Guild Wars 2

If you try to remove the stats from the ascended gear at this point, you’ll only trade one group of angry players for another. If adding ascended gear to the game was a mistake (and I’m not saying it was or it wasn’t, personally I’m on the fence), I think the only fair way to correct it at this point is to add the gear to other vendors. Put it on the karma and the WvW badge vendors at an increased cost compared to exotic gear, and then everyone has access according to his or her playstyle. From that point, you could keep any further vertical progression in the fractals limited to increased agony resistance via new infusions.

All of that being said, I think it’s too early to start staying that GW2 has a gear treadmill. Yes, Anet implemented another tier of gear, but when I think of a gear treadmill, I think of something akin to WoW: level to cap, run basic dungeons until you have a high enough gear score to run the higher basic dungeons, run those until you have a high enough gear score to run low-level heroic dungeons, run those until you have a high enough gear score to run high-level heroic dungeons, then potentially another tier of heroics, and from there it’s the raids, where you often have to defeat the first few bosses many times to gear your raid to even attempt the later bosses of the raid. That doesn’t include the differences between normal modes and heroic modes; and unlike the majority of GW2 (I cannot speak for high-level fractals because I haven’t done them), skill is not going to overcome weaknesses in gear. If you do not have enough gear to put out enough DPS to beat an enrage timer, you will wipe. If your healer doesn’t have enough throughput or regen, you will wipe. If your tank can’t take the hits, etc. All of the max-level content is gated by gear, and the above scenario is only for one particular set of raid tiers. A few months after that and there will be a new raid that requires new gear scores, etc.

GW2 looks nothing like that currently. However, people have the right to be wary. We’ll just have to wait and see what Anet does next.

I agree with posters who have said that there’s not really a lot of room to add new classes/professions and to have them be unique. The existing professions already have access to varied weapons and niche playstyles (melee, range, physical weapon melee, magic melee, physical range, magic range, aoe, single-target, boons, conditions, etc.) that it would be difficult to create a new class that isn’t just a rehash or watered-down version of ones we already have. That’s not to say that we can’t get something to add flavor, though. I just think the way to do that is going to be with weapon sets or utility skills.

For example. Add some new armor sets and some new weapons to a thief, and you can easily have the flavor from an assassin, ninja, or duelist: giving you the ability to further customize your existing thief and presenting new playstyle options.

For a bard: add some new weapons (maybe a lute, flute, or other instrument) to a mesmer, add a trait line and a few utility skills, and you have flavor like that of the bard.

For a shapeshifter/druid: give a ranger a staff or some kits like the ele weapon spells or the engi kits, and have these be different forms. Combined with the nature spirits the class already has, and you have something reminiscent of a druid.

Add spirit utility kits or new weapons to a necromancer, particularly in a Canthan expansion, and you have pieces of the ritualist back.

Dunno. I’m not against new professions if they’re done well, and most of the people in this thread can certainly imagine a few weapon sets for their new professions, but can we come up with enough of them for the professions to be viable without bleeding into existing professions? The bard, for example. Sure, give it a few instruments as weapons. Are those going to cover support, defense, and offense? Ranged and melee? Would you give the bard weapons that you’ve already given to other classes, too? A sword? A pistol? If you do, does it not begin to look like the mesmer?

You say that ArenaNet listens to the playerbase, and I agree with you. To that end, I have a question for you: who should ArenaNet listen to in this case? You, who hate dynamic events and many of the changes they made between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, or players like me who find many of these changes superior to the gameplay we found in Guild Wars?

I played Guild Wars shortly after it was released and only quit sometime after EotN. It was my entrance into MMO-like games, and it still holds a special place in my heart because of all the memories I made in the original Tyria. However, I disagree with most of your points. I think dynamic events make the world seem more alive than a regular quest is capable of doing. While I would like more skills for weapons, I don’t want to see dual classes come back. Dual-classes were fun back in the day, and they allowed for some pretty crazy builds, but they also killed the unique flavor of classes. If the only thing you use your primary class for is your primary attribute while the rest of your skills are from your secondary profession, are you really a member of that primary class anymore? I like having the flavor for each class be distinct, but to each his own.

