Guild Wars 2

Played since exclusive beta. Did dungeon farming (precursor chance in chests) and World Boss farming quite a bit then moved to pvp.

Zero precursor drops.

I really think it’s a matter of the reaction timing aspect. I’m going for champion of every single class, so far I have 200 wins with every single class and 150 ranked wins with Guardian, Necromancer, Ranger, Elementalist, and Mesmer. I’m about 25 away from finishing thief in ranked.

What I can tell you from that experience is that the growth of player skill is very different from most classes.

With Elementalist and Engineer having a mental understanding of spacing, skill cooldown, skill combos and effects, as well as reacting to whatever is going on with you, your opponent, and team mates and changing your 20 skill chain is the difference between a novice and an expert. The hardest part of these classes is mentally grasping and reacting to multiple scenarios and conditions at once.

With Ranger (note I never ran healer druid) and Thief you will die almost instantaneously unless you have an excellent understanding of your position relative to everything else, as well as exactly how much you need to do to kill the target. These classes are hard because you need to control yourself, keep away or disengage and calculate your opponent rather than yourself.

Necromancer is very different. You don’t have 20 skills all with short or no cooldowns on top of automatic abilities from traits like ele and engi. You also don’t have even half of the mobility of a thief or ranger. What people who call Necromancer a no-skill class are referring to is the non-existent need to manage yourself and your skills. Necromancer’s natural method of play is just having better numbers, more health to survive, and more damage output through your choice of power or condi. This makes it incredibly welcome to low-tier pvp, especially minion masters who have to manage even less than a standard necromancer.

Of course actually learning how to play the class requires a very deep understanding of the fact that because you lack the options of other classes you need to have perfect management of your skill cooldowns and options, and know if you can or cannot handle something before engaging because there is no option of running.

I believe i’m stealing this from an earlier comment, however what people are complaining about is the skill floor for Necromancer being leagues higher than other classes. Meaning yes, someone who has no skill can still do pretty well by using a Necromancer because many aspects are automated for them by the game rather than conscious effort. Without understanding that if they had any skill themselves they could out-pressure that floor very quickly.

In summary, yes Necromancer requires very little skill for entry, however people complaining that it requires no skill obviously don’t have enough themselves to overcome a curve which happens to start high but have an incredibly small slope of growth.

Short story up top, explanation down low.

1.) Less gimps on maps, more terrain design for player innovation.

2.) Build saver like in GW1 that saves/loads your weapons, traits, skills, etc.

3.) Stat choices, for instance zerker is 1200, 900, 900. Just give players 3000 points to spend in anything they like.

4.) Trait choices, rather than stick with the line system, allow players to simply choose 3 traits from each tier.

5.) Playstyle balancing.

Long story:

1.) Khylo is the best example I have of both the bad and the good for this one. The trebuchets pretty much ruin the game. They’re too easy to use, too safe/easy to access, and impossible for a condi user to kill in adequate time. That being said after being used on the clocktower, rangers, and elementalists have done amazing things with that broken roof.

I think that broken roof is a great example of providing players tools to use through the terrain in a pvp match. That’s something that punishes large zergs, allows for people that prefer a ranged style to help on an otherwise very confined base, and can be punished if the other team notices in time. It’s a pvp mechanic that adds to playstyles, player skill, team coordination, and experience. It isn’t a random fireball wiping out an entire team in one fell swoop after someone respawned and pressed 2.

The rocks around the graveyard in Foefire are another example of good terrain design, rather than a trebuchet or skyhammer. As we’ve seen with pew pew rangers, they can be an incredibly effective tool if the other team doesn’t notice and punish, but it is still simple to run up the steps and blast a ranger off the cliff into the fray.

3-4.) These both are extremely important if we are to achieve any real form of competitiveness in GW2 spvp. The more tools we as players have to work with the more ideas we can see come to fruition, not to mention the longer buildcrafters like myself will be online simply looking at their toys. Currently the game revolves heavily around whatever the current meta may be, because there is so little that players can do when build crafting that they become confined to make specific choices. This limits build diversity as well as play style and ultimately player base.

