Guild Wars 2

Corew.8932:

Leon Trotsky.3674:

Yes people are lazy. I mean a generation that lacks patience to read Dostoyevsky, Jung and Marx is a wasted generation.

They also has to be read in the original language

As a Russian raised in Germany, I find it easy

Don’t ask me to read French originals though.

Animus.6073:

No the L2P guys, including myself, are not wrong. There are certain fights in which the boss has more HP and mitigation than others, but if any dungeon is taking you longer than an hour and a half you are playing it wrong.

Remember how much people kitten and moaned, they still kind of do, about the kaboomium event in Magg’s path? Then someone posted a video of a group doing it successfully without having to kite until the very end. Then you see a slew of posters saying “well i’ll be kitten it is possible.”

The game has barely been out for what, like 6 weeks? Just because you and your powerful guildies can’t do something efficiently does not mean that it is ridiculously overtuned. I’ve grouped with PUGs that outclass plenty of people in guilds. Guilds are just groups of players that tend to be coordinated, but that in no way ensures that they will be good at this game.

If everyone plays properly, and yes that includes gearing, traiting, and fighting, no single dungeon encounter should ever exceed 15 minutes. Even in WoW’s raiding environment, 15 minute + encounters weren’t exactly run of the mill. So again, once people start getting better, the dungeons will not seem so ridiculous. Group up with full exotics and make sure everyone is “good” and you will see you don’t spend more than 45 minutes in most dungeons.

Hey matey, there is no such a thing as ‘you are playing it wrong’.

There are no wrong ways to play, only different ways.

I mean, unless you take into account opportunity cost (but then again the time you ‘gained’ would be spent playing anyway), taking more or less time to kill a boss is irrelevant as long as you kill it.

Yes people are lazy. I mean a generation that lacks patience to read Dostoyevsky, Jung and Marx is a wasted generation.

Talking about ludicrous HP pools…

While not a MMO (albeit somewhat an offline MMO), Final Fantasy XII had a certain boss called Yiazmat.

That dragon kitten had 50 million HP, while your damage was capped at 9999 (and only way to do 9999 to him was to buff the hell up while debuffing him, as far as I remember) and when he reached 75% (once again, been a long time don’t remember), your damage is capped at 6666. He had also some very brutal traits, like random insta-death applied to his attacks and a proper insta-death attack (your party had 3 member, so one dies, the other two revive…). Also the arena was full of booby traps.

On the bright side, you could actually leave the fight, save, go on with your life and when you returned he would have exactly the same HP when you left… With a little twist though, you had to leave the arena REALLY fast, otherwise he’d cast Regen on himself, regenerating his health until you debuff him on your next meeting with him, when he’ll probably have his health pool completely filled.

This should be named Tyrian Wars.

It is just so different (and superior) than Guild Wars.

I mean, Guild Wars was the Unfinished Tales, this is the freaking Silmarillion.

Okay, now I NEED a Sandwichmancer.

A female skimpy Sandwichmancer, to attract feminist bullets.

delmarqo.5038:

“He saved Russia from dirty czarism, took Russia out of WWI, protected Russia from foreign imperialism during the 1918-20 Civil War, planned Russian development…”

It’s statements like this which is probably why they don’t want any real world people’s names. It’s a slippery slope no matter how you look at it. One person’s hero is another’s villain, and you can’t ever really tell which it will be until it’s put out there.

So what benefit is there to Anet for them to let you put it out there?

The benefit of having ludicrously hilarious punny names around

Meh, I am in History major (future unemployed).

The fun for me in MMOs is to make some brawny recreations of historical figures. Like my big bad Warrior named Winston Charrchill :Z

And well, I do not think that this:

“No real people. No fantasy characters owned by others. No slurs. No a lot of stuff, go read the EULA and TOS.”

is the case. This refers to real people that could claim ownership of the name, not dead people (nor conserved mummies like Lenin).

So, I was creating a brand new Norn when I thought: Hm, this guys needs some Russian name.

So I went for ?? ???, but, well for practical and obvious reasons, no Cyrillic. Fine.

But then I ‘anglicanised’ it to Vladimir Lenin. And guess what? Forbidden.

If it was Stalin, totally comprehensible, but what did Lenin do do be ‘inappropriate’?

