Guild Wars 2

yanniell.1236:

People should read about the megaserver’s tecnology before say things like “i don’t wanna play with people i’ve never seen before”.

I was saying that because I’ve experienced the megaserver technology.

Reading about it makes it sound like you do get to play with people you know… but going in game and heading to most PvE maps (or EOTM) mean it’s an endless sea of new anonymous faces.

Megaservers have been terrible, I’d hate for them to ruin the last part of the game where they don’t apply.

No, just no.

Enough people have already said how bad this idea is. WvW has problems but this destroys so many of the good things about WvW that it’s not worth solving the problem anymore.

Go to EOTM if you want to run around in random zergs with nobody you’ve ever seen before to no purpose. But keep it out of WvW proper.

This would be AWFUL.

Megaservers have already ruined PvE community, let’s not bring the same disaster any closer to WvW than it already is with EOTM.

I like my mid-tier server, I like the community, and I don’t want to never recognise anyone on any map again like it is now in PvE.

-1

Carighan.6758:

What about the Sky Crystal stuff? Sure, you could say “It’s a grind, you have to collect X of them!”, but then… they’re not identical. Each one is unique in location and how you get there, so there’s no repetition involved.

Sky Crystals are awesome. They were one of the best parts of the LS last year, and they’re just as fun to try and get this time.

I love that they’ve been moved and changed so we have the enjoyment of figuring them all out again.

It’s amazing that they took everything everyone liked out of the Pavilion, yet kept all the good stuff in Cliffs.

Still, maybe the near-universal praise the Crystals have had twice now will be recognised and help design future content.

Xae Isareth.1364:

What I’m defending isn’t open world raids. I hate them. I don’t ever do Teq or Wurm because it’s a lesson in frustration. If you want people to do something in a certain way and to be organised, you need the tools to exclude people who don’t want to be organised. Otherwise you just get frustration.

I was openly telling people who don’t listen to orders, who aren’t in Zerker, who runs whatever build they want to get out of the pavillion last night, and I feel justified, because simply that’s what Anet was asking people to do.

What I am defending is the mechanics themselves. I like them. I love them in fact. Clear telegraphs, fair mechanics thst cabt be just brute forced, engaging gameplay requiring active movement, stuff this game desperately lacks.

What I’m afraid of is Anet does a DE v2.0 and go ‘clearly people hate fights like that’, back to zerg zerg stack stack press 111111, or even worse, unclear and frustrating mechanics consisting purely of 1HKOs that’s basically equivalent to playing Russian roulette.

I think we’re in agreement. I love the IDEA of the mechanics. If me and my friends were able to take on these bosses ourselves and challenge ourselves to beat them, then I’m sure we’d have a lot of fun.

In practice, however, it’s either an exercise in frustration trying to get people to split up (or even to explain to them what retaliation means -facepalm-) or a horrible boring zergfest that scales to astronomical levels.

Honestly, I don’t mind there being faceroll-easy zerg content in the game for people that want it.

But Pavilion in its current state doesn’t cater to either zerglings or people who want challenging group fights – both end up highly dissatisfied for different reasons. Truly the worst of all worlds.

And no-one gets any loot! \o/

BlackBeard.2873:

I am not sure what you get for silver/gold completion, as maps I have been on have only gotten CLOSE to silver.

Just to puncture your already-deflated bubble even further… silver/gold is just bronze with a couple of extra champ bags. Even gold is absolutely not worth it, especially if you yourself paid to start the event.

Xae Isareth.1364:

To be honest, those bosses have some of them most well designed telegraphs in this game to date and some very very interesting mechanics. Look at Wiggins and Pyro, look at them! That’s clear and fair telegraphed mechanics which promote active movement.

I’d LOVE to look at them, but they were buried under 50+ people hitting them with spell effects.

You can say that “well, you shouldn’t be zerging” and you’re right, we shouldn’t. I was trying NOT to. I tried getting multiple commanders, tried convincing pugs to split, tried forming parties and slipping away so the 5 of us could attack one boss. But each shard I loaded into the vast majority just zerged.

