Guild Wars 2

Mike O Brien.4613:

In the upcoming Spring 2016 Quarterly Update, we’ll launch the new legendary short bow, Chuka and Champawat.

Just imagine how much happier (correction – less angry) the people would’ve been if it was a GREATSWORD or a SWORD – a thing that more than 1, not really popular class will use…

Talk about planning and priorities.

skullmount.1758:

You would think that whatever Asura group that monitors the waypoints would be out there investigating the interferences…

Monitoring? My ears! Asuran inventions are flawless and need no monitoring! It will work even if a savage charr or a drunken norn tries to… wait, why is that thing smoki-

[~] Threads for reference:

• Mounts Megathread – main “mounts” topic, merged by Gaile Grey from 7 threads
• Suggestion: Mounts?
• Mounts {12}
• Mounts {2}, Mounts {8}, Mounts {10}, Mounts {11}, Mounts {13}
• Incoming Mounts??
• What Would Mounts do for this Game?
• No Mounts?

[+] Arguments in favour:

• That other game has it; we’ve seen it done there and enjoyed it.
• Aesthetics: mounts are cool. Riding a mount is another pleasant experience which a videogame can give to a player who lives in real life. You can use existing animals and even create new ones – that’s a base for new content.
• Speed: you can travel faster. You can use waypoints if you like, or mounts if you like the experience.
• Progression: buying and upgrading mounts gives you stuff to do, and more stuff to do is what this game needs.
• Flying mounts are even more fun then terrestrial mounts. Flying mounts will make exploring Tyria easier and more enjoyable. Flying mounts will let you look at Tyria from a new angle.
• Since underwater combat exists in GW2 (same z-axis gameplay) and Tengu are still to make their move, a map with flying mounts makes sense.
• Mounts could be constrained to a single map, similar to Dry Top, or exist as a PvP-style activity.

[-] Arguments against:

• GW2 is not that other game and was not designed with mounts in mind. That’s why we feel mounts do not belong here, and adding them will feel forced (“added because others have it”, not “added because we needed them”).
• Aesthetics: mounts will look silly with GW2 races and animals (giant norn on a pink moa). Mounts will make GW2 even less serious and more visually annoying than Moot, Quip and pink unicorn bows. Mounts will contribute to visual clutter.
• We already have cosmetic mounts: broom, carpet, sonic device. We already have a minor speed “mount”: the Dry Top kites.
• Speed: waypoints are superior in terms of traveling. Maps are small enough to even travel by foot. We already have mobility skills and speed boosters for that.
• Progression: the game was advertised as having (next to no) gear grind, and people love it for that reason. Introducing mounts as an obligatory item (“grind for it or you lose”) will cause the same uproar as ascended armour.
• Like jumping would ruin a game designed with no jumping in mind, flying mounts will ruin GW2 maps (for example, think about jumping puzzles, or vistas on mountains, or easily traversing areas which are supposed to be filled with foes). Furthermore, maps were designed to look cool from the ground, not from above; you can see how many problems flying mounts will bring into map design by googling off-map videos and looking at the map attentively.
• Things like mounts will require a lot of development resources to adapt to all races and body types; clipping will be a very serious issue, too. These resources could be spent elsewhere.

[=] Current state of affairs:

• Most “mount” threads are met with negativity (and a gif of a jokey beating a dead horse), because this topic has been discussed countless times. Still, new “mount” threads appear every now and then, showing that there are players who are actively wanting to discuss the addition of mounts.
• New “mount” threads are known to be closed with the reasoning of numerous threads on the subject already existing:

Moderator.1462:

This suggestion has already been made. Please refer to the threads in the suggestions subforum on this topic for the discussion. Thanks for yout understanding. This thread is closed

CC Eva.6742:

This topic has been widely discussed here already and there are still threads popping out in the Suggestion subforum from time to time so we would kindly request you to search for them and contribute with your thoughts there in order to avoid duplicates of the same topic.

CC Danicia.1394:

As numerous threads regarding this topic have already been linked, we’ll close this thread and request that you point your discussions over to them.

Moderator.8539:

Hey there, as others pointed out, there are quite a number of threads on mounts already. Please use one of these existing ones to add to the discussion.

Moderator.8539:

Since there is a number of threads on the subject already, this one is now closed.

Back to CONTENTS

Equal rewards

• Since doing map events “better” is impossible and it always gives a fixed contribution (N saved citizens) to discourage zerging, other activities should provide the proportionally same reward to players who’re doing other parts of the event. I’m speaking here about rewards from encouraging and reviving citizens – like giving “Bags of a grateful citizen” which are fully identical to the “supplies” bags in contents. To discourage exploiting by killing and reviving citizens, each citizen may have a limited amount of bags tied to it, or a diminishing return for each consecutive resurrection may be introduced. Same goes for heirlooms – you have a chance to get a bag in rubble piles. Of course, to avoid devaluation of bags, drops from mobs should be proportionally adjusted.
• To discourage zerging in both miasma and escort events, scaling must be made VERY steep. That means that a miasma event should be extremely easily done with 5 players (even the Molten one), however 20 players in the infamous “children escort” would spawn so many champs that they would wipe all these players in 10 seconds (and supposedly despawn after some time).
• That said, since event give a fixed amount of contribution towards the goal, events should also have a fixed amount of loot: that means champs give no guaranteed bags at all, and half a map escorting children would get so little reward per person that they would eventually switch to more rewarding – and contributing – tasks.
• In case of fighting Marionette Wardens, proportional amount of keys should have been dropped when defeating the Warden, as this would have made going to platforms equally rewarding to switching and farming lanes.
• Actions like repairing barricades should also reward players – they may even do it in a different way as long as it makes sense (e.g. with a chance of sprockets or valuable metal scraps to salvage). Especially since the amount of hammers is limited, and dropping a hammer to continue zerging is counter-productive. Players should not sacrifice their reward for the sake of others since PvE in GW2 is “cooperative” and not “altruistic”.
• Ultimate event rewards should be ultimately better in short term and include things such as a guaranteed exotic or 3 guaranteed rares; if Frozen Maw 5-10 minute fight has as much, why a 45 minute event cannot? Once the randomness of the reward is lowered, more people will be eager to work towards it.

Personal reward system

• The “Overall good deeds” counter should not be the only counter on whole-map events; the other one is a “Personal contribution” counter. The “Personal contribution” counter should be the thing that defines whether you get the ultimate reward (e.g. Ultimate citizen’s rescue bag) as other players or smaller/no reward in case the overall counter reaches the goal. Due to the controversies of penalizing AFK players and heirloom runners which effectively take up player spots and generate overflows, a personal reward system is the right way to go.
• Personal reward system should be tuned in a way that an inexperienced player which did his best during the whole event gets the ultimate reward in the end, but a 10k AP lazy AFKer who hit three mobs and then jumped into a cave does not. This can be coded by counting “good deeds” in ways similar to: per encouraging/resing citizens; per killing mobs in the vicinity of a moving NPC; per healing/stealthing/cleansing NPC; per finding heirlooms etc. An internal limit of good deeds per citizen or diminishing returns can be introduced to counter “let die and res” exploiting, as well as requiring the “reached safe spot” status for addition of all “good deeds”. Other algorithms can be too tricky to implement, but they can also involve some background checking of action and movement patterns.
• In the end, the overall reward each player gets is a correct representation of the player’s contribution to the goal of the event, and all players can enjoy a cooperative PvE instead of fighting each other – including zergs, AFKers, achievement hunters, chatters and trolls.

