Guild Wars 2

Best part: a very large open world.

Worst part: a very large open world with no significance.

Example #1: Despite the megaserver, what reason do I have, as a player, to revisit areas like Dredgehaunt Cliffs when anything that I need from there I can buy from TP?

Example #2: What is the point of having to go around gathering materials/ingredients when you can buy the final product off TP for about the same amount of gold as the total of the materials, or even cheaper? There is no gold value at all equated to the process of creation/leveling the profession or the effort.

Example #3: In what universe of logic would a Tier 3 or Tier 5 material be much more expensive in TP than a Tier 6 material? This is currently the case with fabrics and leathers.

Just report them for “Selling Gold”.

If enough people do this, Anet might actually look at the issue of players selling/getting hacked to sell good.

Doesn’t solve your problem, but… wouldn’t you be happy to have helped solve another? =p

Instead of speculating all these things, why don’t you all just wait for 1st of July? Its only like 12 days from now.

If no new content = failed development. Period. No more excuses. Move on to next game.

If awesome great new content = everybody happy.

That doesnt sound so legendary anymore!

I do think that some options would be good.

I do respect people with a lot of AP, considering how hard to get more after reaching a certain point, and I cant imagine from where else can some people can get like 23K AP – it shows that they really played all the contents of the game(?) and must have no life lol.

Since achievements like Ultimate Dominator requires 250,000 wvw kills which if I calculate from own rate will probably take forever (even assuming you kill 1000 people a day, thats still 250 days). That must require some admirable dedication and they deserve it.

Also those with dragon finishers already.

The… only… necros… and… mesmers… that… are… really… threatening… are… the… power… ones.

Roe.3679:

projectcedric.6951:

I’ve decided to join the people who immediately afk when this map comes up. Don’t care if it ruins 4 other peoples game. Could use the 5 minutes having better entertainment doing something else.

This is why it should be removed. Not because anything is wrong with the map, but because some people are such babies about it that they ruin other people’s experiences.

I don’t have strong feelings about the map either way, good teams generally still win and cheese doesn’t take people as far as others seem to think, but I fear this map because I don’t want someone to ruin my time by giving up immediately.

wtf LOL.

Why should I force myself to play something (especially a game that I paid for for entertainment, no less) in a map that I seriously hate playing just for the sake of other people’s experience?

Am I some kind of masochist whom these “players” are paying to make their gw2 experience wholesome?

Terrorsquad.2349:

projectcedric.6951:

For me, the problem with thieves is not that they are OP when they are alive. Sure they are somewhat op but there are ways here and there to counter them(but means youll be weak against other classes).

Rather its their capacity to stay invi for a very long time when they are down. For mesmers, its quite reasonable. Its like 50/50 they have a chance to get away and quite irritating to finish, but still alright. Some thieves i’ve played against can go invi until they can completely resurrect themselves. So that’s not fair in many ways.

They have 3 seconds invisibility on downed state. Just keep dps’ing around

It goes something like: stealth just before downed (+ remove 3 condi on stealth + 1 sec more from traits) then stealth skill plus down so that’s about 8 seconds. Then stealth again upon ressing himself.

And yes, im pretty sure there was only 2 of us.

*something of this sort. At the very least some can heal up to like 90%~ before losing stealth, and of course i wouldn’t know where he would be and he could just teleport to somewhere relatively away while stealthed/downed. So by the time I could reach him to dps he had healed completely and stealthed away again.

Yea, he could have been just really skilled, but even so, you can only rely on a lot of luck to counter that.

In comparison, other classes downed state skills are so pretty much useless: necro (fear only one foe then what?), warrior (resurrect but gonna be confirmed dead anyway), ele (vapor form to annoy finishers just for a couple of minutes), guard (push nearby foes once and then what again?)… with the exception of maybe the mesmer and the ranger who has an awesome pet heal.

For me, the problem with thieves is not that they are OP when they are alive. Sure they are somewhat op but there are ways here and there to counter them(but means youll be weak against other classes).

Rather its their capacity to stay invi for a very long time when they are down. For mesmers, its quite reasonable. Its like 50/50 they have a chance to get away and quite irritating to finish, but still alright. Some thieves i’ve played against can go invi until they can completely resurrect themselves. So that’s not fair in many ways.

I’ve decided to join the people who immediately afk when this map comes up. Don’t care if it ruins 4 other peoples game. Could use the 5 minutes having better entertainment doing something else.

Most stuffs sound legit, but…

Can you explain number #6? Its contradicting with #2.

’#11 is a little bit too late (like 15 months) but better than never, I guess.

Its partially reasonable actually.

Although it tells me more about you(that you are prone to impulsive actions in the face of frustration) than the game itself… one of the main point of games is the sort of psychological security with the structure of game play, despite any difficulty.

What I mean is that players can think “if I do this thing and overcome this challenge this way, I will be rewarded this way”, and this is one of the prime value of games as some sort of escapist entertainment away from reality.

You change things once or twice, its okay. You change it 1000 times and this structure is destroyed. It becomes pretty much like reality where a lot of things are not certain – tomorrow the rules, the situation may change. And so whats the purpose of playing games if that’s the case.

This doesn’t mean that those in control should not change things in the name of balance. It just means that they have to be very careful of what to decide when designing/changing so as not to change 1000 times.

