Guild Wars 2

Lol, ive ignored all of the living story except for the temporary dungeons they have added. The LS is just a way for them to introduce more stuff into the gem store. Nothing more, nothing less.

It drives me nuts having a massive HP bar for my target and a giant UI window for like 5 events on the upper right of my screen that I have no way of shrinking (no I don’t mean minimizing).

I just wish there were better UI scaling in the settings, I have it set to lowest but that only really helped for my action bars. Really not sure why we can’t just 0-100% scale them like most games, not even asking for really in depth UI customization where you can drag UI elements, just scaling.

It becomes a really big problem (well annoyance) when fighting bigger mobs like bosses and you can’t even see them or my dmg numbers because of the UI, and since Anet insists on having these claustrophobic cameras in place on our characters I can’t really work around it.

Not to mention when you need to pay attention to telegraphs (the good few that even exist in the game =p)

So other then Thieves that rely on the games most broken mechanic anyone else think that it is LONG over due that Anet pull the finger out and fix Stealth? Is it not bad enough they have obscene damage and movement they have to have the most broken mechanic in the game.

Sure i know the Thieves will come screaming “L2P” and such but anyone else think this mechanic is seriously in need of being fixed. Why is it that Stealth in other MMO is a “Use at right time” mechanic but here its “lol spam, spam, spam” mechanic…

It ain’t built in a year either by the looks of it.

And that’s cute, whipping out the high horse to berate people for being cynical and bitter, despite the fact that people have given tons of feedback, but when the game has stagnated for so long you can only be so hopeful…. so..

Don’t get me wrong I like Teq, and the harder world bosses, I like wvw (even though I still would like to see less zerg play), and I loved the scarlet invasions. But Anet why on earth do you keep making huge open world content that you engine handles poorly? I have a pretty good PC as do many others playing but most of us struggle to even keep 20 fps during these events. Now that there are more mechanics and things to avoid in these fights the issue it even more apparent as half the time i’m dying to waves I cant even see or even if i can things are lagging so bad there is nothing I can do. I don’t think any of us want dumbed down content but something has to give somewhere. I think its time to step up and optimize your game in a significant way or start instancing content. You sold us a game targeting mid range systems and toting innovative combat. Right now even ppl with i7 processors and $400 video cards are have decent performance at best and the combat feels more like I’m fighting the engine than the mobs.

I’ve recently observed this issue in a number of boss encounters, namingly Tequatl and the Golem Mk II. I assume however the issue pertains to other encounters as well.

So I’ll be targeting the boss, blasting away…doing my thing and despite not clicking anything and not pressing TAB or any other related button the game will drop my target after roughly 10 – 15 seconds, forcing me to reacquire it.

This happens in the turrets during Tequatl as well where the game will just drop the target for now apparent reason.

Needless to say that this is really annoying and actually impairs game-play quite a bit.

I’m not sure if this is relating to the new targeting system or a game-setting but it would be great if this was fixed asap.

I don’t recall having this issue prior to the patch I must admit.

Edit: I too use a Logitech G700

Ive sort of come to the conclusion that, like Blizzard, Arenanet is conditioning us.
Warning: a bit of a wall.
TLDR; We are conditioned by Arenanet to play only for rewards, and not for the sake of playing. This is because they pump the game full of rewards, checklists, achievements, minis, and shinies. They use this word “reward” often in order to trigger this type of behavior.

Blizzard brainwashed a generation of MMO players into thinking a themepark MMO with endless gear grind, and a paid subscription is the way to go for the MMO industry. Many MMOs tried to follow their footsteps and failed. Miserably. So we come to, what we thought/think, is a unique game in GW2 and people wanted the same thing. They wanted verticle progression. Arenanet gave it to them. They wanted more. They wanted more rewards. Rewards, rewards rewards. We cannot have a patch without being enticed by rewards. You cannot read an article about GW2 these days without the use of the word ‘rewards’. Everything is centered around rewards. If you aren’t being rewarded, why bother? We can attribute a lot of this mentality to WoW, in a sense, because in WoW…we wanted verticle progression, gear grind, and rewards.

Arenanet takes rewards to a whole new level. And this is bad. They reward you for a lot of things. They reward you and shower you in currency. The more rewards you get, the more you want to play, right?

