Guild Wars 2

Martin Kerstein.3071:

I understand that some of you are disappointed that you cannot guest on worlds in another region, but considering the complexity of internet routing, our main priority is to ensure that players have as much of an uninterrupted game experience as possible, which is the reason why we have two datacenters.

On another note: I will try to get an answer to the guild influence question that has been posted a couple of times.

Psst, you know what interrupts my game experience? Not being able to play where I want, with whom I want! That’s kind of a bigger deal than the occasional database issue!

Also, this does not explain why transfers cost money. Sure, okay, I can’t guest in another region because of technology? Fine, make transfers free on a cooldown then; why are you taking money for it?

Thank you for the answers everyone (though I’m still looking!). Tarnished Coast seems interesting, but sadly the server is actually full, so I can’t transfer there! At least not at the moment.

I’ll continue to keep an eye out for now!

You can definitely WvW immediately after server transfers, I can attest to that.

Hello everyone,

I’m a European player currently playing on American servers (I tend to stay up late); I’ve reached level 80 on my first character and it’s gotten to the point that I’d like to experience some content I can’t see on my own. So I’m looking for a nice, friendly guild that would accept me. I am currently on the Maguuma server, but willing to transfer to pretty much any US server with a decent population.

My interests are:

• PvE, exploration (going for 100%, already past 75%)
• WvWvW
• Instances (haven’t done any of them yet)
• Roleplaying
• Friends!

My dislikes are:

• People who take this game too seriously
• Minmaxing
• Drama, whining, etc.
• Strict guild structures, compulsory events, etc. Sorry, tried that before (in other games), doesn’t work for me. I do like fun events and meetups though, just don’t make me attend a boring weekly meeting please!

Any guilds out there that I would fit into? Again, I am willing to transfer servers, as I have no ties to my current one!

You remember those scenes from Scooby Doo, when there was a hallway with lots of doors and they just ran from one to the other like crazy? That’s how I sometimes feel like in WvWvW. “Hey look, that completely undefended camp got captured because three guys just walked right behind our lines!” And then you run over, you recap it, but oh look, they did it with that other camp… and it just goes on and on. I know skirmishes are an important part of warfare, but this is ridiculous.

So here are some independsnt suggestions to fix this issue! Note that these suggestions are kinda mutually exclusive, I just wanted to present alternatives.

1. You can only capture a point if you hold a point next to it:
   Fairly straightforward. You cannot capture a point unless you hold one next to it (what points count as adjacent would have to be precisely determined, but it’s not a huge task); this would create “lines” of battle, basically there’d be front lines where all the fighting takes place and the rest would basically be safe. The problem with this suggestion is that it completely prevents skirmishes, surprise raids and surgical strikes, which would basically turn WvWvW into a massive tug-of-war; this may or may not be seen as a good thing.
2. Camps cannot be captured at all, they are attached to nearby keeps and towers:
   The idea here is that each camp is “assigned” to one or more keeps or towers, basically the ones it supplies. So when the keep is captured, so are the camps with it (unless they are assigned to something else as well, up for debate what happens then. Maybe keep trumps tower?) This would make annoying little runs against camps impossible; a keep under siege already doesn’t get supplies (the siegers kills the caravans), so that wouldn’t change. The issue with this solution is that you couldn’t starve a keep not under siege from resources by capturing its camps.
3. Camps cannot be captured, but can be neutralized:
   And extension of the above, camps are still assigned to keeps and towers and cannot be captured, but they can be occupied. Basically if you kill all the PCs and NPCs guarding a camp and stay there, it stops producing supplies and sending caravans; you can even pillage the supplies already there. As soon as all hostile forces leave the camp, it resumes production, so this would actually give you a reason to leave guards in the camps you raided; or not, you just pillage the supplies and flee! To prevent leaving just one guy in a camp to idle, NPCs will periodically attempt to recapture occupied camps. Note that occupied camps do not spawn NPCs for the occupiers, it has to be held entirely by players!

