Guild Wars 2

I’d really love it if there were a choice at some point (no idea where it’d be) that allowed you to either choose one of the elements as your primary, or to choose a balanced (arcane) approach. The single element approach would remove the cooldown from that attunement entirely, and improve the auto-attack damage of said element as well. The balanced approach, on the other hand, would reduce the cooldown of each attunement by 25% and increase all their auto-attack damage by 25% of the single attunement increase.

I just think such a change would really free up the gameplay to feel more fluid. You would still be able to pull off long combo chains, but you could also segment them if you wished. Right now it sometimes feels like “PRESS ALL THE BUTTONS!!!” even when I’m not necessarily in need of all the buttons. And if you’re absolutely smitten with how things are now, you’d still have the balanced approach to keep essentially the same playstyle.

Glad to hear condition builds are being looked at. Definitely should make sure the ease of condition removal is being looked at in addition to what’s already been confirmed as an issue.

I really like the idea someone here put forth where you get resistance against condition removal (maybe just damaging conditions) with more of the Condition statistic. It’s really an elegant solution, where those who heavily rely on the mechanic will function, but the dispels will still be useful against non-damage effects and what could be considered incidental condition damage put up by non-condition builds.

Currently, if you have an interaction window open for one NPC, and then right-click on another to speak with them instead, nothing happens. You have to close the already open window first. What should happen is, upon right-clicking a new NPC the current interaction window is automatically closed and that of the new NPC opened.

It’s not a gaping hole in the UI, but it’s little things like this that make a game feel polished and keep you best immersed, which is actually quite important. As it stands, every time I try to switch from one NPC to another I’m immediately brought out of any groove I’m in and into a state of hyper-awareness that I’m playing a video game.

some, many folk are fine using a mouse to play this game with

The quantifier you’re looking for is “vast, vast, near-100% majority”. Ideally everyone could be taken care of, but you’re playing the game with the wrong input device. It’s as simple as that, and your issues probably won’t ever be looked into.

I can’t imagine any disagreement on this. Definitely something that should be implemented, and I have to say how surprised I was that it wasn’t part of the initial release, especially given how variable the importance of the profession bar is, and how the number of necessary keys to operate it isn’t even consistent.

Skekzyz.1458:

NO

Yes. Escape should clear your screen and stop casts only. Stopping your auto-run is simply a nuisance.

Skekzyz.1458:

it’s in GW1 it needs to be in GW2.

This isn’t an argument.

I disagree, leave Esc as is, ADD a bind to CLOSE ALL DIALOG BOXES and the map with ONE button press.

It’s called the escape key. It’s just that right now it stops your auto-running for no good reason.

I don’t not dis-disagree.

GideonWilhelm.5709:

because for every one of you that whine about it, ArenaNet knows that at least a hundred more are happy with it and don’t care to see it changed.

So there are a bunch of moronic twits out there who are happy when other people can’t play the way they want to, even though said hobbled people being able to play how they want would in no way negatively affect them? That, to me, sounds like a hugely cynical view of the Guild Wars 2 playerbase. But then, I guess certain people with utterly deplorable, totalitarian views might just think such a thought process is normal and imagine many others share it.

Edit: Really forum? You can’t render Chinese characters?

I could see removing that especially for pvp would be very overpowered.

It wouldn’t be overpowered in the slightest.

I wouldn’t want to be running around with 100+ stacks of bleed on me

If you were attacked by a group of direct damage dealers instead, you’d just be instantly downed.

wmtyrance.3571:

I hope Arenanet doesn’t start making changes to the game just to make a certain few happy.

The game is the way it is now because of a recent change. Said change caused significant issues, and so this thread is merely a request to undo that change.

GideonWilhelm.5709:

Then if he’s not willing to put in effort to play the game the way its creators intended and intricately designed it to be played, maybe it’s just not his kind of game. By the sound of things, he’s already 100%ed it, which is all you can do in most games you only paid $60 for. If he, or anyone else, is unwilling to use the entire game world to its potential, especially after already having seen everything, then maybe it’s time to move on.

What the flying kitten is it to you how someone else wants to play the game?

pharazonic.8694:

I didn’t leave Queensdale until level 23 on my Guardian. I’m almost level 30 and at like 55% completion for Kessex Hills. A guildie of mine didn’t leave Queensdale till level 32.

Just providing the other end of the spectrum here for those readers who might read this and think that levelling is broken. It’s not.