Whether it is the bunker mesmer, celestial rifle, berserker hammer, or any other meta, simply nerfing that specific build or giving the class something better doesn’t help the spvp community. If we have more tools we won’t need to pigeon hole ourselves into narrow build specs.

5.) This is largely an expansion on 1, 3, and 4. There is always one playstyle in particular that stands out in GW2 that revolves around the meta. For some time it was hambow and turret engi which was simply throw out more cc’s than the other person has. There was also the bunker madness with druids, tempests, and chronomancers.

I feel this is largely a fault of poor map design and player customization. However this also is fed into by the lack of options altogether for some classes (thief sustainability, revenant condition survival) or over dependence on specific options for others (warrior discipline and defense trait lines). The primary thing that most classes lack, is sustainability.

Celestial Dagger Dagger elementalist was in my opinion the best culmination of design to date. Every existing map and base allowed the linear tracking and range of the skills to work well. The skills had perfect base numbers to provide both damage and defense, as well as cool downs that allowed the elementalist to continue fighting for extended periods. It was the jack of all trades.

Now look at Theif, conceptually it is designed to be the efficient killer, mobile and lethal, but vulnerable. Unfortunately Thief is an incredibly inefficient killer, in fact nearly every single trait, stat point, and utility needs to be dedicated for the sole purpose of killing the target. After exhausting all option, thieves have little retort to a dragon hunter’s traps and aegis, a stealthed mesmer’s conditions, an invulnerable revenant, or most any other class.

Daredevil did not help. It allows thieves to flail miserably for a few moments longer with more dodges. What thieves need is the ability to use their mobility to kill the target as well as a reward for killing their target. Perhaps a heal skill or trait that massively regenerates the thieve’s initiative, cooldown, or health after a kill. The best step towards accomplishing this is the deadly blossom spam condition thief which is a nuisance to everyone.

Warriors at opening were forces to be reckoned with due to the sustainability provided to them from healing signet. But after years of power creep, that signet means nothing. Endure pain and berserker stance compensated for a short time, but even those mean nothing now. Currently warriors are seldom seen because they, much like thieves, have been forced into the position of eliminate the target before my stance wears off and I am dead.

If classes had the option to sustain themselves, they would not be forced to burn through the target in seconds as we see with the non existent thief and warrior. The alternative wouldn’t need to be have absolute invulnerability as seen with revenants and mesmers. Bring back the dagger dagger elementalist, don’t force players to dedicate everything they have into either bursting or tanking. Give players more options for sustain, play style, and creativity.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

We just going to ignore reaper?

Highest vitality in game. (balanced by lowest armor in game)
Okay that’s pretty good, that’s a good job anet.

Second health pool that heals first health pool or vice versa.
Hey that’s actually a pretty cool class mechanic and it’s really not that OP just hit them a bit more.

High power and condi damage simultaneously.
Okay but they’re still vulnerable to power damage.

Higher toughness than any build in the entire game with minions.
This is looking kind of bad.

Stability and condition transfer with plenty of cc of their own.

Let’s recap:

They have the highest vitality in the entire game, as well as a second health bar.
Highest toughness in the entire game with minions.
Extremely high power and condition damage.
Condition transfer or resistance.
Both stability and cc.
In one build.

They are good at everything. They are weak to nothing. And our problem is dragon hunter? (which I don’t even play because it’s so weak to range or a good stun locker)

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone else has their computer freeze while playing guild wars 2. The game doesn’t crash so much as my character stops moving, the screen freezes, and the game stops altogether. While this is happening I can task manager and see that everything else (ventrilo, itunes, whatever it may be) is running fine, however there is a Guild Wars 2 not responding tag. I cannot close Guild Wars 2 nor can I end task in task manager. I can very easily solve this by signing out of my computer’s user account, then signing back in.

