Guild Wars 2

A spiritual successor to GW1 would be nice. I’d buy that any day.

how do I make gold?

I go to work, 5 to 6 times a week.

Good synopsis. I agree with the OP.

I’m not into the gear grind mentality, and GW2 doesn’t have the appeal of the original in terms of gameplay (solo builds, team builds, etc) and content (zergs, no please) to keep me going.
So I just play for a couple of days after each update (which are underwhelming most of the time) and then I’m off to other games I enjoy.

The OP is right, as a huge GW1, I am not finding the goodness of the original in the sequel. But whatever, not all games are meant for everyone. All is good.

Agree with the OP.

I did map completion on 1 out of 8 toons I have (long time ago). The waiting was so extremely annoying that it made me dislike WvW ever since for no other reason.

Never played it again, and I don’t intend to step in there (I get my pvp fix every day in BF4 — 64-player conquest matches) unless I miraculously craft more than 2 legendary. But considering I only play couple hours/week this game, that is very unlikely.

Still, I believe coercing people into WvW with a ‘front page’ 93%-pve achievement is not right.

This has been proposed for a long time.
I don’t see any harm in giving players more choice (at least in PvE it could be a no-brainer).
And yes, I would pick a utility skill instead of an elite any time.

Will it happen? Probably not, for whatever dumb reason Anet can think of related to game ‘philosophy’.
But let’s not forget, in GW1 the community asked for 7 heroes and Anet most vehemently said it will never happen because it goes against the game ‘philosophy’. Guess what, it eventually happened. Too late.

I don’t know much about Scarlet, I just know her voice acting drives me insane.

However, it’s not all bleak, she is one step below Traherne, who makes me play the story missions (starting with Claw island) with no sound.

‘This won’t end well’

PS: To the lead writer: accept the challenge to improve the story delivery method and come out on top; I don’t think it’s easy for anyone to take in so much criticism. best wishes.

PS2: Personally I’d like to see the LS story tie in with the main game lore (and existing characters) to a much larger extent.

I was close to beating Teq once, but got disconnected with 1 minute before the kill. Didn’t make it back in. No reward.
Things I didn’t like:
- 30min spamming join x party member to get in the main server.
- another 30min waiting in Sparkfly for event.
- I was in mumble with 125 random people (should not be a requirement to go through open content in a game; or make voice chat available in game for people to communicate properly)
- the fight itself was boring on a personal level. Just a zerg-ball with a lot of bloom and special effects; couldn’t see much of anything. Nothing hard about it. I’d say the only thing hard about this fight is the wait time, getting in the right server instance and for the commanders to organize the turret parties)

But after failing this event I realized how toxic the game was becoming. Everything was frustrating, no fun at all.

So I stopped playing GW2 (for ~ 3 weeks now) and picked up five other games. Wow, what I good change that was. Having a blast and I recommend that to anyone who has become frustrated with the game. Do yourself a favor.
Might try GW when I see something fun (which is the whole point of a game)

TL;DR: Take a break and try something new if you’re dissatisfied with the game experience GW is giving you. A sensible advice.

While I acknowledge the quality of the new temporary map, I have to agree they are over-doing the jumping wars in this game.
With every patch the game gets goofier and it’s loosing direction and purpose.

I’d like to see more permanent additions to open world events (you know, DE that were supposed to be the bread and butter of this game) and meaningful content that involves combat mechanics (yes, using the normal skill bar). For example they could have Hirathi Hinterlands completely invaded by centaurs, and a month-long event for taking it back, with lots and lots of dynamic events. Going on that theme, they could add new skills to centaurs that would make players think what skill-build is best suited to counter them (both solo and in groups).

No more jumping games please.

thehipone.6812:

Kerin.9125:

Yet again, the PVE side of the game is considered collateral damage to keep the PVPers whining down.

The phrase “nerfed to the ground” is often over-used, but IMO it applies perfectly to what Anet just did to Rangers’ pets.

In Guild Wars Land it isn’t called nerfed to the ground, it’s called Smiter’s Booned

^This is the way AN knows how to balance a game.