Yours is such a ridiculous exception though, that it’s not even worth mentioning. You obviously did a ton of things that had nothing to do with the Queensdale zone or that the average player would not, like excessive crafting, WvW, exploring major cities (don’t know if you consider this leaving Queensdale or not), or fanatically hunting down every single event even if it takes you across the entire zone.

I myself just completed Queensdale this morning. When I started it I got my gathering tools right away, and barring going unreasonably out of my way I hit up every node I came across. Any event that sprang up near me, I did. I even spent a while chatting in Map and doing the same event over and over between bouts of just sitting on a nearby rooftop. On top of that I spent a while grinding mobs to get my underwater skills unlocked, which for an Elementalist is four sets. I’ve also done my story anytime It’s not red to me, and after all that I’m still not even level 15, which is the highest recommended level for Queensdale itself.

I’d expect that the average player wouldn’t be nearly as obsessive about gathering as I am, and wouldn’t necessarily be of the mindset that you don’t leave a zone until you’ve gotten the 100% completion reward. They might do a little crafting that I didn’t, but that’s barely going to negate the previous two points if at all. The human starting zone plainly needs an across-the-board boost to experience gained, because it’s not just at the end, but rather the entire time that I’ve been barely scraping by with only one level-appropriate heart available to me at any given moment.

It’s actually really weird to me that you would come into the thread with such an anecdote. You know that both you and your friend (especially your friend) did something far and away beyond what the average player would, and yet are acting like you’re just another valid example of what might be after completing Queensdale. To add 16 entire levels of experience to what I just did, you’d have to be constantly queued for WvW and then put concerted effort towards nothing but running around, rotating gathering and crafting. I can barely fathom doing that for 16 levels straight out the gate. Moreover, that has nothing to do with Queensdale itself, and isn’t remotely reflective of what can reasonably expected of the average player going through the first zone of their new character.

Cameirus.8407:

Maybe its an american thing, butkitten the language is English.

The language is actually American English, which is the most commonly spoken dialect of English. Though AE itself has many regional variations, which is why I can’t help but notice every time my asura says “golem”.

That all being said, “quay” is not an oft-used word here in the west coast. I’ve lived most of my life near the beach and I honestly had to look it up just now to make sure of what we were talking about. I’ve heard it actually spoken maybe once, and I’m pretty sure that was in a “other things you can call the wharf” discussion when I was young.

Cameirus.8407:

Maybe you could start doing English regional versions where you pronounce things correctly.

British English != correct English.

tclark.8956:

(sen-tore).

I’ve honestly never heard centaur pronounced like that. Very interesting.

Great idea! I’d love to have an in-game ocarina myself.

I think norn males hold it the same way.

It’s quite the sad situation for gamers in that region, but I don’t see how a smaller company like ArenaNet would be able to justify servers in Australia when even larger companies like Blizzard still don’t have any.

But hey, here’s a bump for hope.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

give them champions / dragons a new buff
“immune to bleeding / burning / poison damage. all bleeding / burning / poison damage converted into direct damage”

Or they could just, ya know, remove the arbitrary and unnecessary cap on bleeds.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

if like this, everyone will be happy yes?

No.

NinjaEd.3946:

they would have to seriously buff large scale boss’s hp bar or defences if this happened. 25 per person??? I want harder dragons and behemoth not easier.

Removing the bleed cap would cause bosses to be no easier than having only players who deal direct damage participate currently would.

XelNigma.6315:

keep the 25 stack limit, just make it so its per person. Each player can stack up to 25 bleeds on a boss would be fair. also make it so each person can add there own poison and burn effects too.

Why even this concession? There’s no reason for any cap whatsoever.

You don’t meet in the middle with someone saying that 2+2=5 by going, “Alright, well even if you don’t agree it’s 4 let’s at least agree it’s 4.5. Sound good?” This thread holds one of the few arguments outside of mathematics where there really is an out-and-out correct answer. There’s one group of people who agree that a cap on bleeds is a problem, and then another group of people who don’t understand why they’re wrong yet.

unliketea.4831:

stack limit is needed to balance “stacks in intensity” conditions with “stacks in duration” conditions like burning. Everyone knows that dead boss corpse should be burning for another two hours from all the burning that was applied during the encounter.

So your solution to burn-based damage being broken in its own right is to keep bleed-based damage also broken? Burns, bleeds, poisons, and direct damage should all be exactly as viable with thirty players utilizing them as they are with one player.

