Guild Wars 2

EgonVenkman.1907:

Interesting PR statement Josh….

I’m very skeptical of this entire effort going on. A lot of players are. Could be legit, could be just another PR/Marketing tactic after noticing declining numbers. The general response/tone of communication for the last year has been questionable. Primary focus on $$$ driven initiatives, bug fixes be kitten ed.

Your post simply seems to go along quite well with the new “Collaborative Development” going on. Chris starts up topics on how to improve things, Josh posts all the reasons why it can’t/won’t be done. Sounds like more of the same Anet double speak we’re used to. One side says, “We’ll never do that….” 2 months later, “Get used to it. It’s happening.”

See Manifesto.
See Ascended Gear.
See LFG.
See PvP.
See every other broken area of the game.

There is ALWAYS a reason something can’t be done. Easy to find reasons; staff, complexity, talent, time, etc….. Time to start finding solutions instead of excuses.

This is what is very likely to occur in almost all the new threads.
Request Made. What about X content? Will it get fixed/new/etc.?
Answer given:
No = Kitten No!
Maybe Later = See No.
Yes = 90% chance of No. Expect results in 2 – 5 years.

G’day Egon, I just wanted to say I can understand your caution and skepticism for this. By the looks of things, this new Collaborative Development stuff is going to take time for trust to grow between us and Arena Net.
By the sounds of your post, I would guess that you are almost feeling Hopeless about improvements, would that be right?
What is it that helps keep you going in the forums or game? What keeps you tied in and still going?
I personally don’t play much anymore, but I revisit the forums to keep an eye on the major changes and to see if I am re-inspired to play. This new discussion method has hooked me a little, especially if I read other posters who are saying what I feel (and usually are better at it!). I think I’d call myself ’Skeptical and Wanting to Encourage It".
What still gives you the slivers of hope to keep participating?

Hi Chris,

Is it possible to contribute to the boundaries you are drafting for the Collaborative Discussions? I keep mulling over the idea of “Improving it without Removing it” to focus discussion on being additive to the current state of the game rather than posting just to have something taken away from the game. It would seem to me that removing game aspects only to replace them with another suggestion is either backwards stepping for this production, or stuff that could be reserved for brainstorms on GW3 or whole, other new games.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

2996kittenris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

…you guys had said you didn’t want to do things like fight with town clothes because it “broke immersion”, but, like…can we say that the LFG tool breaks immersion? Not too sure we can if you were keen to add it

Good point. So for me immersion breaking would be a pop up appearing after an event completes or following beating a dungeon. But you raise an interesting point with LFG. Perhaps (and i am just brainstorming here) it could be a tab that you can open up to give feedback.

I will think about it some more. Keep the ideas coming.

Chris

Pssst!!! You might want to tell some of the devs to stop breaking immersion. Every time we get a daily chest, kill a dragon/major boss once a day, finish a dungeon….

Also! before i forget. Thanks…for just being here…now…doing this. Really. It helps a ton.

No worries thanks for being so collaborative with the discussion.By the way i have to disagree though. I personally feel that a poll is less immersive then the bouncy chest. Mainly because the chest is still in the theme of the game world and more connected to the gamestate. Where as the Poll is more abstract in terms of goal and gamestate.

This said we are having a discussion and i am just giving my opinion.

Chris

I agree with what you are saying here, Chris. Stopping to analyse our experiences puts our perceptions in a different “frame of mind” than dealing with the usual interactions within the game. It’s not just decision making and evaluating the game world, but self-reflecting and evaluating ourselves.
There’s already lots of great ideas happening of incorporating a poll into the game. I normally favour in-game mechanics such as NPCs and tools for player-world interfacing, but doing this for something that IS recognised as immersion-breaking (like a game play poll) would be a bit like that strange feeling the uncanny valley creates for animated human faces. If I bumped into an NPC who was talking about feedback to Arena Net for game improvement, I would feel a lot more jarred than if the poll were tucked nicely into the interface somewhere.

By the way, thanks for dedicating so much time to being here with us yesterday! With the infinite To-Do List you’ve probably had the last few years, it’d be easy to keep de-prioritising this task of connecting and communicating with us.
Thanks deeply for putting aside those other pressing things to focus on us! Seeing you do this makes me feel like you really believe we are fundamental to your work or values. Please do what you need to to keep it up!

goldenwing.8473:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1 thread at a time in each main forum that runs for a few days. Then we move onto the next topic and rinse and repeat?

Not perfect but hey it’s a start! (-:

Chris

I personally think this would be a good start, but I am curious on how you would decide on the topics?
(Maybe we should make a poll regarding that lol).

That’s the next question we have to resolve is folks like the basic idea.

