Guild Wars 2

Of all the GW nostalgia ANet could’ve invoked, they chose the Tormented weapons to gate behind the gem store instead of tying their rediscovery into ANY sort of story content whatsoever…

Even if you’re willing to accept the gem store as the sole outlet for every new item added to the game (which it is absurdly close to becoming) this implementation of a lore-related weapon set is just incredibly hard to accept.

Does lore even exist in this game anymore?

Where exactly did Evon Gnashblade pick up a hoarde of Tormented Weapons? The Domain of Anguish? I highly doubt it.

Is ANet truly going to hype up their Living Story as expanding upon the game’s lore at the same time they are completely disregarding any meaning behind their game world’s historic content?

I’m just about fed up with the mediocrity and greed spewing out of ANet’s studio.

Inimicus.7162:

All the potential I see in Guild Wars 2 is being squandered on living story and gem store money grabs.

^This. (changed ‘personal story’ to ‘living story’ cuz I think that’s what Inimicus meant)

GW was an awesome game, IMO. GW2 is an awesome game, as well. They both have their pros and cons, neither is perfect, and neither will ever appeal to everyone. However, I would love to see ANet take some of GW’s features that made it long-lasting, update them, and then implement them in GW2. To be specific, here are some examples of things that GW2 could learn from and adapt/reuse:

Expand the skill system and buildcraft potential to something closer to GW’s. Right now, GW2’s character build system is incredibly lacking in comparison.

Limit the use of the gem store to a significantly smaller portion of new item releases (50% or less).

No dailies. There’s no need for them whatsoever.

No pressure to play specific content in a given timeframe. The vast majority of content should be available to any player, and at any time. Festivals would be the obvious exception.

Rewards were linked to specific types of content, NOT ACHIEVEMENTS, so the content itself always felt rewarding. Tormented weapons were eventual rewards for DoA. FoW armor was the eventual reward for UW and FoW. This was implemented and even improved in GW2 with the dungeon token system, for example, but has not been used effectively since.

Drop rates were low, but reasonable. For example, players knew that they probably weren’t going to walk out of UW with 6 or 7 ectos, and usually got excited over having even one drop. However, it did happen occasionally where you had a great night and picked up multiples. This goes along with making content feel rewarding and not having all new items in the gem store.

Gameplay types missing entirely from GW2:
raid-style PvE (UW/FoW/Deep/Urgoz/DoA)
Alliance Battles
GvG

Three massive continents were great for exploration. Obviously, these wouldn’t need to be done all at once for GW2, but gradual geographic expansion would be a really nice addition to the game.

The boss hunting elite skill system made elite skills feel ‘earned’ and somewhat special. Elite skills were also typically central to buildcraft, and most were actually useful.

Meaningful achievements that took dedication to achieve. Achievements weren’t just thrown in for every single possible piece of content.

SonicTHI.3217:

Grind, zergs and boring content. If anything i d say the game has deteriorated to a typical mediocre WoW clone with a different gimmick zerg fest every 2 weeks.

Everything i loved about GW1 is gone, most things i loved about GW2 are gone and it keeps getting worse.

+1 Couldn’t have said it better.

Zypher.7609:

Vick.6805:

Traveller.7496:

GW2 is not and won’t be GW1 with revamped graphics.

It’s a shame, because a continuation of GW’s game type and style A) was what a lot of people expected, B ) was what a lot of people wanted, C) was what would have kept GW veterans happy in the sequel, and D) would have given GW2 a similar staying power (which I just don’t see in its current form).

Oh well…too late now. ANet made their decisions. I’ll just be very surprised if GW2 ever reaches the kind of dedicated fan base that GW has.

And what type of dedicated fan base does GW1 have?

The type where players revisit a game that is 9 years old, has no content updates, and yet is still somehow enticing players to leave GW2 and go back to it.

lordkrall.7241:

Vick.6805:

I’m so frustrated with this game, and mostly because of the gem store BS. I miss the old ANet. They were SO much better before they sold out to NCSoft.

You are aware that ArenaNet “sold out to NCSoft” long before GW1 was released, right?

Depends if you’re talking “sold out” literally or “sold out” as in gave up on their ideals.

Yes, literally speaking, they were acquired by NCSoft even before GW. They didn’t sell out their ideals until much later.

Azure Prower.8701:

You don’t need a lot of things.

You don’t even need to enjoy the game. Because fun costs extra.

