Guild Wars 2

Seriously! I’m still picking my jaw up off the floor.

This has got to be the best LW update yet.. and I’m not just saying that because we all finally got to shut Scarlet up for good! The entire boss fight was perfect!! And the cutscene with Marjory and Kasmeer was beautiful (a couple tears rolled when they finally embraced each other, I’ll admit!) XD

I know not everyone will be as satisfied as I am with this conclusion, but I just wanted to post a positive thread recognizing the devs’ hard work The entire presentation of this update was just magnificent. AND THE LOOT! By the gods, I’ve never seen so many valuable things in my bags!

(and those Tormented weapons from Nightfall unffff…. Crystal Desert soon?? ;D )

Dear Anet,

Please use your powers to permanently ban anyone that doesn’t play the way I think they should.

Thanks,
Kittenplayer.

But the main objective isn’t the only objective. People have lots of different reasons for being there, and they gave us lots of reasons to be there. We have events to do for achievements, or because they are fun. We have heirlooms to collect, both for an achievement and a fun item (loot). There are blue bags to collect that have items in them that can be used to buy fun items (loot). There are civilians to rescue, the more you rescue, the more stuff you get (loot).

Other than people that literally walk in and just stand there for 40 minutes at the entrance, I’m not entirely sure why any one path to have a good time and obtain loot is the one way that has to be done, and everything else has to be changed so there is the one way? That seems boring.

Now, if the diversity of activities and limit to the number of people in the area cause certain things to not be achievable, then they ought to adjust that. And guess what? They did (1200 vs 1500), and many of the times I participate, we get the 1200. I’d say most times (except in the morning, which is a ‘great’ time to go do your heirloom run!).

And as others have pointed out, it’s not even about numbers so much as coordination and willing people to help ensure a variety of things get done, and not too many people doing one thing. The zerg at certain events seems to make them too powerful and hard to complete, or hard to complete efficiently and timely.

I don’t know. It seems fine, other than the 40 min AFK’rs.

I’m kind of hoping Anet stick with the true spirit of GW2 and make the end of the story all about trolling the playerbase by having someone else defeat Scarlet and take all the credit.

Or even better, have Traherne come in and take the credit, and then Destiny’s edge swoop in and take his credit, and then finish it with Destiny’s Edge 2.0 come in at the last minute and trump both of them.

Palador.2170:

That would be kind of a bad spot for a level 80 zone, don’t you think? Not only because it’s right in the middle of lower level zones, but because it becomes an incredibly EASY level 80 zone to get to when compared to most of the others.

Wayfarer Foothills connects directly to Frostgorge Sound. Made that mistake the the first time I found that entrance.

My point is, what does it’s location have to do with the price of fish in Norway?

I am just going to say i will be disappointed with anything less then the utter destruction of LA and the inability to rebuild it. I do not want to see any patches with the theme of rebuild LA, i would rather see help build a new city in this other place. Make LA a permanent 80 zone. If scarlet awakes something have it and its minions be what will inhabit this map going forward.

Dragon appears and eats scarlet in one bite. LS over…goodbye

Season Two: Scarlet Strikes Back!
New, improved Drill Star nears completion…

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Now it could be really heart-wrenching if you found the charr that kid was talking to digging and clawing at a collapsed and wrecked building, yelling,
‘Raisin! Come on, say something!’

omg my heart just broke a bit reading that!

Carighan.6758:

To be honest, silk is the one thing I always got enough of. :X

You panty stealer.

MisterElliott.2481:

But what about the skritt couple?

Tried to save her, but too much smoke. Alone now. No more shiny ….

Awesome except this:

Every time i hear about tengu i think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHpetnUFQMA

Still don’t see why ppl are so hyped about these things.

Actually, the tengu are a future playable race and they come from an expansion land where the level cap is 100, not 80. They also have a tier of gear that is two tiers higher than ascended, it’s called Mythic Trahearnded and it requires your first born Aether Damask which is made by combining 100 Damask, a Molten Jet Pack and a legendary rarity item called "Logan’s Courage 15 Vision Crystals, all on a monthly timer. They also use a new stat combination more powerful than Berserker called Rurick, rumour is it’s the ultimate in recklessness and glass cannon, I’m not sure about the damage, the changes to dodge roll and enemy AI made content so challenging, no-one is able to live long enough to tell us about the damage.

In addition to 20 levels of moar power, the tengu get a damage bonus for firing down at a location. Drop a penny off of a tall building and it can kill a man (it’s a science fact, don’t question it), imagine what a fully Trahearned Rurick sniper (new class because rangers had to be removed when karka became tameable) can do with a gravity damage modifier (a new mechanic introduced when Scalret… oh yeah spoilers)?

Dear Anet,

The new update is fantastic! The events are fun, the vanity sets and other new gem store items are cool, and the storyline (The idea of LA being attacked) is great. Me and all my friends have had a great time playing and we look forward to what the future holds. Keep up the good work! (Just thought y’all might like to hear something positive for a change on these forums.)

