Guild Wars 2

wolfyrik.2017:

I think we’re pretty much in agreement here. I certainly agree that Anet either cannot or will not make changes which the majority of people want. The question is; what changes can they make? Players are offering up suggestions that cannot be achieved, true, but that’s because anet don’t let us know what the limits are. What are they able to change? What are they willing to change? Why haven’t they made such changes already?

Arguably this all the more reason for increased communication or even, as suggested in another thread, let players see the notes. Give us a look into the balance patch process. I’ve previously argued and maintain that if Anet would only give some explanation for the bizarre changes we see every balance patch, the forums would be far less hostile and more productive.

Anet has an entire army of testers waiting in the wings, using their product, getting familair with the game mechanics, even specialising in each class. Woudn’t it make sense to use of them?

I don’t think they believe they’re in need of testers. They managed to get by without them for years when it comes to balance.

However, it should be in their interest to make this place more pleasant and productive and not to alienate their fans/customers with a course nobody understands.
This doesn’t even include letting the community actively participate in the balance discussion.

To be honest, “purity of prupose” was probably their attempt at doing exactly this but it backfired (and for good reasons). Either the explanation doesn’t match the changes or they’ve left out cruicial rationale.
In either way, it definitely spells “we’re not going to make any drastic changes”. Unfortunately, there is no way for the community to know what the supposed purpose of a given ability is.

Considering all the hate they get on their boards many of these posts are absolutely fantastic. The level of precision and concise in expressing game dynamics and your own thought process is beyond what I would have hoped for from such a document the OP asks for.

You people couldn’t put these issues any more clearly and yet you get constantly passed over. Really makes you wonder why. There is no way they are not aware of what is going on.

I think such a document would simply read:
“You people all play a totally different game than we do. It’s the wrong one – suck it up.” (the TL:DR at least)

… that’s why they’re not doing them I’m sure :P

Talking about “purity of purpose” at the same time you buff the negligible power part of a condition ability or escape does actually sound like sarcasm. Are they taunting us? I have never seen a community and dev team this disconnected from eachother in any game and apparently the devs communication plays an important role in it. Seems like the only feat they manage to consistently pull of in this matter is to tip-toe around each and every suggestion made in this subforum.

Super glad I ditched engi.

You know, I have thought about what would happen if they just added them to the utility skills pool without any special declaration (just their high cool down) and replaced the elite skill slot with a 4th utility slot.
The thing is, with all classes I play would probably end up using NONE of them. The more important and somewhat new thing is, I would also not abuse the hell out of the fact I could potentially slot 4 ‘elite’ skills. It just wouldn’t be beneficial.
I’d take a ‘free’ Signet of Air or another of the much better utility shouts over Rebound in order to manually avoid death any day.

As has been said by a number of people: that speaks a lot for those skills alledged eliteness. However, it also offers Anet a cheap quick fix, considering they don’t want to redo and / or add another 3 elite skills per class.

Blipp.5206:

You didn’t sound rude and yes I did read the posts and I dont agree with the majority of them. You see where I am going with that? Its matter of different opinions and how certain skills fit into the different players gameplay. The simple truth is, you cant please -everyone-.

It occoured to me after posting it might just have been a typo…

Anyways, perhaps the issues is then that there aren’t enough elite skills to cover all available playstyles.
Okay Rebound might be a raid specific skill, fair enough, but why isn’t there a group event specific skill or one you’d want when running across a HoT map solo? Why is the most offensively usable elite skill of ranger a in my opinion boring and arguably medicore boon dispenser shout? Isn’t crate drop just a 100 second+ cooldown blast finisher, considering the state of turrets in general?

Seems to me, barring balance issues, they put in a lot of effort to produce a couple of utility and weapon skill for every liking and to go with every build they envisioned. Trying to please everyone, how come they decided to cheapskate on elite skills of all things?

The answer is simply: Elite skills – despite their definition – don’t define your build and are only loosely connected to your chosen playstyle unless you happen to have the right one out of many. It’s no mistery why they feel lacking when you often can’t make an optimal choice.

And your point is basically: I DO happen to have the right playstyle so I don’t see a problem? Okay fair enough, lucky you and all that, but the elite skills being too situational was one of my complaints. Am I really supposed to start raiding just so I can have a decent elite skill on my ele?

Offair.2563:

Ranger spirits next to them.

I find them fun in dungeons and group events. Just super annoying to cast for ~2 seconds if you want all of them deployed which makes them practically unusable in less static gameplay.

Yeah this sounds plenty silly.

Why would anybody want to use turrets for anything? They’re allegedly still as buggy as they were years ago and they’re as weak as they can possibly get.

And what does this have to do with Protoss???

You can play whatever you want to while leveling.

Blipp.5206:

Ganathar.4956:

Blipp.5206:

The new elites for the Engi and Elementalists are game changers. For Engi you have the Sneak Gyro, which dramaticly changes how an engineer is played. You pop in and out of stealth while attacking, which is a big boon to the scrapper play.
As for Rebound you guys haven’t played raids have you? If you did you’d know that Rebound is game changer in some of the boss encounters there. Gorseval springs to mind where Elementalists use ‘Rebound’ and allow the squad to survive the massive aoe from Gorseval, while delaying CC, so they can phase him in place, without moving him and using updrafts. Just because some of those skills haven’t changed the way -you- play, it doesn’t mean they didn’t changed the way other people play.

That’s great and all, but I think that ele complaints are justified if the only decent elite skill that they have is good in raids only.

