Guild Wars 2

Itemization in GW2 has been a joke since launch due to the nature of the game(dps,dps,dps,wvw,pvp,dps). I for one like that they are trying to make more equipment viable, but this change had to be announced way earlier to give people more time to adjust.

Probably ~90% of the player base play pure DPS.

As someone who dislikes tunnel vision classes (main reason to play ranger in most games is to be Jack-o-Trades) I got a tons of buffs in this patch.

I do agree that the changes to Druids are a bit insane since they effect all Druid builds and equipment.

First post in a very long time yey…

No, I will not, but if it is a good one (no time gated crap) I will buy it. I love GW2, but the HoT maps just aren’t for me.

I suggest OP reads the AMA on reddit.

The GW2 team isn’t trying to be “Wildstar”, they are well aware of what is going on with the game.

Hardcore players are mostly the kind that needs new challenging content at a steady pace, while casual players play on and off so it is a good bet to produce large chunks of content (expansions) for them. Toss in some living story in the mix, when things go dire and it’s all good.

I can’t help but think that we should all just learn Chinese at this point. Everything is announced there anyways.

Just not in this case. :P

I feel that with all the HoT stuff that has been revealed recently it’s a good time to reflect on our past and future expectations for the game.

What did you expect of the game before launch, during the stress tests and what do you expect of HoT now?
What surprised or disappointed you?
What got you hooked?
What made you quit playing?

Lets not flame and just dish out our honest opinions of the game here.

Here is a post I made in early 2012 about GW on another forum:

2012

Guild Wars 2 is a very interesting concept and I am a huge fan, but it stays far away from our more hardcore needs in a RPG world (even a MMO one).

First of all don’t buy GW2 if you aren’t looking forward to spending hundreds of hours into mini games (events), short quest sequences (dynamic and meta events, 10 min to 3 hours long) and don’t like exploring.

GW2 is less of an RPG and more of a mini game collection bundled together with RPG elements.

Most bosses in “the open world” feel like mindless blobs that hundres of people use a punchbag, but harder and complicated bosses do exist regretably mosty in instanced dungeons which contradicts their “We have events !” commercials.

The game is very refined on a single player bases, but the multi player portion feels rather dumbdown because they wanted to encourage more people to play together.

Guild Wars 2 provides a little for everybody but in average quality. Don’t expect Black Isles story telling, TL2 monster mechanics and WoW style competitive gaming. Story telling is mediocre at best (I really wanted this to shine, but no it’s truely mediocre). Combat and monster mechanics are very refined from players point of view, because there are a lot of things you can experiment with and actual combat feels very dynamic yet fluid, but ultimately most things feel like the punchbags in the training grounds. Enemies in PvE rarely use mechanics that effect the player other than damage, slow and stun and that might easily bore you. Competitive MMO parts are dumbed down (thank god they did that I hate elitist jerks) and as a result might feel more eventful but less adrenaline inducing and spreadsheetinducing. Gear hunting is there, but once you get to the level cap you’ll have almost all equipment options in arms reach.

Summary :

Guild Wars 2 is a multitude of mini games with deep RPG elements that encourage players to play together and help each other, but every aspect of the game is only average. A GW2 player will have a lot of things to do for months to come, but will never feel truely satisfied by any single activity in the game.

Note: After that post I was called a WoW (played WoW for 2 months) addict and a troll.

2015

In retrospect I feel that I got a lot of things right except for PvP and 3 hour event chains. I was so wrong about PvP back then.

I think HoT will fix a lot of these things and add some much needed depth to PvE encounters. I still enjoy the game in a very casual way and play it on a regular basis.

Please, do share the shift in your view of Guild Wars 2 until now!

I’m hoping for less intrusive legendaries that don’t rob your character of any personality. I understand people like auras and flashy lights, but I’d rather have this really shiny katana that shatters small mobs when you kill them, has a special animation on critical hits and changes color if you have specific boons. Effects like Bolt feel over the top for me, the aura covers the whole character. I want something more subtle that feels special.

For instance, while I didn’t like dragon swords in the GW1, I love it in GW2.
Pasted from the wiki:

The blade is made of flames simulating fiery dragon breath.
Fiery Dragon Sword emits light while drawn, illuminating the area around the player in dark areas.
Attacks cause a cosmetic burst of flame on the target.
Enemies killed by the Fiery Dragon Sword will display burning death animations.
This weapon is the brightest light source in the game for the wielder, but other players will not be able to see anything except the flame.

These small details make it feel that much more special to me than some shiny that makes my character look like an iron golem or a lolipop.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fiery_Dragon_Sword

First of all..

