Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Whether the living world or the personal story is what moved forward, the fact is, it would have ended at 80 and would have been continued in an expansion though arguably, Season 1 of the Living World did far more to change the world than the personal story ever did.

The personal story itself was just instanced content and didn’t change the world at all. So if you want the world refreshed, a continuation of the personal story wasn’t going to do it anyway.

The point of contention here is not that the story will be advanced exclusively through the expansion, rather that the Living World is leaving Vanilla GW2 and will only be available to HoT players. Because the Living Story has supplanted the Personal Story this effectively freezes pre-HoT Tyria in time. That is a problem for the devs as well as the players because it limits the scope of all future stories in the same way that the original Personal Story made it so that Orr could never be truly reclaimed.

Mechanically the Personal Story and the current Living Story are nearly identical now, the only difference being that the Living Story is delivered in chunks. So using the current Living World to deliver the next “Dragon Campaign” is only different than delivering it via Personal Story entries in that it removes all hope of a dynamic Living World from the game.

If the HoTs “Dragon Campaign” were delivered through Personal Story entries as an extension of the original Personal Story and the Living World (no longer following the Mordremoth plot but perhaps focusing on peripheral events) continued to be take place in the Vanilla GW2 map space while being available to both Vanilla GW2 players and HoT players then I don’t think there would be all this fuss, people would keep playing Vanilla GW2 and would probably buy HoT within six months of release anyway.

Vayne.8563:

The focus of the main narrative is going to be the expansions moving forward.

When I bought the game during Flame and Frost, the Personal Story was the main narrative and the Living World gave the Personal Story a dynamic world to happen in.
I was simply trying to point out that some people are upset because the Living World/Living Story has replaced the Personal Story as the main narrative over the past few years and will therefor be leaving the core of the game to stagnate as it has been indicated that the Living World will only be available to players who have HoT.

Vayne.8563:

If you want to follow the story, you have to buy the story.

If you paid to see Lord of the Rings part 1, you got to see Lord of the Rings Part 1. When part 2 comes out, you can decide if you wish to continue.

That is fine and as it should be.

The problem stems from the (apparently incorrect) inference of many players that the Personal Story would deliver the main plot of GW2 and the Living World was to keep the world fresh and engaging after you ran out of Personal Story, maybe even provide a little taste of the expansions (see Season 2) while being independent of them.

This conclusion was not totally unwarranted, given the modular nature of GW1. Many players both new and GW1 vets would tend to assume that Anet would follow similar practices with GW2, growing off of the “core” game with expansions while keeping the Living World focused firmly on the part of the game that every player would have/need.

Rin.1046:

And if Mordremoth is defeated in HoT? Then what? How do they bridge LS episodes for both when each has a significantly different timeline and story progression? That would be very difficult in my opinion, when it would be much simpler to lock LS to HoT.

Since all future expansions will have access to Vanilla Tyria than I don’t see why the LS can’t simply continue to happen there accessible to all, with the “narrative bulk” of each expansion delivered as part of the Personal Story.

Rin.1046:

That doesn’t mean LS story will not return to vanilla areas,
it just means non-HoT players will not understand the story of the events happening around them.

From the Interview:
“They will not, no, if you… basically everything that comes after the expansion you will need to own the expansion to be able to access, basically”
So the LS may take place in Vanilla Tyria but non-HoT players won’t get to play along with the cool kids who bought HoT and worse Vanilla Tyria will become a stagnant wasteland like Orr.

Rin.1046:

Look at it this way: If your character did not go off to Maguuma to fight Mordy, you will not know what happened. Or if your character went far away and became a hermit for a while, when he came back to see ice minions running around LA you would not know why.

I never finished the Vanilla Personal Story myself, but that didn’t effect my enjoyment or comprehension of the LS. My conclusion was “Stuff happened, I wasn’t there, the dragon is dead.”

Rin.1046:

All you are really missing out on, by not buying HoT, is the lore and the ongoing personal story. The world will contiinue to move on around you, even if you do not move on with it. If you want to stay up to date with the story, buy the expansion. If you do not want to pay for content, expect to miss sections of the ongoing story of Tyria.

