Guild Wars 2

cue Now You Know rainbow

Wow… y’all went above and beyond… thanks!

Question’s in the title.

I thought all Sylvari were born with one. Caithe’s even drives her to steal the egg from us.

But Canach doesn’t seem to give two kittens about anything. Mercenary turned criminal turned bodyguard… not seeming to really care about anything other than being annoyed at the circumstances he’s found himself in.

From the Challenging Content Blog

there are a number of Mastery traits attached to various facets of the raid encounters. For example, if your squad is working on the last boss of a wing, and no one has a particular and clearly stated Mastery unlocked, you’re probably going to fail spectacularly.

Then players without those masteries should not be allowed to enter. Full stop. Block them and keep them out until they have the required masteries.

Letting players do content you explicitly say they cannot succeed at will do nothing but frustrate the playerbase. Don’t trust your players to read the Masteries fine print.

Keep. Them. Out.
(so much for inclusive raiding)

Vayne.8563:

EverythingXen.1835:

You honestly believe Anet doesn’t have a handle on something as basic as the number of zones in HoT this close to release?

Ineptitude on that scale is almost insulting towards Anet. I don’t agree with a lot of their decisions, but they’re not that utterly incompetent.

It’s simple. Anything less than a full continent, or at the very least region sized amount of zones, “triple tiered” or not, is going to be a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of customers. And they know they’re not going to deliver on that, so they don’t talk about it.

I think you have less experience than you think you do if you call this inept. No matter what you plan in a creative endeavor, things change, pretty much all the time. I’ve had to rewrite the last half of a book because something changed in the beginning of the book due to editorial decision. Before I had to rewrite the project was done.

Anet, in my opinion, didn’t want to do an expansion at all, but instead wanted to continue offering the content as Living Story. In which case the number of new zones wouldn’t be called into question, since they would introduce them as they went along, probably one at a time. You can’t do that with an expansion.

The change of content delivery methods would have to throw a monkey wrench into previous plans. Anet couldn’t wait forever to get the expansion out, so knowing how many zones will be ready and tested by launch is not knowable.

Anyone calling that incompetence is, in my opinion, wrong.

It’s not a creative endeavor. It’s a business transaction.

I don’t make games. I don’t care about the trials and tribulations of switching to an expansion when your LS plans fail. (Though it’d be interesting to hear/read about at GDC or something) I don’t care about excuses. As a consumer, what I care about is what my $$ is going to get me in this expansion.

You cant list the full content, or even intended content, of your product this close to release… No, not even that, just a list of areas being added… simply because you don’t KNOW? But you still want to sell it to me?

I give you its probably not incompetentce considering the number of prepurchases undoubtedly made. There are a few other choice words for it though.

You honestly believe Anet doesn’t have a handle on something as basic as the number of zones in HoT this close to release?

Ineptitude on that scale is almost insulting towards Anet. I don’t agree with a lot of their decisions, but they’re not that utterly incompetent.

It’s simple. Anything less than a full continent, or at the very least region sized amount of zones, “triple tiered” or not, is going to be a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of customers. And they know they’re not going to deliver on that, so they don’t talk about it.

Dadnir.5038:

Thaddeus.4891:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… The only way to make heal bot valuable (since this is basically what ventari’s legend is) will be to introduce an area degen around boss.

Healing power being what it is, there is no way that a player can “heal” it’s party since boss/silver mobs attack are OH KO mechanisms.

Tanking abilities being what they are, ther will never be “tank” since ther is no way to hold aggro nor to survive OH KO repeatidly if fights goes on.

You are wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ubRKdpDfU8

They do level 50 with 3 people in 30min and one of them is full clerics. Healing Power in the right hand can be good. Not as good a DPS/Support build since Support is better and don’t limit your dps, but still. People believe falsely that one person in healing gear will make the run take 3 hours.

Not being optimal doesn’t mean that it’s useless or even not efficient.

