Showing Posts For Waikd.4632:
Interesting changes! I believe these changes will mostly work for the better, but we’ll see how it ends up working out. As long as the changes are monitored and reverted in case there is a negative effect, there will be no harm done.
The points per kill sounds really interesting, I wonder how this is going to work? Is the active effect from bloodlust going to be changed to 1 point per kill rather than 1 point per stomp? Perhaps rewarding a server that has all 3 bloodlusts with 2 points per kill rather than just 1 would help incentivize playing in smaller groups to hold the bloodlusts?
Regarding the white swords, I think removing them provides a wonderful incentive to scout. From a tier 1 perspective: I don’t really understand the issues that many people seem to have with it. It would take just a few people to scout inside your most important objectives (e.g. spawn tower(s), keep). Large groups will still inadvertantly draw orange swords.
I belive it makes for a more active WvW environment, where you cannot sit back and rely on the enemies to knock on the door to let you know they are coming. Instead you will have people trailing after them, and scouting for their positions. It will make map awareness play a larger role too. E.g. if a group just took a camp from you, the tower nearest to that camp might be attacked soon, and someone should go check that out.
All in all I think these have the potential to be wonderful changes. I believe that as a community, rather than glossing over the massive upsides and focusing on the possibility of a negative, we should see these changes as what they are – improvements.
The only fair matchup in my eyes, is a matchup in which all 3 servers have (close to) all maps queued. I don’t think overly full maps are a bad thing for that matter, as a good queue system is in place, and EOTM is always available for guilds to start off their raids while they are queued up.
A viable solution to the problem needs to address both (1) initial rebalancing, and (2) a way to maintain this balance. I will share my ideas for these two points below.
(1) Initial rebalancing
I would suggest to merge servers based on their active WvW population. There are some ideas above on how to do this. In general this would be done on a per server basis, based on where the specific server spikes in population. Merged servers would have to be renamed, to avoid resentment within the playerbase.
(2) How to maintain a balanced population
A. Get the average amount of players in WvW during every hour of every day. (Amount of players only in the main WvW maps)
B. Create a 3 week rolling average of the number of WvW players per server, and split this up in the different timezones: NA, EU, SEA and OCX (for North America, Eurole, South East Asia and Oceanic timezones respectively). E.g. from 8-12PM PST over these 3 weeks the average amount of players in WvW is 360, then this is the Population|NA
C. Let players self-identify their timezone during server selection from either NA, EU, SEA and OCX. Depending on what timezone the player identifies, different servers are shown as Full/Very High/ High population.
(You could probably also grab this from the system time on the players computer, but I thought it might be better to let players self-select, to give them the choice.)
D. For population|timezone >95% of total map capacity over the timezones prime time, set that server to full. For 80-95% average population, set that timezones server status to Very High. For population 50-80% of map capacity set server status to high for the timezone. For <50% set status to normal.
E. Incentivize players to join Normal servers by putting these at the top of the list when first selecting a server.
F. Incentivize players to join lower population servers, by making transferring to high population servers relatively more expensive.
Came out a bit longer than expected, hope its still readable! This is just an idea Id like to throw out there, obviously Im open to any feedback you might have.
(edited by Waikd.4632)
I would announce an expansion focusing on the NPE and on making the game easier to play for rookies.
It certainly beats the old system of play the same 2 servers 7-9 matchups.
A system that guarantees stale matchups for a very very long time and then unbalanced matchups at the moment where they should be balanced: during a tournament. Quite a system.
I’m sorry, coming from a sports perspective you rarely ever play even match-ups.
How do you think the Raiders feel right now knowing pretty much every team in the NFL is better than they are ?
Your analogy doesn’t make sense all NFL teams field 11 players on offense and defense. Surely you’re not equating wvw with skill in your :even matchup comments"?
They are both leagues in which not every opponent is equally matched. Do you really wish to dispute that ?
Do you really want to go on this 11 on 11 analogy when its a 54 man roster of which many players fill multiple roles ? Just because only 11 are on the field at the same time doesnt mean that the 11 competing are on equal footing…You can call this outmaned if you really want to. Heck, lets not even begin comparing the salary cap between.