Story is all this game has. There is, no RP support, no “Mini Campaigns” in the gem store, just lore, loot, and PvP. it seems likely that all three will be locked behind future expansions, that leaves vanilla players held hostage to each new expansion, and new players starting late will get to experience the joy (That I’m sure many late to WoW converts remember) of paying a hefty upfront fee to fully enjoy the game.

Locking the Living World behind future expansions is a mistake.

If HoTs main content were delivered as a standalone Personal Story rather than the LW then LW could continue to provide side content to both Vanilla and HoT and then bridging lore from HoT to whatever comes next.

From the Wiki:

Steal is not a bundle; the damage bonus from this trait affects found items that replace the weapon skill bar such as Conjures and Banners.

There are some dive goggles at the end of the JP, off to the right of the chest I think.

Norn
Male
Thief
Exclusive Facial Hair

Facial hair clips through Adventurer’s Scarf (medium) and Adventurer’s Mantle (medium)

GuzziHero.2467:

Um… sadly, I think Anet showed us what they thought about roleplayers with megaservers, town clothes and the removal of the Personality system.
They wouldn’t miss us.

This is true.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

My overall point in this whole thing remains: the OP’s suggestions are not needs for the game, they’re just nice extras (keyword is nice, not necessary).

You are trying to apply the concept of intrinsic need to a video game?

Zera Allimatti.2541:

PvP/W3/PvE being core components of the game, the issues in those aspects of the game certainly qualify as needs for the game.

One of the issues in PvE is a lack of things to do, RP is something to do.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

They could make it so the game has 0 emotes and did not have the ability to walk and the game would be just as playable as it is now.

If gw2 was a first person shooter you’d be right, but it’s an MMORPG. Those things enrich game play and add texture to the players experience by providing more ways to interact with the game world.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

-Snip-

You do realize that the RPG in MMORPG sands for Role Playing Game right?

Without RP gw2 is at best a stats based hack and slash game and at worst, it’s facebook with slick graphics.

GuzziHero.2467:

Even more sadly, the developers know this. Roleplaying doesn’t make money, so developing content for it is not a productive use of resources.

It depends on how you monetize it. If your goal is to make money by increment with micro-transactions and such then it is profitable to keep players playing much and as long as possible. RPers aren’t as quick to hit the “end game so game over” point in provided content and they tend to make up their own “soft” content when given the tools to do so. Thus keeping them logging in and looking at all the cool stuff they can pay for.

GuzziHero.2467:

I, personally, have never see any computer game as an RPG when it tells the story to you rather than you making it yourself.

This is true for a given value of truth. It comes down to weather you want to be the Game Master, who makes the story, or the Character, who lives it.

I vote Necromancers

Condi spam is OP and there is no counter play, they one million shot you and if you start to win they just use Death Shroud to reset fights.

You know QQ is kind of fun when its not my class on the line.

Zero Day.2594:

1200 range……………….

Meh pistols get 1050 with Ricochet.

yolo swaggins.2570:

In a recent topic I listed a few things that needed to happen before thief’s strong points were to be nerfed. The idea is to replace thief’s reliance on stealth with a combat design based around theft (BECAUSE THIEVES STEAL kitten, RIGHT?!) while turning stealth into an extra tool the thieves have access to.

What this would accomplish is making thief more malleable to balance changes while making thief fun and effective (also annoying) in it’s own unique way. Through theft, the thief will be able to gain defensive and offensive capabilities normally not available.

Now the way Theft is going to work is like this:

1.) Each skill and utility will have some form of Theft ability.
2.) Theft abilities only activate when criteria is met. For example: if someone has Protection at 76% HP or more and is hit by Heartseeker that has a Theft ability stating “If target is above 75% HP, steal a boon.” the remaining protection gets applied to the thief.

Now I have some ideas of my own, but it would probably be more fun to ask for everyone’s ideas first. Before I let you do so, I am going to list the possibilities I am looking at and if there is enough I might list them. Here is the list of the type of Theft effects I am looking at:

• Steal a boon.
• Switch a condition with a boon.
• Apply a boon on you and apply a condition on your target.
• Copy affected allies boons onto you.
• Transfer conditions onto affected targets.
• Steal Endurance.
• Copy a random skill from target. (Replaces w/e is in F1 slot. Single use.)
• Etc.

