Guild Wars 2

Honestly I can see some of the potential design challenges in this, but as someone who is always eager to experience more gw2 content I would love to see this happen.

My reasoning is split 50/50 and one or the other would mean a different design direction taken.

For the story, I would be fine with Anet creating a sort of Machinima style cutscene that places a character into the scene to act as the “player” perspective. We could see the action unfold and experience the dialogue and such.

For the other half of my want for a story mode would be a way to practice and learn the mechanics of these fights before going in for the proper raid. I don’t belong to a raiding group and with my schedule getting into a training session is super difficult, but it would be nice to be able to teach myself the mechanics so that in the rare instance I find a group that fits me I can just jump in.

A skin or some other similar carrot would be awesome as a reward, def. no raid rewards or anything that devalues the existing raid content. I would love to see this be a stepping stone to larger content. I spent most of my gaming life playing shooters and rpgs, with GW2 only being my second MMO and the first time i’ve ever felt compelled to complete this content.

We can’t all have the exact time tables we would like to tackle this stuff, so having a means of getting there with our own effort over time is appealing.

The only thing I would add is that I would love to have some way to practice against these bosses/encounters with a lower difficulty curve to learn timing and etc.
I don’t want any rewards offered, but it provides me a way to learn the content. I love the raids (what little i’ve been able to reach) but the content itself takes a lot of time to complete and if you’re group stops raiding, it isn’t a simple thing to find another ten people you mesh/coordinate well with.

I wouldn’t expect the content to be handed to me, and I accept I might not ever be able to complete the content due to my own personal situation but it would be nice if there was something that allowed people to learn the mechanics and test out how well their build is working against a particular boss.

Again I don’t want an easier path to achieve the same goals, I would like to be able to learn the encounters on my own time so that I would be ready to go when/if the chance arises to try it again.

MrJ.8142:

The idea of legendary armor only viable for raider is total crap.

The game is an open world content mmorpg and war between players. The idea of getting legendary weapon from open world adventure is very great from Anet. This is probably the best idea to get legendary. But come on, do we fan of open world content should do raid just to get the armor?

Legendary backpiece has 2 ways to get it. Fractal is a short time dungeon (mostly acceptable for us open world lover because you can just do it for 30 minutes and you’re finished). If you don’t like fractala, you can do PvP as other option which is also acceptable (30 minutes of fight and done).

But hey, I don’t ever heard a 30 minutes raid. You have to spend hours to finish it. We have game for raid lover, it’s called World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV.

This is guild wars 2. It is a unique mmorpg that give you flexibilities to play what you like and the end game is endless (get rich, WvW, doing fun exploration with guildies while making every second matters).

Yeah I get it some people really love raiding and stuff like that. But have you ever think why in the first place we play GW2?
Just a suggestion, at least give us other choice to get legendary armor via something else. We don’t want to spend so much time just to done 1 raid. (If you gonna argue me on this by saying build a static or crap like that, it isn’t an option for some of us, most of my friends in-game have thing called life.)

Also to all of you who think we should get legendary armor via raid only, you should learn that not everyone have the time to spend 2-3 hours on raid just to get it. We have job, family and stuff to do in real life. Try to be in our shoes once a bit.

This is an honest rant from me and my friends.

Tl;dr : make other option to get it. Thank you.

Sincerely yours, MrJ

The people that raid have lives as well, it just happens that they schedule themselves to spend their free time raiding instead of doing other activities. While I like the heavy armor that I’ve seen, I doubt I will ever have legendary armor due to being unable to raid. I don’t see that as a reason to suddenly make this armor also available elsewhere. Putting raids as the primary means of acquiring gives incentive for people who really want the armor and rewards those already putting in the time. I see this being no different to people going for the other uber special gear in the other modes. GW2 is a game of play how you want, not play however you want and get exactly the same things as everyone else. I don’t mean this rudely, because being the skin hound that I am it really bothers me I won’t get my hands on this armor, but if it bugs me enough I will do what I must to get into raids.