Welcome Joe!

There has been this question that has been bothering me since release.

The game has all the core RPG mechanics in place. Status conditions, stuns, knockbacks etc. but battles in the game can be split into 3 categories for me:

1. Trash mobs that die quickly. I have no problem with those, every MMO needs some of these.

2. Mini-bosses that are giant blobs of health with maybe 1 special attack on a long cooldown. Those are mostly immune to any disables and usually just take longer time to kill.

3. Bosses that are the same as mini-bosses, but usually spam red circles that you have to dodge out of. These are immune to almost anything but damage.

I’m a hardcore RPG player and fun fights for me are those that allow you to interact with the enemy. As it stands enemies in GW2 are mostly just bland blobs of health with the occasional dodge-this-rotation. I want to be able to bash my enemies and have them bash me back. This game has a huge list of battle mechanics that feel redundant, so PvE players have adopted a maximum direct damage playstyle (the so called Berserker’s meta). I don’t mind that, but I feel GW2 can be so much more if they make a shift towards mobs that do more and are immune to less.

I bought the game as a gift for a friend and for the short while that he played it he learned only 2 things. To use his default attack and to dodge. He is a hardcore RPG player and I expected him to go nuts with the combat in GW2. When I asked him why isn’t he using his other skills he asked me “What is the point?”

If possible could you ask the devs if we will see more varied enemies in HoT?
If not in open world PvE maybe in new dungeons and other instances?

I have to admit that I’ve become a very casual player (ANet is spoiling me) and no longer invest as much time in areas of the game I find pointless, hell I don’t even play as much anymore. But then again it is people like Jaymee and my old guild leader Moama that truly appreciate the game and strive to make it fun for others.

Moama has another neuropathic pain disease and while I generally don’t hang out as much with the guild anymore she’s always been the positive core of the guild. She even remembered my birthday (I don’t facebook, blog, etc.)!

I don’t really know why I’m even writing this… It’s just that since GW2 I’ve met a lot of players with different health problems and they’ve all been extremely positive and helpful. And then there’s posts like Jaymee’s that make feel warm and fuzzy inside. The community in this game sure is nice!

My main was a Dervish in GW1 and the Revenant looks like a Dervish/Ritualist mixup. On the other hand I still have a character with my GW1 name, I guess it’s time to dust it off.

Arcane outfit – check.

CureForLiving.5360:

Wayfinder.8452:

By watching the streams, reading the interviews and impressions I’d say they are not “secretive”, but cautious.

The difference is minor from the outside looking in :P

“Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it’s broken, but you can still see the crack in that mother kittener’s reflection.”
-Lady Gaga (who cares?)

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Wayfinder.8452:

cafard.8953:

Also, at Jade Maw, no matter what you do, the pet will be a nuisance and make it longer by being an additional target for the ray. This is basically the encounter in the game that would single handedly justify a perma-stow option.

Not really, just swap your pet when it is targeted and the maw will change targets.

Or go into the corner with a cryatal afk and stow pet while the rest of the team does the dirty work.

Are we not there to have fun? Anyway, off topic.. kitten kitten

cafard.8953:

Wayfinder.8452:

cafard.8953:

Also, at Jade Maw, no matter what you do, the pet will be a nuisance and make it longer by being an additional target for the ray. This is basically the encounter in the game that would single handedly justify a perma-stow option.

Not really, just swap your pet when it is targeted and the maw will change targets.

Immediately? Good to know. I had the impression that it was just the same as dodging the shot, i.e. you have to wait until the next target marker pops up.

If you do it before the animation begins, its almost instant. If you wait for the animation to start its the same as dodging. Keep your pet alive, if you can for max swap and enjoy.

White Tiger (GW1 much hunt, much rare love)

Tiger

Colin

Ranger is my favorite class, but when the survey reminds me that I can choose only 3 shortcomings it makes me chuckle. Nice survey, mice.

cafard.8953:

Also, at Jade Maw, no matter what you do, the pet will be a nuisance and make it longer by being an additional target for the ray. This is basically the encounter in the game that would single handedly justify a perma-stow option.

Not really, just swap your pet when it is targeted and the maw will change targets.

Too big or too small, it all hangs in the balance… of the price tag.

If its only 3-4-5 new zones and 1 new profession I probably wouldn’t buy it for 49 euros, but 30 seems about right.

Now if it is 6-7-8 new zones, 1 new profession and all the other new content, I’d probably pay 60.

Well, we now know why we didn’t get any SAB for a while.

Double jumps, rocket boosters, Colored exhaust?

