Guild Wars 2

That ol noob.7083:

I want to see the marvelous world that ANET has sculpted better than ever before. I want to be able to use the full power of my system to make it sharp as it can be.

DX12 isn’t going to help you much then, it’s more a marketing exercise to coerce people on to Windows 10 than anything else.

I want chocolate !!!

JediYoda.1275:

Dreamslayer.7659:

I think it’s very presumptuous of everyone to constantly say GW2 is “poorly optimized”.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but what evidence do we have?

From my observations, I think the network is the real bottleneck – the game has no trouble rendering large numbers of entities, but the network traffic for 70 people to play together is kind of insane.

Maybe a graphics overhaul would make sense in 4-5 more years, but not at this point.

Well one could argue that the out of memory issues that plagued the 32 bit client is poorly optimized to handle 32 bit client memory restrictions. 64 Bit client is just a band aid fix/workaround to the out of memory issue that they haven’t been able to fix for over 3 years.

32 bit systems can only address 4GB of RAM and if you need more than that, you have to use all sorts of tricks. Don’t blame Anet, blame binary.

I think it’s very presumptuous of everyone to constantly say GW2 is “poorly optimized”.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but what evidence do we have?

From my observations, I think the network is the real bottleneck – the game has no trouble rendering large numbers of entities, but the network traffic for 70 people to play together is kind of insane.

Maybe a graphics overhaul would make sense in 4-5 more years, but not at this point.

not many people will undertake such a task as it is far from easy. as they basically got redo a lot of stuff.

Well right now they seem to be going in the opposite direction with all the visual nerfs but either way I think you underestimate the effort required to rewrite the game for another graphical API.

Khyan.7039:

Beldin.5498:

Since these kind of threads came up already before HoT i really wonder how many
people could already play druid before HoT, since else it is simply not possible to
heal without doin damage .. or playing AFK with healing spring on auto-attack and
doing nothing else.

The difference is Druid healing provides additionnal buff damage. That’s why druid is fine because you provides support to the party.

Oh yeah .. since you said that .. buffs also really seem to count. A while ago a was
on my way to a rich iron node with my guardian and used retreat while there was
somebody killing a spider in range .. a while later i suddenly saw that i got some exp.

So it seems you really can get kill credit without doing damage.

The point I see being made here is “if you don’t do dynamic dps, go home.” This makes no sense that Anet actually implemented a healing/support option into builds only to require dps damage in order to get gold or even silver rewards. If groups require support of one type or another, then why not implement the abilities to actually accumulate points to get gold?

I am tired of using my support through all my encounters to only get a bronze or even nothing based upon my efforts to support the group. So if you support your group you are kitten. Don’t support the group you get griped at for failure to offer support?

Healing isn’t “useless” in this game, it just has a very niche value:

• Vinewrath and other escort events: healing is an excellent way of keeping the carriers alive, if the local zerg isn’t able to dish out enough damage.
• Helping friends in dungeons, fractals, etc. There are several healing builds (e.g. “healineer”) that can keep just about anyone alive, even through stacks of agony. If you know people that don’t want to leech and are still struggling, this is a great way of making them feel like a star. (Which turns out to help them get better …eventually.)
• Certain personal story/living story achievements are easier with one person working on heals. (This is similar to the point above; I separate them because many people have trouble with one but not the other.)
• WvW requires healing in a number of situations, mostly for GvG or Zerg v Zerg.

Personally, I’ve always hated the healing role — even in single player games, my NPC teams are aggressively damage-oriented and in multi-player games, healers tend to be ignored (if they do their jobs) or yelled at (if anything goes wrong, whether or not they are effective). Still, I see why other people like the role.

Unfortunately, GW2 bases rewards on contribution to damage, not to keeping NPCs alive. If you want full credit, be sure to include a lot of damage in your rotation, too.

shroomduck.7548:

I have to say I am a little disheartened, I usually heal in all games I play and it does not seem to be viable in this one.

Is there somewhere where healing comes into play and has more of an effect?

First of all, don’t listen to anything in this thread. The people saying healing doesn’t exist are usually part of a small group of people who run all Berserker gear and dodge perfectly. And even alot of them aren’t as perfect as they think and just don’t pay any attention to their log to when some water blast saves them.

I have 3-4 characters set up entirely for DPS, and they benefit from support, no matter how much I train or how good I get a certain encounter, things happen.

