Guild Wars 2

But that’s exactly the thing! The new system makes for so many more viable builds, you don’t have to follow the cookie cutter meta to a T in order to have fun and be effective anymore.

I just wanna say bravo to ANet for these updates. I’ll probably be crucified for speaking out in favor of the new trait system, but I wanted to inject just a little bit of positivity into things since I’ve heard almost nothing but complaining since the patch.

Yes, there are FAR fewer total choices you can make with your build. But honestly, how many of those choices actually did anything for you? How many of those choices actually meant anything good for your gameplay or actually made a difference?

The new system not only arranges Traits so that they provide FAR more meaningful choices, but it also makes it far easier to gauge the impact of those choices and find a build. It took me maybe 20 minutes fussing around in the sPvP lobby to spot a staff necro CC build that’s worked surprisingly well for me so far (gotta either make adjustments or learn to deal with incoming burst damage though), as well as five or six other builds I could run, but ultimately don’t suit my personal preferences and playstyle. 20 minutes. In the previous trait system I had to sit there for hours guessing and scratching my head before finally finding something that looked about right, or finding a build online.

And to me, the most important thing of all is that Guild Wars 2 finally feels like a Guild Wars game. I mostly say this because, to me, Guild Wars was all about finding some core mechanic, skill, or combo and basing your build around making that mechanic/skill/combo as useful as possible. Guild Wars 2’s trait system always felt like it was there to support the weapons, but with the new overhaul I feel like I can make my Traits the -entire- backbone of my build, equipping weapons and utility skills that synergize well with the traits I’ve chosen. Maybe this was possible before, but the way it was designed never really made it easy to spot potential builds.

Anyway, just wanted to show ANet my support. As someone who once loathed this game for its story execution and skill/trait system, I can finally say that GW2 captures the magic of the original in a new and exciting way, and it’s finally become the MMORPG I’ve been wishing for.

So tonight, I was doing a Sorrow’s Embrace run with a few friends and needed a couple randoms. We advertised our party, and got a couple players. Awesome, we thought, we’ve got a team and we can roll this.

The ranger in our party seemed to specifically wait for us to drop combo and damage fields with long cooldowns, then rush in and knock the enemy out of them. When we kindly asked him to stop, he responded with rude comments. We opted to kick him and re-advertise to fill in his slot.

Trouble is, as soon as we advertised again, he rejoined our party. We kicked and advertised, this time altering the title of our LFG group to ask him not to join. He joined again. Kicked, advertised (Nobody else we knew was online so we figured we needed to) and he rejoined.

By this point, my friends and I were confident we could just run the dungeon with us and our fourth random, so we wanted to kick the guy again and just go without advertising… but somehow the LFG system made him our party leader. I’m not sure if that’s the reason why the option to kick him would no longer appear for the rest of the dungeon.

I’d like to know why we couldn’t kick this toxic player and safely re-advertise our party without worrying about him instantly taking the slot back. We even blocked him before we kicked him the final time, and he was still able to join with no issue at all. Was this intentional, ANet? If not, is there something in the pipes to deal with it? When we kick someone it means we do not want them in our party, there’s no reason we’d be okay with them rejoining five seconds later.

Gidget here! Just want to be a bother and chime in with one little note: We do this for fun and to give something to the community. We do not do this for profit. If you enjoy seeing the joy people express with a free ride to the end of a puzzle, we will be happy to have you run events and puzzles with us.

While I do feel that restricting players to autoattacks during the tutorial event is a mistake, and it does bother me a little that I’m level 18 and still not earning skill points for my levels, I gotta admit the new system is forcing me to really think about every skill I’ve gotten so far. I am a veteran with a few hundred hours logged on this game, and I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve ever felt intimately familiar with my weapon skills as an elementalist; I’ve always given up on eles before. I’m using a staff (I love the play style) and, even though I don’t have Earth, I’m finally looking at fire/water/air as area damage, healing bunker, and single-target control respectively. I don’t know how I missed that in previous iterations. I’ve spent the last 24 hours complaining about how much I hate the new system for leveling alts but as soon as I realized what it actually did for classes I’m unfamiliar with, I’m pretty much singing its praises now.

Gameplay mechanics themselves are fair game and can’t be copyrighted anyway. And I do see the point, and I like that idea too. My idea came from my experiences in Diablo 3, and the fact that me and my friends could keep the boss mostly on lockdown without eliminating its ability to kill us in a second. I feel this opens the door to do something other than “punch the monster, dodge the monster, win.” If balanced correctly, the idea of locking down a boss could be something that happens extremely rarely and ultimately not last very long, and in many cases it might not even be the ideal way to win. I think the longest I’ve ever locked down a boss was 8 seconds by spamming tons of frozen, and in order to be able to do that I had to sacrifice half my damage overall compared to other builds.

