Guild Wars 2

Here is actual math.

Currently, it costs 9g for 100 gems on my server. The pick costs 1000 gems. Therefore, the pick costs 90g to purchase. Definitely not cheap.

How much money do you make from using it? Well, so far I’ve probably made a solid 10 silver off selling the sprockets over a few days.

So, how long will it take to make it worth it? A LONG TIME. In short, I didn’t get it because I thought it would give me some crazy in-game advantage. I got it because I wanted an infinite pick with cool animations.

BOTTOM LINE: Anyone who bought the pick to make money will be disappointed. Players who want to make gold through the gem store should simply turn their gems into gold instead. So, if you want to complain about “Pay to Win,” please complain about that.

I have a level 80 Thief but have been trying to level up a Ranger lately. I’m level 56, but so far am finding that all of my ranged damage options are pretty lackluster. That’s when I compare it to the huge damage I can put out on my Thief with Dual Pistols, and I know that even that gets laughed at in regards to serious damage.

Axes and shortbow seem geared towards condition damage, which is still pretty mediocre. Longbow damage feels slightly weaker than using plain auto-attack on my thief pistol. =P

Does it get better? I’m running sword or GS pretty much all the time these days, but there are many difficult opponents to fight where ranged damage would be useful. Is stacking power, precision, and crit the way to go?

Thanks!

/10char

I missed watching it and keep getting pieces in forum threads. Is there a typed summary somewhere?

Thief
-Jacket from Gem Store
-Shoulders, Legs, Boots are Whispers Skin
-Gloves are from Hall of Monuments

I don’t really think any grind is REQUIRED to be competitive. I still don’t even have a full set bonus on my gear and I can do just fine in all the dungeons of the game and WvW. The bonus will help, but I don’t ever feel like I’m crippled for helping my party or even winning 1vs1 fights in PvP.

I would be slightly annoyed if you had to pay real world money for this kind of service. However, I REALLY would want it too, so I probably would lol.

I think everyone is a little too worried about this. ArenaNet has made some poor decisions in the past in my opinion, but they’ve never done anything to deliberately screw over the playerbase in an attempt to make more money. If they tick everyone off, they’ll lose profits, and it’s clear that the devs are pretty passionate gamers too.

I’m all for ANet continuing to think through options to generate more money to fund the development of the game because it means a win for both the company and the players. I would only be upset if they crossed the line and started penalizing players for profit, but as I’ve said, it will be their own grave if they choose to cross that line.

I am loving the balance changes to the game that are opening up new playstyles for characters. However, the amount of time I spend running back to the respec trainer is getting a little absurd. I now have builds for…

1. Dungeon running
2. Speed-clearing maps
3. Support Role in WvW
4. Solo-Gank Role in WvW
5. Crazy-Fun but impractical builds (“Pistol Crit” build on my thief for example)

In addition, I sometimes subdivide these different builds into specific ones for condition damage or power/crit depending on my team composition.

My enjoyment of GW2 would go up exponentially if I could switch builds on the fly like I could with GW1. Even storing at least one additional build would be really helpful so I could go between PvE mode and WvW mode without a respec.

EDIT: I wouldn’t have mind continuing to pay money to respec. It’s the run time and manual reallocation of points that is really annoying.

I took a huge break from the game and just came back. With the way Fractcal levels scale, is there any chance that I’ll get to play the content seeing as I’m starting at zero? Will I need to grind my way up ranks before PUGs accept me or is there something you would suggest?

Not a “QQ” post… I’m just curious! Thanks for your help.

I don’t mind a potential subscription plan as long as it doesn’t gate content. I want to support the development of GW2.

However, what I REALLY want to pay for would be a full expansion to GW2. I loved GW1’s model the most of any game I have ever played. So far, Living World has been interesting, but I wish there was something big on the horizon to look forward to versus these smalls releases.

After I have given this some more thought, I’m really not sure I’m in favor of this change. Don’t get me wrong… I love GW2 and am amazed that we’re getting such awesome new content in November (and right off the heals of an awesome Halloween Event too!). I’m thankful that we are geting new content and new rewards to pursue! However, my favorite thing about GW2 is how accessible it is and easy it is to play with my friends, and I feel like this change is going to impact that element of the game for me.

