Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to add that you didnt miss any story in AR. You just follow Ellen through it and defeat Mai there’s nothing more to it story-wise. I think the story progression comes from talking to Mai in her cell like the achievement says at some point (this doesnt seem to be implemented yet).

Also wanted to say that not all the threads you linked think that the hard difficulty is something bad. My thread was one of them and i think they should make more dungeons like this.

Ordin.9047:

Id be careful anet, because for every 1 person praising this dungeon there has been 10 people left frustrated. If you keep on frustrating them……

For every 1 statistically true number on forums there has been 1000 pulled out of someone’s kitten … There’s absolutely no way you could know how many like or dislike this dungeon.

Happysack.7132:

Who wants loot windows popping up when your trying to pwn people in wvw? I sure as heck don’t.

Who said anything about windows popping up? On the contrary i’m trying to introduce a less annoying looting system. The window will only open when you choose to open it (by clicking on the loot icon). And you will only have to open it maybe once every 10 minutes (or whatever is the despawn time on corpses in this game).

Actually there could even be a right-click “loot all” function on the icon if you prefer that. Or you could set it to loot everything to your bags until you get an overflow, after which the loot will go to this system. Or you could set it to loot rare stuff to your bags and keep everything else in this system. The possibilities are endless really.

The big thing here is that if you leave anything behind, you never have to stop and run back.

Edit: I see now how the OP could be misinterpreted to seem like the window pops up automatically. I’ve edited to clarify the fact that it does not.

Now that Anet has shown an interest in improving looting (thanks for Area Loot!), i thought I’d give this old suggestion another shot (it’s better then Area Loot).

Shpongle.6025:

Here’s the thing. If it’s hard, I get tired and bored of it and I stop doing it.

If it’s easy, It’s fun to me and i can repeatedly do it for hours, days, months(like cofp1 farm).

I guess we’re just 2 different people, and i believe there’s just as much people in my camp as there is in yours. Problem is that the content currently in the game caters a whole lot to the people that like things easy, i think they should try to balance that out more. This dungeon is a step in that direction.

The best solution would of course be a global difficulty setting, I’ve suggested implementing it as an extra-downscaling slider since downscaling is already in the game (hence should be fairly easy to implement). If people must have extra rewards for extra difficulty (I’m personally seeing the challenge as a reward in itself, but i know some people aren’t satisfied with that), then i guess a category of achievements with some titles would be ok. As long as it’s not rewarded with gear or aesthetics because then people will feel forced to do it.

A difficulty setting has been in games since the very beginning of gaming, and it has almost never granted any additional rewards, i don’t understand why MMOs frown upon the idea so much.

If you’re running with the trait that makes you create clones when you dodge, you can simply dodge straight away from her and let the created clone get hit by the teleport shot and the rest of the attack.

Not gonna go back and forth on this single skill for too long since it kinda derails the thread.

Anyway, i dont really use Hornet sting to dodge attacks. We already have dodge for that along with a 5 point trait that increases endurance regen by 50%. We also have evasion on serpent strike on the same weapon and if you’re running with dagger you got another evasion strike on that. Use shortbow or GS as your alternate and you got even more evasion skills, well you get the point

The main use i see for Hornet is quick positioning and disengaging to flee or switch target. Most mobs move fast enough to keep up with your dodging and hit you again when the dodge evasion is gone. With Hornet you always create a massive gap between you and your target, which is also perfect for setting up a bow kiting spree.

As for using Monarch’s Leap finisher i havent had the problem you describe much. I currently run with a melee pet and rolling out tends to make mobs switch agro to the pet and stay in the AoE. If they do keep agro on you, you can do 2 attacks from the 1-chain to get the short cripple then hornet, that should keep them in the area long enough. There’s also a massive amount of cripples/freezes/immobs from pets, utilities, alternate weapons and even elites to help you with that.

