Showing Posts For Sam.4728:

Bleeding phantasms; improvements?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

I see your point about illusions. Ideally, I’d go 10/30/25/0/5 except they moved illusionist’s celerity. It’s just really upsetting how many skills are improved by illusionist’s celerity and now I can’t reach it easily. :-/

As for being decent at all, master of none, … that is actually what I was aiming to do.

Hmm. I can see null field is better except for the long cooldown. I will swap that in. It’s another ethereal field I can use for more confusion as well.

How about this distribution then? I took MoR so I can get 3x conditions removed now that I don’t have phantasmal disenchanter. The 5 domination is for +1s of bleeding tick.

(edited by Sam.4728)

Bleeding phantasms; improvements?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

I run a Bleeding condition build, personally i would replace the sword with scepter and staff with GS. Dont waste so many point in illusions, taking Rampager/Rabid gear is enough for conditions.

Yes, that sounds like a good combination as well. However, I think you are going for a slightly different build concept than I am. Using sword #3 + staff #2 is really good for confusing your enemy about your positioning, which is the way I would like to play.

Still, I see how your build is stronger condition-wise. GS clones + izerker definitely do more bleed stacks. BTW, I took illusions for phantasmal haste and illusionist’s celerity, though the condition damage is also very nice. As I understand it, phantasmal haste on iduelist increases his hit rate a lot and celerity+pistol training stack (the tooltip is wrong).

Also, staff #5 lets me put 5x confusion stacks per duelist. Something to consider.

(edited by Sam.4728)

Bleeding phantasms; improvements?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

I’ve been planning to start playing my mesmer in WvW more. My main is an elementalist, so I was hoping to get feedback from people who’ve played mesmer for longer than I have. This build is my best attempt to find something that suites my play style.

I’d like to use this build for solo/small group roaming. When I join up with a larger group, I am required to run a glamour+confusion build to support the team, so this build is instead for when I’m out there in smaller scale encounters.

I was hoping to develop a well rounded build that doesn’t invest too heavily in any single strategy. The way I would like to play my mesmer: confuse the enemy as to my true location, wear them down using both conditions and direct damage, and spike those who are low health. I don’t mind being a bit squishy as my first priority is to elude the people attacking me.

Gear-wise, the news that magic find will be removed from the game makes me hopeful that celestial gear will see a slight power bump soon (in my dreams they make MF into CDur). I am aware that the MF and HP is mostly wasted in my proposed build, but if you add up the useful stats (power+precision+conditiondmg+critdmg+vitality+toughness) it still pays off more than any other trinket set. Since the rest of my gear is rampagers, I thought celestial trinkets would be a good way to get some survivability stats to complement my goals.

The assumption I’ve made is that precision is extremely valuable. It pays off in both increased conditions and direct damage. My intent was to maximize precision and then augment both condition and direct damage as cheaply as possible. Bleed duration of 65% was easy to get and should give me 8 ticks from crits, better than stacking condition damage excessively. Similarly, the celestial trinkets net me some critical damage cheaply that helps given my precision. Phantasmal duelist seems to be the best for this build concept as it has rapid attacks=>bleeds and also reasonable direct damage.

Suggestions?

(edited by Sam.4728)

Replace MF with Condition Duration

in Suggestions

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

According to the plans for GW2 going forward, magic find is going to be removed as a statistic. As there are lots of people who have items with magic find on them, those people will be crying bloody murder if magic find is simply removed from these items.

Why not replace MF with Condition Duration?

It’s a statistic that is roughly proportional in power to critical damage in terms of scaling and trait investment cost. We already have absurd access to it via +40% condition duration food, so it wouldn’t be hugely unbalancing given the 100% duration cap.

I can think of a lot of builds where condition duration on armor would be useful.

WvW Staff, post patch

in Elementalist

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Keep in mind that I don’t really play my staff ele for the damage. I am in a team and my goal is to shutdown enemy damage to my team, keep them from escaping, and provide a location for blast finisher heals and condition removal after the push. I’m not sure that popping water mid push for a bit of vulnerability is a good idea. Most times the push is less than 15s long, so I wouldn’t have enough time to use water twice.

cheshirefox, If you don’t take arcane, where do you put those points? Personally, I can’t live without blasting staff. I could probably do without evasive arcana these days, though. I mostly take it because I don’t see much better and it’s +10% more boon duration.