It’s moves like this which made me stop buying gems with real money.

Go figure.

[~] Threads for reference:

• PvE Dueling
• Will open world PVP servers be considered?
• Suggestion: open world pvp PVE
• World PvP server social experiment
• Open world PvP server
• Open world pvp
• Why no open world PvP?
• True open world PvP
• Open World Free for All Server?
• Lets Discuss: Factions

[+] Arguments in favour:

• That other game has it; we’ve seen it done there and enjoyed it.
• We want competition. We can’t live without competition in games, a game without competition is boring and is not worth staying in.
• We invested time/money in our gear, so we want our gear to matter. We do not like equalized stats in sPvP and we do not like zergs in WvW.
• Separate PvP servers with PvE maps can be added to give PvP/PvE-focused people a choice.
• Factions add a lot to both lore and gameplay.

[-] Arguments against:

• GW2 is not that other game. GW2 is a cooperative game, not a competitive game: you don’t compete over loot, nodes and such. For competition, we have two options: sPvP and WvW. If current PvP/WvW game modes are not enough, you can always suggest new ones, but in the boundaries of competitive areas.
• Open world PvP is detrimental. Different kinds of players exist: those who prefer fair and healthy competition, and those who prefer fierce and unhealthy competition. The first are usually peaceful non-hardcore teenagers and casual grown-up players (which turn out to be the target audience for which GW2 was actually designed in the first place, with all the timidness of content, failproofness and cooperativeness in mind), and the latter are usually aggressive teenagers who are using online games as a sublimation for unsatisfied offline desires of being “better” than others, while not being constrained by offline moral and law limits. This usually leads to offensive behaviour, which can already be seen in both PvP and WvW (with as far as death threat whispers); such things are not tolerated in GW2. Open world PvP attracts the second type of players, and since many mature players already live a moderately risky life, they see their games as a comfort zone to rest in, and not a war zone similar to life, and want GW2 to stay as is.
• In GW2, not gear, but skill is what matters – even if it is the skill of finding the best team composition or the skill of using Skyhammer’s features in the cheesiest possible way. You cannot really buy ultimate superiority for money in this game. The most you can do is buy gems, convert to gold, get full ascended with infusions, eat the most expensive food, buy all gemstore buffs and go roaming in WvW, hoping that the slight boost in stats will outweigh the skill of your opponent.
• Even on a separate server, you cannot simply turn a PvE map into a PvP map: it was not designed with it in mind. Furthermore, it will thin down and fracture the community, which contradicts with the Megaservers idea.
• Factions are too hard to implement at this point of the game’s life when the basics have already been put in place. Factions are too hard to add with the current lore in mind.

[=] Current state of affairs:

• A lot of people feel that GW2 is a casual friendly cooperative game which was not designed to have open world PvP, and they want it to remain that way. For competition, sPvP and WvW modes were included in the game. New PvP/WvW game modes, including GvG, with separate large maps, are discussed as valid options.
• Comment from October 2012:

CC Dalmarus.8397:

Anything is possible in the future, but I would be sure to not hold my breath waiting.

Back to CONTENTS

[~] Threads for reference:

• CDI- Character Progression- Vertical
• Understanding Gear Progression
• Endless treadmill of gear.
• Vertical and Horizontal Progression
• Google search

• Level cap: if increased, what are the impacts?
• When do u expect the lvl cap be raise?
• Will level cap raise?
• Should Level Cap Increase in Xpacs?
• On increasing the level cap
• Google search

[+] Arguments in favour:

• That other game has it; we’ve seen it done there and enjoyed it.
• A game without progression is pointless. We cannot feel good if we’re not progressing in the game, gear progression and level cap increase will refresh the game and bring people back.

[-] Arguments against:

• This game is about horizontal progression, not vertical progression. Primarily: skins. That’s why it’s nicknamed Fashion Wars (not Gear Grind Wars), and many people like it for that very reason. Other games squeeze out your money by introducing an obligatory new stat level with every patch; GW2 is honest with you: you paid once and you’re done, you won’t be artificially pushed to pay for the game to “keep up with others”. This is a thing a lot of people start appreciating at some point.
• Apart from players who simply enjoy challenges which come with gear progression, there is a considerable amount of players who need gear progression to establish psychological superiority (see also Open-world PvP and Dueling). These players are focused on infinite progression because they can use online video games as a compensation for unsatisfied offline desires (being “better” by comparing oneself to “noobs”). The above usually goes along with offensive behaviour (with as far as death threat whispers), which is not tolerated in GW2. To discourage this kind of players from joining the community, GW2 instead encourages players to work on horizontal progression (looks) or towards the minor long-term vertical goals like ascended and/or legendary gear, fractals personal reward level and PvP/WvW ranks. A considerable amount of players like GW2 for this “casual” atmosphere and would prefer to have as little unhealthy competition among players as possible.
• It contradicts the GW2’s concept of “pay once, come back when you want”. Casual-type players, unlike hardcore, do not like to be overwhelmed and left behind when they come back, they can as well drop the game altogether. Ascended rarity has already caused an uproar (and according to some claims, lead to many players leaving), while it is rather achievable for an active player and the stat difference can be outweighed by skill. Another level of rarity will split the community even more, possibly resulting in an exodus of players with buyer’s remorse.
• Challenge can be increased by giving new mechanics to enemies and by increasing their stats without raising the level cap. We can already see it done in zones like Silverwastes.

[=] Current state of affairs:

• “Gear progression” threads are met with negativity by those who bought the advertised casual “no gear treadmill” game, and with positivity from players from other games who are naturally used to gear progression and view it as an incentive to play. The negative approach is considerable.

Back to CONTENTS

Faerun.3091:

So playing in zerg where you just spam #1 skill is fun?

Okay….

2-5-manning Inquest Golem, Svanir Shaman, Caledon Wurm was a lot of fun. 5-8-manning Fire Elemental was also fun, because it combined challenge, risk and guaranteed reward.

Mechanics of the new bosses are more or less interesting, despite a lot of things still being the zerker meta – immune to crowd control, unreflectable projectiles and so on – and still requiring mini-zergs because of HP amounts.

But the time-reward ratio is so awful that I think it is actually worth boycotting the events after achievements are done.

[~] Threads for reference:

• Why we can`t use DPS meter?

[+] Arguments in favour:

• That other game has it; we’ve seen it done there and it was very useful.
• We want to be more efficient. A DPS meter will help us measure the DPS and make according changes to builds.
• We want to theorycraft more efficiently. A DPS meter will help with theorycrafting by making calculations easier.
• We want to bugtest the game. A DPS meter will help catching the bugs people rarely notice.
• We want to play only with people who are worthy. A gearcheck will help us identify players who we do not want to see in our parties.

