Guild Wars 2

With the daily focused on event hunting in particular areas the problem of event and mob taging spread from the Cursed Shores to entire Tyria. And IMO it should be finaly addressed.

Currently taging a single mob is beeing difficult, and on some occasions close to impossible, due to swarms of other players. The key goal of the game – other players presence beeing a welcomed sight not a nuissance – is fading away. For instance, I have literally landed no hit at all in many events with my GS mesmer as the time between the the skill activation animation and mobs beeing slained is simply too short. Classes with a non-instant spam (AoE) skill (projectile based, animation delay, anything) or simply people who has bad luck of firing in the exact window between mob spawn and death are missing entire events.

We could of course discuss the event/overleved_player scaling issue, or should there be more mobs spawning, but probably the amount of tweaks and variables would be too large to make a satisfactory conclusion anyway. So why not revise how are we beeing taged in the events at all? Since the solution should be quite simple and possible to implement – area based tag. If someone stands in the orange-event circle, he would be taged in the event by default.

The issue would of course be leechers, as there would be such obviously. But would it really hurt the experience? I believe not, with so many players doing events those few who simply stand around would not make a difference. Many world boss riders are slacking off anyway (ex. during the portal phase of Behemot, Taida’s gate or any pre to be frank), are world bosses not beeing slain?

I would even propose to introduce this solution to mob taging as well, which should fix the Cursed Shore (and alike) events but idk is it possible to implement this tag selectively (for PvE only, or non-players targets only for instace, as WvW players might not be happy with it).

What do you think?

Success almost to the full. Almost since I’d really like to see an option to skip all dialogs, cutscenes or not (so annoying when doing achieves).

claudili.7614:

Lanhelin.3480:

I have a question to the EU community regarding map chat – I have disabled the chat filter: It seems that only german speaking players use the map chat for the purpose to chat. Except for guild advertisings I never saw more than one or two lines in a row in other languages by different players, be it English, French, Spanish or something else. I have been on various maps and in different cities since the Megaserver went live, and there never happened longer chat communications in other languages than German. Was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time or can someone confirm this?

I had some polish ppl using the map chat, french, spanish and italian very seldom. Mostly I am listening to the english map conversation

While most of them are guild ads, or hushing others for using their mothertongue in a public chat.

I forgot that old “beeing a kitten” was replaced by “a art of trolling”. Have to think a while on how to overcome the issue of players loving to ruin others fun. Maybe collisions turining on in a “fight” state? Or in a specific radius from enemy? Players beeing able to push obstacle after a specific time?

@Fror
Does it really take so much of the resources? There are collision after all with other objects and terrain – is it different?

Idk if the topic was already discussed, please ignore if so.

Everytime I enter WvW I feel tremendously useless without a zerg. A true, huge zerg that melt my GPU. Melee train power, boon stacking, area healing… every trump card is given to the larger forces, without punishing it in the most obvious way – by taking an actual space. What would it change? Well, taking chokepoints into the consideration would actualy be sensible. Narrow passages, broken gates or wall segments could be defended by way smaller, but organised groups (at least delaying enemy forces if not repeling them). It could develop some kind of formations in the open space battles, breaking lines, flanking etc. instead of mindless trains. I guess it’s an idea worth testing at least.

dotSEA.3180:

I really don’t see why the schedule was a necessary implementation, the API sites already did this fine, there was never anything terribly convoluted or inconvenient, since many of the events could be pushed or started by a small group of people at their convenience.

Because with the Megaserver APIs are no longer viable? It would be impossible to them to list all instances, and to player to find his instance within this new system. Events could be of course completely random like before, but there would be even more hate toward such a state of a matter.

Personaly I dig schedules. I’m not so focused on having every WB done, every day. Even in the old system this would require a lot of hours spent on waiting for windows to launch, or repeating missed bosses. Now I know exactly which one will be avalaible for me during my play hours, and that’s cool.

Well… you OP are missing barely one event during the business week then, the Karka. Other two
1. Have one spawn within rush evening hours
2. Needs an organised group anyway, and at the same time can be spawned by this organised group

Apart from that, did you really expect ANet to guess your personal schedule?

I’ve tried too many MMOs already. From the upmost popular like WoW, through some obscure like Rohan Online, high expectations failures like SWTOR or WAR. WS seems to be just one of them, like the ESO.

