Guild Wars 2

RemiRome is pointing out a very small, but significant difference. One that’s easily confused.

It isn’t the act of leaving a party that wipes chat. It is the act of changing zones that does (if you aren’t in that party anymore). But since when you leave party while in a dungeon it also auto kicks you from the instance, they happen at the same time.

As a quick experiment, party up with a friend, say something in party chat, them break party without changing zones. Your party chat remains. Change zones and it will disappear.

I’d rather list what I don’t want from future dungeons.

• Unskippable cutscenes: I don’t care how pretty they are, the fact that you’re assuming I want to watch them once is cute, because I don’t. The fact that you assume I’d want to watch them every time I do your dungeon, without giving me an option to cop out, is insulting.

• Unskippable dialogue: by the same token, I’m not interested in Caithe’s PMS-y whining about Scarlet. Nor am I interested in what Graham and Rox think about anything. I hate NPC’s and what they have to say. The fact that I’m losing time every time I run a dungeon because you thought I was moved by your story is quite frustrating.

• Time gates: time gating can be done well in small doses. Arah p3 ritual (to some degree, it’s not good, but it isn’t bad either), CoF p3 defend, Snowblind campfire… All those things are acceptable time gates. They are a semi-engaging encounter that doesn’t take all too long. Examples of bad time gates: Arah p4 Grenth, AC p3 burrows… I don’t want to be forced to spend a fixed amount of time that is frustratingly long doing a boring event.

• Too many kitten puzzles: case in point: Aetherpath.

• Losing progress: never forget.

• Bosses with lame immunity mechanics: Southsun “dungeon”, anyone?

• Unblockable attacks: I don’t mind all too much that they made Malrona unreflectable, I get why they did it, but it frustrates me to no end that you can’t even block the attacks anymore. This is just an example, the new Fractals are full of attacks that are unblockable. I don’t like to be forced to memorize every kitten move in your game that can or can’t be blocked. We need consistency, not some random “will my aegis save me this time, or will I be kittened?” bullkitten.

• Undodgeable attacks: just, no.

• More gear gates: I liked that you could progress in old fractals without proper AR, because only on Maw did you need it, and your buddies could save you. Right now, if you want to progress, you better have the proper AR, or you’re not going to be able to progress. The fact that passive effects like AR are favored over skilled gameplay is frankly insulting.

That’s most of the stuff that comes to mind right now. Could be forgetting something.

Part 3

Lack of meaningful challenges: Like I’ve said, what makes a game fun to play is the reward and the feeling of achievement you get when you overcome difficult challenges. Sadly, much of the end-game content isn’t actually very challenging on a strategic or tactical level. Most world bosses are just a matter of having a big enough zerg – except for Tequatl, who just feels overpowered. Then you have dungeons, which are nice, but their rewards are hardly worth the trouble and time and it takes (Fractals being the exception). Somehow, it feels like the push for extending low-levels happens because Guild Wars 2 “doesn’t have enough end-game content”. If that’s the case, shouldn’t the focus be on increasing the amount of end-game content? And what about making the end-game content that already exists more relevant? Cursed Shore, for example, is currently a stroll through the park. Personally, I would suggest converting a lot of the mid-level content into end-game and rescaling the difficulty accordingly. Some end-game areas should be oppressively difficult – this encourages social behavior and give players a more real feeling of achievement.

The reward system: This goes back to the first things I talked about – if strong equipment is the final reward of the game, players will fall back to grinding and make it impossible to have a balanced economy. GW 1 mitigated this by making stats largely independent on gold – aesthetics were the final reward. However, in GW 2, there are so many skins that they’ve become something like a commodity, lost much of their value. Additionally, since they can also be bought with gold, they contribute directly to the grinding frenzy. I don’t know what to suggest on this end, only that the core values of the game may benefit from a long-term revision, one step at a time.

