Guild Wars 2

Obtena.7952:

Believe whatever you want, it’s intentional, and that’s my point. I think it’s pretty ridiculous to think Anet ‘messed up’ a whole underground area where you can loot 20 or so chests after the meta is complete in AB and ‘messed up’ not having similar areas in the other three HoT zones.

Well, if we’re being honest (you wouldn’t lie to score internet points, would you?), it isn’t so much the looting 20 chests part that they ‘messed up’. It was the looting those 20 chests 10 times. That little bit we can’t seem to agree on the proper term for so we’ll call a, hmm, exploit.

I also love the intellectual dishonesty on presenting all arguments as equal and subjective while completely ignoring the salient point everyone is throwing at you: It isn’t that AB offers more loot, it’s that it offers VASTLY more loot for the time spent from what is clearly an exploit.

And of course the icing on the cake. Once you’re finished pumping out weak logical fallacy, you accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being jealous.

Just give up already.

darkwombat.3695:

I have not played Guild Wars 2 since the first week that Heart of Thorns was released. This is the first time that I can remember, than an expansion turned me off so badly, that it made me lose all interest in the game itself.

I do not know if it was the flying, or the vertical zones, or whatever but boy it was a nightmare.

Did anyone else have this experience, and if so, are you looking forward to the volcanic patch coming up? Maybe they will get back to what made GW2 great.

I signed up for GW2 earlier this year. The core game isn’t all that appealing to me, but I love HoT! It started to feel a bit aimless there for awhile with the content drought, but I was very pleased with the first installment of the new living story and especially the new map. They managed to bring something new and interesting to the table yet again! That seems to be what HoT is all about.

So, yes, I am absolutely looking forward to this new area and continuation of the storyline. If they can keep putting out amazing open world environments and reasons to play them, I will keep coming back for more. I was also pleased to hear they are working on another expansion. More please!

I run staff with pistols.

Staff produces stronger sustained damage against 3-5 targets, while pistols produce burst damage against a single target. This makes staff the obvious choice, except when range is desirable. Pistols see the most use against strong single targets (champions), enemies with powerful CC and enemies that stand in area effects.

Pistols allow you to deal damage on the move from range, which combined with the dodginess of daredevil makes the thief very hard to hit. It can be very effective for staying alive.

I would advise against using pistols exclusively. The auto attack isn’t strong enough to carry the set. Once initiative runs low, damage drop off significantly. Using skills other than pistol 3 comes at a cost in damage. You will become overwhelmed against multiple enemies as the low sustained damage results in enemies that live longer.

sophiewhite.3149:

AliamRationem.5172:

Smeerlap.2698:

How does looting Multi AB maps makes you rich… even 1 meta gives a ton of loot that vaporizes into low tier stuff you don’t need, just the wood is okay.
Start of with some shiny purple and gold chest.. click click.. then you get the satchels and boxes (epic) click click..then you get the green stuff.. click click.. oh great some moar silk scraps etc.. it vaporizes into low tier stuff that sells x250 for 50 silver wow!.
Loot a hundred maps for all i care.. loot is just horrible in this game.
Chop and Mine Sparkfly Fen / Maelstrom for 1 hour and you make 8 to15 gold.. see what im saying.. META rewards are bad.

Loot may be horrible in this game, but there’s a reason we’re discussing AB multimap. The effort to reward ratio is off the charts compared to similar content and indeed anything else in the game (except perhaps TP trading for those with sufficient resources).

I don’t care much about the economy. I figure that will balance itself out. I’m much more concerned with a game that leaves such obvious exploits in place when it can lead to nothing other than the feeling that most of their content is unrewarding.

How else CAN you feel about it, if we’re being honest? How can the chak gerent feel “rewarding” when it provides next to nothing for a win and has a much higher rate of failure? With AB multi so far and away more rewarding than any other content in the game, everything else is comparatively less rewarding.

I expect that sentiment to grow as AB multi continues. Because let’s face it, running AB this way is in no way challenging. The reason players do it is purely for the rewards. And if those rewards start to feel unrewarding, what does it say about all of the other content which doesn’t even come close?

the argument you have here is “loot everywhere else sucks so nerf ab cause its loot is too good” what about buffing the other places to stay in line? or at least a little bit. i cant even finish my dungeon achievments because no one does them. will nerfing ab help that? nope.

If AB multimap provides appropriate rewards, then they absolutely need to increase the rewards of the other available meta events to match or slightly exceed that of AB. However, if they did this without closing the multimap exploit, players would likely switch over to a different meta as it would be easier to gain greater rewards by completing one meta than by setting up the multimap train.

So, yes, I agree. They should fix the exploit and increase rewards on the other meta events to appropriately reflect effort vs. reward.

runeblade.7514:

It is not a opinion. Because the meta does not overlap with each other at all.

Players are not machines that run continuously with maximum efficiency. Consider their tolerance for farming a finite resource that is more quickly expended as effort increases and reward decreases.

In other words, AB is only likely to have zero impact in a scenario where players spend 100% of their time maximizing gold gained. In this scenario, players complete AB and then move on to the next most lucrative event and so on until AB is up again.

A more likely scenario is that players will find other events less rewarding because, compared to AB, they are. They may still farm outside of AB, but as the effort to reward ratio is comparatively less than it was prior to AB multimap, they’ll tend to spend less time doing it.

It’s a safe assumption that having an event that offers vastly greater rewards with less effort will result in players participating less in other, less rewarding events of a similar nature. The effect would simply be more dramatic if the AB meta timer also overlapped other events. But it’s hardly a requirement!

Honestly, I don’t feel it’s remotely worth the price unless you have gold to burn and nothing better to burn it on. You can get plenty of ascended pieces without having to spend a ton of gold, and these should be more than sufficient to begin climbing the fractal ladder, which will increasingly provide more ascended gear as you progress.

Unless ascended gear is something you simply must have for your own reasons, I recommend acquiring it slowly over time by other means. At some point you’ll find you only have the odd piece missing from your set and crafting those might make a bit more sense.

Smeerlap.2698:

How does looting Multi AB maps makes you rich… even 1 meta gives a ton of loot that vaporizes into low tier stuff you don’t need, just the wood is okay.
Start of with some shiny purple and gold chest.. click click.. then you get the satchels and boxes (epic) click click..then you get the green stuff.. click click.. oh great some moar silk scraps etc.. it vaporizes into low tier stuff that sells x250 for 50 silver wow!.
Loot a hundred maps for all i care.. loot is just horrible in this game.
Chop and Mine Sparkfly Fen / Maelstrom for 1 hour and you make 8 to15 gold.. see what im saying.. META rewards are bad.

