Guild Wars 2

To the best of my understanding, pet AI currently reads : charge the enemy, ignore all injury and fight to the death unless manually recalled. (i.e. no “I” in AI). By comparison, my real-life dog is smart enough to back away from fire.

How about this as a simple fix: pets are supposed to have a soul bond with their Rangers, so pets heal a tiny bit when at our side (faster with traits, faster out-of-combat). So let the Ranger choose between two modes for the pet which I will casually call suicidal or smart.

Suicidal is what we have today – if you want your pet tank to hold out to the bitter end, he does. But smart mode says that when it suffers (x) percent injury it simply auto-shifts back to passive mode and runs back to us, where it starts healing. If you are still fighting when it gets better, it charges back into the fight. Simple.

The balance is self-imposing; when the pet is coming back you lose its DPS/tanking whatever, which is meaningful since the class is based on both acting together. Somebody who manually micro-manages the pet might wring out a slight advantage but those who don’t find that fun at least get a painless alternative. Maybe it is a toggle between the two states, or maybe a slider so the user can choose how “self-protective” the pet is, i.e. does it bail at 50% injury, 20%, etc. If you choose a low number like 10% you roll the dice against taking an unexpected hit and going down. Seems like an interesting option to me.

Not rocket science, but would this not be an improvement?

Ranger with pocket kitty perched on shoulder. Kitty is recovering in “downed” state after savage battle with ball-o-yarn boss.

I too welcome our new pocket-sized overlords.

My pocket pets…

http://imgur.com/gallery/Mv4lG ’zerdlings

http://imgur.com/gallery/HitbB pocket kitteh

http://imgur.com/gallery/b6AA3 baby vamp

If we get five Power Rangers together we could all merge to be HUNTron! (arg)

But seriously, you could still have the health bar and skill bar for your pets – the critter is alive even if perched on your shoulder. I could see skills like “adorable gaze” that causes enemies to miss cuz’ well, awww its so kitten cute. Or “freakout” where the mouse induces momentary panic by mobs afraid it will run up their legs. I could swap between my cute mouse and my fuzzy ferret to my adorable gecko and stay entirely within the existing game mechanic. Legendary version is the ubercute kitten that dashes off to give opponents a “boop” on the nose, causing instantaneous meltdown.

Whoever inside Anet that sold them on the idea of unicorn/rainbow bows should champion this idea. Everybody wins.

many thanks, I appreciate the update. Have fun!

Having bailed on Tyria a few months back, I thought I’d check in here today to see if there had been any changes yet to Ranger pet behavior, or to provide alternatives to the pansies-n-unicorns styles for legendary longbow/shortbow. Thanks.

It is pretty simple. If Anet puts things like JPs as mandatory to the game, they will reduce their customer base to just the folks that like JPs. Seems to me like “player choice” is always the right answers. Jumpers can jump and walkers can walk. Thats just smart business.

Disco Ball… Meh.

Try being a classic dark archer-type stuck with a My Little Pony bow that shoots rainbows…

The suggestion “let Rangers stow their pet” has been made dozens upon dozens of time. My question was directed at the Devs to compare stowing a pet with stowing weapons and armor, which is allowed. My actual supposition was that a simple, direct question would not be answered by a Dev, which has been validated.

I created a thread in the Suggestions forum asking why, if I can stow my weapons and armor and fight in my gymshorts, that I cannot stow my pet as well. The thread is titled “Devs: PLEASE answer the never-ending question.” Link:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Devs-PLEASE-answer-the-never-ending-question/first#post987369

Maybe if we keep a single thread at the top / current rather than posting a million threads that all vanish, we might get a reply or make it clear how much some of us would like to see this happen.

I can choose to unequip my weapons and armor and fight in my gymshorts.

A sword does not magically pop into my hand when I take damage. I do not get some magic bonus to my fists to compensate, I just fight gimped. But at least it is my choice. If you let everyone in the game have that freedom…

WHY then can I not stow my pet and fight alone?