The boon duration, faster attune swapping, and boons/procs from attunes synergizes so well…

(edited by Sam.4728)

WvW Staff, post patch

in Elementalist

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

darkace, I will need to try that. It’s important that water attunement be available for the water fields after the push, though. That is our main job in groups after all. I was planning to use it on the second pass through the enemy now that static field is on cooldown.

WvW Staff, post patch

in Elementalist

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

So, the new patch has landed. Aside from the lightning flash change, Elementalists (especially staff) saw a huge buff! Below is the build I intend to run in organized WvW groups. It focuses on area control: stun/weaken/blind enemies and prevent the same being done to your own group.

20 Earth:
10 points — earth’s embrace; 50% hp = armor of earth
15 points — cripple on attune
20 points — rock solid; AoE stability on earth attune

20 Water:
5 points — AoE healing over time
10 points — Cleansing Wave; AoE condition removal on water attune
15 points — AoE heal on water attune
20 points — Aquamancer’s Alacrity; 20% faster water field recharge

30 Arcane:
5 points — fury on attune
10 points — Elemental Attunement; might/regen/swift/prot on attune
20 points — Blasting Staff; staff AoE is larger
30 points — Evasive Arcana; dodge to blast, blind, or remove conditions

Skills:
Ether Renewal; cleanse conditions (esp immobilize), cover with earth attune stability
Armor of Earth; break stun
Radiation Field; weakness and poison
Glyph of Storms; AoE chill or blind+bleed
Fiery Greatsword; move fast and PvD

Gear:
Power/vitality/toughness on every item
Sigil of Battle
Rune for +40% boon duration (2 sup water, 2 sup monk, 2 major water)

Food:
+20% boon duration
+power from vitality/toughness

The build pumps boon duration to +90% for nearly 4s of stability and 10s of protection on attunement swap. In this build, you want to rotate attunements as often as possible.

Engage with air. Use the new improved gust on anyone between you and the kill zone. Pop static field to prevent escape from the target area. Plant radiation field (totally OP post patch IMO) and lightning surge in the kill zone. Swap to fire to drop damage on the kill zone. Swap to earth to cripple as you pass through the kill zone and refresh stability (the guardians buffs are probably now ending). Throw a shockwave and unsteady ground to hold people in the kill zone AoE. Put a #2 blast at the gather/regroup area. Swap to water, plant water fields.

If you’re not an Asura, you have my sympathies. Radiation field weakness and poison are just incredible now. Half damage and -33% healing in the kill zone where your dps team mates go to town is … really good.

(edited by Sam.4728)

GW2 + Mumble Overlay: a proper fix

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

You can ignore the “new snapshot” available. That’s an artifact of how I built the package. It has no version #, only a compile date, so it thinks every other version of mumble is newer than it is. Until 1.2.4 has been released, my build is newer than any snapshot you can find. Once 1.2.4 has been released, just upgrade to the next official snapshot from the mumble site which will include my fix.

I don’t intend to build another mumble installer any time soon. I only have a 30GB Windows partition and building it used nearly all my space. If I build another installer, it will be to include my guild’s custom mumble skin, something you probably don’t want.

GW2 + Mumble Overlay: a proper fix

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Just a heads up: it seems that the “SweetFX” plugin for GW2 is incompatible with mumble. It also seems to be the cause of other instability issues a guild member was having. So, if you use this patched mumble, please make sure you have no other files than “GW2.exe” “GW2.dat” and “GW2.tmp” in your GW2 folder.

GW2 + Mumble Overlay: a proper fix

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Mumble is a voice communications chat program like vent/teamspeak… only better. You can find their official homepage here:
http://mumble.sourceforge.net/

Now that GW2 has positional audio (a very cool feature where you hear people’s voices come from the in-game location of their character), you might want to try it. However, you’ll find that the mumble overlay (which shows you in-game who is in your channel and who is talking) does not work with GW2. There used to be a work-around where you could use a shortcut to login, but that now breaks the trading post. I spent some time the last few evenings to track down and fix this problem properly.