I never said its good in raids only. I gave the raid example, because there its where it shines the most and its real game changer. Rebound is useful in many situations if used correctly and timed properly.
Not sure where that impressions comes from, that the elite specs dont feel -elite-. They accomplish their goals and surve their purpose for what was designed for. What more do people need, anyway?

I don’t want to sound rude but this is not about elite specs and I think I and other people here have already shed some light on why one or the other elite skill doesn’t feel at all elite to them/us. I can go into more detail on specific ones if you want to but before that it would be great if you read what my op was about and what other people have written so far.

To sum it up, I do recognize that some of these skills are infact very powerful but many are not or only very situationally so. This gives them a certain utility, no doubt, but when judging them as mere utility skills their (often unreasonably) high cooldown makes them arguably less usefull than another actual utility skill. No trace of eliteness to speak of in those cases.

Svarty.8019:

eyestrain.3056:

I’ve tried making Bone Minions (not bone fiend- the immobilizing one that is useful in mm builds- the crappy slowcast “shatter” minions. The ones that you can’t control which of the two pops when commanded, and will blow up instantly where they are and not run to target like a mesmer shatter. Those) useful in any kind of sense for about an hour and a half of build shuffling and they are simply garbage compared to any other minion.

I tried using them as blast finishers. That lasted 10 minutes.

Don’t expect any existing content to get fixed tho. Anet prefer to make new stuff, it’s cheaper in development terms.

How can this possibly be true?

I’m probably too late but here is my experience as a casual player:

1) The craft is and makes a huge mess.
That can be seen positively in a sense of exploration or – like I did – as annoying. There are so many recipes it’s hard to not lose yourself without a guide or the wiki and you’ll almost certainly end up with spare ingredients that can neither be stored in the resource bank nor sold for what their initial ingredients are worth.
Thus inventory clutter is rampant and you’re likely to waste a lot of ressources and money.

2) It adds very little value to your charcater.
Aside from the fact that you can cheaply buy ingredients with karma for low level food so you can constantly level up your characters with +10% experience there is very little to be gained here. There are pretty good food buffs but they’re not essential to anything except raiding perhaps but they’re expensive as hell. Some of those ingredients are more expensive than oricalcum which constantly makes me question whether all this food I just cooked is really worth having (or eating, since all I do is farming achievements, mats and events).

3) The prices are messed up.
Buying the final food product on the TP is less expensive than buying/ selling the ingredients and crafting it yourself. I think that speaks for itself…

Conclusion:
Wouldn’t make a chef again… unless there is no way around it as achievement requirement or something. Chef is nothing more than a time and money sink for overly rich accounts, so they can have a minor temporary stat boost while burning mats from the general economy.

Sounds like a lot of people have the same experience. It’s a shame they apparently can’t have nice and strong elite skills due to pvp… especially when you don’t even play that mode but are thus affected by it anyways.

Does pvp also forbid them to reduce cooldowns, though?
Which cooldown should go with what elite skill in your opinion?

—

Khisanth.2948:

Escadin.9482:

Khisanth.2948:

Mortar kit is also the only thing with a 100% projectile finisher on the autoattack. In theory that could make it interesting in combination with all the fields you get from the other skills but in practice I never found a reason to care.

Apparently, that has only an effect if you directly hit with the shell – not the area of effect.

That is the same as any other projectile finisher. It just means you need to leave some room for the projectile to fly through a field before it hits the target.

No it’s exactly not the same. Every other projectile finisher has a noticably higher projectile velocity and they’re also generally not skill shots. As I said, having to account for both of these drops the effective procc chance from 100% to something below 5% on moving targets for me.

Kudos if you can land mortar shells just as perfectly as auto targeting system can land long bow shots on specific (N)PC locations. I don’t think many people can.

Khisanth.2948:

Mortar kit is also the only thing with a 100% projectile finisher on the autoattack. In theory that could make it interesting in combination with all the fields you get from the other skills but in practice I never found a reason to care.

Apparently, that has only an effect if you directly hit with the shell – not the area of effect.

1) That makes it worse than, for example, long bows projectile finisher which can hit 5 targets.
2) That gives it an effective like <5% chance to actually happen for me personally. Perhaps I’m just bad but directly hitting a moving target at least 1 out of 5 times (20%) seems already way out of my capabilities… especially near max range.

The projectile doesn’t even collide with enemies as far as I can tell so the target probably has to be standing at the exact center of where your targeting circle was before the shell finally arrives like 2 seconds later.

Rauderi.8706:

Ele’s mortar is.. conditionally decent. Huge range, so I’m not sure where the lacking comparison to ranger longbow comes in. No really, absurd range, like half-White-Mantle-Knight range. And it can lob a healing shell. Elixir and Supply Crate are grab-bags of utility.

I’m just saying the okittenoesn’t feel like an elite weapon at all. It’s not stronger than any other kit you have – it just has more range but that range is kitten hard to utilize. At the same time, I have a ranger with the same gear and level and his long bow does more damage and has more range than the mortar.
So the mortar kit fails to be actually better than other kits but it is also not a very strong weapon when compared to what else the game offers in it’s category. Unless of course that water field is so strong it can make up for the lack of damage, range and projectile speed. I wouldn’t know about that…

At least it doesn’t have an excessive cooldown and having a long range option can’t hurt. Still it’s far from being a game changer with that kind of balance – in my opinion at least.

Anyway, considering the mokittenoes not have a disproportionately high cool down it probably wasn’t the best example to bring up.