(anybody who wants to know the answer should reply to bump this question…)

The respawn rates in the upper regions made individual play impossible; fighting one mob in front of me I’d get jumped from behind by the respawn of the mob I killed moments before. I like running with my group but sometimes it is nice to play alone. As it was, after a while if my friends were not on, I’d just log off.

The Personal Story also became something of a disappointment on two fronts, first that it really struck me as the Traherne story, of which I was perhaps a significant but clearly secondary character. Glitched quests kept stalling my ability to move through the story.

I never had the big drama decision to quit, I really just took time off to see what would develop over time. Because I had no subscription dragging me back online, it was easier than I imagined to just do something else. But as the months slid by I checked into this forum and Reddit and found no real changes; just repetitions of the same suggestions, the same gripes and largely not much feedback that I could see on the Ranger side. Days off turned into weeks off and I just ran out of reasons to log back in at all. It is a shame for customer and business alike because I so wanted to love GW2 and spend my time and money making it a part of my social life with friends scattered across the country.

Thats one guy’s feedback, for what its worth. Arena, you made a visually stunning world and I wish y’all the best; I hope that this is of some use in your ongoing business efforts.

best,

Graevarg

3. The Game Giveth and Taketh Away, or it should anyway
As I mentioned, I expected some things to be broken, and maybe remain so for a while. There were aspects of my class I felt did not work properly. Like any player we look forward to patch day to see what Santa is going to bring us. In the case of my Ranger, each patch brought a “fix” that netted us lower capabilities. While it was explained that things were being put to the way they were originally designed, it is disappointing to see and hear nothing about the big problems we felt diminished our games and on patch day we look under the tree to see some chip knocked off something that to our knowledge nobody in the player base really considered a problem. As a suggestion, if you are going to dish out something that players will perceive as a nerf, balance it with addressing at least some popular request, big or small. Oddly, the most recent patch seemed to carry a fix for Opening Strikes (our minor trait that since launch did not work at long range, but our longbows do less damage at shorter range, creating an either/or choice) – but that fix was not reported in the patch notes. That was a missed opportunity to say “OK we took THIS away a bit, but we fixed THAT.” It is just good business psychology.

4. Design Decisions
It took me only a few weeks to hit level 80 with 400/400 crafting in my two skills of choice and make a full kit of crafted rare armor and exotic weapons. I did not make a mad rush of that process, it just happened along the way and it was great fun. Then I turned to see what options I had for a legendary longbow or shortbow. Now I’m not going to debate the good or bad of making bows that look like My Little Pony firing unicorn-rainbows and I can accept that some players like the idea. But as a business decision I think it is a safe bet that easily half of the player base found the idea to be extremely unattractive, perhaps revolting. Imagine your response if, while watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you saw uber-Ranger Aragorn pull out a My Little Pony bow and start plinking with rainbows. Much like LOTR, you created a world in which I could build a rugged, 9-foot tall Norn in biker-pirate leathers and tats who hunts undead for a living; that player is not looking for a joke as a legendary weapon. If you wanted to make the bold design decision to go with flowers and pink unicorns, you should have provided an alternate pathway. I saw no alternatives and lost any interest in legendary weapons.

5. I’ll Jump… for the exit
This is just my personal opinion: I play MMOs to enjoy the whole RPG / combat thing. I love the story, the strategic combat, the team dynamics. If I wanted to play Frogger I would have bought an arcade game. I have no issue with Jumping Puzzles being in the game, but not as barriers to content. If people love jumping puzzles they can ignore the elevator and jump to their hearts content. Instead, I hit points in the game where I turned away from content because I just don’t like JPs. A game is nothing more than a matter of fun, and no group of players should be forced into a mechanic they don’t like just because a different group loves it dearly.