I think everyone defending this content is imagining how it should ideally be played and saying ‘well, if it were played like that it would be good content’. Maybe, but in practice it isn’t played like that… and even if I WANTED to play it like that, which I do, I CANNOT do it of my own free choice. I somehow need to find a shard of 70-ish players who think like I do.

So in practice it is not fun.

Worse, not only is it not fun, it’s not rewarding. Even gold tier rewards are terrible. I’d love to see a graph of player participation numbers in the Pavilion over the few weeks of this patch, I suspect it will bottom out rapidly and stay there, as there’s absolutely no reason to do it, and it’s frustratingly designed.

Imagine the same bosses instanced, with say ten of your friends and a more forgiving timer. Can you make it around the Pavilion and kill them all in time? It’d be fun, interesting, challenging. Instead we have all the entertainment of shouting “USE THE BIRDSEED” while watching zergs die to retal, and “please split up, I’m begging you”.

Ah well. At least Labyrinthine Cliffs is fun <3

Pyroathiest.4168:

Secondly, taking the heal signet is a horrid choice in this build, just as it is in any pvp build, even phantasm builds which have the best chance of using it properly.

Off-topic I know but what makes you say this… purely the longer cooldown? I’ve found the heal signet to be a mostly-straight upgrade over Ether Feast in my phantasm build. Interested to know if I’m missing something foolish!

KingZmaN.6473:

If you want to … perhaps engage in conversation based on my exposition, then see attached file …

All I see is people attempting to engage in conversation based on your build as you asked and you shouting TROLL at them because you don’t like what they’re saying.

Credit to Pyro et al for remaining calm and conversational, after the first couple of posts in this thread I thought it was going to devolve pretty rapidly but it didn’t.

On topic: It’s my experience that this build CAN win 1v1s, but it doesn’t win any more 1v1s than all the more established meta-builds, and you’re relying on your opponent not being a good player. Good players will beat this build way more than they lose to it.

Of course if you enjoy the challenge of taking a sub-standard build and seeing how often you can win with it then more power to you. I just wish mantras were more interesting and more viable.

Good on you for experimenting and sharing your build though – that is what this place is for, though don’t be discouraged if people point out problems with it… that’s ALSO what this place is for

Ah, yes, the no-skill-valk-power build. I wondered if anyone else would cotton onto this. I play this while alt-tabbed watching old episodes of Australian soaps.

If anyone else wants to try it, just use a valkyrie amulet.

In all seriousness though, this genuinely reminds me of experimenting on my guardian last week – I copied a current bunker build from the guardian forums and just spammed skills at random in teamfights, never died in 5 games at my usual MMR and was mildly depressed to realise that all those guardians I bleed my heart out fighting against while mesmer are having as easy a time as I feared.

Presumably they discovered the valkyrie amulet before we all did.

So, we’ve been nerfed again:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Mesmer-damage

I’m confused here. I didn’t feel like my phantasms were doing excessive damage (and I run pure phant in tpvp, mmr at around 85-90% EU), and plenty of other mesmers like Pyro had tested their phantasms and found no unusual damage.

Without detail (the bug fix just says NPC damage has been fixed) I don’t know if this is a pure phantasm nerf.

Has anyone checked their damage pre- and post- this bug fix? Was this just a weird occasional thing that has led to a straight up damage nerf, or has only the occasional spike been fixed (which would explain why I never saw the spike in the first place)?

I feel like we’re in an ok if slightly disappointing place right now, as everything that makes mesmer different and interesting gets QQ’d about until it gets nerfed. When you list the nerfs we’ve had since release it makes me REALLY want to go back to the original mesmer and see if it really felt as OP as the endless list of nerfs makes us seem like we must have been!

Anyway. How’s morale out there, mesmers? Was this nerf a) real, b) justified? What does it leave us with?

Do we all have to give in to evil and play PU stealth coward mesmer? ;p Or is there hope for other builds yet?

rhodoc.2381:

Accountbound WXP pool and character bound WvW Abilities.

nuf said

This would solve all the problems and make me play more than one character in WvW. I’d LOVE to run around on my ele or necro more often but it just feels like such a waste getting the WXP on them when I need so many more ranks on my main

This really has to be changed eventually as it’s such a glaring bad decision.

