness to that of a stone wall. Moreover, you’re blatantly exaggerating about the two guardians and a zerg.
My point wasn’t that the Guardian can’t do anything…instead, that our has nothing like the variety of viable options like every other class.
When this game started it was marketed as breaking the MMO standards, allowing players to customize each class to play any style… no more DPS, tank, healing triad.
For the most part, it’s been this way. No class excels above the others as a tank, and multiple classes are routinely complained about for their high DPS. Sure, each class has its quirks and specialties, but players really could experiment with different playstyles with the same class.
Except the Guardian.
Guardians can’t do conditions. Look at each of the conditions in the wiki, and you’ll see 20+ skills that trigger each… with not a single guardian icon on the page for most of them. No bleeding, no confusion, no poison… the only damaging condition we have is burning, which stacks by duration and not intensity. Poison is by duration too, but no class is locked into is as its sole source condition damage. Guardians have immobilization, blind, and vulnerability… but so does every other class. Six classes have easy access to chilled (a 50% on crit with a 45 sec cooldown on the slowest Guardian weapon, if traited, doesn’t count as easy), all other seven can cripple, four can do fear.
Guardians can’t to ranged damage. Guardians have a total of 9 non-elite skills that do damage in the 900+ range. Of those, two have cooldown penalties associated with them (torch 4 and staff 2), and two are utilities (Bane Signet and Judge’s Intervention) that have long cooldowns that eliminate them as routine damage dealers, even with the 20% cooldown reduction traits. Scepter 1 could be dodged by a slug with a breeze at its back. Some argue that this is a trade off for heavy armor… but Warriors (also supposedly “frontline” soldiers according to the Wiki) have 4 attacks at 1200 range with the rifle and 5 at 900 range with the longbow. A Warrior could spec solely as a long-range damage dealer…while wearing heavy armor. It’s funny in WvW watching Guardians standing off twiddling their thumbs as the rest of a zerg assaults a keep.
Seriously, what other class is completely locked out of whole playstyles like the Guardian is?
This leaves Guardians with blocking, boons, and healing. Blocking and boons were nerfed in the recent update, leaving healing. Maybe I’ll get a name change contract and change my Guardian’s name to Mhenlo if its available.
Hi all,
Since launch I’ve tried all the classes but have only leveled guardian to 80 because I just don’t like the feel of the other classes. I play mostly solo PvE with a little WvW.
Anyways, I’m in the mood to try a new build, and was thinking of something centered around blinds (2h,1h sword, focus, VoJ) and burning to trigger the extra 10% damage from the Zeal line. I went meditations for condition removal plus a little extra healing, but am wondering if signets would be better. Haven’t picked the runes…couldn’t decide what I should focus on for them. Ideas?
I would suggest an NPC veteran standard-bearer for commanders in WvW…it could display the guild emblem of the commander or a general one if they have no guild. In the long run perhaps commanders could reach have a personalized guild banner. The banner could give buffs like a warrior’s. The banner would also draw the attention of the enemy (maybe the NPC could award extra loot), adding an escort-type aspect to WvW.
What exactly is the use of mercenaries (Ogres, for example) in WvW? I’ve been playing WvW for about a month now on IoJ, and from what I’ve seen is that when they are allied with our side, all they do is sell us blueprints and act as a momentary delay for an enemy zerg as they go through their camp.
Reading the wiki, it seems like they should be actively launching attacks on supply camps and maybe even assisting sieges. Do they actually do this and I’m just missing it?
The current outmanned buff can be described as a joke. The illogical AoE limit and downed state makes it very difficult to score any kills when the enemy controls the entire map and greatly outnumbers you. Even if you manage to down an opponent, his team mates will revive him quickly, thus you don’t get kills. Where’s the fun?
….Anet needs to understand that is a dire situation and leads to entire server doing desperate things.
I play for Desolation, which is at the moment still in euro tier #1. We are planning to intentionally drop down to tier 2. More interestingly Seafarer’s Rest is also planning to do the same, intentionally drop to tier #2 from tier #1. If Anet doesn’t yet understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with their game balancing when two tier #1 worlds intentionally decide to leave tier #1, then I don’t what gets through their thick skulls?
