Guild Wars 2

That’s all I have to say:

Don’t forget about the equipment.

• No back piece, because it’s too expensive and resource-consuming to get.
• Blue and green trinkets with random stats, from 50-79 level range, except for a single Rabid ascended accessory (guild missions drop)
• The armor is half karma PVT exotics, half blue/green random stat pieces from 50-79 level range. No superior runes, perhaps one or two random minor or major runes.
• Now the longbow – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arc bought from the TP because of cool looks. Stays with Sentinel stats and Sigil of Nullification, because why bother changing? A rare random shortbow on swap.
• No consumables because it’s too elitist.
• And, of course, DOUBLE BEAR.

The community’s voice is just as unanimous as it can be on the Internet: we hate the Megaserver fiasco.

Well, like I said, it’s all about probability. There are decent rangers among PUGs, no one denies it – they are however swarmed by masses of bearbows.

Actually it’s not a matter of ultimate min/maxing, record beating nor ‘standard’ speedruns. Even if you seek to PUG a just plain, smooth run you are better off without certain classes.

You may call it prejudice, very well. I was pugging for over a year, got to fractal 49 with three different characters, did almost a hundred of runs at this difficulty level and countless dungeon paths – with PUGs only. During this time I’ve never seen a Spotter (Frost Spirit maybe two/three times), sword Ranger nor dagger Necro. On the other hand plenty of bearbows, staff condi necros, shout heal warriors and staff guardians – even though I was asking for “melee dps with offensive build”.

So to answer the question, yes, unfortunately banning certain classes does improve PUG experience. It’s all about probability. Rangers, necros and engineers are very risky, guardians and thieves are lottery. On the other hand PUG warriors, eles and especially mesmers are quite safe to group with.

You may not like it, nor do I, but Feature patch may intensify class banning along with gear checking among PUGs – depending on the damage nerf, zerker groups might not afford to carry one or two members with non optimal builds and gear.

Fractal skins, I find them more prestigious than legendary weapons.

I am not that happy with the wardrobe. I had spent a significant amount of time and effort grinding fractal skins for my characters, and in case of greatswords, swords or daggers – also additional duplicates for the alts. With the wardrobe all the effort of farming fractal skins for more than one character becomes meaningless.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I disagree. I think the game could be designed in such a way that people naturally learn as they play, regardless if they want to or not. The Scarlet battle is a perfect example of that.

According to Anet, certain % of players are not aware of the trait system, don’t change their utilities and don’t know how the combo fields work. But this game is almost two years old, isn’t it too late to redesign the learning process? Regarding the Scarlet battle, well, I see players failing on the holograms as much as on the knights, so it may not have the desired effect, same like NPCs shouting orders on Tequatl.

Again, I disagree. Allowing inexperienced players to play with experienced players, is the perfect way to teach players to be better.

Yes, inexperienced players learning from experienced ones is a healthy process, just like players figuring out the tactics on their own. However, most of inexperienced and unskilled players have no intention to put any effort into improving, even if it means only as much as reading and following map chat advices, or imitating others.

And honestly, why should they? There is plenty of various content that lavishly rewards skill-less zerging to choose from.

I also agree that there is nothing that could be done to improve skills of those who don’t want to get better or can’t get better.

Anet needs to avoid putting harder content into open areas, because even a few of unskilled players can make the whole fight fail. Encounters of Tequatl, Marionette or Wurm calibre should have two versions: open world easier one, and instanced, raid-like harder version. This solution would make both sides of the barricade happy, except those bads that enjoy leeching off from others.

Not so long ago I’ve seen a warrior with a legendary greatsword repeatedly putting Banner of Discipline on Golem mk II. A perfect example of how good is your average player.

Chase.8415:

Thats what I am stating here, it’s poor because if they made it anything decent like an actual romance people would start sharpening their pitchforks stating ArenaNet is trying to push a political agenda for homosexuality. Instead ArenaNet did the best they could in regards to this relationship, lesbians and cheap romance with a kiss.

Actually, it’s the opposite. If they made it a solid relationship, people wouldn’t complain (that much) about homosexuality. Their romance, however, is highly intrusive and very shallow – for this reason many people, myself included, feel that the only point of this relationship was to include a minority token into the game.

Chris,

Few weeks ago players challenged the devs for a Dredge fractal run at higher levels. Would you be willing to accept the challenge?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Can-5-DEVs-do-dredge-fractal-at-49-50/first

Isn’t dredge shockwave absorbable (eg. Shield of Absorption, Sanctuary), but not reflectable?

1. Thief (over-nerfed to a rotten state, with basic design philosophy kittened)
2. Ranger
3. Necromancer

Not on the list, but warriors should be balanced as well, because they give too much with little to no effort and sacrifices.

