Guild Wars 2

All brown-nosing aside (you do realize you’re not going to get anything extra for it?), the functionality is horrible. Everything is segregated into pinched-in areas, bank/TP/vendor less accessible and a new extra loading screen or longer walk was added to get from lobby spawn point to LA portal. Sparring NPC’s are totally worthless now to test specific things you may want to test on a specific class. What was wrong with the previous lobby? How is going from wide open areas to cramped spaces an improvement? This was really at the top of the list of priorities? What complaints were addressed by this lobby change? Baffling.

“Can We Be Done With Pip Talk?”

No. Does that answer your question?

ANet’s answer to WvW woes was to dump pips and fools on it. Thank your nearest dev today!!!

100% repeatable at this spot on the Harathi map. Have any facet(s) active, walk a few steps into the cave, facets deactivate by themselves.

Solo farming was some of the best content in GW1. It was semi-casual and took some skill. Different areas provided different levels of skill/rewards to play in. Nothing similar was provided in GW2 because of the push to be “social” that not everybody always wants.

However, GW2 dungeons evolved to fill a similar niche. The bonus chests were a great idea because they took away much of the drive to endlessly repeat and made a nice system where I could do 2 different paths or 10 different paths daily depending on what I felt like, then move on and always feel adequately rewarded.

Dungeons can be speed run, they can be YOLO run, they can be “kill everything” run. Dungeons can be run meta, simply 80’s only, laid back, teaching, learning all by simply stating what you are looking for in a LFG. They can be run with great friends in a raucous social way, with pugs being talkative, or silent like running with personal NPC’s.

Dungeons have varying lengths and varying roles for professions. Dungeons max requirement is lvl 80 and a set of exotic armor that can be reasonably earned through dungeon tokens. Dungeons perfectly fill a semi-casual, some skill required, niche.

Fractals are too short by themselves and too long for a full fractal run. Rewards feel paltry. Worthwhile rewards are only available to people that decide to dedicate themselves to higher level Fractals. Fractals are higher difficulty than dungeons, especially to get decent rewards. Fractals DO NOT fill a semi-casual, some skill required, niche.

Silverwastes is mind numbingly boring mash 1 or afk farming. It provides a farm only for the sake of farming. Silverwastes farming is casual, low skill. Silverwastes DOES NOT fill a semi-casual, some skill required, niche.

So ANet… WHY do you want to dis-incentivize (i.e. kill) the best semi-casual, some skill required, outlet in GW2?

Imagined Burden in Domination Specialization disables the knockback of GS Illusionary Wave skill. Even though the tooltip still says “Knockback: 450” with Imagined Burden active, when Illusionary Wave is used the NPC foe gets interrupted but most of the time (roughly 90%) there is no knockback. Haven’t tried it out in PvP or WvW.

When I change the trait to something other than Imagined Burden, the predictable knockback of Illusionary Wave returns to normal.

Yes, I just re-max’d my Thief’s trait lines and now all the Skills are unlocked without doing anything further. It is confusing, but I see what they did now.

OOPS… it is the “Core Skills” and “Core Specializations” that you unlock. Seems clear now, was just confusing at first. The “Core Skills” is what unlocked all the Skills. duh >.<

I have 10 lvl 80s and checked them all. Anywhere from 5-10 previously unlocked skills are locked on each character now. This includes skills I use very frequently such as Wall of Reflection on my Guardian and Signet of Agility on my thief (used both just yesterday).

Other guildees confirm they have many skills that they know were previously unlocked are now locked.

Has ANet stated anywhere that they are working on this? I can’t find it anywhere. How much does it take to make a simple statement that they acknowledge it and are working on it?

They immediately Tweeted the golem problem. Looks to me like they are throwing the middle finger at the people that can no longer play the game because of the FPS issues they caused.

Tried a dungeon path, getting worse performance than I used to get in a WvW blob v blob encounter. Intel i3-3220 CPU @ 3.30GHz, 4GB RAM, and Radeon HD 7470. Dipping down to single digits FPS in a dungeon fight. The game is UNPLAYABLE -.-

My system normally gets 50-60 and now seeing 20-30 with Camera at Default and “Best Performance” setting. This is definitely a problem.

Other thread on this same topic:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/fps-drop-after-patch-3

coglin.1867:

What do we do to tend to trolls or spies who are burning supplies by building rams in the middle of no where near supply locations?

There is a line in the Tos/Eula/Tos or somewhere that states it is a violation to degrade the experience for other players (close guess paraphrasing here.) How do we draw attention to this?

When I played games like EQOA, they had a tab in the report/bug panel for this and GMs showed up very very quickly. It was also made well known that you could be very easily suspended for false reports, to limit that.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

BTW… Rams in weird places does not autmatically indicate somebody trying to sabotage the server. A ram can provide Iron Hide, Fear, KD, and damage whether it is in front of a gate, or not. A ram can also be used to shield other siege. Not conventional, maybe controversial, but not necessarily sabotage.