[-] Arguments against:

• GW2 is not that other game. That other game most likely has the Holy Trinity as a fundamental concept, while GW2 does not. In GW2, (nearly) any class can play (nearly) any role, and the success of a dungeon run comes from class synergy, not from knowing how much damage that person deals.
• DPS =/= efficiency. Only seeing DPS and nothing else will be very misleading. Will the high DPS numbers help you if you wipe while stacking for AC Spider Queen? Will they tell you to get an ele and use Ice Bow 5 before she spits her poison? Will they tell you to get a thief for skipping time-consuming trash in Arah? Will they tell you to get a mesmer for portal in CoF p1 and p2, to solo Magg and to pull those 3 annoying flamethrower guys together into a wall for fast burn? Will they tell you that that block, reflect, interrupt or water attunement just saved you from a wipe? Will they tell you that those 12 stacks of long-lasting might plus fury from ele shared by a mesmer’s Signet of Inspiration followed by a Time Warp right after mesmer’s sword auto stripped the Protection boon and ranger with Spotter stacked Vulnerability and casted traited Frost Spirit… that this all contributed to party’s success a lot more than your selfish DPS? A DPS meter in amateur’s hands will hurt more than help. And because of the Dunning-Kruger effect, those who are least competent will use it most.
• People who wish to theorycraft can already do it by analyzing the combat log, even if it takes more time. And there they can also find a lot of other useful information… because if you want a DPS meter, then you also need a Buff Meter, a Cleanse Meter, a Dodge Meter, a Block Meter, an Interrupt Meter, a Pull Meter and so on for the first one to make sense.
• People who wish to bugtest can already do it by analyzing the combat log, even if it takes more time. Bugs should not exist in the first place, so introducing a tool which can be widely misused for several people to use in an activity which is not even part of the game makes no sense.
• A personal DPS meter being misused against yourself is your own problem. A group DPS meter being misused against party members is an eternal source of blaming and shaming and offensive behaviour which is not tolerated in GW2. The easiest solution to this problem is not to give the grenade to the monkey in the first place.
• In GW2, there is no gear treadmill and exotics are easy to obtain, which means that there’s no need to check if the player’s gear level is good enough for some new content. The game is very easy and failproof, it never punishes you for attempting and failing like some other games. Gearcheck/inspect is an eternal source of blaming and shaming and offensive behaviour which is not tolerated in GW2. You do have the right to play with the type of people you want in your party, but your party members also have the right to be judged by their skill and not by their gear.

[=] Current state of affairs:

• “DPS meter” threads are met with negativity by the many people who have seen the signs of “elitism” in GW2. There are concerns that the whole cooperative and casual friendly concept of GW2 would suffer if such community segregating features get introduced.

Back to CONTENTS

[+] Arguments in favour:

• That other game has it; we’ve seen it done there and enjoyed it.
• My guild would like a place to meet and call ours. We’ve invested a lot of time and effort into building our community, and a guild hall would cement it.
• As a solo player, I would like my own place in Tyria to personalize and call mine. Home instances are too lacklustre.
• Any kind of personalisation further ties the player into the world of an MMO. It is good for retaining players.
• Guild halls and player housing are great for roleplaying.
• You can use guild halls for GvG.

[-] Arguments against:

• That other game must have been designed to be a sandbox hosting player housing on vast empty territories. And even if it was, there’s a high chance it was a failure as hitting it at the “just right!” point is extremely difficult. GW2 was not designed for it at all, and pushing it into current maps with megaservers in mind would make very little sense game-wise. Creating extra maps is hard to justify from the lore/stroy point of view.
• Hosting user-combined content is rather resource-consuming. For a game with no subscription fee, that is a problem.
• Hosting user-uploaded content requires both machine resources and human resources (moderation is very strict in GW2 due to its family-friendly policy, and filtering all the inappropriate stuff will require a lot, a lot of extra staff). For a game with no subscription fee, that is a problem.
• We already have home instances. They might have had some better customizability, but see above.
• With megaservers, guilds have a lot of freedom on where and how to meet in Tyria. A separate instance will actually cut you off from other players, and other players from you – is it really good for an MMO?
• Creating customizable player housing is like creating a game within a game. This is not a must-have feature for MMORPGs, so is it really worth it spending that many resources on player housing instead of actual gameplay content?

[=] Current state of affairs:

• “Guild halls” have been discussed frequently, many active guild players are in favour of the idea, others don’t really care. “Player housing” is usually not met that positively.

Guild halls have been discussed in one of the CDIs. There is a probability that guild halls will be added; there is a very low probability they will be open-world, though. I think that player housing is unlikely to be added; some improvements (aside from gathering nodes) might come to “home instances” some day, but no one knows if they really will.

Back to CONTENTS

AdaephonDelat.3890:

Yes but with regards to that last point they released the information then the community reacted. You’re just randomly guessing about information that’s not released yet! Wait for the information then you can go crazy about how it all sucks or whatever.

In my country, there’s an anecdote about new recent laws:

Guys, stop panicking! It’s just a project, not a law, calm down!
Guys, stop panicking! That’s just the first review, it’s not final yet, calm down!
Guys, calm down, the law is already here and working. If you were going to panic, you should’ve done it earlier!

As a player who is driven by aesthetics, I can say that I always found this same thing irritating and really immersion-breaking.

Both appearing-disappearing players and monsters/bodies should at least have a short fade-out effect, but preferably – a light appealing particle effect that can be turned off in options for players on weak PCs.

Colin Johanson at PAX 2013:

The best place we could ever get at is where the people who wanna farm go do a dungeon and play it really well and defeat it, go out in the open world and join up with a big group of players and beat as many events as they can and rapidly beat events; it’s to play a lot of different content, and play events here and then go play this event chain and then go play this event chain…

Every event in the game, you can only do it once pre day, or every champion in the game, you can only kill it once; that’s terrible for players, and it’s not fair to everybody else to do that just to encourage the farmers to spread…

This update:

• Bosses on limited availability: big bosses 3 times a day, boss of medium type every 2-4 hours, minor boss every 2 hours.
• All bosses are predetermined.
• All bosses are on timers: no more free-to-start event chains.
• Other champ rewards nerfed.
• Other event rewards nerfed.

And it’s only been half a year.

Astralporing.1957:

AcidicVision.5498:

Megaserver consolidation should happen in areas that have consistently seen 20 players or less during peak hours. And it should be virtually transparent.

That… actually is a really good idea.

Also known as an underflow and suggested many times previously.

Here’s what I think the problem with meta achievements was:

• Daily Living Story counted towards the meta, so you could skip as much inconvenient achievements as you liked.
• LS achievements were mostly silly, grindy (“kill X new mobs”) and easy, people didn’t feel those were “achievements” and could burn through them in 1 day.
• LS achievements sometimes relied on random zerg too much, so you could never get several simply because you weren’t lucky enough to be in the right map – which caused frustration and discontent as these weren’t personal achievements.
• People ignored the meta skins and still wanted to get more rewards from playing content (as direct drops) instead of themed gear in Gemstore.