The sad thing is dropping tiers isn’t an example of people gaming the system to screw with others, like siege spamming and exploits, it is to give the Outmanned servers an opportunity to have a chance. Its similar to the difference between stealing jewelry and stealing bread – one you do because you can, the other because you must.
I’d go even further and give the outmanned side Champions… imagine a zerg going up against a couple player-controlled Kohlers…
So far WvWvW seems to be mostly decided by which server can have the most players online in a zerg. The less-actively populated servers do get the Outmanned buff, but that really doesn’t solve anything.
Moreover, WvWvW is, well, boring, especially if your server is in its off-hours. As a solo player or small group you can take a supply camp and maybe a tower, but not much else. Even if your server has the greatest active population I would assume the lack of goals in WvWvW would make it a grind.
What if the less-populated servers received weapon bundles that could transform them into something similar to a PvE Champion mob? Something that would really allow a small group of players to stand up to a full zerg? The weapons could be randomly placed on the map, requiring the server to scour the map for them.
If the player with the weapon logs out, the weapon could either return to its starting position or just drop to allow another player from the server to pick it up. If the player dies, there could be a cooldown on the reappearance of the weapon elsewhere. The strength of the weapon could be tied to the difference in numbers of players between the servers, or maybe multiple weapons could be granted as the difference in the number of players increases. If the server populations equalize while one of the weapons is out, it could be removed.
Ultimately, in addition to giving the undermanned server a chance, this will also make WvWvW more dynamic by giving players a greater variety of goals to achieve.
This idea has been suggested a lot of times regarding Personal Story content too… essentially, players should be able to replay any of the 1-time events in the game. The worldwide events (Ancient Karka) could be downgraded to give the same overall feel just without the need to have a massive zerg to complete it.
These replays could be entered like Personal Story missions, or maybe dungeons to allow for party play.
precisely, it allows them to almost guarantee the stomp moves successful completion.
I’ve also seen people discussing stomps with regards to thieves and their downed stealth/teleport…how does that work?
Stomping is pretty much when you have a enemy in a downed stated that you get to trigger a kill animation by pressing f while near them, which gives a likely hood better chance of a item dropping from the defeated player. IF a stomp is compleated the downed player will need to respawn from a waypoint. Stomping can be negated if they have a runskill like mistform or are able to get out of the downed state like you would in pve, ie power 4 someone heals you and so on.
Additionally the animation with the f button if compleated looks like you jump into the air and then slam down on the corpse, and a flag is bore into said corpse
So when people say Guardian’s SYG is for stomping…they throw it up for stability to prevent any knockback skills from the downed player?
Hey… I’ve seen a lot of WvW posts regarding stomping and ROFLstomping…so what exactly is it? I know warriors have it as a skill, but some discussions have mentioned guardian SYG as a stomp.
Your brain uses multiple cues to determine it’s relative position and motion in regards to the environment. The primary cue is visual… seeing the relative movement of the environment around you. You also use your inner ear to sense rotation, gravity, and motion. Nausea can occur when the information differs. This is also why Icealen above feels the rush from the heights in the game… the brain still perceives the height and causes a stress response.
Normally, when you look at something, your eyes actually move around randomly focusing on different objects, and the brain combines them into one constant image. Tasks requiring significant focus limit that eye movement… which is why motion sickness is more common while reading in a car.
SAB likely causes motion sickness more than vanilla GW2 for two reasons – first, the bright colors. The human brain is designed to focus more closely on bright colors, yellows and reds especially, because bright coloration in nature indicates danger (like a venomous snake). This prevents the player’s visual system from noticing the space around the screen – while it may be in the player’s peripheral vision, the eyes never move to scan the area off of the screen. Secondly, there is a lot of rapid vertical movement. Constantly hopping up and down…especially on narrow ledges that cause the player to focus even more than usual, causes the visual system to inform the brain that the player is moving more than in vanilla GW2.
As Josh noted, dulling the colors or converting them to B&W would likely help. Also, taking a couple-second break to look away from the screen when not in combat would also help.
I’m an ele but I think the 5 target max is appropriate.
Not really interested in tactics where a small group of people can outright reject any amount of people from crossing through an area.
