Guild Wars 2

City of Heroes did a nice job of making me feel like a hero, even with thousands upon thousands of other heroes, some doing even more "heroic" things that I was. I think what really did it was the fact that I could take on multiple enemies at once and emerge victorious, as opposed to struggling to kill a single, overgrown grub or--say--a freaking DEER.

So your game experience is somehow diminished by me arguing with my guild in an instance instead of standing in the middle of a street in a public zone? From my point of view, if I went to a theme park and found it deserted save for the employees, I’d be thrilled. Aside from being a recycled horror movie plot, this place is all mine! Hell, I might even whack a few employees, myself, so I can loot their delicious cotton candy and dippin’ dots.

I’m not sure if I made a point, anywhere in there, but I hope it comes across if I did.

The OP said nothing about a "thumb(s) down".

digiowl.9620:

Usually in MMOs, CC is used to compensate for single target skills ineffectiveness at dealing with groups. But in GW2 the CC is not CC, it is fighting game combo breakers masking as CC.

The only CC that seems to have any measure off effect in PVE are thing like necro well of darkness that put blindness on mobs every second for multiple seconds. This because it will likely refresh the blindness after the mob attacked, missed, and had the blindness wear out.

The rest are 1-3 second duration but 40+ second recharge.

End result is that the game devolves to AOE, dodge, kite, rinse and repeat.

Now that is an interesting point. Something had been bugging me about the way “cc”—uhhh—“worked” in this game, and I think you nailed it.

As for the OP, I think you’re right, as well. Data mining would seem like the ideal way to analyze a game’s balance, as opposed to complaints on the forums. That being said, I have a bad feeling this thread is just going to be glossed over.

Zaphael.8694:

Ultimately, players who play MMORPGs want to feel empowered, to take on the world or Tyria. Nerfs do the OPPOSITE of that, and that detracts from the players’ experience.

Thank you for making this point. I know I play games so I can forget that I’m too helpless to do anything worthwhile in the real world. Then, I get in game only to be mauled to death by some over-sized grubs or some other seemingly-mundane-thing-turned-gigantic/“threatening”.

I’ve said this to my guild at least a thousand times, by now, but I’ll say it again, here: I miss the HELL out of City of Heroes. For all of its flaws, at least I actually felt like I had power.

The only thing I find disappointing about beating Dredge to death with a shovel is that the kitten thing is so likely to break. It’s a good thing our weapons aren’t that shoddily-crafted. In fact, a LOT of the environmental weapons break after a hit or two, and they aren’t even that good!

I just wish I could always keep a shovel handy so I could beat things--and people--to death. It’d be great in real life, too.

I really don’t understand the "but you already have 20 skills" argument. Sure, there are a lot of them, but most just look like they’re there to take up space in the skill bar.

Elite skills are pretty laughable. What really bugs me about them are the cooldowns. I could stand some of them remaining as they are if their ridiculous cooldowns were either reduced or reworked--preferably the latter. If they’re supposed to be once-per-battle, then maybe they should be once-per-battle and recharge after exiting combat.

(Note that the above does not take PvP into consideration whatsoever.)

Just as long as I have the option to auto-reject duel requests.

You know how to solve this stealth problem? Stop PvPing. You might even find some side benefits, such as a drop in blood pressure or a decrease in animosity for your fellow players.

I’m from Green Bay (actually De Pere, but close enough), and given this opportunity, I feel a PSA is in order.

PSA

Roundabouts: they are not four-way stops, but they ARE intersections--pick a lane and stick with it.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Kreindis.2807:

A ton of your suggestions break balance.

Reducing the usefulness of cripple and weakness would require multiple applications from different players to actually be sustained, it also makes a Thief’s third strike chain even less useful as it’s duration is short enough that you’d be lucky to have it apply to one hit.

Critical hits are left to RNG because it’s a RPG. Getting rid of stats further strays it away from an RPG and more to just an action game…

Sorry, I forgot to mention that these were not thought up with PvP in mind. I get my fill of it from shooters, so I really don’t care for it in RPGs (or in this case, a game that’s billed as an RPG). As for the PvE side of things, it would probably require some adjustments to abilities.

