Guild Wars 2

Seen how this horse is still merely “very dead”, I’ll beat it some more.

Screwing over the long time supporters was, and is not, cool ANet / NCSoft.

How bout like a 10% discount or something for every time you’ve bought the game, so for example the next expansion:
new players pay $50
GW2/HoT players pay $45
GW2+HoT players pay $40

Every. Single. Time I join Dragons Stand, it is empty. I’m usually literally the only player there, even if I joined just as the map refreshed. (2h on the time remaining clock).
The only way to find other players, seems to be to use the LFG-workaround.

This can not be how it’s intended to work.

My two cents is that, AoE system which encourages people to stand as closely together as possible is far from optimal.

Here are a few ideas on fixing this (or at the very least, improving the system), encouraging people to spread out and actually use different tactics when it comes to siege choices:

Note: These are alternatives, although some of them could be combined together. I’m not saying “implement them all”, I’m just throwing around few different approaches to improve the system. If you got better ideas, tell them

Ticket system
Instead of spreading out the AoE damage to random players, assign everyone a hidden number. 5 lowest numbers take all the AoE damage (and AoE heals). This way, you’re not combatting the entire healthpool of a zergball at once, but reduce the combat effectiveness of the zergball at a reasonable pace as the ball loses players. In order to avoid exploitation of the players knowing the order they die (and frankly, it’d be a tad bit unfair for the same people to always die first), reassign numbers every 5 minutes.

Commander dies first
Commander can be a huge boon to the zerg. Discourage the ball behavior by prioritizing people with active commander tags, then passive commander tags and lastly people with no commander tags.

Siege damaged always
Sometimes, the whole point of the zergball is to just sweep the enemy fort with an arrowcart, securing it by balling around it. Ensuring the siege always takes damage gives back some of the strategic abilities of few players defending towers and forts, forcing the zergball to rethink it’s approach.

//Less feasible suggestions:
Increase number of players damaged by AoE
Just an idea. I know, lots of calculations and probably not feasible.

Everyone takes reduced damage
As I understand, the reason the damage is limited to 5 players is because there are just too many calculations to handle. So, when AoE hits >5 players, do less calculations per damage. Like, half the incoming damage and apply it to everyone. Perhaps not the optimal solution, but some could argue it’s still an improvement to the current system.

Arrow cart rains down arrows. So yes, I feel the arrow cart should be able to fire everything inside a tower or a small keep.
It’d be great if the objects that they had no LOS would be hidden tho, but overall I like the new functionality better.
Not to mention that the defender can do the same.

Thaddeus.4891:

Ya I can understand Fred. I was kitten off at first too. But then, we started to see a lot of synergy between trait, a lot of new build of great quality emerged. We all have our personnal opinion on what should be in the game and anet can’t satisfied every single players.

But like I said, give it a try. Play with it a couple of months and you might grow to like it. One thing for sure, anet is all about the expansion now, so the system won’t change (And IMO shouldn’t change) before the expansion. One thing that can and should change is some fine tuning of the traits. There still some trait that are lacking or misplaced. Best exemple of that is Glacial Heart for guardian. It’s a great trait that people want to play, but can’t because of where it is. That’s where our feedback should concentrate right now, because I’m sure that this kind of information Anet will listen too because of course there will be a couple of balance patch before the expansion. They created a new build system and fixed the most urgent stuff like Mesmer, Symbolic Avenger, Grenadier, etc. But they will still improve the balance to be ready for the expansion.

Y’know, you’re absolutely right. I’ll just try to grow to accept it. I was just shocked when I got back at the sheer number of builds we lost, but I guess I’ll get over it. I’m just hoping that ANet will give us few more skills than what we saw at fist BWE of HoT, I’d be just dandy then

And as someone else pointed out, I had done a slight miscalculation and included repeated builds. So it’s still shocking, not just quite so shocking.

Ranael.6423:

I have a good news : since 6 nCr 3 = 20, when HOT releases there will be a 100% increase of accessible builds for each profession!
Enjoy the future !

Yes, that is good

Dovienya.6597:

You are not accounting for a number of things here.

Many traits that were necessary to take for certain builds to be useful were frequently in very irritating places due to trait tree location i.e. level of the trait/or being on in the same tree as other traits that would make your build viable or optimal/the associated stats with the trait tree) are now baseline. (Since this question is asked often, baseline means it is now a part of your class/weapon and does not require a trait to make it so.)

Same thing as above for certain traits that are now rolled INTO the other traits that they should have been naturally paired with from the start.

Well, to be fair, I did exclude 200mil possible builds and just claimed 100mil viable. Of course, there are more and less viable builds in the mix.
However, in the new system we have similar problems. Like instead of having traits in inconvenient locations, we now have locations with no convenient traits.

Dovienya.6597:

The removal of stats from the trait lines also adds freedom of choice.

Yes, I agree with you on that. And I’m not saying “roll it back”, I just want them to “make it better”.

Dovienya.6597:

I will be among the most staunch and vehement to say that GW2 combat system is a shallow pool compared to the depth and breadth offered in the original Guild Wars. They were going for quality over quantity as well as removal of the ability to choose poorly in terms of build-skill combination that are not reasonable/viable and really did not hit the mark. In terms of comparison with the old game, they still aren’t even close- but again they went for that same philosophy with these changes and I think they did do better this time around.

Yes, I do agree that that is a fact. Still, I’m hoping either drastically more weapons, or even a binary choice between each weapon skill.

Thaddeus.4891:

Yes they could. IMO it won’t improve the game, but it will decrease the balance. And I prefer having a better balance than adding a couple of thousand more useless build.

That, I think we’ll just have to disagree on.

Thaddeus.4891:

I wouldn’t spit on the possibility to use adept trait instead of a master, or a adept/master trait intead of a grandmaster. But even better would be just to make some fix to some trait so we always have 3 good options to choose from.

