Guild Wars 2

CptAurellian.9537:

Sephylon.4938:

When I think exploit, I think of the old portal strategy in mo and escort. These break the encounter is some way. To me, distorting mechanics isn’t so much an exploit as it is an oversight in balance, wouldn’t you agree?

Exactly this.

I can agree, and Arenanet did in fact stick to their guns with this and instead create something like Deimos where you have to use a block as Distort or Dodge doesn’t work on that AoE attack.

I’m of the belief that the Raid Dev Team has picked and combed through the feedback, strategies, builds, anything 10-man relevant when it comes to their first set of Raids. They probably don’t want to go back to fix KC but instead get around to it when the tech is developed to make those the AI and mechanics actually work…maybe for a future encounter. But they do learn from how Green Circles are treated with invulns and specifically narrowed down a new type of attack that needs to be blocked and is undodgable/goes through invuln.

No one can say how difficult the next raid will be. I hope they push us again since we are getting new tools, stats and builds to develop with PoF Specs, and since the recent new Fractal CM I have confidence we will see a Difficulty increase with the new Expansion. Or at least the mechanics will be engaging and fresh enough for us all.

perry.9645:

CptAurellian.9537:

Byron Miller.4629:

We’re made note of these inconsistencies and will be standardizing all boss damage auras alongside the next raid release.

Check the raid patch-notes for details at that time.

Can you make all damage auras unblockable then? That would at least give aegis some reason to exist.

it would also kitten off every chrono trying to get 2 shield phantasms

Just buff the boss autos, VG hits like a wet noodle amirite?

You did not play Spellbreaker lol. The Daggers are very weak on their own, across the board they need damage buffs.

I played a bit of Renegade as well, it definitely needs to have a lot of work or at least a focus somewhere.

Two areas it could use work, both related to PvE (I’ve not tried a PvP aspect yet):

- If you want a pure DPS, Renegade absolutely needs more Chill to synergize with Mallyx. I wonder if there was some Renegade utility like an ‘Icerazor’ or something that could apply chill instead of cripple….however by doing this WITHOUT applying a ICD to Abyssal Chill we would see dozens of stacks of Torment being applied. I recommend ICD 2 seconds for balance, unless some of you guys want to see how 60 stacks of Torment on a single target works? :P

- Support Condition was what I was really aiming for. If you want to deal with Alacrity from Chronos I had assumed between Kalla and Ventari you could cover the gaps, however Ventari on its own would sap your energy with the upkeep and I presumed that you would only switch to regain your energy in Kalla and go back to Renegade Stance. However Orders from Above is WAY too low. Even if I take the trait the cooldown doesn’t quite give me 100% upkeep, the duration needs above a 2 second buff baseline and on the Alacrity count to just barely allow for 100%, requiring the Alacrity Condition Renegade to Legend Swap for Alacrity upkeep while at the same time doing more damage than Chrono in the second group.

These are my thoughts, there are other outstanding issues but I think these are the right direction.

For a first iteration I agree that Spellbreaker is a very nice taste on new gameplay for the Warrior that fills a specific role in terms of a potential in PvP and WvW. The devs did mention that it would have much less success in PvE and I’ve done my testing on that end and came to the same conclusion for things like organized Raid content. What I do expect however is despite the much lower DPS of the spec, that a boss or two in PvE might actually be really suspectible to the capabilities of the Spellbreaker that could be abused to justify the presence.

However let’s get to the meat of it, MH Daggers do feel really weak. The auto-attack needs a solid 25% damage buff at the very least. The Leap from 2 needs to go faster and not necessarily further but it would be welcome. I like the OP’s suggestion about Dagger 3 so I’ll agree on that.

OH dagger actually felt a bit better, it Synergizes well with MH Mace and MH Dagger but those two could use a bit more bite, add damage buffs.

I can understand the reluctance in buffing Dagger as Boon Rip and the Passive Crit Damage SpellBreaker has in its tree could escalate it out of control, but I should not be seeing far, far lower damage doing a rotation of dagger autos than simply running a GS.

By the way, while the OP didn’t go into Revenge Counter I actually did, it feels quite right but I wonder if it is too much to ask if instead of copy conditions, copy and wipe out the 5 conditions on you? It would make it a definitive trait for dealing with Conditions however Magebane is still probably the best for aggressive styles and being the anti stealth.

STIHL.2489:

No, I’ll let someone else do that. if you don’t like what they have to say, take it up with them.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Perhaps because there is a specific definition of the word casual as it is used in video games which states that either skill, time commitment or both are defining factors.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/casual

Words evolve. We either adapt and use them as they are being used in specific contexts or we don’t. Stick with your definition if you like, but you will continue to be misunderstood by some posters and some of the information you get will be unhelpful as a result.

So by your own concession you admit according to the poster you just linked that you may in fact be using a definition of casual that isn’t conforming to the standard many posters accept. Ergo you’ve given up on any general information said by many posters who consider themselves ‘casual’ enough that might be helpful to you because they aren’t your kind of casual because ultimately what you really want to hear is from someone who is your specific kind of casual that fits a definition no one here has likely fit as criteria.