Loot may be horrible in this game, but there’s a reason we’re discussing AB multimap. The effort to reward ratio is off the charts compared to similar content and indeed anything else in the game (except perhaps TP trading for those with sufficient resources).

I don’t care much about the economy. I figure that will balance itself out. I’m much more concerned with a game that leaves such obvious exploits in place when it can lead to nothing other than the feeling that most of their content is unrewarding.

How else CAN you feel about it, if we’re being honest? How can the chak gerent feel “rewarding” when it provides next to nothing for a win and has a much higher rate of failure? With AB multi so far and away more rewarding than any other content in the game, everything else is comparatively less rewarding.

I expect that sentiment to grow as AB multi continues. Because let’s face it, running AB this way is in no way challenging. The reason players do it is purely for the rewards. And if those rewards start to feel unrewarding, what does it say about all of the other content which doesn’t even come close?

Hey, no problem! If it’s good for AB, then it’s good for all the other boss meta events, too.

ANet, please ensure that the other HoT maps all provide a proper ratio of effort/coordination to rewards. So AB remains as it is, but the TD, DS, and VB meta events all provide greater base rewards than AB multimap.

For all of the reasons that AB multimap is problem-free, we should support this change.

Meridian.4983:

Blaeys.3102:

I would love to see a permanent unranked PVP map using the mechanics and terrain similar to that from Bloodstone Fen. I’m sure it would be unbalanced as a skritt on a unicycle, but it sure would be fun.

It would be extra fun if the falling scream was added back into the game:)
I agree the range on those rocks is obscene. I’ve been hit by several in a row and fallen to my death, but the range on the glider attacks is the same. Enemies that are too far away to be seen can still be hit. I’d say the physics of the rocks should be fixed because they change direction to follow their target, but a bloodstone exploded and I’m hallucinating Anomalies all over the place. So, ya know, priorities

There wouldn’t be much point to the projectiles if they couldn’t hit you, and they give you all the skills you need to avoid them. I think a lot of players simply don’t adjust after realizing that the projectiles seek. They still take to the air and try to stealth, but that does absolutely nothing to protect you against projectiles already in flight! I can imagine those projectiles are frustrating when they use the wrong strategy to deal with them!

wavyfish.8430:

I’m just here to marvel at the outstanding individuals who still manage to convince themselves that AB multi is an “exploit” that needs to be fixed because they are either too “intelligent” to do it without being kicked from squads, jelly champ/SW farmers, or overconcerned people who don’t know what inflation means though they use that word all the time.

It perfectly matches the definition of exploit, unless you can explain why a developer would create rewards for only this one event that were intended to be looted multiple times. Does it not stand to reason that they would simply have increased the rewards for this event rather than intentionally create the multimap scenario where players join trains to switch maps and loot as quickly as they can?

That does not indicate that it needs to be fixed. Ultimately, that is up to ANet. But if you’d like to know why it should be fixed, forget about “inflation” and just answer this question: Is it generally good design to provide vastly more loot for one event than other, similar events? If you know the answer (and you do!) , then you know why this doesn’t work in the long run and why AB multi should be (and likely will be) fixed at some point.

There is no gearing up. You can work toward ascended gear, but the stats are only marginally better than exotic and vastly more expensive/time-consuming to earn. And the only thing you need it for are high level fractals, where the special sockets on ascended pieces may be used to provide agony resistance (a mechanic specific to fractals).

You may need to put in some work farming gold or map currency to get the exotic gear, but it’s nowhere near as much work as for ascended.

Crustydog.9825:

Seems I am not the only one that finds being hit out of flying mode a full 3 seconds after going into stealth is a bit much…..

You don’t have to keep eating these deaths.

Don’t use stealth while in range of enemies unless you are extending the duration. Instead, use it when approaching enemies to cover your landing. This way you can avoid pulling 20 enemies from long range and eating a bunch rocks to the face upon landing! You can also use it to cover yourself as you pass through enemy range, or to buy a few seconds for the cooldown on glider 5.

Understand that glider 5’s evade and aerial dash duration may be extended dramatically by holding down the button! This means that as long as you have room to use it (watch out for leylines!), you can evade all current projectiles and quickly escape enemy range – all on a short cooldown!

There is an initial second upon entering flight where you cannot enter stealth. In this second, enemies under the extended aerial range rules will launch projectiles. You should never use stealth at this point. You should be using glider 5 instead.

As a backup, trait a passive stun break. It will negate the first rock that would otherwise have taken you out of flight. If you do this along with the rest of these techniques, you should have no issues with rocks. Leylines on the other hand, will become a bit of a hazard!

Thief has the highest mobility and damage of any class, but the lowest group utility. It may be a good choice for you, given what you’ve said here. Just be aware that it could be an issue for getting into group content at times. There isn’t really much reason to bring a thief over another class.

Rev can also be highly mobile and deals solid damage, but has a great deal more group utility. Groups like having a rev for boon sharing. But they aren’t locked into low damage the way druids are.

bobsort.4097:

Today, I was doing the personal story Confessor’s stronghold.

I had 3 Legendary companion with me, Rytlock, Canach, Marjory.

The mob attacking me was a Veteran Justiciar Adrienne which strangely has a health pool of more than Lich King or Deathwing! and 5~6 other normal mobs which respawn right after killing them.

I am a ranger with a bear which is a tanking pet.

While I was fighting this guy and other mobs that constantly keep shooting at me. my 3 legendary companion were standing right there and my pet get busy with grass.

In any normal situation, my pet keeps the mobs away from me while I pick them up one by one and occasionally heal the pet (because I can’t do it more than once in every 1:20 minutes?).

Anyway no matter what I did, all the mobs were attacking me instead of my pet and those other 3 Legendary companions where standing there watching me get beaten and may be making jokes like, “Oooh, that is gonna hurt!”, “That hit him right between legs!”, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Funny thing those legendary companions from what I saw in the past have worst dps ever and health pool less than a rabbit. If the Legendary sand giant had their DPS or health, I would be killing him every 50 minutes.

I would love to know what is the point of having those 3 in there if they are not going to help me at all?

Ok, they are required for story telling and bla bla bla! at least don’t make them legendary so I don’t rely on them!