Sports and Tournaments in general are not fair nor are they between “equally skilled” players. Leagues are there not to promote a fair sense of play but to provide you an incentive for getting better and an attainable goal. You and your server can always do what the others have and recruit and grow stronger.
You have got to be kidding. Or trolling. Or delusional.
In the NFL any team, no matter how bad, can win in any given week. As Chris Berman says, “That’s why they play the game”.
What if the Raiders could only field 7 players on offense and 6 on defense? There would be zero chance of them winning – zero. There would be no point in playing the game. That is what you’re talking about with WvW.
How many people do you think would watch the NFL if the teams had an uneven number of players? Zero, because the league couldn’t exist in that situation.
You said it yourself, anyone can win. This concept is not mutually exclusive to football.
You all place way to much emphasis on numbers. I guess you’ve not seen groups of 10 take on groups of 20-30 ?
WvW is an uneven playing field, and as such it is broken. A server who pulls 25 people on a map against a full map blob will just not win the week. If you outskill your opponents by a lot, of course you might win a fight or two, but by no means is that an argument that the match up is fair!
Would you really tell the football team who can only put 6 people on the pitch, and who is up against 11 players, to ‘get good’ and not complain about the chronic imbalance?
I completely agree with OPs sentiment. A tournament is a complete slap in the face for the servers who just dont have the numbers to beat anyone. They try their best, but by the end of the week, they will have lost.
Bump.
We’ve been playing a football match in which one team has 15 players on the pitch while the other has 80. At its core WvW is broken, and it has been since launch.
The very idea of a tournament is a slap in the face for the many brave players who try hard, but are just continuously outnumbered.
From a cost vs benefit point of view, I do not see the need for a coded solution, as this is quite an easy thing to report and prove (make a vid, send the vid to customer support). Change the ToS to explicitely include griefing as something that will get you permabanned, and a customer service rep can have this solved before lunch.
P.S. If you hope to code a permanent solution because you plan on giving trial accounts access to Wvw, please rethink that. The amount of tag watching and spying would make WvW unplayable.
Love the idea!
I hope you will all have a lot of fun in WvW, and that you will be able to experience the awesome communities there are in our game-type.
I was wondering whether you have any feedback planned to follow the initiative up with after the tournament ends. Perhaps a short list of impressions from being more involved on the player side of the experience?
I for one would like to hear how you experience the goods and the bads of wvw, especially the ones the forum community has been very vocal about (broken point system, coverage, griefers draining supply etc.)
Thanks for all the replies guys. I’d still like to see the official opinion on it, but some of the points do make sense.
I am asking because since the feature pack it has been nigh impossible to break a fortified waypoint that is being defended. It was never easy to do, but basically a 20+ golem rush along with the element of surprise is the only way to feasibly do it now. (From a tier 1 perspective.)
P.S. I don’t really see how that golems are expensive is a valid argument. Aren’t you paying for the fact that theyre mobile? They’re not that much more expensive than guild catas either, and 3 of those are thrown to take a paper tower without thinking twice.
See the question in the title.
With the implementation of the siege disabler, a specific design choice was made to make it last for a shorter period of time on golems (20 sec vs 45 sec). I don’t completely understand the rationale behind this, and would greatly appreciate it someone involved with making this choice could briefly clarify it for me. Thanks!
Two things I would like to suggest regarding the multi-guild system:
1) Being able to see and talk in multiple guild chats
Motivation: The main reason I am in a guild is because of the social aspect it adds to gw2. I think being able to be in multiple guilds can be fun, but in the current system, I cannot have a conversation with mates from multiple guilds at the same time.
Suggestion Chat system in which the guild chat becomes somewhat like the chat currently used for whispers. The first input box can have a drop-down list with the tags of the multiple guilds I am in, while the second one has my actual message.
I am furthermore able to see chatter from all guilds, preferably with the guild tag before the name of the person talking in guild chat.
Advantages Enhanced social play, improved abilities for guild leaders to coordinate and communicate e.g. raids.
Disadvantages This will probably take quite a bit of developing.
