Guild Wars 2

Only an Engineer? Don’t you have a Warrior alt you could bring?

Can’t tell you how disappointed I am that I can’t test this in a PvE environment. I was so looking forward to this weekend and now I feel that there’s just no point playing it. Couldn’t you even have let us run around the chunk of Elona we had access to last weekend?

Who on earth thought this was a good idea?

The title says it all really.

A commander flag would be very useful when organising multiple group activities (whether in a PvE or WvW environment) but being something of an altoholic, I quite often find myself running around on different characters. I would find it extremely useful if, having bought the compendium, I could use the flag on whichever of my characters was most appropriate for the situation.

I’m right with this Venn diagram. The temporary nature of the challenging content has resulted in my just not bothering with it. The dungeon in particular looks lovely and there are some really nice bits that I’ve seen … if it weren’t for the boss fights it would be great.

For those people who are making up their own little fictions about this thread rather than read what’s been written, or who were commenting on threads that have been merged into this one:

Nobody is asking for anything on a plate

If eSpecs were unlocked with regular exp, there would be no issue.

People do not want to take incomplete characters into a zone that is harder than other 80 zones in the game. Which is why the partial unlock which then requires HoT zones to complete is unwelcome. The same is almost certainly true of WvW players, although at least there they can acquire the HPs through “levelling” albeit at a glacially slow pace.

At the moment I’m enjoying myself, taking a character I don’t want to eSpec into the jungle to explore and open up the masteries so that, in the event that ANet don’t make the requirements for eSpecs more reasonable, I can at least get the soloable hero challenges on other characters without any content blocks.

There have been a great many suggestions for resolving this issue, just read back and you’ll find a bunch of them. So before you tell us to “kitten off” or accuse us of being unreasonable, maybe actually read a few of the posts first eh? As in, read the words that have been written rather than what you think has been written.

Frankly I find the level of hostility from some members of the community disappointing, and entirely unwarranted.

LordByron.8369:

Dev said they think this move will make more people like WWW
(i rofled hard when i read it)

Its a JP not a www map, do u imagine any map more abusable than a JP?
How do they expect people to like www from a map showing exactly the reasons why people do not play www.

I really enjoy WvW but I hate the Obsidian Sanctum, all the more so when you get packs of players camping the choke-points. There are a couple of people in my guild who are very reluctant to try WvW because they think it’s all like that accursed jumping puzzle.

Simple solution would be to make all players “friendly” in the map … while keeping the traps and boulders functioning as normal (maybe controlling a trap makes you attackable by other players for a period of time). That way things become challenging and, dare I say it, tactical … rather than frustrating.

Really? Are you lot still on about this? Maybe if you’d worked a little harder and put in a few more votes you wouldn’t be in this mess.

Why don’t you have a demonstration against yourselves for letting Evon down so spectacularly … you should be ashamed!

#teamkiel

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Wuselknusel.4082:

I’m not ok with the game getting more casualized, but ANet wont change their mind on this one.

They will have to someday. Casuals come and go very fast and their supply is not infinite.

Really? I’m a casual gamer and I’ve been with GW2 since BWE2, so have a lot of my casual friends.

Lucius.2140:

binidj.5734:

So as ever there’s a split in the community between those players who want high difficulty mobs, and those players that really don’t … or don’t want them all the time anyway. Isn’t the solution to use mastery to access challenging content? So that in playing the game it becomes (potentially) harder.

This isnt even the challenging content they said theres going to be -.- . Its just people dont be used to the level.

I don’t know if you recall but way back in the mists of time (one of the beta weekends), the mobs were quite “challenging” and ArenaNet, after some complaints, dialled down the mob difficulty. There were quite a few members of the community who were made very sad by this decision, others were made very happy by it. There is a difference between “dont be used to the level” and “don’t enjoy the level the content is pitched at”. What I’m saying is that rather than make the baseline content hard, make the baseline content as easy as comparable zones (ie. Frostgorge and Orr … not Southsun) with progressively harder content being in harder to reach places.

People who enjoy challenging zones are easily bored, if you don’t believe me look at Southsun in comparison to Curse Shore or Frostgorge Sound, Southsun is quite a bit harder in general (although quite rewarding) but it’s empty except when it’s time to kill the Queen. Why is this? I think it’s because the people who want challenging content got bored and stopped playing there, whereas the people (like me) who like casual content are still pottering around the older level 80 zones, still in the game, still buying stuff from the Gem Store.

I’m not saying don’t include more challenging content, only that it’s not a great idea to set the bar of entry at a level that people aren’t comfortable with. Of course I could do the content, I’m sure pretty much everyone on this thread or who took part in the beta could do the content, but there’s a difference between being able to complete it and enjoying the experience. I didn’t bother with the Queen’s Gambit because I didn’t enjoy that sort of content but it’s great that it was there and that people could access it and (even the ones who didn’t use exploits) were able to get their Liadri mini. The thing about the Gambit was that it didn’t form a barrier to anything, if you wanted to be challenged, you could be but if you just wanted to charge around in the areas underneath you were free to do so.