Some people have been busy making SAB open world maps… wink wink

By watching the streams, reading the interviews and impressions I’d say they are not “secretive”, but cautious.

Their PR (read hype) is known to backfire and they said multiple times that their goal was to do this “just right”. Colin also seems to have answered a lot of question at the “after party”, my impression is that they don’t want to be misleading with the information provided. I like how after the release they said there will be no polearms and provided some very honest info on the subject.

The HoT release is handled exactly the way I like it, it a slow burning hype that reveals facts and expands on them rather than tease and disappoint, which is what ANet have been doing for the past 2 years.

Pyre Fierceshot

Gwen

Master of Whispers

M.O.X.

Proposal Overview
Guildhalls that enhance already existing in-game activities and introduce more guild exclusive activities and non-gamebreaking rewards.

Goal of Proposal
Non-offensive guildhall content.

Proposal Functionality

If Guild Halls were to be implemented, I think that linking them to already existing content while still providing a sufficient amount of guild exclusive content would be best for everyone. That means no new currencies involved and a large amount of goals that slowly improve the hall rather than a few big upgrades that take a long time to achieve.

To achieve this we need to use a currency that is available through different types of content yet accessible for both small and large guild communities.
To keep things simple I think Guild Merits would work best. These can be hard to achieve for smaller guilds so there could be an item that can be bought for Karma or Guild Commendations that gives a number of Merits to the guild you are currently representing. This might have to be time-gated.

The Guild Hall would most likely have to be put in a separate upgrade tree, but once constructed it should feel like a permanent boon for all guild members.

I suggest implementing an item that can transport you to the Hall of any guild you are currently representing for free, but without the option to teleport back to your previous location.
A vanilla Hall might have only a bare minimum of vendors (Merchant and Crafting Stations), but exclude Black Lion so people and bots don’t park characters there. Any player who teleports there can choose a buff to experience or karma earned for a moderate amount of time. Lets say 20% bonus experience or 15% bonus karma for 45 minutes to avoid forcing people to revisit the instance way too often.

Possible upgrades might include:

Getting both the karma and the experience buff
Better buffs (WvW XP for WvW guilds)
Cheaper WvW siege
Auto-repair on Guild Hall entry and other minor conveniences
Time-gated Collectors like Nicholas the Traveler (Bring me 10 times item X to get 1 Laurel/Guild Commendation, where X changes weekly)
Guild Commendation exchange for any other account bound currency
Increased chance for critical crafting success in the Guild Hall
Mystic Forge
Portals to all capital cities
Exclusive boss battles inside/outside the Guild Hall that demand high coordination and enhance the Guild Hall when completed
Exclusive jumping puzzles inside/outside the Guild Hall that demand high coordination and enhance the Guild Hall when completed
GvG Features

I believe that hall-exclusive content should feel like a gamble or a shortcut to promote guild events. Lets say unlocking the Mystic forge in your hall costs 100 Merits, there could be a second option to pick a boss battle or a jumping puzzle instead for 60 Merits. If you complete the challenge successfully you get the upgrade, if not you have to wait for a few days to retry for that specific challenge.

Of course big guilds will be more organized and that should be promoted. These guilds might go for an even bigger gamble. Lets call it Hard Mode Challenges. These could be a much harder version of the normal ones but with a few differences. You pay the full price for such a challenge rather than a reduced one (100 instead of 60), but these are not time gated. Big guilds will be able to upgrade much faster, if they are good enough.

I’m not very familiar with GvG and while I agree that it should be promoted I also think that it should be restricted to serious guilds.
My only suggestion here is to restrict GvG to guilds with Halls and the appropriate upgrades.

Associated Risks

Hosting too many instances might be too taxing for the servers
Too many features might make Halls too time-consuming to implement (maybe release upgrade tiers overtime rather than have everyone wait for a long time?)
Reduced population in major cities
Major impact on economy

Hello Mr Corpening,

The “Exhaustion” idea sounds great to me, but like some other player suggested there should be a way to aid commanders who usually carry a lot of siege.

If you implement “Exhaustion”, could you make it so if you are in a commanders squad when the commander tries to create siege there will be a short pop up to everyone in the squad. This pop up would ask each player, if they want to aid the commander in constructing siege. If any player agrees, they would get a stack of the “Exhaustion” debuff instead of the commander. The pop up could last only a few seconds (2-5?) and have some intuitive hotkeys assigned to be less or not annoying. Maybe press Enter to accept, Esc to decline. Only players in the squad and in certain range of the commander would be prompted to “aid”, so players can avoid a commander who is “trolling” and choose the commanders they want to help to.

