Guild Wars 2

I read the first 20 or so posts in the below thread, nodding my head with the points made before noticing it was 1yr old and had just been bumped. Particularly regarding the topics of limitations of things to do once the outer shine and novelty wears off.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Just-bought-GW2-1/first

With this in mind, this is my set of concerns and predictions for one year from now:

1. The dungeon experience and emphasis on it will be no better than it is now
2. The amount of people logging in daily will be lower than it is today.
3. Necros will still be undesired in dungeons
4. Stacking will still be the meta for dungeon running
5. There will be a continuation of the philosophy of creating easy loot train farm content
6. Fractal rewards system will not have been addressed
7. They will still be trying to force people into Fractals via Dailies
8. The most prestigous, desired and visually appealing items will still be gated behind gold and grind rather than skill and conquering difficult content
9. Mindlessly farming gold though easy content will still be the main endgame for established level 80’s in PVE gametype
10. There will still be regular threads created on the forums about condition damage and the zerk meta
11. Anet will still be dreaming of PVP esports but will have made no significant progress in this area
12. WvW will still be full of hackers, the reporting of which does nothing
13. GW2 Subreddit will still be a full on circlejerk regarding which topics get up and down voted
14. Anet will have introducied further new reasons for people to grind the same content in order to keep them in the game
15. Every Anet Dev interview and press release will continue to somewhere include the word ‘exciting’
16. GW2 PVE will still be a beautifully wrapped empty box

This list of concerns highlights areas where the community feels things in the game or its development can be improved. As such, it details various recurring topics on the forum in a concise manner. I and many others would be very happy for these concerns regarding the current status and future of the game to be addressed and resolved. That the future is better.

Yours sincerely

A Guild Wars 2 player

The general idea of cosmetic and horizontal progression is a good one and no reason why it can’t fundamentally work. But the core problems are the dependence on gold for progression and distinction, and the tendency for Anet to deliver loot train, easy mode content that asks nothing of players while being highly economically rewarding. Those things would make for uninteresting gameplay no matter the structure.

The positive outlook is that changing the overall reward structures would go a long way to improving how people approach and think of their play time, without even altering the content available. It’s an achievable thing for Anet. For instance, They try to lure people into Fractals via the Daily system. Instead, make the rewards for Fractals much more appealing and prestigous in some form and suddenly more people will entertain the idea of playing them.

Ok, so lets say i have all the legendaries i desire and i don’t care about gliding. Now what? I’m just not seeing the massive amount of entertainment and horizontal progression this system is going to produce.

The Legendary grind is still gonna be a big effort and require wealth. Because if it suddenly becomes a lot easier, it will create a lot of unhappy existing owners, following the same principal by which the GWAMM HoM bug did. So Anet won’t do that.

This point has been mentioned b4.

The way to think of it as as an instruction to your terrified enemies

This game set out to do something new. Fundamentally, are you sated by the current range of activities and pursuits available at level 80? Aka thePVE Endgame.

GW2 Philosophy no.1
Progression is heavily cosmetic, there is no gear grind or gear gating in order to access content (except Fractals).

Downside Result
No need to keep adding dungeons that contain higher level gear. Very little emphasis on Dungeons since launch or addition of new ones.

Players grind gold in order to pay for cosmetic items. Various forms of progression or distinction for players is tied to wealth. The most desirable items are not linked to player skill level or locked behind difficult content. Players therefore engage in farming gold to the extent that various strong anti-farming measures have had to be implimented.

Ideas such as the recent Collections introduce additional goals for completionist personalities and the wealthy without addressing the matter of content for people to play.

GW2 Philosophy no.2
The revolutionary Living World will have a big part in keeping players engaged and entertained

Downside Result
Temporary nature of the content means that new players miss out on prior meaningful moments and understanding of the story. Content is created then removed, inefficient use of design resources.

Silverwastes has some interesting new mechanics but it’s become a loot train and afk’ers zone. Zones like Drytop and SW arrive with novelty value but ultimately lack the depth and challenge that will keep players engaged for significant amounts of time.

I would personally like to see a greater direction towards instanced content rather than these big playbox maps as the future. And to make events like Teq and TT instanced raid type events. And more 5 man dungeons, but better ones in which its impossible to skip any encounter and are overall more engaging and immersive.