This. Exactly this. I was thinking along the same lines as well, and it’s mainly what I’m after. In retrospect, I suppose I should’ve included the suggestion in the OP instead of just a rant. But as I’m sure you can understand, I was a bit frustrated and not thinking quite so clearly.

Thaddeus.4891:

Maybe you should give it a couple of month to experience the system for real. A lot of people that I know and dislike the system, now like it. Keep in mind that if Anet does what you want, it won’t necessary improve the system. More build diversity doesn’t equal better because it decrease the balance in the game. 196 830 build, I’ll never try that much build.

That’s some sound advice, but I’ve now logged in the game 5 times, milled about a bit and just left. I don’t know, maybe it’ll pass.
And yeah, I’m not going to try 196k builds. It’s just that there are now almost no builds in the mix that I’d like to try. Having just 2 traits that I’d like on each trait line is kinda frustrating.

Zergs.9715:

Just want to point out that possible number of combinations does not mean equal number of viable builds. If you factor in:
- trait synergies
- traits blatantly being better than other two choices
- poor trait placement where there’s 0 competition between them
- inability to take two traits from same tier
- potential buggy traits

The number of possible builds is SIGNIFICANTLY lower. In single digits, actually.

I specifically didn’t include the 200mil useless builds. The 100mil are the more viable ones.

Oh, wait, did you meant the new system? Well, I was just trying to be fair

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s been several months and we never had as much different great build that work in the game. So we all know that not everything they did was a good idea, but in the end the new system work better than the old one. You can continue to rant, but the system won’t change. Like I said you are to late to the party.

Doesn’t mean we can’t wish for more diversity. I’m not saying “roll it back”, I’m saying we should find a way to increase the amount of possible builds to suit everyone’s needs.

Tigaseye.2047:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Coldtart.4785:

How is having ‘only’ 196830 options a ‘problem’? If you spent 1 hour playing each possible combination you would be playing 24/7 for 22.47 years. Are you seriously trying to say that there’s any difference in meaningful choices between 10^5 combinations and 10^7 combinations?

Because everyone has a way they like to play. I have less than 20 choices now to play the way I like. That gets old fast. Past 700 hours I burned through few hundred choices with the old system. I was supposed to still have several hundred to go before running out.

So, you just play a build for an hour, or two and then change it to another one?

That is how you enjoy the game?

If so, I think you’re very unusual, because most people seem to pick a build that they think will suit their playstyle and then play it for ages, while trying to get the most out of it.

I’ve certainly never met anyone, before, who says they get their pleasure from the game from switching traits all day?

The builds I’ve tried haven’t spread across the 700 hours evenly. I’ve tried some, then I’ve changed. Then I’ve found some I liked, I played those till I got bored. Then I tried some until I found one I liked.

Vayne.8563:

While there has been a bit of grumbling about the new system, there’s been even more support. So while you may think you’re right, many disagree with you.

I know the math is right. The rest is opinion, and you can’t really tell someone their opinion is wrong. However, you’re free to disagree. Just like I am.

Vayne.8563:

I personally have lost some builds I really liked in the change, but I’ve definitely found more builds I can use after the change.

I haven’t :<
That’s why I’m rather miffed.

Torolan.5816:

And despite a significant loss in theoreticaly possible combinations,the large majority of people play the same tired combos again and again, making even 100 combinations per class much too much… ^^

The problem isn’t everyone playing 100 million different styles.
The problem is that there used to be a style for everyone but isn’t any more.

Gaaroth.2567:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Gaaroth.2567:

Seriously? Mathematically you are right, didn’t run the calc my self, but the number is plausible.
Still, in that 100% you are counting 90% of utterly useless and non-sense builds (someone recall GW1 second class system? Same issue there)

Current system is FAR better…higher numbers mean squat if you can’t build, play and balance with ease.
So yeah 0,2% anyday.

Now we can argue that new traits need fix, but this is another story.

I specifically didn’t include the 200mil less viable builds. The 100 mil are each quite viable with max number of major traits and max number of synenergy between traits (due to being from the same line). Sure, there are some more viable builds and less viable builds, but in the new system, we don’t 200k equally viable builds either.

Imho they didnt cut freedom, we’ll never get all out of the current possible combination either, but at least now is easier, even stronger in some cases and more synergic with the rework. My 2 cents at least.

How did they not cut freedom? For example, with the Tempest trait line, I just want the first minor trait, because the rest I have no use for and the first minor is a new F# mechanism. Old system, I could do that if I so wanted (I WANT TO), new system, I can’t.

Coldtart.4785:

How is having ‘only’ 196830 options a ‘problem’? If you spent 1 hour playing each possible combination you would be playing 24/7 for 22.47 years. Are you seriously trying to say that there’s any difference in meaningful choices between 10^5 combinations and 10^7 combinations?

Because everyone has a way they like to play. I have less than 20 choices now to play the way I like. That gets old fast. Past 700 hours I burned through few hundred choices with the old system. I was supposed to still have several hundred to go before running out.

Wanze.8410:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Coulter.2315:

Ability to choose bad traits reduced by 99.8%.

If the traits were bad, just fix the traits. Don’t cripple the system.

That was the whole point of the change, its easier to balance now.

And forcing everyone play in very specific way would be even more easier to balance. And that’s the general direction we’re heading. I don’t like that.

mtpelion.4562:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Coulter.2315:

Ability to choose bad traits reduced by 99.8%.

If the traits were bad, just fix the traits.

They did.

So why did they change the trait system then? Just for the fun of it?

Gaaroth.2567:

Seriously? Mathematically you are right, didn’t run the calc my self, but the number is plausible.
Still, in that 100% you are counting 90% of utterly useless and non-sense builds (someone recall GW1 second class system? Same issue there)

Current system is FAR better…higher numbers mean squat if you can’t build, play and balance with ease.
So yeah 0,2% anyday.