Bottomline: I think we can agree to disagree on this particular skill

Ok, i see where you’re coming from. Still, i dont agree about Hornet Sting/Monarch’s Leap needing work. It’s a very versatile and well thought-out skill imo and changing it to your version would remove a lot of that versatility and uniqueness.

About the attack chain i agree it shouldnt root you and prevent dodging (i personally disabled auto-attack on this to make it less annoying, but as you said, that does come with a slight dps loss). At the same time though, i very much like the current animation and would hate to see it changed to solve the problem.

So they would still be utility skills? What’s the point of them not being shouts then? Is it to have more traits affecting them?

Bran.7425:

Regroup Guard, Protect Me, Sick ‘em, and Search and Rescue as ’Pet’ Skills instead of Shouts then change the Shout Mastery to Companion Mastery.

How would you activate these pet skills though? GW2 follows a strict 4 special skills rule. And you still need attack, heel and swap pet available.

Girion.5483:

Sword

Verdict: Interesting design, but lacks the ability to disengage quickly and has no gap-closer.

Not sure what you mean by this. Hornet sting currently fulfills both these functions. If targeting a foe it provides a disengage and can be used as a gap closer towards a different foe. If you clear your target you can use the backwards roll as a gap closer (by turning your back towards the foe) and in the same fashion you can use the leap as a disengage. Clearing target can be bound to the keyboard by binding “Lock autotarget” (logical, i know).

AlexRD.7914:

Ours shortbow is the only on that has bleed when flanking restriction. Why?

Ranger is the only profession thats designed around always having a pet. Pets can get agro which allows the ranger to flank opponents much more frequently then any other profession.

Girion.5483:

…

I like all those ideas. Shouts are a bit lackluster right now and all your ideas seem more fun then the current implementation. One comment though: I doubt Anet will bring in voice actors for all the races to record new shout phrases at this point.

Girion.5483:

Please just consider the concept of the shouts rather than the exact numbers. The latter would be subject for balancing.

Indeed, as stated in the OP; try to keep this thread about changing the mechanics of skills, not tweaking numbers.

jubskie.3152:

On topic, it’s not a guide, article or video guide, but the discussion seems ok want me to include it in the compilation thread?

If you feel it fits your thread, you’re free to include it of course The more visibility this thread gets, the more great ideas we can gather up. Maybe we’ll even get a skill designer at Anet interested in something here someday * fingers crossed *.

Reserved for utility skill ideas.

My main redesign thoughts:

• A skill that simply delivers damage is boring. I will attempt to redesign any skill that doesnt provide depth beyond making the red bar go down.
• Most classes, including the ranger, lack interaction between skills. It’s good that the skills work individually and dont require a certain skill to precede them. However, i believe you can get the best of both worlds.
• It’s very uncommon to change the character animations when performing skills in post-production (patches). I’m therefore retaining the look of each skill when redesigning, while still making its mechanics more interesting and fun. Adding effects and sprites is a simpler matter however so that is something i’ll be using.

Longbow

Verdict: Quite a boring weapon currently. Has 2 abilities that only deal damage, 1 of which has the extra mechanic of being range dependant though. Some skill interaction within the bar could spice things up

Changes:

• Rapid Fire
  “Fire multiple arrows at your foe. If the last arrow hits a target, you gain Focus. Focus enhances your other Longbow abilities:
  -
  Long range shot: flies faster and does 150% damage
  Hunter shot: Shatters on impact, damaging and causing vulnerability to nearby foes
  Point blank shot: The focused force of this ability destroys weakened enemies, causing massive damage to foes under 30% health
  Barrage: Arrows land with increased force, scattering dust around their impact. Causes a smoke cloud [combo field: smoke] in the area of effect that blinds foes.
  -
  Using any ability affected by Focus consumes the effect, otherwise lasts 10 seconds”

Greatsword

Verdict: Pretty cool weapon. Maul and the first 2 attacks of the chain suffer from being simple damage though. Interaction between the chain and Maul could make both more interesting

Changes:

• Maul
  “Bleed your foe multiple times with a mauling strike. Gains additional effects when used as part of the Slash chain.
  Slash -> Maul: Bear down on the target, Immobilizing it for 2 seconds.
  Slash -> Slice -> Maul: The force of your slash projects a blade of wind forwards, damaging and blinding foes in its path for 1 second.
  Slash -> Slice -> Power Stab -> Maul: Smash your sword into the ground with increased power, damaging and bleeding nearby foes. [Combo Finisher: Blast]”
  Notice how the current animation of Maul can remain unchanged, only new effect sprites for the wind blade and a blastwave for the smash have to be added.

