Guild Wars 2

Its pointless to keep responding to trolls and sycophants. People like that will argue forever with no actual basis except attempts to obfuscate and divert attention from the original issue. Regardless of what these types are saying, ANET is making it exceedingly clear that we can’t trust them. The only times they relent on shady and unscrupulous behavior is when they get pressured into submission by media and money. Personally, I’m tired of waiting on them to be trustworthy. I’m tired of mistakenly expecting them to deliver on promises. I didn’t want to, but I just took the hint and I’m downloading BDO now. I seriously don’t think they would drop such a huge stink bomb on us like refusing to deliver what we paid for…without even an attempt at an apology / compensation…if they weren’t going to stick to that decision. They seem to be planning on waiting out the firestorm instead of even further addressing the issue. Hopefully, those still willing to make a fuss about this will get some traction and GW2 may end up being worth a return visit in the near future…if they actually decide to provide what we paid for in good faith.

CETheLucid.3964:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The more concrete return is account closure? Gee thanks, you’re a right pal.

I don’t understand why this is such a concern if you feel you can’t trust the people you’re doing business with.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If a company doesn’t do right by me, I have the right to withhold money and the right to say what I think the next time it tries to sell us stuff.

By all means.

minbariguy.7504:

That statement works great, since you added the word “irreparably”. However, I don’t recall anyone asking how they can get recourse after being “irreparably” betrayed, do you?

Thing is, no one will know how “irreparable” the situation is until Anet actually makes a good faith effort to repair it. Which they seem to be spending exactly zero effort doing.

Well, I’m glad to hear you’re not done just yet then? Here’s hoping for you.

The reason why account closure is a terrible option is because vets also paid for core gw2. How is it a fair recourse to permanently take our paid previous purchase…just because they cheated us on a second purchase? What about the scenario where we do like that content they actually did deliver on…but they owe us a refund for the parts that refuse to deliver? Why does that justify account closure at all? That’s just spiteful and petty. The facts of this matter are that the only party in the wrong here is ANET…they falsely advertised their product to get our money. The customer is 100% in the right in this situation and deserves no penalty at all. There should be two options made easily available by ANET:

1. Full refund for HoT, without any account closure…but with full removal of any HoT features.
2. Partial refund for HoT, without any account closure….with delivered features intact.

Those are fair options for recourse. Of course, they also have the option to solve this whole issue by actually being a responsible and ethical company…and providing exactly what was advertised, sold, and paid for.

Dantert.1803:

Totally support Mike O Brien in his decision, he is a legend in the field and I trust his ability to evaluate what’s best for the game.
I’m not saying that not releasing the new legendaries isn’t bad, but it is the less bad that could happen, also focusing on the LS is good for me since I don’t care about Legendaries…
To the people getting upset about this thing…just get over it, if you like the game just for the legendaries or you bought Hot only for the new legendaries it was totally your fault not of the devs, you are free to move to something else, why wasting your time complaining about something that will not change?
I think we got too spoiled with constant updates and new free stuff that we forgot how much they did for the game till now. We already had legendaries with the expansion, now we will have 1 free. The others were not meant to be included into Hot, it was planned but they changed their mind, and that’s fine because it’s their game, their idea and they are the ones working on it. It’s not like you can wake up go to George R. R. Martin or another writer and say that he has to write his books differently and that the date of the release of his books were wong or that he promised somthing and he can not change his mind, because it’s his creation, if you like it you read it! The last thing that I want is that the devs start to follow every direction from the players and go till the end on everything that is on the table just because they promised it, even if it is not ready and not worth to be released compared to the rest. That would end up in just a big mess.

There’s literally something broken / missing …in your brain if you can’t understand the concept of free versus paid for. The same goes for the concept of advertising a product with listed features / components…and just flat out not providing the features /components once purchased. You follow that up with victim blaming?!? Its the customer’s fault for believing the seller about their publicly advertised features of their product? There is no 1 free legendary weapon. What was, and still is publicly advertised if a full set of 16 legendary weapons…requiring HoT purchase to be obtainable. This “1 free” you are talking about is just an attempt to validate one of their statements about “more” being available after the initial 3 gen 2 legendaries.
Technically…1 is more. Even that is just a loop hole and a serious breach of customer trust and credibility.

Obtena.7952:

Celtic Lady.3729:

So far, I have seen zero successful dismissal of arguments. The arguments still stand.

No argument presented is going to change the fact that Legendaries as content do not have a good ROI; this is low impact. These are business decisions, first and foremost.

Customer retention is high impact. They can start making decisions based on what the lowest percentage of players and what the highest percentage of players want, but guess what…eventually…when you lose enough of those lowest percentages…you aren’t going to have much left. Not the first game I’ve seen go with that strategy. Every one that has done that…has ended up as a failure.

CHAO.7956:

I know for myself for a long period of time I was only playing gw2 a little everyday just to finish my legendary. The game is so unbalanced in pvp and wvw right now that I likely would have just stopped playing all together if it wasn’t for the desire to make progress on my legendary. This is huge mistake on anets part (and sleazy too in my opinion, this was promised content for HoT!) and will just further alienate the company from the community.

This^

This almost completely parallels my situation. The only thing that had me logging on was incremental progress on astralaria and daily login rewards. I don’t even see a reason to login anymore as it stands. The only reason I was still bothering to ever visit the new maps was for legendary related things. They completely killed any reason for me to play with this. I didn’t care about LS2…what makes them think I’ll care about LS3.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

chaosmaster.3196:

Since we not getting the legendary weapons which was part of HoT content. How about Anet compensate us by giving us ingame items like gems or an additional character slot?

We got legendary weapons; we’re getting one more.

Now, I admit that I expected more, but upon re-reading the original blog post (and follow-ups in various places), I realize that was me imposing my hopes on their comments — they never promised a full set of 16, only the new process allowing to create our own precursor and some new ones.

I also agree that, at best, ANet mismanaged our expectations — they could have made it clear that only a few legendaries would be offered with launch and that it might take awhile to see more.

Still, in terms of legendaries, they delivered what they said they would.

I believe they technically satisfied the letter of what they promised, just to close a legal loophole, but there is such a thing as the spirit of the law. There is also such a thing as misleading your customer’s through clever wording. Both of these things are grievous offenses against their customers. They completely lost my trust with this. Unless they change their course and deliver on the expectations they set…for me to make the HoT pre-order purchase…then I"ll never spend another penny on any product they ever make. If this stands, I’m the fool for believing / trusting them again in the future. I’m not willing to be the fool.

evilunderling.9265:

Incompetence. No evidence of malice outside of your imagination.

Ignorance. Ample track record and pattern information to conclude either malice or incompetence…either is equally bad

evilunderling.9265:

This is actually factually incorrect. There was a blog post to the effect that they had 16 legendaries planned, it was never part of their “primary advertisements”.

But whatever, it was promised, and now they’ve determined that they’re no longer capable of delivering it.

Ignorance again. Whether it is printed or electronic or even a guy holding sign on the street advertising…it is still advertisement. Whether you want to try to make an arbitrary argument about the word “primary”….to distract from the issue is irrelevant.

evilunderling.9265:

And what part of that means that they actively tried to deceive you, as opposed to just screwing up?

What part of it means they didn’t? The burden of proof is not on the customers at this point…due to their sketchy track record so far.

evilunderling.9265:

That is not analogous to what is happening. Therefore, you are absolutely full of it.

It is 100% analogous regardless if you are too busy wearing your lancelot blinders to see it or not.

evilunderling.9265:

What else would it be?