Why not? That’s the way warfare works. The English used longbow AOE spam in a constrained area during the battle of Agincourt.
I think I like all of these suggestions… although when it comes to resources, I’d prefer they all have an equal chance to drop/be farmed (jute 17% chance, wool 16% chance, cotton 16% chance, linen 16% chance, silk 16% chance and gossamer 16% chance).
But yea, all points are awesome.
Feel free to +1 the post then… the more it gets, the better chance the devs will consider it.
Regarding the harvesting rates, I was trying to maintain the rarity of the higher tier materials to minimize the change in supply for them.
Dasorine
Regarding 2 – it wouldn’t prevent them from harvesting low level materials… the mats would be determined by equipped tools and chance. A copper pick would produce copper 100% of the time, while an orichalcum pick could produce all the metals. When I stated level dependent, I was referring to the level requirement on the tools…sorry for any confusion. As for mob-dropped mats like cloth and leather, the drops could be controlled by the player’s level and odds, with the player’s level setting the tier ceiling. So while a level 5 player would get jute 100% of the time, a level 80 would have a 30% chance of jute, 25% of wool, 20% of cotton, 15% of linen, 7% of silk, and 3% of gossamer (or numbers like that). While it may make it a little harder to find mats and craft on demand, it would allow an endgame player to play in high level zones while still harvesting low-level mats and vice versa.
Regarding 3 – I always wondered what the purpose of the rare and exotic tiers was. By the time players start getting them, players have been using mostly fine and masterpiece. High level basics and fines are useless… GW2 could have just had a three tier system, bumping the labels on the masterpiece, rare, and exotic equipment down to form the high-level basic, fine, and masterpiece tiers.
(edited by DirtyRich.4903)
And the worst part is that some of these, specifically the loot and mat drop suggestions, have been bouncing around these forums for months with plenty of support and seem to be a quick fix on ANet’s part. This leads me to believe that they are consciously choosing not to address this, and the only reason I can see why is that they are concerned about destabilizing the market economy, which if it’s the case, is lame. The more they do to control the economy the worse it’ll get. Meanwhile they’ll sacrifice players who are looking to play, not make a buck.
(edited by DirtyRich.4903)
This would seemingly be an easy and time-efficient way to boost the number of armor skins in GW2. While the rendering would have to be redone, the design is already complete.
What’s more important for the long-term survival of GW2? A game that rewards players with loot at a not-too-fast rate that keeps them going like crack-addicted mice or a game that provides rewarding experiences to new and experienced players?
With the exception of the new Living Story (and its too early to make a call on that), pretty much all the PvE events have become focused on loot. Southsun Cove promised a whole new zone, but what we got was a crowded one-time weekend event that many didn’t even get to finish. I was more disappointed about not being able to face the Ancient Karka than losing out on the chest. Right now, what reason is there to go to SC other than crafting mats?
Dungeons are fun to run a few times. After that, all that’s left is to go for the gear. Full sets of armor and a weapon require what, 25 runs to earn?
Fractals introduced a whole new level of stat gear that requires grinding to acquire and are needed to survive in the fractals…and added a new dominant currency to further complicate the economy. I do my dailies with the same enthusiasm that I clean the bathroom every week.
Prior to the recent World Event chest changes, players were farming Orr for Tier 6 mats and money, leaving the rest of the world bare. The guaranteed rares did spread the players out, but only to the areas with easily-won scheduled boss battles, and created overflow issues themselves. The solution to the overflow problems? Limitations on the loot.
Right now when players reach level 80 and want to make use of crafting to make exotic gear… what’s the main concern? Ectos, which again requires farming equipment to salvage and/or money to buy off the market. The new dual-cost ascended gear is ridiculous.
What I don’t see on the PvE side is any significant and long-lasting endgame content that takes advantage of the massive world ANet created. Right now the only time players step into many of the zones is the Personal Story. The Living Story looks to be heading in the right direction… hopefully it will do more to permanently refurbish and breathe new life into the existing zones rather than end up like Lost Shores.
So, my suggestions -
1) Make the Living Story the priority for PvE to increase the rate of new content. Focus on multiple zones each time. Small changes across many zones will be more effective than big changes in one or two zones. Don’t feel the need to end it all in one massive boss battle.
