Guild Wars 2

Two parts to this argument I think.

One, question of false representation.

In truth, if the product was sold with a given stated feature set and overarching plan, directly advertised as being “A” in terms of features and obligations, and it upholds the stated practices of “A”, then absolutely, all good. If on the other hand, “A” is advertised and stated as defining characteristics and not adhered to, recognizing that the definition points of “A” were advertised as in perpetuity, not simply ‘at launch’ criteria for sale?

People are naturally going to react quiet negatively to this. There are numerous flawed analogies here but at the end of the day, consider this a sale where your warranty was changed in terms of what it covered after point of sale.

The second point, and to me more relevant to the video game industry in general, is the lack of technical dependability in products released today. Yes, they are challenging software to develop and yes, they are massive undertakings, but that is the business they choose to be in. People being angry at having paid for things that do not work as advertised (design philosophies not withstanding as part of that advertising) also have a very legitimate grounds to feel that they were cheated for their investment.

The games industry needs to stop being rewarded for pre-order and ‘faith purchases’ in advance of delivering a product in stable, verifiably intact form.

We gamers have done this to ourselves giving our money to hype rather than demonstrable results.

GW2 has been flawed out of the gate, and I say that at the same time with a straight face saying that despite that major flawed state it’s one of the singularly best packages of it’s kind on the market. That doesn’t mean people should allow very poor Q&A work or deviation from stated advertised selling features go un-addressed as consumers.

Personally, the fact i still see GW2 as arguably best of breed at moment is more a comment on the sorry state and failings and duplication of their competitors relative offerings than any inherent supreme value on GW2’s part.

Your mileage may vary of course.

My personal take on the chain lightning build (as one of the few that is respectable imho and fun to play even in it’s bug ridden state):

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3ek6g0drnde2dthfr05up0aa6acalarkakj

It’s a pistol/shield build that with a single trait can switch to pistol/pistol pretty readily and still be pretty resilient.

Additionally, it’s fluid enough that while I run with Rocket Boots and Personal Battering Ram (both of which reliably target things with chain lighting), I rotate a number of abilities in my number 8 slot as needed situationally. Usually Elixir gun for the extra heals, as i run with toughness/healing power that both convert into Power at 5 and 10%.

I gear with Healing/Toughness gear and it’s worked very well for survivability and damage output, though I need better runes. Critical chance at 34% (44% when they are under 50% health, and spiking to 54% when you use the medkit boost entering fight) is very workable to trigger all the bleeds and vulnerabilities for extra damage rate as well

Perhaps not optimized, but I still experiment and I naturally gravitate to flexible over one trick pony as a rule. Thanks to the healing factors it’s also a solid team build when you use the Elixir Rifle toolbelt skill and/or number 5 AOE field.

The key to the chain lightning build is knowing which abilities actually WORK with it, as outlined in my bug list on the trait. You CAN get the Medkit heal and ER mist to hit a target but you have to be facing and RIGHT on top of your targets or group of targets allowing your healing to do aoe damage, a very nice benefit.

i noticed chests were consistently in the ‘groups of greens’ camp now for jump puzzles and such.

I’ll say that it was a much better acknowledgement than the old ‘find a blue’ but on some of those puzzles you’d think a Rare was warranted…

Champions, however, have yet to be worth the effort comparatively on any attempt. Even in the Halloween stuff, it was not the champion that was the reward..but the chests they unlocked.

Syfin.6875:

Drusus that does sound pretty cool. I guess ill see this when i hit 80. Thanks for going so in depth. Im sold on the idea for now

Sorry to get your hopes up too much Syfin.

The statistical model in GW2 is still pretty tightly intertwined with vertical progression.

The Horizontal elements were there but curiously underdeveloped. There are some, so enjoy experimenting, to be sure.

But you’re getting a half and half at best.

Glad my description helped.

Horizontal Progression should be about menu of options to select from in play.

If you lucked out and found your ‘perfect formula’ with no expansion? You may indeed get it going stale, but in that case, you found your ‘perfect’ game style to enjoy so that alone buys time.