In the past two days I’ve been frozen 5 times all of which were in the middle of stronghold spvp matches. I’ve played on the 32 and 64 bit versions of the game (originally the 32 then after a complete uninstall and complete install of the 64 bit version).

The game itself runs perfectly fine at maximum graphics with absolutely zero lag or any other performance issues before freezing completely with no notice. This happens in under 1 second. I’ve had this problem since beta pre-release although it has become much worse since HoT release.

Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Thank you for any help or feedback.

Same as everyone else here.

I also got in for about 7 minutes. Then got kicked and now I’m back here.

There are also a few friends of mine online right now who were experiencing the same thing but not anymore.

Hello,

I’d like to point out the ever prevalent need for some way to discourage leeching. Once again today someone simply sat at spawn for the simple reason of, “I don’t like you guys” Shadow Dionysus. I guarantee any sPvP player who’s gone in alone in the past month has had at least 1 if not several of these in unranked.

I’m not sure if i’m the minority here but I don’t like just running the same build 100% of the time with every single character. I’ve got soldier’s, berserker’s, and now sinister gear on one character. That means Armor, weapons (only the ones I’d use with my build) and accessories. It also means I have quite the mess in my inventory.

Anet, please give us something like an unlock system for stats or a separate window for equipment. I have each individual set, paid the extra gold and time crafting them but don’t want to need to travel back to a bank every time I want to switch my set-up or travel to a merchant every 4 minutes.

It was a problem before but now that equipment is the only source of increased stats it is absolutely necessary to be carrying around mounds of different sets.

If you guys are talking about me, I’ve run virus and malware scans, cleared my temp files, run Ccleaner with free space checked, and defragged yesterday…before taking these. i5 quad core and 8 Gigs of RAM, Nividia GeForce GTX 650.

Something has gone terribly wrong after this latest patch for me.

So since the patch my computer has been crashing quite frequently. My CPU, Memory, and Disk have all been severely overloaded, as well as a skyrocketed ping.

For whatever reason GW2 is using incredible amounts of processing power on my computer. I’ve got an i7 quad core and 16 gigs of ram, well above minimum specs; however it isn’t just a % of my computer capabilities. Nothing should be taking 1.7 Gigs of Ram on lowest settings, while minimized.

Please help ANET, Geek Squad, or anyone with ideas.

Hello,

Today I logged into the game and my character was moving at approximately 600% speed (I can cover all of gendarran fields in less than 1 second) while skills and actions are sent through eventually; however they are not shown to activate.

I realize that we simply have not had much time to explore the new trait system and develop new builds, this was simply to express my fears for the future, especially with the new Dragon Hunter specialization being released.

sPvP And Conditions
It is obvious that this new patch was centered around the idea that conditions should be a part of the game as much as raw power. I myself have instructed on multiple occasions that while conditions are a good choice against enemies with high vitality, if so much as 2 well designed condition users are present, their actions will conflict or cancel and become null. So I applaud and respect the changes. This also means that the ability to use conditions to ones advantage has become of absolute importance, especially as the new meta will feature an explosion of condition based ideas in the excitement.

As for condition damage, I mainly used in sPvP. I am actually very proud of the 1 second added cooldown to amplified wrath because frankly I was incredibly over powered to begin with. My old build centered around 33% increased burning damage, and burning on blocking, which meant that a ranger using rapid fire would immediately accumulate enough burning to equal approximately 19k damage. And of course other features of my build would reapply the burning and do raw damage later in the event of purging. Once again, incredibly over-powered. However now I will not be able to stack enough burning to be of any threat nor sustain what stacks I can provide.

My concern is that after this change, I am finding few other options for condition damage, seeing as how burning was the Guardian’s primary source of condition damage to begin with. I see potential for might and retaliation, and in general a berserker Guardian that utilizes burning as a method of causing their physical abilities to do more niche tricks. I do not see potential for burning to be the main show on a Guardian’s damage design.