This whole idea that a game must be centered around “rewards” is creating a Pavlonian society where you guys (the playerbase) salivate whenever arenanet uses the word “reward”. If the article doesn’t have that word in it, suddenly it loses meaning. Have we all become the dog in Pavlov’s experiment?

A few months ago I created a thread about instrinsic vs extrinsic rewards. Playing for fun vs playing for reward. A lot of good points in both camps were made. People agreed with me that we no longer play for fun, but for reward. People also said that rewards ARE fun to them. Thats OK. But don’t you think those people are falling into the Pavlonian way of thinking?

For those of you that don’t know who Pavlov is:

Pavlov performed an experiment where a dog encounters food, they begin to salivate. He began to associate this with a bell sound. Eventually whenever he struck the bell, the dog began to salivate even if no food was present.

So..what is my point here? Arenanet has associated every patch and all content with some sort of reward system, and they use the term frequently. So frequently, that whenever they use the word ‘reward’, we as players begin to salivate and want more..and more..and more rewards. Its becoming a vicious cycle.

I believe most of you(myself included) have lost the purpose of a video game…to play for fun. I believe Arenanet definately has lost sight of this. Otherwise they would create content just to have fun. Not to check off achievements, and be rewarded. We would simply be enjoying their content, rather than rushing to complete achievements, or get the next ascended slot.

Its a vicious cycle started by Blizzard, and perpetuated by Arenanet. Blizzard conditioned us in WoW. Arenanet is doing it again with GW2.

Don’t believe me? Try going to another game after you have had your complete fill of GW2 and try not to expect the game to reward you for everything. I bet for a lot of us, it will be difficult.

If anyone responds to this, try to respond by not going to the opposite extreme in the case. Yes, rewards are part of game. I understand that. Yes, we all want some form of progression. I understand that. This isnt the age old verticle vs horizontal progression argument. This is just laying out how we are being conditioned by this company to expect rewards, because without a reward we do not have fun.

Games need rewards at some level, but not to the extent to which arenanet has gone to. They have removed a lot of the fun of the game and replaced it with something “virtually tangible”…if those words could ever go together.

Disclaimer: I suppose to be more accurate, what I really meant was “How GW1 Devs would’ve designed end-game gear had they been called in when ANet had already decided that Exotics were ‘too easy’ to obtain, and the game needed to give players a reason to grind.”

Obviously, if they’d been in charge of the game from the start, everything would look much different and we’d probably have been walking around in maxed out gear somewhere around level 40. This is not a “Let’s time travel all the way back to GW1” thread, but rather, a look at where we could realistically go from where the game already is now. It’s a direction that we could progress towards that would bring GW2 back into line with the original manifesto, GW1’s core theme of horizontal progression and experimentation, and the promises that were made to players in the run-up to the game’s launch, while still respecting the integrity of GW2 as a separate and distinct game from GW1.

Exotic Tier – Character bound, end-game ready gear. Not Best in Slot but good enough to get you through nearly all content.

Fabled Tier – Character Bound Best in Slot gear. Craftable at 450 using a similar amount of mats as Ascended, minus Time-Gated materials. Buyable on Trading Post. “Bridge” between Exotic and Ascended. All tiers beyond this are arguably unnecessary to pursue.

Ascended Tier – Character Bound. Craftable at 500 using the same mats required right now, including Time-Gated components. Not buyable on Trading Post, but available through alternate ways of playing the game such as WvW. Ascended has the Mutable property, which allows the player to switch the Prefix stats at an NPC (similar to respeccing at a Skills Trainer), though you will still have to switch out Infusions or Sigils. Essentially makes your character “Patch-Proof”, if a future change to your class changes the PVE and WvW meta away from all the time you’ve invested in your specific set of gear. Allows you the freedom to pursue alternate characters. Promotes horizontal progression in players, experimentation in builds, and while it encourages a heavy time investment in acquiring it, giving the hardcore players something to achieve, it saves many players a lot of time in the long run by not requiring months of grinding to try a different build.

