Guild Wars 2

1. Customizable UI features. Daily notes, story notes, all that stuff. Let me get it off my screen if I want.
2. Customizable UI features. Target frame, skill bar, health bubble, activate/deactivate border effects, activate/deactivate animated UI features (ex, guardian’s constant blue fire).
3. Customizable UI features. Floating combat text customization, float method (scroll, popup, fade, etc), Crit notification (size, float method, opacity), color of text.
4. Customizable UI features. Buff/Debuff window location, size, and icon size.
5. Any Other Screen Clutter Removal features. God. Oh. God. Make. It. Stop. Please.
6. Build Saving.

I’ve personally noticed DR hitting twice.

Once was when I was trying to farm low level crafting mats from centaur loot bags. I noticed it kicking in after about 10 minutes and reaching almost complete lockdown by 20. The result was that I stopped that and made a level 50 bag-opening salvage alt instead. I find it poetic that by controlling one loot system, they push players into exploiting another. Figures.

The second time is in Silverwastes. If you chain events at a single fort (defense > wall > repeat > etc) you’ll start hitting DR about halfway to VW. Watch the karma reward numbers. This is one of several reasons (although not the main one, to be fair) that people now do SW in a rotation, instead of staying with events until they finish. Again, by overcontrolling one system, they simply pushed people to exploit another. I’ve even seen bots that do the SW rotation, so it hasn’t done anything for it’s intended goal of stopping bots either.

On balance, I think DR is obsolete and useless and takes away more then it helps.

No.

Also, no.

Go find a different game if you disagree. Linear progression is not GW2.

There’s a hidden penalty to toughness, in that it increases the chances of a mob attacking you. If you’re a tank that’s desirable, if a squishy you probably want Vit as a defense stat instead.

Unless you mostly solo play, then Tough is pretty good cause it makes your heals much more efficient.

Malediktus.9250:

I am very unhappy with bringing it back. Ruined the efforts of veteran players like me, because it is much easier to get now and also no longer a symbol of being a veteran pvp player.

Elitist tears.

So delicious.

T3 cultural has always been a cosmetic skin-buying item. Exotics were never rare and expensive; A month after release, a full set of exotic armor was about 30g, at that time easily a week of farming (today it’s like 2 hours, or even just 1 AB run). A T3 chest alone is 30g. So there has never been any value in buying cultural for the stats.

If you want the skin, you pays the money. Maybe the OP doesn’t like it, fair enough, but that’s how it always was and how it still is.

The end of the HOT story was kind of rushed and doesn’t include all the details it should. However, I think this is what it’s supposed to be:

1) The ENTIRE JUNGLE is Mordremoth. Everything – Mordrem, Blighting towers, the Mouth – are just outgrowths of it, like leaves on a tree.

2) Certain things, like the Axemaster and other champions, blighting towers, Zojja/Logan clones etc, are confirmed to grow back. This is both lore and a gameplay mechanic.

3) The attack on the Mouth (DS meta event) and the Mind (Story final instance) occur at the same time.

4) The Mouth dying at the very end, as it climbs the tree, is due to Mordremoth’s mind being destroyed by The Commander at that moment.

5) Thus, the DS Meta event is a typical MMO frozen-in-time-for-gameplay-reasons map, and the Mouth is not actually regrowing.

1 and 2 are confirmed in game. 3 , 4, and 5 are only suggested at, but are the explanation that makes the most sense.

Behind the scenes, and a wild guess on my part, Anet seems to have tried to make the “it grows back” explanation a replacement for suspension of disbelief, but it didn’t work out well (naturally, since it’s a terrible idea) so they cut a lot out and now it’s open to interpretation. The interpretation above is the one that doesn’t take a giant steaming dump on the story and characters so it’s the one I use in my head canon.

GW2 is a visual soup that’s almost impossible to decipher. I was like you once, and put in several weeks of practice, studynig builds, pvp videos, etc. Eventually I dueled a guildie, still got my clock cleaned, and still couldn’t figure out why. We were even playing the same class, so I knew his abilities inside and out. None of it mattered, because I couldn’t see anything. Literally see. You know, with eyes.