As far as constant interrupts, that’s why I suggested timed immunity as their defiant stacks rise. It’s also not even a little far-fetched to have the boss be immune to stun/interrupt during some or many special attacks. Look at world of warcraft bosses (I know, I know, just hear me out): Many of them have devastating attacks or effects that can put the party in severe danger, but are also given a chance to be interrupted without requiring some kind of gimmick from the dungeon. Aside from those, though, they have plenty of other nasty skills that need to be avoided and cannot be interrupted. Players can often tell these attacks apart because the boss has tells and visual cues indicating whether they can be interrupted or not.

No matter what you change about a system, there are always workarounds to prevent things from being abused while still improving the depth of an encounter.

I would very much appreciate feedback, and I’d love for an arenanet dev to see this.

TL;DR: This is a well thought-out crowd control solution featuring resistance rather than denial. Please read the whole thing.

I’m sure many others will agree with me here; the current crowd control mechanics for bosses doesn’t work as well as it probably should.

For those who aren’t fully aware, currently bosses keep from being stunlocked by having an ability called Unshakable. When players apply a crowd control (CC) effect to a boss, that boss gains three or more stacks of Defiance. Each stack renders it completely immune to one CC application. Once all the stacks are gone, the boss is vulnerable to CC but instantly gains more stacks as soon as it is hit by one of these effects.

This system is problematic, especially for open world fights and LFG dungeon groups. If dungeon runners carefully group up and communicate thoroughly it typically isn’t a large problem, but it still makes CC feel ineffective overall. In open world fights, there can be dozens of people spamming crowd control constantly, so the instant a boss loses all Defiance stacks it usually gets hit and gains tons of Defiance again. This can result in ineffective use of CC, as the boss is extremely likely to be immune to interrupt at key moments.

Instead of complete immunity from the start, I suggest that Defiance stacks become a diminishing returns effect that can fall off over time. These stacks should build quickly to still be a challenge in small dungeon groups, but have a cap (let’s say 25) so that the boss can’t be completely immune when under fire from a large open world pack. Each stack should also fall off after some time (let’s say 45 seconds, for an off-the-top-of-my-head example). For every stack of Defiance, crowd control effects on the boss should have their duration reduced to a point (example: a 3 second stun might become a .25 second stun at 25 stacks), as well as the boss becoming immune to CC for a few seconds after the effect ends (let’s say 1 to 10 seconds over the course of 25 stacks).

For bonus points, each type of crowd control could receive its own Defiance; this would prevent Slows from making the boss immune to a stun at a key moment, for example.

With this new system, you’d still have bosses heavily resistant to crowd control against mass groups of players without total immunity. Players could feel like their CC means something rather than just being a thing to get rid of stacks. In dungeons, if Defiance stacks decently quickly, players could CC the boss at key moments to interrupt massive hits and dangerous attacks, and carefully wait for stacks to fall off before coordinating their attack to (very briefly, because these stacks build fast) lock down the boss and burn their health. It also creates an interesting set of choices for dungeon groups, who would now have to decide between saving their CC for a burn or using it to keep from taking too much damage.

I really think such a system would take a good bit of effort to get the balance right, but overall would be a huge improvement, and would make PvE content much more fun for everybody involved.

Gidget Gray. Couldn’t get a satisfying ingame screenshot of her, but I’m extremely proud of the armor I’ve rigged up. Ingame she wields a seraph shield and krytan sword, which looks absolutely fantastic. Wish I could dye weapons.

Hey all, didn’t bother to read if this one’s been posted already but figured I’d post the build I’ve been tinkering and modifying over time to turn it into the universally functional setup it is today:

Necrobruiser!

This works EXTREMELY well for me in PvE and WvW zerging, and thus far it seems pretty good at PvP dueling (I’m rediculously slow with my skills, so I do still tend to die when I’m up against skilled thieves or multiple opponents solo but at the very least I’ve held onto a capture point for a couple minutes.)

EQUIPMENT:
Thus far I have Knight’s and Emerald EVERYTHING. Except my backpack, which is still a rare power/toughness/vitality piece. Basically I stack power, toughness, and crit chance as much as I can with my equipment.

For armor runes, I have five superior runes of the Ranger and one of the Thief, solely for the purpose of more crit chance and a little more crit damage.

For weapons, I mainly use Axe/Warhorn and my secondary set is Dagger/Dagger. On both sets I have one sigil of accuracy and one sigil of blood.

TRAITS:
I go 0/4/6/4/0, giving me plenty of extra crit chance, toughness, and vitality.

In Curses I take IV and X for major traits, giving me extra duration on spectral armor and causing my death shroud to bleed and weaken enemies when I activate it.

In Death Magic I take VI, IX, and XIII for major traits. I lose a condition when entering death shroud, then constantly apply vulnerability to nearby enemies and regen health while death shroud is active.

In Blood Magic I take V and IX for major traits, causing my crits to siphon health and causing my death shroud to area heal when I turn it off.