Let the ideas flow!

Yes to all of this.

Especially to #2. Conditional abilities are great because the rarer the condition is, the more powerful they can be without being OP.

If this were done the stealth and smoke field would probably have to be moved off our weapons, maybe adjusting the duration of utility and trait based stealth to keep it useful.

The dark side of the Trinity was always its mandatory nature, in order to do the content at all you needed a tank and a healer.

The problem in GW2 isn’t that we don’t have the Trinity it’s that we have an AntiTrinity.
If you want to support the team as a healer or go full meat shield as a tank there is no viable option to do so. It is always better to run zerk or just cheese the mechanics. The AntiTrinity restricts freedom of play in much the same way the Trinity did, you don’t have a real choice. You can run zerker and the fight will be as easy as it can be for your skill level or you can run anything else and the fight will be torturous regardless of how good you are.

Because GW2 encounters are designed for free for all parties, allowing real tank and healer builds into the game as options would only effect players IF they were vastly better than straight up dps. Even then it would only be in the form of LFG requests like the “EXP zErk” requests that we already see, and while those can be annoying they fall firmly under the community wisdom of “Make you own party if you don’t like it.”

First step to make gw2 fun is to stay off the forums, between the White Knights and Zealots you won’t get any decent ideas on having more fun (they’ll just keep saying you’re doing fun wrong).

Personally I keep playing out of spite. Every hour spent using up Anet bandwidth without giving them anymore money gives you a warm happy feeling inside.

It’s sad, but the parody game inside the game is more fun than the game it’s in.

Wearing the Honorary Skritt title should make all aggressive Skritt neutral.

If they made Thief traps radial and/or gave us a trait similar to Trapper’s Expertise.
Either of those would make traps a lot more appealing, at least to me.

When WvW is invaded by mannequins this demonstration will be an extremely valuable teaching aid.

If you really want a penalty then do it yourself. Reroll on death, buy an Orichalcum Mining Pick and destroy it, salvage your armor when it breaks, nothing is stopping you.

I’d like the Skritt myself. They just seem like they would a lot of fun to play.

1. Group 10~15 players per slice.
2. Kill bosses
3. ???
4. Profit

As it is now a lot the additions to the game seem to come with an eye roll inducing gem store tie-in that often feels like you’re being held over a barrel for something that should already be part of the game.

The gem store needs to be completely separated from the in-game economy(gold), providing only cosmetic items like
Costumes
Toys/Minis
Special Edition Dyes

And non QoL perks such as
Boosters/Repair Canisters
Express Traders/Express Banker
Name Change/Total Make Over
Account Upgrades

The Self-Style Hair Kit needs to be replaced outright by an in-game Barber and the Unlimited Gathering tools should have plain skinned unlimited counterparts obtainable in-game at a premium making the gem store versions into cosmetic upgrades rather than QoL upgrades.

These are obviously part of some kind of dragon alarm clock.

Farzo.8410:

Wouldn’t surprise me if Scarlet was behind the fall of Abaddon as well.

Wouldn’t surprise me if Scarlet woke up the dragons.

Wouldn’t surprise me if it actually was Scarlet running away instead of Logan and killing Snaff.

Wouldn’t surprise me if Scarlet was actually Glint too.

Wouldn’t surprise me if Scarlet was Scarlett Johansson too.

Actually one day Scarlet will travel through time and create all of Tyria and in one fell swoop she will be responsible for everything that ever happened in the whole wide world.

1. The Living Story is hamstrung by the Personal Story.
It could be so much better with the freedom to actually change the “Living World”.

2. WvW & PvE should never have been directly linked.
PvP balance never works in PvE and vice versa.

3. Every mob should always drop some vendor trash when killed.
Dry streaks are demoralizing.

4. The AI only has two states, terminator walk, and run away.
The AI is also slightly psychic and can turn on a dime.

5.Fixed weapon skills.
Variety is the spice of life.

Redenaz.8631:

Anymras.5729:

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women. This is what is best in life.

Krait have tried all of these things, yet still empty and sad inside. What else is best in life?