Particle effects cover everything, scrolling numbers (crits especially) can fully block the entire center of the screen at times, character animations are inconsistent. Anet uses color as a telegraph at the edges of the screen (where your eyes can’t see color, but respond well to movement) and movement at the center of the screen (where your eyes see color and detail best, and movement poorly). Animations are full of parodoxical motion, where the animation is moving sideways or back but the action is moving forward. It’s like Anet took this chart (https://xkcd.com/1080/) and decided to make a game where they did the opposite to make things as hard to see as possible.

I suggest swearing off PVP. Elite specs ruined it anyway, and the game is just not suited for competitive gameplay. It’s a sad thing, since it’s so close to being good, but the problems are insurmountable and you’ll be happier if you leave it behind.

Well, WTF else do you expect an invading army to be met with?

/facepalm

In other news, the Pope was recently seen wearing a funny hat.

As mentioned, this is an old (pre-beta) problem. It’s never been addressed.

The tragic thing is, GW1 had a fully customizeable UI. GW2 is based on the same engine, and should have imported the customization features without even trying. Sigh.

It was just short of 4 years before I noticed any meaningful player-suggested changes being done (Last April’s bug-megastomp patch). The famous CDI feedback fishing initiative resulted in thousands of good ideas – and approximately 0 of them being done. It felt like nothing but a distraction to keep us busy while they went and did what they were always going to do anyway.

April’s patch on the other hand fixed multiple problems that have existed, and been complained about, since beta. It was as if they suddenly said “Hey, here’s everything you asked for that we could finish in 3 months. More coming later!” It’s almost like a different company. We’ll see if they keep it up.

GW2 pvp is a chaotic mess of action gameplay mixed with crpg mechanics and overlayed with a terrible UI. I would not look at it as a “serious” pvp game. However, it may be fun anyway; the action systems are solid at least.

The core game is free; try it out. If you like it, get the expansion, because it improves on most things (now that most of the BS has been fixed, but w/e). You will need the xpac for pvp, elite specs are basically mandatory. The massive power creep and it’s unhinging of PVP is one of the things the xpac inflicted on us all that hasn’t been fixed.

They were thinking “Our map servers could really use a break, let’s see how low we can make the population on this one.”

Do whichever you enjoy more. The non-meta loot rate is very similar between them.

Are you sure you’re not using a BW monitor? O.o

Pompeia.5483:

If by worked you mean caused inflation, then yes, working splendidly.

I’m pretty sure this was the purpose that Anet intended. They felt wealth was being too highly concentrated by a few skilled gold earners. and wanted to distribute it more evenly. The result is inflation, as everyone gains more buying power.

Aidan Savage.2078:

2g for dailies causes less inflation than a single run through t4 fractals. Quit being an alarmist.

Let’s assume a modest 10,000 people log in and complete their dailies every day. That’s 20,000g entering the economy every 24 hours.

This has been happening for 2.5 months, or roughly 70 days.

A little math, and that’s 1.4 million gold entering the economy since April. It will be appx 8 million after 1 year. That’s a LOT of inflation. And it’s also a large underestimate because I’m lazy.

The thing I hate most about chak is that they are deliberately OP unless you have masteries trained. It’s a cheap shot and not how progression should work.

Rolling devils are the worst though. If one comes up behind you while you are running and you don’t see it, it will chain hit you 10 times before you even know it’s there (it hits you as long as it is in your hitbox, you are both moving in same direction so it stays in your hitbox as you move), gg instadeath.

Use LFG to find a HP train for Auric Basin. They are pretty common. It takes about an hour and you’ll get 150ish points just from that. You will need gliding, nuhoch wallows, and bouncing mushroom masteries already though.

“Staves” also refers to unfinished wood material of the lengthy variety, giving it a double meaning (for example, a pile of bow staves that have not yet been made into bows), so I prefer “Staffs” because it has a single meaning and is more precise.

0. Release.
1. Added more grind.
2. Everyone got mad.
3. Removed a little grind.
4. Somehow, a bad GW2 fanfic Mary-Sue named Scarlet accidentally became canon.
5. New players got confused.
6. Added more grind.
7. Everyone got mad.
8. Removed a little grind.
9. Expansion added MUCH MORE GRIND.
10. Everyone got MUCH MORE MAD.
11. Removed a little grind.

I’m sensing a pattern.