UTILITY:
My heal skill is Consume Conditions, for obvious reasons. I’m up front and soaking up conditions a lot, and this is a HUGE heal when you’re up against condition spammers.

My utility skills are Signet of the Locust, Well of Power, and Spectral Armor. The Signet gives me a small emergency heal and improves my mobility, Well of Power is my main support/condition removal/stability skill, and Spectral Armor is my defensive buff that I activate immediately after prolonged use of Death Shroud to recharge my life force more quickly.

My Elite is Flesh Golem, because it’s the only one that isn’t a bloody transform and also I don’t get to use racials in PvP for some reason. When I’m in PvE or WvW, I’m a human, so I use Reaper of Grenth for the area chill and poison.

THE WOMBO COMBO:
When playing against a large group of enemies in PvE or fighting in a zerg in WvW, this build excels. My favorite and most satisfying combo is Warhorn 5 (locust swarm) → Reaper of Grenth → Death Shroud 5 (tainted shackles) → Death Shroud 4 (life transfer) → Axe 3 (Unholy Feast). When up against big groups of enemies, this can deal a lot of damage very quickly and, if you’re playing in a zerg, has the potential to hit more than the normal 5 enemy AoE limit (provided the things you’re life draining die in the middle of your combo and there’s still more stuff around) and usually results in TONS of drops.

ANYWHO:
Just thought I’d share this build. If you have any questions or comments, let me know!

Twice in the last couple days, now, I’ve gotten a message from the launcher that my password wasn’t accepted. After the first time, I managed to recover the password and nothing was was really changed about my account or characters. I decided to set up the mobile authenticator as an extra layer of security. I can’t help but notice the game didn’t ask for the authenticator code, which I guess isn’t so bad. And I logged out and back in, and was pleased to see that the account site asked for the authenticator code. So that’s cool. But then two days later, once again, my password wasn’t accepted. I managed to recover it again, and I couldn’t help but notice that the site isn’t asking for my authenticator code anymore. Why did I even set this up if it’s not going to ask me for it, and how the heck is my password being changed/reset? I don’t even see any login attempts from other IP addresses. I’d like to put a stop to this so that I don’t run out of passwords, since it won’t let me go back to any previous ones.

EDIT: Just looked at my account. Someone had logged in from Texas. How the heck could they do this without the mobile authenticator!?

DISCLAIMER
I’m not complaining, here. I do really enjoy this game, and I’m going to keep playing it for a very long time. This post is to get something out of my system, something I’ve just realized is missing from my soul right now, and the reason I’ve started shifting over to League of Legends and looking forward to The Elder Scrolls Online.

TL;DR
I love Guild Wars 2 and I will continue to play it, but I do miss the classes and defined roles.

The actual post
So when Guild Wars 2 was announced, I was ECSTATIC. I loved Guild Wars 1 to death, and to finally see the game taken into the modern era was the most exciting thing in the world to me. Heck, I even still play Guild Wars 1 from time to time (I’m trying to get level 20 in pre-searing Ascalon).

When I heard that every class can play every role in their own way, I thought that was cool. I was excited to not desperately search for a party, or to be able to play with nearly any combination of classes for any dungeon/shenanigans and still have a good time. I’d get started on how excited I was about WvW, sPvP, and the possibility of a new generation of Guild vs Guild, but those aren’t really relevant to what I’m posting about.

I got to playing, I’ve put a good 200 hours into the game, and spent tons on gems, had a blast with working out my Guardian’s build and fiddling around with other classes. But then I took a break one eve to revisit League of Legends, and became re-addicted to the support roles (I’ve always played Medic in Team Fortress 2). I tried rolling an Elementalist, too, and though I appreciate the emphasis on the should-be versatility of an Elementalist’s abilities, the character I had come to love from Guild Wars 1 (my triple-meteor-shower-nuke-spamming hurricane of wrath) just didn’t really fit.

I’m sure you all kind of see where I’m getting with this. I’m not crying out that I want Guild Wars 2 to change, because I am enjoying the game as it is… but I miss that role-based gameplay/combat. Some call it the Holy Trinity, though I prefer a system in which there are several classes that have a defined role but do that role in their own way (like LoL has something like 100 ‘classes’, or TF2’s 9-class system). Sure, some tweaks could be done to the formula to make it less a practiced ballet and a bit more hectic (I know playing Medic in TF2 gave me some of the most exciting moments ever), and I know the way WoW does it pretty much bores me. But even when playing League of Legends, having characters focused solely on laying out crowd-control, improving map awareness, buffing their allies to watch them wreck stuff; or playing Medic in TF2, watching the map, relaying info to teammates, keeping everyone alive, and every so often leading a massive push with an invulnerability or critical damage buff… I loved that style of play, and coming back to Guild Wars 2 only makes me miss it.