The only thing I can say that you might be able to universally accept is that it would be wise for you to watch previews, play the betas, see where GW2 has moved since HoT especially with the release of LS3 and make your own judgment. I’ll leave that to your own discretion naturally.

Miellyn.6847:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Some dev somewhere said that new fractals and raids will only require HoT. No idea where this is coming from but that’s what a lot of people say.

Fractals are core content, not HoT content. I doubt this was a dev statement.

I remember this response and it was with respect to Raids (during HoT only) requiring HoT. A player asked if there were any Core Tyria raids and it was responded with a resounding No.

I think there seems to be a bit of a disconnect going on. I’m going to go on a limb here and say that maybe the OP got unlucky or perhaps they grossly underestimated how much the mobs hit for, if they tried to pull them all at once. Personally I didn’t experience this as I went to each group of villagers and killed a pack here, some add would come by and I would engage them as well. I have to assume that the mobs provide a decent challenge or have a set of skills that I need to adjust for at first in order to avoid being caught by surprise.

I will NOT agree with the content being tuned down, as many have pointed out their experiences from both veteran and new parties alike had easier progress.

Hmm, It’s possible that the raids in PoF might follow the standard for Forsaken Thicket and Bastion where there are Raid masteries which help for fights. Mounts can’t really be used out of combat so if there was a PoF Mastery involved it would be for travel purposes in the raids.

I expect the devs know this.

Griever.8150:

Casuals ruin games. Case in point : World of Warcraft.

I’m by no means hardcore anymore, i work 40 hours a week + go to school part time, i only have a few hours a day (if any at all) to game and i have no trouble finding ways to entertain myself.

The casualification of WoW is what essentially killed it, its what gave birth to all the queue systems, its what killed server and guild communities, its what removed any incentive for people to actually interact with each other, its what caused (ironically) people to start treating each other like disposable bags of kitten in any form of group content because of the systems introduced above. Its what also made Blizzard devs think that rewarding the best gear in the game through pure RNG was a good idea, instead of actually rewarding people who bother putting the time into their game.

Please for the love of god, don’t ask them to make the same mistakes here.

Real casuals don’t need to have a game tailored to their needs, they can easily set their own goals and have their own fun, this game has more than enough ways to do so if you’re even mildly creative.

Just to throw it out there, this was a far more impressive post than your previous one.

Almost certain the devs are ‘wary’ given STINL’s response to this post so I wanted to intervene and see if we can’t discuss both viewpoints with provided examples.

Let’s not get confrontational, debate is probably the best discourse.

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

How can someone write the end then write a book after?!?

never say the end in the beginning!

But I break all the rules!

….Or something like that.

….Are very interesting.

The end.

…What? What do you want me to say? I mean we have:

- Bounties that have a base foundation for mechanics based upon the bounty in question. Man-Eater is always going to be a sand shark, it burrows and goes nom on Mr ‘Stands Still’. This ain’t Tremors!
- Said Bounties also have another gimmick where they get additional RANDOM mechanics per encounter courtesy of Unstable Magic which can change up the encounter each time you face it.
- The rewards include currency that has multiple uses from salvaging to identification, or if you did the Legendary “Watermelon” on the island you get a Treasure Map which gets you further rewards by finding it.

I mean, I’m not sure whether I want to create a whole other thread going on the benefits of how this is such a stronger Beta than the original HoT one, but from what I’ve observed, everything has a merged purpose and reward with another component in the desert that is so well crafted I had to take a step back.

But let’s be real here, if my assumption is true that while we have what, 6 Bounties in this first major hub in this Portion of the Oasis where the encounters are similar but are capable to keep you and your allies on your toes, I’m extremely excited to see what else PoF brings. The potential to have Bounties become a thing people do alongside map metas is invigorating.

My only concern is that while having the randomization mechanic is nice, not all mechanics tend to create good encounters but frustrating ones. For instance, during a fight with the Legendary “Watermelon”, aside from the baseline trademark Roll it does that it picked up from Mordrem Rollers (Why?!), it also had a ‘Petrifying gaze’ and ‘Ranged gets blocked’ (High uptimes, not permanent on both) in which we found out hilariously that it was capable of rolling with Petrifying Gaze….

…Arenanet please be cautious with said random Mechanics.

Thank you. I actually do mean it, this is all good overall.

The mounts feel fine, it felt very organic at first realizing how mounts would function, but I vastly prefer this version of mounts compared to other MMOs where mounts are just a fancy skin/movement boost for your character.

Plus the animations and capability to be dyed are huge pluses in my book.

10/10 setting a new bar for mounts in MMOs.

YourFriendMarvin.4127:

Let’s say we got the PvP pieces but we transmuted the look of it. Will it still count as ascended pieces needed to transmute into Legendary Gear?