Legendary Tier – Account Bound. Best in Slot. Storable in your Achievement panel similar to the Achievement Skins. Mutable stats. As a reward for your insane amount of grinding, if you have a Legendary 2-handed sword, you’re forever freed from having to bother with obtaining another end-game 2-handed sword ever again. You’re the master of 2-Handed Swords on all your characters, and are free to devote your time to unlocking other less-common legendaries like underwater weapons. If you’re really crazy and you already unlocked two of the same Legendary on different characters, congratulations, you can refund your second weapon for a different Legendary of your choice. Again, promotes horizontal progression, and arguably saves certain players time as a reward for the grind, though the grind is completely unnecessary.

Plaid Tier – Same as Legendaries, but simply more rare skins to go in your achievement panel that you can use to coat your Legendary items. Caters to the Crazy-Hardcore grinders who only do it for the prestige. Some Plaid items only available in WvW to differentiate that crowd, while other cosmetically different ones are only available in the deepest levels of FoTM.

Just as in GW1, there would be plenty of grind to do, motivated by concrete advantages, but none of it provides direct power increases. It simply enhances your versatility, encourages you to explore how different classes and builds work, and allows you to bring different types of power to different situations.

First of all, I checked the first 3 pages, and didn’t find anything, if a topic about this is already up, please redirect me.

To the point: there is a huge flaw in the design of the Ascended Weapon boxes. I realize that Anet figured out from Fractals that having random weapons drop for you is undesirable and people didn’t like it.

Now they implemented a system where you can get an Ascended weapon box with fixed stats that make you pick your weapon. For example, you can get a Occam’s Weapon Box, which let’s you pick any Ascended weapon with Rabbid (or Carrion? I dunno, doesn’t matter) stats.

There lies a big flaw in this design though, which honestly is even bigger than having a random weapon drop of which you can pick the stats: if you get the wrong stats, the weapon is essentially more useless than any other weapon.

If I got a Cleric’s Ascended Box, I would literally never open it, because I have absolutely no use for a Cleric’s weapon. A blue lvl80 Berserker weapon is literally more useful to me than any Cleric’s Ascended weapon. The only reason I would use it is if they opened lvl50+ Fractals and I would need the AR, other than that, I wouldn’t even bother.

Which is why, to me at least, having random weapons of which you can pick the stats is a better design than a random stat of which you can use the weapon. Because, at least an undesirable weapon can still fill some function on some character, whereas an undesirable stat wouldn’t even be considered by me. An exotic of more desirable stats will ALWAYS be more useful than an ascended weapon with other stats.

I’m not asking for random weapons though, since that design also doesn’t work, but to me it would be better if they either implemented both systems, where you can get either of them, a random weapon with choosable stats, or a random stat with choosable weapons. Or have a token-like system where you can exchange some ascended token for a box of your choosing.

Well, the update is here. Many of us are currently spending all our money to chase the next best gear. Who will win the carrot-on-a-stick race? Who will get tired and give up? It’s to be seen. The richer will become stronger faster, the poorer will have to work harder. The more skilled players will be forced to farm, as well, because unlike what was advertised to us at the beginning, being skilled in this game means zero.

That twelve-years old farmer still has a fresh mind. He doesn’t have much experience in mmorpgs, because he is still young. Just like how many of us, once upon a time, loved to spend days, months and even years farming, he too will realize that, someday, there’s more exciting and stimulating ways to keep players interested in a game than cheap statistical tricks that degenerate the gameplay into repetitive and monotonous auto-attacking spamfests. Especially when those tricks are cycling, never-ending, and bring no meaningful satisfaction at the end. So generic korean mmos, wow clones, gw2, among others, will probably all fall into the “just yet another forgottable carrot-chasing experience”, much like many of us have done the same with the archaic mmos of years old.

Looking back, you could say I was one of the many that were absolutely hyped for this game. I really believed it would be one of the greatest games of our generation. Top-tier artistic and musical talent, and loads and loads of promises on an adventure-driven game that would focus on horizontal progression, on exploration, on player’s skill and on a dynamically ever-changing world. How exciting can that be? Looking back at the trailers that showed Divinity’s Reach, I was thrilled to explore the world of Tyria. Overcoming obstacles and dangers that the world would put at my path, mastering my profession on the way, exploring and being rewarded for exploring, customising my own character through traits and personal stories, and watching the world change over time through dynamic events. That sounded like a gorgeous gaming experience, one that only the best of the best games could hope to offer.

