Guild Wars 2

I have nothing to add. Just wanted to thank the OP for the excellent and thorough post.

Good interview. Thanks for the link, OP.

Denovean.2785:

Have you read any guides in how to deal with her fight phases? You can also turn off Post Processing to remove the ‘blind’ effect she randomly chucks at you. The aoe circles that 1 shot you follow a fixed pattern everytime you fight her. Knowing what you’re getting into is half the battle. Understanding how the red circles pattern work will give you less trouble than you would’ve had. Oh and the cosmic rifts spawn at the same places too during phase 1 :p

That’s interesting. I always play with Post Process effects disabled and I didn’t even know she had an additional effect I wasn’t seeing. Not that I usually lasted long enough against her to see much anyway.

Yeah, I was also a little surprised that that was the only thing done to events to encourage people to finish them. Not gaining karma for not finishing an event does not seem significant to me; in fact, I’m not sure why it would even be a consideration for anybody. Please just stop rewarding failure. Or at least, make the tangible (…virtually tangible? …you know what I mean… ) rewards for success significantly better than the rewards for failure.

I’m not going for a Legendary unless some new ones are added that I like better. I’ll definitely be getting my crafters from 400 to 500 , though, just to do it. Will probably end up with an Ascended weapon or three, depending on how much trouble I have collecting the requirements, but I currently have no idea how long that will take.

SonofInnocence.4905:

Gathslan.1870:

Shelledfade.6435:

lol….. yeah cuz that greatsword looks real good next to a twilight… not.

Not worth it.

Twilight and all legendaries for that matter are the worst skins in the game imo, i like the starter weapons better than them : P

You can enjoy your twilight, i can enjoy other skins : p

I’m glad someone else agreed! I actually think the legendaries all look really ugly, so I had no desire to get one. I’ll probably get an ascended one day… Or three of them. Who knows? But legendaries? I personally think they’re ghastly (and not in an Ascalonian Catacombs kinda way either).

But hey, that’s the beauty of this game. So many choices that most of us can find what we like.

Heh. Glad it’s not just me. I have seen a character who I thought looked great with his Legendaries, but not a single one of them suits any of my characters. Every time I’ve decided to buckle down and get one I’ve ultimately decided, “no…I could just never use it. It would make my teeth itch.” I do find the Ascended skins just a little bit underwhelming, but I’d take any of them over the Legendary skins 10 times out of 10. To each his own, I guess.

Wolfheart.1938:

Elbegast.6970:

Walhalla.5473:

You dont know that people will never kill Tequatl because nobody exept for 60 People fought the new Version with a hard handicap. ( They all had Cleric Gear and other handicaps ) In fact they fought the real hard mode of the new Tequatl and for us, it will be easier because we wont have handicaps.
Just admit it. All you want is free loot, nothing more.

I don’t care about loot. You could give me a guaranteed ascended item at the end of every fractal and I still would not run the fractal. I chased those carrots on sticks for 8 years in WoW. I am done with the chase.

I know human nature and I know that people who scream for a challenge don’t really mean what they say. Humans, if given a choice, will always take the path of least resistance. If they fail at Tequatl, they will rapidly move on to something else. I hate being right about these things, I really do.

Be happy then, because you are wrong. Thinking that everyone acts the same is foolish. Why would anyone play Dark Souls if nobody really wants a challenge?

Exactly what I was going to say.

Shpongle.6025:

You said Gauntlet will come back. When it does, you SERIOUSLY need to nerf Liadri bad.

Make her like Scarlet, now Scarlet was really cool, not too easy and not too hard.

Liadri was a disaster, been playing since August 28th 2012.
Only two achievements I don’t have, and also refuse to try and do until you make Liadri a normal difficulty like the rest of Living Story.

Boycott Liadri !