Chris

Just go back to your first idea of making a thread for ‘What top 3 do you think need to be worked on/looked into by the development team’.

This. Start simple. And build from there.

It’s a simple question.. but weighty.

There’s a lot of fantastic discussion happening here that’s bringing a lot of hope and energy. On the idea of in-game feedback surveys, I’ve already forgotten what problem this was going to solve! The forums are full of ideas, opinions, and feedback from players, and someone said earlier that it’d be great to hear more from the non-forumers and have their say included. The general sense I was getting from the original post and the following posts was that players or posters were wanting to hear more meaningful responses from the dev team to our opinions and suggestions. Would polling our feedback during the game help us feel heard? I suspect it would go part of the way in getting better Communication, but it wouldn’t help solve the problem of knowing the team has heard us. I know that every time I completed those beta surveys I speculated a lot on how the data got collated and analysed (and mostly wished to see the results!!)

Would it be the most helpful for the results to get reported regularly back to us? To see what we are saying, and to hear what Chris and Colin think of those results specifically? Then, when what we’ve said has been returned to us (plus some value added to it by Chris, Colin, and others), would we truly feel better heard?
Thoughts?

I’m wondering about a way to draw the attentions of forum posters to the sorts of behaviours ANET (and other posters) like seeing. At the moment, ANET and I guess whatever the code of conduct is called asks us to not post in such-and-such ways, and to instead post in other ways.
However the posts meeting the former criteria get actioned by the moderators and likely deleted or edited, whereas the latter posts get up-voted by other forum-goers, but nothing is communicated from ANET about how well it resembled their ideal post.
Please forgive me for making a school-like post, but I wonder how well a badge system would go in saying to forum-readers “Hey! We (ANET) really appreciated the way this post was written in x way!”. I picture a traid type badge system awardable by the forum moderators and community managers. Posts could be given 1-3 of any of these themes:
1/ “Respectful” / “Constructive” / “Like Sylvari Grace”
2/ “Specific” / “Detailed” / “Like a Charr Design Plan”
3/ “Novel” / “Creative” / “Original” / “Like Asuran Ingenuity”
etc etc
Not every post needs such an evaluation, but you’d expect every OP to be considered and there also to be a way on the moderator’s side of the forums (not the public side) for showing when they’ve been considered but overlooked for badges. We’d expect to see at least one badge in an entire thread, probably expect to see, on mouse-over, who awarded the badge, too.

Part of this method is about rewarding the favorable behaviours, part is about drawing the attention of everyone else to them, and part is about signalling to the community that we’re being heard.
Finally, people who earn a badge could get a sweet, temporary cosmetic glow in game or a temporary cosmetic item to use when they want to. It’d encourage people to try for the badges in their posts, and also encourage players to try the forums out and express their views.

This reminds me of the Massively article from just about a week ago:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/10/01/flameseeker-chronicles-when-good-guild-wars-2-commentary-goes-b/
And then also this from just today:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/10/08/the-soapbox-stop-hurting-the-people-that-love-you/
I agree a lot with both these articles.

I was thinking how the LFG Tool could be implemented more like a Speed Dating tool rather than something that can be used over and over again. Speed Dating is attractive because the window of opportunity appears scarce so it motivates people to get the most out of it. This could work just as well for LFG, and help prevent breaking the social systems of the game.
Let’s say every day you got 3 uses of it for dungeons (3 is just an arbitrary number).
Casual players who may not keep in contact with friends might use up some or all of this amount in a day. Guilds wouldn’t get diminished from it, and players who like to PUG a lot could buy upgrades to 5 and 7 times per day.
The key point of this idea is that scarcity of the LFG tool encourages people who enjoyed playing with each other to friend-up and try dungeons outside the LFG, also potentially leading to new guilds forming.
To keep good times happening, at the end of each PUG dungeon run there’d be an option to continue on with your group, but maybe only in a different dungeon. Anyone who continues to dungeon run together after meeting in LFG Tool don’t spend daily uses until they leave the dungeon/team. This encourages good groups to keep going, and it wouldn’t use up anyone’s daily amount.
Overall, it’s an opportunity to get what you need out of dungeons, but also connect with other players and “road test” a friendship or working relationship, without being able to just minimise strangers to quickly cycled dungeon hits.

Azunai.5974:

Colin Johanson said that the main plan for the rest of 2013 is to get some great content out there. From what you’ve said, you’d be interested in new skills and traits, which is what they intend to release.

Hey Azunai, do you have a link for a quote about skills and traits?
I may not understand design lingo very well, but I wouldn’t include such things under the title “content”. If CJ has mentioned new skills/traits, I’d really like to see that.