And, why all the mobs in personal story unlike open world attack player instead of their pet. isn’t purpose of having pet diverting the attack to them?

By the way, if you are no a ranger and never had a ranger, let me tell you that, even in full zerk ascended armor, without their pet, ranger DPS is as low as chickens in Queensdale.

Yeah, I was doing the chak pit master achievement last night and got a real kick out of Braham dying within the first 30 seconds. Way to lend a hand, bud!

Kirschsahne.2081:

If someone asks me they should keep politics completely out of a video game.
This reminds me of the guys that was offended by one of the free armors becuase it looked like it had crosses all over.
These things go pretty ugly fast.

The next person wants a black transgender… then an asian transgender in a male body
with female hair and a quaggan lower body. Soon we end with ghost marrying horses.

Like i say, they should keep politics out of a video game.

Some things are better left unsaid. But since you bring it up, I have to ask:

What if your gender were conspicuously missing for obviously “political” reasons? You seem awfully sensitive to someone else being acknowledged in that situation. What’s it to you? Or are we going to get political and discuss why you have the right to be acknowledged in this way while others do not?

Nice slippery slope, bro.

Obtena.7952:

While I agree that downscaling is not a problem, I find it disturbing that people are complaining about aggro and encountering mobs … it’s like they don’t know they are playing an MMO. In otherwords, what is an MMO where getting aggro and encountering mobs, no matter the volume or difficulty, is not a significant part of the game? It’s just a big empty map. Then people complain your just sight seeing.

I’ve played both kinds of games … not enough mobs on the sight seeing tour and killing the wall of mobs on the hour long trek to get anywhere because of it; and both suck. GW2 is hardly either of those. This is the same thing as when people pipe in about how grindy GW2 is … That lack of perspective is very telling when people are trying to compare games.

I find the aggro range very reasonable in GW2, if not a little light, though there is a few mobs with exceptional range like Risen Acolytes. Spacing I don’t see an issue with, though again, some areas designed with mobs so that it’s difficult, though not impossible, unless your in the Chak Underground for instance.

That’s what I’m talking about .. you can see the whole range of these area designs in the game, so the mob placement, aggro range, etc… isn’t just some afterthought … you know Anet intended certain things in certain areas … you can identify easily what is hard and easy areas.

I always enjoy posts that begin with a ridiculous (and completely false) assumption about a specific group of people and then go on to rail against that assumption as if it were representative.

I think you know that there’s a pretty large area between “a big empty map” and a reduction in mob density, aggro range, or any number of other less extreme options for addressing the perceived issue than removal of all enemies and/or aggro mechanics.

You know what, though? I’m with you. I love combat in this game and I have a real tough time walking past an enemy and letting it live. Let’s just say I’m easily distracted. But while ANet clearly decided to design things the way they are, and I’m personally fine with it, that’s hardly a reason to stink up someone else’s thread by telling them how much it disturbs you that they have an opinion that differs from your own.

You are, of course, welcome to yours and I agree with you: HoT is a ton of fun and I absolutely love battling the chak, mordrem, even those nasty mushrooms, smokescales, and saurians (you cute little pocket raptors, too!)! But I didn’t mind the changes in the April patch and I’m never closed to well-reasoned discussion on ways to make HoT more appealing to more players.

Ultimately, I would like players to enjoy these maps enough to spend time in them, because they do represent some truly incredible designs like nothing you’ll find anywhere else. It’s a shame more players don’t appreciate them. And I think there are certainly areas where mob density could be reduced.

For starters, how about the long route to Ogre camp from Order of Whispers in TD? The shortcut is hidden well enough to justify a mastery strongbox, a hero point, a vista, a flax farm, and multiple chests along the way. Are you telling me you’d be upset if they removed a few of the about four hundred mordrem maggots crammed into that tunnel along the way?

I think we can compromise here. There are areas which are obnoxiously dense with mobs for no apparent reason.

Reaper Alim.4176:

Hickeroar.9734:

It’s funny that people complain that this game is easy…

Coming from the WoW world where everything is handed to you on a silver platter, this game is downright hard by MMO standards…

Wait what? Please explain because I’m confused. Because as far as my experience playing MMOs in the past 15 plus years starting with RS and current MMOs with the exception of maybe WoW. GW2 is clearly the absolute most casual and easy mode MMO on the market now. Hey you don’t even need skill to get to legendary division in sPvP as you can just spam games till you are there. Fractals are very easy by current dungeon standards. Raids are super simplistic by current and past MMO standards. RvR or WvW in GW2’s case all you need to do is stack a server with players and the blob always wins, alot of other MMOs give small man and medium sized PvP groups tools to beat a mindless skill-less zerg. In GW2’s in WvW players in 75 plus man Omni-blobs roll over all opposition on the map. In other MMOs I’m also currently playing, 2 skilled and geared players can destroy 12 to 15 not so skilled player groups, and 12 or 15 highly skilled players can curbstomp 40 or more not so skilled players. So the MMO I’m currently playing is highly punishing to casual and players that just can’t get it for what ever reasons.

All of this is nothing to feel embarrassed about. It is good that there is a super easy and casual MMO option on the market for players who either, want to take a break from the more serious MMOs, players who don’t have the time, or player that don’t have the mental or physical capability to play more difficult MMOs. This is pretty much the only reason GW2 is still alive atm despite all of it’s flaws.

If GW2 was not a super easy casual MMO with all of the flaws it currently has in it’s game modes today. Barely anyone would even think about this game.

10/10 GW2 awesome game to relax and feel like a God with very little time and effort invested into it.

ANet knew what they was doing on this point and does have a monopoly in this department as of now. They should be praised.

I suppose it depends on the game and the mode in question. If we’re talking WoW, it doesn’t even have open world events as we know them. You mostly just solo quest (“hearts”, basically) as hardly any of the open world content is challenging enough to require assistance. Also, as I noted previously, the gearing system in WoW inevitably trivializes virtually ALL open world content even when they do release open world zones intended for players in raid gear.

Look me up in game. I’ll help out with storyline, HPs, MPs, whatever.

Obtena.7952:

A little off topic but I think that’s the point … you shouldn’t be able to just run your way through maps and avoid mobs. I mean, there is a reason Anet put them there in the first place. In fact in Fen, i think it’s worse because in HoT, you can kill those mobs. in Fen, killing those mobs doesn’t really ‘clear your path’ so to speak. Some of the non-avoidance methods in Fen can’t even be avoided … like random death bubbles, etc..

