Guild Wars 2

Erasculio.2914:

Storn.8394:

Increase Dynamic Event rewards to where they exceed farming… it really is that simple

Why?

People would still farm. Instead of farm by killing monsters, they would farm Dynamic Events. It would still give us all the same issues that farming always creates – when you have players focused on maximum efficiency to the detriment of everything else, you are going to clash with players who just want to enjoy the content. Having the farming zerg doing dynamic events would hardly make said events more enjoyable for those who like them. And the farmers themselves don’t really enjoy the events (they enjoy the rewards only), so… Why bother?

Partly true, but only if you don’t look beyond that. DEs next have to be managed (can be automated) so that popular farm DEs get lower rewards, while unpopular ones get their rewards raised (just reality: supply and demand of heroes ).

Why not just do that with mobs?
- For one, just getting players to do the DEs would be an improvement.
- More so since “mob farming” regularly goes straight against the objectives of DEs (either failing or refusing to complete them).
- DEs are a nice way to play. Problem is, when you get only a fraction of the reward of farming… in essence, “explorers” will have trouble even keeping up with inflation.
- Mobs get massacred by zergs, compared to small groups of players. DEs however just scale up properly, ensuring the zerg doesn’t get that much of a bonus.
- DEs more easily allow support characters to be rewarded… instead of just “more DPS”.
- Since DEs are far less numerous than mobs, they’d be easier (that is, at all feasible) to keep tabs on.
- “Spawn times” of DEs should be easy enough to adapt to such a point that farming routes aren’t much of an option.
- And of course it’s simply more realistic. Adventurers make their money solving people’s problems. Not by selling thousands of pieces of armour they somehow looted from the fish they massacred.

Such are some direct reasons. There are also long term reasons to take such a stance. ANet took pride in the DE system – they should get players to at least use it. Even if the farmers do so only as a means to an end. At that point they can both economically and artistically justify improving the DE system and make it truly a “living world”. That all players can enjoy.

So that’s why bother.

Eli Stormstrike.8637:

I remember when I first heard about the Scavenger Hunt…

QFT

Everyone’s entitled to try all content to their heart’s desire. Nobody is entitled to complete any of it. The fact that some give up, is what gives it any meaning to the others. The fact that it takes skill, is what makes it an accomplishment. The fact that it took persistence, is how we feel we’ve earned it.

And the fact that it is only around for a few weeks, is what makes it wrong. I think that’s a serious reason for frustration.

So yes, by all means. More challenges. Real ones. Ones that half the people at least will give up on. With suiting rewards (minis and titles are nice I guess – not legendaries unless with alternatives, don’t wanna get people outright blocked in progress).

P.S. That’s all aside from the point of cheap mechanics, visual issues etc which are serious arguments to be made. Challenges in general should be difficult without such artificial difficulties; still, I don’t mind it being part of an occasional challenge.

Largely agree with Sirendor, except his conclusion I guess – bit overboard. But yes, gold should play a minimal role, and particularly serve as a safety net. Also, it should be given not for massacring mobs, but for playing the game.

That is key. Stop making RNG loot the primary mechanism to get the things we work for. DE’s? Let the primary reward be from DE completion – instead of the loot from mobs killed. Make Jumping Puzzles rewarding.

USE the DE system to its full extent. Player needs lodestones? Give him DEs that reward lodestones upon completion (say, for clearing an elemental infestation), instead of mindlessly killing the mobs over and over.

Balance DEs. Is a DE popular? Lower its rewards. Impopular? Raise rewards. This could probably be automated, and should ensure players won’t just try to do the most rewarding DEs.

Make DEs meaningful and impacting the world. Don’t have a dragon minion spawn every 2 hours. Make it a series of event lasting several hours across at least an entire map, culminating in a serious battle. Reward players based on how many events they helped in. Say it’s a series of 10 DEs: the player who does the first 9 before logging, gets a major reward; he who just logs in to slay the dragon, gets little. Afterwards, plenty of DEs in rebuilding the villages that were burned down (/frozen solid/crystallized/undeaded/devoured by Oblivion gat…nvm).

