Guild Wars 2

I haven’t bought gems since I got all the character slots I needed… Plus, I heard the revenue from the Gem Store doesn’t actually go to Anet, but to NCSoft? Feel free to correct me if that’s not true, but yeah…haven’t bought gems for a while either way.

After reading this thread (gave it +1 a few days ago), it seems that some people assume we all want to be buffed to high heaven for when the pet is not out. That’s not true. I just want it to not come out automatically when I’m in combat. I don’t want to think, “Oh look, the Jade Maw is targeting my pet again…now this is going to take even longer just because I can’t keep the pet inactive when I need it to.”

Is that so unreasonable? Yes, we want the pet fixed; but Anet hasn’t given us much of a reason to believe that pet fixes are on their way. I’m fine with believing that they are, but with the lack of communication in many instances there’s absolutely no way for me to tell.

Even just the ability to decide when the critter comes out would help me a ton. You know, so I can use it when I want to. So I don’t have keep it on passive (waiting for the right moment to strike) and watch it die anyway due to cleaving and AoE – no matter how much I move out of the way because the pet doesn’t actually stick to me that well.

And fyi, I love my pets dearly.

+1

If they ever fix the pet, I won’t mind not having the option… But until then, please don’t make us work around a borked mechanic.

It looks ridiculous, even on my Norn Warrior. Imagine what it looks like on my main, a Ranger… That about sums up my opinion of the thing. -_-

Edit: Forgot to post something “positive”. Please make them scale somehow, Anet. It’s bad enough that we can’t dye them, but these don’t even fit. ^^

Inactivity? It’s been 5 hours since you posted this. Give it some time, for pity’s sake. :P

I’d prefer the fixes. Yes, I know it’s more difficult to fix content than it is to create it; but let’s face it, almost every patch seems to do something wrong. How about typos in tooltips? I’ll reiterate: typos. TYPOS. This game is a year old and we’re still dealing with glitches and bugs that were present on release.

I don’t hold a grudge against any of the LS teams, despite not really liking the LS anymore, but I honestly would have wanted Anet to spend more of their budget on hiring bugfixers instead of creating 4 LS teams. I love the game, I really do, but there’s just so much stuff that still needs to be fixed and it’s starting to drive me crazy!

StinVec.3621:

roamzero.9486:

Worst part about the gem store is that apparently since Anet thinks customizing the look of your armor is a luxury its suitable to gate it entirely via gem-store-only Transmutation Crystals.. Beside that and the Infinite Continue Coin I don’t have any problems with the gem store.

Transmutation Crystals are not only acquirable through the Gem Store. I’ve gone through several dozen of them since the game released and I never bought any of them from the Gem Store. I’ve gotten them all from Daily Reward Chests and once or twice from a Daily Reward Chest giving me a Black Lion Chest Key and I then got them from opening a Black Lion Chest with that free key.

I envy you and all those other players that got so many Transmutation Crystals. I’ve been playing since launch and I’ve received 5 since then from a Black Lion Chest. FIVE. Not the dozens that so many seem to be getting. It’s true that you can get them through normal play, but it’s incredibly reliant on RNG, so I don’t consider that much of a counter…

Hi Jonathan, while I don’t have any comments on specific parts of the patch preview, I would just like to say how happy I am to see this thread. In GW1, one of my favorite things was the notes for every set of skill changes, explaining the reasons behind them. I’ve missed this kind of communication in GW2, and while I won’t blame you for that (forum ragers, etc), I have to say I’m very relieved to see this happen. Thanks for the effort into this thread!

Edit: Corrected a typo.

Wow, someone else beat me to making this topic then! TBH sure, maybe you won’t be using potions often… But the fact that a 2 Heart potion is more expensive than just buying a life, makes no sense to me at all. If you’re not going to change this, at least include a warning about the increased cost in the upgrade window, so we know what we’re getting into before we upgrade. But, I’d rather see the cost reduced to 15 baubles.

I think most of the people here are just objecting about the principle of the thing. The gold loss is negligible unless you had craploads of tokens lying around, anyway. I know it certainly felt strange to me…it doesn’t feel right. Principles. Why did they do this?

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Lyskaria.2145:

Traited and untraited spirits stacking SHOULD be fixed, unless it was intended to work like this, but I highly doubt that. But spirits on their own…I honestly don’t see the commotion. I think the source of most people’s problems with spirits is that all of sPvP/tPvP is a capture-based game. (Oh look, there’s the bunker problem again…)

But I wouldn’t mind seeing the spirits changed so that their CD starts after the spirits go down. Maybe reduce the recharge a bit. I mean, other skills that summon something work the same way, am I right? I don’t see any reason for spirits to deviate from that rule.