Obvious useless statement is obvious.

evilunderling.9265:

They had the first few in hand at that time, so no, I don’t think they were having the same problems at that time.

And somehow the same collection/crafting process somehow became more complicated because of different weapon skins or linking to different events? That’s literally swapping in different variables in the code. If they are having difficulty doing it now…its literally less issues than they ran into when creating the first batch….so they knew about this already prior to launch.

evilunderling.9265:

I remember that outcry. But the people who didn’t feel they had enough information to decide whether or not to pre-purchase presumably opted not to pre-purchase. It’s pretty difficult to argue that they were deceived.

The context of what you are quoting is not in regards to being deceived. It is in regards to ANET withholding information about content included in HoT…which extends to the inclusion of the legendary weapon crafting process we were sold as part of HoT. This is especially relevant now with the revelation that they have decided to “indefinitely” hold out on the remaining legendaries.

evilunderling.9265:

You’re proposing to take them to court, that is why I am telling you to contact them first via customer support, and then attempt a chargeback, because a court will expect you to try and resolve the matter amicably first.

First thing you have said that I actually agree with.

evilunderling.9265:

ODB.6891:

Not sure why your nose is so brown about this, but yeah….if enough of their customers are getting refunds…that is a big scary thing to their apparently non existent bottom line.

Disagreeing with you is not the same thing as brown-nosing.

You think ANet are a bunch of lying cheats, I think they’re a bunch of incompetent hacks. You want to see the game crash and burn so that you can gloat and make people miserable, I want to see ANet get their kitten together so that I might one day have a good game to come back to.

If people get refunds, so what? It doesn’t affect my bottom line, and if the game crashes and burns, I have plenty of other games to play. It does, however, mean fewer people kittening on the forums and making everyone else miserable, so it’s actually a win on that front.

I’m glad to see you tuned into your psychic friends network to find out that I want to see the game crash and burn. That really aligns with the fact that I purchased HoT and still login sporadically to see if anything has improved. That also really aligns with me still accessing the forums to even bother expressing displeasure regarding an extremely negative course of action they are taking towards my game play enjoyment. Clearly I’m posting because I don’t want them to deliver an enjoyable game to their paying customers, which does not just include me.

evilunderling.9265:

ODB.6891:

Even if they some how manage to avoid legal consequences, for the dirtiest and most disreputable business practices I have ever seen in the gaming industry.

If you think they’re shady kittens and want to boycott them? Whatever. But this? “dirtiest and most disreputable business practices… in the gaming industry.”?

You are absolutely full of it.

ANet ballsed up. Everyone knows it. They admit it. There is no malice here, and nothing to even suggest any.

They never said that you can’t get your money back, and even if they did, any bank would happily process a chargeback for you.

Your brown nosing knows no end apparently. You aren’t getting a cookie for sucking up. You can bury your head in the sand or bend over…whatever. I won’t. You can try to ignore their track record up to this point…I won’t. There is no lack of publicly available information about their lack of trustworthiness…especially when it comes to all things HoT so far. The fact that they had to be pressured into refunds for hot pre-orders. The fact they had to be pressured into the inclusion of a free character slot option with the inclusion of a new playable class for the expansion. The fact that the primary advertisements for HoT were for content that they have decided to just cancel…6 months after selling us the product. The fact that they have said absolutely nothing about refunds or any form of compensation. These are adult issues. These are business issues. These are legal issues. These are respect for their customers issues. If you can’t understand that, then you need to stop posting. This type of concern isn’t isolated to just one industry. If I ran any type of business, and advertised a product indicating specific things would be included. You came into my store, read the advertisement, and purchased based on said advertisement. Then you went home and found out said advertised items were not in the box. You contacted me and I simply told you that I decided not to include them for whatever (irrelevant to you) excuses…and just stood there smiling at you…with no offer for compensation or refund…would you feel you had been treated with respect as a paying customer? We all know the answer is no…therefore you are absolutely full of it. It doesn’t matter if they came out and admitted it now. I could care less about transparency, this far after the fact, with no satisfactory action taken to resolve the grievance. This was a conclusion we were already coming to on our own…many forum posts about this already. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this was anything other than yet another PR recovery move. Yes, this was dirty and disreputable. You think they just realized this was a problem yesterday? You think they weren’t having these issues with the legendary weapon process prior to releasing HoT? You don’t remember the outcry on the forums due to lack of information on what would actually be included in HoT for the pre-order purchase price? That was the time when transparency was needed….not 6 months after they sold it to us. That is dirty and disreputable. As far as requesting a refund from our banks…what bank is going to refund an e-purchase from 6 months ago? Why should we even have to go that route to dispute it from our bank. You don’t speak for ANET or our banking institutions. If ANET is trustworthy…they would be offering us the refund…just like any other reputable company with a product recall.

evilunderling.9265:

skullfaerie.7203:

I’d be very interested to hear more about this. My intuition is the same as your friends, but it’s not an area I know much about either. People who are looking into it- keep us posted

If you want a refund, just ask for a refund. If you don’t get one, ask your bank for a chargeback. Talking about court cases at this point is pointless, unless you think you could get more than a refund out of a court, which would never happen.

ODB.6891:

Reasonable discretion is not going to save them from the law…when the issue is literally selling a product…advertising what is in the box….and then you buy it/take it home/open it…and what you advertised is not in the box.

At best, you’ll get a refund. Wow, big scary thing that ANet needs to be ‘saved’ from there.

Not sure why your nose is so brown about this, but yeah….if enough of their customers are getting refunds…that is a big scary thing to their apparently non existent bottom line.

Zetsumei.4975:

You realise the scrapped wvw overhaul and legendaries most likely never existed in the first place? Its one of the biggest cons in the mmo industry this year.

To still believe their bluffs and PR nonsense, you either havent been playing long enough or have stockholm syndrome.

This^

This person also took the red pill! Open your eyes Neo!

ozma.3498:

Berelious.3290:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Hardly. You paid for access to it. Do you get it if you didnt pay? No. In pretty much ANY mmo in existence, you’ll find that there’s language in the EULA/ToC that amounts to “you paid only for access to the service/product,” not “you paid for something you THINK you should get.”

edit: In fact, from Section 2.a from the gw2 EULA:

You further acknowledge that Your full or partial access to Content, including one or more Message Boards, Teams or Items is conditioned upon Your compliance with the provisions of this agreement and the Rules of Conduct. ArenaNet may modify, remove, or add Content in its reasonable discretion.

Bolding my own to highlight the point soooooooooooooooo many of you people miss.

edit2: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/ for any of you who think I’m lying.

Thank you Aiden, I was looking for this myself to post.

One thing that’s amusing is when private companies think they can rewrite the law by putting stuff in their terms and conditions. Ultimately, consumer laws are above ArenaNet’s terms and conditions, and ArenaNet will still be liable to abide by them regardless of what they put in their T&C documents.

In the past it’s been a bit of a grey area due to it being a digital purchase, but that changed a few weeks before HoT launched. Digital goods are now covered too. Anyway, I’ll see on Tuesday when I contact Citizen’s Advice/Trading Standards about it. They are the actual authority on the matter (in the UK at least), not ArenaNet.

This^

Reasonable discretion is not going to save them from the law…when the issue is literally selling a product…advertising what is in the box….and then you buy it/take it home/open it…and what you advertised is not in the box. They then tell you it will never be in the box and that you can’t get your money back. There’s not that much reasonable discretion in the world. They can put that in their terms and conditions all they want…just like you said…the law trumps some arbitrary excuses you had typed up in fine print.

obastable.5231:

HoT delivered everything they said it would. Word for word. That some people don’t like it or parts of it, or that there are bugs are irrelevant of the fact that everyone got what they paid for.

