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Certain classes have it better underwater, so yes, it isn’t thoroughly balanced. Gear also has quite a bit to do with it as well, since most neglect their underwater weapons and don’t match the runes of their armor with their re-breather (insert rant on not being able to craft re-breathers.) The Elementalist, I have found, is the least fun underwater. Mine also avoids it like the plague. However, I love underwater fights with the Necromancer, virtually every skill is golden and it is a fun change up to go from a ranged condition spammer into a melee whirlwind with the spear.
Looks like if you have completed them on your account and merely go to the entrance of the puzzle, it updates. If you haven’t done it, you won’t get an update for it until you have completed the achievement for the first time.
@Kizyc
They are not facts. Just because the devs say something doesn’t make it the truth or a fact. You should try not to trust people who try to sell you something too much. It’s not wise.
I came back to the subtlety issue, because of a simple reason. It was unsubstantiated and the only thing that could’ve been a useful argument in your post…if you had something to back it up. But you didn’t.
Also people like you keep wanting to push me in the “trinity for GW2” corner.
So let’s break this cycle. I DO NOT ASK FOR TRINITY IN GW2.
Get it?
I want some complexity that replaces the lack of roles or different roles to choose from. But something to choose that actually makes a real difference beyond the name of my class. The whole game is about inconsequential choices, even the story line.
The game still has roles: 2 of them. DPS and support. But everybody has both. So again not really a choice. The trait system you could do with your eyes closed. You can add points randomly.
Yes, it does make a difference but not enough to actually really make it worthwhile looking into it. sPvP is currently dead, PvE is bland and WvW is zerg. So who cares what you choose? It’s the fact that all these choices don’t really make a big enough difference to matter. That’s my concern. As I stated earlier, I think the OP is right about some of his symptoms but not his solutions.
I do not see trinity as a solution for GW2, but the game as a whole is just too simplistic because any complexity that does exist is really of little or no consequence.
Now I see why you are so exasperated. If you are so untrusting as to not take the word of the persons who designed the game at face value as to why they made the choices they did, then there is no level of information you would consider fact. You have made your mind up and any information can only be seen through the prism of your narrow set of opinions. Even when I gave a rather exhaustive example of the (sometimes drastic) differences in what a healing slot can or can’t do, you return the debate to your perceived category of what is opinion and what is fact rather than recognize that there is a difference in those choices.
Combine this with your stated opinions of SPvP (where knowing your role is absolutely essential), WvW (not everyone zergs and those that do not, have to know their place) and that you abandoned the game without seeing the training ground of the Fractals for what they are in PVE (a steady difficulty scaling experience that teaches group tactics much better than the fixed difficulty dungeons) leads one to conclude that you just come here to foster dissent rather than have any meaningful contribution.
So noted.
Also, I was actually coloring your statements as a call for gross differentiation (which is a synonym for meaningful choices) as well as calling out the OP’s desire for a trinity. Not necessarily saying they were the same response.
I would suggest rereading your own post, I even quoted it for you, and realise how often you state things as facts yourself.
Calling choices subtle is total bull by the way. How is it more subtle? How does an absence of actual choices make choices more subtle.
How is it subtle that you must take a heal skill on slot 6 for example? The choices in this game are pointless because the effects of the choices are negligble. It doesn’t really matter what you do.
What’s subtle about making fractals the one place to grind by making it the most rewarding activity?
I can go on.
To me, and that is of course my opinion, what you might call subtle, is what I call superficial. I could equip a weapon, add whatever skills in the second part of the skill bar, add traits randomly, without even looking and equip full magic find gear and still do level 80 dungeons. Sure, the party might suffer, but who cares right?
No, I do not see this subtlety you vaguely refer to and the rest of your comments is full of the same opinion-as-fact stating that you accuse the other guy of.
Actually, it isn’t but since you seem stuck on the word subtle, I won’t reiterate why there is a difference between stating something as “probably something” from stating it as “fact.” The few things I did state as fact are already out there, such as the Dev’s multiple design diaries and interviews on participation v. barriers to entry, or even the small differences between skills to create new roles in a group where most expect solid one-trick-ponies. That WvW/SPvP and the PVE of Fractals are the best tools to learn this is more of an opinion, true, but one with more than a decent amount of anecdotal evidence.
Since you bring up the Healing Slot, we’ll walk down how subtle it can be based on where you might fit in a group. Are you overbuilt on Vitality and Toughness so you take far longer to die than the glass cannons? Maybe your role is to slot an AoE heal to cover for weaker players. Or provide area fields for removing conditions or providing others your regen. Maybe trait for a trap or reflection when you revive a downed player. Maybe your role is to slot a constant regen heal and complimentary signet so you can stay in the face of whatever the group is working on to take the heat off others. Maybe you’re a glass cannon and need to slot a retreat based heal so you can go in, spike damage and fall behind the rest of the group to recover for another run. Is your gear sub-par so your damage is low and is your role to re-trait healing power and be the go-to downed player revive, freeing up the rest of the team?
That’s just off the top of my head with my own builds and the questions I ask when joining a Dungeon group or WvW Havoc squad. There are just as many with the other utility skills and how they mesh with the skills, weapons and build bases of a party. None of those choices are meaningless, and none do not actually factor into the success or failure of a group. Even simple choices such as how many Swiftness buffs are available and who has which combo fields available can turn a pick up group into a seamless machine.
That is what is subtle about this game. If you take the time to invest in your decisions and talk to your teammates you are rewarded for the effort. Just as you are rewarded for going a different way and not following the train (that is a fact, it’s called the Exploration Bonus XP.)
Just because there is no gross differentiation in the roles of Tank, DPS, Healer, doesn’t meant there is no distinction at all or that all choices are irrelevant, as you and the OP would have us believe.
The choices are not meaningless, the distinctions are merely more subtle. The consequences are most likely exactly what ANet wanted them to be, more rewarding for those that diverge from the beaten path.
Fractals as a dungeon is the best tool ANet has so far rolled out to both teach and emphasize this. Good Fractal groups are not the ones where “everyone does her own thing” but where each member is using their strengths in a coordinated fashion to get that objective. The same goes for WvW and SPvP, there is a distinct difference between those who roll in the 50 man train and those that can hold or take a tower with eight people. These are the crucibles that distill the roles, even as granular as they are, that already exist. If you are not playing in those, you really aren’t learning the limitations and strengths of your character.
Anyone can run with no skill into a zone event with fifty players and get the gold reward without consequences. That isn’t a failure of game design, but an accommodation for the weight of numbers. The risk elements withdraw in favor of simple scaling because the game devs consciously made the decision that participation is more important than some esoteric “balance.” They want people in events, not create barriers to entry by skill, class or time invested. That is why so many of the events are not instanced.
As for the OP, while many of his opinions are just as valid as others, he isn’t entitled to express them as “facts” or “truths.” When he then peppers them with ad hominem replies to those who differ, and liberally inserts personal attacks against the developers in hopes of shoring up his “knows better than all of you” credentials (along with the age old pre-disqualifying rebuttals of a debate pedantry) then he is only deserving of public shaming and his points are largely lost as casualties of negative noise.