PS can anybody explain how “mortar” + ‘space’ + “does” is a bad word and needs to be censored?

Liewec.2896:

on ranger i love the AoE roots, its really strong and lasts a really long time if they don’t destroy it.

You get the exact same effect on a 10s cool down instead of 60 as a major trait in the new skill tree. And again, I don’t think immobilize as a condition plays a huge role in PVE, since in every situation where you’d want to change the direction of a fight (champions, dungeon bosses, ckaks, shadow leapers, mushroom bombers, all the nasty enemies) it doesn’t have any effect at all.

I can’t comment on warrior though, never played it.

Aeolus.3615:

Guardian never had tombs :P, they were tomes.

!https://duckduckgo.com/i/67a95c5e.jpg!

In my opinion, time warp is fairly strong in PVE and gravity well is pretty good at breaking defiance (for a single ability at least).

I see your point though. The question is: why the exceptionally long cool down then? And why did they remove tomes from guardian? They were one of the most unique elite skills in the game…

Is it just me or are the vast majority of elite skills merely another utility skill with a 3 times higher cool down for inexplicable reasons?

The game basically plays like a moba with the limited amount of skills you can use in a build but in that genre elite skills tend to be game changers or really noticable spikes in your combos.

However, when I look at the elite skills of ranger, ele, engineer, warrior or guardian (except for dragonhunter) their elite skills are anything but game changing. Perhaps this is more noticable in PVP. In PVE I don’t see the difference an elite version of my air elemental which still doesn’t deal any significant damage makes.
I also don’t see the point in mortar which deals less power damage and has less range than a ranger’s long bow and only has 1 damaging condition but is infinitely hard to land shots with in return. Or how about an AoE root which champions and ranged enemies simply ignore?

Even if it’s a PVE issue, how is Rebound! any good in pvp with it’s cast time? You’re probably dead before you can use it and it only absorbing one hit doesn’t really matter when people spam you with conditions and multi-hit abilities.

Of all the classes I play, only mesmer’s elite skills seem to make a noticable difference.

Now I don’t say all these skills don’t have their times shine. It’s easy to make up niche situations where they might do what they’re intended to do and perhaps they’re even effecitve at it some times. However, does that really match the expectations of an elite skill? Does this really warrant a 3 or 4 times longer cooldown than most of your utility skills?

If you disagree- let me ask you this: Are you sure you wouldn’t some times, or with some classes, prefer a 4th utility skill slot over an elite one?

“scholar zerk is still top”

I don’t see how anything beats dragonhunter’s traps really.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Not that your vendor selling isn’t a bug, but have you considered salvaging the items, or selling them on the TP? You would make lots more Gold.

Just a thought.

p.s. Video works now.

Thanks for checking the video! I don’t know about lots more gold… I’m gonna salvage them again but even then I still have to sell the sigils.

shadow.6174:

Yup, working now. O.o Weird bug indeed. I would say that mouse scroll thing is to blame but as you said other windows or even out of game stuff are fine.. I have no much to suggest. Are you using some type of device or special mouse/keyboard (I forgot how those are called) or some software suppose to monitor your keystrokes? Maybe the game is receiving a wrong/ghost input from somewhere.

Nope, not to my knowledge. This bug only occours since earlier this week and I haven’t knowingly changed anything about my setup.

atheria.2837:

Mouse clicks/scrolling are WAY OFF THE MARK.

Scrolling must be done WAY right of the movement bar or doesn’t work until you grab the darn bar.

This is not just vendors, it’s impacting clicking on almost anything.

I’m not sure I understand what your point is. I definitely 100% garuanteed have no issues outside of the vendor dialog in this game.

shadow.6174:

Hmm, it says the video is private O.o

How about now?

Discription:
When this bug occours, the selling dialog scrolls towards the bottom every time I sell an item. Selling them via right cllick -> sell, double click or the sell button on the bottom right doesn’t make a difference.
It makes selling the houndreds of items I loot during events extremely tedious.

Recording of the bug in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KyPofvhDIo

Reproducibility:
I have no idea why and when it occours. Seems pretty random to me. Sometimes I can sell normally, sometimes I can’t. It can be there from the second I log in or only occour after hours of consecutive playtime. Sometimes I sell a few items just fine and then the bug appears at the 4th or 5th sale. However, once the bug is active it becomes really hard to get rid of it and it is guaranteed to happen on every item I sell from there on.

Closing and re-opening the vendor doesn’t fix it. Relogging or restarting the game doesn’t affect it. It disappears on it’s own after 30 to 60minutes if I just ignore it and keep playing.
However, playing another character does make a difference. The bug seems to haunt each character individually.

What I tried:
Naturally, I suspected my mouse. I tried to double click the insides or drag and click around the frames of other dialogs which also have scroll bars but the bug doesn’t show up there.
I also don’t experience any issues while zooming, rotating the camera, clicking at enemies or whatever you do during normal gameplay and I don’t have any issues with my mouse in other games or programs.
And finally, I tried replugging my mouse and plugging it into a different usb port. No change and effect whatsoever.

This bug is 100% limited to vendor dialog.

Thanks for reassuring my faith in build diversity. This is a big relief!.

Ivantreil.3092:

Anet doesnt seem to have plans for turret any time soon, they will defenitely will require a rework, no way anet will buff them in their current state.

That seems to be the case since release nomatter what they do. I just noticed there are magnetic auras and group boons for turrets (which seems to cater to the old meta) and all of this is still not enough?
I mean I personally don’t find the fun to play with in PvE anymore due to the bad positioning but wow turrets are one can of worms balance wise.