Bosses immune to critical hits: Personally, I was under the impression that standardizing mechanics was one of the original design policies aimed at making all builds equally viable (after all, that’s why conditions like bleed and poison apply equally to all enemies). Players don’t get that many options in terms of builds; and Crits are one of the most important combat mechanics, often used to trigger boons and conditions. Making important bosses immune to Crits not only makes subpar equipment with Precision or Ferocity, but also severely cripples a wide range of interesting builds. Are players supposed to get a secondary set of equipment (complete with runes, sigils and builds) just for those? Honestly, this feels like yet another money sink. If you wanted to make those bosses more challenging, you could have just reduced the extra damage they take from critical hits, rather than nullifying whole builds altogether.

The Bottom Line

I don’t mind some measure of farming, but when grinding is a part of the core gameplay experience, something’s wrong. It’s understandable that you want players to spend a lot of time in the game, but there are surely better ways to accomplish this. A design policy that enforces grinding only depreciates the game, making it more ordinary and easily comparable to lesser MMORPGs (which are best left unmentioned). It detracts from the very things that make Guild Wars 2 truly unique and attractive. Business-wise, this “strategy” (if it can be called that) is the exact opposite of a competitive advantage (and I’m a senior business consultant, by the way). As a customer, I don’t feel inclined to spend additional money on Guild Wars 2, even though I own well over 200 League of Legends skins.

Part 2

Minor nuisance – Long-standing unfixed bugs: Speaking of patches, what about that Orrian Sapling that spawns inside a prop half of the time in Cursed Shore? Or the broken Harpy Queen in Harathi Hinterlands (this one seems to have been fixed, but it sure took a long time!) Or Taidha Covington’s looping death scene? Or the Megadestroyer pre-quest that bugs when people stand at the NPCs’ spawn point? There are other bugs, but those are the ones that come to mind more readily. Once again, it begs the question: where are your priorities?

The almost-mandatory crafting system: In all honesty, I despise the crafting system. It’s tedious, slow and wasteful, not to mention that the interface is confusing and looks like it has been specifically designed to make you waste time scrolling up and down repeatedly (it doesn’t even have an auto-assembly system for intermediary materials). Leveling up crafts feels excruciatingly slow and forces you to squander resources on useless items until you finally reach a high enough level to make what you actually want. I would like to stay the hell away from this and just send materials to my buddy for him to craft the items for me, but guess what? Ascended gear is not tradable. Thus, the only recourse left is grinding. Even if I did enjoy crafting, I would have to spend ungodly amounts of time leveling up multiple crafts and farming up the materials anyway, so in the end, it all goes back to farming.

A tangent – Odd economic consequences of the crafting system: As I’ve just said, there is a strong pressure for people to be crafters. And, since all you have to do to become one is talk to an NPC, everyone and their mother is a crafter. Rather than being a profession your character can specialize and work on, crafting disciplines end up becoming a mandatory hindrance to your adventuring career. You could be planning and preparing for that dungeon with your guild, but instead everyone is trying get the huge amounts of hard to find materials it turns out they’ll need (many of them for intermediary items that will never actually see any use). Because of this, the demand for crafting materials is normally higher than the demand for finished items. In terms of actual finances, this means you often end up spending more money to craft an item than you would if you bought it on the trading company… talk about a messed up economy.

Traits now require unlocking: There were positive changes in the trait system with the April 2014 feature pack, but requiring new characters to do “quests” to unlock traits was definitely not one of them. Personally, I neglected to pre-create my remaining characters before the feature pack, so I’ve been hit pretty bad by this change. Contrary to what was intended, this feels like a chore and a waste of time. Even if you decide to buy the traits, you’ll have to farm up the gold and many, many skill points, so it goes back to farming and wasting time yet again. I have no words to express just how much of a bother this is – it simply takes away the fun of a new character. Suffice to say I’ve stopped leveling up my new characters, and I will never pick them up again. Evidently, I’ll never spend money on a character slot if things stay like this.

Another tangent – Suggestions for the trait system: The idea of requiring “quests” to unlock traits is not a bad one, but I would restrict them to the grandmaster traits, since those quests are interesting (read: end-game; actually challenging; don’t feel like a chore). This would be much closer to what capturing an elite skill felt like in GW 1. I would make the adept tier unlocked at level 20, the master tier unlocked at level 40 and the grandmaster tier unlockable from level 60 onwards. I believe this would offer players a nice window to experiment with traits and start working towards getting the grandmaster traits.