ETA: Hardly any of my characters are Berserker geared, and I’ve been playing since beta so I have some idea of how to dodge … so thanks for all the smart comments but, as I said, there is a difference between not being able to complete content and not enjoying content.

The relevant blog post can be found at: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/

From my first read-through three issues immediately cropped up: removal of traitline stat bonuses, (apparent) siloing of traits, and (Necromancer specific) ground-targeting wells.

Removal of Traitline Stat Bonuses
First off let me say that I don’t hate this idea as such, however what I do hate is the proposed implementation. Please, please don’t transfer stat gains to armour, by all means give us a UI attached to Specialisation with sliders (or whatever) to manage our stats but lumping them all (or the majority) into armour sets will actually reduce the ways in which we can tinker with our builds … and that would be a terrible shame.

Siloing Traits
From the blog post it looked as though adept traits could only be placed in adept slots, master in master slots, and grandmaster in grandmaster slots. On a couple of characters I have the current equivalent of putting an adept in my adept slot, another adept in my master slot, and a grandmaster in my grandmaster slot; will this be possible under the new system? If it won’t be possible then, again, we’re actually having flexibility taken away from our builds … and that is a bad thing.

Ground-Targeting Wells
Please, I beg of you, do not make this obligatory. Having a trait that allows me to ground target my wells is just perfect for me because I can ignore it. If you make ground-targeting compulsory then chances are that I’ll be changing my entire build, and not for any good or positive reason. I’m sure that it’s incredibly useful to have ranged wells, however it’s not useful to me.

Please let us choose the way we want to play this great game, don’t shoe-horn us into a way of playing or building our characters that you think will be better. We’re all different, and sometimes what we enjoy playing isn’t necessarily the most optimal build or stat combination.

I’d like to see outfits (all of them) turned into armour sets.

hurrado.2346:

-Maybe then make the 400 hero point grind more for the skins, than for the class itself, I think this would be reasonable, and fashion is the content most folks enjoy working towards, whether you enjoy the new “progression” or not, people like working on their own unique wardrobe… and guess what it doesn’t damage the playing experience for any groups of players. Besides, the skins are pretty well done for the most part, I would joyfully play on the elite specs I find exciting for quite some time through normal wvw and what not to get those skins.

This is something that the developers don’t quite seem to have grasped. Want us to do every mastery in the new expansion and have us be happy about it? Just put shiny weapon and armour skins at the end of it. People, in my experience, have no problem grinding patiently for cosmetics.

Looking at the eSpecs as a reward is, I believe, a mistake. The eSpecs are a tool, skins (or exploring, or playing the game, or gold, or legendaries) are the reward.

I have no idea why anyone thought it would be a good idea to merge the two, PvE and PvP are like oil and water … they do not mix.

CuteLilKittenHugz.2064:

Gaile Gray.6029:

DarcShriek.5829:

The mastery system as only been available for 15 hours. Your complaining about it being forever is just pure over dramatization. Congratulations on being awarded the William Shatner award for dramatic excellence.

First, thank you for saying, in your first sentence, my very thoughts: “It’s been less than 16 hours, and that’s ’forever?” Secondly, thanks for a smile. I’d love to see the statue that goes with that award.

Wow. Just wow.

First someone from aNet FINALLY comments about the grind problem with hero points after THOUSANDS of posts complaining about it, but not only do you NOT even address the problem, you actively encourage verbally putting down players that are voicing their opinions using hyperbole to make their point.

Wow. I can’t even. I’m Disgusted with that comment Gaile.

Thanks Gaile, you just confirmed my worst opinion of ArenaNet.

Of all the ways that you could choose to respond to this thread, that is pretty much the worst choice you could have made in terms of how your customers view the company.

I realise that you’re probably tired and that this thread is harshing your launch day buzz but I’m afraid that’s not a valid excuse for being snarky to your customers. And if you think this thread has kittened you off, just try to imagine that we feel very much the same about the issues raised in it.

Agree wholeheartedly with everything the OP said.

Nick, the SAB isn’t my cup of tea either but I don’t complain about it because it’s good. The Tequatl encounter should be my cup of tea but I unfortunately I don’t think it’s good, for the reasons outlined above. I hate having to read players cussing out everyone who was downed and blaming them for failure (fortunately I stick to turret defence so I’m never the target of these comments but if I were, you bet that I wouldn’t come back to the encounter). Mind you, I don’t think I’ll ever get to play on my own server … yesterday I only managed to get into overflow, despite one of the attempts being at an off-peak time (and turning up 5 minutes early).

I have discovered a way to make the post-50 Personal Story fun for the one of my characters who made the mistake of going to Claw island. Hopefully, for those still working through it (presumably in the hopes that it won’t turn out to be a massive disappointment) my solution will provide a few moments of joy amidst the tedium.