UnitedChaos.8364:

Leading everyone back on subject, I would like to share my point of view since I didn’t in the initial post. I know everyone’s going to be like “let’s take that one step further and remove armor” just stop…. I’ve heard enough of it. Yes, we could take it that step further; but just go troll elsewhere.

-Is it really adding to your overall experience?
Absolutely not. I find having to open the trade post, buy the one or two F&N I use all the time, run to the trade post to get them, and double clicking them not fun at all. In fact I find it rather tedious and pretty boring.

-Does it make things too easy?
Anything that increases your stats makes things easier. Too easy? Not really, but definitely easier.

-Do I always use it? Why?
Yes, if I can be better why not? Albeit tedious.

-Do I usually win 1v1 fights against those who don’t use it?
Yup, I feel more confident going into battle with say additional health regeneration with a rangers already 1.3k hp regeneration build. Although it’s probably just my skill level over the F&N really contributing to my win. It’s definitely a placebo effect.

-Do I craft my own for fun? Or just buy it off the TP?
Nope, I’ll just buy of the tp. I spent the 10s for several hours of unskillful buffs.

-Do I offer it to other people when I see them without it? Why?
Yup, a ranger running spotter (+150 precision to all allies) is great; but if I can give an addition +x to allies for 5c, why not? It’s pretty painful to see people playing high level fractals requiring “experience players only” not running F&N and dying, and then see them do fine with F&N after use.

---

I’d like to thank everyone for being relatively civil so far and for the very interesting, thoughtful posts.

Well… based on everyone’s answers, its safe to say at least that your opinion over the matter is of the minority, aint it?

Although of course 10 or so people isn’t exactly a reliable statistical population.

nethykins.7986:

lol, @ reading =/= playing content.

Anyhow….so how does this work for new gamers starting up well after the LS2? will they just have a stack of gold they’ll have to gain to see the older content, or have to cough up dough?
What incentive will there be for those new players to even purchase it?

Isn’t it the prerogative of older players (at that point) to have played older content for free?

After all, if you paid them 60 dollars now and they invested that money in something, one year later it is worth more than that 60 dollars. Why shouldn’t it be the same the way the other way around?

Why should I, if I were the developer, care more about the players that are gonna give me 60 dollars in the future than the ones who have given me or are giving me 60 dollars now?

That time differential in the values of the 60 dollars we pay now and 2 years later equals the privileges that older/persistent players have in the game.

(This is of course besides the fact that philosophically speaking, players who have played longer and more persistently regardless of personal reasons, should, by virtue, be rewarded more)

So by your logic of buying future developments with initial purchase, it should be expected that the whole GW2 staff should be working for your free for the rest of their lives?

The fact that they are providing LS content outside initial purchase for free (it is free!) is already breaking the limits of economic reality, and one would assume that at some point they’re going to start realizing that they actually need money to go on.

For your information, console games also cost around 60 bucks for initial purchase. Until the recent online systems of Xbox and PS, there is no way at all that the companies will even fix bugs/update your game after your purchase. What you get when you bought the game – faulty game or not- is all you get.

Even until now, most DLC post-box sales are still not free.

You play other mmorpgs -F2P and P2P alike- and you’ll realize how we GW2 players are actually being very, very spoiled.

Thaddeus.4891:

Exactly. Its an ugly idea, and I can only find other ugly idea. Its hard to make personal survivability meaningful in a group settings except if its for tanking. DPS, Support and CC is suppose to be the GW2 trinity, and all those help a group. But survivability don’t. It only help the player that run it and is only useful if the content is hard enough. But it doesn’t change anything if we get the content harder. More ppl will need survivability if content is harder, but there will always be ppl good enough to play without it. You can move the bar, but its will still be there and the optimal way of playing will still be without survivability gear, the optimal will only be harder to reach. That’s all.

Lol. I KNOW, I KNOW.

Yeah ok, maybe something like this:

Xenon.4537:

That is a pretty ugly idea. I would rather they add a secondary effect to toughness and vitality which increases the chances of taking aggro by a % per point. Say someone with over 3k toughness would have a 75% higher chance of gaining boss aggro within a certain range.

Edit: but before any of that, I would rather they overhaul the defiant system to allow CC builds to be more viable. The idea of control, support, damage in GW2 suggests that someone could effectively tank by keeping the boss locked down with stuns and immobilize. But of course that’s not really possible by a single person right now.

But hey, its not our job to think creatively about it.

Consider that if we can even come up with an ugly idea and a not-so-bad idea, my point is that its possible and it should be done. They (devs/game designer) should be the ones thinking creatively about it.

Xenon.4537:

I’m pretty sure phantasm mesmer with reflects is the top mesmer build for dungeons right now… If you have a better build for dungeons, I’m all ears.

Like with the case with the guardian, I’m not comparing it with the support mesmer. I’m comparing it with other builds (including other classes) that are full dps.

Anyway, this point is moot now, as we have already progressed much down the conversation.

Thaddeus.4891:

Also, if you can come up with a good way to make toughness and vitality the best way to go in a game. Tell me, i never found one.

One way is to revert back to the Trinity System. Here, toughness and vitality is crucial for the tank, which is crucial for the DPS to do his job.

But we don’t want that do we?

So, there could be other options even given GW2 system. For example, maybe part of killing a dungeon boss is that for a set period of time, the boss is invulnerable, and that everyone in the room is dealt with some condition damage they cannot evade. If the whole party is wiped, the boss will go back to full health and party cannot proceed any further. So there must be at least one person with enough vitality to withstand it.