There was no promised timeline of when new legendaries would be released post-HoT, only that it would ship with 3 (which it did) and the rest would come eventually. Even if they come 8 years from now they will still be “on time” and delivering on promised content. This doom and gloom talk is ridiculous, mainly because you all agreed to the ToS & EULA which gives them full rights to modify/remove access to any content at any time but also because you’re complaining about not getting exactly what you were promised when you got exactly what was promised.

Any legal action would be a waste of your money as the onus is on you to prove that Anet deceived you intentionally and took your money knowing they weren’t going to give you the product as advertised, or to somehow prove that the ToS & EULA don’t apply to you.

A link keeps popping up about the legendary weapons, but even it explicitly states that HoT will ship with 3, and the rest will come eventually with no timeline given for when that eventually is or how that eventually will be delivered. Only that HoT will give you exactly THREE. When you paid for HoT you paid for those three and none others. You did not pay for non-existent future content.

No one was ripped off.

No one was lied to.

Even if they some how manage to avoid legal consequences, for the dirtiest and most disreputable business practices I have ever seen in the gaming industry, I can 100% promise that I will never spend another penny on any product they (or any of their affiliates) ever produce again. Any time I ever see anything mentioned about them, I will be bringing this up. I may just be one customer, but I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this. I hate being lied to, cheated, and disrespected like this. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that respect either. This is way bigger than the typical MMO reserved right to change content/product…this is fraud and false advertisement….even if it comes down to them being able to hide behind technicalities. This would be the biggest brand damaging blow yet.

Xehanort.7034:

are..you serious? Anet straight up LIED about the new legendary weapon releases. They said, and i quote, “we will be releasing new legendary weapons in small groups at regular intervals until the full set of sixteen has been added to the game.” It’s been FIVE MONTHS since HoT dropped, and they’ve given us THREE. It’s been what, TWO MONTHS since they released the first set of weapons? And now, they’re adding ONE new weapon (not even mentioning the fact that only TWO CLASSES can even USE shortbow), and then say that they cant be bothered to make any more, and instead want to focus on the LIVING STORY? How about anet actually produces the content that we PAID FOR?

And yet, here we are. Still getting black lion skins, gliders and outfits that they’re proudly selling in the gem shop. It sure looks like they’re down on manpower. Anet, and by extension, GW2, is nothing short of a joke now.

tbh, i’m pretty sure this is grounds for suing them for false advertisement.

All of this ^

This is beyond ridiculous. This moves into the realm of fraud and false advertising. I do agree…I’d be amazed if this isn’t grounds for a class action lawsuit. You can only hide behind the premise that a MMO is an ever changing environment …to a certain extent. I’m pretty sure they just crossed the line. They literally used the promise of 16 new legendary weapons, the new precursor crafting process, the new legendary back piece and its crafting process, and legendary armor….as primary selling points for this expansion. They also used the Chronomancer and the Revenant as poster children for selling the expansion…then they proceed to gut both of them a few months after release. Add this to the way they were pushing pre-orders…this is extremely bad business (slimy, dirty, disreputable, criminal). This is beyond the point where a refund is required….they can’t refund our time and effort. This is at the point where I want legal and monetary satisfaction. They are no better than con artists ripping people off. I could give two kittens about living story…that’s not the content this expansion was advertised and ultimately sold on…I want what was advertised and what I paid for based on that advertisement. No wonder they have developers and directors bailing out on them…they are trying not to get caught up in this mess.

I also agree that they seem to have no shortage of time/resources when it comes to gem store crap. Essentially, all the legendary items are are skins with additional visual effects. The only differences from gem store items are the collections behind obtaining them. If they can’t get the collections right, then scrap the collections. I’m not trying to see that ridiculous pre-HoT precursor rng drop rate though. I’ve never seen a precursor drop in 3+ years of playing this game.

Deedrick.4372:

ODB.6891:

I would take this a step further and say crafting professions should be account bound. This would solve the same problem and it would remove the penalty for deleting a character. Currently, if you delete a character that has a crafting profession…then you lose that crafting profession too.

I disagree with account bound crafting. This would make a gem store crafting license obsolete. It would also significantly change the mechanic, as you stated, the reason for not deleting a toon. The account bound recipes would fall more to the QoL improvement and potentially cut down support issues where some one waste a recipie on the wrong toon and puts in a trouble ticket.

So I had to refresh my knowledge of what the “additional crafting license” actually provided and I’m a little bit surprised. Not surprised at what you get with the license, but surprised at the responses here in regards to account wide professions. All the license gives is the ability to have more active professions on a single character. It still does not eliminate the need to swap characters to be able to craft. The account wide recipes suggestion is, indeed, a similar suggestion…getting at a similar problem…but the account wide profession would be a full solution. I’m going to go out on a limb and make some assumptions as to why you all think account wide crafting would be bad:

1. You already purchased additional crafting licenses?
2. You don’t have multiple characters?
3. You want to maximize the number of things ANET has to sell to us in the gem store?
4. You like swapping characters when you need to craft for some reason?
5. You think its wrong to delete a character and that there should be more of a penalty than losing that character?

I have deleted two level 80 characters so far…a norn 80 warrior and a norn 80 reaper. The warrior was my first character and I realized I just didn’t enjoy playing it once I branched out to other professions. My only regrets are the loss of various map completions and the loss of max level jewel crafting that I had on that character. If only those things were account bound instead of character specific. I deleted the necro/reaper because of dissatisfaction with the persistent design decision to make it such a selfish profession that still doesn’t sync very well with group bonuses like heals and doesn’t provide even a semi unique party bonus. I prefer to play professions that add bonuses to parties. My Norn 80 scrapper is only surviving because I don’t want to lose max level leatherworking. It is pretty easy to level a fresh 80 with tomes and scrolls, so its just the elite unlocks and crafting that makes it painful to delete an 80.

I would take this a step further and say crafting professions should be account bound. This would solve the same problem and it would remove the penalty for deleting a character. Currently, if you delete a character that has a crafting profession…then you lose that crafting profession too.

DGraves.3720:

Randulf.7614:

And yet those fraction still deserve content.

For all the times I’ve heard this I’ve never heard an actual justification.

You just quoted your justification? Do you deserve content since you are also a paying customer? Guess what…they are also paying customers…just like you.

Shylock.4653:

Dashingsteel.3410:

Anet, please go back to the original “play as you want” philosophy that gw2 started out with.

Wow, that I want everything but don’t want to work for it argument disguised as “play as you want”. There was never a “play as you want” philosophy in such a way.

When exactly was the time when you could progress PvP Reward Track while playing PvE, or get Dungeon Tokens while playing WvW, or earn a Prototype Fractal Capacitor in Dungeons … ?

If you wanted something you always needed to earn it in a specified way.