“This skill was modified in the August 21st, 2008 update to effectively remove it from PvP. In a Developer update, ArenaNet stated, “We recognize that the changes to this skill will essentially remove it from play. In the future, we may consider whether or not there is an incarnation of this skill that would be viable but balanced. For now, we do not expect it to see serious use.”"

Don’t get so worked up folks. The food requires 1 crystalline dust + 50 saffron threads + 40 pieces of zhaitaffy + 2 white cake for half an hour boost. You don’t need it at that cost.
Even if the recipe was given to you right now you will not use it.

You should change your name to ’TheWISEoldman".

I’m glad for you. And you are right about your final conclusion.

That place just needs a little bit of attention to scaling and some rewards.

Apparently they’re working on a better reward system across the board.

Don’t hold your breath though, you might get hypoxia.

CMF.5461:

I really wonder how combat would go if it was one or two hits and you die, vice versa with the mobs.

One on one fights would be doable, two on one would be risky, three on one would be a challenge.

Shorter, faster fights, with more emphasis on timing and skill to land a hit while avoiding being hit yourself, versus large HP pools, stats, and auto attacks.

Engaging in combat is more interesting and adrenalin filled if you are afraid of being hit. Now you have to pick and choose our fights as well as know your enemy.

^This. Shorter and intense fights.

Also kiting mobs would make chill and cripple useful in PvE. I’m all for that.

Well. I’m slowly drifting away from the game. I used to be very involved, even bought gems to show support and gemstore items (NOT rng chests) that seemed cool.

What would make me interested in the game with an update would be a serious re-think of the combat system. For me it has become very dull (and I play 7 of the 8 classes). And I’d like them to also be faster paced.

The second thing I’m looking for in patches is a lot more evolving dynamic chain events (emphasis on chain) since this was the main hyping point of this game. And not big meta events because they have shown they are not capable, at this point, to make them anything but an “auto-attack snorefest with extreme lag and culling”.

The RNG kitten is also disgusting. Would like to see them stop with it.

In the meantime I’m playing Company of Heroes 2, Saints Row 3, Sleeping Dogs and Hitman, with many other games in the pipeline. I’m spending my money where it’s worth. Also looking forward to do some map creation in CoH2.

Obsidian.1328:

There wasn’t any fee to play GW1 either. In any case, GW2 will eventually get more content…it just takes time. But I don’t think that’s what the OP was commenting on. He/she was remarking on the mechanical gameplay differences between the two.

Strategic/build-heavy(GW1) vs tactical/skill-timing(GW2). <—can’t change that dynamic in either game really.

If you played a mesmer in GW1, it was all about skill timing. In fact, skill timing in GW1 was no less important that it is now in GW2.

The way I see it, in GW1 the strategy was about skill synergy between the 8 party members (I mean serious synergy, and skill chains) and having the proper counter-skills for specific zones/encounters. In GW2, the focus is more on positioning and dodging (skill synergy to a much lesser extent). It is futile to argue which is better, because it comes down to personal flavors.

For me, I just wish GW2 had more weapon skills and more synergy between traits and skills. And that elites would be meaningful. It would be perfect.

Simply, the Dervish of GW1. Scythe-wielding spinning death machine.

This is pretty awesome. Going to try it.

I think only the Devs can answer that question both for GW1 and GW2.

Only they have this data (PvP vs. PvE population count, average % played per account, etc) and everyone else is just speculating.
There was a poll not long ago on this forum and last time I checked, after about 700 respondents, only 7% played exclusively PvP (tPvP and WvW); the majority played PvE exclusively, while still a good amount played mixed PvE and WvW.
But again, this poll size is almost insignificant to the game population. You’d have to wonder how representative it was.

On the other hand I know the devs will say they want people to have all the options available to play (i.e., both game types) so they will add content to both as time goes on.

They really need to do something about mapping the WvW world. At least make it necessary to map only one borderland (home borderland) to get completion. EB should not be mixed up with mapping.

I agree with that.
Something has to be done to address the technical limitations with intelligent design.

@ ski.6180

I think you are derailing the discussion about the main problem with conditions in an open world environment, which is the stack cap or duration overlap.
- if a champion target has 25 bleed stacks from 2 players (very doable), your own bleed skills do nothing.
- if a target is already burning/poisoned your own burn/poison condition might not even trigger before the target dies.