In every episode where there is combat I make absolutely certain that Trahearne, the Hero of Orr, engages the enemy first single-handed, and dies while I stand off to one side giggling; then I go in single-handed and do the job.

It’s petty I know but it’s all I’ve got.

This thread is why I tend to avoid PuGs. When any game activity becomes a chore rather than a pleasure, I have to question why I’m still doing it.

Well if I wasn’t happy before launch, I’m WAY less happy now. We can’t even decide if we want to prioritise traits or skills now? That’s pretty much the worst case scenario of how I thought this would go. Add to that the 25% stealth nerf of exp (and other rewards) in EotM and you’ve even made that grindy avenue less effective.

Don’t you understand that we want to play the new content … all of it. We want to explore the new zones (both in PvE and WvW), we want to unlock all the new masteries there is no need at all to enforce this hero challenge nonsense on us. Maybe if you gave us the choice to use our gained experience to unlock eSpecs or masteries that would be a thing, I’d be totally happy with that, with unlocking the new spec in the normal way … but this? No. The ball has been well and truly dropped.

There was no need to make people this unhappy, no need at all … please fix it.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Did you seriously drop $40-100 for nothing more than an elite spec? I mean, that really seems kind of excessive.

Was no one excited for the game itself?

Well initially I thought it looked amazing, then the betas happened and I really didn’t like Verdant Brink (my favourite zones are in Ascalon … really not a fan of verticality or canyons) so yeah, the new maps are right at the very bottom of what I’m interested in.

New profession, new eSpecs, guild halls, craftable precursors … those are what I found exciting. That is what I spent my $100 for. What it seems I actually got is a whole lot of the one thing that I really wasn’t that keen on engaging with blocking my access to the stuff that really excited me.

People fear change.

Although the Combo achievement appears to be broken at the moment (I completed it fairly quickly while doing a few events but it seemed to be pretty random) the others are quite fun, and are getting me out of the daily circuit rut that I’d got into over the past couple of months.

• Events – no difference.
• Gathering – no difference
• Kill Variety – no difference
• Underwater Kills – not exactly difficult. If you’re really rubbish at underwater combat go to a 1-15 area and kill underwater mobs there.
• Crafting – this prompted me to get a bit of a move-on on neglected skills but honestly, if your argument is that you can’t afford to refine 10 Copper Ingots then I feel sorry for you … what is it that you’re doing with the proceeds of the gathering achievement exactly?
• Combo Kills – as mentioned this needs to be looked at. While achievable, it’s pretty broken in its current form.
• Revive Allies – given that this works on NPCs it’s frankly trivial. If you can’t think of anywhere that NPCs die, then you probably need to pay attention to your surroundings a bit more.
• Dodge Attacks – find a mob with a decent “tell” and then get your timing right … I actually found this quite good training. Gives an incentive for not skipping that Lt. Kholer encounter too; though I never do because it’s fun!

I look forward to seeing what subsequent days will bring to the mix.

Necromancer, why do I have a nosebleed? Oww! Something is really hurting … why is that necromancer on the floor looking healthier? Oh gods he’s drinking my blood. Must finish him off …. aaaaargh helpmehelpmehelpme … he’s still drinking. Oh, he’s on his feet … why has he gone all dark? I can’t see … I …

It is pretty demoralising to be in a world boss fight as a condition user, knowing that you are adding virtually nothing to the event. Conditions become less useful the more people you are co-operating with, that probably wasn’t what ANet originally intended … so why has it been allowed to persist for so long?

ArenaNet were pretty clear before launch that GW2 wouldn’t be about gear acquisition. Legendaries had the same stats as exotics, and gear-grinding was all about the looks. Suddenly we have Ascended items introduced with slightly better stats than exotic, and Legendaries have had their stats increased to be slightly better than Ascended. All of a sudden we have the start of a gear treadmill that we were told wouldn’t be there.

It’s all very well saying “but the numbers differences are tiny” but tiny differences add up and can end up being quite significant. The numbers are irrelevant though, a treadmill is a treadmill, regardless how shallow the steps are.

This is something that has been grinding my gears for a while now, and it’s finally come to the point where I need to rant about it here. Why is it that all my minions function just fine underwater but my flesh golem is dispelled as soon as I go under the surface? While the lack of an underwater elite (the only options I have available dispel my minions and that’s not going to happen) is a pain, what’s worse is getting the summoning cooldown when I get back onto dry land. This is particularly onerous in the WvW borderlands, and it makes NO SENSE.

Please for the love of Pete allow flesh golem as an underwater elite skill.

You know what norn don’t have? Tanks.

/thread

Ok let me try to explain why people are actually mad about this, or at least why I am mad about this.