Currently, most of my friends that started playing GW2 are taking a break from it while they play other games. I imagine that they will want to come back, but when they do, will I still be able to play with them? It now looks like I’ll have to help them clear older content in order to gear them up for us to have fun together again.

The other thing that concerns me is how much anger this is generating on the forums. I never expect to see rosy discussions happening on official game forums, but this is the first time I have seen such anger from the GW2 community. People were annoyed about the drop rate of skins in Halloween chests too, but even that frustration seems to pale in comparison to this. If this decision causes people to leave and the servers of my favorite game to become empty, it’s a loss for me even if I end up enjoying the new system personally.

With this kind of backlash after GW2 received mostly praise during the entirety of its development, I think it would be wise for the developers to reverse course on this one until an agreeable solution is met. The alternative is to simply say “well, no decision pleases anyone” and gamble that this decision causes more players to join the game than it will cause people to leave. Because the people who would leave are the ones who had the most “ownership” of GW2’s core vision, I don’t think that alienating the game’s top fans is a wise decision.

Honestly, I have enough respect for ANet that if they say this new system is fun, then I am willing to take their word on it until proven otherwise. However, even if this turns out to be true, I have to wonder if implementing a fun system that flies in the face of the game’s core values is really a worthwhile choice. To me, there is such a thing as “the right system for the wrong game.”

Just finished reading the blog article.

I really have mixed feelings about this. I like the new tier of items and am not terribly concerned about “power creep” based off the limited stat boost that ascended gear provides. However, it makes me a little bit sad that the normal upgrade slots in armor are going away. I was just thinking the other day how much I enjoyed the system of being able customize gear exactly the way I wanted it. Now, that customization is gone.

I’ll wait and see how it all pans out.

New classes are fine, but I’m really hoping for more weapon choices for existing classes and maybe new trait lines instead (more horizontal development to make the classes even cooler than they already are).

Examples:
Weaponry that lets Necromancers do tons of direct damage
Weaponry that gives Guardians viable ranged options for WvW
More weapon options for classes with few choices right now, such as Engineers.

And of course… greatsword for Thieves. I want to be able to do a flip in mid-air with a gigantic sword and kill people. Yes, you heard me right. Just do it.

Here is my thief: Asthyl Telrunya. I loosely based her design off of Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII (awesome game).

I’m loving how diverse a lot of these armor set combos are! ArenaNet did a fantastic job at designing so many sets that work well together.

That was a fun video! It’s funny… I’ve tried almost everything but pistol/dagger in WvW. Watching this video makes me want to give it a go though

Honestly, thief is ridiculously fun in PvE. I will admit that it’s a bit spam heavy. I really miss swapping weapons like I do on my other toons (thief generally revolves around using only one or two abilities over and over until your initiative drains). However, the dodging mechanic really makes the class shine.

Right now I’m running a heavy conditions build, and by myself I can apply 25 stacks of bleeding + poison to entire groups while evading most counterattacks as long as I have initiative.

Here’s the math for you. Your dual skill (#3) gives you an evade on every weapon set but double pistol. You can usually use that three times before running out of initative, giving you three evades if you time it right. With points in Acrobatics, you can get up to three rolls before running out of endurance and the way the mechanic is set up you get three rolls in the time it takes for your endurance to normally recover two rolls. Then, you can slot a heal skill which doubles as a roll and snare-breaker or a heal that stealths you for more evade. You can get utilities that provide an additional roll, targeted teleport, and cloaking. You can slot your rolls to leave caltrops behind you which makes it hard for mobs to chase you. And if that wasn’t enough, you can carry your shortbow as your off-weapon-set and use the fifth arrow ability to teleport away if you ever run into trouble.

When all is said and done, I usually have 6+"evades" or escape mechanisms available to me at any time.

Will you still die a lot? Heck yeah… thieves are super squishy. However, the survival skill-cap is pretty high, and you have so many tools that prevent you from taking ANY damage (period) that thieves can put out a ton of DPS while not dying.

In world vs world, I get embarrassed if I die more than once every three hours. There is simply no reason why any class would be able to corner me unless I screw up (or am facing another thief, haha)

@OP

…so, did you kick the guy? Honestly, I would have. Do you really want a player with that kind of attitude in your guild?