Shortbow

Verdict: I really like the feel of this weapon and therefore i’m only making small adjustments to add extra tactical depth.

Changes:

• Poison Volley
  “Fire a spread of five poison arrows. Each arrow leaves a trail of poison behind it [Combo Field: Poison]”
• Quick Shot
  Add [Combo Finisher: Leap] to this to allow a weakness combo with the new poison trails among other things. Reuse the programming behind the mesmers Phase Retreat leap finisher.

Sword

Verdict: Nice weapon. Nothing further.

Warhorn

Verdict: Really uninteresting weapon. Provides a standard buff and a standard damage with no depth or special mechanics at all. Desperately needs some tactical elements.

Changes:

• Hunter’s Call
  “Call hawks to swarm your foe. Lasts 3 seconds and deals damage over time. Dazes the target for the full duration if the foe is not attacked. Attacking the target causes the hawks to flee in a frenzy, dealing the remaining damage of the ability instantly but ending the daze effect.
• Call of the Wild
  “Grant fury, might, and swiftness to yourself and nearby allies. Also resets the cooldown on Hunter’s Call”

Torch

Verdict: Bonfire gives you a combo field, thats pretty much the only marginally interesting thing about this weapon.

• Throw Torch hereby renamed Beacon
  Throws your torch at the target location, creating a fiery beacon that grants Protection and Vigor to allies in its area [Combo Field: Light]. Throwing your torch into a Bonfire will also reignite it, refreshing its duration.

Axe – Offhand

Verdict: Kind of like this one, mostly cause of the awesome animation on Whirling Defense. Mechanics do leave a bit to be desired but its not bad. Just gonna throw an idea out there for good measure though.

• Path of Scars
  “Throw your axe so that it returns to you, striking foes each way. If you are channeling Whirling Defense when the axe returns, it will instantly be thrown back out towards your current target”

Axe – Mainhand

Verdict: Never really liked throwing axes so i dont know what can be done here, just gonna say the weapon is very uninspired and pretty much steals all its skill mechanics from other weapons.

Dagger

Verdict: It’s an ok weapon, not very exciting but both attacks do have some mechanics to them. Will maybe add something here later.

This thread is intended as a place to be creative and share what you think would make the ranger skill set better. It is not a place to whine about the current skill set or plead to Anet about skill changes. Anet is of course free to take inspiration from here but it is still their game and therefore their choice.

When i say “make the skill set better” I mean more fun, not necessarily more balanced. After all, balance is mostly a matter of number tweaking, and that can be done after implementation and testing. In other words: balance is not the main concern of this thread (dont take that to mean you should invent the i-win-button as a new skill though).

So what are your thoughts? I’m sure a lot of you out there have a completely different view on what the ranger could do to make it more fun. Contributions and player-to-player feedback about the new skills/changes posted are both encouraged (don’t dare to hope for dev-to-player feedback, but it certainly would be nice too ).

Enough intro, let’s get to it!

Oh, almost forgot:

Make combo finishers more interesting and useful. In too many cases, the field itself is doing the exact same thing as the finisher. You dont even notice you’re doing combos in many cases, seems like a waste of an awesome system with so much potential. Also the effects are a bit weak, particularly in solo play.

Could make it so that the finishers are twice as powerful when comboing with your own fields, that should make them a more central part of your combat rotation but keep them from being abused by large groups. This would require some skill redesign to balance out the amount of finishers/fields among classes though. Could become quite a big project.

