Guild Wars 2

I wasn’t clear but I’m speaking entirely from a PvE perspective, I haven’t done WvW as it’s not really my thing. I’m not sure, maybe you’re playing with a whole different crowd that I have been playing with, but in dungeons, dodging out of the way and putting on some passive buffs on your team as soon as the cooldown is up doesn’t count as teamwork to me.

As for the trinity, although I don’t consider it crap (it worked for MANY years, just because GW2 doesn’t have it doesn’t mean it’s crap) I’m not asking for it back.

It’s been said before but really the combat in this game does not require any teamwork at all, therefore you don’t need other people, so why should people be bothered to talk to, or even acknowledge others…?

Everything in the game is zergfest or dps. In events, once like 6 people get there you can barely see what you are doing or your effects, much less pay attention to what others are doing to help the event. In dungeons, aside from pressing F to rez someone every now and then, its just dps dps dps, and you you you.

Maybe a warrior is taking the majority of hits and keeping monsters stunned to keep them away from squishies, or maybe a guardian or water ele is throwing out some heals to help keep the party up, do people notice? And more importantly, does it even matter?

The game is setup so that even if that warrior isn’t taking the hits for his teammates and controlling them, or if the guardian or water ele decides to never throw out a group heal…the group will still succeed. Maybe you will have to press F a couple more times to just rez people right back up or maybe you will just have to switch to a ranged wep and be less effective and monsters will take 1 more minute to kill, but you will STILL succeed. NO cooperation is needed in this game. Even in so called “group content”. Maybe a DPS sucks and is being carried by the group, will you notice it? Most likely not, there is no healer that will run out of mana if the DPS suck, you will still succeed. Maybe you missed an interrupt on a big attack… no matter, someone died, oh just press F and they’ll be back up in 5 seconds like nothing happened. Maybe no one in the group is playing support/controller…who cares, all group content is just dps and kite your butt off.

I think it’s great that you can do pretty much anything with any class, but in the end it just turns the combat system into a zerg/dps spam fest where no one really is important or crucial to the team. Therefore there’s no real recognition, no “hey this player is good, I wanna group up with him again sometime” or really any social interaction/cooperation needed. In my opinion, the thing they most intended to make the game combat unique, really just ended up dumbing down the combat system and discouraging cooperation/teamwork, and therefore, socialization. Because let’s face it, what is the biggest part of other MMOs that encourages people to socialize? A battle system in which everyone is required to pull their weight, that requires people to cooperate and work together and perform specific roles that help their team.

Edit: My post is directed at people who actually WANT more social interaction in the game. Those who play games “to escape reality” or something of the sort or play MMOs not because they want to be social but because they enjoy “the constant stream of content” are a whole other thing entirely and if that’s their cup of tea so be it.

The days in which people played MMOs specifically to play with other gamers are gone. Now MMOs are single player games in which, if you like, you can group and be social. Gone are the days in which you had to be nice to people and have proper etiquette when grouping/talking with others or else your bad reputation would spread across the server and nobody would group with you.

Now some people are social, others aren’t. A lot are rude, because there is no repercussion to their actions. They don’t NEED anyone to do anything in the game. On the other hand, some people just talk with their cliques and real life buddies via VOIP and don’t really care about anyone else etc. etc.

The days in which you were required to be social in MMOs (which old timers love but newer MMO players don’t like since they experienced a different kind of MMO than the old timers) are gone, and most likely never coming back. Before, MMO gaming was a genre for very specific gamers, now that genre, along with gaming in general, is expanding to include more people. Sadly, there is not much that can be done about it, except just go with the flow.

Last night I was doing a dungeon on my warrior and another warrior joins the party. I ask him if he uses either regeneration banners or healing shouts so I can do the other one…no response. I message him again, I see him moving and fighting RIGHT NEXT to me, no response again… people just don’t care anymore. The solo gaming along with the lack of trinity means nobody needs anyone and, instead of viewing other players as a person and someone you NEED to work together with in order to accomplish something, they just view them as either a thorn on their side slowing them down or a thing that is completely expendable.