Another +1 kudos for the red posts! It is a huge relief to finally get confirmation that things are being actively addressed!

Sokia.3710:

King Slacker.1843:

I think the fundamental issue is ANet went 100% after new player metrics with blinders on. They completely ignored retaining current players. No common sense was applied.

I can’t argue with that.

I think if Anet doesn’t fix their fundamental issues, the game is doomed anyways. This strategy was doomed to fail from the beginning.

No. The game had a lot going for it a launch, especially after several months after they had reduced the number of horrendous bugs that were in the launch version. It’s not that Anet’s strategy was doomed from the beginning. It’s that their strategy failed from poor planning or implementation, in this case both.

Arenanet seemed to want to do a lot with the Living Story, but it’s still hardly picking up steam even after limping along so many times in the past. Either through poor writing or poor execution, LS has just failed to interest people with the exception of particular patches which were particularly interesting or (more often than not) had in-game rewards or mechanics which were worth playing while they were there. Even now, the revamped questing UI and the story achievement system have done more for Living Story than the actual STORY.

Living Story wasn’t inherently doomed. It just didn’t live up to the goals at some part of the process, and the whole story suffered as a result since it never really recovered from its shortfalls.

This recent patch is different. Rather than failing to branch out into a new area that Anet’s been dreaming of, they are changing the existing game that we are already playing into one that many players including myself find less fun. This is why you see so much backlash. If something like Living Story, Super Adventure Box, or some similar project fails: it only really affects that project and players who were interested in that content. Other players only complain because that time and resources could have been spent on something else. But when you go and change the entire leveling system and it fails and it’s a buggy unbalanced mess, that affects everyone who is not exclusively playing level 80 content. It’s not one of those “Oh I don’t like to fix sign posts, this patch sucks” kind of problems. It is a larger and more pressing issue that affects more players in more ways. It doesn’t help that a lot of these changes are unpopular in the first place….

The strategy I was referring to there was specifically the Feature Pack. I didn’t mean from the beginning. I have 9 alts at lvl 80 (working on 10th) and loved the game up until the trait system got messed wth. The trait system mess dampened my enthusiasm and compounded with the “Feature Pack” is now making me really look forward to DA:Inquisition.

I think the fundamental issue is ANet went 100% after new player metrics with blinders on. They completely ignored retaining current players. No common sense was applied. ANet implemented changes anywhere they saw a blip uptick from focus groups with new players and players that don’t like the game anyways. They made a mad dash after it without any contemplation of the effects on the current devoted user base.

I think if Anet doesn’t fix their fundamental issues, the game is doomed anyways. This strategy was doomed to fail from the beginning. They need to make systemic organizational changes to rescue GW2.

There were ~50 pages of complaints over 4+ months about the new horrible trait acquisition system. No significant fix is in sight. The problems with the Feature Pack just compound the idea that ANet has fundamental issues. It makes me sad. I loved GW2 the way it was before the new trait system. I am falling out of love with GW2. Like it or not, new players see the fallout with the vets.

Shadow Blade.1324:

There was a time when the dye system was very different and at that time dye unlocks were account based, but we have since changed the dyes system and we really feel that character based is the right way to go and the system we have now is the best one for the game.

Customized dye should be something that denotes your characters progress, like better looking, more elaborate gear. As you spend more time on your character, they grow and gain access to more customization options. If we make dyes account based, this progression will only happen on one character. We wanted character customization to remain tied to the character but we felt that one-time-use dyes discouraged players from customizing as often as they would like, that is how we arrived at the current system.

There are 400 dyes in the game, we do not think of dyes as something that a character should unlock all of, it is not meant to be a collection feature. Each character should have a unique palette and we have made enough colors to make this possible. Dyes come from world drops, rewards, crafting, the Mystic Forge, and the Gem Store and we expect that over the life of a character you will collect a lot of them.

you may have deleted the posts but the internet always has copies

why are you removing character progression? (again) and what you described as the best dye system for the game?

people literally begged you to keep the account bound system when you announced character bound, the time to listen to that feedback was then, during beta before the game launched you told them that character bound was part of your vision for the game, where is that vision now?

im getting pretty tired of complete reversals on design. does anyone there know what they are actually doing? the development increasingly looks like an incompetent mess to me.

What if Morpheus told you Guild Wars 2 is still in beta?

Being a Slacker is a Virtue. I have 0% chance of getting a Peach Tint Dye in exchange for Celestial or Abyss Dyes that I bought. Slack Long and Prosper! Midnight Fire Dye and Blue Ice Dye can pass off very well as Black and White on light armor ^^

Mammoth.1975:

King Slacker.1843:

Mammoth.1975:

I’m not sure where I implied that they did. I’m just saying it seems like a strange thing to get all histrionic about.