Now we can argue that new traits need fix, but this is another story.

I specifically didn’t include the 200mil less viable builds. The 100 mil are each quite viable with max number of major traits and max number of synenergy between traits (due to being from the same line). Sure, there are some more viable builds and less viable builds, but in the new system, we don’t 200k equally viable builds either.

Tigaseye.2047:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Just 196830.

Just quoting this, as it’s pretty rare to see the word “just” next to a 6 figure number…

I don’t think they went far enough.

I don’t think they can even hope to maintain balance with the number of potential combinations they have now (let alone, the number they had before).

…and if you can’t keep control of the balance in your own game, what do you have?

Chaos.

Yeah, if I wanted a game with just 3 choices, I’d do rock-paper-scissors all day.

Besides, if they still have no chance to maintain balance, maybe it’s not about the number of choices, but the overlapping/op traits?

Coldtart.4785:

The thing you aren’t including in your analysis here is that 99727199 of those distributions are useless and there’s only 1 that you should ever consider using because it’s objectively better.

Based on what? You like one, so you choose one. That’s all fine and dandy.
In the new system, you can like one, and choose one all you like. But there are 99.8% less ones to choose. That’s the problem.

Coulter.2315:

Ability to choose bad traits reduced by 99.8%.

If the traits were bad, just fix the traits. Don’t cripple the system.

EDIT: Just to be clear, my main grievance with the new system is that most of the time, I find my self with zero choices for one of the traits in otherwise fine line.

EDIT: And no, I’m not saying “Roll it back” I’m saying “Keep improving it. Maybe with bit more diversity next? Pretty please?”

EDIT: For example, in old system we had traits in inconvenient locations. Now we have locations with no convenient traits. I’d love if this was addressed by either ensuring that each trait is always viable and not bound to a weapon or skill type, OR if we could still choose other traits from the entire trait line incase we can’t find “grandmaster” trait that is usable for our build.

I know, it’s been some time since the trait update. I was having a break, and when I come back… How… why did you guys let ANet get away with this?

I’m not going to calculate every possible build for the old system, just interested in the more viable ones, that is, 2 maxed out with one major trait in third line, and 1 maxed out with 2 major traits in 2 lines. So there are some hundred million more builds than I’m numbering here. I also used quite a few builds with one maxed out traitline and rest at the first major trait each, but some would argue those builds are useless. Still, freedom to choose is freedom to choose.

So, the calculation for one traitline in the old system, is that you get to choose 1 out of 6 for the first trait, 1 out of 10 for the second except for the one you already picked, and 1 out of 12 for the third, except for the 2 you already picked. So the calculation is:
6*(10-1)(12-2) = 540
A traitline with 2 traits would be:
6*(10-1) = 54
A traitline with 1 trait would be:
6

For both cases, you get to pick 3 out of 5 traitlines:
(5 nCr 3) = 10
For both cases, you get to choose which of the 3 traitlines is the one with different amount of traits:
3

So, for the 2 maxed out, we’ll get:
10*3*6*540*540 = 52488000
And for the one with 1 maxed out:
10*3*54*54*540 = 47239200
So the old system with 3 trait lines chosen had
99727200 builds. Or, actually more since we’re not counting in cases where two lines have minor trait as their last choice.

So the old system with just 3 traitlines with points in them had 99727200 builds. That’s not even counting the builds with 4 or 5 chosen traitlines, or counting the builds with minor traits as last chosen traits, as people argue those are less viable builds. (They’re still a choice tho, but a figure as high as 99727200 is quite enough for this thread.)

Now the new system:
So the new system lets you select 3 traitlines out of 5.
(5 nCr 3) = 10
The new system let’s you select 1 out of 3 traits, then 1 out of 3 traits, and then 1 out of 3 traits for each trait line. That is
3*3*3 = 27
So the total number of builds available for the new system is…
10 * 27 * 27 * 27 = 196830
196830 total. The absolute total. There is no other possible trait combinations than that. Just 196830.

So now we have (1 – 196830 / 99727200) * 100 = 99.80 % reduction in freedom to choose. Actually, MORE than 99.8% due to all the builds I did not count. But they were a bit less viable, so who cares, right?

I’m not sure how I’m going to get over this. 99.8%? We have 0.2% of the freedom we used to have when it comes to builds. Now, I know, HoT will double the amount of possible builds there will be since they’re adding a whole new trait line. So we really lost “only” (more than) 99.6% of possible builds.

Couple that with the update to dailies and the fact that HoT will now have some weapons and F# abilities bound to traits… I’m starting to be worried that we’ll eventually just have 3 ways to play each profession in the future.

Oh, you’re not the only one. It’s a fact that there is less freedom to choose your build with the new trait system they introduced. You used to have (tens of?) millions of possible builds. The new system reduced that to (5 nCr 3 ) * 27 * 27 * 27 = 196830. It’s not that much, although one more trait lines will increase the amount of builds.
So yeah, obviously quite a few viable builds got culled.

believe me, I suggested this since the first BWE. Doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. (I like playing a mute lunatic, but my character speaking kind of ruins the mute part.)

MiniEquine.6014:

Fred Fargone.3127:

MiniEquine.6014:

And an additional traitline, 4 utility skills, 1 heal, 1 elite, 1 new F# mechanic for the remaining 8 classes

Yeah, I meant to mention that to illustrate how little that is compared to the hundreds of skills the base-game had. Or, like 20 utility skills for each class.

And what would be acceptable? Doubling the amount of skills? Doubling the number of professions? There is no game that does this; not even GW1. The expansion is supposed to expand on the mechanics of the game, not just to add an equal amount of mechanics as the previous iteration. Ultimately, you feel the amount of skills and weapon abilities added are negligible, but they are adding at a minimum 131 new skills or mechanics to the classes (including Revenant) and this number could even be as large as 160 depending on what the Warrior, Thief, and Engineer E.specs actually get. This is not really a small number.