For myself, combat and exploration are the best parts of this game. I generally don’t mind taking my time to learn my way around in environments like HoT, and I tend to engage a lot more enemies than is strictly necessary in the process!

The game offers players a wide variety of abilities which may be used to navigate the world with minimal engagement. Certainly there are areas where it would be ill-advised to attempt a run through. Particularly if one intends to stop and engage something difficult at some point, it wouldn’t be beneficial to train extra enemies to your objective. But if getting from A to B without stopping to kill enemies is your goal, I can’t think of a class that isn’t equipped to do so in most cases.

HoT may have introduced more dangerous enemies and higher mob density, but they also gave us gliders (and maps designed to use them in!) which are a highly effective means of bypassing enemies. Even in BF, where the enemy gained the ability to attack us in the air, ANet provided the tools players need to handle these threats.

So, of course, I disagree that ANet intended us to fight everything (even if I personally consider that no chore at all!), but I don’t feel anything needs to change. I enjoy the scaling in lower level zones. It makes the maps playable and at least somewhat rewarding at max level. And I very much prefer HoT enemies to much of what core had to offer.

ferdi.1452:

Hickeroar.9734:

It’s funny that people complain that this game is easy…

Coming from the WoW world where everything is handed to you on a silver platter, this game is downright hard by MMO standards…

I really hope you are joking …

WoW is different in the sense that your gear is not fixed the way it is here (more or less). If a zone is difficult in WoW, it’s only a matter of time before you can trivialize it with gear. For instance, the initial heroic 5-man offerings were quite difficult. But the same content was a complete joke by the time a raid tier or two had passed because everyone outgeared the content.

Consider the leveling experience in WoW. In normal gear it’s no more or less difficult than core Tyria. But established players don’t level in normal gear, they level in heirloom gear that scales to your level and always has by far the best stats you can get (until very high level).

If you’re talking instanced PvE (raids, dungeons), then obviously WoW is the more challenging game. But open world? It’s hard to say that WoW is more difficult because even in cases where a zone is initially challenging (Tanaan Jungle, etc.) once you gear up you can roll right over it.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

In other words, he doesn’t have to wait until level 80 to have fun or feel powerful. He can play warrior now and do all the things you described.

And just to be clear?

I hate both warrior and thief. But if I had to choose? Yes, warrior. If I had to choose one of those two.

Cool opinion, bro. But I liked mine better.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

AliamRationem.5172:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

For PvE? Warrior. But it does depend on your playstyle. Even so, a warrior can take on things that would kill a thief instantly . . . if done right.

I would definitely give the edge to warrior prior to unlocking the elite spec. After that? I think daredevil is easily one of the best solo open world classes. High speed, high damage, and high survivability with the right build and strategies. But what is “survivability” exactly?

I’m the sort of player that wants to be very self-sufficient. Survivability for me goes a little beyond not dying during large group events. I frequently go after champions and group events solo and it would frustrate me if I didn’t feel I had much of a chance of surviving in those situations. Obviously, not all champions/events are equal in this sense, however.

So, examples of some recent solo work on my thief to give you an idea of what makes the list for “survivability” in my book?:

Taking on two veteran karka at once
Soloing the chak assault on SCAR camp
Soloing champion Vic the iron
Soloing the bloodstone crazed Whispers agent in BF

Maybe these are or aren’t impressive feats to you, but if I can take on these types of challenges solo with a class I consider it “survivable”. And for me, thief is the best at it.

Everything you said is true. But keep this in mind: Everything you said was true for thief—at level 80 with the HoT expansion. Everything you said is also true for a warrior . . . without the elite spec, without HoT, and at much lower levels.

Just something to consider.

Okay?

I wasn’t being serious, guys. I sort of figured somebody would pick up on the fact that asking for loot from a boss to be multiplied by 10 is a ridiculous request. But I suppose the fact that you’ve been receiving 10x the loot via AB multi for so long has clouded your judgment on this one.

I’ve heard all the defenses. If players weren’t doing AB multi, they’d be farming something else. Very true! However, it’s generally poor design to have one activity that provides vastly more reward than everything else as it devalues the rest of the content. The longer this continues, the more you will see that come to bear as players find everything else less rewarding by comparison.

The other issue is that not all players want to play the LFG mini-game all the time. I’ve said it before: I love the HoT maps, but I hate the way the events are set up to require showing up at a certain time and hopping maps. Now, in order to get not just a little more loot but a great deal more, I have to play the LFG mini-game on speed!

Would this be an issue if AB were comparable to every other HoT meta reward? Of course not! Don’t like AB? Do TD. The rewards are similar! But currently if I make that choice I’m essentially wasting my time as I get next to nothing relative to AB multi.

It’s poor design. Plain and simple. I don’t like it and I wish they’d fix it. As I told my guild last night, it makes me feel I’m wasting my time in this game if I don’t AB multi, but AB multi itself feels like a waste of time. What’s the point? Might as well go play Legion!

Derdhal.6908:

ChrizZcE.5981:

but I feel like I´m actually losing gold by doing anything other than ML.

And you’re right. The point is: do you play a game to gain in-game gold or for fun? I remember that old times when all games were just about having fun…

With respect, there has never been a successful game in this format that did not provide rewards. We aren’t playing Candy Land here. This is an MMO. In order to keep players coming back they need to feel the content is rewarding.

Unfortunately, many players feel that this game is somewhat aimless. The decision to shy away from any sort of endgame progression leaves a rather large void to fill. You say fill it with “fun”, but players have already experienced the content by now and are looking for more. The only way to add replay value to old content is to ensure that it is rewarding. Or do you know of a way to make a game as fun the 100th time through as it was the first time?

Ardenwolfe.8590:

For PvE? Warrior. But it does depend on your playstyle. Even so, a warrior can take on things that would kill a thief instantly . . . if done right.

I would definitely give the edge to warrior prior to unlocking the elite spec. After that? I think daredevil is easily one of the best solo open world classes. High speed, high damage, and high survivability with the right build and strategies. But what is “survivability” exactly?

I’m the sort of player that wants to be very self-sufficient. Survivability for me goes a little beyond not dying during large group events. I frequently go after champions and group events solo and it would frustrate me if I didn’t feel I had much of a chance of surviving in those situations. Obviously, not all champions/events are equal in this sense, however.