Is playing ranger with long bow still viable or do I have to run with staff?

So I guess this means I’ll have to craft a viper set and shelve my turrets and rifle for good.

Did this happen to other classes as well?
Are there still viable long-range + power builds (counting other classes too)?

Perhaps I’m just gonna go and insta 80 myself a ranger :/

bearshaman.3421:

One thing to keep in mind: most of your complaints seem to be from a pvp focus. While some of these things don’t make sense for pvp, they do for pve. Make sure to kitten changes with all game types in mind.

Who was that directed at?
I don’t play pvp at all but I’m gonna agree if you’re adressing the devs / the people those devs apparently catered to.

The lack of throwable turrets is a huge hit for pve, so is having them deal so little damage. The bugs, on the other hand, are just plain bad from every point of view.

Thanks for your reply and sorry for dropping out. Was kinda busy. I’m still not clear on a few things:

insanemaniac.2456:

• people abused throwing turrets in pvp, and turret engi was a thing that needed to die in a fire, so the trait was caught in the crossfire when the specialization overhaul came out

Okay I can understand that placed detonations can be annoying in pvp. Still how am I supposed to let a thumper turret tank for me when I already have to be engaged in melee to set it up? It kinda defeats the purpose and it also sucks the fun out of using them in castle siege / defense.
And if they wanted to completely remove turrets then why are they still in game? Is this supposed to be a noob trap?

insanemaniac.2456:

• people complained that it didnt make sense that you could throw things 1500 range and shoot things 1200 range along with the slow projectiles needing proper leading being hard to master and making nades make the most sense in melee anyways along with mortar kit taking over the long range

Makes sense. Still it appears my damage with either kit has been insanely cut. I used to hit for like 10k with the rocket turret toolbelt missle and crit for 1500+ with each grenade. Perhaps my memory is wrong but it seems like damage recieved a 50% or even 66% cut to what I remember.
Where engis really that OP or did we get anything in return?

insanemaniac.2456:

• no, turrets are just simply in an unusable state for the indefinite future (except healing turret which is still the best heal no matter how they nerf it and rifle turret toolbelt)

So really no bug fixes at all? Like the gun turret overcharge still actually reduces attack speed instead of increasing it, etc? What the hell makes them hate turrets so much? O_o

Why did they remove the trait which let you throw turrets into position?
Why did they change grenades into mid-rage weapons?
Is my memory wrong or did they heavily reduce damage of many abilities such as the rocket turrets belt skill and the bomb kit in general?

It seems they made some serious changes to the class. Were there at least some fixes to the endless list of bugs that turrets had to compensate for what appears to be a huge nerf?

Returning after such a long time I’m kinda baffled by the changes. Not even sure which item prefix I’d want to be wearing now… Little help, please?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Your changing IP address should be within a range (of 0 – 220 or so) and the email authentication will eventually learn that range (as long as you keep remembering) and stop asking.

If you want to change to SMS or other authentication, you can contact the CS Team via the ‘Support’ link above/below and ‘Submit a Request’ for assistance.

FYI: This kind of thread would belong in the Account Support sub-forum.

Good luck.

So in like 2/3rds of a year if I log in every day? Quickest fix ever ;D

Thanks for your replies guys. Maybe I get lucky and they’ll patch it somehow (this is the only game I have this issue with but not the only game that uses 2factor authentication I have. The Steam client for example doesn’t bother at all). Perhaps another method will make this more convenient.

Would be glad if a mod could kindly move this to Account support then.

Danikat.8537:

I don’t know if this works in GW2 but in GW1 I found the simple solution to the problem was to make up a name for my build.

In that game the skills you chose were the main aspect of your build and groups would often ask you to share your skill bar in chat so they could decide whether they thought it looked good or not.

Honestly 9 times out of 10 the people making the call had no real idea what they were doing. If I told them I made the build up myself, I’ve used it in this dungeon/mission/whatever many times before and it works they’d kick me. If I told them I can’t remember what site I got it from but it’s called [whatever I felt like calling it at the time] (‘DOT + Profession name’ was a common form, or AoE + profession name) they’d accept it, no questions asked.

(Or if they were particularly observant I’d have to explain one detail, like I had a fiery bow string to go with Mark of Rodgort or yes, Dervishes do have AoE skills.)

Love it.

This whole “meta build or get out” attitude defeats the point of the game imo. The game doesn’t offer me dozens of possible builds per character just so bad balance or made up community rules can limit me to only 1 or 2 of them. Why even play an RPG then?

Okay I can understand that sometimes people prefer to play with a team where everyone can pull their own weight. That’s fine. I wouldn’t wanna play with a completely unoptimized or nonsensical build myself.

However, there is no reason to go overboard with this especially considering most of the content (open world, dungeons, story, etc) barely asks more of anyone than to know how to dodge or react to the encounter.

And yet it often gets to the point where running a meta build and strategy is the expected default for everyone and everything. It’s the same when everyone relies on cheesing events, exploiting the AI and terrain to skip encounters, or generally skip as much of a dungeon run as possible everytime you play it.
Whether you do that or force people to run meta builds so you don’t have to coordinate a team of individuals, actively develop strategies based on what you have and don’t have to learn more than one easy way to beat the game – it’s all comming down to the same:

You cut out the part of the game which is supposed to be fun and go straight to the mindless grind behind it. Cut out the fun and go to work. When you’re kicking someone because he makes things “more complicated” for you you’re essentially saying “look I don’t enjoy this [game] either but… let’s just get it done”.
At which point, I have to wonder: Why even play? For everyone like that: You’re turning this game into a job. Stop it and get a real one instead.