I want some kittenING PANTS for female light armor. COME ON. There’s literally only 1 choice for plain old pants on a female (no extra miniskirts or w/e), and it still has a butt window. I WANT PANTS.

#4yearsnopantswtf

I think so, anyway. I can’t actually see it.

Methal.9045:

Its like HALF as big. =( How long has this been broken?

That’s what…. nevermind.

It’s been that way forever. It’s most noticeable on Asura, and with larger weapons, but you can see it on every race and weapon once you start looking for it. Even worse, you can actually see it shrink during the stowing animation. I probably just ruined someone’s game by saying that.

It’s one of many things that makes me facepalm at Anet’s art department. They make gorgeous screenshot material, but once it’s in motion, it becomes a hot mess of blurred color and paradoxical movement.

Better option.

Allow players to create a customized list of “junk.” They can add anything they want to it. Anything on that list will be sold to vendors when you hit the “Sell Junk” button.

Supply and demand says “hi.”

Cursed shore. It has a great mix of exploration, solo events, and meta-events. You can go there and just hang out and do your thing, whatever that is. It’s a little spartan since they removed so many mobs (it needed toned down to be sure, but naturally they overdid it), but overall a great zone.

Silverwastes in 2nd place, maybe a bump to first if we’re looking at gameplay only. It’s the ideal meta/repeatable content map. The meta has no timer, it’s just player driven, only takes about an hour per cycle, and you can roam solo, as small groups, or large zergs and still find content to do. It’s only downside is the bland landscape.

HOT maps tried to imitate SW and missed badly. No room for exploration or individual gameplay, and not really even much difference between the 3 main maps other then what enemies your fight. You do the meta chain as scripted, or you go somewhere else. I was very dissapointed with them, except for DS, which I don’t see as a map but just a single, huge, epic battle event. That’s how dragon fights should be done. I only wish it gave loot worth the time it takes.

There is one cornrow hairstyle, available to female humans and norn.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Physical_appearance/Human#Head_options

Is GW2 ruined? Maybe. It certainly was. However, Anet has done a lot to clean up the mess. HOT as it launched was a disaster. Most of that disaster has been corrected though, as much as possible anyway considering that most of it was built into the maps. PVP issues excluded, that is still a colossal mess. Anet clearly knows they screwed up. It remains to be seen if they know why.

>HOT began with a brick wall. You hit Verdant Brink, and were instantly locked behind a progression grind because masteries are needed to even navigate the maps. Everyone’s first experience of the expansion was thus completely terrible, full of frustration and “WTF I need to grind for two days to get that Hero Point because of a freaking BOUNCY MUSHROOM?!!!” This has been addressed by reducing the grind to a fraction of what it was, reducing the pain. It can’t be eliminated though, since it’s built into the maps themselves, but at least we can be sure Anet knows it was a mistake.

>HOT maps require mastery progression, but don’t account for that very progress. Imagine if the zones went AB > VB > TD > DS. You’d start with a basic map with some progression helping out (AB), to a map where masteries aren’t required but really are needed to get the most out of it (VB), to a map that’s really only possible at all with masteries (TD), to DS which is really just an epic boss encounter anyway. The maps would progress with your character, and you gain more and more use of your masteries as you move forward. Instead, they threw you right at the wall. Whether they learned this mistake or not is unknown, since they have released no new maps.

>HOT increased the combat difficulty, but again as a sudden wall. The new creatures use a variety of short-telegraph (and some zero-telegraph) punishment mechanics, that you have to learn, anticipate, and then counter. But instead of being eased into the new mechanics that creatures used, you’re left to figure it out when you die suddenly. I actually REALLY like the new combat, but admit that it was frustrating to adjust. My wife, who’s much more casual then I am, still refuses to solo HOT content because her first experience with it was death and frustration. I am certain that Anet lost players over this.

>HOT maps are exclusively meta-event maps. There are no old-school explorable type maps. Furthermore, loot was tied directly to meta-progression, not to personal activity. This means you had to commit to doing the entire 2+ hour event chain to get decent rewards. Casual players who like to log in, do some stuff, go make a sandwich, come back 20 mins later, do more stuff, etc, got completely shafted. Naturally, they left. More customers lost. This has been addressed by breaking rewards into their sub-events, not the overall meta. As a side note, I’m worried that this will affect them in the long-term when people move on to new expac maps, and there’s not enough people left to finish the metas.