Warriors in the GW universe are not these crazy warlord types like in some other games. In GW everyone is “good”. Even necromancer players are not evil in the GW universe, they just practice magic that is taboo.

While I understand where the OP is coming from, you have to understand that “fun” is a relative concept.

My best friend loves to go to clubs every weekend, she finds that fun. I’m not much of a clubbing person, I rather like playing video games, she finds that quite boring. Even though she likes clubbing and I don’t, I can be open minded enough to see what she finds fun in clubbing. She is also open minded enough to see what I find fun in video games.

An easier example yet… I don’t like first person shooters, does that mean they are not fun? Yes, they are not fun, for ME, but they are fun for thousands of gamers. And I can see what they find fun in it… the competition, the adrenaline rush when competing against other players, etc… but I don’t find that fun. Every now and then maybe I could play one at a friend’s house, but I would never buy a FPS game.

For some people (like me) progression IS fun. We like having something to work for, a defined path ahead of us with a reward at the end to strive for. It’s just how we are.

It doesn’t matter if we are getting stronger from whatever reward we get in the end and it’s just an “illusion” because “we’re just getting that to get to the next dungeon/raid which is going to be just as hard as the previous one even with the reward we just got”. When we get to that dungeon/raid, we go in it because we want the even better reward (be it gear, skills, achievements, story, whatever) that it has to offer. We “need” something to work towards and strive for or we lose interest in the game.

Usually “progressionists” (lol just made that up) can understand why some people do not need progression, but a lot of people have a hard time understanding why we DO need it.

A “progressionist” is usually a player that once he finishes a game, he never goes back to it, I know I certainly don’t, I can count the games I have actually replayed in my life in just one hand, and I’ve been gaming for 20 years. It’s not that we didn’t have fun playing the game, we finished it, got all there was out of it, and that’s it, we got tired of it.

You could say that we get tired or bored more easily that non “progressionists”. That doesn’t mean we are wrong and that we should “go play game name here”. This is an MMORPG, not an MMOFPS or MMO action game, and RPGs have always had more in terms of progression than any other game, be it more story, more levels, more gear, more skills, etc. etc. The devs understand this, which is why we get tokens out of dungeons to buy armor skins and weapons, legendaries to work towards etc….if it was just “for fun”, and I use the term loosely, we wouldn’t have any of that, just going through the dungeon would be it, but they understand fun is relative and are trying to please a wide variety of gamers.

Anyway, sorry for making such a long post, it doesn’t help that English is not my main language, but I felt I had to do it since a lot of people seem to misunderstand “progressionists” and I’ve been seeing the “you should just play for fun!!!” line thrown around way too often, and frankly, I am getting a bit tired of it.

Fun is relative, it’s not that we don’t find the game fun, doing dungeons, PvP, WvW, whatever, you name it. It’s that we need a goal to strive for, we are very goal oriented, if we don’t have that, the game is not as much fun for us.

-Edited for grammatical errors

Varyag.3751:

adalhs.1986:

Here’s a pic of my human, I consider him beautiful, but I really see no femininity in him.

Not masculine either.

Most men I see in real life do not exude some sort of raw masculinity. They just look…normal. There are some very masculine men, but the majority just look normal. Beautiful does not equal feminine, then again masculinity is in the eye of the beholder so it’s hard to please everyone. More face options would be good then I suppose.

I second giving us more voice options. Last night I created a male thief, I chose the street rat option and made him look kind of malicious and street-smart… Then I get to the story sequences and he has the same dignified, goody-two-shoes voice of my warrior with noble parents, really felt like a very out of character voice to the point that I’m considering remaking him, a shame because this is the first time I really play with the sliders in character creation and REALLY liked how he turned out.

As others have mentioned, it is animation delay, it can be very noticeable on hammer, which is, I think, the slowest warrior weapon. Try using the #2 or #5 hammer skills while in the middle of an auto attack swing and you’ll notice your character takes some time to stop the current attack animation and start the other one. And then try using them right after an auto attack swing finishes. You’ll be able to notice the big difference.