Now I can hear the game elitists ramping up the whole “if you can’t hack it you don’t deserve to see the content” nonsense but to them I point back to the opening premise of business reality. Arena does not have a vested interest in my meeting your criteria of having earned the mountaintop; what they do have a vested interest in is my (and every customer) having enough fun to come back and play / pay more. A company should not go out of its way to set up unavoidable barriers that even 20-30% of the players find unenjoyable. This is much like the Ranger issue of permanently stowable pets: if a player can choose to fight without weapons or armor, they should be able to fight without a pet. No compensating mechanic, if you stow your pet you go without, but players should have that choice. I love my pets but if another Ranger does not, why should I care if they run alone? It is their game to play their way, so let them.

6. The Small Stuff
As I mentioned, I was more than willing to spend coin at the TP, but did not find much worth my dollar. I had thought to collect mini-pets, but on my very first purchase of a three-pack found a duplicate, and upon buying the Halloween set found them to be rather tiny and lackluster, at least from my expectations based on mini-pets in warcraft that were often rather animated and fun. I would have spent money on town clothes if I had the ability to auto-toggle town attire when I entered and left a town. I would have spent money on alternate weapon and armor skins for transmutation, or alternate color schemes for some of my Ranger pets, or even gag items like a tent or campfire I could pitch during idle time. I had no interest in modern world items like boxing gloves and aviator sunglasses.

(continued)

As much as we focus on GW2 as a game, it is in fact the online product of a business that needs to generate revenue to stay alive. To the programmers and devs it is a job that pays their bills. The business must maintain customers to do so, and given its business model GW2 must provide an ongoing series of offerings that we as customers are willing to pay for in lieu of a monthly fee.

I looked forward to the game with great anticipation and after years of paying a monthly fee for warcraft, I went into this more than happy to plunk down some coin every month to support a game that promised a lot of what I wanted in an MMO. I’d be happier spending $20 a month on goodies I want than spend $12 a month just to play. I am guessing that put me square into Arena’s desired customer profile.

As a business owner myself, I want to know when I lose a customer and why, so if I can’t save that customer, I can at least adjust in the future and not lose others like the first. As a courtesy to ArenaNet, I wanted to give you the reasons I left Tyria. I preface all of my comments with the fact that I was an advance-purchase premium edition customer logging on at midnight of launch; so I understood that this game, like any huge massively networked computer program, would have technical issues that stretched on for months after launch. The glitches did not play a big factor into my departure. Here is what did:

1. No Corporate Communication
As a customer I have written letters to companies the size of Sony or Apple and I have always received the courtesy of a company response. When GW2 had the early-on issue where credit card info used for the Trading Post could not be deleted, I wanted to call ArenaNet but found there was no working phone number I could find online or via 411, so I Fedexed a letter to Mike O’Brien, the company President articulating a sincere customer concern that involved my credit security. Although I provided multiple points of contact and Fedex confirmed delivery, nobody at Arena, not so much as an assistant or admin, gave me the simple courtesy of a reply.

2. Forum Silence
After leveling a Ranger to 80 I made a list of the things that seemed either explicitly broken or simply change suggestions that I as one customer wanted to share. Since GW maintains a forum and promotes the notion of community, I expected that in the very least the former would be of interest. Commenting only on my own personal experience, I found that no matter how many very carefully organized and positively-focused a thread post I would make, I never saw a single one receive a comment from an Arena staffer, in fact it was rare at all to see a staffer post in any context. I would have concluded that Arena simply ignored the forums except that a thread that took a negative turn would be terminated by a forum moderator in the blink of an eye, so they were clearly being read. As a player, I would have felt much better if I saw Arena respond to suggestions or questions even 10% as well as they policed negative commentary. (As I logged on to post this I note a couple dev posts made very recently and applaud this if in fact it becomes a trend.)