And that’s just basic suggestions. Area gets neglected? Let it be overrun, with only main roads remaining safe (somewhat). Make visuals for players to see what maps need help, and make all rewarding for lvl 80 players.

Another one: fewer mobs. Exploration gets annoying if you’re just battling through mobs and hoping you don’t get respawns in your face. Just compare the landscapes of Skyrim and Tyria… and yes, it’ll mean some zones get almost cleaned out by players. So? That’ll give them some incentive to go somewhere they’re actually needed.

Could also make the map status impact the world. Most maps overrun? With trade routes broken, various costs increase, and DE npc’s can’t pay their saviours as much. As players help in taking back zones and rebuilding the settlements, those rewards will increase again.

Pretty much all of that, seems to me, is extending the DE system. Adding new DEs is a means to that end. Yes it’d take time to do that – how about doing that for monthly updates?

And while at it: make it all in tune with the endgame shinies. Legendaries and ascended gear should NOT be a matter of grinding, nor of doing stuff we don’t like. It should be goals you’re working towards just by playing the game – working for it just means you focus your efforts on something specific. Make it depend on skill, and some persistence. Minimize RNG, it’s cheap and if half the vision of GW2 is true, ANet can do better than that.

That’s enough for now I think. To respond to the topic title: if ANet’s disappointed in its players, it failed to take the lessons of the past. If you make your rewards depend on grind, people will do that, and once a bunch does that, the rest is drawn into that by the economy. Players respond to how the game behaves, and that’s how developers have that power. So make sure the game rewards the behaviour you wish to see; take action against players who’ll break rules in their farming behaviour; make the game interesting. DEs can do all this, and more. That’s why I saw it as vision – something that has yet to materialize. I understand Divity’s Reach wasn’t built in one day, but ANet’s had about a year to work out the child’s diseases and get a basic structure of year-round dynamic content. Now it’s time to start fulfilling the true promise of the game.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Some players are going to farm. At one time, they were content to farm events in CS by completing them. ANet did not find that to be acceptable, so the time between events was lengthened. Now, players don’t want the events to complete, because there is too much time before the next one.

I did a lot of Plinx and Pen/Shelt/Jo before the timers were lengthened. No one exploited the events. I never saw anyone upset with another player over how they did these events. I forum a lot, and don’t recall any threads about reporting people back when CS events happened frequently. Now, I see reports of such behavior regularly. The change seems to be directly attributable to ANet’s decisions.

Even if it is a result, ANet had good reasons to do that, and now, even better reasons to send Dhuum upon anyone who sinks as low as exploiting and then daring to report (or threaten to) anyone who might mess up their act. Either on its own would be sufficient reason, I suspect.

Sure, players farm. That’s fine. As it’s fine that ANet takes steps to ensure farmers don’t blow up the economy. But farmers should stay within the limits allowed to them; some players are so greedy that they won’t, and those players we’d be well rid of.

While I don’t know what Anet plans, I’d hope that at least these living stories can be accessed again at a later time (say, next year allow a “visit to the past”). Nice for people who for whatever reason couldn’t do it at the time. From ANet’s perspective, it’s of course an easy way to “add content” without needing much extra work.

Most of these solutions do come back to the same issue: 8 toons means 8x as much work. In GW1 that was okay, maxed gear wasn’t an issue (you worked for the skins). In GW2, with vertical progression this problem will be here to stay.

Aside from any fairness claim, there’s a very serious issue at hand here. Any item cost should be fun for as many players as possible. Grinders shouldn’t get it in a day, while altoholic casuals shouldn’t take 10 years. Alts are a massive factor in this, an 8x multiplier (for anyone who merely wants all classes, disregarding class-race combos).

So, better solution (though some ideas here are worth mentioning): the vault.

Allow players to customize items, which places them in their vault (alike the pvp vault – runes/sigils etc are kept seperate). These can be retrieved as many times as wanted, account-wide. However, customization means it cannot be salvaged, sold, traded etc – only used.

For altoholics this greatly reduces the issue, without giving any advantage over the 1-toon-player as far as I see. Items like jewelry you’ll need 1 of, armorsets you need 3, weapons a few more. But it stays within reach. It promotes investing in good gear – since it’s not just 1 character that benefits. It offers no ingame advantage, just smoothes an imbalance. And lore-wise, it’s fair enough to say your toons share their gear. For those role players who do not want that, there could be an option of showing the vault account or soul-wide (like the HoM).

