Guild Wars 2

Whenever the question at hand is “Best looking <class> race?”, the answer is always Asura.

Shanks.2907:

It’s not going to bump up the supply at all. In all likeliness, prices will remain the same. This will be a result in more people playing light classes and getting more cloth, but with the heavy/medium classes balancing that out. I daresay it’s more probable that the prices will rise because of a lack of supply from heavy/medium classes that the influx of light classes can’t compensate.

The balance will remain the same. Heavy/medium wearers will receive slightly less cloth, it’s not disappearing from their loot table altogether.

Godzzila.3752:

Andred.1087:

Spira.4578:

As a matter of fact I do, since I’m actually a programmer.

As a fellow programmer, I’d like to point out, no, you don’t. You might understand ways in which you could implement these things, but you do not know how ANet did it, or how difficult it is for them to make changes to their code base. You don’t know what features they are testing as we speak or what things they’ve already tried and had to throw out. Just because something appears to be simple does not mean it is, and if you have any real world experience, you ought to understand that.

Bad porgramming. Simple as that. If you make code and then later you have no idea what you did or how to change it, it is bad programming, and if this is the case, this game was doomed since second 0.

Trying to decipher someone else’s code months after it’s been implemented is always tricky. For something as complex and convoluted as a MMORPG, which has dozens of people working on it, this is even more true.

And just to nitpick at the original quote above, anyone who’s doing anything of substance would refer to themselves as a software developer, not a programmer. Programming is to a software developer what carpentry is to an architect.

You do realize that as a guardian, this also means you’ll be getting more greatsword drops and fewer pistols, right?

I personally think the change will probably balance out nicely.

There is actual endgame (oh how I hate that word) content. That it’s not the type of content you want is not relevant.

I actually really like this idea. I’ve only read the first few posts in this thread, so apologies if this has aleady been covered.

Maybe it’s different for other people, but my favorite part of the original leveling process was just looking out, saying to myself “I wonder what’s over there?” and then just traveling and finding out. While I now usually know what’s over there, allowing us to redo hearts would get us back into the world and bring back some of that freeform exploration.

One of the best things about GW2 is that so much happens in the world and players are currently out an about, making it feel like an active world, unlike other MMORPGs which locks everything behind instances that separate the playerbase.

The problem with focusing on events like dry top is that they promote a zerg mentality. With reknown hearts, you have pockets of content that segment the world without promoting zerging quite as much.

notebene.3190:

Well, like Joanie came up with ‘Dren’, they could filter it as ‘Boon’, which is clearly a good thing? Though, that might get confusing.

Cue many lulz once people start referring to each other as banoobs.

Xenon.4537:

Rynn.1324:

It’s funny how games that do have collision somehow magically don’t have any of the problems people are throwing out in this thread.

Which games are you talking about? Are any of them MMOs? Even if they used the simplest collision detection possible which would be a single, invisible, cube scaled-to-size around your character… Multiply that by thousands of players and you will begin to have significant data for the servers to process. Anet already has enough trouble calculating the number of targets an AoE hits (that’s why they capped it at 5).

Warhammer had it. City of Heroes had it. FFXIV 1.0 had it. FFXI has it. Tera has it. Probably others that I’m not familiar with. Not to mention countless non-MMO online games.

Why do people keep asking for this? This is never, ever going to happen.

It’s funny how games that do have collision somehow magically don’t have any of the problems people are throwing out in this thread.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Same here.
50 bucks for an entire continent and everything that comes with it? Sign me up!

It would really suck to be the people who need to 100% map completion after than expansion launches.

The great thing about RNG from a developer standpoint is that there is no way to tell if it is working as intended or not.

Elixir.2169:

cranked.3812:

Ooh another one of these threads. Why don’t you pro duelers just keep this stuff all consolidated into one thread?

I don’t care one way or the other about dueling because I wouldn’t use the feature, but I still think anet’s time would be better spent on fixing other parts of the game that are broken before introducing another, broken, bug-ridden feature that, I think, only a small percentage of the population would actually use.