I’ve taken quite a break from GW2 these past few months. It seems there’s been a lot of great content come and go through the living stories, and a lot of daily events and currencies to collect over the weeks. I haven’t actually finished Guild Wars2 yet, it seems my steam for it dried up before I got there.

I look over my shoulder occasionally and see my boyfriend giving his old toons a try. I love the sweetly smooth graphics and wonderful art styles I see. It gives me an itch to jump in, dodge, dodge, dodge, then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 my way through critters.

Yet, I don’t have a class that’d be exciting to play and inventive to develop. I’m waiting for new classes being added or new ways to grow the combat abilities of my characters. I watch the GW2 news to hear about the great new branches of combat we can explore, but I don’t see any hints of anything coming up.

Will we be waiting a long time before we can become enthralled again in the ways we can play our characters?

thealienamongus.1968:

Your post in general didn’t last long, so I decided to bump this

I have been asking for a better town clothes/skin system since BWE1.

I wish that anet would at least add more town clothes (like NPC clothes not the store’s modern stuff). They could let us craft them or buy them (ingame or gem store :/), but it seems the only town clothes we get are going to be only though the store., I have bought some of the outfits but I would prefer that they add non-store ways to get TC as well (I would buy NPC like clothes if they added them but I need storage first)

I have been collecting links to these kinds of suggestions (see sig), there are many different idea’s on how to improve the TC & skins, and while I would prefer something like LoTRo system (which is just a better version of the TC i.e. wearable in combat and any clothes can be put in and buy-able additional wardrobe (TC) slots), though the DCUo system has it’s perks .Really anything would be an improvement.

as an aside Organizing The Suggestions Forum

Heya Thealienamongus, good on ya for compiling that list in your sig, very organised!
I wonder if you saw this suggestion for advanced gear options . It has three main functions: adding a series of gear/costume tabs to hero screen; making all stats, skins, and upgrades on gear swappable; allowing you to set up costume programs so your outfit automatically changes for you for each game area.

I don’t remember the lotro system well, but whatever gives more flexibilty in this area helps appeal to, and retain, the role players, escapists, and socialiser players all the more. It’s a small wonder that these requests for improvement have been made so frequently but ignored for so long.

My partner squee’d when he saw the healing tree. The look and effect of it represented the exact kind of class he wanted to play (in addition to sylvari as race). It was just too unreliable to get as a skill and also meant playing ranger and with a boar pet.
We’d happily see this same skill and visual effects on, say, guardian, mesmer, or ele!

I wasn’t aware of this effect on kit engineers, or engineers generally (few weapons equippable) but makes a lot of sense now that you’ve mentioned it.

It’d be nice if a swimming flesh golem got the ability to whirl on the spot to do aoe damage for a few seconds rather than charge in. Or a skill called “contaminate” that oozes aoe poison to surrounding water. Though i’d see the pros of keeping him as a charger.

wouw.5837:

Druids are (Konig, you can always correct me ;p) Human travelers/outcasts, who went to the Maguuma Jungle and started to become one with the jungle turned into spirits who can turn into trees, I remember being a theory (before launch, right after BWE3) that the Pale Tree is a druid, as sheis a spirit.

You can find a druid (involved in Event chain) in South East Brisban Wildlands

Now about a profesion, as mentioned above, a mixture of the Dervish and Ritualist, attune to Auras of the Gods and call the help from spirits. (would come close to ‘druids" I geuss) wouldn’t really work, as all races believe in different things and so change form (a mechanic like the Elementelist s’ Attunements) , MAybe you could change the names(but not the mechanics) depending on race,
Norn: Spirits (Wolf, Bear, Raven, Snowleopard,( Owl,Hare)

Humans: the Six( Lyssa, Balthazar, Kormir, Dwayna, Melandru, Grenth)

ASura: things to do with the eternal alchemy
Sylvari: rules of ventari ’s tablet

Charr: that’s the problem, they don’t believe in gods. maybe Blood, Flame,Iron,Ash,…

or you generalise it to things like: Death, Life, Power, Beauty/illusion, (Nature, Truth.)

Yeh, I thought I’d met one or two down that way as well. I think there’s some spirit ones as well as some seemingly frozen in the ponds. Frankly I thought all the creatures with the oakheart model were a druid of sorts. Does avatar of melandru cause you to become a druid?

I’ve plugged this before and I’ll do it again: my concept for an ancestor worshipping, land-spirit calling, scythe wielding class is the Wayfarer
It’s a meld of dervish and ritualist with pet summoning abilities (as all classes have in some way) as well as ranged magic or melee combat. It’d be plausible for all races except charr who might be a bit peeved summoning more spirits, but it’s not like they’re not known for being unorthodox when necessary.

Sirendor.1394:

CureForLiving.5360:

Very long post(s) but from what I did skim over, I like. GW2 needs some meta-game politics!