The vault system itself has plenty to say for it. With this twist, the altoholic will be saved a lot of headaches, certainly until ascended armor comes up.

A shorter-term solution can be to turn soulbound into accountbound. This can allow the same, but is very annoying to use if you regularly switch characters. Still, if a vault were to take a lot of time, that may serve.

Not a good example in the op. Players just trying something out, having fun, at minor expense to your team aren’t griefers. Though it’s certainly a breach of etiquette if this happened when the supply was direly needed.

Most similar cases aren’t griefing, it concerns newbs who think it’s a good idea (aside from people clicking the wrong blueprint). Matter of educating and staying sharp.

In some cases, sure it does happen. Some servers may send over spies to drain supply at a critical moment, or players of your server go griefing for the sake of it. Seeing how there is no way for us to punish or even stop them, this is up to ANet. Report such players and, if they make a habit of it and reports come in regularly, I suspect ANet will act. Imo getting banned over that should be enough to make people reconsider whether that bit of fun or those few thousand points were worth their account.

Oh well, at least they don’t make their minions neutral in a Lord’s Room :P

Something I wonder… even when I don’t see any enemies, I can still tab through them. This’d indicate to me that the client does know that the enemies are there.

Wouldn’t it be of great help, until the issue is solved, to at least place clickable circles or anything alike on the ground? Gives us some idea of what enemy force we’re facing and where they are?

Fluffball.8307:

KinkyWarrior.1879:

10) Thou Shall realise that Auto Attacking a gate and/or wall accomplishes nothing, and thou shall watch ones flanks.

If you’re not doing anything else, you should autoattack and hold down the reverse look button. Auto attack damage REALLY adds up over the 5 or 10 minutes it takes to down a gate with seige. You could take down a gate with autoattack damage alone if you were so inclined (which you probably shouldn’t be.)

Shouldst thou in thy folly break this command and yet auto-attack the gate, Lyssa will frown upon thee, and smite thee with her golden swords of contempt. And thine enemy shall descend upon thy bottom and stomp thee, for thou committeth a great folly in the sight of men and gods.

Whenever thou wisheth not to incur the wrath of Lyssa, as thou approacheth the gate, thou shalt count three of thine party to clear it. Three shall be the number of the attackers, and the number of the attackers shall be three. Four shalt thou not send, neither shall thee send two, except if thou then sendeth a third. Five is right out! After thou have sendeth thy three companions, thou shalt create a portal above a cliff and ask the four PUs who went in anyway and thus incurred Lyssa’s wrath upon thee, to step into it and run in. As they do so, thou shalt all type /laugh, as Balthazar blesseth thee with his boon of sadistic pleasure as he sendeth thy foolish companions to the rock below and smasheth them to tiny bits.

(and the people did marvel, and they did celebrate, and they did feast upon the deer, and rabbit, and raccoon, and eagle, and rat, and sloth, and antilope, and cuttlefish, and cliff racer, and pig and cow, and porcupine, and furniture, and Logan.)

Seeing the original post, I don’t see him saying it’s OP, just an unfair advantage. Taking the other extreme, would you want a situation where for say 50s a minute one could be twice as strong by using 50 buffs?

Perhaps a better way would be to turn it into a food buff (and since % isn’t stated, shouldn’t be stronger than one). Thus one can’t stack effects like this, but it’ll still be possible if it complements your build.

(By the way, are these account bound? Might see an objection from pure WvW players if they need to PvE to get it)

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

What was the final score?
didn’t get to playing friday.

Aurora Glade: 213,721
Jade Sea: 204,642
Abaddon’s Mouth: 203,085

Adaneshade.2409:

Tenshi.3598:

If you people don’t want to be disturbed, think for a second. Maybe you should go somewhere where you will not be disturbed. Maybe your friendly PvP is better suited, not in WvW, but in PvP.

Many of us use duels to test new builds. your stat selection choices are very limited in sPvP. None of the builds I run can be made in sPvP, not even close.