2) Lessen the influence of loot and crafting mats on player distribution by making the nodes and drops specific to the player’s level and not the area level. Give a player with an orichalcum pick an equal chance of getting orichalcum in Queensdale as in Orr. Give all champs and meta-bosses a chance to drop level 80 rares and exotics for level 80 players. Every zone should be equally rewarding to endgame players.
3) Keep working on the down-leveling system. Level 80’s with exotic equipment still have a significant advantage in low-level areas. Increase the challenge for high-level players in these areas. Every zone should be equally challenging to endgame players.
4) Let players replay personal story quests at will. Add a PvE button to the UI that tracks completed quests and allows them to be reactivated. Personally, I’d love to get more time in the golem battlesuit.
5) Give every major city the same functions… for example, put a Mystic Forge and dungeon vendors in each of them.
6) Introduce multi-zone Dynamic Events.
7) More armor and weapon skins!
I understand the game is new and ANet needs time to grow the game… but it seems that the time they have spent on the updates so far has been wasted as the primary legacy the updates have left has been on the economy. The PvE world is pretty much identical to what it was at launch.
Ideally, if the players’ enjoyment is ANet’s major goal, then all functional non-content differences between the zones should be eliminated, allowing players to choose where to play based upon their personal preferences and not the need to grind mats or loot. The Living Story is a great chance for ANet to reach for this.
Cities lack population for the same reason most of the zones lack population – There’s no reason to go there outside the personal story. While I love the effort ANet put into creating a beautiful world, the endgame right now is all about loot and community play. World event chests, tiered mat nodes, and predictable event chains have led the looters to Orr and a few other areas. Those like me who want to play in a populated area are forced to go along for the ride.
The Karka event shows just how starved players are for new experiences… at least 80% of the active players had to be in Southsun Cove during the event. After the event ended, SC became deader than Orr.
The Living Story looks promising and will hopefully eventually breathe new life into all zones and cities, but what ANet needs to do is create sustainable reasons for players to play in every zone and city.
What about the Mists?
What about the Mists? I’m not understanding what you mean… honestly, I haven’t played there yet
Ah.
Basically, in the Mists:
- All Runes, Sigils and max damage weapons are free.
- All stats are on an amulet.
- All skills are unlocked and trait respeccing is free.
You also got dummies to test on, and NPC’s to fight.
Thanks, I’ll have to try it out.
Seriously, what’s the purpose of the junk items other than to take up bag space?
Immersion. It doesn’t make sense for a grub worm or a beetle to carry around money, but it does make sense for the goo harvested from a grub worm or a beetle to fetch a few copper at market. I personally like that mobs drop junk items instead of money.
Well, then they should get rid of the armor and weapon drops on animal mobs.
What about the Mists?
What about the Mists? I’m not understanding what you mean… honestly, I haven’t played there yet
One of the biggest barriers to enjoying the game so far for me has been changing builds, which was one of the promoted benefits of the game. While I can cheaply swap my traits and stats whenever I want, many builds rely upon specific weapons, armor, and rune sets. Before I can even get a good feel for a new build, I have to grind for mats and money to get new equipment. Done it once, and didn’t like it, so I switched back to my original build. I can’t even sell the equipment I won’t be using since it’s soulbound… all I can do is salvage it for a small portion of the crafting mats that were used to make it.
I’ve used the build editors, but numbers only go so far. What would be great would be able to try out a build with BIS equipment before investing my time to outfit my character. Maybe we could have a small instance that would allow us, while we are in the instance, to freely swap our traits and equip whatever we want without having to buy or craft it? NPC’s could provide us a chance to test our build against different enemy types.
Agreed. I’d say they should implement recipes for all junk items (maybe armor and weapon skins that match the theme of the item?). Seriously, what’s the purpose of the junk items other than to take up bag space? If they’re not going to be used for something, get rid of them and replace them with copper.
Hello!
Name: DirtyRich
Main: Wyllis Lightfoot (lvl 80 Guardian)
Server: Isle of Janthir
Active: random daytime and occasionally evening (Eastern). I have two toddlers…my play schedule is determined by them and exhaustion.
