Guild Wars 2

Bachian.5701:

Well, I’m really loving it, so I plan on sticking around.

A few questions, though, how often does new content get released? Will there be an expansion coming in the next year? What’s the future of this game; will it be around for many years to come?

When starting an MMO, I wanna know the game will still be around in say 7 years.

New content is released regularly (but as with any MMO, if you play a lot it will never keep up with you!). For awhile now they’ve been advancing the “Living World” season 3 storyline by releasing a new chapter every 2-3 months. The last chapter should be released in the next couple of months. After that, they’re planning to release a second expansion.

Between LS3 releases, there have been the usual balance patches. There was also a WvW patch recently with some new rewards and changes designed to bring more people into WvW. I hear they’re also working on a similar PvP patch for that game mode.

As for the player base? It’s really hard to tell. Almost certainly the population has been declining, but there is no way that I’m aware of for players to accurately estimate the size of the population or exactly how quickly it’s changing. It’s also worth noting that the game is around 5 years old, and some decline at this point is expected.

You can find plenty of discussion on this topic as the next expansion approaches. The long and short of it is that the 1st expansion (HoT) wasn’t universally well-received. Most players I’ve spoken to have very strong reactions to it: love it or hate it.

Djinn.9245:

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

This ideea is one of the worst cases of “cutting the arm to remove a bruised finger” that I have seen in a good long while…

How is removing something that is not necessary “cutting off the arm”? No one has yet given a reason why pets need to be able to attack independently of player action.

How is it not? You aren’t thinking this through. Passive attacking is a basic feature of pets. I’m not familiar enough with pets in this game to recall exactly how they work, but in other games I’ve played ranger pets have behavior settings such as “passive”, “aggressive”, and “defend”. These setting make playing pet classes far less annoying. Your proposal would be a huge QoL downgrade.

How about just removing credit for passively killed targets? If the pet does 100% of the work, it gets a treat. But you? You didn’t do anything. No soup for you!

The great thing about elementalist is that they are adaptable. You want the definition of “glass cannon”? That’s ele! You want the tankiest healer around? Also ele. Pretty cool!

Sojourner.4621:

I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion because it of course is a step backwards one Central Tyria Masteries, but the reason that true AFK farming is able to be done is because there is a passive that allows those afkers to loot without being at the computer. If you want to fix it, absolutely and finally and with no way to continue exploiting or new locations to farm, you eliminate the auto-loot passive and you make loot drops disappear from the ground more quickly.

This is of course a nuclear solution that punishes everyone for the actions of a small group. Perhaps a middle ground can be found… something along the lines of if the absolute position of your character doesn’t change by X/Y/Z distance every XX seconds/minutes, the auto-loot function disables, coupled with said loot drop timeout, at least it would force people to be at their computer if they want to continue minimal effort farming an area.

Once you apply one or the other, it makes the only form of true AFK farming in to botting, which is an absolutely and unambiguously bannable offense, at which point you crack down on that. I for one would love to see the return of Dhuum.

I don’t understand why they allow you to gain anything from a target a pet killed with zero input from the player. I think the issue could be resolved by simply fixing that. It should have minimal impact on players who are actually playing the game and completely shut down the ability for groups of players to passively farm by going AFK with a bunch of pets up.

I definitely would want to see death match games, but I like the current game modes, too. Sort of like how WoW had arenas for straight up team fighting and then had battlegrounds for PvP games like cap the flag, conquest, stronghold, etc. More game modes are a good thing in my book. For me, PvP gets pretty stale when you try to just play death match for thousands of games.

Balance does not indicate that all classes are equal in every scenario. As in PvE, each class is adapted to some purpose. They each have advantages and disadvantages.

I watched the PvP finals video someone shared recently from the thief POV. If you watch the video, you’ll see that the thief doesn’t waste much time on 1v1. Instead, he uses his high speed to neutralize enemy capture points and get the jump on enemies engaging his teammates. In fact, at several points he decaps without capping the point for his team and downs enemy players without finishing them. Why? Because it’s more important for him to keep moving, decapping and +1-ing for his team.

In that context, it doesn’t matter if the thief is weak in 1v1, whether he can bunker a point, or provide awesome support in team fights. He’s probably terrible (relative to other classes of the same skill level) at all of those things. But watching the video, you really get the feeling that this guy is using his class to do exactly what it does best in PvP and making a huge impact on the outcome of the game in the process.