>PVP was completely unhinged by elite specs. The sudden, massive power creep not only changed the gameplay meta overnight (which was expected from an expac anyway), but also changed the speed and pace of PVP combat and made it almost a completely different game. It also instantly excluded all non-expansion players. This means that people who were taking a “wait and see” approach to buying the expac saw a classic Buy To Win scenario and fled the game. This has not been fixed and PVP remains unbalanced and terrible.

>WVW had the additional component of needing to unlock the elites, meaning that WVW players now had a grind wall of their own, and were forced into regular PVE to climb it. Naturally, many of them didn’t want to do that and simply left.

>Guild halls were also a bust. They took features that people already had (missions, XP bonuses, etc) and took them away. Then they stuck them in the expansion. They also stuck them behind a massive grind designed for large groups of people, which left small guilds shut out. This was seen as obvious, underhanded way to force people into buying and was heavily protested. Not to mention the small guild players that got shafted. More customers gone. It has not been fixed.

On the upside, Anet seems to have realized most of this and has been slowly eliminating or reducing the problems. Masteries get much more XP now, Elites take fewer points to unlock, meta-event progression has been broken up so you don’t have to play for hours at a time, (DS excluded, that’s kind of locked into the map design), and so on. Power creep and PVP have not been addressed at all, sadly. But it’s not hopeless – the next expac may actually be good if Anet has actually learned these lessons (also, they have a new Creative Lead). I advocate a “wait and see” approach and certainly won’t be pre-ordering the next one, but I’m cautiously optimistic. The power creep worries me though – if the next expansion has the same amount of creep, I’m gone and won’t look back.

Use this:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers

And use LFG to find a squad on an organized map at the appropriate time.

Honest answer? When GW2 no longer has active-counterplay, burst-avoidance based combat.

So never.

The ideal CPU will depend on what you can afford. I suggest prioritizing features and then assessing cost.

Modern games don’t usually bottleneck at the CPU, they bottleneck at the graphics card. So if you’re on a budget and can save a few bucks on the CPU, and put those bucks into a better GPU, then do that. Games are now fully mulithtreaded (they weren’t yet when I buiilt my compy) so a 4+ core is highly recomended – but overal clock speed still matters more. MMO’s are slightly different, in that they also bottleneck at the memory bus (GW2 in particular is a memory pig). So here’s what you want:

-A high clock speed (aka, a 3.2 GHZ 4-core will be better then a 2.8ghz 8-core)
-Multiple cores (4 is fine, even 2 works if money is tight. Actually, do they even make 2’s anymore?)
-The best GPU you can afford for your build. Pay attention to ram speed more then size – 2gb of DDR5 will be better then 4gb of DDR3. More threads (Nvidia and ATI use different systems, so their thread numbers can’t compare directly to each other, fyi) and higher GPU clock speed are also key.
-A mobo with a fast memory bus. Make sure it matches or exceeds your RAM.
-Faster RAM is > More ram. 4gb of of 2400mhz ram will be better then 8gb of 1600mhz. Up to a point that is. There’s no point in getting ram that faster then your MOBO can handle, or faster then your PCI bus, since it’s mainly going to be interfacing with the GPU anyway.

For reference, I built my rig about 4 years ago and it’s still going great. It only has an I3 dual-core 3.2 GHZ – and I still haven’t found any games that it chokes on. Well, not true, Kerbal Space Program brings it to it’s knees, but that’s a raw-CPU physics simulation game so that’s expected. Mainstream games are still no sweat. I have upgraded the video card regularly though. CPU is not what you should worry about – put your research time and money into a graphics card.

As long as the track is locked until you’ve done it the hard way at least once. I have no problem with additional ways to get repeated GOE though.

I would fix them by deleting them. For the life of me I can’t understand why anyone would want to gamble on virtual garbage with real money, and I think it’s underhanded and predatory sales practice. Every time Anet pushes things into the chests I roll my eyes and once more resolve never to spend spend real money on their fleece shop until they shape up and start showing some respect for their customers.

The minimum they need to do is make scraps a guarunteed drop. Then at least keys become a de-facto skin buying method. At that point you may as well just add the skins to the store and skip the key/opening step, but that’s what it would take for me to even consider it.