SIDEBAR: every coin has two sides and to the above I will offer the following observation in Arena’s defense. The GW2 forum community seems to break into 3 camps, the fanboys who fawn at everything Arena does, the moderates who seem reasonable but want a working game, and the venom-spitting lunatics who spew nastiness as if some unwanted aspect of a video game is a life-ending catastrophe engineered by Arena just to make their personal lives miserable. If I had to wade through a river of invectives every day I’d quit responding too. But Arena is in a public business and sadly for them, a segment of the public are rabid megalomaniacs. Nonetheless, when folks articulate a well-reasoned suggestion, or a solid complaint, it would not hurt to have a dev drop a note a little more often and at least say “hey good point, we’ll look at that.” That would leave customers feeling involved, instead of feeling “why bother?”

(continued)

They will likely just close it.
As for disliking rangers, I used to think that was maybe just a little QQ but man, no patch love, not even a mention; no Halloween skins for bows and our Legendary bows still look like Fischer-Price kiddie toys. I gotta concur…

Consider this: at present we cannot even NAME our pets in a persistent manner because storing a 19-or-so letter name for each pet is considered too much data load. So you have zip/zero/nada/zilch chance of having other customization that would require not only data to store, but all the work needed to create the modeling for all the new features. File this under “check after a cold day in He….”

yeah I gotta cry FOUL on that one. If you can afford a 3-monitor Eyefinity rig you can have wide FOV. If you cannot afford multi-screen, well, you are screwed. So much for “fair for everybody eh?”

Time after time I look in here to find the 97th re-posting of the same core suggestions. The arguments are often clear, well-articulated and compelling. What I very very rarely see is any hint that Arena is reading these posts or seems to care. From the perspective of my personal class, Ranger, we have had an endless stream of pleas to fix pet AI and to give alternatives to the fruity “flowers and unicorns” style of legendary weapons; what we get in the latest patch is a nerf on our only viable ranged weapon and not a hint from Arena as to our repeated questions. SO to all those who honestly do put a lot of work into framing your suggestions and providing research to support them – I say don’t waste your time.

Well this is pretty much the straw that broke the back of my ongoing interest in playing GW2. I came into the game to play a Ranger, ran up to 80/400/400 in 3 weeks and have watched with confusion as the class development is seemingly adrift. Rather than address widely called-for customer issues like pet AI behavior or others, they nerf what was for me one of the better-working tools in my toolbox. Between this trend, and the fact that I have no interest in working to get either fruitcake “flowers, unicorns and rainbow” bows, I think I’ll bid y’all best o luck and join my buddies playing Borderlands 2.

Aside from putting points into Beastmastery, is there any other way to beef up the Vitality/Health or Toughness of a ranger companion pet?

My current Lynx is Tomokato Meowra, samurai cat.

I am puzzled. Botters seem to be screwing up aspects of the game for everybody. We have loot caps in place, affecting all of us, because a small subset of our population are parasites. There has been a great deal of discussion and yet there does not seem to be a move towards an answer that affects Botters without affecting the population in general.

Why is it that Arena does not simply hire a team to play the game and monitor the bot-heavy areas? I am not suggesting that you can spot all Bots at a glance but you can sure see SOME of them pretty easily, camped out at a DE location, blindly shooting off into space, or shooting/teleporting in a pattern. Give an Arena-employed team the ability to play, pose a human question looking for a human answer if need be, but on finding a Bot simply ZAP the entire account – everything looted is gone, character is gone. I cannot imagine how this could generate a “false positive” on a real player – I don’t sit and fire aimlessly into space or behave like a bot and cannot imagine a player that does. If I am afk my character sits in an idle state.

There are only 48 or so realms, you are not talking about a huge terrain to police. I’d bet that Arena has (or can have) a “radar like scan ability” to look for behaviors likely to highlight bots. If it were my call, I’d just throw them out the airlock and let the live players enjoy a reduced-bot world.

EDIT: typo fix

OS is designed to add an effect on first shots from a bow.
Longbow and shortbow both have a 1200 range but OS is limited to 900.
Longbow by design gives best damage at max distance, so forst shot ideally is always at 1200 (or 1500 traited into Eagle Eye). So if I shoot the weapon as designed, I will never see the benefit from OS.