At first I also didn’t like the longbow, but for me it’s really shined in dungeons. You really do some pretty good damage on groups of monsters, use the burst skill as soon as it is off cooldown and you have enough adrenaline, don’t wait to reach 3 adrenaline. And the #3 skill I use only to combo off the burst skill’s fire field, they both have around the same cooldown and I am constantly giving area might to everyone in my party and allowing them to also combo off my field, giving them fire auras, burning projectiles etc. When you take all of those into account the damage adds up quick. Even against single targets I find the longbow does more damage if you use the burst skill as soon as possible and combo off it, you should try it, you will be surprised.

The 2 major downsides of the longbow are the auto attack… but then again when you have a weapon that has the only combo field for warrior and the advantages that it brings to groups asking for a strong auto attack on top of that would be a bit unfair.

And second, although you are using a ranged weapon, to be able to efficiently use your combo field and finisher skills you will have to be somewhat close to the enemy, not right on top of them as if you were meleeing but I would say I am always at medium range from the enemy. That is where the rifle shines, survivability and range, but it doesn’t come close to the damage you will be contributing to your team from popping your combo field/finisher everywhere on the field.

I have no problem with human males, I think a lot of people, especially gamers, from what I’ve seen over the years, equate big and ugly with manly and slim and beautiful with feminine. I have seen plenty of beautiful men in RL that also look very manly. I’d recommend broadening your perception of manliness. Are most human male faces beautiful? Yes. Do they look “feminine”? Not really, youthful maybe, but not feminine. Beauty sells, and most games nowadays are moving away from only making female characters beautiful and are catering to a wider range of audiences. That being said… I think that more variation of faces, not just for humans but for all races would be good.

Here’s a pic of my human, I consider him beautiful, but I really see no femininity in him.

There are no homosexual or heterosexual sylvari because, there are no female or male sylvari in a sexual connotation. They are made in the image of humans, therefore some “look male” while others “look female” but they are not humans. They have no reproductive organs, in a sense, they are genderless.

If you really have to attach a label to them I would say bisexual fits them best. There is no sylvari that is physically attracted only to females or males. Sylvari are attracted to other things, like how that person makes them feel, is he/she courageous, kind, etc.

The only thing that makes us male or female is what’s between our legs… well sylvari have nothing between their legs, therefore they don’t look for someone who has a specific thing between their legs either.. So if someone makes a sylvari feel all warm and fuzzy inside and gives him/her butterflies in their stomach, they fall for that person, regardless of their perceived gender

Here is my warrior Ser Dantiel Foltest. First pic is very low level and armor is bleh, but I really liked the lightning in that cave. Second one is when I was in my 30s, I was going for a look reminiscent of the Paragon profession armor from GW1, I think that’s the closest skin you can get, but maybe some whiter looking dye would have been good.

Also… though I know it’s hard a lot of times with the cluster f—- of spell effects in some events… try to keep an eye for guardian bubbles, necromancer’s wells and the like, as these can provide nice boons or mild healing.

I may not be as high level yet, (lv 30 warrior at the moment) but I find that full toughness/vitality traits and gear really help me stay in the fight meleeing against a champion. I can take more than a couple hits from a champion, couple that with weapons that have blocks/stuns/dazes/knockdowns like hammers, maces, and to a lesser extent the shield, AND utility skills like Endure Pain and bull’s charge among others and you can stay in there meleeing and take quite a beating. I do have to dodge every now and then and switch to a ranged option if I get too low on health, but after I heal back up I’m back in there again. Remember that melee weapons do more damage than ranged ones, so even if you trait and gear defensively you will still do more damage than a lot of ranged fighters.

I tried a guardian in PvP with a healing build and it worked out pretty good for me. With a staff I had quite a few healing abilities, the 4th staff healing skill is pretty good and has a short enough recharge time that you can use it fairly often (I used 20% shorter recharge time on 2h weapon skills), healing breeze, hold the line, sanctuary, signet of mercy (for quick revives in pvp), and the elite tome of courage and you can heal for quite a bit of time. I wouldn’t really call myself a main healer while I was playing, but I could definitely keep people alive for quite a while and felt I was contributing to my team a lot. Don’t know how that would work in PvE though.