Transmuting the look doesn’t impact the base item, which means it can still be upgraded according to:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-and-PvP-Ascended-Armor-Upgrades/page/2#post6670907

Which could help, but ultimately we are engaged in a subjective debate at the moment of which is almost pointless. I reckon if the crystals were fixed so that they could be a sort of ‘dark’ crystal closer to fit the theme of a Necromancer some of them might use it.

But my point still stands. The colorful Elementalist, the darker Necromancer and the…mesmerizing Mesmer? (Slight joke but bright colors and pink seem to be their ideal) The themes are so utterly different that it’ll be impossible to find a neutral theme that fits them all.

If I were to take a 2nd stab at Legendary Armor skins again, I would have desired something that might have taken twice or even thrice as much time. Profession-specific armor skins, 9 unique Legendary Armors that catered to a single profession each.

Would have been too much work though so /shrug.

Just about every single Necromancer I’ve spoken to can’t dig the ‘Crystals’. It’s not really a theme for them.

thrag.9740:

The solution seems simple to me, there should be dyes that are glossy, that way people can choose what they want. Why is glossy restrained to the armor? Isn’t the dye system in place to offer us these choices?

Of the people I know who have legendary armor, more of them have re-skinned it (including myself) rather than wear it. So if what matters is if people are using it anyways, then it is quantifiable failing by that metric. This particular set fails to deliver on being Legendary because it doesn’t dye right.

I agree with the first point, they should continue to pump out more dyes, and maybe at some point set up a dye that’s more compatible with glossy armor.

I’m willing to gamble that the Legendary Armor getting reskinned was more likely because of the base design of it than the dyes. Heck, the outrage over another Trenchcoat probably made the Leather Variant the least popular, and the Light Armor was destined to fail as I cannot conceive of a theme for Light armor that fits Elementalists, Necromancers, AND Mesmers at the same time.

But for what it is worth, just like how Legendary Weapons are hit and miss, a Legendary Item has various reasons for being Legendary, and stat-swapping is probably the most universally accepted reason regardless of how ironically painful it would be to constantly swap out runes instead of pieces of ascended. This means that even the ‘Joke’ Legendaries are still Legendary, I abhor the pony bow but I can accept it took time and gold to make, therefore it’s still Legendary.

Just to further add, while gliding adds a defensive benefit, in the situations it can be used to move faster wouldn’t that be good for any side to get back into the fray?

I would like to think people who enjoy fighting would encourage any aspects that improve mobility, and gliding under these circumstances and with some drawbacks such as the hard CC almost seems like a decent pro for WvW.

Besides, although people can say Archeage was garbage, trust me when I say it wasn’t because of the gliding in PvP. It was very smooth there, mixing between mobility skills and engaging from a cliff and watching out for any other reinforcements, open world PvP was pretty decent (and unfair at many times).

@Thrag I know what you are saying, and you probably aren’t going to get the intended effect with the Heavy armor by using a straight red or black in this instance, the gloss is very strong (I got Shadow Abyss on my Charr and it comes out almost like it’s a darker Iron).

There are a few other armors that suffer from this gloss but nothing to this extent. Should it be fixed? I don’t know if it’s possible at this point, but I reckon some segment of the heavy users like this shine to their armor and have embraced it by abusing the colors that work with the Gloss which is essentially many primary colors with ‘white’ like Amenity.

Feel free to argue that this particular set fails to deliver on being Legendary just because it doesn’t dye right, what’s going to matter more is if people are using it anyways and if they find a color scheme that works for them.

Just as a perspective, Heavy Armor was the first one I crafted which has that lovely ‘shine’ that interferes at will with dozens or in my case hundreds of dyes I have unlocked. But I don’t recall any of the sets having as a selling point that they would be ‘All Dye Compatible’, only that they would be ‘Legendary Quality’.

I suppose I’ve gotten used to it, as a heavy armor wearer I really dig things like the Mistward Leggings that came from Revenant, which were troublesome because every single heavy piece of equipment I had to synergize with them that wasn’t the same set was ‘darker’ by contrast. I don’t want to stray too far from the topic at hand, but ultimately I realized and understood the limitations that the current GW2 system had with customization.

Out of all the concerns and issues in this game, Legendary Armor being compatible with all dyes is not even close to the top of the list. It’s a skin just like any other. I could care less if only 20% of the dyes in the game now, and in the future work with my Legendary Heavy Armor. Why? Because we are capable of previewing dyes with the Trading Post and exchanging them around, and that the Legendary Effects are still something utterly unique, not easily found on any other piece of armor.

thrag.9740:

raiders should be very angry about legendary armor, even with shadow abyss you come out looking like a pastel easter egg.

I don’t know how difficult it would be to make Legendary Armor, or any armor for that matter, work with most of the dyes in the game. I certainly don’t expect any ordinary dye, even more expensive ones, to work with Legendary Armor.

I do like to think though that most Raiders would have more thicker skin earning their Envoy Armor and not caring too much about how their favorite dyes aren’t working with it and just experimenting with the literal hundreds of other ones to get what they want.

Actually at this moment PvP in the NA needs an infusion of new blood. I believe this would be an incentive for both gamemodes.

zealex.9410:

Giving Legie armor to the other game modes makes sense.

