Guild Wars 2

Prologue:

To anyone that knows and appreciates my “mile long” posts, this is probably the second last post of this kind I’ll do for a while, if ever, with the final one being reserved for the state of the Ranger, the first class I’ve ever played. In short, it feels ultimately pointless, like shouting at the void, with the sole reason for my persistence being some sense of absolution. “I tried my best”, I tell myself. Ultimately I’m just a random guy on a forum and most of my effort seems to be going to waste, so “meh”. Thank you, all 2 of you (including myself and my ego) that care.

So, without further to do: Yes, it will be long. No, there is no tl;dr. Grab a chair.

ACT I: What was advertised

My, my. It’s been around a year now, hasn’kitten Quite a lot has changed. I remember when I bought into this game. I had been interested in it for a while when a friend, which had been here since the beta weekends, offered me the free trial that came with the first Southsun update. I found myself surprisingly interested.

At first I was cautious. I went through the MMO phase when I was around 15-17. I’ve grown out of it. If you like it more power to you, but as far as I’m concerned most MMOs I’ve ever seen or heard of were the same pointless waste of time – vertical progression and grind. Uninteresting “locked in” combat and gameplay, a “world” peppered by useless cardboard cut out figures that offer you the same 2 or 3 variations of fetch quests or head hunting missions (“Am I finding or killing how much of what this time…?”), and a core surrounding repeating the exact same kittening thing from start to the day you quit, only to see arbitrary numbers pop up that define how powerful you are, all while playing in a world full of players you hate as their mere presence hinders your progress. Basic linear gameplay and aggressive vertical progression assured that the majority of what mattered in any encounter was not your knowledge of the game mechanics, not how much you’ve learned and could apply, but how much time I had sunk into the game. A kitten slap contest between two creatures to see which was wearing the heavier gloves. I abhorred them. I tried as many as I could hoping to find that mythical creature, that MMO that had actually good gameplay and no grind. Eventually I gave up. I simply assumed that it couldn’t be done, as nobody interested in making those kind of games possessed either the knowledge, insight or interest to make such a beast.

When I saw Guild Wars 2 I saw hope. Here was an MMO with what seemed like a solid combat system (“action based combat” they call it, apparently). Sure, it’s not perfect. There are a lot of “lock ons” and similar crap, but an immense improvement over anything I’d seen before. There was movement. There was aiming (to some degree at least). There was a system that actual rewarded people for what we in the fighting game community call “footsies” (look it up), at least after a fashion. It was remarkable. Furthermore GW2 proposed something else, something I’ve longed for but had never seen done – It proposed to make you actually want to play with other people in the world you’re in. HOLY kitten!? For real?! An MMO where I am happy to see other players? Instead of looking for any way to demotivate them from permeating the same area as me, lest they end up robbing me of my loot and exp? Surreal.

But there was one more thing. The combat was the core. Even if everything else was in place, I wouldn’t have joined this game if its fighting consisted of the “same ol’ stand in place and trade abilities” combat I detested. The change to the loot, exp and reward system (“everyone is a friend”) was a massive motivator. But the final piece of the puzzle was yet to be decided. One thing was still left, without which I wouldn’t have considered my purchase: What about the grind? What about vertical progression? At the time, a friend assured me getting to max level and BIS gear was relatively simple, trivial even, if cosmetic was not to be a concern. But I did my own homework. I studied the game’s prices and gear availability during the free trial. I looked up developer interviews and the so called “manifesto”. All pointed to the same thing: End game in GW2 was to revolve around horizontal progression, not vertical. “We don’t make grindy games” was a phrase that was thrown around often and proud.

1/x

Everything was in place. I got the game, and for a while, it was good. My friend was right, getting to lvl 80 and BIS gear (exotic at the time) was trivial. Sure, the game wasn’t perfect, it had a lot of flaws even, but the core was solid enough to keep me playing. I made a lvl 80 of each class. Tried all races. Even got some classes multiple sets of gear. The combat was good, and I felt free to play however I wanted. Sure, the end-game was lacking, particularly the PvE side of it, with incredibly boring and uninteresting “tank n’ spank” encounters being the norm. The entire later portion of the game, particularly, was so obviously rushed out the door… But that was OK. The game promised on-going development, and it was showing signs of keeping to it, so no big deal. I can wait as long as the game stays enjoyable. Dynamic combat and little to no grind? This game was aimed at me!

And for a while, it was good.

ACT II: The best laid plans of mice and men…

“But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!”

Change was coming. It began with Fractals of the Mists. A whole new dungeon, directed at the vertical progression crowd! Nothing wrong with that by itself. After all there’s nothing wrong with having parts of your game dedicated to different types of players. Sure, it may not be my thing, but so what? Let’em have it if they want it. Slightly less acceptable was what they came bundled with: Ascended rings and backpacks. In retrospect, it should have been an obvious omen. A symptom of that disease I loathed. But alas, I chose to give the ANet team the benefit of the doubt. Sure, it was a bad antecedent, but right then and there it was just a couple of rings and a backpack… Not that big a deal. After all, their entire game up to that point had been built and sold on a concept that was diametrically opposite to the idea of vertical progression. That was what they used to sell their game. That was the audience they had called for, and the one that had answered.

Fast forward 10 months, and it’s easy to see I was wrong. Oh, how hopelessly optimistic, how drowned in hope and denial, my “gambit” now seems. More ascended gear followed, with more promised to come. All of it with superior stats. All of it hard of acquisition, all of it heavily time gated. Nice and slowly the game covered itself with a viscous layer of the very material it once denounced! In my mind I can’t shake off the image of campaigning politicians. The game that was once proud of letting you play how you wanted is now burying you with chores. Dailies, monthlies, temporary content, time gating and other artificial limitations piled on top of more gear and leveling (WvW) grind… Chores you must do TODAY OR NEVER AGAIN!!, every day, the way they want you to or not at all.

Hey ANet, I have a secret tip for you: Chores aren’t usually associated with fun. It used to be that I could play the game the way I wanted, when I wanted. No time to play today? No problem. Maybe I’ll play double tomorrow. Or maybe this week isn’t good, I’ll play extra next week when I can. Not anymore. Now ANet had taken upon itself to ration out my playtime for me. “Log in, do your daily/monthly, do your ascended crafting – all of it. Do you want any Celestial stuff in the near future? Do that too then. And don’t forget dungeon runs, fractals, bosses, and whatever else you give a kitten about in this game. Once per day! And no you can’t do extra tomorrow! It’s our way or the hard way!”. Augh. Honestly, does anyone in your offices think this is fun? With every update there’s more and more crap that’s piling up on the treadmill list…

That said please, PLEASE, don’t get me wrong or intentionally try to misinterpret my words. I’m not against additional content. I’m against additional, forced, treadmill content. As I said before, I’m not against Fractals and ascended being directed at the vertical progression nuts… Let’em have it if it floats their boat. I’m against it sipping into the rest of the game. I’m not against dailies and laurels. I’m against them being the only way to acquire laurels, and them being time gated. I’m not against living story updates. I’m against timed updates that you need to do now to collect the reward/achievements or never again (unless you’re lucky). I’m against focusing on throwing more arbitrary temporary stuff at us instead of fixing the core flaws the game shipped with. Which leads us to a final grievance…

…Most of the flaws the game shipped with are still there. A year of temporary content later and most of the core problems are the same. If anything, they’re actually aggravated by all the additional forced grind and vertical progression.