The ones that caught my attention for a longer period are only two titles – Ultima Online (hey there Mytharia shard-folk! anyone here?) and GW2 (did not play 1).

Atiar.5469:

Awkward beer analogy is awkward.

And unfair. What you’d rather LS be compared to any continous and regular activity, that you decide or have to to skip once in a while. Let’s say it’s a series of monthly concerts featuring some cool bands of your favorite genre. If it happened, deal with it, instead of kittening around how poor you are and how bad organisator is because he will not reinvite the band especially on your behalf. It was up to you, not organisators having several hundred thousands of participants, to watch the schedule.

The Revenant.4970:

Seems like a lot of people are simply afraid of having their weaknesses exposed if they won’t be able to go full zerker 100% of the time.

It’s silly to be expected to go full zerker for anything and everything.

and tbh…this is simply a mentality problem. I see this across the board for all ARPGs and MMOs. Everyone is obsessed with seeing the big flashy numbers. They want to hit hard and have the excuse of being a ‘glass cannon’ when they die.

My thought exactly – people are more and more obsessed with min-maxing. Soon the best solution will be to take the gear out of the equasion leaving it blank of stats.

But as someone stated before – it’s the fault of the game/mob design. If you scrap the idea of the class-related roles, but put a general DPS-favorite mechanics (mash his HP pool as fast as possible), it’s something not right. And it will end in DPS meta, since unlike game mechs, obsession is out of the devs reach.

RoyalPredator.9163:

Excuse me, but EVEN THE OFFICAL GW2 KEYBOARD/MICE has macro drivers…
So if I have a Keyboard and Mice that has macro options (works the same as binding U & J to sidebuttons), Isn’t a reason for bans.

Sorry, but that’s a rubbish argument. Just because an office allowed Veyron to be used on casual street it doesnt mean that the speeding is allowed.

As I’m a boomerang right now, I skipped whole “too much clicks to make” problem. From what I read on forums, you are correct, the issue would be non-existant, since opening the bags is… well, harmless. However, I can guess why ANet made such a rule – otherwise there would be a bunch of smart-kitten to run around with the bunch of multiply bags of any sort, and performing macros where it is harmful. Before a bot alarm rings, and someone on admin side react, the damage could already be done by the macro. So they decided to make it forbidden at all, at least in terms of rules as written.

I’ll gladly take the role of mediator for a small 5% fee

Cirian.8917:

(…) So in the case of Watchknights you’re complaining about a female-looking robot being cast into a male stereotype of disposable, semi-naked fighting machine, as if, if they were male it’d be ok. Well, if it’d be ok for them to be male then in an equal society it’s fine for them to be female.(…)

Bullseye. The double standards in this (and any other in the real life) gender role discusion would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Rhysati.4932:

Yuujin.1067:

wickedkae.4980:

What i mean is that as the game progresses over time we will simply run out of bank space ( I already have) I don’t have room who know how many other sets get released.

Farm gold >> Convert Gold Into Gems >> Buy More Bank Slots

You realize that there is a cap on bank tabs right?

Don’t worry, they can always raise it.

If you’re looking for numerous weapon sets Engineer is something you’d like to try. He only have one main and on off slots, however kits can make your build extremely flexible. If you want to of course, since you can make an optimised build relying on one kit and utilities that makes it stroneg (like famous HGH-nade).

As for mesmer – it’s a very fun class and you most probably will swap your weapons very often (I do it practicaly with every swap CD off). Also, since set of skills on both main and off hands are so diverse you might find necessary to change your weapons also out of combat. Same considers utility skills – while running through dungeons I swap my utilities few times. From blink/portal (like burning stones in CoF), to defender phantasm with signet buffing his health on bosses.

But what can I say apart from – try it by yourself.

ProtoGunner.4953:

1st: I have a 100% job, but I took my time and set it top priority to get a legendary, so I logged in after coming home from work and farmed my kitten off. This was already done before Christmas.

We all have different playstyles and feelings how a game has to be. For me roleplaying games is about progression, this means not only level progression, but also gear progression. I started pretty early with japanese RPGs (Lunar series in the early 90ies on Sega Mega CD) so I may have a different opinion about games as a whole. I know that MMOs have the bad habit that there is no end (see WoW), since all the bis gear is crap after a new content patch. There is no solution for both playstyles.