2) Being able to see when a guildmate has last represented
Motivation: For guild management, it can be difficult to see who is still an active member of the guild, and who is just taking up member space. This feature would help immensely for guilds that do not have a 100% rep requirement.
Suggestion: In the guild panel, include the time since the user has last represented the guild, akin to last online.
Advantage: Improved guild QoL and better able to manage guild.
Disadvantage:Could lead to ‘elitist’ guild management, e.g. why have you not represented for the last week? (frankly this has more to do with the way some users will use this feature, rather than with the actual feature itself).
P.S. One interesting idea that popped into my head, was that honestly the whole representation system does not make sense.
One could argue that GW2 does not have a multi-guild system at all, but merely a system to quickly join and leave your favorite guilds. When I am not representing a guild, it’s as if though I am not in it, in the sense that I cannot talk to the people in it, nor do I get the benefits associated with guild membership (guild bank, buffs etc). It is only when I represent that I am a part of that community.
I would therefore like to suggest (and this goes far beyond QoL), an overhaul of the multi-guild system in the following way.
- From a list of guilds a player is in, he selects his primary guild. The guild tag of this guild will be shown next to his name, and he will be able to access and edit the guild upgrades for this guild.
- For all other guilds, he will be able to communicate with their members (see above for a possible multi-guild chat), as well as join these guilds for guild missions and events, but without having to represent these secondary guilds.
E.g. for The Chosen (Precursor for the legendary shield The Flameseeker Prophecies), the collection could include things like:
- Several named exotic shields
- A reward from the final personal story step
- A dragon finisher
- Collectible books from heart vendors
- Rare drops from some dungeons/ world events
- An ascended shield
- Many more obscure and hard-to-get items.
- Get Gold, buy from TP
- Meh
- PVP FOR MAH SKINS!?
- Meh
- RNG BULLkitten
- TIMEGATING!
Basically, what you’ve suggested wouldn’t really change a thing. Heck, you even included an actual RNG element (with no alternative), which is far, far worse than what we currently have for Precursors.
The thing is, people asked for the scavenger hunt for 2 reasons. Firstly, it’d be doing content to get your precursor, instead of buying it from someone. Secondly, it’d be less dependent on random drops, which would mean actually progressing towards the precursor.
I am totally with you on the point that the items I list in my example scavenger hunt are not perfect, ofcourse the required items should be chosen in a way that there is progress through playing content, and not through RNG. I merely gave the example to flesh out my main point a little bit. This being that Arenanet may have stumbled upon a perfect system to hand out non-RNG precursors with the implementation of the collections system.
P.S. At some point this topic drifted towards discussing about whether the ‘unique exotic weapon reward’ for some of the current collections included precursors, rather than the suggestion to add new collections with specific precursors as a reward. Could a mod perhaps tidy up the thread a bit?
The collections system would kinda be like a scavenger hunt though, wouldn’kitten (ie., go forth and find and collect a number of items)
Whether it turns into just a shopping list, will to a large extent depend on the items that are required to craft the precursor. I agree that that would not be the best solution though. I propose to combat this type of behavior by including items from all areas of the game of the game, and some items that are linked to personal achievement rather than simply how deep your pockets are.
The collections system that will arrive with the feature pack tomorrow includes several difficult scavenger hunts. The enchanted Treasure Chest collection for example (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6N8v43D1H0&list=UUYUY9_i44IDNOs_Ja815mlA#t=1121 ), encourages you to explore Tyria and collect a large amount of obscure and rare items. Seeing collections like this one got me thinking, wouldn’t collections be a perfect platform for a non-RNG way to get a precursor?
I envision a precursor collection as a ‘hidden’ collection that you can buy from a collection vendor once you hit level 80. Every precursor could have a different, and themed collection (as far as this is possible). Upon finishing the collection, a specific (account-bound) precursor is the reward. This system could encourage you to (re-)play different parts of the game, and these items should not be items you can simply buy off the TP.
E.g. for The Chosen (Precursor for the legendary shield The Flameseeker Prophecies), the collection could include things like:
- Several named exotic shields
- A reward from the final personal story step
- A dragon finisher
- Collectible books from heart vendors
- Rare drops from some dungeons/ world events
- An ascended shield
- Many more obscure and hard-to-get items.
