Guild Wars 2

Oogabooga.3812:

I’m wondering, does anybody run a build without the Water trait line? I’ve found that it’s impossible to survive without it both in solo and group play, and I’ve played ele pretty much since release. I’m just tired of always having to choose water because of how flimsy the defense of the class is.

Im running fire/air/arcane fresh air staff core ele with zerker gear in WvW. I think my survival is pretty decent.

Mike O Brien.4613:

…
We’re investigating whether to fix or revert DBL. They’re both a lot of work. These next couple days will be your last chance to give feedback before we make a decision, so speak now or forever hold your peace.
…

Just a quick response on this part. Yes, please revert back to the old alpine maps.

Important note 1:
The OLD alpine maps, without any of the map mechanics that got introduced with HoT; no banners, no tactivators, nothing!

Important note 2:
This also means NO WvW related HoT-locked guild feature like claiming and upgrading camps and keeps!

TheRandomGuy.7246:

I would recommend to wait till Microsoft removes their keyloggers and other nasty stuff or at least adds normal and convenient way to remove them from control panel.

Yeah, regarding privacy Win10 is a nightmare. But do not think they plan to remove that, selling your data is their buisness model after all.

https://imgur.com/iHge6RJ

You can disable some things but not all and you cant be sure if they still collect your data at some point regardless.

Everchanging Book of Names (EBoN):

http://ebon.pyorre.net

A name generator. Comes with 12 name sets by default (you can download more).
Also check out the linklist there for even more names and name related sites.

Oh wow, they went full out shady F2P business style with this one.

Easier to understand my kitten , its to make people spend more money as they actually want/need.

What about EU?
The communities here are not only formed by server but also by language.
Remember, this was one major critic point with the PvE megaserver implementation and will have a hughe impact on the communication in an alliance. How will this be addressed?
——————-
So far this alliance things smells too much like EOTM for my taste just with a diffrent name and the last time i tried that was one of the most disgusting expieriences i had in GW2.

If this builds goal is to bunker up have you tried the conjured earth shield?
Not the damage as LH or the mobilty of flame axe, but if you want to be as hard to kill as possible i think no other utility comes even close.

Quicksand
Prevents the placement of heavy siege (catapult, treb) for 10 mins, 900 range.
Rams, ballistas and arrowcarts can still be placed but the skill cooldowns are doubled, for ballistas and arrow carts the range is halfed.
Golems move 50% slower, doubled skill cooldown and halfed range.

Oh nice, so im not the only one running a BA build. Playing around with S/D lately:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhMMac25wwBf0AEAGpqQ4AQBIIWeN8FKDA

Controlled blinds through BA in fire (1,2, and 4) and cleansing fire, with earth 3, air 2 and evasive arcana in air. And FGS calldown and FGS skill 2 if you want to count that.

Sadly, uncontrolled blinds with the flame barrier and arcane precision traits, but its still somewhat ok. Flame barrier is only while attuned to fire and arcane precision has a 10% proc chance.
Renewing stamina and phoenix gives vigor regen for evades while you have no blind aviable.
Utility options:
- mist form if you need another stunbreak
- air sigil -> stun break, passive movemant speed and another blind!

Observations so far:
- bad vs numbers
- the typical D/D build is still better
- takes some skill, as you need to know the hard hitting attacks of the class your up against to blind/evade them
- you need to manage your blinds on top of your “normal” skill/attunement cooldowns
- the best: seeing enemys who thought an easy kill ele going wtf where do all the blinds come from

Lordrosicky.5813:

…
And it was before dhuumfire that the whole thing went to kitten. It was months before this in fact. But dhuumfire really started things downhill. Then it was just an express train to failure. The game became dominated by mediocre players who win because playing a certain set up matters so much. And playing with a settled team matters so much. Gone are the days when pugs could come together with a bad set up and just let their mechanical skill do the talking. When people see the game dominated by mediocre players they quit. When those mediocre players NEVER lose to these skilled pugs they quit forever.

tl:dr – the game doesn’t reward individual skill.

If GW2 whole balance revolves around and is done for a 5vs5 setup its kind of a logical development.
To balance team vs team you have to make sure the individual player skill is not the determining factor on the outcome. As the saying goes; there is no “i” in team. Playerskill still matters, yes, but today your class and build has more impact on the outcome of a match.
I think it was a conscious decission by Anet to “streamline” PvP so hard that your “average joe” can win simply by playing, and not by playing better.