I’m sure if we watched from the POV of each class at that level we’ll see the same exact thing. Are they all equal? Of course not. But such is balance. It’s never perfect. All you can do is make the best of what your class can do.

Ayrilana.1396:

Excellent Name.9574:

Fallesafe.5932:

Excellent Name.9574:

I was wondering after the HoT aftermath and the damage it did to the game and player population, will Anet have the strength to forget HoT and move on?

What went wrong with HoT, IMHO, and should never be repeated:

01. Pricing the expansion as the full game for players already owning the original game
02. DLC worth of new content, not worthy of expansion name
03. Rushed and short story mode, with a really underwhelming final battle design.
04. Questionable map design, not the beauty of HoT maps, just usability. Minimap system is not enough for HoT layout.
05. Lack of new character slot for the new profession (remedied after an outcry from players).
06. Killing the casualness of the original Guild Wars 2 in more than one way and thus making maps either extremely hard or right down impossible for solo completion.
07. Nerfing the older content, all in hope player base will be forced to buy into deeply flawed new one.
08. Essentially killing off PvP with tying it to the expansion.
09. Nearly destroying WvW which survival is still up in the air.
10. etc.

I don’t really understand some of your points at all.

1) It’s ~$25. Wtf are you talking about? That’s about as much as a pizza and coke.
2) It’s plenty of content. The mastery points were so awesome. And I had fun, not only w/ the main story, but with the zone-metas and elite skills for literally months.

…

6) Are you kidding me? I soloed every aspect of HoT on multiple, full-glass characters. And I’m not even very good. This is a learn-to-play issue.

I could see you point if it was $300. But it’s like $25. You have no case. Where else could you possibly get so much bang for so little money?

HoT was 50$ not 25$, even so 25$ would be a fair price but it wasn’t 25$ and if You had so much fun with masteries I can only assume that your fun threshold is quite low. About soloing HoT, You are full of kittens, especially on glass characters.

Did map and story completion with every class using glass armor and had no issues doing what could be done solo. For the several HP’s that were better in a group, as well as all meta events, I had no issues doing them in glass armor. A large percentage of events can be done solo with the exception of those with champions, group events, or those that mechanically require more than one person. Even then, some players can get around that with personal skill.

People find different things enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed the process of exploring all of the HoT content and obtaining all of the mastery points. I also enjoyed the progressing made on maxing out the masteries. I found that no different than exploring a new map or from leveling a character.

To be fair, the post this person replied to stated that they soloed “every aspect of HoT” in full glass. Of course we know that’s an exaggeration. What they likely meant is exactly what you’re saying: The player personally feels comfortable running around the jungle in full glass, rather than being literally able to solo every single event and boss in HoT.

Mavis.1463:

It’s always the developer’s fault and I’m not being facetious.

It’s not their job to decide how people want to play the game. Other MMO developers seldom take action against farming spots, why the kitten does Anet intervene in matters that do not directly concern them?

Yeah? You’ve played an MMO that doesn’t patch loot exploits when they grow large enough that everyone is aware of them and it begins impacting other areas of the game? Which game was that? Because I’ve sure never played an MMO that allows that to continue. If anything, the AB MM fix was so long in coming ANet is the best example I can think of of a company that looks the other way for too long!

Khisanth.2948:

Sojourner.4621:

I have either solo’d or duo’d every HP in HoT for the first two maps (220 points alone, leaving you with only 20 more to get, or 210 if you feel like skipping Batlh which is REALLY the only unreasonable one to solo in most cases and leaving you to find three instead).

Balth can be done without killing the champ. The really unreasonable one would be the mushroom in TD under Rata Novus.

Saw a video of a necro solo and I have done mushroom queen solo on my ele. It can be done. But more importantly you don’t need to solo. There are always people looking to complete these challenges. Just team up.

Having said that, if these challenges weren’t a part of map completion I wouldn’t be against it. I just like having champions to fight.

I’ve been playing GW2 for about a year and a half, but only very recently tried PvP for the first time (76 games played as of now). I love it! Fighting other players in this game is a ton of fun and the map designs and available game types feel different yet enjoyable in their own way. However, it seems we only really have 2 types of games: capture points or kill the lord.

The problem I have with PvP is that it becomes very repetitive when you start playing hundreds or even thousands of matches. I feel it’s important to have a variety of game types available to keep things interesting for longer.