He saved Russia from dirty czarism, took Russia out of WWI, protected Russia from foreign imperialism during the 1918-20 Civil War, planned Russian development…

He IS a Russian hero. As a Russian, I feel offended, really. And a bit sad that Cold War propaganda is still at full steam. Using an analogy, I bet you Americans you be kitten if you couldn’t have a kitten Warrior wielding an Axe called Abe Lincoln.

He was no mass-murderer megalomaniac like Stalin. And he died before the USSR became a despicable bureaucracy pit. Matter of fact, the only moment the USSR was good place was when he was alive.

I mean, no matter how many boons I give to my teammates, how much I heal them or how many conditions I remove.

Unless I waste my wonderful supporting potential as both a Guardian and Elementalist (professions I play most) running around tagging/killing foes, I get no glory. Literally.

Rewarding glory for successful supporting would also be a plus for teams to make better strategies, since as of now, it is just plain dumb butchery or no glory.

The guy who asks you fi you want to join a PvP match in the Heart of Mists.

You can say you are a Pacifist to leave the conversation with him, possibly in a reference to Monty Python’s mafia sketch.

I mean, when I am playing an Elementalist or a Guardian, what i feel to be natural for me to do on field is to primarily support my allies.

However, regardless on how good a supporter I am, there are no gratifications for that other than player gratitude.

This applies do DE, where I waste my full potential in a struggle to tag foes for loot and also because apparently, if you don’t kill foes you are not doing the Event at all.

Also to sPvP where only reviving is gratificated.

Well, the game seems to ignore anything you do in battle other than mindless murder.

Back in 2006, I chose to be a Shaman in WoW

Now I went Mesmer.

Call me Mr. Nerf Magnet.

You just have to find your way to play the Mesmer

I found mine by opening with Staff (and iWarlock for that matter), dishing conditions like there is no tomorrow, then switch to Sword+Pistol for iDuelist, hack and slash, hit and run and ‘thievish dodgery’

It is a fun way to play, and once I stack more Toughness (+ Power and Condition Dmg) along the way, it’ll eventually become, if not almost unstoppable, extremely annoying.

ounkeo.9138:

RaptorSpectre has a good list there and is probably close to the truth of it, but for all practical purposes, consider the system completely random.

I’ve fought and done the same champs/mobs well over a hundred times and the aggro is completely random in practical terms. I’ll take the shaman Champion boss in Wayfarer Foothills as an example since I have literally killed him close to 200 times now:

he targets me about 50% of the time. half the time he does target me, he will chase me and me alone the entire fight. the other half, he will target me then decide to focus entirely on a lowbie and I can just stand there and wand him to death. The rest of the time he doesn’t even bother with me.

If I use various melee
I usually only get hit by AOE and a lowbie is getting his attention. i can’t get his attention whatsoever. It’s rare at least; even with mace which has healing strikes.

Sometimes, I’m chasing the boss while it’s chasing a lowbie around. Most times he’s just standing there switching at random. It’s rare to see a range toon get aggro but it does happen from time to time.

There seems to be a system in place but in practical terms, it effectively is random. that is to say, from a player’s POV, it’s not a controllable element in combat. Maybe that was their point – not that I agree mind you.

Testing and verifying it is going to be very difficult and very time consuming. Players would have to switch to every permutation of builds and gear types and activities during combat to even do the test. It can be done but it isn’t practical to test.

On top of that, it could very well be that different mobs/bosses have different priority so testing against one mob could still end up only yielding correct answer for that mob and nothing else.

In Orr, some of the mob behavior seems to suggest a certain randomness not exhibited elswhere either. i’ve fought a normal risen mob and while engaged in melee combat with him, he’ll run away and chase another player sprinting by. Completely disengages me and just runs after the other guy…

Loved your post.

Specially when you stated on how there could be a plethora of ‘threat mechanics’ so specific mobs. I’ll try to notice that further.

That would make the combat in this game even spicier.

In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to make my illusions more effective as in mob-distraction.

Are client-side aesthetics moddings bannable?

Are they even detectable?

RaptorSpectre.3271:

It seems mobs have differnet rules for aggro and there is really no way to control it or know how it works. Which is fine since there is no such thing as tanking in GW2 and their isn’t meant to be.

That being said I’ve noticed that there are four primary behaviours.
1. Attack the closest thing
2. Attack the thing doing the most damage
3. Attack the thing doing the most group buffs and heals.
4. Attack the weakest enemy

There are variations on these that I’ve noticed, like the converse or going for pets and minions first. Its impossible to know before the fight what sort of logic they might use, and even after you’ve fought them its hard to pin down what logic they were using. In my opinion this great as it has made fights a lot more dynamic and surprising as it always seemed the enemy was attacking in a smart way.