If you want a mumble with overlay support, here is a prebuilt image:
https://roguestoriches.org.uk/mumble.msi
… courtesy of Rogues to Riches (the friendliest FSP guild).

Hopefully the next mumble will include the fix; I’ve already posted the patch to:
https://sourceforge.net/p/mumble/bugs/909/

Enjoy and I hope this helps more people get along with GW2+mumble.

(edited by Sam.4728)

No culling = Epic!

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

I realize this is a bit late, but I didn’t get a chance to enjoy the new WvW until now.

WvW without culling is like a whole new game! It’s just amazing seeing this huge fights between so many player. Job very well done fixing this issue!

My computer runs the big fights with only marginal frame rate loss and just sporadic skill lag. I am a very happy invader.

A Statement Regarding Vertical Progression.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Seeing this thread reminds me of how optimistic I was that GW2 would be a “game for the ages”, like GW1. I had planned out character designs in the beta and rolled 1 of each class within minutes of the game being released, buying gems to get the slots. I did this because I imagined that I would be able to level each of them to the permanent level/gear cap and then play whichever I wanted to play over the next years.

Boy was I wrong.

I still play GW2, because I don’t know of a good alternative horizontal RPG. GW1 doesn’t get new content and is empty. Really, I’m the worst kind of player that Arenanet could have. I warn all my friends to stay away. I never buy any more gems. Yet I still play to get my 180EURs worth back from this game… until the day a true horizontal game comes out. I could have been a loyal customer for years. I did push this game on friends (something I deeply regret now). I’m not the only one.

D/D Ele's the new Thief?!?1?2?/

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

IMO, the main reason D/D elementalists seem so overpowered is because there was a good guide posted in our forums. If other classes had such a well explained breakdown of how best to play their class in WvW, they would be doing a lot better as well.

That said, I play D/D elementalist, so I admit I’m biased.

Willing to share WvW details?

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Displaying names can potentially lead to people griefing their own team, not everyone is noble. Just find an invader with a displayed nickname and provide him some vital info.

If I wanted to do this, I could do it already, without using in-game chat. This kind of thing would be best done with three people on voice chat, one on the “same-side” and two on the opposing side.

I doubt a random person on the other team will grief someone just because you asked them to. So nothing is made worse by the option to remove your own anonymity. You still need to know a collaborator on the other team before you begin.

Willing to share WvW details?

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Some of the reasons behind enemies appearing as ‘Server-name Invader’ where to avoid harassment issues, let other servers identify what server you are from, and to help establish server rivalry.

Would it be possible to opt-out of the anonymization? For example, an option in the settings where I can uncheck the “WvW anonymity” box. I’m sure you’re aware of the bug whereby people can already message enemy players (without their consent!). The few times I’ve gotten messages from the enemy, I’ve quite liked it. One time an UW player and I (FSP) spent a good hour refining our play and trying stuff. It was probably the most fun I’ve had in WvW to date.

I understand that by default players should be protected from abuse. I just want the option to (potentially) receive abuse, or (more in line with my experience) just be able to receive friendly chat from my opponents. After all, I can always ignore anyone who abuses knowing my name.

If anonymization is on, I am displayed as “FSP Mercenary [RtR]” (we’re not invaders!) and if it’s off then I am “FSP Samtastic [RtR]” (and right-click works on me).

I think rivalry only stands to benefit when you put a face/name to your enemies. ATM this already happens on the guild level.

As an aside regarding server identification: I don’t think the nameplate is really enough. When there’s a three-way fight going on it’s very difficult to keep an overview of the relative numbers. I can understand, though, if it is an intentional fog-of-war-like design choice.

(edited by Sam.4728)

Tickets for Review (3 days and older) [merged]

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

GW user: me
Ticket #121203-001236. It’s been over a month.
… I’ve been having real problems getting this handled. I posted twice asking how to expedite its handling, and both posts were removed. Fortunately, the last message indicated I should post here.

Is this the right place for a ticket that got lost in the system?