Point being, direct damage is instant and never reduced by what others do; whereas condition damage is reduced based on what others are doing.

Duels can happen on different ‘arenas’ found in the open world. Once the competitors enter, the gates are closed and nobody can leave until one player is defeated or concedes defeat. These fights are visible to all other players visiting the arena.

Patch notes:

*Ranger and Engineer balance:
- Ranger pets become immobile, and can be deployed on a cooldown
- Engineer turrets become mobile and regenerate health

*Warriors are banned from using shouts in cities. There is so much we can endure ‘for great justice’.

*We noticed you are not using your elite skills. We are taking them away. The elite skill slot is replaced with the ‘Harlem shake’ emote

Aza.2105:

Elites are terrible in gw2, none of them have much synergy with builds. Were as with gw1, your build revolved around your elite.

And it seems to me, that Anet had a fetish with transforms. Two of guardian elites are transforms, warrior has one, ele has one, engi has one, I think all of necros are transform elites (lol), mesmer elite transforms the enemy.

Elites should of been much better versions of skill types the class already has, like for guardian they should have: A elite meditation, a elite shout, a elite spirit weapon, a elite signet, a elite symbol and a elite consecration and virtue. The same type of pattern should apply to the other classes.

And the cooldowns should be as long as normal skills, 3min cooldowns do not fit with such a fast paced game. I don’t think there were no 3min cds in gw1. I think the max I remember seeing was 1min.

^This

Elites should have synergy with the rest of your bar.
I play 5 classes and in all my builds I would trade the elite for an additional utility skill that actually fits in.

Shape shifting elites are the biggest problem. For one thing they take away your utility and heals and rarely provide a damage increase (even if marginal).

There are a few exceptions where elites complement your build, like the flesh golem for minion master, and the supply crate for a turret engie, the FGS for a conjure ele. But the options are extremely limited.

Summon elites are borderline useful, and racial elites are often a bad joke.

For example, on my ele I would swap any time my elite summon with the non-elite summon which has 100% upkeep. On the other hand I would love to see an elite ‘cantrip’ or ‘arcane’ or ‘signet’.

Tl;DR:
- Some elites complement your build, most don’t fit and the selection is extremely limited.
- Shape-shifting elites are generally bad because they take away utility/heals.
- Racial elites are weaker across the board than class elites.

My opinion (not fact):

1) First of all, condition builds should be radically changed for PvE. The mechanic is broken with the current cap and any deriving balance layered out on top of it will be fundamentally flawed.

2) A distinction should be made for:
2-i) in-class balance, where all weapons, utility skills for a certain profession have equal opportunity to shine. (focus on weapons here)

2-ii) between-class balance. Can all classes provide the three role archetypes (damage, defense, party support) with equal efficiency? (this goes for both instanced or open content).

3) All elite skills should be revamped. The elite should not be tangential to a build, but the core element. Here the skill-bar changing elites (or shape-shifting) are the biggest problem. Who wouldn’t like to take a 4th utility skill instead of an elite?

4) All balance should be done separately for PvP and PvE.

5) Metrics should be used to balance skill/build efficiency, not just the subjective ‘feeling’. For example, for each class, measure how much damage you can dish to single/multiple targets per unit interval (30sec/ 60sec/ 90sec) when using the damage archetype (more than one build should be available for each class). Or measure how much damage a class can sustain before going down in the defensive archetype.

6) Between-class absolute balance assumes that they all perform the same. However, this might not be desired if the devs want to give each class a specific advantage (a class uniqueness). However, this advantage should be clearly evident and exploited.

PS: I don’t know why I wasted my time writing this. It’s because I like the game and wish to see it get better.

Hmm….

EDIT: Message Body length must at least be 15

@ Rising Dusk & Diviner – Cheers to you two fellows. This stuff is helpful for a lot of guilds out there.

@ Vargs – If that happens, I envision a future where you’d have to do a jumping puzzle ‘a la’ Mad King Tower to get to a bounty boss. All within a strict time limit. Fun for some, agony for others. It’s dicey.