High prio:

• Generally make skills more interesting, specifically add something special to skills that simply “does X damage”. Could be interactions with other skills on the same bar, example:
  Ranger Rapid Fire:
  “Finishing the channel on this ability will grant Focus. Focus enhances your other abilities:
  Long range shot: flies faster and does 150% damage
  Hunter shot: Shatters on impact, damaging nearby foes and causing vulnerability to all
  Point blank shot: The focused force of this ability destroys weakened enemies, causing massive damage to foes under 30% health
  Barrage: Is no longer channeled, instead delivers half the damage of its full duration in one single area hit
  Using any ability affected by Focus consumes the effect, otherwise lasts 10 seconds”

• Implement this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Fixing-looting-issues-F-spam-badges-etc/

• Increase respawn timers on world mobs so you dont get backstabbed by groups you just killed while you’re engaging the next group. This happens a lot when e.g. fighting groups that overlevel you and thereby take some time and effort to kill.

Medium prio:

• Allow some form of increased difficulty in world combat as an option. Currently the only way is seeking out overlevelled enemy groups (and getting backstabbed by insane respawn timers), and this method is impossible for max level characters.
  Suggestion: allow the player to add additional downscaling to themselves. (has been suggested before several times)
  Example:
  Player A is in a low level area and is downscaled to level 5
  Player B is in the same area and has chosen 2 levels extra downscaling and is therefore downscaled to level 3. Making it more difficult.

• Increase overall movement speed. This didnt annoy me so much at first but after trying out SWToR for a little while it really becomes apparent how kitten slow you move around in this game.

Nice to have:

• Cooler running animations, think assassin from GW1. They’ll never implement this though, too much work put into the current ones.

That’s what comes to mind right now but i definitely have more improvement ideas. Never get any feedback from the devs on suggestions though (i dont blame them though, boatloads of crap to sort through around here) so it seems pointless to post them.

I suggest you rename the topic. A lot of people (including me) will think you’re talking about waypoint travel, not movement speed.

Small note: the TP is not a gold sink since the money will still be in player circulation. A gold sink is a way to remove gold from the economy completely in order to prevent inflation. Unless your talking about posting cost but that is really miniscule.

Zeno Iagara.8540:

We have all this snow with plenty of slopes so can we have some skis please?

Thanks

This should fulfill your skiing urges:
Tribes: Ascend

I have 8 characters on my account and across all of them i have full world completion, but my most complete character is only on 50%. Why? Because when i play an alt i want something left to explore, i want new stuff to discover. The current system encourages you to explore everything on your main and then go “same old, same old” on all your alts.

My idea is this:

1. Make world exploration account-wide.

Each character can still discover all exploration points (skill points, vistas, interest, waypoints) individually and get xp for it, but the zone completion system works with the sum of all your characters.

What this means is that if each exploration point in a zone has been discovered on at least 1 character you will get a zone completion reward. If each exploration point has been discovered by at least 2 characters you will get the completion award again and so forth.

Same goes for total world completion. If you’ve discovered the whole world twice across all characters you will get the reward for it twice (for those that want several legendaries for example).

2. Change the appearance of exploration points if they are already counted towards zone completion.

For example by adding a colored border to the icon (see attachment). The border will appear if the exploration point has been discovered more times then the zone has been completely discovered. Meaning that if you discover all the points without a border, you will get zone completion.

World completion will work the same way, if you’ve completed a zone more times then you’ve achieved full world completion, the zone completion icon will appear with a blue border. So completing all zones without a border will give you the world completion reward.

In the attachment below, from left to right we have a Point of Interest that is:

• Undiscovered by this character
• Discovered by another character but not yet awarded for zone completion
• Discovered by this character and already awarded for zone completion
• Discovered by this character but not yet awarded for zone completion

If the game has entertained you for over 1000 hours i’d say it’s quite logical that you’ve run out of content (i dont count legendary grind as content). After that amount of time spent, the only thing that can keep a game interesting is a competitive aspect, or (for some people that like it) a grind for some reward.

