Guild Wars 2

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Pretty dissapointed with this BWE after the last two.

Just some quick notes:

1. Most mastery points were removed making it tedious to get enough points
2. Mastery points you left in are bugged and can’t be earned
3. Break bars are significantly overtuned. Most enemies die before the break bar has moved more than 2%
3b. Wyvern boss break bar needs to be broken in 5 seconds before he takes off. Currently takes 3000s of CC to break the bar… a little absurd.
4. Bosses that were previously well tuned are now a joke, do no damage and take <5s to kill (super slyvari on top half of the map)
5. Story instance nerfed to be quite boring now.

Basically please undo all the changes you made between this BWE and the last one. Game was a ton of fun and was really excited last week, very disappointed this weekend.

I like that there is not enough mastery points to easily rank your masteries whenever you got enough xp. Before they felt like they were unnecesary – you always had enough of those to unlock next mastery. As for Wyvern boss break bar, it certainly felt like it was overtuned, but it felt much better to actually see boss fly away.

Straight to the point: I think that for most proffesions, there is not enough difference between the mechanics of base and elite spec. Take a look at chronomancer for example – when you take that spec you just get an additional f skill. You can still play as a normal mesmer that has just access to another skill. And now take a look at the reaper – when you become a reaper you loose your range death shroud in favor of melee reaper shroud. Now before you spec into reaper, you need to think if you really want to exchange one proffesion mechanic (DS) for another (RS) because either of those has its pros and cons. While playing thief you really have nothing to loose when choosing the daredevil – you simply get additional dodge bar at your disposal, which makes playing daredevil not much different from base thief.
To further show my point I’ll list here few suggestions as how to distinguish elite from base specs:

• chronomancer: simply swap Distortion with Continuum Split so that players have to choose betweet those two – either you want a source of distortion buff or you want to be able to go back in time. That way chronomancer won’t be just a mesmer on steroids.
• berserker: while I like the idea of berserkers burst skills, you still can play as normal warrior never ever using your Berserk. For this elite spec I’d suggest to completly get rid of warrior Burst skills in favor of Berserk. You could activate your berserk at any stage of adrenaline (instead of only 3rd stage) which would then result in your berserk being longer and/or stronger.
• reaper, dragonhunter: those two elite specs represents the difference between base and elite specs that I would like to see on every proffesion. Mechanics of those specs are a different view of how the base proffesion could be played. They dont just empower the base class – they change it.
• other elite specs: sadly I don’t see a way to change any of the other elite specs, so they don’t feel like they are just upgraded base classes. Daredevil is a thief with additional dodge, tempest = elementalist + overloading, herald = revenant + additional f skill etc.

PS. I understand that to choose an elite spec is also to sacrifice one of the base specs, but the main difference between proffesions (and elite specs) still are their mechanics (mostly f skills) and so playing two characters with same f skills, that only differ with one trait line feels still much the same.

PS2. Sorry for my bad english.

TL;DR Most elite specs are just base proffesions on steroids, so they don’t feel much different from their base classes.

Kal Spiro.9745:

That makes no sense. That’s what events are. Collecting stuff, escorting stuff, killing stuff.

The problem is that killing stuff is 100% of the events – you collect by killing mobs, you escort by killing mobs etc. At the end it doesn’t matter if you collect or escort, as the only thing you care about is killing stuff.

Kal Spiro.9745:

What do you want? Click on stuff and have animations like things are happening? Even using the sniper rifles was just killing stuff that couldn’t fight back.

Your problem is 100% subjective and therefore not relevant.

I want events that require/let you to do other activities than just killing mobs. That’s it. As for relevancy – I played this weekend with few friends, and our reaction was the same: “We were waiting three years to get yet another wave event. How boring.”

Kal Spiro.9745:

There are more than just wave events. There is at least one event where you follow and defend a group of mobs. When you get to the camp you’re thrown a couple waves of weird mobs to kill. Once you clear out the waves you follow a different group of mobs you need to defend. At the very end of which you get a boss fight with a Wyvern.

Honestly, even without any gimmicks, or extended chains I find the mobs themselves interesting enough to warrant uniqueness to the rest of the game just by virtue of their existence.

It doesn’t matter if you have to protect some npc’s, or defend against waves of enemies – the only thing you do is kill stuff. That’s it. And such desing of events is boring.