What ikpissed about is that the didnt even make a set for those. Literally went the halfarsed way and jump dumped the purple name on existing skins and riskins of those. 0 effort.

“Oh you wanted legie armor?”
“yus pls”
“Ok we’re gonna take the years long pvp skins and the reskins of the wvw track reward that have effort put into them or any effect at all and give ,en the purple tag”
“But what about cool skins like the raids once? It only took you a year (twice) to make them so now it should be faster”
“…….”

And pvpers/wvwers wonder why their game modes are the way they are.

To be fair, at least for WvW there’s a longtime investment for an Armor set which makes is one white hood away from making you Tyrael from Diablo.

I think the larger cause is twofold:

- Legendary Armor took a lot of resources, naturally we can make the argument that since the tech was made, it should be easier this time around. Even so, that’s still time taken away from players who can actually use this Legendary Armor and it’s QoL more than current raiders.

- Not everyone was happy with the result. Nearly everyone I know hated how the Light armor came out, but when you got three very different styled light-classes, I have no idea what kind of design you could make that would fit all three professions. Leather Armor was another trenchcoat, mind you a really cool looking one imo, but one nevertheless. Heavy seemed to be the only one that got some appreciation. Overall, the cosmetics are an entirely different entity and I doubt WvWers would have liked waiting another year for another cosmetic when they want the functionality.

This is a good change. This is the best compromise and it does allow rewards for future raids to be unhindered by complaints since I believe just about any Legendary Reward has the functionality available elsewhere.

They mentioned the cost would be around what the Raid Legendary Armor would take, so expect thousands of gold.

Let’s also not pretend that OG Fractal 40-50 was ‘Easy’. Everything would one-shot, the design was archaic and groups were I dare say more toxic to anyone not being meta. You had to be one of maybe 4 professions in any decent clear group. If you made a group with anything else you would be joined by likeminded folks and spend hours in OG Cliffside and Dredge alone.

Willing to bet you could cut this thread in half if you remove all the posts saying ‘REMOVE SKILL LAG’ which is almost a pointless wish at this stage. It just ain’t happening folks!

That being said, let’s wait to see how this plays out, I bet it’ll offer far more positives than “Golem Week”.

Grant Gertz.7524:

When the August 8th update is released, WvW and PvP players who own Heart of Thorns will be able to upgrade their WvW and PvP ascended armor to have legendary attributes! This new type of armor will not have a unique skin, such as the one that is part of the raids legendary armor, but instead will consist of an upgrade to WvW and PvP ascended armor that gives those armor pieces legendary stat-swapping capabilities without changing the skin.
The following PvP and WvW ascended armor can be upgraded to allow stat swapping:
• Triumphant Hero’s Ascended Armor
• Mistforged Triumphant Hero’s Ascended Armor
• Ardent Glorious Ascended Armor
• Glorious Hero Ascended Armor
To upgrade a piece of WvW or PvP ascended armor, combine 3 new PvP or WvW gifts with 1 piece of ascended gear in the Mystic Forge. You can purchase ingredients for the gifts from either Commander War Razor in WvW or the Ascended Armor League Vendor in PvP.

No amount of words can express how amazing this is.

Thank you for keeping reward levels consistent!

Linken.6345:

Guess people should just watch youtube videos of all the content anet release, wonder how much gems they will sell then.

Can bet you dollars to donuts that the casual crowd spend more money on the gem store then the hardcore do.

A lovely bet that no one will win or lose.

Can you really believe that your interpretation of the casual crowd won’t continue to spend more gems on the store than the hardcore, or rather would they revolt and never spend gems again when the current Legendary Armor in the game is not reachable for themselves?

I dunno, that new outfit is pretty slick for any players, if you catch on what I am driving at.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I think the biggest issue people have with raids is that they don’t take place in another dimension but are right there on the world map. Exploring them is not an easy possibility and it feels like you are locked out of part of the game world. Especially as these raid maps are fairly huge and take place right on the world map. It’s like a hard living world story episode that is hard to get into.

An easymode would let them uncover the world map more.

Joining any cleared-raid instance map in the LFG allows you total access to the full map for your Cartographer needs!

Zalavaaris.5329:

Where’s my special reward for being 28? I feel i should be rewarded for my time spent living and i think 26 year olds should have to work hard to not die for 2 more years like I did. I’m prestigious

As a fellow 28 year-old you should check again, we got the extra reward of higher potential hand-cramps! Go go Carpal Tunnel!

I don’t think Rank 2k is a terribly high benchmark.

However from my experience with these kinds of reward systems, there’s a few fairly big flaws with how this system has been implemented.

- Not enough Rewards on Rank Milestones. Essentially, although ranks are technically treated as a gate for pieces of equipment, including Warbringer, there is simply too many gaps between when you get Warbringer, and when you can start RPing as Tyrael from the Diablo series. Simply adding guaranteed additional unlocks of say Ascended Equipment and boxes per few hundred Ranks would help ease new WvWers and give them something to look forward to. Hell, you could even get away with throwing Raw Gold in there and that’ll add some drive.