And conquest makes this even worse. In other team games, like CS or Dota, an individual can carry an underpowered team to victory, just due to playerskill, the games allow it to happen.
Can you reliable carry a 4vs5 in GW2 in conquest?

tl:dr – sPvP is dead or rather was never really alive

I think part of the disappointment comes from the trust alot of people who had enough of WoW and generic WoW clones put into Anets words (who build up quite a good reputation as a developer with GW1) they said pre release.
And just two month after release everything ascended downhill.

Justin ODell.9517:

I think the big reason we need to streamline things and make it easy to pickup is NOT because newbies are dumb or incapable of figuring it out, but rather because PvP is very, very intimidating. Reduction in apparent complexity helps PvP be more approachable and less intimidating.
…

Justin ODell.9517:

When I say new players, I mean players new to PvP, not necessarily new to the game. In this sense PvP can be a new endgame for some players.
…

Uh, english is not my main language, so Justin or someone see if i get that right.

Justin you say you reduce the complexity in PvP to not intimidate new players.
And new players are most probably players not new to the game, but to PvP.
Means these players play PvE and/or WvW, both gamemodes were ALL stats and customization options are available, and food on top.
And you say these players are intimidated by a PvP system that has, right now, less option than the rest of the game, so intimidated that you plan to reduce the complexity even more.
I dont get the logic behind that.
Someone who manages the stats in PvE/WvW should be able to manage the bit in PvP.

You want to know what prevents me from playing PvP, although one of the reasons i got GW2 in the first place was for PvP (and the reputation Anet got with PvP in GW1)?
That i cant play with my gear i use in PvE/WvW and all the build options i have there. Not only do i not have the options in PvP, there are also special rules (crit cap).
That there is only one gamemode (ok, deathmatch soon).
That every class/build that is not fit for this one gamemode is useless, even counteracting to your win as a team.
That all the balance topics are solely for PvP and solely discussed here in the PvP section (in WvW players are fighting other players too).
That there is no way to test changes (public test server) beforehand.
That there are no or almost no iterations between the player base and Anet before a change actually goes live.
That Anet drops the bomb and then needs MONTH to react to feedback.

Justin ODell.9517:

…
I believe it will do both. Reducing perceptual complexity will help us attract additional players, and rewards will give them reason to stay.

Rewards will never be a reason for someone to stay and commit to PvP, never. As someone who has played PvP in MMOs for over 15 years, i can promise you, the moment players find something more rewarding, they will drop it like its hot and switch. Look at PvE, farming whats most rewarding, switching the moment somewhere its more profitable.
You can lure players with rewards to try out PvP, but if you want them to stay longterm you have to deliver a fun PvP experience.

From the PvP forums , i thought it also belongs here:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

By technically I mean that we are giving some nice changes to ele but there is so much going into that patch that trying to gauge the meta or what will be strong/too stronk/weak/too weak is just not possible right now.

I’ll say that internally staff Ele has turned out to be strong, scary strong against condi meta. The glass cannon specs seem to be unchanged but the tankier dps specs have seen substantial improvements. Enough? Arguable. At least ele will now bring the cleanse support it has needed. Will the Signet of Resto change be enough to make it super strong? Arguable, but it’s definitely a viable option now. Do you want to lose the cleanse from ether renewal? Probably not.. but dagger specs see a nice sustain boost from using RS. Additionally, our changes has brought a new role to ele and it’s one hell of a role! I’m sure plenty of people will have tons of fun messing around with what they can do on ele now.

Regardless, it’s just really hard to say where ele will stand on the tier chart in PvP with double on swap sigils coming in alone. This might over scale certain specs into godliness while bringing other classes up to par at the same time. We will have to see the implications of what a bunch of stacked up hydromancy, energy, battle, and geomancy sigils do to the tides of battles. Every single class has such drastic improvements to sustain through this that it makes glass cannon specs stand up stronger against foes, at the same time it allows full tank builds to bring out more damage while supporting their group. There is a lot more might flying around. With warrior 5 second weapon swaps, they can utilize 4 different on swap sigils as compared to what most classes can do with 2.

It’s just difficult to gauge at this point with so much happening. I really wish we could speak about what else is changing, but hopefully time flies quickly and we can deliver the news asap. Ele will however, be in a better place than it was I assure you.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

By technically I mean that we are giving some nice changes to ele but there is so much going into that patch that trying to gauge the meta or what will be strong/too stronk/weak/too weak is just not possible right now.

…

And this is exactly the reason why there are public test servers/maps. To see how changes impact the game/balance before they go live in a tournament environment.