Ah, so it’s not a duel, but a practice session. Duels are meant to be fair, which is something the PvP restrictions facilitate.
In that case, be happy. Most WvW isn’t “duels” (unless you’re a PK’er, in which case I have no love for you ), so you’re for free getting serious practice.

Put it like this: I also hate people ganking me (or PK’ers instagibbing me) while I’m having my fun, running from spawn, killing dollies or whatever, so it’s quite the same. The only answer: deal with it. They’re not wrong to do so, all you can do is try not to get caught by them. Still, 99% of the time it’s just a group taking out a potential threat, and that’s completely allright, even if we hate it.

You might wish to review the title. Zerging isn’t the subject, server disparity is, and I don’t see you giving a solution.

Checking the scores I assume you’re HoD. You had a false start, and have been moving to your correct tier. Loss strings cost you players, and currently you happen to face Kaineng (who iirc just got some numbers, the very thing you wish for ).

Your task now is to get back the confidence. I’d suggest, hold regular server WvW events with your server’s bigger guilds (may wanna wait for Kaineng to promote :P). Get enough people to fill a few maps, even if it’s for a few hours, and those hours should go well. If that succeeds it’ll be a matter of organizing, and you can get some positive momentum again. Players who left WvW may see the scores and figure it’s worth a try again.

Aside from that, I agree there should be some incentives to join servers that are undermanned, and as I suggested elsewhere, it could be in the form of a scaling “outmanned buff”, depending on average server WvW activity. I should note, the primary purpose of this isn’t so much to promote the smaller servers, but to discourage “joining the winning team”, as that’d then seriously reduce the rewards you gain.

Thank you all for a fantastic match! Closest one I’ve seen so far.

I wish everyone another fun week on this rematch!

Had noticed the additions, but wasn’t sure what caused it (figured it might be that, though).

Score consistency still seems strange though, if those are one-time additions (makes more sense with a total steady income of about 900 points per tick).

Thanks for the info so far

Maybe my math is just off (well possible :P) but with the info I know of, the math doesn’t seem to fit.

24 camps, 120 points. 24 towers, 240 points. 12 keeps, 300 points. 1 castle, 35 points.
Adds up to 695 points total per tick (of course, easy to check).

4 ticks an hour -> 2,780 p/h
24 hrs a day -> 66,720 p/d
7 days a week ->467,040 points/week

Adding up weekly scores I tend to get around 610-615k points total instead. Not sure on those small differences, may be the impact of maintenance and startup. Still, that leaves about 145k points unexplained… can someone point out the error in the math please?

I’d argue that PvDoor isn’t quite PvE. The act itself obviously is, but why aren’t there enemy players defending it? Most likely because of your strategy, which imo ranks higher in pvp than standard zerg v zerg.

Also, it wouldn’t stop nightcap servers I think. Main use would be to place a bit of siege to prevent small attacks… which would allow a strong nightserver to completely ignore active defense.

As for slowing assaults, I’m all for that (to the point where losing a keep may take you a day to get it back), but it seems hard to do in the current form of GW2.

Would easily make rams useless though… and knowing AIs, it’ll probably be easy to exploit all NPCs fire on that lone tank while the gate’s being speedbashed

Downed, now what?

Ele: I’ll just walk through that portal, thank you
Thief: Glad I dropped shadow refuge upfront, or I’d be dps’ed down in seconds
Necromancer: back in a sec guys ^^
Warrior: please let only one stomp me… a few more seconds… okay, now I gotta kill something dies, then dies again 2 seconds after respawning
Guardian: please please let them only try to stomp me once, and all at the same time… please?
Engineer: let’s pull someone towards me, where he can’t do anything… oh, wait…
Mesmer: Weee teleporter! Now where do we set those coordinates…
Ranger: opens map

If you people don’t want to be disturbed, think for a second. Maybe you should go somewhere where you will not be disturbed. Maybe your friendly PvP is better suited, not in WvW, but in PvP.

Wonder at friday how every team will describe the opponents pretty hard to properly assess your own team.

And as it stands, next week rematch! Is Europe starting to settle down, or was it just a lull during the holidays?