Methinks that is broken (logically if not practically)

Short answer: yes, especially at the top. I transmuted my Rare Huntsman-crafted bows to look better and will not bother with Legendaries because even if I transmute them, they will still shoot flowers, rainbows, fruity pebbles cereal and whatnot. Just cannot see my 9ft Norn firing a Fischer Price bow.

posted in Suggestion forum, shared here as more directed at this audience:

A Ranger Conundrum
My goal was to build a classic “Aragorn” longbow ranger, with a preference on “long”. The type of play style I went looking for is, whenever possible, to engage a target at the longest possible distance and use mobility / cripples, etc to maintain separation from my target.

The longbow is designed to perform best at the greatest distance; if you shoot the longbow #1 skill at shorter ranges, you do less damage. From tooltips I saw three breaks: low, mid and high damage at 1-500, 500-1000, and over 1000 foot ranges respectively, with a damage value of 168 being a point of reference (unsure if this is the mid- or high-value). By comparison, the shortbow looks to do a flat 134 damage regardless of range from 1-1200 feet. The shortbow has a considerably higher rate of fire, so as I see it, and I am open to correction, on a straight #1 skill comparison, at 1200 feet or less the shortbow has a higher damage output.

For maintaining gap, SB has a cripple/bleed shot at #4 (12sec cooldown) which can slow an enemy closure rate at extended distance versus the longbow #4 Point Blank Shot (15sec cooldown) which will knock a target backwards after it has gotten close. In my experience, PBS can be unreliable – terrain features or angle of attack issues can limit or negate the knockback effect whereas the cripple, at least for me, seems to be almost completely reliable. At 1200 feet or less I can more readily maintain quality separation with a shortbow, and burn targets faster, than I can with a longbow.
The Marksmanship tree is arguably my main avenue to beef up my longbow skills. The 5pt skill in that line is Opening Strike, which by design does not work past 900 feet. So it technically does not give me any benefit at the base 1200 range of longbow or shortbow and certainly not the trait-extended 1500 longbow range. So unless I misunderstand something, I have to choose between taking my first longbow shot at max range to get max-distance damage but sacrificing Opening Strike, or give up some first-shot damage in exchange for OS vulnerability and the hope of making up that damage over the next couple seconds (which seems more likely in group efforts than in solo play). That mutual-exclusivity does not seem to be consistent with Arena’s design rules in the game.

THE SUGGESTION PART…
I readily concede that the two bows are different and each has a unique value, but their practical difference has little to do with long versus short aside from the name. I open at max range with a Hunter Shot, dismissing any benefit from Opening Shot, roll right into Rapid Shot and flip to my shortbow. When the chance permits and I get some separation, I will flip back to longbow for a refresh of Hunter Shot and a Rapid Shot, but it feels like an alternate Shortbow.

I suggest that since Opening Shot has no effect at Longbow range (i.e. over 900) and since Hunter Shot has a 1200 range to give me the same Vulnerability more reliably, that the 5pt skill for Marksmanship be changed to an Opening Shot knockdown with a 1 sec duration out to 1200 and a 2sec duration from 1200-1500 feet. This would give a tiny nod to the Longbow mystique of firing farther and hitting harder, and allow a Ranger to at least initiate a second attack, most likely Rapid Fire, while at a good stand-off distance. It would also give a slight perk to the 20pt skill choice Eagle Eye. Since Rangers are one of the slower-moving professions in PvP it would give a one-shot chance at closing the gap with prey on the run, or buy us a brief head start when we are being pursued from out of combat. It is not spammable within a given combat phase nor do I see it as a game-breaker, but instead as getting a real effect in place of the rather self-contradictory Opening SHot/vulnerability we have today.
I welcome thoughts on the suggestion and hope Arena gives it consideration.