But how about you. How good a job do you think Anet have made when it comes to providing players with endgame entertainment? The entertainment and satisfaction value of what you spend most of your time doing in the game as a lvl 80 in PVE. And the provision of goals there for you.

And what, if anything, do you think Anet should be trying to do that they aren’t already in this regard?

Minandreas.7853:

Didn’t read over everything but I have to say for the love of god yes to a trait loadout system. I adore that my PvP setup is saved separately from my PvE. But we really desperately need to be able to save trait and skill setups somewhere to swap between conveniently. The build I run WvW is far different from that which I run doing Silver Wastes, which is far different from that which I run while harvesting mats in lower level zones, etc. And that’s not taking in to account simply enjoying switching it up. Wanting to play DD instead of SF just because.

I seriously want a button to press to swap between loadouts.

This is one of the most requested features and rightly so.

For all we might point out its floors flaws, GW2 is a very good game that does a lot of things right. But the current payment model comes with restrictions on how Anet can operate and what they have to prioritize.

If GW2 went subscription based, do you think it would grow or struggle?

Biggest issue you have is the existence of invisible walls.

Lucky you

Yup, the old Dailies were much better for a PVE player. This new system blows. Whereas PVP or WvW players are left absolutely fine with the dailies they get as targets.

If you are newish, i would avoid the Elementalist.

So Guardian.

Unforgiven Azrael.6203:

It would be nice to get unique skins from the collections, but that would mean Anet would have to add new skins into the game that they cant make money on from the gem store

It all comes back to this time vs financial rewards for them. Tying unique costumes to collections is an excellent idea. And it will never happen.

Edit: unless you pay gems to unlock the collection or something like that

The answer that grates me is when people say the idea of dailies is to push people to do things they don’t want to do.

To which i answer, then why is Vista viewing in starter zones in there?. What is the merit in that action. And don’t start with the ‘it helps populate lower maps’ garbage. Any new player will learn how to view a vista within an hour of play, with or without the daily system.

I believe the PVE Daily should work with the players, not against them. Like how it does in PVP. If certain content is unpopular, Anet need to look at and address why that is.

Anet increasingly like their 75% sales. It’s led me to list some statements below. I would be interested to hear the extent to which you guys agree or disagree with any of them.

1. New players spend real life money in the Gemstore. Veteran players much less so.

2. Stuff in the game that veteran players would like to see change is not profitable to address so doesnt matter very much. They dont spend real life money anymore and will continue to stay around regardless of irks or unfulfilled wishlists because they have already got this far.

3. Due to the lack of subscription, the most important thing for GW2 financial prosperity is to continually attract and cater to new players.

4. Retaining and appeasing veteran players is less important in this business model than in games that have a monthly subscription.

5. Anet loves new players more than anything else in the world.

Zania.8461:

One has to admit that current use of the service consumables is very unwieldy – they take up a lot of space, and can be a real pain to move around if you play multiple characters.

Exactly right! Check my post above yours.

OP, I am with you on this and have made a similar post in the past.

One thing we need is the ability to purchase an addiditional account wide bag slot where we put in items to be accessed by all our characters. Stick all the boosters and dungeon tonics in there and then that stash of items can be accessed by every character on your account.

And yes, all new currencies that come along such as Bandit Crests and old ones like Queens Gauntlet Tickets should have a place in the Account Wallet.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

I just don’t get how a lot of these weapons can be rolled out without testing how they look first from all aspects

The guy who designed the Charrzooka wasn’t interested in talking to those boring guys in the compatability Dept

The real shame is people roll an Asuran warrior, take a look at the GS clipping and say no thanks.

Then Anet look at their stats, see that there are not many Asuaran warriors and say no problem then, no need to prioritize a fix here.

They will never fix clipping issues unless you can buy the changes they make as a patch in the gemstore.

I initially posted this in another thread, but removed it as it derails the topic OP had set.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-and-the-Death-of-Small-Guilds/first#post4966407

Having read the offsite link in the above thread, I’m kinda envous of those who have other guild experiences from different games. I eventually lost sight of the purpose of being in a guild in GW2.

When advertising to run a dungeon in guild chat, most people had either already run it or didnt respond. I soon stopped asking, it was way easier (and felt safer for the successs of the run) to use the lfg. And this is guilds of around 200 total members or more.