Hot water, good dentistry and soft lavatory paper.

jsduke.6537:

2. Independently balance PvP, WvW, and PvE environments.

I can’t tell you how much I want this to happen, I’ve developed eye twitch while reading patch notes as a result of years playing thief type classes in MMOs.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

My point is really based on system trying to track two cooldowns instead of just one. If there will be no difference, then why tax the system with additional cooldown?

If the system can handle tracking the four sets of five cooldowns from Elementalists attunements and the cooldowns of the four attunement class skills I don’t think keeping track of one more cooldown on thief is going to melt the servers.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Even if I don’t use the items in successions, I will still be waiting for two cooldowns.

Imagine if F2 has 15s cooldown left and I have a Fear in it, but Steal is ready for use, then I saw a Warrior…I’d either wait 15s to use Steal to get the Warrior item after using F2, or get it now and replace my F2. The former will make me wait for F2 after waiting for F1.

I repeat “The F2 cooldown would reset when a new skill was successfully stolen.”

Sir Vincent III.1286:

In a heated fight, there’s no time to get distracted on whether to keep a stolen item or not.

So just keep using stolen skills like you do now and don’t think about whether to keep a stolen item or not.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Not really, because some of the items are powerful enough to be one-time-use only. Take Mace Head Crack, for example. Can you imagine a Thief dazing you every time it comes off CD? And if chained with other disables, you’re really asking for a nerf bat swing.

S/D can inflict a 2s daze every 8 seconds that ends up providing approximately 5.25s of daze over 21 seconds so with Bone Crack that’s 8.25s of stun over 21 seconds and that would be very OP if there were no Stun Breaks in the game and there was no Revealed debuff. . . and all of those things could be done at once in under a second.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

To be honest, I care little with the stolen items and care more about the functionality of steal.

The fact that the stolen skills don’t matter is illustrative of a core design flaw in Steal.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I don’t want to give steal unnecessary attention that Anet can use as a reason to nerf it.

Attention from Anet gets things fixed, QQ from players gets things nerfed.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Yes I do. If I want to Fear twice in a row, I have to wait for F2 to get off cooldown, use it, steal a new Fear, then use the new Fear….then wait for both to get off cooldown.

If as I have suggested the F2 skills cooldown would be equal to but not linked to that of Steal than I don’t see how this is any different than stealing Fear, waiting for Steals cooldown to go down without using it, using Fear, stealing Fear again and using it. The timing remains the same regardless of whether or not Fear is being held in F2 or covering Steal in F1.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

There’s really no benefit to this and no point on holding on to items for too long other than allowing Thief to reuse the same thing over and over.

It’s all about having control, if you don’t think control is important try out Hard to Catch.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If I’ve stolen from a Mesmer, there’s no way I’m giving that up so that will be a fixed item in my F2 — meaning, it’s broken — you’re just asking to get hit with a nerf bat.

My suggestion is self balancing.
If Consume Plasma is a “fixed item” in F2 then then you can’t use Steal without losing it, it’s a trade off you can keep Consume Plasma but you lose the utility of Steal so the only problem would be if Consume Plasma was so powerful that you never wanted to use Steal again in which case I think that would be more of a problem with Consume Plasma than my suggestion.

If you don’t ever use stolen skills my suggestion changes nothing except removing the need to “burn off” stolen skills to use Steal again and if you do use stolen skills it lets you choose to use one repeatedly until, It is no longer needed\wanted, or you need\want to use Steal.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

So why even store it? If I can steal from the same target over and over, why don’t I just do that and only wait for one cooldown instead of two?

You wouldn’t have to wait for two cooldowns the F2 cooldown would reset when a new skill was successfully stolen, from a balance perspective this is no different than the current system where you wait for Steal to be off cooldown before using the stolen skill you’ve got so you can use two stolen skills in rapid succession.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Having its own cooldown doesn’t change the fact that I can still use it infinite number of times.

It’s less about being able to use the skills multiple times without re-stealing and more about having control over which stolen skills you want to use.