I saw nothing in this video proving that they need healing power at all. 90% of the support is done by clever block and reflect of the guardian. In fact fact I can do the exact same thing in knight armor set.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve never said that support is bad, I’ve said that healing power is useless as a support mean and will stay useless until they tweek numbers and scalling in a way that it become meaningfull. The only issue here is that Anet won’t do it because this will result in a feared imbalance in sPvP.

Pretty much this. The gameplay isn’t changed in the slightest.

If I build a character to support and deck him out in Cleric gear, it should affect how I approach and play the content. Right now I’m just playing a slower version of a DPS built character.

I literally had the game reinstalling in the background when I found this thread.

I’ve stopped it. One of the biggest changes that I thought would really change up the stale gameplay of the past years is getting lowered back down.

I’ll wait and see. Dubiously.

At the end of the day.

I look at what my $59.99 bought me when I got GW2.
Then I look at what my $59.99 will buy me if I got GW2 HoT.

The value simply isn’t there.

Mesket.5728:

Donari.5237:

I interpret the massive reply differently from you. I see it as the community asking those in the know as to what actually can progress through discussion to make the evaluation and choice of the first topic. I also see eagerness to get to the actual discussion rather than spending a week lobbying for personal pet favorite topics to be selected.

The Ice Cream truck is here, and no kid is running to it… they are slowly walking to it.

To be fair, the last time we had Ice Cream we picked Ranger Balance flavored. I wouldn’t exactly go running back for another taste of that either.

Let em recommend something.

Walhalla.5473:

And we all know what will happen if this level of toxicity remains. Hello Dev Silence.

If a pair of vocal posters are enough to shut down an entire customer communication initiative, then…

…I honestly don’t know what to say.

To be honest, I don’t see the point.

Nothing in these stickied threads seems like anything that wouldn’t go in a pertinent CDI thread at least. And those really don’t need the attention split between them and some nebulous topic sticky.

I mean, what bearing would these have to the game content?

To put it simply… you cant break promises you never make.

Unfortunately for you Anet, you can no longer fulfill any either with this policy. Silence gives me nothing to look forward to and really… no base to rebuild trust on.

Option 1.

Only you guys know what’s technically feasible and, more importantly, what topics you flat out refuse to budge on for design/philosophy/etc reasons. Our time is also valuable.

Einlanzer.1627:

Kain Francois.4328:

I understand there are complications customizing the story for each decision in the personal story, but what about our biography choices? Things like our warband or dream to join the circus should really play a bigger role influencing the decisions our character makes.

For example, an Ash legion charr should take a more tactical approach, whereas a Blood legion should confront their foes head on.

A human character who’s lost his parents might sympathize more with a character in a certain situation, and focus on defending them during an invasion. However, someone wished to join the circus could be trying to keep a crowd calm and provide motivational support.

Or what about my human’s social status? A street rat might be able to woo Riot Alice into helping out, and provide tactics needed to infiltrate a bandit hideout, as opposed to blasting in with guns roaring like a Noble would do (ironic…)

This needn’t happen for every mission of course, but it would be nice if our biography decisions influenced at least a bit of it. I want to feel more characterization of the protagonist I worked so hard to create.

And I do agree with this. One of the most disjointing things about the game is how generic the MC tends to feel despite all the cool things you picked out from their background.

There actually is a bit of this in the first story instance. I talked to Jory’s sister after the battle and she admitted being uncomfortable around my character because he was a nobleman (picked at character creation). I was able to talk to Kasmeer about it as well.

I’m not playing through it again with another character, but I have to think the dialog would change for say my Asura.

Wayfarer as a zone has wonky level scaling too.

I’ve often found my downleveled characters 3 or 4 levels higher than the mobs I’m fighting in spots. Combine with the more powerful gear and yep… I’m one shotting mobs in Soldier gear.

lordkrall.7241:

I wonder if we will ever see an announcement about anything that will not involve people shouting about how much it will suck.

Funnily enough we see people that have earlier demanded something like this, now whining about it being implemented.

Anet brought some this on themselves by stretching the kitten announcement for days rather than providing their customers all the information at once.