For everyone who’s already kittened off by now, again: If you’re just behind meta builds it so you can garuantee a group of people who know how things roll from time to time then that’s fine with me.
Just don’t let it get out of hand.

Well I’d hope maybe to convince them to use geoip or find out about a different solution. Can I disable authentication in my account settings somewhere? (didn’t find it).

I don’t get a static IP from my ISP so my IP changes 2-3 times a day. I somewhat improved this by letting the router re-establish a connection on it’s own terms during night time when I don’t care but I still get an IP change at least once a day.
Consequently, I have to authenticate my network at least once every day via email code and the “remember network” option effectively does nothing.

Is there any way to fix this? It’s really annoying.

No idea where I should ask this so sorry for defaulting to general discussion.

What I liked

• 5 Fast paced combat
• 4 events
• 3 major traits
• 2 appearence customization
• 1 jumping puzzles

Meh

• 5 static and bulky UI
• 4 rest of the trait system
• 3 balance and build diversity
• 2 Dungeon system
• 1 lack of challenges and meaningful progress

lmperdigao.2567:

Yeah, you’re right. Most of the reason that the trinity system is (for me) a bad system is because it’s old. Do you remember when rpgs where about turns and random encounters? We had games with turns and random encounters for years and years too. The only game that survived from this trend to our days are the Pokémon series. And probably just because it’s Pokémon. It was a good system before, but because it was the only one that could be simple and tactical at the same time that we had. Most of the people in our days can’t stand rpg in turns (not strategy rpgs like FFT, but like FF4) because we got better systems.

GW2 had a better system in mind. It was good on paper, but in game is just shallow. Even with combo fields and such (mostly because they’re just a flavor thing, and not something strictly necessary). It’s simple enough to appeal people, but has no team tactical approach at all, because you only need to concern about yourself to be successful in the very most of the situations.

And I do believe that is possible to create a system without the holy trinity that is at the same time simple to understand but deep to work with. But well, not in GW2.

There is definetly a similar trend. Tbh the best non-MMO RPG I have played was dragon age 1 (somewhat openly turn based) and the only thing that puts skyrim (fully real time) on almost the same level for me was it’s mod support and certainly not the depth in it’s combat.
So these things are probably just one factor.

Just think about league of legends. Anybody who claims this game isn’t about teamplay deserves a brick to face. Literally millions of people enjoy it everyday, even hype it and hence prove it has a good gamedesign concept.
However, it is based on a Tank-Dps-Healer/Support Trinity. Not strictly, but it has been (or still is) the meta for years.

Edit: I don’t mean to claim TDH trinity would totally work for GW2, but people in these forums seem to underrate it based on their bad experience with it’s implementation in 1 or 2 games and their miserable rip-offs.

lmperdigao.2567:

Trinity is not good. It’s a bad system.
The problem with GW2 is not the lack of trinity. Is that we don’t have something better.

It’s just old. Trinity systems had too much success over the past 10 years to be a bad system.

I miss pulling every last stupid pug with through hardcore dungeons as a healer. It’s ludicrous that people here seem to believe this is the opposite of teamplay, but either way it was fun. You are right though, there are probably way funnier teamplay actitivies for a person like me but anet didn’t implement any of them.

Going back to trinity would be the cheap way out.

Arrion.2185:

nGumball.1283:

While listening is good, going by their own vision is important. The player-base will never be happy and they will never please everyone, re-working everything over and over is a cycle that will never end, since there will always be players complaining about how the system works.

Anyone needing hard proof of this, can go to any battle.net game forum, and look at the general topics, or if you can find the archives for the suggestion forums of WoW.

You can try all you want to please your player base, but you will never do it fully. So with this I give both NCsoft and Arena net something to chew on. kitten suggestions. There is NOTHING I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you can do to make each and everyone of us happy. You can balance the classes until the dying days of your companies, and NEVER satisfy all of us. So make your game. Make it how YOU want it to be, and let those of us who find enjoyment in it be happy with what you have given us. NEVER forget that this is YOUR game, and NOT ours.

Anet: “Got it! Can’t win, don’t try.”

sternenstaub.8763:

ANET’s trinity got lost mainly for two reasons:

1. PvE Mobs are designed badly.
Defiance makes control pretty much useless, no need to skill for control.
Very, very big HP Pools on bosses make anything hybrid a chore not worth the effort for what you get at the end.
Support builds can be build with max damage gear, making support gear meaningless.
Condition damage is capped hard.
Healing is a joke when you see that continues healing of 4 People in a 5 man dungeon is not enough when you have insta down skills on bosses.
Dodge (+vigor) makes everything avoidable if you are good enough.

Leading to a meta that encourages buff Support with max DPS equip. Leading condition outside due to the cap.

2. In WvWvW there are mostly just zergs, but actually Support and CC is more on demand here. The trinity has not failed, is just feels meaningless with so many People around (but it isn’t).

3. PvP
In Groups, Support and Control could shine if not for reasons like traits, runes already improving builds so much, that there is no need a complete specialization on support or control and therefore People go again, with as much damage as they can. But the trinity works here actually best. The conquest modes leads to bunker, roaming, but control and Support are existing to round it up.

