Guild Wars 2

Dear Aaron McLeran,

First of all, thank you very much for bringing individual music to this game. Music plays such a big part of so many peoples lives, we appreciate all your hard work!

When I saw the horn and harp all I could envision is the possibility of making bands within guilds someday. Then you came out with the drum!

This is my question: Are you going to take this any further or is this the best GW2 will do with music?

Dulfy described the recording ability of the drum as “primitive.” I see there is a slider for people who want to tune out those obnoxious souls who live to create nothing but ruckus, so is there now justification to making a folder within the GW2 file for just music? Perhaps ABC formatted music?

Not everyone is talented enough to play music in “real time” but synchronizing music playable by party members is not outside the realm of feasibility. So how far will GW2 take this?

Thank you for your time.

Specific Game Mode
*PvX

Proposal Overview
Incorporating traits and abilities to care for your pet as a companion and maintain a nature bond with your pet continuously.

Goal of Proposal
The Ranger as a permanent pet user is a core of the original class design philosophy but the combat system of GW2 is ever increasing to movement awareness and active combat functionality. This proposal will suggest changing traits and utilities from harming our pets to consider them as useful and cherished companions. Pets are sometimes useful, but in several game modes they are either non functioning or consistently dead, therefore an introduction of spectral versions of our pets (aspects) need to benefit while they are on death cooldown or by choice. Rangers must be able to benefit from their class mechanic (F2) when the game mode is advanced beyond Pet AI. There needs to be a cooldown introduced to forced aspect mode so a Ranger cannot overly abuse flipping between buff and physical DOT (pet damage) while large damage skills are on cooldown.

Proposal Functionality
On death or by choice (F4) each type of pet emits a Ranger specific nonremovable buff.

Bird: Aspect of the Raptor – 10% attack speed increase. Does not stack with quickness. F2 – Next attack blinds foes. 30 second cooldown.

Cat: Aspect of the Feline – 150 Prowess (15% critical damage) F2- Activate Stealth for 3 seconds. 30 second cooldown.

Dog: Aspect of the Canine – 150 Power F2 – Perform Brutal Charge – leap and knockdown foe. Combo Finisher: Leap Range: 350 (Animation of Savage Leap from Warrior) Cooldown 60 seconds.

Bear: Aspect of the Ursine – 10% damage reduction. F2 – Activate Unstoppable – Take no damage for 3 seconds. Breaks stuns. Cooldown 60 seconds.

Moa: Aspect of the Ratite – Regenerate health 62/second. F2 – Harmonica Cry – pull out a harmonica and play a tune. Anyone who recognizes the tune and types it first in /say within 600 meters wins a free [Mini Black Moa].

Pig: Aspect of the Swine – 150 Vitality – F2 – Activate Forage and search for an environmental weapon. Cooldown 40 seconds.

Spider: Aspect of the Arachnid – 150 Malice (Condition damage) F2 – Throw a web and immobilize a foe for 3 seconds. Range 900. Cooldown 40 seconds.

Devourer: Aspect of the Scorpion – 10% Range damage F2 – Activate Quick Retreat – Evade backwards. Evade 3/4 second. Cooldown 30 seconds.

Drake: Aspect of the Dragon – 30% chance on critical to trigger a flame blast for AoE damage. F2 – Activate Tail Swipe (Animation from Warrior Hammer Staggering Blow) Combo Finisher Blast. Cooldown 40 seconds.

(Just examples, and underwater not covered)

Traits and Utilities
Have all pet specific buffs in the traitlines also affect Ranger to a minimal degree under pet aspects. Also there are too many traits and utilities that harm a pet and further increase their death rate.

Example:
Malicious Training Increase conditions applied by your pets by 50%. When in Aspect increase Ranger condition duration by 10%.

Agility Training Pets move 30% faster. When in Aspect Ranger moves 25% faster.

Compassion Training Pet Healing Increased 350. When in Aspect Ranger Healing increased 150.

Signet of Renewal: Cure a condition every 10 seconds. Active: Pet(includes Spirit of the Pet) cures all conditions on Ranger and 2 from every ally.

Protect Me: Pet blocks one attack (aegis) for itself and Ranger and makes the Ranger immune to all damage for 4 seconds.

Emphatic Bond: Pets periodically cure conditions from both Ranger and themselves. 2/10 seconds.