To me, it’s the story and the players’ interaction and immersion with said story that make an RPG an RPG. The stats are just a tool to aid in immersion. These days, though, the MMO variety of RPGs are all about the stats. All. About. The stats.

Kreindis.2807:

…Allowing a Elementalist to switch weapons in combat as well as elements would give them way too much versatility…

Really? My elementalist never felt very versatile. She has a lot of skills to choose from, sure, but does that make her versatile?

Fred Fargone.3127:

…So, you got a dagger and a pistol, as well as a bucket of poison…

Why are you carrying around a bucket of poison?

Fred Fargone.3127:

…You dip your dagger in the poison and put it in your pocket…

Sharp Object + Pocket = Don’t sit down/hole-in-the-pants

(Sharp Object + Poison) + Pocket = Astronomically poor judgement/Darwin Award

Fred Fargone.3127:

…Then you draw your pistol and shoot someone…

What was the whole thing with the dagger about if you were just gonna shoot the guy? And if you’re a thief, why did you put your dagger away in the first place? You can have both of them out at the same time!

So now if you’re dual-wielding them, it raises the question of which one you applied the poison to when you activated your [Bucket o’ Poison], because that possibility already lies in the game?

Before my interest in this game began to peter out, I would pose thoughts to my guildmates who would tell me I should post them on the forums. I never felt like it, so I put them into on a .txt and forgot about it. I happened to be trying to determine the origin of desktop icons and logged into the forums at the same time, today.

It’s your lucky day, GW2 forum-goers!

Notepad

-Merge the “Weaken” condition with “Cripple”.
-Reduce the magnitude to 1/4, then make the intesity of these effects stack.
-(i.e. Weaken/Cripple at 1 stack: reduces speed and endurance recovery by 12% and increases fumble rate by 12%.)
-Fury increases critical chance by 15% and stacks intensity.
-Related thought, though: why is evasion player-dependent, but critical hits are left to the RNG?
-Give secondary weapon sets to Elementalists and Engineers (in-combat switching or out-of-combat switching; I really don’t care).
-Make all weapon sets visible when possible (i.e. a mesmer wielding two swords with a staff still on his/her back)
-Allow bonuses from ALL equipment to be active regardless of which weapons are currently drawn (primary weapon set, secondary weapon set, and terrestrial headgear, even underwater).
-For that matter, why the hell is there an underwater headgear slot in the first place? Just hide the character’s terrestrial headgear and replace it with a breathing mask while underwater and keep the terrestrial headgear’s stats.

I can’t remember what originally brought on these thoughts, so the answer to any “why” questions regarding the less obvious ones will be met with a dismissive/nonsensical " ‘cause it’s there."

Curae.1837:

Try to give it your own twist, why is your character suddenly behaving like that? Surely he or she must have a reason

I actually did this, for a while. For some reason, though, this game just grates on my nerves and imagination. I think it has something to do with what the OP said in that the characters are neither blank slates nor fully-fleshed. It’s just one cutscene after another of what is essentially a player-made shell; you created the outside (with a bunch of transmutation stones, no less), but the inside is all wrong and the two just don’t match.

Thus, my imagination carried “my” character to the Battle of Claw Island, where he decided to stay with Sieran. This game’s terrible story drove me to kill off my own character. I haven’t really been playing much, lately, either—just popping in now and again to say “hi” to my guildmates. It’s amazing how such a detachment can completely ruin a game for me.

Whoever propagated the idea of a singing spellcaster needs to be set on fire. How can anyone take bards seriously?

Y’know, I was playing Skyrim last night night and came across a dead dog. I opened up the console, resurrected it, and gave it god-like health and regeneration. There *IS* something about seeing a dead dog that makes my blood run cold.

To that end, I would suggest just making the dog (and anything ELSE that’s summoned out of freaking thin air) return to hammerspace/The Mists after its summon duration is up instead of just dropping dead.

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Class Name: Martial Artist… not real picky on actual name
Class Type: Medium
Weapons of choice: Staff, Nunchaku, Unarmed and a Chakram for ranged…

General gist/ miscellaneous:
Would simply be a Martial Artist… one of the Utility skill branches would obviously need to be Grappling so there was some CC available.

Instead of a weapon swap, could also possibly do this class such that it mirrored the Elementalist. All the ‘attunements’ would be variations of skills (karate, mui tai, kickboxing…) and instead of weapons like the staff or nunchaku let the fourth attunement be Chakra based skills for ranged attacks.