The joy of horizontal progression is in the experimentation of variables to find ‘power’ through the combinations and interactions.

Vertical progression is, well, 10 is bigger than 5, but everything else is absolutely the same.

Frankly, Vertical Progression is now, and has always been, the far more stale and uninteresting structure and always has been by the very definition of how it’s applied numerically in most MMOs; more of the exact same, just with larger values, so there is no perceivable difference in action/experience. It’s used solely as a gating mechanic to keep you moving place to place and restricting a location because ‘your numbers are not big enough to be here’.

Horizontal and variable driven progressions encourage more activity, thought and engagement on the player’s part. Halo, for instance, was widely regarded as ground breaking as an FPS becaues suddenly I real limits on what weapons I could keep on hand at any time where as previously, I always had like 10 to choose from in my Holster’s of Holding (sidenote, no idea where i kept the minigun AND rocket launcher in doom… that can’t be comfy….). While not a Halo fan myself, it’s a solid example of where the combination of choices is where your power comes from rather than simply making each bullet do more damage PER bullet, but the weaponry never changes whatsoever.

GW2’s skill slot system is so woefully under-leveraged as a horizontal progressor expressly due to the outright foolish and lackluster gear statistics and crafting system implementation.

It’s a shame, but that’s how I see it, personally.

Other opinions, of course, may vary.

Well, that was an interesting read.

Or at least, it was after my monitor stopped rotating from the volume of spin applied.

Glad to see the positives but that was far too net positive and gloss-over for my liking. The utter lack of technical fidelity applied in Arena Net’s work in the past 3 months needed better acknowledgement than provided in the very euphemistic language used therein.

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

Champions need to drop a chest and the lvl 80 ones should have a guaranteed rare at least. Chest should only be able to be opened once a day per account. Done.

To be blunt, it should have been this structure from day one and it is stupefying to wonder why it was not implemented as such, if farming is truly the issue. For that matter, make it every 6-12 hours, or even every 3. If a Bot hits it 4 times in a 24 hour period, or multiples in a 24 hour period, it would have been an immediately easy statistical track on potential bots to ban.

It’s PR management, no more, no less.

Keep in mind, this thread topic too I suspect is verbotten considering it’s questioning moderation policies.

I hope I can trade in these useless place fillers for something worthwhile considering the debacle of the events in general and the final event.

It’s decidedly inappropriate to give pure junk all weekend for those that tried to work through the bugs for 2 days while your then buggy final event gives the only appreciable worthwhile reward, still disconnecting and denying people fair reward for time and effort.

Reef drakes have a 14 second Confuse

And yes, they can indeed stack it, repeatedly, within that 14 seconds.

It seems to also be bugged (or Confuse in general is) as it also does damage to my engineer during a dodge roll.

No one can bleed off that much sustained Confusion.

Siphaed.9235:

RandomHominid.3456:

It’s possible the normal loot tables aren’t active just during the event because of the sidekicking for the event. Imagine a swarm of sidekicked-up level 5 bots.

That’s the most logical assumption. I mean, it really would suck if drops were coming out really good and it was level 2-5 bots in droves on the island.

Also, the Karka are event-based spawn right now, not normal spawn. They may get replaced with normal standing Karka after the event, but all they are is a means to an end. Just wait until today’s event for the “big loots”

If that affected the island for the whole 2 days you want it to be a fun introduction and worth prioritizing to visit?

Wouldn’t having the loot table artificially rewarding to that scenario, bots notwithstanding, be the whole point of a weekend event?

Instead, the rewards for the event feel tailored to reduce the amount of things in the world (examples include: Single Karma jug for phase 1 chain, 5 captain commendations for phase 1 chain, junky reward rate for the entire Cove, Donations mathematically analysed that suggest there is no scenario where it’s worth securing them through donations for purchasable end products).

And if the Bots are such the issue, perhaps having someone set to respond to them running amok in the Cove immediately to observe and address the case would be efficient?

