Guild Wars 2

For any class you either like playing it or you dont.
You cant like a class and hate it at the same time.
All classes are in some way a compromise in order to try and achieve balance, so ultimately you also have to compromise on what you expect.
I play the Engineer because its a fun class to play.
I know it doesnt have the hitting power of many of the other classes, but since the whole point of playing games is for fun, who cares.

An option to remove visual clutter caused by flashy stuff defeats the purpose of having it , which is primarily “look at me and my flashy stuff.”
If this can be turned off then theres little point in having it.
Im not a real fan either, but the reality is that flashy stuff pays the bills for Anet.

This post has attracted 6 replies.
When a couple of hundred thousand people start asking for a Linux client, then Anet may just start to listen.

WOW has no equivalent to vistas.
Flying mounts would instantly make vistas worthless as there would be no effort required to get them.
They would also destroy all the mastery points in HOT that require climbing to get them.
Bouncing mushrooms are instantly obsolete.

It wont be simply because its an extremely risky thing to do, and extremely time consuming, and thats mainly because Anet has no idea what kind of PCs people are using to play it, or what type of Internet connection they have or what speed they get.
You risk alienating a large component of your player base doing something like this.
A good example is to look at the specs required to play WOW, which are XP or better and DX9 or better, and its been like that since the game was first released.

Fishing is extremely easy to create a bot for, and its hard to differentiate between fishing bots and players fishing, so unless the fishing doesnt really provide anything useful, in which case not many people would do it , its more trouble than its worth.
Mainly the enforcing of players complaining about fishing bots.

Adding a midi interface so that you could use keyboards would really help.
The semitones also need to be added asap.

Are there any guidelines as to how these merchants work?
There seems to be 2 types.
Type 1 seems to be a personal merchant which can only be used by the player who spawns it , and Type 2 which can be used by any nearby players.
They look identical, but if someone spawns the personal type it prevents anyone else from spawning the type that anyone can use.
If you try, you get an error message that this item cannot be used here.
Is this intentional design or just a bug?

MMOs also arnt designed to just keep pleasing the original players, but simply to maintain a sufficient player base to generate enough revenue to keep the game going.
So as long as there are a similar number of new players entering the game as there are original players leaving the game its all OK.
Eventually, everyone gets bored of an MMO and moves on.

All MMOs must have time consuming activities so that players take a long time to go thru the content, as its simply impossible to make new content as fast as players go thru the content.
If you remove the heart type quests, then something has to replace them that achieves the same goal, ie keeps players in a particular zone for the same fixed amount of time.
If this is done with dynamic events, then there must be some mechanism that allows players to know where the events start and when .
Doing anything that reduces the need for players to participate in a particular type of content simply means that the player more quickly runs out of things to do, and thus complains about the lack of content .

Theres a fundamental limit on where any MMO can go.
Essentially all MMOs rely on punching buttons on keyboards and moving a mouse around whilst looking at pixels on a screen.
You can either have a game with levels which keep going up forever, aka WOW, or something with a level cap like GW2.
Apart from that , theres not much else that can be played around with that makes your MMO all that differant from anyone elses.
You need a world where players can wander around in , and monsters for players to kill and thats about it.

What actually is the definition of “grinding.”
eg I spend a lot of my game time making money on the TP.
Is this grinding?

Theres lots of things in MMOs that people cant stand, and thats simply because no MMO design will ever please everyone.
But a common type claim thats made a lot is
I want “this” and I want to get it by doing “that.”
If I cant get “this” my way the game is broken and should be fixed.
All this means is that this game is not for you, and you should find another game that meets your requirements.

Its just human nature.
Everyone wants to be successful, and if you cant do that in RL, then you can do it in a MMO.
The obvious fallacy is that no matter what you get for yourself in an MMO, its not yours.
Its always the game companies, and when you leave the game all that you think you have acquired in the game is 100% lost.
And this is part of the reason that some people are reluctant to leave MMOs because of all the time that they have “invested” in the game.