If you want to play games to be challenged then I recommend ‘Dark Souls’ for you. It’s an a blast of a game.

So you confirm what I wrote – grinding is becoming a second work. You are an employee in real life, stuggling with tasks that HAVE TO be done. And you do the same in a game that is supposed to be a leisure. Some of us might be OK with that (like yourself for example), some of us don’t. The problem lies not in the differences between our playstyles and which one is better. None of them is at the objective basis. It lies in this – GW2 was announced and targeted for those who don’t. Don’t want to grind, don’t want to be employee of the game, don’t want to be forced to do aquire items that allows to keep them at a competitive level. That’s why a grinding-to-win model, represented by raiding-like gear progress, is rejected by so many of players and forum users here.

As for other points (“slightly” offtopic).
Role playing games are/were actually about… well, role playing. About telling the story, becoming an actor in a self-driven story that was beeing told between players and game master. Progress as we, computer gamers, know it was a side addition to the original paper RPG games. DnD cursed the model with “loot” problem early, but paper-players actually made their foothold and repeled this model of playing in a vast majority. Yet it overtook the cRPG genre, since technical option of giving a true living world to the player is simply impossible without an AI that can handle human interaction. Hence the curse lasts to our days.

As for Dark Sould – I know it. It’s great game and can’t wait to beat a crap out of it. Let just PS4 be released, it will be a first title I’ll buy with it (playing it on keyboard is a pain). But frankly speaking I should reply to you with the same manner: if you want to play MMO games that are grind-based, then I recommend X Y Z MMO titles. Actually, most of titles beeing avalaible out there and cloned WoW’s gameplay model.

ProtoGunner.4953:

be cause there is nothing to do (yes I have world completion 100%, two Legendaries, Dungeon Master, 4 Professions with max. Level rest between 60-78)

Rather an offtopic matter but… what the hell are you expecting? You clearly have very much free time so you completed whole content. And you will do it, and be bored, everytime devs release anything new. So your point is a little bit invalid…

There was one quote on the 1st page, that really annoys me. Represents the casual, I-want-it-all-but-don’t-like-to-work-for-it-attitude:
Not really. I just want new armor skins. I don’t feel like treadmilling I just wanna collect.

Why do you play games then anyway? Don’t you want a feel of achievement?

Yes, skins also provide a feeling of an achievement. Unlike what you might think. But most and for all – beeing better on battlefield is an achievement, however… I’d even say it’s bigger if it relays on skill of the player, not stats beeing attached to your back.

It’s not like I can’t understand the gear progression, but it’s something that I don’t like. It creates multiply problems and forces people to become an employee of the game. Sorry, games IMO are not made to be “working for” something, there were made to be fun. I’d really like to take a rest from GW2, leave it for few months (which I already did, I’m back from May after taking a break in October) and has just as powerful toon as I had when I seized. If I am a good player I should be able to keep up, updating tactics and polishing my skills. But if game requires me to play non-stop to be up to date with the stuff, or I’d have to quickly chase my toon to the current level of “top gear” I call this full-time-corpo work and rat chase, not an entertainment. I don’t know how about you, I work enough in the real world, I don’t need a second vacancy in a made up virtual world. For this reason I’m not playing a tons of other MMOs out there but I chose a GW franchise, which was supposed to be different. And that is the particular reason why am I (and as I see many other players as well) against any raiding mechanics in GW*.

*Edit: There’s only one case I’d have nothing against it – if raiding gear was usable only in raiding activities. If ascended and even higher tiers were introduced within a specific dungeon-line only, and they would be able to be used only within this dungeon-line, I don’t care about it. But if they were meant to be influencing a whole game experience like they do now, I have no warm words for it. No. Just no.

Ascended armor? Weapons? To be honest it’s a creepy idea, to go with current and implement more gear progression at max level. Creepy because so far it was a case of playing better the class of choice and having the right gear for the playstyle. Creepy because this particular game was supposed to be skill, not grind based. And with gear progression it wil be simply a matter of who has a bigger hammer. Both in PvE and WvW. I don’t like it, at all.