Just because you don’t like dueling others do. No need to come in here and bash everyone and there are no “Pro” duelers here. So if your looking to bash duelers go somewhere else. I made this post to keep the discussion alive about dueling and remind anet it is still wanted. I personally do dueling for fun and really enjoy it. I don’t appreciate people being disrespectful about what other people enjoy. I get you don’t like it but no need to be an kitten about it.

And we’re posting to remind you that a significant portion of the playerbase does NOT want this nonsense in the game. It’s a complete and utter aggravation in most games, having to wade through duelists dueling in every bloody corner of the world they can find, doubling annoying when they’re allowed to do it in high population areas.

And for the record, this is coming from someone who spends about half of my playtime in wvw and spvp.

Am I weird for thinking you shouldn’t play a character you don’t enjoy playing?

Devata.6589:

While I did see many people here ask for expansion I did not see them ask for things raising the level-cap and resetting progress markers. If you have a second look it seems most are mainly asking for horizontal progression.

The LS did not add much of that. In fact much of the horizontal progression (you know like getting skins) is taken out of it to put in the cash-shop. An expansion could hold a new set of mini’s like we did but if it’s in the world it could take you a year to collect them all. Put them in the cash-shop and it’s all a gold-grind if you even still care. I don’t care much about them as collecting is not fun. There are just a few sets of mini’s I like because of the looks.

I was speaking in terms of how expansions normally operate. However, I agree that horizontal progression is what I and many others hope for. However, to me horizontal progression lends itself better to the episodic nature of LS than it would an expansion, which throws a blast of content at you all at once.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Who are you addressing here? Has anyone asked for ‘power creep shuffle’? Or are you answering your own limited way of imagining what an expansion could be like?

It’s not my own limited way, it’s been what the overwhelming, vast majority of MMORPG expansions I’ve experienced have done. Arenanet has already backtracked and went against their stance of Exotics being the top armor tier; do you really think they wouldn’t consider using an expansion as a cheap way to reset progression mechanics in some way?

The problem with the trinity is the trinity.

City of Heroes had the right of it. Roles are good. Required roles are bad. In City of Heroes, you could play a tank, a damage dealer, a healer, a buffer, a debuffer, a locker, a positioner (what I liked to call my storm/power defender), and several other roles/playstyles.

But you didn’t NEED any of those except for the hardest TFs in the game (and even then I’m not convinced you couldn’t knock it out with some creative team compositions). Want to field a team consisting of any combination of the above? Knock yourselves out. Sure, some combinations were more effective, but to be honest being on a team with a straight traditional trinity setup didn’t really happen. Tanks were always well appreciated and sought after, but in a pinch you could do without, especially if you had a good mix of archetypes. Controllers could lock down entire herds of mobs, debuffers could debuff them into complete ineffectiveness, buffers could send your team’s stats through the roof.

But the point of all the above is that it’s a good system when utilized effectively. In other words, not the model that most use.

darkace.8925:

Nick.6972:

Rezz.8019:

What is the point of expansion….

It’s like movie sequels. No quality but just there to make extra money. I prefer it the way it is now without any expansions or anything like that.

Living Story is exactly what you described and worse.

Much worse. The content released via Living Story is of significantly lower quality and contains significantly more bugs than that released via expansion.

No, no it’s not. The only difference is that it comes in short intervals, and thus you don’t get the “OMG SO SHINY AND NEW” effect as an expansion.

Expansion in most games tend to have the singular purpose of raising the level cap, resetting progress markers, and throwing everybody back on the hamster wheel. Given GW2’s game design, it doesn’t lend itself well to that, and quite frankly I would drop the game very quickly if I thought they were going down that route. If you want to play the power creep shuffle, there are plenty of other games for that.

Fortify your rear openings, because I’m about to blow your minds.

I absolutely love GW2’s content update format.