How you ever wanted to be big in E-Sports without such an absolute fundamental thing missing… ugh, just thinking about it puts someone in danger to facepalm so hard he/she might shop their head of.

I mean is there, or was there any E-Sports relevant title that had NOT some form of public testing “work-in-progress” builds?

(the quotes are just to showcase as they happen to be really good examples, nothing against the posters)

Things that should not be in a CDI discussion.

Posts to just link other threads:

I’m not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this, however we had a very good thread going about rewards based on the exploration bonus / rarely killed creatures. Since this is a place to contribute feedback, I thought I’d post a link to it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Rarely-killed-mob-better-loot/first

Thanks!

If you have something to contribute to the topic do it in the CDI. In case you still want to link to some thread elsewhere give a short summary first. As CDI’s tend to grow rather large i dont want to have to dig through other long threads and walls of text on top of it.

Bumping post:

whyme.3281:

Just want to push this, because it think it got lost.

whyme.3281:

Have you ever considered closing the threads for let’s say an hour go through it and start a lifestream with the appropriate developers to the discussed topic.

Maybe read 30minutes through the post, make some notes and then start a lifestream.

It would be interesting, what they think about it, what’s their concern…. I think it would be alot easier for you, to post your reply in a video. Last CDI you “wasted” 30minutes to answere a question, while the discussion went to a completly different topic.

If possible, do it every day or two, after lunch (just a suggestion). But please dont start reading through the threads, at the lifestream, the reading must be done first. The advantage of a video for you as developer is clear I think, your can go more into details and more devs are involved into the answere.

Should not be allowed, it will just bloat the CDI. I think we all have to trust Anet here, if they say they read everything.

About deciding the CDI topic, i’m for alternating between voted by the community and picked by Anet.
Important: The topic voted by the community should not be changed by Anet.
I found it immensely, immensely rude that Anet changed the Ascended topic to progression. You cant call this “collaboration” and then “dictate” what we have to talk about! If the customers wants to talk about X, the talk will be about X.

Shasha.2548:

The Kurt.2518:

galen ubal.2807:

I don’t believe it is random – it reminds me strongly of a tic-tac-toe cypher. See this for an example of how to do tic tac toe code:
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-in-Tic-Tac-Toe-Code
I’ve gotten a screenshot – but haven’t had time to work on it. I have noticed it’s two columns, and each starts repeating partway down.

I took a closer look at this picture, and it turns out that the code doesn’t repeat exactly. On the right side, I marked the parts that are the same with red and the ones that are different with green; on the left side I marked the section that is not repeating with green… It’s really weird, I feel that this almost deserves a thread of its own :P

Green/blue/red is the same, but yellow isnt in all part, only 2/4.

There’s even more to it.

(my picture shows the left side)
The red parts (A) are the same.
Following the first red part there are three lines of code (the yellow part). The third line of the yellow part is a mirrored version of the first line (yellow arrows). On top of that, the line in the middle between the two yellow arrows is a mirrored version of the first line of the red part (A).
Oh and the green part (after the second red box) is a mirrored version of the whole yellow part.

At this point it was 3am and i needed some sleep.

So now, what is the “real” code and what is just there as a distraction?

I don’t think its morse code.

Maybe it not a code as each symbol stands for a specific letter, but like a graphical code.
Like if you would merge the left and right sides, adding both lines of symbols together, to reveal the meaning or maybe you need to “subtract” one side from the other (because why having 2 sides, that are slightly off to each other in the first place?).

To Anet:
Whoever came up with that, big thumps up and please more in the future!

Has anyone figured out what the symbol code means (last picture on the console) ?

After going all the way collecting the parts to enter the cave and to open the chests to complete her diary for the code to activate the console; that Anet just put some random symbols on there, in a cave otherwise packed with hints, makes kind of no sense.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is the proposal I believe we are making, please discuss and let me know if anything should be added or removed. Note many of us have read the thread internally and thus there has already been valuable impact.

Our Horizontal Progression Proposal

The Reward and Associated Journey

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Order progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

— Role Diversification: ‘Grail Quest’ (Personal rights of passage) style adventures through the open world (testing the player in combat, discovery, and puzzle solving) which others can engage in once the activities are activated which could reward the Hero with New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, and infusions.