There aren’t however many problems with meta achievements here, apart from maybe people who were doing counter-productive things in the limited time they had to get the time-gated reward, and by this making other people’s lives harder. But since the story achievements are now fully personal, this problem no longer exists, and the meta reward can return.

The only problem we might have now is people who’re unable to complete these (rather easy IMO) achievements even in a party, but 1) that’s an L2P issue and 2) they now have as much time as they need to get those rewards.

So, here’s how I would’ve distributed the rewards in this LS:

• Give out Adventurer’s Scarf to everyone who completed 6 out of 9 episode achievements (so that people who’re terrible at, say, jumping still have options).
• Put Adventurer’s Goggles into hidden chests and tradeable (as it is now).
• Make Adventurer’s Mantle craftable using both components and account bound (as it is now).

This way, we would’ve had:

• A direct reward for direct “work”, which is now absolutely personal.
• An RNG reward for playing content with randoms, which can be bought instead if you don’t feel like playing with them.
• An extra reward for those who’ve done both.

I think that’s how it should be and hope to see it in next episodes

People who played teef’s since lunch should of learned to spell it but could care less. Maybe they will when expension comes.

Dusty Moon.4382:

I said, that if someone disagrees with you, like me, then there are personal attacks. You have proved my point without me lifting a finger.

Okay, I won’t be pointing at where exactly you’re accusing people of what you’re doing yourself. And heaving read your posts over the forums, I’ll just say I see no point in arguing with you anymore. GL, HF; keep paying ANet when they’re making mistakes, and they’ll give you even more mistakes to defend.

Vayne.8563:

The idea of play how you want has been taken so far out of it’s original context, it’s lost all it’s meaning. Anet was pretty clear on what they meant.

In most games, you level by going quest hub to quest hub and that’s pretty much what you do, until you get to a high enough level to go to the next quest hub, afterwhich you do dungeons then you raid. That’s the PvE experience of most themepark MMOs.

Here you go:

It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.

I want to play Tequatl and Fractals 50 and CoE speedruns to get AP to get the most powerful rewards of Hellfire and Vambrace skins and the upcoming Pinnacle weapon skins.

Can I? No. I have to grind Queensdale events and harvest plants in Caledon. Yay?..

chronometria.3708:

It has always puzzled me that we dress ourselves in the costumes of our hated enemies. Karka tentacle backpacks, scarlet backpacks, aetherblade outfits and slick packs…its like the allies winning world war 2 and then dressing as the Reich.

Let’s say you’re a real-world hunter who managed to kill a bear with his hands and a knife. Now you’re looking for something to put on your manly necklace. That little pink glass thingy with a smiling cat on it is the best choice, right?

I never had problems with that. Since long ago drinking wine from the skull of your foe and putting tiger claws in a necklace were a means of telling about your feats to both friends and foes. Since GW2 pictures a savage world to a large extent, it makes perfect sense for our heroes to carry trophies they picked from the dead bodies of their foes to demonstrate their own power.

Ronin.7381:

I miss the rewards for completing the achievements myself. This RNG BS is annoying.

I want that too. With the previous meta system, you were relying on the zerg often; currently, you can actually get rewarded for your own efforts. Just make it available at, say, 70% of achievements – and that’s it.

How did Scarlet manage to gather so many resources for her alliances?

Zommoros is Scarlet’s second name.

HardRider.2980:

We already knew this was going to happen.. Should of prepared yourself for the changes.

I did. By replacing more non-berserker gear with berserker’s. “Berserker’s meta nerf”, huh…

Now, regarding the new patch and the “you get a chest if you kill your knight only” combined with “up to 50 players per knight only” thing.

To whomever designed this, this might have looked like a perfect “personal reward” concept; however it’s not. Here’s why.

Scenario 1

• There are 60 people in the map.
• 50 people fight Green knight. They kill it, get a chest and go farming.
• 10 people fight Blue knight. Blue players cannot kill Green knight because it is hardcapped, and they cannot kill Blue knight because they are not enough. They ask for 50 players to split and help, but those refuse and provoke chat flaming. So, it is impossible for them to get the chest.

Scenario 2

• There are 90 people in the map.
• 50 people fight Green knight. They kill it, get a chest and go farming.
• 40 people fight Blue knight. 30 of them are noobs who came to the Blue knight because it was closer, and they get downed on each pull and do next to no damage. The other 10 people cannot kill Green knight because it is hardcapped, and they cannot kill Blue knight because there are not enough skilled players. So, it is impossible for them to get the chest.

So, how is it different from the reward chests in Marionette and Escape from LA?

It’s the fact that in those event it was possible to contribute to the event regardless of other players’ skills. Any player can revive citizens and fight basic mobs for some loot and some contribution towards the global goal; you can hit 100 or 300 citizens or Warden I chest with low amount of players. What about the knights? It is impossible to contribute enough as a single player to get anything; furthermore, it is impossible to contribute to the other part of the fight as it is hardcapped. The important thing is that a personal reward concept should not only be based on personal contribution, it should also imply absolute possibility to contribute personally.

What we have here will ultimately lead to the following scenario:

Scenario 3

• There are 90 people in the map.
• All people will rush to a single knight.
• First 50 people will stay to ensure that they kill the knight and get the chest.
• The other 40 people will leave, cursing the “lucky” ones.
• Events will fail even more because no one will be willing to split and risk a loss of a possible chest.

How it should have been done?

Scenario 4

• There are 60 people in the map.
• 50 people go to Green knight.
• 10 people go to Blue knight, because they know they will get the Green chest once that one is dead, plus they may get a blue one if help arrives.
• When Green knight is close to death, people start switching to Blue knight, because they know they will get the Green chest and may get a blue one if they try hard enough.
• They finish both knights, and ALL players receive 2 chests – one per knight.
• People decide to try harder next time with more people to get all 3 chests.

For me as a player, it is pretty evident what gonna work and what not. Why is it not for developers, even with all the feedback provided? No idea.

Nage.1520:

A list of everything about the game that can be improved is useful. But I don’t believe everything listed is “needed” though some would be nice. Moving stuff directly from a guild bank to the bank for example would be nice…but I’m not sure I need that feature. I actually prefer some of the features that are coming up in the patch. Better PvP rewards, for example, will make it so that I actually PvP, because I hate spending time in PvP, as it felt wasted. That’s a game changer for me.

Some things are needed to you (as a PvP player). Some thing are needed to other players. So to an extent, all these things are needed to different kinds of players. You may see a new reward system as a game changer, while I see daily QoL as my game changer which makes me feel that developers care and thus support them with real money. My latest purchase, however, was a gold-to-gem conversion due to specific news regarding the patch.

Nage.1520:

A large portion of these suggestions would be greatly welcome in the game. Implementing all of them would probably take a couple of years with the devs doing nothing but that.

I’m a developer in my own field and I see many if not most of these features as “things which should’ve been there from the start” and “things which require tiny amount of time but are not as PRable so they have ultimately low priority”.

