Guild Wars 2

I died a few times and some stuff was challenging.
If I did hit that barrier, there were at times many people willing to help out or I just decided to venture into the area when more people were around.

Last but not the least, I actually took some traits that helped me escape from stuff.
I actually swapped out my zerker gear for a condi dire gear-set(and mind you i’m SUPER casual, hell by the time i swap stuff out, i convert it to ectos because I don’t have space left!).

So overall I think I had to make some choices to really succeed, but nevertheless it was enjoyable.

I suppose I’m a pessimist by nature and in-fact did not even buy the game till like 20 minutes before launch.
That being said, I did want to say Thank you for the great time.

-The story(even though was a bit short) was actually great and played out well.
-I’ve never been indulged in the lore much but this made me dig up some videos and watch them!
-Landscape was fun, and I think you presented a solid challenge by creating a fairly complex 3-d map. I liked it!
-Changing the number of HP needed for elite was a terrific idea for people who have alts, however more important was the part that you listened to the feedback regarding people wanting to play their elite spec before being absolutely burned out. This was a great middle ground and is appreciated.
-Release was smooth.

Overall, I’m looking forward to actually getting the elite spec on my other toons now(as opposed to dreading it).

Overall, I am fairly impressed and am actually glad that I bought the game.

-Cheers-
Minty

More violets you say?

Qugi.2653:

Mintyfresh.2539:

Other than the fact that some vendors and stuff are in close proximity, how is this any different from zoning to some big city.

No WP cost to zone to airs ship pass place to do what need from any place. Only one load screen. Best thing bought beside copper machine.

You are still paying WP points to go back where you started from right? I mean, sure, no wp fee to get to it, but to get back to the zone or whatever you initiated it from, you are still using WP’s to get back right?

Agreed with the copper machine, only thing I’ve invested in and great investment.
Minty

I was going to buy it but decided against it because it didn’t really make sense to me after I read up on things.

The concept of convenience doesn’t make sense here.
For me the biggest reason to buy this would be to be able to access vendors/forge/trader/banker by instancing to the airship and exiting out to the very location where I initiated the instanced zone from.

So let’s say I’m standing in SW and i want to sell/trade, I fire off my pass, do what I have to do on airship and when I exit it, I am back in SW, at the exact location I was at. Now if I choose to talk to NPC on the ship to take me to some other major city then that’s that.

That would be a “convenience” for me. In the current state, after zoning into the instance, you are forced to zone to another. Why? What sense does it make? Why not zone to LA or some other major city instead?

Other than the fact that some vendors and stuff are in close proximity, how is this any different from zoning to some big city. On top of that it occupies a slot in the inventory.

So what I’m trying to find out is…where is the convenience factor?

Cheers-
Minty

I admire your positivity.

Internet will be internet and masses will run around with pitchforks due to their inability to do so in real life(trust me they would if they could).

I think most new or old players who have dabbled in mmorpgs already know the caliber of garbage to expect from the general masses who don’t get everything they want when they want it.

That being said, what we should be more worried about is the bad design of this event turning players away, not the players. Players will be the same and with the change in demographics of online games, you’ll see more of an influx of extremely rude people.

ONLY way around it is a proper game design that encourages shared tagging, not fighting over resources etc., much of which gw2 has elements of. That being said, this event is kinda crappy :P

The very fact that it’s nothing but a mindless rush is what makes it horrid. I understand the need of a zerg sometimes, but the whole bloody game revolves around it, all end game areas…wvwvw for the most part and ..just all new events.

They really need to think this through, as fun as it is at times, it gets old so fast.

Actually I don’t care about some of the bugs. Things happen.

What does concern me is the minuscule number of event rewards and the scaling issue. I could really care less about the initial bugs. However, looking at the speed at which mobs die and the amount of rewards at the end of the event, I hope that it’s a bug, because that right there, is downright stupid.

Initial bugs I can tolerate. Illogical math and expectations, no, that’s just silly.

My current participation level in the events:

I’m fighting them hard…killing em by zie millions.
Come at me mordrem.

From a player that hops around and comes back to this game every 4-5 months and stays for a couple before getting bored again, this is my opinion.