Thanks for the reply.
Here are my questions:

1. Can you identify which ‘suspicious rat’ is the boss before the bounty is started?
(from what we’ve seen, the rats can only be ‘attacked’ when the bounty timer is on, so I personally don’t think you can check which of the ~20? rats is the good one, aka. pre-scout)

2. If the boss kills the person who found it, does it always immediately disappear from that location?

3. If above is true, do all the rats re-spawn randomly at that time?

4. If point 2 is true, is the bounty failed right there?

5. When the boss is activated, does it have a map-marker visible to everyone on that map, like other bounties do?

Let’s get the ideas flowing.

No tips at all? Anyone done this boss? Was it just luck?

I haven’t seen a place where strategy discussion about guild missions are taking place.

I would like to ask others about good strategies to find and defeat Yanonka the Rat Wrangler.

Our guild drew this bounty 3 times in a row last night and failed to complete it (partly because we had other difficult ones like Sotzz, Prisoner 1411 or 2-Mult). But for this bounty specifically we had a rough time finding it.

About 40 people participating in the bounty, all on voice chat with lots of coordination. For tier 3 we split into 3 groups, meaning 2 bounties/group.

We had 6-8 people looking for Yanonka and it was only found once. However the boss quickly wiped the guildie who found the correct rat and then disappeared. We couldn’t find it again after that in the 8 min left.

In our defense, we didn’t know anything about the spawn mechanics of this boss, so the first 2 bounty missions failed because we were figuring out what and where to search. The third time we thought we had it covered but we still failed.

Would like to hear how others got this boss done, to learn more about it.

PS: please don’t turn this into a complaint/insult thread. I’d like to keep it constructive to work out a good strategy for this boss.

EDIT: changed thread title to better represent the content

Top guild. A lot of fun all around. Guild missions bring everyone together.
Awesome group.

This is pretty much the reason why I don’t even think of attempting world exploration on my 4 alts.
I’ve had enough troubles doing it once on my main, and waiting about 2 months to get the final POI and Vista in WvW.

cargan.5689:

Dont worry keep buying keys youll get there

Lol. This is sublime.

To all others who wonder why they aren’t in the TP for direct purchase, obviously the company makes more money from people gambling on keys than they make from skin purchases (they tried both models, after all). There is no other explanation.

As long as we have hamsters, this RNG will keep spinning.

If you bought keys and now complain you didn’t get a skin, please be aware that you empowered the RNG system.

Probably enough weak souls to gamble away on the BLC. Anet just exploits that.

Flamenco.3894:

Just completed zone 1 in world 1 and I got a precursor from the end chest

Pic or it never happened.
Also, please wait until Apr 1st to start with this

I switched to using a mace/shield with staff secondary because I was a little bored with greatsword (which is still king).

The mace/shield combo is awesome at tanking in dungeon/fractals boss fights. However, to have any sort of damage output you have to up the critical chance + critical dmg stats. Which for guardian is easy because the precision and toughness lines work well together.

This website doesn’t show the PvE trinkets so stats are a bit off. However skills and traits are correct: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQNApeWlYgKCXFSLEf4EhlCCaQMFYE+XPooEZIA;T4AAyyvEaJ9StlSLqsMZJyymlLLZWDCmFA

In short I aim for:
- 3200 armor (~ 43% damage reduction)
- 16-17 k vitality
- 41% crit chance + 54% crit dmg
- roughly 2500 attack
- 100% magic find (from pirate runes and celestial trinkets + food)
- 500 healing power

The build makes use of ‘altruistic healing’ + ‘empowering might’ + ‘shouts’ to give constant healing. Also on staff swap the nr.4 skill ‘empower’ will give you roughly 15k health back (that’s a full heal on 20 sec cooldown) when 5 allies are empowered. The staff will crit at roughly over 1k/hit so when you swing it at a bunch of grouped enemies you do 5-7k damage effectively per swing.
Obviously this is not a min/max build but it’s great for dungeons where you have a lot of survivability, party support and still output moderate damage to be useful. However, your role will be to keep the heavy hitting mobs from engaging your party mainly.

Some people will say magic find is useless, and it might be true to some extent, but I’m testing it out now. The last lvl 20 fractals I had 7 rare drops + cores + globs + 5-6 rare mats + ascendent ring. On average I still see better drops than without MF. I have 4 other toons which don’t use any MF and I honestly notice a difference in drop quality.