Or, keeping the price of the expansion at the general price range of an expansion. If you’re adding content worth $20, then charge $20.
Alternatively, they could make some other content more valuable.

MiniEquine.6014:

25 new maps? Let’s take this into consideration then: which maps provide continual content for “end-game”? We have Orr, but that is primarily to be fore the personal story line, though we can certainly count it because of the events that take place. Cities don’t count. We have 3 maps for Karka and Dry Top/Silverwastes, but the Karka map content is primarily just for the Karka Queen at this point. And we have 22 low-level maps that are primarily used for leveling or for the world bosses in them, which are mainly just killed and then the players leave right after.

So end-game maps are a total of 6, and that’s if we are generous in counting Southsun Cove still as well as the Orrian maps. At one point they were considered the end-game, which is why they should be included. Do you really value the leveling-up maps with the same weight as a level 80 map?

Do I value “leveling up” (=lower level, it still scales y’know) maps with the same weight as a level 80 map? ofcourse! Why wouldn’t I? Think they didn’t spend hundreds of hours making those maps beautiful and enjoyable just because they’re not level 80? I even enjoy some lower level maps way more than I do Orr. Why not add a new race and let it have it’s own leveling up maps, and it’s own capital? Or if not do that, they could just as well add 25 level 80 maps. The costs of creating a map doesn’t really increase just because the character level is higher. Heck, seen how the lvl 1-15 maps are the players first impression of the game play, those would need special attention, making them cost more.

Galen Grey.4709:

let me explain the flaw in that logic.

Forget Gw2 for a second. lets go to your favorite super market instead. I am sure like all super markets in the world at one time or another they did the real popular buy one get one free offer. Hopefully they did that on a product you love in which case I am sure you noticed that while the super market was running that promotion the product you so much love did not double in price and once the promotion ended it certainly didnt half in price.

What you’re saying here is because the product in question costs generally costs X because the offer is now giving you 2 products instead of 1 for the same amount of money the product doesnt really cost X but instead costs 1/2 X.

This is ofcourse not true, the product still costs X, the super market or producer is simply giving you a free version to entice you and other customers to buy the product in question. In case of your super market the product they’re giving you costs them money (they still need to pay for the raw material, manufacturing etc..) and yet they still give it away for free. In case of Gw2, its a digital product, giving it away doesnt cost them a single dime. So why it is hard to believe they’d be willing to give it away for free in the hopes of enticing more customers with the better deal?

The thing is, if you’re trying to sell a plank with a nail in it for $100, it doesn’t mean that the plank with a nail in it is worth $100. Sure, you might be able to sell it for a couple of crazy people, but that doesn’t count on grander scale. So, you can either find a price that the plank with a nail in it is actually worth, OR, you can bundle in a fancy table. “For free”.

Galen Grey.4709:

I get it, people just dont want to believe Anet are giving Gw2 away for free. Its being assumed that they’re lieing that for some reason the cost of the expansion is 39.99 (as if there is just a thing as a cost for a digital good) and that they’re secretly charging $10 for their core game forcing everyone to pay for what they already own.

Do you think, that if they sold just the expansion for $50 without bundling anything with it, that’d sell?

Galen Grey.4709:

Now consider this. They already stated every expansion they release will always include the on before hand so do you really think its feasable for them to charge $10 for everything they say they’re including for free? If they did that next expansion will sell for $60, the one after that for $70 and Expansion number 4 will go for a whooping $80 all the while claiming that they’re actually being included for free.

I’m sorry, there seems to be a flaw in the logic here. You’re assuming that every expansion will be worth as much, and that the old titles will always be $10, and that they’re going to follow the pricing model for 4 expansions. Sure, they said they would, but things people say don’t always hold true. (Like, when they said there’d be no expansions but just free content updates. And here we are, debating about the price of expansions.)
If they’re charging $50 for every expansion, I know I’m not buying the next one. Not if it’s anything like HoT content wise. I know there are whole lot of people who didn’t buy HoT because it’s $50 (=$100). I know there will be whole lot people, who will buy the next expansion, but not the 3rd when it also costs $50 (=$200).
Most likely, 2rd expansion would, include 1 more “free” character slots AND a totally “free” bank tab, or something else to appease the people who have now paid $100 already for the game, and are required to pay $50 more for yet another expansion.

Galen Grey.4709:

And actually adding a bit to this… why exactly would they do that? Just to get an extra $10? if they wanted to do that couldnt they simply have priced the expansion $49.99 and not bundle anything with it?

That’s the thing. The expansion isn’t worth $49.99. That’s why they’d have to bundle stuff with it. It’s not necessarily even worth $39.99, but it’s worth $39.99 with beta benefits for enough people.

Galen Grey.4709:

Its not like any of us who own gw2 said “well 49.99 is a bit steep but since it includes the core game sure why not?”

No, but I said “well 49.99 is a bit steep but since it includes a character slot, sure why not?” Quite a few people said that in the threads complaining about the HoT pricing. That’s why they included a “free” character slot as an alternative for the core game. The game wasn’t worth $49.99 alone for enough people.

Galen Grey.4709:

why on earth would they try to deceive anyone by claiming they’re giving away something for free when in truth they’re charging for it? what exactly would they gain by doing that?

Money, obviously. It sounds whole lot better when you say "AND THAT’S NOT ALL! You get this nice knife-rack for FREE when you order your deluxe knife-set now! " But for whatever reason, my local supermarket will always have the deluxe knife-set for cheaper without the knife-rack.

MiniEquine.6014:

Since release, they have added 9 additional maps. They have also released two Living World story seasons free of charge if you logged in for them and included additional events like the Karka invasion, SAB, holiday events, etc.

