Guild Wars 2

Vasham.2408:

It’s a well known fact that GW2’s PVE is horrible.

This is not a fact at all. This is simply your opinion. One that differs from others who enjoy the game’s structure.

Vasham.2408:

But the trinity forces people into playstyles they don’t like and extends the time it takes to form a group!

False. While a time existed in previous MMOs where to play a certain class meant you played a certain role in the trinity that time has long passed. MMOs with good class balance (read: anything not by Arenanet) have either been released or changed their classes so the one you play isn’t pigeonholed into a specific role. I never met a tank or healer in WoW, Rift, or other games that played those roles exclusively yet didn’t enjoy it. The lack of those roles have turned many players away from GW2, and I can’t blame them.

Not false; not always. I’ve played a large number of MMOs over the years, and in many cases when looking for groups, if you didn’t have the type of role groups were looking for, you looked and looked for a group. This was more often the case with DPS characters, as there was typically more of them than anything else. FFXI was the most extreme example of this. When I played as a Monk, I would look for a party -all day- (17 hours was the longest), when I switched to Paladin or White Mage, I had a party within moments. So I was forced into roles I had less interest in, just to group to fight basic mobs. This is not uncommon in other games as well. I’ve also seen a number of parties fall apart because they couldn’t find a decent tank or healer. This happened over and over again.

The only exception I saw was City of Heroes, since with the sidekicking and exemplar feature (something some other games have emulated), which made it easier to find tanking and healing players when needed. There are other exceptions (Champions Online for example) but teaming wasn’t really necessary for those games, so I am leaving them off the discussion for now.

To touch upon your other point: lack of those trinity roles have lured a large number of players TO the game as well. It balances out. Those that like the trinity have a miriad of games to choose from that they can go and play. Those that don’t like the trinity have GW2.

Vasham.2408:

New doesn’t mean good, if anything it’s proven the opposite. The lack of the trinity as a solid foundation for encounter design is why GW2 has had such trouble with it’s PVE content. Arenanet made the mistake of viewing the trinity in such shallow terms during development that they forgot why it’s stood the test of time. Without the trinity to provide that basic framework encounters boil down to a murky cloud of damage dealing and kiting. There’s nothing to support more advanced mechanics than the most basic of gimmicks as GW2’s dungeons and events have proved, and the new Fractals dungeon has reinforced that proof.

Deny it all you want, but PVE players are the backbone of a healthy MMO. With GW2’s sPVP in a rapid decline and the pipe dream of esports becoming more unreachable every day Arenanet will need to appease the PVE playerbase to stay afloat. With such poor encounter design limited by a wide eyed dream of a world with no trinity it’s an avenue they are not prepared to deliver on unless drastic change is made to class balance and the trinity is reinstated.

That, or we can look forward to spamming 2 again to kill the next Elder Dragon.

What is “Advanced” about standing around and spamming “taunt”? While someone else stands around and spams “Heal” and still another spams “Attack”? Are the fights in GW2 chaotic for the most part? Sure. I personally find it fun and a whole lot less boring than what you typically get with the trinity-based games that I have grown overly tired of though. Kind of amusing how you bring up Dungeons and Fractals and whatnot—I hated raids in WoW…huge, boring wastes of time. You didn’t even get decent rewards unless you ran them over and over again and then roll a die if something for your class dropped (hopefully you had enough DKP to even get to roll). I find the GW2 dungeons refreshing and fun and run them constantly with friends.

Some people like turn-based RPGs a la Final Fantasy and some people like dodge and fight RPGs like Dark Souls. They buy/play whichever version of play they like. It makes no sense at all to hop onto the Dark Souls forums and demand they remake the game because you only like turn-based play. This is basically what you are doing here. The game was advertised from the start that there would be no Trinity. You came into the game knowing this, tried it and didn’t like it. It’s time to move on. other folks like the play style just fine, despite your doom saying.

There are issues with PVE play (some of which are being addressed), but in my opinion, the lack of a trinity honestly isn’t it.