Also as a worthy form of end-game.

Agreed x 2. This’d be an excellent hook for “socialiser types” from the beginning and would be a stalwart system for end-game. It’d provide effective causes for new guild missions, making players visit settlements in the PvE world, creating guild conflict (The “Guild Wars”), creating guild co-operation, and giving players a sense of ownership and place in the world.
Although it would be a huge (and worthwhile) addition in terms of development and coding, it’d work brilliantly on so many motivational levels.

Also, what is happening to these forums? I feel like I’m one of a thousand noisy goblins kept in a dark cavernous pit below a single small viewing window used by ArenaNet. It’s not my intent to whinge, but to share with ArenaNet (through that small window) what the user experience is like.

This is a really cute idea! It reminds me a lot of that arena fight you can do in GW1 in the far north shiverpeaks. Sweet idea, Dream! :p

Ryoki Hokishami.2756:

xCrusadentx.2784:

I would like to see a Chronomancer like they had decided against in Guild Wars1. A caster who controls time? That’s my type of profession!

+ ten bajillion.

I wanted a chronomancer ever since i read about it during GW1. I was literally crushed when they revealed all the professions and didn’t have it. Why? It’s such a rarely used and awesome concept.

Oh sweet Wakfu Xelor
http://wakfu.wikia.com/wiki/Xelor
Made from clockwork, even spawns a giant 12-dial clock on the battle field to zip around on and wreak havoc.

kineticdamage.6279:

But … more choice doesn’t necessarly mean more skill slots. A common suggestion over here was to have several skill sets per slot, and per weapon. That would look like having to chose what skill you want to put in slot 1 for the Dagger / dagger thief weaponset. Just like utility skills.

Another way to extend choice is traits, and skills intrications. Like creating a new condition when selecting [Trait #45], that would give your sword skill#3 a completely different meaning (the most common example I have in mind is the typical "if skill#3 is a critical, boosts skill#4 damage by xx %).

I think I misread your post to suggest a 10-skill skill bar is unsatisfactory. I think I understand you better now and I agree, there are a lot of wonderful ideas across this forum on ways to introduce more horizontal progress in the combat system. I have a feeling they’ll implement something even further to flavour and enhance skills and builds, and like you said, I reckon it’ll be implemented to begin in that strange 20-40 level period where profession building seems to dull. The game is so young and has lots of good possibility about it’s future.

wintermute.4096:

This is just not true. Even though the overall number of skills might be similar, the ability to combine them is severely limited compared to gw1. Even if there is a similar overall number of skills to begin with, locking skills to weapons makes for fewer
choices, 1 profession only means less possible interaction between them, and locking damage types to equipment (power vs. cond damage) makes for fewer choices still. These are the foundations of the system they used in gw2, the potential for growth is much, much smaller then what gw1 had.

Also, there is no build variety because the system was intentionally simplified, so I doubt we will ever see any true depth in this game. This game originally had the dual profession system gw1 had, and then they threw it away to cater to the AAA audience.

No matter how much you might want it, the game has to bow down to the lowest common denominator to make it accessible at all costs, i.e. casuals and noobs shall be artificially prevented from gimping themselves as much as possible, so the customization options are inherently limited. I too would like this to change, but I fear it just won’t happen.

See above, I think GW2 will reach much above what it is now. (It’s still just my opinion tho! )

kineticdamage.6279:

The current system is ok for any casual gamer that don’t mind repeating the same button sequence, the same 3 builds for 6 monthes straight (aka people who don’t play that much).
But for any “traditional” mmo gamer, who is used to play 30-50 hours per week, it can grow really, really old very quickly. The current system lacks choices.

I can understand how there are far fewer skills we can slot compared to GW1.
On the other side, you could only change skills in GW1 in an outpost. You would be stuck playing the same skill rotation for a) an entire zone, and sometimes the one after it, or b) the entire dungeon. At the moment we can slot out utilities any time we are out of combat, and change five of our skills within combat.

Also, the game in it’s current state maybe very comparable to early Prophecies in number of skills and variations available. That is, GW1 skill range within 12 months of release may be quite similar to the way GW2 is now.

Of course GW2 is still very different to both GW1 and other MMOs in the skill range. Funnily enough my eyes tend to glaze over when I look at the button set-ups of WoW, Rift, LoTRO, etc. Soooooo many skills that you’d learn to pass-over because you weren’t spec’d for them and wouldn’t waste the activity-per-second count on. I’d end up playing with 2-3 skill bars at the bottom, 2 on the right, and all slots full of things I’d easily forget I even had available or kept them there for that “just in case” moment that’d pass before it mattered.
I have come to really appreciate the tighter, slimmer UI and skill bar range of GW2.