Problem in the whole Balance of the game are the extremes. Classes have always extreme Access to selfsupport, damage, control or heal, which leads to a meta where Support classes are irrelevant and everybody brings everything for himself (and for a part for others on top of this).

This is a very good summary.

Xae Isareth.1364:

fadeaway.2807:

Until I see games without the trinity offering complex fights such as vashj, sunstrider, alar, hydross, gorefiend, Council, firefighter mimiron, etc I will conclude that the trinity offers far more opportunity for complex fight mechanics than a pure “everyone is dps” approach.

What would really help the tank/healer shortage would be allowing everyone to be a tank healer or Dps whenever they felt like it without rerolling or regearing.

Those fights aren’t actually complex. They’re like playing a new piece on a piano, it’s hard the first few times but once you done it, you can pretty much do it on auto drive. There’s actually relatively little thought process to them because you’re just following the fight script.

I want to see you playing a healer in ANY trinity game with your screen turned off.

Algreg.3629:

digiowl.9620:

Seems that most of this thread failed their reading comprehension test…

And i don’t think it has been a conscious decision, but instead a bunch of little unintended consequences that has snowballed since their initial concept stage.

for instance, Defiant is pretty much a “oh snap” addition to counteract stun locking on big mobs.

And a large part comes down to trying to balance PVE and PVP at the same time, while mobs pretty much ignore game mechanics.

All in all, i think GW2 has been 3 parts hype, 1 part substance so far. And most of that substance is focused around PVP. GW2 is in essence a MOBA with PVE bolted on in attempt at getting a larger recruitment ground, and perhaps appease some suits that didn’t see any money in the MOBA esports….

no, most just don´t have the opinion you would like to hear.

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/01/06

No, most just state their opinion on WoW’s trinity instead of Anet’s trinity which this thread is about…. bandwagon opinions ftw.

A reworked and improved pve would definetly bring me and many others back to the game. The depth of PvE ceased before I (and many others) even considered buying gems which is just too bad for anet and GW2’s future.
PvP, while not that greatly supported either, is definetly the more fun activity in GW2 -behind casual roaming. Can you imagine the game to run solely on 2-10hours per week casuals in 2 years from now? Maybe a very small but unsupported pvp community? I’d be surprised personally.

I guess the devs just didn’t have the time, resources or even a greenlight from management to conserve, fix and improve their PvE and trinity system. However, there is a chance this will change now that LS is over.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Zerker will still be the best, the next patch but not by much and that is fine. That means that other builds will be as viable and maybe the Meta game will shift a bit.

Yes many people will change their gear and get rid of precision mainstat items. It’s something I guess.

Dafomen.7892:

That expression wasnt meant to be directed to you specifically….but here you are, so please don’t stop, tell me more about why you must enlighten us.
And I am very sorry that I have disturbed your _ on a higher level of knowledge_ discussion and hurt your feelings.
If you feel the need to turn this into personal discussion which you hinted at with your delightful brackets, please consider using the PM system.
BTW, if you quote someone, you don’t change the quote…because then its not a quote anymore, is it?

True. I guess I should go back to expressing my opinion in as few words as possible so how about this?

“Look who’s hypocritical point significantly increased in number of words.”

Jski.6180:

No not at all GW2 is effectually the same game as GW1 i think they even use the same system the different between WoW and WC3 is bigger then the different between GW1 and GW2 by a lot. And stop acting like GW1 was about pvp only there was a lot of pve in fact most of its “big” life was more about pve then pvp. Yes GW1 started out as pvp but it did not work all that well so it went more into pve. In may ways GW1 was missed name by your stander it was an HUB game that happen to have pvp organized by guilds (effectually just teams with the same tag name any game can say there pvp is guild ordinate because you can chose who on your team and more then like to be the ppl in the same guild therefor all pvp is GvG.)
You can have GvG in CoD if you wanted and your team is all the same “guild” and the other team is the same “guild” too. And that what is lost in this argument the ideal of what is a guild other then just a group of ppl who want to run together.

I think we are drifting away from my point more and more. Let’s leave it at that. All I can say is that:

The amount of threads complaining about the lack of GvG, whether justified or not, clearly indicates that the old GvG experience as a whole was an important part of the GW series for many people.
However, this concept has clearly been abandoned in GW2 (otherwise such thread wouldn’t arise), probably not the concept of GvG itself but the mixture of elements including GvG which creatured that unique experience people miss in GW2.
Whether or not Anet can get away with this change at the expense of their previous audience, those people weren’t that far off to expect a reimplementation in the sequel.

Jski.6180:

@ Escadin.9482
You kind of proved my point with the WoW argument the defining factor for WC was its RTS and they used the name Warcraft because WoW was part of that same universe much like GW1 and GW2 names are used.

That would be much easier to swallow if World of Warcraft had been called Warcraft 4 and if it had still had an RTS design frame. This is not the case so it sounds like comparing apples to oranges to me.

Dafomen.7892:

The more ignorant the replies, the weaker his arguments become.

Fixed it to you. I write a lot of words because I try to explain things many people in this thread seem naive to. If you think discussing on a higher level of knowledge makes things less credible then why even bother (living)?

Jski.6180:

So there are other games that have made compel shift in there game play type yet still used the old name WoW and the WC games are great example of this. WC 1 to 2 where full RTS WC3 was more of an RTS with a RPG like hero system and WoW is comply apart from the WC system to where its no longer an RTS. How can they hold the name Warcraft? Because the story was the same lines and the world that was being played in the same even though they where very different games.