AJP.8610:

Also, since Liquid WXP has been out, I think I’ve had one drop.

Pretty useless IMO.

These occasional drops of liquid WXP mean alts are now so viable! ;p

This is still happening – I’ve done at least 7 invasions now but am stuck at 3/5 on Vorpp’s thing so I can’t get to the playhouse

Please can we get a response?

This has been really unreliable for me. I’ve stayed in the same overflow (and on the main server) from start to finish, participated fully in the event and even tagged Scarlet and opened the chest. Sometimes I get the achievement, sometimes I don’t.

So far I’ve not repeated a map, so it’s nothing to do with that.

Honestly, guys, I like to criticise where it’s due as much as anyone (account bound WXP!), but this thread is just a pointless whinefest.

Endless complaining that the game is dying isn’t helpful to anyone, us included.

If you like the game stick around and play, give your feedback and enjoy the bits you like. If you don’t then just go play something else, why come to the forums to moan at all?

Anyway I realise this isn’t a constructive conversation so I doubt there’ll be a proper conversation out of this, but I hope you all have a lovely day anyway

Shoe.5821:

it’s quoted several posts above yours :rolleyes:

The only reason given so far is quoted, yes, but most of us don’t accept it as a good reason. Someone did the maths and calculated it’d take over 6 years of fairly heavy WvW to reach the maximum title. How is that not sufficient grind for progress across an entire account?

It’s similar in scale to the PvP rank grind to 80 (which no-one has yet done, I believe) except that grind is sensibly account bound. Because it’s MASSIVE.

Character bound grinds are fine, but as long as they’re attainable across multiple alts. What happens when they add another new class, and we all dash to play that new class, except now we’re back at rank 0 in WvW? Sure I can spend 1000s of badges to buy some liquid WXP to get that char up a few ranks, but what is the advantage to the PLAYER of this system?

It’s not fun to rank up from 0 over and over and over again, whether you do it by normal play or through purchasing bottles of WXP.

tl;dr this system is advantageous to ArenaNet, but not advantageous to the player, hence all the complaints, and we’re yet to hear why we as players should be pleased that it’s character bound instead of account bound.

It’s so funny that generally my complaint about bosses in this game is that they’re too much ‘HP sponges’ where you have to pointlessly knock off a bunch of numbers for far too long (see end boss of SE1, and many many more bosses that have too much HP).

Then this invasion content arrives (which I like!) and the end boss is made of paper. Definitely need a tweak, though I hope they don’t go too far and turn Scarlet into a 10 minute HP punching bag.

Just a little upwards to give everyone another minute or two to get there would be just right.

I would love to know what the perceived ADVANTAGE is to the player for making this character bound.

Devon has said that he doesn’t view it as a punishment, and others have done a great job of explaining exactly why it feels like a punishment to those of us who enjoy playing multiple classes.

(And the maths of taking 6 years to max out each character means in only 48 years I’ll have maxed out all 8 classes!)

But saying “it’s not a punishment” isn’t the same as saying “this is a great system and let me tell you all the advantages you have because we keep it character bound” – I’d love to know what ANet think the good points – for the player – are of the system as it stands.

:(

I don’t get the response. I mean, I’m glad they realise it’s a problem, but I don’t see how this would encourage me to PLAY an alt instead of still keeping the WXP for my main. I’d love to feel like whatever character I play I’m progressing down the nearly 10,000 ranks…

Yes, of course. Would love to play my alts more in WvW but earning 1000s of levels on each one is obviously not an option!

Ursan.7846:

digiowl.9620:

Arbitrary in that it seems put into the game simply to promote this “skill”, but (for me at least) badly breaks immersion.

What.

What does the reason for long, delayed telegraph have anything to do with the fact that, some semblance of skill is required to deal with this mechanic successfully? Why it’s in there is irrelevant. It’s there, and players become more proficient at dealing with it with experience (the definition of the word skill).

Why the need to belittle this skill as arbitrary and ephemeral? Even if you don’t like it for whatever reason, it’s still a skill, and players do possess it.

Yeah. There’s no unavoidable one-shot in any fight in the Gauntlet including the final one.

I find it hard to believe you’re dying on the first boss of the first tier. It seems like you must be doing something wrong without realising it – perhaps you could post a video and we could see what’s happening?