Its a very ugly idea, I know. But what I’m saying is that, there are ways in which combat-centric gameplay can be designed so that build diversity becomes crucial in high level end game, EVEN IF in the end its still DPS that does the final job.

Thaddeus.4891:

A good group composition will try to get 25 stack of vulnerability, 25 stack of might, constant fury, blind, aegis, reflect, weakness, protection and a good amount of stats increase like banner, EA, spotter, frost spirit, etc. Maybe not all of those, all the time in all situation. But you want to bring the utilities that are best in some situation. DPS is the main focus and even those support are there only to bring the overall DPS of the group up. But to think that meta is only ZERKER, DPS, STACKING, FGS is totally wrong.

Why?

As long as it means that to be able to optimize the DPS, support builds have a significance too, I think its okay. I don’t think there is an alternative to this approach especially that the game we are playing revolves around combat – in the end its still about dealing and taking damage.

What I find wrong is that when the statement “zerk/dps is king” means that literally the only build that is significant is a full dps build.

Thaddeus.4891:

projectcedric.6951:

Yeah it only make sense that the trade off in armor is only between dps and survivability, after all we only have five primary stats – 3 of them to dps, 2 to survivability.

The question though is what do you do with that survivability? Zerk is optimal because, yes you can survive a little bit longer with toughness-vitality, but then so what?

This is also the point where game mechanics fundamentally has to change, because many things in game don’t put so much significance on that minute difference in survivability.

I think that part of the game is ok. Toughness and Vitality are there for
1) Learning the game. So much stuff you need to learn when you start the game, having some passive survivability will free up you focus to learn the games mechanics and the encounter. (Also go for veteran players in new hard content, that don’t really exist right now )
2) For player that are less good. And I’m not saying that in a bad way. Player that play not enough to develop the skills, player that are just casual enjoy the game and having fun, etc.

And that’s good. Now where its less good is for
Support : Like i said, its stupid right now. 1% per piece if i remember, with the other 2 stats being useless.
Healing power : It a hard balancing. You don’t want it to be too powerfull for not getting back to having a healer, but right not is so useless because of the so bad scaling.
No gear diversity : Only zerker is good right now, which is a shame. Its not build diversity because most profession have several ways to reach a good build. But ppl only see zerker. ‘’OMG there is only zerker that’s is good that’s bad’’. If they could bring a bit more diversity into gear (making condi useful in party, boons duration, condition duration, etc.), that would at least change a bit the situation.

This makes it sounds more like toughness and vitality has no place in higher level end game, and that is why its not ok because… (fast forward to your point about no gear diversity)… its exactly the reason why there is no gear diversity, because there is no significance to toughness and vitality in higher level end game, as much as dps is significant.

Thaddeus.4891:

And now you reach the balance between DPS and good support

The full DPS guardian can still give as much blind as a more support guardian. He can also give some aegis and reflect, just not as much.

I’m talking about good support, because they help to have a better run. Reflect is really powerfull, since it allow you to reflect projectile back to the boss so that,s more dmg and you protect your team that can melee the boss, not waste dps by dodge too much, keep you party alive and keep your party at 90%+ hp for the runes of scholar. Same thing with blind and aegis. You can stack more ennemies at the same time with those, giving you the ability to attack more mobs at the same time for a faster run. In dungeon like CoF or CoE, the need for more support is limited, but in dungeon like SE, CM or Arah, more support will allow you for a better, faster run than if you would bring the minimum support you can.

DPS is king, but even the king need a court to help him reign. The meta is not about maximizing DPS and only DPS. Its about giving the best build possible. On the guardian, there is a hammer meta build so you can give perma protection to your team. That’s not the best DPS the guardian can give, but it allow you group to fight in melee some of the toughness boss in the game, so increasing the total dmg of the party.

So from this its safe to say that (even in PvE) its no longer true that “DPS (hence zerk) is king”?

That’s some very deep explanation you give in the last paragraph that I appreciate, but it also means that actually, even though in the end its still the damage output that matters, there are certain ways to increase the total optimal damage output by not going for the best DPS build for one individual (in this case the semi support guardian). Am I right?

If so, this changes things, because now the statement “the game still rely too much on zerk/dps” has a different meaning.

Thaddeus.4891:

projectcedric.6951:

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

Xenon.4537:

projectcedric.6951:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

He’s referring to something like a zerker guard who can still apply reflect wall, aegis, and protection. Or a zerk mesmer who can perma reflect (assuming the kitten warden doesn’t bug out). These builds can be great in dungeons. Spvp is a different story.

Hmmm… are those efficient builds when it comes to dps? They sound very karate-middle to me.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292

we have builds for every single class

No, what I meant is that would a zerk guard provide the optimal DPS relative to say a zerk warrior and STILL be able to provide all those aegis/reflect?

Im more inclined to think that because he is able to do something (CC etc) he should sacrifice a little bit for DPS.

But that’s only true for armor and weapons. A Zerk guardian have to sacrifice a bit of dps to bring more support.

4/6/2/0/2 is a more DPS oriented guardian build with Unscathed Contender. But you can go 4/6/2/2 for more Aegis and stability. You can change Unscathed Contender (dmg) for master of consecration (support).

A full DPS warrior will have a particular build, but right now, most of the time that warrior will sacrifice a bit of personal DPS in order to bring EA, 2 Banners, etc. Or a phalanx warrior will also sacrifice DPS to give more might to the party.