— Hero Recognition (Reward) is a by product of the above two types of Horizontal Progression leading to Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Global Rule Proposal governing the above:

- Where possible use the above design paradigm to reinforce and evolve the existing world.
- Players should be able to have multiple methods of achieving ‘Grail Quests’, rather than a section of the journey being based on Jumping Puzzles and that alone for example.
-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.
- Sub-classes will be discussed again in a CDI once Arena finishes its current balance work in regard to roles.
- QOL features such as a wardrobe should support this global design.
- QOL: More customization options regarding our armor and weapons. (Things that came up in this regard were: pattern dyes, texture options (other types of wood and different metal polishes), customizeable features like long sleeves vs short sleeves, emblem design.

Once we have discussed the proposal and the thread reaches conclusion we will sticky it and move onto CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

Thank you all so much for your hard work and your passion toward making GW2 awesome. This has been a really good CDI and I want to thank you on behalf of Arena for caring so much about the world we love.

Here is a write up about the current CDI from Anatoli at Massively:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/01/14/flameseeker-chronicles-taking-guild-wars-2-job-specialization-t/

Chris

Updated proposal.

Change Log

Terminology Change: Faction to Order.

Chris

Ha, now i know what didn’t felt right as i was reading your summary yesterday. Its too heavy focused on PvE. Wheres WvW and PvP? I feel they are quite missing/underrepresented. Player housing? PvE. Guild Hall? PvE. Order progression? PvE. Grail Quest? PvE.
Don’t get me wrong, all whats up there is pretty good and important. But still…

Currently the game is pretty much split in 2(3) parts, more or less losely tied together (this topic needs an extra CDI in the future i think). Should not something like this progression talk involve the whole game and not only a part of it?
From such an important topic/CDI that will affect how Anet will approach the game and gamedesign in the future i think it also should include that the decisions based on this proposal will be done with GW2 as one entity in mind. (you can probably word it better)

A little rephrasing and an example for WvW+PvE:
“Sociopolitical Diversification: … Map and/or Server Wide Meta events unlocked through player, team and guild progression (Leading to individual, group and server rewards)”
If a WvW server reaches a certain goal(points?), it will unlock things in PvE, like a dungeon given access to certain skins, gear, better droprate. Maybe some free gems, given the goal in WvW is hard to get. Now if the dungeon gets cleared for a certain amount of runs, it will unlock things in WvW, faster dolyaks, sturdier walls/gates, WXP boost, better drops from rank chests and so on.
This could tie the different gamemodes closer together, like leading to PvE and WvW guilds working together.

Right now the game feels way to split up. Progression, player and character progression, if done right, could bring it closer together.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:

Regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method.

A review of current RNG metrics.

The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)

The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.

Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.

No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.

Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.

Chris

Bump. We are close to being able to move onto the ‘focused’ Horizontal Progression part of this conversation.

Does anyone have anymore comments on the proposal above based on our discussions?

Chris

Yep, i have a question and a suggestion.

Question: Why did ascended gear needed to have better stats than exotics and more importantly can you bring the ascended stats back down to exotic level?
I think this was asked a lot ever since the release of ascended gear but never answered.

I’m asking because ->

Suggestion: Bring the ascended stats back to exotic level. In addition give ascended gear several “stat-slots” where you can store stats with transmutation stones allowing to change stats just like legendarys.
How this works.
- Every ascended gear comes with 2 slots by default, the one with the stat you crafted and one empty.
- You can now use a transmutation stone and transfuse a new stat in the empty slot, and from then on can change between those two stats the same as with legendarys.
- If you do another transmutation it simply overwrites one of the stats.
- Introduce a new gem shop item that raises the stat slot by one, up to max. four.

Why:
- Alts don’t need to be geared with ascended, the stats are the same as exotics!
- It does not devalue all the ascended that are in the game by now and at the same time does not devalue those that walked the extra mile for a legendary as these keep their full stat swap capability.
- It does not make transmutation stones “obsolete”, may even raise in demand.
- A new gem shop item.
- For those that like to run different builds and/or want to experiment a lot a nice way to prevent a cramped inventory.
- Should be easy to implement, it only uses the systems/UI (transmutation, legendary stat swap) that are in the game already.

Couple things and suggestions:

- as mentioned by Chris only one CDI overall at a time (if this means more and better participation from Anet)

- for each new CDI Anet should send out an ingame mail announcement, something like “our new CDI is about [topic], we are going to discuss this because of [concerns], if you want to help improve the game come visit [forumsection]”

- the devs from Anet that will take part in the CDI should introduce themselfs in extra posts following the starting one (their thoughts on the topic, what they have to do with it)

- for a better overview as the thread grows i would suggest linking every dev reply in the first post, e.g. http://forum.tibia.com/forum/?action=thread&threadid=4015891 (it think you need to copy&paste the link manually to work)
even if you are late to the party, just by checking the first post you get an easy overview what topics have already been addressed

Heta.8629:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Heta.8629:

This group was obviously specced for long immobilization so looks like it works as intended. This condition should have been working like this since the beginning like cripple and chill does. They also sacrificed a lot of damage for immobilize if those 3 couldn’t down a rooted necro for 21 seconds. They also suck because you turned around and wiped them pretty easily. At least 1 was up leveled

Are you saying that low skill players on upleveled characters using bad builds should be capable of 20+ sec lockdowns? I don’t really think that’s a good argument. Especially since there is nothing preventing speccing for both long immobilize and enough damage to kill.