It really depends on the differance between grind and play.
Some grind is needed in any MMO as its simply not possible to make new content as fast as players can go thru new content, so there has to be some element of repeatability.
If players only did what they liked in an MMO, they would get to the end really quickly and then complain that theres nothing left do.
Its even harder in a game with a fixed level cap, as there still has to be some incentive for players to stay even though they cant get better stuff.
Ive often wondered why levels are needed at all, as most MMO players seem only interested in playing the "end game ", whatever that means , so why not just have the entire game as the “end game”.

Its been going on for years, not a recent thing.
Stand away from the chest and place your mouse cursor near the top of the chest and left click which brings up the name of the chest.
You can now move closer to the chest and the F key will now open the chest regardless of merchants.

Would you be happier if Anet removed the ability to buy gold with RL money and instead charged everyone a monthly sub to make up for the lost revenue?
That way, legendaries could still be sold on the TP, but people would have to work in game to raise the gold to buy them.
F2P games arnt free, the running costs of the game have to be paid for somehow.

If the idea behind making Legendary weapons hard to obtain is via making game content extremely hard, then they should NOT be sellable on the TP.
And theres a huge differance between JPs and other game content in that with all other game content , you can ask other people to help you, but thats not possible with Chalice of Tears.

Struggling thru this episode and so far not fun at all.
2 basic problems.
1/ Not everyone can do puzzles.
2/ Not everyone can fight mega powerful monsters.
The one size fits all mentality simply doesnt work.
Provide some alternatives for players who
1/ Arnt good at solving puzzles.
2/ Arnt good at fighting mega powerful monsters.
When MMOs have no fun component left in them , there no point playing.

If there is nothing to do, then why are you logging on?

There are some really good, but difficult jumping puzzles in the game.
Retrospective Runaround in the Silverwastes is one where the jumping bit isnt the main part, but figuring out where to go next is .
Goems Lab in Metrica Province is also pretty good but also hard, but its doable by most players, but you need stability.
As for the rewards bit , I play the game for the enjoyment of playing, not to get a reward, so Im not fussed if the rewards dont match the difficulty.
Possibly a solution to the reward problem would be to allow players to obtain mastery points for more JPs than there currently are.
The only major change to the JPs that I think is needed, is to actually advertise that they actually exist, as for people who come here from other MMOs ,theres simply no indication that there are any JPs in the game , or even what a JP is, as most other MMOs dont have them.
Nothing more needed than simply a message appears as you wander around a zone saying something like Jumping Puzzle nearby.

Id far prefer a sniper rifle, 5000 range.
They are already in the game , but are situational, ie you cant take the rifle with you.
Or a Charr machine gun , also already in the game .

Normally to attack the North Octovine , you have to spray the tendrils with the herbicide spray that you get from the kit near the Priory NPC.
The spray no longer works, and wont remove the tendrils.
Some players have figured out work arounds including directly DPSs the tendrils or by setting up turrets inside the tendrils, but its very confusing for new players.

If you come here from WOW, then try and understand that this game is nothing like WOW, and if you try and play it like you played WOW you wont be happy.
To this end Id create a character that has no WOW equivalent.
Something like a Mesmer or Engineer , and pick a race that has a good starting location like an Asura or Sylvari.
Also try the content that isnt in WOW, like the personal stories or the jumping puzzles, although lots of players dont like them , but they are differant , and some are extremely hard, but gives you something to work at.

Most unsellable items that players would like to sell are items that are of little use to them, which also means that they are of little use to anyone else either, so making them tradeable simply floods the market with more junk items, which very few players will buy.
If you make them sellable to vendors, then you rapidly increase the gold supply into the game , which then means additional gold sinks have to introduced to stop inflation occurring.
Balancing an MMO economy is a very tuff job, and this game is one of the best so far.

The entire point of DDOS attacks is that they are extremely hard to fix.
No point blaming Anet for something thats totally outside their control.
Why dont you blame the people doing the attacking.