I believe you are misinterpreting this post. I believe the context of the thread extends into what this poster was trying to express. It is not about not wanting to earn rewards. It is not about not wanting to play specific game modes to earn rewards for those game modes. It is about ANET’s obvious hostage taking tactic of bonding the advertised elements of HoT to game elements that they clearly knew players do/would not like. For example, legendary weapons require full completions of HoT mastery tracks…which by itself is not a problem. The problem comes in with the acquisition of the mastery points to accomplish that (jumping puzzles, mini games, story achievements). These are game elements that they are fully aware that a significant portion of their player base dislikes. Instead of just acknowledging this reality…or making these game elements more enjoyable…they try to force players into them with hostage taking tactics (you can’t have the things you bought the expansion for unless you do those things that we know you dislike). One of many problems I have with this approach is that this is an artificial restriction. This restriction exists purely because they inserted mastery points into these game elements…and purposely omitted them from other game elements…with the express intention to force players to do those things they dislike. Ultimately, this is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Why would anyone think its a good idea to make their game not be fun? I don’t mind content that is difficult…but is still fun. I do mind being pressured into content that I find so boring and uninteresting, that I intentionally avoid it…especially when I have made it clear with past game play patterns that I dislike it. This is the kind of “play how I want” that I believe this poster was referring to…simply spreading out mastery point acquisition over more game elements…so as not to force jumping puzzles, mini games, and living story achievements onto players that dislike them. Would it really have killed them to make more mastery point communes or strong boxes? Would it really have been so terrible to attach more mastery points to other activities? Its a problem when you have to resort to distasteful tactics to get people to play your content. Its personally, got me to the point where I can barely make myself login to the game….just for the daily login reward lately…and then log out within a few minutes. I’ve done the new HoT maps to the point where I really don’t have the desire to repeat them anymore. I dislike having to wait around for the map metas to start again…just to grind out more map currency or to get access to mini games for more mastery points. I find myself doing exactly what they said we would not be doing in HoT….waiting to have fun. In this case though…its waiting to still not have fun…but to grind some more towards map currencies and tries at more mastery points.

I enjoyed this game much more when I could login anytime I felt like it and make decent progress towards goals and have semi-immediate fun. Now everything is a map wide zerg, a planned guild event, or extortion into some game element I dislike. The primary content I did like (fractals and dungeons) are terrible now. Dungeons are not rewarding and therefore dead content…part of the extortion policy of HoT. The ANET mafia came in and broke the dungeon knee caps to make sure we played the new maps and the “new and unimproved” fractals. Removing the randomization from fractals was the worst decision…second only to mastery points tied to specific game elements. Why would any fractal veteran do anything besides swamp/duo without randomization….or significantly better rewards? They have clearly proven that they are never going to actually give significantly better rewards for different fractal levels/tiers. They temporarily increase drop rates when we complain enough…then secretly revert them back in a day or so. I see the hype they are trying to sell us….again…about fixing fractals and fixing rewards, but I’ve lost the ability to believe ANET hype from past experience. I also see the somewhat vague information about adding raids to the LFG. I would be more hyped about that if there were more specifics (filters included or the standard random hot joins). I guess I’ll see if these things actually happen during my daily rewards login lol.

Agreed….its way past time they stopped refusing to give us even these basic details on new legendary weapons. This is content promised before the expansion was even mentioned to us. Now we are months into the expansion and they refuse to even talk about top level details like which ones are next or show us the artwork. What we deserve is to have the promised…and now purchased content…delivered in a timely fashion. What I’m sure most of us would settle for…is to at least know what we are getting next, a reliable time frame, and what they will look like. I don’t think that’s too much to expect…for something we were promised for free…ended up having to pay for…and are being stone walled about in regards to information.

That being said, I am also crafting Astralaria. It has been an enjoyable experience so far…except when dealing with the scarcity of certain required materials…namely orbs for the amalgamated gemstones. I’m also still irritated in the lack of true diversity in means of obtaining the required HoT mastery points. I’m on the final stage of Astralaria where these are the only things gating my progress. I guess sooner or later I’ll break down and force myself to re-do the HoT story and grind out these story achievements for mastery points…and unfortuately…as many of the remaining adventures as I can complete.

Definitely an Elementalist E-spec with main hand sword.

Elemental Imbues for weapon attacks (shared with the party) for each attunement. I like the suggestion someone else made for combining attunements for this e-spec…so an example imbue could be air+water or air+fire.
High mobility and some blocks/evades for true melee combat
——————

Ranger E-spec without a pet!

I don’t even care what weapon they give…so long as the fix main hand sword.

Have the utilities be “aspects” of different beast types…similar to facets from the herald…only be buffs instead of boons. Restrict it to maybe only 1 or 2 active aspects at a time.
———————-

Mesmer E-spec with competitive melee dps

Something where the mesmer becomes the phantasm…instead of having a bunch of AI phantasms running around.

Have only one shatter button…with a different effect based off of the phantasm type you are.
———————

Necromancer gets a blood themed shroud.

Instead of being a HP sponge/health bar replacement, have it instead be all about life steal/leeching. Have it be an offensive shroud instead of such a defensive one like we currently have. No more passive damage reduction, but instead truly focus on stealing health to stay in the fight. Not be a transform at all all…but simply an aura/appearance change. This would finally be an opportunity to retain use of our utilities at all times.

I’d say main hand sword as the weapon…or allow us to use main hand axe as a true melee weapon.

Have it still focus on condis instead of boons, but offer a group buff of significant and relevant life steal. Maybe even have a focus on applying aoe weakness.

This could include “sacrifice” type utilities…where the necro sacrifices health temporarily to activate utilities to benefit self and party..for various effects.

TexZero.7910:

See the problem here is you’re trying to make every class ubiquitous in nature and that just doesn’t work. Every class has it’s tradeoffs. Memser’s is being balance around large packets of damage, not sustained Damage. That the entire reason they even have shattering to begin with. Now maybe the next e-spec will fix that, who knows. But right now not only are you comparing apples to oranges (tank to dps) you’re also trying to compare different ways of dealing damage sustained to burst and it just doesn’t work.

I can almost unequivocally guarantee that if a chrono was running chrono-shatter and not this tank stuff their DPS would be on par with most other classes +/- 8%

I have to disagree with you on the shatter sustained dps. I have never seen any group that brings a mesmer of any build for dps. That is anecdotal evidence, though, so I’ll leave the numbers up to someone else. I would however tend to believe that anecdotal evidence instead of a random belief though.

I also don’t think that all professions having competitive dps would make anything ubiquitous. What makes professions stand apart are mechanics and utility. The original design of this game was built upon the GW2 specific trinity of damage, control, and support. That was not split into only doing one or two of those things at a time…it was with each profession bringing all of those things in one build to varying degrees. It actually worked very well, so I have to disagree again with you saying that it doesn’t work. The only reason that the game is moving towards the wow/eq type trinity is because of players who refuse to adapt to this different game design…and ANET’s desire to please and retain these players.

TexZero.7910:

I see your problem here. You are equating an entire specialization to a profession.
Mesmer DPS is just fine if not playing stack wars and actually are allowed to setup burst rotations.

Chrono (PvE meta) sacrifices its burst for group utility and self sustain.

I fail to see how this is an issue, unless you somehow want Chronomancers to somehow tank and deal DPS on par with everyone else while buffing everyone else with 50%skill action and 33% skill recharge rate ?

I see your problem here. You assume that I am equating an entire specialization to a profession erroneously. I merely say chrono instead of mesmer because the expectation of taking the chrono trait line for high end group pve is a no brainer. This is due to the issue with the core mesmer being trash in said environment ever since reflects stopped being a thing. The same is the case for the herald versus revenant…the expectation is that you will trait herald for high end pve for FoN and other facets. Its no point really in not referring to the e-specs as the entire profession..even though the e-spec is just one trait line.

Mesmer dps has never been “fine” in high end pve. Shatter dps is just what you said, burst dps…that’s for pvp/wvw. I don’t think either core mes or chrono has an issue in pvp/wvw.