I hear we’re going to get 2v2, which I’m all for. What about some other game types? My first choice would be capture-the-flag. But just more variety in game types would be nice.

holyflea.4283:

Hey everyone, thanks for the replies! Will go the distance and level up normally.

I am a level 6 charr warrior right now. I must say wow! I am so confused about all the different options dynamics to this game. (am a simple diablo 3 player). I will have to learn everything slowly but surely.

Had another question maybe some of you could help me out with. I was wondering if I could somehow switch my weapon attack 1 somehow to my left mouse button? I was trying in game options but it would only allow keyboard inputs.

It has been difficult for me to adapt to have to reach up to my “1” key every time I want to engage (I know about auto attack, but I would like to go manual). So again, is there anyway I can just simply set my main attack to my left mouse button?

Thanks!

You can bind any of your skills to mouse buttons. You just can’t bind them to right or left click. If your mouse has additional buttons, you can use those as inputs.

If you’re unfamiliar with this type of control scheme, a few tips:

- Use ESDF rather than WASD.

- Unbind turn left/right and bind strafe left/right in their place.

- Use the keys you freed up to change your 6-0 skills to keys you can actually reach without lifting your hand from your movement keys.

- Remove double-tap to dodge. Replace with an input you feel very comfortable with (I use a mouse button for this).

Is there some compelling reason that players require rewards from targets their minions kill with zero input from the player? It really doesn’t seem worth the constant gripe-fests on the forums and wasted development resources attempting to stop people from doing something that your game allows them to do! Just kill it already.

I recommend marauder gear for a great balance of offense and survivability in open world for players who find ele too fragile.

Carighan.6758:

Vayne.8563:

It’s borderline exploit and exploits should be dealt with.

Now, I’m fine with arguing it was bad for the game. But “exploit”? Using class skills as intended?

Dropping a turret and letting it shoot things is about the only way you CAN use a turret. However, I think it’s a stretch to argue that the Lake Doric turret farms were intended use.

Faaris.8013:

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Feanor.2358:

HP trains exist for players with many alts, who find no fun in unlocking their N-th elite specialization, in the same way they unlocked the first N-1. They are simply an efficient way to do something you need to do before being able to play your character properly.

So, in essence: no thanks. The HP system is fine as it is.

HP trains exist for people who cannot solo champs.

It’s funny because Feanor describes exactly what my thought was when two guild mates led my new mesmer through Tangled Depth for Hero Points. I was grinding her through many old Tyria HP stations for days until I got to the point where I was still missing about 130 points to make her a Chronomancer and give her the shield, as I wanted to play a Chronomancer. We used our entry to TD in the guild hall because I haven’t unlocked it through the story yet (as I said, I want to play a Chronomancer and didn’t spend hours in the story without the elite trait), and it took us 20 to 25 minutes to get all 11 HP stations in TD and 2 in Auric Basin. And we killed the frog triple as a side quest in that time.

I’m still missing HPs from TD with my main character because I cannot kill that vampire beast alone. I can solo champs, but not with my new mesmer. The reason I did it like this is exactly the one Feanor gave. And it was fun to fly through TD with someone who knows his way around there. My orientation sucks and alone it would have taken me days to get to the places, despite having been there before. I have all masteries that make travel smoother, so that certainly helped doing it in 20 minutes. I’m happy that I can enjoy my Chronomancer now while playing the game instead of playing for another three weeks without the elite trait.

And by the way, I really want to see you killing that shadow leaper frog near Dragon’s Passage Waypoint alone, and also the vampire kitten.

I personally don’t see a problem with running HP trains or doing HPs solo. That’s really a matter of personal preference. However, every HP in HoT can be done solo and there are videos on youtube to prove it. Since you’re new enough to this that you seem to be mixing up your maps and bosses (vampire broodmother is located in VB, not TD and that shadowleaper in Dragon’s Passage is actually a mordrem sniper!), I wouldn’t count out the possibility!

There’s also the point that you don’t need to solo EVERY HP in HoT. If your goal is simply to unlock the elite spec, you can pick your battles. I think the bigger issue for you was not knowing the maps. If you knew your way around you could hit the HPs that you feel comfortable with and avoid the tough ones. But bringing friends works just fine, too.

Cyninja.2954:

AliamRationem.5172:

Has anyone tried Trailblazer’s in open world before? What was your experience with it? Or have ideas on a more survivable power-based build? I’m just getting started and I’m open to ideas.

What game content are you aiming for? Only open world? Dungeons, fractals, raids?