I’m all for making sure the game is fair and balanced for everyone, but making every single thing obtainable from anywhere lessens its theoretical value and we as MMO players are still chasing the items of theoretical value. That’s kind of the point. Having or not having this armor won’t change the game for you, but it’s very possible that pursuing this armor by playing raids could very well change the way people game for the better.

Rifle seems like a nobrainer for a ranger elite spec, and the same for thief. As a ranger main I would love to see an elite spec centered around the idea of being a hunter, with the skills and such built around the concept of a master tracker, maybe some throwable snares with some fun rifle skins that apply condi pressure.

For Thief I would love a sniper type spec that centered around applying a great deal of damage but having few defensive options that seems like it would fit in the thief wheelhouse quite nicely. Perhaps have the skills less about condi and more straight up power. Additionally the ultimate skill could be putting your rifle on a tripod or support and have it be able to fire a few high powered shots (thinking something as strong as the sniper rifles in the Verdant Brink meta event line)

With guardian, I would like to see them play on the idea of being a monster hunter with supplementary skills providing more long range support for group play.
My ideal would be decent ranged skills for the main weapon with elite spec skills focused around ranged group support. The dream scenario is a guardian being able to help their group fight well from one position while able to send buffs and defenses to another group that is elsewhere in the fight sort of thing.

I feel the OP’s pain, because I don’t like the rng associated with the chests I don’t buy the keys, just hope for an exciting drop (which rarely happens) when I eventually get one through the normal course of playing. I will say that their recent change was a step in the right direction. I would rather that opening chance gave a guaranteed “value” reward if still random (I wouldn’t consider temp merchants, revive orbs, tomes of knowledge value items).

If every chest came with a guaranteed value drop (wardrobe unlock, older minis, etc) and two other random items with the same chance as exists now for the fourth more special item I would feel compelled to spend my gems on keys more often. Until that happens the best advice would be to not spend your money on that particular avenue unless you REALLY enjoy the slot machine aspect to it. Shame about the ghost glider tho, that one would have been perfect for my main.

I see no reason not to make content scale to make the fights more accessible to solo/small groups. I’ve come up against this myself several times and after the second fail event in the Ley line events I just gave up and moved on. I put the call out on map chat, but more often than not no one shows up or it just one or two people. For those like “like the challenge of it” I would ask how many times you return to the event to challenge yourself. I would also note that I’ve not seen one person for the change suggest the fight be “dumbed down”, merely make it so that it can be accomplished with a smaller amount of people.

I don’t think anyone realistically expects games like this to be tuned to personal taste, but as the game evolves changes like this one could help breath some new life back into content that has gotten a bit dusty.

having completed my second halloween this year, I have to say that I’m a tad disappointed with how the event played out. What really stood out to me, was the lack of decent middle tier rewards. There were no new skins or outfits to unlock and the minis that were readily available are just repeats of the year prior save for a new insanely expensive raven.

Last year, in my giddy excitement I worked very hard to earn everything the vendor had to offer only for them to come back this year and see very little had changed. I’ve seen people say they would rather not see development labor “wasted” on an event that only lasts a few weeks when they could be working on other things, but I wonder what those devs that go peeled off of Legendary weapons and then started doing the current events could do with it. A simple current event chain would have gone a long way to making the event more compelling.

I very much enjoyed the pumpkin hacker achievement last year, and liked that I was able to earn a title that seemed like it would go the way of other halloween titles and only apply to a particular year. This is a cool and very simple way to letting you show your “back in my day” moment. I fully expected this year to have another title and was surprisingly bothered by the fact they just recycled the achievement and title. I would even be fine with completing the same thing, but earning a title twice seems a bit weird.

My wishlist for next years event would be some sort of end goal, perhaps accomplished in a similar fashion to how other map/event achievements are handled. So when you earn your overall achievement you unlock that years title, with one achievement that perhaps takes a bit more effort or at least concentrated effort that would unlock a cool seasonal skin item (in a similar vein to the bloodstone visage)

One idea that comes to mind could be a journey across all of tyria to investigate hauntings of some sort. Events could crop up all across the map with a “fight off the waves of enemies” activity followed by a boss fight. The enemies could drop ToT bags like all the other events with some unique drops unique to this particular activity and completing each encounter over the course of Halloween could unlock a themed cosmetic item like the ghost hunter’s satchel or something similar. This is an event where the locations could change from year to year without requiring any major overhauls (at least with my very limited knowledge of game development) with a new cosmetic item added each year.