I’m not too familiar with the burning mechanic, but if it works as I suppose and as you allude, then it’s a bum mechanic that’s being unfairly and unnecessarily sacrificed on the alter of “different for the sake of different”. Unless they can find a real, genuine way to make the various damage over time mechanics separate while remaining equal with both one another and direct damage, they need to all be converted to stacking intensity and have no cap.

That this discussion even has to be had is… interesting.

There should be no cap on any damage over time duration or intensity. Unless there’s some hidden mechanic causing bleeds to scale in any way but linearly when stacked, anyone arguing against this suggestion has literally no ground to stand on. And if such a hidden mechanic does exist (though there’s no reason to believe it does), it should simply be removed along with the cap.

Your title could use some redoing: it doesn’t really encapsulate the thread content very well.

I agree very much with some kind of way to customize the skill-sets available to each weapon. I think that weapon-specific skill pools are fine, but having just the one, unalterable set for each weapon leaves much to be desired.

robinsiebler.3801:

It is easy to not check your mail immediately, for example: another DE starts right away and you run to that, a friend ask you to help them now, a wagro sneak attack, the game decides that now is the optimal time to crash or kick you to the launcher, etc.

Ten times in a row? And you completely forget to check your mail (which is still glowing) each time until you’ve completely finished another quest, at which point yet another timely distraction occurs? The odds are staggeringly low.

Edited by moderator: edited the last part because of its potential to create rampant discussion

How do you not check your mail after every quest? The mail icon flashes brightly upon your receiving a letter, and it happens at the exact same moment relative to quest completion every quest. Just… how?

kokuou.9537:

As someone who does translation for a living, I can tell you that this kind of crowd-sourced translation leads to shoddy translations that are inconsistent in style, tone, and a whole plethora of other linguistic features. A professional company like ArenaNet would and should never use such a translation method as a small team can produce a much higher-quality end product in probably a shorter amount of time (albeit more expensive).

This is very correct, especially with the distinctive speech patterns of some of the races. For example, conveying the deceptive simple-mindedness of Skritt dialogue would require far more than a one-to-one translation for most languages.

The artistic integrity of the game requires that this suggestion never be used.

Bruce.4278:

All in all the GW2 team is working theirkitten to the bone for us

And we’re, what? Supposed to applaud this disgusting, obscene abuse just because it’s being done on our behalf? I didn’t ask ArenaNet to do this, which I know because if you did ask my opinion I’d say they should let their kitten go.

I don’t support animal abuse. Supporting ArenaNet is supporting animal abuse.

I don’t get all the people preemptively conceding that it’d be alright for bleeds to cap out under certain conditions. There’s no reason why they should, ever. Bleeds are no more powerful overall (theoretically) than any other form of damage, and so all any cap would ever do is unfairly penalize that type of damage.

milkrun.2915:

What would you say is unbalanced Middlebud? I have my concerns but chalk them up to my setup and unfamiliarity (mesmers wtf) yet still enjoy that this is early days and I have a lot to learn

I don’t know enough about the classes and the game yet to know the what, but I do know it’s there. Time and a more experienced playerbase will tell.

Payne.5062:

This game is perfectly balanced in class synergy with others.

I don’t understand why you would say something like this. What are the sheer odds that any game comes out with the classes perfectly balanced in any major respect? Even reasonably balanced?

I could walk up to someone randomly on the street and tell them that Guild Wars 2 is a new MMO, and they would have all the information they need to state, with near 100% certainty, that class balance is an issue. Calling it axiomatic would only be a slight exaggeration.

It’s not a question of if things need fixing, but rather a question of what things need fixing.

I just wish the tells for attacks you need to dodge were more noticeable – maybe have some flavor text attached or the like. I don’t mind needing to avoid the bad, but if that’s how it’s going to play out then you can’t give the bad a cloak of invisibility.

It would also be nice to be able to zoom all the way into a first-person perspective. I imagine this would take care of the problems some people are having with spastic cameras during certain jumping puzzles. For me though, it’s just really weird that we can’t. Hard to appreciate some of the environment to its fullest when I’m unable to get rid of my character from the view finder.

Soothsayer.9476:

I have the same opinion of mesmers now as I did during the 6 years of playing GW1: They are fantastic for PvP, due to the enjoyable nature of frustrating real people, but incredibly boring and unsatisfying in PvE.