I see a lot of folks in the other forums mentioning that they want to be able to wear other types of armor for the look and not the stats, and some thought transmutation would be best for that.

But what about something like this…armor skins that can be purchased in the shop or dropped randomly like any other loot, or in dungeons, or a mix of all of that…and these armor skins can be transmuted (or double-clicked to apply) to any kind of armor type. So if you want to have a “Battle Mage” look or you wanna be a sleek warrior in leathers you could pull it off with the skins.

It could also address folks wanting Style pieces to be applicable to actual armor rather than street clothes only. Additionlly it gives a lot more options to make truly unique looking characters rather than each class basically looking much the same but with different colors. Could potentially be a nice money maker for ANet as well. City of Heroes had lots of costume options that did not change the stats on the characters, it was all purely cosmetic and it was very successful in it’s time.

Might be worth a spare thought or two.

I never really thought abouty a favorite screen—they all have great artwork.

Then I saw the Wintersday one with the Charr running from the giant snowball.

That one wins.

I was interested in earning a legendary for my main character, and started working on it (got my Gift of Ascalon and some materials out of the way) then lost all interest when I learned you have to be heavily into PvP to earn one. I am not a fan of PvP at all, so there goes that. It would be cool if they made a PvE version of the Legendary weapons but meh, it’s just a weapon skin anyhoo.

I saw the legendary I was going for on the Trading Post for 1400 gold and moused over it…aparrently they are Soulbound on use, not Soulbound on aquire…so you could prolly just farm up the gold and buy one. Nabbing it that way is prolly faster too.

Meh no Legendaries for me because they force you into PvP for the map completion and a buncha tokens to get it. I’ll just wait till the Ascended Weapons come out and grind FotM forever for those.

Serina.8652:

I strongly disagree, sure, guess they can add some town clothes like that but I for one was glad to see that female armor is actually armor, nothing makes me roll my eyes more then the skimpy “armor” you see for female characters in many games, same with high heels. Tera being the most extreme example, so over the top I view that game as a parody! :P

When it is like that it just become so obvious that they target young teens and give them something to drool about.

I want a hero and want my character to look like one.

I tend to agree with this. Catering to the male gaze and creating unrealistic “armor” has grown ridiculous in popular culture. It’s armor….designed for protection. Less is not more when it comes to that. I am sure there are some dating sims…or IMVU out there if you wanna run around scantily clad.

That being said…if they make male characters have equally revealing outfits (and I mean it…if some chick is running around in a thong, then a guy should be running along side in a bannana hammock), then it wouldn’t be as bad. I’d still take it a lot less seriously and would likely grow bored with the game.

Fancy/cool-looking protective gear that has a smidgeon of realism to it is better imho. But then again, I am not an adolescent boy, so what do I know?

By the way OP, good taste and maturity =/= being prudish.

I am a slow player because I work a lot, so I am still working on some goals and that keeps me playing to a degree. Many of my friends who played constantly have left for other games but there is usually one person on my friend list playing once in a while when I log in.

I am currently not playing the game (went back to playing console games for a while) because I am very frustrated that in order to 100% complete the map for the achievement or to ever complete a Legendary weapon I am forced into PvP. I greatly dislike PvP, as does most of my server aparrently since we never control the areas needed to go beyond 96% map completion (everyone I know who got 100% cheated before the 7 day transfer rule started). Those of you who’s hackles just raised over my making this statement can go ahead and lower them. I get why the requirement is there; it doesn’t however lower my frustration or increase my enjoyment…so until I am less frustrated over it, I won’t play.

But to get back to the OP’s question…what keeps me playing? I still have goals I would like to achieve. I have three dungeons that I still don’t have all the explore mode achievements for. So I will play again eventually to go through those runs…and will pop in to goof off in the holiday event. Then I will retire a while again.

They are likely PVE players trying to map complete and who don’t want armor repair costs as a result of being forced into PvP in order to get a PvE item they are trying for. So ANet should either remove repair costs when in WvW or remove WvW from map completion requirements.

