Guild Wars 2

Blessed RNG, we beseech thee, forget not thy servants as we toil in the fields of Orr and Southsun.

Recognize the works of thy servants, clothed in the holy garments of MF, and look favorably upon us. Supply banners and trays in abundance.

Deliver us from DR. Hold fast spawn timers. Stay the hand of Developer and its instruments of Nerf. And light our way to Precursors.

Rain from above rares and exotics in excess, so that our inventory overfloweth, that we might clothe our paper dolls in power and shinies forever and ever, amen.

Depth. And better mechanics.

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

Ascended gear was a mistake. I hope they don’t continue down the path of traditional MMOs and release more gear tiers. I would quit.

The best players tend to be humble. They have a quiet confidence in their own abilities, learn from their mistakes, and accept correction and criticism from others. Overtime this leads them to be masters of their class.

This also makes it near-impossible to find them. People who constantly talk about themselves or brag tend to have something to hide—usually their own incompetence.

Vayne.8563:

I simply say not everyone plays games the same way and efficiency, rated very high by some, isn’t rated as highly by others. As long as I can get the job done, I’m quite happy and so are a whole lot of other people.

Do you really think the vast majority of players are min/maxers or they’re worried about killing something 10% slower? I don’t.

Sure there are balance issues. I never said they weren’t. But they’re only the sky is falling type of balance issues for a certain type of player and those type of players, in my opinion, do not hold a majority.

Way to fill up the thread with multiple posts saying the same thing, all of which can be summed as:

1. Me and other people I know like it.
2. If you disagree, you are probably in the minority.

I asked for a certain kind of evidence to demonstrate that everything is as fine as you say it is (class analysis with skills, numbers, etc., the kinds of information that’s useful in this situation). You just repeat your anecdotal evidence and add more anecdotal evidence to suggest, without any statistical facts or figures, that people who disagree with you are in the minority.

How is this rational or helpful? All you’re saying is that people who don’t share your preferences should just sit down and or go away. Well, thanks for nothing. Why would you think your personal stories carried so much weight as to be able mollify everyone on the other side of this issue?

Some consistency is also in order: by your standards, you shouldn’t care that we’re raising this issue. If the majority don’t care about min/maxing, then the majority shouldn’t care if we ask the developers to fix our issues, since it won’t negatively affect the majority anyway.

This game was rushed to get sales to bail out a certain company with falling share prices. It needed at least another year or two of development.

All the major problems with longevity and depth stem from this.

But as long as lots of RNG boxes are being sold, forget development being pushed toward all those areas you care about.

I hope it’s an RNG box. Love those. Maybe an anniversary special, limited time offer skin?

They could even make it a gem store event—each extra anniversary RNG box could be sold for a low, low price of 1,400 gems!

Stark.1350:

I frequent the forums quite a bit and have read many posts about the end game and raids and such like that.

I liked your post, so please don’t take the following as criticism.

I suspect much of the desire for “raids” and “end-game” comes from a more basic desire for challenging content. We don’t need boring treadmills for entertainment, and I hope future MMOs refuse to milk players through such a tedious mechanic.

I think those of us who want depth—and this seems to be a rather large number of players if you have followed the fan forums, blogs, etc. since release—will be satisfied when dungeons become more than dps vs. hp sponge fights and rewards are commensurate with the level of effort and skill players demonstrate in dungeons. (For example, a hard mode could have a chance to drop a rare weapon skin.) Mechanics will need to be overhauled, but it can be done in such a way that the game is easy to learn but difficult to master—accessible to all, fun for all. (I don’t think this can be done until an expansion, however.)

There will always be people who don’t understand this game and want raiding progression tiers, but if ArenaNet satisfies the need for in-depth content, I suspect those kinds of posts will diminish significantly.

I say this as someone who has 100% map completion and done most of the activities you’ve mentioned in your list. I commend you for posting them, but I think something else is, at least in part, driving the discontent you see.

2.) WvW – afraid you’re not good at PvP? Or feel you don’t enjoy it? At least give this a shot. I was really frustrated with PvP myself and would like to see more modes, but WvW is on a different level and the giant battles can be an absolute riot.
3.) sPvP – why am I putting this here when I said I don’t enjoy it? I’ll tell you why. Once custom arenas are out, man it’ll be awesome having your own guild arena and doing guild matches for fun.