In the end, i viewed membership solely for getting ascended trinkets through Guild missions on the weekend. Maybe i got it all wrong and have the wrong personality, but i just didnt get it. Being in guilds has overall had little impact on my engagement with the game.

Especially after megaservers when server pride or topics to do with wvw becamse a non factor. Thinking back, that was the strongest time being in a guild gave me any sense of identity or meaning in GW2. Cos no matter what, we were all Deso and could all moan about Viz together. Even tho I personally barely played WvW, i felt that identity and community. But i guess this veering to a different topic. So um, yeah.

How much do you guys feel that Guilds are a significant thing in peoples play and enjoyment of GW2? To me, it seems that they are primarily there because MMO convention says they should be. And little reason beyond that.

As others say, it is near on certainy that an inadequate PSU is the problem here.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s a matter of cost/time of fixing versus necessity of fixing, and the necessity is near zilch.

I don’t agree regarding the zero neccessity on this topic. All this kinda stuff adds up to make up the experience and happiness levels. Players feeling miffed about something is important. It’s not like it will take a large design team months of work to change it.

And why aren’t Daily ‘regular’ dungeons rotated in there too? CM, COE etc. We jump from harvesting copper to running Fracatals and miss out the content in betweeen.

The Daily system is a bit of a fudge.

Hate is a strong word. However, i have grown to find a lot of gameplay increasingly uninteresting and repetetive. To the extent that i uninstalled the game a couple days ago and plan to take a solid break. I couldnt answer the question of where i was having fun or what my goals were for repeating the same things over and over.

Mentioning the graphical aesthetics or the natire of the heart quests doesnt make any of my current feelings on various topics less so. Nor will they for anyone who feels similarly.

None of us hate GW2, even when we stop playing it.

Miku.6297:

You state that the game has a large casual culture. If that’s the case then there is no need for a tool that promotes exclusion and elitism in team comp. The only people who would have use for this would be the people looking to exclude others based on class/gear/ap. I’m not seeing how that benefits the majority of people.

To be honest, with the sky high amount of AP and bling I see many people have, I’m not suree about the extent to which this game is casual or how we even define that word. But i just went along with the idea of it.

If you believe your statement, then all the earlier people that are doomsdaying about the end of necros and rangers in dungeon parties are wrong. Which is how I feel about their predicitions too. So we have that as common ground.

I think this tool would benefit a lot of people and open up new avenues for dungeon running without closing any. I imagine a significant amount of people who run dungeons frequently would find interest in using it.

I know the argument about the limits of AP. Still I find it useful because it sets the tone about the culture of the run and so attracts certain people and warns others off, if nothing more. Similar with writing Zerk. I’d rather have an 11k Ele than a 2k Ele even though we all understand it’s not a foolproof measure.

And when i say ‘shopping list’, i mean a very long and nuanced lfg post.

When i look at the LFG listings, i see people looking for a specific composition. Not falling over themsleves to express how much they dont want Rangers or Necros. Go in game and take a look for a random snapshot. It’s not the stereotype you have in your heads.

Typically a group of 4 ppl sitting with an LFG that reads, ‘LF 1 guard’ or ‘Ele only’, or ‘1 Thief!’ They are trying to achieve a specific composition to tackle the content.
And to get there they maybe initally had to write a shopping list of an lfg and then edit and relist it as people join, which makes forming a group a chore. Did i mention that if you continually edit and list your lfg, you can suppressed for spamming and can no longer list your LFG. Inspired mechanic. Also the LFG tool can bug out when someone joins and leaves. All part of the fun of the current system.

Besides that, I think you guys are doing the bulk of the players in this game a disservice. This game has a largely casual culture, they don’t have the outlook you are projecting onto them and wouldn’t respond to a filter in the way you predict. Instead, it would be a helpful tool.

At the moment we have to write full length foolproof shopping lists. If not

Full run 5k, war/ele/guard = 4 PS warriors join (Hi, Hi ,Hi ,Hi. Huh, whats the problem? Nah bro, we’ll be fine. It’s the party leaders fault for not editing LFG quick enough in response to each join)
Full run 5k, war/ele/guard* = a level 73 joins (your fault, you didn’t ‘shopping list’ and write level 80)
Full run 5k, war/ele/guard = Engi joins (Engi leaves. OR.. Player 1 votes to kick. Player 2 votes to kick. Player 3 types ‘why?’ into party chat……..)
Full run 5k, war/ele/guard = 300 AP Ele joins (can happen no matter what)

By the time we step foot into the Dungeon, the guy who created and administered the LFG shouldn’t already be feeling exhausted.