Why Any of This Matters
Back before GW2 came out, in an old promotional video, you claimed that players will no longer have the option of choosing a secondary class, because you wanted each and every class to feel unique and individual. That every class should feel like its own. I thought you lived up to that statement upon the game’s initial release.

I mentioned earlier, a Warrior could attack, a thief could spike, an ele could be a wild card. And a Guardian could defend their team from the dangers at hand.

In PvE my job was always to reduce damage to manageable proportions while healing myself and curing conditions on everyone around me. And to hold the boss, the mob, the turret, or whatever else at bay. To allow everyone else to perform at their very best by negating and absorbing anything the enemy threw at my allies.

In PvP once I discovered the burning block build I was astonished at the absolute genius you’d placed into possibility. I was not intended to charge at someone and decapitate them with a greatsword like a warrior would. Instead I would simply defend myself or team mates and those with the audacity to attempt to do us harm would die. I could not harm anyone who did not first attempt to attack me. The skill names wrath, judgement, etc. as a Guardian actually meant something.

My role was once to defend myself and my allies, and I was equipped with the tools to carry out that role.

I do not need the 6 heals and invulnerability I am accustomed to. I do not need what was literally infinite burning damage that broke the game. I do not need to be over-powered nor do I find these nerfs universally detestable. However I also do not need to be made into a berserker warrior, or a thief, or an elementalist, or a mesmer, or a necromancer, or an engineer, or a ranger. You had one of the best class designs I have ever seen: effective, unique to other classes, original when compared to other games, and enjoyable to play as. Please don’t remove the things that both surprised and kept me playing.

How To Tank
A tank needs to be able to absorb enough damage to stay alive for long periods of time much like a damage dealer’s duty is to send massive spikes to deplete the enemy’s health bar before they can retaliate. The aegis design would block 2 attacks every approximately 15 seconds, which would leave plenty of time for damage and mitigate sustainability. With the new regeneration design, the new signet of courage would be vital; however it would only heal every 10 seconds. This would not be nearly sufficient even when paired with virtue of resolve’s improved passive effect which procs only every 3 seconds. Too much of a gap is present.

That being said in the event of a spike, or while in between defense rotations, a tank must also be able to react and survive the burst while still maintaining itself afterwards. Because the new signet would be necessary, that would mean replacing renewed focus; which I still see as being a much more viable option in the event of a crisis. The signet has the ability to heal the entire party to full after a 4.5 second charge. I find the long cast time for this ability of absolute necessity and entirely agree with it due to the incredible benefit of a 100% heal. But that also means it cannot help in times of crisis where immediate help is necessary. I also agree with the long cooldown, but this once again means that it could not be used as a sustainable rotation segment.

So we’ve lost our ability to sustain medium amounts of damage and to defend against heavy spikes in the process of gaining the abilities of a warrior.

Hello,

Some notes on the new Guardian trait system.

I recognize that many Guardian players were concerned about the Guardian’s inability to deal damage. My new concern is that with our added potential to do physical damage post-patch, we have lost immense tanking and condition damage potential.

PvE Traits
There were always options in GW2 for damage. For raw physical damage a greatsword warrior could not be beat. For instant spikes, thief. Necros, mesmers, and to a degree elementalists/rangers had condition damage. Guardians were always an excellent tank and party supporter for myself and others. I feel as though this patch has gone great lengths to mitigate my ability to guard myself and others in combat as a Guardian.

The new trait system, which combined all of the symbol related traits (larger, last longer, heal allies), shout traits (20% reduced CD, purge conditions) and meditation traits (20% reduced CD, heal, fury) most definitely warrant grandmaster status. That being said, they severely limit effective build crafting.