They took the most interesting part of the game that stood out compared to other games, i.e leveling and trait system(it’s phenomenally better than any mmo out there), deconstructed it, turned it into garbage and handed it back calling it a new system.

Then they did absolutely nothing to what players spend the most time on, i.e end game. Instead every few months, I return, run a few fractrals, run around Orr banging my head and getting pure garbage from bosses that are just zerged hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year.

Done.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

lol just keep leveling , come back to traits when you are 80. Any party wont take you for dung . go for hearths and story, there is no need for traits.

I’ve heard a lot of dumb things but this one takes the cake.

Traits teach you how to play, point allocation nets a lot of variety during gameplay including things such as skill augmentation, timer reduction and even ability modification(dodging creating bombs/granting swiftness etc etc.).

For you to spew garbage like “wait till 80 to get traits” essentially reflects the quality of your gameplay.

Anet, you guys are doing yourself a HUGE disservice by actually breaking a system that people enjoyed. There is no need for this to have been implemented and lack of developer thought-process and now, lack of input is making the game thoroughly tedious for some of your oldest patrons.

In all honesty, the worst part is that this feature especially punishes people who are into the game. I’m not sure if it impacts new customers who started after patch as this is something they get used to. But for us, people who have literally finished story on 5 different toons and completed maps it’s utter kittening disappointment and nonsense theatrics that we don’t want to be subjected to.
Regardless, I choose to vote with my wallet.
Why invest money in a game where developer interaction and feedback is close to zero.

They won’t respond to a 34 Page trait change issue in regards to GW2, think they’ll respond to this

I think in all honesty, from a new player prospective, it hinders gameplay and provides less understanding of the class during the leveling process.

I, for example am trying to level a thief. Suddenly the game feels much more lethargic and not having the ability to put points into traits, makes it extremely boring and fruitless in the early levels.

Till lvl 30, I can’t even augment my abilities to play better or to learn how things impact my gameplay in regards to reduced times/augmented abilities etc. Nothing.
And I’m sure it won’t get any better till I reach much much much higher levels.

As mentioned before, I’m a returning player and this is highly discouraging. What does it usually take for ANET developers to actually respond? I mean, with this sort of lack of feedback, I’m wondering why F2P games get a bad reputation.

It’s not like I’m not putting money into the game. Buying character slots and all do provide contribution to the game, but I’m not sure what kind of developer feedback ANET provides.

This is highly discouraging to see soo many people respond, and majority of them with very valid concerns, and still zero response from the Devs.

Charak.9761:

In PvE you don’t even need +Vit

SNIP
(staff can be soliders though cause you use it in WvW)

That’s very good to know, thank you.
Currently, my stats are as follows:

Any other pointers that you think I should know ?

Folks,
Am a new player, and a new Guardian especially.
After getting to 80, reading a watching a few guides, I kind of arrived at my own build/conclusions.

My primary focus is obviously the greatsword/staff build.
Before I get into it, quick note, I don’t play too many dungeons(though I’d like to get into it) or fractals. I mostly run around in Orr and do world bosses and try to solo vet’s etc.

What I went with was the following(link has traits/sigils/runes etc.):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARWl0Apco97wUI8DNR8AVZAaA2PJK//yj8DA-TpBBwAVeAAAuAAmLDQ5QAUc/hAHBAA

Thinking behind it is the following:
High Greatsword Damage
High uptime on Swiftness
Relatively high health pool (especially for what I’m doing)

It’s a rather selfish playstyle/build, I agree but I’m not doing dungons etc. with it, though maybe with a few modifications to virtuies and maybe altruistic healing it might work.
All 6 pieces of gear are knights(with runes of pack).
Both weapons are Knights(str/accuracy and blood/force sigils)
All trinkets/rights/backpiece are soldiers(with ex.ruby jewels)

I thought it provides me with enough dps and toughness/survivability to take some good hits etc.

Any thoughts/advice would be highly appreciated.

Please keep in mind, the amount of cash I have is rather low as I’m new, so expensive stuff is literally out of the question currently. After spending money on this, I have about 17G left..so, just to give you an idea of how low on cash I am. Hence the reason for choices and to make the best I could with what I had on hand.

Regards-
Minty

I recently picked up the game again.

Had 2 80’s ..I only noticed the new trait system when I jumped on my lowbie toons and I have to say that it’s rather silly.