So there is already a tradeoff to choose. The problem is that tradeoff come from runes, sigil and trait only. With the armor, the tradeoff is between DPS and Surviability. You can choose a bit of support from your gear with boons duration, but these gear give you so little amount of boons duration that its useless and anyway the 2 other stats are pretty bad. There is no Power/Ferocity/Boons duration gear that you could choose 2-3 piece to gain a good amount of boons duration to be more support. Or a Power/Precision/Condi Duration for a character that could keep 25stacks of vulnerability during longer fight. Its a hard thing to balance and that’s why Anet went for the easy way and gave us 1% boons duration for each piece. Its easy to not break the game if you give useless stuff. Its harder to give good support on gear without breaking the balance and that’s why gear is only a tradeoff between dps and survivability.

That’s a place where they could improve.

Edit :

30/30/0/10/0 GS war – 12.9k dps (dps build)
20/30/10/0/10 gs + sw/f guardian – 12,080DPS (dps build, assumes no unscathed contender which is a 20% damage modifier, so I guess if you throw that in it goes up to like 14.5k)

full DPS guardians lack the extra 15 points in virtues which means they miss out on the second trait, but the master trait tends to not actually matter that much unless the dungeon is condition heavy.

I think guardian with unscathed contender, the overall dps would be more like 13-13.5k dps, since you won’t have aegis all the time. I guess you could have about 14k for some boss fight if you have a good managing of your blind and your focus block to keep your aegis on most of the fight, but still. 14.5k would only be the theoretical maximum.

Yeah it only make sense that the trade off in armor is only between dps and survivability, after all we only have five primary stats – 3 of them to dps, 2 to survivability.

The question though is what do you do with that survivability? Zerk is optimal because, yes you can survive a little bit longer with toughness-vitality, but then so what?

This is also the point where game mechanics fundamentally has to change, because many things in game don’t put so much significance on that minute difference in survivability.

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

Xenon.4537:

projectcedric.6951:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

He’s referring to something like a zerker guard who can still apply reflect wall, aegis, and protection. Or a zerk mesmer who can perma reflect (assuming the kitten warden doesn’t bug out). These builds can be great in dungeons. Spvp is a different story.

Hmmm… are those efficient builds when it comes to dps? They sound very karate-middle to me.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292

we have builds for every single class

No, what I meant is that would a zerk guard provide the optimal DPS relative to say a zerk warrior and STILL be able to provide all those aegis/reflect?

Im more inclined to think that because he is able to do something (CC etc) he should sacrifice a little bit for DPS.

the difference between the “support” warrior and full dps warrior builds are around ~600DPS, the difference between full DPS guardians and “support” guardian is around that benchmark too.

What about the difference between full DPS guardians and full DPS warriors?

And can the full DPS guardians still do those things (protect aegis reflect)?

30/30/0/10/0 GS war – 12.9k dps (dps build)
20/30/10/0/10 gs + sw/f guardian – 12,080DPS (dps build, assumes no unscathed contender which is a 20% damage modifier, so I guess if you throw that in it goes up to like 14.5k)

full DPS guardians lack the extra 15 points in virtues which means they miss out on the second trait, but the master trait tends to not actually matter that much unless the dungeon is condition heavy.

I suppose that means full DPS guardians = no protect aegis reflect?

If so, what this basically means (and what I’m trying to say) is that full dps guardian can go on par with full dps warrior, but in order for him to be able to do something else like CC, protect, reflect whatever, he will have to give up some of that DPS.

And since in pve, dps is king, whats the point of that? If you’re running a zerk build, you might as well go full dps, no protect whatever.

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

Xenon.4537:

projectcedric.6951:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

He’s referring to something like a zerker guard who can still apply reflect wall, aegis, and protection. Or a zerk mesmer who can perma reflect (assuming the kitten warden doesn’t bug out). These builds can be great in dungeons. Spvp is a different story.

Hmmm… are those efficient builds when it comes to dps? They sound very karate-middle to me.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292

we have builds for every single class

No, what I meant is that would a zerk guard provide the optimal DPS relative to say a zerk warrior and STILL be able to provide all those aegis/reflect?

Im more inclined to think that because he is able to do something (CC etc) he should sacrifice a little bit for DPS.

the difference between the “support” warrior and full dps warrior builds are around ~600DPS, the difference between full DPS guardians and “support” guardian is around that benchmark too.

What about the difference between full DPS guardians and full DPS warriors?

And can the full DPS guardians still do those things (protect aegis reflect)?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

projectcedric.6951:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

i mention dungeons as an example…. which is pve… cause i was referring to pve

and you start talking about spvp… we have a bit of a disconnect here

yes, in spvp things are very different. you typically dont have as many people playing glass there as you have running bunkers or conditions or support. it’s not the same environment as pve where “zerker dps is king, everything else need not apply”, and (outside the slight issue with conditions) is (a bit) better balanced than the pve aspect of the game.

I’m not disagreeing the fact that currently DPS is the optimal build in PvE.

Just that whether there is a zerk build that is best in DPS and still able to do other stuffs.

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

Xenon.4537:

projectcedric.6951:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

He’s referring to something like a zerker guard who can still apply reflect wall, aegis, and protection. Or a zerk mesmer who can perma reflect (assuming the kitten warden doesn’t bug out). These builds can be great in dungeons. Spvp is a different story.