Here are some other small suggestions that would help with the issue:

1. Players can be spotted by other players and NPCs, display on the map:
   A simply idea, if a hostile player is seen by a player or an NPC of your server, they show up as red dots on your map. This would prevent enemy players from just “sneaking in” because NPCs have a limited range of engagement. It would also make communication and mobilization significantly easier, since everyone could just see where enemies are and how many. You shouldn’t win a battle just because none of your enemies reported how many you are in chat! As an additional idea, add simple, barely defended watchtowers all around the map; these would be strategically important and aid with spotting, but very lightly defended, similarly to the current minor points.
2. Punish guilds when points they claim are captured:
   This may sound harsh, but I feel that if a guild stamped their badge on a camp, tower or keep, then it should be their duty to defend it and if they fail, they should be penalized. Nothing too serious, of course, but enough to be an incentive. We don’t want to force people to WvWvW however (or to log on in the middle of the night), so the punishment would basically depend on how many guild members are in that WvWvW area versus how many are actually defending that spot. Basically “if you’re on the same WvWvW map and your point is under attack, you should go defend it!” is the basic logic. Could also possibly scale depending on the number of attackers to not punish guilds too much for getting zerged.

It would make the hidden killer trait kinda pointless when using D/D, that’s completely true. I don’t see that as an issue though, there are plenty of other traits you could pick and the trait is still useful with other weapons.

I actually don’t like talent trees and whatnot in most MMOs. I dislike the idea that I have to be really high level before I even get access to some of the cooler abilities; GW2 lets you use all your skills by level 30 (when you get elites) and I like the fact the game isn’t always about getting some new ability. In many MMOs, this feels really forced anyway, like the devs really, really wanted to come up with new abilities and were all… hmm, well, we did fireballs and iceballs, so… errr… frostfire? Yes, this will work!

That being said, more variety is always good, but you have to realize something like this would take massive amounts of work. Not only would you have to come up with huge amounts of abilities for each class, you’d have to keep them properly balanced too, plus create animations and whatnot. I just don’t think this is plausible, sad to say.

This is a very simple suggestion to alter the thief class’ backstab ability: currently the ability has two damage numbers, normal and from the back. I suggest removing the latter and instead making using this ability from behind an automatic crit.

Why? Because this way, the already large damage you deal from behind can’t crit and do even more damage. This is basically a solution to the balance issue with the current D/D + Hidden killer (100% crit from stealth) build, which, in my opinion, is seriously overpowered.

Now before anyone jumps down my throat… I actually play a thief. The reason I would like to see this changed is because this overpowered combo (which I don’t use on purpose) is… well, quite frankly really boring! All you do is Cloak & Dagger, then backstab, over and over. There’s very little excitement in it and since you spend most of your time stealthed, very little danger from enemies.

This simple fix would make this combo significantly weaker, while maintaining the strength of the backstab move, making other moves and other builds more appealing and more in-line for damage.

Alright, thanks for the responses guys! I may be forced to switch back to D/D then, which is a shame, because I’m really bored of spamming the same skill/skills over and over. Maybe I’ll just try to work around the bug instead and hope they fix it soon.

I’ve been having a weird issue: I use a sword on my thief and the 3 ability, flanking strike, keeps missing for some reason. Basically what happens is, I’m fighting an enemy and when I use flanking strike, my character rolls really far to the side, so one or both of the subsequent attacks simply end up missing. This doesn’t always happen, but it’s common enough that it gets annoying.

Does anyone have any idea why this happens or what I could do to avoid it? Am I doing something wrong?

I just switched to sword from dagger on my thief and noticed an issue… the kitten thing clips into the ground when my character is standing still! Serious WoW gnome flashbacks there, ugh. I really hope that’s something that gets fixed, because it’s such a small issue, but it seriously bothers me. Make swords smaller or make asura sheathe one-handed swords on their backs or something, just don’t make the tip drag the dirt, please!

If you want to prevent nightcaps and such, you could add more NPCs or buff them based on how many players each server has fighting. That was, if one server has a lot of players and another has fewer, the NPCs would take up some of the slack.