Sincerely,
-MM

lazarus.1639:

Even the Great Northern Wall might not survive this year.

Stop destroying the old lore please.

I hope you can look back at what you wrote and see the irony there.

What is the ‘lore’ of the Great Northern Wall? Well, it just so happens that in the original game, it was destroyed by the Searing. For you to complain now about the potential destruction of something that was already destroyed in the game you’re nostalgic for is more than a little silly.

If anything, this attack on Lion’s Arch is very much staying true to Guild Wars tradition. Things get destroyed. Everyone has fond memories of ‘pre-Searing’, the peaceful Ascalon that is lost once you reach a certain story step and that can then never be accessed again with that character. But the Searing happened. The game went on. Now it’s Lion’s Arch that’s being scorched. This is the kind of ‘nothing is sacred’ approach that the original game embraced. So why can’t you embrace it now?

Vick.6805:

Zypher.7609:

Vick.6805:

Traveller.7496:

GW2 is not and won’t be GW1 with revamped graphics.

It’s a shame, because a continuation of GW’s game type and style A) was what a lot of people expected, B ) was what a lot of people wanted, C) was what would have kept GW veterans happy in the sequel, and D) would have given GW2 a similar staying power (which I just don’t see in its current form).

Oh well…too late now. ANet made their decisions. I’ll just be very surprised if GW2 ever reaches the kind of dedicated fan base that GW has.

And what type of dedicated fan base does GW1 have?

The type where players revisit a game that is 9 years old, has no content updates, and yet is still somehow enticing players to leave GW2 and go back to it.

And almost every single one of those people hop on GW1 for an hour, enjoy fleeting nostalgia, then hop back off.

Curunen.8729:

I just thought (as I’m downloading) – what if my character is in LA? Will they load outside a gate or what?

perma death, you will need to start over.

Ah, nerdrage at its finest.

I am all ways looking forward to the next update. I have gotten spoiled by the fact that this company updates so frequently. Great job anet, now I have to languish in anticipation week after week. Love yall lol

First, the game was advertised as changeable. I bought the game for the reason that the maps would change and I’d constantly have new things to explore. So yes, it was advertised as such. I remember one developer add stating something like “Centaurs might destroy a whole village one day, and then no one would be able to go back to it as it once was.”

Second, Scarlet is the very definition of a good villain. Somehow, this prevailing attitude that she isn’t has taken over because of the fact that the entire story didn’t take place in one update. If you look through the whole arc, she didn’t suddenly appear for no reason. it started relatively slowly, with her mustering troops. And while it seemed she pulled the Aetherblades for no reason at all (besides attacking Lion’s Arch) her reasons are now perfectly clear.

She started with a small force. She took her pirates, attacked LA, and found the defenses too strong to immediately do what she wanted.

So what did she do? Rethought things. Recruited the molten alliance. The Krait. Developed a new plan. Essentially went back to the drawing board, started over, and came up with something fool-proof.

Every Living Story update has been a step of that plan. In fact, if the whole story happened in one update, THAT would make Scarlet a bad villain. We have seen her development. We have seen her amassing her troops. This whole thing is a year in the making – all the pieces fit, and it all makes sense.

At times, the story wasn’t executed perfectly, but that doesn’t make it BAD.

It seems to me that people are used to the instant gratification that you might get from an expansion pack on other MMOs, where you can play the whole story through in a few hours, then go on to talk about the lack of endgame (since you would have already finished the endgame, but I digress.) You’ve been given an ever-changing world with new content every two weeks, and that is nothing short of amazing.

As the Scarlet arc has gone by i’ve been enjoying it more and more. Anet is really starting to get good with the living story (Tower, Marionette, and Edge of the mists were all good imo). I still dislike the Scarlet storyline in general but I’ve been coming to like it more due to the higher amounts of storytelling. I just wish they had done that from the start.

That being said…If the “change the face of Tyria forever” is ONLY the destruction of Lion’s Arch, i’m going to be very disappointed as I would be expecting something much more.

First iteration of beta – supply was only found in keeps or towers. That was changed immediately by adding supply to reactors.

Map used to not have sentries. Sentries were added to give solo players and small groups objectives.

Kodan used to be the absolute strongest Keep NPC. That fun little AoE Blizzard they can do from anywhere? Would you believe that used to apply daze on every single hit? It literally shut down an entire guild group of 40+ that attacked Green Keep during one of the tests, because they couldn’t use their heal skills.

The altar buff that makes players invulnerable? That used to be a 5 minute duration, oh yeah, and it also had an auto-attack that could be used on enemies without losing the immunity.

The Legendary Defenders that prevent spawn-camping? They used to not exist.

So many graphical bugs, along with tower and keep exploits were fixed. There was one tower in particular where different players found about 6 unique ways to exploit inside. Every time it was thought to be fixed, some innovative tester found another way in.