Because rules will never be a replacement for common sense. It is easy to apply a blanket rule; actually looking at things on a case-by-case basis takes a lot of work.

I have never tried nor seen this take place. So you do a Map chat in-game saying “WTB friends for X…” or are you looking to arrange the hook-up prior to playtime using the forum?

As an aside – given Arena’s business model there is an irreversible link between in-game and real-life money. Copper/Silver can be earned either way, but I’d surmise they will remain inseparable.

A Ranger Conundrum

My goal was to build a classic “Aragorn” longbow ranger, with a preference on “long”. The type of play style I went looking for is, whenever possible, to engage a target at the longest possible distance and use mobility / cripples, etc to maintain separation from my target.

The longbow is designed to perform best at the greatest distance; if you shoot the longbow #1 skill at shorter ranges, you do less damage. From tooltips I saw three breaks: low, mid and high damage at 1-500, 500-1000, and over 1000 foot ranges respectively, with a damage value of 168 being a point of reference (unsure if this is the mid- or high-value). By comparison, the shortbow looks to do a flat 134 damage regardless of range from 1-1200 feet. The shortbow has a considerably higher rate of fire, so as I see it, and I am open to correction, on a straight #1 skill comparison, at 1200 feet or less the shortbow has a higher damage output.

For maintaining gap, SB has a cripple/bleed shot at #4 (12sec cooldown) which can slow an enemy closure rate at extended distance versus the longbow #4 Point Blank Shot (15sec cooldown) which will knock a target backwards after it has gotten close. In my experience, PBS can be unreliable – terrain features or angle of attack issues can limit or negate the knockback effect whereas the cripple, at least for me, seems to be almost completely reliable. At 1200 feet or less I can more readily maintain quality separation with a shortbow, and burn targets faster, than I can with a longbow.

The Marksmanship tree is arguably my main avenue to beef up my longbow skills. The 5pt skill in that line is Opening Strike, which by design does not work past 900 feet. So it technically does not give me any benefit at the base 1200 range of longbow or shortbow and certainly not the trait-extended 1500 longbow range. So unless I misunderstand something, I have to choose between taking my first longbow shot at max range to get max-distance damage but sacrificing Opening Strike, or give up some first-shot damage in exchange for OS vulnerability and the hope of making up that damage over the next couple seconds (which seems more likely in group efforts than in solo play). That mutual-exclusivity does not seem to be consistent with Arena’s design rules in the game.

THE SUGGESTION PART…
I readily concede that the two bows are different and each has a unique value, but their practical difference has little to do with long versus short aside from the name. I open at max range with a Hunter Shot, dismissing any benefit from Opening Shot, roll right into Rapid Shot and flip to my shortbow. When the chance permits and I get some separation, I will flip back to longbow for a refresh of Hunter Shot and a Rapid Shot, but it feels like an alternate Shortbow.

I suggest that since Opening Shot has no effect at Longbow range (i.e. over 900) and since Hunter Shot has a 1200 range to give me the same Vulnerability more reliably, that the 5pt skill for Marksmanship be changed to an Opening Shot knockdown with a 1 sec duration out to 1200 and a 2sec duration from 1200-1500 feet. This would give a tiny nod to the Longbow mystique of firing farther and hitting harder, and allow a Ranger to at least initiate a second attack, most likely Rapid Fire, while at a good stand-off distance. It would also give a slight perk to the 20pt skill choice Eagle Eye. Since Rangers are one of the slower-moving professions in PvP it would give a one-shot chance at closing the gap with prey on the run, or buy us a brief head start when we are being pursued from out of combat. It is not spammable within a given combat phase nor do I see it as a game-breaker, but instead as getting a real effect in place of the rather self-contradictory Opening SHot/vulnerability we have today.

I welcome thoughts on the suggestion and hope Arena gives it consideration.

+1 to the OP; I love the “Rascal” medium leather coat, so after level 80, everytime I crafted a new high-level coat (saving the ones I had) I had to make yet another Rascal-series to do the transmute. It is not a money issue, just seems like a redundant step and redundancy is very rarely fun.