Interested in: long walks along Cursed Shore, wearing metal and leather in dungeons with others
Additional comments: due to my erratic play schedule and lack of friends who play, I’ve largely been playing solo and am looking for more of a community to play with.
Has anyone else noticed that defending Hodgins from the gravelings is impossibly hard? Was running it in a group with 1 Guardian (me), Warrior, Ranger, Necro, and Thief. We went through 10 times before I was DC’d by my 2 year old.
Initially I tried guarding Hodgins while the others took out the burrows one-by-one, but I kept getting overwhelmed with 15+ stacks of bleeding even with 3 shouts and PoV. Then we split into two groups to take the burrows down faster, but still one or two would get overwhelmed and then Hodgins would die.
I’ve never run the AC explorable paths before… do the gravelings keep spawning as long as the burrows are up? Would it be better for the whole team to defend Hodgins to overcome the initial wave and then start going after the burrows? Any other strategies would help.
Here are my thoughts on the GW1 vs GW 2 debate, and as someone who only played Prophecies all the way through soon after launch and just a little of Factions, I may be better able to compare the current state of GW2 to GW1 (to counter the repeated “GW1 was a finished project” response).
First off, as someone who largely plays solo due to an irregular play schedule and lack of gamer friends, I’m glad I started playing GW2 at launch. As I’ve attempted to play alts, I have definitely found wandering the open world to be a lot more challenging than with my main due to the absence of players outside the farming areas. Doing a group event like the final assault on the centaurs with only one other player is futile. GW1’s instances and the ability to recruit NPCs like Mhenlo, Aidan, Cynn, Devona, and Eve made solo play much more feasible. I replayed numerous missions in GW1 because they were fast and fun, and I could replay them whether other players were there or not. The open world story chain events just don’t allow that. Look at how many waypoints are contested 24/7 simply because there aren’t any players in the zone.
The reliance upon tiered gear in GW2 is ridiculous. When I played GW1 I used quite a few pieces that dropped from common mobs after I reached level 20. The gear never felt like it was a huge part of the game. Now, with six effective tiers of equipment (including ascended but combining legendary with exotic) and a significant gear stat bonus metagame, gear has dominated the endgame. When I first reached Orr with mismatched mostly-masterwork gear, it was a pain in the kitten Dungeons too. Seriously, why bother with basic, fine, or masterwork gear above level 70? I had to spend my time exclusively farming to get the needed mats to craft a set of exotic armor and to buy my weapons. If I want to try a new build and make it viable, I have to go back to farming until I can enjoy it. I have a buttload of karma, but the stat choices for temple armor are limited. Dungeon armor also requires grinding. I’m all for rewarding players willing to grind or farm with unique skins or weapon names, but in a game that promises accessibility farming and grinding should not be a barrier to stat acquisition and choice of playstyle.
You want to see how significant gear is? Play a few events in Orr with all-white or blue gear.
Play in GW 1 was largely dominated by the available skills and the acquisition of most skills was built into the story playthrough by skill merchants. Acquiring the elites, which required some work, became missions in themselves, not some repetitive mind-numbing grind. It’s not like you had to capture the same elite 30 times before you were able to use it.
I can’t speak to some of the other criticisms (like guild halls), but it does seem a little silly that ANet would drop popular features that they developed in GW1 for GW2.
Now what can ANet do? First and foremost, fix the loot and mat systems to encourage players to spread out. Scale world event rewards based upon the size of the zerg, and make loot from common mobs useable for more than vendor trash. Create unique skin recipes that use the junk. Eliminate high level white and blue gear. Make low level dungeons actually playable by low level characters, and provide NPC support for players that can’t get a group of 5 together. Link the final chest rewards to the number of events that were completed in the event chain by the player. Get rid of DR, because it won’t be needed anymore. Eliminate the mat tiers… give a level 1 a chance to harvest orichalcum from a copper node or find gossamer scraps in low level drops. This way a PvE player can build up the necessary mats to craft useable gear when they first reach Orr.
Now PvE players will be able to focus on the events and dungeons that they enjoy playing, rather than the ones they need to grind to enjoy the game in a month or two.