Sorry, but this logic doesn’t hold mate, though I can appreciate the point of supposition.

Karka threat level is debatable perhaps.

In my opinion, there are a few key points however that are kitten near inexcusably stupid.

1. Reef Drake Confusion
14-15 seconds AND on my engineer it fires off doing damage even if I Dodge Roll (bug perhaps, due to having the drop bomb ability). I want that number to sink int. 14 seconds plus of Confusion application, per unit. I don’t care how much condition clearing you have, you cannot outlast that nor can you clear it after each attack sufficiently. There is a reason players cannot get a number that large and there is no way in hell that should ever have gone live.

2. Hatchlings
Don’t count as ‘kills’ for the purpose of triggering sigils or abilities. They are legitimate targets, although fragile, and absolutely mandate being dealt with as they rush you in a hoard. I see absolutely no valid reason to exclude them from the kill trigger for things like Superior Sigil of Stamina, for instance, or any other Sigil/trait that triggers on kills. Those abilities should be the natural counters for such waves of face huggers.

Couple this with the general thickness and toughness of the mobs in the area and their lethality and utterly unjustifiable spawn rate?

This zone was not ready for release. Period.

Add me to the list, I’m getting this error daily.

I have a nasty suspicion it’s indicative of probes against known email addresses generating a kick artefact when the attempts fail, which shouldn’t happen.

That is however purely a theory based on behaviours in other systems from my professional technologist life. Could very well be a pure bug barking out a totally disconnected error on disconnect.

Either way, bloody irritating.

Actually, I think the bigger issue is that conjured weapons wildcard your abilities.

I love the way weapons have their own flavour and ability tree.

However, what i DON’T want is to be in the middle of a fight, grab a Frost Bow by accident while spamming F to loot the mob we’re mowing through in an event, and suddenly fire off a frost arrow spread when i’m expecting Static Shot from my pistols so the Blind effect will keep me alive.

Bundles from the ground work because they are disposable in a way the Ele weapons are not, one or two shot ‘power hits’, that you fire off and rapidly resume your regular combat flow, and even then can seriously throw you off when your ranged attack is suddenly a melee or vice versa.

Kits, similarly, are something we switch to as known quantities; we’re mentally prepared for the shift, like swapping weapons, which we do as part of learning our ability selection.

The Ele weapons to a third party just don’t work that way unless you are used to working with that Elementalist, and even then, they conjure a weapon that plays to your strengths (i.e. are you a Condition Guardian? Does lightning hammer actually feed your strong suit? better than your planned weapons?)

The kits do indeed need proper address and it’s a stumper to me why they’d go this route of fixing the Ele weaponry first which is at best a secondary class feature as opposed to primary such as the kits appear to be.

@Elaezyair:

Exactly what part do you wish to take into account?

The part where they admit to not properly staffing despite the massive initial sales? No sympathy here, you’re a business, staff appropriately.

The part where some classes are deemed more important than others, when all are incomplete or were not given their due attention to launch in a stable, working state?
Again, no sympathy, you sold it, it should be working to a minimum level of completion.

The part where he’s saying for us to be patient and wait for the next patch, regardless of our play preferences, because more fixes are coming?
Once more, it’s 3 months into the games lifespan and things are not working as they ought, and not in insignificant ways. We’re not talking balance here either, we’re talking fundamental breaks in core functions (Kits being woefully considered in current implementation is arguably a bug versus feature choice failing; by all means, choose whichever you feel is less compelling to give benefit of doubt)

I for one am sick to death of the precept that game designers or game publishers are somehow rockstar people who should be judged by different standards than those who generate and create in other fields or mediums. They are, indeed, just people and I AM sympathetic for the wealth of misery that gets visited upon them from unhappy customers over truly bizarre things.

But expecting things to work or deliver as advertised is not one of those cases and while I feel for the poor guys on the front lines, then the message of discontent and distemper must be communicated to their decision makers as a clear message that they need to allocate resources appropriately.