(edited by Sam.4728)

Same-team griefing - how do you handle it?

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

You remember that this is a game, right? If that player came to WvW to play around, and try stuff out, that’s his fun and his business. Freaking out at him will just ensure that he doesn’t come back. If he has some fun learning how siege works, he may get interested enough in WvW to join and “be useful” in the future. Alienating players who are just trying things out is a sure fire way to prevent new players joining the shrinking WvW community.

Speaking with the enemy

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Thanks for all the supporting posts, guys! I was actually expecting people to object, silly me.

As others already said, my concern is that the current bug that lets you talk to the opposing team will get closed in the future. I think that would be a shame as its the last available avenue for communication/identification. Does anyone have a better suggestion of how this could work than the “opt in to WvW enemy chat” toggle that I proposed? If we could flesh out a constructive suggestion in this direction, there is the (small) possibility Arenanet would listen.

Speaking with the enemy

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Currently, the developers try to prevent us from talking to the enemy. I assume this is meant to stop abusive messaging. However, there is a bug (which I’m sure they know about) that allows us to still do this. My experience of talking to the enemy has, thus far, been very positive. I would like for this bug to become a sanctioned option for players who WANT to talk to the enemy.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I am assuming the ban is to protect people from being flamed by the enemy. It this way, it’s like a “chat filter”. I want an option in the gameplay menu to turn this filter off so that I can opt in to receiving whispers from the enemy team. Obviously, leave the filer on by default to protect the innocent.

If the GW2 team wants to prevent chat abuse, I’d recommend this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt9GwmOWoqo

Addendum: I’m sure some people will bring up collusion as a reason to ban enemy chat. I don’t see this as a big problem; it is already possible for servers to collude through side channel traffic like third party websites or even voice communication. Furthermore, I sometimes think some collusion would be a good thing—-it would keep things interesting to see servers work together and betray each other.

Update on Culling?

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

our goal is to remove culling completely from WvW. In order to remove culling completely we have to address three issues.

Wow! This is great news. Thank you so much for giving us such a detailed status report and also for working towards the best possible solution!

I beg you, don't increase the level cap

in Suggestions

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

The current level cap is about 40 levels too high for my liking, so I’m not thrilled at all that they want to increase it further.

My sentiments exactly. I’m still suffering from post-ascension-treadmill shell-shock. Increasing the level cap would be even worse.

I guess I’m slowly getting over the fact that the Arenanet that built GW1 isn’t the same one that built GW2. A shame.

Please Keep the Bell Choir

in Suggestions

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Like to pre-ascended items? Does the time machine work on players around me, too?
;-)

A Server's Story

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Unfortunately, I don’t have as much time to play as I like. When I do WvW (on my RtR elementalist), what I really like about FSP is that I can make a difference.

Small organized groups are the hallmark of my FSP experience. If we had a few more of these, I can’t but help wonder how effective a zerg would really be against us. A zerg can only be in one or two places. Our small raiding parties can be everywhere… and they are usually coordinated both inside the team and across teams.

I personally find this much more fun than being part of the large zergs we had in the past, where I basically threw staff AoE as a small cog in the giant zerg machine. In small parties, I can run D/D and be very effective against even greater numbers of enemies. Much more satisfying than mere marginal zerg AoE contribution.

WvW Jumping Puzzle Ceasefire

in WvW

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

The jumping puzzle is one of the best sources of badges in the game… and I don’t mean from the chest.

Magic Find [Merged]

in Suggestions

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Averaging the MF seems a quite good solution. It is certainly not cool / very selfish to run MF gear in a dungeon. Removing MF outright would upset a lot of people and it is arguably useful when you’re doing out-door PvE. Your suggestion is a good middle ground.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

So, it was a tough decision, but I just can’t afford at this point in my life to be sucked into a gear treadmill. If GW2 goes down this path, I don’t have the time.

I am boycotting this patch. I will return in three weeks if things turn out for the best.
I’ve wasted enough time worrying in this thread, so I won’t be reading it further.

Good luck to everyone. I hope Arenanet finds its way.