Sure you can be 1-shot by the first boss, but it’s not something I’d expect to happen very much as it’s very easy to avoid no matter what class you play and how you play it.

Hope we can help, as I think you’ll find the Gauntlet is really really fun (and this is from someone who complained heavily about Candidate Trials as being the epitome of unfun terribly designed fights!).

Shiren.9532:

I think the plan was to encourage players to watch each other fight. This is why they aren’t instanced, they wanted you to show off your skills in front of other people. Assuming that works, revives should be easy to come by. That’s why they bothered to get a voice actor to be a kind of announcer for the spectators.

Whether or not you enjoy that is another story.

Yup it’s great when it works, but right now I’m at an arena with no-one else around so I have no choice but to run back.

Seems kinda pointless… if I just got ported back I’d still watch and chat while queueing – probably more so as I wouldn’t be running back all the time. So it’s at least taking away from the community aspect as much as it’s giving.

Not to mention there’s been a few times people just haven’t ressed me, as already mentioned.

I’m doing it now with a friend and we’re reviving each other, but it still feels like we’re succeeding despite the design: it doesn’t need to be so annoying that you need another player to make it not annoying!

Loving the fights though, but all the waiting/running makes it needlessly less fun than it should be

Is there any good reason why failure at Queen’s Gauntlet leaves you dead, with the necessity to then waypoint and then run for miles back to try again?

Would love to be returned to the Ringmaster (or for bonus points, where I started). Break my armour if you want, fine me the waypoint cost if you want – I really don’t care. Just stop making me run all the way back everytime…

Anyone else agree? Would it be possible to quickly throw this in a patch as it’d massively improve the experience of everyone going for these harder Gauntlet achievements?

Okaishi.8320:

Genotix.6804:

On the other hand we received a lot of flame and blame for things that some people don’t find “fair” according to their personal preferences.

I feel like this is aimed at me, so let me just say that I don’t think I’ve once stated that I find it unfair to golem rush. And I’ve been trying not to complain ever since my first few posts where I snapped about losing our Hills. I think I had a somewhat meaningful conversation following afterwards though, and I pointed out why I think golems are a problem for WvW in general :P

Indeed you did! This thread has been an odd mix of very reasonable (such as yourself and MarieCurie above) and unreasonable (such as a few people from both sides).

It’s weird that it blew up though, as it seems from my perspective to have been a very fun matchup – whenever I’m in game I don’t struggle to find some good fights, big attacks/defences, even the roaming has been fun

Anyway have a good day all

Agreed, skyhammer is terrible. Keep it in hotjoin.

It’d be nice to think it’s a bug, but given the history of these kinds of nerfs it seems more likely it’s been stealth nerfed

Disappointed, but not surprised.

lordkrall.7241:

Hyung.6140:

… just like the way no-one runs CoF anymore because it’s been there since the start of the game?

If something is fun (or – at least – rewarding) people will keep playing it. People don’t play Keg Brawl not because it’s permanent, but because it’s not especially fun.

How many people run CM, SE and HoW?

The only reason people are running CoF is because of the fact that it is fast rewards for little to no work.

See my point about it being fun! This arena sounds awesome, I can’t imagine it wouldn’t have at least an overflows worth (75) on both US/EU constantly even if it remained in the game for ten years.

lordkrall.7241:

^ Because if something is there permanently it is more or less abandoned a few weeks or so after release. If on the other hand it is temporary people will keep doing it before it will go away sooner or later.

… just like the way no-one runs CoF anymore because it’s been there since the start of the game?

If something is fun (or – at least – rewarding) people will keep playing it. People don’t play Keg Brawl not because it’s permanent, but because it’s not especially fun.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

- tonnes of reasonable sounding stuff-

This is all well and good, Colin, but what is the advantage to the player of this content appearing and disappearing?

(I’m talking specifically about the Gauntlet, not stuff like Halloween which is real-world seasonal too)

I can see how it’s advantageous to ArenaNet to have the ability to switch it on and off so it seems like we’re getting more new content in any given month. But what is the benefit to the playerbase?