9 additional maps? Southsun, Dry top, Silverwastes… what am I missing?
But yeah, I know, they’ve updated the base-game quite a bit. I was just focusing on what was there at the launch, as the price of the base game was $50 at the launch.
Y’know, it’s just for the sake of the comparison.

MiniEquine.6014:

And an additional traitline, 4 utility skills, 1 heal, 1 elite, 1 new F# mechanic for the remaining 8 classes

Yeah, I meant to mention that to illustrate how little that is compared to the hundreds of skills the base-game had. Or, like 20 utility skills for each class.

MiniEquine.6014:

Speculated through datamining, with unknown levels of size, some with and some without the 3-tiered verticality, and only at release. This is ignoring anything they might release further down the road.

I left down the road updates out for the specific reason, that we’re now comparing the price of something at launch, vs something else at launch.
Also, I’ll admit I was wrong when they release 25 huge new maps for the expansion. How likely do you think it is that I have to admit I was wrong?

MiniEquine.6014:

See above for everything else you missed about that.

I’ll see your above, and raise you a :rolleyes:.

MiniEquine.6014:

You have no idea about the length of the story, as we all don’t know. I wouldn’t suggest using this as a reasoned argument point unless you actually know the story length.

It’s an educated guess. I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I’m not too optimistic.
Hey, maybe we’re getting so little of everything else, because they made superbly long story?

MiniEquine.6014:

No dungeons is potentially an issue, but we will see after PAX Prime (I think that’s the name?) on August 29th what the Challenging Group Content is supposed to be. From what I’ve gathered, this was what they wanted the game to be more like from the beginning, but we have no idea what it will actually be. Also, don’t forget about the Mastery system, legendary pre-cursor crafting including crafting for all of the existing legendaries as well as new legendary weapons.

Yeah, and also guildhalls, maybe some updates to guilds. Glider mechanic, some new non-playable races and their lore… Still, if we have to list every ounce of content they’re adding, you know it’s not much.

MiniEquine.6014:

You still bought it any way, so you must not have thought it was much of a rip-off after all.

The way I see it, I can go for it even though I know it’s a rip-off. I really liked the original GW1, I have had some really good time with GW2. Some 1kh of it. I figure, I’ll just support the franchise. However, I think it’s important to express my opinion about it on the forums, since I know the devs read the forums and I’m rather hoping that they’d make the next expansion better. And well, I’m not sure if we should even be blaming Anet for the pricing, maybe NCSoft had their say on that subject?

MiniEquine.6014:

Would I have been happier with it being $40 instead of $50? Yes, but I would have loved it to be free even though that’s not possible. I still also bought the expansion. If they screw this one up though (this being GW2’s first expansion), they will have to really impress a lot of people with the next one or else they will lose a lot of old players.

Well, I made it easier for myself to accept the fact by deciding the expansion costs $40 and can only be bought bundled with either the original game which is now worth $10, or a character slot of equal value. I don’t see any flaw in that logic.

Devata.6589:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Ehhh, GW2 is many things, but I wouldn’t even begin to consider it a P2W. Spending RL cash gives you… boosters? Skins? None of these really help you beat anyone in PvP or WvW. It doesn’t make you more desirable for PvE groups, except for the eyes of misguided elitists who think that having the best skin means you’re the best player (lol).

In PvE, winning = getting a reward (like that skin). So in that case, being able to buy a good skin can very well be considered buy to win. Just depends from what perspective you look at it.

You get tons of rewards in PvE all the time. You win at PvE all the time? Kinda diminishes the “win” of any skin you might buy. Besides, is it even a reward if you bought it? P2W is not about buying a certificate that says you won. P2W is about buying the tools that enables you to beat others more easily, and therefore win.

If some rich millionaire participated in the Olympics, paid $1Bn and just walked to the little pedestal with “#1” written on it… do you think people would consider him having won? Because I sure wouldn’t. I suppose someone might, but… no, just no.

Rymer.4017:

I would like to know how the devs feel about this sense the topic of builds in PvE is build for damage and nothing else when the game offers 100’s if not 1000’s of build options. So the question here is are all build types viable in PvE or do you want us to play the meta?

Consider this: There used to be (tens of?) millions of trait combinations. They reduced it down to 196830.
And unlike the system in GW1, where you could just choose 8 skills that you wanted, they replaced it by weapons (that pretty much define your build, as these are the skills you use all the time. There are exceptions, ofc.), one forced healing skill, 3 forced utility skills, 1 forced elite.
Furthermore, with the new expansion, they came up with limiting certain weapons to certain trait lines.

So, my guess is, they want you to play meta. They’ll probably reduce the available builds even further once they figure how to sell it as an improvement. I suppose their ultimate goal is to have just a couple dozen easily managed builds so they can balance them into a perfect rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock.

Ehhh, GW2 is many things, but I wouldn’t even begin to consider it a P2W. Spending RL cash gives you… boosters? Skins? None of these really help you beat anyone in PvP or WvW. It doesn’t make you more desirable for PvE groups, except for the eyes of misguided elitists who think that having the best skin means you’re the best player (lol).

Galen Grey.4709:

avesatan.1760:

Who can tell me , the price of full game starts from 49.99.
But i already got the original copy of GW2, and i only want to buy a DLC ( Heart of Thorns) Can i do it just this way, or i have to pay 49.99?

49.99 is the price of the expansion. The expansion also includes the core game for free
if you already have the core game and pre-purchase the game before release you will get a free character slot worth $10.

Anet could create a new bundle that includes just heart of thorns and no core game but it would still cost $49.99 cause that is what they’re charging for the expansion. The core game is just a free bonus just like the free character slot you get if you pre-purchase.

I think it’d be more accurate to say that, the price of the expansion is $39.99, but you can only buy it bundled with the core game, which costs $10. If you already had the core game, they’ll bundle in a character slot instead.