Associated Risks

There needs to be balance on cooldown activation time on making pets a visible and spectral companion (F4) due to abuse of powerful cooldown abilities to limit power creep. In other words you should not be able to pop back and forth with Aspect and pet with no cooldown inside of combat. There also needs to be some compensation for picking a certain pet for the Ranger and be able to maintain some benefit of a companion through death or life.

Enemies must have a visual cue to what to expect with a Ranger pet out, either dead (spectral/aspect) or alive.

There can be no skills without animations so recycling animations needs to be considered.

It has been over a year, there is little hope the pet will ever be worthy of 30% of our damage. If we have to keep the pets, can we keep their names? Is anyone working on that?

The first online game I ever played, Ultima Online, was able to save names of stabled pets…

That was probably 13 years ago.

20% cd/reduction? are you talking about the skills that are equipped at the bar? if yes, then thats just something that i forgot to change, also non important in stats. Don’t mind it.
crit damage with 100% crit chance seems like base damage to me, if it is not, please correct me.
selfish? i don’t quite get what you mean there.., explain?(perhaps you mean not taking consecrations?well, yeah, again this was an attempt at maxing the dps of guard, not making him a balanced damage/defense factor for the group.)

Thank you all for the answers.

Sorry to be so sarcastic. It is very humorous to me to watch these same people belittle everyone who asked about a support Guardian and yell at them if they are not going damage they are slowing everyone down. Then you find someone who potentially finds more damage by hitting the 100% crit cap and goes into the “hated” Valor line and they -all- start talking about support.

So the rule of thumb is: Do not talk about Valor line. It is selfish. Do not talk about max MAX damage because it is selfish. Play a different class if you do not pick the mold.

Or do whatever the hell you want.

I mentioned Rangers because some of their utilities majorly suck without trait support. While the Guardian, on the other had, has the amazing option to mix up his utilities and use what each fight needs for the group or himself. Not every fight hinges on condition removal. Not every fight benefits from Wall of Reflection. If anyone is only sticking to the utilities they have “optimized” for, then wow.

Exactly. A Guardians utilities are kind of like a Rangers. If you do not spec for them, they are not worth taking. Why even put it on your bar if you do not have a 20% cooldown reduction/duration? You would have to be some kind of min/maxer to try to increase damage with an 100% crit rate and including crit damage as a basic damage multiplier from Valor line. Do not be selfish for trying to make a better damage build. Nothing to see here.

Better:

UO – The first online game I ever played I picked “Ranger” as the preset skills because of the archery and attunement to Nature through taming. I remember being crushed when a pk killed my dog. I eventually dropped taming to focus on a mix of ranged and sword combat which used all of my skills. After becoming a Glorious Lord through slaying Daemons and Lich Lords with silver/vanq weapons I realized the real efficient skill set was tamer and mage. Wow, what a difference a few dragons make. Imagine riding around on a nightmare that can kill gazers on its own and have a frost wyrm and red dragon running around with you. Thank you poor cows for the precious meat you provided my bodyguards.

DAOC – It was fun having stealth and a bow. The arrow upkeep was a chore though and I wish I would not have picked Hibernia when the game first came out. I blame it on my attraction to playing elves.

WoW – Hunters have better options on every kind of pet upgrade/type/pathing and even though they started in a bad spot a lot of their issues were addressed.

Warhammer – I found the White Lion class majestic and liked the option between bonus damage and utility of the pet.

LoTRO – The Hunter class was wonderfully created to fit as a ranged nuker along with the Runemaster class. It was fun and worked well because of how they were set up as a trinity game. Even though the pvp was different it was fun, but not really what made their game great. Actually I would say the in-game music ability made the game great and made them stand out as unique in all the games I have played. I tried going back to play LoTRO after playing GW2 and the movement and combat seem so lackluster now.

Guild Wars 1 – I could play as I wanted. Sometimes it was nice bringing a pet and being a Beastmaster. Most of the time I preferred interrupting and laying waste with my bow.

Better and Worse:

Shadowbane – Sadly I would say Amazon Huntress was better. Only downfall was you had to play a woman character. Somehow, even though I loved the option between a Rogue and Fighter the Ranger was never really balanced. Rest in peace grumpy-looking Elven Bladeweaver Ranger.