Considering that no heterosexual couple has been given the same level of attention, this one indeed feels like a forced agenda – just like another generic minority token originating from the absurds of tokenism policy.

displacedTitan.6897:

At what point then is it acceptable to attribute failure to an individuals inability to play the game and learn?

I feel like the carebears who advocate for people to be nice all the time and just accept other peoples constant failure are just enablers, letting people tell themselves that it isnt actually their fault and the players telling them otherwise are just jerks. This game needs MORE events like this, not less.

Anecdotally, I had a player on my platform that refused to kite Warden II. No matter how much we asked him to kite, explained it to him and tried to be nice, he would respond with “kitten you, dont tell me how to play!”. Are we supposed to just say, oh ok special snowflake, we understand. This must be our fault??

This post needs to be quoted for truth.

There is nothing wrong with being inexperienced. The problem lies with the lack of will to learn and improve. GW2 game design promotes such attitude with zerg fest, #1 spam and other similar skill-less gameplay being generously rewarded. Those who put effort into being better players will suffer on open world events like Tequatl or Marionette – because despite their hard work, the event may fail due to a few careless individuals.

Of course YOU can do this, of course YOU can solo any Marionette champion as a ranger, I don’t deny it. But it’s not the rule for the remaining rangers. Of all the classes, this one seems to attract inexperienced and/or careless players at most. Is it because of pet tanking everything and player safely shooting from distance? Probably.

Josh Foreman said that a certain amount of players don’t know that there is a trait system. There are past dev statements claiming that most of the players don’t know how the combo fields work. How many rangers do you think don’t know how to control their pet? 20%, 30%, 40%?

Thanks to the open world raid system, whether you fail or not may be entirely dependant on such a player, who also happens to ignore map chat suggestions.

Vayne.8563:

Try that with a raid. 50 people in your guild, 30 raid, and 20 are like but what about us?

It doesn’t work. It’s a bad defense. At least with TTS you have far less of a chance of getting locked out.

And if you don’t think raids take a lot of time to set up, you haven’t done many.

You speak like you’ve never seriously raided yourself. Serious raiding guilds maintain schedules and keep a fair rotation of their members. The 20 people that couldn’t go on Day 1, would go on Day 2 or Day 3. In the long run, every member of the guild raids just as much as the others.

Now with Tequatl guilds, if you have bad luck, slow internet connection, frequent disconnects or any combinations of these, you may only participate like once in a blue moon. And no one really cares you are left behind, no one is going to keep a safe spot for you for the next time, because you are just one of a thousand (EU Teq guilds are what, 1500 atm?).

Avengor.9147:

GW2’s open world content, while still having some kinks to work out…

How could you forget the most important issue of open world raid content. Whether you succeed or fail, it entirely depends on random people. You have no control over them, as most choose to ignore what you are saying.

It’s not a problem for easy and intuitive group events like Claw of Jormag or Golem Mk II. But for more serious content like Tequatl, Marionette or Wurm it is problematic, because incompetence of individuals can fail the event for the whole raid and you can do nothing about it.

Lexandro.1456:

But here is the thing, how is a new player supposed to GET experienced at the content if a guiding hand is not there to show them the ropes?

You sound like all the new players are somehow handicapped and need a babysitter to teach them step by step what to do and what not. Well, we all were new one day, but the people that did dungeons in September-November 2012 had no one to babysit them through every encounter.

To answer your question, a good way to get experienced is to watch a guide (there is plenty of them available) and then keep running with all-welcome parties for as long as necessary. If said player is competent, one or two runs should be enough to be on the “experienced only” level. He may not melee Lupi yet, but at least he will pull his weight on COE/COF/SE speedruns.

Lexandro.1456:

No there is not an overwhelming number of bad players.

Actually, from all the MMOs I’ve ever played, GW2 has the skill-wise worst player base. This game rewards bad play generously and skilled play inadequately, so there is little reason for the masses to improve their skill level and get better.

ShannonKasull.2091:

Mind you if you want DPS, go play a Warrior instead, why try to be something you are not?
While your DPS guardian is trying to do damage instead of upkeeping might and boon heals and damage mitigation you are affecting the overall dps your entire party can

Sorry for bursting your bubble, but guardians are just as good damage dealers as warriors – and even slightly better according to one of the theorycrafters.

Imbune.5497:

….How old are you?

Thank you for asking, I am old enough to be able to define the problems of the only MMO I play and to voice my discontent with the way it is managed. Before eventually moving on, as others have suggested.