Assuming GW2 was worth $50 at launch. The game had 8 professions, 25 huge maps, 19 weapons, hundreds of skills, rather long story, 9 dungeons…

HoT has 1 new profession, 4 maps, no new weapons but every profession will have access to one more weapon (or off hand), quite a bit shorter story, no new dungeons?, quite a bit shorter story… How is that worth $40 then? Can’t be inflation, since the GW2 is now worth $10, the price of a character slot.

Tbh, I think we’re being ripped off. Still, I shelled some $100 on the ultimate edition. I’m a bit miffed, but hopefully that will pass.

Uhm, the report function is not meant to settle a personal score, to seek validation or to gain pleasure from others being punished. You’re not supposed to report people because you don’t like their behavior or they’ve managed to puppy you off. You’re supposed to report them because it’s the right thing to do when you’ve seen them break the rules. Therefore, informing you of the judgement a GM has taken serves no purpose and at best would just encourage the wrong kind of behavior.

meeflak.9714:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Considering that they seem to be adding the absolute minimum amount of content possible to justify calling it an expansion (1 weapon for lucky professions, 2/5ths for less lucky, 1 ultimate each, 1 new trait line, 1 set of utility skills associated with that trait line, 1 new profession…) I wouldn’t be too surprised if it’s just 3. I’ll be rightfully disappointed tho.

I agree with what you said about the maps, but regarding the new profession and base classes, not so much.

The elite specializations I feel were something completely unexpected to ever happen. When everyone was asking for the expansion. Starting way before it was ever announced, who ever said " you know. It would be great If they made it possible to turn my base class into another class " (some argument can be made here with gw1 system of dual class.) But this really came out of no where, and although it may not seem like much, we are getting one brand new class. To make a total of nine professions. Really I dint think I want to see them ever release a tenth, it’s not necessary at this point, and with the elite spec system, any role / idea anet comes up with can easily be distributed out through the elite spec system.

So we have nine classes. One of those new to the expansion. And 1 elite spec for all 9. So… That’s nine classes nine elite specs. The elite specs have less to offer then a fully fleshed out profession, yeah I agree, but still offer every class a new way of play, a new way to build, and a new overarching theme to go along with it which can only be unlocked at lvl 80. Most of us already have lvl 80s where we want them, so it’ll just feel like something that’s added base to the game. But there meant to give the game some progressions past lvl 80, New benefits to actually hitting the cap. And I think that’s great ( shoulda waited before getting all toons to 80 tho .-. Would have been much more rewarding.)

Idk I feel like when it comes to tweaking the professions/ giving us something new, they hit the mark perfectly by giving us that last heavy armor, while filling all niches, and giving every base profession something to freshen up there game play and give us all something to look forward to while setting up a system to role out even more elite specs In the future.

My realistic dream for map # 6-8

Edit: bad grammar, had to fix.

Well, I play an elementalist. The new mechanic for ele was okey, but didn’t really revolutionize the class, I’m afraid. It’d be a nice extra if the pile of new content already was satisfactory. But as things are right now, I just don’t feel that way.

Usually when anet releases expansions, there have been 2 new professions, 2 free character slots, an entirely new continent to explore and some 100-200 new skills. Getting 1 new profession, zero character slots (the expansion itself doesn’t give character slots, owning the basegame before x date before purchasing the expansion gave 1.) and just a tiny chunk of map… that just feels like Anet is betraying their earlier standards. And yes, I know, it’s entirely up to them to decide how much content they put in an expansion. However, it’s entirely up to me to be disappointed when I feel there is nowhere near enough new content.

Zok.4956:

Some people fear that this expansion, content-wise, would be a “small” expansion.

This. Exactly this. I play an elementalist. So far, what I saw in Beta, there was really nothing there to improve my gameplay (for the style I enjoy.)
The new weapon? Is an offhander. 2/5ths of a weapon bar. That’s rather disappointing.
The Tempest traitline? I like the first minor adept trait. Nothing else there for me, but thanks to the new traitsystem, I’m pretty much forced to choose that if I wish to enjoy the new profession mechanic.
There is 1 new ultimate, 1 set of utility skills (4 is pretty much the minimum, you can’t add just 1 utility skill. I suppose they could’ve added just 3, but that wouldn’t be inline with other utility sets.)
And there is 1 new profession. You got 1 new character slot if you owned the base game before paying 50€ for the expansion.
There are whole lot of 1’s there. Feels very minimalistic for 50€.

Considering that they seem to be adding the absolute minimum amount of content possible to justify calling it an expansion (1 weapon for lucky professions, 2/5ths for less lucky, 1 ultimate each, 1 new trait line, 1 set of utility skills associated with that trait line, 1 new profession…) I wouldn’t be too surprised if it’s just 3. I’ll be rightfully disappointed tho.

Fred Fargone.3127:

All in all, the trend with the updates seem to be taking away the freedom to play as we want, and streamline us into playing the way we’re told. So not too surprised that the long waited option is just 2 weapon skills/a that are so mediocre I can’t imagine using them on anything interesting, but that doesn’t stop me from being disappointed.

Kheo.2504:

Perhaps you could move the “removing the freedom to choose” line away from the “I got a new weapon to choose” line. It makes it look like you have no idea what “freedom to choose” means if you leave it there.

Either that, or you aren’t aware of the meaning of the word “trend”.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

I support this change. Most people find the healing stat completely worthless and the loss of boon duration sucks. This would make some non-dps builds more viable, while dps builds will still be kings at what they currently do.

I’ve found the healing power extremely useful in the past. Haven’t really tried with the new trait system, but with the old one, my Ele could dish out some 15k heals within seconds. AoE no less. That felt pretty useful with a coordinated group

after the daily system changed, I haven’t really done dailies like I used to. I just log in, grab the reward and harvest my home instance. I don’t want to jump all over the map for the PvE dailies. (Although, as some people have pointed out, PvP are easier, so maybe I’ll take a look into completing those?)

