Guild Wars 2

Going into a water area to avoid being stomped seems like a perfectly legit tactic to me. Nothing in the rules says – you must be able to be stomped – . So i go into water where you cant stomp me. Tell me what im doing wrong…

Could we please have a “queue all” button for WvW that will queue us for all the Borderlands and the Eternal Battleground and put us in the first that pops?

Might help make queues more efficient as well.

Julie Yann.5379:

Samhayn.2385:

The “fairness” of wvw comes from the simple fact every server has access to the same thing.

you can’t balance a three way fight, be it servers, factions and guilds. Mainly because you can’t make people show up and fight. Well people like to blame others for stacking, really that’s a lame excuse. You can’t blame people who enjoy wvw and fighting in wvw for moving to servers where they will always have a fight.

Don’t blame the guys who moved, blame the ones that paid them to do it and the ones that designed it.

Don’t blame anyone. It was their decision to move. Whatever happened to freedom of choice?

Junkpile.7439:

Why count points then? Remove score or make it fair.

Life isn’t fair, the sooner people deal with that, the better. Also, people really don’t want fair, they really only want what is in their best interest. That is what being a human is all about. We are not an alturistic species.

Now, the scoring system is fair. NA primetime people on NA servers are gonna complain it isn’t fair. EU primetime on EU servers as well. But, the reality is, that people do play this game when you are not logged in. Their contributions need to count toward the score as well. it is World vs World vs World. Everyone on that world has the same opportunity to play and make a difference for their world.

People want to cut the oceanics and sea time players out of the mix. Or the college / stay at home parents / unemployed gamers as well.

Maybe, we should try to get more of our communities involved in WvW, especially in the off hours, instead of complaining that the game is unfair, or even complaining that PvE players don’t belong in WvW.

When was the last time you came across somebody getting rolled by 3 of your server mates and didn’t add in on the fight to get credit for the kill?

When was the last time you were running with the zerg and decided to not try for the other server’s keep because you were smashing them so badly all night already and figured they needed a break?

The answer is probably NEVER. And it hardly ever happens if it ever even does.

The name of the game in WvW is to rick roll the enemy. I almost never engage in nor even see fair fights out in WvW whether they are small man fights or large scale zerg vs. zerg fights. You just don’t get fairness out there because that’s what an open world environment is, UNFAIR! And people always try to take advantage of that.

If you want “fair” the closest thing you can get to it is SPvP. If you love to gank the crap outta some poor guy who thought he could catch up to his zerg by crossing your side of the map. GANK HIM AND LOVE IT! And be ready for it to happen to you too.

And when 2am rolls around and you have 5 people on your server defending your keep against 50 opposing players… have fun with it. Spam on their faces with ACs, hold out until you cannot hold out any longer. Bail out at the last second to not feed them or die valiantly in the circle whatever you feel like doing.

I fight in WvW all the time. It’s never fair! I don’t even care! I just want to roll fools by taking full advantage of any situation where I have the upper hand and leaving the situation whenever I don’t.

Matchups, T1 servers, scores, etc. etc. can all go take a hike. But if you think I am going to let you sneak past me to get to your karma train you are going to be in for a rude awakening.

Unfortunately Anet won’t do a thing for PR reason. Anet dont’ want someone posting screen shot of lion arch with no people on gaming site.

Just like Anet will never make better guild UI to record when people’s last logon is.

I think the fx are beautiful when you’re playing solo – the trouble is, they have the same “impressionistic” feel as all the graphics in the game, which, again, is beautiful in and of itself – it has a painterly look. But that “painterly” look makes the ability fx a bit fuzzy.

I remember CoH used to have absolutely tons of fx as well, but they had sharper outlines in general, they didn’t have that “painterly/impressionistic” effect, so it was somehow easier to see what was going on.

But I don’t think that can be changed at this stage, it’s part of the feel of the game. They probably do need to work on having more sliders to tone things down a bit more for those who like clarity though.