I was looking through the rewards for trading in Laurels and was wondering what it means by the Profession boxes like “Warrior Gear” and “Necromancer Gear”. Is this rare, profession-based equipment for looks only? Or is it based on stats somehow?

If it’s based on stats, I thought the stat system was set up so that any profession could make use of any stat combo.

I saw a forum somewhere where you could click a link at the top of the page that takes you straight to the next dev post. Then at the dev post there was a forwards/backwards button for dev posts (for when there’s more than one in the thread).
I don’t use the dev tracker much because it seems mostly ticket based. Might be nice to have a dev tracker per forum group?

I like the idea that some armour sets could be released to suit the themes of professions, or even optional accessories to armours to change their looks other than colour, but it doesn’t need to be restrictive to professions, or cause the existing armours to change.
I’d like to maintain the freedom of costuming my character based on whatever theme matters to me, including profession – but not be limited to or by it.

zargnath.9524:

The deepest parts of maguuma jungle where the trees are so big and nearby eachother that it would be imposible to orientate properly

Gosh, could you imagine nearly an entire zone that was like the end of the Dreadmark Enclave/Dark Reverie jumping puzzle in Caledon Forest? An entire zone completely 3D with multiple layers upon layers of branches spreading out amongst each other. Looking up and down and around for new ways through, and completing hearts and dynamic events through the canopy! Such wonderful exploration to be had!

This’d be either Megumma or Echovald Forest. Hopefully the latter as we’ve already seen a lot of stone ruins amongst trees with the Asuran ruins.

Kaineng City. I loved the idea of a huge, world sprawling city with lots of diversity. It reminds me of the Ravnica set of Magic the Gathering. So wide and inspiring, and really just a reflection of the people and guild types that inhabit it.

Ravnica Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOWPqFWe4Zw

I’m really hoping with Player Houses/Guildhalls that if they have to go instanced, that it appears as little instanced as possible. Two main things come to mind for this:

1) Ensure Map chat for the city/zone is still accessible from within the instance

2) Make it so that when you are in the instance you can still see the true zone outside. This means if you are in your instance and any other player runs by the building outside, you can see them do this. Essentially standing in your instance should appear (from the inside) no different to not standing in an instance.

3) Find ways to make the inside of homes/guildhalls truly visible from outside the instance (including players, trophies, etc), eg:
a) Load the inside for for owners/members only so that everyone can see inside their own instance from the city zone. It’d make running up to your home a personal “drawing back the curtain”.
b) Showcase player’s buildings for others to see from the outside. Eg, a random player/guild’s building is selected daily or hourly to be able to be seen from outside the instance; allow players to spend gems to make their building a showcase for a hour/day/week; make it a reward for player/guild accomplishments. This would be only through an opt-in privacy setting for the building.

This suggestion is made in the view that if the Devs go ahead with the lesser of all evils, then I hope they still try to reduce the visible appearance of it.

I’m gonna try this at gym next time. Thanks MTA

An inbuilt solution trumps a player work-around every time.
The Angel of Deth made an excellent point about your minions locking you into combat because of the way they pathed.
I can understand not needing F2-F4 for minions when you aren’t in a minion build, but that just means:
a) Only have the options appear when a minion is out.
b) Allow some more Death Magic traits for this new button function.

It’d also help people who are desperately trying to complete their daily before it resets.

Wayfarer
Ritualist and Dervish Hybrid (click for more details)

Class Type: Adventurer

General gist/ miscellaneous:
The Wayfarer’s profession mechanic is the Urn of Remnants. The Urn of Remnants is an equipable weapon that can be crafted by artificers and slotted with special upgrade items called a Hero’s Remnant. The Wayfarer finds remanants of unique heroes across the land of Tyria, particularly in special lore locations such as statues to fallen heroes and grave sites. The Remnant within the Urn can be swapped out from the inventory screen, but not while in combat.

When an Urn with a slotted Remnant is equipped, the Weapon Swap button becomes the “Enshrine” button. When the Wayfarer activates the “Enshrine” skill, they form a small shrine on the ground to the hero whose remnant they carry. At the completion of this ritual a shrine object is created and the spirit of the Hero is summoned into battle.

When a Shrine is not set (on timer?), the Wayfarer keeps the remnant of a cherished hero close to them. This is called a Union, and provides the Wayfarer four unique skills in the f1-f4 slots based on the Hero. When the Hero is enshrined and summoned, these skills are no longer available, and the Enshrine button is used to deconstruct the shrine and unsummon the Spirit.

When the Wayfarer is not striking foes from afar with rift energies from the Staff and Scepter (see below), they can equip sharp farmer’s tools to reap pain and vengeance on the plagues of the land. In melee combat the Wayfarer sweeps their scythe back and forth across the bodies of their foes, and speeds up this deadly dance by gaining bursts of quickness for ending boons.