The other thing is – aquisition of this gear. Through dedicated dungeons like it is now? It would be a disaster – we are already facing a problem of LF ZERK WARR/MES PING OR KICK which makes the “right” people slowly taking over the dungeon system. It’s not cool. And if ascended gear will be introduced to this extent, it will be an obligation to have one before you could even start any form of organised multiplayer activity. Or you’d be left with those who don’t have it, which leads us to point…

…about balancing the content. Around what will the content be balanced? If the new content will be built around the idea of ascended gear, those who has been left behind will be screwed. The same raiding mentality that many of us are trying to avoid by choosing this particular franchise, “be geared in X, specced in Y or you won’t run with us at all” will strike with brutal force. Around exotics? Then what do we need ascended for in the first place?

To make ascended a top tier gear and not ruining this game, it would have to be widely obtainable (drops inculded), in various possible ways. Just like exotics are now. Otherwise… Well, GW2 and the idea that stands behind it will be killed.

Man… you’ve got serious problems…

I barely see any focus on gemstore to be honest, and that makes me wonder. There’s not much of interesting things to buy. We should expect some weapon and armor skins, but now? Boosters? BLC keys? Nah…

One more thing that should be added to the topic – Behe is melting like an icecube on a frypan. Not only because of the lack of mechanics, but also because events and levels scaling needs tweaking. 80s in starter areas are too strong. I mentioned it in another topic already, maybe caps should be lower and based by an average stats of players of actual level, maybe the percentage scaling should hit harder. But atm the situation is ridiculous – you’re afraid of doing pre on Behe because you might not come in time to tag him for exp and chest (not to mentioned any involvement in the fight). If you miss the timer, are in a mid of any event or are simply browsing TP, you might not make it to Wurm or Melting Elemental.

Other thing is – why in the world damaging is the only meaning to tag the foe? Why performing other actions within event area (healing, reviving, buffing, cleansing) does not count? This have to be changed as well. Especially since it’s not only the problem of PvE but also WvW when zerg, despite orders, rush to score a kill and hope to grab lootbags.

UrMom.4205:

I agree the CoJ is the most fun dragon fight…but you also have to look at the level of the area…CoJ is the only level 80 dragon fight. Teq is the next in line in terms of the level of the area, not as intense as CoJ but still fears you, has some strong poison, lots of other mobs, etc. The shatter is next, with less, but rightfully so as it’s an even lower level. You can’t make the FE and the Wurm too hard cause it’s in a starter zone.

IMO it’s not a matter and problem of difficulty, but a problem of mechanics. You don’t need a ton of AoE to make boss interesting, which CoJ illustrates. CoJ is not hard at all in a matter of fact.

Behemot for instance has a moment when he open portals to the Underworld spawning adds and beeing invulnerable himself. But why is this happening only once? Why can’t the portals spawn all the time and the more there is, the more adds are spawned, the more toughness/healing is given to Behe?

Why do we need a laser at Teq? What are those turrets all around for? At this moment there’s no point for them. But if… if Teq in his “flying move” was completely invulnerable to melee and ranged attacks (beeing out of range simply), at the same time spawning a hell of adds, and AoEing the poison, and the laser was the only way to shoot him down? And turrets were the core of defence against adds?

Golem could use a simple knockback, or some other kind of mini-mechanic (need to overcharge it from the control room to shrug off his energy shields? or stun him for a while?). The same concerns all the world bosses around – they’re boring not because they’re not one-hitting people. Bosses do not have to be difficult. They have to be, like the OP stated, player-engaging.

“Rewarding”? Haha, just say it loud, you want more shinies to be given to you. Look at the Orr discuss yet on the front page, RNG (endless) discuss, and most of the complaints here on forum.

It is either me beeing really old-fashioned gamer, or the playerbase is overly obsessed with their “loot/reward” (name it however you like). Acting like a drug-addict who has already higher resistance to chem, but wants more and more excitement with the same dose. Are there anyone who play games for fun, the sake of playing itself, yet? Hell, I’ve got impression that the most of the gamers community has gone mad, no matter the games genres or types.

If you have enough laurels you can buy yourself a 20% MF utility infusions, plus guild banners, plus MF booster, plus omnomberie food – that should keep you at 100%. On the rares/exo pieces I’ve seen at most 7% (3 from trinket and 4 from jewel), maybe there’s something with more MF, never checked TP that carefuly.