I know what you’re all thinking. “Woah woah woah. This is a forum. Go take that ‘positive’ nonsense elsewhere.” But it’s the truth. Practically every other MMORPG I’ve played has kept shoving gear treadmill after gear treadmill down my throat. Instead, about twice per month, GW2 throws new stuff at me to do. I’m looking at you non-specific RPG Franchise Game, Mr. “Item levels are now over twice the character level.” I feel like a bloody hamster playing that game. The Evil Which Will Not Be Named is much the same, as are several others. Only one other (horror-themed) MMORPG really goes the same route as GW2…kinda. I play that game for the awesome setting and storytelling, but sadly most people just relegate it to a dungeon grinder, which is sad.

But back to GW2, the game is one of the few where you can just log in and play. The only MMORPG that has given me that feeling is City of Heroes (God rest its soul, also, die in a fire, NCSoft). Though there is a bit of an asterisk; if you completely eschew pvp in all its forms, that’s going to put a bit of a damper on things. You can’t ignore half the game without feeling its effects.

I don’t really grind in this game as much as I just log in and do whatever strikes my fancy. Which seems to be working, as I’m currently at 3/8 ascended armor. I log in, play, achievement hunt, pvp, wvw, craft, do jumping puzzles, and hopefully go play with whatever is happening currently with the living story. It’s not perfect, but it’s still infinitely better than logging into the competition and thinking “What dungeon do I want to grind today?”

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Collision/Body Blocing is problematic.
There’s a reason they didn’t include it, when you have classes like Necromancers (who can summon a lot of minions) or gameplay where a LOT of players are in a concentrated area at once it gets super problematic.

This is a feature, not an issue. Having a ton of people crammed into a small place SHOULD cause issues for all involved.

As indicated above….the worlds should be now more active than when you left, since everyone is being shuffled into the megaservers.

You should listen to your doctor.

I prefer to just sit on my laurels.

Nick.6972:

Oh yes, GW2 is an eSport.
Skyhammer is the player favorite map!

I love Skyhammer.

On topic, I consider WvW to be the “endgame,” as far as game content goes. However, I’m a RPer, and we make our own game, so…

True housing. Make it happen, Anet.

More horizontal progression would help tremendously.

Generally, people use Squad chat to address exactly this problem.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Malekkai.9546:

I totally agree however that the Elementalist is probably the most versatile class on the surface, due to it’s ability to summon weapons and switch elements, what have you, but then an Engineer can use a skill to become a combat medic one moment, and another skill to pull out a Flamethrower, whilst dealing and deflecting damage with main weapons.

I don’t know really how a warrior can be thought of as a Jack of All Trades though… They don’t really have the ability to be a healer.

Engineers have a very versatile rang of skills and options, but melee combat is not one of them. All their weapon and kit skills work best outside of melee range (except Toolkit, which happens to strongly interact with turrets – which also work best at range).

Flamethrower, bomb kit, and tool kit are all essentially melee combat styles, though only tool kit is the tradition “swing a stick at stuff” melee.

The Queen can kiss my genius rear. I’ll start wearing shoes when these bookah cobblers learn how to make proper asuran footwear.

Given the time gating mechanic, and how expensive these are to make, I would think it better to just go ahead and build the ascended version instead, since they use many of the same components.

Zerging needs to be nerfed from the ground up. You don’t need to stop the Queensdale train. Just make the Champions properly scale so that they take 10 minutes for a zerg to kill instead of one, and the problem will fix itself.

I hope we hear something from the devs about this issue. Let’s be honest – this situation is borne of simple laziness on the part of the developers. It doesn’t even have to be a revamp – just start introducing more clearly feminine versions for future armors/outfits.

Accelerant-packed turrets are a blast.

Considering what a pain ascended armor is to make already, I really don’t want to see them take that to the next level.

In my personal opinion, this game has better underwater combat than any other MMORPG in existence right now. Underwater combat is hard because it incorporates 3d sensibility into a game that primary functions on a quasi-2D design. The Ship of Sorrows highlights this issue dramatically.

Please keep underwater combat!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

It is very easy to get keys by running a character through the Personal Story to Level 10, delete, and repeat. Other than that, keys may be obtained through map completion, etc. and rarely as loot drops.

Good luck.

That’s always seemed borderline exploitive to me. I’d much prefer they take those out and slightly increase the drop rate overall.