Thaddeus.4891:

- On my Guardian, i’m the tanky one (still full Zerker, but not full DPS build). I’m there for the support so i make sure to put my reflect at the right place, the aegis and stability at the right time. I’m a rezzing machine when things go bad, and i’m getting good at that, even in bad situation.

WvW
- My Guardian is tankier here with my soldier gear. I’m in the middle of the battle, staying close to my commander and leaping in the center of the enemy zerg to add some CC and dps to get a part of their zerg down.

For me these are all very different way of playing and even if DPS is a major part of the PVE, there a lot of different role to be filled in each group. That’s why i usually wait for the party to fill up and then switch to the more appropriate profession depending on what the group looks like.

Thanks for the reply. (I’ll only comment on the Guardian bits… I haven’t played enough of my Ele, Necro, or Thief to feel like I can)

I do love the utilities on my Guardian… but those aren’t unique to the build I’m running… a tanky or DPS guard has access to the same skills. It kind of contributes to the sameness for me. (Nevermind how annoying it is to pop an Aegis for the group only to have them all dodge the big attack on their own and waste the free hit on an enemy autoattack.)

Havent WvW’d in a while… since Season 1 actually. Also on point with the Commander. It was fun for a bit… though zerg combat still eventually devolved into the autoattack spam fest.

Eh… I’m probably just too burnt out.

Dalanor.5387:

EverythingXen.1835:

Fenrir.3609:

EverythingXen.1835:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

EverythingXen.1835:

There’s no reason to do anything I want to.

…. Uh well. There’s always the reason that you want to. And it’s a game and stuff.

If that’s not enough I don’t think I can help you.

You cant.

I want the PvE game to play differently based on my class, build and gear.

And it doesn’t.

Except it does. You can infact facetank (most of the content) when built defensively, try doing that with a full glass build. And are you suggesting full bunker cleric or PVT AH guard plays the same as the dps guard meta build?

They play the same to me.

My main’s a guardian.
I build defensively and auto attack with hammer to keep the symbol and protection up. Target falls over dead. Dodge when necessary.
I build glassy and use three more buttons (F1, 2, and 4) to keep the target blind while my sword autoattack kills it. Dodge when necessary.

I mean this completely without sarcasm… If I’m missing something please tell me. I honestly want to play again. But its just so stale to me.

Try to blind bosses in fractals.

Exactly my point. There’s PvE content in the game that even removes the modicum of difference between the playstyles.

Fenrir.3609:

EverythingXen.1835:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

EverythingXen.1835:

There’s no reason to do anything I want to.

…. Uh well. There’s always the reason that you want to. And it’s a game and stuff.

If that’s not enough I don’t think I can help you.

You cant.

I want the PvE game to play differently based on my class, build and gear.

And it doesn’t.

Except it does. You can infact facetank (most of the content) when built defensively, try doing that with a full glass build. And are you suggesting full bunker cleric or PVT AH guard plays the same as the dps guard meta build?

They play the same to me.

My main’s a guardian.
I build defensively and auto attack with hammer to keep the symbol and protection up. Target falls over dead. Dodge when necessary.
I build glassy and use three more buttons (F1, 2, and 4) to keep the target blind while my sword autoattack kills it. Dodge when necessary.

I mean this completely without sarcasm… If I’m missing something please tell me. I honestly want to play again. But its just so stale to me.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

EverythingXen.1835:

There’s no reason to do anything I want to.

…. Uh well. There’s always the reason that you want to. And it’s a game and stuff.

If that’s not enough I don’t think I can help you.

You cant.

I want the PvE game to play differently based on my class, build and gear.

And it doesn’t.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I don’t play the meta build, i make my own groups, no one cares. I roleplay and RP walk in dungeons, because they are my groups. Join better groups! There will always be a best group. There will always be a best build. But the wonder of gw2 is that you can do anything you want to, literally, and still complete the content.

There’s no reason to do anything I want to.

In GW2 PvE, DPS and “tank” and “healer” all play exactly the same. A Guardian who builds “tanky” still has to dodge all the big OHKO’s someone who built glassier does. An Ele who builds more supportish can never provide enough support to themselves (or others) enough to prevent/recover the damage from the same attacks… and also end up dodging the same attacks.