I don’t mean to be combative so apologies if it comes off that way – I’m genuinely curious what you think we’re gaining from this approach as players.

Ursan.7846:

Hyung.6140:

How long does it take to NOT remove an area from the game?

Very involved, especially once you’ve started developing content with the design decision that it’s going to be temporary. Depending on whether content is temporary or permanent, it can be vastly different, from the perspective of things such as details for immersion or reward structure.

Take Southsun. During SoS it was incredibly populated and lively because players were motivated by the temporary nature/novelty of the new content. But now it is mostly deserted, because the area was designed for large groups of people. Its reward structure worked great as temporary content, but not as permanent content.

Stuff like designing a storyline for things that stay. The Aetherblades can’t be always attacking LA. The Zephyr sanctum already has lore that states they only dock once every while. You can’t just go and change this in the middle of development.

If you think Colin Johanson can go up to a team and tell them “Alright folks, we’re just going to keep this map permanently” without thoroughly going through all of the details, you’re vastly underestimating the effort required for game development.

I take your point about southsun, but this is a solo arena. Zero rebalancing required depending on the number of people participating. It seems very difficult to come up with a good justification for this arena being temporary. Even lore-wise:

“I, the queen, have decided to keep the arena open for the entertainment of the populace”.

Okaishi.8320:

Well, you can disregard that first comment. I’d delete it but there’s not much of a point as I’ve already been quoted twice (edit: third time below me). I should stop posting on the forums when things seriously manage to kitten me off, lol. It’s a bad habit. I commend you on your mature reply to a silly post though.

I’m just going to have to stop caring about our keeps, and go with more roaming I suppose. Trying too hard to defend stuff is not good for my blood pressure this week :P

Heh Sorry, hadn’t read ahead when I got to your comment and couldn’t resist immediately replying. I suspect I’m not the last to do so.

Ah well, no harm done, and we all know the frustrating feeling and the desire to sound off. Genuinely hope you catch a better time this matchup

Okaishi.8320:

I seriously hope this is the last time we face GH. Bandwagon server that can only golem rush, it’s killing so much of the fun.

Aw. Been in WvW most of the day without touching or seeing a golem, maybe you’re just looking in the wrong place?

Hope you have more fun tomorrow, and sorry some guilds found us an attractive place to move since we last fought.

Karril Daltaya.4980:

I too am shocked that they made this only to be temporary. Especially with how difficult it is and how many achievements it has for it alone.

I cannot agree with this enough. Please just leave it in with all the achievements. Seriously, what is the harm? If it’s deserted in twelve months remove it then!

Ursan.7846:

What, do people expect one-month development cycles or something?

Colin’s blog post was posted about 2 weeks ago. He started talking about permanent content during Secret of Southsun, which was only 2 month ago. We know the Living Story arcs take 4 months to develop. Why are people expecting such fast development cycles, again?

How long does it take to NOT remove an area from the game?

skullmount.1758:

Sardonia.8196:

Hyung.6140:

Yep, if the gauntlet is truly temporary then that’s an awful decision.

Super-hard achievements (yay) for a short period of time (boo) that only SIX people can attempt at a time (what the actual what) is an unholy poor combination!

I hope they see sense on this and just make it permanent – solving all the problems at a stroke.

(to the person coming after who wants to post “but how can you complain about a patch that isn’t even out yet” – it’s because we’ve been through this loop of needless temporary content before and this is criticism that doesn’t require playing the gauntlet first, for obvious reasons :p)

You forgot to add that you also need a ticket to participate in the gauntlet

Yeah, you forgot the other time limiting part.

Lol, indeed. It’s all straight out of the Factory of Terrible Ideas, indeed.

On the plus side they’ve managed to make something sound less appealing than Candidate Trials which is quite a feat given the freshness of that particular disappointment.

Agreed with the consensus here. We’re sick of temporary content, particularly challenging stuff that we’re all crying out for!

Yep, if the gauntlet is truly temporary then that’s an awful decision.

Super-hard achievements (yay) for a short period of time (boo) that only SIX people can attempt at a time (what the actual what) is an unholy poor combination!

I hope they see sense on this and just make it permanent – solving all the problems at a stroke.

