Guild Wars 2

I think a lot of people are missing the point of the biggest majority of the complaints here. Yes, I’m aware it’s new content, yes I’m aware it’s more difficult. The mobs are better, the events are really cool. A lot of it is gated behind new mechanics, awesome mechanics I might add, but I have to grind to get these mechanics, and it keeps me out of the content for no reason what so ever, except the DEVs artificially created. It was not there prefractal, and ascended. I came back to an entirely different game philosophy, one that changed even more dramatically with the expansion. I thought the game was terrific before, I’m not quite sure what lead down this wormhole of gated content.. It’s never been good for casual players, and for the most part this was entirely a casual game. Now I have to count on other people to even get me to my characters full potential with elite specs, this philosophy will never sit well with me, and there are plenty of other casuals agreeing. I want to play how I want , I want to go where I want, and I want to hit achievement milestones my way.. Why abandon such a magnificent philosophy?

Kulvar.1239:

But… It’s not grindy!
You have to do hero challenge once per character.
Many can be done without fighting.

In grindy MMO, unlocking a point would be like “kill 10 000 kittenty weak foes”.

That’s where I disagree. It very much is a grind especially for returning players who left around or before fractals and ascended gear. When we left the core principles were somewhat still in place, and the game was very casual friendly.

I returned to new gear, new currency, new UI, completely different spec layouts and progression. Not only that the expansion or something somewhere has added hero points and masteries I have to figure out just to progress. Want to glide, well you have to train gliding “Sounds like Eve, I hate Eve.” You have to do that for literally every new aspect of the new expansion. On top of that I can’t even max out my build on my maxed out character, I need to spend hero points to get there, and I’m starting at the daunting number of 20 of those completed.. None of the new zone is casual friendly it’s almost entirely group driven, and now hidden behind jump things and glide things and poison things.. You name it….

That is a complete 180 from what this game was supposed to be about..

I’m glad there is acknowledgement that there is quite a deep split in the feedback they are seeing. For the first time ever I feel somewhat slighted, I will use that lightly because in part a little bit of research on my part could have saved me money, and ANET a player who would ultimately lead to negative feedback. All this expansion has done for me is make it ever more apparent that this game is not going to cater to my play style, which is very much a casual one. I have 2 80s one that’s cleared maybe 60% of the world, and another that’s done even less. I enjoy doing world bosses, dungeons, and the occasional fractal. I do not have either character in full ascended gear, not even close. The thing I first enjoyed about this game was that there was never really any gated content, fractals being the first, but that was a separate part of the game almost entirely so I never felt the push.

I left the game with my guild because they wanted no part in the fractal, gated content progression they were seeing. I heard about the expansion and remembered all the freedom of specs, content and progression and decided to come back. I was a bit surprised how much had changed, so much so that even the guides were confusing because a lot of the UI had changed. I was having a great time up until the expansion, doing my typical casual things, a few world bosses, knock out some dailies, and maybe a dungeon or fractals. All this time still trying to learn the meta, find what my focus needs to be to get to ascended etc etc. I’m only casual in a since of the time I can put in game. I can spend quite a bit outside learning what I need to do to be competitive if need be. I consider myself a skillful player, just don’t have much time.

Now that you have a jumbled rundown of where I am here’s my first few hours in the expansion. Keep in mind, I’m going in completely blind, no betas, no review, I wanted a true first time experience . “I expected the core principles to stay the same after all.” Hop through the first bit of the story, journey to a few waypoints. Wow this zone is a giant maze, that’s ok I can get used to that. Wow, all these mobs require a group, no problem I have a guild, and there are plenty of players about. I see some nodes that give Heroes/masteries forgive me if I butcher this part, as I didn’t quite memorize all the new terms. It spawned a hero mob and just destroyed me, and there was nobody around to even do it for quite some time. As Sunday rolled around there was even less around me in the beginning instances, and a lot of stuff required masteries that I did not have. I can’t even try out the new elite builds until I finish. So now I’m stuck.. I ended up spending the rest of the evening playing a new revenant until about level 30, completing all the map mind you.. Because that seems to be almost a requirement now for the 200 extra hero points..

What the heck ANET, has all the founding principles been abandoned at this point? Can some veterans that stuck around fill me in? I feel completely lost as a returning player. There is so many different types of currency now, so many skills/masteries buried underneath gated content. Now there is ascended gear, weapons, and even the crafting us bumped up 100 more points.. There is literally so much added grind now I could literally never experience the new content I have payed for up until this point..

