Guild Wars 2

Alot of the legendarys look bad. Just throwing it out there, alot of weapons in the mystic forge with same stats and look better and less people have them, so its a more unique look for you. Just wish there were more weapon skins on the market / released by Anet.

GW2 needs more stuff like this in the game. Keeps the PvE stuff fun and makes people do events in the game they normally would never do and go places they normally would never go. It actually makes the PvE stuff in the game outside the dungeons fun and exciting.

I say add more cool skins for us to go treasure hunting for.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

it has a very low drop rate

New and exciting.

Ursan.7846:

Geikamir.6329:

It’s not out of thin air BECAUSE of the algorithm. Just because Arena Net is the market maker doesn’t mean that they don’t need to have the gold sank in some way to make up for the extra coming into the economy.

I’m confused. It is created out of thin air. Just like how gold is created out of thin air. And items in this game. And we’ve already discussed why this doesn’t create rampant inflation (because Gem/Gold ratio has been pretty steady, which means conversion both ways is pretty steady.) And why I believe more gold has been converted to Gems in the long run (general overall upwards trend since launch)

Geikamir.6329:

It’s just like trading in used video games for store credits. Do you think GameStop does it because they are nice guys? No. They are a company. Everything they say or do is designed in a fashion to increase revenue. They use your old game to resell for greater value than they paid. The fact that you can turn in your unwanted items to purchase items that you do what is all part of the plan and is a mere byproduct of the initial intent. It’s then used to market the service in hopes of getting more customers from both ends of the transaction.

Gamestop what it does because they can re-sell these old games for greater value than they paid. They have every reason to give incentive to people turning in games, because they profit from each transaction.

What can Anet do with the gold players turn in for Gems? There is no profit to be made, and there’s actually a LOSS in the sense that the player just used in-game gold to buy something with gold rather than real money.

the profit is made due to the exchange rate. It doesnt matter if there is gold in fort knox, people believe their money has value, and part of why it does, is because the government prints up money in relation to how much goods and services they have.

Essentially the algorithim means that gems are not really printed out of air, they are a representation of how much a non gem user values his time in terms of getting gem items. The gold/time people are willing to give up, which is then purchased by other people.

Every time people buy gems with gold, it causes the value of gems to go up, real money spenders then buy the gems, because of their worth in gold. If no one sells their gold then gems are less valuable, and people buy less of them.

And no, anet cannot do the same thing without destroying the economny, which is the primary means by which gems have value. If they just sold in game money the economny would collapse and in game money would be worthless, which would lead to people not buying in game money.

The premise is basically this, they get more money with this system, because people who want to spend money spend way more money. The guy who dropped 100 dollars in the gem store day one, will probably drop 100 dollars again, as long as you have something worthwhile to sell him, the guy who never buys isnt going to the gems store. So now, you get the guy who never buys to create the item the guy who likes spending wants, gold.

Otherwise you would have to constantly be creating items of value for the guy who wants to spend, and youd only get value from that guy.

Essentially every item that gets bought with gems is paid for, either directly or indirectly.

This is why the economy is important for anet, there needs to be reasons for people to want gold.

Heijincks.9267:

Why am I not having this problem? I’m not saying it isn’t a problem — but it’s an inconsistency none the less.

The reason why this is not an issue with you is because the RNG in this game needs to be tweaked. A good portion of members have issues with bad RNG, while others are incredibly lucky. I think there is something wrong with the coding of the RNG that causes this to happen, but I am sure there are more theories then this.

I think you’re approaching combat wrong.

When facing non-elite mobs, I will typically make it a contest of how much damage I can avoid while killing my foe.

As I ranger I don’t feel very “rangery” in my medium armor choices. I think it would be great to see some more variety and options.

I see a lot of light armor wearers in cities and they seem to have a lot of options with the dyes that look really nice.

And I’m a female gamer and female ranger. Gimme some fur lined bustiers and some leather pants and small, form fitting boots please. Maybe a leather vest. Or viking inspired leather stuff. Give me something to use all these great dyes on.

Just don’t give me trench coats or coats of any kind please.

People should not post the names of their own toons. Typically people think that their toons are named better but there’s no perspective and more often than not, they’re wrong.

cNcHellShadow.7691:

I saw an Ele by the name of Elementally Challenged….I had a huge laugh from that one.

How did he get past the 19 characters limit?

I saw an Ele by the name of Elementally Challenged….I had a huge laugh from that one.

Have a Human noble warrior name Earl Grey Poupon.

Hydrophidian.4319:

Trahaerne is a solid vehicle for accommodating all that needed to unfold in the story. And putting the PC in the effective role of Kingmaker—as the power behind the throne—wasn’t a bad idea at all.