2/x

• For a game with such a focus on aesthetics and cosmetics as end game it is still egregiously impractical and expensive to just switch looks (no wardrobe system for example). Every time I want a new look I’m expected to not only acquire said look, but to either farm an entire new armor set to place it on, or erase the old look I acquired on top of being forced to acquire a “premium-shop-only” item – Transmutation crystals. It’s simply not a viable system for a game that wanted its end-game to revolve around these cosmetics.
• The “Pact” storyline is still a depressing excuse for… anything really. Particularly “Victory or Death” which is still the single worst “final boss fight/dungeon” I’ve ever seen in a game.
• sPvP is still a completely separate entity that segregates PvE/WvW progress from itself. Of course level and gear stats need to be separate due to the nature of PvP, but what about the rest? Why different currencies? Why can’t I keep my PvE aspect in PvP or vice versa? Why is progression in PvP so… asinine? Feels like the entire progression in that mode was a rushed afterthought that has never been addressed. Even dailies/monthly (which, ironically, you have no real reason to do if you’re strictly a PvP player) are stuck in the uninspired linear “do these 4 every day forever” mess of 6 months ago for the rest of the game…
• PvP is still stuck to that one game mode, with classics like CTF, KotH or good’ol team deathmatch still ruefully neglected.
• The dungeon system is still a mess, with a full set of gear requiring me to grind a dungeon to utter exhaustion (timed gated grind, of course), after which I never wanna see that dungeon again.
• WvW still lacks proper structure and organization, such as proper commander support, being filled with more and more game breaking trash such as leveling grind with gamebreaking “traits”, and now the horrid bloodlust buff (the new redesign of the middle of the borderlands is great, mind you, it’s just the bloodlust that sucks horribly).
• Most PvE encounters are still uninspired and linear, with the AI behavior being somewhere along the lines of “run at enemies and attack till they die”.
• For all the temporary content, the permanent additions are still rather lacking, with the downside that anyone unfortunate enough to join in or comeback now will naturally feel confused and utterly uninvested in the current events.
• Some balance issues with broken or useless traits/skills (classes? hinthintrangerhinthint) have yet to be addressed one year later…

… etc.

And unfortunately, this seems like the way it’s going to be… ANet have made their new strategy clear. They’ve thrown their manifesto out the window. You can safely disregard everything they’ve said before (and take anything they say now with mountainous piles of salt, cause you know it’s only sticking as long as it is convenient). Vertical progression, grind, temporary chores and time gating are the new kitten, and it’s here to stay. The rest is secondary. We’ve come a long way in a year…

“Still you are blessed, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!”

ACT III: Could have, should have, didn’t.

You know what the saddest part of all of this was? It was all so…predictable. So avoidable. It’s easy to see why it happened, but it was so easy to avoid…

The game shipped out incomplete, unfinished and rushed out the door. This is a fact the developers themselves have admitted to several times now – as if one needed anything other than observation. Hell, most of Orr didn’t even work on release (arguably a lot of it still doesn’t, glitching and stalling frequently). Seeing as you can’t start building a roof without the foundations being finished, naturally, the late game was the most unfinished. In a game where reaching end game was relatively simple, a lot of complaints followed swiftly regarding the poor state of the end-game (see above). ANet (and NCSoft?) started feeling the pressure and took the path of least resistance – add more grind. Add something shiny for people to look at, and make it stronger so they’re forced to go for it. Add some tight time gating and voilá, instant end-game that’ll tie off your population for a few months! And I can’t even begin to talk about the mess PvP became trying to be League of Legends despite being a completely different game (and how that affected WvW…).

Pity. A real pity.

3/x

• Dailies/monthlies could have been something amazing, a “bonus” for logging in every day, if only they weren’t the only way of acquiring laurels.

• Ascended could have been a long term goal everyone would work for, due to the sheer convenience of it, but nobody felt forced to do, if instead of being statistically superior they were simply offered something else: the ability to switch stats “on demand” when outside of battle.

• Additionally, by having agony resistance, they could be used as a means of soft vertical progression in the PvE side of things, without affecting WvW. Parts of the open world could have enemies with agony. Optional (keyword) new places where agony was present and, while not mandatory, agony resistance would prove very useful.
• You could even add other forms of agony other than the “poison on steroids” it is. Further “agony” conditions in those places that would be several diminished by agony resistance.
• Fractals could still be fractals, the “hard vertical gated” content for the vertical progression fans.
• Furthermore, it would stop the ridiculous stat inflation WvW is already subject to…

• You could have had an end game focused on building a wardrobe. With increasingly difficult to acquire skins behind difficult bosses, and a PvE focused around the incredibly solid dynamic fighting system you created.

• Legendaries could have been tests of game knowledge and skill, requiring the player to best different areas of the game, instead of grinding to amass a gigantic laundry list of “ingredients” to cobble together.

• You could have had a solid WvW experience… Something so very few games have ever managed on an similar scale… Instead of the increasingly trashy “grind and blob ’round the clock” mess it’s becoming

You could have done so many things… You should have, actually, given your promises… But you didn’t. You still can change most of it, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’ve mentioned before that GW2 felt schizophrenic, regarding something else at the time. I fear that particular disease has spread. Currently the game feels… Lost. Without direction. Like it’s trying to be everything, and do everything on a surface level, with no real idea where it’s going from there. Like a kid in a playground that is trying so hard to belong to every group that ends up never being a part of any. “We don’t want grind! Just grind! Ok a little bit! But not too much! Grind this much exactly! But do it everyday. We’re all about the PvE… PvP, I mean. E-SPORTS! HERE IS ANOTHER STORY OF SOMETHING WHO CARES WHAT! PLEASE LOVE ME!”

ACT IV: Eulogy

Almost a year ago I saw something. I saw a lot of potential. I saw the game I’ve been waiting for since I was 15. Unfortunately that’s not the game I’m playing anymore. GW2 today isn’t that game. In fact, I don’t think it knows what game it is either. It reminds me of the Jarhead fiasco – A great movie in its own right, that faced incredibly harsh criticism mostly because it was marketed as something it was very clearly not (i.e.: an action movie). GW2 set itself up for a specific audience. It waved the flag, set the speech, and took all the nice pictures kissing babies and such… Now it’s turning around, saying it’s something else, but not really, but, but, but… Make up your minds ANet. Choose a direction and embrace it.

Don’t look at this as an “I quit!” post. I didn’t, not yet. I’m hanging around (with rapidly fading enthusiasm, I admit) to see what happens for now. When it gets too much for me I’ll quit then. I’m hoping that, somehow, GW2 can still become that game I was waiting for. Either ways, the game needs to decide what it wants to be.

Around 17 thousand characters later, 8 standard pages, I’m done (man the posting system is gonna have a fit with this one…). Thanks for reading, honestly. If anyone at ANet reads this, my sincerest thank you and best of luck whichever path you choose.

PS: Give yourselves some sort of achievement for reading all of this, jesus christ…

4/x

(Part 2)

ANet knows this, and for that, they sell MF boosts and even included a nice little permanent 200% MF bonus on the southsun event (and a pathetic gold find boost… why? Even if it made millions, you can’t buy the skins with money).

And then, on the other side, you have diminishing returns, which start becoming evident within less than 1 hour of play and you nerf farming spots whenever they’re found. I’ve done enough farming since this event started to start noticing the patterns in the DR system, and when I start “fresh”, with almost 400% MF, I find something in almost every drop. A green, a T5 material, a blue… something. Almost no junk or whites. Before an hour elapses I’m starting to find junk or nothing in most kills. This is consistent behavior. It hasn’t just happened “once” or to myself only. You sell 1 hour MF boosts ffs, and your DR kicks in before that…

And we have dungeons… You need hundreds of tokens for each piece of gear, each run gives you around 66-69 tokens, and you only get rewarded for each path once a day per character…

And I haven’t forgotten “Ascended”. Originally designed to appease the vertical progression crowd along with fractals, they’re slowly bleeding into the rest of the world and, as BiS, forcing you to keep up… No, 5 to 10% stat increase is not kittening trivial in WvW…

This is all from the company that said, and I quote: “We do not make grindy games”. Really now? What game are you making then? Cause I’d love to play it.