This more or less sums up my experience with my Mesmer. In PvP it’s a solid class to run around with, even if the damage isn’t so great, but in PvE it’s dreadfully boring. The class is also ripe with annoying little tics, like how your illusions will just up and disappear in the middle of combat with four enemies because your first target dies, or how shattering your illusions is set to a random delay based on their distance from the target, and even once they reach the intended target there’s an additional delay from the animation, which gives quickly moving enemies time to clear the blast radius, or to really drag this sentence on, how the seemingly most intuitive use of Illusionary Leap is made impossible by your not being able to activate the ability from range with a target you’re not yet in combat with (though the cooldown will happily accept your decision to hit the button, regardless of whether or not anything actually happens).

I was ready for a class that wasn’t upfront about everything it did, but what I got was just… not what I expected. The abilities don’t feel like they have nearly the identity that some skills from other classes I’ve used have. I also disagree that Mesmers require some top-tier understanding of gaming theory to play: I’ve already found longer and more technically complex skill chains on my new Warrior than what I felt was available to my Mesmer, and the payoff is there not just cumulatively, but at every step. With Mesmers, even when you utilize what’s there well, the damage is just weak in PvE.

For some background, my Mesmer is only level 30 in PvE and 5 in PvP (so I do accept that a deeper trait tree might change things, but I’m not going to trudge through boring levels on the hope that this is the case), and though I played around with every weapon type often, I mainly used a staff/greatsword combo in PvE and a scepter-focus/staff combo in PvP. When damage was my only concern, my primary goal was to keep my phantasms up as often as possible, and throw as many Mirror Blades through as many fields as I could (namely the fields created by Chaos Storm and Feedback).

I really, really wanted to like the class. Even though I only got to 30, that’s already 10 levels past when I first started thinking about maybe dropping the character. In fact, if I hadn’t found out that I could help other players with express access to certain harder-to-reach Vistas via Portal Entre, I probably wouldn’t have even made it as far as I did. This is also by no means an exhaustive review of the problems I have with the class.

This is all not to say that there aren’t some fun things about Mesmers, because there are. Portal Entre is awesome as an explorers ability – all classes should have something like it, and I really do like Feedback (which is as interactive and impressive as I was assuming all Mesmer spells would be, instead of so many dealing with tiny icons on my screen that assure me my foe is deeply confused about his or her place in the universe). Temporal Curtain is good fun (and versatile), and the underwater skills are visually impressive and generally effective. The group invisibility spell is also very entertaining to use when a group of allies and yourself rush into a group of enemies; this causes far more confusion than any illusion could.

Minutia aside, I think I can really capture my feelings on the the Mesmer class as it exists now with this: when I rolled my Warrior, I was elated to find that the Mesmer was not representative of the state of the professions as a collective. Now I’ll sometimes attack a mob I’m running by for naught by the sheer joy of executing my combos. It doesn’t hurt that the male Asura “action noise” voice actor is, from what I can tell, the same person that did adult Link in Ocarina of Time.

Are all curse words replaced by “kitten” here? It’s making some of these recent posts mighty hilarious to read.

VanderBeltLegacy.4736:

i still remember in gw1, when some1 called my character a kitten and i said “but im a cracker” and got banned for 78hours

Had me rollin’.

elk.1493:

if people are more worried about riskay language, then maybe they’ll be more considerate.

Or people could stop being juvenile, getting offended by syllables and certain combinations of characters as opposed to the actual meaning intended by them based on the context.

I can convey the most vile, horrid things without using any “foul” language. I can also use “foul” language and not mean anything negative by it. In fact, for many people (especially in the younger generations), saying “<Removed – please do not bypass the language filter – Thanks! ~ Dalmarus>” is not inflammatory in the least when they’re just using it as an adverb or an exclamation.

We’re not living in a white suburb from the 50’s. It’s not at all a safe assumption that anyone using one of the seven words is trying to stir up trouble or be disruptive, and it is legitimately a form of discrimination to censor a person’s regular speech pattern.

The only rule should be regarding disruptive behavior. It shouldn’t specify any words, or even “foul” language in general, because I guarantee that moderators are going to use any such specification as an excuse to be lazy, resulting in unwarranted punitive action.

Eluziel.4650:

but having a game where people ARE punished for obviously taking thekitten which ‘Fittle Lucker’ is.. is a refreshing change.

What world do you live in where over-censorship isn’t still the norm? Where people’s (mostly middle to upper class white people’s) uneducated views on language aren’t constantly coddled?

And I’m not saying that middle to upper class white people are the only ones with uneducated views on language, but theirs is the only uneducated view that throws around enough weight to warrant coddling on a systemic level.