Hmmm… are those efficient builds when it comes to dps? They sound very karate-middle to me.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292

we have builds for every single class

No, what I meant is that would a zerk guard provide the optimal DPS relative to say a zerk warrior and STILL be able to provide all those aegis/reflect?

Im more inclined to think that because he is able to do something (CC etc) he should sacrifice a little bit for DPS.

Xenon.4537:

projectcedric.6951:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

He’s referring to something like a zerker guard who can still apply reflect wall, aegis, and protection. Or a zerk mesmer who can perma reflect (assuming the kitten warden doesn’t bug out). These builds can be great in dungeons. Spvp is a different story.

Hmmm… are those efficient builds when it comes to dps? They sound very karate-middle to me.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

Beldin.5498:

Have you ever played Diablo 2 ? Made 100s of Mephisto or Pindle runs at one day ?
Okay you haven’t done it with 100s of other players, but that was totally common in a really really successful game.

So who cares if its bad design in your eyes, when masses of player like it.

Lol oh those were the days. 500 nightmare mephistos for a stone of jordan.

spoj.9672:

Please put dragonite in fractals. :<

Fractals is the only place where you absolutely need ascended gear. All ascended mats should be possible to gain from fractals.

Makes sense.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

projectcedric.6951

Truth is, there are more (fun) ways to farm now.

And this is a bad thing?

No, its a good thing. I especially like the way CS has become active again. And even in CS alone, there are two crowds of farmers -champ trains, and event farmers.

Danikat.8537:

What happened to the Frostgorge train? I’ve been mapping the area on and off over the last week or so and there’s always a train there. It doesn’t seem to be as many people as there were in Queensdale but I put them down to “players” who want to mindlessly farm champions being split between there, Orr and the Pavillion.

The train was disturbed because the 3 champs on the northwest corner became the “trio” and shared one timer.

Also, aside from the Pavillion, there also seems to be some changes with CS that came along with the Megaserver and the recent patch. Scaling events now spawned more mobs and events themselves happen more frequently, almost like the old CS timers (two years ago) when CS was lucrative for farming.

Not to mention that EotM not only has its own champ train, but also gives you badges, empyreal frags and dragonite ore, WvW experience, and bags from player kills.

Truth is, there are more (fun) ways to farm now.

kitten, no.

I would pay 15 dollars subscription to have this UNimplemented if DR is removed for 15 dollars subscription. Its good enough that farmers (those who are still around) are running around doing different things because of DR, even if Anet had to force them to do that.

OP is a good salesman though. I think one step close to being able to sell a refrigerator to an eskimo.

tigirius.9014:

projectcedric.6951:

mrauls.6519:

I don’t think a lot of people realize what financial managers of a company should aim to do. Their goal should be to focus on the investors. The most important ones being those that offer risk capital, a really scarce resource. It’s not just about breaking even or making a little profit.

That being said, I do wish this game was receiving the type of content it should be getting… There should have been an expansion w new dungeons, maps, and a continuation of the personal story. Of course new skins too. This is getting kind of ridiculous

Yeah, but its not really our concern. For players its just the psychological security that the game will still be there, and hence breaking even at least.

In my experience too, cases like Zynga (who’ve struck an oil field) and Blizzard with their empire of games are quite rare, just as rare as prominent companies with big games going bankrupt in such a short notice. Most game companies, big and small, are really just these persistent so-so performers that are breaking even with some considerable profits.

There’s also the tendency of some players to think that the system they are using is both successful and profitable when history has shown otherwise. It keeps being said that the use of DR the focus on TP and the focus on the gold selling isn’t the method used by the most successful game economists but no one is listening to the seasoned players who have been around the block a couple of times and seen entire games go down because of terrible rewards systems and an AH focused rewards system with real money direct purchase ui elements.

No one is denying they need cash that’s not the issue at all, there are both sub only and F2P only games that have had record sales every year without these tactics. What’s really funny is even in games where the STORE is the focus and people complain about the store being the focus the sales are off the scale because the game is actually rewarding in those titles but still maintains the so called dreaded “nickle and diming” system people love to complain about but which receive much better financial support from the community because A: it doesn’t feel like a chore to login and play and B: the goals are actually achieveable and not outrageously lengthy or a second job in itself to achieve.

There are plenty of better ways out there without using extreme RNG and extreme DR measures to harm farmers.

I don’t think this is about the flaws of the game leading to the company not surviving financially, man.

I mean, in another topic, maybe yes. But the things they’re selling us through gems are not even the kind of things that would help us go through the DR, nor has lack of avenue for effective gold farming has got anything to do with trying to sell us cosmetic stuffs.

Its just the kind of thing that, yknow, regardless of the quality of the game, this is just the business model that they decided to go with.

If you played 1000 hours doing nothing but farming Queensdale/FS champ trains and dungeons, you’ll forgive me if I don’t sympathize that you can not get what you want.

Its good that they removed all those brain-cell killing activities, not that its all that much efficient, after Megaserver I realized that CS farming is back and PvP gives about a fair amount of gold as well (and is fun). Besides, Eotm is the new the champ train, hello.

Ouimette.5902:

3. Acquiring gold; Only good way to get gold right now is by doing dungeon. I grew tired of doing them since I felt like a robot each day logging on and then doing daily runs to then log off. It was no excitement in what I was doing, only a daily routine. Sure once in a while I would get an exotic that I could sell for right under 1 gold, but that’s it.