I think when WvW makes some necessary changes (AoE cap anyone?) and sPvP is finally balanced and fixed, we’ll see more people playing and enjoying the game. I know for any MMO I’ve played, PvP was the ultimate end-game, since the most stimulating challenge is competing against another human being. I’m not saying it’s that way for everyone, but I know for many it’s what keeps them coming back day after day.

Custom arenas are exciting, but without a reworking of the skills and traits in this game, I am not sure they will last as a competitive scene.

Isn’t it time for a quiver that dispenses beer?

HT: Fihada

Vayne.8563:

I run dungeons with rangers, necros and engies all the time. With my guild. We’ve beaten all the content in the game. We have necro who’s a dungeon master who’s up to 30 plus level fractals. He’s good at his profession.

I have a ranger in my guild who I’d rather have in my dungeon party than any warrior I know. He’s real good. In addition to being real good, he brings the skill search and revive, so if someone goes down his pet can rez while we keep fighting. Prevented a couple of big problems in hard areas.

At the end of the day, a profession is only as good as the person who plays it. Anyone can pretty much learn how to play a warrior. That means for a lot of people, warrior is a good choice…because they’re not great players.

The only real issue is stuff like the limited paths for builds that necros and engies can use. Like no one at high level play would ever play a minion master necro, and no one at high level play would play a turret engie. At least not in PVe. PvP is a different matter completely (and I’ve seen turrent engies and minion masters used to good advantage there.

You’re far more likely to get a bad engineer than a bad warrior, but the fact is, that doesn’t make the professions all that different. It’s the same with a thief. There are a lot of bad thieves out there, and a lot of good ones. Is the profession bad…or the player?

That’s not to say there aren’t some balancing issues. But on how bad the are, opinions are deeply divided.

Your anecdotal evidence is insufficient to demonstrate your assertion; just because certain class arrangements work and are reliable in some scenarios doesn’t mean the balance issues are negligible or minor. That’s a hasty generalization fallacy (one you make quite often as I read your post history).

You pay lip service to the idea that balance issues are debatable, but imply that they are not problematic in any serious way, which is simply to gratuitously deny the very issue this thread is trying to raise. A more detail and fact-based post would have been more helpful (see the kind mjharrison provided) and, in fact, is necessary to establish your position.

Yeni.3507:

Is there any possibility that some npc’s armor/clothing can be release to players?

Sylvari npc’s dress, Pale Tree’s dress, Human Priests’s robe, Queen Jennah’s dress, Countess Anise’s dress, Braham’s armor, Rox’s armor, and the newest Lady Kasmeer’s armor in photo.

New at the gem store, the Fashion Chest! Get access to both the Royal and Commoner chests today! These unique offerings contain one random common dye and first tier cloth materials, with a chance at unlocking new armor skins!*

Only 1400 gems per chest! Limited time offer!

*Chance of winning new skin approximately 1/30000

lmaonade.9207:

ASB.4295:

When GW2 wasn’t out yet, they answered the question multiple times. No, they don’t want you to be be an antagonist, and no, they don’t want to bring open world PvP into the PvE world. However, they have changed a lot of their philosophies in the past ten months, so I would say there’s a reasonable chance for what you are asking to become reality if NCSoft/Nexon are convinced that they can profit off of it. Keep those suggestions coming and you might get what you wish for!

If people shelling the big bucks start wanting to PK people in the open world, it just might happen!

“Follow the green”
-NCsoft

Maybe they can put the ability to do open world PvP in an RNG box.

I agree with your post. I think (2) in particular has been the most frustrating. I don’t have the time or the patience to farm all the gold necessary to get the exotics and runes to test various stat combinations. One move from berserker to knights already depleted my gold and resources, and it’s not even finished with proper runes.

(1) and (4) I also agree with, but I wonder if it’s simply too late to overturn these fundamental design choices (deficiencies?). (One of my favorite parts of the game was the elite skills hunt, but I don’t see how that could ever be introduced into GW2 without a complete overhaul.)

I would reroll, but I don’t want to level another class to 80 again.

I want to love the Elementalist, really, I do. But it just isn’t fun anymore.

To make bank off RNG weapon skins.

Ryuujin.8236:

The devs need to balance the usefulness of stuff besides DPS to achieve this however; right now the PvE metagame is all kinds of broken.