So, Arena Net, what do you want? You need to decide on where you’re going with your game’s design… Do we have to grind or not? If you want us to grind, then you can’t also punish us for grinding. If you don’t want us to grind, then you can’t force us to grind to acquire content…

Personally I’d prefer it if you stuck to your original statement, the one that lured me into the game, of no grind. That’s my thing, and this is your game. But if you do want to have grind, then you need your game’s mechanics to accommodate it.

Cheers.

Which leads us to the other side of the Living Story issues: Gameplay wise.

Gameplay wise the LW had (has?) one major core issue: its transitory nature. THAT is the one thing that completely destroys and undermines the fun of the gameplay changes. The crushing majority of it is temporary. The achievements are temporary. The rewards (at least most of them) are temporary. What this means is that every release becomes an initial grind to complete all the content as soon as possible, to guarantee you acquire it before it expires, followed by burnout.

See crappy MSPaint graphic
(Paint skills off the chart, I know…)

The players feel forced to do the content as soon as they can, to guarantee that they acquire it, and proceed to grind it out. Once that’s done the last thing you wanna do is go back and do more of it for fun.

Take Super Adventure Box for example. In its own right an amazing addition to GW2. However, also a temporary one, with temporary skins you can only acquire THAT update… Result? People grind SAB out to acquire the skins, quickly getting sick of it. And when they do want it? It’s not around. Cause it was temporary.

I’m not saying it’s not ok to have some temporary content. I think the Wintersday event is a good example of good temporary content. It’s available around christmas and, at least so far, returns every year with (mostly) improvements. But those should be few and far between… The norm should be permanent content… Why is something like SAB even gone? Why are the SAB skins temporary?

I understand the point of course: forcing interest. Trying to force players to play NOW… However by its very nature that leads into that rather negative loop of small peak of excitement followed by burnout/exhaustion, etc…

THAT is what’s wrong with the LW system. I’m not the first person to mention it either. In fact that has been mentioned to death and back… So when I read an interview and I hear a dev say that “the problem” with LW was having both story and gameplay content together I’m confused… Why did we bother?

Eh… What do I know…

2/2

For the unaware I’m refering to this interview . Read up, it’s an interesting interview.

It’s nice to know ANet has identified that the current LW model isn’t working, and is willing to change that. That said, one paragraph specifically made me cringe. Made me wonder whether ANet had actually understood what went wrong with the whole Living World program in the first place…

“It’s very distracting to players,” observed Johanson. “It’s almost a muddled message, where we put these releases out and we want them to be excited about the story, to follow the story, and we also want them to be excited about the features that are coming with it. And either one or the other tends to be the thing that people cling onto.” And the other thing, people ignore.

This is what ANet considers went wrong with the LW update… That, essentially, people are too stupid to follow both story AND gameplay releases. That’s the one thing they think went wrong… That they were releasing story and gameplay…

…oh god…

Colin… Colin… No… No. No! No!

Colin, the current LW system was flawed in two different directions, one pertaining to the story delivery, the other to the gameplay delivery.

Story wise it had two major flaws: flow and quality.

As far as quality… I’m sorry but Scarlet’s story so far is terribly written. I’ve been on and on about its many issues, and so have many others. Not going to repeat myself. You guys are saying that it’s all justified because of the ending, I’m not buying. I’m not seeing how any ending ever conceived can justify all the writing issues Scarlet has had so far. PLEASE prove me wrong. If you do I will personally write an extensive public letter of apology to your writing staff.

As far as flow it’s very simple: too little too far apart. Even if we disregard the quality issue you’ve simply given people too little story. With far too much nothing in between. Consider the following: The LW story has been going on for a year now. You could sum up the entirety of the story in the back of a small napkin, leaving nothing relevant out. In fact you guys did a video sum up of it in less than 1 and a half minutes! And that left no relevant part of that story out!

That has nothing to do with having gameplay and story delivered together! Nothing to do with even the 2 week update rate! You could have made the bi-weekly update work for the story, but there’s simply not enough story here. How can players stay engaged in the story when it’s moving at less than a crawl? It’s like trying to be interested in a very small book reading 1 or 2 sentences every two weeks! The little story we did get, regardless of quality, has been stretched so thin it broke.

It doesn’t help the case that unlike, to quote the interview, “a show like A Game of Thrones (and the book series A Song of Fire and Ice beyond that)” the LW updates don’t come with re-runs or tivoing. If you weren’t in the game before you a certain part of the story came to pass that’s it. You can’t go back and relieve it. It’s just gone. This hasn’t affected me because I’ve been here since the start of the LW, but I’m sure people that joined halfway through would be even less compelled and interested in knowing what the hell is going on.

1/2

Ladies and gentlemen it’s 2014 and we can’t have a gay relationship in a videogame without people complaining that it’s “PUSHING THE GAY AGENDUH!”. In fact, it’s bad enough that we have to make a big fuss around it being a “GAY!!” relationship, instead of just “a relationship”.

The real joke is that we call ourselves an envolved or superior species.

(2/2)

And before you say “it doesn’t matter”: it does. The current difference between Exotic and Ascended is calculated at roughly 10% – And this is before factoring in weapons, which may or may not increase this gap. 10% is not nothing. If you think 10% is nothing take off your Amulet next time you play and then say it’s nothing. 10% is what the strongest traits give you. 10% is the difference between wearing a weapon and not. In a game like this, 1% can be the difference between winning a fight by the skin of your teeth and losing. 10% is the world.

Additionally, for an uneven distribution stat such as Critical Damage, and in a game where min-maxing exists, ascended can be the difference between an item slot being a waste of stats or being the best use of them.

For example, Exotic Rings are, statistically, a waste of stats for Critical Damage: Each 1% of critical damage costs a whooping 16 stat points! That’s some of the most expensive critical damage you can get, and absolutely not worth it. However, if you turn that into an ascended ring then each 1% of critical damage only costs 8.5 stat points! Suddenly, that’s some of the cheapest critical damage you can get!

Backpieces suffer from the same issue, going from a terrible 1:16 ratio to 1:7, effectively the cheapest crit damage you can ever get.

These might seem minor, but when you’re min-maxing a build it means the world. It means having to redo an entire gear set based on one piece suddenly throwing the whole equation off.

The Fix:

So Ascended gear is a problem… But how do we fix it? We started this thread by establishing that, for whatever reason, Ascended is here to stay. Removing it outright is not an option. So what is?

Simple, I propose something that not only makes Ascended more attractive to any player (and more worthy of the time investment instead of just being another arbitrary piece of vertical progression), but also greatly mitigates the issue of build diversity being essentially shot in the head, using a mechanic already programmed:

Simply make Ascended able to change stats outside of battle, like the new Legendary weapons can.

By allowing this you give people a reason to go for and invest in Ascended gear other than simply inflated stats, you promote build variety and experimentation, and even mitigate the aggravating and artificially inflated vertical progression, by adding a very convenient factor to it.

The other option is to simply make them exotic stats with infusion slots, but not only do I seriously doubt you’d even seriously consider that, but I can also foresee potential customer issues, such as “I invested time/money (gems) into an item because it was stronger and now it isn’t anymore!”. By simply making it more convenient, you refrain from angering anyone (…anymore at least) and instead just make everybody happier.

As is, Ascended gear is a very hefty investment. It also feels like a mandatory one for anyone even mildly serious about this game (particularly the WvW component). This change could be the difference between Ascended being received as yet another arbitrary treadmill (…which is what it is right now…) or something that’s actually welcome, a minor inconvenience that, nonetheless, comes with relevant benefits.

My 2 cents. Whatever they’re worth.

(Yes, it’s long, no there’s no tl;dr)

So, as we all know there has been some leaked patch notes… Now, it’s entirely possible they’re nothing more than someone’s wild fanfiction, but to be quite honest, they sound very plausible, with most classes receiving interesting and mostly needed nerfs/buffs…

… down to moment they completely screw the ranger class over, and over, and over, with absolutely no sense of direction or purpose other than “kitten rangers”.