DevonCarver.5370:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-state-of-skill-lag-and-server-optimizations

Performance is something that is being worked on for the entirety of the game. We are aware of the issues and are in the process of addressing them as rapidly as we can. Please go to the above link to get more detailed information as Bill is really the point person for all of this work right now. While the impacts of performance are quite clear in WvW, it is not isolated to just WvW and we are in the process of making these changes to the entirety of the game. Direct questions and concerns to that post.

Interesting that you point out that the horrible skill lag isn’t limited to WvW. I and others have been trying to say that for months, but some here refused to believe it and claimed it only occurred in stacked WvW battles.

Jubelum.3472:

BillFreist.1527:

Over the past several months we’ve had a small team working on ways to relieve some of the load from the game server while there are large concentrations of players. Most of the work thus far has gone pretty much unnoticed from the player’s perspective, but there have been pretty large steps made towards the issue. This continues to be a large and high priority issue for us so we can continue to make improvements to make this a thing of the past.

You need a “large” team. There needs to be noticeable improvements every patch.

This is not a troll post and I appreciate that it’s being looked into, but I’m going to tell you this one simple fact: Skill lag makes the game unplayable, players abandon unplayable games. It is a testament to how much player interest there is in WvW and the large scale PvP concept that players have stuck with Guild Wars 2 in spite of this skill lag for as long as they have. What I hear all the time in Teamspeak from the WvWers is that this game is “it” right now, there are no other serious choices for WvW. All anyone has to do really is introduce a game featuring the WvW concept without the skill lag and poof, there goes your entire WvW population which incidentally is the group who spends the most money on this game.

Again I’m not trolling, I’m just underlining the fact that first and foremost you need to fix the skill lag problem which has been around since launch a year ago or you will lose all of your WvW players to other games. It needs to be noticeable improvement every patch, it needs to be a “large” team working on this. You need this more than you need new PvE content.

Whether or not you meant it to be this is really condescending and kind of annoying.

I’m quite sure these guys know that it’s a serious problem, and that it is going to negatively impact their player base. They’re not idiots, you know? I’m quite sure there are project managers, CEO types, customer service people, etc., etc., all aware it’s an issue and breathing down these guys’ necks. Do you ever stop and think how tiresome it must be to read stuff like this?

I think there’s plenty of causes for legit frustration around this issue (my guild is WvWing right now but I’m sitting in queue reading the forums, and I’m not sure I even want to play WvW because the lag is so bad), but it’s the most annoying thing in the world to have someone preaching at you about what you need to do like you don’t already know. Especially in this particularly condescending, “Now, I’m not trolling bud, but I’m just letting you know…” tone. Do you think the QA devs of all people don’t know it’s a serious issue?

Source: I’m a dev who absolutely HATES stuff like this, either from users or co-workers.

edit: I guess there’s a chance I’ll get infracted in some way for this post myself, since it’s kind of combative, but sheesh.

edit2: And this whole “you need a large team” thing is garbage. Throwing more people at a problem is counter-productive. Mythical man-month, etc.

NA Graphics are here!

NA Graphics

Alright, I have to open with…I love the idea of this season thing. Keeps things more balanced, makes it so we aren’t stuck fighting the same 2-4 servers over and over and over again…But, the achievement thing has left one painfully glaring problem: No one defends anymore. Now, I know that constant offense has always been a problem, but with the inclusion of these new achievements, the servers (or at least the three in my current week) have been basically trading off Stonemist as well as keeps and towers all week. No one attempts to actually hold territories anymore, just take them and leave them to take again later. Before anyone bites my head off or declares me just complaining in the wrong forum, I have a couple of solutions…

Defensive season achievements!

AND

More defense rewards!

Now, for the first one, it should be easy enough. Protect the keeps/towers/camps/Mist enough and get your achievement and progression toward the meta. Make it close to or on par with the amount of captures one needs, as well as rewarding a chest for doing so!

The second, you might be saying ’Didn’t they already try that?’ Well, Billy, They could make it so you get rewarded for a defense event, so long as you contributed to the defense, even if the attack isn’t over, instead of having to hold for the whole timer (possibly multiple times) as well as the attack just to get rewarded once. It’ll cause someone to have to plan attacks better as well as give people reasons to hold the territory instead of just deliberately waiting to take it back.