Competitive aspects in this game are pretty limited to the PvP side of things though. If you’re a PvE person there’s not much to pick from yet.

You can try to get high fractal level but that’s a grind cause you can’t choose to skip the levels that are below your capabilities. After the fractal fix happens, you could find someone at a fractal level that challenges you and directly play at that level as long as he’s in your party. That would enable you to skip the grindy part and just play challenging content with the goal of getting top fractal rank.

Other than that, GW1 had timed dungeons with leaderboards so that might make a return in GW2 in the future.

Bottomline though, if you’ve achieved all your PvE goals and have no interest in PvP it’s probably time to move on to another game until there’s new content to interest you.

And here’s the accompanying sheet for fields, thought i’d share since i’ve found them very useful myself:

I agree the necro needs more combos. All classes need more combos tbh, and combos need more interesting effects… but thats another matter.

On another note, here’s a nice spreadsheet showing most of the finishers in the game (it’s a bit outdated, was made during beta and credit goes to someone else).

I agree area loot or true auto loot (no F needed) would both be improvements over what we currently have, but they both still have some downsides compared to this.

Area loot doesnt let you choose what to loot, it just vacuums up everything and lets you handle the sorting in your bags which can be annoying when you want 1 item out of 15 dropped and you need to destroy the other 14 items manually. The area it loots is also limited so there will still be some running around and F spam persists since you still need to make sure you vacuumed everything.

Auto loot has the same problems as area loot with picking up stuff you dont want but has no F spam or running around. It also has issues when the inventory gets full, where does the loot go then?

This system i suggested incorporates all the advantages of auto loot while eliminating the disadvantages. It’s also quite flexible and can be expanded with options such as “Take all collectibles”, “Take all items above X rarity” etc. to make selective looting even faster.

Updated Topic for clarity.

poe lyfe.5879:

this sounds way more complicated than just pressing f a couple times.

How is this more complicated? It works like looting always has, just with a better interface that eliminates all the downsides mentioned in the beginning. It will be less clicks, no unnecessary running around (i hate this), and no missed loot.

I even explained the concept in one short paragraph, it’s not complicated at all:

The corpses of everything you kill follow you around (not graphically of course). This allows you to loot them whenever and wherever you like as long as they haven’t disappeared/despawned. Then add the possibility to view the loot of all corpses in one window.

Keep reading if you agree with the following:

• You don’t like missing out on loot cause you didn’t see a corpse or bag through the thick of the battle or because it’s hidden by the terrain.
• Picking up loads of trash just to see if any enemy was carrying something useful is impractical.
• Spamming F when looting can lead to interactions you didn’t expect or want (talk/pick up/activate/etc.) [this was fixed with the recent addition of an optional separate loot button].
• Having to stop after every fight to loot is annoying and makes you lose momentum.

Agreed? Good. Now, here it is…

THE SOLUTION

Remove all the sparkles from corpses (no more F-button) and add a new button to the UI that opens a list of all loot these corpses have on them. This list shows all loot that has dropped recently and you can pick items directly from this list (not from the corpses) and place them in your inventory.

The loot is sorted under the names of the enemies that dropped it and since corpses disappear after a certain time, the remaining time is shown next to the enemy name for your convenience. Once the time runs out, the loot disappears like expected (unless you have moved it to your backpack).

THE SOLUTION… Again

If you didn’t quite grasp the concept yet, here’s another (perhaps more morbid) way to look at it: The corpses of everything you kill follow you around (not graphically of course). This allows you to loot them whenever and wherever you like as long as they haven’t disappeared/despawned. Then add the possibility to view the loot of all corpses in one list.

There you have it; the solution to all of the above.

Still not satisfied? See a downside to this compared to what we currently have? Or maybe you just want to support this idea? Please feel free to comment.