In the end, exploration was a massive farm-fest for generic heart tasks, which are nothing but quests with less lore. All maps played and felt the same, gameplay-wise. There was barely any exciting encounter or unpredictable finding, except for hidden jumping puzzles, and even worse was the rewards. Exploring Tyria is a waste of time compared to farming in some spots. The concept behind dynamic events’ wasn’t explored enough, which made them closer to streamlined generic quests with less lore. Progression for my profession ended half-way, with the exception for traits, which are locked behind gold-sinks and npcs, and are nothing but a bunch of extra stats and passive effects. Personal story went nowhere past mid-game, offered little, and degenerated into a more linear – but even more uninteresting, story about a boring character getting a shiny sword and then giving my characters orders around. The lack of trinity was not well executed, and the game degenerated into a dodge-and-hit berzerker-gear fest. And for a cosmetic-driven game, it’s one of the worse at offering equipment that looks good. Etc. But looking back, it was still a good game. Combat is streamlined and fluid, the art style and music are gorgeous, there’s plenty to do, and even more so, there was plenty of potential untapped.

Anyways, one year has passed since GW2’s release. Anet had one year to improve everything about this game. One year to expand the dynamic event system, one year to improve the AI and/ or the encounter mechanics to add depth to teamplay coordenation and to build diversity. One year to improve and streamline the cosmetic side of the game. One year to improve the personal story or even to simply tell a more interesting story. One year to fill the world of Tyria with lore. One year to make the game more rewarding <- and they certainly acchieved in this regard. One year to improve the social aspects of the game, or the guild features. One year to put pvp into a solid position. Etc.

Instead, most of the year was focused on creating a portfolio of festival events, on gimmicky acchievements every month/ two-weeks, on fragmented and scarce story instances, and on numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Time-gated content. Number-farming content. New gears that add power creep. Randomly-generating numbers. Agony-resistance numbers. Numbers. Numbers. And numbers. It was one year of shallow story-driven instances and lore-less number-driven mechanics added. The encounters weren’t made more exciting. Working for cosmetics is still a pain. Social-driven mechanics are still nearly none. “Challenging” content is still as boring as ever. Exploring the world of Tyria is still a mathematical experience. The dynamic event system only showed signs of improvement recently. Build diversity is still kitten -poor. The personal story was ignored until “sometime later”. The pvp team is clearly under-staffed. The best dungeon/ exploration new content was temporary. Only the rewards were truly improved. And the idea of customising our own character, the idea of skill-driven content, all down the toilet, because we now must farm for ascended gear. In one year, that’s how Anet choose to keep its community invested in GW2. By farming.

Two-weeks to get a single weapon, did an Anet dev said? We must repeat all the dungeons/ jps, we must follow the train-zerg to cycle through mindless champions, and what else? Multiply that for the number of weapons for different builds (especially for wvw, because there’s no such thing as “different builds” in pve), for the number of alts (for those who invest them), for the number of single-handed weapons (which take two times the resources and the time than the warrior’s precious greatsword), and even for the ascended armor to come. That will mean months. Months spent auto-attacking through content. Entire months where players will do nothing but auto-attack and avoid red circles. The combat’s depth hasn’t improved, coordenation hasn’t improved, exploration is as repetitive as ever, customising characters will require even more months of auto-attacking farming, etc.

It’s sad that GW2 degenerated this much. I still want to love this game, I still want to support it, I still want to have fun with it. But the truth is, it’s as far from its original intent as it has ever been. Yesterday and today, I’ve spend my time wasting all my money to only go half-way in getting better stats for my MH weapon. It was unfun, it was repetitive, it was motonous, and I’m still not done, and I’ll still have to repeat the process for my OH weapon. I’ll have to repeat the process for all the other weapons I like using with my profession too. I’ll have to repeat the process for my alts that I enjoy using. And I’ll have to repeat the process once ascended armor comes in a few months.

I now say to myself and think, “Diogo, you’re going to spend months and months auto-attacking through mindless content so you can prepare all your characters”, and I wonder, what happened to GW2? What happened to the manifesto? What has this game turned into?