On the other hand – IMO if you run in MF set you want to maximise your output so you’ll be buying everithing specced for MF and run in events with large pool of mobs and decent amount of people. You don’t need that much dps since foes are melting before you can tag everyone

I noticed that starter ebony dye plays well with the skintone of my choice so I implemented the starter mask as an actual face of my mesmer. Since I was tired with a dungeon and high level armors, cultural are quite obvious as well, I came up with another idea inspired by the mask.

So behold the Dragon Rider D’jinii outfit. Featuring a Midnight Ice, Spitfire, Royal Rose and Antique Gold dyes on early Embroidment chest, legs and boots. Followed by the thorny gloves and shoulders. And… you’ll hate me for this… 3 pieces of jade weapons.

Bonus: Ulim Inat acting as Zommoros right hand :P

pricer.5091:

YOU don’t care about skins. The people who are complaining DO care about skins.

Why is this concept so hard to grasp?

And still, it’s only skins. Nothing obligatory to have, nothing to create so much hassle about as we can see at the forums. If they were linked to better stats then we would have a major issue to deal with. But cosmetics?

And what about an idea of RNG for gems? Nasty, indeed. But hey – someone is buying them so some people are just OK with them. I’d even say majority of buyers if they’re still in sale, event after event. Why is this concept so hard to grasp

My guess is: it’s because games like WoW or GW1 were adressed to the previous generation. And even generation raised in ’90 or early ’00 changed since we are all adults now. Someone above said that the economy crisis hit the need of security and guarantee, that as well might be a case.

It’s not only that the randomness was seen as unharmful, but when it was introduced to such extent like in the Diablo franchise people were perceiving it as something great, new and fresh. I remember reviews of the games from the DnD (or should I rather say ADnD) banner, or Fallout – when people really wanted some kind of randomness in their games. Yes, the whole discussion were faced in the exactly opposite direction – to have more RNG because it creates unpredictible results which makes game last longer.

Does GW2 has a lot of RNG? Sure does, I’d rather say that it should have more but not in a field of rewards but in the field of fights and mobs (random skills, random spawn places, dungeons with random map layout etc.). Is it bad? Well – it depends on who do you ask, but I guess since it’s not obligatory it’s not that terrible as people tend to picture it. However I admit that selling an RNG boxes in a cash shop is a nasty and risky habit :P

Well, the whole idea behind personal story ending with group dungeon is at least weird. Frankly speaking I don’t like story dungeons beeing a group as well – group most likely will consist of people who don’t give a kitten about the story background. “HULK SMASH” and to the farming explo.

But it was discussed so many times already…

Heh, true. CoF (p1 :P) brings a worst we have in the game – my guess is because this type of gameplay resembles most other MMOs out there. I’d simply report and exit group, there are other player willing to run CoF anyway, there’s no need to stick with kittens.

Yet another RNG rant… and yet another “I bought RNG box and no shinies for me, so next time I’ll buy even more boxes for even more no shinies for me” attitude. And you want to blame ANet for making their goal (which is $$$ as any company in the world)? Come on people, are you really that stupid?

But why to reinvent a wheel – the solution is already there and all we need is a tweaking. Simply speaking, downscaling should be stronger. Maybe with caps based on the real low level players stats, maybe with tweaking a percentage of scaling.

So why do we need a risky leeching solution?

One thing that could be changed – taging mobs could be done not only with damaging directly but also by resing fallen player (then all he damaged is also taged for a resurecter), AoE healing, buffing and all the activities actually benefiting a group.

Celly.5912:

GW2 is much more CPU intense than it is GPU. If anything you’d be better off upgrading your processor, but that often means you need to replace your motherboard and memory as well.

Depends on the setup really – I’ve got bought 3 years ago one with Radeon 5700HD and Phenom II Quad 3,2GHz on board. Since then I’ve only added more RAM (16GB atm), and while CPU is at 60-70% load, GPU always hit 99-100%. Auto-detect sets me for high, i turned on low most hungry features though (shadows, LOD, WvW models – usual suggested on Tech forums) and run it in windowed fullscreen with more less 40-50 fps*. So… I wouldn’t ever guess that GW2 is a CPU hungry game

*in WvW zerg clakitten drops to a slideshow so I guess I need an upgrade anyway

JJBigs.8456:

Craft. No one is in open areas, because they are horrible for time/reward. Its actually faster to craft to 80 vs open world. The time you spend leveling, could be used for CoF runs, and CoF will pay for your crafting ++ more. So no self respecting player will do open world leveling. Saying its “Fun” isnt an argument. History has shown people in this game arent in it for “fun”, they are in it for progression, loot, etc.