I would also like to see all the older content return of course but don’t mind if the end reward is changed as I feel that having yearly rewards gives player a badge of pride to show off when they were in the game.

I don’t want Anet to not develop other aspects of the game so they can devote serious resources to festivals, but it doesn’t seem that it would be that costly to have a few people work on these things in advance when they had downtime in other projects and it feels like there would really only need to be one person to manage the project. Here’s hoping for a more engaging festival next year.

This is my second Halloween festival and i’m hoping to get the new weapons to drop (whatever doesn’t i’ll nab from TP) The Lab is also a great place to level alts so I’m working on that this year as well. Not much in the festival vendor to get me drooling for really so I feel your frustration for mid tier goals.

I’m thinking it is super rare, but I managed to snag the Phospholuminescent aura that can be placed in jewelry and that has definitely made my Halloween this year. The feline familiar mini is also on my list but again not sure on drop rates.

Something I’m doing this year over last year is not fixating on any of the rewards and just setting myself the task of farming bags and seeing what comes. I’ve found that not setting a hard goal has actually made the grind itself fun. I do it until I start to get bored then move on. I’d second the thoughts of the poster above suggesting maybe look for a goal beyond what the game provides. I had a lot of fun decking out most of my characters in costumes all colored up or themed for the holiday.

For me personally, I’m a skin hound and outfitting characters in all the available armor sets is one of the most rewarding aspects for me as a player.

I enjoy weapon skins, but since you can’t color them the more crazy get rarely used because I don’t like clashing or looking out of character.

While I fully understand that troubleshooting armor is a time consuming process, I feel that it would be time well spent. Even if you were to go the route gone with items like the bloodstone crown and the red glowy eyes (i.e. a couple pieces that are easy to swap in) that would still be preferable to not doing any new armors and just pushing out more and more weapon skins.

I think the Anet devs are awesome, but it can be frustrating when an aspect that is very important to you seems to get overlooked because it would take too much work in relation to accomplishing other things. I don’t expect everything to be dropped simply because this is important to me. I know i’m not the only player who has a particular thing they love most about the game, but it would be nice if we got a turn as well.

I was a late comer to GW2, starting a month or so before the release of HoT. While I certainly don’t love spending all of my time in the new HoT zones, I can see their appeal and I do feel they add a bit more variety to the game. Rather than armchair dev what they did wrong I would rather instead focus on what I would like to see moving forward.

In the next expansion, I am hoping we see more of a return to the core tyria style maps, I prefer to amble along at my own pace and choosing my route through the game is one of my most enjoyed aspects to the game. At this point I have gone through most zones enough that the shine is wearing off so it would be nice to have some fresh content to round that out. I feel like the HoT meta events work well for the theme of the expansion, but I would like to start seeing my map fill out with more zones to explore and more JPs to complete.

I would also like to see more world bosses get updated as the Shatterer has so that going back to those events feels rewarding again.

WvW is exciting thanks to the reward track addition, and the server linking but is far from perfect.

PvP does feel stale as far as builds are concerned but I’m not sure there is much to be done there really, the more builds that are viable means more to balance for which puts this mode at risk of not feeling as rewarding as it can be. It definitely could do with some new maps though, perhaps with more environmental events to add some spice.

While I think GHs are a bit too grindy (especially for smaller guilds) They do serve a purpose, but those purposes aren’t being spoonfed to anyone. The decoration system needs a severe reworking, but the core elements are working well and having a slew of boosts to apply is certainly exciting and provides some meaningful progression.

To sum up my thoughts, I would disagree that this game is in any major state of panic but there is always room for improvement. I at least feel like the devs are listening and doing what they can which is more than I can say for games I’ve played in the past.