This made me chuckle.

“1000 gem RNG chance at happiness

BUT ONLY FOR A LIMITED TIME!"

I’m so frustrated with this game, and mostly because of the gem store BS. I miss the old ANet. They were SO much better before they sold out to NCSoft.

Traveller.7496:

GW2 is not and won’t be GW1 with revamped graphics.

It’s a shame, because a continuation of GW’s game type and style A) was what a lot of people expected, B ) was what a lot of people wanted, C) was what would have kept GW veterans happy in the sequel, and D) would have given GW2 a similar staying power (which I just don’t see in its current form).

Oh well…too late now. ANet made their decisions. I’ll just be very surprised if GW2 ever reaches the kind of dedicated fan base that GW has.

I like the armors, but the Smurf skin look destroys it for me.

If you run down stairs too quickly (usually with swiftness), you can kill yourself.

It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t obnoxious.

Boring. Zergfest. Again.

I like individual pieces of the armor sets (I like mixing armors), and honestly I was thinking they were some of the better-looking male armors, but the blue skin totally negates my time spent in character creation, so it’s unlikely that I’ll ever buy it.

MastaNeenja.1537:

If it disappeared tomorrow I wouldn’t mind. Tried it for a year not really my thing. I would however pay good money for a nice campaign or expansion. Kinda sad when you think about it, a year after Prophecies was released they put out Factions. What do we have a year after GW2 was released? Well if you weren’t there to see it you may never know.

^ this

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We have not removed the central hub. All services have been moved to Vigil’s Keep, due to the attack on Lion’s Arch. You can find everything there.

Please add crafting stations and a laurel vendor to the Keep, and then your statement will be true.

Latinkuro.9420:

I’m thinking a lot of people are now wishing they had bought the permanent pass to the VIP section of divinity’s reach glad I bought it

Nope. Still not worth it. Vigil Keep will have all the accessibility that LA has now. The Royal Terrace is still as pointless as ever, IMO.

CharrGirl.7896:

Vick.6805:

No matter how the cutscene or dialogue is done, please please please please please always provide a “skip all” or “skip to next” option.

I realize it sounds insulting to the people who work on cutscenes, and I do appreciate that work, but some of the cutscenes do become tedious if you’re completing content on multiple characters, or even just completing it multiple times on the same character.

Don’t you already have that option? You have skip to next sentence, or skip entirely.

In most cinematics, yes, it is an option, but not in all of them. IMO, it should always be an option for anything that is repeatable.

@OP

One of the best write-ups on this topic I’ve seen yet.

I’ll be amazed if this type of balancing is ever implemented, as ANet has staunchly defended their implementation of the varied base HP and armor. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t keep voicing the opinion that it was a mistake.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Why not Make it so that everyone starts with the same health and same armor, same power and everything else.

Then everyone gets a certain amount of stat points to spend based on the Tier they are in.

Equalized base stats would be great, and that’s essentially what this thread is advocating. Along with equalized base stats, the tiered profession system would be unnecessary, with the exception of determining what cosmetic style of armor the character could wear. I don’t really feel that additional stat points are necessary, but if implemented, they should have the same total value across all eight professions, regardless of tier, and the player should be able to choose where to allocate them as part of the build system.

Eles can get perma swiftness just with Staff’s Windborne Speed, the Inscription trait (Air Magic), and Glyph of Elemental Harmony.

Engis also have access to perma-swiftness, and all they have to do is use the trait Speedy Kits with one of their kits. A little boon duration increase makes it easier.

TomoHawkx.8139:

Staff: Easy access to perma swiftness while providing good aoe damage and group buffs, not so great in 1v1s
D/D or S/D: Less access to perma swiftness but still achievable, while tanking and dealing out good single target damage, not so great in large group fights.

This is a good summary, although describing an Ele as tanky is misleading under any circumstances, IMO. Even if you spec as defensively as possible, you’re still going to be squishy, just less so. I would also revise the staff description to say “terrible in 1v1s.”

scerevisiae.1972:

if you want big damage numbers, roll a thief. don’t roll an Ele for damage.

Not necessarily. Thief can be really good at large numbers versus a single target, but Eles are quite capable of sizable damage output as well, both vs a single target and in AoE (although not necessarily with the same weapon).

Honestly, I think the reason most people perceive Ele damage as being terrible is because so many people refuse to break away from the typical x/x/x/30/30 builds. I even had someone try to claim that setup was the Ele’s zerker build recently, which is ridiculous.