- Ticket Cap is hit and miss. We get it, the cap is to avoid the WvW Addict on Magumma having IRL issues because he/she really wants to grind out Diamond Chests 24/7. Hard caps prevent that kind of behavior. I will say though, in the instance of WvW versus something like Raiding or SPvP (SPvP tickets I am also leaning towards this solution) having a hard ticket cap actually isn’t the best solution. Rather I think a diminishing cap is smarter as it A) doesn’t directly punish players who love WvW every day that hit that Diamond Rank within 24 hours on a weekend yet encourages at least repeating Diamond once or twice for a slight boost over the 175 ticket cap.

I would recommend that each repeat of Diamond Chest cuts the tickets earned at the next Diamond chest by half, until the reset. So you do Diamond the first time? 40 tickets and you’ve hit the initial cap. 2nd time? 20 tickets, you now have 195 so far, and again? 205 tickets. Once more? 210. I believe at this point if you’ve repeated Diamond after the initial time, THREE more times it’ll give 35 extra tickets. Certainly you could continue to repeat but it’ll hit 1 ticket per chest which just isn’t terribly efficient if you are going for rewards and prevents that ‘GIVE UP MY IRL FOR BAGS’ mentality without throwing a stop sign in front of WvW enthusiasts. As an added bonus, 35 extra tickets on top of a cap of 175 is exactly a 20% increase of tickets earned per week, praise the Math Gods!

- Lastly Pips aren’t quite there yet. I won’t go into these too much, these forums have provided quite a few different angles to approach.

OVERALL though, folks we do need something of a long-term prestige item in WvW. It’s been years and we’ve finally got something fairly OK, and it’s purely cosmetic since the T2 version is Ascended as well. That’s an appropriate approach. How to get there could use work, but I definitely disagree with the notion that Ranking to 2000 is somehow too far and beyond anyone’s reach. I would argue this game definitely needs MORE of this kind of reward, something you could look forward to in months to come.

Triggerbrand.8072:

I think there are at least 10 threads about this.

Man I wish there were just 10. There were about 4 or so threads and a megathread about raids Prior to HoT Launch.

More often than not you have to go through several filters of posters who plainly want the raid rewards without actually raiding, to find the guys who actually care about Lore or something of that nature.

It wasn’t a very good troll until people actually fell for it. I’ll give it a 8/10.

I might be, subjectively, a very passionate poster about raiding but even I could tell just from the first few sentences something was off. C’mon guys let’s not lose our heads about the discourse, keep an open mind.

Blaeys.3102:

And if you look at the modes as separate and independent of one another, it becomes a non issue.

Not possible. Because they would be too similar if provided.

Blaeys, your argument falls short simply because there’s absolutely no way one can differ the encounters from ‘Story’ to ‘Current’ without completely negating everything from the maps, encounters, and even LORE.

Perhaps it is a matter of perception, but even in the hypothetical circumstance that there was a Vale Guardian Story-Mode Variant that existed, that existence alone by it’s very existence, is not independent of the entity ‘Vale Guardian’. You begin the cycle of turning said being into something less organic. Right now everyone knows what ‘VG’ stands for. But in the event that two VGs exist, one absurdly trivial and the current one? You have to specify in said recruitment, Vale Guardian is no longer the Vale Guardian we know now.

Blaeys.3102:

No one realistically thinks T4 fractals are easier or thinks less of accomplisments there because T1 fractals exist.

Alluding back to perception, yes, T4 fractals are immensely similar to T1. That’s actually the intended, and lore-respective, point of Fractals. Aside from the Agony Requirement (a much harsher gate to content than Raids currently are) and the increasing instability severity and mob level, T1 and T4 are identical. Mobs, Trash, Atmosphere, Music, Sounds, everything’s the same.

The thing is, and what has been driven time and time again, is that Fractals were designed to become a sort of growth in difficulty not just vertically (requiring more and more ascended gear) but mechanically.

Raids, however, are specifically designed for a higher quality and quantity group content abstaining from AR requirements. It’s far similar to how the original vision for Explorable Dungeons were meant but not impressively realized. In fact not to strain too far from the conversation but as balancing and the continued expansion of profession tools are made available, much like how Explorable dungeons had fallen I do expect certain Raids to lose a bit of difficulty without directly hitting them.

Blaeys.3102:

The same is true of most single player game with multiple difficulties as well. Your mind goes to DS because it specifically markets itself in a particular way – but there are tons of games that offer a real challenge to one set of players while offering something else to another.

That’s true, however most often in these single-player games with multiple difficulties, said players learn about the entirety of the game’s sequence in the first run-through. And similar to fractals they want to go up the next difficulty perhaps, only to find that things just hit harder and they just need to slightly be less terrible at the game. Most likely ending up in nothing special happening when they do complete the game again on a higher difficulty.