So many things were changed, fixed, altered, etc…The map is in a much better state than it was in testing.

Some nice snippy little responses there, which may make you feel smug and clever, but don’t actually address the bottom line.

And that is that, even though I usually enjoy most of the LW releases, I don’t enjoy this one. I’m not alone in that.

I have a few hours a day to play GW2, at most, and I don’t want to spend them standing around, constantly trying to switch overflows. And the times I’ve participated in trying to kill the marionette we have coordinated and planned.. and then failed usually because of issues such as 1 or 2 people being put on a platform.

But by all means, please pretend it is my fault for not somehow single-handedly controlling the behavior and ability of 100 strangers, while also having to fight against some very poor game design that often makes success as much about luck as it is about skill.

perilisk.1874:

“I know you don’t want people running a boss forever,”

What I can’t figure out is why.

Just implement a reasonably fair DR formula to punish mindless farming while also avoiding making it totally worthless in terms of extrinsic rewards for people to replay content (you know, so people playing after the daily reset can find a group).

If people enjoy a boss fight, let them have a boss fight. Let them fight the boss 10 times in a row, if that’s what floats their boat.

This. And the one above this.

Precursors drop and are obtainable outside of the trading post?

Color me shocked. It makes me very sad to hear that “OH the droprate is fine, I’ve gotten X number of precursors and I’ve only played the game for a few months”. I’m starting to doubt that I will ever get a precursor outside of saving hundreds of gold for one. :,(

• 13k+ achievement points, including dungeon master, every jumping puzzle done at least once, participated in every living story everything…
• thousands of hours played in all areas of the game (PvE, WvW and even some PvP)
• World boss events done nearly daily
• Rares/exotics tossed in forge, every chest I’ve found raided
• Map completion done 4 times now
• 8 level 80 characters (and one level 51 character)

Precursors that have dropped for me = 0

I’ve gotten one precursor from the trading post for 19gold (all I could afford at the time) and I’m saving everything I possibly can to try and afford Leaf of Kudzu and I’m still so very far away.

Even with ~140% account magic find I’m still lucky to get a rare or two outside of the guaranteed ones from world events.

Thief is most hated in WvW for being ‘OP’. It’s more or less the strongest 1v1 class in a WvW 1v1 roaming context… and herein lies the problem.

People don’t generally cry about a class when it’s a 5v5 fight and one side loses. They don’t know which player was the one that decided the game, or if it was the overall team effort that did. They don’t cry about guardians in a 80 man zerg, they cry about the zerg numbers.

So when people must complain about something, it will be in a 1v1 context. And since that’s where the thief’s abilities are best applied… the result is obvious.

===

Ranger is most hated in PvE because of two problems.

1. The average ranger player is incompetent at being a ranger.
2. The average non-ranger player is incompetent at being a ranger.

Therefore, the overall perception is that the class is underpowered, which is made worse by the generally bad skill level of its players. This is extremely misleading.

Rangers are built, class-mechanic wise, to deal both condition and direct damage simultaneously. They are not built to specialise in one or another. The average player is not capable of thinking in both direct and condition terms at the same time. The most effective damage-based builds must run Rampager or Carrion. And the number of builds that follow this rule in existence is single digit, and they are all not in the current ranger meta.

A properly specced damage ranger has 5000 damage per second before the effects of might, and is played like a thief, without stealth, with a pet. It outdamages all other builds except a particular dps-focused mesmer variety, but does almost the same damage as that at a much higher potential range. The disadvantage is that to achieve this it uses max bleed and poison under ~ 1500 condition damage conditions, so you can have only one of this kind of ranger or a necro in a party. The moment you have two, things start to become far less efficient since only one of them will have their damage properly registered.

The support ranger is also feasible, of which one of the builds is in the current ranger meta. Spirits are used liberally in this, and the ranger’s job in this context is to buff others and keep others alive. However, this build is pointless in the overly easy PvE backdrop, and only really comes into its element in WvW.

If compared to a necro in terms of overall dps against a single target, the ranger is greater. If compared to a necro in terms of overall survivability, the ranger is greater. If compared to a necro in terms of overall dps against very large numbers of targets, the necro is greater.

In summary, the ranger class is hated in PvE because people don’t know how to use it.

===

The most hated in sPvP is the ele, for two reasons again.

1. It’s the hardest class in the game to play by a wide margin. Most of its users suck at it.
2. It’s very badly balanced for sPvP as the class revolves around booning and AoE damage. In an environment where boons can be easily removed or even stolen, this role is invalidated. In an environment where people don’t ever bunch up, AoE is weakened. Builds that do not boon do not play to the class’s niche, and therefore are weak. A non-boon damage based FA elementalist will never match a warrior of equal skill, because the class was not originally designed with that in mind. An AoE elementalist generally never hits enough targets to be worth the party’s while.

Now, OP, do you want to be hated in WvW, PvE or sPvP?