I have to admit when recently finishing up the crafting of my legendary I didn’t even notice the price for coins as being “expensive” I foolishly used most of my supply after I discovered mystic forge recipes and while crafting the mystic weapons for elite spec collections so I ended up buying most of what I needed.

To those currently working on those things themselves, I would highly suggest incremental purchases over a period of regular play. I am a person who hates farming, not that I have anything against it, I just get bored by it. By just making sure I spread my gameplay out over many things I was able to easily bring in enough gold to buy my coins in smaller amounts to work on clovers. This was a process spread over just a few weeks mind you but what I spent on coins was less than I can earn in a week by being diligent.

In short I would rather Anet not micromanage the TP except in the rare cases of true abuse and risk to the entire playerbase. For many, playing the TP is their gameplay and who wouldn’t enjoy making some extra gold here and there from some well placed sales? Once the price gets high enough, we will see many people sell what they’ve got and undercut each other in the process and I have faith that things will even out. For the one working on crafting their legendary, don’t feel like all hope is lost. It takes time to be sure but with some diligence in regards to your gameplay I feel that you will see the cost isn’t quite as insurmountable as it first seems.

I didn’t see it mentioned, but with how guilds choose from a set of basic templates to make their logo I would LOVE to be able to buy merch that had my own guild logo on it.

I would also love to see more novels that expand on the lore of the world as well as other books that can be more utilitarian such as recipes or other subject matter as we would find on the wiki.

Sir Mad.1092:

I am suggesting getting a reward without putting any effort is killing the game.

If you only want easy dailies like the gathering ones, ask for that instead of asking people to play the game for you so you don’t have to do it yourself (“any mesmer @ JP?”). I don’t give a kitten about the dailies. But I do mind Anet’s been destroying some content (JPs) while trying to promote it through dailies (cf my post above).

Out of curiousity, how do you justify this? I’m an avid jumping puzzler and just recently completed most of the last few remaining for my chieve (just waiting on a swap in WvW for the last colored puzzle) I feel completely fulfilled and enjoy myself thoroughly (except not so secret, that one is EVIL) but I can’t say, not even once, that people using a port to get the to the end of a JP puzzle has ever robbed me of anything. At all. Not one bit. So I’m curious as to how those wrecked wintersday ornaments and other random tat is going to destroy the game.

I love this game, being a recent convert and one of the things I love most about it is (most of) the community. We’re not arbitrarily forced to communicate, but we have unique opportunities to do so in wild and wonderful ways. Those mesmers that I see parked at a JP make me proud to be a member of the community, aside from the very occasional tip these mesmers gain nothing but I have never seen any of them complain. These same people stay there for hours to help people, how in any shape and form could that hurt this game?

This “debate” is a perfect example of the “you do you, i’ll do me” argument. This isn’t affecting you. Choose to take part or choose to do something else, THAT is play how you want at its finest. To those who take time out of their day to handle mesmer porting duties I salute you all. You mesmers are one of the first things I talk about when telling people how awesome this game is so keep it up. I truly hope Anet never does such a thing to harm the way JPs are handled, they have got many of my guildies who previously refused to do JPs into them, so much to the point some have even made mesmers themselves to do the same thing.

The only issue I have with this is that it will have unexpected repercussions for everyone, whether they took part or not. I did the AB farm once and while it certainly granted quite a bit of loot, I just didn’t like it largely because I can’t help but feel like for Anet to fix it, they’ll have to resort to dragonstanding it. Which would mean we would have yet another map to have rewards taken from us if we crash. The other method that I can think of would be to make the loot level out according to the rate at which the farmers are doing it. This fix would likely mean those who don’t partake of the farm will begin to see diminished returns and go where they feel their time is better spent in terms of time/reward gained.

I have no issue with people who want to farm, I do what I must when I’m trying to earn up for something. I do take issue with the things that will impact everyone as a whole though.