To keep it a bit more upbeat: I am very excited that we are finally going to get tags in different colours!
In my opinion the implementation of the tags does not address the issue it is supposed to however. Multi-coloured tags were originally suggested to make it easier to organize maps for events or in world versus world, and to take away some of the confusion of having multiple tags on a map.
Sure this update will make it possible, but it will come at a cost of 1200-1500g, an amount that is prohibitively high and that discourages use of the system. The driver will now have to pay a legendary worth of gold to make it easier for the people following him to see where he is.
However excited I am that we are finally getting a much-requested feature, I am also furious at the way it is implemented! Release an expansion full of quality of life stuff and I will gladly pay for it, but please do not create an artificial barrier that discourages proper use of the quality of life feature that you are implementing.
Besides the obvious capital expenditures necessary, which, from a business point of view are not feasible for a no-subscription fee game (unless there is an expansion upcoming players will pay for), support for Win XP is also an issue here.
Dx10-11-12 is not supported on XP, so in updating they would have to be careful to not make the engine dx11 exclusive, as it will simply not run on XP then.
You guys are absolutely right, looking at my post a few hours later made me realize that my idea was probably not quite as brilliant as I thought it was at the time.
Fatalyz, thank you for the constructive reply.
Like the idea and I hope the compilation comes out nice!
This is not my video, but RG are legends and should definitely be featured in a video like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b372p4e9fRM
P.S. I really hope this is not coming out of the WvW budget…
Will we get any coverage about PvE or WvW balance? Really not trying to be angry here, but the attention such a miniscule game mode is getting at the total expense of any balancing in regards to the two large game modes is really disheartening.
It’s not that the imbalance itself is annoying, but the lack of even acknowledging the issues is. I can do years of waiting. Waited 7 years for some changes in WoW. But at least the devs replied in vanilla-era threads that they’d like to do a change there or here but had no resources for it.
And what are the issues?
How do you want WvW balanced? Balance to roamer vs roamer? balance each profession based on zerg vs zerg fight? balance each profession for assaulting a keep? Balance each profession for defending a keep?
If you are going to claim there are issues, it is perhaps best if you list them. As well, what you claim as issues may be non-issues to the rest of the population.
Non-exhaustive list here.
WvW:
WvW is currently reigned by whoever has the best coverage. Servers that simply field less players during off-hours are fighting an uphill battle that is unfair to them.
Steps to beating GW2 PvE:
1) Go full zerk 2) Drop Fiery Greatsword/Ice Bow 3) Stack 4) Profit.
(edited by Waikd.4632)
I would like to suggest an increased cooldown on dodging in PvE, to increase build diversity there.
Both on and off the forums there seems to be a lot debate on the ‘zerker meta’, or as I think it should be more aptly called, the all glass meta. In most PvE environments, it is simply optimal to build for extreme damage output, with very little regard to survivability, and not very much regard to utility either.
Long story short, the advice most PvE players get is: Grab a berserker’s set with scholar runes, go deep in the damage trait lines and pick the traits and skills that add the most damage to you and your party. You do not need tanky armor as dodging at the right time can negate a large portion of the damage you take.
Why this glass focus is terrible for build as well as armor set diversity has been discussed ad nauseam, and I will not repeat that here. To remedy this one-sided approach to character building in PvE, I would like to suggest increasing the cooldown of dodging while in combat by a large amount, so that it is no longer possible to dodge all big hits by bosses.
Characters can currently dodge two times (with vigor: four times) every twenty seconds, or once (twice) every 10 seconds. Decreasing the regeneration of endurance to allow for, e.g. only two dodges every 30 seconds, could make dungeon and open world content more challenging, and force builds to take support and survivability into account, while leaving dodging a core mechanic of combat.
I know this solution is far from optimal, but I believe it is a change Arenanet can make with a very low development cost, while having a large impact on the ‘zerker problem’.
What are your thoughts on this?
Great idea! Arenanet should definitely look into whether this is feasible!
All hail the open field ram. Those are extremely useful if you’re rotating people to give your group iron hide.