Low levels overly extended: Let’s face it, the game truly starts at level 80. However, it takes relatively long to get there, and this interlude feels basically like a limbo, a long wait until you can properly start playing that character. Even if there are low-level dungeons, people will wait until level 80 to do them. I don’t know if the new trait system was supposed to give you ‘something to do’ during that wait, but the fact is it doesn’t add any fun to your low-level experience – on the contrary, makes it harder. Much of this would be solved if leveling-up was faster and most mid-level areas were rescaled and redesigned to expand the end-game experience. The game needs less mid-level areas and more max-level areas. Challenge, not chores, is what makes a game fun to play.

The following post was written by me and a friend. It is presented “as is”, and I’m not asking anyone to agree with us. In fact, if you are not going to read the whole thing, please don’t even bother answering. Our perceptions may be skewed at points, but they stem from our own gaming experience with Guild Wars 2, particularly as GW veterans.

Disclaimer: This is not a petition, it’s customer feedback.
Without further ado…

An Appeal for Less Time-wasting, More Relevant Content and Clearer Design Policies

Part 1

I don’t know whether other players share this perception, but Guild Wars 2 often makes me feel alienated by design policies that indirectly enforce grinding or otherwise pressure me to waste time on activities I’m not interested in. I only have a couple of hours per day for this game, so I would like to invest them on activities that are fun and fulfilling – but that also feel rewarding. Below, I will comment in detail about some of the issues that bother me the most about Guild Wars 2:

Stats dependent on item rarity: I know it’s unfair to compare GW 2 to GW 1, since they’re different games, but I had never expected 2 to be so farm-oriented – it stands in stark contrast with the first installment of the series! I feel like the root of the problem is that item rarity is associated with actual combat stats: this strongly compels players to go after equipment with the highest stats available. The result is an endless pursuit of grinding, which in turns pumps dangerously high amounts of money into the economy – which the design team has to manage by creating infamous money sinks and other frustrating changes to “slow things down”. Is it too late to revert this vicious cycle? Possibly, but things can surely be made better one step at a time.

Focus on the economy: Currently, many aspects of the game feel like money/time sinks. The tier system introduced in the April 2014 feature pack is a good example: you don’t have to spend gold to respec traits anymore, but now you have to spend it to learn them! (Unless you have enough patience to complete the incredibly long list of “quests” instead.) Another example: Fractals is a dungeon specifically designed for farming, yet it comes with a sink in the form of agony resistance infusions. This goes to show just how much the design is being influenced by ‘economic issues’, often at the expense of fun. Personally, I feel dragged into a different game called “Grind Wars”. In GW 1, I could choose not to be an active part of the economy and still have top-tier equipment (stat-wise), which enabled me to participate in anything I wanted. Sadly, in GW 2 this option doesn’t seem to exist. I find this hard to understand, considering the large amount of awesome content present in Guild Wars 2.

Transparency issues: There are patches very often, but to access the patch notes, one needs to login at the forums – I wonder how many players do that (I confess I only found that out after a nasty change caught me by surprise). Why not give more visibility to the changes you make? You have a news screen at the game loader, for Christ’s sake. It’s important to explain the rationale behind changes; this way, even if players don’t agree with you, they’ll at least understand where you’re coming from. For example, the official explanation given in the patch notes for dismantling the Queenslade farm train seemed like just a vague “front” and not at all related to the real reasons behind this decision. If you’re nerfing a drop rate or a farm route, explain that openly! Otherwise, you earn mistrust from players who, by not being let into the mindset and objective behind changes, can’t help but feel betrayed (especially when it comes to economics). Lack of a public and transparent design policy is a dangerous thing.

Fror.2163:

“This is the second ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

kitten, it will soon have been 2 years… What is the first??

A bearbow ranger.

Hey there, Anet.

At the moment, we already have enough problems with community coordination due to

• always full and never empty maps in megaserver system,
• people with language chat filters turned on and unaware of its existence,
• lackluster Commander system,
• absence of in-game voice communication (not happening for understandable reasons),
• message suppression.

All other things aside, the last issue is getting more of a problem since you’re delivering us more content which requires coordination, but you’re suppressing us while we’re trying to actually coordinate – thus playing it the way you intended!