The SW chest farm is annoying when you’re trying to do meta, but it is easy to get into a different map to complete the meta. I don’t feel like the two farms are comparable. All that said I cannot say I can think of any way to fix it without overly punishing one group of players over another so I will just hope that Anet doesn’t over nerf it to the point it spoils the fun for those who only loot as was intended. Beyond that I say more power to those who worked out a system to earn more, I just don’t want to see it have unintended side affects on general population. I can still remember trying to find a working meta map before the changes and I’d rather not go back down route for any reason.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

MrGhosty.4296:

Map bonuses are not a terribly reliable way to gather those items as they are few and far between. They seemed geared more towards passive generation than actual farming.

But it is a means that helps increase leather/cloth accumulation, and has been increased/adjusted in various patches… along side of map-completion rewards. I recall ANet saying they’re watching the cloth/leather production rate and making adjustments as appropriate… though I don’t know where that post disappeared into the depths of forums.

~EW

Just so we’re clear, I absolutely love map rewards. They’ve given me reason to return to zones I’ve not been back to since completing. As long you are constantly doing that regardless of which projects you have going you will have an abundance of mats which is why I referred to it as passive generation. But taking an example into mind, say one of the rewards is linen. There are always several materials in that particular queue so you’ll only receive that particular reward once every three or four events let’s say.

For one Bolt of Damask you need 20 bolts of linen so you need 40 linen scraps. That is just for one Bolt of Damask and most ascended gear recipes require several. So while I agree it is certainly one of the many avenues for acquisition, it isn’t terribly reliable or straightforward as “go to X zone and look for nodes on the map” and the leather is even worse. I don’t expect Anet to hand us these things on a platter, but their system certainly has room for improvement. As I understand it, early on there was too much of the cloth and leather materials in the wilds and changes were made, I just argue that perhaps they can come back a bit from those existing changes. I’m a huge fan of the marketplace and love the fact people can work on supplying themselves and then turning a tidy profit but I also feel that these systems should be as easy to understand as the other nodes in the game (not the same, just a similar thought so as to make it possible to educate new players)

I feel like the OP used a bit hyperbole in their description of the state of things, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an underlying problem that we can try to “armchair developer” our way out of.

I don’t think it is as dire as the OP suggests, but I can certainly relate to the difficulty in gathering some very specific cloth/leather types. Map bonuses are not a terribly reliable way to gather those items as they are few and far between. They seemed geared more towards passive generation than actual farming. I would love to see Anet put in some animals in the world that act as nodes for leather and maybe utilize some of the plant nodes to also act as cloth nodes. just to even the balance a bit and make something a bit needless tedious less so.

To the OP there are places you can go to gather specific types of materials, be sure to read the wiki where to find said items and it pays to do some searches for player guides that also provide solutions as well.

While I am quite new to WvW, what i’ve seen seems to be more an emphasis on builds and coordination. In sPvP everyone is effectively even and it’s about using your skills and the small environment. Because this environment doesn’t shift drastically from match to match the builds can stay fairly stagnant (not accounting for those at higher levels of play of course) Whereas in WvW you can either be a jack of all trades and do okay everywhere but nothing special. Or you can choose to spec for a specific role.

I would say look at how you like to play in WvW then look at some popular meta builds currently out there to get you started. Once you’ve built yourself in a particular area be conscious of the fact if you go into a fight that your build isn’t suited for you will be melted. It’s actually one of the more rewarding aspects to the game that I’ve found so far, you will see some insanely talented players on the field that really know their stuff.

As an aside for the ascended, you don’t really need to focus on making Elonian, Damask, or Deldrimor ingots every single day. Just take the time to craft your time gated bit and then once every few days or so spend some time farming and craft them up in bulk then forget about them again. After awhile you’ll find you have plenty of mats to craft a piece of gear then start the process over. It makes ascending your gear a lot less painful and doesn’t require a massive farming commitment.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I’m seriously not caring or complaining about dailies.

I’m wondering why JPs/Platforming have to be increasingly shoehorned into nearly every aspect of the game. Dailies was just the latest example.

I’d be happy if JP’s were a daily every day. As an activity, like Crab Toss or whatever. That is more their niche, to me, and not as a replacement for actual adventuring.