You talk about not making enemies bullet sponges; but take lupicus for example. One group downed him in 46 seconds using crazy DPS, no control, minimal support – most groups would take minutes to down him, and it’d be a tough fight – how hard people will find a fight is heavily dependent on how long the fight lasts and that in turn depends primarily on DPS.

Increase hitpoints, fights last longer, glass cannons are more likely to die, but then badly-built characters, or bunkerish characters get bored as the fight takes too long. Lower the hitpoints, fights become quicker but glass cannons literally faceroll through the content.

It’s quite the conundrum how to make things challenging while keeping the challenge relevant to all classes and builds.

Yeah, they need to move away from dps-only based fights.

A suggestion for the devs:

1. Get rid of or modify Defiant, and return to the original plan of the dps-control-support class configuration. Roles aren’t a bad thing…

2. This needs to be accompanied by new weapon skills and perhaps even the ability to swap out some abilities for others on one or two weapon skills.

3. Make fights based on timely interrupts and control, the cleansing of conditions and the application of buffs. The deadly lizards in Southsun were a step in the right direction.

Vayne.8563:

There have been more than one post about people being chased away by farmers in that Orr event. If you choose to ignore those posts, that’s your own issue.

Um…and why is that my responsibility? My comment wasn’t about that issue. It was geared directly to one particular issue in response to Erasculio.2914. Why do your issues have to be my issues?

It’s like you want me to defend something I’m against (who supports rude people using broken events?) and something that’s ultimately irrelevant to what I said (and what does that have to do with the economic function of farmers?).

Enjoy the last word.

You’ve put your finger on a significant issue with the reward system in GW2.

Much of the lack of challenge came from rushing this game to beat Mists of Pandaria (or whatever it’s called). You can see that traits and skills were hastily designed, and that dungeon bosses had to be given the Defiant band aid because there really wasn’t enough time to design meaningful encounters.

I don’t fault the developers for business decisions made by their corporate overlords, but I do think they need to seriously consider revamping the mechanics in this game to allow for challenging content that’s accessible to everyone, yet difficult to master. There have been several useful ideas on this front (see, for example, here and here).

You might have to wait until an expansion to see rewards that are truly commensurate with a high level of skill and dedication (here dedication having nothing to do with raw time spent auto-attacking mobs!). But if we keep asking for it, we might very well get it, and this game can become more than a flash in the pan in a stagnating genre.

Vayne.8563:

Your focus on this one element is what makes it seem so huge to you. But in reality, it’s not as big a change as you think. For example, you say you want no vertical progression.

Well, exotics from rares. that is vertical progression.

Clearly the issue is adding more tiers of progression after release. At release, it was possible to skip certain steps in the gear progression. By definition it is impossible to skip current steps to obtain yet-to-be-released gear. This adds layers of forced inefficiency, the go-to for average MMO companies everywhere.

This was a huge issue to the swarms of people who left the game after ascended gear was implemented. To claim that it’s not a big change to him is hubris masquerading as objectivity.

There was a time I could log in with BIS for all my gear and never have to worry about farming another piece of equipment again. Now even if I went ahead and did the grind for all the ascended pieces, there is a very high probability that this gear will need to be replaced later in order to maintain competitiveness in WvW and access to some of the (ostensibly) best and most difficult PvE content in the game. This is antithetical to a core principle of the Guild Wars franchise. It is a highly significant change to many people who had no desire to have to worry about changing out their gear by the mere fact of artificially raising stat or level caps. It also reduces the incentive to collect and apply certain skins, which indirectly, yet significantly, affects a core principle of cosmetic-based rewards.

Some people have the time and energy to spend the dozens of hours necessary to obtain new tiers of gear. To those people, of course these changes seem minor. But many of us have full-time jobs, families, volunteer opportunities, etc. I don’t have the desire to chase artificial stat increases. After an initial investment, I want to be able to play all available content. I don’t want to have to significantly reinvest in gearing up all over again just to be able to enjoy new content.

Far from being revolutionary, the addition of new tiers will transform this from an above-average MMO to a mediocre one.

I hope “the largest balance patch ever” will not require me to obtain a new set of armor and runes (and transmutation stones for my cultural armor) in order to effectively compete in WvW. It already took a lot of time to gear up my toon.

FInN.7219:

What I mean is I don’t know what to do when I go to play and it seems as though there’s nothing to work for anymore.