I’m not sure if it was mentioned already, but the fact that culling is more apparent in PvE now compared to the launch is because they likely reduced the draw count to save on server bandwidth.

They said server bandwidth is also one of the reasons they have culling. I expect culling to get worse for PvE now that WvW gates are open to balance out bandwidth usage.

(just my opinion)

They could take all the exotic weapons that are exclusively obtained from the Mystic Toilet now and make them unique drops attached to different champs bosses around the world (and to dungeon bosses).

In GW1 the beauty about farming these bosses was that you created a whole party build specifically for that boss, so it gave you a reason to experiment with build synergies, etc.

Based on ge2lfg an unpopular dungeon must be Caudecus Manor. Very few groups are signing up for that at prime time (Saturday//Sundays)

I think more should be said about p3 final boss and the broken NPC protective shield. That’s the only major problem we have doing this dungeon (experienced dungeon players, in guild groups).

All the remaining active members of my guild joined [CYN]. A great group, very friendly and very helpful.
The guild is well managed and people are having a blast in Mumble playing W3 and other guild events.

I can confirm this. We tried for one hour to beat that boss, but it’s impossible if the NPC doesn’t out up the bubble, or if he dies early during the fight.

I also tried scepter/focus initially, but quickly realized the scepter works better with dagger offhand. The skills just fit very well for Fire and Earth, and to a lesser extent for water and air (imo).
I will later try a dagger/focus combination, but I’m happy with S/D for now.

copy-paste: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQJArYhMmObvR3wjDAkCmEeQADJMeECIkA;TQAA1GFcYYCB

New features:

- Following feedback from the community for the tediousness of acquiring precursor weapons, a new coin currency was introduced for completing the main story: “Legendarions”. They are limited to one per character and can be exchanged for precursor weapons at the new trader, “Zelda”, in LA. One-handed weapons: 70 Legendarions, two-handed weapons 100 Legendarions.

- Removed a bug where characters could be deleted.

- Each time you purchase a new character slot, its subsequent price increases by 100 gems.

- Purchasing character slots has an internal cool-down of 1 week.

- Removed a bug where personal story cut-scenes could be skipped.

- ‘Going forward’™ we will introduce new exciting ways of acquiring the precursors. By our metrics we estimate that 0.013% of the game population will own a legendary weapon by 2015.

I’m the leader of a small guild on TC (~25 members, ~ 12 daily actives, all adults). We’ve been through many years of GW1 (where we were leading a 6-guild alliance) and started fresh during GW2 beta. However, I don’t have the time this year to manage the guild and with the new guild missions it is even harder to attract more members.
Most of the still active members do PvE, but some have interest in W3 and pvp.

I’m going to ask our active members if they fancy a merger. However, the thing about the weekly website visit it’s not going to be viable for some. I know since we have a forum (going for 5+ years) and some just don’t engage in it, but are very active in-game.

I will edit my post with a reply in the future.

I wouldn’t do too many calculations how to obtain ascended gear.
Because once you grind it all, they’ll raise the level cap and make it all vendor trash.

Just play for fun, not for gear; and quit when you stop having fun.

EDIT: the focus of the guild will be to unlock and complete the new guild missions.
Therefore we’re looking to expand to a mid-size (~100players) group.

Hey konid.
Give our guild a try. It fits your description. We have 10-16 daily actives and are focused mainly on PvE with some members doing WvW.
Our intention is to grow to a mid-size, while still keeping the familiarity of members.

Whisper me in game

The guild was created at game launch and has seen many people come and go.

Now that long term players have settled into the game we’re looking to expand our active membership.

Currently at 10-11 daily active members we’re inviting dedicated and casuals alike to help grow a friendly and mature community.

We are PvE oriented (open world mapping, dungeons and the new guild missions), have most guild upgrades and a long standing forum that just waits to be used.

Please whisper me in-game (“Silver Chopper”) for an invite (no questions asked).
Give us a try!

The pace of the combat is good. Target acquisition/auto-locking can be improved upon.

A bigger pool of weapon skills (let’s say, choose between 3 options for each 1-5 skill) would make for a greater variety of specialized builds. I’d like that a lot.

I’d like them to have the gut to experiment more with the skill system.