My old build involved altruistic healing, reduced CD for meditations (for renewed focus), healing symbols, reduced CD on shouts, and condition removing shouts. Because all of these traits are now grandmaster, I must choose 2 of 4. In essence, guardian’s tanking potential was reduced by no less than half (taking 20% longer for less effective skills if healing is chosen or loosing all manner of supplemental healing if recharges and niche tricks are chosen).

I am looking into other builds already and have seen potential for a multiple aegis and non-buff (as in stackable) regeneration; however these designs would not have nearly as much sustainability or critical value.

Nevermind it got fixed

Reduced CD on hammer skills by . Not 20, not 50%, just . Which translates to 0 when you use the trait.

Every now and then while running GW2 my computer’s CPU and memory usage will spike to critical levels and the entire game will freeze. Adding to the problem is when I attempt to exit the game through task manager (ctrl, alt, delete and then end task) my computer still thinks i’m in game and will not allow me to end the task. So I am frozen completely and need to hard shut down my PC with an i7 and 16gigs of ram. This never happened frequently but since this last patch it’s happened 4 times.

I’m having the same problem, if you open task manager (ctrl, alt, del) check the usage, GW2 randomly spikes my CPU and Memory to upwards of 70% each. I’ve got 16 gigs of ram and it soaks up 3-4 of them randomly.

Hello,

Will players ever be able to save and re-upload their builds as seen in GW1? In times such as the minute before an spvp match begins where you are allowed to alter builds and skills it would help immensely. A way to save traits/equipment sets and change them immediately would be greatly appreciated.

I could see this causing issues in places such as WvW however you could restrict the feature to main cities, or near waypoints, etc.

Thank you for your time.

Just some concerns about the coming changes to the game.

I understand that stat bonuses will be removed from trait lines, that is (by example) the strength trait line for warrior will no longer provide a bonus to power and condition duration. I also know that these stat bonuses will be offset by equipment such as armor, weapons, runes, sigils, etc.

I would like to know if you have any intention of implementing a system to help players who enjoy changing builds and experimenting often manage their inventory space. I myself, enjoy cycling through builds designed for tanking, farming, dungeons, WvW, etc. However I wouldn’t want to need to store a new equipment set for each role. The stats provided by trait lines aren’t incredibly significant and the equipment swapping is already a problem as is but I feel the increase in focus on equipment would make it even more necessary to have different sets.

Would it be possible to have equipment sets unlocked like armor skins in the wardrobe are currently treated? I.e. you craft, purchase, etc. a sword or helmet, and have those stats for a sword unlocked permanently for that character or your account? The system is already in place for legendary weapons, although you don’t need to craft 5 legendaries to unlock each individual stat set.

Thank you for your time.

In a previous update you introduced dishonored to the pvp game mode for people who leave matches prematurely. I respect the attempt to deter early leaving; however it has not made any difference. You made it so that any character used will immediately be sent into the match that was left, so logically speaking there is no reason for a player to leave the match unless they leave the game completely and do something else; however that still did not help. In one week I have seen no less than 12 outnumbered matches in unranked arena.

Please, return the /resign option from Guild Wars 1, make dishonored occur from so much as one match left, or some other way to deter premature leaving. While I’d prefer we show some good sportsmanship and simply stick it out for the sake of the game rather than leaving when things become strenuous it is obvious this is not happening.

Unfortunately I don’t have an excellent solution to propose; however I feel that outnumbered matches is prominent enough to warrant some attention. At the least the resign option would allow outnumbered teams to end the match quickly. There is open communication between players so if any players genuinely enjoyed battling they could easily contact each other and enter a dueling server, party up, etc.

Calyx, I do go into s and tpvp to avoid it but the point was that I shouldn’t need to. Don’t you think the fact that you are literally blaming anyone who plays hotjoin for being in an outnumbered match is a problem? It shouldn’t be so easy as to say, hotjoin match, yes it will be outnumbered. But that is the case.

Aryilana, I’d agree with the second one that sounds pretty good. The first one doesn’t seem very fair. Even a good player can’t make up for some teams and it shouldn’t be their fault just for trying to join. any match that they get thrown into a bad one.