Most Ele’s complaints are all based about how they can’t change range when fighting because there’s no weapon swap, so having three melee arts and a ranged one just makes sense to me.

I wanted to see something similar in this game, but the way you suggest it would result in my eyes rolling out of my head and my groan of frustration to cause seismic activity if implemented.

An unarmed and lightly-armored fighter? Fine. An unarmed and lightly-armored fighter with obvious East Asian influences? Please—no more—I can’t take it.

Of course, that’s just me. If any sort of unarmed combatant profession is implemented, it’s going to be with the goofy flourishes, dopey posturing, with some kind of bullshido-style pseudo-magic created specifically for that profession.

And on that day, I will put my head through a wall.

I’ve played at least two MMO games, so far, that have had soloable instances (City of Heroes and Tabula Rasa). More options are rarely a bad thing. Being able to choose whether or not you wanted to team up did nothing to diminish the social experience in either of those games. Incidentally, they both had some sort of global (server-wide) chat that helped make things feel less desolate when it seemed like there was no one around. Forcing players to interact is an outdated way to run an MMOG. Just because there are other people playing at the same time doesn’t mean we all need to play together.

Socializing should be rewarded and encouraged--not forced.

It’d be nice to have more roleplaying/customization options, since that’s really what makes or breaks a game for me. I won’t bother getting my hopes up, though, because I’ve seen how much attention the concerns and desires of roleplayers has received from the powers that be in various other games. Who knows? Maybe ArenaNet will be different. Maybe I’ll have renewed reason to continue playing the game. I’m still not getting my hopes up, though.

Damn, I miss City of Heroes.

Raine Akrune.8416:

…All we lost were the GW1 fanboys that wanted an RPG…

Is that really too much to ask? How many games out there are sold as “MMORPGs” that pay more than lip service to the “RPG” end of things?

FaRectification.5678:

OP, I believe you are a veteran, however if you’re going to turn this game into WoW, you might as well have the developers give you the Sword of Judgement at lvl 1 and just turn everything you see in front of you into dust in a matter of seconds.

The point is not to make the game easy, to the contrary, it’s to make the game as challenging as possible but still balanced for all skill levels.

Don’t you want to feel a sense of accomplishment when you achieve something? Sure, you’ll be let down from time to time, but that’s in the nature of things.

Your post makes me think back to the difficulty “sliders” in City of Heroes. They managed to keep the game a challenge for people who were looking for a challenge—whether it be crunching numbers and maximizing a build in order to solo an arch-villain, seeing how fast they could blow through a task force, or finding the most efficient way to farm. What one person considers a challenge, another person might consider monotonous or infuriating; it’s entirely subjective. The difficulty contacts in CoH allowed players to determine the level and number of enemies that would spawn in their missions. Unfortunately, GW2 doesn’t have personal instanced “quests” aside from Trahearne’s Story.

The main point I was trying to make, though, is that “challenges” differ from person to person.

Lex Talionis.5396:

Anet, I like you very much, but please force your writing team out a window.

I felt a slight adjustment was needed, there.

Lex Talionis.5396:

Edit: I’d like to point out the biggest problem with GW2’s MCQ is that of the false dilemma. There were many, many situations where you’re presented a bunch of non-mutually exclusive options and yet you can’t go “Why can’t we just do ALL of them?”. Everyone is grotesquely mentally incompetent, including the asura. “Oh, I chose to join the Order of Whispers, so the Priory and Vigil agents will naturally refuse to help protect Queen Jennah” (Granted she’s completely useless and we’re expected to like her just-because.) – That suggests an appalling immaturity, spitefulness and pettiness within the 3 orders. What are they – squabbling vindictive children? Why is everyone so two-dimensional?

Oh, sweet Jesus. I couldn’t STAND the introduction to the orders. After that arc, I didn’t want to join any of them.

I always thought I was pretty easy going when it came to bad writing. Usually, nothing really grates on my nerves in a way that causes me to stop and exclaim, “this story SUCKS!” The “personal” story in this game is the exception.