And I do not understand why JPs/Platforming are used as gates to unrelated content, increasingly.

As with the poster above, I’m not understanding it in an RPG setting. No RPG I have ever played made JP’s a thing. All of them, save GW, had jumping as well. They just didn’t fly off cross genre into Super NES Platform land. Not only older games like EQ2 and such, but also newer titles like Skyrim, DragonAge, Fallout.

I can understand people liking them as a side event. I cannot understand how they are increasingly becoming a required part of core gameplay in an RPG.

Oh, just noticed the thread is now complete.

“go play any other MMO”

I think this is really just a case of having to agree to disagree. When I hear “adventure” I think about climbing and exploring and jumping. The jumping challenges in this game are just one of many additional challenges to attempt and in some case fail at. I can’t see how putting an emphasis on jumping for prestige items. Not every collection requires JPs but I feel they do a good job of including them when it fits thematically.

Your other examples also aren’t totally relevant either. I couldn’t say about Everquest, but there are absolutely jumping/puzzle challenges in Skyrim and Fallout they just aren’t as overt because an achievement thing doesn’t pop when you complete them. In Skyrim you could bypass whole sections in dungeons by finding the less traveled path that sometimes utilized jumping and climbing as part of it. In the latest Fallout there are many places tucked out of the way that reward you for scaling obstacles that most wouldn’t even if it is a simple reward like an interesting or amusing diorama setup. ES and Fallout(3,new vegas,and 4 at least) have a long tradition of putting things in out of the way places for only the most devoted to get at.

I can see why you might not personally like them, but I see a game that improved upon it’s original concept as they were able to utilize greater technology. Jumping is a part of movement and making use of elevation is another part of the “tactics” often employed in fights. Again, I can understand your frustration if you don’t like them and I sympathize as there are aspects of this game I’m not crazy about but can’t say I’ve ever been relentlessly pressured into doing ANY aspect of this game except by myself.

The strength of this game is that if there is an aspect you don’t care for, there is usually a way around it. Don’t like JPs but need one for a collection, make friends with a mesmer, don’t like WvW but need something it rewards for a collection? buy it off TP or again make friends and have them help you.

I hold this game up as a prime example of striking a fine balance between play as you want while still maintaining design integrity. We have all the freedom in the world to play as we want, but we still have to play by their rules. Just as we do in every other game ever.

I think if Anet were to bring new voices in, they would see an immediate return on their investment as almost everyone I know in the game would immediately swap voices via the kits on Gemstore. I second all the other suggestions as well, tats and beards for all. I would like to see some tree/bush type facial hair for sylvari, and Tats that function as the glow pattern on the sylvari. more tats for human, maybe something lore appropriate that ties back into their gods, culture etc.

I’m sure most folks recognize this, but one of the ways that I was previously slogging through my Scribe leveling was by crafting the cheapest brown dyes, then salvaging them. with the two easy to reach potato farms in Metrica Province and Plains of Ashford and the only other ingredient being bought with karma it can be time consuming but seems to be worthwhile. Now I could never indulge in selling the pigments because I’ve had to stockpile, but it seems like it might be a good way. I am sure some of the other dye colors are similarly craftable with little effort and may be worth exploring as well.

Several playable races with a new storyline, could be Kodan, Tengu, Skritt, any other race that already fits with currently rigged models (could be just the first two personal story quests like the other races that deal with your personal struggle before going off to fight Zhaitain. Brand New players would then pick up where the other quests start and guide the player into Zhaitain town while existing players could have the option to skip or complete)

Customizable runes (revamp Jeweler to give them a worthwhile end game skill that allows the pairing of stat sets with perk sets)

Home instances a la guild halls (I want to go on a quest to score my own personal home instance that I can customize and setup how I want. Pair that with a use for XP past full level and mastery line completion with upgrade components similar to what they have for guild halls)

Mounts ( I know we don’t “need” them, but I would love to see what Anet would come up with)

revisit existing world bosses and give them a make over a la the Shatterer to make the fights more dynamic and exciting

more armors for more tastes

more character customization options (voice options, tats and beards for all races, secondary scar level, etc)

while somewhat tied into the armor, I would like to see a fully set of unlockable armor for each elite spec rather than one piece of gear. The revenant got a set, and I would like to see what Anet does with finishing out the other specs.