One of the big things that draws me to any game is aesthetics. There are a whole bunch of weapon skins in the game that may well be super-rare but if the look of it doesn’t go with one of my characters I won’t bother with it. The sclerite skins would look fantastic on one of my characters, frankly I could care less if everybody else on the server is running around with identical skins … this is about me, not them. I was unbothered by the molten or SAB skins because the look didn’t go with any of my characters, it may well be that the next set of weapons will be irrelevant to me too. So when I find a set of skins that does work, I’m naturally going to be a little bit frustrated if there is no way at all that I can guarantee getting them. Want to charge me £10 a skin? Go right ahead. At least then I will have a choice to weigh up in my mind, as it is my assumption is that if I spend £10 on crates I will largely be flushing that money down the NCSoft toilet … which is probably using revenue from GW2 to finance the launch of Wildstar … with an 80% chance of getting some flowers and shells.

To be honest, even if I were certain that GW2’s revenue was ring-fenced, nd that all the money I put into the game would go to support GW2 … I still wouldn’t buy RNG crates.

Test.8734:

Really, everyone should go to the Metacritic site and give HoT a low score. Then maybe ArenaNet will feel motivated to fix this faster than the months it took them to improve the trait system.

That’s the second time you’ve posted that Test and it’s a real kitteny thing to suggest. ArenaNet got one thing wrong, which was the amount of HPs it takes to fully unlock skills and traits for eSpecs. Everything else in this expansion has been marvellous so far, indeed it’s been quite a bit better than I was expecting it to be. I’m not going to mark an entire expansion down because of one problem and your suggestion that I should will do no good for the game and is almost certainly reportable. Do it again and I’ll check to see if that last theory is true.

By all means be critical of areas of the game you feel could be improved but trying to sabotage it does none of us any favours at all and just makes you look like a kitten.

Engage in the discussion or kitten off, this forum doesn’t need childish negativity from either side of this issue.

Recently I have noticed that I will (apparently randomly) switch targeting from the mob I am fighting to either a friendly character or a nearby unfriendly player/creature. This happens most frequently when fighting Champion mobs (especially the world bosses like the Shatterer) but can happen on anything. I will also spontaneously target something even though I haven’t clicked on it … I suspect this may be related.

In busy fights this is extremely annoying as it can take an age to click back on the target that I actually want to focus on.

This happens in all PvE zones, and WvW.

To everyone defending ANets ridiculous decision and telling the rest of us that we want to have everything on a plate and if this were any other game we’d have to grind ten more levels:

We would be ECSTATIC if all we had to do was play for ten levels, or even twenty, in fact pretty much any amount of levels. If we needed to gain levels to unlock eSpecs that would be the best thing ever (even if tomes didn’t count) because we could just play the game as you so sanctimoniously keep telling us.

I defy you to find one person on this thread who wouldn’t be happy to exchange levels for hero points. Just one. Go ahead.

KyoHanakaze.8145:

This reminds me of my “first” meeting with Trahearne at Claw Island…even though I spent a full story arc hanging out with him.

Yeah and you still couldn’t stab him in the throat next time you saw him.

The solution is simple, if a bit drastic. All log into W3 and just sit in your keep … maybe have a party … just make sure you lose. Stay in this position until the bandwagonners have flocked off to a plump-looking new server.

I’m not a fan of fractals at all and this news is quite saddening.

It seems odd to me that where (in my opinion) they got things so right with the spinal blades, they’ve got things so wrong for this.

As if the foxfire isn’t bad enough (really, how is parking my alts in Malchor’s Leap benefiting the game?) with its bizarre drop rate!

Lishtenbird.2814:

• You’re not forced to do anything. Having or not having a skin makes zero impact on how you kill mobs. “I can’t kill mobs because I’m not stylish enough!” is not an argument, even for Kasmeer.

Except that progression in this game is largely about how you look. Any schmuk can kill a dredge but not everyone can do it and look awesome!

Lishtenbird.2814:

• Despising Fractals, WvW, PvP is not an argument. Want a reward? Make an effort. That’s why it’s called a reward. Even if it means you have to step outside of your comfort zone. Or ask someone to 4-man fractals and buy a slot with gold.

Actually yes it is, it may not be an argument that you agree with but it’s still an argument. Why coerce players to take part in game content that they don’t like? Remember that nobody here is asking for a free ride, indeed the OP made it clear that they it’s not the degree of effort/difficulty that was at issue. I wanted the Balthazar backpack so I slogged my way through PvP to get it, even though I don’t really enjoy that aspect of the game. Fractals though? Ugh!

It’s like being told that you can’t have your pudding until you’ve eaten your greens.

Lishtenbird.2814:

• You are not entitled to get everything unless you’re investing effort or money.

Yeah, I’d probably pay real money if it meant I didn’t have to go into fractals. You hear that ANet? I would pay real world money to avoid an aspect of your game.