Precautions

Now since i can predict the future, I’m gonna reply to some posts that i know will come if i don’t:

I usually want to loot everything, not pick specific items

Add a Take All button to the list and voilà, your loot-everything days just got a whole lot easier (no more running around searching for sparklies).

On the other hand, if you only got trash and don’t want any of it or if you’ve already taken what you want from the list; add a Discard All button to make it nice and clean for your next batch of fresh kills.

I don’t want loot disappearing while I’m looking at them just cause some stupid timer ran out. Currently, the corpse will always stick around while i keep the loot window open

This new window/list can have the same effect, when it’s open, no items will disappear until it’s closed again, even if a timer expires. “But then we can always keep it open and have an infinite inventory!” Aha! But here’s the kicker: the window automatically closes if you move, just like a corpse looting window does.

While the window is closed, the button could light up when there’s loot to be had and on top of it, it could show the timer that’s closest to expiration.

Simple suggestion, it has been said before and it deserves to be said again until it’s added cause there’s just no reason not to. Here it is:

• Give us a bind to Toggle right-mouse-camera-mode.
  Instead of making us hold the button down 99% of the time, allow us to just click it once in a while. Makes sense doesn’t it?

• Add an option to have a centered crosshair when in right-mouse-camera-mode.
  For those that don’t know; you can use AoEs while controlling the camera by double tapping your skill key. This will aim your AoE to where the mouse pointer was when you last pressed down your right button. It would be far more practical if it was instead always aimed at the middle of the screen and if there was a crosshair for you to keep track of where this is. The same crosshair will also show where your projectiles are fired if no target is selected or if you lose your target during a multi-shot skill (such as the rangers Rapid Fire).

That is all.

Take notice that the above is supposed to be optional so anyone that prefers the way it currently works can keep it that way.

Mogar.9216:

Shathron.5790:

I used target nearest ally up until a patch about a month ago where they changed the behavior to keep your target if no allies are nearby.

Took some experimentation before i found the illogical alternative “lock autotarget”.

THANK U!! I have been clicking on empty space after that patch which is a pain.

You’re welcome, and i feel your pain

I used target nearest ally up until a patch about a month ago where they changed the behavior to keep your target if no allies are nearby.

Took some experimentation before i found the illogical alternative “lock autotarget”.

By the way, thanks for indirectly reminding me of the right-click → equip offhand thing. I’ve been drag and dropping in the hero screen which is a real PITK

Intigo.1653:

Fishbait.6723:

Wxactly what Thetreebranch said.

I`ve never had any dagger equip into off hand. Player since beta & this is first time.
I agree trying to sort bags to find that dagger is a pain in the kitten though.

It has worked like this for at least a few months.

Source: I’ve used it for months.

Also used it for months, cant remember a time when it didnt work and i’ve been in every beta weekend and played since launch. Could be i’ve just forgotten it used to be like that, but i’m sure its not a recent addition.

Navzar.2938:

Just click with the ground with the mouse to clear target.

That’s the option i was referring to when saying it’s not reliable. If there’s something that you dont see where you click and you accidentally target it you’re gonna die. If you move the mouse a little between press and release it wont clear target and you’ll die. Keyboard bind with 100% success rate is just so much better

Incorrect. It works like it always has. If the offhand is empty it will equip the weapon there instead of swapping your mainhand. So swapping from staff to D/D works by double click only but swapping from S/F to D/D by double clicking will result in D/F.

This problem isnt as annoying as how it places unequipped weapons though. If you have D/D equipped and double click a staff it will currently place the offhand weapon on the first free slot counting from the top of the inventory which makes it really annoying to find. A better system would be that it places the first dagger where your staff was then the second dagger on the first free slot counting from where the staff was.

Annoyingly enough, i’ve found no “clear target” bind. However, the bind named “lock autotarget” will function as a “clear target” if you have auto-targetting disabled. Use this bind whenever you plan on escaping with RTL. Clicking on an empty spot on the screen works sometimes but it’s not reliable, espacially not in WvW.