CoD Wars 2….erm no thanks. I already hate PvP as it is, especially since I am pigeon holed into doing it if I ever want a Legendary. Letting the kids harrass each other and make it easier to grief would make an already unpleasant experience truly abysmal.

Muffin.5208:

I like this game alot…I really do!
But its slowely starting to feel…well ….empty inside. I so miss the feeling that i am making a diffrence. Perhaps Im to much of a “healer-type-player”.
The way it is in this game I cant tell if im helping or not. As a healer I can atleast see healthbars going up. Here you can hardly SEE the darn healthbar unless you hover over ppls heads.
Even if I like this game, perhaps it just isnt for me. I miss being the healer that saves ppl. Ive never been a good dps’er. My strong thing in all games has been standing in the back heavily supporting my team. I dont need higscore dps.
I dont like that I miss this so much…I want to play this game.
I have looked at several classes to try and find somthing as close to “healer” as I can.

Any suggestions ?

Ya could try a Guardian…they both protect players and heal/buff them periodically. Also Elementalists can heal; it’s just not a target heal. A friend of mine who was a dedicated healer in GW1 just started, and he is playing an Elementalist. He drops heals all of the time and we definately notice (it helps that we have a thief who can run through those healing springs and spead the heals around).

I usually goof around in Dungeons with my friends, but if we notice a dragon is up, we often bop on over and kill it.

‘cause dragons need killin’.

Zsymon.8457:

Lowering game difficulty is hardly ever a good idea.

It’s like people asking to get legendary weapons easier: you’re not required to get these
legendary weapons, they are not in any way better than exotic weapons, in fact they’re worthless for offensve builds since they don’t have critdamage or even precision.

They should be insanely hard to get, because what else is the point? Everyone would
run around with a legendary weapon that way, making them hardly worth the term
legendary.

One problem with this however, is that it’s not insanely hard for everyone. Before ANet implemented the 7 day wait to move servers, tons of folks (everyone I know who plays) simply bounced to the top tier server, grabbed their map completion, then popped back all in a day. Since they got it easy and that’s not possible now…where is the balance? Should they be banned for exploiting? Should they lose their map completion and anything they gained from it and have to earn it the way everyone else now has to?

No they shouldn’t. But players on servers who don’t do well with PvP shouldn’t be punished either.

They should just keep the requirement and just let folks who don’t want to have to do any PVP, opt out during map completion. Meaning they enter the map and I dunno, select a “Map completion only” button and they can’t be attacked by other players or attack them either. They wouldn’t be able to build, or repair or anything related to the server scores. They can just gather, map complete and get attacked by mobs not related to WvW events.

Amon.5042:

Your ticket should be able to get through. Have you tried using a different browser? Also press control+F5 so that your cache is cleared before trying again.

In your ticket ask for a 48-hour window to be opened so that you can purchase. I’m able to purchase in my account but my wife’s account got blocked. We need to ask support to open an window every time she wants to buy gems.

Thought I would chime in as a former banker as well. Some merchant accounts that banks use have “Real time exclusion,” which can cause the merchant to auto-decline the transaction after one goes through because the merchant is unfamiliar with the company or the transaction seems out of your normal spending pattern. This will cause the validation error as well. (happened to two of my friends when they tried purchasing this game).

If the error comes up again, try contacting your bank to let them know the transaction is valid. Usually within the hour the transaction can be submitted again successfully.

Gankfest.4965:

Aggro is random… Nuff said! if you wanna argue the facts and base everything off your own made up systems then knock yourself out. The problem is you have nothing supporting your claim because it doesn’t exist. If you want to keep trolling my thread, have fun with that too. What ever helps you feel better about yourself!

Aggro is not random. It is also not based on DPS like it is in many other MMOs. You can do a ton of DPS and still not pull aggro. Aggro appears to be based on toughness rating and proximity. On my DPS Warrior…the Thief in my regular Dungeon group was often pulling aggro but he wasn’t doing the most DPS. I respecced my build with 30 points in Defense and upped my toughness so that it’s the second highest in our group and now the mobs mostly focus on me and the Guardian. Bosses are a bit more random, but not terribly so (granted I have only run through AC, CM, TA , SE and CoF completely so far—dynamics may be different in the higher level ones).