I’m afraid I must disagree, OP. I decided to give up trying to beat Liadri last night, even though I think I’ve tried less than 20 times; far less than many others have, I know. But I’m well aware of the limitations of my reflexes and response time. Really, I’m thrilled just to have gotten that far. That said, I think her difficulty is fine. I wouldn’t object to them making the floor a solid color, or taking the roof off the dome, but I don’t see any reason her mechanics should be changed. The Gauntlet was an entirely optional achievement track clearly designed for a subset of the playerbase who enjoy that sort of thing; it was even set up as a side thing, apart from the main LS achievement track. That was the right way to go, IMO.

Now, I also greatly enjoyed Scarlet’s Playhouse, but I certainly would not want every boss in the game to be as easy as Scarlet, any more than I would want every boss to be as difficult as Liadri. There are things I can do in the game , and things I can’t, and I see no problem with that.

Tom Gore.4035:

I liked the Queen’s Gauntlet and Scarlet’s Playhouse. The invasions and pavillion farming are stupid and booooooring.

I mostly agree with this. I enjoyed the invasions and the pavilion champs in small doses here and there, but I certainly won’t have done invasions in 13 unique zones by Tuesday; didn’t even try for that. On the other hand, I have greatly enjoyed the Gauntlet (even if I don’t beat Liadri tomorrow) and the Playhouse. I do think they need to work on their instance scaling. To me solo should be ‘hard-mode’ and the answer to not being able to solo something should be to get a team. But with both the Playhouse and pirate events you got from Gnashblade and Kiel, it’s actually easier to solo. I expect issues like that to be ironed out over time though, and I greatly appreciate the effort to provide instanced content that can be done either solo or with a team. Hope to see more of it in future events.

I’m definitely intrigued by the changes. It will probably need some tweaking after the initial release, but making it more interesting and challenging will get me doing it again.

Hmm…I understand your point, OP. Downscaled characters are certainly very powerful and they get more so the lower the zone level. I’m just not sure I want that changed. Depending on what kind of day I’ve had, I can find the total obliteration of scrubs somewhat cathartic. Plus, it’s a significant reminder that yes, my character has actually become much more powerful since she was struggling her way past those bandits…er, actually…let’s go with centaurs. And if I’m not in that mood but I have a need to be in the low level zone anyway, I just madly overaggro everything in sight (except bandits).

That’s really a question only you can answer for yourself. I can only tell you my experience. Two of my 3 level 80s, and primary characters, are Thief and Mesmer. I love them both a lot, but I find the Mesmer more versatile. He’s great in groups, all the way up to zerg size; he’s great solo; and although I don’t run dungeons too often, he’s generally my pick when I do. I did not care for him in WvW, but that’s entirely a personal quirk on my part; I played with many, many other people who adored their Mesmers in WvW. If I were only going to get max gear for one of them, I would pick my Mesmer.

( I haven’t done sPVP/tPVP so can’t give an opinion on either of them).

Dystopiq.5218:

It could be because of this.
:P
http://puu.sh/49pDO

OMG! You killed Kenny!

Is this your first time doing world completion or spending any time in Orr, Saleskas? It sounds like you might just not be used to it yet. I assure you, it is entirely possible to find monster-free spots where you can stop to look at your map or just take a short break, especially since the mob density was reduced. Just take it slow and be prepared to fight a bit more than you would have to in lower level zones. Sometimes it’s just faster and easier to kill the annoying Risen rather than to try to escape it. Also, what Iplaytokill said.

If you really feel like you can’t find a moment’s peace, there is at least one spot in each zone where you should be safe even for long afk periods: Pagga’s Waypoint in Malchor’s, the southernmost waypoint in Cursed Shore, and of course, Fort Trinity in the Straits. I know there are others, but those are off the top of my head.

• Build templates
• Copy/paste in chat (And better text handling in general. It’s amazing to me how trying it can be just to put up a guild MOTD message.)
• User-created chat channels
• UI windows that don’t suddenly start refusing input until they are closed and reopened. (Actually I’m not sure if that’s a QoL improvement or a bug fix.)