I fill enemy supply camps with flame rams for kicks. My record is 9 but you have to scatter them.
I know you are just trying to have a bit of fun, but please don’t over do it. Intentionally wasting supply is something that’s frowned upon in WvW. Supply is quite sparse, and commanders are trying to manage it as best as possible.
(If you want to continue your ram worship, you might want to do that in edge of the mists, as supply is not as vital there, and there is in general less of an attitude to maximize PPT.)
this could even serve as an appetizer that might make players more likely to buy the episode.
What do you mean by that?
After the initial 2 weeks, I presume a screen will show up with ‘Buy here for 200 gems’, that screen could feature the trailer. In a way it would market the living story episode.
The Entanglement trailer as well as the Gates of Maguuma trailer have both advanced the story in a significant way (i.e. the crashing of the airships, and the attack on the town of Prosperity). When I first played through the entanglement story, the off-screen development of the story confused me a great deal, simply because I had not watched the trailer.
I think that making the trailer for the living story episode available ingame could help alleviate this confusion that I (and perhaps other more casual GW2 players) have experienced. If there was a link in the story journal that would prompt the trailer ingame, this could even serve as an appetizer that might make players more likely to buy the episode.
I agree with Shonie completely, WvW was designed to be a platform for massive group versus group combat. The design of the map and objectives are centered on large groups (e.g. a group of 10 people will have great difficulty taking anything more than an undefended tower).
In fact, I believe that a truly excellent WvW experience can only be had on maps that are at least 80% full at all times. In this idyllic scenario, no one is outnumbered, and the winner is solely decided by skill and coordination.
If you enjoy dueling and fighting in small groups, that’s fine, plenty of that is going on even in servers that are queued. You should also realize however, that sPvP gives plenty of opportunities for those things as well, and could even be argued to be the legitimate platform for that type of fight.
I am not sure whether merging servers is the best solution to this problem, but I think massive player migration is necessary for WvW to function.
Operationally, merging servers might prove very difficult, firstly because most servers have stronger NA/EU presences than OCX/SEA presences. You could very well end up creating massive queues in NA and empty maps in SEA for example. Perhaps suggestions to swap servers can be made on an individual level, where the player can select what timeslot he identifies with most?
A second issue I see is the server ‘nationalism’. E.g. why should a server go to TC, and lose their name, why not the other way around? A clean slate, with all the existing servers being destroyed, and an equal grouping being made on a number of new servers that are balanced in terms of population is a very radical solution, but it could be the only one that truly addresses this issue.
A third problem will be assuring that this proposed ‘fairness’ will be stable over time. Players have an intrinsic incentive to move to a server that performs well (except perhaps the masochists on T9 that enjoy being on the receiving end every week). Add to that the occasional extrinsic motivation in the form of better rewards for better season placement, and we end up with a system that cannot be stable unless the barriers of joining well-performing servers are prohibitively high.
To be fair, all that so-called feedback that you expect Arenanet to have received is spread over the forums, in threads filled with negativity by frustrated and jaded players, and mostly comes down to general WvW complaints.
To add in on the feedback:
In my opinion WvW Season 2 was an improvement over season 1. The meta achievement was quite reachable, and the season rewards were enticing. The battle historian and the way server association were determined are in my eyes a positive changes, as was the lock out for new recruits before being able to join the matchup.
Areas in which there is still room for improvement are in my eyes:
- Free transfers to low ranked servers before the tournament. In hindsight these completely ruined the experience for some servers, as they created massive imbalances in player population on them.
- Match-up system. Although it is nice to see matchups change occassionally, I think it is futile in a game type that is in the end ruled by coverage and population. I noticed that in the NA gold tier, the weeks in which one of the big three faced a lower ranked server, it ended in a blow-out. There is no way to avoid this besides using the ELO rating for every server as the main determinant of matchups.
- The rewards for reaching the individual achievements of the meta were stale and predictable. ‘More bloodstone dust? Throw it on the pile there…’ The individual achievements furthermore gave no opportunity for distinction. This could be achieved by having some extremely difficult achievements for example, that are rewarded accordingly.