I’m not trying to discredit your opinion, as you’re explaining your personal experience and my experience won’t change your opinion necessarily. But the holy trinity really bored me because there is no challenge at all to it. I used to watch television during raids in WoW, just to stay awake and alert. I like that GW2 has more moving around and action to it. That doesn’t mean that it’s your cup of tea, but I suggest giving it another go with some regular friends. If you’re running them with people you normally play with, you might find the runs more oganized and fun.

A second music video attempt — this time with some footage from the Halloween event. Love how much effort was put into a temporary/seasonal event.

Hahaha! I ran that dungeon so many times just to hear that stuff. LOL

I have to say that the actor who did the work for the Mad King did an excellent, excellent job! My friends and I absolutely loved the character.

A friend of mine had just started playing the game for the first time, literally minutes before the fountain exploded….we ran the dungeon with her while her husband watched (he’s a WoW player). After we were finished the run, he bopped off to his PC to cancel his WoW account and picked up a copy of the game himself.

That’s some good voice acting there.

Wow that is really well done!

They are disappointed in the loot but didn’t look around for the chest that drops MORE loot. Hmm.

Now I get why there were no chests when my friend told me there were when he ran it. Just lots of mobs and griefing of players.

mulch.2586:

Put up a guild rally banner! oops….

I think it’s possible to do with your alt. Just partner up with someone. Heck you could even take turns escorting each other’s lowbie alt.

I don’t think the level of the zones is out of line, given the quest reward, and given the backstory.

^^This.

I am not interested in doing it for my lowbie alts myself, but my friend is, so I am going to play body guard while he completes the pages. It’s prolly not a perfect solution, but we will make it work.

RenRen.5706:

Wouldn’t toning down the difficulty for the disabled be a slap in the face to them either way? You’re basically saying “Here you go. We made this easier just for you ‘cause you don’t have what it takes.”

There’s a disabled player in the Street Fighter community who plays with his kittening tongue and face and Capcom hasn’t shown any signs of making the game more accessible to him. And he frequents tournaments, where the best of the best play.

There’s a disabled player who plays GW2 PvP with a pen in his mouth and does well. ANet hasn’t catered the game around him either.

Disabled person here…..I don’t need the difficulty of the puzzle toned down…I need ANet to make “Camera look” key mapable (I can’t use the mouse) like tons of other MMOs out there so that I can work around my disability.

Another thing that would help would be to make the thing a solo instance. That won’t change the actual challenge of the puzzle at all, but will make it much less frustrating.

I don’t agree that temporary challenges should that crazy difficult for the majority of players, but I also don’t agree that nothing should be crazy difficult either. In my opinion, holiday events should be more accessible since they are so short-lived….but it wouldn’t bother me if the difficulty of some of the more permanent puzzles was ramped up.

But this one doesn’t even need it’s difficulty lowered. It simply needs to be a solo instance (and I need my camera mapping…pleaseohpleaseohplease Puss n’ Boots Eyes).

And for those that say “But it needs to be social,” no one was socializing while I was in there….other than to rag about it and summon golems. So.Um…solo please. I can socialize with people in the static puzzles and LA. :P

Danasseus Kaltvonin.9827:

I just spent from 2:40pm m-11:20pm doing this event.

And I finally give up. If it’s not the huge group of Norn and Charr jumping with me. It’s the fact that I’m getting randomly reset after the upright gear before the two beams. It’d be a fun challenge if it was a solo instance, and the bugs where fixed.

This is where I agree. I think the Tower looks really cool and it’s a very interesting puzzle. I am a disabled gamer as well, and since I can’t map camera look to keys like I can in many other MMOs, I am at a disadvantage but that didn’t really bother me about the puzzle.

What bothered me and made it frustrating rather than fun is that I couldn’t see where/when to jump because there were like 20 other people standing there too. The puzzle would have been challenging and fun, despite my handicaps had it been a solo instance, or if everyone was changed to see-thru ghosts for it. As it stands I am hoping people will get bored with it before the event ends to I can make some solo run attempts.