I once checked how many mount threads there were using fairly well defined google search (at the time, it worked whole lot better than forums own search engine) and I found some 200 mount threads, at that one time. Of course, most of them were merged later on. But there should be some thread with just about all the info on why mounts shouldn’t happen.
This isn’kitten but it gets close
EDIT: This isn’t <cencorbreakingspace> it, but it gets close
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Mounts-merged/

ProtoGunner.4953:

Fred Fagone, don’t force it, really. You try to be right on a dialectic level: just to be right.

Uhm… what? I’m just expressing my disappointment in the general direction the game is going: always less freedom to play as we want.

ProtoGunner.4953:

- In fact Mr. Ahkaskar’s arguments are here: The traits are now sometimes 2 or even 3 old traits in one.

Yes, so basically… because you can now get bundled traits, the new system is better? Again, you could’ve just bundled those traits in the old system, if they truly were just half-traits before.

ProtoGunner.4953:

- Having a huge freedom of choice can be counter productive as a lot of the old build combinations were useless and the new trait system is trying to prevent this.

So, the new system has some 200k builds. Old system had 10mil (well, actually lot more than 10mil). Best case scenario is, that out of those 200k builds, none are useless. Even if that was true, do you honestly believe that out of the 10mil builds, 9.8mil or more were useless?
The thing is, reducing the total number of builds also reduced a lot perfectly good and viable builds. And out of those 200k new ones, not nearly 200k are viable.

Fluffy Pillow.3612:

The mechanic is to overload your attunement for staying in it, making you stay longer in it to unlock a new skill that is actually good and then locking you out of it due to an overload. Its a risk vs reward profession that functions a lot like celestial daggers on the ele. The class is much more supportive outside of the overload, with the overloads being where the dmg is at.

I’m sorry, but I don’t quite follow. How does that have anything to do with warhorn being pretty disappointing?

Fluffy Pillow.3612:

Not to mention, NO ONE was putting 1-2 pt into a trait line, they had to commit to it. People were also gated and forced into a trait line due to the stats it gave. Are people really still complaining about something that people understood to be a good thing MONTHS ago?!

Well, that’s easy to disprove. I placed 2 pt into a trait line several times. That granted access to the adept trait, which was sometimes all you needed. 2pt in fire = lava font, which fit well in utilizing the rally mechanic whilst farming mobs as an ele. Sure, my playstyle might’ve been a bit peculiar, but it was effective and fun.

And, as I’m sure you know, there is no monthly fees. Pardon me for taking a break.

Ahkaskar.3906:

On the builds themselves, generally speaking they were oriented around pre-chosen sets of traits. As a GS guardian I’d only ever do 20 Zeal at most with two specific traits—Fiery Wrath and Zealous Blade. I’d never touch the others.
My other trait lines were 25 Radiance and 25 Virtues, never touching the GM traits at all, which were always supposed to be the flavor of each trait line. And even then I got stuck with condi damage which did me absolutely no good.

The only variances were when I’d go 20 in Honor for the recharge reduction, which would stick me with a subpar trait in the Honor Adept slot and forcing me to split the difference elsewhere.

And that was your choice. You wanted those two traits for the playstyle you were going for. As an Elementalist, I tried quite a few playstyles, mostly staff. I tried some dmg orientated, damage negating longer range artillery, that was pretty fun, I tried some support (which works really well with staff), I tried whole lot of trait combinations and enjoyed quite a few of them. There was freedom to choose.

Now, if I want Singularity, I’m forced to go full Tempest. This means, I need to sacrifice a lot of opportunities I would’ve had with other trait lines. But overloading attunements just seemed like a huge boon. Still, I have to choose between stuff like
Element Bastion – Doesn’t fit the rest of my playstyle.
Imbued Melodies – Not even using Warhorn. Not that I’d be facing too many stunned allies on regular basis anyways.
Lucid Singularity – Merely a resistance to movement impeding conditions, which doesn’t sound like something I’d choose.

And other traitlines have quite poor choices between GM traits, for elementalist anyways.
Like fire: Blinding foes? That’s, okeyish. Except if your playstyle involves staying away from the foes. Guess it’ll work on the few rangers you don’t reflect.
Blast finishers? Yeah, ele has so many blast finishers.
Skills granting might? Well, that’s okeyish.
Earth? Conditions can’t be applied to you before you’re hit for the first time.
Can’t be critically hit, well, that’s nice.
Maintain the passive effects of signets. -Need to use signets.
Arcane? More dmg for each boon? Not really focused on boons
arcane skills cause conditions? Guess I have one arcane utility skill in use.
attunement based spell after dodging? I actually like that trait. Glad it didn’t get culled.

Ahkaskar.3906:

So yes, they could have gone and rebalanced the trait lines: Removed the stats, combined traits and removed other excess traits, but by that point you’d have basically what you have now. Except that you’d still not have access to THREE improved grandmaster-quality traits simultaneously and you’d still be hemming and hawwing over the final 5 points in a line vs 5 in some one-off because that minor looks so much more appealing than that GM trait that has nothing to do with your build.

Exactly. You now have access to THREE improved grandmaster-quality traits simultaneously, that has nothing to do with your build.

Ahkaskar.3906:

At least now they KNOW you will take that GM trait and they can make it relevant to the rest of the line instead of worrying about someone doing some weird overpowered meta combination.

Yeah, that sounds good in theory. Didn’t work out too well for me with my Ele. Hardly have any choice between the GM traits now, most require a specific weapon, utility skill or so. I got 3 traitlines, meaning I won’t be using 3 specific weapons, and most likely I won’t be using 3 different types of utility skills. So I just need to hope the 3rd option for each trait line is even remotely useful.