That’s a terrible feeling, fortunately there have been a slew of games well before Dark Souls that actually encouraged the player to get a better reward, new challenge or plot twist for a harder difficulty. Have you played games like Contra before? The game series actually holds off on the ‘true’ endings unless you complete it on the hardest difficulty, which more often than not also contains extra phases, mechanics and even newer bosses for the player to deal with that isn’t under a normal playthrough.

It isn’t a uncommon practice to have the best lore and gameplay experience behind the hardest difficulty. And certain said games have not suffered for it.

Blaeys.3102:

Im sorry – the argument that a story mode would diminish your accomplishment in hard mode raids (especially in GW2 – where the hard mode raids aren’t really that hard anyway) doesn’t hold water.

There will forever be the factor that the best performance deserves the best rewards, or rather the encouragement behind perseverance, improving and finally conquering the challenge. Sorry Blaeys but at this stage while I do understand the plight of Story mode lore goers, like I have mentioned in the past there would be a considerable cost to it. It’s probably been iterated ad infinitum but more often than not it falls on deaf ears.

bai long.2085:

I quit playing GW2 a while back when I realized that the stat set I enjoy running the most (full ascended Nomad’s) in fractals and dungeons wouldn’t cut it for the raids.

My question is, have they done anything to the raids that would allow me to participate in my favorite gear?

If it’s a matter of “switch to Sinister or Berserker, Magi, etc.” I’d rather just keep playing the MMO I’m currently playing.

Thanks.

Going to assume you would understand how much Toughness Nomad’s brings and thus you would likely be forced into a tanking role…or inconveniencing the rest of the group if you want to try DPSing with it.

zealex.9410:

so what can anet do about it?

I mean, given when Raids reset, not a whole lot since most of the week people are trying to get their clears.

Maybe if they changed reset to Friday, but then you would have the people who have Wednesdays/Thursdays free complaining about the times.

…One easy way is to simply add more raid content. Why? Because it’ll take longer for people clearing said days before the weekend to do all the raid content. Heck, the introduction of more raid content will likely leave more players without clears on Forsaken Thicket / Bastion of the Penitent available to do those if they so choose on the weekends.

Variety is the spice of life after all.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Given the context and phrasing, that remark doesn’t really sound like the gods are afraid of the Elder Dragons to me, but rather that the only thing established in the game series that they might be afraid of is the Elder Dragons.

Though I fail to see why gods capable of altering the landscape of Tyria while trapped in the heart of another dimension while imprisoned and weakened, who rule/have influence over the very center of the multiverse, could possibly be afraid of beings only capable of altering the immediate area surrounding themselves and their minions and are very much limited to just Tyria.

I really don’t want to apply a tin-foil hat here, but there’s a stinging vibe about the Elder Dragons that maybe has some influence over the Gods.

Thinking on it more, why would the six not take action against the Elders way sooner? Certainly the Gods knew the Dragons existed even prior to leaving. There’s probably some natural force at work that we, as player characters, are unraveling by killing them off, contrary to the six gods who saw that killing the Elder Dragons would be to their disadvantage.

Albeit, at this time Balt doesn’t care anymore for the world, but that implies that whatever the Elder Dragons are doing to keep a sort of balance on Tyria is needed before they can be killed outright like we have been doing.

I know it’s a bit outside of this thread, but I have a firm belief that a different God (Lyssa or Kormir) will reveal themselves and tell us of why Balt is behaving in this manner, why the Elder Dragons shouldn’t just be killed, and that will lead us into the next story arc.

…At least that is what NEEDS to happen in order to cope with the recent reveal.

What exactly is your point then? Aside from agreeing with someone about how Raiders are clearly incapable parents and spouses, and proceeding to say that they are selfish with their time shared with others.

Aza.2105:

Sykper.6583:

Your argument is effectively showing your own immaturity if you think it is difficult for any adult to find some dedicated time to do some GW2, because adults are playing raids and not having Real-Life issues for it.

What is this?

The argument that players aren’t able to figure out in an instanced group setting that their time is now shared with other players’ times. As per your statement involving:

The hour isn’t the same because one is your time and the other hour is other peoples time.

Seems to imply. Players who raid =/= players who aren’t being responsible with real life time.

Aza.2105:

If you look at it that way then you fail to understand my point. The hour isn’t the same because one is your time and the other hour is other peoples time. In other words a hour of my own time I can stop what I’m doing in the game to do other important things or I might have to stop all together abruptly. It doesn’t infringe upon anyone else. Were as with other peoples time you cant do this. You can’t just tell a group of people who expect you to be there and depend on you, that you are going afk for a extended period of time. Its disrespectful and selfish.

Or maybe the group has made these arrangements / planned for unexpected events already. Again, like normal adults.

Just how twisted is your view of raiding? Do you think that there isn’t a significant portion of the current GW2 raid population that has real life obligations that really impact their schedule? Jeez, even Pugs manage to get this down, it’s a common courtesy that if you have something come up IRL you simply tell the Raid Lead “Hey I got to go, something’s up” and more or less the pug group will understand and you can bail without wasting their time.