So… there it is. I’m not sure what else to say as I’ve pretty much run out of writing steam. Like I’ve said, I still enjoy Guild Wars 2 and I’m going to keep playing it (WvW is so much fun for me), but some part of me still wishes I could have something like it with all the defined roles in place.

I’m honestly open to some kind of treaty or alliance between Yak’s Bend and Gates of Madness. I’m not a commander, but I think unite-and-conquer might be the way to go here. But even then, with both servers so savagely demoralized…

if I see this situation exactly the same at the end of the week, you can bet hell will be raised on these forums. And not just by me.

So maybe now is a good time to try out the reason ANet pitted 3 servers together? If it works, then I’ll love it. Otherwise, I don’t see what the point of playing that mode is.

I logged in at around 3pm Eastern today, keyed up the WvW display, and found… this. What in the name of orphaned kittens is going on here? I mean, last week was the most AMAZING world vs world experience I’ve had with this game. It was a close, intense match, and it was AWESOME. And now this!? What happened!? Well, I can tell you that an alliance on Yak’s Bend broke up and transferred out to Sanctum of Rall, which is why they’re now dominating literally the entire map. Which brings me to the point many people have whined about for the longest time now, and I was always tried to tell them “shut up, it’ll all balance out, things will be fine once the steam gets going.” And last week, it did balance out. And the balance was amazing. But then…….. free world transfers allowed this to happen. End this crap, arenanet. I won’t say “oh waaaah everyone’s gonna up and quit” because I know I won’t be quitting. But I do wanna have fun with this game, and I do want to be competetive. This is not competetive. This is insane.

Gonna have to cut in here and say that, though OP makes it sound WAY more a problem than it is, it is still a problem. It’s been mentioned before on the forums that using 3 quickly followed by 2 (air blast to knock back, flame blast to hit the target at ideal range while they’re knocked back) is bugged and often results in the red “obstructed” text even with nothing between you and the target. I’ve seen this happen myself five or six times, and it never seems completely consistent, but I do often find myself giving it a second or two extra just to make sure the goshdarn thing actually goes off.

He’s not full of crap, it is a real bug that should be addressed. It can be avoided, but in an intense firefight, it can be aggrivating.

Edited for wording that makes sense in the first couple sentences.

I actually really like this idea, and it was something I imagined from the very beginning. Like, nobody’s watching this fort over here, so it gets taken… while people are retaking it, something else falls under attack, and if you don’t watch it, the invasion might spread. It might be tough to do without interfering with progression in a personal story, but then again, the game wants you to level 2-5 times in between personal story missions, so having to counterattack an army of centaurs and push them back to their camps in Kessex might be a really fun EXP trek/DE, especially now that it matters to quest availability and overall world appearance.

On top of that, I’d love to see warring armies. like if the Centaurs start taking land from Charr, you might see some battles or skirmishes going on along the territorial border.

Just a broad thought.

Loosifah.4739:

I’m not going anywhere. I enjoy the game; I’m simply expressing my opinion(which is shared by many of the players) about something that I feel needs to change for the better.

So then enjoy the whole game, not just a couple of farmy areas. This system isn’t going anywhere, no matter how many people complain, because for every one of you that whine about it, ArenaNet knows that at least a hundred more are happy with it and don’t care to see it changed.

Loosifah.4739:

Taking the nazi restrictive approach to gaming isn’t going to make people want to keep playing if they hit a cap for killing x monsters in said area and can’t get anything else out of it.

I wouldn’t call it a Nazi approach because it’s not inciting genocide. In fact, by forcing you not to murder tons of one monster in an area, I’m pretty sure it’s anti-Nazi.

But no, seriously, if you’re mad because you can’t just sit in one area and kill one thing over and over, go play something else. We won’t miss you.

tiennen.6890:

GideonWilhelm.5709:

tiennen.6890:

diminishing returns on farming is just plain idiotic.

If I’m farming irl, and its harvesting season, the amount of corn I get from spending more time in the combine isn’t decreased simply because I’ve been harvesting CORN for the past three weeks.

Thanks, I needed a good laugh today. Not sure how reality factors into a high-fantasy video game.

So, do you have a logical explanation why you would progressively get less from killing mobs over and over again?

no? kkthanxbai

Because it’s a game in which the point is to not stand around killing mobs over and over again.

Loosifah.4739:

Again you’re assuming that the DR won’t kick in if you’re going from zone to zone. At the moment that’s just not the case.

But that’s the thing. It won’t. Otherwise there’d be a ton more activity on these forums all the time about it. I’m not assuming anything, it’s proven that if you don’t stay in one place and farm, you’ll be fine. Just don’t eventeventevent Oops, hit my cap. better go somewhere else.

do the event once, go to another region, do events there. It’s not hard. It’s how it’s meant to be played.

tiennen.6890:

diminishing returns on farming is just plain idiotic.