I could go on, but these would be the biggest on my mind at the time.

I feel your pain on this one, I’m a guild decorating junkie and not being able to complete that achievement to unlock buying the coins is super annoying.

One thing that I’ve found is the World 1 zone 2 has a couple easy locations to pick up coins from. As far as I know they are there every time you run the world and that world can be completed on normal mode in about 30 minutes or less if you’re not focused on baubles. Each completion of the daily course load or whatever it’s called also grants some coins. While it’s not as simple as buying how much you want just doing that has brought our guild over fifty coins with just two of us doing the collecting. If you were to get your guild in on it you could make a large dent every time you ran the worlds.

I would be against removing waypoints, they’re too valuable when doing a World Boss Train or just getting stuck into a chunk of content in a short period of time.

The part of the idea I did like is adding some alternative transportation. I know Anet has no plans for mounts but as much as I love what they’ve done with other mechanics I’d love to be able to cruise across the map on my charr bike or on the back of an Oakhart. The airship idea is also cool. It’s never a bad idea to have more in the game, but removing something completely because you don’t like it isn’t terribly helpful.

I would have to say I’m with the others sharing the sentiment of “no trinity”. While my main class was a ranger and I was disappointed to get a healing elite spec the beauty of this game is there is something for everyone. Players imposing their own guidelines in raids is to be expected as the “trinity” concept is heavily ingrained on players. And that’s great, more power to them. There is nothing stopping anyone from gathering up 9 others and going at it as they please.

I also think the OP’s statement about rangers isn’t accurate, it is my main class and the one I use to get through all of the content, I have never felt like I was being outclassed by anyone. They’re just using different skills but we both get the job done in our own way.

OP, we have a couple folks who also have the same issue you do. When that happens we all just make sure the only thing they have to focus on is getting past whatever point they’re at and we do our best to keep their focus off of it.

If you’re not already I would totally suggest finding a guild to join that does the whole range of activities in the game. I’ve found it’s much easier to “ignore” the scary bits when you’re busy chatting about other things. As for JPs there are some awesome folks out there who spend time in the jumping puzzles to help folks through them, with your case being that while we can’t eliminate heights we can certainly help it be a lighter load.

If you’re trying to earn xp for mastery points in HoT I would suggest spending your time in Auric Basin, as that is one of the least vertical maps with it being possible to do most everything without coming off the ground or only going up a short distance.

If you need help with anything feel free to shoot me a line, I would be happy to help out if I can.

As an avid skin collector (sounds a bit macabre now that I’ve written it out) I love the wide variety of armors. I think it is safe to say we can all point to some ideas or styles that aren’t really the most we would want but my thinking is this:
Having those things in the game doesn’t hurt creation. What I would love to see is Anet embracing various themes throughout armor processes. The outlandish, over the top stuff is fun and certainly fits some of my characters but there are many bald spots in other thematic categories.

The beauty of the way GW2’s armor system work is that they could easily start to plug the gaps in the lower level armors, replacing them with models and sets that are exciting to see drop and then we have the skin for mix and matching later.

I burn through so many transmutation charges now on my 8th or so character I am bored to tears with the many variations of leather jack or chain mail shirts.

What I would like to see is a system that builds on existing sets as well as expanding into new themes.

Existing sets could be augmented by creating a skimpy and fully covered type option for both sexes. They could also take stuff that drops at level 80 and make it look like an older/rustier version or some other variation.

New themes to be explored could be to plumb the depths of various countries’ medieval armor design styles and use those as a starting point. These themes could run the gamut from fully practical to outlandish and as long as we have a range to play with we’d be set.

Just to conclude, the armors and outfits may not be perfect in this game (no game ever is) but I have personally had more fun outfitting my characters in this game than many others I have played. Kudos to the design team at Anet for doing so much.