According to the Pareto principle, 80% of the effects come from 20% of time invested, and vice versa. I see the wardrobe as a 80% time consumer with 20% effect, but highly PRable to hype-prone buyers. Will I need the wardrobe once I’m done with my look? Not really, at max I’ll have several free slots in bank previously occupied by skins (in exchange for charges though). At the same time, I see most of the changes in the list take 20% of time but give 80% of effect to every day every hour every minute play. Is it as hypable as “no repair costs”? Nope…

The “couple of years” to add “use all” on stacks of luck? To add an “adjust particle effect intensity” slider? To untick “soulbound” on dungeon runes similar to sigils? To let mystic forge eat exotic sigils similar to exotic weapons? To add a “cast AoE at max distance”? To add a pinable bag? To add a tick “always skip cutscenes”? To add a collapse icon to UI elements and allow them to be dragged? Oh, come on…

Dalanor.5387:

Option for auto deposit upon loot only.

Hm… Could you make it more clear please?

Figgy.3856:

126: Option to use “preferred” reviving:

1. Downed players
2. Dead players
3. Npcs

:)

Nice, will add later. Doesn’t it work like it now?

Yes, the lack of templates with the current “free” system is puzzling. Having 2 template slots by default but extendible via gemstore looks good.

Count me in if these slots are account-bound.

WGuardian.1028:

Best solution will be forced tutorial as 1 of steps in PS or something like that.

• A new hint, similar to skill hints and so on.
• The basics explained on the 1st “intro” panel. It has repetitive information anyway.
• An (i) or (?) small icon to click/hover over to show that additional info tooltip is available.

WGuardian.1028:

So numbers will differ and this will make some troubles for ppl who r not used to TP (but in TP v1.0 it’s not better; I had issues with seeing different numbers in pick-up tab and in sell tab) or who dont use it frequently. Your suggestion to give 3 numbers will lead to same issues as we have now.

If people don’t care to read the info they are presented, that’s their problem. However if the “projected profit” lies about the actual profit, that’s the problem of the UI. But I agree that adding – and = might oversimplify things; still, the same layout can be done without them.

WGuardian.1028:

U will care if it’s not 5s fee but 100g, will u?

• I will see that fee in the “listing fee” field.
• Selling an item with a 100g listing fee and never ever learning the basics of TP is very unlikely.
• If one fails to read “listing fee” and understand that it’s a fee taken for listing an item… I don’t think anything in the UI can be done to help that person.

And again, what I care about over everything else is how much money I will receive in the end once I sell the item. That’s the bottom line, while everything else can be optional information – not the other way around.

WGuardian.1028:

Part of my job is development of interfaces for different applications and i can tell u that interface of new TP is close to the limit of numbers of buttons/tabs/pop-up windows/links between windows which is user freindly. Of course it’s only first impression from what i saw in blog post. If u add more elements u will just confuse ppl even more. If interface is used for not just pick out “ok” or “cancel” then some part of functionality should be done on user side. As for now i dont like the implementation of this particular feature but i like overall changes that they made to TP.

Then just remove the total price (which is only important to buyers) and replace it with total profit, which is what is most important to every seller (and seller is that very person who’s using the sell panel, not the buyer).

NinjaEd.3946:

an ungodly amount of teleports at my disposal

NinjaEd.3946:

amount

NinjaEd.3946:

a mount

I knew it was a “mount” thread!

;)

On topic: against. I like that the game lets me play the game instead of wasting time on traveling. I’m even often not going to SW because of the “dedication” it requires.

nGumball.1283:

Mesmer doesn’t do enough damage at 80? squishy?
If the mesmer does know how to play, they would win a warrior quite easily.

Yesterday in EoTM me (a mes with Traveler’s +25% speed bonus and Blink) and a couple of other players chased a warrior for about a minute just to catch it, dent it and finally kill it when it just stood in a corner and didn’t try to run anymore.

I got my last not killed profession achievement yesterday, after a Deer and a half ranks, in 1v1 on a capped point after a decent fight; that profession was a warrior.

No, warriors are not a slightest bit overpowered.

nGumball.1283:

Instead of grind you can grind WvW, grind Pvp, grind and craft, grind dungeons etc etc etc.

FTFY.

nGumball.1283:

It is the players who are can’t accept a game where you can do different stuff, focusing on a specific kind of content to call it grind later on, blaming the company for it. If you want to grind, that’s your personal choice.

Current leveling is exactly a system which takes a player by the hand and makes it do what they wouldn’t have done otherwise because they didn’t find it fun.

And why didn’t they find it fun? Because in unlocking traits for an alt there’s nothing new. You’re opposed to these players, yet approving of the system which promotes it.

While obviously increasing the average population of unpopular maps, the MegaServer system:

• fails to make these zones interesting to visit once they’re explored for map completion,
• introduces world boss schedules which effectively kills the concept of Living World where players’ actions are what matters most,
• limits people who have a specific time slot available to doing the same content over and over again,
• turns peaceful experience of many zones into zergy content where everybody does the same only thing.

I actually doubt that at this stage ANet decides to drop the MegaServer system (which undoubtedly drained a lot of resources and will make so many things easier for developers) despite tons of negative feedback from players, but as I still want to hope that feedback matters, I’m opening this thread and suggest that we discuss possible solutions to the actual problem, instead of accepting a measure to mask it away.

1. Revert gear loot tables to be always map-level-dependent instead of player-level-dependent.

• This will straight away fix the problem of overpriced medium-tier materials while having silk, mithril and elder wood markets oversaturated. To compensate for the drop in silk income, Bolt of Silk recipe can be changed to 2 scraps per bolt from 3 (should I remind developers that light ascended armour is 3-4 times as expensive as medium or heavy, while light armour classes are the hardest ones to play in PvE?).
• If you want specific materials, go to the specific zones and farm, and you do not have to rely on getting salvageable items anymore. This will stabilise the market and make it how it should be: lower tier materials are easier to obtain, thus become cheaper. The current system punishes new players far more than veterans by making medium-tier gear and crafting unreasonably expensive. Plus, getting lvl 80 gear from lvl 10 spiders never made sense in the first place…
• This will also partially address the issue of the highly toxic Queensdale train, as a portion of players will relocate to higher-level maps, and can even form champ trains of different tiers for farming specific materials at different maps.

2. Introduce several new world bosses to each low-level zone, and to each mid-level zone as well.

• If Wayfarer Foothills had 3 world bosses with 3 guaranteed rares per day instead of 1 Frozen Maw with 3-4 rares in chest+daily, then the map would’ve been visited far more often and in different places, and I’m pretty sure it would’ve still worked even if the total time for these 3 events was about 30-50-80% more – simply because a) an accomplishment still counts and b) slightly lower but faster and guaranteed rewards are still fun. The same goes for other maps.
• The reason why we need “world bosses” and not simply dynamic event chains is 1) because we need a guaranteed reward worth participating for and 2) because we want them to be trackable. Which brings us to the next point…

6. Make visiting cities worth doing.

• Polymock, battles of minis – hosted by different cities, cities have a racial influence on available pieces/minis/skills/arenas.
• Roaming one-day-per-city merchant who provides “hot deals” on popular items (salvage kits?) or sell a limited daily amount of hard-to-obtain materials (obsidian shards? ascended mats? random sets of temple armour?), possibly after a chain of successful city pre-events (“Put sleeping pills into gate guards’ wine.”, “Distract guards and escort the merchant to the city square.”, “Deliver bribes to the city council members to allow the merchant to trade.”).
• Trackable and rewarding (karma? food and crafting materials? city map tokens?) city events (similar to Wintersday dolyak escort).