This has happened before at Tequatl and Wurm, but you most likely had people on Teamspeak there… now it’s Living Story full of random people from different servers. We need to communicate there if you want us to play it your way, and calling out thing like “Conditions now!” or “Stop conditions, DPS!” or “Turret here!” or “Throw seeds!” or “Do not throw seeds under the boss, #;&!:!!” is part of it.

I tried being a turret caller yesterday at Boom-Boom… and I got suppressed really fast. I then had to spend crucial time to misspell the “trurrat” word each time instead of DPSing… And still got suppressed eventually.

So, what I suggest doing regarding message suppression:

• Raise substantially or lift suppression threshold for areas which require coordination: Teq, Wurm, Marionette, Assault Knights, Hologram, Pavillion etc.
• Raise substantially or lift suppression threshold for players who have a Commander tag acquired regardless of it being active or not, because detagging is often crucial to avoid the lemming effect.

To further facilitate communication you also can:

• Turn off language filter by default. People will tell each other you can turn it on eventually.
• Provide Commanders with more abilities, like assigning sub-commanders (would help in events which require either zero or 5-6 tags – see Mario, Pavillion) for a limited time even being detagged themselves,
• like different colors for commander tag icons,
• like pre-set commander chat commands (“Turret!”, “DPS!”, “Repair!”, “Build!”, “Stack on me!”, “Fire fields! No light fields!”, “Blast water fields!” etc.) which could be assigned to buttons (numpad?) and rapidly delivered to players without having to type them each time, especially if Latin is not your main keyboard layout.
• Think of a system to temporarily demote people who tag up when they shouldn’t (and thus drive away the lemming part of players from correct objectives); it may be a kind of very transparent or bad-colored tag as a semi-measure.
• Think of reworking the squad system.
• Introduce a user-side right-click anti-spam report system which would activate a message suppression algorithm (no, not just suppress everything) to deal with real chat abusing (preferably usable on emotes as well).
• Lift mail restrictions on things like potions in parties and message restrictions in non-local and non-map channels.

It’s actually very easy.

Cryhards:
-Easy=poorly designed
-Medium=non existant
-Hard=badly designed

Dundun forum regulars:
-Easy=Badly designed
-Medium=Easy
-Hard=Nonexistant

Reddit:
-Easy=Upvote
-Medium=Fluffy? Upvote:Downvote;
-Hard=Downvote.

Guang:
-Easy=It’s easy but you suck.
-Medium=You suck
-Hard=Too hard for you, you suck.

With the new-and-improved wardrobe, I am enjoying the “Inventor’s Sunglasses” skin on my Celestial Heavy Helm. Before, I was only fit for display in the wastebasket aisle of Home Depot. Now, my giant norn figure hangs with the likes of John Lennon and Bob Marley.

What my rocking ensemble needs now is a “guitar” skin for my two-handed hammer, so I can properly educate my foes in the ways of rock.

I wanted to take a moment to thank the developers for making the decision(s) to make Tyria much friendlier to alts. I’ve been around since GW1 and I’ve followed the discussions about why certain systems were character-specific “progression” as opposed to account-wide. Notably I recall the dye debate during the beta weekends, more recently the debate over Wxp or the ongoing debate over ascended. As an avid player of alts (an altaholic if you will), a trait first nurtured in how alt-friendly GW1 was designed, I was always on the side of account-unlocks and throughout my time in GW2 I have felt pressure and restrictions to change or avoid that style of playing.

This most recent patch has shown me that across the company you guys have made a conscious and robust effort to redesign systems (I’m sure this wasn’t easy) and even make generous decisions (retroactively unlocking dyes for the account, permanently unlocking gem store skins with a single purchase) to accommodate the best interests of the players. You didn’t just do this with one or two systems, you did a sweeping change across many areas of the game and I can tell you that I personally have felt and greatly appreciate how big an impact this has made on my experience in the game.

Off the top of my head here are the systems changed to be account wide in this last patch:

• Dyes
• The Wardrobe and skin unlocks (legendaries, expensive high end skins, gem store skins, Living Story Skins)
• sPvP reward track unlocks (unlike explorable mode, the reward tracks are unlocked for the entire account)
• Wxp
• Ascended and Legendary items (easing pressure on spending choices).
• Merging of PvP and PvE reward tracks.