I’m not sure I’m a fan of the multi-guild system either, but this is still a problem that can be fixed by the playerbase while ANet tweeks the system more. In my opinion, it is totally reasonable to kick players from your guild who do not represent you IF you really want your community to be close and tight-knit. If you don’t care, then you don’t care.

I actually hopped from guild to guild until I found one that required representation. Sure enough, it’s been the best guild I have found so far.

I’ve often wondered why there are so many female characters in a game with a high male RL population as well. Currently, my main is a female toon, but that’s because I designed the character to be based off Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII.

I tend to just make up a character concept and go with it. I don’t think I ever set out with a “dang, I need to make a female character” or anything like that. In most games, I stick with a Male avatar, and even now, all my alts are male.

Another reason why I picked female human for Guild Wars was because it was one of the avatars with the greatest customization choices. I love Sylvari and Asura but could never play one because their options are so limited and I hate running into clones of my character. I have yet to run into many toons than resemble my human female.

Prior to buying gems for this event, I loved ArenaNet. Afterwards, I was really mad.

I’m still willing to give the benefit of doubt to the team and say they made a bad call on this one, but I’ve learned my lesson and will not be buying keys from ArenaNet ever again.

Note: Games like League of Legends sell skins for anywhere from $5-$30. This is reasonable. How much does ANet expect their players to pay with this crazy lottery system? $120+?

I’m really glad I purchased Guild Wars 2. It has been fun to watch the dev team put so much of their heart and soul into the game and I really feel like GW2 has set a new benchmark for MMOs to surpass. Today, I take my leave of GW2 for the time being, so I thought I might leave some “exit feedback” before taking off. If anyone else is in the same boat, I thought this might be a good place to put it (in a positive, constructive state) so that the devs have some good feedback to continue improving the product.

What I loved:
-The game world was beautiful and fun to explore. I had several “gasp” moments when I just had to stop and appreciate how wonderfully the game was crafted. One of my favorite moments was coming across underwater lava… so cool!

-The classes are fun and distinctive.

-The armor sets look fantastic and I love the way that they tend to mix together well. Coupled with the dye system, it was really fun designing epic-looking characters.

-I love that crafting allows you to get legendary items. I never made it to one myself, but it’s neat to see that crafting has a cool end-game component.

-There are tons of amazing features in the game. Crafting from banks, down-leveling, map travel, instant level 80 spvp, the ability to play WvW from level 1, rewards scaled to level, and other features like these make this game extremely fun to play with friends.

-Dynamic events are a really fun concept. They got progressively less fun after I left the starter zones because there were significantly fewer events and fewer players to play them with, but I definitely support Dynamic Events as a design decision.

-ArenaNet’s goal of making me want to play with other players was a huge success. I was always excited to see other players in my zone. I love not fighting players for resource nodes.

Why I am Leaving:

-Combat is repetitive in terms of skill usage. My profession is a thief, and I basically have been doing either a “Death Blossom” (Condition Damage) or “Pistol Whip” (Power + Precision) build for the ENTIRE game. I stopped having new skills to look forward to around level 30. Utility skills are sometimes interesting, but have very long cooldowns and generally involve passive upgrades. (Example: While it is beneficial to apply venom to a weapon and get might boosts through traits because of it, passive abilities like the “venom line” are not very FUN compared to active abilities like Caltrops).

-Related to the above note: I find the limited number of active skills on the skill bar to decrease the fun factor of the game. I understand that having a limited number of skills was an intentional design decision, but more skills would = more choices in the moment and reward players who can keep up. If there were more weapons to swap between and good reasons to swap between them (much like having a variety of weapons in an FPS), this problem may not have been such a big deal for me.

-The story content, while somewhat enjoyable, is not really all that gripping. For example, I just completed a chain of personal story quests that had me repeatedly climbing the same tower and fighting krait or exploring the waters underneath that tower (name escapes me, but involves a Norn named Apatia). Some of the boss fights in the game have extremely fun mechanics, such as the final boss in Sorrow’s Embrace Story Mode. I wish that more encounters with unique mechanics like this had made it into the personal story.

Conclusion:
-Guild Wars 2 has no subscription fee, so I definitely plan to return in the future when new content patches are released and I would love to buy more gems simply to support the development team. Until I return, I hope that this exit feedback proves useful in making the game better.

Sincerely,
A satisfied customer