I get that you can’t please all of the people all of the time but that’s why there should be (in an MMO) multiple ways of achieving the same thing … not easier, not quicker, just different.

I strongly recommend giving https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/The-TANKCAT-build-Prybar-some-faces/first a look. Not only because it’s the funniest thing you’ll read and/or watch today but also because it’s a pretty good guide to pretty much exactly what you seem to be looking for.

Blackwyn.8127:

Conclusion
This social experiment is simply to test the human nature. Do we go for the ‘good’ guy which offers crap. Or do we go for the ‘evil’ guy that offers good stuff. Simply put, are you willing to sell your soul to the devil just for your rewards?

The rewards actually blur the issue rather more than you suggest.

Waypoint/Keys
The reduction in cost of keys is only worthwhile for people that buy the things, now I’m not going to throw imaginary figures about the place but I’m pretty certain that I am not alone in never having bought a key since launch. On the other hand, everyone uses waypoints (except people who play exclusively PvP/WvW for whom all this is largely academic anyway) so that will be the default preference if you aren’t a fan of RNG boxes.

Abaddon/Thaumanova
This choice again isn’t as straightforward as you might think, those of us who didn’t play/enjoy GW1 have no incentive at all to choose the Fall of Abaddon (even to those of us who have actually taken something of an interest in Tyrian lore) as it either doesn’t matter or doesn’t have many questions associated with it. The Thaumanova Reactor incident, on the other hand, is probably more interesting for those whose primary experience of Tyria is GW2 and for whom the Inquest experiments into Thaumaturgy (which possibly also impacts on bloodstones and true magic … we don’t know) is a more engaging (and relevant) story.

Conclusion
Perhaps it’s just me being contrary but although my first inclination would be to vote for Gnashblade (purely on the basis that he’s a charr and they are, by default, more interesting than humans) I’m actually supporting Kiel because of the rewards she offers.

OP you are absolutely correct. Everyone who is saying “learn to play” might I suggest learning to read?

When damage exceeds the ability of a full defensive build to mitigate, then there is no point using that defensive build. Scaling is currently boosting spike damage too high, Perhaps it should have a hard cap on the amount of damage that can be dealt to a single target in one attack. By all means boost mob numbers, or mob vitality/toughness but boosting damage too high makes tanking specs useless at some scales.

The Grey (Piken Square) dance event in various locations around Metrica Province:

https://vimeo.com/57375817

Golemancy =/= Engineering

An engineer might be expected to fix charr technology but the asura stuff has nothing to do with nuts and bolts engineering. Think of the difference between a theoretical physicist (those chaps with the blackboard covered in obscure equations) and a mechanic … I know which one I’d rather take my car to.

Sylosi.6503:

Killer Parakeet.9435:

Well good for those people then. My point is if the class is not working out for you, then clearly you should do something else instead of crying and hoping anet gives you a “kill” button.

You didn’t have a point, you came out with some illogical waffle that because you beat some bad/undergeared/underleveled mesmers/thiefs in WvW that it equates to the engineer being on a par (or better) than other classes, when it does nothing of the sort.

That anyone who complains merely needs to l2p, despite the fact there are people far better than you who complain about the state of the class.

Sylosi the only issue I have with anything that you are saying (other than the not playing PvE bit … that’s just odd ) is that you are blatantly engaging in the pastime of troll-feeding.

Best advice I can offer is that as soon as someone says “why not go play an easy-mode Warrior” is to stop reading … because that post, that’s a troll right there.

I’ll keep playing Engineer till it’s not fun any more, then I’ll stop.

Unfortunately with the nerfs to various bits and pieces (not grenades, I’ve never used them as I don’t want to risk aggravating my RSI) the areas in which I am having fun as an Engineer are becoming fewer and fewer.

Was amused to be approached by some RS folks the day before yesterday (in RS Borderlands) asking me to go destroy some ACs they’d built deep inside their territory. I decided to pop by just to take a look and sure enough, there were a bunch of folks from RS stood around their northernmost supply base, waiting patiently for me to destroy the siege engines they had built there.

To paraphrase the bard:

“If you’ve hit siege limit I feel bad for you son,
I got ninety-nine problems but your trebs ain’t one.”

Griffonrook Run only requires the bomb for the chest, so I didn’t bother … as a result it was fun rather than frustrating.

In terms of “hardest puzzle” I wasn’t counting the seasonal ones but they were pretty much impossible for me too. I think it’s the speed required, if I can take my time on a puzzle then I can finikitten (complete it), however long it takes … jumping to a timescale as in Steam Vents, Clocktower and Winter Wonderland I find simply impossible. People were saying how easy the Winter puzzle was … I never got further than three platforms in. Add a timed element to these things and they become almost impossible for me, the vanishing-force-fields-above-lava one (obvs I forget the name) pushed me to about the limit. Scavenger’s Chasm was pretty simple in terms of jumping, it just needed a lot of tenacity.

cheshirefox.7026:

if gw2 was a more captivating and lore filled game then i might actually know what Abaddon is

Abaddon has only historical relevance to GW2 but was central to the story of the GW1 “Nightfall” expansion, and I think his lore probably featured in other parts of GW1 too. He is only mentioned in a very few places in GW2’s Tyria, the most obvious place that springs to mind is the tapestry at the top of the Vizier’s Tower in Orr. If you aren’t interested in listening to dialogue or reading in-game text though (ie. if you’re not really bothered about the lore to start with) then you wouldn’t have come across Abaddon in GW2.