If I’m farming irl, and its harvesting season, the amount of corn I get from spending more time in the combine isn’t decreased simply because I’ve been harvesting CORN for the past three weeks.

Thanks, I needed a good laugh today. Not sure how reality factors into a high-fantasy video game.

If you’re playing legitimately and not farming one spot, and instead going all around the world doing dynamic events one at a time (like you’re supposed to), there will be no DR for you. I still can’t believe how hard that is to grasp.

And before you cry again about them telling you how to play, that’s kinda the point. ANet wants you to explore their world, and the DR cap is their way of forcing you out of a zone you’ve just been farming in, so that you go somewhere else and play with other people.

It’s the social aspect of the game. If you don’t want to go out and be social, then once again, maybe this just isn’t your game.

Loosifah.4739:

Yeah…well putting in caps of item drops isn’t doing much to get rid of botters or hackers either. Sure they’ll get less drops, but that’s a far stretch from removing the problem.

The reason they try to counter-bot is because botters are 1) the laziest way to play and 2) the easiest way to destabilize an economy in a game.

If the botters are still there but aren’t getting any drops, ANet still wants to get rid of them, but they can focus on more important things first. Like bug fixes and content for you to play instead of farming one spot and hitting your DR cap all day.

SHM.7628:

BS. The forums are 99% trolls and fanboys. The fact that this post has gotten so much traction means its actually legitimate.

Not quite, this post has gotten so much traction because I’m here debating you.

Also, you seem to convieniently miss the facts (repeatedly) that the diminished rewards system kicks in randomly and in a lot of cases almost imediately. Regardless of what events you do and where.

Maybe that’s because you shouldn’t be farming the same events over and over. Try doing different ones in a series, or going to an entirely different zone.

You are just not very objective in your defense. You know what, if people want to farm level 80 areas by doing events (not exploiting) then they should be able to do as they please.

But that’s not what ANet wants them to do with their game. Which brings me back to my past point of playing by the rules of the game you’re in.

Those people are few and far between anyway. Most like to explore and see the content. ( you’ve argued with those people)

If I’ve been arguing people who like to explore and see the content, then they’re doing something wrong, or this argument wouldn’t be happening. If you’re hitting the diminishing return cap, then you’ve been doing one event way too many times and should try doing something else next time you log in.

No offense, I probably won’t go back and forth with you anymore, because you don’t seem swayed by any opinion regardless of its value/ truth.

No, most of what I’m saying here aren’t opinions (except for the DR thing being fine). When every player in my guild is making bank just fine through normal, legitimate play across the entire game world and careful application of resources without farming a select set of mobs or dynamic events, as well as several other players and guilds I’ve spoken with, then I’m pretty sure your argument of DRs applying to the entire world is faulty, and you’re probably only getting them in a new zone as an extension of the anti-bot, which would stop bots from just porting to new areas if they notice the DR.

Loosifah.4739:

Not everyone who farms for equipment came from WoW Gideon. Pull the stick out of yourkitten

That kinda was a harsh generalization, and I apologize. But my point there is that you need to get out of traditional MMO mindsets to appreciate this game rather than whining about how you can’t sit in an area and grind forever.

A lot of people will farm specific monsters for specific drops(you know, totems, bones, bloods, etc.) because they need those specific items for crafting. Or they’ll find a good place to farm monsters for drops because there’s a good respawn rate on said monsters. There’s really not a whole lot of other ways to go about getting the crafting mats or making money.

Crafting. Dynamic Events. World vs World. Dungeons. Gathering. Jumping Puzzles. Your Guild Mates.

Sure you can farm nodes from zone to zone to sell on the TP, but then you’re just exchanging one method of farming for another. Just because YOU don’t think people should be able to farm to make money; doesn’t mean that that’s how it should be.

Ah, no, that’s not just how I think it should be. Clearly that’s how ANet wants you to play their game: use the trading post, it’s there for a reason. Do dynamic events, there’s hundreds of them for a reason. Explore the whole world, it’s freaking huge for a reason. And that reason is so that they have room to force you to stop standing in one spot mashing 1.

Sure there should be measures in place to stop botters and hackers from exploiting(you know, like putting in a system like game guard to prevent 3rd party programs for example.)

Lemme stop you right there. I have played tons of games like WarRock, Maple Story, Mabinogi, and Borderlands PC that use PunkBuster and GameGuard. Third-party software like PunkBuster and GameGuard only work to an extent, tons of hackers and botters have found ways around them, not to mention they can be a resource hog if not implemented properly.

SHM.7628:

I don’t know what boards you’re reading. There’s only a handfull of people with your your opinion. 99% are against this. The only reason I can think of to not be against this is if your a fanboy who feels any change to the game is an anathama.

99% of people who whine on these boards, maybe. Also 99% is a number you just made up. The majority of players are satisfied with the game, and so they see no reason to even look at these boards.