The Wayfarer’s utility skills include powerful “Flash” skills (like signets), which instantly consume boons to gain short spikes of quickness. Each Flash skill passively grants a boon every few seconds and the boon is removed to gain 2s quickness.
“Whirls” make the Wayfarer turn their surrounds into whirling storms of chaos and magic, bringing harm to nearby foes and aiding allies. These follow the Wayfarer wherever they move.
Finally, the Wayfarer brings vengeance up from the land itself. “Bindings” cause spirits and energy to seep up from the ground, allowing the Wayfarer to change the battlefield.

Weapon Rites: Brutal Rite, Wailing Rite, Vengeful Rite, Nightmarish Rite, Spirit Light Rite, Ghostly Rite, Empowering Rite, Furious Rite.
Flash skills: Harrier, Cloak, Thorns, Conviction.
Whirls: Mystic Twister, Winds of Disenchantment, Mystic Sandstorm, Cloaking Winds.
Bindings: Dissonance, Shadowsong, Anguish, Preservation, Restoration.

Weapons of choice: (uses existing weapons as Scythe and Sickles, unless these got implemented)
Two-handed

• Urn of Remnants
• Greatsword (faux-Scythe): A Greatsword in the hands of a Wayfarer is a deadly scythe used for mowing down wheat and foes alike. With a scythe the Wayfarer attacks in a full sweep from left to right and back again. The Wayfarer can maintain painful doses of bleeding on foes surrounding them, and cripple those that want to get away. The Wayfarer’s strikes with the scythe become more powerful as enemies weaken.
• Staff: A staff provides the Wayfarer a way to channel pure spiritual energy at foes. The Wayfarer strikes the foe with projeciles of lightning and blasts of ethereal energy. Some traits duplicate some staff skills by either the Hero Spirit or the Shrine, or both.

Main-hand

• Axe (faux-Sickle): An Axe in the hands of a Wayfarer is a deadly sickle for plucking fruit and rending enemies. With a sickle the Wayfarer is capable of striking and parrying in a successive series, cutting wide gashes in an arc smaller than the Scythe. A rapid flurry in front of them causes weakness and vulnerability. The sickle can also do more damage the more boons the Wayfarer has.
• Scepter: A Scepter provides a conduit of spiritual energy for a long range single attack, an unblockable burning of the spirit, and the drawing of health from the Wayfarer or Hero Spirit to heal self and allies.

Off-hand

• Sword (faux-Sickle): As a sickle this weapon can root a foe to the ground until the player moves, or removes conditions from the foe to deal damage.
• Focus: The focus is capable of summoning a companion of the Ancestral Ghost for melee or ranged damage, and create rift of spiritual agony across the ground.
• Torch: A torch can be used to remove a condition from nearby allies and deal damage to foes, or summon a Spirit of the Land to provide healing around it.

Aquatic

• Trident: A ranged weapon suitable for thinning the barriers between water and the mists.
• Spear (faux-Scythe): A halberd-like melee weapon for doing sweeping attacks, reaping conditions for extra damage.

pkbot.1345:

Are people serious with this? What social aspect is there to spamming “LFG <dungeon>”? All it does is lead to a more inefficient gameplay experience.

Social aspect comes into play when you get into a group and are working together to complete the dungeon, not while you’re scrambling for an hour in hopes that someone sees your message.

My boyf played WoW this week and did four dungeons using the LFG tool. In all of them, despite him saying hello, no-one said a thing. Not a word. Everyone knew what to do to the point that no co-ordination or chat was necessary.
Actually, one guy copped a tonne of abuse for stopping to mine a node in combat (yea, a mis-prioritisation, but not abuse worthy).

I’m NOT saying this is comprehensive, well sampled, non-confounding evidence that LFG tools are bad for social elements of doing dungeons, it’s just an anecdote of something to be avoided (lacking need to talk in groups).

Great thread and discussion, Eddard! It seems to show:
- What “Endgame” is can be very individual
- It’s hard for any developer to create it for everyone.
- It can be difficult to distinguish from any other stage in the game in terms of mechanics, content, and motivations.

I believe frustrations at “Endgame” can come from people wanting the game to keep giving them something they’ve already gotten. Other games, single player games, have done this before for us. For single player games, when we get what we need from them we put them down and call them “clocked”.
Some MMOs have managed to extend out the time it takes to feel “clocked” for years for us, but because we know developers add new content we have built ideas that these games can keep feeding us.
Yet they are still games and we can still reach that point of getting all we need from them before all the content has been consumed.
I’d say this relationship of developers continuing to give content is “Endgame”, and because it doesn’t satisfy a need within us (it’s already satisfied), we still have expectations of getting satisfied by this relationship and become angry at it when it doesn’t.