Lex Talionis.5396:

It offers no choice, just the illusion of choice thanks to gated content. Whatever you do in the game, the outcome is essentially the same. This removes much of the motivation for actually seeing the personal story on replays – you don’t forge your destiny as much as succumb to a scripted and inevitable fate.

While it’s true the game doesn’t offer any meaningful choices, I did imagine my character electing to stay and die with Sieran on Claw Island instead of being stuck with… He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Interesting. Then I just stopped playing the personal story completely. Hell, it’s not like my character is actually my character. I don’t feel any attachment to that terminally stupid bundle of pixels. I suppose that’s also the reason it’s getting harder and harder to play the game at all, these days.

I haven’t seen the mentor for the Vigil, yet, but Sieran and Tybalt are, to me, the only light in the darkness of a story that has, from the very beginning, made me want to put my foot through the monitor. I don’t feel like a hero--hell, I don’t even feel like a sidekick. I feel like a fanfic author’s poorly-written self-insert.

The "sacrifice" itself didn’t strike me as making a bit of sense, either; it felt extremely contrived. The island’s toast and everyone’s being mowed down by undead that are being launched over the freaking walls. What, exactly, is one person going to do to delay that horde even if he/she started fighting from the very beginning and didn’t wait until being completely surrounded?

Like I said: I don’t care who it comes from--start digging through orifices for a plot (it’s not like it’ll be much of a stretch at this point, anyway [geddit?]). I want Sieran and Tybalt back!

The duelist set. Oh, the duelist set. It looks cool on male characters and COMPLETELY different on female characters; that frustrates the hell out of me. I’m glad my only female caster is an Asura. I don’t think I could stomach the stripperific outfits Humans, Norn, and Sylvari are forced into.

Also, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGQEAiZJMco

Might I recommend abandoning PvP entirely? I’m not trying to be snarky, here, either. I used to PvP like crazy back when I played WoW, and found that PvP was the greatest frustration I had with that game, while getting nothing in return. I felt no sense of satisfaction or accomplishment when I DID kill someone; I just felt momentarily less annoyed.

I’d rather find out the various Order mentors managed to survive. I don’t care which or whose orifice the story is pulled from; I want it to happen.

No character can make me genuinely smile and yearn to choke her to death the way Sieran can.

I support this whole-heartedly. The enhancement system in City of Heroes spoiled me rotten. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find another game with THAT much customization potential, but at least this would be a small step closer.

The example you provided is hardly the most egregious offense of stripperific armor/clothing. In fact, they actually might look a bit more similar if they had the same color schemes. I wanted to smash my head into the desk when I previewed the tier three medium Human cultural set: Assassin (That word alone is so overused, I could puke).

Male:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/6/6f/The_crescent_moon_concept_art.jpg

Female:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/8/88/The_crescent_moon_2_concept_art.jpg

Imagine, for a minute (or more), what the male character in the concept art would look like in the female version of the armor.

Let that imagine sink in... Niiiiice and deeeeep... Yeah.

I constantly do the same with my engineer’s turrets because I always seem to forget that I’m standing next to them.

Oh, gods, yes. As a necromancer, it’s eye-gougingly frustrating that so many abilities are locked underwater.

On a side note, I *DO* like how Mantra of Agony has no verbal component underwater. I don’t use mantras, otherwise, specifically because I can’t stand listening to my character repeat himself like a broken record.

I suppose from the perspective of someone that hasn’t really been following the genre of MMORPGs for an extended period of time, this game can seem like the same “fecal” sandwich with a different arrangement of condiments. Now for someone like me, that’s seen quite a few different MMORPGs, it’s somewhat refreshing to see someone do something—ANYTHING—slightly different than everyone else. When I went to give SWTOR a try, for example, I played for about an hour an uninstalled the game in disgust; it WAS the same “fecal” sandwich as WoW/EQ, with the SAME condiments; it just had a different name on the menu.

People that have been playing MMOGs (I don’t even feel comfortable calling them “RPGs”, anymore) for years and consider themselves “veterans” of the genre are something akin to sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome; we’ve been held hostage by the same, kitten things for so long that ANY sort of innovation is seen as a gift from the gods.

At least that’s how I see it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to continue to abuse myself and like it.

It would also keep the early responders and small groups from being mauled in low-population areas.

Wasn’t this already supposed to have been implemented?