DDOS attacks dont need any kind of account.
The attacking computers in the botnet simply bombard the game servers with useless data which overloads the server and overloads the network connections to them.
The attacks are extremely hard to combat.
Its simply an unfortunate downside of the way the Internet is designed.

The way to get the Nebo terrace event to succeed is to man the 3 trebuchets around the walls of the village, with players who know how to fire them.
They have very high AOE which is needed to take out the large groups of centaurs.
The centaurs will climb the towers the trebuchets are on after a while, so 3 players at least need to be assigned to guard the player who is doing the firing.
Sometimes the trebuchets are broken and they have to be fixed which is done by completing an escort quest which starts at the small camp near Stoneguard Gate Waypoint.

Thanks for all the help .
I finally got thru this puzzle.
More like an exercise in mega trial and error.
I finally worked out how to get the Skritt NPC to port me back to the last place in the puzzle, and if Anet would simply tell you up front that this NPC existed and where to find him, it would have made the entire exercise much less frustrating.

You have a lot of the settings on high which will kill the frame rates.
Try using the Autodetect or the Best Performance in Video options.

Would you be happier if the entire game was automatically played for you, as you seem to dislike the hassle of moving a mouse around and pushing buttons.

Thanks all.
Ive been right thru to the end , but its very slow for me as I have mildly crippled hands, so jumping is a slow process.
Even though I got to the end, because I missed some waypoints, and I dont know which ones, I coudnt open the chest that has the dousing rod in it , so had to go back to the start and try again.
2nd time I got about 3/4 of the way and fell to my death so only option was to go back to the start and try again, and this is when I learnt about the Skritt who will port you for a fee, but wont talk to me.
It takes me about 4 hours to get thru this puzzle, and Im really hoping I can avoid some of it.
Ive put in a support ticket, so hope the Devs have a fix.

There are many weapons in the game for which there are no skins at all.
eg Engineers Flame Throwers,Elixir gun, Mortar.
Im not that familiar with the other classes so there may be more, but Id pay heaps for skins for the above, even if they are only available from the gem store.

I got about 3/4 of the way thru this puzzle and then fell, so only option was to port back to the start where there is a Skritt called Kit who will for a fee port you to the last Milestone that you reached.
But he wont talk to me , other than saying mindless skritt things like what,what,what.
Anyone know what has to be done to give him money?

Its simply not possible to make a loot table that drops lots of stuff thats worth a lot on the TP.
The value of items on the TP is proportional to their scarcity, so increasing the drop rate of anything instantly makes that item worth less on the TP.
Balancing drop rates of common vs rare items is a difficult task, and this game does it fairly well.
If everyone is given stuff thats worth a lot, then the stuff is instantly worthless.

With any kind of loot system there are only 2 possible outcomes.
One is a loot system where everyone can get everything, which then means little incentive to try harder, or a loot system where some players always have better stuff than other players, no matter how hard the other players try.
GW2 currently has the 2nd option.
Which would you prefer.
No amount of fiddling the loot tables can change these outcomes.

So maybe the best solution is to abolish loot altogether.
That would solve the excessive problem in the OP, and would also solve the unenjoyable problem.
Why is everyone so obsessed with loot anyway?

Buying and reselling goods on the TP does not cause inflation.
In fact it does the very opposite, as for every item bought and resold, 15% of the items value in gold is removed from the game.
In any MMO economy, and GW2 is no differant, there is always a price premium for wanting something now , as distinct from being prepared to wait a while for the same item.
This is why there is always a price differance between items being sold now, and the price for ordering the same item.
Unfortunately, too many people think the TP is more like a bargain basement shop where everything should be mega cheap.

This is more of a technical question than anything else.
Are there any MMOs where the game content can be altered in real time .
ie no need for anyone to have to log off , and then log on again when there is a game upgrade?