My suggestion is sort of like a voting system for every player in the game to help illuminate the great players and ‘bad’ players.

Imagine there are 3 columns lined up next to each other from left to right when you ‘inspect’ a player. The one on the left is labeled ‘Skill’, the middle column is labeled ‘Knowledge’, and the last column is labeled ‘Community’. These columns have points inside them based on other player feedback towards that particular player. The more points that player has the better he/she handles themself in those categories.

Now, imagine being able to directly add and/or subtract points to players ‘ranks’ based off your own experience with them. For example; was a player in your PuG playing extremely well? Did they teach you a couple of new tricks you’ve never known? Were they friendly and patient while dungeoning? Then go ahead and give them some points in all 3 categories!

Another example; did a player teach you an awesome tip for making money? Give him some points in Community and Knowledge!

Were you just following a Commander to glorious victory? Community points!

Did you get kicked from a FotM 48 at Jade Maw so some dirtbag could invite his guildie to take your spot? …I think you know what to do here.

Now, you might be thinking, “But won’t some butthead subtract points from me just because he hates me?”. From what I could think of, yes. This will inevitably happen. So my counter to this is that players can only vote towards the same character they just voted towards once per 2 weeks. Meaning, if you just voted towards a player you must wait 2 weeks before you can vote towards them again. This would help counter point trading/trolling/selling, but…

On that note, I think all players can vote once per day per ‘column’ on another player. So all together you get 3 votes a day, 1 vote for each category. All points are Account Bound and can be shown publicly. No privacy setting to hide your points.

I was also considering some other fun column sections for example ‘Beauty’, do you absolutely adore this players fashion sense? Drop them some friendly points.
But, I think that can lead to some judgmental behavior. I mean, you look at a player and you think “Wow, that dude looks like a total kitten! I wanna look just like him!” and then you go to check their points thinking they must have like a bajillion points and you see he has -57 points in Beauty, and then you think “Hm, I guess he doesn’t look that cool…Yeah he’s pretty ugly”. Another column I was thinking of was ‘Social’, for example; is this player talkative? Are they hilarious? Are they willing to join a voice chat if needed? Do they ever shut up?. I can see this column being very good and very bad.

I also thought we could get some actual ranks and titles when meeting a certain point threshold. Such as 1,000 points in Knowledge would get you the rank Certified Genius, and a title that says “Ask me anything”. Or reaching 1,000 points in Community would get you the rank Celebrity, with the title “Superstar”… or something along those lines.

I was just thinking I wished there was a way to ‘label’ players between bad sports and great players. This was as close as I got to being a hassle-free way to watch each others backs without voluntarily doing so. Sort of like a review of other players so future players can know what to expect, especially if you see a player with -500 points in all 3 columns. Well, if you actually read the whole thing, I guess you earned yourself some Community points. -throws confetti-

There are currently ways to queue up to leave an overflow and return to your home server, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to join an overflow server if your home server isn’t full yet. As it stands, on my home server there are never enough players to fight Teq, and last night there were not enough players to tackle the Mad King’s Labyrinth either. I would have liked to be able to jump to a more populated overflow, but the method was not available.

Hi, make the WvW interface show what map/maps i am queued for. Bye.

They could do slayer and vanquisher modes and titles like they did in the first game. There would have to be a good incentive to continue doing it though. Once people get a dungeon cleared and have the title for it, they will go back to skipping like it is now.

Or they could just makes the mobs mostly unskipable (like fractals), I’m sure speed dungeon runners would love that.

nielscase.6258:

… BG did a great job on strategy and politics. Instead of a QQ thread how about you learn from BG and move on.

Hats off to BG. I don’t know what y’all did, but you seemed to have SoR smitten-ed by your manliness and smooth talk. They eagerly agreed to be your bottom kitten this week.

Im on SoR and yes we did “buy” a transfer.

Butter.3024:

Why are JQ complaining about 2v1? BG and SoR 2v1 JQ for like 8 hours yesterday, but JQ has been best buddy with BG and 2v1 SoR since the beginning of time. You dont see SoR crying about it, only JQ

Go read some old posts its all SoR and BG do when they get 2v1’d is cry like little girls…
Honestly I prefer this all the bags I get from both sides its just mouth watering keep em coming girls I am loving the bags and 50+ ranks from past few days of farming mmm mmm good.