Keep the reports to the anticheating division – on the forums it’s just bound to become a flame war.

Happy newyear to all our servers (okay, other servers as well) – was a nice opening night.

My solution: do not buy boxes any more at events. As long as you keep buying them, the monetizing experts will think that these make players happy – primarily because the sales make the experts happy.

Edit: (in other words, the famous phrase as used by the person below: “vote with your wallet!”) /edit

Also, might be fun to find a way to make GW2’s revenue RNG-based. Of course we will use the same RNG used ingame. Might bring home an important point ^^.

How the hell did people turn this into yet another complain-about JP/thief thread, I wonder? Or did a mod make a very silly topic merge?

Yes OP it’s nasty when you have a poor connection/pc like me. But seeing how badly alt+f4 was abused before, I’m happy for the change. Consider the comparison:

New system downsides:
- crashes and poorly timed map changes occasionally mean a few silver worth of repair bill

Old system downsides:
- Losing target without any indication
- Annoyance by not getting your kills
- Effects “on kill” cancelled by mass-exploiting
- Rallies cancelled by mass-exploiting (in major battles this alone may have had a decisive impact)
- Tonnes of loot lost in the process

I think the balance is fairly clear. This system is by far the lesser of two evils. The only possible alternative is freezing the character for X seconds (I’d say 10-15 to ensure people can’t do it when losing). Would eliminate many death-crashes, but also add some if you crash with combat nearby.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Aurora-Glade-vs-Abaddon-s-Mouth-vs-Jade-Sea-1/first already a topic for the matchup.

Oh well, time to ninja Sto…. err I mean, your keep! Yes that’s it, your keep in your borderlands, please do not defend it ^^

Perhaps this should also be sent to our governments – which are even worse, because they even build their golems in their own lands before waypointing it to another land and faceroll it.

In short, seems reasonable enough to me. The only problem I see is that golems have forms of protection that other siege doesn’t have – particularly spawn areas.

Please do report it as best you can. We don’t want cheaters on our server. Hope ‘repair+mesmer’ explains it, but let anet check it, better safe than sorry.

We try reporting “dubious cases” as well – all we can do is hope anet deals with it and that in general, our servers are above such behaviour.

Nidome.1365:

Try manning some siege equipment either in defence or attack – arrow carts are probably the best for this. Periodically just click leave, spam pickupus and then use again – only takes a second to grab the bags.

This. Buy some siege blueprints (ACs are pretty cheap), learn good placement and may the candy cane bring you many bags ^^.

Side note: jobs like camp capping can also get you badges as they regularly drop from the supervisors. Perhaps not as glorious, but often enough the reason your zerg triumphs in the end.

Haha push skills are even more fun… at some point a zerg was fighting near a cliff… then they got pushed/feared/idk.

I was standing underneath and thinking “It’s raining men!”

Not on damage. Blood/poison/scorch trails I’d find interesting as you could track the thief but not actually target him. Reveal on damage however… I’d agree with Xolo there, and invul would obviously just make things worse.

Shadow refuge is already risky since you have to stay in it and take the AoE thrown inside for several seconds. Which already is a big counter (just wait 10 seconds afterwards to see the thief lying on the ground :P).

I’d say, raise revealed time, and possibly in return slightly raise the stealth times of short duration skills by a few seconds (but all should have a visible activation even if you are in stealth, and actual permastealth should not be possible)

This way stealth stays a useful mechanic for spying and safety, but attacking will leave you seriously exposed. Still allows assassinations, but doesn’t allow stealth-poking.

Some suggestions hold water. I’d say consider:
- resurrect only outside combat
- no target limit on offensive AoE effects
- limit # of rams at a door
- possibly lower superior ram damage, in return for better HP
- tweak door HP if needed
- Add mini events at safe towers (like helping workers to build an upgrade) to reward guard duty

However, most of the things you say have one simple counter: strategy. It’s fun how many of these things are reflected by military history. Your cap party gets annihilated by a zerg? Zerg spent more time than you, so you win. His zerg’s bigger than yours and defeats you? Your error then was to offer battle when you shouldn’t have.