These issues are too common. Part of it is these adjustments are not put out in the open for discussion, and the testing is done internally as far as I know. I really wish there was more transparency to these things and opportunities for the playerbase to test them. This kind of stuff is just silly and could easily be avoided.

This is just another example of the QA team not testing properly or they are unable to replicate the population to achieve the same scaling difficulties. Would you guys please introduce test servers for upcoming patches and save yourselves the embarrassment.

Morrigan.2809:

Reese.6379:

I like doing Fractsls the content is challenging. Yes, I could probably get through them without agony resists, but I choose not to burden others. I will bet my paycheck this is not the last instance to need that resistance either. I have done 9 of those level 10 dailies and no chest drop. I can’t do those each day. I can however do multiple on weekends. You see where this is going. I respect that you disagree, this is just how I feel right or wrong.

ahh ok, you do fractals?
So do the monthly instead of the dailies- you can do this on weekends or whenever throughout the month and get 10 laurels.
Sure it will take you longer to buy ascended stuff but it is an option for you.
Sorry you feel discouraged but it is really not a race, if you are patient you will get it eventually

Sure, but my gameplay which may equate just as much time per month or week as the next guy is hindered because I am not on every night. I feel like I have a valid case, and it seems like it could be remedied by simply allowing 7 dailies a week or 30ish a month.

I like doing Fractsls the content is challenging. Yes, I could probably get through them without agony resists, but I choose not to burden others. I will bet my paycheck this is not the last instance to need that resistance either. I have done 9 of those level 10 dailies and no chest drop. I can’t do those each day. I can however do multiple on weekends. You see where this is going. I respect that you disagree, this is just how I feel right or wrong.

All I want is the ability to complete more dailies in one sitting. Im punished for not logging on everyday when I have more time on some days than the others. The further I feel like I slip behind the less interested I feel in coming back. My game play approach is punished when weekly I spend just as much time as others, but I do it on my time.

I came back to post here. I have 2 80s, and the main reason I came here is the promise of three sided combat. Similar to one of the best games to ever offer this, DAOC. AOE by no means is op, it is one of the most easily avoidable attacks in the game. Hitting more then 5 people is exactly what this game needs, it would completely change the tactics for the better. It would spread out the battlefield, it would make flanking larger numbers possible, and it would limit what the mindless mass of players are capable of. I like all of you love this game, but it lacks the luster to keep people playing, it lacks the depths in combat to promote true tactics. When they limited AOE I died a little inside because I knew then what was going to happen and I was 100 percent correct. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKFe2CKuH2E is a guild from DAOC that demonstrates superior organized tactics VS mindless zergs. This is not possible now, and WVW has become incredibly dull, and very little tactics are used outside of the massive keep swapping zerg tactics, where numbers win every time. I fell in love with WVW in the game because this was possible, so rather than giving players time to adapt and understand how to avoid these tactics they just nerfed it. There is no point in the maps where the zerg has to run through the choke points, only the dumb ones choose to. These tactics are there to simply slow them down. 5 people can’t keep 60 from taking a keep, unless they are incredibly bad, and this only happened early game because people knew no better. I guarantee this game will lose all of it’s WvWvW player base if a game gets the open field combat correct, and limits the capabilities of the mindless blobs of players, and does not handicap small groups. The sole reason for that will be because that style is more fun.. Trust me.

There is two games of know of now that has to potential to capture the tri-world/realm combat. One is in Kickstarter, the other soon to release. Not promoting leaving, because I have a ton of time invested here, but I came here for WvWvW and it is not retaining players like it should.

Stinkyweed.1539:

Without seeing a video or experiencing the encounter ourselve, we are working on assumptions. I play a P/D 0/0/30/20/20 with Shaman armor, shaman weapons and Cleric trinkets. My assumption is the thief was C&D for stealth with regen and cond removal and perhaps using Withdraw heal for CC removing every 15secs. Without knowing his build, equip and HPTS pool it is impossible to say if he cheated. My guess is he probably didn’t and was just using all the healing tools extremely well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY4YlcmKPHfy5E+5EB3jkW0m6pgsjtTxV5KA;TABgyyuEcJ5S1liLKfMwIgxOjzH5MrAGBsXYGA

Copy paste in browser, it is a mix of healing and bleed duration. I had 25 stacks of corruption at the time. Wasn’t anything special, and I was’t using condition removal. I just jumped in and out of combat, let them split up and picked them off. One warrior was ahead of the other 2. I killed the warrior with bleeds alone, then stealthed to the ranger, and blew everything I had and killed him next. After thank it wasn’t really worth me stick around so I ran off and let the group that was on the way take care of them.