I find the ‘reasoning’ provided in the OP entirely unconvincing. Somebody getting a portal to the end of a jumping puzzle does not affect me in any way. Limiting their ability to do so profits me nothing. Therefore, I see no point to the suggestion.

Daishi.6027:

I can understand being spam invited to a duel would be annoying, and others being like “DUEL ME! DULE ME NOW!!!” Can be a pain.

Exactly right. Make it some sort of arena event, more easily accessible than the one that apparently requires a 5-step plan (from the other thread on this topic). Absolutely no reason to have it in the open world, especially in a game that touts itself as the one where you’re ‘happy to see other players.’

Seras.5702:

One of the main draws of GW for me was that every day I played for intrinsic rewards, hoping for an extrinsic reward. And it seemed most other players did too. By that I mean, that I played because it was fun. I reran UW and FOW and Tombs and even THK because it was a fun challenge. If I happened to get a Chaos Axe or Storm Bow then awesome, that’s why I brought keys.

Exactly! You described how I play better than I did.

I play primarly for the intrinsic rewards. I do things because I find them fun or because I get a sense of satisfaction for having done them. That said, extrinsic rewards are part of the game, and while I’m not as driven to obtain them as some players are, I’m not immune to their lure either. I’m happy when I get a rare or exotic drop or when I am able to get something that works really well for one of my characters (I made Courage for my scoundrel of a mesmer the other night. Woo! ).

I really think what we’re seeing happening with loot and rewards in the game now is an overreaction on Anet’s part. In the beginning, IMO, the game was absurdly stingy. It was the anti-Monty Haul game. There seemed to be so much focus on keeping the economy balanced it was like they forgot that the extrinsic reward is actually part of the fun for many, if not most, players. This wasn’t just a forum phenomenon; you’d hear it in map chat too. And now, to me, it seems like they are trying to compensate by, as the OP said, showering us with loot and rewards.

Also, I agree with this sentiment…

Gehenna.3625:

Some people are impervious to this it seems but in essence things do tend to get boring when the balance between effort and value of the rewards makes no sense.

Great tip! I don’t think I’ve ever talked to him. Here’s the wiki link for those who want it. Obviously don’t click if you don’t want the spoiler: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Riff_Sootclaw

I enjoy it. I’ve done it twice and am at about 80% on a third. I find it relaxing.

Noobkaka.5067:

Kiels rewards were kinda crap compared to evons.
If Evon would’ve won we would have seen something more / new about ABADDON.

Seriously evons rewards were a lot better than Kiels. And who cares about the Lion archs meaningless shallow politics.

It’s all about the rewards in my opinion.

I believe people who voted for Kiel hadn’t even read the website update of what the rewards would be, Evons rewards were better I mean comeone, it’s Abaddon stuff!

I voted for Ellen primarily because she’s who my characters – the ones who cared at all – would have supported. But if I had been voting based entirely on rewards, I would still have gone the same way. They offered three things, IIRC.

1. Mini-games … Same offer from both candidates.
2. Abaddon fractal vs. Thaumanova fractal … I don’t care; doesn’t affect me.
3. Reduced waypoint costs vs. reduced key costs … I don’t buy RNG boxes, or the keys to open them, unless I can get them with some in-game currency that I have no other use for (like the fortune scraps). Therefore the only benefit to me here, albeit a minor one, was Ellen’s offer of decreased waypoint costs.

I’m still displaying “Closer to the Stars” on all my characters just because I like it, and don’t really like the ones I’ve earned in GW2. If I get one that seems to suit a particular character though, I will change it.