What? Someone mentioned the UI, and Colin popped in to give us some transparency on that. I thought it was great!

I agree about the particle effects, though; the other day some guy in Labyrinth chat was yelling at us for missing boss tells and inconveniencing him with our deaths. My husband was watching over my shoulder, and asked; ‘Are you supposed to be able to see things? It looks like you are flailing around in a swimming pool full of Play Doh. With fire on it.’

I know it’s a no no, but I has to make a macro which centres my mouse when I press down on my mouse wheel. It is the only way I’ve been able to keep myself from going insane trying to find the darn thing.

1. Please don’t hide the mouse when I right click. Yes, it will be where I left it, but when I am right mouse “driving” for a couple of minutes, there’s no way I am going to remember where the mouse last was before it was hidden.

2. Please make the mouse colour and/or size adjustable.

3. Please adjust the camera view so I can see the heads of the bosses without having up look up my own skirt.

Thank you.

I think a combination of people preparing for ascended armor by leveling up all armor crafting, and the fact that luck comes from salvaging which also produces a ton of sigils/runes for mystic toileting upgrades killed this margin.

Martheo.7215:

I still need to finish reading, but evading at the same time as the ranger does seems like big common sense to me. It’s not at all overrated, we should be able to make them dodge at least when we see a crucial need to, atm we’re powerless on keeping them alive even if we see a massive slow easily dodgeable hard hitting aoe that our pets will have to eat up, most we can do is call them back out of it and hope they catch up in time.

I honestly think the devs that designed dungeons and boss AI took the lazy way out and made the mobs target every ally instead of every player with their AoE without thinking of why the boss shouldn’t target AI that can’t dodge. Minions and pets can’t dodge, what dev thinks it’s a good idea to have a boss mob that throws out AoEs (that are designed to punish players multiple times if they are near each other and fail to dodge) and include pets and minions in that list?

Pets shouldn’t need a dodge when the ranger dodges functions, they shouldn’t be targeted by big dodge or die AoEs in the first place. It’s ridiculous fighting Tazza and seeing the pet targeted by her sword skill, or Jade Maw and staying out of combat because the pet slows the party down. Or fighting the Nightmare Tree on any path and because max range on a pet is 900, they can’t safely hit it (and won’t dodge the root spike which also targets them, quite often calling them back makes no difference and they die anyway). It’s just poor design in the first place that this is even a problem. The fact that your party has to worry about 6 AoEs instead of 5 is also unfair and causes pets to be a hindrance, not just disadvantaged. Pets shouldn’t be targeted by dodge or die AoEs.

Hello,
As we see some healthy possible changes coming for Ranger class in following months, and as Devs ask for suggestions, I thought that I’ll compilate my thoughts from multiple threads into one. This thread will be expanded in future.

General
Ranger class is pretty unique as it is, because of Pet mechanic bounded to us. I find it very interesting and working in other MMOs as well.
Please be not surprised I take some suggestions from other games, as we shouldn’t ignore things that work and do not implement them somehow into game because they’re too “mainstream”
However couple things, especially about pet feel very cheesy, easy-mode and too much RNG/AI based for such dynamic game that pretends to be an e-sport qualified.
About pets: They should dodge at the same time ,as evade, as we do and we should be able to bind one more of their special abilities, like charge for Boars, Web for spiders, leap for Wolf etc…
1. First and main issue is AI based gameplay.
I do like the idea that we do our damage via both Character and Pet. However, as AI of NPCs isn’t that great, I can’t stand the fact that pet takes 40% of our damage, doing with it whatever it wants and acting not as part of class, but some random helper.
In my honest opinion, without speccing for pet, it should do about 15-25% of our damage and speccing, traiting for it it shouldn’t be more than 40-55% of total damage provided by class.
Why? Beacuse at the moment overall AI of the game is very passive. For ranger, it’s huge deal, because our pets tend to miss attack most of the times and if they do hit, sometimes they do much more damage than player himself and doesn’t even require him to be active, he can also run away, which is extremaly cheesy, unbalanced and unfair. It applies also for Mesmer Phantasms, and Necromancer Minions (where minions are minor problem as they don’t do that much damage)

Moving on, I’d like to introduce couple things, making Ranger play way less passive, more skillfull, interesting, smooth and balanced. They of course are lacking in design so feel free to adjust them, make suggestion, et cetera, et cetera…

I. Weapons
Keep in mind, damage should be adjusted after pet balance, as it stands above!
a) Longbow

After adding stealth, it got some improvement, however, it still sucks.