I’m not calling you a fanboy perse. However if you find yourself defending their position on every thread, regardless of what it is. You might actually qualify. You ever hear the old saying if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck?

I’m gonna have to point at my profile and mention that this is the only thread I’ve commented in about diminishing returns being just fine the way they are because, if you’re farming one zone over and over, you’re playing it wrong, go play WoW instead if that’s what you wanna do.

I just don’t see how you can be for punishing players who actually play and do events. Frankly, the diminishing rewads thing is broken anyway, it pops up randomly. I’ve had it kick in after one event.

I’m for punishing players who do the same event over and over. I’ve seen tons of players who never hit the DR cap because they do dynamic events all over the world rather than just farming one thing.

Stop blindly defending Anet. They are the first ones to say there will be tweeks and adjustments as they go.

Oh, yeah, they’ll be the first to say “hey, tweaks and adjustments to come” because they want to fine-tune the game, and that’s great. But “tweaks and adjustments to come” does not mean “oh snap, there’s some folks who came here from WoW and are mad because they can’t farm one zone. Lemme fix that for them. There we go.”

I’m not blindly defending ANet. I’m defending the game they made. I don’t want to see them lift the diminishing returns system because then all I’ll see is a bunch of level 80 chumps farming Orr all day and all night. I want to see people using the entire game world like ANet intended. The diminishing returns system is like your mom shutting off the internet to get you out of the basement for a while; it forces you to go out and at least see a little more of this world you live in.

I’m Commander Shep-… sorry, I mean Gideon Wilhelm, and this is my favorite “actually use the rest of the world, ya chump” system in gaming.

Deathwhispr.8210:

Sad to say, but Anet is turning Guild Wars 2 into the next FF XIV. Anyone who played that at release knows the restriction to crafting and leveling. If they continue to micro manage everything the player base will find another game. I hope they change this current idea of restricting people from grinding.

No, the playerbase won’t find another game. The vocal minority who does nothing but whine about how they can’t farm one zone will find another game. And i’m pretty sure the rest of us are fine with that.

This game should be able to adapt for all types of play styles, not just Casual.

When ANet said “Play how you want”, they meant you have 5 ways to earn everything in the game:

1. Exploring the world and completing dynamic events event to event, zone to zone, moving on once you’ve done a bunch in an area.

2. Gathering and crafting, trading what you’ve gathered and crafted up until you can afford to throw some stuff into the Mystic Forge and get yourself some exotics.

3. World vs. World. That one’s pretty self-explanatory, but maybe it stands to be said that you get TONS of PvE rewards in World vs World that don’t diminish. And don’t whine about bad world balancing, we’re only in the first month and they’re still experimenting with matchups and rankings.

4. Dungeon runs. There are 8 story dungeons and a total of 27 dungeon paths to run through across all of them (not 27 dungeon paths each). If you know what you’re doing and are actually careful and use teamwork, the dungeon rewards can be great at level 80 without being a gold sink (pretty sure I spent about six silver my last AC run with random people and had a net profit of 30 silver after selling drops)

5. Cooperating with guildmates to experiment in the forge or work together in any of the above activities to maximize your enjoyment and profit from all of them.

Just because five or six people in this thread, or maybe fifty or sixty people on this board, are willing to participate in the “remove diminishing returns so I can farm Orr” circlejerk, doesn’t mean the millions of other players throughout the game are experiencing these problems, and it doesn’t mean that if your wishes aren’t met then the game will become a ghost town. Nor does it mean ANet backed down on their promises, it just means you need to play by their rules.

If you want to grind one single zone over and over, go play World of Warcraft. Guild Wars 2 is about seeing the entire world time and time again, taking it all in, and having fun within the rules and realm that ArenaNet has set up for us. Go farm zombies somewhere else, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

I’d love to hear from an actual ANet rep about all of this. No game company could EVER be so stupid as to shut down rewards for ALL EVENTS in the ENTIRE game world. Everything I’ve heard says that diminishing returns happen ONLY when you are farming the same event over and over. If you say it diminishes zone to zone, event to event, then prove it with video evidence. If you can’t do that, then stop complaining and play the game as it was meant to be played. And if you can’t do that, find another game to play.

Amon.5042:

Then if he’s not willing to put in effort to play the game the way its creators intended and intricately designed it to be played, maybe it’s just not his kind of game.

It’s either to play how they want us to play or go somewhere else? How can this be a good thing?

pretty much. That’s how a lot of MMO’s do their thing. And it’s a good thing for the people that play it the way it was meant to be played, so that the experience is preserved.

What am I exactly expected to do? Where’s the rulebook on how to play in order to have “fun”? Where’s the sense of freedom to play how I want to play? Are gold sinks, diminishing returns, and end game grind rewarding? Really?