I did it with sword/warhorn and axe/torch. I’m using rampagers gear and have quite a bit of condition damage. Didn’t have to respec, but I did swap out my usual utilities for a couple of traps (spike and poison) and dropped them every time they were ready. Also, don’t forget food. If you don’t have enough damage on your own, buff yourself. I was using Truffle Steak and Sharpening Stones, I believe. I killed the Captain first and the Gunner last. I’m not sure the order of the other two mattered, but I did find that the time I killed the Gunner first, I died in a hail of bullets (which, oddly, seems to be the opposite of the experience that WatchTheShow had). If you are full bunker, yeah, you are probably going to have to spec temporarily into Marksmanship and Skirmisher to get your power and precision up, but maybe that will be enough without changing armor.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And to bring this sort of back on-topic, I really don’t think you’re doing yourself any favors with PVT in PvE. I used it in WvW and had a very tanky build, but once I spent some time in Orr again (not even in dungeons!) …wow…I just had to do some freaking damage. Everything took forever to kill. And the longer it takes, the more danger you’re in. Finding the balance between survivability and damage that works for you is key.

Things don’t take me forever to kill, mind you, just Veterans and Champions. And I can take a few Champions if I’m on my A-game. Veterans seem to have a lot of health to chew through but I don’t have a lot of problems with them. Except maybe Risen Nobles, due to them not being strictly alone.

I like Orr, though, and I’m generally quite survivable in Risen so long as I’m not dealing with 4+ and a Veteran. Abominations are a pain, but do-able. I like the Pavilion less, due to the density of things there. It seems built for group or zerging.

You probably haven’t sacrificed as much damage as I had. The experience you describe sounds much like my own, now. I hope you took no offense, btw. I was trying to be helpful, not to imply that you were in any way incapable.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Caramel Ham.4891:

Thanks for the advice! I’m still playing to learn weapon tactics, because believe it or not I only know about half the weapons as well as I’d like. Dagger and axe off-hand not at all, sword main-hand in the sense of “this could be cool but I feel too fragile to do this”.

I feel your pain re. dodging, Tobias. Regarding your ranger, don’t forget you can also get some toughness and vitality from your traits, depending on what kind of build you have, and just 5 points in Wilderness Survival will increase your endurance recovery. Sigil of Stamina and Sigil of Energy also help with recovery, effectively making you more dodgy. Although I currently use sword/warhorn, sword/dagger is a combination that gives you a lot of evasion opportunities. If you feel like you’re getting hit a lot while using the sword, you might be getting rooted by the auto-attack. The workaround, such as it is, is to disable auto-attack on sword #1 and you’ll be able to break out of it when needed. Like many other ranger players, I live in hope that that will someday be changed. But once you get used to it, that weapon combination might actually help with your dodging problems, in that it gives you extra evades (although you need to careful with #2 and your positioning, so you don’t aggro nearby enemies or roll backwards into Bad Things). Shortbow #3 is also a straight-backwards evade. And the utility skill Lightening Reflexes will give you an evade that does damage, grants you vigor, and breaks stun. Yes, it is all that, although the same ‘watch your positioning’ caveat applies. Hope this helps.

And to bring this sort of back on-topic, I really don’t think you’re doing yourself any favors with PVT in PvE. I used it in WvW and had a very tanky build, but once I spent some time in Orr again (not even in dungeons!) …wow…I just had to do some freaking damage. Everything took forever to kill. And the longer it takes, the more danger you’re in. Finding the balance between survivability and damage that works for you is key.

Yes, please. I also only anticipate doing gauntlet only on my main, who ran out of tickets last night. @Morrigan, I’ll have to try that.

EDIT: Typing-challenged

Risiko.7412:

EDIT: ok, so I was going for the Queen’s Jubilee, but can’t find anything to do other than light torches (which I found 1 place to do and got it in 2 or 3 tries, are there other places to do that?). I am sure I am missing something, but dont know where to look. I asked in /map yesterday, but no one responded with a helpful answer.

I don’t think this is spoilery, but I’ll mask it just in case…

Kirschwasser.3972:

I actually enjoy this game TONS more when I’m not on the forums. When I read the forums, people bring up things that make me frown.

Heh. Yeah, reading the forums can get me pretty down on the game. But then when I actually get in game I forget all about it.