I’ll just skip to the point, hopefully this will reach an arenanet employee.

There are some major issues in Hotjoin sPvP matches that anyone who plays can notice.

1.) First and foremost, the problem of outnumbered matches. You already have the autobalance feature, which will move one member from the team with too many players if it outnumbers the other by 2. This works to a point; however more often than not there is someone waiting to join whatever team is winning (the one with 2 more players) and the end result is the match still being outnumbered. My main point is that autobalance has become ineffective. That being said, it is appreciated that you’ve implemented the automatic win credit to an autobalanced player.

My recommendation: Add an automatic win credit for joining an outnumbered team a certain period after the match has started, in order to avoid the beginning of the match simply awarding anyone participating the win credit. Personally I would rather the records of wins and losses be removed to discourage abandoning teams, and encourage build testing and refinement rather than going with whatever is popular. Perhaps only removing the records for hotjoin matches but not tournament/arena matches.

2.) Absent players or “leechers”. In Guild Wars 1, if a player wanted to give up, they could use the /resign feature and the match would end. Atop this, there was also the report for leeching option if a team mate were to leave the keyboard for prolonged periods of time. In Guild Wars 2 however, there are no such features. If a team mate decides to give up individually and without the courtesy to simply leave the match, the rest of their team is left outnumbered and with no hope of autobalance.

My recommendation: Add an afk timer for sPvP as it is seen in other areas such as dungeons. “Unless your resume activity you will be kicked.”

3.) This last issue is less significant; however the most prominent of them all. Balance among classes It is common knowledge to join the team with the higher number of mesmers, engineers, or minion masters. The simple fact is that a team of 3 engineers can place one per capture point and fight on equal ground against two opponents each. The same goes for just 2 berzerker mesmers which can essentially either instantly kill any player before their pistol 5 stun is over, or stagger their stuns in the event of something like balanced stance, hiding in stealth until the other player is vulnerable. Hammer warriors have an easy time finishing off opponents before the target can even stand up off of the ground. This isn’t necessarily the problem. Despite the fact that with the combination of berserker’s stance and endure pain they become literally invincible long enough to do their job, they can be killed. The problem lies in the fact that there are no other options for warrior that match that kind of potential. This is common in several classes, where one particular build and weapon set have clear advantages in damage, survivability, and control than every other option available.

My Recommendation: Limit the number of any single class on one team in a match (i.e. a limit of 2 engineers per team, 2 mesmers, 2 guardians, etc.) More balancing among builds and weapons. Perhaps an introduction of pvp skills as seen in Guild Wars 1.

Thank you for your consideration.

Awesome, many thanks.

Rechecked, once again in Lion’s Arch. I’m at 65% crit dmg, and 38% crit chance once again with full exotic berserker’s armor, full exotic berserker’s weapons, 2 ascended berserker’s accessories, and 3 exotic berserker’s accessories. I have nothing in the precision trait line and do not have a zerker backpiece. I am a level 80 warrior.

Any ideas?

Sorry for not specifying but no I was not scaled. I was in Lion’s Arch when I checked. I planned on doing something similar to what you said Young but that won’t fix if i’m missing stats I should have.

With full exotic berserker’s armor, full exotic berserker’s accessories with 2 ascended berserker accessories, and berserker’s weapons, the game tells me I have a 33% critical chance. I thought this was normal and you were supposed to add runes of the eagle or something to raise the crit chance but according to a friend I should be well above 50% perhaps near 70%. Could anyone confirm this and if so tell me what is going wrong?

I entered the gauntlet and beat every person up to Kieldia, and then after beating her, my next match was deadeye. I beat deadeye and strugar and am presently fighting liadri. I did not receive credit nor rewards for Deadeye and Strugar nor did I ever have the opportunity to fight the rest of the people in between Deadeye and Kieldia. What should Because I never fought them, I never beat them and cannot challenge the fighters I missed through the fight manager. How do I to receive credit and take on the ones I missed?