The enduring elements of any good MMORPG are lacking in GW2. Once you get past the very fun wrapping, you find a game that ages quickly. Here are some of the reasons:

(1) PvE is shallow.

Most of the content in this game is easy. The content that isn’t easy is difficult by virtue of cheap mechanics rather than intelligent fights.

GW1 had a decent solution when it introduced Hard Mode. Having instanced areas that are significantly more challenging could provide some much needed content. Rewards could be scaled or added as needed from dungeon to dungeon, including titles that demonstrated mastery of the most difficult content in the game.

Of course, if the dungeon content remains insipid, there would be little motivation to play a hard mode.

Something that would make the game more interesting is a complex system of buff/debuff and condition/cleanse. This way support and condition builds would have a real and meaningful role to play in encounters. Such a system could also apply to PvP. As it is, the system is dull because it gives incentive and is designed (intentionally or not) for players to take up dps roles.

Additionally, GW1 had an enjoyable elite-skill capture system. Something like this kept me engaged in the first game for quite sometime. Nothing similar exists in this game.

Finally, atmospherically the game is hobbled by poor story telling. The personal story is a particularly egregious example of this, as it morphed into Traherne’s story. That would have been acceptable (barely) if the story had at least credibly communicated how important and vital his role was. Also, dragons destroying the world is a lowest common denominator fantasy trope. And don’t get me started on Orr.

(2) Build variety is non-existent.

It’s clear that the general skill and abilities in this game were not thought out well, either from a balance or fundamental design perspective. The fact that there is clearly one (occasionally two?) best build for each profession that far outstrips the performance of other builds is evidence of inadequate design.

This is a function of the shallow PvE. When everything is centered around damage/damage/damage, and “challenging” fights in dungeons reduce to slaying an HP sponge, it’s difficult, if not near-impossible, to design abilities and skills that provide anything meaningful other than different ways of dealing damage.

The trinity just reduces fights to battles over hp bars, but you still need something more interesting to replace it.

(3) Competitive play is shallow.

One of the great draws to PvP in Guild Wars 1 was the ever-changing meta as players moved from one flavor of builds to another. This system was far from perfect, and indeed suffered from some serious flaws, but it did have a degree of customization and strategy that is otherwise completely lacking in Guild Wars 2.

WvW is a trite affair. It’s highly repetitive, and victories in the zones don’t feel significantly attached to the rewards given to the server that captures important territory. Not only are there few compelling reasons to fight in WvW, but the fights that do occur are largely reduced to zerg strategies.

Additionally, the rewards from PvP (and to some extent WvW) are too detached from PvE. It would be beneficial to have better ways to display your commitment to and skill in structured or tournament play.

I really loved fractals and I’ve dedicated myself so much to them as an experienced Ranger and having reached the 45AR limit but the ~2 hours of work on 20+ for peanuts post January isn’t too enticing anymore.

Yes, this is a cheap gimmick to draw out the same amount of content over a long period of time, the go-to for companies that can’t produce enough to satisfy its player base. It’s not particularly rewarding or enjoyable after extended play.

Go for a Legendary?

I don’t suspect they are going to make any changes since the system is generally working as intended: legendaries are a colossal waste of time and resources designed to give hardcore or long-term gamers something to do.

Also, if they changed the manner in which they were earned, a lot of people would complain, both those who were saving gold and those who crafted it. ANet is stuck living with poor design choices that are difficult to change or otherwise fix.

What can I do?

Honestly, I think you should find another game. GW2 had great promise. Come back in a year or two and see if things are better.

Yes, sadly, I have begun to feel the same way. I do not even always log in to do dailies anymore. I am currently waiting for another MMO to be released or for this one to be improved.

Vayne.8563:

I didn’t say YOU said anything.

You responded to my posts and points in such a way that any rational person would interpret your statements as an attempt to engage my claims. Either your communication has failed or you’re just using my posts—and thus ignoring them—as a pretext to address some personal soapbox you have with the attitudes some have toward this game. Great “conversation” you’re trying to have here.

I simply said people have said this on these forums. Unlike you, I’m having a conversation, and conversations between lots of people are in fact based on what lots of people are saying.

I’ve tried having a “conversation” with you. I’ve asked you for specifics, to engage details, to provide statistics, etc. I’ve asked you direct questions. I’ve raised problems with your posts. You avoided a large number of these requests and responses. You also use my posts as a pretext to launch a crusade against those you think are claiming “the sky is falling” or consider this to be “the most poorly balanced MMORGP ever.” Can you name anyone in this thread who has suggested these things? No? Then what is your purpose in responding to me with these statements?