This tool will not alter class perceptions. It will not change the many people who are currently happy to party with anyone. But it will help those looking to create specific compostitons. And that is fine.

And if it had an AP filter too so no one who joined ever had to be kicked Before starting the run, that would be perfect.

The only title i respect seeing is Dungeoneer (I didnt play GW1 so dont appreciate the titles). Dungeoneer doesn’t sound awesome compared with say ‘The Annihilator’ but it means so much more.

I agree with previous comments on Dungeon Master really not counting for much. I interpret someone wearing it as saying the feel confident about all Dungeons because if i had that title, i still wouldnt wear it if I didn’t feel so. But that’s just my outlook. Inherently, it’s not an impressive title.

As for my titles, i’ve tended to use whichever phrase i like the sound of rather than making a statement about my in game play. If i want to try and look accomplished, I’ll use Wurms Bane, I consider that about the best I have.

Most titles are too easy to acquire to carry much meaning.

Harper.4173:

Azrael.4960:

So you want a function to enable even more profession discrimination than is already present in the game. No thanks.

I agree. I’d rather have people that aren’t the right class join just so I can kick them and keep searching. That’s a much better way to go about it.

Whats the ultimate difference, how is it better? You are writing a detailed lfg that people may or may not read and then having to continually kick people. That is more of a hassle. Why would you prefer that experience?

Other players are not benefitting from joining and then being kicked (your method) as opposed to not being able to join in the first place.

Miku.6297:

Kedarrian to answer your points..

You didn’t really address people joining your group and instantly switching classes.

If someone were to do that, everyone in the party would think lowly on it and they’d be kicked. As is easy to imagine. But i don’t see that people would consider it worthwile attempting as opposed to joining a regular group. Not expect such a switch to be tolerated.

OP here, i see my thread has returned to the front.

1. Firstly, to all the many posts in here about class ‘x’ and ‘y’ being resultingly excluded.

Now basically, it reads as there is little problem because the overwhelming majority of you sound very open to including all classes in your groups and don’t have a discriminating perspective. Now the idea is that ‘other’ people do, but you are effectively the other people, if you follow me. And it sounds like you are inclusivly minded. Unless you yoursleves would seek to exlude class x and y?

2. This is not essentially about that idea of excluding one or two classes. It’s about having complete control of your LFG class composition. Yesterday i ran a dungeon with 3 Ele’s (me being one of them), 1 war and 1 guard. We ruled and i found it a lot of fun and a learning experience, having never ran with that composition before. I currently love magic casting, i think it looks way cooler than anything else and my warrior is now sits out of favour. So yes, I want have this control over my own LFG.

To be able to click on the icon for class ‘x’ 2 times, class ‘y’ once, class ‘z’ once. And see how our run goes. Rather than it being what it is now. And if im willing to wait for it to fill, then fine. That’s on me and my time.

One of the most interesting things is trying and experiencing new things and compositions. This will open up that option in a better way. To play the content how you want to engage it.

If they made Chests affected by Magic find, that’d be fine.

Current situation feels like a con.

Now, there was no need to censor that image. I suggest an uncensoring.

When creating an LFG listing, we should be able to set which classes can join our party and which can’t. An optional extra box, where you click the icon of which classes can join.

If someone isn’t of that class, then the lfg listing is greyed out and they cant join. It would be easier than having to write out a large text, one which people sometimes fail to take the time to hover over and read. Currently, people can join who didn’t care enough to read the lfg or willfully ignored it. Or simply didn’t understand it, which all gives pretty much the same result and turns forming a group into an ordeal.

This change will help pug groups who have a specific compostion in mind to tackle certain content. And as ever, people WILL remain free to join a whole raft of alternative partiues or create their own parties in which they permit any composition they like

It’s very fair that when you create a party, you should be able to have a say, if you want one, on which classes can join. And for it to be a much simpler, smoother, no hassle process.

To borrorw the phrase from that guy in the audience.

There is a consistent repetition of threads that in some way or another address the two topics of condition damage and the zerker meta.