You must be mistaking what term ‘soldier’ means really. In a war you have infrantry,archers,cavalry,musketmans,cannons and if you are also wtching some fantasy movies – wizards. As long as you are in ‘army’ you are Soldier doesnt matter what you do . Even combat medics are soldiers even thou they might not fire single bullet.
The OP and everyone else is going by ANet’s armor and class system – Scholars that wear light armor, Adventurers that wear medium armor, and Soldiers that wear heavy armor.
Probably the closest thing to a soldier in playstyle is thief – melee fighter that uses stealth and shadowstep in place of armor. The other classes seem to focus more (although not entirely) on mid or long range.
That being said, if ANet came out with a new soldier class, I’d love to see a magic steampunk knight…kinda like a cyborg lovechild of Asuran and Charr tech. They wouldn’t have to do anything special with the lore… it’s a new development due to Pact cooperation between the races.
One of the things ANet did good with the game is providing a unique feel and identity to each class. This class could gain charges based upon the type of damage taken, and then F123 abilities could be opened that would assist with that type of threat. For example, ranged damage could open up a teleport + aoe root, melee could open an aoe knockdown + chill, condition damage could open up an aoe removal and regen. There would be no cooldown… the skills would be limited only by the charge buildup.
And, it is not a rare bug. Anytime a mob can’t figure out a path to you, it usually goes invulnerable. Designed to prevent people exploiting ranged attacks on mobs that can’t find a way to get to the player.
You just explained the reason for the invulnerable mechanic and a very good reason . Its not like you cant change your position on the field unless of course you are trying to exploit . Most invulnerable mobs will reset anyway unless you continue attacking which doesn’t really make sense for you to do does it?
There might be a reason, but as the OP and others explained, the mechanic is buggy and triggers even when the mob should be able to close to melee distance to the player, or allows ranged mobs who cannot close to melee distance still attack at range while they are invulnerable.
The reliance on a bugged pathfinding AI to trigger invulnerability breaks the game.
What servers are you playing on? I’m on Isle of Janthir and there isn’t a living soul in Orr anytime I’m on.
Agreed… something needs to be done to encourage players to spread themselves out more. The recent changes have improved this some, but ANet needs to push further. Unfortunately, threads like this get little discussion.
Quite frankly, I think its due a large number of the players being lazy. They have been trained to farm and like it. Why bother roaming around to do a lot of different random events when they can focus on a select few major ones that are easy to join? Gamers by nature game the system to maximize rewards… its been this way since the days of Pong. Its all about the loot.
Currently, the World Events
1) Have a long trigger chain that can be joined at any point.
2) In the case of dragons, have a long final battle that can be joined at any point.
3) Are located near waypoints, making it easy to jump into the action.
4) Occur at regular intervals, allowing players to schedule events to maximize rewards.
5) Guarantee Rare level items.
This keeps all the players in World Event zones, especially the ones with events that are easy to trigger and to zerg.
There have been plenty of other suggestions to solve this problem
1) Make materials not area-dependent. Give a player with an Orichalcum Pick the same chance to get Orichalcum from a Copper node as from an Orichalcum node. Give players a chance to get Gossamer scraps as drops from centaurs. This will distribute material farmers.
2) Make junk loot useable. Create crafting recipes for town clothes or skins using the junk loot. This will distribute the completionists and vanity players.
3) Move to a point-based loot system. Instead of giving a chest or searching the corpse after a kill, just reward the player with a number of points based upon the difficulty of the kill and the number of players who participated. Players can accumulate these points, and then turn them in to an NPC for a tiered choice of random loot – gold, karma, mats, or equipment. The more points, the better the chance for high-tier loot… kinda the way salvage kits work. That way a player who slaughtered every Skritt in an area has a chance to get a rare just like a player that zerged a dragon. Really, what is the use for white or blue equipment to a lvl 80 except to sell for a pittance of coin? Players follow the loot. By making every kill build towards high level loot, every zone will become a warzone.
Heck, points could be awarded for non-damage behaviors too. Rez an NPC? Points. Throw out boons like Mardi Gras beads? Points. This will encourage and reward more cooperative builds instead of just DPS.
Of course, I doubt this thread will get further productive discussion amongst the player community. We can only hope a dev maybe sees this and gets a few ideas.