You’ve already admitted earlier in this thread you’re not here to change people’s minds, but post for the lurkers. Which is it? Are you here to have a “conversation” or are you here to post for the lurkers?

YOU were the one who came after me and said I was saying the same things over and over.

Because you do. Read your own posts and ask yourself how you come across. You drown threads like these with stories of personal fulfillment in GW2, and when challenged as to their relevance, repeat the same or similar personal stories, sprinkling them with vague references to how some balance changes are needed, coupled with undue faith that such changes will be made in the future.

It’s as if you just can’t handle that some people are genuinely concerned about the state of the game. Not everyone has to like the game as much as you do.

When overstatement and hyperbole are rampant, I’ll move to do something about it. That’s it.

Are overstatement and hyperbole rampant in this thread? No. So go “move to do something about it” somewhere else.

If you have a problem with that, I don’t know what to tell you. Have you READ these forums?

You act as if it’s your job to correct everyone.

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, how do people know all this? Are there patch notes? If so, where? Or is this another case of ANet posting info on third party sites?

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/c/2208106

@maddoctor.2738

Yes, I agree that it’s even worse for other Elementalist builds. It’s absurd how poorly thought out some of these changes are.

Geotherma.2395:

Fractals and ascended gear don’t exist I guess. And any dungeon that isn’t cof p1. Your right, 100% casual, no challenging things at all.

These are not challenging, and neither are most of the current dungeons. The anti-trinity zeal of the devs lead to mechanics that necessitate this; the only difficulty in this game comes from timing your dodge properly or perceiving one-shot tells in the kitten storm of graphical effects that usually surrounds any boss under attack. Combat is based around invulnerability frames, not the intelligent use of skills with meaningful trade-offs.

Cercie.1025:

If it felt epic to get one you could actually think back on that experience and not cringe.

This. This right here is the reason I will never go for a Legendary.

CakeGuy.4735:

one should consider if the game is truly balanced or not.

People keep talking about balance, but that is not what this thread was about. It was about customization—the amount of skill options a player has, build diversity.

I don’t think anyone here is arguing that GW1 had fantastic balance. The issue is not how the system was implemented, but what the system consisted of. It had a great deal of variety. Even if some are going to argue that this variety was largely (or completely?) an illusion and/or poorly implemented, people like the idea of having a lot of options and a lot of choices and some (many?) players enjoyed working through the variety to grow and build their character.

At the end of the day, balance is irrelevant to the discussion because all that’s being said is that some players desire more customization. That GW1 produced customization at the expense of balance doesn’t mean we should be satisfied with GW2, which has produced balance at the expense of customization.

Fyrebrand.4859:

He’s not interested in discussing anything, he just wants to say he thinks the game is crappy and be done with it. I mean, where has he been, for the rest of the thread? He just made his post, and left.

It doesn’t matter how we make these kinds of posts. Several prolific posters on these forums, who patrol them as if it were their sacred duty to maintain a positive forum atmosphere and “balance” out any criticism with positive points, dismiss all critical posts—even if well-reasoned with facts and analysis—as mere opinion and overly pessimistic. When they are engaged in argument, they avoid points that damage their position while reverting to claims that their position is the majority one and/or that everything will turn out really well with enough time or development. When they are pressed on these kinds of assertions, they play the martyr, claiming they are being bullied or otherwise personally attacked, or that requiring logical demonstrations is somehow off-topic.

They never admit error and their responses consist of sets of non-sequiturs, hiding behind the rules when it’s convenient or their position becomes untenable, abusing them when they think they can get away with it; to them, the rules are a means to an end—the defense of GW2 as a particularly fantastic game and the silencing of anyone who says otherwise. It’s hopeless to have any meaningful dialogue in such an atmosphere.

KyoHanakaze.8145:

It’s not like there’s an obscenely higher amount of effort made between the two, but one’s horrible and the other isn’t. It’s like let’s make the rich richer and the poor poorer kind of thing

It’s very hard to make money playing the TP. You need to:

• Research and analyze graphs, charts, trends across a wide variety of items and materials
• Calculate margins and volume for your intended investment(s)
• Analyze risk to hedge appropriately
• Do all of the above while competing with a large number of people doing exactly the same thing

Farming is significantly easier than this. Additionally, playing the TP doesn’t introduce any new materials or gold into the economy, while farming does. I can see why Anet would be more concerned about activities that could distort the economy in serious ways.