I am disappointed. Very. With every other class receiving seemingly carefully considered changes, even ones I may not agree with but can concede to having a point, the ranger’s change list seems mostly a collection of arbitrary buffs and nerfs because of reasons.

Even if this “leak” is a lie, until different patch notes are released that break the recent trend, I remain convinced ANet completely lost sight of what they wanted the ranger class to be at some point, and is now just throwing changes around hoping to find some sort of… something.

The ranger class right now, pre-patch, is probably in the best spot it has ever been. It has a lot of flaws, in fact it is inherently flawed, but at least it has some viable builds, and it’s honestly hard to call any of them overpowered. They’re good, they’re strong, but they have issues that can be easily exploited to level the playing field. But now they’re just generally crippling everything again, to the point where I’m having issues imagining why I’d play a ranger over any other class… With pets and shortbow receiving a completely unnecessary and uncalled for nerf, what does that leave? They’ll underperform in PvP, and they already underperform in PvE.

As it is, Rangers are flawed at their core, and I’d like to approach some of that.

#1: Rangers are inherently crippled… because of reasons.

It’s no secret that Rangers’ power scalings are horrid – about 60%-70% of what they should be. According to ANet that’s because “we have a pet”. In other words, Rangers have about 60-70% damage to make up for having a class mechanic,

I’m sorry… what? What 40% of their power do Guardians sacrifice for having a passive and active burn, a passive regen with an active secondary heal and a passive block with an extra active block? What 40% scaling do Mesmers sacrifice for having more reliable “pets” with higher damage and the shattering mechanic? What 40% of their power do Thieves relinquish for stealing and spammable skills?

What’s that? Nothing? That’s the whole point of everyone having class mechanics? Well, someone forgot to tell the Ranger team that.

“Oh but if you un-nerfed the ranger’s scalings they’d be terribly OP!”. Would they? I mean…

#2: The only viable ranger builds right now are the ones that aren’t inherently nerfed.

Condition damage isn’t inherently nerfed on the ranger. Neither is defensive ability (toughness or healing ratios). Yet these are the only viable builds a ranger has. A better scaling would not significantly affect either of these, it would only give power-based builds the ability to not be 60% of an effective character. Especially now that the pets have been so viciously nerfed…

Which brings us to another issue:

…. Serious?

Personally thought that while graphically pretty, it was completely void and pointless. Complete “style over substance”. Was just Scarlet being her usual Saturday morning cartoon villain “I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME GADGET!!”.

I loved the tower itself, but Scarlet is such a hopeless waste of a character at this point. I would have forgotten why I cared at this point, except there’s nothing to forget…

#3: Rangers are the most dependent on their class mechanic… And theirs is particularly unreliable

You can build a guardian without traiting for Virtues, and still be a full build. You can build a Necro without traiting into Death Shroud. You can build a Thief without traiting Steal, and still be a perfectly viable Thief. But if you build a Ranger without traiting into the pet, you’re inherently crippled for it.

An untraited pet does almost no damage (especially now), particularly because of how poorly it hits, it can’t take more than a couple of hits, but is still accounting for “40% of a ranger!”. This is before we even account for the fact that the pet is AI, and AI, in these things, is never as good as human control – at least without cheating wildly. AI does not understand tactics. It does not understand “yomi”. It does not understand planning.

Take fighting games for example, normal AI is stupid and unchallenging to a point where you can beat it with your eyes closed. The only time AI offers any challenge is when it starts cheating wildly – reading inputs and reacting with inhuman accuracy and speed, at which point it is just patently unfair, relying on the computer letting you win more than you outsmarting it.

Hell, look at your own game. The only way the AI ever stands half a chance of fighting a human player is when it is so incredibly buffed up stat and skill wise that any human player using it would be impossible to defeat by any other human of even remotely similar skill.

When it comes to pets, it’s not like our pet is particularly more damaging than others… Mesmer phantasms do die a lot faster, but they also frontload their damage in a direct attack (that doesn’t require them running from the mesmer all the way to the opponent since they appear right next to them), and have immensely smaller cooldowns. Yeah, they’ll die a lot faster than a ranger Pet… Too bad that that’s essentially irrelevant because the Mesmer can just keep sending more and more of them, essentially rendering their pets nearly immortal in practice. And that’s before you even account for their shatters and the Mesmer’s many control mechanics (dazes, immobilizes and stuns).

A warrior’s burst (which are about to be significantly improved in utility if these notes are to be trusted), does not lag immensely on activation. Meanwhile I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve died on my ranger because I’ve hit my wolf’s fear, only to see him stand around for several seconds before even starting the long kitten howl animation. Or tried to stealth my jaguar to give him some extra damage, and was forced to mash the hell out of F2 till the bloody thing finally decided “yeah, ok, I’ll get on that”.

No other class relies so heavily on a mechanic that’s so utterly broken and dysfunctional – Just to be a complete character.

Meanwhile, these patch notes address none of the real problems, instead nerfing BM builds because… of reasons… because it’s the only one used.

Yeah, I know most developers are terrified of “power creep”, but sometimes the reason you need to buff things up to the level of the popular things is because of the same reason people are using those popular things – because they’re the only ones that work.

People didn’t pick shortbow over longbow because shortbow was _ better_, They picked it because longbow was bad. It’s a power weapon, on a character with inherently crippled power scales as previously mentioned. On top of that the only time it maintained an half-decent DPS was at max range, with the damage being dwarved as the enemy approached. On top of that the weapon practically offers no defense, a #2 with pathetic damage, and a #5 AoE that roots you in place seemingly forever for no particular payoff – compare to Staff Eles that offer a lot more damage and AoE range through the similar channel of Meteor Shower, while retaining higher damage, and way more utility… And no reliance on stupid broken AI.

You didn’t need to bring the shortbow’s range to 900 (unless you were going to significantly buff up its damage). You needed to change the longbow’s range to 1500 without needing to trait for it.

You needed to at least bring up the ranger’s power scalings to normal before nerfing the pet’s damage so attrociously…

You needed to fix the things that were broken instead of breaking the things that were fixed…

Molch.2078:

Dualwield? You are concerned about dualwield? My warrior alone has over 12 different weapons and I use all of them frequently.
12.
Just my warrior.

Waht teh KITTEN!

Ascended in general is a massive kick in the genitals for anyone that enjoys build or character variety.

I got into GW2 because it promised to remove most of the treadmill associated with the generic kitten MMOs (i.e.: basically all of them). It’s slowly seeping this kitten back in, and with it my interest in this game is vanishing quickly.

I want a game, not a job. I expect to get paid for working, not the other way around.

I’ve suggested this exact thing months ago. When ascended weapons were announced.

I’ve since been saying that the only way to salvage the whole Ascended debacle is to remove Ascended gear’s stat increase over exotic and give them the “stat change out of combat” feature.

EVERYONE will want to do them because of the convenience factor. But NOBODY would feel forced to do them¹ since they would not offer any statistical advantage.

That’s how you do horizontal progression instead of vertical…

¹ Except the Fractals crowd, but that’s the entire point of Fractals…

…Shame that Scarlet has nothing to do with the in-game Scarlet! Scarlet’s supposed to be this genius inventor, driven sort-of-mad by this experiment, and violently rebelling against her parents because she’s a teenager no-… sorry I mean, rebelling against the mother tree, and general determinism. Fine. Let’s go with that… What does THAT have anything to do with what she has done so far?

Nothing.

Not. A kittening. Thing.

She got the dredge and the flame legion working together and attacking the norn… because… She is racist against Norn…? kitten it, I’ll take “experimenting with their technology and reasons”. Whatever. She did that. Let’s ignore how impractical the whole thing is, and that she’s basically doing the thing she hates and is rebelling against by trying to take control of people’s lives but whatever. Well, that kind failed.