I don’t know about the pvp aspects of this suggestion but it may have some interesting lore/story twist. What if we found out the the dragons were protecting the planet from a bigger more dangerous threat…Is killing them really the best course of action? Maybe we can get them to just tread more carefully
Kinda like the Mursaat…
As we’ve seen with multiple loot changes, the players go where the loot is. Penitent Path used to always be open…since the change I’ve only seen it contested. Now all the PvE players are targeting the boss chests. I personally would go dungeons but can’t because I never find enough players to join me at the times I play. Ditto for WvWvW.
Creating more limitations to steer players won’t solve the problem… the solution is to diversify the market, like the new daily and guild systems have started to do.
Here are a couple of ideas-
1) Use the useless junk loot. Create recipes for the junk loot…perhaps unique skins that capture the theme of the junk loot or the creatures that drop it. Maybe an armor skin made from Porous Bones that makes the player appear like a Risen? Or a hammer skin that appears to be a giant Flintstone-sized bone?
2) Allow a player to accumulate credits for their activities (kills, heals, etc) and use those credits towards tiered random loot when they reach a certain NPC (kinda like at Chuck E Cheeses). This way, a player that kills 1000 Grawl could get the same rewards as someone that kills a dragon. The credit amount could be tied to the number of players that get the kill, penalizing players that like to join zerg rushes and do minimal work, meanwhile rewarding the player that singlehandedly keeps the peace in the Diessa Plateau. This could also reward typical support behaviors (healing, crowd control) and encourage a larger variety of build options and more cooperation between players than the popular min/maxed DPS builds. Players would be able to use the credits towards their choice of rewards – gold bags, crafting materials, equipment, karma, etc.
So, what do you think?
I’ve been playing GS/M+S with Cleric’s equipment, and its been keeping me in the middle of the fight without too much trouble, but want to try something else now.
Because of the quick hits on the scepter with relatively short Smite recharge, I was thinking of going crit (I’m sure plenty others have… the forum’s search feature is crap otherwise I probably would have found the info I wanted). I’m trying for something that can hit at range and solo PvE with decent survivability. I don’t have a lot of money/karma (just got to lvl 80 on my first character), so I’m just focusing on weapons, armor, upgrades, and traits. Here’s what I came up with… with signets for my utilities.
Scepter and torch for midrange/melee crits, swapping to hammer for protection and crowd control.
I’m thinking of building a scepter/torch crit guardian and would like to have a sigil of fire for the flame blast AOE. Will the sigil of fire trigger for the scepter or torch if I equip it on my second weapon set, or would I have to insert it into the weapon set I want it to trigger with?
Thanks.
Ideally, the search should easily offer a “thread subject only” option. I like to see if there’s been any discussion of specific builds before I try out something new, but can’t find a darn thing because it brings up tons of extraneous threads where one of the words I searched for was mentioned once in a reply. Sadly I’m left with using Google or some of the other fan sites for my research, which is sad because I truly think Anet wanted to facilitate those types of discussions here.
There are a couple of aspects to this debate about roles. Please note also that this is entirely about PvE… which is arguably the most important part of the game because of the greater amount of time the collective playerbase spends on it compared to PvP or WvWvW.
1) Each class cannot perform the trinity playstyles equally. As much as everyone counters with “if only you knew how to equip and play the class” certain classes are inherently easier to spec for Tanking/DPS/Healing based upon available equipment and skills. Especially for casual players that play one or two nights a week, they are more reliant on the inherent strengths of the classes as opposed to the fully-specced possibilities. They just don’t have the time to take on the steeper learning curves of some of the classes.
2) Since the loot system is based upon damage, loot is not equally distributed between the playstyles (regardless of class). I don’t even bother trying for the mobs at Penitent anymore because during peak times there’s at least three Warriors spinning like figure skaters on speed and a few Elementalists recreating the Searing. The game is heavily dependent on loot as a source of equipment and gold, and this penalizes the playstyles that are more support based. The excessive reliance upon endgame loot pushes more players towards DPS, which gives them the resources to get the best gear, which makes them even more able to monopolize loot drops.