There could be an option in the commander menu to disable this pop up and Players who choose to “aid” could also get a short karma buff to encourage group play even more.

You could also make a WvW passive that increases the maximum stacks of “Exhaustion” for a commander for every player in their squad. Maybe +1 per rank?

Keep doing what you’re doing!

Sorry for the typo.

Mr. Peters please consider making trait unlocks available for a currency other than gold and skill points so veteran players don’t have to complete the current list of chores. In gw1 elites felt powerful and meaningful, so it was worth collecting them, but most of the traits are just underwhelming compared to the tasks you have to complete.

Maybe you can make them available for Mystic coins and skill points? Or some ascended crafting material and skill points if you don’t want to push the economy, new players will not be needing these for a long time anyway.

I think it might be better to make stickies called Known Issues, Issues Pending Solution or something similar. Basically acknowledge existing issues in certain games mode that are being actively discussed. Then you can add some info once there is progress on a certain issue or when it is solved as you suggested so people can follow those posts.

I know it might be asking too much but having some kind of priority assigned to every issue would make these feel more ‘real’ in a sense that players can get a basic idea of your priorities. You will have to make it very clear that this is not the order these issues are worked on, but simply your perception of importance/scale. If you cannot do that then maybe include popular requests from CDI threads in a sort of top 10 most requested format that is weekly? updated. Make people feel a little bit involved in the process.

Once you have definite progress on a certain issue you could include some early preview in Ready Up or another stream to remind and inform people what you are working on. For instance you could preview changes like the Commander Tag one month earlier then open a discussion thread to get feedback.

I know that this might be excessive, but with other games that provide regular patches and previews most people started expecting these things, so another ‘we are listening’ sign will not cut it and might just make things worse.

Keep doing what you’re doing, good luck!…. And please, do something about the dev tracker.

1. You know what you are capable of at the moment. Just be a bit more open about it so we can have a proper dialog. LOVE!

I doubt anyone will be happy when the changes (if any) arrive 6 months from now in the next feature pack. Simply too slow.

This is the exact type of post that people complain about. Regardless this patch seems really good with a lot of the CDI stuff included even if a bit jaded. Hopefully the rest of the announcements live up to player expectations. Thank you for stepping up!

TL;DR

We are listening.

I used to run axe main hand for ~10 months after launch not even touching the bows. Axe is ok, it feels very responsive and chill, but the damage is way too low. You can do some very khuul things like solo some bossed while kiting them because the axe can fire at like 180 degrees which is insane, but you pay the cost by having insanely low numbers. Yes, axe will be better… but for condition WvW/PvP builds, it’ll occupy the same PvE tag-them-mobs niche as always.

After the patch I’ll just stick to my sword/x + longbow for dungeons and pve as they will both get good dps buffs (especially sword perma +10%). It feels way to comfortable being able to switch between great melee dps and skill set and good ranged dmg for braindead PvE.

I chose Priory because it was supposed to be about discovering new places and old artifacts. Quite frankly now I think the Priory route is the least interesting one in terms of quests and the best in concept.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

People are really hung up over the longbow thing.

I’d really like the engie’s rifle to be their best DPS weapon too because rifles are cool but that’s just the way things are. Something’s gotta be the best and someone’s not gonna be happy with whatever it is.

I’ve played rangers long enough to not give a kitten about what is best and what is not. My point here was to make ranged weapons less subpar, check my signature if you want…

Sorry, if I offended you in any way.

I made Ranger suggestion thread in Discussion section, kinda kittened up but I would appreciate it if you guys could comment about it until they move it (even if you find it totally stupid).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ranger-PvE-suggestion/first#post4190732

A solid 1, I play about 2 hours a day and I take regular breaks from the game.

I throw rare weapons in the toilet and I don’t do dungeons at the moment.

I’ve played this game since headstart and I’ve played a ranger for years in GW1, mainly because I like beastmaster classes, but as most people agree rangers in GW2 just feel redundant in groups where staying in group and stacking is key. I know this will not fix most of the stacking issues in high end PvE, but what would you guys say if :

Fortifying Bond

Any boon received by your pet is shared with the ranger if the pet is more than 650 units away from the ranger. (Boons applied by the ranger, their skills and traits are excluded)
Any boon received by the ranger is shared with their pet if the pet is less than 650 units away from the ranger.

Then we could have a master trait like this:

Alpha’s Roar

+20% Boon Duration (for the ranger only)
Any AoE boon applied by the ranger is reapplied in a small area (300?) around their pet if it is more than 650 units away from the ranger.