I have to admit, I’ve complained about Ele damage in the past as well. But moving away from the x/x/x/30/30 build increases damage noticeably.

I don’t enjoy Engi at all and don’t really play mine now that he’s 80, so I’m not going to try to compare the two classes, but both classes are quite versatile.

I’d just turn it off. Map chat is often bad enough.

You can also get them out of the mystic forge by forging four nugget-tier gemstones with a moderately reasonable rate of success.

In general, GW2’s PvE is not particularly challenging, and ANet seems to think the answer to challenging content is world bosses, which have their own major problems.

The exploration was fun, as it’s a gorgeous game, but once you’ve seen it all, there’s nothing to keep your attention in the open world.

I’m still hoping for something similar to UW or FoW to be introduced, but that seems less and less likely.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

The mentality of the easy goer casual or pve carebear is this. " If I want something and the content is too hard, I will just go and champ train until I farmed enough gold to buy it off the TP".

IMO, a champ train farm should never have been allowed in a starter zone in the first place. I have yet to figure out why the Orr event farming was somehow anathema, but putting a continuous champ train within immediate reach of level 2 characters is perfectly fine.

No matter how the cutscene or dialogue is done, please please please please please always provide a “skip all” or “skip to next” option.

I realize it sounds insulting to the people who work on cutscenes, and I do appreciate that work, but some of the cutscenes do become tedious if you’re completing content on multiple characters, or even just completing it multiple times on the same character.

I tried putting the tools in my inventory and talking to the specialist, and I didn’t see any dialogue options for it. I’ll take another look.

OK, it makes sense that I didn’t get the HE mail from ANet if the post was inaccurate to begin with.

1. Is it still possible to change over the original infinite gathering tools from soulbound to account bound? To be clear, I do not want a refund, I just would like to make them account bound.

2. I recently read in the forums that all owners of the Digital Deluxe Edition at some point received a mail from ANet that contained the extra items added with the release of the Heroic Edition. I realize this is very much after the fact, but when I read that, I realized I never received such a mail. Assuming what I read is accurate, is it still possible to get those items?

These questions are certainly not game-breaking for me, so there’s no rush. Thanks for your assistance.

Kibazuka.1390:

haha, long term goal. A long term goal only makes sense when its realistic.

Lets say you get the boots at 21 and 24k and then pants at 27 and chest at 30 because that number makes at least any kind of sense. If i would be a new player and finally gettin my 3k along with the gloves and i would be like “nice gloves i want that set, wonder how many points i need for the full one?” and then see 30k “oh wow thats only time gated behind 3 years+ excessive grind” well yeah.. That isnt exactly encouraging in any way to say the least and i for sure wouldnt get pumped up to get the game playin and the achievements done.

It makes perfect sense when you look at it from ANet’s perspective. They intend for us to play this game for years. Therefore, having a long-term goal that also stretches into a similar time span is appropriate.

They also have to take into account that their leaderboard players are already approaching these high AP scores, so they have to stretch the goals out in front of the front-runners, too.

If you don’t like picking up achievement points, then this isn’t a goal to set for yourself, but that doesn’t make it a less reasonable goal for someone who does enjoy achievement hunting.

The shoulders and boots are the parts of the set that I really don’t like, but I don’t think I’d ever use the full set on one character.

The chest piece looks much better on female characters, mostly because of the ridiculous sleeves on the male version. But, the leg piece looks far better on male characters. The front-split skirt with the view of the female’s underwear is tasteless, IMO. Hopefully they don’t continue using that model for anything else. We now have three light armor sets with that skirt style.

Zaxares.5419:

Didn’t ANet say at one point that they acknowledged that the requirements for the WvW achievements were excessive and were planning on toning them down?

Yes, so hopefully the lower requirements for the EotM achievements indicate that they’re going to follow through on the original WvW achievements soon.

Nick.6972:

Why play EOTM over the real WvW?

You are not intended to choose EotM over the four main WvW maps. That wouldn’t make any sense. EotM is an overflow map that is only there to occupy people waiting to get into one of the other four maps. AFAIK, the rewards are the same as if you were playing in any of the other WvW maps.

And, honestly, I’m glad. While the map design is exciting, the travel times to get anywhere are ridiculously bad. I don’t see myself spending much, if any, time on this map once I have the achievements, just for that reason.