The only difference between a DPS, tank, support, CC, condition, or any other build in PvE is the amount of damage each one brings. Any other playstyle, even min maxed to the utmost, is not enough on its own to make any difference in the fundamental gameplay.

Your toughness will never be enough to take a hit that a class built with more damage wouldn’t also get killed by.
Your healing power will never be enough to keep you sustained in a fight. Mostly because forgoing the damage you’d cause to build that way makes the fight that much longer.
CC works well enough when coordinated with everyone else in the group… but I shouldn’t have to get on teamspeak to make a playstyle effective and rewarding by interrupting the only attacks that matter thanks to Defiance. It’s easier just to dodge.
Conditions, while effective, are very limited because of the cap.

I don’t want a trinity either. I don’t want a guy on point insulting mobs’ mothers to make them all attack him… and I don’t want to force a guy to watch my HP to the exclusion of all else just so we can succeed.

But I do want those “roles” to matter enough that my gameplay experience changes… and not just in the way that it takes longer to kill things.

I want the ability to play the game in a trinity style if I want to. I want to be able to have a character that can take hits all day long… another that destroys targets in the blink of an eye… another that buffs other players stats to absurd levels… another that keeps our energy and HP up… and even another that simply locks enemies down for imminent doom.

I want ALL the varying playstyles that a more rigid class structure facilitates.

And I want it without content that forces the tank+healer+DPS group structure.

GW2 has the content in spades… I’m waiting for a new way to play it.

5/10. Utterly average taken as a whole.

It improved by orders of magnitude from the Tower of Nightmares on… and that shows the LS can work just fine. But the gameplay has grown so stale in the meantime I no longer care if it works or not.

It’d be hilarious if we beat Zhaitan only to have Mord fly over right after and re-corrupt it.

VitalSuit.1980:

silvermember.8941:

Vol.7601:

Wait, what -? Kasmeer didn’t die?

>:|

(I can’t play yet)

Here’s hoping she trips over a quaggan and gets impaled by Rox’s horns by March 18

I want to know who died. Someone had to die.

Scarlet, that’s it.

kitten , I was really hoping for a nasty Mord corruption into one of his Champions for her… will totally subsumed and turned into a brainless follower.

inazuma.7021:

EverythingXen.1835:

I wonder why though.

If you’re asking why Scarlet woke up Mord? To silence the voices in her head. Mord has been (i assume through dreams) been driving Scarlet insane since she was born. To get at the source of the madness and stop it was Scarlet’s only goal.

…….Eh. Whatever.

I hope she says that in game at least.

BTW, do we find out who E is?

I wonder why though.

Aidenwolf.5964:

EverythingXen.1835:

I might be a bit confused… but here’s how I understand this thread so far…

1. Permastowing pets is tabled until all other options to improve the pet are exhausted.
1b. All other options does not include Pet AI improvements, as it is an issue too big to tackle.

2. Due to powercreep, suggested improvements to the profession need some severe tempering.

3. Sustained damage is the rule of the class, and is as sacrosanct as the Pet. The various game modes may not value sustained damage very much, but that is an issue with the gametypes.

4. Trap traits might not move, but instead get different stat boosts attached to the trait line to better accommodate the trap builds.

I mean… aside from the nod to Traps, this thread reads like nothing got accomplished 20 pages in, as the suggestions seem to run into philosophical differences with Anet as to what a Ranger should be/how powerful the Ranger should be, or run into logistical/technical nightmares of coding.

Your understanding of this CDI is in line with my own, maybe we’re both wrong, but I doubt it. It seems as though they would like us to play a guessing game on our own on how to improve the class and then when one of us guesses the fix they had in mind all along they can swoop in and say “I LOVE THAT IDEA YOU CAME UP WITH” and call it collaborative.

I’m hoping its more of a lost in translation issue with Allie’s responses. I had the same problem with Chris’s first CDI.

I might be a bit confused… but here’s how I understand this thread so far…

1. Permastowing pets is tabled until all other options to improve the pet are exhausted.
1b. All other options does not include Pet AI improvements, as it is an issue too big to tackle.