So, examples of some recent solo work on my thief to give you an idea of what makes the list for “survivability” in my book?:

Taking on two veteran karka at once
Soloing the chak assault on SCAR camp
Soloing champion Vic the iron
Soloing the bloodstone crazed Whispers agent in BF

Maybe these are or aren’t impressive feats to you, but if I can take on these types of challenges solo with a class I consider it “survivable”. And for me, thief is the best at it.

I love the HoT maps, but I’d love them more if I could just log in and play them any time. I recognize that they aren’t “dead”, but that isn’t my issue. I just want to play and the hard event timers combined with the LFG and megaserver systems create a scenario in which your only option for doing so is to show up at the correct time and use LFG.

That’s the biggest failing of HoT, in my opinion. Well, that and adventures. But at least those are somewhat optional. Unfortunately, this issue is simply a side-effect of the design. I wish there were a way around it, but they’ll probably just have to avoid this event setup in the future.

So, I just don’t have an SSD and my load times are too high to play the AB multi-map mini-game. I was just wondering if we could maybe just multiply the loot rewards on the Tarir Assault by 10 and call it a day? I mean it doesn’t hurt the economy or anything and everyone’s doing it! Let’s make it official! Whattya say?

Not a pvp player, but would staff with p/p work? This is hardly proof of anything, but in the little 1v1 I have done with guardians it seemed like neither one of us could take down the other. Maybe it surprised him, but I had been using staff the whole fight and suddenly dodged to range, swapped to pistols, and hit unload. He went down FAST!

I would think unload is pretty easy to avoid/reflect, but I know nothing about PvP or guardians. So you tell me!

I agree completely. The layouts and visual environments in HoT are incredible! Gliding in them is even more amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it in any game!

However, there are some things I don’t like, the “LFG meta game” chief among them. I feel I should be able to just log in and play the game. Showing up at the right time to hit the LFG train to an organized map feels antithetical. The icing on the cake is that by far the best method of earning loot in HoT consists of the LFG game in fast forward!

I also greatly dislike adventures and wish there were more alternative sources of mastery points. I feel the masteries are worthwhile, but I’m not willing to put myself through this to complete them all. I hope they continue to add more mastery points to give players more freedom in how they go about unlocking masteries.

In any event, I am greatly anticipating more of these excellent maps. Even more if they can provide them without these issues!

I imagine the issue with increased vigor uptime is redundancy. With a passive trait granting 5s of vigor on evade, acro thieves already have solid vigor uptime in combat. Compare to granting a passive condi clear + decent regen uptime or a passive 2s evade when you need it. There just isn’t much point to granting vigor on heal in this trait line and it becomes even less useful when paired with daredevil because vigor in general isn’t all that useful when you already have all the evasion you need.

Thief is a great solo class and very strong against large groups of enemies. They can deal a lot of damage on up to 5 targets very quickly, heal themselves in the process, and escape to safe distance before enemies have much of a chance to react.

I’m primarily a solo player myself, so I prioritize unusual things like being able to solo more champions or take on ridiculous numbers of enemies at once.

You might give this build a try if you have daredevil unlocked and some berserker and/or marauder gear available. A mix of the two is probably a good idea for solo thief players.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhFmCOOBkmiFqiqrnCgGYO73+yfLHHsqD-TxRBQB5T3wV2fUyBgLCQGVO8gnAgZUCmQ1fIFggKjA-e

Infusion.7149:

I think the map is okay. I would like for the projectiles to be less painful when flying around on a glider though.

The bloodstone ruby cost ought to be reduced for PvE players however for the first backpack they get. 200 blood rubies is a steep cost to pay for a backpack when dailies only provide 4 ; 2 rubies from the Jade Constructs’ chest , 4 rubies from the Legendary Unbound Guardian’s chest, 1 ruby for escorting Alari Doubleblade , 3 rubies for defeating Ghostly Justiciar Hablion.

The bloodstone cost could scale up after you purchase your first one (i.e. 100 blood rubies, then 150 for 2nd , 200 for 3rd).

I mostly WvW and PvP and was able to complete the reward tracks to get the backpack (a reward track rewards 50). PvP is by far the fastest.

I didn’t see you mention it as a source, but mining bloodstone crystals also provides blood rubies. I’d be surprised if the drop rate were better than 1 ruby per node, but there are many nodes on the map.

Also, the glider 5 skill is particularly useful in avoiding rocks. Did you know if you hold down the key when activating this skill you will glide AND evade for a much longer distance? It also covers you with stability. I’m not sure any of this is mentioned in the tooltip for the skill, so not everyone is immediately aware of it.

Running a passive stun break trait is another great defense against those rocks.

Glider 5 will cover you from that initial barrage (like when taking off from the crater walls with an army of white mantle nearby!) and may take you out of range of the next round. But it’s a good idea to transition straight into stealth after the evade. Alternatively, dropping out of the sky immediately returns you to normal range rules so new projectiles can’t be thrown (but projectiles in flight are another matter!).

Combine these methods with a passive stun break and the rocks become a trivial issue. Now taking massive amounts of damage in flight is another matter! Use glider 5 to avoid that, too!

Is your question “Why play thief?” or “How do we justify thief as a class with stealth when other classes also have access to stealth?”

I pose a few questions in return:

Does engineer have a trait line dedicated to stealth? Does mesmer?

Should thief gameplay be based entirely on stealth?

Sismis.5390:

Look the joke is always was that some players for every minor things on gw2 scream EXPLOIT since the game was released.

https://youtu.be/qxb-anRWHrA

That’s as evidence way back now everyone does it since its a game mechanic from day 1 but…There are these players shouting on every little thing exploit when somebody find a fast way to do things.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not “screaming” exploit. However, the more relevant point is that nobody has presented a plausible explanation for how this design could be anything other than an exploit.

So, again, not screaming here. But answer this:

An exploit may be defined as gameplay that runs counter to an intended design. This places no judgment on whether or not the exploit is against policy or whether it requires a fix.

Given that, present a plausible explanation as to how a developer would have designed the assault on Tarir event, designed the chest rewards beneath the city, and yet intended that players loot those rewards multiple times after succeeding only once at the event.

You know there isn’t one. That’s why this is an exploit. No screaming. Just straight talk is all.

Seera.5916:

Margorion.4962:

I also think, that Auric Basin Multiloot has an negative impact on the game, let me explain:

Most progress in GW2 is linked to gold. You want this beautiful Skin, the new Viper ascendet weapon for raids or a new character needs weaponsmith on 500. Almost everything in game could be done if you throw enough gold at it.
But to get gold you have to pay a price. This price depends on different factors. But one major one is time and another one is difficulty. A activity with a good gold/time ratio and easy access is therefor an optimal way of achieving your goals in game.