Admittedly this would be a more noticeable change in PvE where there are more stolen skills than in PvP but it does provide some strategic control over what you can do with your stolen skills, you could for example hang on to a Healing Seed from a ranger to provide a water field and AOE healing for your team in sPvP or WvW, it’s all about flexibility and control.

evilapprentice.6379:

Steal has too many traits tied to it for this to be a useful change.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there Steal in its current form is more about the actual action of stealing and the stolen skills are a minor afterthought.

evilapprentice.6379:

you’re suggestion would be interesting, but a very minor buff.
Don’t get me wrong, Steal is always a gap closer, which can be very important. Additionally, it can apply poison, do some damage and a heal, regenerate initiative, trigger might/fury/swiftness, steal boons, etc etc etc. The CD for each F2 skills would have to be shorter than steal to truly make it worth it outside of some niche situations, and that’s just not realistic for some of the more useful stolen items.

The Devs seem to like taking baby steps in the right direction rather than potently taking leaps in the wrong one. I think of this suggestion more as a simple change that could provide a more flexible jumping off point for future changes than the current system.

I did think about expounding on some stolen skill changes in my original post, but I decided that presenting something that wouldn’t require any major changes to balance would be better received both by the community and the Devs.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Imagine using Fear infinite times…let the QQ begins.

The F2 skill would have its own cooldown equal to that of Steal, technically it would be no different than stealing from the same target over and over.

Examples:
1. Steal Skull Fear from necro
2. use Skull Fear
3. wait for steal to cooldown(minimum 21sec)
4. goto 1.

In my proposal it goes something like this.
1. Steal Skull Fear from necro
2. use Skull Fear
3. wait for Skull Fear to cooldown(minimum 21sec)
4. goto 2.

Deathspike.1870:

How does this differ from the current implementation? You state that on a subsequent steal, the F2 skill would get overridden with the new stolen skill, therefore making the change be nothing more than a visualization of the skill cooldown and another required button to use the stolen skill? I agree that a cooldown timer would be nice while holding a skill bundle, but I don’t see any real use to separate the abilities like this. Even an argument that you don’t have to spend a ~second using the stolen skill seems weird as we have sufficient time to waste it away while being forced into stealth.

I’m sorry about this,
I didn’t really drive home the most important part of my proposal.

I said:
“the stolen skill would remain available until the thief uses Steal again”

I should have said:
“the stolen skill would be reusable until the thief uses Steal again”

The idea being that you could hold on to your favorite stolen skill for repeated use.

OP edited for clarity

I don’t even PvP and I love this idea. The idea of staking enemies with a guild banner is just too awesome.

Steal as it currently exists is a decent class mechanic but its just so. . . random. While many stolen skills are very useful the one-off nature of the current system makes them more of an afterthought to traited Steal effects like Mug or Bountiful Theft.

So how can stolen skills play a bigger role in Steal?

Add a pocket.
When a thief Steals the skill goes into an F2 skill slot, the F2 skill would have its own independent cooldown equal to the cooldown of Steal, this cooldown would be reset when a new skill was successfully stolen and the stolen skill would be reusable until the thief uses Steal again, replacing the current skill or changes zones.

Now obviously no change should be made that could drastically alter class balance in PvP activities so I’ll take a moment to address some potential balance shifts.

Actually there are none,
Because stealing would replace the current F2 stolen skill, holding on to a skill or “skill hording” would require that Steal not be used and thus sacrificing any utility provided by it in exchange for the utility of the stolen skill, so my suggestion removes the need to “burn off” stolen skills to use Steal again and it lets you choose to use a stolen skill repeatedly until, It is no longer needed\wanted, or you need\want to use Steal.
With only one skill slot there is no change to how Steal and its subsequent stolen skills would be used in ether PvP or PvE other than the fact that Thieves could make strategic decisions about holding on to a particular skill for future use.

Well thats not a problem with the core idea its a problem with the existing factors they would need to be adjusted to balance out the system.

Did you read the post?
The scholar professions would get a substantial Defense increase,
inversely the soldier professions would be sacrificing Defense for increased mobility.
from the wiki:

“Armor is a value that is listed on the hero panel. It is equal to Defense plus Toughness attribute, and will determine how much incoming damage will be reduced.”

from websters:

bal·ance

Equipoise between contrasting, opposing, or interacting elements

Currently there are only two differences between the Light, Medium, and Heavy, armor classes. The first is purely aesthetic and the second is the Defense stat.