It feels like GW1 to me so I’m happy.

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/145724/guild-wars-2-the-shaft.jpg

Jerry Attrick.5963:

When equipped you walk with a cripple

Here is a screenshot of an ascended Infused celestial ring and a normal ascended ring. Please fix these.

Please recalculate the new stats on Celestial gear.

This “Increased the stats provided from the celestial stat combination by 6.5% to compensate for the new ferocity changes” is not true at all for most pieces. Check ascended Infused rings for example.

43×1.065=45.795 NOT 44

Your math on Celestial Infused gear is really kittened up. :P

Taya Grayswir : 47

Hopefully I can make it to the event!
Have fun!

I stopped doing higher levels due to elitism/lack of rewards, but I don’t believe they are undoable with rangers. My runs usually have more than 1 ranger anyways. There is a subtle difference between optimal and possible which seems to mean the world for some people…

snow.8097:

So Stop talking please rangers just get nerfed every patch and are all in all weak and QQ and so on.
Ranger is strong but when you have no knowledge of your class and the System you will never be a strong ranger. When you have Problems with something Train your skills. you lost a game? Dont argue the ranger class is weak, think what went wrong how could i improve my builds?
Look at actual metas of every class and think about it what is the best way to kill DPS builds, or condi builds, CC builds, Tanks.
and again, when u have Problems with sword autoattack—> Strg + Rightclick on #1 sword
Everything will be easier
Now let the flame begin \(-_-)/

You might as well delete 50% of these so called buffs because they were gamewide buffs/changes to all classes or nerfs that you didn’t remove from the list.

I’m not complaining here I’m just saying your post is troll food or a pointless taunt.

Rangers aren’t optimal in zergs and dungeons or simply not as good as other classes because they have far less utility. Listing nerfs or buffs is pointless, it can be done for almost any class in the game.

I like most of this fractal. I think just the amount of trash mobs should be reduced to speed it up a bit. The buttons room isn’t that challenging, but I feel that being forced to stay still is the thing people hate the most. The so called “clown car” is just another example of too-many-trash-mobs-timesink. Don’t nerf the boss, it’s fine as it is because it requires a mix of teamwork and individual skill which is very rare in GW2 (props for the reactor fractal, I love that one).

I think the fractal is fine as it at the moment and it’s mostly the PvE meta and the amount of trash mobs that makes it boring for most people.

I say NO.

The matchups are broken due to guilds transfering servers or trolling WvW scores weeks prior to season start.
The end of season reward chest is based on server performance, so if you lose a few weeks people don’t bother anymore.
The few good matchups are influenced more by griefing than performance.

I love WvW but season one is pointlessly broken. If there is season 2 I suggest the removal of all leagues, the removal of the reward chest (titles, mini’s and crafting mats are ok for me) and extending the season to 14 weeks so griefing and cheating will be harder.

Josh Davis.6015:

We’re currently working on a fix for this.

Stay tuned.

I hope it’ll be a permanent fix this time or the thread necromancy will continue…

GH member here as well. Same problem only with my main guild.

Entangle is probably the skill that will be hit the least from this nerf, since even in PvE most targets would just AoE their way out of it. There is no point discussing this skill when fighting human opponents..

Working as intended (since launch tm).

The Ranger’s Boon Duration does not effect their pets, Concentration Training is the only source of extra boon duration for pets.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Furious_Screech

It’s a very glitchy trait too.

My tip on ascended crafting would be to NOT farm any specific materials other than ascended.

Almost everything that can be bought on the trading post can be bought at a good price when considering the time-effort invovled in farming it.

It’ll break camps and will not help at all in bigger fights and zergs. Pets are already good in small WvW fights as it is. Their only problem is dieing to all the AoE spam.

Chopps.5047:

Wayfinder.8452:

Go to a world boss event with your bear use ‘Guard’ at the boss location. Go out of aggro range, alt tab and resume browsing the ranger forum.

I used it only for the perma regen and in dungeons where it can help your cat survive some random boss AoE.

It has a lot of utility on paper, but most of it is useless in all game modes. Seriously it’s only real use is toxic afking of any possible PvE event.

Frontline wvw with natures voice and spirits unbound after dec 10. Natures voice covers boons all the time makes it harder to rip or keep corrupted. And spirits are generally awesome. So, ya, there’s that in december.

Yeah, that has been popping here and there. It might be good, but we’ll see. I can hardly consider any spirit build frontline for WvW. Mid at best. The patch next month looks very solid for PvE and WvW.

OP stated that he doesn’t want the topic to be centered around perma boons though.