Since the patch I have felt more freedom than ever in the game.
Freedom to:

• Experiment with as many dye colours as I want on any character I choose.
• Consume those too-valuable-to-use Living Story skins I wasn’t sure about and increasing the depth of my aesthetic customisation option.
• Play any character I want in WvW without feeling like I am “progressing” the wrong one or I’m less effective than another character because of a lower rank.
• Invest valuable currencies (laurels, guild commendations, pristine fractal relics etc) into ascended items knowing that I can swap them between my characters if I want to try new builds or play one more heavily than the other.
• Play in sPvP without halting my aesthetic progression in PvE.

The impact this patch has had on me (a patch that added very little “new” content) and how I am able to play and enjoy the game is considerable. So often I am critical of this game and will give negative feedback but I truly believe this Feature Pack represents a significant positive shift in how GW2 is designed and I really want to highlight how supportive I am of this new direction (thank you CDIs?). To see such a positive shift in the game from all the different teams is very encouraging. Thank you.

So how has the Feature Pack changed GW2 for other players? Have you guys lost an evening to the wardrobe experimenting with your character’s look? Spent an hour or more perfecting your look with dye combinations? Post screen shots of them if you want to show off your results. Or have you played a character you wouldn’t play as much without Wxp or access to account wide ascended items?

first forword: please excuse my english errors. I am not very well in english.

second foreword: please do not violate the Forum rules, especially these ones:
•The official language of this forum is English . Please post and respond in that language only.
•Do not debate Customer Support decisions or actions.
•Do not post about locked, deleted, or otherwise moderated threads or posts.

If you do not understand the background, why I quote this, I am sorry but can not explain more without violating these rules. I do not want to violate the rules or get an infraction.

Hi,
I have understanded from the announcements, that the megaserver Technology would group players together on maps based on their preferred language.

In reality I can not see this . the map chat on EU Servers is full of English/ German/ French/ Italian/ Spanisch/… languages, combined with agressive or passive agressive demands to use this or that language or to not use that language.

Because of this clash of languages, the map chat overall seems to bee much more agressive and playing together with fun becomes more unlikely.

I belive a MMO is about playing together and communication and understanding each other is a big part of this.

I also think it is a big mistake if a game bans or hinders people from using their mother language from one day to another. And I think this is what the megaserver is doing right now.

Players who are in the USA and on the big US/NA-Servers may not see this as a problem. I can understand that. But on the EU Servers it should not be taken lightly.

Please ANet: Change the megaserver so that only players with the same language setting are put together on the same map.

thanks and regards.

Anything short of complete removal of the scheduled events will be a disappointment.

One time I got dredge in a 30 something, and everyone kept trying to skip (but we didn’t have a Mesmer). And I kept trying to explain to them what do.

I had to type in all caps for them to listen to me. Finally, when I got them to pay attention, the warrior in the group said “I don’t listen to Asura.” And left.

Then I calmly explained how to do dredge the normal way, we got it done no problem, after grabbing a guildie, and everyone was good.

Silly bookah.

Nobody is entitled to refunds. In the real world products change and have new features added or prices reduced. It would be chaos if those that bought older versions were entitled to discounts or trades. If you bought an iPad for $500 and then months later it was bundled with a free travel keyboard and a price of $399, you would not be entitled to a refund or swap.

Disclaimer: this thread will change and update frequently. Come back and check it out daily if you’re curious about changes!

First of all, Welcome!
This post is to help new people to the community understand this subforum. Please note that it is up to each individual to keep posts clean and respectful. Before posting a thread, make sure your question is not on this thread. If you wish, Ask your question here, and we can answer it here, as well, and add it to this list. Any questions asked here will be added and their answer will be put in. Enjoy!
Let’s get started.
FAQ:

1. [Meow] Can I bring a non-80 into a dungeon that is “level appropriate”?
2. [Meow] What is the purpose of LFG group descriptions?
3. [Meow] What should I do if my group kicks me for my build and/or profession?
4. [Meow] What should I do if my group kicks me to sell my spot?
5. [Meow] Is dungeon selling against the rules?
6. [Meow] What can I do to mitigate time-loss by issues such as: Instance owner leaving, getting kicked for no reason, and having a group that does not know what to do in an instance?
7. [Meow] How can I find the best build for dungeon running?
8. [Meow] If I struggle with the best build, what are the best alternatives?
9. [Meow] Where can I find someone to help me run a dungeon path?
10. [Meow] What should I do if I’m new to a dungeon and join a non-descriptive dungeon run?
11. [Meow] Can I do the dungeon on a level 80, and switch to a low level character toward the end to get the experience?
12. [Meow] What can I do if I am kicked from an instance due to the dungeon starter leaving the party?
13. [Meow] If I find a bug or exploit, how can I report it to Arena Net?
14. [Meow] Ah! My dungeon speed clear video has been moved to Linksville! What gives?

Helpful guides: will be updated retroactively

GW2Dungeons.com

Controversial Topics, By Maxinion, but Lilith supports:

1. [Meow] I just ran a dungeon, and everyone just bunched up on top of each other in a few corners to fight the mobs. What gives?
2. [Meow] Stacking is awful! Isn’t this an exploit? Why doesn’t ANet fix this? What can I do so I don’t have to use this mechanic?
3. [Meow] Everyone in my group just ran past all the trash mobs! Aren’t we supposed to kill monsters in dungeons? Isn’t it cheating to just run through?
4. [Meow] Doesn’t it take zero effort to skip? Isn’t it unfair for this reason?
5. [Meow] I still don’t like skipping! What should I do?

New Folks in Dungeons [READ]

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my post about a hot issue here in the dungeon community: Bringing non-80s into dungeons.

As of late, there have been several posts on this topic. The topic then derails because all of us are sick of reading it. Here is the relevant information

• Lowbies are perfectly capable of completing a dungeon run of the appropriate level

We all know this to be true. There isn’t a single member of the community arguing otherwise. However, those of you angry folks, be aware that although lowbies are capable of completing a dungeon, this can sometimes not be as quick as we want.

Important fact #1: No one should believe that a person’s dungeon group composition should be dictated by anyone but those in the group.

If a group wants to run full berserker speed runs, they have that right. If a group wants to run a full clear, they have that right. No one has the right to tell either group they can’t, as both groups are allowed to run the dungeon both ways.

• People need to learn to read LFG descriptions.

Descriptions are there for a reason. If you are running a lowbie group, post something like “Anyone welcome”. It will fill. I spent about 30 minutes last night watching the time trends of lfg groups of AC. Non-speed runs filled, on average, 23 seconds faster than speed runs. People are running these groups.

Important fact #2: Normal groups are out there, do post, and fill quickly. In 5 minutes, you will be able to find a group for any normally run path. If you are running an abnormal path, post your own.

• Dungeon veterans are willing and able to help dungeon newbies

There are several posts here on the forums, Teachers and specifically for Arah, Arah Vets. In addition, see the sticky at the top of the forums. More recent threads may be more useful, but it is still very much a tool to be used.

• If you come to this subforum for a build, you will be given the current meta build for dungeons.

What this means is that regardless of your feelings, people will give you the absolute best build for dungeons. This isn’t debatable. The best build for dungeons focuses on DPS. If you don’t want the meta build, do not ask. If you want advice on how to best use the meta build, or tweak it because you need extra survivability, the dungeon “elitists” will give you their best advice (usually along the lines of knight’s gear, but it depends). Arguing with the forum regulars about this will only cause infractions and the closing of threads. Be aware that if you are asking a question wanting advice, it is up to you to take it.

Thanks for reading, please stop posting those threads.

Another one of these… Fun!

1) You can advertise your own party. If this is how you want to fight, then DO IT!
2) If you are asking the dungeon community, I must say you will not like your responses.
3) If you’re asking the devs, you’re wasting your time
4) You’re mainly just wasting your time either way.

http://youtu.be/Z-7gVxk_b2M

Here are some big numbers by a DPS Guardian using 20/25/0/0/25 which I use for everything other then fractals. I threw in a few suprises at the end

Pug roulette is like Russian roulette except every time that it’s your turn you get shot in the head.