Worse:

… Ever feel like your skill is restricted because of class mechanics? Like Paladins in WoW had a definite ceiling. I feel that way because of the drag of the pet in GW2. It is okay, but honestly how many hate doing the dumb Spirit of the Leopard shrine because you cannot even kill a bunny who is walking away without using your pounce attack? Yeah, frustrating.

Kilger.5490:

Heres an easy low hanging fruit type idea that would satisfy a lot of people here:

Add a trait that buffs us for ranger pet type out (like elementalist attunement or warrior stance), and while traited, the pet is just a passive spirit which no longer takes orders and just follows ranger around. Plays to the pet theme and lets people play “without pet”.

I like that idea. Create F5 to call upon Companion Spirit. Whichever pet type you have currently out creates a spirit image of them that follows you around and buffs you. Make them immune to damage have the buff reflect a portion or type of benefit they provide.

If you swapped pets or canceled the effect F5 would trigger a 60 second cool down.

Jon,

Thank you so much for posting and answering questions and asking for feedback. We all enjoy your game very much and love to see improvements.

I remembering a Developer commenting they did not want to give a flat percent bonus to stowed pets because it was only a band-aid solution and once they got the pets where they wanted them to be, people would be up in arms over taking something away they became used it.

I agree with this logic. However, we are now past one year and still at this stage were it is very difficult to fix Pet AI and other issues. Pets are not always useless. Pets are sometimes very powerful and I understand it can be very difficult to balance this issue in light of all aspects of your game.

You have read the many arguments on how it is frustrating to know some of your potential is being held back by a mechanic you cannot become better skilled at, so I will not expound on that more. But I will say the image of pet as companion has missed the mark.

My pets do not even remember what name I named them. Kitten, I do not even remember the name I named them half the time and have to come up with dumb names on the spot if I want to switch them out for utility. There is no permanent feel to them other than I cannot get rid of them.

In light of Ascended weapons/armor why not consider again an in-combat pet stow with the option for more personal damage? Leave the pets as they are, this is as good as they are going to get.

At this stage in the game I would hope we could be willing to reconsider adding more than one specific signet Ranger build who gets 25% damage increase for 8 seconds when his pet drops to 25% health every 48-60 seconds. That is a very specific build. This locks me out being an archer, which I feel foolish trying to be in current settings anyway.

Personally I think it would be fun to choose if I wanted to use a pet, which pet, and able to change based on the situation.

Or maybe add more reasons to have the pet out, like reverse boon sharing. Maybe Marksman Longbow Rangers would choose to have their pet out and fighting in the group instead of stowing for more damage if they picked up 15 in Nature Magic for Fortifying Bond which would share boons to your pet, and it would share boons with you.

If you did something like that you would probably have to limit the boons to ones received from outside sources so you would not be able to double up from the personal boons you give pets. Probably also have to limit the boons to sharing only if Ranger was 600 or so away, so it would not double up if you stood next to your pet.

Whatever you do, I am glad you are willing to talk about it.

Personally I have always enjoyed numerous mobs over strong mobs. I liked how in LotR you were constantly fighting many weaker foes. (Also just loved their music system!) However, in open world combat there is no way to avoid the mass AoE spam that everyone lays down to tag as many mobs as possible before they die. There is no strategy or coordination.

What I liked about GW1 was that mobs had classes. It was important to kill the monk or monks. Mobs healed all the time. Interrupts were important. Warriors with Healing Signet? Ugh. You cannot have that same feel in an open world where you need to let people solo.

Why not in dungeons though? AC Ghost Eater is really the only dungeon I can think of that even attempts this but it is only done as a shadow of what used to be.

Imagine if mobs had more skills than an auto attack and one other ability. Imagine if your group of five heroes went up against eight to ten mobs that were linked and fought together. Where crowd control and interrupts were important. Maybe even where the mobs healer could out heal crazy amounts of damage unless they were stopped.

We no longer have a trinity but what if dungeon mobs did? Bosses do not always have to be that crazy challenging if the mobs along the way were more adventurous. Just a thought.

My best friend has been sending in requests for support and his ticket has not been responded to in 8 days!

Ticket number: 121227-002593

Please review as soon as possible. If there is anything I can do please send me an email.

Thanks!