Just, please…don’t nerf them. T_T It’s nice to have a viable build, even if I don’t use it normally! (I should try it in dungeons though…)

As far as the cooldown timer is concerned, while I see peoples points from a pvp perspective of the skills not all functioning in the same fashion they are in fact different skills, it seems to me that the idea of balance that most people hold is that all things must be equal which is a impossible task without making everything a homogeneous blob with no individual flavor. The argument most often presented is something akin to “I like oranges, nerf apples because I want them all to be like my orange”. If spirits were indestructible and still able to block shots I could see the issue, but as they stand now they are buff stations that can be blown up pretty quickly by any class and build in the game. I guess the point I am trying to make and probably rather unsuccessfully is that you simply can’t compare x skill with y skill and get a fair representation without taking into consideration all of the factors that make up a class. What most people see is the end result of a particular build as in they either struggle against it or they steamroll over top of it. Take the mesmer, once lauded as being super overpowered people even saying they were unbeatable in a 1v1 situation, until they received nerf after nerf, and now look at their position in regards to how many you see in tPvP, and the only thing that really changed was the meta to being more condition focused, which could have countered the glkittenter builds at any point in time because they were always weak against conditions. I don’t want to present myself as some ultimate authority on game balance, so let me make it clear that these are simply my opinions and by no means am I trying to present them as hard facts, but far too often the players that have the devs ear do present themselves as some kind of authority and for whatever reason the dev’s listen and in the process they destroy perfectly fine classes in all other modes of the game besides the beloved point capture game.
Edit: apparently the filter thinks that using terms like what your window is made out of and what a mesmer does with their mind wrack skill are bad words lol

Yes, they are different skills… And since spirits are easily destroyed, I’m not too fussed if they don’t do anything about the CD. But then, a Guardian’s spirit weapons aren’t that tanky either… Hmm. Of course, I’d rather they buff those than nerf spirits. But I see your point.

Traited and untraited spirits stacking SHOULD be fixed, unless it was intended to work like this, but I highly doubt that. But spirits on their own…I honestly don’t see the commotion. I think the source of most people’s problems with spirits is that all of sPvP/tPvP is a capture-based game. (Oh look, there’s the bunker problem again…)

But I wouldn’t mind seeing the spirits changed so that their CD starts after the spirits go down. Maybe reduce the recharge a bit. I mean, other skills that summon something work the same way, am I right? I don’t see any reason for spirits to deviate from that rule.

Just, please…don’t nerf them. T_T It’s nice to have a viable build, even if I don’t use it normally! (I should try it in dungeons though…)

Weirwynn.2390:

You also can’t ignore that unlike the first half of the Claw of Jormag fight, the second half is very poorly explained. The barrels labeled “Charrzookas” begin dispensing flamethrowers, it’s not clear that anything happens when the golems get to the dragon, and it’s not clear when he’s stunned and safe to approach (yes, his posture changes, but it’s easy to miss).

Basically, the player is put into a situation where they cannot attack the dragon directly (no charrzooka, unless they kept one from the previous stage), have no clear way to directly influence the removal of that limitation, and have NPCs shouting at them to “watch the cliffs” where all the enemies spawn. They’re also told to “protect the golems,” but firstly, it’s not immediately clear that the ice pillars pose a threat to them, and second, standing around trying to destroy pillars before someone else is not exactly a riveting experience, nor does it make them feel particularly helpful when there are only so many to go after.

So yes, most players will resort to attacking the mobs. They’re a clear, actionable threat they’re being told to attack, and it’s not made clear when they should stop and attack the claw.

I agree with all of this; the first time I did Claw of Jormag, it was very confusing. But it helps to pay attention. Of course, the “watch the ledges!” thing is overstated way too much… I will say, though, that you CAN tell when Jormag is stunned. The NPC in charge will often say he’s been stunned ( “The wall’s down!” “The wall? You’re behind on phases, NPC”) and barring that, the event text will tell you that Jormag has been stunned.

People don’t really seem to notice this often, though. You usually see a lot of people going down at the start of the 2nd phase or after the stun phase is over (they don’t rertreat early enough because they think it’s still stunned).

But back to the topic… Not sure. Like someone else said, the champs often die from the CLaw getting stunned anyway. They’re just annoying powerhouses getting in the way. Not sure if changing them into Vets would help…since then they would drop faster.

Serenity.6149:

Concur completely.

And I hate the argument that the rest of the game is boring; if there isn’t proper incentive to play the core game, then that’s a problem that needs addressing. If a friend asks us why they should consider GW2, it’d be nice if we could tell them about the amazing dungeon/fractal system that requires teamwork and never gets boring (I can only comment about PvE since I don’t PVP or WvW). It’d be nice if we could tell them about the thriving and abundant open world system. It’d be nice if we could tell them about the amazing combat mechanics (I love the dodge system, but let’s face it, most fights in this game are tank and spank of the worst kind).