Vayne.8563:

You need to run some dungeons with my guild. We’re not pretty…but we get the job done…most of the time anyway. And even when we don’t, we usually have a good laugh about it.

Oh, I’ve done dungeons in which I’ve enjoyed the company, Vayne. But that doesn’t save me from finding the game mechanics irksome. And I appreciate your kind offer.

And give us the ability to create our own global channels. Almost a year since I last played my previous game and I still miss that capability.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Jemmi.6058:

No, in my opinion at least, the problem lies in the games inherent design.

- No healer
- No tank
- Focus on DPS
- Little control mechanics
- Little support mechanics
- Long cool downs on anything non-DPS related
- Defiant
- Unshakable
- Product of Crit + Prec + Pow is higher than Product of Tough + Vit, or Cond + Cond duration

Exactly.

If roles were required in this game, people would pick different gear stats for each different role.

I just really hope that going to class-based roles is not the solution. The idea that all classes could contribute but no specific one (or two) would ever be necessary was a beautiful one, IMO, and one of the most compelling things about the game, to me. I don’t think it’s the idea of the roles themselves that bothers me; just of the role being restricted per class. So if it were possible for several classes to be able to create builds that were excellent at tanking, or at healing, or at buffing/debuffing, or at direct damage, and if those things actually mattered, I could get behind that. I rather thought that was actually how it would be. But it does seem, the more PvE that I do, the more similarly I’ve begun to build my 3 80s – for lots of dodginess and damage.

Tengu. Hylek as second choice.

Vayne.8563:

Okay, let me try to explain this from a different point of view.
[snip]

You said that really well. It’s something I’ve been thinking throughout the thread. To be clear, I don’t disagree with those who are saying that going full berserker is the most efficient way to deal with the dungeon content. But those who go on to say it’s the ‘best’ way, or that any other way is selfish, are predicating their argument on the assumption that speed and efficiency are the goals, which may or may not be true, depending on the group. I think there’s a degree of comparing apples to oranges going in the thread, where we’re really talking about different scenarios.

If I might go off on a little tangent…the whole thing makes me kind of sad, and I think it’s largely the reason I’ve come to dislike dungeons. Don’t even get me started on Defiance. I love playing control, and I just can’t believe that bosses are designed to entirely negate what, IMO, should be a perfectly valid style of character building and team support. And condition damage in PvE…well…enough’s been said about that in other threads. We end up with a situation where a high damage, high efficiency team can blow through the content so fast that, for me, there really wasn’t any point to doing it at all; it’s not like I experienced any of it. Or we end up stalling at the bosses because we don’t have the damage to kill them fast enough and are not quick enough to dodge all the attacks (I count myself in that category), or using some well known gimmick to kill them, which to me is dreadfully dull. I get that the game is only a year old, and I very much enjoy many things about it, but I really do hope we see more focus in future development on PvE combat; I would love to see more complexity and encouragement of variety in character building and team synergy, but perhaps the combat and skill systems are just too simple for that.

Beast Sos.1457:

crystal.5930:

I don’t disagree with your point, I’m just trying to parse one of your sentences. Are you relegating WvW, sPVP, and tPVP players to the ‘not hardcore’ category?

What i meant by that was that casual players can log on and just jump right into those activities without having to grind. Other than spvp, imo, WvW and Tpvp r for hardcore players also for sure.

Ah, I get it now, thanks.

I don’t disagree with your point, I’m just trying to parse one of your sentences. Are you relegating WvW, sPVP, and tPVP players to the ‘not hardcore’ category?

You’re finding greatsword skins that you like, OP? My Thief is always piling up more dagger skins than I can use on her because I find so many I like, yet rarely do I see a greatsword I really like. I think what we have here is one of those “to each his own” situations.

Sergoros.4398:

Impressed is just wrong word to ask the question. It puts person own ego to low. So not many people would accept it.