2. Due to powercreep, suggested improvements to the profession need some severe tempering.

3. Sustained damage is the rule of the class, and is as sacrosanct as the Pet. The various game modes may not value sustained damage very much, but that is an issue with the gametypes.

4. Trap traits might not move, but instead get different stat boosts attached to the trait line to better accommodate the trap builds.

I mean… aside from the nod to Traps, this thread reads like nothing got accomplished 20 pages in, as the suggestions seem to run into philosophical differences with Anet as to what a Ranger should be/how powerful the Ranger should be, or run into logistical/technical nightmares of coding.

I cant lie. The constant updates have kept me logging in. In spite of my growing apathy towards the game itself. I guess that counts as a success.

I guess if I had to put it simply, I’m playing more than I probably would have under an expansion… but as a gamer I’m much less satisfied with the LS strategy so far.

@Manuhell

Ranger/Archers and Mages are popular roles in every fantasy MMO.

Doesn’t mean they aren’t the most in need of help.

Detharos.3157:

snip

I hope you saved those posts somewhere, because this isn’t the thread they’re going to read.

I said this in Chris’s CDI announce thread… but I want to put it here too.

Seeing as how the Ranger is certain to win the vote, I’d suggest, Ms. Murdock, that you try to talk to whomever programs the AI for y’all and get some info from them, or at least make sure they read the official thread on Monday.

Rangers have enough wrong with them that we don’t need to waste time complaining about/suggesting fixes for Pet AI that have zero feasibility to ever be fixed/implemented.

I hope Ms. Murdock gets a lot of information from the AI programmers before she starts the thread on Monday, and sets as clear ground rules on it as possible.

Rangers are certain to win the vote, and I’d hate for the thread to waste time on Pet AI complaints/suggestions that have zero technical feasibility of ever being fixed/implemented.

peterpat.8196:

Approximate estimate and not reliable, but an overview for those interested (thanks to JS and regex) votes up to (including) page 24. (if someone voted multiple times, the newest was used)

Prof               voted 1st   voted 2nd   voted 3rd   total
ele                    200            188               166                 554
mes                  60               57                  86                 203
war                  11                26                49                   86
ranger             446             259             116                  821
necro               90               132             167                 389
guard               7                  6                  9                     22
thief                30                 54                84                  168
engi                 46                157              179                382
total                890               879             856               2625

Even if I would have missed 100 votes, ranger and ele are currently first and second.

First and second is putting it mildly. They make up more votes than all the other professions combined.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Generally speaking, it’s not hard for us to find out or know what builds are over the top. Obviously, we need to find a good middle ground to encourage people to play underused classes while balancing out the classes that are a little too dominant.

Balancing is difficult because it affects all areas of the game. This is more to get an idea of what class you guys feel is hurting the most right now, and fix it where it’s hurting. That’s not to say it will be the only thing we work on, we just want to make sure that your feedback is being heard, so we had to find a way to get it more specific and take it one step at a time.

Warriors have no place in that thread. They are so far out of the scope of that CDI its embarrassing.

Judging from the thread, Rangers are the last profession that needs campaigning in their own forums.

Rangers are on almost every list on there.

The biggest thing for me is the fact the build for my main hasn’t changed for the entire game. Every balance pass does nothing substantial enough to make changing his build worthwhile, let alone changing professions worthwhile.

The game content updates all the time, but the GAMEPLAY is so stale for me it hurts.

@Razarei
Ranger and ele are the only classes that need extreme help right now. It really is as simple as that.

It’s probably more accurate to say Warriors and Guardians are the only classes that don’t. But 3’s the limit.

As an NCSoft property, those profits need to be considerably higher to avoid shuttering and closure.

I hope the upcoming Asian release picks up the slack.

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Engineer

Though I thought long and hard about listing all 3 as “anything non-Warrior”

Anyone who messes with the raisin-faced kid is in for the beating of a lifetime…

All of the above!

Or at least one of the above. I’d be happy with anything as long as Lornar’s doesn’t magically revert back to normal after it’s been converted into a WMD firing range.