The final and most important point I would like to raise is that you should carefully examine whether the WvW demographic really wants a tournament. It is a very nice way to have new players try it out, and it pushes everyone just that tiny bit harder, but is that really what WvW’ers care about?
WvW is run by a tight-knit community of dedicated players on my server. These people raid daily, and do so for hours on end. I would daresay this is a niche in which you currently find a lot of players with a more ‘hardcore’ mindset than in the rest of the game. The people I see around me are not motivated by the shinies or some silly achievement. WvW is a game of strategy, coordination and theorycrafting for us.
Does the tournament really add value for your core demographic? In the aftermath of week 9 – for those of us that are not burned out from running overtime raids at least – it’s business as usual. A more casual player will have gotten a different message: “it is not fun to fight an intense uphill battle for 9 weeks, I should just move to a server with better coverage”. It hurts server morale, burns out core players and provides very little for the players that are intrinsically motivated. The time spent on organizing a tournament would have been (in my eyes), much better spent on fixing the core mechanics of your mass PvP system.
(edited by Waikd.4632)
To look on the bright side of things, I’m also glad to finally see WvW on the twitch show! I hope it will become a more regular topic on the stream, and I hope it eases the feeling that many WvW players are that they are completely disconnected from the devs.
The actual implementation leaves some room for improvement though. (See posts above).
Love the idea, I really like the icons you designed as well.
Just to play the devil’s advocate, I think arenanet might see problems with displaying this for allies, as it can encourage an elitist attitude. (E.g. Im not following this commander, he’s only rank x).
Perhaps it could be implemented in a way where you have the choice to display your icon or not (maybe it appears if you choose your WvW rank as your title?).
Engineers are in a very good position with respect to build and skill diversity available to them. Almost every skill has some use, albeit often situational. All except the elite skills, of which two will never be realistically used.
Engineers have access to 3 elites: Supply crate, Mortar and Elixir X.
Supply crate:
Of the three elites, Supply crate is the one that is most often used. It offers a lot of bang for its 180sec cooldown. I believe this skill should be made a bit less omnipotent. It is currently a 1200 range stun (2 sec), that drops a permanent regeneration field, healing equal to 7 blast finishers in a water field, a flame turret for burning, and a net turret for immobilize. I would like to propose two small changes that will make it a bit less powerful, but still very much worth taking and using:
- Remove the range from supply crate, and turn it into a 600 radius stun at the player’s position. All other turrets are dropped within melee range, but can be traited to be dropped at a distance. This trait could then also affect Supply Crate.
- Net turret will be nerfed a bit in the upcoming feature patch, which I believe is a step in the right direction, as it is a very strong condition.
Mortar:
Mortar offers a 1400 (1500 when traited) range stationary weapon that you or your allies can use to rain down explosions on your enemies.
All in all I think this is a very fun skill, that can add a lot of versatility to the class. It furthermore fits in with the engineer profession perfectly. I would like to see it changed to give it a bit more potential, by increasing its range and damage, while giving it longer skill cooldowns and less uptime.
- The mortar currently has a maximum range (when traited) of 1500. Grenades can be thrown for the same distance, while they do not require you to stay put in one place, where you are unable to dodge or even defend yourself while on the mortar. Mortars could be made more enticing by giving them a truly long range. For this I would like to see them compared with the mortar that can be built as a siege defense of keeps and towers in world vs world. These have a range of 9400. Although 9400 is a bit extreme, I believe a range of around 3000 (perhaps 2500, and 3000 when traited?) would be fair. This would make the skill unique and add much more opportunity for strategic play.
- I also think the mortar’s damage deserves to be buffed. It is currently only good for tickling someone at a distance. Mortar fire should be feared, and enemies should try to move out of the red circles it creates before they are hit. Being able to hit for 2-3k (10-15%) of someone’s hp will force them to engage you. This increased damage should come with an increased cooldown on all shots.
- These two buffs will make the mortar an interesting and versatile weapon, but they should also have an effect on its uptime. Currently, it has an uptime of close to 100%. (duration of 120 seconds, skill cooldown also 120 sec). For a strong, but immobile environmental weapon, I believe an uptime of around 75% is more fair (e.g. 90 second duration).