This sounds like this is actually the bad way to get gold right now. An exotic once in a while?? Have you tried Melandru event with 100mf? At least 4-5 yellows there, 5-10 t6 mats, and an exotic every 2 or 3 chains. Not to mention the kittenload of t5, silk, ori and ancient wood from salvage, rare materials from bags… all within 10-15 minutes.

Azrael.4960:

Crystals of one form or another are the staple of fantasy RPGs and since Power and precision obtained a buff, as both improve outgoing damage, then condition damage obviously has to have its own temporary buff to keep it balanced.

How a chocolate chip cookie gives me anything but a sugar rush (or more likely a sugar headache), let alone a boost to my precision and healing, is not logical to me.

But food giving buffs or healing the player is also staple to a lot of rpgs: WoW, Runescape, Ragnarok Online, Maplestory, Elder Scrolls, Atlantica etc. In fact it’s the first thing, along with potions, that comes into mind when one is thinking about “consumables that gives buff to character”.

mrauls.6519:

I don’t think a lot of people realize what financial managers of a company should aim to do. Their goal should be to focus on the investors. The most important ones being those that offer risk capital, a really scarce resource. It’s not just about breaking even or making a little profit.

That being said, I do wish this game was receiving the type of content it should be getting… There should have been an expansion w new dungeons, maps, and a continuation of the personal story. Of course new skins too. This is getting kind of ridiculous

Yeah, but its not really our concern. For players its just the psychological security that the game will still be there, and hence breaking even at least.

In my experience too, cases like Zynga (who’ve struck an oil field) and Blizzard with their empire of games are quite rare, just as rare as prominent companies with big games going bankrupt in such a short notice. Most game companies, big and small, are really just these persistent so-so performers that are breaking even with some considerable profits.

Kirby.1564:

to put the question simple……is GW2 going to die from a lack of income? i came from WOW so a game with no sub fee is strange to me, and i am loving it. that said i worry every day this game will die or gain a sub fee due to lack of funding. that fear has ben reinforced by the you can buy gold with gems posts.

I think it will eventually die, as all thing do. But you can be quite certain as an individual, that will be after you’ve already lost interest and move on to another game.

For as long as there is a major interest in a game, the game itself has a way to survive. Even if Anet goes down financially (for whatever reason), some other company will likely buy the game and publish it themselves. Although there might be some fundamental changes in that they will have to monetize the game in some way (that is not being done by Anet for integrity/philosophical purposes), most likely the game will survive.

A lot of games by companies like NCSoft and Aeria are like this. Even Gravity had a lot of problems with Ragnarok, but the game still went on for years.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Huh, I took it that the OP meant that ANet is running short of cash, given the wording of their post and how they mention that they are ‘hurting’ for cash.

Not to mention Anet trying to make more money than is needed to function on the basic level is needed, as demanded by the investors, as you said. If they didn’t, they’d be shut down. After all, you don’t pump money into a product to see no return on it.

No, there’s a difference between the return of investment and basic resources needed to maintain a game. If you look at the list you provided above, that actually doesn’t require a lot (as another guy put it) in terms of maintenance, relative of course to how much they have earned for box sales.

One would normally assume that the business plan for setting up would have gone something like this: box sales as primary method of income should aim to cover return of investment, running overhead expenses for at least a year and some profit (something like that). Basically, if microtransacations were not intended as the main source of income, they should not be relying on it to survive. (That would be some kind of noob-kitten business decision making.)

It doesn’t seem like it is struggling to the dangerous point either. You’re right about them not telling us how they allocate their manpower, but one thing is for certain: for a company that has only one product line in the market, 300 people is kinda big to maintain.

So either they are on a tight spot financially but the top brass are really caring about their employees to let them go or… they are not on a tight spot financially and a chunk of that workforce are doing something else that is out of our concern. GW2 China maybe. Or maybe GW3.

TheDaiBish.9735:

projectcedric.6951:

GW2 doesnt need $$$. Anet doesn’t need $$$. You’ll be surprised how functional an MMO can be with a skeleton crew.

Their investors demand $$$.

Tell me; what happens when ANet stop making money for the investors?

Not only that, running an MMO requires money:

• Staff
• Servers
• Building and Utilities
• Hardware and Software

You missed my point dude. What OP actually meant is that is GW2 in need of $$$ more than it needs to function, which was probably already taken into consideration with their earnings from our initial purchase?

If not they wouldn’t have been so confident to proceed with a business model that heavily relies on initial purchase. Earnings taken from microtransactions based on cosmetics is more like just milking the cow.

Also, based on the current rate of bug fixing, content development, etc, I have reason to bet that GW2 itself is now running on a skeleton crew, even if Anet is still a pretty huge company.

GW2 doesnt need $$$. Anet doesn’t need $$$. You’ll be surprised how functional an MMO can be with a skeleton crew.

Their investors demand $$$.

Awesome idea!
+1

I don’t think it’s silly at all.

Given that the main point of Legendaries is purely for aesthetic purposes, Its very reasonable to complain about it not serving its purpose when you have invested much time and gold(time) to acquire it.

This is just the kind of half-assery that separates a good game from a top-notch game.

Providing a solution by discriminating against the favorite class is not a solution at all!

This is the same as the lazy “nerf” mentality that has been plaguing Anet all this while.

You have to tweak the mechanics so as to increase the utility and importance of other builds, not to cripple the utility of one build.

In your second post, you clarified that this post is actually about DPS builds rather than Zerker builds more accurately, and that DPS has become synonymous with Zerk.