Special: “Oops, that didn’t go well, lets make an excuse and not do it again.”

SarahWitter.2317:

It’s not our goal to make you feel like a chump for buying chests.

If that was your goal, you should just remove them. They are a terrible RNG, underhanded, casino-with-house-advantage mechanic and I can’t justify ever spending money on them, and can’t imagine how they could be fixed. If you want to offer value for our money, then just sell the weapon tickets on the store and remove the blatant cash-grab chests from the game.

If Anet wants to increase gem store sales, they should just SELL THE STUPID TICKETS on the store instead of through a terrible, no-value-at-any-price-other-then-free, consumer-kitten casino mechanic.

This move is made of desperation combined with stupidity.

More power creep. Imagine if the next set of elite specs are as far above HOT specs as HOT elites are above core.

“Genius”

Just that. “Genius”

For all my Asura characters.

Super Genius would also be acceptable.

The game you want already exists. It’s called Wildstar.

You may have heard of it.

It’s the Face Of Boe.

No.

I checked it out for going with the glider, but Dulfy’s videos made it clear that it’s a waste. There’s no animation, you just over in the gliding pose with a scaled down version of the glider around you. There isn’t even a jumping animation, which looks… odd. It’s nothing but two recycled animations (glider + gliding pose) being sold for a quick buck.

If your focus is open world, just get Traveler’s runes and build however you like. It’s a huge load off rather then trying to squeeze that underperforming/annoying trait line or signet in.

The only time you really need the 5-10% boost from a DPS rune set is if you raid anyway.

A better question would be “best starting profession?” since none of them are truly easy when you get to high end content.

I’m going to say Warrior. Ranger has the simplest possible gameplay (longbobow + pet and pew pew) but that’s actually something you want to avoid, since it will teach bad gameplay habits. Warrior is straightforward and easy to understand, yet still puts you in a situation where you need to learn active play and damage avoidance. It’s a great starting point. Axe or GS are the best starting weapons.

If your friend really wants a caster, go power Axe/Warhorn minion or well necro as a second place recommendation. It’s also straightforward, and has a lot of room to expand into more complex gameplay with other specs.

I’ve been testing a post-nerf condi build, it works well. It actually has more sustained dps (but lower burst) then a GS power build. It relies heavily on Reaper’s Shroud with Dhuumfire though. Reapers Onslaught + Dhuumfire is a lot of burn stacking, and Soul Spiral + Corrosive Cloud is a lot of poison. You basically want to DPS as much as you can in shroud, and focus on building life force and firing dps cooldowns while out of it.

Because Anet is a for-profit business. “Donations” to such a business are taxable as income and come with expectations that a product will delivered. It opens Anet to a truckload of legal crap and is a terrible idea.

If you want to support gameplay development instead of gem store sales, check out this idea instead: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Think-Tank-VIP-Subscription/page/2#post6177981

Ashen.2907:

Hmm, how about:

For $10 per month you get $10 worth of gems.

There seems to be a misunderstanding in this thread of what a VIP sub is for and what kind of customer would be interested in it.

The FTP business model (in general; I obviously don’t know GW2’s demographics) tend to rely heavily on “fat cat” players, who are willing to drop large amounts of money at once. People that buy gems to fund legendaries, who gamble with BL keys, etc. It’s a business model that’s notorious for killing games by incentivizing cashable development instead of core gameplay development (although, to be fair, GW2 has been impacted by this less then normal).

Long term, dedicated players who just play the game an hour or two per day tend to get left out of such a system, since they don’t feel there’s anything of value (to them; see my sig) to buy. They typically don’t want to drop large amounts of money on “just a game” but have no problem flinging some cash at a service they appreciate. These are the customers that a VIP subscription is marketed to. This is of value to the game, since it expands their market to include their most reliable customers, and if properly done it won’t affect either the Fat Cat customers or gameplay. This gives Anet a reliable income stream that doesn’t rely on constantly marketing new goodies for the gem store and encourages development of gameplay instead, so having a well done VIP sub is of value to the player community as well.

Sub bonuses should therefore be consistent, minor additions that are always valuable no matter what the state of the game is. And of course, have no effect at all on active gameplay.