If anyone knows a server where I can get access to a karma vendor at these sites the info would be appreciated.

I can’t help but share the same desire for free waypoint travel and several other features from the good time in GW1 that brought me here in the first place; however I solemnly give that Oglaf makes a good point. More money in circulation means inflation.

A problem with thieves being too skilled at killing…

Yes a good thief will down you and kill you in seconds and yes you will have little opportunity to retaliate; however that is the entire point in a thief, assassin, ninja, etc. class. The fact is without that stealth a thief is utterly useless as they will die faster than even light armor classes, sometimes in as little as 2 good hits.

Stealth is part of the concept of the class, asking for it to be removed is no different than arguing that death shroud unfairly allows necros more health, clones/phantasms are too powerful for mesmers, warriors do too much damage to kite away from, guardians have too much health and armor, etc.

I tried in both Sanctum of Rall and Fort Aspenwood. Out of several hours my record uninterrupted session was 3 fights (either my friend or I killing the other). In general people simply rejected our wishes and kept on their merry way however a less than favorable number of encounters were much more…hostile to say the least.

As for events: any dungeons, instances, and surprises such as the giant gifts in Wintersday are all easily completed by low level characters. When event instances are level 80-oriented your stats are boosted and compensated by the game, and most other things such as candy corn, entrances to the underworld, magic snow, and mysterious presents are located in starter zones. I will say that in order to complete the Mad King’s Memories event it was virtually impossible for low-level characters along with the magic snowmen event in Wintersday requires either characters with access to 30+ zones or multiple characters.

I agree though, that the game has been shifting into a rather unfriendly shape towards solo-pve players.

• WvW involved monthly rewards
• The previously stated problems with Orr stated in its respective thread.
• The lack of access to exotic gear beyond dungeons
• High-difficulty dungeons involved in monthly rewards
  and other minor issues seem to force cooperative or pvp play.

I realize that one of the driving goals behind GW2 was team-oriented play but when it goes to an extent that impedes the progress of less effective, less frequent, and more independent players I feel it is too much.

Whether through implementing a duel system, restricted pvp servers, even a non-randomized version of team-arena from GW1, I’d really enjoy seeing a more local form of pvp without random players being added into matches.

It’s unbelievably common to see a server with 2 combatants who are simply friends attempting to have a 1-on-1 match for fun. It’s also common for their fun to be abruptly ended by less courteous players who, despite being informed of the circumstances and asked to leave, begin outnumbering one of the original members until another random player joins, and another, etc. until the intended small, local duel becomes a 6 vs 6 war.

I’m speaking from multiple experiences with unwelcomed guests to my own matches with a friend and a match I spent as a spectator which within seconds were filled with unwanted, and often extremely unpleasant players who seemed to make it an objective to do all that was within their power to ruin the fun after being asked to leave.

I’m sure after the game is already released ,designing and integrating such a system would be incredibly complicated but I ask that you please, even if an entirely new system is impossible, make an effort to assuage this issue.

It’s recognizable that orr was an attempt to make the end-game play epic, and actually engaging rather than press 1 2 3 kill this go here, etc. and conceptually that’s a great direction.

The idea’s execution fails when the player base has such an negative, and seemingly universal opinion about it.

I’m undoubtedly repeating previously stated issues and apologize for the redundancy, please consider any repeated quarrels as my agreeing with already known sentiments.

1.) The Events. It is fantastic that Guild Wars 2 attempts to bring its players together and truly utilize the fact that you play with other people in mmo’s; however, the constant group events and their difficulty make it impossible for anyone to party up and complete them. The barrages of events far too difficult for individual completion are incessant and drive off players long before there are enough to form a party capable of defeating avatar’s of the gods. The contested waypoints combined with the volume of group events make it impossible even after a party is formed to function, if someone dies they cannot rejoin without being assaulted by a different event while their party fails the first.