Dustfinger.9510:

check the fun house. inquest are infusing their golems with souls. The physical aspects of a golem like servos and gyroscopes are simply more complicated versions of the sticks that effigies are made of. That AI… is magic. That asura golem interface was invented by a master Mesmer.becasue it is based on magic principles. Check out who snaff actually was. “Snaff was a highly regarded magical theorist” http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Snaff Golems aren’t simply powered by magic, otherwise they wouldn’t fall apart when the magic departs upon defeating them. That means that their internal operations are intrinsically tied to magic beyond simple power supply.

Inquest experiments are just that. The golems seen throughout Rata Sum operate off of programmed AI decision trees, as can be seen through at least two different events that happen frequently in the city. Asura golem mind interface I was referring to was the one built by Snaff.

The AI is not magic. The Dynamics storyline specifically details your golem’s programming being tampered with.

Also, they fall apart because magic is indeed what holds the various pieces together.

Dustfinger.9510:

I’m not sure where you get that assumption of my motivation. I’m simply going where the lore takes me. I’ve already stated that asura take a scientific approach to magic. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still magic. and in no way does that mean “a wizard did it”. In lore, the asura specialize in magi tech. Not future tech that has moved past charr tech. I’ve already posted where dev interview has specifixcally stated that charr tech is the best representation of technological advancement in tyria. Obviously they are separating magic based technology from non-magic technology. How would the charr be that representation if the asura have far surpassed them?

That’s the problem. It isn’t where the lore is taking you – you’re retro-fitting the lore to meet your preconceived notions. The dev interview you keep mentioning is with two systems programmers. Not storyline editors, not lore or world leads, systems programmers. This is like basing canon Middle Earth facts on something said by Tolkien’s typesetter. If you’re looking for actual support for such things, in-game events and conversations are a much better source.

Dustfinger.9510:

again, the asura in the black citadel can’t comprehend how charr tech works without incorporating magic. What specific technologies do the asura have that don’t use magic? because their entire society and all three colleges revolve around the idea that magic is infused with everything. You’re entire argument seems to consist of the idea that asura magitech doesn’t need to be the height of their advancement. While it doesn’t exactly need to be, it actually is. That’s the lore.

your view of the asura simply doesn’t line up with the stated lore.

I’m not sure where the disagreement is for this portion is, really – magic does indeed permeate everything the Asura do. My assertion is that there is simply so much non-magical technology referenced by asura throughout the game it seems silly to assume that they’re incapable of building anything that doesn’t use it.

Dustfinger.9510:

have you played the infinity ball story line?

You mean the story where the winner of the Snaff prize looses his marbles and goes on to create a steam machine army? Yes, but that seems about as relevant as the fractal where the asura makes a protection platoon of kitty golems…

Dustfinger.9510:

Please explain the difference between a golem and an effigy. You’ll see that most of these pseudo scientific terms that require a golem to operate are also necessary for an effigy to function effectively. looking at the cubist golem in the beginning of the asura storyline, we see how much magic is really involved. Without the magic it is a giant pile of rubble. Magic runes are inscribed throughout asura architecture. What part of asura technology isn’t magitech? Those computers, AI routines and directives? magic based. The same as the effigies would require to function. How are they not magic based?

Effigies are not golems. Effigies are structures imbued with either spirts or elementals that provide both the intelligence and power behind the creation. Golems specifically use AI and/or a golem/asura mindlink interface (first pioneered by Snaff) to provide their intelligence, while the structure is powered by either magick or a generator (often utilizing magical components at the very least) of some kind.

All you have to do is wonder around the asura areas to see this. There are countless conversation pieces about gyroscopes, servos, motors, circuits, generators, networks, AI, and more.

Dustfinger.9510:

Individual asura will dedicate an entire lifespan to building a portfolio of successful projects or becoming the foremost expert of some tiny aspect of the arcane.