Yes, you can bail more easily in the open-world, that’s kind of the point the open-world is built around being that flexible. Instanced content however is putting just a bit more confidence in the fact you might have a half-hour of time on you to do it. Hell you are liable to get kicked from T4 Fractals if you tried going afk because you didn’t have the courtesy to tell other people that your cat suddenly decided to freak out and crash into a bunch of spill-able goods all over your kitchen floor (Milk and Soda do not mix). The only difference is that you are wasting 4 people’s time rather than 9 others.

Your argument is effectively showing your own immaturity if you think it is difficult for any adult to find some dedicated time to do some GW2, because adults are playing raids and not having Real-Life issues for it.

Wildfang.3271:

TheOrlyFactor.8341:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Hate this argument because i know a lot of players like me that have a job, a wife AND kids, and still can raid normally.
If you have time to play the game you have time to raid, stop blamming your job/family as the reason you cant raid.

Those kids and wife (or husband) deserve better then.

Well, I must say that I am impressed that people still love to use ad homimem attacks when they don’t have a good counter argument in response to his point that people with family are capable of juggling/making time for raids. It’s kinda like being back in school again with kids that are incapable of debating.

That, and it only continues to encourage players engaging in raids now to harden down on their stance that Raids are pretty alright. Because it’s better than joining the anti-raid side tossing out such vitriol and insulting families.

There is a bug where darker colors are not working correctly, they are looking into it per a Reddit Post on the AMA.

I mean, when you look in retrospect back at previous episodes, I can see the smallest of hints to his identity. Fire raining down on White Mantle is the only thing that comes to mind, of which by the way, that’s a fairly big irony now in lore.

White Mantle who were trying to resurrect their Mursaat God bring back or rather attract their actual God of War who proceeds to smite many of them in the name of faith. Almost Poetic.

Anyways, I’m a bit curious as to why now Baltazar has an interest in Aurene, why he lost a lot of power, what Lyssa’s involvement in all this is (could be irrelevant but might as well question the mirror)…

Uncovering the identity has risen so many questions, Baltazar had better not disappear for too long. Willing to gamble he or as many point out, whoever this is, is a main antagonist for the next expansion.

Before we go too much down this rabbit hole, one of the biggest pieces of aiding or helping with social anxieties is stopping the encouragement of avoidance. Games like GW2 offer an escape from reality but they do provide the bare minimum interaction with other players, of which every conversation even ones in tells can help those with severe disorders like Avoidant Personality eventually overcome their shyness.

They aren’t directly going into raids here, Raids are but one of many end-games. These players grow and develop with others at the beginning, maybe even join their communications at some point to say hi; Take the smallest of steps to become a better person. When they get around to raiding, they are likely already taking measures to NOT be a burden as you so want to point out through using introversion as another facet that impacts raid accessibility. On the contrary, because they’ve likely been playing this game long enough to at least get an understanding of how difficult raids CAN be, they are players who are likely to try harder to get it done to avoid what relationships they have built up now, because they have struggled so far to get them. Or because the content is optional in its own right they can ignore it and play the rest of the game they so enjoy with others.

Avoidance is a last resort, it shouldn’t be an option to help these friends that play with us in game. Please don’t go throwing Introversion so callously into this raid debate.

Amane couldn’t have put it any better with concern to the introversion argument. They know it, I know friends who have some of these social anxieties and the last thing they want is to be pitied and catered for online.

Honestly, WvW is probably the best candidate for the 2nd round of Legendary Armor if it comes to pass. As someone who raids and expects to get their Armor, there is a need for another set to come out available elsewhere, it makes the most sense.

The skins, however, must be different. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the prospect of Legendary Armor as a whole being made in different content, but the skin associations is where people debate here.

All the armors stand out given the leak. Light armor is actually better through seeing the animation than originally thought. I was making the Heavy to begin with, and it actually improved on my old thoughts behind it, so I might make two of these.

Leather has me scratching my head, I actually liked the old Arah set so seeing an improved animated one got me nodding my head. What’s throwing me is…well the stowed versus in combat. It has the most transformation, but I almost feel like the basic look is too generic, and almost feels like a mocking of certain Leather Armor enthusiasts.

Ultimately, given that I would be making at least 1 I’ll say B+, B-, and C for Heavy, Light and Medium. I took into account that the time it took is a downside, but I wouldn’t be opposed to using all of it eventually.

Also, it’s nice that it is actually Armor and not an outfit.

@Blaeys

Raids wouldn’t have even come to pass if there wasn’t a demand for challenging content. It’s beyond doubt that Arenanet failed to bring about the challenge through dungeons at release, and steadily through the years they have tried implementing different things to add a bit of that challenge in the game. Having things like the Toxic Wardens require stomping or their attacks involving evades, inclusion of breakbars as a requirement for certain chak enemies to perish from…

It’s incorrect to say this game was meant to be casual from the start. Casual isn’t the proper term here, I should say ‘Easy’ instead, even now the game is far more casual than any other MMO in the market by far. What people seem to suggest all the time is that because this game had nearly negligible challenge for almost the entire leveling experience, that the end-game should be the same. I disagree wholeheartedly. There needs to be a range of end-games that allow players to set their own goals.