I can tell them about the frequent temporary content additions, which isn’t bad per se, but when the goal of that temporary content is mainly 1) lore, 2) achievements/titles, and 3) skins, those are things that appeal to players already vested in the game. To someone who either hasn’t played or left due to the flawed PvE, none of that sells.

It’s nice that ANet has four teams working on Living Story now, but I don’t think anyone would have complained if it was two teams rotating on a four-week release schedule. The other manpower or salary could be directed toward polishing the core PvE. Unlike those who believe in an infinite resource system that ANet has at their disposal, it’s clear that they could use more help in fixing bugs and polishing the overall game. I realize bugs/bad tooltips/skill malfunctions take time to be ironed out, but when even the easiest things to address take 11 months (and counting), it’s no longer an issue of bugfixing but either lack of manpower or poor attention to detail.

(If there are issues with PvP and WvW, I didn’t mean to place PvE above them in importance, but as I said before, my main experience is with PvE. Surely, if there are issues with core PvP and WvW, they should receive similar attention.)

Agree with this completely. I would prefer if they put more resources into the core game and into bug fixing. Right now it feels like the game is going for fluff overload and not enough attention to the rest of the game. I’m getting quite tired of the LS; I love doing the new stuff, but every 2 weeks is so freaking fast! I’d prefer a new release once a month just to slow down the frenzied pace a bit.

Not even going to bother with the fact that it’s drawing people away from other areas and the new player issue. Others have already explained that a lot better.

Not sure about the flanking thing, but I’ve noticed that when I aggro Risen, they always go for my pet first…until I fire off Barrage. Basically everything I hit makes a beeline for me. It’s less noticeable in a lower level PvE, but it’s there.

Update – 26 July 2013
Bug fixes
Living World – Cutthroat Politics

- Fixed a bug in the Candidate Trials which prevented some of the Aetherblade waves from spawning.

This bug was fixed I believe. Did you try your strategy again after the July 26th patch, OP?

Lyskaria.2145:

As for Fractals of the Mists, I’m not quite sure. For me it’s a dungeon, so PvE, but maybe some people see that differently.

I’ve actually seen many achievement hunters moaning and groaning about being “required” to do the FotM achievements related to the Living World addition. I think that is just as bizarre as believe you would think it is, and just as I (and many others who play enjoy multiple parts of the game) think that your self imposed restrictions are bizarre.

Lyskaria.2145:

You do realize I meant separating the game modes in relation to the LS, right? Since that’s what’s the hot topic in here and the subject I was replying to.

I don’t see why the LS should be restricted. Its supposed to be new content, why shouldn’t it include the rest of the game? Back during the Halloween event we had lots of Halloween related stuff in WvW, why should we be excluded from certain “holiday-like” updates?[/quote]

In my mind, there’s a difference between PvE’ers complaining about a Fractal kite and a WvW kite. Because the WvW one is a PvP one and the Fractal one isn’t. However from the other part of that bit it seems you think I restrict myself from certain parts of the game? Because if so, I really don’t. I’ve tried (and still play) all 3 main game modes and I’m not aversive to JP’s.

As for Halloween, I’m afraid I missed that last year so I can’t comment on that. >< I thought pulling the kite out of WvW wouldn’t hurt WvW’ers, that because the rest is PvE content, moving it wouldn’t harm WvW’ers. But I guess it would, since you’ve been trying to get that through my thick skull. At least that’s what I’m seeing here, feel free to correct me if I’ve misread anything.
In that case I guess you’ll just have to deal with all the complaining threads that are going to pop up in the future then. (unfortunately) Since Anet put a LS objective in the Obsidian Sanctum twice in a row, they’re likely going to do it more often.

Thanks for making your stance clear to me.

Edit: Not quite sure why it didn’t quote your reply there…I’m stil pretty new to these forums, so sorry about that.

Surbrus.6942:

Lyskaria.2145:

I mean really, are any WvW fans who don’t do PvE that much even interested in doing the Living Story? Why not just keep the two modes separate?

What about the large number (majority?) of WvWers that like the rest of the game as well? I think you’re projecting your self imposed restrictions on everyone else. Not everyone has such odd restrictions on what they allow themselves to do.

Besides, its not that people who focus mainly on WvW don’t like nice shiny things, its just that our preferred game type means that we get the short end of the stick when it comes to such things.

In the end, these are obviously WvW achievements (as you have to enter WvW to get them), just like the kite achievement in the Cliffside Fractal is a FotM achievement.