I do have an issue with any design that makes a profession “sacrifice” having decent sustained dps to be a support bot….at least in this game. The whole notion of needing to “sacrifice” dps goes out of the window when you look at other professions like guards with that same type of 50% skill action buff…just lesser up time….with much higher dps in addtion to all of their other offerings like perma prot, frequent aegis application, etc. Compared with warriors and banners, decent group fury up time, group might stacks, and of course their dps level. I’m sure there are other examples as well, but the issue I see is that there does not need to be a “sacrifice” if they spread out group utility AND dps. That’s what the original design of the game was…but they are edging more and more towards trinity and roles.

TexZero.7910:

Chrono and Herald are group support though, so i fail to see what your complaint is unless its numerical, in which case it needs more numbers than the words you’re using.

As is there’s quite a few classes that fill the role of offensive support. Chrono/Druid/Herald/Warrior and i don’t think your taking any of these for their amazing individual DPS. If you are then i have to question what your metrics are for good individual DPS is.

The only two professions that are not group support are thief and necro. Every other profession offers significant boon/buff support to parties. The distinction that this is about is when the support functions far outweigh and overshadow the dps contribution. That’s when the term support bot starts to apply.

Of course the complaint is numerical…that’s obvious. This is a stat driven game…like most mmo type games. Effectiveness is going to depend on numbers to a large degree. This game offers choices on what professions to bring, and that is affected by what the different professions offer and how efficiently they offer these things. That’s what the meta is all about. Push one profession too far down a specific path…away from the dps centric focus of the game…and it falls out of the meta unless it offers something seriously irreplaceable. We just witnessed what happens when a profession offers something that is that irreplaceable…it gets a big fat nerf to make it not be mandatory. My complaint is about this type of scenario.

I don’t think any profession should be relegated to trash level dps in this type of game. One of the reasons I bought GW2, in the first place, was to escape the role casting of previous games. Tanks, healers, dps, and the forced expectations of any hybrid type profession from being relegated to a forced role such as a healer/support bot. This game’s design allowed a departure from that…since everyone was able to be self sufficient in their own survival and offer group support in some way. Its starting to slip away from that…into forced roles and hybrid professions being obligated to fill a specified role. We’re already seeing that with the druid…who wants a regular ranger when you can have a druid? Druid gives everything you would want from a core ranger + healing + more dps buffs for the party. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving druid. I have been playing one a lot since the chrono and herald nerfs. I don’t mind the healing aspect either. I’m just noticing and I am wary of the direction the game is heading…when professions are starting to get labeled as support or healing…and expected to have low dps in this dps-centric design. I’m not looking forward to an eventual wow clone….when you routinely see groups looking for a tank, healer, and dps.

Chris McSwag.4683:

ODB.6891:

I agree, its really not worth the time, effort, or resources to start up a chrono at this point. What they do still provide is outclassed by pretty much every other profession (damage, buffs, debuffs, boons, healing, tanking….all done better by others)

Alacrity is still good and no other class can provide perma quickness. Chronos are still used in all kinds of instanced pve content, especially raids.

Alacrity is still good, don’t get me wrong. A lot of things are good, but you won’t necessarily reserve a group spot for them. I may be wrong, the math may actually prove me wrong, but other classes are looking really good as alternatives to bringing a chrono since that series of compounding nerfs. There were already classes that got minimal benefit from alacrity (thieves in particular) and now thieves have had their auto buffed to be top tier dps. I have no idea how the math actually works out as far as how many seconds alacrity actually shaves off of relevant cool downs now, so that will make the difference…whether the 33% and quickness uptime still is really worth the slot for such low dps. The combination that really made that work was Herald (FoN) + Chrono (alacrity+quickness). Now Herald has been reduced to a support bot as well….now you have two low dps slots trying to achieve half the effect as before. I was pretty disturbed to hear a raid leader say that “we don’t bring Heralds for dps, we bring them for boons.” I can’t say I disagree with him, but that bodes ill for Heralds. We already see the treatment Chrono got for being a support bot. Is this really what ANET intended when they advertised Chrono and Herald, as the poster children of all their HoT pre release hype? Two low dps support bots. I know Guards have significantly less uptime on quickness, but with thier dps buff…and the nerfs to Chrono/Herald…that just seems like it could be a replacement scenario. Again, I’m just going off of perception and not raw numbers though.

Ithilwen.1529:

I was “working” to unlock Chronomancer tonight/this morning on my alt account.

Truthfully, as hard as Chronomancer was nerfed ( after I bought HoT specifically to play the class) it’s not worth the effort. I do better on PU condi than on Chronomancer.

I have to admit that I’m angry that there was huge power creep until after the initial HoT buying pulse. This encouraged people to buy. Then, the nerf hammer fell. It feels pretty deliberate.

The great trains from the first days of HoT are gone because the Silverwaste is easier and more profitable to farm. So now unlocks are a long and painful process.

It’s no longer worth the time and effort to get through the unlocking proccess.

I agree, its really not worth the time, effort, or resources to start up a chrono at this point. What they do still provide is outclassed by pretty much every other profession (damage, buffs, debuffs, boons, healing, tanking….all done better by others). Chrono had a very narrow reason for being included in group content…and ANET destroyed that. I regret that I got baited into putting resources into it, but at least I have multiple other professions fully unlocked and geared to play instead.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Now, how do we make them play our stuff?"

This exactly…sums up the source of the problem right there.

Norjena.5172:

Just ignore Malediktus, he is one of that 27/7 AP farming guys with over 30k ap.

Sure that HE loves getting mastery points.

But im pretty sure that most other people hate it.
MP´s are definitly the most disappoiting feature of HoT, and probably the main (or only) reason when i leave the game.

Making achievments a “must have” is nogo.
Achievments have to be a option for people who like them, not more.

I want any other ways to get MP, gold, auric dust, leyline sparks, fractal relics, magneticshards or anything else.

I would even buy them in the gemstore for real money, everything is better then farming achievments.

This ^. I would literally be willing to do almost anything else to get these mastery points…other than doing the content they are tied to….story achievements and adventures.

Kastiel.1947:

Personally would love for this to be the next legendary 1h sword or atleast the precursor to it , love the skin – like 20/10
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Fargate_Opener.jpg

Ugh…please no. I dislike that even more than bolt.

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

ODB.6891:

What is relevant to the issue is that there is a foreign element (content outside of the genre) that has not only been introduced to the game, but is being used as a road block to progression in the game.

Source?

We bought Guild Wars 2, not Super Mario Bros, Burgertime, or Call of Duty. That’s what ODB meant.
The MMO format isn’t suitable to these sorts of genres. The controls aren’t the same, and they’re poorly tuned for what they ask us to do to succeed at them.

If they wanted us to try them, and maybe even like them, they failed at it overall. Long stretches of unavailable time, instances pulling players out of participation, frustrating mechanics that require masteries to get mastery points to get masteries, overtuned timing demands, RNG elements…

I have to wonder who even playtested this garbage and decided it was acceptable for general consumption.

It being suitable or not is your opinion but isn’t fact as other RPG games and MMO’s have had mini games. If adventures are not suitable for GW2 then neither is SAB. Neither are the holiday activities and regular activities too.