Ahkaskar.3906:

I don’t get how that’s easy to disprove. The system itself was tied into the quality of the traits as it required limitations to be put onto other traits that could be selected, even across different trait lines entirely.

The new system doesn’t change that in any way. If one trait line has bad traits that don’t fit your intended build, you choose another trait line entirely. This held true for old and new system. Except if a trait line happened to have desirable adept trait in the old system, you had the option to just allocate 2 pts on the trait line.

Ahkaskar.3906:

Even the stats were a consideration into the balance of traits.

If that was the problem, dropping the stats from the old system should’ve been easy enough.

Ahkaskar.3906:

That large set size also means that there are a lot of cases that won’t get used or tested or even considered as a valid and sensible build. Hence the comparison to Borderlands guns—very very many are completely useless, worthy only to be vendored for change.

Yeah, just because you have somewhere close to ten million different trait setups you could use, doesn’t mean you have to try every single one. You just have the freedom to mix and match until you find one that fits your playstyle. As in, freedom to play as you want. Deciding that there are only 6 sensible builds and everyone needs to play them… sure, it guarantees that there are no kittened builds in the play, but at the same time severely limits the freedom to play as you want. You’ll just have 6 streamlined builds and no freedom. Having the option to make a bad choice, is still an option.

Ahkaskar.3906:

Did you ever seriously use the Adept traits from all 5 lines? I never did outside of a joke.

Not quite sure what you… oh, a build only using 5 adept traits? No, but I had the option to do so. Which is good. I also had an option to take 2 adept traits from a single trait line if I didn’t find use for a master level trait but absolutely wanted a Grandmaster. Or if there were two adept level traits that I couldn’t decide which I wanted more, I could just take both. That’s what I’m talking about, the freedom to choose. I don’t have that freedom anymore. That’s why I’m disappointed.

Ahkaskar.3906:

If you want to only count the number of permutations, fine—it used to be a larger number than it is right now. But that’s why they changed it—larger numbers are not always better, especially if you have to make each one useful. (Example: look at the personal story and how many choices you have. How much better is the Living World story because they focused on a narrower path? Yes, that’s a more extreme case.)

That’s the thing, they didn’t need to ensure there are 10mil useful builds. All they had to do is to ensure there are 12 useful traits. Now, limiting the number of builds to 200k, they need to focus on the builds being viable, rather than just traits.
Best case scenario, they managed to ensure that every single one of those 200k builds are viable. You seriously believe that out of the 10mil builds, you can’t find 200k viable builds with just about the same traits as before?

Ahkaskar.3906:

Even if the old system had more possible options, I use far more variations in the new system. The problem with the old system is it had Borderlands gun syndrome—most of the traits were basically useless and there were a few that were without a doubt your best and only option.

Suffice to say I have much more freedom of choice with fewer possible choices. Less is more.

Ermh, that’s easy to disprove:
1) “Oh, but the traits are overall better in the new system” is besides the point. The old system was better. The quality of traits in the new or old system have no value for this analysis, as you can improve the quality of the traits without gimping the system.
2) Even if the old system only had 9 traits total, you’d still have 3*5*7=107 possible combinations, as opposed to 3*3*3 = 27 that you have now. Not to mention you got to allocate the points as you wanted = even more freedom.
3) Borderlands gun syndrome: In old system, if you had 1-2 useless traits, you still got to choose between 10 pretty neat traits. In the new system, if you have even one useless trait, your freedom to choose is severely diminished.

So once again, less is less.

In case someone is wondering what I mean by “less freedom to choose”, lets take a look at the trait overhaul for example.

Old system, you had 6 possible traits on the first tier, 10 possible traits on the second and 13 on the third.
So you could, on a single trait line, create 6*9*11 = 594 different combinations.
New system, you have 3 on first tier, 3 on second and 3 on third. You can create 27 different combinations on a single traitline. That’s hardly anything when compared to the old system.
Now, calculating the total different combos for the old system is a bit tricky, as it was diverse and you could allocate traitpoints as you wanted.
But it’d be considerably more than 594*594*6 = 2117016 combinations (which is what you’d get if your friend had chosen how much to allocate on each traitlines and all you got to do was to select which traits you wanted. In reality, you could select which traitlines, how much and what traits.)
New system, you have a grand total of (5 nCr 3 ) * 27 * 27 * 27 = 196830, which is a fraction of what the old system had. Even if the old system had only 3 traitlines, it would’ve still had ten time more possible combinations to choose from, ten times the freedom of choice.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’m guessing the unique mechanic transforms the profession into something new. Nothing says the transformation is reliant on the weapon only.

Still, if you are disappointed, nothing anyone says is likely to change your mind. Perhaps, another Elite Specialization will tickle your fancy. =)

Good luck.

Hmm, so you read it as “all of which [together] will transform your profession into something new”?
Well, that could be, but you can hardly blame me for misunderstanding.
Still, you’re right. Can’t fix disappointment by arguing against it. =/

nathanjameson.3542:

the warhorn wasn’t the big “thing” about the tempest. it was the shouts. and the F1-4 overcharges, to another extent. that you put them at the end of your post as an afterthought means you completely missed the focus of the tempest.

Either that, or you missed the point I was making
We were told there would be new a new weapon for each profession that would change the gameplay. The Elementalists weapon was incomplete and terrible. That’s disappointing.

Here’s a quote “Evolve your gameplay. With profession specializations, you’ll unlock access to a weapon previously unavailable to your profession as well as new traits, skills, and unique mechanics – all of which will transform your profession into something new.”

I’m getting pretty sick of the same weapons after years of using them. I was really looking forward to something new. The weapons are, after all, the defining part of each build. They’re the skills you’re using constantly. Utility skills are few, and the recharges are generally pretty long. Elite you get to use maybe once or twice per a boss encounter.

I’m in favor of harder mobs. Finally some challenge. Well, at least there would be if they were a bit more difficult.