The system that does not feel rewarding during the leveling process and actually discourages people from delving into alts etc.
Not a fan at all. I’ll be sticking to my 80’s. Having nothing to aim for in an incremental fashion during the leveling process is stupid.

I’m wondering why the old system was discarded, it worked very well and gave people more control over their build and leveling process.

I think for every 10 posts like these, there will be a thousand posts saying how wrong you are and what a terrible person/player you are. A lot of us provided input and it fell on deaf ears. The combat/dungeon mechanics are what got me. Obviously then we had a ANET respond to posts such as “Please make dungeons harder”.

As I have stated before, this is the most boring/lackluster game in the most beautifully conceived setting of any game that I’ve played. It’s gorgeous, but lord is it boring.

Hell, it took you this long?

After raising a toon to max and a couple more to upper 50’s and 30’s, I got pretty tired of an amazingly shallow gameplay. The system to dye your gear is more complex than the fregging combat system.

And don’t forget the same gear skins that drop from lvl 10-max. Every 10 levels I was putting on a new pirate hat with a kitten feather and frolicking around!

Bosses in dungeons dropped some lovely worthless blues and greens, obviously skins of which were very unique(sarcasm).

I have to say, the world, was beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful.

This ended when you reached max level and you were dropped in a zone that looked like kitten and every turned farmer and midget was attacking you every 5 seconds….

So this is what I think.

It’s a beautiful world they have built around a very shallow game.
If your idea is to run around with some unique gear every few levels, this game is not for you.
If your idea of playing a game revolves around being punished for playing too much, too little, too well, not well at all, then this game is not for you.
If your idea of a game is to expect rewards after a tedious dungeon/raid/event, then this game is not for you.
If your idea of a game is to play a game that offers ways to tweak your UI, your notifications and provide a unique look to your UI, then this game is not for you.

In all these cases, this “you” person happened to be me.

Coredusk.3156:

PLEASE UPDATE US on the current information!

More than 30 hours have passed with no news at all. This is killing my mood!

A little sexy time always perks up my mood!

It’s sad to see how they have turned a discussion regarding dungeon mechanics/difficulty/community feedback into a “X tokens in Y amount of time” discussion.

Worst part is that it’s the admins that have derailed this so called “discussion”.

…sigh…not another garbage forum topic.

So you don’t have any meaningful input related to the game?
Only thing you want to do is complain about people who have legitimate complaints about issues?

Only thing you are achieving in doing is creating more noise in a forum that already lacks focus and proper answers.

Thanks for the garbage.

Cheers
Mintyfresh

Edit: I don’t really want to sound rude, but with all the issues around dungeons, crafting and the whole concept of the game that was supposed to be enjoyable suddenly turning upside down, I doubt things such as “cut them some slack” topics helps much.
Constructive criticism is very crucial to a game maturing overtime.

I see parallels to what happend in SWTOR, where bunch of fanboys came out defending everything and claiming everyday that the server pops were healthy etc.etc. Look where it is now. Don’t just look at your opinion but those of majority of the people posting and you’ll see a trend.

Last but not the least, keep in mind, people who complain about issues get tired of posting about it and end up shutting up and quitting. By trying to be “louder” than the competition you are not only doing a disservice to yourself but also the game as a whole. The fewer the number of people that play a MMO, the worse it’s off.

Char The Man.2074:

Listening to the players playing the game is important, didn’t many people said that dungeons are too hard to pass?

Apparently, they were kittenin’ oblivious to the thousands of posts about how imbalanced dungeons were.
Probably my last post here. I’ll probably pvp and just do some basic kitten in the game but as for my overall passion of dungeoncrawling in a game, this is not the game for it. I rather pay for a game on a monthly basis than go through the absolutekitten custerkitten that randomly takes place in GW2 dungeons.

Hell, good luck if you go in some dungeons with less than two guardians…

I see a trend very similar to that of SWTOR here.

Hundreds of people come along and state how unhappy they are about the state of the dungeons.
A few hardcore people come along and say “HEY! MAKE IT HARDER ANET!”

Company does nothing.

Hardcore people are happy.
Casuals leave the game slowly over time.