The game isn’t based around endgame at all, if the devs do it right, it should never reach a point where “everyone has their crafting at 400”, there will always be people leveling, either for the first time or alts… or even leveling a new crafting skill on their main. I think what this idea would do is make these materials a whole lot more expensive, which would make low-level crafters suffer.

Could just put this somewhere in the achievements tab.

Also would be nice if guild recruitment could be done on a by-server basis instead of dumping it all into one forum.

Having free WPs in a completed zone would make sense! You’re unlikely to use these WPs much anyway, so what’s the harm? Maybe only allow this if you’re porting -from- a fully explored zone too?

Shields (bucklers) could actually work well for the more swashbuckling kind of thief, I think. Rifles also seem to be a logical addition, though I get the feeling the thieves in this game are meant to be very light and nimble, hence shortbow instead of longbow.

Maybe instead of adding more weapons, add a unique mechanic to existing weapons, make them more interesting? Daggers could execute people, swords are good for parrying, etc.

Also the transmutations stones, please!

While we’re at it, recipes too, maybe? I tend to buy any recipe for my professionsI find, but can never use them for ages because my skill is too low.

I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about, my character changed her looks every 10-15 levels. Maybe you’re not doing your story missions, dungeons or crafting? Or heck, just look on the TP, quite a few different item looks there (which you sadly can’t preview atm).

I would prefer the developers focus their attention on one game (this one), rather than split it with an older game.

I have the 30 skill point golem and it’s awesome, saved my hide so many times. Definitely the best elite skill for asura thief if you ask me.

Why on earth would you not like asura thief animations! You get to bounce around in the air and stab people! What’s not to love?

If sylvari can be necromancers and charr can be elementalists, I don’t see why asura couldn’t be charr-style steampunk engineers. They’re just not the regular kind of engineer, since, as others mention, those use magic. I play an asura thief and she uses completely non-magical pistols.

That being said, it would of course be cool if a lot of skills and gear could be race customizable. Like sylvari could have plant-based turrets and gadgets, norn would have more tribal stuff, etc. But it would be quite a lot of work to do all that!

I haven’t really noticed weapons shrinking, though I am a thief, so my weapons are all one-handed. If they do change size when you draw them, that’s silly and should be fixed. Other than that, however, I think the weapon sizes are fine, I don’t want unrealistically massive weapons. I even think some of the dagger models are too long.

Racism is weird in a world where not everyone is the same species. Doubly so if you consider that most races are also cultural entities. Charr are not just fluffy cat people, they’re also a nation and culture, with some splinter groups. So slants asura or others may have are probably more against the culture than the race specifically… it’s hard to say.

In any case, asura are very much “racist”, if such a term makes sense in context. But then again, so is everyone else.

As a sidenote, my alternative future self has already taken over Tyria, but I beat her up.

I don’t really mind, I dislike the silly, skimpy outfits anyway, on any race. I’d actually like an option to choose between male and female models, personally; why does my sylvari mesmer have to go around in a miniskirt and a low-cut top?

Also, as someone mentioned, the “leather straps” chestpiece is… it even removes the pink swimsuit underwear asura girls have, so that’s all kinds of mixed messages there.

I sadly have to agree that the voice-acting is often sub-standard; mostly this is obvious in the actual cutscene-like dialogues, not so much when NPCs are just talking in the open world (some of those are great).

The fact the characters use absolutely no body language when talking this way doesn’t help and a lot of the dialogue and delivery is rather wooden or just… oddly written, feels unnatural. Honestly, as someone else said, the text-based stuff is often a lot more natural, so oddly enough, I may have actually preferred just text many times.

Except for Zojja. Because she is awesome.

While I agree to a point, I don’t think the situation is nearly as bad. 1) You should get most of your skill ups via DISCOVERY (tons of bonus XP there), not crafting. I made that mistake early on too and struggled. 2) Buy stuff on the trade post. Seriously, if you don’t have enough blood, just buy some. Getting money is far easier, faster and more fun than farming the same enemy type for hours.