Technically and aesthetically they look freaking awesome!

Thematically I wont be using any of them.

Josh Forman:

“tl,dr: Not all content is going to appeal to all players. So we make a range.”

I get that and appreciate it mostly… but the content of this chapter of LS didn’t really have a range. It’s all “hard” PvE large group content. (save the story instance)

My personal gaming mood changes day by day. Sometimes I’m eager to hurl myself at challenging content until one of us breaks… sometimes I want to run around Kessex killing moas to relax.

When an update like this comes along, I feel a significant amount of pressure to “get in the mood” so to speak. If I log in to turn my brain off for a bit… only to find the new hot content, that’s been hyped up by the devs/PR, that’s gating the plot instance I might be interested in, that most of the playerbase is checking out, that has achievement points attached to it, new skins (gemshop and otherwise) attached to it, and that it will cease to exist in the game in a matter of days… well… regardless of the type of experience I may want out of GW2 when I logged in, I’m compelled to do the new stuff.

To use Anet’s TV show analogy… I can struggle through a particularly unpleasant episode of a show I usually like, or I can switch channels to another program I like that I’m in the mood to watch.

And when I get more invested in that other show that gives me the experience I want regardless of what I’m in the mood for, I stop caring about the first one.

Now I’m rambling.

…. Basically, you want to do a range of content, then each update needs to have the same range of content. Not “hard stuff” week followed by “explore/grind enemies/collect stuff” week.

btw- glad they let you post again

Regarding Horizontal Progression…

Personally, Im finished with it. The only form of horizontal progression I really experience in this game is weapon/armor skins. And I have those already. I find the dozen or so other armor sets available to my character to be aesthetically inferior. The gem store options aren’t doing much for me either. Thankfully, they’re all relatively easy to aquire… which is a good but hamstrung by the fact there’s so few of them. (the dye system had some potential there, but the Radiant skins I’m using lock me out of ever dying my armor anything but grey)

Weapon skins have a different problem. There’s lots of them, but many of the interesting ones (in my opinion) are locked behind a prohibitive grind, the gemstore, or only available for a small window of time. And that’s excluding the legendaries. Ever seen anyone with an Infinite Light? It requires around 300 Charged Lodestones to craft. Mojinir is in this category. The Foefire Hammer and Greatsword. The Lidless Eye. The Ascended skins. The SAB weapon skins. LS NPC weapons. Every Halloween weapon skin. The Flame and Frost and Dragon Bash skins.

I honestly regret grinding out Foefire’s Power for my guardian. It kitten near killed the game for me and wasn’t worth the time and gold I spent not having fun to get it. (It was just so thematically perfect though) I love the new Dwayna backpiece, but I will not subject myself to another 500 Craft level grind for it… because I want to enjoy my game time.

So my look is essentially finalized, and…. I don’t have much else to progress towards.

I’d like to teach my guy new skills. Maybe get proficient in a new weapon. Go out and hunt some beasts for some trophies in my home instance. (love the nodes you’ve done so far) Befriend one of those lesser races (personality system!) and get some little bonus for that.

Why cant I just believe Anet’s putting quality ahead of release schedule….

I like my fantasy world better.

Xylith.4873:

EverythingXen.1835:

Anything to improve the quality of Anet’s flagship PvE content initiative/concept is a good thing.

If there needs to be a hiatus to give the content more time for polish, I’m thankful Anet’s willing to do it.

I pray this becomes a trend.

The hiatus won’t be for polishing content, it’s because people will be, rightfully so, taking time off over Christmas.

What world do you live in where Christmas goes through most of January?

I’ll take a little of column A with my column B.

Anything to improve the quality of Anet’s flagship PvE content initiative/concept is a good thing.

If there needs to be a hiatus to give the content more time for polish, I’m thankful Anet’s willing to do it.

I pray this becomes a trend.

Grats OP for derailing your own thread with more Ranger moaning.

You’re not helping my Guardian get his rifle.

Hell, maybe he’ll get a longbow and be a better ranger than you Rangers too.