Secondly, you should understand that there are no truly dedicated healers in this game. Even the person with the best healing class will still need to switch to damage and fight mobs most of the time because other players don’t need healing that often except in certain battles that overwhelm them. If you want a character who can switch to healing in an emergency and completely restore the health of all his party that is about to wipe, this game is for you. if you want to follow noobs around and heal them as they level, this game is not for you.

Healing is highly situational.

Finally, if you want to be a dedicated healer in this game, either play PvP/WvW, or play the newer PvE maps from Heart of Thorns using Celestial (not dedicated Healing Power or fully defensive) gear. For class you should use Engineer, Elementalist, Ranger or Revenant, and Elementalist is the best of these in non-expo GW2.

If you don’t have the expansion, and you want to play a healer, then buy it. Encounters in the expo encourage healing, CC, and other alternative means of gameplay and generally punish pure DPS users, stackers and overdodgers.

Now, as for how to play your Engineer effectively as a healer, you need a condition damage and condition duration build. You’ll probably want to use Nightmare runes from Twilight arbor, condition duration food (Super Veggie Pizza is good enough), Giver’s weapons, Sigil of Malice and possible swap in some parts from the newer expo stat combinations that include condition duration.

The reason for this is simple, Engineer is very complex to play for healing, although they are very good at it. They have to master many combos (mostly blast finishers). And except for a few select power builds, they are mostly a class that benefits from conditions unless you run the hammer in the expo on Scrapper subclass. Conditions have the benefit of allowing you to continue to do damage while also healing in which case you will not receive much, if any, flak from your party.

In Rift’s public events, players get just as much credit for healing as DPSing. So this sounds like something that might need to be worked on.

PopeUrban.2578:

True story:

They started putting notifications up there because during LS1 people complained that things were going on in the game that the game didn’t notify them about.

Basically, those notifiers are present because the community complained that they didn’t have them.

Now, we just need a way to dismiss them. right click or something. I dunno.

Players wanted a notification of when and where the world event was going on, since it it was hitting multiple zones at certain times. Situation would have been comparable if there was one announcement just for the Scarlet invasion and a separate one for when and where the invasion was happening, and another for winterfest. Two of them are not needed.

Yes I get it you have spvp leagues going on, you have the esl thingie going on as well, you also have the buff on my bar for the esl. I get it already now let me turn them off when I want as well.

PopeUrban.2578:

True story:

They started putting notifications up there because during LS1 people complained that things were going on in the game that the game didn’t notify them about.

Basically, those notifiers are present because the community complained that they didn’t have them.

Now, we just need a way to dismiss them. right click or something. I dunno.

This would appear to be a theme with them: People complain about this or that. Anet gives people what they want pendulum style, by swinging in the other direction. Rather than keeping what they used to have in any capacity (e.g. options) they throw out the old entirely and give people the new exclusively.

Maybe one day we’ll get some control over what is shown on the event tracker.
Options in the settings menu with boxes we can tick.
-Show Promotional Events
-Show Seasonal Events
-Show Personal and Living Story
-Show Zone Events
-Show Heart quests
-Show Daily Quests
You get the idea.

Until then,I can only point out the irony that part of the reason we are not allowed to manage our tracker is because it can get pretty crowded with text,only to fill the same tracker with adds because,marketing,I suppose.

About the specific adds.
Raids have been in the game for weeks now.
Lvl 80s in Ascended gear don’t need the add in the tracker to remind them that Raids are active and in the game, and new players have no use for this since this is not content they can play before levelling and gearing up.
Same goes for PvP leagues and live matches.
Advertising these in the site/forums and loading screen would more than suffice.

Do you think they even care about your complaints? As said above – because money.
They are going fast in a direction many players don’t like. Get used to it, it will only get worse.

I’m glad they moved the loading screen ads out of the image and into the black space – Thank you!
Now if they would only let us dismiss these ads for content that we may or may not be interested in. I would even be favorable to a choice between a “Dismiss Once” option and a “Dismiss forever and ever because I am not interested in this, never will be, and according to Colin I’m a bad person and I’m killing GW2” option.

I’m not sure when they started using these, but they existed since before LS1. They have always bothered me aswell. It should be possible to hide personal story, event details AND this advertising stuff with a click or checkbox somewhere. If you click on them to hide so you only see the title it still resets the next time you change maps etc. If someone really wanted to do PvP they would check it out if they see it.

It is getting pretty excessive, cluttering sides of the screen. They could at least remove the links from it, it’s very irritating to accidentally click it while doing something important.

Tiny Tove.3589:

So Anet are now on a mission to fill the top right of my screen with adverts for things they are apparently insisting I read constantly.