Then… She kills Theo Ashford and released the Aetherblades! Because… Why? If the idea was to cause political chaos or have someone from her side (possibly Mai?) take over for Theo why the full blown invasion? Why the ridiculous scheme? Isn’t she supposed to be a genius? Are you saying this supposedly incredibly intelligent genius could find no better way to kill someone than a full blown invasion? Nothing a little less conspicuous? And she has access to unknown technology, teleporters, and someone on the inside… She’s not a genius she’s an idiot!

Fast forward… Queen’s Jubilee… Why? She was trying to take control of the technology? Then why the kitten would she announce it to everyyyyoneeeee? If you’re trying something like that to use later WHY in god’s name would you let anyone know? Are you trying to give them time to prepare? Why? She clearly didn’t give a kitten about Queen Jenna…. As an attack on anything it was utterly pathetic… Worst case scenario they could just close the pavilion and isolate the issue. She has no stake in human affairs…. She clearly had access to the kittening clockwork things, why not just steal a few and run your tests silently? Even if someone notices the robbery all they know is that it was a robbery. They have no idea what you’re planning. Exactly like the Aetherblades fiasco, she’s showing her hand before she plays it for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And she’s supposed to be intelligent.

Fast forward again – Invasions! Why? What does that have to do with her motivations? Or with anything, actually? kittened if I know! To be fair I don’t think whomever is writing this knows either! What if she successfully took over Dredgehaunt Cliffs or something? Gonna run over to the mother tree and go “Nuhu! SEE MOM! I took over some middle of jackkitten nowhere! YOU WERE WRONG! I’M COOL AND EVILL!!”. Sure makes her look like a villain! Once again, a complete failure for her, including her getting her kitten kicked in a few thousand times, but at least she’s still trying. You know what they say, the 874615th time is the charm! Glad she seems amused. At least someone’s having fun right?

Fast forward! Twilight assault! She knows a secret about Caithe! What is it!? Caithe wouldn’t want anyone to know! What does it matter to her “stop taking control of people’s lives” motivation? kitten all, but it’s totally douchy of her! And that makes her evil! Well, fortunately she seems to think so as well, because she never revealed it either. Just attracted a lot of attention to herself, got another one of her bases destroyed, and accomplished nothing.

…Where does she keep getting resources to do this? And why do people still follow her? Are these people like, the Guild Wars equivalent of WH40k’s Death Company ?

One final fast forward and we’re in our currently plot: The tower of nightmares!

Scarlet got herself another unlikely alliance! Apparently she’s a lonely 40-year old house wife because, by god, she loves match making! Someone should just tell her about e-harmony (or whatever it’s called), she’ll go mental. This time it’s the Krait and the nightmare court… Ok. And what is she doing? She plopped down a tower in the middle of human terrain… Because… of reasons… Seriously, why? She’s manufacturing this poison thing? Then whyyyyyyyyyyyyy would she start random attacks so near to her base? Drawing unnecessary attention to herself again! Scarlet, dear, “don’t kitten where you eat”! Why would you even put a tower there!? There are so many places far less… not outside of your enemy’s doorstep, for once! But whatever! She did that! Because “evil”!

2/3

Obviously, after “genius girl” attracts a lot of attention to herself, AGAIN, because she never kittening learns, we find her tower, run in, and start tearing stuff apart. We eventually come face to face with her, again, and what does she do? She reminds us of all the annoying things she’s done lately (Scarlet, girl, if you go to trial, get a lawyer and keep your mouth shut… seriously…) leaves us alone with the only way she has to control the Krait, even though her entire military base and/or army couldn’t kill us at least 3 times before, and walks out with a “Oh I’ll get you next time Gadget!”. Why? Scarlet, what are you doing? What does anything she’s ever done have to do with her motivation or the character that’s drawn for her in that backstory? Nothing! Literally. kittening. Nothing!

And that’s why she’s a cardboard cut out of a villain. That’s why I hate it everytime she shows up! She’s a children’s cartoon! She’s a disposable Power Ranger villain. She’s inconsistent. She has no depth. All she does is just “being eeeeeeeviiiiil” for “eeeeeeviiiil!!”’s sake.

As to why I eat everyday if I’ll die anyways, because if I don’t I’ll die a lot sooner.

Why does Scarlet do any of the things she does? Nobody kittening knows.

As for:

Marble Daemon.7350:

I hope my answer is clear enough so that we should stop judging evil or villains as stupid. And ultimately, please show respect and stop treating the author of the game story as stupid. You are playing their game, their story. If they are stupid and you are so smart, why do you play their “stupid” game? And please be informed that you are not the “center of the universe” and you are surely not the most intelligent being in this world.

Actually I’m playing a whole team’s game. Based on the story, I’m actually more convinced that the writer’s are being called second to try to justify whatever the rest of the team feels like doing, and not the other way around.

And I’m playing the game because the gameplay is still good. Hell, I said it before, the tower itself is quite well done, despite its flaws. The story is trash. Which is a pity, because a good story would lend some meaning and depth to the gameplay.

Marble Daemon.7350:

You just show how successful Scarlet as an antagonist and in the way she makes you hate her. Villains are not invented to be defeated, they are there for people to wish them to go away

That’s what you’re not understanding. I don’t hate her. She’s a terrible villain in that she’s given me no motivation to see the story through. I want her gone. I don’t care about defeating her, I just don’t want her to show up again. I’ll accept a small note saying “Scarlet died of a heart attack while sleeping. Fin.” or “Scarlet decided she wanted to take up knitting instead.”… Or, kitten it, nothing at all! I don’t care where her story goes so long as she makes like the mother tree and leaves.

…Welp, this was a lot bigger than I expected, but hey! You asked.

3/3

Nuka Cola.8520:

oh god hope this never happens. did not buy this game to see half naked males running around

“Guys, stop enjoying things I don’t!”

I for one don’t particularly want “half naked males running around”, but then again I’m guessing plenty of people don’t want “half naked females running around” either, and they have to put up with my female characters, so, seems fair.

(3/3)

#3: More variation between enemies

I suppose that this somewhat includes the above two points, but also goes beyond them, and, IMO, can only happen once the above are done. Once Defiant is changed and mobs come in different “shapes and sizes” when it comes to movement, you can also vary them more when it comes to everything else. You can have swarm of weaker but highly mobile enemies, perhaps with a little CC here and there, like a cripple or a chill, and in their midst one or two slow, lumbering, strong mobs with big telegraphed attacks you need to dodge or interrupt. There’s room for mobs that clump up together, as well as mobs that actively spread out to avoid AoEs. Mobs with high toughness and low vitality that are best dealt with through conditions, as well as mobs with high vitality and low toughness best mauled by “white damage”. Mobs that are particularly vulnerable (i.e.: take extra damage from) to fire… or poison… or bleeding… or mobs that are more vulnerable to continuous damage than burst… etc.

Or you could even have mobs with specific interactions with certain conditions.

Imagine a mob that goes hysteric, and helpless, for a few seconds once they receive a certain amount for poison damage. Or a mob that takes extra damage for each stack of bleed on them. Or a large mob, say Risen Giants, that would trash around ineffectively (if powerfully) for a few seconds if blinded, becoming temporarily immune to blinds for a short period after. Or a mob that panics, or trashes around hitting friends and foes alike, for a few seconds after being set on fire. Imagine a “swarm” type mob that not only takes double the damage from fire, but that automatically spreads burning to nearby creatures of the same time.

The possibilities are endless. Do all of the above and while it may be unreasonable to expect full condition damage parties to become a thing (due to the inherent limitations with stacking conditions), you might realistically start seeing parties asking for one or two condition builds instead of pure direct damage only.

#4: More Rewarding “trash” enemies

I know this has been recognized as an issue by ANet, and that they’re “working on it”, so there’s no need to go in-depth. The only reason I’m bringing this up at all is because I’m hoping ANet won’t simply take the lazy way out and make enemies “unskippable”. The problem isn’t that you can skip enemies, is that there is no reason not to.