Not being snide, but it sounds like your answer is Skyrim. Single player games are numerous and built for that purpose. MMOs are designed to accommodate people with friends, or people who like to make them along the way. Your next party may well be four new friends you just haven’t met yet.

@Noob – as a suggestion; just play and sell whatever loot you get and buy your legendary mats on the TP. I ran both crafting skills to 400 in the first two weeks of play with no concerted effort, just sell the swag I collected and outright bought the specific mats I needed. At least for me that was an easy and straightforward process.

I would have been more engaged with a reputation-based portal system, i.e. if you build rep with a given area, they let you use their portal. That would have, imo, given me something to put some time into to build my fast-travel network. I think fast-travel is essential to group play getting together but I concur that things so instantly transitioned from explore mode to teleport mode that it works against the impetus to go out and explore the sidelines.

Admittedly no tie to GW2 whatsoever but I am a frequent forum poster here and just stumbled across an awesome 2-min 3D short at http://www.shoguntango.com/movie.html. Figured most everybody here digs 3D and would enjoy it. Not spam or marketing, just a freakin awesome little flick.

Precisely my point; they get to have a nice, wide healthy FOV. But on my lowly HDTV monitor I am forced to peer thru a gut-twisting 60-degree FOV lens. I just don’t understand why. If some players have the ability to see wide-view, we all should.

I love this game and I love my Ranger. That said, as I become comfortable with all of the basics I am increasingly confused by what seem to be contradictions. My signature Ranger weapon (longbow) is strongest at long range but the moment I hit anything it closes to short range. My opening strike only works inside of 900 feet when I am traited at 1500, so again, if I want the one good long shot to hit, I give up my OS. I can shortbow, strafe, trap and kite but for me that just seems to be leaving on the ground some of what I had hoped to be flavor parts of the game. Just unsatisfying for a game I want so much to love.

Not everybody understands FOV-induced nausea. If it does not bother you, it is an “invisible” problem. If it does, playing the game can drive you to puking. Its a brain thing. Taking a break to let my guts settle I decided to do a little research and I am puzzled. Let me ask if I am correct on the following:

1. If I spend a lot of money on an Eyefinity multi-screen rig I can get up to 180? FOV and Arena is completely happy with that outcome.

2. If I run my game in a window and reduce the vertical height of that window to create a wider aspect ratio, I can get arguably 90-100? FOV and Arena is completely happy with this as well.

3. But if I want to enjoy a wider FOV on the full-screen I currently own, Arena flatly says NO.

- If the argument is that a wider FOV gives a player an unfair advantage, doesn’t that create what amounts to a “pay to win” advantage for multi-screen Eyefinity owners?

- If the argument is the ability to change FOV is too tough to program, how is it that it does so automatically if I reduce my window height? Doesn’t that mean the FOV adjustability is already built into the game to some degree?

This is a freakin’ awesome game and I think I am asking for nothing more than what other (wealthier) players enjoy without question. I’m pretty sure I’d just like to play more without barfing. Can somebody from Arena please give us the courtesy of a definitive answer as to why and your plans (if any) to level the playing field?

Thanks.

I have a mid-2011 MBP and have the same issues. SMC fan control is a terrific app but it doesn’t really solve the problem. AT the end of the day I went with an elevated laptop stand and parked a big-as-kitten fan blowing on the back. Since I play with headphones I am oblivious to the hurricane sound of the big fan. But that really did cut the heat dramatically.

GW2 exists in a completely closed environment. Accounts generating gold spam should be disconnected and frozen immediately, I cannot imagine any reason that Anet cannot monitor email traffic and respond accordingly.