I think you’re on the right track there, but I don’t so much think it’s the word itself that’s wrong, as the arbitrary restrictions that are being placed on it in some posts in this thread. If I say “I’m impressed by firefighter X, who risked his own life to save another” and “I’m impressed that player Y achieved a goal in the game he plays,” I honestly believe that most reasonable people will instantly understand the enormous disparity of degree between those two statements. The word is robust enough to encompass them both (because language is awesome). Context matters.

EDIT: Typo

Alright, figured out what happened with me. I had picked up a statue’s head, which caused me to drop the sword. So not a bug, in my case.

I did the mini-dungeon with a friend today and experienced the same thing. When I got to the point where I needed to use the sword, it seemed I no longer had it. I was downed at one point, but not defeated, so I thought perhaps that might have caused me to drop the item (which would have been weird, since I was wielding an underwater weapon at the time). Can anybody else verify if they’ve tried the dungeon and seen this behavior recently?

By far the most impressive looking character I’ve ever noticed in this game was a commander I was running with in WvW who was swapping between Bolt and The Juggernaut. They worked perfectly with the character; he looked awesome. So yep, I’ve been impressed at least once. (I feel compelled to mention that the player is also an excellent commander, even though that’s not really relevant to this thread).

I do think it’s pretty cool when I see one in game. I think that’s mostly because it’s still a to-do list item lodged in the back of my mind, as in, “I’d like to get a Legendary…one of these days, I’ll get to work on that.” So when I see another player with one, I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’ve got some chops that I lack. Sure, they could have bought the gold for it with real money, but since I haven’t, I don’t just assume somebody else has. This is, of course, highly subjective and admittedly, not very logical. In general, I don’t think there’s any particular status attached to having one.

60$ for the game itself then 90$ on gems. So roughly $8 p/month, although my purchases haven’t been spaced out monthly. Sure it’s worth it; I enjoy the game, and it’s not breaking my bank account.

I was really happy to see this in the updates. Great idea. I have more badges now, after the retro achievement rewards, then I did when I was in WvW regularly, not to mention little stacks of dungeon tokens. Nicely done, devs!

Ceallach.8740:

I think the content would be more enjoyable and “last” longer if given a deadline.

For instance – people rushing to get everything in the first three days – they just burn through the content. If they know they have until August 5th, they can spread it out and not worry about burning out and keep trying on some things they find more difficult without having to do it for hours at a time.

Absolutely agree with that.

Haven’t read the thread yet, but I knew there would be one, so I came to say I’m very excited about pretty much everything mentioned in the blog post for PvE (which is all I’m currently playing).

Great work, Vahkris. Thank you very much.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Jemmi.6058:

Vahkris.6847:

Would it help if the Wiki sticky at the top had any info related to this…so we can avoid multiple stickies? Or would that not be as much of a help since the title wouldn’t notify you the info is there?

I don’t mind trying to create a central post out of that thread with at-a-glance info.

I think one sticky thread in the Living Story sub-forum called something like “Start and End Dates” would work. It could be updated at each event with start and end dates for certain achievements.

I think I would prefer the end dates in the overview sticky at the top of each chapter, but at the end of the day either of those options would work for me.

Thank you.

Yes, I agree. I’d be happy with either, but the place I went first tonight to look for the info was the overview sticky at the top of this thread. Of course an in game calendar or the addition of the end dates to the achievements interface would be ideal, but then, updating a forum thread doesn’t require programming hours.

HawkMeister.4758:

Elthurien.8356:

Most boring: Ranger

Try watching(even playing) a sword Ranger, especially if it´s a skimpy clad female model.
:)

You’d enjoy my main.

If I must pick a class, It would probably be Elementalist. I can’t play one to save my life, but they can be fun to watch others play. But my real answer is ‘any class so long as they’re Asura.’

@Pixelpumpkin: Proper names don’t have to follow grammatical rules, and you especially can’t apply the rules of English, such as they are, to a name that may or may not be of english derivation. But I definitely understand your overall chagrin.