A dull voice acted, and poorly written character is hardly ever a good idea.

Ok so I just thought I’d clarify some things since it seems some have misinterpreted some of what I said.

So in regards to the legendary precursor, I’m not really upset about not being able to make a legendary. I’m more disappointed in the fact that the odds are so absolutely atrocious in the mystic forge. It just highlights the issue with RNG.

What I guess I didn’t really make clear, was that I’m disappointed that the entire endgame relies on such a bad RNG.

Basically I see Guild Wars 2 as having 2 potential endgames for PVE (which is where I spend the most of my time). You could try to obtain your legendary (which isn’t really an endgame since it is a finite goal), and you can also try to progress through FotM, which is the only dungeon I find to be actually challenging (starting at about level 20).

Both of these things rely on RNG. My frustration mostly stems from my terrible luck with FotM, where I can’t progress for weeks because I’m not getting the account bound items only obtainable via RNG drop that I need to get my AR high enough to move on. I think my bad luck in the mystic forge was more of a “last straw”, and it just highlighted the issue. It really demonstrated how the RNG I loathed from FotM was far more ubiquitous than I had previously thought, and it pervades just about every aspect of the “end game”.

Also, for those saying I should just save up 600g and buy the precursor off the mystic forge, well I tried that. See, when the precursor was 300g I had about 50g. I’m in grad school, I can’t sit around all day playing the game, I get in a few hours though every night. So it took me a couple of weeks to get to that 300g. Then I go to the TP and what do I see? Dusk was now 600g. So I start saving again, and then I look a week later and it’s at 650g.

The price is rising faster than I can make money! I can’t seem to catch up to the AH value, so I finally caved and went for the mystic forge, which is SUPPOSED to have the best odds for obtaining one if you use exotic weapons in your forging (as opposed to random loot drop or chest drop).

Also I do realize I was sort of complaining without presenting a solution, which isn’t really productive. So here’s the solution I propose would make this game fun again:

In my opinion, there should be some sort of more concrete method of obtaining a legendary precursor. Be it a quest, or simply better odds using the mystic forge. I’d even settle for some massive number of tokens or something. Maybe 5000 fractal tokens. Basically, ANYTHING concrete. Even if it’s something hard. I think this method of gambling for everything is what’s so disheartening, where time put into the game does not necessarily correlate with how close you are to getting your precursor.

I also think that the FotM should have concrete rewards. For instance, maybe the first time you beat level 20 you could be awarded 1 glob of mist essence, so you know you can upgrade at least ONE of your ascended components to its infused state, allowing you to at least continue on. I’ve been stuck at level 20-24 for so long now simply because I seem to have bad luck, and I’ve had several rounds where people who only just started at level 20 had obtained MULTIPLE pink drops during that one run.

At least for me personally, changing these things would make the game exponentially more fun, and I’d feel much more like I was being rewarded for time put in rather than being rewarded for getting lucky on ANET’s slot machine.

Its not even Grind Wars, Its Rng Wars.

I would also like to give Zommoros a serious wedgy, though I expect the developer behind the rng would be more deserving.

I think until ncsoft changes alot of these stupid RNG aspects, the game is going to continue to slide ever downwards until its got no playerbase left.

I saved up 8000 dungeon tokens from 4 different dungeons, and 250g as well.

Spent all of it on exotic greatswords from the TP, and dungeon swords from trading in tokens (each greatsword was either 390 tokens or between 3-4g)

Not only did I not get a precursor, but I didn’t once get even a “semi” rare sword (one of the ones worth more than the standard 3-4g). I got mostly pearl and carrion greatswords with one or two skybringers and a dhummseal.

After going 18 daily rounds in FotM at lvls 10 and 20 in a row without so much as a ring, let alone a glob or vial of pink mist, and now this, it seems the entire “end game” is based off of the terrible RNG.

Anyway, just thought I’d put this out there in case anyone else was thinking of spending money and dungeon tokens on the mystic forge to try and obtain a precursor. I’m uninstalling the game myself, I just don’t really see the point in playing anymore. I’ve seen all the content, really was just trying to get further into the FotM and/or get my legendary (which I had all the components for with the exception of the precursor. It’s been fun guild wars, but the RNG just kills this for me.

The biggest issue I have with this:

1 -it’s per account rather than per character.
Anyone who has more than one toon is given a big fat middle-finger by ANet.

2 – you have no real choice in what shows up on your dailies or monthlies. Don’t like them, tough.

3 – you have no way to do multiples on one toon or one account if you happen to have the time. At least in the other titles ANet scoffs at, you can do as many dailies as you want.

This is nothing but artificial kitten-blocking.

medium armor in this game is the worst selection of MMO armor

I think it should shoot out clouds that rain down trout. And the trout are on fire.