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aforum-en.guildwars2.com+mesmer+speed

This is a very widely requested feature. And I agree, with broken Focus swiftness and no traits to increase OoC speed being locked to Traveler’s runes is very annoying.

But please do not “get rid” of Signet of Inspiration; it’s active is really used in dungeons to share boons. However, replacing its useless passive to speed boost would just be right what we need.

Ah, and another inconvenience item that drops multiple times daily and is incredibly annoying to deal with, especially since like 95-99% of those who get it play on lvl 80 characters:

Writ of Experience

And along with it, Tomes of Knowledge.

Also, agreeing with Xalugami up there: Indigo Mushrooms as well as Bauxite Ore and other precursor collection node-drops should go into material storage. They do not sell with trash – I would’ve never started these collections had I known they would spam and clog my inventory on all characters

Malkavian.4516:

I think that players who negatively react to this daily for that reason can’t tell the difference between “given incentives” and “forced”.

I think that players who negatively react to other people’s discontent can’t tell the difference between “whining” and “constructive criticism”.

Especially when the “incentive” in question was being given to them yesterday but hidden behind new, exciting restrictions today. Aaand here we go again, repeating the same arguments all over again and getting only the point-missing “but it’s optional!” and “but you get more!” replies.

timmyf.1490:

We’ve seen it before with Fractal reset and Megaserver. I imagine it’ll be similar.

From the amount of defenders of this change, I can say that the game has attracted and kept the players it wanted, and is steadily shooing away the ones who were but are not happy anymore.

It’s not just you. While the world itself is rather pretty, the armour is generally considered boring, the legendaries – irritatingly unique beyond reasonable, and some armours, including gemstore ones – even ugly. The non-dyeable weapons also make it worse as it usually leaves just 1-2 colour options outside the “gray-brown” colour scheme, and those 1-2 weapons may not match your style anyway.

So again, GW2 may be (or is) superiour in terms of user-friendly mechanics and non-P2W model, but it’s character visuals are often called subpar compared to Asian visual-heavy MMOs. Still, it’s an American MMO, and it finds enough fans which prefer its “brutal” style to “elegant” ones.

As for me, I’m not working towards legendaries for a simple reason – I don’t like any and they don’t fit my characters.

Rym.1469:

I can’t see why you’d want to “farm” that. Really, people in this game seek for farming spots in new releases only, it seems.

To me it’s kind of bonus obtainable loot and that’s cool enough. You get it, that’s cool, you don’t – nevermind, it’s not so important

Agreed.

I like this sand thingy far more than unidentifiable objects and such. Getting something out of “nothing” is nice, not getting – I don’t care, it just dropped by itself.

Offtopic: this thread needs the 4th polearm skill as a mascot :P

Mitch.4781:

Between this and the toxic chat in Queensdale , I’m seeing some very very poor attitudes from the gw2 community

I would stand my ground and defend the opinion that it is poor game design decisions to blame rather then people who are allowed to play how they want and to grief others by doing so.

I find what you’re talking about to be a large problem in many parts of our life now. Overhyping, “NEW!”, “Exciting!”, “Seen never before!”, “Innovative technologies!”… ah yeah, so their new toothpaste now has glitter and the box is blue instead of red, and the new smartphone has a 0.2 cm larger screen.

There’s another extreme, though; when you treat people as completely equal, like many indie companies do, you start looking, hm, dumb and unprofessional.

I would like to see some kind of compromise in the way ANet communicates with us. Not just overhyped PR talk (Feature patch blog posts, trailers) and useless Facebook chat (“Communicating” thread), but actual intelligent conversation which shows their fans why they do this or that… you know, like here.

I want to hope that a substantial portion of gamers today, including first-time MMO players, are not annoying entitled teenagers, but actually smart people who crave for knowledge – and knowledge about their favourite MMO specifically. But I guess ANet’s marketing department has reasons to think otherwise, because I see no other reason in turning communication about the game into a shiny, but bloated and shallow TV advertisement from 1990s – which IMO still work for children… even though children are not the ones who can freely pour cash into Gem Store.

Behellagh.1468:

All of this is solved by using a calculator.

Right now the TP has none of these abilities either without doing a bit of math.

Aaand?

Right now searching for backpieces is solved by typing “spineguard” or “back” or something; why change it? Right now searching for light armour is solved by hovering over all items and checking the weight description; why change it?

And that, surprise surprise, is the point of making improvements – to make life easier by removing unnecessary operations which can be easily done by a PC but require extra time and concentration from a human being. Weight filtering can be done by a value match script, backpiece filtering can be done by adding a value to the category and match script, projected profit can be done by a simple X – A – B javascript subtract operation.

It feels like some people are opposed to improvements “just because”. I didn’t buy an online videogame in 2013 to play on a PC with 3.40GHz CPU, 16GB RAM and UltraHD display to type numbers on an offline calculator.

John and several classes from his school went on a beach trip.

After arriving, he and some other children decided to swim out into the sea.

When far enough from the shore, John asked: – Hey, everyone here can swim, right?
- Yeah!
- Sure!
- Of course!
John: – Oh, cool! Everyone I know can swim!

Those on the shore who couldn’t or didn’t like to never heard him.

So much for you, people who’re polling players who attended because they liked it in the first place.

I personally want megaservers heavily reworked because I want them to:

• provide enough people but not overwhelmingly a lot of people when you can’t even see the boss under players and particles and have lag spikes and severe FPS drops even on high-end PCs when otherwise you can play on max settings and enjoy the graphics (may be achieved by softcapping map to ~50 players and having everyone else in only through guild/party sorting);
• have bosses (once player amount is lowered) which remain fun and challenge with a chance of fail in case of lack of effort from players, instead of constantly being zerged in seconds disregarding any mechanics and boss skills (Fire Ele, Taidha, Ulgoth), or simply taking very long (new Behe) or permanently defended (Orr) without a chance to perform the event itself – ANet can easily make a CDI for world boss mechanics which could work even for larger groups of players;
• provide a living changing world experience and let me do any boss I want and not only those on the timers – I’m already sick of the Taidha gate event and I’ve done it just a couple of times (can be partially achieved with a] spawning several bosses instead of a single one and b] letting us trigger boss events outside of timers, and not only guild ones and c] introducing more non-syncronised bosses of world-boss class and reward level), as well as giving me ways of knowing what’s happening where (in-game event informer);
• remove current random contested-uncontested waypoint behaviour (probably a byproduct of the underlying server mechanic) and rework the contested waypoint mechanic – the best of which is having all contested waypoints portable but highly defended by mobs to make players who chose to use them fight for their lives;
• let me play with people who speak my language (English even though it’s not my first language) and understand English which otherwise leads to insults and miscommunication;
• let people from the same parties and guilds and servers play together;
• let me and large guilds perform events which require almost a whole map of suboptimal players to find that empty map and fill it without being griefed by random players playing how they want and speaking whatever language they speak.