For context he was the human god who first made primal magic (which was later split into different parts by the other gods following much wailing and destruction) available to “mortal” races, and who was killed in a battle with the rest of the human pantheon which resulted in the Crystal Sea being turned into the Crystal Desert. He’s a pretty huge deal but for the current game, only in terms of putting things into context … or joining a few dots here and there.

Sernius Alathar.6538:

Congratulations for … a fractal that has no relevance to the game.

Abaddon has relevance to GW1 and very little relevance (beyond historical context) to GW2; on the other hand the Thaumanova incident is directly connected to one of the primary stories of GW2. I’m sorry but your statement is just flat-out wrong. By all means feel upset that you won’t be getting the Abaddon fractal right away but making arguments that are clearly not correct is unlikely to win you any points. Of course I’d like to see the war between the human gods, but I’d like to learn about current game lore more.

Yamsandjams.3267:

If Kiel had the Abaddon fractal on her list instead of Gnashblade, she would’ve had a landslide victory. That fractal was the only thing that kept him relevant.

Speaking personally I would far rather have given my vote to a charr than a human, if Evon had been connected with the Thaumanova fractal it would have made my decision much easier … though there would still be the whole tacit support of RNG thing but frankly that was a minor consideration for me.

Harper.4173:

The 52% that voted Kiel didn’t vote for her fractal, they voted for her.

Way to speak for 52% of people who don’t agree with you. I voted very positively for the Thaumanova fractal because I care deeply about current lore (probably as much as many others do about GW1 lore … which I’ve had to get a grounding in anyway for context) and want to know more about the Inquest experiments and how they (literally) managed to break the fabric of reality.

Engineer Elite Specialisation
(It’ll be a cold day in Junker’s Scrapyard before I use the other name for it)
One of the things I’ve noticed about a few of the elite specialisations (especially the ones that I really enjoy) is that they are essentially supporting a play style that I already have. This leads to a weird feeling that nothing has really changed, or that I’m not really testing the specs. However, as fun as hammer was with Engineer I felt that it just didn’t provide the raw power of the juggernaut build, so I stuck with the latter and had a marvellous time! I was running Soldiers armour with Strength runes, my dps wasn’t through the roof but the toughness and vitality did keep me standing through a few incidents that might otherwise have hurt a lot. I did give gyros a good try and, although they weren’t entirely horrible, the effects seemed frankly lacklustre and I probably won’t go back to most of them again. If they were permanent in their current state I think I’d be fine with them but with their short durations I would expect something significantly more effective in terms of their effects. Frankly I’d rather they were like more powerful (because they can be destroyed) signets, always on but with overcharge effects that deactivate them for a short while. If they stay in their current non-permanent state I can’t see myself bothering with them.

Druid
Really enjoyed Druid, very different to my normal Ranger play but super fun and I look forward to playing it come launch. I think that my gear choice (Shaman’s armour with Dolyak runes) might have been a little too weak in terms of doing damage but it did mean that I could stand up to quite a surprising amount of punishment. Also I was never in a position when using the Celestial (F5) skills were really worthwhile (see my comments on dynamic events below) so I can’t really talk about that and I found the tooltips for the glyph effects quite confusing as to which was regular and which celestial. As a consequence I didn’t really experiment with the glyphs very much. The staff was a lot of fun and felt very satisfying (with the caveat that I wasn’t exactly running the gear set to expect faces to melt … and they didn’t) but one key issue that bugged me was that I couldn’t use the autoattack on friendly players. I think it would be great to be able to target an individual player with the staff autoattack, the actual effects of damage to surrounding mobs and heal dealt to the player in question probably wouldn’t be that different (probably a little less damage, a little more healing) but it would really help the supporty feeling of the spec, and would probably offer some more engaging gameplay at higher levels (eg. raids).

Chronomancer
Late to the party on this and don’t have a huge amount to say. It struck me as quite a lot of fun and very active in play but it’ll take me a long time to properly get my head around it so I can’t see me being an early adopter … this is, I think, more an insight into me as a player rather than the quality of the elite spec.