#1. Long Range Shot - Remove range requirement. Same damage for all ranges.
If you’re under effect of stealth, or targeted foe is immobilized, stunned or knocked down for more than 1 second, Long Range Shot shifts into:
Steady Shot (1.25/1.50 cast time) which does 250% normal Long Range Shot damage if moving and 325% normal damage if not moving during entire cast. If Steady Shot hits target which is no longer under effect of immobilize, stun or knockdown, it has 20% lesser critical chance and critical damage. Steady Shot has 5 seconds internal cooldown, during the cooldown you fire normal version of Long Range Shot.
Descreption: So, yeah… Range requirement may be cool on paper, but in dungeons and with meta where any class can close the gap in no time, multiple times, it just makes LB basic attack worse and worse. I think attack speed is kind of okay. Moving on to Steady Shot- it’s something that I feel many people were asking about. Let’s be realistic – people like high numbers, everyone likes. So here it comes, tricky way to implement it into the game without messing up with other Longbow skills. Skill which require either stealth or CC to proc and land. Remorseless trait with Steady Shot is obvious combo, as with 25 minor MM trait it’d guarantee crit with this skill whenever you attack from stealth, already implemented into Hunter’s Shot. Other way to perform Steady would be to CC your target. #1 would switch to Steady Shot right after you gain stealth from any source or target is under effect of things mentioned above. Keep in mind, damage is reduced if target breaks the effect and you get normal version of skill right after CC or stealth expires, however, you still perform casting skill if you start in before.
#2.Rapid Fire This skill is kind of nice, however, it shouldn’t follow target in stealth as other channelings shouldn’t. Cast time reduction by 1/2 second or 1 would be welcomed improvement.

#3.Hunter’s Shot Good as it is.

#4.Point Blank Shot Make it instant cast

#5.Barrage Rework. Now, fires two salavas of arrows, covering smaller area, 1/2 second cast time, arrows hit twice, each for about 150-175% of normal Long Range Shot damage, each tick cripple for 2 seconds. Base cooldown reduced to 12 seconds. If hits 3 or more targets, cooldown reduced to 6 seconds.
Descreption: Current Barrage may be cool sometimes, but it’s hard to land, troublesome in WvWvW due to Retaliation uptime, on long cooldown and not really viable in PvP unless shooting from afar + almost useless in 1v1 situations due to long cast. Short version is cool, more like ol’Barrage from GW1. Animation may be no problem, one of Eir’s fit fine.

b) Warhorn

#4Hunter’s Call Add blind effect. If used while stealthed, additionally Fear(1.5s) foes around you in 600 radius.

II. Pet Commands
Now, that’s something new. As I want to reduce pet’s passive damage, I’d like to have more control over it and be able to use it as a part of my class. That’s why I’d like to add Command effects to some Weapon skills, like swiftness buff on HS etc. That would greatly improve our pets in my opinion, make them more bounded to class. Let’s start!