Hehehee Thanks. I thought that song would be perfect for a video of a few folks simply goofing around in the game.

I’ve been thinking of making a Halloween-themed one soon. Maclaine Diemer was nice enough to give me permission to use his super cute Halloween theme for it. Now I just have to think of how I want to edit it….and try to get some clips of players tossing toilet paper rolls for it.

Wow that came out really great!

I thought I would share a music video that I made of my friends and I just fooling around (and ocassionally actually doing productive things) in the game:

I’ve never made one of these before, and it shows, but it was fun to make and even more fun playing to catch all the clips.

One day I will find one of these mythical doors….and kill the unicorn that is inside.

Hehee

Seriously tho’…where the heck are they? I need to stop screwing around with Costume Brawl in LA and hunt around more. :P

Guitarzero.8316:

I get it in LA
i also found a link to the song (which is from the trailer) but i’m not sure if I can link those on here

it also has the clocktower theme

ANet posted the links to both songs on their Facebook page too…just wanted to chime in so folks will know.

I love the music.

Drop about $3k on keys if you wanna go random….or spend $25 – 30 gold for it in the trading post.

Azoetia.2183

Hinoreth.5978:

It’s a lottery that you pay real cash for, and they don’t have the odds of winning detailed anywhere so that folks can make an informed decision. Isn’t that illegal in the US?

No, because they’re not paying out real money.

If they paid cash for the gems they are.

deathTouch.9706:

The Age of Entitlement

Why don’t you try refunding your lottery tickets at the gas station after you scratch it off and see how well that goes.

What you “expect” or think you “deserve” to get out of the chests is irrelevant. At no point did Anet give any expectations as to the drop rate of the items in the chest, nor did they force you to open any chests.

You made a conscious decision to buy keys, based on whatever preconceived notions you had concerning the drop rate of items, which ultimately ended up being far removed from reality.

It’s your own fault for making assumptions and impulsively acting on it, especially if doing so was outside of what you could reasonably afford.

The difference is, the lottery has in multiple places, including on the ticket itself, there are very clearly disclosed odds of winning. If you look at those odds and say “Heck with it, it’s just a $1, I’ll try anyway,” then you’ve no right to complain when you lose. Even scratch tickets, which is kinda what this is like, has clearly disclosed odds for winning at each prize level.

With the chests in the game, odds of winning are not disclosed at all, and the hype leading up to the event made it seem that there was a very good chance that players would get something holiday-themed when opening chests, when in actuality the odds are very poor. Had folks known that it was more likely than not that they would receive just regular items, they would have been less likely to buy keys in the shop.

This is why ANet purposefully omitted the odds of winning while at the same time hyping up the activity. That’s very shady business, and quite frankly in this instance, consumers have every right to complain about it.

It’s a lottery that you pay real cash for, and they don’t have the odds of winning detailed anywhere so that folks can make an informed decision. Isn’t that illegal in the US?

Regardless, it’s better to just use the keys you find in the world and see what luck you have, and then sell off extra chests so that they don’t fill up your bank.

There are no timers that I can see on the items I bought. They are being sold for a limited time, but I believe the costumes will remain after Halloween…and they are quite fun!

It was just under 700 MB for me.

I wonder what my Snow Oil tonics will do, haha

I am not disappointed and I bought a couple of costumes too. My friends and I had a hilarious fun time last night and will be goofing off quite a bit more. I’ve played entertaining seasonal events in several MMOs, but this one is by far the most fun!

I had nabbed some footage of my friends and I clowning around in the game, and decided to make a lil tribute music video with it. While it’s not the best vid out there, I think it came out fairly decent, and thought I would show it off.

It would be really nice to have an option to bind camera look direction, both for left/right and up/down to keyboard keys. I really don’t like using the mouse when I game (except when I am PvPing) and would like to be able to pattern everything to the keyboard.

A keybind option for camera look would make it easier to make the game controller compatible using XPadder as well, which would make the game more accessable for some folks I know who cannot game with a keyboard.