December 10, 2013

• Sword—Shadow Return: Renamed to Infiltrator’s Return. Added a .25-second cast time.
• Critical Strikes VIII—Signet Use: Reduced the initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Critical Strikes 15—Opportunist: Increased the trigger chance to 50%. Increased the cooldown from 1 second to 5 seconds.
• Shadow Arts V—Infusion of Shadow: Increased the amount of initiative gained to 2, but only when entering stealth.
• Acrobatics III—Vigorous Recovery: Reduced the vigor duration from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Trickery 5— – Kleptomaniac: Reduced the initiative gain from 3 to 2.
• Trickery VII—Bountiful Theft: Reduced the vigor duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Just have some patience. I know it’s hard.

Patience? How much patience do you think we need to cope with this 3 month interval until the next feature patch? To give you an example, last update revamped the fractals – however it also brought plenty of new issues and did little to solve the old ones. How can we feel about the fact that we will have to wait at least 3 more months for a dredge fractal revamp, on top of other pressing issues?

Just like cesmode.4257 said, revamping unattractive content, bug fixing, QoL improvements should have an absolute priority over the LS stuff. Too bad this does not generate enough gem store purchases.

Wethospu.6437:

Ye, so just grind levels again so that they can be reseted next year.

Grind or not, I definitely don’t like the fact that the most prestigious skins in the whole game, one of the few that cannot be bought, will become so common.

lordkrall.7241:

Or are you maybe suggesting that these new instabilities will actually make it EASIER to complete Fractals?

According to the devs, even with those new instabilities your way up to 50 is going to be easier than it is now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/fractured/Fractured-Pro-Con-Suggestion-Thread/first#post3228388

^ After re enlisting your LFG 2 or 3 times, you are muted for excessive messaging and cannot add any description to further LFGs. Another flaw of this flawed feature.

I believe the list needs an update.

October 15, 2013

• Destroy Shadow Trap: This skill now has a 1.5-second cast time. It plays an effect on the thief and on the trap location when it is being cast. Added 5 seconds of regeneration.
• Larcenous Strike: This skill now steals only 1 boon.
• Basilisk Venom: Petrify is now removed on stun break
• Fixed an issue where stuns would always round up their duration to the nearest second if players had extra stun duration from items or traits. /Pistol whip stun wears off before the first sword hit lands./

Was it… a bearbow?

Another thing is that medium armor skins are quite lackluster compared to heavy and light.

Bright.9160:

Because reward ratios like that breed incompetent players. Why bother getting better at the game when you can just mindlessly walk around spamming your autoattack, using any trash build you can come up with and you get rewarded just as much or more than the skillful players? Which is why GW2 has one of the worst playerbases ever in an MMO.

Stop rewarding bad play.

Quoted for truth.

Not bad until you have to choose one of the three Orders, then average until Claw Island, after that just plain terrible.

According to Guild Wars 2 Discussion subforum/reddit, anyone who endlessly strives to get better and improve their skill level, who develops and utilizes optimal builds and tactics and who desires more challenging content to be implemented, is definitely an elitist scumbag.

The best way to implement Ascended armor? Via some challenging and demanding content, with high risk/high reward system.

Oh, I forgot it’s already too late & it’s a wrong game for such a concept anyway.

Heta.8629:

I’m making a build that will have just power with no precision or crit damage in order to provide more support.

I’m sorry to say that, but your concept of supporting is somewhat wrong. You don’t have to give up on offensive stats in order to grant valuable support.

Healing power scales terribly and you can’t really quickly heal up someone who missed a dodge. Aggro management is tricky and damage factor is involved, so being full knight or full soldier is not going to make you a tank. The support that matters – banners, aegis, blind, stability, projectile reflection, vulnerability, might stacking – works equally well in all kinds of gear. Besides, the sooner you kill, the safer you are.

I’m wondering if power without precision will provide decent damage so I don’t massively slow down a dungeon group.

I’m afraid not. Buffed in offensive gear you have close to 100% critical chance and at least 100% critical damage. It means you will pretty much all the time hit for 2.5 of what your regular, precision-less attack would be.

DusK.3849:

Knight’s armor, soldier trinks, zerker greatsword, and a still-respectable amount of damage. The difference between me and the zerkers on the ground is that I’m actually making that red bar go down.

The joys and sorrows of no DPS meter. I’d be curious to verify your respectable amount of damage in correlation to what a zerker did before going downed.

DusK.3849:

Tell me more about how those zerkers are doing more damage on the ground than I am during my uptime. I’ll just be here, laughing.

Had all the party been zerker, not 2 or 3 players, no one would have died. The foes would perish first.

No reason to laugh at zerkers going down in melee, while you stay ranged with your PTV/AH.

Himax.3954:

Complaining about how stupid people don’t deserve or accept your help can only prove how arrogant and unhelpful you are.