Incidentally, this is why I neither farm nor play the TP. The former is boring; the latter is beyond my skill level.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve replied to this sort of thing several times in several different threads.

Hi. You’re talking to me. I have no idea what you’ve done “several times in several different threads.” My perception of your posts is based on your interaction with me. Review our posting interaction. You tend to post opinions and discredit my posts about facts or figures as opinion. That’s trading in opinion. It’s pointless.

The problem is, when you guys attack me personally because you don’t like my opinion. I’m not ENCOURAGED to have a conversation with you.

Where have I personally attacked you? Is this like you claiming I think gear progression is “the devil incarnate”? Provide evidence or retract your slander.

I’ll let others decide whether or not I’m just a man of opinions or if I have facts to back them up. I know I have a few detractors on these forums, but as many detractors as I have, I’ve gotten personal messages from far more people who like what I have to say.

Yes, and some of my posts refuting yours have received a lot of “likes.” Does that ultimately mean anything? No.

Unlike you, I’m not interested in (unverifiable) popularity contests.

Your posts have become tainted with martyr syndrome. Unless you post something substantive, you’re welcome to the last word.

Vayne.8563:

I’m saying give changes a chance before you start complaining.

This reminds me of a Dilbert comic. One character implores another: “You won’t know if you like something until you try it.” The other character responds by asking him to try shoving chips up his nose, because obviously it’s impossible to tell if you will like it before you try it.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the Elementalist changes are a significant nerf that will hamper the fun many have with bunker D/D, significantly reducing mobility and healing opportunities. Apparently abstract reasoning is an alien concept to some people.

Worse, bunker D/D is one of the few (only?) viable Elementalist builds in PvP.

Siphaed.9235:

The key word when you buy items in-game is…

UNIQUE

If you see that, just as in any MMORPG, or RPG, it means that you can only have one equipped and no more.

There are RPGs where multiple uniques of the same type can be equipped. I haven’t played in a long time, but didn’t Diablo II work this way?

Miss Sugarific.8471:

I actually like the legendary skins… They’re funny and unique. And they’re just skins at the end of the day… no one is required to get them.

I don’t mind it as much as other people, but I still have to see your rainbows while we’re slaying “the next greatest threat to Tyria.”

The bow isn’t going away, so they might as well go full hilarious and make a legendary quiver that lets you dispense alcoholic beverages to your allies every 10 minutes.

WvW has a tremendous amount of potential and was a serious step in the right direction, at least as far as the genre is concerned. It’s still hobbled by several issues, however, some of which you’re feeling.

There is some measure of strategic depth to the mass movements of people and timing of relevant buffs and spells. This is reflected in the fact that, all things equal, any Commander worth his/her salt is going to absolutely crush an unorganized force or one led by an incompetent or impatient Commander.

These decisions, however, are often made at the officer level, so most people are just going to be pawns.

Here are some suggestions for those of us without the time or money to commit to the machinations of WvW leadership:

• Roam with small parties to capture camps and sentry posts. This can be more fun than following the zerg, and can lead to some extended skirmishing against enemy roamers. Plus you’ll be playing an all-important role disrupting enemy supplies.
• Scout main roads for signs of the enemy zerg. Top Commanders prize information more than anything else and you will gain their respect for playing such an important role on the battlefield.
• More situational: When defending a castle, keep or tower, take a team to portal bomb enemy siege and thus impose costly delays on the enemy’s advance. This will almost guarantee your untimely demise, but what better way to go than in a blaze of glory?

I’m sure others have some to offer as well.

KyoHanakaze.8145:

Edited the original post to try and clarify a bit more.

Thanks, I appreciate the effort.

I don’t think I’d change my response, however. Maybe I’m missing something?

Creeper.9360:

Indeed. There is a pattern on forums if you notice. A lot of the complaints are written by the same folks.

A lot of the praise is written by the same folks too. Forum Wars 2 has regular combatants who duke it out in epic verbal sparring with cleverly disguised insults.

All those people are working on new content?

And please, next time list all those names in paragraph form, rather than a new return for each name!