I think this is different. Adding the hero system in WC3 was more an addition to, than replacement of previous gaming experience. There were probably people who didn’t like it but they still had whatever made WC2 worthwile for them alongside (mostly).

WoW on the other hand is not really part of the RTS series. It is more clearly a completely new game which takes place in the same universe.

Jski.6180:

Who’s rules? Is there a gov. body that sets them? Or is it just a mob of ppl who “think” they are right above others? A game maker makes there own rules when it comes to naming or even making there own game. Comments like that makes it sound like your making things up as you go along to fit your current needs that is not a set of rule of ideal that just an excuse to say things.

Market rules undoubtly. Furthermore, gamedesigner can’t dictate how people enjoy or experience their games through laws. They can only investigate reactions to certain decisions and elements and this one example of it.
You can bet your kitten that this decision encouraged a shift in their target audience. Many people became alienated to the franchise, while new people discovered the second part as a new game.
This doesn’t necessarily have have bad consequences (I didn’t want to imply that btw). It easily can though, which for example EA games has proven with all the formerly popular franchises they have loused up over the past 10 years.

Jski.6180:

Final fantasy is another example of holding the same name by mostly though story alone. This game has started out as a pure turn base game then jumped to a time turn base to a live action turn back (what you see in mmorpgs) and now its going to a full live action in the newest ff game. All these games hold the same name with a number to show how long or how many have been out. This is comply ok too its dumb to lose a reconnaissance name for something as small as a changes in how the game plays and to ask a game maker to do this is asking them to commit suicide.

I didn’t play FF so I can’t tell. It is obvious though, that increasingly bigger changes are necessary in order to avoid other (possibly bigger) issues within a series of what? 16 parts? compared to merely 2. And they had much more time to implement them step by step too.
Perhaps the combat pace was no defining characteristic. Perhaps it was and the game had to go through the same troubles (but obviously made it). I can’t tell.

Escadin.9482:

If you want them to have very locked in GvG like GW1 that ok but this is comply the worst way to ask for it. And the argument is always going to get bogged down in facts of why GW1 was called as such etc.. So if you want to realty ask for GvG like you saw in GW1 you should ask for it that way and not this very round about way of trying to “troll” a name in some effect to get them on your side (i am realty not sure how you can ever convenes some one of any thing if your just going to be mean about things i highly dough trolling some one is every going to get them to do just what you want.)

It’s not a very elaborate way of expressing the issue, that’s true. Not everyone puts as much effort into researching why he/she likes things the way they are. All they know is GW2 feels different were it’s not “supposed to” and they don’t like that.
The usual reply “we got the lore, your argument is invalid” isn’t much better though.

Jski.6180:

That the thing games are always going to feel different or you would just have the same game. WvW is like a large scale GvG smaller scale GvG but still in the open WvW maps is fond in OS and even smaller and very well even GvG is going to be found in Spvp. The GvG in OS and Spvp are player made atm and it may be best to keep them that way.

There is a difference between new game and new game of a series. It is true that every game of a series will feel a bit different, but they usually share the same defining characteristics. No developer breaks this rule without certain consequences and the same holds true for other media.

Jski.6180:

… for story titles can mean any thing they may have nothing to do with the story line until the end of the story or even as vague as giving a suggestion of the way things are going. A title for a story means less to the reader then it dose to the person writing it.

I don’t get what you are trying to say here. Really.

Jski.6180:

So yes GW2 fits the game hands down because its still in the same world and still with the same back ground. Yes any game could be called a number of titles but this title works the best. Now your just name calling because its not just like GW1.

It fits the game’s story, but not it’s gameplay.

Jski.6180:

Kind of a side note that no one seemed to pick up on there is way too much on the G part of GW there still the W part even in GW1 there was no Guild War there was guild pvp but that is not a war that a battle point of view or “play/sport” very farm from a real war. In GW2 we have a real war system called WvW in some ways the W at least is more well named in GW2 then it was in GW1 and i present that WvW is a type of GvG but more open. This point of view is coming from how big of an impact a guild has in WvW with buffs sieges and communication to other guilds on the same world to get things done. If your solo in wvw your doing it very wrong and to run with out a guild your not going to have a good time at all.

… because it doesn’t feel like GvG for many people, quite obviously. WvW is not the type of experience GW1 crafted for them and it’s said experience they felt was representative for GW1. Since GW2 is a sequel to GW1, they were right to expect it though.

Jski.6180:

DiogoSilva.7089:

“Because of lore” is a really poor excuse, considering how the story puts heavy emphasis on dragons and barely even cares about the guild war event that took place hundred years before the game.

The real reason is: brand name. Guild Wars has a estabilished brand name – making a game called Guild Wars 2 would be better for the sales than making a game called, say, Dragon Wars.

Well its not a name is just that a NAME it tends to mean nothing at the end of the day it only has meaning in the moment. This is how real life works why should it be any different for a game?

GW2 is not a name – it’s a title. A title is supposed to reflect the content of books, songs, movies or games in a meaningful way, rhetorically play with it and be the key to it’s comprehension. In a series of games, movies, songs etc it also evokes and plays with memories of core impressions from prequels and uses them similar to a brandname.
The frequent abuse and failed utilization of this concept is no excuse for it’s continuation.

The title guild wars is undoubtly bonded to indepth pvp and gvg experience as you can easily tell at a single glance at this thread. It’s also quite obvious that GW2, by no means, is a successor to GW1 in any of it’s outstanding game desing choices, except for the lack of subscription fees.