So I come back to this thread to see ignorant responses instead of any logical arguments. There is no source required for common sense. Just like Rauderi said, we didn’t buy super mario brothers, we bought a MMO. MMOs aren’t a new concept. Its been well established that MMO games will be based on a certain type of gaming experience….that’s the concept of a genre that you seem to not understand and want a source to explain to you. Since you and one other apparently need someone else to google a definition of the word genre, here it is:

genre
1: a kind of literary or artistic work

Type of:
form, kind, sort, variety
a category of things distinguished by some common characteristic or quality

2: a class of art (or artistic endeavor) having a characteristic form or technique

I’m pretty sure you can’t reasonably argue that GW2 has been classified as an action rpg (sub category of a MMO). I’m also pretty sure you can’t reasonably argue that the a lot of the activities in these adventures are in the category of platform gaming. Platform gaming is also not a new thing. Its not entirely unreasonable to have elements such as platform gaming inserted into any different genre, including an action rpg, but my issue is clearly the fact that this different genre content (foreign element) is being used as a barrier to core rewards of this genre. This is probably not going to change, but I’m still going to express my dissatisfaction with it.

Its just a kittenildish and pointless to drop a one liner like “source?” or “citation”, in response to something that a combination of common sense and a google search can explain to you. If you want to argue the point of whether or not it was a good idea to insert that type of content into the requirements for core rewards of this game…that would be a different matter.

Agemnon.4608:

Bolt is such a cool weapon that topping it is very hard.

I agree with the others in disliking bolt. It just looks like it is made of garden fence material. Like one of those ornate metal fences…not like something sharp or dangerous. I want my sword blade to actually look like a blade. My personal preference would be a blade similar to twilight/eternity….the shape of an actual blade that looks sharp, but has an elemental effect to it. Not like incinerator..or whatever the legendary dagger is called…that just looks like a blow torch flame instead of a blade. I would even like bolt if they changed he aesthetic to something like I was just describing. The lighting part is cool, but maybe a blade made out of lighting…with a lightning trail similar to the dark/star trail of astralaria.

Positives:

Gliding in central Tyria is nice.
The ability to change fractal levels in the observatory is great.

Negatives:

Balance changes were incoherent and just missed the mark in general. Its like there is a complete lack of internal communication with your balance team. Its like you have separate people all ignoring each other and just randomly implementing their own separate ideas…all at the same time…and no review before going live. I see this with the necro changes…with the overload of so much boon corruption…in so many ways…simultaneously. I see this with the chrono changes…nerfing personal alacrity, nerfing group alacrity, nerfing echo/deja in such a way as to be both a nerf to duration of echo and the likelihood of even getting deja, completely destroying any chance of precog even making it onto a utility bar ever again, and still leaving out any competitive sustained damage. I see this with the revenant changes…over nerfing the sword auto while simultaneously buffing thief auto through the roof. Gutting unrelenting assault while over nerfing the sword auto. There’s just too much double and tripple dipping in the nerf department…while ignoring the side effects of these nerfs. Its like everyone just has their own ideas of what to do and just ends up all implementing their random ideas all at once…with no communication/consensus. They can’t even agree on the idea of too much auto attack damage…across different classes in the same patch. I knew ahead of time, that any nerfs would be all one sided…no net give with the take. This is all just shuffling classes in and out of the meta…instead of actually balancing. Revenants have a lot to offer, but the sword nerf was just a little over the top. Thieves still didn’t get the thing that will keep them in the meta….after the inevitable nerf to this auto attack buff…which would be group utility. Necros are just as selfish as ever….and will likely get a nerf just like burnzerkers did. Chrono is probably watching the game from the nose bleed seats…while core mesmers are still watching the game from home. Guards are still laid off looking for work. Ranger main hand sword is still the absolute worst melee weapon ever…due to the terrible self roots and animations…maybe the off hand ranger dagger is equally bad. For a quarterly balance patch….there sure is a lack of positive change and a lot of poorly thought out change.

Mastery points are still an onerous chore. I feel a sense of dread and lethargy even thinking about working on the content that awards mastery points (adventures and story achievements). Please spread mastery points around more and add some more…both HoT and core Tyria.

Its time. I think it can almost universally be agreed that the design of this weapon is terrible for rangers/druids. This weapon takes the control of your character away way too much….just the auto attack alone. The animation frames from the auto attack prevent dodging and anything else relevant. Sword #2 and #3 aren’t completely terrible, but the evade frames are so insignificant as to be useless…not to mention they decrease up time on dealing damage unnecessarily, with almost non existent benefit. Its clear that range of this weapon is meant for melee combat, but only the auto hits more than one target…while locking you into constant animation frames. This is the only main hand melee weapon for this profession….please fix. I think this is deserving of some development time… after all this time.

Cyninja.2954:

There is a huge difference between playing Beethoven and literally pressing no skill whatsoever.

I’m not arguing about nerfing thief dps, I’m arguing that the way it’s implemented is wrong. If not using your skills provides a higher dps than using them, balance is far off.

Personally I could care less. I just find it funny how some people keep running around asking for balance essentially until their class of choice wins the balance lottery, then change their tune and pretend like everything is fine. Here is my hint to any player who enjoys necro (repear) and thief (daredevil) for the classes they are:

- come up with some viable solutions to balance the classes because if you leave things the way they are, arenanet will balance them for you and you seriously do not want that to happen.

- alternatively pretend like everything is fine and argue with people over how balanced your class is. Don’t come whining though after the nerfbat hits

I agree 100% that they don’t want arenanet to balance them, but that’s an inevitability. This is going to happen in typical arenanet fashion too. They just got their damage buffed significantly and that affects their PvP….which puts a huge bullseye on their back from arenanet’s balance priorities (esports). Nothing gets a nerf faster than esports complaints. The way they just got buffed is the same reason that arenanet just nerfed revenants…which really makes no sense. Its like arenanet has no internal communication between employees/departments. They claim to have nerfed revenants auto attacks for being too strong and then turn around and setup the exact same scenario with thieves…in the same “balance” patch. Expect the same treatment they gave revenants and chronomancers….a “kitchen sink” nerf…they are going to throw nerfs at everything they can about thieves…hoping to blindly hit the offending target…typical arenanet balance. Sadly, they will probably end up worse off than before this recent balance patch. Arenanet still managed to entirely miss the primary reason these professions are undervalued in raids….party synergy….they need to contribute something valuable to the party besides personal damage…something unique.

I see these ego centric people posting that seem to think that because they find something easy…or either think it makes them look good to claim that something is easy for them…that it matters one bit to the others that don’t think that same thing is easy. News flash….no one cares that you think its easy. What you find to be easy or I find to be easy is completely irrelevant to the problem. What is relevant to the issue is that there is a foreign element (content outside of the genre) that has not only been introduced to the game, but is being used as a road block to progression in the game. I have never liked sonic the hedgehog or super mario brothers, and as such, I would not intentionally buy either of those games…or anything like them. I had no idea that mini games were actually this big of a part of the HoT progression (legendary weapons, specialization items, mastery points)…as that was not made known before purchase. In fact, adventures were advertised completely differently pre launch. They were advertised more similar to quests. Instead we get platform gaming. I think its cool that some people not only like this type of content, but are also really good at it. What I don’t think is cool is that those of us who don’t like it and are not good at it….are being blocked by it. Eventually, I’m going to force myself to complete them (unless ANET relents and makes the rewards no longer exclusive to adventures), but it is like being forced to do homework on summer vacation….not a fun experience. Ultimately I’m irritated that primary (advertised) features of HoT are gated by mini games. That content being legendary weapons, specialization items, and character progression…pretty much everything we bought HoT for except raids.