Allowing Renown Hearts to count for the Daily events, too, would help encourage players to participate in hearts (the ones they haven’t completed) or to do this with alts.
People could still complete this Daily the way they can now. They just might think twice about running past a heart if they have this daily.

interpol.2397:

The point of an elite skill is supposed to be that it’s so good that it’s the one you want to have in the slot, even if you have the option not to. Clearly, if the elites are so useless that people would rather have a utility, something is wrong.

I wonder if the cooldowns make elites inhibitive? I’ve had times I’ve wished for one of my utilities because I could use it three or four times over in the time it takes a good elite to refresh.

Would a “Feedback” forum be useful? It’d take both positive and negative feedback, constructive and not. Posts that are more strictly suggestions can still be seen here.
Dunno if such a thing would be best as a sub-forum of Suggestions, General Discussion, or a Forum of it’s own.

I’ve been trying dodger on 1v1 pvenemies and haven’t been spot on. It’s much easier doing it from a persistent AOE, especially the kind machines make, like dredge machines.

I agree with the OP. If I ever become a dev, I think I’ll learn to avoid general forums other than the bugs forum after a new patch.
The problems people see seem to blind them from the strengths the game has.

I wonder what stops the forum auto-modding titles? If #caps > 50%, warn and try again.

Raine.1394:

Probably 11/15 still stands as the worst misstep in GW2 history because of the introduction of vertical progression. I would have to place 1/28 as number 2 in the worst misstep category. I can no longer do dailies (my major source of karma) as killing combo didn’t work yesterday and no one has been kind enough to die around me today. Culling is horrendously worse after the patch and loot is the same trash as it has been since the beginning. This patch was an opportunity missed, but consistent with the history of GW2.

So so so questioning whether to ask a mod to move this post to a thread with a matching topic….

Just found 4-5 vet grubs just south of Lostwreck waypoint in bloodtide Coast (in the caves). They respawn nicely, too.
I don’t have the vets daily, tho.

These updates seem to be speaking well of the future life of GW2. New content and changes are solid and thought-out. There’s imperfections, and posters magnify these x100, but I am still excited and intrigued to see what else happens (esp. story-wise!).

I generally don’t favour min/maxing over gameplay and fun, but I would like to better learn how conditions and boons affect my character’s strength, and while foes and allies are doing these things.
My partner is fantastic at picking up when anyone has a debuff or boon, but for some reason I’m often oblivious to such things.

I think if I could see my live attributes and stats on the gameplay screen to the right, I’d have a better chance at learning what is changing throughout combat, and remember much easier what things like weakness and poison do to attributes.

Any chance that in the next few updates we could drag out this new attributes table to under the dailies table?

I like these new dailies. I like the added variety and that it takes gameplay off a “schedule”. I look forward to seeing the scope of activities expand.

It will likely be released for a holiday event, like all the other missing combinations. It’ll be from recipes people will really want and materials people will hoard and sell on the market. It will have the rarity and cost matching it’s value.

I like the new UI and will learn it as fast as any other UI I learned when I started playing. I’m glad I can now see condition duration.
I wonder if an option to show 2-letter abbreviations instead of icons might help?
Po = Power, Pr = Precision, CD = Condition Damage, Cu = Condition Duration, etc etc. The specifics aren’t what’s important.

Also, a dividing line:

between the Primary stats and the rest.

Shameless plug: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Advanced-Gear-and-Appearance-Options

A UI suggestion for being able to keep multiple outfits at once, be able to change them with one button, and have them change for you when you enter each area based on your preferences (select your outfit per map area/dungeon).

There’s possibly a lot of good watermarks and whole-screen effects that could be shown for different events to make combat easier to understand. WoW made very good moves in regards to this a few years ago with a lot of traits that cause an effect to trigger on next skill use (like making the skill vibrantly glow or putting a bright animated image as two semi-circles around the middle of the screen).
UI thing that alert the player clearly that an effect is in progress and has limit use or duration.

kenshinakh.3672:

FacesOfMu, there’s some points I agree with you, but there’s also a lot of things I want to point out.

To me, wearing clothes (The ones in GW2 are creative/stylish from an art perspective) is an expression of freedom. Now, you might say it is pressure from media forcing women to dress this way… but from where I am from (California), it’s not as you think. From my own family’s Asian culture, women have to cover up properly and cannot be out-going or you’ll be considered “bad”. In this case, women dressing up as men too is just another way for men to put control over women. It’s a bit like how it is for some of the cultures in the Middle East where women have to cover up their faces. I may have grown up in California, but here media influenced me to see clothes as freedom of expression, and it still battles to this day with the culture I grew up with. So I have a pretty good understanding from various point of views.