I love when people make their story a general state of afairs :P.

There are people in open world, however not everywhere, and not at every time. Low level areas are populated quite well, middle one are the least, high are scattered and filled with farming mob, but it’s not a desert. And while CoF+crafting might be a solution to leveling he forgot to remind you that CoF is from 70 (story) and 75 (explo), so it’s almost end of your leveling.

Besides I pretty much respect myself and did mostly with open world roaming (3 times already), so I have completely no idea what the hell did you mean by that. The sole thing I detest is personal story, I’d really like to see an option to skip it on alts.

As for the game itself and how is it going… well I came back a month ago, found a decent guild and have fun with them (if you play on Underworld you might be interested in joining NWA ranks ). Some people complain about farming rates, probably furious about another farming spot nerfed. Other do not try to rush their legendary in a month or two and simply have fun. Other are proud of kicking a back of another server in WvW… or beg for nerf of not-their-class.

To put things simple – game runs as a MMOs usualy do. There’s some new content to play with, some old bugs to be angry about, some balancing to adress, and some whiners to ignore.

To make things short. I’m currently running on a setup
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955, 3,2Ghz
MSI Radeon HD5770, 1GB DDR5
4x Kingston HyperX DDR3 4GB 1600MHz (yeah 16GB for Photoshop and other graphic soft, I want to hit 32 anyway)
Samsung SpinPoint F3, 3.5’’, 1TB, SATA/300, 7200RPM, 32MB cache

IMO it’s not bad even though it has 3 years. It runs smoothly most of current games in medium-high settings. But it simply is not enough for WvW – whenever the zergs clash the game become a slideshow. I tried to put settings in minimum which helps and game looks like a decade old title, which don’t makes me happy at all

So… since I’ve been thinking about a little upgrade I could take GW2 WvW needs as a rule of thumb. What would you change? Aside from switching off shadow rendering, which I know is causing a hell of a problems, but even turned off it doesn’t make the drop to dissapear.

Mbelch.9028:

I’d like to start by saying I haven’t been Mesmer for long, but in my few weeks of playing the class, I’ve tried all the weapons and I know iZerk is supposed to be one of the stronger ones…

So my question is if this is a tracking issue, why can’t all damage be in one hit? That first one.. Simple fix.

Ive read this thread and it seems like this is a nerf, not a bug.

As a 100% WvWer, I know my iZerk can hit anywhere between 1200 and 5600 on vet guards. It should ALWAYS hit around 5600, or GS becomes unreliable and useless.

Please do something about this…… Test it on moving targets, stakes, whatever you need to do to realize something is NOT right.

No, simply no. I’d rather have no fix to Zerk than strip him from this beautiful tagging ability changing it to first hit. If anything I’d rather like to see a ground targeting on it, so we could choose a vector for the Zerk than delivering whole damage in a very small area/single target only.

ProxyDamage.9826:

When the only way to attain that content is either through very low odds random chance and/or through attaining a gigantic laundry list of rare items, you’re forced to grind the game – regardless of how you do it.

I guess that the precise problem you (and many others) have with the game – you don’t seem to grasp an idea of acumulating these thing, through months/years of a normal playing. When mats and gold just drops in by accident, when you’re doing something that is fun to you. And the legendary is not to be focused, it’s something to be earned after a long long time of playing, aside from the fun you take from a game.

You might of course not agree to this philosophy, and most likely you won’t, but it’s not a game design’s problem. It’s you and your attitude. Apparently, you chose a wrong game to play.

EDIT: Focusing-too-much seems to be a problem in general gaming nowadays. Is there anyone who play their games purely for fun yet?

Antara.3189:

I want to add a note:

This thread has 23 pages and still going strong with support from players. For a thread to be this large, their is almost no chance that a good portion of ArenaNet employees have not seen this thread. I can understand why they wouldn’t publicly write opinions; but with this thread still being open, you can see where they side as well

Why should they close a topic that is a perfect gathering of a content-wants from community? A customer polls are expensive and here they get it for free.