(edited by Moderator)

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

To give Arenanet its dues, their posts about ascended gear so far is PR speak at its very finest. So hats off to you Arenanet, you must employ some first rate spin doctors.

Yeah. The corporate double-talk was par excellence. I’m not surprised a lot of people think things will be alright after reading it. More surprising to me is that there are so many players who were NOT fooled. From the posts I’ve seen, there definitely does seem to be a correlation between general literacy (going by their posts) and position on this patch.

I’ve pretty much lost hope that this will work out. It’s too late for them to patch things and I’m pretty sure the developers already gave up the fight to management.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Umm ok. So let me translate. Hi, we think your stupid. Never mind that we lied.

Depressing isn’t it?

This worst part of this story, though, isn’t how this affects the players. We only lost a few times $60 and some cash on gems. There will be other games. Some might even do what Arenanet promised to do.

The real tragedy is for the developers. I guarantee that the core developers behind the GW2 concept hate this change as much as we do. They spent years and years of their lives building an epic game in line with their philosophy. Why the sudden change? Do you really think the hard working, forward-looking developers made this change? No. It was the business side of the game. Those developers are probably even more depressed than the player base.

I expect droves of developers will be leaving Arenanet soon, due to management forcing them to destroy the game they love. There was probably a dramatic behind the scenes fight, but in the end, you can’t fight the people who pay for your house and your family. Pay attention to where the original GW2 developer teams goes. Perhaps they will find a home with a business partner that doesn’t screw them.

Why do people fear 'power creep'?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

As it stands Guild Wars 2 is a game where I could within 3 to 4 months have 5 exoticed 80’s, all of different classes.

I know! It’s great! That’s exactly what the game was designed to be like. That’s what they advertised and that’s why we bought it.

If I achieve that I’m done. I literally have nothing more to do.

Have you played games like doom? Super Mario? Did you stop playing them because your character couldn’t be improved? No. You kept playing because YOU improved at playing your character. That is the game I bought.

I can still at 80+exotics play with my friends. I can try new and weird skill+talent combinations. We can go off on guild-coordinated scavenger hunts. I can still do WvW+SPVP. I can still try to obtain a legendary to show off and enjoy the cool animations. There are still unending niches of lore that I skipped over the first time through in my rush to keep up with the Jones’ to level 80.

This is the sort of game I bought to play for years. I spent time to get my character ready for a decades worth of adventuring and exploring every niche of Tyria with my friends. A game where we can get together (no guild members excluded due to gear/level) and do whatever we want. Maybe it’s been a while since we ran one of the dungeons. Maybe we want to claim a keep for our guild in WvW. Maybe we just want to hang out in LA.

This is a different MMO than those grind-fests we did NOT buy.

Should Level Cap Increase in Xpacs?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Why even have 1 – 80? Everyone should just start out as 80s with full max gear

You’re right. That needs to change in sPVP. If you aren’t skilled enough to play full time, then you shouldn’t be able to defeat those players who are! Who thought level 80 for new players in SPVP was a good idea?!

Same goes for new dungeons. Even if you’ve seen all the content in PvE, that doesn’t mean you are ready to join elite runs in the new zones. You should have to grind to max level and gear to deserve entering these elite-player-only zones!

Should Level Cap Increase in Xpacs?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Definitely!
Raising the level cap would have several great advantages. It would mean you have to play more to reach level cap. It would mean people couldn’t afford the time to make alts, so they would focus on becoming experts on their one class. Best of all, it would separate the wheat from the chaff—only the truly hardcore players should be at the best level+gear.

In addition to a higher level cap, we also need nearly impossible to obtain gear with better stats. The coming buff to legendaries is exactly what we need. That way, the upper-class 0.1% of players who have legendaries will have a well deserved leg up over everyone else when new content comes out! A new tier of gear? No problem! You already have the best stats because your legendary got bump up. Now you can rofl stomp the scrubs in WvW who don’t deserve to be competitive, because they aren’t skilled enough to play all day.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

That latest post from Chris Whiteside just depresses me. I cared enough a few days ago to complain and hope they would listen. Now I’ve pretty much given up.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Has anyone considered how best to stage a protest? We can’t picket their offices like with politics, since we’re a global group. They are pretty much ignoring player feedback on the forums (the PR-spin answers that try to dodge the issue do not count as honest consideration). So what to do?