Personally, I would have used a format like: “Your Queue Position: 23” or “You’re 23rd in Queue.”

The existing option is awkward.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Any class that is able to keep you at range, use dodges, stealth or plenty of CC will melt you with 11k health and no added toughness and armor.

OP said he runs meta events with his build, so you can infer that his intent for the build is PvE. He’s not worried about countering other players.

While you’re at it, reprogram Blink’s and Lightning Flash’s teleports to work the same way Infiltrator’s Arrow’s does so that they all work under the same circumstances (i.e. can cross the same types of terrain).

Thanks!

Leuca.5732:

Wait til the full patch preview is up for the (likely valid) criticism.

I agree…and I’m trying to be patient…but I have to say that twitch stream had me furious. I hope the final balance patch notes make sense, because patience is wearing thin.

It didn’t help that the entire stream was done in an incredibly unprofessional way, and the stream as a whole made it seem like ANet thinks balancing their game is one huge joke.

I don’t see any problem with Tornado’s stat bonuses affecting other AoEs. It isn’t as if the bonus carries over to more than one cast, and that’s why it is on a long cooldown.

Honestly, that’s the only reason I would ever run the skill (not counting Whirlpool). If they nerf that, it’ll just be one more unused icon in a pool of sub-par “elite” skills.

Lasiurus.4067:

“Because he’s not using Lingering Elements, he can’t stack damage modifiers that are triggered based on the attunement”

—> Lingering Elements does not work with damage modifiers, it works only with 5 minor trait of fire/earth/water/air, sadly.

Hmm…that’s good to know. For some reason, I thought it did.

Oh well. I’ll look forward to seeing how close your actual build is with what I guessed.

The following is observation and guesswork based on the video:

He has 10 points in Arcana, because it looks like he’s running Blasting Staff judging by the size of his fields. He isn’t any higher than that, because you can see by his UI that he doesn’t have the Lingering Elements minor trait active.

He has at least 15 points in Water, because you can see the Healing Ripple animation when he swaps to Water Attunement. For the Adept Major Trait, he’s likely using Piercing Shards for the damage increase, since it doesn’t look like he’s using the cantrip traits.

That leaves 45 points for other trait lines. Because he’s not using Lingering Elements, he can’t stack damage modifiers that are triggered based on the attunement you’re in, so I suspect he’s running as many of the other damage modifiers as he can:

10 points in Earth for Stone Splinters.

It doesn’t look like he has Electric Discharge active, so he has less than 15 points in Air. With 10 Air, he’s probably using Bolt to the Heart for the 20% dmg increase.

That leaves 25 points for Fire, which makes sense if he wanted the Burning Rage minor trait. He’s not using Pyromancer’s Alacrity, based on the UI in the video. Burning Precision would increase the effectiveness of Burning Rage. I suspect the second trait is either Ember’s Might or Spell Slinger, mainly because he’s not staying in Fire Attunement long enough to see much effect from Internal Fire.

If any of that is accurate, you’d end up with a build similar to this.

As far as gear goes, your guess is as good as mine. He seems to be swapping gear, since his HP total changes at various points during the video. High precision and critical damage %s are very likely.

Hope that helps anyone who is trying to reproduce his numbers.

Maybe try the following and see if you like it:

Grenth hood (gem store), Arah hood (dungeon), or Shadow hood (crafted/karma)
Acolyte shoulders (crafted one, not random drop – different skins)
Shadow chest (crafted/karma)
Named exotic gloves
Profane pants (gem store)
Profane boots (gem store)

Not sure about the gloves. The Shadow gloves might be closer to what you’re looking for, but they tend to look bulky.

The playerbase makes it clear that most people don’t want vertical progression in armor and weapons…

…so ANet does it with permanent gathering tools instead.

Makes perfect sense to me. /s

This gem store bullkitten is ridiculous.

The Kurt.2518:

I felt compelled to add my contribution to this thread. Below you can se my Asura cheering for Jory and Kasmeer

lol. win

Phy.2913:

Vick.6805:

There’s no reason to learn how to kite in open-world PvE.

There’s no reason not to have this fight figured out by the second time. If you fight this warden, and it targets you frequently, then it’s your job to figure out what to do with it. Don’t be “that guy”.

I’m not saying it’s justified. I definitely think players should be able to learn the fight easily enough.

I’m just mentioning the fact that open-world PvE does very little to prepare players for encounters like this.

There’s no reason to learn how to kite in open-world PvE.