I’m relatively new to these parts and have no intention of trying to brush off anyone’s particular perspective of the game. As a new(ish) player I would simply like to submit my personal experience.

I quite happily consider myself a casual player, but this doesn’t mean I don’t invest a lot of time into the game. When I say casual I mean to say that I enjoy good stories, exciting encounters and the ability to hop in and out of them with ease.

I came to GW2 from leading a guild in Elder Scrolls Online. I was frustrated by the content (or lack thereof) and the stupid restrictions it took to get my guildies together to play through any particular piece of content. None of these problems exists for us in GW2 (barring the obvious level requirements and other basic and expected gates).

With a couple button clicks I can have my people grouped up and we’re fighting a world boss. Then we can opt to go run through one of the end game zones like the Silverwastes or venture into HoT. After that we might knock out a fractal or two and finish up with some quick pvp matches.

These are all experiences I would definitely classify as casual friendly. They don’t require extensive prep time or gear swaps or whatever and for the most part are easy to jump in and out of. That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges in the game, but when did casual friendly have to mean easily achieved?

What I have loved about GW2 since migrating over is that no matter your predilection there is a path for you to achieve your aims. If you don’t want to grind mats for something, just play the game as usual and save up for it. If don’t want to grind OR spend a lot of gold you can continue to play as you like and eventually you will have what you want/need. These paths in no way require the same exact time to complete, some are faster than others but no matter how you want to play there is a way to achieve your goals.

If all goals were easy, nothing would be worth doing. I feel like Anet has done a very good job of providing meaningful progression no matter how much time you put in. If you only complete the dailies each day you have achieved something. If you only spend time gathering mats to craft ascended materials, again, you have achieved something. These smaller goals tend to dovetail into a greater goal such as crafting ascended gear, finishing up a dungeon path, or getting your next achievement chest that naturally take a longer period of time. For the people who would rather throw gold at the hurdle instead, there are usually options on that front as well.

While I can certainly understand how some might feel this game isn’t casual friendly, in my grumpy, bad mystic forge days I know I have certainly muttered it. I don’t think that to be the case and I would welcome anyone who feels differently to give me a shout in the game and I will happily hear you out and perhaps we can find a way to make the game fun for you again.

One thing I’ve felt with scribing is that there should be more separation between the items that can influence the outside world vs the ones that only affect the guild hall (i.e. guild banners/buffs vs decorations)

From my perspective, all of the decorations should be very cheap to create and the leveling process tied to making decorations largely. Doing this would allow bringing the scribe more in line with other crafting professions. Guild decorations do not affect anyone not presently in that guild hall. These things should be as easy for a guild of ten to craft as a guild 100+.

Leveling your scribe should be a straightforward and largely solo endeavor in terms of personal cost. This avoids the hard feelings and drama is a person chooses to leave that guild and lets us get to the fun bits of scribing faster. I also feel like there should only be one decoration merchant tier as opposed to the two. This might not be a big deal for a large guild, but the process of getting to that second tier vendor is insanely high for what boils down to pure cosmetic items. The first upgrade should remain as is in terms of cost and placement.

The items that I would say ought to remain at current costs or near that would be items that can affect things beyond the guild halls. These would be items such as banners, banquets, WvW items and the personal consumables that scribes can craft. In regards to the personal consumables, this would allow the scribe to make some gold or specialize in a trade skill and by keeping those costs in the same place or balanced to the economy would make those goals worth going for.

The other exception to the “make everything cheap” idea would be capstone decorations, those items of note that are high end, super cool. Those should remain expensive as a means of guild objective. Instead of keeping costs high, those items could instead be attached to collections similar to how legendary weapons work. This allows for guild to set their own goals and prioritize which items they would like to achieve first. I could see it working much the way the world boss trophies are being handled now.

The long and short is that leveling scribe should be far more simpler and straightforward in terms of costs so that it is more in line with the other crafting disciplines. Buff items, upgrades and personal consumables should remain relatively expensive so as to not diminish their value. End level guild decoration items should be handled in such a way to make their collection and creation a guild effort and something that guildies can point at and say “I helped get that”.