However, the title DOES mean something. Using the title of a well established brand or series yields marketing advantages, because people who liked GW1 have a significantly increased likelyhood to buy GW2 due to the concept I’ve explained above.

I’m sorry, but you are just being naive here.

Veckna.9621:

This is something that I’ve had struck in my throat for a while now and just haven’t managed to swallow at all.

There’s a trend in the LFG system that involves asking for members with a minimum Achievement Points (AP) score for several dungeons, not even to get into the “Zerk Warr only” LFG ads…
So it’s got me thinking, AP only indicates how much you’ve played the overall game and beyond I believe 20 AP that you get for clearing every path in a dungeon, a player’s dungeon experience is in no way related to the amount of AP he/she has. In fact, I know players who’ve been absent from GW2 for quite a while with over 10k AP and they struggle to get their rhythm back and make the sort of mistakes you’d expect from somebody who’s attempting said dungeon for the first time.
Therefore, what does AP have to do with dungeon experience and player ability?

Keep in mind this is no rant, I just hate seeing groups disband for such idiotic reasons on the rare occasions I do use the LFG tool.

Answer: Not that much.
You can only guess that people with high AP are less likely to screw up overall. I guess it’s just the most common way of predicting this. I am one exception to this likelyness myself ( 3man’d almost every path before I even had 1800 AP), but you can’t blame people for trying to control with whome the play -complaining won’t change their behaviour anyway.

The only way to improve their fairness is, infact, give them more accurace messurement tools but way too many people are afraid of that (especially casuals) so that won’t happen and nothing will ever change it.

Jski.6180:

Escadin.9482:

mooty.4560:

Dusty Moon.4382:

GW1 was considered a cooperative RPG not an MMO. Max players you could have in an instance (any of the zones, etc. was 12). The Towns and outposts could be considered graphical lobbies to meet and match players.

“Graphical Lobbies”.. cute term but they were in essence persistent worlds where players could interact with each other as well as perform a myriad of town/outpost related tasks common to GW1.

When people say that GW1 wasn’t an MMORPG, I figure they either a. didn’t play it or b. assume that it’s lack of persistent world style content means it’s not an MMO.

Sorry folks, GW1 was an MMORPG, albeit an odd one. None of this has anything to do with GvG, however. I still hold by my sentiment that GW2 GvG simply wouldn’t be the same and to keep expectations in check before you make demands.

Sounds like two worlds 2 is an MMORPG too then.

CoD is an mmo to some ppl the term is way over used for every thing. At this point its just another way of saying a game is online or has some type of online play.

A trend for pretty much every genre and subgenre, I’m afraid. To be fair, wikipedia says GW1 is an MMORPG which distinguishes from other MMORPG in that it has instanced gameplay areas and no subscription fees. Can’t tell who’s right though, because I (unfortunatly) didn’t play it.

edit:
I’d personally say the first difference already excludes it from MMORPGS, comparably to diablo series or path of exile.

Flytrap.8075:

Why does it even matter?

You’re just splitting hairs for the sake of argument.

I for one am interested in this question

mooty.4560:

Dusty Moon.4382:

GW1 was considered a cooperative RPG not an MMO. Max players you could have in an instance (any of the zones, etc. was 12). The Towns and outposts could be considered graphical lobbies to meet and match players.

“Graphical Lobbies”.. cute term but they were in essence persistent worlds where players could interact with each other as well as perform a myriad of town/outpost related tasks common to GW1.

When people say that GW1 wasn’t an MMORPG, I figure they either a. didn’t play it or b. assume that it’s lack of persistent world style content means it’s not an MMO.

Sorry folks, GW1 was an MMORPG, albeit an odd one. None of this has anything to do with GvG, however. I still hold by my sentiment that GW2 GvG simply wouldn’t be the same and to keep expectations in check before you make demands.

Sounds like two worlds 2 is an MMORPG too then.

For one part, it’s definetly calculated marketing to announce a sequel but don’t deliever one, except for the lore. Many people fell into this “trap” and I think the only reason they didn’t give this game another name – started a new series- is because they wanted to use reputation and momentum of GW1 to get this thing started.

Khal Drogo.9631:

How would it take you 5-7 days to be geared in exotic without reaching lvl 400 in crafting is beyond me since it takes quite a lot of tokens for exo gear now that tokens are capped daily. Crafting to 400 is quite a grind as well because u need the mats or the G for mats esp now that lower tier mats increased in prices thanks to ascended.

I think a lot of people misuse the term casual a lot – some people think it includes people who puts in thousands of hours but isnt as skillful or inclined to solo Lupi. Whereas I would term casual players who spend not more than 10hr per week on the game who would be turned off by the grind, the obnoxious 1337ists who reside in the halls of CoE or the lack of new good content in general.

And if you want to know what really is a casual friendly game, just take a look at a MMO released last week which made GW2 server populations fall dramatically and imho permanently. Enough said.

It took me 6 days to max level my first character and provide it with a full set of cleric and a second set of assasin exo. I earned the required gold to buy both sets at TP by leveling, a couple explorer mode dungeons and 3 paths ascalon. It’s probably a different story with a different economy on your server but cleric and assasin sets aren’t worth kitten here -big surprise (~5g for the full set including runesets).
Berserker is more expensive for obvious reasons but took me only 4 more days to get. After that I started maxing out crafting skills.

You are right though, if you are into collecting classes then leveling each one to 80 is probably a joyful time sink.