That’s only about megaservers, not about traits, town clothes etc.

EDIT: I would also prefer to see the main city maps off the megaserver system. I liked The Grove calm, it felt like “my” city and “my” server that way, instead of the overcrowded megalopolis those are now – and this would also help relief the WvW and RP communities’ problems.

MrVirtualCoder.6170:

Clearly you haven’t grasped that waypoints don’t allow you to travel everywhere. You will always have to be bugged by mobs you don’t need to be bugged by – EVEN WHEN PLAYING A SO-CALLED STEALTHED CLASS

I have no problems skipping mobs as both mesmer and guardian (don’t really play other classes at the moment). I don’t even use stealth on my mesmer in open world, really. As for guardian, I can successfully skip all the way from Vine Bridge waypoint to Skritt Queen in lvl 80 Dry Top even past the Legendary Sand Giant with his large AoE and all the AoE-attack mites without getting in combat by using appropriate weapon and utility skills and dodging.

So, I don’t know… L2Skip issue?

“Most of us don’t care about PVP” – 55 replies, 1365 views.
“Most of us don’t care about pve” – 3 replies, 86 views.

Draw your conclusions.

FrizzFreston.5290:

As for artifically imposed complexity, lol, this whole game world is artificially complex, I don’t see why we would keep holding on to our shiny fork when we are met a memory of a knife wielder. It’s like saying “Oh hey I worked so hard for my fork, so I should use a fork at all times. It’s just artificially complex to use a knife.”

For me, it felt like “Hey, you grinded for your gear, weapons, traits? Nice, now take it all off, get this stick and go poke some enemies for achievements with it!” I agree that a single episode is okay and totally doable, I just didn’t really enjoy. Probably I’m just too conservative and sometimes obsessed with efficiency; so I enjoyed experimenting with my character’s builds and tactics to conquer all Queen’s Gauntlet bosses including Liadri, but I considered Caithe’s transformation to be annoying.

Yes, having Caithe’s skills for playing as Caithe makes sense. Yes, the instances are easy enough to spam buttons and still complete everything without dying. But I just didn’t think it was appropriate to become Caithe in the first place! I agree with Tachenon here:

Tachenon.5270:

That’s all Caithe’s past misadventures should have been: cutscenes.

In my opinion, of course.

There was plenty of opportunity for ‘interaction with the game’ using our own characters. We could have fought our way into tremendously dangerous places, fought horrific bosses, maybe even fought the ghosts of the centaurs, in order to plant the memory seeds in the right spots. Imagine if we’d had the option to find some way to put those centaur ghosts to rest, which, for a sylvari character especially, might have been a very cool thing to do. Restoring the family honor, so to speak.

That would have worked much better for me.

Helping Caithe as a subordinate who is inclined to follow the leader’s orders would’ve made more sense story-wise and gameplay-wise. Why are we Caithe, and not some kind of ghost-warden? It’s a memory, but we should only be able to see it. Why can we make decisions? It’s past, it already happened, the amount of killed asura supervisors is set. Why should we be handed an idiot ball and act as we don’t like, instead of observing and doing as we’re told as a subordinate?

The answer to everything is “because the game designers thought it would be fun”. Okay, it was indeed fun for some people, and I’m even fine with it as long as it’s just one episode. I just personally didn’t really enjoy it.

Playing A Mesmer Is Like…

…jumping across a minefield on one leg with a glass of water on the head while juggling with three eggs, just because your bosses are jealous of you being good at juggling in the first place.

…driving an antique coach with three horses: everyone looks at you open-mouthed for a minute or two, but then turns on the stereo, puts the air-con to a comfortable temperature, and gets to their job 10 times faster than you.

…being a can opener next to a bunch of spoons, forks, and knifes: the poor occasionally need you to open a tin of beans, but rich people rarely eat tinned food and it is served opened in the restaurants anyway.

…being a 2 year patient who’s ready to see his next organ fail in the results of each new medical test.

…“okay, I can do it on my main, but I should just get my staff guard and tag for tons of loot here, or get my zerk ele and AoE those LS achievements in one go.”

I’m not against a gemstore 80-up item, but only as soon as you got at least 1 character to 80.

I’m also in favour of more options to buy Tomes of Knowledge – like with skillpoints and karma.

You were and will be able to grind Tomes of Knowledge in PvP, you could farm them during LS events in LA with another character, you can sink gold into crafting – so why not let people buy it straight away from the gemstore with real money or the same gold if they already know how to play the game? You simply read forums, choose a build, buy lvl 80 exotics – and then go out in PvE and learn the profession in a couple of hours through content you enjoy.

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

At least 3-4 characters already at level 80
100% map completion on at least one character

• screw people who invested all their time in their main
• you make it sound like doing hearts is something challenging

First, a quote on class roles and balance philosophies:

We want to get all classes on the same playing field, and we want to avoid “whack-a-mole” style balance.

1. Mesmers – our kryptonite is our broken skills – mesmers are presented with “tricks” to compensate for “low armour”, and then their tricks are rendered useless by long-lasting bugs, thus leaving them with just “low armour”.

• Broken iLeap, non-attacking non-reflecting iWarden, broken Blink, stuck in place or in object after Phase Retreat or Blink, Illusionary Elasticity, illusions not attacking gates and so on. I just can’t stress it enough as how frustrating it is to regularly die or fail because of a broken skill.
• Non-stacking swiftness on Temporal Curtain, often fatal downed skill 2, Portal missing range indicator, being unable to hit siege in WvW are examples of skills which still need work because many skills feel very “broken” in general gameplay.
• Stealth feels broken as well. Stealth should be a timed defensive “trick”, yet there is nothing defensive in being tracked and knocked by a skill while in stealth. Stealth should break channels and make projectiles miss. Otherwise, again, it’s a trick designed to compensate for low defense which defies its purpose. I’ve never used a torch in PvE for anything other then a light source, and trying it for “Blobs, Schmobs” achi reminded me how useless it was again.
• Please stop advertising bug fixes as buffs and class balancing/polishing. Tooltips are also not class balancing. These things are independent of each other, and seeing them presented as the same is – sorry – infuriating.

2. Please stop balancing mesmers solely around PvP.

• We may be good for annoying newbies with PU and clones, but…
• We are veilbots in zergs in WvW (thus 1-2 mesmers is enough), even though we want to tag for bags.
• Our illusions die before they can tag anything in facerolling and AoE-spam PvE – we lack AoE damage. We also cannot cast illusions fast enough on “Invulnerable!” mobs before they melt.
• We are generally locked into Traveler’s runes because we lack speed signet/OoC trait and our blink/focus swiftness are broken, even though you say that “They share some of the stealth and mobility that the Thief enjoys, but suffer from a low health pool if you get past all their tricks.”
• Traits are made lackluster on purpose or rapidly nerfed not to allow even a slightest advantage (which, incidentally, is a purpose of a trait!) in PvP. Grandmaster traits such as Power Block are useless in PvE/WvW – as well as most grandmaster traits anyway, including new ones. The notorious glamour nerf. “Vigor on crit” nerfed because of PvP (“too much clone spam, cheesy mesmers, no more dodge for you!”), leaving PvE/WvW mesmers with even less defence tricks. Power Block “bugs” which made them at least viable against thieves and bosses in dungeons got hotfixed nerfed. Triumphants distortion got ninja-nerfed with an internal cooldown, even though advertised as without one.