With that in mind, I personally don’t believe that Zerker is the only and most efficient DPS build anymore. Its just the most straight forward. Necros with optimal builds can pretty much melt lesser mobs nowadays. Also, you’ll seldom see zerker builds in sPvP, and S/S condi warriors can thrive reasonably well in all PvE, WvW and sPvP (but not the best in any one).

When it comes to bosses, the vast amount of health of bosses mitigates any effective difference in DPS from power and from condition damage. In PvE bosses, for me it doesn’t really make that much of a difference what the builds of the individuals in a crowd, just the number of people.

Dungeon bosses are different however, and the problem therein lies not in the type of DPS (power or condition damage) but the lack in usefulness of non-DPS builds. The root of this, I believe, is not in the tweaking of the numbers (as you suggest) but in some fundamentals in combat mechanics of the game, mainly 1.) going away from focus on the Trinity and 2.) that everybody has the capacity to heal himself and others, and has some sort of survivability mechanics (glass cannons arent really very glass cannon in this game)

All that is fine in my opinion, but the fault lies in the lack of combat variation in terms of boss fights. Most boss fights are pretty straight forward -boss deals damage, or summon minions that deal damage, and players deal damage to the boss. So of course DPS is the most effective way to go about it.

But consider this:

For example, in Temple of Grenth where you have to protect Jones (otherwise event will fail), WHAT IF… there are time intervals when the Priest is invulnerable and he will only attack Jones?

Then you will start seeing more people shout “need healers, guardians”.

This is what I meant by variation within combat mechanics – that combat should be designed around not solely on damage exchange. There are so many ways to design it, like maybe part of a dungeon requires players to just go through flame traps (and they have no choice but to take the condition), then people will start to pay attention to buffs, condition removal/reduction etc.

Actually, my qualm with food and consumables is that is seems as though they aren’t well thought out conceptually. It seems as if the designers just went “oh, we have a list of bonus combinations equally spread among the different stats, and then let’s just match them with random food”.

Had it been polished out conceptually, maybe it would have went something like this:

Food heavy on meat – increases power and vitality.

Spicy food – increases Ferocity (since one would tend to be fired up upon consumption of spicy food)

Pumpkin dishes and the likes – increases precision (Vitamin A is good for your eyes)

Fruit delicacies – increases healing (Vitamin C)

Food heavy on herbs – decreases condition duration (more resistance to poison and ailments)

Carbs heavy food like pizzas- increases endurance (stamina) regeneration.

…and so on and so forth. And then…

Sharperning stones – increases weapon damage of melee weapons by a small percentage of base.

Maintenance oils – increases weapon damage of ranged weapons by a small percentage of base.

Tuning crystals – increases weapon damage of magic weapons by a small percentage of base.

…and things like Magic Find, Experience Gain, Gold From Monsters, Karma gain will be solely from Boosts.

But then again, I understand the complexity of designing for massively multiplayer games. MAYBE they did thought it out and decided that other considerations like mechanics are more important than role-play concept.

DeceiverX.8361:

While it’s fair to disagree, and WvW is a coordinated effort…

What define T1 servers and T1 WvW guilds is exactly the opposite of what you’re claiming, too….

And that’s precisely it. A zerg is but a summation of its parts…

There are plenty of people out there who can 1v5 – 1v10 – solo keep/SMC capture, and many of these people actually do. Is their food any more effective than their opponents’? Last I checked, it wasn’t. They win these fights because of their capabilities as individuals. If everyone has food, how is it different from a situation in which everyone has none?

It just seems illogical to market part of a game as PvP when it is balanced by PvE standards, which are way off the mark from sPvP.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for a lot of things that you’ve said here. Mainly because I have never encountered any of your examples, nor any proof given, and that makes them fairly anecdotal for me.

For example, I have never seen someone “1v5 SMC capture”(whatever that means even) and find the idea very improbable. At the very least, skilled players can 1v5 some stragglers or roamers, or escape unscathed from a small group, but to say that there’s “plenty of people out there” that can 1v10 solo keep defies common behavior-not to say maths- in a way that if it is so, we don’t need to be zerging anymore (why dont we just call 10 of these people and ask them each to take one keep, castle and smc?).

There would be some kind of furor among the designers if this was a fairly common thing. Also, I can’t see how having full ascended gears plus food -versus players using even white equipment with no food at all- would give anyone that much of statistical advantage so as to allow them to take a keep against 5-10 people by themselves. Enemies must be sleeping at that point.

(Here, though, I have some semblance of proof at least. If you look at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv96bvxO9ds

…one would realize how already difficult it is to take a flag point 1v5 (and even so he eventually had reinforcements in the ends, he only held out 1v5 for long enough) much so take smc 1v10 as you claim. Please show me a video or a stream of somebody doing so, I’m really interested to see.)

Moreover, you’ll also forgive me if I don’t understand a lot of the things that you’re saying, or at least how they are supposed to be an argument for why food shouldn’t be allowed in WvW. For example…

DeceiverX.8361:

Zergs aren’t so much dominant due to their inherent effectiveness, but because of how effective and reliable they are

…

and…

DeceiverX.8361:

And that’s precisely it. A zerg is but a summation of its parts. If you have a zerg of inadequate players – disorganized with little PvP knowledge and mislead – they rightfully should lose to a heavily-skilled group consisting of but a few. Is it necessary to halt a group of 40 with another group of 40, taking the focus off of a critical capture on another server’s land just to defend a tower from a different invading force? It shouldn’t be, and in many cases, it isn’t.