For a human female, I count 4 armors that DON’T have a split front coat or short skirt like affair, it leads me to believe that those responsible for design of medium armor have no imagination for a fantasy setting.

No particle effects. No massive shoulders.

Realistic looking, something that I would see for the first time and say, “not only would my character wear that, I’d love to wear it too.”

Because massive lava and fire shoulders with electric sparks shooting out are not cosplay-friendly.

250-use kits and tools.

I carry a Focus with me solely for the purpose of blocking siege shots when my Commanders asks for it. There are some nice skills in Focus, as you listed, but not worth it over the more general utility and ‘goodness’ of the Dagger in offhand.

comet is not as good as u picture it… it’s area is quite small… and it still have a good delay (not on the level of DT.. but still enough to give the enemy enough time to dodge out of it…)

in the comparison between fire ring and flame wall u missed one thing… fire ring deal direct dmg when casted to all (well the usual 5 target limit is applied) those inside the ring area… and it is not a little dmg

that said… as the rest of your analisys explain… focus is almos worth for a couple of skill only… and the earth skill while really good on paper soffer the fact that we already spend most of our utility slot for defensive CD so we need our weapon skill to be effective in the DMG department… or we will not be able to kill a thing… (the obvious counter to this problem will be to use offensive utility skill… but unfortunately our offensive utility are really plain and at most decent compared to excellent defensive utility like armor of earth, arcane shield, mist form and so on…)

so… focus really need to be revised… if the intention is for it to be the single target offhand (to pair with scepter for a single target build or with dagger for a bit of range against fleeng enemies…) its dmg sould really be improved by a good margin (it’s actually really below the aoe dmg of dagger) and if it’s meant to be a controlling weapon (wall, daze, chill, KD, reflect) than some of those effect need to be improved in duration/target/effect… flame wall will not hinder nor it will work as a scarecrow… comet area as said is too little that combined with its delay make it usefull only in choke point, chill and KD as explained by the OP are on too long CD for being single target… they need the CD to be halved or the numerf of target increased (the second option wil probably help much more in the control department).. the reflect is probably the only shining part (altrought a bit wider area should help a lot… but is nothing that I actually will ask for without increasing the CD of the skill by at least 5 or 10 second…)… as said by the OP too magnetic wave is one of those skill that should be able to make a balanced weapon OP… unfortunately the Focus condition is that bad that not even this skill is enough to make it feel good… :/

Wanted to post to say I totally agree with you OP.
It feels like the focus could be really amazing, but when compared a dagger (you’re only other offhand choice as an ele) the dagger is just better. I kind of wish flame wall could be replaced with something else entirely. Same for air focus, Swirling winds is such an odd skill it’s generally entirely useless in all situations where you need your other skills, and when it is useful all your other skills are useless. It’s just so out of place.

Geikamir.6329:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Here’s how it worked. I started putting little jumping challenges into my maps several years ago. About a year and a half ago Colin and a couple other designers decided that these were fun enough to turn into some kind of bonus content. About a year ago all the other map artists were told to put a bonus jumping challenge or two in all their maps. We were in our polish phase and these were never intended to be anything more than small diversions for people who like platforming. Not a lot of time was dedicated to this because it was seen almost as Easter Eggs. Just fun little hidden places to discover. As such, JPs were never advertised as primary content, never included in world complete, never required for any story step, and never containing loot that could not be obtained elsewhere.

Because JPs are such a minor part of the game, specific camera issues that are primarily caused by them are not super high on the list of systems that demand the camera code bends to their needs. This does not mean that JP camera issues are ignored by the programmers who work on the camera, simply that they have to prioritize things. And while I’m not happy with the way the camera works because I spend a lot my time doing JPs, I know the engine optimization guys are not happy either because part of the compromise they have to make with us JP guys means that there are places where the world drops out because the camera can get through the occlusion planes. If the optimization guys had it there way 100% the camera would never even get close to a wall and we would build all our maps as flat planes with waist high walls. (Not that they actually want that, but that would be the ideal for avoiding world-dropping bugs) Since the camera has to serve two or three masters, who all want it to do different things, its current implementation is a compromise. This is not due to laziness or bad coding. We simply don’t hire lazy people or bad coders, and we get rid of any who show that tendency.

One issue that a non-developer would not know is the difference between creating a single-player game and an MMO. So it’s easy to look at Uncharted’s camera or Skyrim’s camera and say “Why don’t they just do it that way?” In fact, a lot of us artists DO say that to the coders. And then we get taught a lesson in how incredibly more complex an MMO engine has to be. The sheer amount of dependencies on any one system is staggering, and there is hardly ever a time where a programmer slaps their forehead and says “Oh, I never THOUGHT about just doing like Skyrim!” There are always REASONS that our systems are the way they are. None of this is to say that all our systems are perfect and our team is perfect and nothing will improve. Of course we aren’t perfect, and we are just as frustrated by the limitations and quirks as you are.