Vayne.8563:

This isn’t true. Anet’s loyalty isn’t to the WoW playerbase. Anet’s loyalty is to keeping the game alive.

He didn’t say Anet’s loyalty was to the WoW playerbase. It’s fairly clear the meaning of his comments, in context, is that Anet had to cater to some of the impulses/desires of the same kinds of people who play WoW in order to increase game sales. Reading comprehension is hard.

And, as is turns out (and you tacitly admit), developing content that appeals to people who also like WoW is what the developers think will keep this game alive. Yet that’s exactly the kind of content many of us aren’t interested in playing and bought this game to avoid.

I would like dungeons and other content to be based on meaningful, strategic choices. Make content that doesn’t incentivize Beserker-only builds, but requires a thoughtful execution of control and support mechanics. Modify weapon skills, traits and abilities to match this.

LilMcGinley.3890:

even without the tag, you can tell based off armor.

Wait, you can see armor in WvW?

Ensign.2189:

I feel like I’m ready for classes that have more than a single, glaringly superior weapon set and trait build.

^

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

do you guys think?

I think the most challenging content has to be restricted to instanced encounters. In open world you always have the problem of scaling, where freeloaders and the inexperienced can quickly cause problems for systems that try to increase the difficulty based on the number of players. It is nearly impossible to control.

Another more fundamental problem is that the current game meta/mechanics is shallow and renders virtually all content easy. The only “difficult” content in this game consists of one-shot AOE circles that must be dodged or hp sponges that must be whittled down over the course of a five minute dps spam. You cannot create truly difficult and interesting content around invulnerability frames.

Mechanics need to be overhauled in order for truly difficult content to be created. There have been some fantastic suggestions on this front, such as the addition of a complex set of buffs/debuff cycles, but no indication ArenaNet is interested in taking them seriously. After all, they have no monetary incentive to develop difficult content as the overwhelming majority of those who use the cash shop are casuals.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t believe Anet is ever going to equalize the damage between professions.

Evidence?

I also don’t believe that DPS is the only thing that counts. I understand the mindset that does believe this, but it’s still only a matter of opinion and play style.

If it’s a matter of opinion and play style, why do you care so much so as to visit these types of threads and dismiss our opinions and play styles as the exaggerated, pointless whining of a small minority?

There are always people out there who want to play a profession because of the feel of the profession rather than the numbers the profession generates.

Have you read this thread? People want both: they like the feel of some professions and want their contributions to damage output to be on par with other classes. You trade in false dichotomies.

And because Anet does tend to factor in other considerations, such as survivability and utility, it’s unlikely that they’ll equalize damage.

Please explain. Specifics and details would be helpful. (Stories of your subjective enjoyment playing various classes do not count.)

Torpian.9142:

So I just hit level 80 on my first character. I haven’t been playing for long but I love this game so far.

In every other MMO I’ve played I’ve always created multiple toons but this game seems to encourage you to invest in one character. Getting 100% on the map, acquiring Legendary gear, doing monthlies, dailies, crafting etc.. – all of it would take a considerable amount of time. How would anyone find the time to unlock it all with multiple toons? I only have a few hours a day and around 5 hours on Sat/Sun to play, would that be enough time to have multiple well geared toons or would I be better to just sink my time into my main? I play an Elementalist, the other classes look fun too so I’m kind of confused about what I should do next. Is it a case of having a bunch of mediocre characters or one really well geared character? Maybe I’m over analyzing things.

Thoughts?

I also main an Elementalist. I have four alts, but only one I’ve tried to level in any serious way.

I’d do the work to get your elementalist in full exotics. (Don’t bother with legendaries or map completion, and only do dailies if you want the rewards.) It’s tedious for semi-casuals like us, but this will give you the flexibility to run or experience virtually anything in the game with friends or guildies.

Alts can be fairly boring since you’ll just be repeating all the content you did the first time and the glow you’re feeling right now quickly fades. Unless you like repeating content, you’ll get longer-term enjoyment out of this game if you focus on one character and use that one to explore the land of Tyria.

(Forgive me if this has been suggested before.)

Concept: An idea to increase the longevity and interest of WvW.

A series of capturable resource structures that, when owned, upgraded and defended, provide a set of concrete and powerful PvE and/or PvP bonuses to the server that owns them.