I have a proposal: during the release of the new content, we all go back to playing GW1.

Just leaving the game is a statistic they can’t distinguish from the locusts moving on.
Playing GW1 makes it clear that their core player base isn’t happy with the new GW2 direction and wants the GW1 system back.

Probably it would be too hard to organize enough people to do this, though.

Suggestion: Revise moderation rules

in Suggestions

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Currently, moderators are combining legitimate player posts about Ascended gear into a giant thread where all the discussion is supposed to occur. I understand the desire to “tidy up” the forums by combining redundant topics. However, when the topic is this huge, all it achieves is to end the conversation since the posts from different topics get all interleaved. This especially frustrating when the topics were all slightly different, even if they were all related to the same general topic. A monster thread of that magnitude makes effective communication nearly impossible. Perhaps it would make more sense in such situations to create subforum and move posts into there? That way the posts stay separate and its easier to follow the conversation you are interested in.

Also troubling is the policy of locking a thread where players were trying to show that their objection to an incoming change was not from a vocal minority, but rather the until-now silent majority of players. I understand that it’s against policy, but that thread was a nice way for players to feel heard and an easy way to avoid a lot of smaller posts. Does it really distract other forum users when people /sign inside a single post? It’s a lot less intrusive than having multiple threads where people all post more-or-less the same thing.

Please consider reviewing how you moderate these forums.

Can we now get an inspect option?

in Suggestions

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Hell yes. Dungeons should drop less loot if you run them too often, so that everyone progresses at the same speed. They should also give ever increasing rewards so that there’s no need to ever run one of those old used up dungeons ever again.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

How about wait til’ the patch is released and then freak out if necessary.

I’m with the OP. It’s unlikely Arenanet can do anything about the coming patch at this point—too late to back it out now. However, if the player base makes it perfectly clear how vehemently we reject this direction, maybe they will stick to their original design philosophy which led us to buy this game and stop the treadmill at the backpack.

Arenanet makes everyone happy by;

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

From my in-game experience today, no one seems to talk badly about the ascended. I saw quite several positive talks about the ascended while I was crafting and TP.

Well, pretty much everyone I talk to in the game does NOT like them. Most of those players came from GW1 which had a hard item power cap, which might be relevant. I also doubt that most people in-game read the blog post or considered the consequences the new tier will have.

Arenanet makes everyone happy by;

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Make it exotic stats with infusion slot.

This.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Either merge this thread too, or admit the hypocrisy.

I owe the forum moderator an apology. You just can’t be in every thread at once. Sorry for the bile.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

It’s interesting that this thread hasn’t been sucked into the ascended mega-thread vortex. Probably because it is contentless praise. Several threads with real discussion and constructive criticism got eaten by the forum moderator. Either merge this thread too, or admit the hypocrisy.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

First, take a deep breath. :-) Let’s not turn this topic into another flamewar thread.

Euh… how can you say that adding a new tier of gear is NOT an addition of a gear treadmill?

The difference is how many times they do it. If they only add one new tier, it is not an endless treadmill. Like I said, my reading of the post was:
1. Legendary is (and will always be) top
2. Exotics are too far from legendaries in effort to acquire.
3. We will add one time only ascended items to bridge the gap between exotic and legendary

So, you will need to get a new ascended piece of armor from each new dungeon until you are fully ascended. Then the treadmill stops. I definitely agree with you that it is a treadmill, but like I said: I think it’s not nearly as bad as people are thinking. You have to upgrade a couple items per dungeons, not all of them. Furthermore, after a few content releases, the upgrades stop. Furthermore, if you get legendaries, you won’t even need to bother with any future ascended items.

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

I am aware the stats are the same.

Actually, I guess it would be more accurate to say: the stats WERE the same. Now legendary=ascended>exotic stat-wise. Before it was legendary=exotic.