These advertisements are a way of reducing the visual clutter because they hide whats behind them on screen.

P.S. just kidding

Qugi.2653:

Colin say if you argue about PVP esport hurt game and you should have shame.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3v24hg/the_reduced_visual_noise_changes_have_to_stop_gw2/cxk2o2z

If you don’t like it more power to you, don’t watch, but it’s absolutely helping our marketing folks make Gw2 a bigger game which I’d hope we’re all excited about. If you want to see the game fail I’m not sure what you’re doing here, but rooting against programs like pro league is basically rooting against Gw2 growing. When folks come here and rip on stuff like PvP, you’re basically hurting the games ability to grow – and personally I would say shame on you, if you truly love the game, be constructive and give awesome feedback and suggestions: but don’t knock it just cause it’s not PvE.

So if love GW2 must like PvP esport. If not you want GW2 fail and should have shame for that.

SHAME!
/throws rotten tomato
SHAME!
/thows a pointy carrot
SHAME!
/thows a cabbage with a rock hidden in it
SHAME!

Shame on you ANet for spouting cleaning up visual clutter then add in a highly visible icon to players names, shame on your marketing team for placing unremovable announcements to the information area of the UI, stuff I click to close and wish I could remove much like participation medal info because I don’t need useless information staring at me the entire play session. Finally shame on you Colin for ripping on people for ripping on pvp which you think hurts the games growth, when your development teams ignores WvW for years, how’s that for hurting a games growth?

Shame indeed.

That stuff is annoying for it’s money-grubbing philosophy… but it’s also annoying for it’s uselessness. As people have pointed out, those that aren’t interested don’t want it and even those that are interested, don’t need it.

There is extra information I wouldn’t mind seeing on my screen, such as world boss timers – with it being completely optional, of course. Because it needs to be pointed out to anet that features should be optional and not globally enforced).

Takoyakii.2146:

Why can’t I disable it.

Because Colin say esport PvP is what make GW2 for market. See my quote above in thread. Like he say if do not like it to bad and shame for you for not want it. Sad to see leader of GW2 think this way and shame customer that do not agree with esport for future of game.

Agreed, my top right is full with spirit vale ads, PvPleague thingy, esport when it’s up. Daily ,personal story. Meta event description, sometime I can’t even see my actual in game event because this waste of space.

I notice the thing now. Why can’t I disable it.

I’m waiting for a cash shop item that removes adds. $1000 gems to remove adds for 6 months! Why else wouldn’t there be a option to hide them yet? Because it is another opportunity to monetize the game.

Sarcasm aside the notifications are very annoying. It can’t be that hard to code and option to hide them, but there are currently so many bugs I doubt Anet will have them all fixed in the next 6 months let alone have time to add simple QoL improvements.

I thought I paid money to remove the adverts. The people interested in PvP will know this without the spam. The people not-interested only need to read your spam one time. This is BS. Someone write a program to fix their BS please.

Well yeah, advertise all you want, just make us able to mark that screen clutter as read and make it disappear. I don’t even want to imagine how bad it is for people with smaller or 4:3 monitors. Like I don’t glue the adverts I get in the mail around my apartments walls, would be redundant, I’ll read them if I want to and then discard them.

And moreover forcing us to read that thing always when we’re online is not going to make me more interested, rather make me despise the content just because the words are starting to annoy me.

Colin should realize that people playing this game care more about a good gaming experience than the growth of the game. What good is a growing game to us if we don’t enjoy it anymore?

There are 3 at the same time now. It’s getting excessive.

If they’re supposed to be notifications, they should be dismissible when we acknowledge we’ve been notified.

Even though I have a decently-sized screen, I’ve been wishing for this myself, because I hate extraneous clutter. I would, eventually, like to try Forsaken Thicket, but I don’t need a constant visual reminder. As to the PvP Leages, ESL and whatever… I simply do not care, and the in-your-face advertising of those events will NOT change that.

They were so worried about “visual noise” when they nerfed skill effects, but apparently they are far less worried about seemingly permanent on-screen noise.
I don’t have an issue with Anet trying to generate revenue; after all, the game is Buy to Play, and they do need to make money. However, if people are not interested in something, they are not interested. This is why I roll my eyes when companies on the Internet complain about Ad Blockers; if people are going to the effort of installing things like that, clearly they are not potential customers.

Psychological advertising…. the longer its there the more likely, they think, you are to having a look….. Did you notice that the pre release pricing page allways opened up with the highest price option highlighted…. sort of thing you get after “someone” talked to a consultancy….