So, players that will only ever level 1-2 characters to 80 (which I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the largest segment of the player population) will tend towards the classes that give them the best chance to enjoy the endgame by maximizing their equipment…which is why for every Necromancer you see in Cursed Shores there’s five Warriors. Players who would like to branch out and learn the lesser-used classes are less able to compete for loot.
What I would love to see is an analysis of the classes played by bots. If there was a trend towards a class or two, that would indicate a significant issue with the loot system.
Ultimately, if ANet really wants to work this out, they need to take some serious time with each class in PvE and find ways to balance damage output and survivability between the classes. Give Rangers and Necros conditions that provide a lot more damage, give the casters/ranged weapons more skills/traits to boost their defense or keep enemies at a distance (Kiting is not always an option…maybe base the number of dodges on the weight of the armor?). They kinda bit themselves in the butt by providing so much stat customization… the system is so complex (especially once you factor in PvP and WvWvW), that for every change they make they disturb so many other factors…kinda like a game of Jenga.
Hi all,
I recently got to lvl 80 with my Guardian, exclusively through PvE. I’ve only run two dungeons (AC and CM, each once). Up to now I’ve been assigning my skills and traits to maximize the best weapons I’ve been able to collect through drops(scepter/torch and mace/shield), but I’d like to start really customizing my guardian for how I’d like to play.
I’d like to throw together a build that can (in order of priority)
1) minimize damage
2) crit
3) heal as necessary
I’ve been toying with the idea of maxing valor for Monk’s Focus, 20 points in honor for the 2 handed mastery (for use with hammer), 15 in radiance for Blind Exposure, 5 in Virtues. As for weapons, using mace/focus and hammer. Finally, using the weapon, armor, and equipment bonuses to increase Power and Precision.
The mace, focus, Shelter, and maybe Renewed Focus would each provide blocks. Judge’s Intervention to close with the enemy, Comtemplation of Purity for cures, and Signet of Judgement for the passive damage reduction.
I don’t need the best build, just a general purpose build that will boost survivability in PvE and make me not a liability if I decide to start WvW.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I know it’s annoying, but I don’t think they should put entire guilds on that role…
I made a suggestion a wile ago on this mater, and I believe the best thing is to put something unique being looted from the lesser used content.
Given the maddness that made people go and spend so much money just to buy tons of keys and get that chainsaw on Halloween, is proof that it’ll work.
I think the two ideas would work well together… use your bounty idea for the champion group events especially, while the guild contracts would be for the normal dynamic events.
To add another thought…
This could also be used to add more strategy to PvE… have the enemy launch an attack on multiple sites at once, forcing the guilds to determine the best way to spread their members, possibly even causing them to surrender on site to defend another.
I’ve found it somewhat depressing to see so many Dynamic Event areas where the enemy forces are controlling all the possible sites because players aren’t bothing to defend the area. High level players either aren’t there or don’t bother.
Maybe the more active guilds can be contracted to patrol/defend these Dynamic Event areas, replacing the ally NPCs there. The guilds would then be rewarded for successfully taking and holding these Dynamic Event areas, for example the guild would receive exclusive benefits like reduced prices at the gem store or something. Bonus rewards could be given for group events completed during the contract. Maybe the maps could be updated with the names of the guilds guarding each area, changing with the contracts.
Failure to hold the areas would break the contract, allowing another guild to take it. There could also be an expiration to the contracts to allow guilds to rotate through.
This would achieve a few things. First, it would lessen the concentration in farming areas, dispersing the more active players. More players would be around to do Group Events, assisting solo players. It would also make the guilds more prominent in PvE, and allow guild members to contribute even if their schedule doesn’t match the rest of the guild’s.
Hello ArenaNet and players,
Here I am in New York state where I have been working every spare moment the past few days to prepare my property for the coming storm, and expect to lose power once we get hit with Sandy’s full force. Due to Sandy’s massive size, the same will hold true for hundreds, if not thousands, of GW2 players on the East Coast.
I am unaware of when ANet is planning on ceasing Halloween festivities in GW2, or if Acts 1-3 will be stopped as Act 4 commences, but for the sake of all the players who cannot celebrate with the rest of the GW2 community due to the hurricane, would it be possible to extend the event to provide everyone the chance to enjoy it?