Examples:

• A farm structure could provide bonuses to food crafting (say, a bonus to experience or an increase in the chance of crafting double) and, when sufficiently upgraded, WvW only buffs that are equivalent or similar to some food buffs.
• A smith building could provide bonuses to armor and weapon smithing and provide a slight to moderate bonus to the damage of friendly units that acquire a buff (e.g., “Your weapons are sharpened/magically improved for 30 minutes.”) from the smith master.
• A logistics center that, when sufficiently upgraded, increases the speed, frequency of supply amount of caravans from supply camps.
• A lumber mill that increases PvE logging harvesting yields and/or provides discounted harvesting equipment at a special merchant (located in major cities).

Additional possibilities:

• distillery (tonics for increased hp%, reduced condition duration?)
• artillery camp (cheaper supply cost for building siege?)
• barracks (bonus to downed state HP? reduction in contested WP reset time? additional guards for keeps/towers? deployment of NPC scouting parties or patrols?)
• crystal/magic area (+healing bonus?)
• archaeological dig site (mf% increase?)
• Asura engineering station (allows maintenance of two or three portals on the map?)

Mechanics/Implementation: Resource structures must be built, upgraded and defended.

• Small upgrades to defense (number of guards, wooden walls, etc.) can be ordered, and supply would be necessary to construct them.
• Significant upgrades would entail spending money on more personnel to run these structures.
• A command could be given to have these personnel retreat to the nearest keep/tower should the structure come under heavy attack, thus increasing the purpose of fortified structures.
• Bonuses could increase at a steady rate (until reaching some cap), giving servers a strategic incentive to defend and upgrade such locations for the long term.
• Buffs and bonuses would be applied on a per-character basis by having the player visit the relevant structure’s NPC.
• These could be implemented in a new battleground or, to some extent, the current WvW set up.

Increasing the importance of keeps: Like medieval warfare, keeps could play a strategic role in sheltering key components of the local “economy”

• Supplies and personnel from these structures can be moved to keeps during sieges or attacks, preserving part of the investment a server makes into resource structures
• A keep must be upgraded to include a “civilian shelter” or “resource deposit center” (?) in order for the personnel and resources at a resource structure to be evacuated.
• Looting a keep that has personnel and resources would reward the victorious server with bonuses of some sort (e.g., faster upgrades to the resource structures they now own, extra gold, etc.)

Summary:

• Capturable structures provide bonuses to WvW and PvE.
• Upgrades to these structures provide increased bonuses and incentives to capture and defend them.
• Resources and personnel upgrades can be partially preserved after a resource structure is attacked by sending them to a local keep.
• The ability to loot these resources from a keep increases incentives to siege and defend and provides a logical order of attack (raid resource structures, then attack keeps).

Thoughts?

Two Guild Wars 2 players ran a survey of Gem Store users and applied some good ol’ statistical analysis to the results. Here are their findings.

lordkrall.7241:

How many of those “awesome skills in the GW1 system” were actually used though?
A rather high amount of skills were never really used, AT ALL. And quite a few of them were duplicates from different campaigns.

Yes, I agree that was the case. However, those skills were stepping stones more than anything else; I loved the growth of the character as I accumulated ever more powerful skills. Once you reach the top—well, of course I used only the best skills! Who wouldn’t? But the journey was interesting and varied, like any good RPG experience, and I felt powerful at the end.

Vayne.8563:

This is now the second thread where you’re most interested in posting about what I post, than what the thread is actually about, My post in this thread is completely justified. If you don’t find other posts of mine justified, that matters little to me.

However, when you try to put into each thread why I post what I do or whether my posts are necessary or not, it becomes harassment.

If you have a problem with how I’m posting on these forums, feel free to report me. Do not, however, feel free to harrass me, because I believe that would be against forum rules.

Produce sufficient evidence of “harassment” or retract your claim and apologize. Two threads does not constitute sufficient evidence. Your slander will be rejected for what it is.

You post on these forums with a high degree of consistency. That I happen to read, and occasionally respond, to some of the same threads you post in is hardly surprising. I often pass over your posts and don’t think twice about it. You need far more evidence that I am “harassing” you. It’s a serious charge with criminal implications that has no business being made on a public forum.

Edited to add: And, no, in the other thread you weren’t my focus either. Maybe you missed the essay I typed answering the OP of the thread—a post that was so large I had to cut it down to reach the 5000 character limit. Your hyperbole is as embarrassing as it is unfair.

I’ll believe it when I see it.