What happens in this scenario, is that the masses of people, who had legitimate complaints about their experience, over a period of time realize that they are kittenin’ talking to walls(since there is no response from the organization).
Overtime, the only people left to express opinions are the same people who said “HEY! MAKE IT HARDER ANET”.

“Rewards are great, in system, quality and number, don’t know what more you’d want.”

What game are you playing?
&
What are you smoking?

Only reason to play the game is because it’s F2P.

Here’s the interesting part, during the leveling process, I enjoyed the game a lot. Hell, I would pay for the game on a monthly basis.

Now I have a ranger sitting at 80. A 34+necro/engineering.

However, after having played the dungeons, I have no intention of going back to the dungeons till they are fixed. I really don’t give a kitten about the hardcore fans who are willing to do story mode of an dungeon for 2 hours but I’m not one of those people…neither do any intention of becoming one.

I’ve done enough hardcore raiding to realize that it’s an absolute waste of personal time. What I want to do after I come back from work is relax for a couple of hours and do something fun.
Leveling was fun, but that lasts for X amount of time, after that one looks to do specific things like PVP or Dungeons.
Dungeons, with a pick up group, in this game are absolutely boring and tedious.

The part that a lot of fanboys who are supporting this tedious philosophy(that contradicts AN’s so called Manifesto of FUN) do not understand is that people will simply leave if they are not having fun, and that will not only impact the game but ALSO them. The amount of chit chat in genchat/player-interaction/ability to find groups will suffer.

Hell I’ve seen the desire to go to dungeons in general chat(LFG chatter) decline quite a bit.

Regardless, I think no matter what I write, people who are convinced that this is the correct philosophy cannot be convinced, I just worry that it’ll end up like SWTOR, the amount of negative commotion in forums was a very solid precursor to what happened to the game within the time of a year.

One can very well draw parallels to the idiots who were screaming “server pop is ok, go play another game” in that game and people in this game who are saying silly garbage like “go away and play another game, we won’t miss you”.

Trust me, everyone loses with that sort of ridiculous pigeonholed mindset.

I’m sure that this is a strategic move so as to boost their profits, but god…they are so alienating a large amount of their playerbase.

I play with two guys that work with me, both dba’s in their 40’s and a couple of old unix admins, and sadly I doubt I’ll be able to do any dungeon crawling with them as I’m pretty sure that they don’t have the skillset to do dungeons.

I am an avid dungeon crawler and have enjoyed dungeons in every game but this one. Love the game, hate the dungeons…every aspect of it.

I have a lvl 80 ranger and and engineer/necro in mid 30’s and I doubt that I’ll be able to handle the pve aspect of the game if it’s not a mix of dungeon’s. One can lvl only a few hours a day before resorting to a) dungeon crawling or b)PVP.

Totally agreed.
I was under the assumption that proximity threat was how things worked in regards to aggro mechanics in this game, but obviously I was mistaken.

I’m all for aggro bouncing around but the total inability to drop aggro is terrible.

Trying to understand what I need to do to drop threat and how threat mechanics work.

The following is the reason I ask this question:
I was doing CM and a mob, while it was being meleed by other teammembers decided to shoot me.
Instantly I heal which helps, she keeps shooting.
After I dodged a couple of times, had 1/4th Health, I LOS the mob. I go hide behind a rock.
I wait for my personal heal’s cooldown and cast it, I’m at 1/2 health, if not a bit more.
I jump out in the open.

The chick shoots me twice, I’m dead.

The reason I hid behind the rock and LOS’d was due to the fact that a)my dodges were on cooldown b) my heal was on cooldown c)so i can drop some hate/threat/aggro.

I must have waited about 10+ secs before coming back out in the open. Obviously it’s hard to see a proper animation when it’s an instant shot and there is no cast time to the ability used by the boss…but after 10+ secs with other people beating on the boss, both in melee and ranged..a mob not dropping aggro is either intended or straight up silly.

Raedwulf.3712:

Oh lord! What a question this early in the game. With so many possible builds per class, I’d say it’ll be a couple of months before the stat-obsessed min-maxers could answer this one for you. It doesn’t just depend on class (and therefore skills). It also depends on gear and on traits and, to some degree, on the mobs yyou’re fighting i.e. do they have an immunity. I don’t think you’ll find a satisfactory answer right now.