I feel like most specializations offer additional mechanics without second though. Chronomancer? Additional f skill. Daredevil? Additional dodge. Herald? Additional f skill… I though elite specs would force us to choose betweet different mechanics instead of just throwing more of them. Look at Reaper – whether you decide to take that elite spec, you need to choose if you want to swap you safe, ranged shroud for one more melee focued. And i wished all the elite specs would make such difference.

While I do agree that sometimes events that force you to use certain bundle can be annoying, events that are based solely on killing mobs can be as much boring – we have been doing this for three years now! We should have events that can be completed in different ways – not just killing stuff.

Oh sorry, I thought there isn’t really much more to say – during both event chains around outposts in this beta, the only thing you do is killing mobs while capturing those outposts, defending those outposts from more mobs and then protecting npc… from yet another wave of mobs. During BWE1 we were given some sniper rifles to shoot enemy mobs, we had to extinguish a burning village. During BWE2 there are no interesting events during those event chains. All I can say is that I expected better diversity of events, and not just killing mobs.

And by boring I mean boooooooring. The only thing you do is killing more mobs – capture, defend, waves and repeat… BWE1 events were little more interesting yet I was expecting something better from HoT =/

I’d love to talk about conditions balance overall (not only in PvE) so my post will be 50/50 about PvP and PvE, It’s because changing how they work in PvE will affect PvP, and Im sure they NEED changes.

For me, there are more problems with conditions than just low damage:

• stack cap – not as noticable during pvp or dunegons, but surely can feel awkward during large boss battles;
• randomness of condition removal – when you have a skill which removes 1 random condition, it may remove not the one you wanted which is super annoying.

Those two facts makes me lose any interest in conditions overall, and i hope you will agree with that it’s not how it should be. Sadly i dont think we can solve those problems without any major overhaul of conditions.

Also, as for those damaging conditions (those without damage component seems mostly fine for me) – they lack purpose. When i first saw condition mechanics in GW2 i felt it was cool. Take confusion for example: when an enemy applies it to you, you are given a choice – to fight back and take some damage in the process, or to fall back and wait (cleanse) for confusion to end. In reality you have no choice. During fight with condition mesmer you will have constant confusion on you. You can continue fight like that, or wait for the enemy to finish you. Without any condition cleanse you have no way do deal with increasing amount of condition stack. This leads to conclusion that there are TOO MANY conditions skills in the game. When you are under constant pressure of condition damage, you have no real choice to make.

Same goes for buffs. Why does we have full dmg berserk meta in pve? Because there is no need for any tank (it’s even hard to be a tank without any aggro mechanism or ability to distract enemy bosses thanks to defiance) nor there is need for supports, when a team of 5 berserks can do just fine with some fire fields and blast finishers. There are TOO MANY boons available to certain professions and builds, that shouldnt be there.

So is there anyone that know in what language is that? And why is it in our clients anyway!?

We are closer to the China GW2 than you think!

P.S. I’m playing on EU servers.

And by balance i mean not only proffesion balance. There is a lot to do with PvE and even some core mechanics, like conditions, should be looked at. This game would be much more enjoyable if it were more balanced.
As for end game, I’d love to do some world bosses or dungeons if they only presented any challenge beside mindless stacking. It’s like two years and we got only two boss fights that require a little more than just standing there and hitting that boss. Do we have to wait another year for third boss?

After seeing how many topics in this sub-forum were left and forgotten by Anet, i don’t want to create yet another discussion. Instead, i want to hear an answer from Anet about state of conditions in GW2: are they healthy for gameplay in their current form? As a core mechanic in GW2, has Anet ever been thinking about reworking them (possibly to make them more suited for job they were intended to do, instead of just raw damage like it is now)? Do you plan on fixing those obvious bad-things about conditions, like 25-stack-cap?

I’d love to actually discuss about conditions, but only if Anet will participate in this discussion. And by discussion i mean not only Anet reading our feedback, but also us reading Anet opinion.

I’d realle love to hear form Anet, what they think about current state of condition damage.

I also see condition damage as a major problem. Trying to do some further balances without reworking conditions (hi Ranger), will probably fail as it is a core mechanics of GW2 combat, and everything is balanced around its current state. What does ArenaNet think about this? I’m bumping this thread because it has already a nice sum up of the whole problem.