For the latter, what’s your point? Let’s say that you are right, that it isn’t necessary to halt a group of 40 with another 40 all the time (and not circumstantial), and then so? How does this show that food should be removed from WvW? At the very least I should say that food should help the smaller, heavily-skilled group to take on the bigger zerg, and it would be the fault of the bigger zerg for maybe not eating food. For had it been the other way around, they had more chances of mitigating the fact that they lack skill. In fact, this is an argument for favor of food usage in WvW.

You have however touched on an interesting point in the end:

“Is WvW PvP?”

Personally speaking, I don’t think completely so. And this is because of the way the WvW battle lands are designed compared to sPvP maps. Firstly, in WvW there are both enemy NPC’s and enemy players, and you can even harvest crafting materials. In sPvP, these elements of the game are removed. Secondly, in order to capture a tower in WvW, there are 2 things that hinder you: NPC lords and enemy players. In order to capture a point in sPvP, you have to fight purely other players.

Based on this, we can look at it this way: if sPvP is an aspect of the game that is to closer to “arena” type games and farthest away from role-play, and PvE is the closest to role-play, WvW is the overlap. It is PvE with PvP liberties. In truth, we don’t necessarily have to fight each other for all to benefit, as has been demonstrated by EoTM, but its more fun when we do fight each other.

That being said, normalization of equipment and removal of things like food and nourishment in WvW, which is both PvE and PvP, doesn’t match with the holistic idea of it.

DeceiverX.8361:

A lot of WvW players could honestly care less about food – or what I believe the OP means is consumables (aka food) – in WvW, and many would actually argue that it makes things worse overall and as the OP mentioned, forces ANet into a balance conundrum. WvW players want class balance just as much as sPvP players do. Actually, a lot of WvW players want it even more than sPvP players do, simply because the variety of character builds is so far beyond that of sPvP simply due to the mechanics of sPvP restricting all sorts of forms of play, stat distribution, etc. That said, it’s pretty hard to balance stat sets when you have things like +/- 40% condition duration food being a semi-requirement for all players in WvW, regardless of their build. This alone has led to massive, unresolved disputes regarding condition build potency at certain stages of the game and in various environments.

What I think the better solution is, is that food should simply not be accessible in WvW, just like it is in sPvP, so that the professions can be more adequately balanced in PvP environments as a whole (gear being just a slight form of discrepancy in WvW). Stat foods often just further increase the margin between those with and without the crazy gear/money in WvW, for the guy with full ascended sigiled/runed weapons and armor is going to be the same who is willing to shell out 1.5g every hour they want to PvP. The guy in greens and yellows likely doesn’t have that kind of spare cash to blow.

Now, if they offered regulated-gear form of WvW like sPvP but added a lot more variability to it (fixed weapon/armor tiers and no food, keeping the runes as they are (though strength runes are OP in larger fights), no ferocity/crit damage cap, upscale and traits for 80 regardless of actual level, etc.), I doubt very many people would continue playing WvW at all, and I would exclusively play that mode and never look at the current WvW again.

I disagree.

I think the differentiation between WvW and sPvP is perfect as it currently is. The normalized system in sPvP goes well with the focus in small team fights with emphasis on build variation (and synergy) between players, players’ skill, as well as the non-combat aspect of sPvP.

However, WvW should be as holistic as it can be – given that focus is on large scale battles and sieges, what differentiates one “army” from the other is the total sum of its prowess, that means taking into consideration all things: strategy, good commanding, numbers, morale of players, mentality of players AND ALSO differences in quality of equipment, buffs (consumables) etc.

Ideally, WvW is an aspect of the game where one can say “our server beats your server because, hey look, everyone in our world gives their time and effort to polish our equipment, prepare our food before our fights, calling in more people to participate, coordinating our attacks based on our consolidated power, etc”.

Because really in a zerg fight (or a play-pretend large battle), how much difference do build variety and player’s skill make? It should be the sum of these small things that make the difference.

Azrael.4960:

Let’s take it a step back and look at the fundamentals. As it is, food is a buff. Does it make sense to be? Not really (not that this matters too much in a fantasy setting). Maintenance oils/sharpening stones/tuning crystals are a buff and they make sense to be.

Why do maintenance oils\sharpening stones\tuning crystals make sense as a buff but not food? Whats the logic behind? (Narrative, concept, mechanics, etc?)

Concept wise in a fantasy world, food being a buff makes sense perfectly, even more so than things like sharpening stone and maintenance oils.

For example, why in the world would a sharpening stone convert 5% of my toughness into power? Do I use a sharpening stone to…what…sharpen the horns on my helmet so that I can use it to impale somebody?

In fact, the only thing that makes sense about food is that they should only augment stats, and not things like experience gain, magic find and gold from monsters, because food is by concept an organic consumable that affects the character’s body.

Like why the F would eating an Omnomberry Bar gives me 40% more gold from monsters? Do I suddenly gain the Midas Touch upon eating some magical food?

But gaining power, toughness and vitality after eating food makes sense, no?

This is a fairly popular strategy, just think about this: perma-stealth thief will just wait your stability out to scorpion wire you through a glass.

In any other circumstances, a perma-stealth thief will have their own weakness to compensate. So what are we supposed to do to counter this (aside from obviously leaving the Point)? Go for a perma-stability build?