Not really. People that desperately need help and advices in most of the cases just ignore any hints given to them. Few days ago I asked some PUG ranger (bearbow, 2000 AP) at least 3-5 times to stop spamming knockback on his longbow, yet he ignored all of my requests and explanations why it’s bad. What we are supposed to do in such cases? How are we supposed to push some common sense into the thickest skulls?

Like it or not, but majority of newbies and bads alike are not willing to learn nor get better at this game.

Draknar.5748:

Question: how do you know they are wearing clerics? You ask right?

No need to ask, there is a couple of dps checks. For example, nightmare vines in TA. I am usually able to kill a vine alone in roughly the time it takes 4 remaining PUGs to kill the other one.

The dungeon itself is ok, but the skill level of your average LFG tool PUG group is just terrible and definitely not sufficient for this path.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Old-skool knows perfectly well that knew players are ALWAYS taught the dungeon by older players, except the very first handful of people into the game.

Not really.

To give you an accurate example, I’ve spent my previous 2 years of MMO gaming in a WoW clone. Classic gear treadmill, holy trinity, new dungeon every 3-5 months. It took anywhere between 1-4 weeks of trial and error to figure the tactics. The competition amongst top guilds was so intense that none posted any guides until we had all of our members geared, which usually took 1-2 months. Well, even some trash pulls were more challenging than most of GW2 bosses..

So as you can see, sometimes players have to make some effort.

marnick.4305:

You have an implicit obligation to teach people. I’m not going to enforce that but you should be thankful that other people were not kittens like you when you first learned a dungeon.

I don’t know, it’s so ambiguous. But what stops the newbies from figuring the tactics by themselves, from forming newbie-only parties?

I may be old school, but isn’t it the proper way of learning dungeons? People that did dungeons in September 2012 (myself included) had no one to teach them, the builds nor party compositions were not optimal back then. Now the newbies have cookie-cutter builds, detailed guides and videos to help them. Dungeons in GW2 are easy compared to WoW/WoW clones – it all comes down to knowledge of game mechanics, class mechanics and some common sense.

Has the laziness and unwillingness to make any effort amongst GW2 masses gone so far that now the only way of learning new things is leeching them off from someone experienced?

I think dredge and karkas would fit nicely in the same dungeon. Bonus points for an underwater path.

Eurhetemec.9052:

-snip-

No one asks for exclusion tools to be implemented into the LFG. What people want is some help in finding like-minded dungeon runners and avoiding those with different approaches. It hurts no one, benefits everyone.

Separating “casuals” and “elitists” (notice the quotation marks) is healthier for the community in general than forcing them to play together.

Just notice how fierce is this discussion about “casuals” and “elitists” clashing via the new LFG tool.

Eurhetemec.9052:

As for elitism being at the bottom of the list – no, it isn’t – it’s one of the main reasons that very few players do dungeons – which means the game is failing to get people into some content that is meant to be showcasing it. That that content is being wasted because people are afraid of exclusion.

On the other hand, people quit doing dungeons because majority of PUG runs are not optimal at best, and plain terrible at worst. In such cases the content is wasted because of inability to filter like-minded players from the masses.

Finding a dedicated and professional dungeon guild isn’t an answer because of varied schedules, different time zones, language barriers, et cetera. And although I belong to a one, I’ve never seen a MMO with smaller amount of professional PvE guilds.

AntiGw.9367:

The game itself needs to actively stomp elitism.

In one of your previous posts you agreed that everyone can play the way they want, elitists as well. And now you want to restrict one of the ways of playing the game? What a terrible inconsistency.

You made a valid point though. This game does not encourage the masses to take any effort to get better at playing and improve their skill level.

Conncept.7638:

You need to look up the definition of ‘elitist’, because restricting or excluding a majority based on standards ‘you’ set, is near exactly how it reads.

Then how would you call a situation when two group of players that don’t want to play with each other, are forced to group up because setting standards is wrong?

Conncept.7638:

I would love to, and do as frequently as I can. It generally takes 1-2 hours for CoE and Arah, 45 minutes to one hour for any other dungeon.

Good for you. However, not everyone has enough time nor patience to teach newbies and bad players how to play the game. There is plenty of class and dungeon guides available on the Internet – but can you really expect that someone who doesn’t bother to read LFG description is going to care enough to read/watch a guide beforehand?

anzenketh.3759:

If you want something that specific and demand something only that specific schedule it with your guild. LFG tool is for randoms.

It works both ways. If you are new, inexperienced, want to be taught or just carried through a dungeon, you should ask your guild mates, not strangers.

22 dragonite from Guild Challenge, 25 from Jormag.

11 empyreal from Guild Rush and 7 from Guild Puzzle. 5 from an LA jumping puzzle.