A-net was understaffed in support too on launch and that was a massive failing. So the excuse now for the updates and corrections is that they learned nothing and continue to under-staff game design (or by extension, code resources, to bug fix)?

By all means I’m taking those statements into account and Jon, if you are reading, I feel for you if you are critically under resourced like that, truly. I’ve been there and it’s terrible and I deeply wish you better support.

But from the point of getting the experience and satisfactory delivery for my faith and dollar as a consumer?

No one cares if you are understaffed, they care about the results provided, just like in every other business transaction they spend money for every day.

We feel sympathy for you the person, good sir, but we feel no remorse for a company that took money and failed to deliver.

At least I don’t. The opinions of others may vary.

In a single word:

Underwhelmed.

Overall I’m underwhelmed.

For bug fixes bordering the 3 month mark, this is simply not inspiring.

Perhaps my issue is my main is an Engineer (and the fixes listed are uninspiring for any of the builds that I’d gravitate towards) and this offers me nothing I care about.

My hope is that there is more coming in rapid succession as the events turn live but it’s hard to find this to be enthusiasm worthy.

I’m glad to see the bug fixes in general, but these look like low hanging fruit rather than the bugs that were vexing myself and others I associate with regularly.

I do need to read the other patch notes relating to other classes more thoroughly for a more complete opinion on the patch overall. The improved drops in dungeons and world activities in general IS a very positive change, but again, long overdue and it loses much of it’s oomph because of it for me.

No weapon characteristics, of any kind, work while a kit is active, be it Sigils or base stat bonuses.

And yes, it’s a known issue. Bug or foolishly considered ‘feature’ I don’t believe has been explicitly stated but it’s a point of address from what comments have been made by Arena Net.

Twice as fast may still be useful depending on how glass cannony you are. Remember you have to rebuild the stacks, with kills, every time you are knocked into a Rally state.

Even if you recover, you’ve lost the built up stack to zero. If you are doing a lot of dungeon or PvP, kills between Rally’s could be scarcer if you really want the statistical addition of Condition or Precision.

Add me to the list, though I am bizarrely being told, while already logged in, that I am suddenly getting an ‘Incorrect password’ error.

Spontaneously kicks me out on that error then I can log back in. Please note, at no point, is the password being changed, re-entered or altered here in any way.

This problem crept in after the end of the halloween event patch.

Quite like the ability, though it’s buggy as all get out.

See below:
To really illustrate the randomness of this compare the trait’s effects between these skills:

Surprise Shot\Rifle Turret
- Strikes the target in parallel to the bullet fired, out to 1200 range. no bounces to targets outside of 900 range.

Any Healing Tool Belt Skill (including Elixir Rifle tool belt heal)
- Bloody random. Can miss target even if they are at Point Blank distance dead in front (I’ve watched it literally, fire off tangentially when normally it would just splat at your feet a pace and a half in front of you). Bounces normally IF it makes contact at short distance.

Launch Personal Battering Ram\Personal Battering Ram
- Fires accurately at point of ram projectile (slower moving) making contact with target. Has a 1200 range even though LPBR has only a 900 range, and fires when it hollers ‘Out of Range’ then strikes, for no bounces past initial target.

Mine Field\Throw Mine
- fires a perfectly accurate bolt at highlighted target on deploying the field and fires another wildly INaccurate shot on detonating the mine field

Big Ole Bomb\Bomb Kit
- Perfectly accurate to targeted object within 1200 range, though near max range no longer bounces to targets OUT of range (intended? total travel distance may be variable)

Any Elixir Tosses\Elixir Abilities
(Elixir B can have the bolt pass THROUGH a target dummy, doing nothing, though it seems to travel, generally along the path of the thrown elixir)

Analyze\Utility Goggles
- accurate to any target within range (instant application of the effect, so cannot say if the trigger is on ‘contact’ or activation here as they are synonymous)

Grenade Barrage\Grenade Kit
- Near as I can tell, totally inaccurate, akin to the elixir tosses. If it strikes a target it’s blind chance, though it does seem to travel out a distance rather than just splat at your feet.