I’m pretty sure that most of the individuals are expressing the experiences with their toons as opposed to solid quantifiable numbers.
Since there are so many many variables, including the ones you do/don’t control, I doubt that we can come to a conclusion as to what class puts out the highest number of “conditions”, however there are definitely ones that can exploit/prolong them more than others.
But overall, I do agree with the notion that it’s too early to get an accurate answer.

~~Cheers~~
Mintyfresh

Also, just to clarify, I did take rampage as one also, just that I chose entanglement first.

I run with one of the two depending on the zones…anywhere where I see undead thralls in bigger numbers, I always switch to entanglement because for some odd reasons they whoop my a** no matter what zone I’m in and pets can’t keep aggro on them.

Kesali.9724:

@Mintyfresh – Out of curiousity, why would you choose to have Sharpening Stone on your bars if you’re also running Keen Edge in the level 50 build? Does using both make a noticeable difference?

Also, is Entangle really better for leveling than Rampage as One? It seems like it would be more valuable in PvP than general leveling…

Keen edge is used regardless of whether Sharpening stone is up or not if my life hits the 75% mark(so it’s cooldown independent).
Also, the reason I pick entanglement as opposed to rampage as one is due to the following:
a) It does bleed dmg(and I did go for a bleed heavy build)
b) It does Mass CC, and very effective CC, with multiple mobs on me, not only do they get cc’d, they also suffer dmg during that timeframe and have to beat the hell outta the roots to get out.

Hope the reasons made sense

~~Cheers~~
Mintyfresh

Went with a ranger AFTER I leveled an engineer to 30.

Something about the engineer didn’t feel right, I felt that there was a TOTAL lack of direction and focus.
It went from super fun to…a bit tedious and wierd as* skills :|

Maybe it’s just me.

I’ve routinely had the good luck(via gear+sigils+runes+pets+talents) to stack 18+ stacks of bleeds on a poor creature.

I’ve also had the bad luck of activating quickening zephyr, and hitting a elemental very hard while it was happily reflecting all the dmg to me.

Yeah, that wasn’t very pretty.

So..just my 2 cents.

A shortbow ranger is a very effective condition based player.
The condition you are going to focus on as a short-bow ranger is the “bleed” condition.

Unlike a “dot”(damage over time), conditions such as bleed can be stacked. The higher the number of stacks, the more the condition hurts.

Keeping these things in mind, you should focus on the following:
a) Gear : Ravaging or Rampager’s have been my fav for leveling due to condition modifiers on it
b) Runes/Sigils : Choose the ones that add/prolong conditions etc:
The ones I used were the following:
Runes : Rune of Afflicted
Sigils: Sigil of Agony
c) Pets : I have used a lynx (pounce, the 2nd (f2) ablility). However, I always run a bear with it for survivability.

Once again, these are very personal choices but have worked extremely well for me.
Here is the build that I used at lvl 30.
http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/ranger#2.0.3.3-3.12.13.10.3-10.10.10.0.0-4.8.12
Here is the build that I used at lvl 50.
http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/ranger#2.0.3.3-3.12.13.10.3-20.20.10.0.5-4.7.8.7.12

In dungeons you’ll have to change your skills to some more survival based skills, run a few signets for pet toughness etc…but in world pve you won’t need to.

I hope this helps.

~~Cheers~~
Mintyfresh

@Ralcore.9354
I think you are doing disservice to yourself by including sarcasm in your commentary, especially due to the fact that you do make some very valid points.

However, a lot of individuals are bringing up valid reasons for finding dungeons distasteful (and are also as making points that are as valid).

I believe(and this is an opinion) that there are a lot of people who are playing a game like this(which lacks the holy trinity) for the first time.

So what I’m advocating for is the following:
a) Leave the experience modes alone. Let them be the challenge.
b) Tune the first dungeon a bit so people can gain a better understanding of the system/dungeon/gameplay/personal role and ramp it up as you get introduced to new ones.

The reason I say this is for the following reason:
If you introduce players to dungeons in such a crude fashion, it’s bound to turn a lot of new and old players away from them, since you need a group that can not only communicate but also coordinate properly.

If such a system is introduced gradually with increasing difficulty, I think it’ll be much better received by the player-base.