Of course if all armor classes were usable by all professions logically everyone would use Heavy armor for the added Defense, so how do we balance gear to allow every profession to use all armor types?

The answer “Encumbrance(or something like that)”
Encumbrance would effect a characters endurance regeneration ether positively or negatively relative to their default armor class.

Light|Cloth
Wearing:Light= 0% | Default endurance regen rate
Wearing:Medium= -30% | -5% endurance regen per piece
Wearing:Heavy= -60% -| 10% endurance regen per piece

Meduim|Leather
Wearing:Light= +30% | +5% endurance regen per piece
Wearing:Medium= 0% | Default endurance regen rate
Wearing:Heavy= -30% | -5% endurance regen per piece

Heavy|Plate
Wearing:Light= +60% | +10% endurance regen per piece
Wearing:Medium= +30% | +5% endurance regen per pice
Wearing:Heavy= 0% | Default endurance regen rate

(These numbers are only used as an example, in practice armor such as gloves and chest pieces would have proportional percentages)

Nick.6972:

stof.9341:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Nick.6972:

Yeah, I wonder, which is better, a dungeon about silly Asuras or a god kitten GOD?

The one that could turn space/time inside out and possibly affect other aspects of the game.

We get the choice between more lore from a game with good lore (Guild Wars 1) or more lore from a game with mediocre lore (Guild Wars 2)

Choice is rather easy.

Precisely, I don’t care for all this roleplaying, charr vs human or whatever, I want a decent dungeon that’s based on original lore.

Not to nit pick but Thaumanova is part of the original lore it happened between the events of GW1 & 2.

The first time I went to Thaumanova Reactor I thought “What the heck happened here?” Also as many posts here are showing there is already fair supply of lore for Abaddon while there is little known about the Thaumanova incident.

The Shadow Trap Skills are completely broken in PvE, Shadow Trap and Destroy Shadow Trap both trigger auto-target and auto-attack when used, Shadow Pursuit instantly exits stealth and applies Revealed when used.

Both Shadow Trap and Destroy Shadow Trap are currently triggering autotarget and consequently activating auto-attack when used.

Wait for iiiit.

It seems like this form of condition removal would only be natural for a thief, I mean we spend all day running around with sharp knives and deadly venoms in our pockets it only makes sense that we should know how to counter their ill effects.

Coagulant: Removes Bleeding
Adrenaline: Removes Crippled
Anti-venom: Removes Poisoned

If these kind of skills worked with Venomous Aura it would be a nice boon for team/support builds too.

So what says the Thieves Guild of Tyria?

What I would like to see is a torch off-hand with these skills.

Number 4 skill 4: Initiative
Sweep your torch across your foe’s eyes dazing them. Burn them instead if you attack from behind.
Damage: 151
Daze: 2s
Burning: 3s
Range: 130

Number 5 skill 6: Initiative [ground targeted]
Throw your torch and create a cloud of smoke.
Duration: 6s
Radius: 240
Combo Field: Smoke
Range: 900
Unblockable

lordkrall.7241:

GameVeight.2745:

+1

No wonder that half the community thinks that dungeons are too hard and the other half thinks they are too easy. I’ve been playing for three months and I had no idea that bosses had chat window tells.

They don’t.
There is two bosses in the whole game that does. And those were added to the single-room boss-fights in Southsun with the latest patch.

Oh they weren’t there, that explains why I didn’t know about them.
Ace is right though, boss mechanic cues should always be an active element of gameplay rather than a passive one like the chat log.

+1

No wonder that half the community thinks that dungeons are too hard and the other half thinks they are too easy. I’ve been playing for three months and I had no idea that bosses had chat window tells.

+1
I’ve always wished I could Scorpion Wire downed teammates out of aoes to revive.

It’s cool, I never played GW1 so I don’t really know how the combat was. The main reason I suggested this was because, I while really enjoy playing my Theif, with only four weapons to choose from it often feels like I’m fighting the way I have to rather than how I’d like to.