We get a LOT of skill points. Rather than just buying out all of the remaining skills, what about buying longer durations of ones we have? I’d gladly trade 10 points for an extra 10 seconds of one of my Norn beast shape-shift forms. Seems like the programming of that would be pretty trivial and the added duration would hardly be game-breaking. This from a Ranger’s perspective, but I’d trade points to make traps a bit more effective as well – skillpoints could be a currency that allows players to differentiate themselves from everybody else. Just a thought.

Ah just train a herd of critters on top of ’em and break aggro – watch ’em die horribly.

yes – a true deep night would be a simple way to add a whole new flavor to already-played content areas. This deserves to be a serious item on the near-term item list.

I concur, if everybody has the same FOV range, players can choose what they want with no penalty to anybody else. In the same vein, I’d like to go into 1st person sometimes I am wandering the world as a PVE explorer. I get the tactical disadvantages, but if I just wass “see the world” as if I was there, why not let me. No designer decision will ever be better than giving players a choice.

When I made the OP, it was not to gripe about the LB, nor to resurrect the well-beaten war of which is better, SB or LB. But like several here have echoed, the LB is designed to do its best at max range, but the reality is that targets (PVE and PVP alike) start to close after the first shot; by design the LB is at best a first-shot weapon you swap out immediately (and mind you, I have done that to get the speed boost and make the SB a gatling gun for a few seconds) – but that leaves the LB feeling more like a Sigil or something whose predominant value to many of us (admittedly not all of us) after the opening shot is to simply boost the other weapon.

I could see a short knockback, like PBS, but perhaps just a foot or so, that perhaps included an interrupt. That would certainly mesh with the “hits like a truck” imagery. It would in the very least do a bit to keep distant targets at a distance.

I could also see a bleed component, I didn’t play GW1 so I don’t know what broad head arrows were there, but as a hunter I have a lot of respect for a 4-sided razor blade doing a few hundred feet per second. If it is the heavier weapon, I’d argue it punches deeper and causes more bleeding.

Again, this isn’t a gripe thread, just trying to come up with some creative ways to bring something more to a weapon.

I’d be happy if the PBS pushback was not stopped by terrain “fall-off” edges. Sailing somebody off a cliff is soooooo compelling.

@Vecuu – ok, interesting thought. So how does a Ranger shoot a longbow differently than anybody else does? Assuming we set aside the stock effects like bleeds and such, what seems interesting from a nature / animal perspective that would not destroy the flavor of a longbow (i.e. not too gimmicky). Gotta ponder that one for a bit.

For those who like to play around with alternate builds, might it be a nice thing to add a current calc right here. Nothing from the nice 3rd-party sites, just seems it would be an easy thing for Anet to implement.

How so?

I proposed a “chance” of a cripple, not a 1-for-1. Does that seem like a game-breaker?

@Seras, it was a pretty easy run to get mine, then re-ran it minutes later to take a guildie to get his. We were spawning in on the 3-o clock entry point in EB and simply hugged the rightmost edge going counter-clockwise up to the wolf parked literally on the outer edge at about 1 o’clock on the map. Chew through a few NPC mobs along the way but the PvP fights were almost exclusively in and around the keeps.

I will say I have since seen wolves out in the PVE world, but being momentarily useless I cannot remember where, but they are out and about. EB should be easy tho and yes, it is a gorgeous pet.

EDIT: ok, simple google took me to a wiki listing several locations now – here in case it is of any use to you. Good hunting! http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wolf

No wish to rehash a hundred threads on the merits of LB or its comparative DPS vs shortbow. BUT, I’d like to ask what people would think of a decent chance of a very brief cripple (maybe just 1sec) applied to the basic #1 LB shot?

Supporting logic: If LB is an at-distance weapon that would help a truely ranged Ranger to help maintain distance from the target. Arguably if the LB is a hard-hitting weapon, the momentary cripple would be an attribute of slamming the target harder than the SB.

Seems to me that would be a strategic-oriented adjustment rather than a straight-out damage buff, but one that could be a nice differentiator between LB and SB for those who like to use both. What do y’all think?