I agree it sucks, but so far it does not look like this will be an endless gear treadmill. If they go down the dark path with the infusions granting benefits outside of their respective dungeons, however …. then the amount of vitriol on the forums will be justified. ;-)

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Currently there is no gap in power between exotics and legendaries. They currently have the exact same stats. Their only benefit is cosmetic. This is no “in between” of anything currently in game.

I am aware the stats are the same. Nevertheless, the legendaries are better because of the appearance benefit. If they want to add a slot between exotic and legendary, they can’t go with awesome appearance, because that’s reserved for legendary. Instead, they also added an infusion slot. Fine. Their mistake was also adding some base stats.

Still, I think the problem is not so awful since it doesn’t sound to me like there will be another tier “ascended++” added in the future. Rather, they will just slowly roll out ascended armor for each slot. Still a tread-mill, but not as odious as in other games.

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Like most other players, I first read the ascended armor blog post to be the addition of gear treadmills to GW2. I was outraged. However, after a more careful reading of the blog post, I think that this is NOT what Arenanet has actually said.

I will base everything I state here on the blog post directly from Arenanet:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

I believe their statements boil down as follows:

1. Legendaries are harder obtain than intended, “players … were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression”

2. Exotics were perhaps a bit easier to obtain than intended, “our most dedicated players were achieving their set of exotic gear”

3. The next content patch will not add an complete new tier of gear. Rather, it will only add ascended rings and backpacks; “we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots”

4. Future content will NOT add new tiers of gear, but will rather add the missing slots of ascended gear.

From these statements, I think Arenanet is in fact NOT planning on introducing a gear treadmill. Rather, they want to phase in a new tier of gear whose difficulty to obtain is a mid-point between legendary and exotic. They think they made a mistake; the gap between exotic and legendary was too far and needed something inbetween.

Still, there is definitely some treadmill to their current approach. Each new dungeon adds another piece of armor, so you need to upgrade that one piece. However, it’s not quite as awful as other games where you need to replace ALL of your armor with each new dungeon.

Now, I agree with most of the player-base that this could have been done better:

1. Ascended armor should only add the infusions. If the base statistics of ascended armor matched the base statistics of exotic gear, most of the complaints would be gone. Arenanet would still be able to use the infusion mechanic in their bottomless dungeon. The infusion slot would still give an “infinite progression” for players who need a carrot and want to grind that dungeon. If the base statistics (minus infusion) were the same, it would not affect gameplay outside of that particular dungeon.

2. They should have communicated much earlier that exotics would NOT be the max statistic items. Many players invested time and money into items with which they are now very unhappy.

3. The blog post superficially sounds like the beginning of an uncontrolled grind-fest. I believe that is not Arenanet’s intention and they should have clarified this earlier to head off the massive forum unrest.

Unfortunately, we players can complain all we want, but it will change nothing. The new content is out very soon. There is no way they can change it at this point due to the time required for quality assurance before release. Once released, some players will invest time+money in ascended armor and they will be angered if their ascended gear is scaled back to exotic+infusion slot. So, we’re stuck with this change.

However, I think it’s not quite as bad as many (myself included) initially thought.

Understanding "Gear Progression"

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

showatt.9413

Contrary, a game without gear progression is plain bad because at max level you’re basically just playing dress-up with your character. You pour hours and hours into grinding, only to acquire some skins, how is that satisfying?

This is clearly talking about progression of stats on gear at the level cap.

Actually, I am talking about gear progression as a whole. I am the OP. I decide the topic of discussion and see if people joins in.

I won’t be responding to you again. You blatantly contradict yourself. You will also only be the OP until the moderators merge this back into the mega-thread. :-P

I posted a cogent argument thinking that you honestly didn’t know why people were outraged. I see now that you are not interested in a real discussion, only repeating your position.

Understanding "Gear Progression"

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Gear progression means not just obtaining the best gear possible, but also when you’re lower level and you get better gear as you level.

A very poor attempt at a straw man argument.

No one is arguing against gear progression while leveling. People are upset about gear progression at level cap. Read the negative effects I listed about the actual problem under discussion, and then try responding again. Without the ad hominem.