Incendiary Ammo\Flamethrower Kit
- Totally inaccurate shot.

From the above I can glean:

- Will not ‘bounce’ to targets past 900 range
- accuracy and firing characteristics are hella random
- for targeted aoe the bolt seems to aim where your cursor is, just with no intention of making contact with targets AT that location.
- for PBAoE or self target items, totally messed, splatting at your feet more often that not.
- Deployables, like mine field or Big ole Bomb, perfect accuracy versus target

Passed this on to the fellow maintaining the engineer bug list, but this is just insanely inconsistent behaviour and dramatically reduces the fun factor of this tool in our tool kit (pun intended?).

Personally, I do think Engineers need some significant attention with an Engineer as my main, though I have a Mesmer, Guardian, Warrior and Ranger for comparison.

However, in my opinion, the attention needed is not buff oriented; they need a technical overhaul to ensure the traits and abilities are actually working first because the Engy tree is riddled with traits that don’t work properly, work at all or work as described.

It really is, in my opinion, impossible to effectively evaluate our end state when much of our basic functionality (and I include kits not keeping weapon stats here as a bug, not a ‘buff’ feature, but your opinion may vary here) is simply not performing according to the discernable specifications.

There are some clear mistakes in the construct as well (such as Magnet on Toolkit having such a long cast time, in my opinion as it greatly reduces the utility of that skill on moving targets or kit implementation as it stands) but these feel like the Engineer was just rushed into completion and not technically validated sufficiently through Q&A.

However, I can say with a straight face my Warrior and my Ranger (despite the complaints) are utter wrecking engines compared to my Engineer and far more survivable with near zero comparative effort, certainly pre-80. This may change at the top end.

I have faith this will be addressed effectively in a coming patch. What I am concerned about is how far off these basic technical correctiosn will take to make it live considering we are 2 months in at this point. Clock has been ticking and the technical state of this class, and others, is a big reason we’ve seen such frustration with players leaving.

You cannot have a competitively oriented game when basic deliverables are not complete and reliable, in my estimation. It skews the landscape too much and Engineers are a case study in the kinds of bugs that are especially frustrating and onerous to players, again, in my opinion.

Your mileage may of course vary.

Static Discharge

This ability has very random firing characteristics based on the tool belt skill used.

Sometimes fires on activation (Surprise Shot), sometimes fires on contact with a target (Personal Battering Ram, Throw Wrench {possibly, hard to tell}), sometimes fires on end of animation (Rocket Kick) and range characteristics/accuracy are all over the place.

The above may be working as intended (random as it is) but for any healing ability like Heal Self, Regenerating Mist or racial heal (case tested Blessing of Dwayna) the shot seems ot ignore the target and just splat about 2 paces in front of the Engineer. If it strikes a target point blank it will still trigger/chain, but it has no reliable/dependable firing characteristics for the heal belt skills in particular.

More consistency or clarity here is needed and this looks/feels buggy as all get out. is it drawing accuracy/characteristics from the tool belt skills and if so, how are we to know short of experimentation?

Edit:
Further testing illustrates it just seems to not want to hit. Splats into the ground at even 200 or 100 paces from target dummy. If at point blank, fires PAST them in a proper firing line about 900 distance to do nothing.

If this isn’t supposed to work with the healing tool belt skills, just disable it and say so. This is not working properly as implemented.

Cheating is bad, sure thing. However, the fact that the Ghosts can chain fear you, to which you have no possible defense I’m aware of (as we have all our abilities stripped away) and kill you when you treadmill into a solid object?

Pass thanks.

I can accept not having a lockout timer on this stuff in the main world as we can all select abilities that would give us a counter to it; in the lunatic inquisition we are stripped of ANY abilities save what we can find roaming.

I’ll give it another shot but this was an infuriating shame given my initial enthusiasm for the concept. Fair play trumps all for me though and indefensible ability use is terrible to design into the scenario, in my opinion.