If you’re not doing the exact same few events over and over and over again, there is no diminishing returns. I’m not sure what part of this is so hard to understand. You can get huge rewards quickly just by playing through the huge world full of events which were pretty much created to be played. All of them were created to be played. If ANet just lets youkittenaround and farm one thing, then that’s development dollars wasted as far as they’re concerned. Why should we have even bothered making all this stuff if nobody’s gonna play it, eh? We might as well have made another linear grindfest.

Hellkaiser.6025:

That’s a great view to take, the opposite of the problem of self entitled to the point where we literally ignore the original promises in their manifesto and interviews. What did we expect? them to actually make a game as they said they would? haha what nonsense you scallywags…

You’re obviously taking “play how you want” way too literally if you think they meant “if you wanna stand in one spot and shoot one bad guy forever, go right ahead, we’ll make sure to reward you lavishly!”

Hellkaiser.6025:

Ultimately however, maybe JUST maybe, he doesn’t want to run all over the world doing dynamic events to essentially grind (what else can you call that) for awesome gear.

Then if he’s not willing to put in effort to play the game the way its creators intended and intricately designed it to be played, maybe it’s just not his kind of game. By the sound of things, he’s already 100%ed it, which is all you can do in most games you only paid $60 for. If he, or anyone else, is unwilling to use the entire game world to its potential, especially after already having seen everything, then maybe it’s time to move on.

Hellkaiser.6025:

@above: oh dear I’m at a loss for words, and not because of your epic debating skills, just that you ignored the one thing that mattered to him. that he WANTED to do dynamic events, and not get forced into playing EVERY aspect of a game that he has bought :S

I’d like to give you some homework.

Your assignment is to count the number of times I reminded Strill that there are tons of dynamic events all over the entire game world.

((hint: I said it 4 times))

So there are tons of DEs to do. Everywhere.

My comments to the quoted text are in double parenthases.

Strill.2591:

GideonWilhelm.5709:

ArenaNet wants you to play the whole game. They want to do everything they can to counter farms and grinds. And they do this because they want you to enjoy the whole game and work for your high-end rewards.

I thoroughly enjoy Guild Wars 2 exactly the way its drop system is now, with how I play. If all you’re going to do is sit here and circlejerk about the fact that you can’t grind and you actually have to try, then this may not be the game for you, and there are still hundreds of thousands of us who won’t be particularly sad to see you go.

You CAN’T work for any high-end rewards because there’s no place left to get them from! If you want a legendary, you need 800,000 karma. The dynamic event cap puts a stop to that. ((Go find other dinamic events to do. There’s lots of them all around the world.)) If you want fancy gear skins you need money for the mystic forge. The loot cap puts a stop to that. ((Just sell loot, scrap whites, gather mats, craft stuff, sell crafted stuff you aren’t gonna use. Buddy of mine made 6 gold in a weekend just from spending a couple hours on Huntsman.)) If you want dungeon sets you have to run dungeons. The dungeon diminishing returns means you need money to run then which you can’t get because of the loot cap. ((I do agree that they need to adjust dungeon run loot caps. But then again, take different paths every time and work out a dungeon rotation to max your rewards.))

Please do tell me what I should do. I’ve got 100% world completion. I’ve got 500 Badges of Honor from WvW. ((Keep that one up, WvW is an excellent way to stockpile karma)) I’ve got 500 Ascalonian Tears from AC explorable. ((refer to dungeon rotation comment.)) I’ve done every jumping puzzle. ((If I’m not mistaken, you can do them again. If I am mistaken, go do dynamic events around the world.)) However, I still need 800,000 karma for a legendary weapon. Where do you suppose I should go to get that huh? ((there are tons of dynamic events all over the entire game world. And WvW karma and drop rewards.)) “Do the whole game”? I’ve DONE the whole game and I want to do Dynamic events. ((there’s a bunch of ’em, sport))

Get your facts straight before you lecture people. ((I like pancakes))

Hellkaiser.6025:

GideonWilhelm.5709:

maniacshoter.7829:

i am really afraid of the future of this game , it’s getting harder and harder for casuals to obtain equipment while hardcore gamers that rushed the content already have gold and gear ,

why do i have to be punished for playing Anet? why? having a crazy amount of tokens in order to buy the sets and the low rewards system isn’t enough? why do you keep punishing the players Anet?

This post kinda stood out in the mass circlejerk I see going on around here, but I just wanna chip in my two cents and point out that, via crafting, I’m getting gear just fine with practically no budget that wipes the floor with whatever I find for my next ten levels. I don’t see any kind of “punishment for playing.” Yes, they do need to keep an eye on anti-farming code in level 80 areas and dungeons and fine-tune it, but I don’t see why everyone has to feed into this circlejerk of “INJUSTICE!!” “YES IT IS INJUSTICE!!1!” “OMG ANET IS WORST GAME COMPANY BECAUSE I CAN’T SPEND HOURS AT A TIME SHOOTAN ONE SET OF BAD GUYS”

As far as exotics and legendaries having massive costs, I don’t get the outrage. Personally, when I complete a set of exotics after I’ve been playing for months, I’m gonna be saying kittenright this is a full set of Legendary Exotic Awesome McPants! I worked hard for this!" And until that point? I can EASILY get stat-equivalent gear through crafting and, y’know, playing the rest of the game. You don’t need legendary stuff to enjoy the game, and if you have to farm, set yourself up on a farming rotation and work toward an optimized route.