And for emphasis, the reason why these two modes aren’t kept separate with an autistic passion is because most people actually like it.

It was a question posed to all of you. If it seemed like I was telling you guys what you like and don’t like, then that was never my intention and I apologize. Having said that, I did see at least 1 person here who fitted most of those questions. I was simply trying to see how many people had that same mindset and if it wouldn’t be better to keep the LS separate from WvW. If that looks like I’m “projecting” my apparently odd, self-imposed restrictions on you guys, then I don’t really know what to tell you. O_o

Yes, I did say Obsidian Sanctum is a PvP map. Considering it’s a PvP map linked to a WvW map, that makes it a WvW achievement. I don’t recall stating that it isn’t. As for Fractals of the Mists, I’m not quite sure. For me it’s a dungeon, so PvE, but maybe some people see that differently.

You do realize I meant separating the game modes in relation to the LS, right? Since that’s what’s the hot topic in here and the subject I was replying to. I actually quite like having my PvE gear used in WvW and I don’t see anything wrong with it. If you want PvP gear, go do sPvP imo.

Going to avoid the whole “camping = griefing in this case” argument and ask something of all of you passionate players.

Do you dedicated WvW’ers even care about the Living Story? Obviously if you almost never do PvE, you don’t care about achievement points, and you don’t care about shiny skins, then the LS doesn’t give you much incentive. So why is it there?
Personally, it’s a love/hate relationship for me. I’m not new to WvW, but not super experienced either. I mainly PvE, but I also WvW. And in the JP’s, yeah you can get killed. That’s the whole idea. I won’t deny it can be frustrating sometimes, but I’m a big girl. I’ll deal with it.
I think the issue here is less that people are camping the JP, and more the fact that a set of achievements that are obviously designed for PvE players has 1 achievement in a PvP zone. It IS a PvP zone; you can fight and kill each other.

But I don’t see any reason to put this single achievement in a PvP zone, when the rest is in a PvE environment. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Well, apart from the obvious “maybe more PvE’ers will start liking WvW”. But the thing is, this is about the worst introduction WvW could have for new players; it’s actually having the opposite effect on a lot of WvW newbies.

I mean really, are any WvW fans who don’t do PvE that much even interested in doing the Living Story? Why not just keep the two modes separate?

-edited for grammar errors XD-

I likely just need to get used to it, but right now I honestly prefer the old one. It was cleaner, less cluttered and it didn’t have bright neon green filling up a cell to resemble a progress bar. The categories are fine in my opinion, but I do have an issue with achievements now being displayed in rows of 2. I prefer having to scroll more and have each line dedicated to 1, not 2, achievements.

To be honest I usually adjust to stuff like that very quickly, but this one is proving difficult. It’s making my brain’s information processing go wild right now. XD And I reiterate: all that neon green!

First of all, Colin, thank you very much for replying in this topic. It’s incredibly brave, considering the heated discussions that I’ve seen happen on this forum since I started lurking on it (a few weeks). Your post was great and I’m eagerly awaiting the mix of permanent and temporary additions.

So now my opinion. I won’t say a crapload of temporary content can ~only~ harm the game. But it’s not universally good either in my opinion; more specifically the way it’s being implemented sometimes rubs me the wrong way.
Story wise I’m mostly neutral on it, but it gets a big plus for introducing the lovely Marjory.
Gameplay wise, it pretty much depends on what you prefer. I love the dungeons’ tendencies to use the area against the player, even though it annihilated my pet time and again. I love the new jumping puzzle additions, because I’m a major fan of them.

I think my biggest issue with the Living Story at this point in time is the rate at which new content is introduced. If I remember correctly, every ‘chapter’ currently lasts about 2-4 weeks (correct me if I’m wrong), and we’re getting new content every 2 weeks.

My issue is that it’s a cascade of content. Recently we’ve seen different chapters overlap and it was all a bit of a jumbled mess to me (thankfully that has now cleared up). There was so much going on! I feel like if the release of new content was slower, say once every month, it would give me some peace of mind. I’m honestly saying that I wouldn’t mind a week of downtime between Living Story events. Sure, it’s not like I don’t have time to do anything else – my moderate pace of playing is compensated by the hours I log – but people are flocking to it and are leaving the rest of the world a little empty. Obviously this last bit depends on server population.

I’ve also seen a comment along the lines of, “They don’t want to divide the player base by adding a lot of new layers of content” and while I can understand this point of view, that’s essentially what the Living Story is doing to the game right now. Many players flock to the new content of course, players which would otherwise be available for DE’s and dungeons. And with the speed of the releases this just seems to keep happening lately.

Hope this helps.