Elixir X:
This skill transforms you into either a tornado or a brute (underwater: plague or whirlpool). Once again this is a very interesting skill, but to be truly useful I believe it needs to be more predictable. Being unable to predict what you will transform into makes it hardly useful in fights.
For this skill I would like to propose a split. I believe the effects it offers could be split between two skills. One skill that will transform you into a tornado, and one skill that transforms you into a brute. By making the effect predictable, the skill would become a very interesting transformation to have on your skill bar.
OP, I understand where you are coming from with this post. Engineers have access to a ridiculous amount of skills, conditions, combo fields and finishers. On paper this makes them look quite overpowered. I don’t think they are however, because of the skill involved in playing an engineer and the constraint of 3 utility slots.
Many of the abilities we have access to are more difficult to land damage on than on other classes (we lack a strong auto attack, grenades are hard to throw on moving targets, bombs explode after a delay). It’s not unfair that the extra difficulty is rewarded with more potency when you are able to use them at maximum efficiency. The average engineer does no such thing, and is by no means overpowered.
Secondly, engineers are constrained by having 3 utility skills, like everyone else. Engineers cannot have all the specialized skills you described at the same time. They have to make choices between traits like everyone else does, and while they may be able to choose to be a jack of all trades, if they choose to be one, they will be a master of none.
Justin,
GW2’s sPvP has always had a unique appeal to me due to the way it is separated from all other gameplay. It presents a level playing field, regardless of the time a player spends on other types of content. My opponents have exactly the same options in the way they decide to play their character as I do. In my opinion this is the way sPvP should stay, as it puts the focus on how you play your character, rather than on how you build it.
The substantial increase in grandmaster traits is an amazing change, for which I am extremely thankful. Many builds are made viable by grandmaster traits, and thus giving every line 3 grandmaster traits rather than 2 will (hopefully) make many more builds possible.
I do not agree with having them locked in sPvP however. It throws its independence from other types of gameplay out of the window. My opponent now has a broader choice set than me, simply because he enjoys different content. Of course you argue that the new traits will be fair, but this does not change the fact that the new traits will give him build diversity that I do not have. This will make him, all else equal, better off, and will give him an edge over me.
Please do not get me wrong, I love the idea of ‘skill hunting’. I merely disagree with implementing this type of progression, which is for progression’s sake, in sPvP. GW2’s PvP system should give experienced players no edge over new players other than skill, which is the way it is at this moment. Please do not stray from this path.
Great idea! WoodenPotatoes’ light and funny lore ramblings have immersed me in Tyria, keeping me hooked to your game by making the characters truly come alive.
(Not to mention his considerable efforts in other GW2 areas, including the only jumping puzzle tutorials that did not make me feel bad about my jumping abilities.)
I have also received post-election support tokens from the chest at the beginning of the Goemm’s Lab JP.
Where: Metrica Province, the chest on the flying rock above the Cuatl waypoint.
What: contains a support token, the item used to vote for Ellen or Evon in election.
Why: Should be removed since the election has finished and support tokens are no longer dropping from monsters.
Other information: Opened this chest twice, got a support token both times.
I cannot help but agree with this post. The ranger pet system makes for some amazing micro opportunities from the player essentially being in two places at once. Sadly the current pet AI (pet pathing, positioning and responsiveness come to mind), and user interface don’t allow for you to have the amount of control over the pet necessary to use it to its fullest.
That being said I love the companion reliance Arenanet put in place for rangers, it makes them a unique and very fun profession. I would therefore hate to see pets demoted to something little more than graphical niceties as a result of the poor pet management system.
I am personally not too familiar with playing/levelling an ele, but they do tend to be in high demand in structured world versus world groups. If you’re into that sort of gameplay you might want to pick a server on its WvW performance, which in my opinion is a nice measure of the popularity of that type of gameplay on a particular server. (https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvw)
I cannot really give any tips and tricks for elementalists in particular, but I’m sure the folks over at the elementalist subforum can help with that. So some general things about playing that I discovered too late and would have been extremely helpful in hindsight:
1) Nourishments, as mentioned above. Decent exp boost, and helpful stat boosts.