2.) The Spawn Rate. This seems especially significant in underwater zones even beyond orr. On the rare occasion someone can actually navigate successfully and manage to slice their way through a jungle of enemies, they are slowly ensnared within a circle of mobs which quite literally never ends. In the time it takes to kill even a weak mob another has spawned, and veteran or stronger monsters are simply out of the question without extremely careful planning about one’s surroundings.

3.) The Range/Placement of Hostiles. Orr is designed in such a way that it is impossible to avoid combat with enemies, this can be expected from any high-level zone in any game. My problem is that the enemy will lock onto you far beyond even a longbow’s range, and follow you for an even greater distance while you collect even more enemies which will do the same until you are immobilized, surrounded, and killed.

4.) In-Combat Locking. You’ve reached your destination, you’ve killed the 100’s of enemies following you. You’ve killed the 20 enemies occupying the location. You’ve suppressed the spawning. You’re still in combat and your health is not regenerating. You’re a sitting target praying that within the next 5 minutes you’ll leave combat before you are once again swarmed, or the spawns begin again. Too often this does not happen. It is not a matter of a slight delay between battles, I’ve remained in combat for several minutes after reaching “safety” in orr only to be sniped by some unknown foe and loosing my remaining 100 health.

5.) Compounding. As frustrating as these problems are, individually they can be managed. After avoiding the multiple epic events slaying balthazar, and grenth, and melandru, and dwayna, and lyssa, etc. simultaneously, I often find orr relatively manageable in my secure little hole of the map. But when any two of the previously listed problems occur in unison, it often means certain failure. What is worse is that it is rarely only 2 of the listed, quite often all 4 are involved in what seems to be a synchronized effort on the game’s part to annihilate the player.

I refuse to use my level 80 characters for anything other than helping friends and guild-mates mainly because I spend more time frantically running away from mobs and lose more money repairing armor or teleporting to waypoints than I do playing, and heaven forbid enjoying the game. I’ve been in parties with a friend from the real world and he is avoiding even reaching level 80 after seeing my constant demise while I played in orr with my guardian no less. Several more friends supply orr as a reason not to purchase guildwars2, stating that there is no enjoyable end-game play and that it is a short-burst game with no actual reward for their time.

I’d love to put in the effort training more characters to level 80 and exploring the world I’ve been awaiting so anxiously for so long. I’d love to see GW2 have the turnout it deserves and to play with more friends. I’d love to be able to assure them with security that they’re making a good investment in purchasing GW2 and that it is indeed a great game. It is to my great dismay that I, like many others, am considering returning to GW1 or moving on all together if something isn’t done. I love this game, this world, its characters, and its players and it pains me to see, and even worse provide commentary, on such a massive problem.

The auction house is a welcomed luxury but I’d very much appreciate a re-introduction of the standard, player-to-player trading system from GW1 in addition to the trading post.

I do agree, the respawn rate for mobs can be unmanageable and excessive. It can get absolutely unbearable when fighting stronger monsters like veteran or champion mobs when you constantly need to re-kill weaker spawns around them. I absolutely refuse to enter the water as well. There are too many monsters in too little space along with 3 dimensions the player needs to heed regardless of the fact they cannot see behind, below and above them. This combined with the fact that the respawn rate is much too fast to kill, recuperate, and escape and the agro range of the mobs simply compounds the problem and forces anyone who enters the water into a perpetual fight for their lives against increasingly difficult waves of the same enemy.

I’m definitely in support of a duel system. A good spar between friends is always a nice way to pvp without the loser being harassed to no end by the other team or even their own. Let’s face it, it’s the internet, unless it’s with friends only encounters with trolls will be frequent.

I was hoping for an option, perhaps in interface, to change the controls for chat tabs back to the guild wars 1 system i.e.: typing @ to switch to guild chat or # for party chat.