An mmo should somehow find a balance between this three factors. Harder content should feel rewarding, therefor it needs to have a better gold/time ratio than easier content. Multi loot shifts this. You can join a map in the last 5 minutes of the meta and then go through ~10 maps for the reward. The gold/time ratio is insane. And this has an impact on all other activities. Yes Sorrow’s Embrace path 2 still yields 35s. But in the time you could finish this Dungeon, you could have earned far more in Auric Basin. From this perspective, you did not earn money; You lost the gold amount that you could have earned in Auric Basin in the meantime.

Many people who wants gold for whatever reason, will be focusing on one activity and not a wide area of multiply activities. This is poison for long time enjoyment because so much content feels like a wasted effort.

By looking just at simple activities it is the best for the playerbase, if every activity in this section should have the same gold/time ratio. This will lead to a playerbase who can freely choose which activity they want to complete. A rotation like the daily fractals is also a nice way of achieving this in a different way.

Harder content works the same. The reward for a tier1 fractal is smaller than a tier4 fractal. A tier4 fractal compared with another tier4 fractal should be rewarding in the same way.

You can call it what you want, exploit or gamemechanic. But it has an impact on the game and in my opinion it isnt a good one. Besides enjoyment in itself, every activity should feel rewarding. By having one single activity which exceeds every other activity, it dimishes the feelings of achievement of all others that are linked with the reward.

Your problem seems to be that players will farm gold based on the highest gold/time/effort ratio. There is no way to get that to be the exact same for every activity out there. Because different players will do things faster than others. So the time it takes is impossible to pin down. Some will do A faster than B, others will do B faster than A.

That will never go away no matter what ANet does. They close the ability to do the multiloot, and players will farm the next best thing. Which could just be one run through of AB.

There will always be one activity that players who want gold will farm to get gold the fastest. Always. There is absolutely nothing that ANet or other players can do to stop it. ANet does at times change things around to move where players farm for gold, but players will always farm one content for gold.

And even if they do manage to get everything to be the same gold/time, then players will just farm the easiest. Because that has the lowest chances of failure.

I agree that players will farm gold, which entails going for the best output. If it weren’t AB, it would be something else. But I also expect that if we reduced the disparity between AB and other popular farming techniques, players would return to a more evenly-distributed pattern rather than localizing to one event to the same degree they have with AB.

Why do I say that? Well, common sense. If I offer up a free meal when everyone else is offering in the range of 25-50% off, people will flock to my restaurant. But if I offer up 55% off instead, while I’m still leading the competition you would expect a far more even distribution of patrons.

This occurs because of factors beyond cost. Maybe I don’t mind paying the extra 5% to go to a closer restaurant, even if I would have gone the distance for a cheaper/free meal. Or maybe I wanted Italian rather than French? Whatever the reason is, you would expect plenty of people to spread out to these other establishments if I ended my free meal program, even though my prices are still the best!

Makes sense, no?

It really does look great! Wish I had a better PC to run it on better settings!

The new map has some pretty amazing landscapes…if you can call it “land”…

Hi!

You mentioned daredevil, so I assume you have the elite spec fully unlocked. That’s a great start! Here’s a suggestion for an open world build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhFmCOOBkmiFqiaLHHsqbu63+yvrnCgDA-ThRBABUq+zDXBAzUCinuBAeIAXt/o8jUARsMC-e

Use the staff to handle pocket raptors (and most everything else as a thief in open world!). Start by vaulting into the middle of the pack. The raptors will react a moment later, but pay attention to the timing. Once you get the hang of that brief pause before they strike, you can anticipate and evade most or all of the damage. Vault in, dodge out, vault in again and most of the raptors should be dead. Finish off any stragglers that weren’t in range of the killing blow.

If you mistime the initial evade, you’ll take heavy damage, but just dodge out, pop your heal and vault back in. Pocket raptors have very little health and each one you kill is less damage you take in return.

The mordrem wolves move quickly and hit hard. But vault/dodge spam tends to work well just as it does for most other targets. However, you can also facetank them if you like. Staff 4 is an area blind, staff 2 applies weakness, pistol 5 is a pulsing area blind plus smoke field. Combine any of these skills with heals on offense from invigorating precision and you should be able to stand there and beat the wolves down before they can kill you (but why not use your endless dodging as a daredevil to avoid most of the damage anyway?).

Feel free to contact me in game if you’d like some help getting the hang of it. Daredevil is my favorite class and messing around in open world HoT is one of my favorite activities!

seabhac.5346:

don’t like raiding, will not raid and shouldn’t have to raid to get a rinse-n-repeat spirit shard forging XP bar.

I think this thread has about run its course. If there remains any questions on what people are actually asking for, there’s no need to further mischaracterize anyone as wanting something for nothing. Just refer back to this post. Very simple: Gaining experience should provide rewards (and the mastery system already does!). Now ANet can decide whether they agree and do whatever they will with it.

P/P produces strong single-target burst and not a whole lot else. I find it useful as a backup to staff for solo PvE, where the damage is more useful than the utility of shortbow.

Unfortunately, P/P is not a great set. Most of your damage is locked into pistol 3. Once you run out of initiative either by spamming pistol 3 or utilizing other skills, your damage drops off sharply. The other abilities in the set don’t bring much to the table and using them reduces your damage output significantly. And since P/P is all single-target damage, you’re at a huge disadvantage over the available melee options when taking on multiple enemies.

So, I use P/P because it’s better damage than shortbow, but I strongly advise against attempting to use P/P as your primary weapon set as a thief (It may be an option in PvP, however!). It’s boring and far less effective than the melee weapon sets.

I find P/P gets more use during bosses that force squishy thieves out of melee range. My goal is always to get back in close and switch back to staff, but when forced to range P/P can produce decent numbers for a brief period until I can get back into melee.

In any situation where you can safely be at close range and especially when facing multiple enemies at once, melee weapons are vastly superior for thief. You deal more damage to more targets and you aren’t as limited by initiative.

I have absolutely no idea what the actual most popular class is. My personal favorite is thief (daredevil).

TotalWafflez.9518:

@onevstheworld.2439 I currently play World of Warcraft and subscribed to it. My main is a resto druid and mostly I play caster classes. I’m terrible at mele classes..

