Guild Wars 2

You are correct, there was definitely plenty to grind in GW1. And I actually have a difficult time imagining a re-playable game that doesn’t have grind of some kind.

You are also correct in pointing out that there were also always new things being added that you could work on to make your character more effective in new content (and I think the Lightbringer title is probably the best example you give since it was virtually required for, and limited to that particular Nightfall content – it was useless outside of that).

However, I think there is also an issue because ‘vertical progression’ likely means different things to different players.

To me, vertical progression is when you work to max out your character, and then everything you worked for becomes obsolete with the release of new content. So if those Superior Runes of Vigor you invested in were replaced by ‘Extra Superior Runes of Vigor’ and then ‘Super Mystical Superior Runes of Vigor’ and so on, then we would definitely have had a clear vertical progression. Instead, those runes were always the best, and you could even remove them and use them on a new armor set if you wanted to.

So in GW1, you could always use the armor/runes/weapons/skills you had already acquired, and just were always given new things to add to your character, without trashing any of the old stuff in the process.

And I also agree with you, we certainly don’t have it yet in GW2 either – the way I understand it anyway – but I think there are a lot of fears (possibly unwarranted) that we are going that direction.

First, +1 to Matipzieu KyA’s thoughtful and carefully worded posts on pg. 14.

I think guild missions are a great idea, and I am glad there is interesting new content for large groups of players to work on together. I am also glad that many of them take place in the open world, so that others can join in experiencing some of it, even if the rewards are not the same.

However, I am saddened by the divide this had created in the community. The structuring of this content has created two groups that didn’t exist before (large vs. small guilds). This can breed feelings of bitterness and resentment unfairly directed at large guilds, and feelings of contempt for small guilds. I have seen this before in other games, so it is not a new thing.

Though there have been a number of suggestions (such as scaling or having smaller/cheaper events), my preference is for reinstating the guild alliance system that has already been mentioned a number of times, including by Yohimbe above me here and in other threads.

It is a system already familiar to GW1 players. It could provide a way not only to communicate on a common chat channel for planning events, but also a way to pool our resources. It would be good if we could donate influence or (better yet) upgrades to the alliance. This way small guilds could divide the cost and (more importantly) the time it takes to upgrade while still representing their own guild.

If the upgrades donated to the alliance ONLY counted for the missions, and not the perks, then every guild would still have a reason to eventually upgrade all build lines, and large guilds would still have a significant advantage, just not the overwhelming one they have as it is now.

Obviously this cannot help people deal with what is now in place, but since it appears we will continue to get more of this kind of content to work for, this would be a useful thing to have in the future. Particularly for anyone with the hope of starting up a new guild. This structure puts anyone in that position woefully behind in access to content, and actually discourages guild creation.

Thank you for your time.

First, to preface, I am a wvw noob and just started this week. But after some frustrating experiences like the one described by the OP, I decided I needed to visit this forum and try to learn something about thieves.

I am hoping that I have the answer to what the OP perceived as infinite stealth (not necessarily culling issues).

We were trying to protect a caravan (we REALLY wanted to upgrade our paper tower’s walls), and two thieves were tag teaming to slowly whittle it down every time. They weren’t hitting hard, and would appear, hit, and restealth a few times in a row each. I was running around hammering my tab key and still my shot never reached them before they disappeared again. They were clearly taking dmg from aoe, but it’s still very annoying not to be able to hit someone. So about 15 or so of us were running around throwing aoe all around the caravan, swinging wildly, etc. Since we never saw either other than when they were actually attacking (a brief second or so), it appeared they were always stealthed.

Once I gave up and just started just running supply to rebuild our wimpy wall that kept getting knocked down, I saw what they were doing from a distance. They would attack and then zoom out of los to rest and I assume wait on cd’s and the resource they use (initiative?). One was going up behind a little hill and would even peek over the top to watch all the fun down below (having a snack and rofl’ing at us I’m sure). When I tried to follow up there, she just put up her little house (shadow refuge I think that is).

Since there were 2, they were doing a very good job of keeping all our attention on trying to catch the one that was attacking while the other rested out of los.

This is clever and not cheating or hacking. I think the thief class is just designed to harass and ‘fight dirty,’ and that can be (extremely) irritating. We won in the end – I think they were finally chased off by all the aoe similar to the OP’s experience, and we got to upgrade our walls – but I’m sure many players there weren’t entirely satisfied since we didn’t ever catch or kill the thieves.