Asura magical technology is second to none. Their experiments with magic are evident through the impressive floating structures found around and within their cities. Many asura study the difficult art of golemancy

Asura believe in the Eternal Alchemy – the idea that all beings and magic in the world are a part or function of a greater purpose or “machine”. Asuran life is built around the research of the Eternal Alchemy
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Asura

And here is where the crux of the issue is. You seem to have this idea that magic is the standard fare “a wizard did it” plot glue that is used in other settings. In this setting magic IS a science. There are countless areas in the game where magic is shown augmenting traditional technology. Magic does indeed augment just about everything the asura do. But it doesn’t preclude their usage and research of technologies don’t utilize it.

The main difference that can be seen with asura technology is that they more or less skipped the iron/steam age of traditional technological development (which is basically where the Charr are currently). Or if they didn’t, it was so long ago no asura even really remembers it. After all, why power your golem with a bulky steam engine when a sufficiently charged power crystal will provide a more reliable source at 1/10th the mass and a fraction of the cost?

I just want to chime in to add support to give people some control over the megaserver issue. I met my most recent guild via random RP convergence in Orr, and the recent addition of the megaserver has utterly annihilated the random bits of RP that I used to always come across in TC.

• Some of us enjoy doing more than genocide every day.
• Some of us like to have a place to call our own.
• Some of us like to decorate.
• Some of us like to RP.
• A world isn’t a world if most of the population is homeless. If I wanted to experience that I would just visit Detroit.

xsquared.1926:

We’ll have to remove charr first. After that we can introduce capes

Ahh, good to hear. Looking forward to capes being implemented!

Protip: You can apply the skin of a higher level armor to that of a lower level item. That should be plenty of incentive by itself.

Dustfinger.9510:

A common mistake I see made is to assume that asura tech is “modern” tech. it isn’t. It is completely based in magic. It is magi-tech. Golems are closer to being charr effigies than they are to being robots.

Easily proven false. Asura do use magi-tech, and many of their designs utilize magick to high degree. However, saying that their inventions are just fancy use of magick is simply blindness trying to keep the charr on a level playing field with them.

Computer terminals with holographic displays litter every corner of Rata Sum. Golems have advanced AI routines and directives and their program logic is referenced constantly. These aren’t feats of magic beyond the power components. It’s computer and robotic technology on par and in many cases beyond what we have in the real world.

Charr technology’s main benefit is that it’s cheap and easy to mass produce to send to the battlefield. Asura technology in comparison is expensive and often impossible to produce on any kind of large scale, but it isn’t sent to the battlefield, it changes it completely.

Well, mounts are already in the game. What we need is more variety. So far, to my knowledge our only two options are the riding broom and the sonic drill. Would be nice to have a transportation golem to use with my asura…

I’d like to have collision detection just as a matter of principle. Having everyone pass through everything is just bloody stupid. That it would help counter zerging and stacking would just be a nice side benefit.

Traditional questing almost always equates to “here’s some snippets of flavor text to give an excuse for making you do this chore.” I’ll be glad to see it go the way of the dodo.

The ONLY mmorpg I’ve ever seen do this sort of questing right is The Secret World. They’re far better written and far more diverse than your standard fare.

I really like GW2’s approach. Since a huge number of people just clickclickclick to accept and then plow through them, GW2 essentially pre-empts that by default. However, if you want the traditional experience, all you have to do is go find the heart NPC for an area.

I find signets to be mind-numbingly boring, so I’d rather they not. If you want to use signets, there are plenty of classes that have them.

Beldin.5498:

Rynn.1324:

• Sittable chairs; easy to implement, often overlooked.

Easy only in games where you don’t have races with different sizes and height sliders. Else it seems not really that easy to implement after all i read.

Off the top of my head, FFXIV, LotRO, WoW, and EQ2 all handle this without issue. And they all have a large range of character sizes to deal with.

Simple, but I really like this idea.

My thoughts:

• The personality system (charisma, ferocity, dignity) could certainly use some love, yes.
• Sittable chairs; easy to implement, often overlooked.
• Character description panels, ala LotRO/Eve Online.
• Character focus; IE, your character looks at selected characters/objects (see FFXIV for an example of this).
• Emote bubbles (City of Heroes had these, very nifty).

I once saw someone get burst down by the asura power suit 3 ability, so it obviously needs to be nerfed.