Speed runs are a good thing. They’re great fun to do and watch, if you’re into that sort of thing. Super Mario 64 is still alive today due to speed runners. I remember in Portal some of the most fun I’ve had with the game revolved around “cheating” the game – finding alternative and more efficient solutions to the puzzle – along with finding the original “intended” solutions. This was something the game makers actively encouraged, even going as far as purposely not patching “exploits” they knew as they considered them more intelligent/interesting/challenging than the originally intended solution. Alternatives are good. The problem is when all non-mandatory encounters are boring, uninteresting “tank and spank”, and unrewarding. Sitting through a minute or two of extra “Hundred Blades/Whirling Wrath/whatever other high DPS attacks you have> Auto attack until it comes off cooldown > Rinse and repeat” for anything from grey trash to a green worth 2 silver if you’re lucky is simply not worth it. When a champion or elite mob takes 20 times the time it takes to kill a “trash mob” and they’re both worth the same jack kitten, you simply don’t bother.

If, instead, you make these encounters interesting and challenging, and make them worth the time they take to do, I guarantee that you’ll start seeing a lot more “no-skipping” runs pop alongside speedruns.

And that’s about it from me for now. My proverbial 2 cents – although with the size of the thing it’s actually more along the lines of 8.95 (shoutouts to anyone who gets the reference). I honestly think GW2’s PvE is standing on the edge of something truly unique and spectacular, and I think these changes could very well push it over.

Marble Daemon.7350:

cut for size

You have a lot of different arguments here, and I’m trying to cut down on “breaking posts up a lot”, so, if I forget something point it out.

First, I always hated bad antagonists. Even as a kid, Power Ranger style “villains of eviil!!” annoyed me. They’re simply lazy writing. “Why are you doing this?” “BECAUSE I’M EEEEVIIIIIL!”. Good antagonists (and notice I’m using the word “antagonist” here, not “villain”, a difference I stated in my previous post) make a story. They’re characters you get involved with as well, even if you want them to lose. They add tension and depth. Bad antagonists are the opposite. They’re so utterly unbelievable, so completely cartoony, that they rip you out of the experience, they make the whole story a sad joke.

Have you noticed that that never actually happens anywhere outside of poor writing? Ever? No one is ever “EVIL!!! Becaus of EVIIIIIIIIL!!”. Even Hitler thought he was doing the right thing, and he is often considered the most “evil” person in history. It was never “why are you killing jews?” “BECAUSE I’M EVIL!!!”. He thought he had a good reason. Of course I, and I think most sane and educated people nowadays, disagree. But he still thought he was right in what he was doing. Bad cartoon villains are evil “because of reasons”. Because the writer is too lazy or inept to give them a proper reason and to make them consistent characters, but they still need something to pitch the main character/s against, ergo evil person du jour who is being a tosser because he’s a tosser.

And allow me to predict a counter argument: Oh, but Hitler was a real person! Scarlet is a cartoon from a different race! She’s just crazy! GW2 is not real!

That’s a kittenty “cop-out” excuse. There’s a difference between being “realistic” and being “believable”. A story doesn’t have to be realistic, but it has to be believable – it has to be internally consistent. A good story can have dragons and magic, but if you get to a point where the main character stands face to face with the “incorrigible evil!” that butchered everybody they ever loved and they decide to just have a hug and the story ends “on the power of friendship!” you’re gonna roll your eyes and go “bullkitten”.

And being “crazy” isn’t an excuse either. Insanity may seem “random” to people who never bothered to give it more than a passing glance, but there is no such a thing as “random” in behavior (or, one could argue, anything at all, but that’s a different matter). An “insane” character, to put it in simple terms, can be seen a little like writing about a different species: They may not work by your laws, but they work by some laws which must also be consistent.

You want an example of a really good “insane” antagonist? The Joker, as written by Alan Moore in The Killing Joke (or whenever he’s written properly, really). The Killing Joke spoilersOh the joker does horrible things. He even does an evil little laugh! I wonder who Scarlet is based on... Anyways... Seemingly random acts of cruelty, evil laugh, having fun torturing others... Stupid cartoon villain right? Wrong. See, he's not doing all of that because "he's evil!!". He's making a point. He's a deeply disturbed individual, someone who is deeply emotionally and physically scarred, and he's just trying to prove, to the world and to himself, that he's actually not a freak. He's trying to make a point, no matter how good the person (e.g.: Gordon), all it takes is one bad day. He's trying to prove that the moral distance between himself and someone like Gordon is not that big. He's trying to exculpate himself. In his sick, twisted, mentally damaged way, he's just trying to prove he's normal, and that if it hadn't been for that one thing in his past, he could have been someone good.

See the difference? Why is Scarlet doing this? “Because it’s fun! Because she’s crazy!”. She keeps getting her kitten kicked, her plans keep failing, and she keeps trying it again with no justification. It’s fun to get your kitten kicked, lose resources and accomplish nothing but get a few random people she cares nothing for killed? And what’s with the stupidly convoluted plans? Is she kittened? Am I beating up a handicap? That’s not good… She doesn’t talk like she’s brain damaged, but she acts like it.

Oh, there’s that “origins” style text about her. Well, that is interesting. That has some depth at least… Shame that it is presented completely outside the game, as a “text dump” instead of merged with the narrative, but whatever, it’s there, I’ll give them that!

1/3

Pennry.9215:

Sorry, but orphans burning each other is just in bad taste.

Not if you season them properly.

Jorund Thorwalds.9165:

She isn’t so very intresting any more

Scarlet was never interesting… She had the looming promise that she would become interesting at some point in the future… That has come and gone and it was a load of hot air.

Honestly I don’t care about killing her. I just want her to be gone so we can move on to a better story line… “Proxy, don’t you mean ‘hopefully’ better storyline?”. Scarlet set the bar so low I’d be genuinely surprised if they manage to put out something worse…

There are basically three kinds of antagonists.

The really good ones will leave you with mixed feelings. You want to defeat them, you know it’s the right thing to do, but at the same time you can’t help but empathize with them, you can’t help but think maybe they have a point, maybe. In the very best cases you’re even left wondering if they were a villain at all. See, for example, Watchmen SpoilerOzymandias.

The ok ones are generally simple, linear, and just characters you simply dislike and want to defeat. They usually have an egoist and self-absorbed goal that disregards the consequences for others. e.g.: “I want to become more powerful even if that means killing innocent people or destroying their lives”. They’re generally not fantastic, but they serve their purpose in that, at the very least, they’re logical and believable, and you want to kick their kitten so you want to see the story through to the end. If they’re charismatic enough, they might even be enjoyable to watch, potentially memorable.

Then you have the Saturday Morning Cartoon villains. Their actions are usually completely unjustifiable, even by psychopathy standards. They’re not “crazy” or “insane”, they’re stupid. They’re usually intended to be “insane”, but are written by people who don’t know the difference between “insane” and “stupid”, so they become the latter. They have no character or goal other than “be evil”. They’ll go out of their way to kick a puppy just to show you they’re “EVIIIIIIL!!!”. They’ll make plans to “destroy the world!”, even if that wouldn’t benefit them in any way. They have no logic behind their actions, no motivation, no reason to be. They’ll capture the only person that can foil their plans, then spend 10 minutes explaining their “EVIL PLAN!!” before locking them in some contrived death trap that’ll take 25 minutes to kill them, maybe, instead of just shooting them in the face and getting it over with. They’ll repeat the same plan that didn’t work 153 times before once more, because “THIS TIME!!!”. They’re utterly cartoony and unbelievable as characters. They’re uni-dimensional, basic, and completely uninteresting in any way. This is Scarlet.

I don’t hate Scarlet. She’s not even good enough to hate. I hate that she keeps being put in the story in detriment of a more competent/well written antagonist. I don’t care about defeating her. I just want her gone.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Each guild mission type becomes available through an upgrade that is researched in the guild tech tree. The first one is Guild Bounties, which does require Art of War level 5.