Likewise the PvDoor matter. You didn’t have men stationed at the tower. You didn’t have someone shadowing their zerg. They attacked after you took the bait of a diversion on the other side of the map. Their coordinated group was faster than your zerg. You didn’t anticipate their move. You saw white swords, but didn’t immediately react, while they made sure to keep their main force “hidden”. Your defenders failed to AoE the rams when they could have. And so forth.

I’ve seen all that making its impact. Good communication can double your effectiveness easily. Good tactics can double it, and good strategy can double it again.

Since you post in WvW forums, we can ignore the PvE part I suppose?

Now, my advice to anyone who hates OP thieves: make a thief and get it to 80. Then try killing people with 2 hits. Either you’ll have fun, or more likely, you’ll realize you were wrong.
Either way you’ll learn very quickly how thieves are countered… because you’ll face it. Then you can start doing the same.

And how do you identify glass cannons? I’d assume, by their droprate (har-har). So you’re using a circular trail of thought, I would guess.

Can it work? Yes, with a good tanky player who knows what he’s doing. Or if the gc knows when to get out of combat.

Why use it? In normal PvE, certainly for warriors, it works excellent, so that’s a likely build.

Other reason? Many glass cannons may be using explorer’s. MF should be divided among the party to compensate (unless removed)

If you use gc in dungeons, learn quickly from your experience. (“l2p or don’t join” has another usual meaning that doesn’t work since you can’t learn if you don’t join).

I’d agree with being account bound in both ways. Legendaries should reflect someone’s work ingame; if most of it can be bought (let alone the full product) with cash, that kinda makes it pointless imo. Wouldn’t take a hard stance on that though.

As for the other meaning: yes. If my alts could use it too, I’d find it somewhat reasonable to try and get one. As it is… it’s a crazy amount of gold to spend on only one of my characters… hell, getting them all “ascended” would already be a nightmare as it seems now…

In my experience, outside of DEs respawns do seem to take some time, but often enough you get multiple mobs close to eachother. After you killed the third, the first respawns (and since you likely move a lot, you’ll likely agro a few quickly).

Easiest way through it, if your build can handle it, is getting a few mobs together and AoEing them down at once. Thus all the timers activate about the same moment and you have plenty of time to move on. Not that easy for some classes/builds though…

Edit: a few of the places mentioned below I do recognize for insane respawn rates.

Hey, a zerg is walking past/ This is crazy / I can’t escape them…so cull me, maybe?

While I get the sentiment, people should maybe try and look at it from the opposite direction:

In that view, normally, all the minis would be available only through gem store. Or extremely rare drops that you wouldn’t get anyway.
Instead you’re getting two of them for free. More so, you get to choose which two are your favourites. So you’re getting stuff worth 700? gems for a bit of easy work, I’d say that’s pretty neat, huh? if you want all 5, you can gem up for it, convert gold to gems and get them that way, or decide it’s not worth it after all – your choice entirely. Could even ask it as a christmas present I’d guess.

What I would like an answer to is, whether leftover cogs, frames, glue, stuffing etcetera will be usable again next year. Also, whether they plan for next year to introduce new minis or repeat the ones we have now (I assume new ones?). Also, might be desirable to have a ‘special category’ among the bank collectibles for stuff like this. I’d hate to delete stuff, only to find next year that I could use it again, but it’s valuable inventory space wasted otherwise. Am happy to see at least the crafting mats can be stored.

Have you even done the events? Minidungeons aren’t grind, unless you choose for some reason to grind them. JP is peanuts compared to Clocktower. Bells are a nice extra, snowball fight is quite okay…

The only complaint I have are the presents. Far too many sweaters – these are wintersday presents! Drop some eggnog, snowman summoners etc from them regularly please.

Overall I’d say, compared to clocktower… it solved pretty much all its problems, but in the process also removed the very reasons people like me loved it so much. The reward, the atmosphere, the pressure, the beauty… and the tricks (though I suppose that’s halloween for ya).

I myself would like splitting a hard mode version (clocktower difficulty), with slightly higher repeat rewards but no achieves – of course assuming a dev enjoys making these. Thus nobody would need to do it for anything, other than “because we want to”.