1. (Longbow 3) Hunter’s Shot – Heket’s Rampage Your pet gains Swiftness (10 seconds)
2. (Longbow 4) Point Blank Shot – Predator’s Strike Your pet instantly performs attack, leaping to be in range, which does 100% normal damage and 10% more damage for each Vunerability stack target suffers from if target is under Crowd Control effect or not moving. If not, pet is knocked down for 1 second.
3. (Sword 3) Serpent’s Strike – Serpent’s Quickness Your pet get 2 seconds of quickness
4. (Dagger 4) Stalker’s Strike – Melandru’s Assault Your pet performs attack which does 50% normal damage. You and your pet gain health equal to damage done.
5. (Greatsword 5) Hilt Bash – Feral Agression Your’s pet next three attacks do 30% more damage and cleave/pierce.
6. (Greatsword 2) Maul – Magebane Strike Your’s pet next attack remove one boon.
7. (Torch 4) Throw Torch – Tiger’s Fury Your pet gains Fury (12 seconds).
8. (Warhorn 4) Hunter’s Call – Otyugh’s Cry Your pet’s next five attacks become unblockable
9. (Axe MH 3) Winter’s Bite – Scavanger Strike Your pet’s next attack inflict weakness and cleaves/pierces
10. (Axe OH 4) Path of Scars – Maim Your pet shadowsteps to your target, dazing it for 1/2 second.
11. (Shortbow 2) Poison Volley – Poisonous Bite Your pet’s next attack inflicts Poison (3 seconds). If target already suffers from that condition, applies 2 stacks of confusion instead( 3 seconds ).
12. (Shortbow 4) Crippling Shot – Lacerate Your pet’s next three attacks inflict bleeding and do 5% more damage for every bleeding stack target suffers from.
15. (Harpoon Gun 3 ) Feeding Frenzy – Bestial Fury Your pet gains Fury (7 seconds)
16. (Harpoon Gun 4 ) Mercy Shot – Brutal Strike Your pet’s next attack does 100% more damage if hit foe with less than 50% health.
17. (Spear 3) Dart – Headbutt Your pet’s next attack cleaves/pierces and dazes for 1 second.
18. (Spear 5) Man O’War – Strike As One Your next three attacks remove one condition from both you and your pet and one boon from target with each single strike.

Just logged in to comment that adding some pet traits to certain weapon skills sounds like a very promising idea. I hope Anet takes that one into consideration as it makes the pet much more active for us instead of keeping us handicapped.

The UI in many ways is a complete disaster. I switched to simple party interface recently because I simply couldn’t see anything. But that’s just one element.

Play WvW sometime (we know that almost nobody at anet does this). Need to rush to the west keep on the west borderlands (with only a 1 second window to do this)? You can’t, it’s UNDER the UI. You have to zoom out, scroll, zoom in, scroll. Need to warp to the east keep on the minimap? You can’t, the UI expands out to cover up the waypoint when you try.

Need to meteor storm that treb on top of the southwest tower? You need to target a spot that is in range, has LOS, and is not covered by the UI. Pick 2. While you’re futzing around trying to get the spot that is in range and in LOS out from under the UI into that tiny space between the portrait and the living story tracker, somebody jumps down and kills you. Wait, why isn’t meteor storm firing? I’m pushing 5-5! I’m clicking! Hurry up before they see me! Oh, what’s that there? Apparently, I’ve started reporting an enemy payer for something because I’ve clicked on the kitten portrait and I can’t do anything until I dismiss it. Now I’m dead.

Ditto for aiming arrow carts, which have a special LOS requirement: ground not blocked by gates, walls, chat, party portraits, enemy portraits, achievement trackers, living story trackers, building supply trackers, building upgrade trackers, holiday/event announcements, or boss health (all of which are simultaneously present).

goldenwing.8473:

I remember when Total Biscuit brought this issue up on his video cast during beta, saying it needed to be toned down.

I quite agree.

And unlike other games, there is no way to turn it down to a reasonable level or off.

Guild joke since beta: apparently ANet believes the “skill” required by players is finding the target. :p

Hrmmm. For me the skill is finding the mouse pointer. I waste so much time moving my mouse around trying to find the pointer.

I agree that the female stand is reallistic, as Lord Kuru stated well with his link. However, male stance is not that dumb, and it was also used in 2handed sword fencing. Back in the days, most 2handedsword were just sharp in the last 2/3 of their length because the first one is rarely used in slashing, receives most of the hits and for some close combat techniques, you have to put your hand in the first 1/3 to use the point properly.
That from the perspective of European swords. Katanas and oriental swords were sharped all the way because they were mostly slashing swords with little thrusting capacity.
But the idea of someone “chopping his head off” because he´s putting his sword on his shoulder is as dumb as consider the female stance “weak”.