The good news is that, unlike WoW, the weapon you choose actually matters beyond the stats it provides! In GW2, each weapon presents the player with a set of unique skills. For example, a thief with a staff is all melee, but that same thief can swap to pistols or shortbow mid-combat to access ranged attacks! All classes can do this in GW2.

You also don’t see the “holy trinity” of tank/heals/dps here. All classes have self-healing capability as well as at least some group healing abilities. All classes can be more offensive or defensive depending upon trait and gear choices. Having said that, some classes are better at one function or another.

If you were interested in a good class for a new player (read: forgiving), ranger is generally recommended. Pets are good for distracting enemies, giving players new to action combat a little more time and room to breathe. Additionally, since you liked resto druid in WoW, the closest thing to a dedicated healer in GW2 is the ranger elite specialization, druid.

Greener.6204:

Djinn.9245:

Obtena.7952:

Djinn.9245:

Onlysaneman.9612:

What I do care about is A-net setting a precedent of allowing raids to affect the rest of the game beyond basic balance tweaks. You must understand how, for those of us who don’t raid, that might be a bit concerning.

This, and Anet gating character progress behind other game modes in general.

It may be a concern but it’s already happening everywhere in the game since day 1. It’s already an established precedent.

Furthermore, this is not a gating of character progress … your progress is in no way gated by this. It’s disingenuous to refer to an additional reward from an activity as a barrier to how your character progresses. Nobody is your fool here.

Experience is the base form of character progress in almost every single game that has characters. Gating the base form of character progress has not been happening since day 1. And I can’t think of what form of character progress HAS been gated behind other play modes since day 1.

The fairness of this new reward system has no bearing on your character progression. You’ve brought up this topic numerous times, yet haven’t defined what you mean by it.

I strongly suggest you create another thread in which you lay out your definition, and how you feel impeded. It would be far more useful for all involved, and would avoid derailing what people here are talking about.

It seems pretty plain to me. Gain experience, get rewards. But because the mastery system is arbitrarily linked to experience gain post-cap, players can find themselves in a situation where the reward (spirit shards, as minor as they are) is locked behind masteries.

As there is no compelling reason that it needs to be this way, some players are asking for a change to the way the system works to provide spirit shards in exchange for experience regardless of mastery status. Some of us happen to think it would be better this way. ANet will make the call. “Fairness” isn’t really part of the conversation to me.

theslynx.1596:

I agree with the general opinion here that Bloodstone Fen is a bit better than other HoT maps so far, but it’s still vastly different from the tone and feel of most open world maps.

As for ‘explorability,’ it is still somewhat frustrating in that you do need some unlocks to make the most of it, and it seems to be designed around spending a few hours becoming familiar with it before it becomes simple to traverse, as if the end goal is for players to spend gobs of time on a single map rather than some time on many. There’s also an unaddressed tension between the vertical design of the maps and the game’s map/mini-map functions, which don’t handle these things well.

I don’t know. I’m really disappointed by Heart of Thorns as a whole and I worry this is the beginning of the end for Anet producing a variety of enjoyable content, including casual, relaxing stuff.

I hope they can find a way to make future maps palatable to more players. But it will be very difficult to reconcile the preferences of players like yourself with those of us who genuinely enjoy HoT-style content.

Personally, I find the core maps boring. Exploration (in the HoT sense of the word!) is non-existent, the combat is uninspired, and although the maps are visually striking across the board, I can’t say that many of the core maps have a distinctive “feel” (to me) the way each HoT map does. There also tends to be a lot less going on in most of the maps event-wise, likely due to the use of “hearts”.

Not that HoT is perfect. I prefer the way I can zone into BF and just start playing. Finding a “meta map” via LFG feels like something I shouldn’t have to do. I straight up HATE adventures, too!

So what can we do to meet in the middle? If it were up to me, I could definitely support improvements to the map system to better support vertical maps. I could also compromise on mob density and/or difficulty. BF seems easier that way than the other maps, but I’m not having any less fun taking on hordes of white mantle!

GBEW.5947:

So what i’ve gathered from these comments is that if you dont play pvp nothing else matters. Lol. Idk why anyone else plays but i play to get gear, Load myself with gold, and achieve near perfect stats. And the fact is that i could spend $100 and completely skip my grind for ascended. I don’t see how anyone can say this isn’t winning. Just because ascended armor isnt much better than exotic doesn’t mean that it can’t be a goal and the fact is that it is better. It seems as if the term winning has been lost on the mmo community to be completely honest. Again if you don’t pvp much then you have no right to complain i suppose? I’m never going to legitimately think this.

Yes, your personal definition of “winning” is lost on me. Ascended gear may be acquired for free by playing the game. My main (started playing this year) is in nearly full ascended via login rewards (laurels), random drops (fractals, SW, raids, etc.), and collections. I did craft a couple of ascended pistols and a dagger before I realized what a waste of gold that is, though.

But the real reason that doesn’t feel like winning to me is that I don’t need ascended gear for anything. The only content that requires it also provides so much of it that you end up salvaging ascended gear just to clear bank space!

Just play the game. You’ll get ascended gear. You can get it faster via crafting and spending obscene amounts of gold, but there’s no win to it because you don’t need the gear for anything but fractals which will provide the gear you need as you progress anyway.

But you know what? That does mean we agree! The thread title is that the game is slightly P2W. I can agree with that. It’s so slight it isn’t an issue for me!

Neurik.1624:

So I have been playing GW2 for about a month now and just finished hitting 80 on my second character (rolled an Elementalist and a Ranger). They were both enjoyable to play but I would have to say I prefer the Ranger of the two. For the most part I have spent my time leveling and participating in the large scale world boss events to build up some coin.

Given that I enjoyed playing both classes I have played to date, what would people recommend I use my level 80 upgrade token on? I am intrigued at the thought of playing a tank (Sentinel?) or possibly a thief. Let me hear your suggestions and logic, thanks.

I enjoy thief. But as all I know about you is that you enjoy ranger and elementalist, it’s difficult to predict whether or not you will enjoy thief.

Pros:
High mobility, high speed, high damage, superior evasion, access to stealth, strong self-healing on offense.

Cons:
Low health, low armor, low group utility, very little in the way of passive damage reduction/avoidance.

