Guild Wars 2

Well to be more accurate, condition removals are flawed – there are far too many of them! (in my opinion)

Physical spike damage is still a much more viable and reliable method of defeating an opponent (particularly in PvP) because killing a player quickly while they have little or no time to react is all too easy, and physical damage cannot be “removed”. Sure a couple hits can be negated here and there via dodge, block or blind , but this is very circumstantial and highly dependant on skill and timing, relative to clicking a heal or utility, or waiting for a trait, sigil, rune or signet to proc to remove your conditions.

So what could be done to fix this?

Increase the overall effectiveness of the condition damage stat? Not really, in theory condition damage is fairly decent as it is, provided it is left to tick through its entirity. Plus this still doesn’t tackle of core issue.

Lessen the number of ways to remove conditions? Possibly but this would require an entire rework of the skills and traits, and lessen the diversity of play.

So the practical method would be to alter the “way” in which conditions are removed or the “way” in which condition damage is dealt (or a mixture of both).

Here are a few examples:

1) Make DoT’s “early end heavy”. By this I mean that they still deal the same overall damage, but the majority of that damage is dealt at the start, diminishing with each tick. So instead of a bleed ticking 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, it could instead tick 166, 133, 100, 67, 34. I don’t need to explain how this would benefit a condi build vs condi removals.

2) Make all conditions deal some damage (i.e. cripple, chill, blind etc) could help sustain that pressure. The damage may only need to be minimal for these types of conditions because damage isn’t there primary function, but enough to keep the enemy hurting even when the primary DoT’s are removed. Plus who can say it wouldn’t hurt to be crippled in combat?

3) Make condi removals remove a number of stacks, rather than the entire effect (starting from the freshest stack). This could be a random condition or a specific one depending on the skill or trait etc. “Stop, drop and roll” for example could remove 2 or 3 “stacks” of burn. Another could remove 5 stacks of bleeding. A general condi cleanse could pick condi’s at random. The number of stacks removed could then even be linked to a players healing power. Maybe there are technical complications with this one such as tracking the individual stacks though.

4) Separate conditions into two categories, “conditions and afflictions”. Conditions being your cripple, chill, blind etc, afflictions being DoT’s. This will make it easier to limit the number of stacks removed from either category. For example, “Consume Conditions” might remove up to 3 “conditions” and up to 10 “affliction” stacks.

Of course these are examples and a starting point on which to better craft a condition system, elements can be mixed and matched from the above or something else implimented entirely. But I for one would like to see some real attention paid to conditions. The recent changes were a step in the right direction but I still believe it needs work.

- Players can freely join and leave a team before a match starts
- Once a match has started, active players are charged a fee (let’s say 50 silver) when reverting back to spectation mode, or when leaving a match entirely
- Spectators are not charged to leave a match
- Active players are not charged to leave a match once a team has won

This will encourage players to commit to a game and to a team once chosen.

To avoid abuse by unwilling players going AFK during a match, team members can vote to have a player kicked.

“So… that special thing about GW2, namely that the world is constantly in flux and changing with time pertinent content you would like to change so that the world is always the same and nothing has a sense of urgency because those events would give you something to do because the 10 dungeons with 3 variations each, 50 levels of fractals with various hard modes, WvW maps, Edge of the Mists Maps, and SPvP not to mention a world that is consistently updating and changing isn’t enough content for you?”

No, what I want is exactly as stated in the original post, a way to relive the story/content of the living world and acquire the achievements and skins I missed either because A) I’m a new player and those events happened before I started playing or I was around during those events but being a casual player did not have the time to accomplish it all on top of typical daily activities.

Making previous content accessible in a limited form does not mean the world does not continue to change. Core players will likely have already accomplished most of what those previous events had to offer and so they will always be seeking the next big thing.

To say that making previous living world events replayable would diminish the urgency of the present story is no different to saying the 10 dungeons with 3 variations each, 50 levels of fractals with various hard modes, WvW maps, Edge of the Mists Maps, and SPvP would diminish it – it is all simply alternative content to enjoy to keep you entertained.

I don’t believe Anet should purposefully reduce or control the amount of playable content in the game for the sake of making the available content more populated or urgent feeling, especially not with the megaserver implementation, as it would hardly be noticeable in most cases. The more content the better in my opinion, and since it has already been developed, why waste it.

Bare in mind of course that it is only a beta time machine and will not take you back to the events exactly as they happened, nor to the same scale or magnitude – but rather a distorted reality where the events can be experienced to a lesser degree within smaller, concentrated instances. Here the story can still be told and all rewards and achievements obtainable.

The Asura have been working on a beta time travel machine with the aim of allowing Tyrians to revisit and relive monumental moments in history. Now the Dragon Bash and Mad King are just a bizarre contraption away.

You get the point. This suggestion will allow new and old players alike to revisit and enjoy all the previous “temporary” content introduced to the game via “time travel” instances; complete those missed achievements, unlock those unique skins to complete their collection, and above all, increasingly more content to enjoy forever more. Let not that content be lost in history.