I’m sorry, I gotta ask, who thought this was a good idea…? Who genuinely went “yeah, this is brilliant, let’s do this!” …?

You’re gating global guild content, something any guild will extensively want to do, something which, based on the information we’ve been given so far seems particularly PvE related, behind the highest and only PvP-exclusive gate?

Let’s look at this for a second – Guilds have 4 trees you can dump influence in:

• Architecture – Related to guild-wide buffs, like storage and research “perks”. Benefits roughly everyone on any kind of guild.
• Economy – Player-wide buffs, such as boost banners. Again, benefits roughly anyone on any kind of guild.
• Politics – Directed as “personalizing” your guild a bit more, through guild-clothing, emblems, etc. More optional than the above, but still interesting for roughly any guild.

…
…

• Art of War – Used exclusively for WvW related content. Only ever used by WvW-related guilds.

And THIS is the one you choose to gate your seemingly PvE oriented content with…? Level 5 of it, no less.

…Who thought of this…? Cause this just baffles me…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

10 people is a very good size for a Tier 1 bounty mission.

Why did you develop a content scaling system again…?

Doggie.3184:

Terok.7315:

Rated T for teens.

Teens know what blood is

They also know what sex is, but put a nipple in a game and suddenly the rating sky rockets.

Remember that 90% of the reason these ratings and regulations exist is because of the kind of people that can’t breath and talk at the same time, so you can’t expect too much.

Unless the system is currently bugged, if you store a Skin (which gives you one free transmutation on use) it simply destroys the skin and sends it to the vault, where you’ll need 1 transmutation charge to equip it, therefore losing the one free charge of the skin.

Wouldn’t it be quite sensible to give 1 free Transmutation Charge if one “stores” a usable skin? Seeing as it should be “storing” the one free transmutation the skin comes with…?

Unrelated question: if I use a skin that previously existed separately for the 3 weight classes (such as the Gas Mask), it will be unlocked for all 3 weight classes, correct?

scanz.4536:

Disappointed with this to be honest. A lot of us with ascended quivers have had to put a lot of time, effort and gold into getting one and now anyone can just go buy one with gems. Sigh, nice one ANet.

…so? They’re not taking that away from you are they?

I can’t understand this mentality. It sounds like an 8 year old kid throwing a hissy fit in a playground…

When you made your quiver that was the only thing available. Nobody said they wouldn’t add anything in the future. You had two options: wait and see, or go ahead and make it. You made it. You got what you wanted. Nobody’s taking it away from you. ANet isn’t turning your ascended into a normal skin are they? Are you suggesting that ANet should never add any content ever again, lest people might think “oh that’s nicer looking than what I have! ANet has wronged me!”. It’s not even the same skin.

Get over yourself.

CrazyDuck.4610:

What would be the point if everyone had the same skin?

I really despise people like you, so I’m gonna keep it very short lest we end up trading insults: Having the kittening skin.

I like the skin. I feel comfortable about my kitten size and don’t need something others don’t have to wave around as a vicarious way to feel special. I just want the skin, because I like it. I don’t care if everyone under the sun has it or if I’m the only person ever. I care that I want it. I want to have it for me. Hell, if you tell me I can press one button and everyone, myself included, gets all of those, fine! I’ll press it so fast I’ll leave skid marks on the kittening thing.

@Topic: Over 50 crates, nothing. kitten it. I refuse to dump money into a lottery. If they sell it for gems, I’ll buy it. Not crates.

Well…This sucks… Most of these are terrible…

Keeping it short and simple, just gonna highlight some of the more important ones:

Necro:

- “Mark of Blood. Removed 1 bleed in PvP only.” Really? Mark of Blood was already massively underwhelming. It’s just something you use while using the rest of your marks before you switch weapons. That has ALWAYS been the problem of Necro’s staff. It’s also the reason that, no matter how much you want, Greater Marks is mandatory. Because marks are exclusive to the STAFF, and staff is exclusively marks.

- “Signet of Spite: Removed one bleed.” – Nicest way I can put this is “Who gives a kitten?”. The bleeds on this are pathetic, they’re just cover conditions for the rest…

- “Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.” – No. Wrong! This trait needs to disappear from the minor trait and switched for something else… Or you need to move staff traits, and other traits not exclusive to minion master, away from this horrid tree.

Ranger:
- “Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500 range by 20%.” and “Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500-1000 range by 15%.” – Yay, only….what? 15 skills left to go?

- “Wilderness 5 Natural Vigor. Reduced the increased endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%.” – lol…. because… kitten ranger… I guess… Nevermind the classes that have perma-vigor (coughcoughmesmerguardianengineercoughcough).

- “Nature Magic XI – Spirits Unbound. Moved to Master Tier.” – This doesn’t need to be lowered in tiers, it needs to be kittening BASELINE for god’s sake… It’s a functionality issue. Spirits are useless without it.

Warrior:

- (general) gg. You still haven’t nerfed what you should (passive play), and instead nerfed what you shouldn’t (everything else). GG. 0/20/20/0/30 instead of 0/10/30/0/30.
- “Tactics 25 – Reviver’s Might. Now applies 3 stacks of Might instead of 1.” – Who cares… Still a useless waste of a trait. The activation condition is too situational. Ditch it. Rework it entirely.

There’s more, and I didn’t pay a lot of attention to some (engineer and ele for example), but yeah…. completely disappointment. There are some good changes here and there, but nothing is being done to address core, fundamental class problems.

The problem with Warrior is the kittening passive play of healing signet.

The problem with Ranger is that they’re ball and chained to a disfunctional mechanic – the pet.

The longbow still requires 3 MASTER traits to be at full power, meaning a 50 trait point investment, one of which (1500 range) should be BASELINE.

A lot of things that should be baseline because they’re fundamental to certain weapons or skills are still traits you gotta invest in, just to have that weapon/skill set work – Ranger spirit’s moving with you, Necro’s greater marks, Ranger’s 1500 range on longbow…

Several trait trees, some more than others, are still plagued by disfunctional and useless minor traits – trait you can’t opt out of in favor of more useful ones. Warrior’s Tactic’s tree, Ranger’s Marksmanship tree, Necromancer’s Death Magic tree… Traits that are extremely circumstantial and of practically no impact, or extremely build dependent and useless (or detrimental) for mostly everyone else…

Guardian still has issues effectively running after or away from people, or keeping people from running away… More so now with the horrid change to Symbol of Swiftness…

Start by fixing the core problems with classes… The stuff that’s broken… Then worry about tweaking minor stuff…

Actually… E = 3 backwards…

Half-Life 3 confirmed.

Adorable. Adorably misguided, but a commendable effort nonetheless.

First of all, this is an extremely biased view. You’re not providing much to back up your statements, and honestly this kind of thing is so incredibly subjective and vague, even for games more suitable for this kind of tier system, such as fighting games. This is representative of your personal view of the classes, and is in no way representative of any kind of objective means of comparison.

Second of all, your “tiers” are too far from representative of the intricacies, of the finer aspects, of both PvE or WvW. There’s just too much you haven’t accounted for. For example:

• Your build greatly influences how good your character is at different aspects of the game. Different builds of the exact same profession have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, your typical cheese cutter GS “Berserker’s of the Berserker’s” Warrior is one of the best things for most open-world PvE. It’s also one of the most pathetic things for any form of PvP. Single-target spike builds tend to be excellent for roaming in WvW, but hardly the most suited for most of PvE… etc, etc.

• Even within PvE and PvP, there are different areas that emphasize different aspects, thus favoring different builds. For example, consistent DPS is much more valuable than spike DPS in most dungeons full of high health bosses. Specifically, single target consistent DPS is much more valuable in those situations than lower AoE, since you need to kill one high-health boss target, instead of many low health zerglings (a situation more common in open world PvE). Conversely, in WvW, whether you want to run around raiding camps solo, with small groups, or attacking in large numbers, also affects which aspects of your build matter more.