Of course, you’re arguing that the amount of “sexy” clothes should be equal for both genders. However, that actually goes into another area… Instead of arguing for less of these revealing clothes, why not argue for more clothes type for male characters? Now we start stepping into other territories such as representation of homosexual characters in games and etc. I’d say female characters have a lot more clothes variety than male characters by just looking at the images, so isn’t it in favor of what females can pick?

Now back to GW2, transmuting your gear is entirely possible, and Anet did give us more clothes that cover your body. More gear clothes are always great though, but we know those will come someday with later patches, so why not wait?

Thanks Kenshinakh for bring the discussion back to reason! Your feelings and experiences about clothes as an expression of freedom is really understandable. I’d like people to keep having that.

I think the error I have made is making my argument in the OP’s post. He/she has asked for something I don’t agree with (that is, less revealing clothes for women).

I have been arguing for exactly as you said, that there should be more, or similar types, of armours for males. My main reason for this is much like you said, greater freedom of expression for all. I’ve been fighting a lot of misunderstandings here.

My hope was quickly forgotten in the arguments about the negative depictions of women as compared to men in GW2 (which is still a valid argument) and many responders have mistaken me for wanting to take away the freedoms of women (which I don’t want to do).

Perhaps my argument can be summed very loosely like this:

• Male avatars should have the options for as much freedom of expression as female avatars have in the costumes available.
• This freedom, which is great for both genders, encourages role play, creativity, ownership, and investment in ones characters.
• Such freedom sends the message from the developers that they are conscious of and welcoming to a wide and diverse community and playerbase.
• There exists an imbalance in GW2 in the ways players can express themselves through their avatars and their gear appearance options, primarily that males have far fewer options than females to wear revealing clothes.
• This imbalance is even clearer when some outfits are quite identical between males and females but others are very needlessly different.
• Maintaining this imbalance sends an implicit message that the game’s creators sees men and women as different, and that men and women should have different rights or freedoms (these differences in rights and freedoms should be mostly irrelevant in 2013).
• Individual staff at Arena Net may not believe these things, but this is the message implicit in the options given to players.
• I want Arena Net to give players these freedoms to express themselves through male avatars as easily and in the same number of ways they can with female avatars.
• I’ve been trying to make my point in the wrong thread! :\

Lane.3410:

FacesOfMu.3561:

Yes, women do dress the same as men in real life, it has become very acceptable in western cultures since about the 70s.

Not 100% of the time. I see more skirts and dresses at the office than I do pantsuits and the women dress like that by choice. I’m fairly certain if a dress code were implemented that said all women must wear suits the same as men that they wouldn’t be too happy about it. Even in that scenario the men would still opt for the usual greys/blues/blacks while the women would opt for colors men would rarely wear, like pastels. So, no, the genders are not and will never be the same.

What you seem to be advocating is uniformity among the sexes and I don’t believe either gender would find that appealing.

I agree that women still wear skirts and dresses. You haven’t weakened the point by pointing that out. Men and women have some different genitals, some different amounts of hormones, and may see different doctors. No social construct needs further differentiation, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO WHAT CLOTHES ARE MADE AVAILABLE FOR MEN AND WOMEN TO WEAR.

I am advocating for the ability and choice for both genders to wear what they want, and wear equally skimpy clothing amongst their choices, and have an equal number of choices across the genders.

When female avatars have a disproportionate amount of skimpy clothing, and an outfit on a male becomes a skimpy version for the female, then this is a sexist and over-sexualising depiction of women.

Making it:
a) equal across the genders
b) same number of options
c) each outfit showing the same amount of skin for either males or females
then the issue of sexism is diminished.

Are you arguing for this to be refused?
Are you arguing against equality?
Are you arguing against choice?

There’s another thread in the suggestions forums requesting that male and female avatars be able to wear any outfit regardless of gender so that the choice is possible.
Here I am advocating for the same frequency and degree of covering/uncovering across the genders (whether that’s mini-skirts and short shorts, bikinis and loincloths).

I think I became an altoholic when I wanted to be able to craft anything and everything. Other games force a limit on crafting skills per toon, so I learned to play, level, and craft with a few alts.
It also helped that I’d look at the utility skills of other professions and become very envious (like the mage portals in WoW). Coveting those abilities, the ones that can’t be put on a dps meter and make the class unique, gets me making alts.

As well as huge, glowy skill effects! I love me my huge glowy skills, flashes, rains, fire storms, plant growths, etc etc. I like starting up other classes to show off those skills and show the team who’s boss! :p

My computer shut down yesterday unexpectedly because it overheated. If I’d left a team at the very last moment like that, I would have appreciated the game to have a failsafe for my teammates.