(to the person coming after who wants to post “but how can you complain about a patch that isn’t even out yet” – it’s because we’ve been through this loop of needless temporary content before and this is criticism that doesn’t require playing the gauntlet first, for obvious reasons :p)

Charak.9761:

I don’t understand colin’s logic on ‘Party members need to communicate’ when the game is based on purely DPS (no tank/heal), this means everyone needs to wear zerker, and everyone just focus 1 and aoe the rest.

Are you not paying attention?

Everyone going zerker and bursting down plunderers then hiding till they next spawn is the very epitome of skill and the awesome challenging content we’ve all been asking for…

;p

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Don`t QQ guys, its possible to do it solo, i did it two times – one for Evon and one for Kiel. It`s difficult, but not impossible.
Everyone is complaining about the game because its too easy, and every time ArenaNet comes up with something challenging, the people start to complain again.

In the main people aren’t complaining that it’s not possible. Obviously the fact some of us have done it shows it’s possible.

People are complaining that it’s unfair, luck-based, relies on exploitation rather than playing it the way it was apparently designed (does anyone actually use the grenades etc?!), and not very fun.

It’s possible to create challenging content that is fair and fun (see the achievements for, say, Aetherblade retreat) but this is just bad design.

As far as I can see those defending it are either people who want to feel superior to those who haven’t (for whatever reason), or people attacking a strawman argument that it isn’t possible.

Very few people are defending it saying “this is fun, well-designed and awesome, let’s have a constant stream of new content just like this”, which in itself is pretty telling.

I don’t meant this aggressively btw, so apologies if it comes off that way. Just intend to voice an opinion as part of a friendly discussion!

Would be really interested to see if all the people claiming T4 completion is evidence of some higher tier of skill did it any other way than this, or if they just have a higher tolerance for exploiting content where the way to win is to not aggro any mobs that can hit you!

Martin Kerstein.3071:

-lots of text-

I have to agree with everyone else commenting since your post:

I love challenging content.

I love working with a small co-ordinated & skilled team over voice chat, and facing difficulties that force us to change our builds and think through tactics.

Despite this, I hate Candidate Trials.

It mistakes scaling for difficulty, and at no point does it ever threaten to be fun (a word that was sadly missing from your list of concerns :p).

I’m not claiming it’s impossible, but I think it’s fair to describe it as unfair, luck-based, favouring dull zerker builds and exploitation of mechanics, and unfun.

Not to mention the bizarre decision to put the achievement in for it twice!

Anyway, most of the rest of the game is fantastic. This is awful, I’m sorry to say.

Am I right in thinking that FoW have never once placed first in a matchup since release? Would be fantastic if they could pull it off just before the anniversary! Go FoW!

(no offence to the other two servers, just makes for a cool story if they finally do it)

Tricky one this. Personally I’ve not come across this exact behaviour from guilds, though it doesn’t surprise me that it happens.

I’m not sure what discussion you’d like to have though. Obviously pretty much everyone is going to agree that the guilds in question should have handled it differently and that you should probably speak to the leaders of those guilds if you have a problem with them.

The only time I’ve been on a server with an obnoxious guild on it I used to just switch maps or ignore them when they zoned in. It’s kind of annoying if you have to do that, but that’s the nature of MMOs.

Luckily GW2 seems to have a low ratio of this kind of player compared to most other games (though not sure how true that is in the higher tiers!) so if you need to calm down I suggest you go play a few games of LoL or something then you’ll feel much better about the WvW community

The bigger point that’s not been touched on in this thread is that even though this is possible for some players, it’s fun for hardly any.

I haven’t seen a single bit of feedback on the lines of “thanks Anet for Candidate Trials – it’s so fun!”. Just relief and smugness from some who’ve done it, and stress and pressure from those who haven’t.

These really aren’t the emotions you want your videogame to provoke in your community.

I couldn’t agree more with this. Both of these are huge problems – I hate that so much WxP feels ‘wasted’ because it’s on the wrong character. And there’s literally no reason to make respecs impossible.

Even making it hard is unnecessary. Just make it purchasable from the Trait master for 5s a time like a normal respec, it’s not like it’s some completely overpowered ability.

In short: OP is 100% correct, and I hope Anet listen.