I agree with you that unpredictability is interesting. Makes for quick thought, you can no longer plan your battles ahead of time, because you do not know how to act.

People are still adapting though, most people seem not to know exactly what they are doing, they just do and pray

However, what I am really interested in knowing is how to lower your ‘threat’. Sometimes it seems some mobs just go after you on a personal vendetta.

bwillb.2165:

The bow is really a strange one. It was obviously designed for mesmers, but mesmers can’t use bows.

Just because we tend to make our illusions vanish in a cloud of purple butterflies it doesn’t mean we are utterly flamboyant.

Actually, it kinda does ….

But not me!

With time, some very dedicated players tend to write some sort of ‘PhD Essays’ on a particular ingame matter. I say PhD essays because they cover a very specific subject with great scrutiny.

As of now, aggro seem completely random for me. I haven’t been able to establish proper causality relations between player behaviour and mob behaviour (aggro) nor am I qualified to examine the coding of this game (‘techspeak’ equals Mandarin for me).

Thereby, I ask you folks: Has such a thing been done already? If so, where is it? And is it reliable?

I want to roll all the professions eventually, they all seem so interesting (bar Warrior)

We just need more mundane/ordinary options for Light Armour that isn’t peasant fashion

Personally, I like Tolkien’s way of portraiting ‘epicness’ in a fantasy.

Examples: Andúril, the sword of the king of Men, that cut the ring out of Sauron’s hand. It is a sword like any other in appearance

Gandalf, a maia, inferior only to Eru and the Vala, pure might. Strolls around with Hobbits dresses firstly in simple grey robes and uses extremely subtle magic.

The Ring. Power to conquer everything. A plain golden ring.

Warlock is just a killing machine.

I’ve been using Sword/Pistol + Staff since lv 8 I guess.

Ideally, I’d have 3 weapon sets on-the-go: Sword/Pistol, Scepter/Focus and Staff

But I don’t, so I preferred S/P over Sc/F for personal reasons, for I believe Sc/F to be more ‘synergetic’ with Staff.

How I play: Open with Staff, dish conditions and boons, when foes get to close range, switch to S/P and start playing like a Thief. I find it amusing.

Just passing by to send huge praise to these spotlights.

The concept artists are what first attracted me to this game, I love their impressionist style with strong yet precise brushstrokes.

Specially Theo, with his wonderful landscapes.

Mounts go by the same concept of cars.

At a first moment you have sober and utilitarian mounts.

Then you blink and we have shiny unicorns ridden by some flamboyant Mesmer by the name of Mr. Yolo Swagster

Or worse, Zhaitan-sized dragon mounts ridden by the same lads who bought Hummers.

Jules Leafield – Sylvari Engineer
Grace Slickpaw – Charr Mesmer

The concept of Dragon slaying is rather sad for me.

I’d much rather ride it and be best buddies with it, y’know.

This plus Shield’s #5 would be utterly annoying.

To add up, perhaps the Leeroy Jenkins shout.

I find the whole concept and the mechanics of the Mesmers simply amazing, so i decided to try out myself.

I am still in the very early levels (<10), but I already feel like I spam a couple of clones, then find myself forced to run around due to my squishiness, due to the clones being shortlived and the phantasm not distracting foes at all.

I tried switching from scepter mh (oh being pistol) to greatsword to no avail. Swords prove to be rather clumsy since close quarters fight wearing light armour is something just not cut for me.

So I ask you, more experienced Mesmers: Is there anyway to keep myself away from foes, hitting from far while my doppelganger army bash them or must I learn the tricky art of kiting?

Wait, are people expecting to labour in a game?

I thought this was made for fun.

Hm, 60$ isn’t going to kill anybody who has a computer that is actually able to handle this.

However, trial accounts are a good bait. Just have to really limit them since there is no monthly fee.

You are listening to the wrong tune for you.

If you don’t like a band, you don’t go up to some band member and beg him to change. You go listen something else.

Perhaps you should be playing The Old Republic.

This is basically everywhere.

Uneducated, impolite and rash people seem to materialise out of thin air everywhere on the internet. Perhaps some years from now, we shall have a great compendium: ‘21st Century Internet Human: An analysis on their behaviour’ written by some sort of 21st century Jung.