So yeah, had we been inflexible, we would have not allowed JPs in the game because they expose weaknesses in the camera. Had we been omniscient, we would have planned the camera from the start to work with the extreme geometry that JPs have. Had we been perfect, maybe we could have come up with a solution to work for all the systems at once perfectly. We are none of those things. What we are is a bunch of people who love making this game and who are constantly looking for ways to provide interesting and new kinds of content. That means pushing against the limits of what our engine can do, then iterating the engine to try to keep up with the design ideas. It’s a process, not and end point. There will never be a point at which we are all happy with the game and declare it to be the perfect representation of our design wishes.

I’m currently in a conversation with the latest ‘owner’ of the camera system and we’ll see what comes of that.

Bravo.

Why can’t all issues be handled like this post? There are so many issues that get brought up sometimes and we are given canned responses that literally make the situation so much worse, because if feels like we are being treated like children. This post talked to us like people, not customers. It actually answered questions instead of avoiding them (and in laymen’s terms, no less). And you even gave us solid information that you are actively trying to make a fix for a problem so many players want.

I really wish all big-ticket issues were handled so well (like cross-region guesting for example).

+1

excellent explanations by Josh, and an excellent response from Geikamir. kudos to both of you.

Nalora.7964:

Ok, I will pipe in here.

Some people really want everything spoon fed to them. The first night of the “prelude” (hint PRELUDE is not the entirety of anything) People were asking: where do I go, what do I do, is helping 75 people it? Let me get this done fast fast fast…tell me exactly, what do we do?

Others actually read the information given. I can hardly wait to see how these spoon fed people react if Guild Wars 2 does an April Fools day event like Guild Wars 1 did, and everyone thinks that its real or can’t figure it out because they are…well so used to being given pablum.

I am as critical of Arenanet’s mistakes as the next person, (you should see my private diatribes to them, its a wonder I have not been banned for just plain rudeness) But this is one time when they did it right. Perfect, in fact. At least for fans of old school RPG, and for the ENTIRE community. Not every one logs on every day, not everyone does things in 30 minutes (after being told exactly step by step what to do numerous times, and in numerous ways.) You know sometimes you have to actually READ the things those NPC say to you to progress or figure out what to do.

And sometimes …you have to wait for things to happen. You all need to go put a seed in a dixie cup of soil and see what happens.

No, we dont want things spoon fed to us. We are GETTING things spoonfed to us. We want the meal, to eat at our own pace. Some wanna do it fast? let them. You want to go slow and enjoy it in your way? Do it.

We’re here to have fun. Watching plants grow in cups isn’t fun.

EDIT: isn’t that the motto? Play your way?

Aoshi.4785:

More WoW fanboi-ism at it’s finest lol. It just doesn’t stop with this one.

Anyways, OP, the Living Story seems like it will be eeked out over time. I know alot of us killed what there was in a day, and now we wait. It’s ok though, go enjoy the rest of the game, the LS will evolve over time. Don’t be too worried about it, cheers ^__^

Am I wrong? Wow has had progressive events and phasing since the very beginning.

Either way, Anet’s ideas are sound… the execution, as always, is a misfire.

Redfeather.6401:

To a lot of players it’s an email blast and splash page created to market what appeared to be an incredibly small in-game scavenger hunt. Should have held off on the marketing push until whatever this Living Story was got well under way.

Marketing makes that patch day hype go boom.

And the community go bust when developers are unable to deliver.

It’s one of the many things promised, or hinted at by Arenanet that they didn’t deliver on. They didn’t ever give an excuse, or explain why it’s not part of the game. If anything I think that’s false advertising, Molyneux syndrome. I assume you’re talking about the new ‘event’, but this was something they said the entire leveling story would be like. They said your home region would change and adapt all the time based off your decisions, and that your friends would want to enter your region to see how amazingly different it is to yours, to witness your feats of strength and accomplishments. Remember the interview saying the entire region would get poorer or wealthier, cleaner or dirtier based off of your decisions? How NPC’s would sell different things. One word, BULLkitten.

The story in GW2 was a disaster, I think that’s abundantly clear by now. As you said, they were meant to feel personal, “living”. They are generic, with a few meaningless choices that effect nothing. You then get dumped on the same path as everyone else with the most boring, dull and irritating NPC leading the the story to the end. [I think you all know who I’m talking about, but I won’t give spoilers, or talk about it in depth]

Also, dat ending……I think ME3 was bad.