2) Crafting gives experience, levelling any crafting profession to 400 will level your character for 10 levels. (For guides on how to level crafts most efficiently I normally use http://gw2crafts.net/ )
3) GW2 encourages going off the beaten path and exploring in general by adding an exploration bonus to kills, and rewarding you for exploring.
4) Don’t skip resource nodes if you can avoid it, they are to a large extent ‘free’ cash.
5) PvP and PvE are completely separate in this game, everyone has the same level in PvP and has access to the same gear with the same stats. No vertical progression is offered in terms of getting better stats by playing more/playing better. All rewards in PvP are purely cosmetic. This makes for a balanced/fun experience. (A very basic PvP guide can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FGTYRnMkLk)
6) Doing ‘hearts’ (the GW2 icon for a standard quest) is rewarded with the NPC you helped selling you items for karma. Karma is a separate currency from the normal gold, and is obtained by helping NPCs/doing events ingame.
If you stay in zones appropriate to your level, most of your gear can come from these vendors, and you’ll be able to stay geared at a minimum cost.
7) You can join multiple guilds, a lot of guilds are specialized in either PvP, PvE or WvW. You can only represent one at a time though.
The final piece of advice I’d like to give is that other MMOs may have conditioned you to look at levelling up as a goal. In gw2 I have noticed that levelling up is extremely linear (1->10 will take roughly the same amount of time as 70->80), and the process of getting to the level cap will take less than 2-3 weeks with casual play.
So I would therefore encourage you to look at levelling up as a side effect of just having fun ingame.
Rogacz, I think you are correct in saying that the snowflake recipe would always be preferable to the t5/t6 recipes.
I do not understand how this would lead to any sort of infinite loop however, mithril prices would simply adjust to their fair value, the highest they can be used to create.
(From a more technical & game theory point of view, the dominant strategy for every player shifts to the snowflake recipe. No one will choose to produce with T5/T6 mats.)
Obviously prices are not in equilibrium?
There was no real ‘infinite loop’, as every new creation of ecto would require inputs, making the profit people were making of a temporary kind. This new feature simply drove markets out of equilibrium. The price of the inputs would be (and was partly) driven up as players realized the true value of them (with the new recipe). I think this is also supported by what #3 mentions in his post, that the profitability of using snowflakes was already approaching that of normal ecto crafting.
During the event however, players were simply using a recipe that was in the game. In an ever changing game, who are we to discern between bug and feature? This choice would be an opaque one at best, yet we take the blame for it. The ecto crafting method was profitable, in hindsight we can say it was accidentally so, but events are often meant to be temporary, profitable and fun.
N.B. I am loosely interpreting arbitrage here, since these inputs and outputs are different products, but they can be converted into each other nearly instantaneously, at minimal cost and with no further prerequisites. The only real difference, as Syntax rightly pointed out, is that for real arbitrage, transformation of the materials is irrelevant, as game mechanics do not come into play there.
(edited by Waikd.4632)
Mira, thanks for clearing up the snowflake matter, it appears I was misinformed as to what it precisely was. I do not think that this changes the point however. Correct me if I am wrong, but I feel that due to the new recipe, the market merely changed, and players were temporarily able to profit, until the market prices of e.g. mithril, snowflakes and ecto adjusted.
Thank you for your answers; (freely) interpreting them, it appears there is a chance (however remote), of being banned for playing on price differences. I would like to hear an official stance on this. For if Smith’s post is anything to go by, arbitrage should actually be promoted, as it makes his goal of an efficient market, in which no returns disproportional to cost can be had much more realistic.
My question was originally sparked by the apparent systematic removal of those who profit too greatly from price differences between input and output markets, as I believe was happening, but not limited to, the game’s most recent event (the snowflake ‘exploit’.)
The verdict usually seems to depend on the size of your stake and on your margin, in my eyes senseless parameters, as any ban for arbitrage would indicate a fundamental dis-allowance. Can an ethical difference be found between profiting once, or until equilibrium is restored? Is the trader not simply maximizing his wealth, as we all do?
To my original question, if I were to find a figurative gold mine, would I be in the wrong if I chose to profit off it, merely by being an efficient actor in the market?