3. Pure-DPS classes vs. “utility” classes.

And remember, no single profession should be the best at everything!

• If we want “to get all classes on the same playing field”, we need to balance classes across conditions and usable utilities as well as DPS. Otherwise, we have “zerk warriors only!” in LFG and warriors melting down graveling burrows and mobs before any mesmer can even build up their phantasms or stack conditions.
• That also means that combining high mobility, high sustain and high DPS in a single class might be a class balance mistake. Example: Healing Signet, Warrior’s Sprint and multiple immunities without any extra requirements compared to Signet of Ether (needs illusions), Compounding Celerity (needs illusions) and requirements to build (and keep) up phantasms to do decent damage.

4. Balance updates should be made more often and in small steps.

HUGH increases and HUGE decreases lead to meta instability, and thusly, we try to make multiple small tweaks rather than putting in massive changes that we have to later correct.

• Instead, we see looong stages of people investing a lot into ascended Celestial just to have its crit nerfed,
• or investing a lot in overpriced Runes of Strength before those get nerfed as well, and so on.

TL;DR: “no single profession should be the best at everything” is not “one profession should be best at one thing and skritt at everything else while another one can be good at everything” – that’s my view of the balancing problems at hand.

Targeting has always had issues in GW2,

• Targeting Still Broken Please Fix It!
• Improve Ground Targeting system
• Ctrl + click = target

but it looks like recently it’s become even more of a problem:

• New targeting a pain

It looks like after the September Feature Pack targeting is selecting literally the closest target even if it’s to the side, completely behind, behind a door/wall, or is a structure. It leads to a lot, a lot of frustrating situations where I appear to be trying (and failing) to attack something completely different instead of the enemy which is in front and trying to kill me.

It would be nice to have it at least reverted to the behaviour which limited closest target to the viewable screen, and preferably to have outstanding targeting changes to be made, such as:

Lishtenbird.2814:

1. Improved targeting system: option to display and cast AoE skills at max (“green”) distance even if cursor is out of range (particularly useful for shadowstep skills);

2. option to exclude yellow mobs from closest targets;

3. option to limit closest target to a narrow cone in front of the character (say hello to white moa at Jormag);

4. option to prioritize heaviest mobs over trash;

5. separate key to target heaviest mob (not bound by default);

6. option to always cast AoE on selected target (if it is in range);

7. option to prioritise enemies over allies when clicking to select target (Lyssa surrounded by trash and players);

8. retaining target marker on reappearing targets (Lyssa, Inquest Golem Mk II, Shatterer);

9. reworking the way in which large targets with high target point are losing focus when camera is tilted towards the ground a bit.

Lishtenbird.2814:

141. Official version of “Combat Mode” – a crosshair which targets anything under it and makes AoEs cast at where crosshair points, plus various rebinds. Thread on reddit, video demo.

To be fair, this thread has as much new information on the topic as the other expansion threads.

What do you call Logan’s date with Queen Jennah?
A run-devouz.

Why do Logan’s ears, eyes and mouth despise his nose?
Because his nose is runny.

My summary of the other 1000 dueling threads:

Lishtenbird.2814:

[~] Threads for reference:

• Why is there still no dueling?
• PvE Dueling
• Why is there No Dueling and no Trading
• Really need a dueling menu

[+] Arguments in favour:

• That other game has it; we’ve seen it done there and enjoyed it.
• Dueling is for fun, not for leaderboards.
• Dueling is a great way to pass time, while waiting either for a queue or other things.
• Dueling is a way to get to know someone, without them even speaking.
• Dueling allows players to get to know themselves, as well as their builds.
• Custom arenas are unintuitive and cost money.
• We want our gear to matter in duels because we worked for it.
• To deal with duel harassment, make duels voluntary, give an option to hide/ignore duel requests.

[-] Arguments against:

• GW2 is not that other game. Dueling in GW2 is like that eternal fight between a whale and an elephant, because GW2 was designed with class synergy in mind: different classes with different damage, control and utility skills, combo fields, AoE sharing (and stripping) boons and conditions. That’s why PvP has the 5v5 structure, and the objective is to hold points, and not kill each other.
• Since dueling is not a supported game mode, it is natural that the available method to duel (custom arena) has inconveniences.
• Your gear stats will be normalized, as the design behind GW2 says that sports-like competition is about skills and not credit cards.
• No matter how you hide it through options, people will always find a way to annoy you in say chat, map chat and even whispers (like they do in WvW). The best way to prevent this is not to have dueling at all.
• Dueling would cause either a class balance disaster or a community disaster. There are already more than enough community complaints about mesmers and thiefs which caused them to be nerfed so hard because of PvP that playing in PvE became meh, and making it even worse because of a game mode which wasn’t designed to exist in the first place would feel wrong for players maining these classes.
• People who duel have a negative attitude towards everyone else. We do not want to see dueling in a PvE environment as it will bring uneasiness and unsafety, which contradicts the philosophy of GW2’s PvE.

[=] Current state of affairs:

• “Dueling” threads are often met with negativity, both because this is a sensitive topic and because it has been discussed countless times. Still, new “dueling” threads appear every now and then, showing that there are players who are actively wanting to discuss the addition of dueling.

Lishtenbird.2814:

• GW2 is not that other game. GW2 is a cooperative game, not a competitive game: you don’t compete over loot, nodes and such. For competition, we have two options: sPvP and WvW. If current PvP/WvW game modes are not enough, you can always suggest new ones, but in the boundaries of competitive areas.
• Open world PvP is detrimental. Different kinds of players exist: those who prefer fair and healthy competition, and those who prefer fierce and unhealthy competition. The first are usually peaceful non-hardcore teenagers and casual grown-up players (which turn out to be the target audience for which GW2 was actually designed in the first place, with all the timidness of content, failproofness and cooperativeness in mind), and the latter are usually aggressive teenagers who are using online games as a sublimation for unsatisfied offline desires of being “better” than others, while not being constrained by offline moral and law limits. This usually leads to offensive behaviour, which can already be seen in both PvP and WvW (with as far as death threat whispers); such things are not tolerated in GW2. Open world PvP attracts the second type of players, and since many mature players already live a moderately risky life, they see their games as a comfort zone to rest in, and not a war zone similar to life, and want GW2 to stay as is.

Lishtenbird.2814:

• A lot of people feel that GW2 is a casual friendly cooperative game which was not designed to have open world PvP, and they want it to remain that way. For competition, sPvP and WvW modes were included in the game. New PvP/WvW game modes, including GvG, with separate large maps, are discussed as valid options.

Another thread about PvP community.

Rangelost.4857:

This is December 2014. The change was introduced in September 2014. For 3 months now, players have been deceitfully promised apple pie, which of course they never got.

The pie is a lie.