I like HoT overall. My perspective is all about PvE. I love the new maps, even TD. I enjoy the vertical nature of the maps. I enjoy the more engaging enemies and their mechanics. I enjoy the new map traversal methods (gliding, wallows, exalted teleporters). I enjoy the map meta events.

I almost enjoyed the mastery system, until I hit a brick wall in the form of mastery point gating behind content I just can’t make myself like (adventures and story achievements). I know the story achievements aren’t difficulty, but finding the motivation to actually do them has been a challenge in and of itself. Then there are the adventures…I despise mini games. I’ve been forcing myself to do them little by little….just because of the legendary collections and the mastery point barrier. I feel like I’m being forced to do menial labor or being punished when I have to do them. Definitely not something I’m enjoying…and that’s a problem since this is supposed to be a game…something you do for fun. I’m not a fan of platform gaming…especially platform gaming on a timer. I can honestly say I would never willingly do these mini games if I wasn’t being pressured into them to complete my character’s functionalities and gear progression. Its seriously affecting my desire to play the game, when my remaining goals are largely limited to these things I significantly dislike. I would love it if ANET would add more mastery points into HoT content outside of these. I will fight mobs/bosses and do events with joy, but put a mini game in front of me or some boring story achievements…and lethargy/apathy sets in.

I like the raiding addition in HoT as well, although I have barely participated so far. I missed the initial raiding rush, so I don’t have the experience that most raiding groups are looking for. Honestly, I haven’t even bothered trying to raid for the most part because I don’t really like the absence of performance measuring tools in a raiding environment. I like to see how I’m doing…more than just whether i’m passing the mechanics portion of the encounter. I’m not a fan of endless wipes due to lack of feedback in game about group performance. I’ve been in a few VG attempts when HoT first launched in pugs and in one Gorseval attempt…in another pug…just to get a feel for the fights, but I’d much rather do that type of content with a consistent guild group. Raids have been a guild breaker for me though. I’ve bailed on 3 guilds so far that initially said they would raid during my general play time, but never really even got started. The problem with general guilds wanting to raid is the lack of filters in joining a guild in this game. The same issue exists within every aspect of instanced PvE in this game. Its just more pronounced and obvious when raids are involved. Raids were designed around the premise that you would have a consistent group of players tackling this content together. The problem is that guilds are pretty much just a random social event in this game. There are no tryouts. No evaluations. Just randoms doing random things at random skill levels. Essentially most guilds are worse than most pug groups at any content that matters. That being the case, they implode when they try to bring that pug/phiw mentality into a raid. They smash against the skill requirement like bugs on a windshield. They either quit trying, form a small/elite core raiding group, or end up a ghost town. I’ve decided to just work on the legendary grind until I see if there is going to be any improvement to forming and managing raids. That’s what I think will really be necessary to opening them up more.

The only other content that I bother with is fractals. I do these on a regular basis, but only for the gold….to fund my legendary grind. I’m not a fan of farming open world content, so fractals is all that’s left for me in that respect. I really don’t like what they did regarding the single/static fractal island change. Its just as we predicted with swamp/molten non stop, but that isn’t even a problem for me. I have no issues with following the path of least resistance for quickest rewards. My issue is with how boring it is without the randomization and with the hp/toughness punching bags at higher levels. As usual, ANET is swinging and missing at fixing the actual problems of why people only do swamp/molten. Its a logical response to the hp/toughness overkill. Most players don’t want to die of old age wearing down all that hp and toughness. Then there’s the issue with craptastic instabilities at higher levels (social awkwardness, boon fumbler, enemies getting boons on crit, randon condis….mostly fear). This is why anything other than swamp past 50 is empty in LFG.

This undoubtedly seems like a lot of complaining, but ultimately I like HoT. I’m just dissatisfied with a significant number of their decisions and them holding out on QoL improvements like group performance tools. Oh yeah, fix the LFG tool while they are at it….show the specialization icons instead of just the base profession icons.

Protivnik.8907:

It feels this way because there is no “LFR tool” so most of the time you end up joining a group for open world content and have to convince someone that you’re qualified enough to even attempt the content. A lot of people only want to group with other experienced players with 10+ kills or whatever so the ability to find groups capable of downing the content bottlenecks considerably because experienced raiders only want to group with experienced raiders.

A good solution to this problem would be to add a LFR tool with an additional incentive options for experienced players who group with less experienced players. A bonus chest, magic find percentage, raid currency reward, or even some kind of “mentor” currency. This gives an incentive for players familiar with the raid to incorporate new players and bring them into the raiding culture rather than shut them out.

/discuss

This is actually a really good idea. Not sure if they are willing to devote resources to implement it though. Between this idea and the implementation of some performance tools to ensure that groups don’t fail endlessly due to having no clue on who isn’t keeping up…this could open raids up without them nerfing the content.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Rednik.3809:

Wrong. Back in f50 farming days underwater killing was a pretty rare encounter, because his HP was manageable even for a pug party. Pole became a thing ONLY because of his stupidly high HP.

You and I have had vastly different experiences, then.

You can see the truth in what Rednik says at level 21 swamp and below even now. Even pugs don’t bother looking for an exploit on those lower level swamps because its more efficient to just nuke him out in the open. The issue really is the hp/toughness/instabilities.

Astralporing.1957:

TheFamster.7806:

Exciton.8942:

spoj.9672:

Check out raids. They have pretty much exactly what you described. :P

Not really. Raids is still all about damage. Everyone just takes traits that maximize damage. No need for utility trait, no need for sustain trait, no need for condie cleanse.

Not when everyone was doing it for the first time.

Actually, the dps meta for raids was created on the very day we got to betatest Vale Guardian. Since then, new, better methods of dealing damage were found, and strategies perfected, but that was just finetuning of the same general idea.

You mean those strategies where you actually do damage to the boss to reduce his health bar? Is that the meta you are referring to? What other strategy would they be fine tuning….singing to the boss until it gives up?

Mesis.2951:

Thanks for your opinions.

My first post might not have sounded exactly what I meant.

I know dodge is huge in this game. My point was that even when you dodge perfectly every boss ability, there still should be a window for boss to catch you without endurance.

Other things that would prevent zerging the boss could be:
Boss removes condition from him (turn them into regeneration, dmg on players and so on)

Remove boons from players (-||-)

Punish players for too high dmg (each 2% spawn adds, aplly debuff, …)

Nearly every word you have written boils down to you wanting to force everyone to wear tanking gear like you do. I know I wouldn’t want to play a game like that.

cranos.5913:

Jahroots.6791:

Let’s be realistic, this highlights the need for new fractals more than anything else.

Besides, Anet have actually been really generous to us in this update. They’re times faster, the loot is pretty good and you get to choose exactly which islands you want to play in order to get the rewards. No more rolling for swamp – you can just straight up go right there! In spite of the overwhelming positives a lot of people are just complaining. Which is understandable, but still. And even if the devs did implement any of the ideas suggested here another, louder batch of complaints would pop up (maybe from some of you lot as well).

Remember all of the anti-berserker meta complainers? Look what that got us. High level fractals with instabilities tailored to make that very play style bothersome and tedious, but still the most viable way to beat the encounters. Do you really trust these people to make further changes that would actually benefit us? Best to leave well enough alone I think.

Well all they’d need to do is revert some of the changes to dmg and delete those tedious instabilities.

The problem with that is that it would take a miracle for ANET to actually own up to having made bad decisions and to actually take the time/resources to undo their mistakes. They seem to almost never revisit and undo bad decisions.

BeLZedaR.4790:

bladex.9502:

People just want to do their dailies quickly.