It was really a matter of bad setup for them on me, nobody was removing the bleeds, and they did not dodge out of my attempts to stack. I think it was a matter of confidence in numbers they tried to tank me.

Neko.1860:

Reese.6379:

Just curious because I ran into this almost exact setup from a guild, I was on Sanctum of Rall by the supply camp can’t remember what server it was I was fighting. I was running malice and I was landing just about everything I had on one person at a time. Not one time was I focused by all three that I recall.. I was also used Dagger storm and switched to DD right out of that to do death blossom, I was getting major health from this, I’m specced that way IMHO. The thing is I could not kill anyone, I think I downed one person, but had run away because you guys were aoeing over him. My only purpose was to distract that supply camp until I could get some help. This may not have been you guys but it sounds oddly familiar. Later two guardians and a ranger showed up, the ranger stayed way back, and I stealthed past the guardians and killed the ranger before the guardians turned around. The lowest I ever got was 50% health, one good burst could have got me. I only had two forms of stealth, I was maybe stealthed 30% of the time.

I am a bleed duration build, I got 20+ stacks on someone just about every time I engaged, and it wasn’t removed soon enough, you can’t let those things stack. It was just a situation where I was not dealt with the right way. It is not op I die easily to 2+ players on a regular bases if I do not run away.

That was me, you were fighting me then the other 3 came up behind after you beat me cause i had my bloodlust stacking items out (rifle warrior) then you just perm stealth killed the ranger and ran off lol

Yeah I had a feeling this was me in this fight. I was getting out of combat for the heals, granted I was also nearly tanking you guys for a while. I have 20k health and was getting some amazing bleed stacks on everyone. The ranger I killed was the only threat to me in that situation, so I blew everything to kill him and just ran off.

Some condition removal, and some timed burst from you guys would have easily got me down, or made me give up on the fight and run away.

Hype.8032:

I play a P/D thief and I don’t know of any way to accomplish what you described. The life regen in stealth isn’t all that much… it adds up over a long fight but nothing like you described. As someone posted above me, it seems like the OP is excessively overstating the amount of the healing or the thief was cheating. 3 warriors should have easily been able to chain stun/cc a thief like that. This build usually suffers from a lack of stun-breakers btw.

Cheers

Accomplish what? The stacks or the healing? The 20+ bleeds is very easy to achieve if you drop caltrops. The healing was greatly exaggerated by him. It was very likely the thief made it out of combat.

P/D is not terrible damage if your condition specced. It is far from perfect especially when dealing with a lot of condition removal. It works well with dagger dagger or sb. With bleed duration you can easily get 20+ stacks and melt someone in seconds. They are not invincible like this guy described. If they had worked together they could have easily broight him down. If someone does not know how to deal with them they are playing into the game. Steal, cloak and dagger, and sneak attack. Stealth again caltrops on top of them, dagger storm, death blossom and they are at 20+ bleeds. If they get to that point they are dead.

Just curious because I ran into this almost exact setup from a guild, I was on Sanctum of Rall by the supply camp can’t remember what server it was I was fighting. I was running malice and I was landing just about everything I had on one person at a time. Not one time was I focused by all three that I recall.. I was also used Dagger storm and switched to DD right out of that to do death blossom, I was getting major health from this, I’m specced that way IMHO. The thing is I could not kill anyone, I think I downed one person, but had run away because you guys were aoeing over him. My only purpose was to distract that supply camp until I could get some help. This may not have been you guys but it sounds oddly familiar. Later two guardians and a ranger showed up, the ranger stayed way back, and I stealthed past the guardians and killed the ranger before the guardians turned around. The lowest I ever got was 50% health, one good burst could have got me. I only had two forms of stealth, I was maybe stealthed 30% of the time.

I am a bleed duration build, I got 20+ stacks on someone just about every time I engaged, and it wasn’t removed soon enough, you can’t let those things stack. It was just a situation where I was not dealt with the right way. It is not op I die easily to 2+ players on a regular bases if I do not run away.

Active player currently on Crystal Desert looking for a active PVE/WvWvW guild. I took a break before the fractals expansion so I am just getting started on those. I am a fully exotic’d 80 thief with several sets of gear for pve and wvw. My guild is no longer active enough to meet my needs. I am looking for a mid to large size guild with several groups going during prime time eastern US. Will transfer servers.