While they remain legitimate points, are these essentially grumbles or is PVE actually regarded as being broken as a result?

The way I see it, it’s whatever the players think it is. So if the playerbase considers something is broken, then that means it is. So, is PVE broken?

Hmm, I’m one of those who has not experienced this problem. I wonder what it is that makes u guys get it. Must be something in common.

Yes, well, adolescent males make up a big part of the videogame market. So there it is. GW2 is comparatively good.

Maybe someone will create a game where you have to be a 40yrs+ female to possess an account?

Those markers would be a good idea. Becasue health % determines both the effectiveness of certain attacks and traits plus AI attack behaviour. I want to be able to see the difference between e.g. 53% and 48% health reliably and accurately.

Anet created this need when they tied loads of traits to health %. Infact, instead of havimg set markers, they should just have the percentage written in the hp bar. Removes the need for any estimating.

This Fractal topic has been talked about before. As someone previously stated, Anet should tie the skin rewards to collecting Fractal tokens, as they do with standard dungeons.

Of course, if everyone chooses the one or two most desired skins, they become more prevalent and less prestigious. But i think that’s an alternative people would be happy with.

kitten. Thanks for the reply. Yea, I waited at the chest while the rest teleported, to prevent that bug. And then when tzark wasnt there, I wandered back down the hall to find him.

That is sad new. Cos this is one annoying bug and i don’t see how to prevent it as i did that section while being very mindful of the risks. Of which, i didn’t see any. And it still bugged.

Just had Tzark bug out again in that final Hall. We ran as a compact group when killing the burrows and did nothing to ptompt him bugging as far as i can see.

He didn’t even get killed. Just standing to the side mid way down the Hall, stationary and inactive.

Just searching Tzark in this bugs forum brings up numerous threads on this. What gives, has there ever been feedback from Anet that they are aware of this longstanding bug? Cos it’s kinda a big deal, not being able to complete the dungeon having cleared everything but the final boss.

This bug only occurs if the game considers your party contibution was sub par.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Oldest-bugs-Why

After reading this post, it’s sad if this is not anywhere on their list of priorities. Seems like AC npc bugs are nothing new.

Hi, thanks. My memory is that we did run togther, opposed to one being significantly behind or ahead. Incidentally i’ve seen a split party often work fine.

While my party did waypoint after the chest, I stayed, making sure all dialogue available to be heard was iniated. Because I knew from experience how an issue can be caused at that stage. But it had no positive effect because Tzark wasn’t there, he was lying dead near the first burrow. And when i found him and rezzed him, he didn’t move. Game over.

The guy likes to bug out in the large hall with the graveling burrows.

Our party destroyed the burrows, Grast did his dialogue butt there is no Tzark. I run back and see died in the hall. I rez him and he stays on the spot rather than moving towards the chest at end. He never started his dialogue to blast kitten through the wall. We didn’t do anything wrong to make this occur. The result was we couldn’t reach the final boss and complete the dungeon.

I’ve seen this happen more than once now. The chance of it bugging out is now turning into part of the decision of whether to run AC p3. And that shouldn’t be the case.

rhapsody.3615:

I think it’s great to have some game mode specific rewards. If you want the llama, start doing PvP.

As with titles, it good that is expresses something specific about the owner. A good rewad system.

I like OP’s line of thinking.

If Anet took average price cost via looting BL chests and made it a single purchase, people would balk at a single weapon skin costing thousands of gems.

This current way, the skin appears rare rather than overpriced.

No one should get to keep titles they acquired due to a bug. I imagine we are all agreed on that.

mtpelion.4562:

Actually, it is exactly egotistic to hope that it gets cleared. Your sense of accomplishment (part of the ego) is being harmed and your ego’s desire to maintain it’s self worth is causing you to desire the perceived slight to be reverted.

Yeah, and what is wrong with that principal? The idea with titles is that they are a distinction, a declaration of accomplishment. Whether he calls that element ego or some other term is not the issue. It’s a valid concern that people who have worked hard for rare titles don’t wish to later see them handed out for free in error. And semantics aside, we all know it.

I’m enjoying the extra vocalizations after the patch. They are giving levelling more spice. For instance, I know I was never going to create a female human engineer, so hearing those range of vocalizations is no bad thing. So long as it gets fixed eventually.