As for the content adds, i guess it will be a bread and butter of expansion packs (i don’t believe there will be solely one). And this is how I perceive a “missing content” in a sequels in general – it’s hard to develop new content for vanilla sequel, while adding whole franchise’s lore in vanilla sequel as well. Especially when we have precursors like first GW, with a lot of expansions. How much time did they need to release whole GW experience? That’s the exact problem and plausible reason why something is not in the game already

wolfie.7296:

Neofelis.2856:

So turn the unfortunate decision of NCSoft to your advantage and bring something unique that no one else is offering in the AAA-Quality that you can deliver.

GW2 is not, as a whole, AAA. I can list many areas of the game that are basically still beta quality and rushed.

Like in near every AAA title nowadays – you got a game, you have to download a few GB of patch at the install. Gaming is a business, a serious one. And shareholders don’t like to wait for their profits, so deadlines are rushed.

The Engineer’s problem is not lack of swiftness, or speed boost like the guy above mentioned. Perma swiftness is a choice of course but it’s avalaible (and viable). In a matter of mobility Engis have a problem with animation in Jumping Shot which simply takes too long, and Rocket Boots that are somewhat broken (self-knockdown + collisions at the slightest enviroment obstacle is not something that is reliable for escapes or any other reason, the same goes for a similar Rifle #4 skill). In general Engi’s gadgets are not a primary choice since they’re inferior to anything that kits can field. There’s also a problem with ultimates relying on RNG (and a lot of RNG in elixirs in general).

This is of course a problem of PvE/WvW engis, since I heard they’re doing fine in PvP. And I guess that’s the main reason for the class balance problems – the skill/traits in PvP and PvE are mirrored. Since ANet made PvP and PvE a separate games (which is good) they should also make classes dedicated for a system. It’s quite obvious to be frank and I have no idea why is ANet avoiding such solution.

Ribos.8350:

Whipping prisoners is tasteless to humans(…)

And to put it even more blunt – it’s tasteless only in certain regions, and even in those regions it’s tasteless for a very specific kind of human. There are people who think that prisoners shouldn’t have rights after all, we all know that kind of social/political groups in our own countries. The human rights itself is a very new concept put on a very old (more than 10 000 years of known history) body of the bloodthirsty mankind.

So hammering devs because of a “tasteless” event/quest of this sort in a computer game is at least a weird idea OP. Look around, read a history book, take a newspaper in your hands – it was and still is happening all around a world. The only difference is – charrs won’t suffer because, well, they don’t exist. They’re just digits on your harddrive. Unlike other people who actually are breathing and living on this Earth.

Infernia.9847:

It’s easy to say: “Don’t farm the mats just farm the gold and buy them” but unlike buying gems and exchanging for gold, mats don’t appear from thin air.

Actually… they do. It’s how the MMOs work, devs control whole market via droprates and can bloat or suffocate it by few lines of codes. It’s hard to imagine more “appearing from thin air” economy than this.

Just saying

There’s no need for perma phantasm. Even more, perma phantasm would require a rebuild of a whole class since mesmers would be… well, vastly OP. If you want a minion master then you should definetely switch to the necro.

Swaping engineer and minion necro. I’m leveling my mesmer now, and so far he needs a lot of attention to survive, but I read it’s one of most laziest class at the 80 so I’m not counting him in :P

Zeus CM.1692:

The problem is that current dungeon design promotes High DPS only, and blocking the damage (guardian). Imo, vitality and toughness stats are too weak.

On the contrary, vitality and toughness might be a little bit stronger, but it’s nothing wrong with them. It’s just pugs becoming a one trick pony – stack as much damage as you can and hope to kill mob faster than it kills you. The reason is very simple – a funny cost of repairs and lack of any death penalty, which promotes glass cannons fest. And while I enjoy dungeons (didn’t do any fotm yet though) in general, I admit that mechanics are not very demanding in a matter of cooperation – go, skip trash, evade and do the rotation.

However there’s one more problem with pugs that you made me realise. Exaggerations.

Difference between glass-cannon and toughness/vitality character is that you will survive 1-2 hits more from boss while having 0 dps.

While I know that you didn’t mean it literally, many of one-trick-poniests take it too seriously. And perceive the damage as the sole source of contribution to the group. This exaggeration leads to /inspect demand, strip anyone who is not heavy zerk a chance to run with pugs, brings kitten elitists to the field and so on. Having a guild helps a lot with having fun in GW2, and for now I recommend everyone to join one, but it would be nice to have pugs cleansed of this poison as well.