Also: I’d love a spectator mode for the fallen (optional), so we can watch, and gloat when those fast players miss their jumps (hey, at least I’m honest! ^^). Think that’ll add to the atmosphere.

To put it simple: nobody will forget the clocktower (be it with hateful or loving memories)… and that’s something this JP may lack. Totally understand that (virtually) everyone should be able to get the achieve, but if you can do that AND keep the challenge (say by HM), I’d say that’ll be ideal.

(Edit: in case it wasn’t clear, it’s still a nice JP, nice little thing for the holidays, thanks!)

As one “brave” review said at release, GW2 isn’t so much the next generation of MMORPGs, but it does show the way. I find that a good description.

DEs are great, but still rudimentary. Need to be far more interdependent and branching to truly shine, but it shows the way.

Dungeons are quite okay, but FotM/ascended was a blunder that has done terrible damage on PvE and dungeons (varies quite a bit per server though). ANet’s supposedly working on a fix, hope it comes with winterday but I’m not counting on it just yet.

PvP needs those game modes, agreed. Atm it’s still a waste of potential (GW1 should be an example to ANet…wait…).

WvW you’re oversimplifying though, I think. Just like on Earth, zerging is pretty much the most basic strategy, but a pretty inefficient one.

Bad luck caused by awfully bad design is the obvious explanation.

Well, we still got promises. Who knows, they might implement it soon… when the RL server shuts down (as rumours say will happen in about a week).

1) I’d say make one well affordable karma set, and other more exclusive ones.

2) Eventually I’d want full visibility (if someone has a legendary set of PvP/WvW awesome, the enemy should see at once this is a fearsome enemy… and then see the name and run). However, it means a lot more data; with culling being already the biggest problem, a big no. If at all, make it default=no.

3) same as 1

4) Consider raising loot value. But the real one I’d wish to see is, make siege and upgrades a better investment. Siege shouldn’t de-spawn unless destroyed, and upgrades should be more worthwhile by making it harder to take objectives, in general.

5) Problem with people just hoarding dailies taking spots on the top servers. Monthly incentives help somewhat, though it should focus on WvW objectives, not kills. Bigger issue is that some servers are packed while others are undermanned.

6) Please, don’t make me take a stopwatch to the toilet. Don’t know the current timeframe, about 5-10 mins would seem okay to me. Real wars also have AFKers taking a leak.

7) Disagree. There’s a little issue between melee and ranged in general – I’d say as consideration: increase (melee) survivability, increase ranges, but give an accuracy penalty at longer range. Long range exchanges should be possible, but less effective.

8) Agree, particularly make legendaries that reflect the kind of player you are. Shows your individual accomplishments better than “I did everything needed to have this one”. I’d also like different “legendary tiers”, to show you’re actually super awesome, or super special awesome (last tier is no-life awesome :P).

9) Exp is fairly okay. What I would prefer is having smaller sub-objectives. Say a garrison having four objectives: breach wall 1, breach wall 2, lord’s room, and overall. Thus failed attempts would still reward some xp.

10) Outmanned needs an overhaul imo. See 12 for more. Possibly keep an outmanned buff that adds more NPCs on your side.

11) If a player does this on purpose, report cheating and ban, naturally. Most what I see though is newbs doing so because they don’t know better – it’s up to their veterans and leaders to instruct them. Don’t go banning people for ignorance, obviously.

12a) I think the outmanned buff could be reworked for this purpose. Basically, get a rating for each server on how full it tends to be, and set the xp/loot buff to be the opposite of that. 100% full server average means no buff, 67% full means 33% buff, 30% full average means 70% buff. This would provide incentive for players to go to a relatively empty server (should of course be free etc). Also a consideration: allow players to pick a WvW server apart from their PvE server (so that players don’t need to choose between the two).
12b) Don’t know how the cap works, but if it’s 300 per map, that should be 100 for each team.
12c) A consideration: allow a real WvW and a practice WvW. Practice is an overflow shared among servers, with random teams, slightly lower rewards maybe. This’d allow newbs a place to learn, and guilds a place to practice, without fear of taking a better player’s slot, and would always allow players to bypass queues, if 12a doesn’t solve that.