As far as telling you how to play, ANet does the “go farm somewhere else ya dummy” system because they are proud of the game they made and they want you to explore more of it rather than standing around shooting orr all day.

is it locked to an area that we get DR from or one type of enemy. bearing in mind that fine craftables will of course be something you’ll work towards a specific amount of and may or may not bite the bullet and decide you’ll grind out. Thus you’ll gravitate towards that specific type of enemy for that specific drop and thus trigger the DR. now I a player who doesn’t want to farm but bites the bullet to get it outta the way, have to pace myself because of a mechanic to stop bots? go farm something else til the DR is over? do some dynamic…oh no they get DR too…. or some dungeons…oh wait, they just nerfed the reward and buffered their difficulty to cheese tastic levels….

it’s not catch 22, it’s catch 22 everywhere you turn… these changes were and ARE anti fun.

ArenaNet wants you to play the whole game. They want to do everything they can to counter farms and grinds. And they do this because they want you to enjoy the whole game and work for your high-end rewards.

I thoroughly enjoy Guild Wars 2 exactly the way its drop system is now, with how I play. If all you’re going to do is sit here and circlejerk about the fact that you can’t grind and you actually have to try, then this may not be the game for you, and there are still hundreds of thousands of us who won’t be particularly sad to see you go.

maniacshoter.7829:

i am really afraid of the future of this game , it’s getting harder and harder for casuals to obtain equipment while hardcore gamers that rushed the content already have gold and gear ,

why do i have to be punished for playing Anet? why? having a crazy amount of tokens in order to buy the sets and the low rewards system isn’t enough? why do you keep punishing the players Anet?

This post kinda stood out in the mass circlejerk I see going on around here, but I just wanna chip in my two cents and point out that, via crafting, I’m getting gear just fine with practically no budget that wipes the floor with whatever I find for my next ten levels. I don’t see any kind of “punishment for playing.” Yes, they do need to keep an eye on anti-farming code in level 80 areas and dungeons and fine-tune it, but I don’t see why everyone has to feed into this circlejerk of “INJUSTICE!!” “YES IT IS INJUSTICE!!1!” “OMG ANET IS WORST GAME COMPANY BECAUSE I CAN’T SPEND HOURS AT A TIME SHOOTAN ONE SET OF BAD GUYS”

As far as exotics and legendaries having massive costs, I don’t get the outrage. Personally, when I complete a set of exotics after I’ve been playing for months, I’m gonna be saying “Dang right this is a full set of Legendary Exotic Awesome McPants! I worked hard for this!” And until that point? I can EASILY get stat-equivalent gear through crafting and, y’know, playing the rest of the game. You don’t need legendary stuff to enjoy the game, and if you have to farm, set yourself up on a farming rotation and work toward an optimized route.

As far as telling you how to play, ANet does the “go farm somewhere else ya dummy” system because they are proud of the game they made and they want you to explore more of it rather than standing around shooting orr all day. Plus, if you want to complain about “being told how to play,” every game has rules and ways they’re meant to be played. I don’t criticize WoW for not letting me club people with a hammer as a mage.

I would actually really love some a way to set up some kind of Nostalgia series of dungeons/raids. like bringing back the Guild Wars 1 endgame dungeons as they were in Guild Wars 1 (as-in the quest lines and objectives you had to complete), just rebalanced and tweaked a little to make them “compatible” with the changes in Guild Wars 2. You could even add rewards related to these dungeons, such as nostalgic armor and weapons from Guild Wars 1. I know it all might seem like rehashing, but I love nostalgia and content revisiting. I would definitely re-play these places for hours on end even if the rewards long since ran dry, just for how huge and complex they were.

I sort of agree with this one. I’m not entirely sure whether it’d be considered game-breaking or not depending on how it’s implemented, but with the Thief’s dual-dagger combo skill (forget what it’s called at the moment), it would be insanely helpful with keeping the camera on-target while still moving and dodging after that flip. Also would be insanely helpful in WvW when your target leaps in some random direction, causing you to lose sight of him (since the “this is who you’re targeting” highlight isn’t too clear), and you’re just like “son of a sandwich, where did he go!?”

And on top of all that, I could orient both my hands to keyboard functions and have WAY better access to skills and activations. It’d be something to get used to, but I would love having that feature around.

I am all over this suggestion. I LOVE playing support, and I constantly feel like I have to tag stuff just to get rewarded for it. I’d love it if I could just get /something/ for heals and buffs.