• You’re also not accounting for synergies and objectives. Sure, a defensive Guardian is a powerful thing indeed in a dungeon run, but if you have 5 defensive Guardians you’ll probably be done with it by the time a more balanced party has finished theirs, had lunch and then made a documentary about it. The same is true for PvP. I love picking up my Necro (which is a Power/Condition damage hybrid) and running alongside my friend’s Guardian in WvW. We’re a frightening force to be reckoned with because our two classes and builds have a very strong synergy. We’re stronger than just 2 random characters and builds mashed together.

• You’re also not accounting for match ups. Different builds and classes have different pros and cons. For example, your typical glass cannon, burst, dagger build thief is amazing at taking down individual low defense targets. His build guarantees he has the initiative, and his burst is generally enough to guarantee the other glass cannon doesn’t have time to even the playing field. However, the same build will have serious issues against more defensive characters. They have roughly 0 odds of killing a bunker Guardian or Necro, and trying to kill either with other enemies around is roughly best translated as suicidal tendencies.

etc, etc, etc…

I.e.: There are simply too many variables for you to “tier” classes like such.

BobbyStein.2315:

Actually, we have metrics on every LW release. While SAB was indeed successful in terms of participation, so were the other releases (Scarlet ones included). I understand that forum feedback can color perception on which releases were the most popular/best received/most enjoyed but opinions on this are largely anecdotal. Please keep that in mind.

Which metrics Bobby? Share with us.

I’m not asking for exact numbers, I’m just curious as to what metrics you’re using.

BobbyStein.2315:

Now to your question: will we see a return of SAB? That’s not for me to say, but if it were to come back, what would people like to see from it? Harder/easier content? New world? More/no Moto story?

The thing I want to see the most, by far, in SAB, like most good things related to the LW releases, is for it to stay .

SAB is lots of good fun, but, like everything else, grinding it non-stop for 2 or 4 weeks because it’s going to be unavailable afterwards sucks the fun out of it.

I want it to be around so I can play it when I feel like it. Like right now.

That’s the biggest issue with LW updates in general. As has been explained and evidenced for a year now.

> Account currency wallet
> Champions worth killing
> Effects detail system
> Permanent Finishers
> Some other, infinitely less relevant but also nice kitten

> See attachment

So ANet, which of the 4 teams is in charge of this update? Whom do I send the cake to?

Don’t even care if the living story events turn out to [moderator edit] (which they may or may not, we’ll see). Already one of the best updates so far. Whichever team this is, keep them around.

Psychol.5783:

I’m talking about elementalists with bombs,

Ok, I thought I knew what you were referring to (even if it was a L2P issue) but now you lost me completely…

What in the kitten buddy…?

Dungeons are group content.

/thread?

“Double-click to add an additional bag slot to this character. Each character can have up to 8 bag slots”

“Double-click to add an additional bag slot to this character. Each character can have up to 8 bag slots”

“Double-click to add an additional bag slot to this character. Each character can have up to 8 bag slots”

“to this character”

“TO THIS CHARACTER”

“TO”
“THIS”
“CHARACTER”

Yeah man, if only they told you…

Holy mother of misinformation…

• The Battle Standard (Warrior banner elite) does NOT revive when you use the #5 skill. That’s just a blast finisher…

• The Battle Standard will, however, instantly revive up to 3 DOWNED (not defeated) allies in its AoE when its first dropped by the warrior.

• However, the Standard CAN fully revive NPCs from death, such as keep lords (NPCs don’t have a downed state).

• The Battle Standard ALSO provides bonus while it’s out, like any other banner skill. In this case, Fury, Might and Swiftness.

• Battle Standard will ALSO trigger any other traits that any other banner does. For example, if you have Inspiring Battle Standards trait it’ll grant regen to players.

So the reason you see people use it without people getting downed is for the buffs. However in PvP/WvW this is often unwise as you lose the triple revival.

Oh please don’t, you’re providing me with quite a lot of free entertainment.

Fake elections, on an online game, which are ultimately completely meaningless for the actual game aside from some minor side stuff, much less have any impact on your real life, and some of you are going completely nuts. It’s kittening hysterical. I bet most of the people raving and whining about this kitten didn’t care half as much the last time something that actually affected them in real life happened.

But don’t let me stop you, go on, I’m having a ball. It’s like going to the zoo.

Ok, there are two different issues here to “dispel”.

First, rangers aren’t exactly the most “on demand” class for dungeons for a good reason – they’re really not that good in a dungeon. Don’t get me wrong, they’re more than capable of finishing any dungeon, but what they excel at is bunkering, which is useless in the current dungeons. Dungeons are the land of the “berserker of the berserker” gear, where you don’t really need to tank (and many cases can’t, even if you wanted to), you dodge and avoid. The kind of defense you want in a dungeon is only the kind someone like a Guardian can provide – healing and protection for everyone, preferably without sacrificing any “berserking” himself.

Which isn’t to say Rangers can’t do dungeons at all. They have perma half-vigor and enough avoidance to go full berserker without issues… But so does a warrior, which, in PvE against stupid enemies, will dwarf your damage… Or a guardian, or a mesmer… At the end of the day we’re still stuck to the pet, and pets don’t do well in dungeons, so we end up a bit crippled in comparison.

This isn’t really that much of an issue for a normal dungeon run, not even high level fractals now that pets share agony resistance, but if you’re into hardcore speedrunning, really shaving off those seconds wherever you can, then there’s no reason to carry a ranger in your team. But to be honest, there’s no reason to carry anything in your team that isn’t Warrior (most of your team) and Guardian or Mesmer. That’s just a PvE design flaw…

Now, what you also have is plenty of wannabe speedrunners – clueless mongs who think they actually know what they’re doing because they read somewhere berserker Warriors are good in PvE (they have no idea why most of the time) and think that now that they made one, they’re kings of the dungeon run. Most of them have no earthly idea what a speedrun is, or how to do one, all they know is how to shakily reproduce those CoF p1 speedruns they were carried through a few times. They don’t understand dungeons, or PvE… or much of anything. They request heavy classes because that’s what they heard was good, without even knowing or understanding why or why it is irrelevant at the level they play.

Those are idiots, don’t bother.

So, in short, my answer to you is to find people who know how to dungeon run and add them to your friends list, then contact them when you want to go on a run. Or start your own post in LFG. It’s not difficult and saves you trouble.

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

The RNG gods smiled upon you. What do you want from us? A “well done bro”?

Man, you must be the life of the party. Tell me, do you also wait around playgrounds, then walk up to children and deflate their balloons with a needle?

Chopps.5047:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Taran Redleaf.7912:

Guess I’ll keep my ranger in farm mode until this profession gets fixed.

Why bother with that? Rangers are among the worst PvE professions.

How do you figure?

What can a ranger do that other classes can’t do far better?

DPS? No. We’re nerfed to kitten in that department. It’s not even “we don’t compare to warriors, mesmers or guardians”. In full zerker we don’t compare to anyone . If we go 30 in power, burn 2 signets and elite we get a decent burst, but it has very low upkeep and still won’t match the top classes, even in that brief period.

Utility? Not even close. Mesmers reign supreme with their cc, timewarp, portal, blink…

Support? Pffft. As if. Guardians do more team support while retaining much higher DPS. If you really want more support/healing then staff ele will do way more of that while retaining way higher damage and AoE.

The thing rangers could bring to the table would be tanking, which is meaningless in PvE – things you can tank you don’t need to, and things you’d want to tank you can’t. And guardians would be better at that even…

So what’s left? Being “ball and chain”ed to stupid cripple AI? My warrior is jealous. Really.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that you can’t do PvE on them, PvE is simple for the most part, but that you’ll underperform. You can do lvl 50 fractals on them… but so can any other class, and better.