Other Elite Specialisations
I didn’t play Dragonhunter, Reaper, Revenant, Daredevil, Berserker, or Tempest this time around, so can’t comment on any changes that may or may not have been made. However I enjoyed Dragonhunter, and Reaper very much in previous betas, Revenant was okay but I was struggling to find a sweet spot with it (almost certainly an issue with me rather than the profession), Daredevil I just didn’t enjoy but then I don’t enjoy playing vanilla Thief either so no big surprise. Tempest I didn’t try at all as it didn’t look like my cup of tea, I’ll probably take a look post-launch but I don’t play vanilla Elementalist well enough to provide any meaningful feedback on the specialisation. Berserker was probably the most fun I’ve had with any profession ever and it took an effort of will not to just play that constantly; needless to say I am really looking forward to converting my condi Warrior to a Berserker post-launch.

Dynamic Events
So I’m sure you’re aware of the various bugs that stopped the primary event chains from actually running, that was infuriating but I have every faith that the issues that broke them will be fixed post-launch.

However possibly the most frustrating issue for me was the very poor scaling in both day and night events. As it seemed like most of the testers either left Verdant Brink after dark, or just loitered around the raid entrance looking wistful; I spent an awful lot of time on my own in camps at night. If it was just me then I would be finished, I just couldn’t keep up with the sheer number of mordrem that appeared; and the respawn rate of the vines was so ridiculous that trying to just keep them cleared was a Sisyphean task. So soloing the events was impossible for me, eventually the weight of mobs would just grind me down. With a couple of other people participating, the events actually became super interesting … no room for laziness but if we worked really hard we could keep a lid on the spawns and win through. Small groups made the events very satisfying. Then you’d get the zerg … as soon as the zerg arrived at any event it went from fun to just trying to tag mobs for credit. Now I get that event scaling is probably a very hard thing to get right but it’s something that I really hope the devs can put some more time into because at the moment there’s a sweet spot that is incredibly rare to hit (I think over the entire weekend I just got two or three events with a small group) and the events really need to be agile enough to cope with both tiny and vast numbers. I really don’t enjoy face-rolling events but if the choice is between success or failure then I’m going to go with the success option every time; failure doesn’t progress my masteries. I really like the idea of defending the camps at night, actually I quite enjoy having just me and some NPCs defending a camp but if it is just me then the number and respawn rate of mobs really needs to reflect that.

The Wyvern fights were odd this time around, the break bars (I know that’s not the right name for them but …) seemed impossibly hard to break as opposed to the utter irrelevance of the bar in BWE2. I think there needs to be something of a happy medium between the two, not so easy that a single cc ability will stop it but not so hard that ten need to land either. Also a bit more time would be nice, I know I’m probably in a minority of being slow and middle-aged but my poor old brain needs a little bit longer to (a) realise what’s going on and (b) do something about it … add casting times into that and really just a couple more seconds would make all the difference. On the other hand, either people (including myself) were much better this time around (frankly unlikely) or the wyvern damage had been scaled down hugely. This was sort of good in that it made the unbreakable break bar less of the nightmare it could have been, but bad in that the fight didn’t feel as dangerous … and that’s a shame. I like my bosses to be … well … boss; and my trash mobs to be trashy.

I mentioned above about the Druid’s celestial abilities being largely unused and that is an issue with event scaling. Where there were only a handful of players at an event, it may have been worth using the transformation (that I didn’t is really down to not being in a group or squad so not having a clear idea of what was happening with people’s health until they were downed … so it’s me, not you ANet) but in a zerg either people were taking virtually zero damage or they were instantly downed, there was no middle ground. If you want healing to be a thing in the game then damage has to be less spiky but also needs to be more widespread, and there needs to be some damage that can’t be avoided actively. The time I saw healers really come into their own in the game was at the end of the sorties into the invaded Lion’s Arch, when the poisoned air was killing everyone as they scrambled to escape and healers were waiting by the gates rather than escaping themselves, dropping healing fields, shouting, throwing elixirs, dropping turrets, symbols, pulling out all the stops to keep the stragglers with enough health to just make it through the gates … while keeping enough healing up on themselves to be able to survive the experience. That was amazing and one of the very few times that people have widely acknowledged support roles in the game. When damage can be avoided with dodges blocks and blinds there is no reason not to run ’zerker because all health lost can be put down to a learning to play error. Put in damage that cannot be avoided, only healed, and suddenly the ’zerkers rely on the healers to stop them dying … while they still need to be avoiding the circles on the floor!

Verdant Brink
I’m sure there’s a lot of QQing on here about how the mobs were all too easy but I found that it was a massive improvement over previous BWEs. When I’m trying to run from point A to point B I do not want to be in an epic battle for my life every step of the way … mostly because it takes too kittening long that way. In terms of navigating around, I found it much less irritating this time around in terms of mobs trying to stop me, and could concentrate on the irritations of the place being a blasted maze. Hopefully come release the layers will allow for navigation to be a little more straightforward but at the moment because there is no way up other than waypointing if you miss a glide, navigation can be frustrating. But I digress! Trash mobs felt trashy this time around, and that’s how I like ‘em. I love big fights too but not all the time … even chocolate can get a bit much if that’s all you get to eat.