Description:
Thief isn’t particularly complex. You have fewer abilities to work with than most other classes. However, thief plays FAST. You generally want to stay in motion, dodge frequently, and use leaps or teleports (depending on weapon set) to move yourself out of danger and close gaps quickly. You can’t take hits as well as other classes, so the goal is often to get in, take down your target(s) quickly, and get out again before the hammer falls. Restoring health on offense is an integral part of this strategy, as it will allow you to hang in just that little bit longer to finish off your enemies.

While stealth is useful in many scenarios, not all thief builds require it. For instance, PvE staff thieves that don’t run DA or SA in their builds probably use very little stealth. Meanwhile, a d/d build running those traits probably spends much of their combat time stealthing. So how critical stealth is to your thief can vary greatly depending upon your choices.

Apologies for making the assumption. I didn’t realize you were speaking for other people. Incidentally, I had noticed that plenty of other players find the maps confusing. That was clearly intended. It’s a shame it wasn’t universally well-received, but some players (like me!) enjoy that aspect of HoT more than anything else. We’ll have to agree to disagree on the merits of that design.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The need for a zerg to pretty much progress and succeed in the overall map. Please note the many topics that say progression is impossible now that said map is empty.

With Bloodstone Fen, you can progress regardless if you’re the only person on the map or if a zerg is killing everything. Failure for events isn’t so brutally punishing. Key areas are not blocked from mapping or exploration if a certain criteria is not met. Certain tools are not required to farm nodes in that map. Multiple groups spread out to complete an event isn’t required in multiple locations. Finding a location isn’t crazy confusing or frustrating. Gaining access to a location doesn’t require a specific skill beyond basic gliding or mushroom hopping. Gaining access to a mastery point doesn’t require a specific mastery unlock. Nothing is locked behind a kitten-near impossible adventure. No adventures . . . period. No gather ‘this amount of ’X’ to progress an event. No waypoint is ever contested because of failure to ‘save it’ or reclaim it from said targets. No waypoint is contested . . . ever.

Just to start. . . .

Being rather new to the game, I’m still getting a feel for some of these differences in design. But I think I can agree that I prefer the BF event structure to the other HoT maps. I enjoy the event cycle in those maps, but it seems overly restrictive. BF is nice in the sense that I can just go there and start playing. I never have to hit LFG and look for a map that’s actually running the events. So, I’m with you there.

On some of the other issues you bring up I disagree. Waypoints are contested in the core game as well. The difference is that you can walk in a straight line to your objective. But if you know your way around, the very “worst” maps (TD!) are actually much quicker to navigate around contested WPs than core maps were. Your issue here has more to do with the fact that you never learned how to get around on these maps (as evidenced by the fact that you find it difficult to get around).

I also disagree with your points on the mastery system. Poison mastery is ONLY required for 100% map completion (and only on half of the maps, as I recall?). I don’t consider that “critical”. You only need map completion for what? Legendaries? Maybe some other collections? Otherwise you only truly “need” bounce mushrooms and updrafts. Everything else is 100% QoL, not critical in any sense of the word.

Thanks for clarifying. To sum up, I like being able to just zone into a map and play without having to look for an instance of the map full of players doing what I want to do. BF is a clear improvement in that sense. And while I didn’t mention it, BF is also a pleasure to navigate.

Where I differ is in my perspective on the mastery system and exploration of HoT maps: I don’t find the mastery system overly restrictive in terms of exploration and I don’t feel the HoT maps are unnecessarily difficult to navigate once you spend the time to learn them (which again, is an aspect of these maps that I very much enjoy!).

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I have to laugh when you port to Ground Zero Waypoint for jades, jump off, glide to the middle of the crater and then close the glider to drop and they kill you as you fall down through the air at terminal velocity.

Try this and turn your camera to look up as you fall, you can see the rocks turn 90 degrees from horizontal to straight down to home in on you haha.

You just need to refine your strategy a little. If glider 5 is on cooldown (the cd is VERY short), drop out of the sky briefly, then redeploy, hit glider 5 to evade the remaining projectiles. If you have stealth you can avoid new projectiles targeting you by immediately stealthing after glider 5.

As an additional protection, if you have any passive stun breakers (traits that break stun automatically) you essentially get a freebie. The rock hits you, knocks you out of your glide, but you’re able to immediately redeploy instead of falling until you break the stun and potentially hitting the ground before you’re able to.

How well do these methods work in practice? Well, yesterday I spent a couple of hours doing the dailies and participating in events all over the map. As I recall, I was knocked out of the sky by a rock exactly once in that time. My passive stun break kicked in automatically, I redeployed the glider immediately and kept on about my business.

Once you get the hang of it, the rocks aren’t a significant issue.

Djinn.9245:

BY DEFINITION, any game where you can purchase in-game currency with Real Life money is “pay to win”. It’s actually why you aren’t able to purchase in-game currency with RL money in most MMOs and why there is such a healthy illegal Gold Selling business for games.

Yes and no. Like I said, if GW2 is P2W it’s only very slightly so. I like what somebody else called it: pay to progress faster. I only consider it pay to win if you can spend cash to gain a large advantage over other players. In GW2 you only need ascended gear to get into high level fractals.

So you can cut through low level fractals by purchasing ascended gear and infusions, but that’s really the extent of it. And since fractals aren’t required for anything, it’s hard to label the entire game P2W based on that alone.

Head Kracker.4790:

Personally( and I know I’m kinda singular in this belief) I don’t mind the gem to gold conversion. Not thrilled at the exchange rate mind, but at least its a way that allows you a fairly safe way to get gold without having to get ones account hacked by a disreputable gold seller. I’ve played a handfull of MMo’s over the years and GW2 is the only one I have found that actually does a conversion like this.

Most game companies tend to set rarities on items and then use that to make one farm the currency of choice for said item so that you play longer to get the better items. And while GW does this they at least saw a opportunity to the casual gamer that had spare cash to at least have SOME progress with a direct gem to gold store.

Admittedly im starting to feel that GW2 has TOO MANY currencies and keys and things of that like, since with every new zone we get a new currency and while in some thematically it makes sense they need to stop doing that at some point.

WoW uses a subscription model, so what they do is sell 1 month subscription tokens on their trading post (they call it the auction house). A player buys a token with cash (at $20 rather than the standard $14.99 month-to-month subscription cost) and then may either sell the token for gold to another player or use it to add a month to their subscription. Thus the rate in gold is determined by the market just as our gem/gold exchange here.

I guess I assumed selling gold to players rather than leaving it in the hands of unscrupulous gold sellers was the direction the MMO industry was headed? Is that not the case?