I’ve been seeing this tactic a lot recently, and it’s got me running on my thief more (withdraw and roll for initiative are good counters to this cheese). Too bad most classes lack a way to easily deal with immobilize specifically. I’d suggest buying Melandru runes and lemongrass soup ingredients as an investment, this tactic becoming “meta” will eventually require full -cond duration builds for anyone wanting to survive.

The change should either be reverted in PvP/WvW or stunbreakers and stability should be made to function on immobilize.

Since most if not all imob skills are single target and most are 2-3 seconds it cannot be stacked easily by one person or on a group. Only in these multi v 1 scenarios is this a problem and only by people who really spec to imob. I think the highest from one person is 9 seconds from a warrior with 2 weapons a trait and a utility skill and one good condition removal can take all that away instantly.

For the record as i main one:
Sylvari staff ele
Signet of earth + Shockwave + Grasping vines = ~10-12 seconds given how good you are in comboing it
With 30 in fire traited you can ad another +30% on top of that, and then food…
And there is static field (2 seconds stun), great as initiation.
But the best part is, signet and shockwave are 1200 range, vines 900, no need for close combat.

(regarding control you could also count earth4 and water4, but thats more a bonus in case the target has some condi cleaning)

One single staff ele.

Build diversity.

In the end it comes down to this. I dont need shiny rewards or achievments if the PvP itself is fun and rewarding just by beeing a good fight.

I get this in WvW.
Winning a 1on1 with a 30/0/10/20/10 randomish geared staff ele.
Be able to help my mates. Be usefull in a team or zerg and contribute to the victory.
Small skirmishes, major battles, with any even or uneven number there is.
Sneak attacks.
Getting an entire earth 2, fire 2, 5 combo through while beeing at full might stacks unto an enemy zerg that thinks a staff ele is nothing to care about and teaching them HOW wrong they are.

Is WvW balanced? No. (mainly because of Anets focus on sPvP and esports )
But a) that can be dealt with with your PvE gear and b) that is also part of the fun in WvW.
You never know what build your up against next, what tricks your opponent might pull, what surprise waits behind the next corner, what fun there is waiting…
You need to be able to adapt on the fly.

Oh, and not forgetting its easy to get into WvW. Join map -> done!
Not worrying with what the current meta builds dictate, searching for a team, rankings, uneven teams, leavers and so on.

And, nope, even the two new modes, Deatmatch and King of the Hill that are comming to you (if what Sacrx said in his super rant is true) wont change that im afraid.

Join WvW! Have fun and get free Cookies!

Well , that are my thoughts about sPvP.

PS: the Cookies may be a lie

DevonCarver.5370:

We would like to have a system that rewards servers at the end of a matchup based on their performance and are working out all we’ll need to do to make that happen. Ideally it will give extra rewards for winning while still rewarding everyone for participating. All that being said, it’s hard to know what form the final version will take. Hopefully we’ll have something to get everyone excited to fight for victory.

some ideas on…

- general WvW rewards
-> lower costs to upgrade keeps
-> faster dolyaks
-> higher droprate

- player WvW rewards
-> Top10 ranked players will be rewarded at the end of the matchup; ranks could be:
most kills, most escortet dolyaks, most defended/conquerd keeps, most supply repaired, most damage done with siege weapons, most damage dealed to other players accumulated
Rankings should be shown somewhere in the WvW overview.
Rewards can be, gold, blueprints, exotics, unique (cosmetic) gear that you will be able to wear in the following week bevor it gets passed on to the next top finishers.

Should be done with an extra overview and rewards for guilds; guild with most kills, longest time held keep/camp…

- PvE rewards
-> access to a new area or dungeon (with better droprate)

A servers performance should be measured (regarding my suggestions above)
a) on the fly, for example the better you do the less a keepupgrade costs, faster a dolyak runs, and
b) needs to have a hard cap, that no server in a bad matchup is locked out from a PvE bonus dungeon