In short: more painfull death in dungeons (higher costs and/or limited use) and more mechanic solutions to counter the cookie-cutters groups.

EDIT: Since ANet came up wtih dynamic events why not use this idea to deal with the problem? Foes changing their abilities with consideration of the pug classes? Having a lot of zerks? Let mobs have a tons of AoE. Heavies? A massive condition/daze strikes with a necro-like epidemic skills. Ranged? Oh I smell a reflection wall in the air. And why not give the reviving healer a contribution to all the damage that revived person did? Taging the mobs around and giving exp and loot for them as well.

I have no idea is it possible/easy to implement but I’d welcome such change.

Iehova.9518:

dadamowsky.4692:

More of an issue are people who quit dungeon when something goes wrong than lack of the pre-run checking of the item build.

Blacklist, replace, finish dungeon, enjoy dokitten’s THAT simple and has worked for yours truly many times.

It’s exactly what I do, but new nicknames still feed my blacklist…

There is, and should be, no inspect for a very simple reason – there’s no need. Players can easily judge and measure others capabilities by simply playing with them. No gear build will ever be able to beat the personal skill of a player, his understand of his class, reflex and flexibility. On the other hand inspect creates a situation when only cookie-cutters are guaranteed a party in the pubs, since eventually a majority of players spreads the epidemy of gear-hysteria before any action even happens.

More of an issue are people who quit dungeon when something goes wrong (and usualy it goes wrong due to inexperience in a very particular dungeon not gear problems) than lack of the pre-run checking of the item build.

I’m running PvE/WvW with such build, wearing Mhenlo’s/Dwayna set
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAndWjEa16taKb07JApHRTd1TK4GcIF5KNA-TIAA1CtA

And while I’m surprisingly (since so many says how weak minions are, I had to try them) satisfied in general, however when it comes to minions survivability it bothers me. Is it even worth trying? While farming this set is just enough to roam without any problem, but in dungeons some sort of minion healing would be nice. I’m trying to mix staff #2 and focus #4, backed up with staff #4, but it’s not enough. Bringing untraited WoB is a bad idea due to cooldown, and giving decreased cooldowns strip me from the Vampiric synergy. I thought about using Life Transfer with healing allies trait, but it’s hard to say for me how effective that trait actually is (does it even scale with healing?)

I don’t think that population imbalance issue can ever be fixed. At least I have never seen any solution that’d be satisfying to everyone. The most obvious, and as I think the sole efficient solution is to cap teams to the least populated, allowing further joins if enough players of the opposite teams enqueue. Yet I don’t think this will be welcomed by the community, especially if you encounter not WvWvW oriented server while beeing keen on that type of gameplay.

Bloodstealer.5978:

Take last night, when I logged in around 11am we were in a reasonable state on EB.. our corner was controlled, keep was sieged but only one tower was being upgraded from earlier assaults… our supply line was still recovering but instead of getting ourselves in a better position of strength we decide to treb the hell out of a reinforced DL held Stonemist and take a 50+ zerg in there… against 75+ DL.. well it didn’t end well and to teach us a lesson they zerged 2 or 3 of our towers in response.
You think we would learn.. no we then treb again (were now outmanned btw) until they smash our trebs and siege away… so we then head to Bravost (T3 DL tower).. we take it at the second attempt (using a Mesmer portal, like someone was complaining about previous in this thread.. anyhow whoooopeee doo we got it).. DL zerg then proceed to retake it in <3mins and within 30mins they own the whole of our map including our Keep and our only T3 tower, which we had taken painless hours to get upgraded and heavily sieged)… DL had been quiet for at least an hour before this all started but sometimes we are just tactically inept imo.

And DL made a great tactical decision to team up with FR. Or at least it looked like it, since DL were preventing us from taking FR towers. FR didn’t really put any heart into takin anything from DL either. At least that was yesterday’s afternoon/evening state. Idk, maybe they got tired of beeing constantly put in the same tier with us as well and decided to act :P

The other thing is that most of us (me as well) are pretty tired of fighting against numbers and odds with the same servers week after week. And decided to farm Southsun’s champs.

How do you guys imagine giving special items then? You don’t like achievement hunting, you dont like RNG. To farmers only, having unlimited amount of time?