I don’t mind this mechanic, despite the implied stupidity of the boss running into his own cow-pie. After all, the bosses can’t be THAT smart, considering that they generally don’t even try to avoid player attacks, are often dumbfounded by even the smallest variation in the terrain in their own lairs, and use repetitive attack rotations even after seeing that they obviously don’t work against the ankle-biters (us) trying to kill them.

In all seriousness, I look at it from the perspective that it’s more interesting than 1-hit-KO mechanics that were the norm for a long time.

I’m torn…I’m seeing hints at three different dragons in this update.

Scarlet’s journal has some wording that has me wondering if it could be Bubbles. “Sea of darkness” could be literal, and then later it mentions an abyss, which is theoretically Bubbles’s domain in the Unending Ocean.

But then, the line that mentions the “forest” very directly seems to indicate Mordremoth’s involvement.

BUT why would Scarlet need a giant sky drill to reach either of those dragons? That makes me think it’s Primordus.

Hmm…possibilities.

I want it to be either Bubbles or Primordus so we either remove the barrier to Cantha, or sidestep the barrier (Asura tunnels). Not saying we’d see Cantha right away, but it makes it more feasible if there’s an established route to get there.

EDIT: If it is Dhuum => BRING BACK UW!!!

This achievement has been bugged for a long time.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t help resolve the problem, but at least you know that you’re not alone.

Some people have been able to finish the achievement by redoing the dives repeatedly until the UI decides to count them, but other than that, there really isn’t a workaround that I know of.

Sankofa Jimiyu.1567:

SaltyDave.7346:

Also would be nice to see the choosen mailbird in our Homes in a birdcage or something.

The aforementioned Warrior keeping the cannonball in a birdcage…

/paints a face

“I will call him Wilson!”

That is a neat idea, and actually it’d be REALLY cool if we could designate one of our minipets to bring us our mail.

william dj.6953:

Would the changes make those at the top to the leader board. Easier or Harder to maintain that position?

By capping the possible achievement points from dailies, it makes it harder to maintain the top positions. It might actually make the leaderboard meaningful.

It seems counter-intuitive, but here is my reasoning:

If dailies are capped, I fully expect that ANet would remove the glut of daily points across all achievement scores, the same way they did for Agent of Entropy ages ago. If ANet didn’t remove those points, there would be almost no opportunity for anyone to ever catch the leaders (not that there’s much chance now, but at least the possibility exists).

When that happens, suddenly the achievement score range across the whole game, and notably on the leaderboard, becomes much narrower.

Yes, the people at the top will have to maintain doing 5 dailies (assuming the cap is set at 5) instead of 10 or more, which will be easier. However, they will also have to pursue increasingly difficult permanent achievements to maintain or increase their lead.

The primary problem with this idea, and (I suspect) the reason why ANet hasn’t done anything to address it yet, is that any reduction to achievement scores has the potential to really screw up the achievement-related reward system.

Agreed. The in-game direction could be improved.

The Living Story UI should have a “show me” button (like the dungeon notification mails do) to point the player to the new Mari waypoint and the starting spot for the three wurm escort pre-events.

Then, at each of those spots, you need something that can give the player a basic understanding of how the event functions.

With Mari, each of the five lanes has an NPC guarding it. If the player interacts with Rox, for example, she should have a dialogue option: “What can you tell me about the Wardens?” that leads to a very basic overview of what each Warden’s abilities are. Then, when the event starts, the player has an idea of how to win, if they took the time to read.

The wurm event handles communication better, because there is global text right across the screen with instructions like “That’s enough bombs. Prepare to attack the wurm!” That works really well, and made the fight intuitive even the first time I played it.

Yep, I’ve had this happen quite a few times in Lornar’s while waiting for the Marionette.

Several of my guildies have told me they’ve had the same issue.

geez, i thought the popping sound was a problem with my speakers, cuz they’re getting old…

o.O

Knaifhogg.5964:

Why not have a hard mode like GW1 that’s instanced and one that’s in the open world you can do with your server without hating them. Win/Win. Until then:

lol +3 for the GIF

Having to wait in the main zone for at least an hour (to guarantee you get in) OR sit in an overflow hoping for a queue pop OR spam “join in” endlessly…

Yeah…that sounds like fun gaming to me! /s

No, thanks.

Heroes ruined many aspects of the community in GW, and I have no interest in seeing a repeat performance in this game.