Anet took all the fun out of fractals for me, and a lot of other people by giving all bosses an unnecessary large health pool and decreasing their damage.
There’s no challenge in them anymore, even at the highest levels, so its pretty natural that people will just do the fastest fractal over and over, even more than before.

Rewards are already pretty bad, and if Anet would change them so that “easy” fractals give less, I feel like that would only drive more people away from Fractals.

That’s exactly why my point is not to make them completely unrewarding, but rather to give people that don’t wanna run swamp 24/7 a reward for doing the fractals that take more time.

This is disingenuous. It seems like you are more interested in trying to get ANET to pressure people into doing those other fractals with you, than you are interested in getting more rewards for doing longer fractals. They already said they were going to give the increased rewards for the longer fractals…although I have not seen these increased rewards in the longer ones yet either. What you are asking for, in your previous post, is for them to go as far as decreasing rewards for the shorter fractals. That is as blatant and obvious as it gets…as far as trying to punish players for not doing the fractals you want, with you.

To be honest though, I could care less about the contents of the end boss chess of a fractal. The only chests of consequence are the daily reward ones. The end boss chess is highly unlikely to have anything of real value anyway. Maybe an extremely unlikely ascended chest…that requires you to spend at least one gold…just to salvage the ascended item. Everybody and their grandmother has full ascended by now anyway. The other contents are some random T6 mats that my inventory is overflowing with anyway, some rares that don’t even sell for a gold, and maybe an account bound exotic…if I’m lucky. Its gotten to the point that I don’t even worry about it if I forget to click on the boss chest….I let my basic kittens have that :-)

What I would care about would be things I actually need in the end boss chests. Things like orbs and dust for amalgamated gemstones. Things like a random rare drop for a mastery point…similar to tomes of knowledge…something that I can apply to any mastery.

XxsdgxX.8109:

LOL, kittening told you guys. 100% nerfs

Exactly what I was expecting. I never trust them to do real balance. Balance is supposed to be give and take…..everything they did was a net nerf. Even the things they try to claim they buffed…they added nerfs on those to make them weaker than they started. It makes no sense to me….they buffed the crap out of warriors and thieves autos/direct damage…but nerf ours. I’m pretty sure we weren’t blowing anybody out of the water with our direct damage dealt. Aren’t damage nerfs supposed to be to equalize damage dealt? They apparently don’t understand the concept of controlled changes and control variables either….just nerf everything and see how it pans out?!?

A big part of this problem is that ANET has been avoiding providing us with the tools to properly form groups. In a game with raids and content that will need a certain caliber of player…filters are needed. In the absence of reliable filters, we get stuff like “show me your legendary insights”. This absence of tools also gets us across the board stigma against certain professions. Its seriously hurting the game by them holding out on providing proper raid/group formation tools. Groups would be much easier to form, much easier to succeed in, and there would be less frustration overall. People are extremely reluctant to accept randoms into an organized run because they can only guess at their caliber/competence. Its hard to even be sure they are geared properly without a lot of hassle. Its entirely reasonable to expect to control the variables that are possible to control (gear/build), but ANET makes it difficult just to get that much done. We need tools in-game (gear/build profiles and meters…not just dps…but all the other important metrics as well). Death logs, sources of incoming damage, healing, etc. Once that is available, I’d bet that pugging raids would be a lot easier…as you would take the fear and guess work out of group formation and performance.

Dual.8953:

If your going to go on the pro-meter side you’re going to have to answer for yourself, why you wouldn’t mind a setting where you yourself wouldn’t be allowed to party with others because you’re seen as lesser. (and for argument’s sake, conforming to the other players wouldn’t be an option, we’re going most stubborn of the stubborn)

If there were a setting in which the goal was not to seriously clear the content…but instead to experiment/role play/goof off….then yes…please exclude me. I wouldn’t mind being seen as lesser, if those are the valued qualities that group is looking for. I would have no desire to conform to those values anyway.

nicknamenick.2437:

besides everything works in PVE nomather what.

This discussion about PVE players being leftout of balancing or get screwed over is freaking dumb

…and this is why its pointless to even talk to PvP players.

No point in actually having a discussion on this as the devs flat out don’t want to put in the effort to properly split and balance this game. Its clear from some of the PvP responses in this thread, that they don’t even understand the context of the OP’s post. PvE has multiple aspects, and the only one that balance has any real impact on is instanced PvE. I see previous posters talking about open world boss zerging….you can have everyone naked, with no traits selected…and still 1111111 that to death. Clearly, that is not what the OP is talking about. The conversation is about raids and fractals. Poor profession balance in raids and high level fractals results in exclusion. Any profession that doesn’t make the meta gets treated like an outcast in any semi-challenging PvE instanced content. It doesn’t make sense to stack the deck against your group, by intentionally picking an under performing profession to group with. This is the same effect that pure PvE balance has on PvP.

PvP players always run off at the mouth about PvP being more important that PvE, but at the end of the day….no mmo survives based on PvP. PvE always carries a mmo…PvE players give a game its longevity. That being said, PvP is important too….that is what gives a game visibility in tournaments…and attracts some customers. Both modes deserve balance. The problem is that that balance isn’t happening equally. It can only happen equally if they split the skills between game modes.

Malchior.5732:

R O C.6574:

Varezenem.2813:

R O C.6574:

So is the added cast time on Facet of Light or Infuse Light?

Facet of light according to the livestream.

So then this really isn’t that big of a deal. When i’m on Glint i always pop that facet before a fight so if there isn’t going to be a cast time for infuse light, not really a nerf imo.

It’s a nerf if you:
1. Don’t use the Facet often and instead prefer Swiftness + Fury + Facet of Nature
2. Want to quickly swap to Glint to pop the heal
3. Get caught during the activation

To further elaborate on your point #1, its a nerf to our energy resource. We will have a maximum of 4 energy regen, instead of 5, in order to retain instant availability to the Glint heal.

People wanted to argue with me when I said AWTEW was going to be a problem. Now we have this series of ridiculous kitchen sink nerfs that are going to keep compounding and never get reviewed/corrected. I complained about this trait pressuring us into slotting wells for everything and now they are breaking the profession as a result. Precog will be trash with this change. The ability to actually stand in a well to get the benefits…was made possible by the evade frames of precog. They have already partially broken the functionality of echo/deja. They have already made precog an unreliable stun break via compounding cast times …on a stun break. Now they evade frames are going to be replaced by aegis?!? We’ve already seen how aegis is inferior to evade frames. You may as well replace mesmers with guardians now….the only thing you will be missing is alacrity….which just got hosed. Not sure of the math, but I’m skeptical that alacrity will be worth bothering with at a 50% nerf to effectiveness. What’s that…a couple seconds off of cool downs? I’m thinking I’d rather take a core guardian with the quickness elite instead…at least you don’t have to stand in the circle for any length of time to reap that benefit.

Hot Boy.7138:

Mesmer is a dps-support class.
The dps is low and is justified because of the group support.

Since support is getting nerfed, I think it’s time we get build options to deal competitive dps on par with other high damage classes, like warrior or rev.

It’s always nice to have options.

This ^ seriously. I know I’m not playing this if this is how it goes live. Precog will be trash…which is our well stun break. Alacrity is looking like it will be a loss versus just bringing a zerk guardian with the quickness elite instead…they can give aegis as well. Its starting to look like mesmers just got side lined again. The only way I’d play it again is if they did exactly what is being suggested…and make mesmer sustained dps competitive.