I think there are a lot more raiders out there than you believe, but I am not so certain to make a claim on the numbers being much higher. The big thing is that raids are active and active is important. You do have a valid concern that a set of raiders will likely not come back to raiding unless they want the other raid sets as well (and have all the money for it, the gold cost is rather insane). However the fact that Legendary Armor is confirmed to come out will also give an incentive for players leaning one way or another to give raids a shot, and if they like them enough, they still have plenty of weeks to get those LIs and nab the collection items.

I look at raids much in the same way as I look at WvW or SPvP, and to some extent fractals which carry a slightly different system in them. Not all of these kinds of content are supposed to cater to everyone, or else they wouldn’t be that content any longer. I’m certainly not going to request that SPvP have PvE Queues in it, that’s contrary to its intended purpose and is likely going to send a bad message to the actual SPvPers. And I can make this claim about raids being separate from open-world PvE because they share something in common with Fractals, being instanced and using more than a single party.

Lastly, believe it or not despite all these discussions and biases when Wing 1 released, the forum was overflowing with positive comments. Raids were an outstanding addition (one of the FEW good things at HoT launch) to this game. The amount of praise and gratitude from those who got their first VG kills back in the day was almost heartwarming. You would think they just found out about sliced bread.

So forgive me if this offends anyone…

Anyone who is paying attention knows full well that a non-insignificant portion of the ‘anti-current raid’ population really only wants one thing: Rewards. They abuse irrelevant numbers from other games like WoW, deploy opinions as facts with links to blog posts, disregard or ignore counter-arguments. When training groups insist constantly on the forums and reddit to lend a hand, they shrug those off stating they shouldn’t need them or that they should have to take whatever they want to bring in. When new raiders who were afraid at first of the experience, only to discover how much they enjoy raids right now after trying so hard for that first kill, they call those new raiders ‘elitists’ and at times worse insults. I’ve even seen threats, and that’s not to say that certain raiders haven’t gotten just as harsh back, but bear in mind that many of our side are on the defense here.

The above paragraph was a bit harsh, but if anything has soured me with concern to raiding, it’s the part of the community that never wants to see this game grow. It was fairly clear when HoT dropped from the backlash about the difficulty, and yes there were some issues that got resolved. The HoT rework was a monumental step towards making the harsh Magumma Jungle more alive and akin to a normal GW2 map. You can’t tell me right now that this doesn’t exist, that the community actually wants change. No, they want more Silverwastes and less Living Story Maps.

There’s a fatal lack of drive towards challenge in the community, and that’s terrible for the game’s future. I’m very certain that Anet knows this, which has put them in a bind.

I’ll only agree for a Raid story mode under the conditions that:

- It doesn’t impact raid development at all, meaning that no raid dev resources / content resources like art, music, map dev teams get pulled over to it. This will likely take the form of taking teams from the open world and living story development and push those releases back, asking SPvP and WvW teams to come in on this would be toxic.

- Rewards are negligible, champion bags, maybe a few raid shards per wing completion but nothing like the actual raid loot or Armor achievements. Asking for anything more is clearly showing the actual motive behind players who are interested in the story, versus those who maliciously just want the rewards and want to drive a mode into the ground.

Following the above I believe we can have a story mode for those who want a semblance of lore during the encounters, Deimos might be the only one who actually has some decent dialogue during the encounter but personally everyone else is kind of meh.

That all said….

The question is that is the above worth the cost? And the biggest question that has to be iterated is that is Arenanet happy with the number of players currently playing in raids?

All this discourse could be irrelevant if the numbers are where Arenanet would like them, it would ultimately not matter what any of us think if they are content with the numbers despite the potential to get some slight jump in them for implementing a story mode. If they are happy with 10%, or even 5% of the game population regularly going into raids, they won’t change anything.

Personal opinion is that Anet likes the numbers where they are at, a big hint was oddly enough the April Fools Patch notes for ‘Infantile’ Mode, where they mocked the prospect. Though not without mocking their encounters as well (6 VG Split, all my sides were gone). I’m not saying they aren’t taking the discussions seriously, in fact they are probably discussing it to death internally. However it signals to me that they have a fairly clear idea on what they want from raids, and it doesn’t speak of making another mode for it but pursuing other avenues.

We should just bump the Legendary Armor discussion from way back around HoT’s launch, this entire thread is a throwback to it at this point. Heck, even some of the arguments about Legendary Armor’s look were discussed back then and we didn’t even know what it’ll look like!

That being said, there was zero chance the armor would live up to everyone’s expectations. I do admit that at least with the Leather armor that Trench-coats have been…slightly overdone, but to me this particular trench looks like a better version of the Arah, which I liked back in the day. That being said, my main uses Heavy Armor, so I am building that one first.

They really need to do something about those frigging Provision tokens though, rather lead training runs on VG for a week with no reward than go through the token step again.