OK, then probably the reason you don’t understand why people are saying this is unplayable, is because you don’t realize that removing Face/UP functionality is exactly what they did. That option is no longer available.

You probably use North/UP all the time, so the new mini-map is not a big deal change to you. If you used Face/UP all the time, like some of us do, then this is a fundamental change that you would likely not be happy about.

No, I realise it’s gone, I’m saying it seems like a strange thing to be unable to play without.

Empathy challenges aside…

Can anybody think of a single thing gained by removing this already working option? It is an option that nobody has to use if they don’t want to. What does ANET gain by removing it?

It is senseless to me that the option can’t just be re-instated. Those of us that rely on that option should at least be given a reason why.

Mammoth.1975:

I’m not sure where I implied that they did. I’m just saying it seems like a strange thing to get all histrionic about.

OK, then probably the reason you don’t understand why people are saying this is unplayable, is because you don’t realize that removing Face/UP functionality is exactly what they did. That option is no longer available.

You probably use North/UP all the time, so the new mini-map is not a big deal change to you. If you used Face/UP all the time, like some of us do, then this is a fundamental change that you would likely not be happy about.

@Mammoth
Not everybody plays exactly like you. Why don’t you go do a Guild Puzzle mission with your mini-map rotating using Face/UP then tell us how it goes? Then imagine if your sPvP mini-map lost the North/UP functionality and always had to be Face/UP -.-

Evan Lesh.3295:

Allied player icons will be fixed in the next hotfix! Apologies for the break!

We’ll watch the feedback for the new minimap to determine what other changes to make and directions to take. Keep in mind not every map has had its art updated. We focused primarily on maps being played at PAX.

When I started GW2 I was always annoyed that the mini-map was locked to North. When I figured out that it could be unlocked to rotate, it was like angels started singing. When you play your entire time with the mini-map unlocked, it isn’t a matter of “just getting used to it” to have that functionality ripped away. Why they decided to take away functionality defies logic and this above post shows that they are not returning that functionality anytime soon.

I guess the posts pointing out that sPvP needs MORE players, not less, are falling on blind eyes.

@Darnis
That is the type of playing that interests me, finding ways to succeed outside of the cookie-cutter. I remember reading a story of a top sPvP player that played a Thief and got grief all the time because…bah! there is no way that could succeeed! it isn’t cookie-cutter, ya know.

My main point was that if locking the mini-map was for “standardization” it is as silly as making everything else equal and just giving players a stick. I always use my mini-map unlocked, so the new mini-map makes it unplayable for me. I was just starting to really have some fun with sPvP.

I get it if you are used to locking the mini-map to N, it isn’t as big of a deal. Not everybody plays the same way you do. The question still remains, why alienate people that don’t like the mini-map locked and like to zoom in. I am learning that it is all “meta” in spvp. I guess if you don’t follow the cookie-cutter, then just don’t play? Not a good policy to increase the number of players -.-

Why not just give everybody the same mini-map, number of hit points, the same skills, the same armor, and a stick? Then it would truly be “standardized” :\

Looking at the posts here, it seems that sPvP needs more players, not less. Why purposely lock the map to N and lock the zoom level to something useless? I am fairly accomplished in PvE and WvW. I was starting to get interested in sPvP. Why alienate anybody that likes the mini-map unlocked and ruin it even for those that don’t?

I posted this as a bug before I learned that it was on purpose. Why? You have lost at least 1 new sPvP player. What are you getting out of it?

What a horrible idea. Why take away functionality? What could possibly be the reason to alienate everybody that doesn’t like the map to be locked? Even if you like it locked, the zoom level is totally lame. It makes the mini-map worthless.

The mini-map has no option to unlock from N and the perspective is terrible with no option to zoom in/out. I sure hope this is a bug. Terrible for anybody that prefers using the mini-map unlocked

Beautiful and inspiring! Excellent job!

Another when I killed an Ember while messin around with the Fire Shaman.

It popped up for me when completing Join the Iron Legion in Tearing Down the Ascalonian Wall.

Thought of a programmatic way to get rid of bots.

1. Somebody reports toon as Botting.
2. Message auto-appears on toon in question’s screen overlay that says something like… you have been accused of botting, please click x,y,z (random sequence).
3. Properly clicked, then no action taken. If not clicked (or x number of fails) in 2 min, then {auto-sanction determined}.
4. Auto-sanctions should also be determined for reporters that incorrectly accuse Botting (x number of times) to avoid abuse of reporting.

Voila! Bot eradication! Freed up time/resources for Mike Lewis’ group.

I am new to GW2. I played alot of GW1, but had been off of it for a long while. This guild has been extremely helpful. We have a good time even though I can’t hit the dungeons yet. Especially if you are new to GW2 or have low level charaters you are working on, join up and we can level together! Axon works great for voice chat and easy to install if you haven’t tried it out yet.