With the current system, if you have even a couple of subpar people in your group, it becomes a massive challenge..yes, you can carry the group as much as you bloody like, but with 2 people dropping the group due to frustration as they are getting oneshotted by traps…it becomes more of a pain for me than them.

Alex.9432:

Please do NOT nerf dungeons. Nothing is more fun then spending 3 hours working together to try to defeat an extremely hard encounter.

^^
To a lot of people, the above quoted opinion will make a lot of sense. There are also people who will beg you to get a life.

I’ve run AC quite a few times(story mode) and CM in story mode AND exp.mode.

This is the conclusion I came to:
a) IF(and only IF) the exp.modes are what one might call end game in gw2, then let’s leave it that way. But do lock it down so it can be done only if you are above a certain lvl.
b) If your intention is to help individuals and establish some sort of learning curve for dungeons, then tune AC a bit so people:
* realize that they really need to play properly and as a party
* realize that they have to modify their builds to a more survival centric build
c) Address the issue with the following:
*Loot/Drops
*Repair costs

If you are trying to encourage individuals to get involved in every part of the game you have put effort into, especially dungeons, you need to build some sort of curve into instances, so individuals can ramp up their skill-sets and gameplay.
I’m sure experienced players will not have issues adapting to it within a run or two, however for a lot of others, it might not be that easy.

As for me, a ranger that was focusing on condition based build, the following worked:
a) Ran double bears so pets could survive more than a few hits
b) Ran a few sigils and gave up some survival bleed skills
The simple changes mentioned above made a big diff in my survival.

—Cheers—
Mintyfresh

@ZetaStriker.
I agree with that. That was the biggest gripe with the instance(except the drops).
The condition damage was a bit over the top.

If the damage is avoidable, for example boss is charging up to smack you, if you do not get out of the way and dodge the attack, yes, you should be dead(or close to dead).
However, the random damage that is going around and the conditions that are being afflicted, should be looked at.
I’m all for making regular damage harder(as it’s your responsibility to avoid it), however the dots like poisons and bleeds were at times unavoidable.

I doubt anyone here is suggesting that it should be easier(though that is the general perception of a lot of people here). It should be a challenge. As mentioned before, my first run was thrilling, even as we ran back to the boss after death 10 times, but by the second run through of the dungeon, it became a bit tedious.

I think I’m simply suggesting the following, tone down the condition damage, keep the hard hitting blows that can be avoided the same(or a bit more). Hell, I’ll go so far as to say, lower conditional damage from thrash and make the bosses, like the ranger hit harder.

++Cheers++
Mintyfresh

I ran AC twice for the first time yesterday(successfully) and had mixed feelings about it.

The things that stood out were the following:

a) Threat: It was all over the place. . Even after I waited for another player to attain aggro, the mob totally dropped proximity threat and ran to me. Other than dodging/LOS/self heal, there was very little I could do to prevent myself from taking a beating.
b) Damage: Though I did live much longer than a few other members in my party with my timed dodges etc, there was a lot of unavoidable damage that was extremely hard-hitting.
Also, though the mobs hit like a tank, it was the condition damage that killed me, the poisons and the burning dot damage was very high.
c) Pet deaths: Granted I’m running lynx/leopard, pets dying in moments after sending them in was..definitely discouraging.
d) The time investment/reward ratio did not exist. It might be that it’s by design but It was slightly discouraging.
e) Last and not the least, was the absolute feeling of helplessness when other players were under pressure. If my health pool is significantly higher than that of a player that is in trouble, there was no way for me to peel aggro off that player(even for a moment).

All the bosses had one or combination of the above mentioned aspects, the “lovers” boss was particularly painful.

So overall, I came out with a slightly negative feeling about AC.
No matter how much I dodge/mitigate, the number of deaths were exceptionally high and running back to the same boss multiple times in a dungeon is not my cup of tea(though it might be yours).

Though the response of a lot of people will be to the magnitude of "then don’t do it " or silly thing such as “nobody is forcing you to do it”, it’s an aspect of the game that I did want to experience. I’m sure I’ll be doing more of them, however, I’m sure I’ll be going into them with more of a negative mindset than a positive one.

Overall I love the game and this seems to be the only aspect I am pessimistic about.