It really comes down to taste. Dynamic events are boring- to you. I think they’re great, and have had no problem re-doing several of them I’ve come across in my leveling. That doesn’t make me a crazed fanboy.

I’m sorry Guild Wars 2 isn’t to your taste. However, you’re not asking for objective improvements; you’re asking that the entire game be remade to suit your gaming preferences. Surely you can see why that is a bit unreasonable?

I agree that a guy who deliberately puts a turret or other AoE skill on auto-attack to farm an event hub is in the wrong and deserves a ban of some kind (I’m not sure it’s worthy of a perma-ban, though, because it is making use of game functionality and it begs the question of where you draw a line: do you punish a ranger who afk’s somewhere but gets DE credit or mob loot because the pet attacked something? Do you punish a guy who is playing actively but farming one or two DE-prone spots?).

I’m concerned for the guy who puts down a turret and plays actively throughout an event but who tabs out of the game afterward to answer an email, or make a quick run to the store, or feed a crying baby, etc. and doesn’t think to log out. Meanwhile, in his negligence, an event on a timer continues to cycle and his turret continues to give him credit for inactive play. Does this guy deserve a perma-ban?

That’s why I suggest changing the functionality for the auto-attack on skills like these. It covers both the intentional exploiter and the guy who wasn’t thinking, but doesn’t punish for an accident.

My biggest concern is whether or not this is something an average player should be mindful of (even one who might unthinkingly /afk).

However, if these are cases similar to the karma weapon or code of conduct infraction cases where the banned users were guilty above and beyond an accident (hate speech, hundreds to thousands of weapons, etc.), then I will feel much better about the situation.

GaileGray.9587:

Myrina.4658:

GaileGray.9587:

A lot of times an account is hacked and the hacker does something in violation of the User Agreement. Don’t worry, Support can sort that out for you.

Thank you for the response, Gaile. For clarification: are you saying that these are cases related to account compromise, and that the AoE auto-attack is not an exploit deserving of a ban, even if someone afk’s in a dynamic-event-prone area?

Nope, I would not say that. I’m making a statement about the general practices of account hackers. AFK gaming isn’t gaming, in my opinion, so I’d never do it and I would hope that people would not expect to get by with it. But that’s personal opinion — I’m not speaking beyond that.

Thank you for your reply. This is not something that I have done myself- because, as you say, all it does is rob yourself of the opportunity to level your character, and what’s the point of that? My concern in this case is for those people who aren’t actively trying to exploit, but who might not be thinking when they /afk.

Would disabling the auto-attack feature on skills that could be exploited (or putting a limit on the repeating function) be something that Anet could look into for the future? I’d hate to see someone get permabanned for an accident.

GaileGray.9587:

A lot of times an account is hacked and the hacker does something in violation of the User Agreement. Don’t worry, Support can sort that out for you.

Thank you for the response, Gaile. For clarification: are you saying that these are cases related to account compromise, and that the AoE auto-attack is not an exploit deserving of a ban, even if someone afk’s in a dynamic-event-prone area?

It’s true that you can turn on auto-attack for an AoE skill and that skill will endlessly repeat. That’s not a bot. I’m all for banning people who are actually botting, but wouldn’t it be easier to simply not allow those types of skills for auto-attack? Banning people for afk’ing in an area where DE’s happen because they have a skill on auto-attack (and therefore look and/or behave like a bot) is worrisome. Do I need to be afraid that if I’m going to be punished if I afk somewhere on my ranger and her pet defends me?

I’m a huge supporter of Anet and of the game, but this just doesn’t sit well with me. On the one hand, I can appreciate a firm hand on rules, but on the other… there’s a line between knowing that you have to behave and being afraid that you’ll turn up a false positive in normal play and lose an account into which we’ve already invested a large amount of time and money.

Can we have some clarification on this issue?