(edited by Sam.4728)

Understanding "Gear Progression"

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

As far as MMORPG business goes, Gear progression has always existed. Always, you will be able to acquire stronger, better looking armor through farming and grinding

I’m sorry, but you are just wrong. GW1 had three expansions and loads of content added over the 7 years it existed. You obtained your “best in slot” gear about halfway through the core game. Expansions never made that gear better. GW2 was sold under the claim that it would be like GW1 in this respect: skill-based, not time-spent-based.

To claim that “all MMORPGs have gear progression” just shows your ignorance.

There are multiple negative effects to a gear treadmill:

1. It makes old content obsolete. The rewards there are not as good as the new content. The monsters are too easy since they were balanced for lower tier gear. Thus, there is no reason to go back and play old areas of the game. Look at most other MMORPGS; the worlds is a wasteland except for the latest zone with the best new gear. GW2 was supposed to change that by deleveling you in early zones to keep them hard and a hard gear cap like GW1 to keep all end-game content interestnig.

2. It wastes peoples time. I spent time getting multiple exotic gears sets for my character so I could try out different builds. Now I will have to replace that gear. Why? Other people invested real money in gear that they can now throw away. Yes, it’s only a small upgrade, but if it’s not “the best stats”, then you will not be happy with the item.

3. It destroys diversity. If I have to upgrade gear regularly, I cannot afford the time to have multiple gears sets—and thus multiple builds. Instead, I will have to focus my time on only the most common (and thus least risky) build/gear setup. I was working towards several sets of exotic gear for my Elementalist so that I could try different builds as they came out (different builds need different stats). I did this based on the promise that GW2 would not have a gear treadmill and my gear would still have value in 5 years, like it did in GW1. Thus, I could try different things and experiment. Now, the cost-benefit has been shifted and it would be foolish to experiment on gear that will only last for a short while anyway.

4. It alienates casual players. Not everyone has the time to play constantly. GW1 was great in that if you had the “normal” armor, you could always team up with your friends without being a burden. Now, if you don’t have the time to keep up with a gear treadmill, ala WoW, you will either be excluded from groups in the new content or you will feel guilty for holding the group back. Look at how WoW players exclude people on the basis of gear scores! Not in GW2, please!

5. It moves from skill-based to time-based play. In GW1, when you got something hard done, you knew that it was because YOU, the player, had mastered the content. In WoW-like gear treadmills, it means that you, the player, spent enough time. “Achievement” of this sort is just hollow, and disrespectful of players who have actual jobs.

Try it before you knock it

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

Gear grind is a bad idea because of the grinding part implying the content needed to get the gear is boring and repetitive. But if Anet introduces content that is innovative and has replayability, then I don’t see the problem of adding gear progression along with that content.

What you’re overlooking is that gear progression makes old content obsolete. After 10 cycles of upgrades, running a dungeon that exists today would be pointless. It would be too easy (and no fun) and the rewards would be useless (and no fun). Vertical progression makes all the existing content obsolete. Half the reason I bought GW2 was due to the down-leveling for existing zones and the promise that all dungeons would be just as worth playing in two years as they are today.

I’ve played WoW for a while. There, you only ever have a few dungeons/raids that are at the top end of the content. The rest of the content is just dead. This makes the game very bland as there is little to do. The GW1 model (which they promised would apply to GW2!) allows for all the content to be something you can still do at a later time.

This is a horrible decision. It’s a real shame that they didn’t give a hint of this change earlier. Maybe if they had, they could’ve reversed this decision. Now it is almost certainly too late, given that QA has already been done on the new content.

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

This blog post is unbelievable. Who needs armor progression to feel progression? The WoW crowd already played GW2 for a while and left. Why is Arenanet catering to an audience that is gone at the expense of the audience they carried over from GW1? GW1 players hate this idea. WoW players like it. Which sort of customer does Arenanet think is still playing their game,today?

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads]

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Posted by: Sam.4728

Sam.4728

My first (and probably only post) on these forums:

Please do not make new armor contain better statistics than current exotics. If infusions are needed, let them be applied also to existing armor ala GW1. This policy change goes against the philosophy of respecting your players (time). I bought GW2 on the assumption that like GW1 it would be a skill-based not a time-wasted-based game.