With that in mind, these are my suggestions:
1) $10.00 or $15.00 monthly
2) 800 Gems per month ($10 value)
3) No waypoint costs
4) Unlimited Hair Style change NPC
5) 10 free Transmute charges per month.
6) Service NPC’s appear in your home instance.
7) Personal Banker Golem for all characters

Notes and justifications:
1 and 2) This will depend on whether Anet wants to offer the full value of the sub as gems, and just use the extra incentives to encourage customer loyalty, or whether they think the incentives are worth money on their own.

3) +1 to the guy that suggested it. It’s economically trivial, but gives the feeling of convenience, exactly what a VIP sub should be.

4) This will be controversial since it’s a gem store item, but it has some advantages. It’s a popular service and makes a good draw to the sub, it doesn’t affect gameplay at all, and tweaking their character’s appearance more often may encourage people to buy the Full Makeover Kit.

5) Another economically trivial bonus that doubles as marketing for other services. Xmogs are already dropped in game, so another 10 per month just encourages more tweaking of ppl’s character, which in turn encourages skin/outfit collecting and may bring people to the gem store.

6) This is meant to give a “personal” feel to the game, which tends to be exactly what long term casual players want. NPC’s that offer various services like bank, TP, vendor, etc, plus the Hair Style vendor from #4, and maybe even a Buff Bot NPC that offers to cast various Black Lion Boosts on you for free (no magic find / damage boosts, since that’s gameplay related).

7) Convenience is the the #1 marketable feature that doesn’t affect gameplay.

KestrelGirl.9267:

Note: Hoelbrak and the other capital cities are stuck in 1325 AE for the most part. (HoT story is in 1328.)

Take heed! I’ve not taken leave of my senses…

It’s their own fault for removing features. You see, GW1 had a simple drop down menu where you picked which instance you wanted to be in. If that had always existed (or at least, always since megaservers) then Anet would have designed around it and this exploit would have been dealt with before it ever occured. So it’s Anets own fault! Exploit away to punish them for taking away features that they invented a decade ahead of their time (customizable UI anyone?) and then removed saying it was an improvement.

This is totally not a sour-grapes style rationalization to justify getting more loot.

There are already anti-farming measures in the game.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns

They completely prevent active farming (I can trigger it in about 5 minutes, by killing many things rapidly, with only about 15 mins to full loot lockout) but do nothing against AFK farming because of the slow kill rate. So part of the problem is that live players CAN’T farm, making AFK the ideal method. If you fix this, the corresponding price drop/competition will make afk farming a lot less attractive and reduce the problem a fair bit.

Both of them are obsolete mechanics. Their concept stems from GW1 Mesmer skills, which would trigger on the enemy taking a certain action. A skilled mesmer could use these skills to manipulate their foes offensively, a gameplay style that hasn’t been repeated anywhere else, including GW2. Casting Backfire (dmg when spell cast) on a Monk (healer) forces the Monk to make a choice – use their hex removal cooldown (if they have one), soak the damage, or use a clever build to avoid it (since it only affects spells, they could still use Attacks, Skills, Traps, Signets, etc, if their build included any).

However, in GW2, that kind of manipulation/action forcing isn’t possible. Conditions are too easily spammable, too short duration, and too easily countered, and there are no longer selective counters or selective triggers. Conditions go up, come off, and go up again in the space of seconds. All skills count as a trigger for Confusion. All movement counts as a trigger for Torment. There’s no time for active counterplay and inadequate tools to make that counterplay with. Skill use and moving are core aspects of GW2 gameplay that you can’t realistically stop doing, so they aren’t really things that can be effectively punished. This means Confusion and Torment are nothing more then just another dps condition, and the only counter is to bring more condi cleansing.

If they want to revive punishment gameplay, Anet has to separate the PVP and PVE mechanics. The gameplay requirement of the two modes are too different. Confusion should trigger on non-AA skills, and Torment should trigger on Dodging and Mobility Skills. This would bring back the old GW1 gameplay they are poorly imitating. But that wouldn’t work in PVE, since mobs don’t dodge and rarely use skills. So PVP and PVE mechanics need to be separated for this to work.

Pls don’t do this. Those green and yellow runes/sigils are very important to the game economy. I make dozens of copper every day selling them to a vendor.