Added 13: I feel, at least when I play, a major issue is the pace being too high. Even Stonemist can be taken in a matter of minutes with a well coordinated attack. Awesome to do, sure, but kind of ruins the epicness of a battle when you know your work will be undone completely overnight, and likely several times before that. Ideally I’d say, longer distances (allowing more skirmishes in the field). I’d also consider another fortress tier, in which system towers mainly serve as a buffer. And slower sieges, be it by stronger walls, and/or more npc’s.
Especially consider the nightcapping.

As a Fort Aspenwood fan, I like the WvWvW setup. But there’s some valid points mentioned here. I’d suggest the following:

- PvP should reward at least experience for your actual character.
- At that point it should also provide PvE gear, one way or another. Two options:
- 1) Allow PvP characters to use their unlocked items in PvE. PvP lvl should then probably correspond with the item level in some way?
- 2) Allow all crafting materials to be bought with PvP points. This might promote PvP as a method to get the materials you lack (not sure whether PvP’ers would mind?) and allow PvP’ers to craft their “real” armor.

Until then, just level up through WvW, unlock your skills there, and get armor from the rewards you get there. Provided your server doesn’t have queues, even a lvl 1 in whites can help out – be it by manning siege, running supplies or just tossing red circles to keep your enemy’s endurance low. Arguably, until you get maxed lvl/gear, a PvP’er will make up for it by his PvP skill.

“I always get into overflows at LA”

Amazing huh. Since nov 15 that’s been constant… must be that everyone’s constantly checking whether we can craft the new gear yet!

The good news: PvE zones now tend to have about as many other players in them, as their GW1 counterparts did.

WvW will depend on your server. A problem is how low ranked servers easily lose what WvW players they have now; this is something Anet should work at. Perhaps a change in the outmanned buff: instead, check every server’s WvW activity over time. If on average your WvW is full, you get no buff, if it’s always empty you get a 100% buff, say. Simple sum to make, and it’ll be a major incentive for players to spread out across servers. Getting twice the drops and having no wait time… gotta be some people interested in that.

alcopaul.2156:

i posted this in a thread.

“if I was in Arena.NET’s “Department of Making Awesome Excuses”, i will make it appear like Ascended item was the natural progression of item upgrades.

How?

By telling you players that Exotics which accomodated runes and sigils are meant to be ascended with the runes and sigils and jewels attributes.

See, exotics will be the first step in the process. you can configure your exotic jewels to be berserker+emerald jewel and whalla, ascend it to have berserker+emerald stats with a slight increase. or you can configure your exotic weapons and armors with runes and sigil, ascend it and the ascended version will have the rune/sigil attributes.

this ascended versions are fixed and cannot be reconfigured but the infusions and the only way to reconfigure your ascended gear is to go the exotic way again and do all the configuration there with the appropriate jewel, rune or sigil and ascend them again.

with this setup, exotics are not obsoleted and is a prerequisite to get the ascended item.

and yes, thank you, A.NET in advanced. i’ll take a donation."

basically using Gift of Ascension and our current exotics. Yes, our current exotics as precursors for ascended.

The only addition to this fine thought: make the Gift availlable through all kinds of gameplay, not just FotM. And I’d say, make it tie in properly with GW1 lore this time. It’s those small details that makes a GW veteran smile.

Inflation.

Hope that answers the question

The ??? ones will (almost certainly) come with the wintersday event. Same happened with halloween and lost shores, so it should come soon.

Fractals from what i heard are 7 levels. On odd levels you get 3, on even ones you get 4, so say doing 1+2 should get you 7 fractals. Correct me if I’m wrong. Hope this helps!

I’ll say, prioritize bugs and balance - be it among maps, items, classes, weapons, traits… pretty much everything. Among new content, holiday events should have priority. Next, small but fun updates (say, minigames, pvp modes, costumes, etcetera). Only after that, major updates.

At times it feels like updates are just made to distract customers from the existing problems. Indeed, at times it feels like the game is in the hands of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. Of which the Guide says:

It is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of [their products] by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words – and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation’s Galaxy-wide success is founded – their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.

I very much hope, that this will remain merely a joke.

Agreed. And I demand grentchies!