The Gem / Gold exchange rate does help to prevent in game inflation, but its not the only mechanism, nor the main one.
The biggest stabiliser on ingame inflation is the TP, thanks to its 5% listing fee and 10% selling fee.
Everytime something gets sold on the TP, gold equal to 15% of the sale price instantly vanishes from the game economy.
The biggest source of inflation is vendors, who buy all your junk items and give you gold in return.
Id like to see the vendor economic model altered a bit , so if a particular vendor has bought lots of junk items recently, the price you then get for junk items slowly goes down till it hits zero.
The prices reset the next day.
You could then choose to take a hit on selling your junk, or find another vendor who hasnt bought much .
Vendors located in remote faraway places would buy junk items at higher prices than those in populated areas like the cities.

Still seems to be a misunderstanding of the concept of buying gold.
You cant buy gold directly with RL money.
You can only buy gems and then exchange them for gold.
The gold that is being exchanged is already in the game, and buying it doesnt add to the total amount already there.
Also I can see no correlation at all in someone having lots of gold = being dedicated to the game .
Some players keep their gold , others spend it as fast as they get it.
Both can be equally dedicated to the game .
Likewise theres no correlation between players who have a dozen legendary weapons and players who have none.
Some players like crafting and others dont.

Well if you dont like the game as it is , then LEAVE.

Anet doesnt sell gold, they only sell gems.
The gem to gold exchange feature in the game and the exchange rate is set by the players and any gold you get from exchanging gems is coming from other players.

Id like a class that exists for some other reason than just killing monsters over and over.
Something like an explorer class.
Has lots of skills useful for finding stuff in the game, but has no offensive capability at all, and minimal defensive capability.
One of the skills would be bribery, which would allow an explorer to bribe enemy NPCs to not attack you for a short time.
Another skill would be puzzle solving which would allow the explorer to get to locations much easier than other classes.

Exciting loot generally means loot thats better than what I currently get.
The problem with this is that all that happens is that the loot table just gets pushed up.
Rares become the new masterworks, Exotics become rares etc simply because as they get dropped more often, they flood the economy and the value of them falls due to increased supply, so this doesnt achieve anything.
The only other option is to have a loot system where monsters dont drop anything, unless its the ultra rare item thats being farmed.
Most MMO players dont like the concept of getting nothing for long periods of time when farming, so thats why the game gives you something even if its junk.
At least you can vendor the junk, so you get something even if its not much.
Another possible solution is to provide another method for getting rare items that doesnt involve the RNG, and thats to guarantee that you get the rare item by doing a predefined set of tasks in the game that still takes just as long as the RNG grind , but guarantees success at the end.
Id prefer this kind of method over the RNG method.

MMOs need to have grind, simply to keep the players doing something, even if its boring.
If players could get whatever they wanted without grind, then everyone would have a legendary weapon, which means they are no longer legendary.
If everyone in the game has everything, then the game is also boring as there is no incentive to do anything.

Bad idea.
Vendors create gold out of thin air which creates inflation in the game unless there are measures to sink the gold thats created.
The main gold sink is the TP and its sinks gold pretty well with the selling fees.
If a new class of items is added to the game which can be vendored, then new gold sinks have to be added to keep the economy balanced, which most players wont like.
Bloodstone dust can be consumed by Herta which does provide small rewards in the form of rare or masterwork items, plus some aurillium.

Ive got about 250 MF and I mainly do the AB meta.
The stuff you get from the chests doesnt change, but I salvage all the greens and blues and that does change, in that I get more upmarket leather and more upmarket wood which sells pretty well on the TP.
Im using a silver salvager which shoudnt have any effect on greens and blues.

Theres very little inflation in this game, mainly due to the TP sucking gold out of the game everytime something is sold.
Its an extremely effective method and works very well.
Very high prices for a small number of items is not inflation.
Inflation drives up the prices of everything.

Theres no sure fire fix for this sort of problem, other than changing ISP or using a 3rd party VPN provider, but the problem is that neither will guarantee what improvement you will get.
The reality of physics is that to get from Australia to the US and back, your connection goes thru a lot of routers and a long undersea cable, all of which adds latency, and latency is the killer of any MMO.