Coulter.2315:

Anyone saying “hard mobs are bad because SSC” is being deliberately misleading because they know SSC has a lack of content and that is why it is empty, it has nothing to do with the mob difficulty.

SSC has a ton of content, there’s events kicking off all the time, champion mobs in static spawns, T4 resources to gather, unique resources, not to mention the Queen event, and two jumping puzzles. It is insanely difficult to move around SSC without bumping into an event or three.

SSC has content coming out the wazoo, anyone saying that there isn’t has either never been there, has a different definition of “content” to me, or is deliberately massaging the truth to back up their own arguments with regard to the popularity of challenging content.

SSC is a harder zone than any other currently in the game, has a denser number of events, and, aside from the Queen event, it is sparsely populated at best by players. It is a sad fact that people who insist on challenging content will hang around only for as long as that content is fresh, once they become used to it they will go off to join a zerg train and complain about how the game is too easy.

I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.

Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!

Ayrilana.1396:

Not everything in the game can be a faceroll.

Nor would I want it to be, however making challenging content temporary basically silos it off from the casual player. If you’re a skilled player then you can complete the Aetherblade Retreat and get the Obsidian Sanctum cache with ease; however if you’re a casual player who takes time to practice in an effort to overcome challenges then content that doesn’t give you time to practice puts it out of your reach.

As it stands, I won’t make it through the boss fights in Aetherblade Retreat unless I’m carried; give me a couple of months on it though and I might be looking at getting some of the achievements (eg. Faster Than Light). As for the Obsidian Sanctum cache, well some groups appear to be using that as an excuse to farm PvE players, and because it’s a short window of opportunity there’s more PvEers than normal passing through the puzzle.

In short, if your content is temporary then actually yes, it does need to be “faceroll easy” or, as we casuals like to call it “normal difficulty.” If content is permanent then make it as challenging as you like, we’ll have all the time in the world to go back and practice if we want to.

PolarisNova.3867:

I actually don’t really like Fractals all that much……and Abaddon would be THE thing to get me to play. Another asura related thing is just going to turn me off it even more.

I am exactly the opposite, if there’s a chance that we finally get to see what caused the Thaumanova incident (clue: it wasn’t draconic energy or everything popping out of the portals would be a dragon minion … because that’s what exposure to draconic energy does to most living things) then I’d be very keen to start doing fractals. For me the Thaumanova Reactor, far from being an Inquest snoozefest is actually a fascinating opportunity to explore the lore. In fact I’m of the opinion that the Inquest are somehow tapping into primordial magic (ie. the powerful stuff that was originally gifted by Abaddon) which they can manage in small quantities (there appears to be a stable thaumic reactor in the “Thaumacore Inquiry Center” in Brisban Wildlands) but when they tried it on a larger scale … the world’s fabric was torn apart. The ramifications of that are HUGE. Though they might also be tapping into the Mists … which has a whole different set of alarm bells attached to it.

The key thing here is that there is something to be learned from a Thaumanova fractal. I can’t see how an Abaddon fractal would advance the lore, it might answer a few questions and fill in a few blanks but I don’t see any potential for new information to be gleaned from it. Yes it’d be cool to see a sea turn into a desert, to see the Margonites … but this is all stuff that we know about. It would be cool, yes but I don’t think that it has the potential to add to the story we’re playing now.

Besides which, human gods … pfft!

The mechanics are interesting, the fight is entertaining, but because it (a) doesn’t scale, (b) is open world, and © has RNG awards that really aren’t that amazing (“unique skin” means “we coloured an ascended weapon green” apparently), I am not surprised that Sparkfly Fen is starting to look like Southsun.

Challenging content is great but it needs to be instanced.

I was all set to write a response to the mega-server issue and then Hamfast wrote their post which summed up most of my feelings on the matter:

Hamfast.8719:

What they need to do is revert to the old multi-server system, and give FREE server transfers every so often, so that people can gravitate towards a population size that they are comfortable with. And perhaps even unlimited Guesting as well. The point is, we should be able to go where we want to, and play where we want to. (Much like the suggestion that GW2 adapt a GW1-like Districting system).

Wouldn’t that make everyone happy again? Let us play where WE decide to play, but give us the freedom to change our minds every now and then? It beats the heck out of locking us all into the same cell.

I miss, I really miss, playing on a map and knowing that I share it with others from Piken Square. While I can go to WvW and know that I’m only with others from my server (and my goodness you can tell the difference in map chat) the WvW experience is generally pretty focussed with little time to just relax and chew the fat with other people on the map. I want to get that “Piken Square Experience” in PvE back … even our cities are mega-servers … what? How is that an improvement?

I agree with Hamfast, give us the choice of where to play; let those folks chasing champ-bags and scaled events play on mega-servers, let those who want a less frantic style of play play locally.