Traiblazer will perform fine for open world and dungeons and have more than enough damage here. It will perform decent enough in fractals but the added toughness will have you be the main target of most enemys most of the time, which might increase pressure on you. Not recommended for raids since vipers will outperform trailblazer.

That being said, if you want gear for open world and dungeons, trailblazer might be overkill cost wise. A mix of Rabid and Dire will perform well enough for a condi build in these areas.

Open world, yes. For raids I’ll use a meta build. I just wanted to get some idea of how this gear performed before investing time/gold into it. I’ll check out dire/rabid. Thanks!

Khisanth.2948:

AliamRationem.5172:

I like the way GW2 works and I don’t propose we change it. However, all design decisions come with consequences and I can agree that the lack of a treadmill, while a great idea for many reasons, can make the game feel a bit aimless and unrewarding at times.

Really? In what way is a gear treadmill rewarding?

It provides a goal to work toward and a reason to work toward it. Whereas with horizontal progression I’m motivated only by cosmetics. Unless I really want the skin, it does nothing for me. In other words, it feels less rewarding and I don’t feel motivated.

Map markers in general could be easier to see. I always have a ton of trouble spotting party member markers on the map, for instance. And even though they’re marked on the map with arrows pointing to the corresponding wallow, nobody ever seems to notice those wallow markers either.

You want low skill/high reward?

http://epicmagemanuever.ytmnd.com/

LoL Still gives me a chuckle after all these years. Thanks, WoW!

Aside from leveling to 80 and unlocking the elite spec a year ago, I have no experience with mesmer. I just brushed this character off today.

Looking at the PvP/WvW builds, they all feature defensive hybrid sets like trailblazer, marauder, sage, etc. So I think it’s definitely likely I could find the right balance between passive and active defense to get where I want to be. And I can always dial back the passive defenses as I become more comfortable with the playstyle and settle on a build.

I’m just worried that to add passive defense to a power shatter build would sacrifice too much damage for a class that already seems to be a bit disadvantaged. I mean that power shatter burst against an inactive target is disgustingly huge, but after that the damage drops off until you can set it up again.

I compare it to full celestial ele. You’ll be practically invincible, but you’ll really notice that damage loss. Whereas a more offensive set like marauder you still have solid survivability, with far higher damage output.

Would it be a better trade to go with condi? With chaotic transference, a tuning crystal, and runes of the undead, you gain 23% toughness as condition damage, increasing condi damage with full trailblazer’s set by 523 points.

Comparing to full sinister, the trailblazer’s setup has almost 100 higher condi damage, but with 42% higher condition duration. It also has about 1300 higher armor and over 8000 more health.

With viper you can make up the difference in condition duration, but you lose over 300 condi damage compared to Trailblazer’s.

I don’t expect Trailblazer’s to result in higher damage output. I’m sure even with condi weapons, between the physical damage from weapon/utility skills as well kittenters, the extra power and crit more than make up for lower condi damage/duration. But the question is is the damage still sufficient to not feel like you’re chopping down a tree every fight while affording the superior survivability it almost certainly provides?

Has anyone tried Trailblazer’s in open world before? What was your experience with it? Or have ideas on a more survivable power-based build? I’m just getting started and I’m open to ideas.

holyflea.4283:

Hey everyone.

Have never played gw2 before. I bought the standard expansion pack to Heart of thrones.

My question, should I start with a level one character and play all the way through to get the full experience or should I start with the boosted level 80 character?

Thanks!

Hi! Welcome to GW2!

It’s your call to make, but HoT can be quite challenging even for some veteran players learning a new class. Most players advise leveling up normally the first time around to avoid frustration.

Having said that, the boost is a risk-free trial. You can boost a character, decide you don’t like it, and revert the boost as many times as you like. The item is only consumed once you confirm your choice to permanently boost to 80.

So, feel free to boost a character and play around in the silver wastes. SW isn’t part of HoT, but the enemies you’ll encounter there tend to be a good intermediary between the relatively easy core Tyria content and the tougher HoT maps.

Also, the boost gives you soldier’s gear (power/vitality/toughness), which gives you very high armor and health. You won’t take down enemies quickly with this gear, but it should give you some room to breathe while you try your new class out.

If things don’t go well, don’t be discouraged. GW2’s combat system relies on a lot of very short-term, active avoidance. This stuff takes some practice to learn.

I like the way GW2 works and I don’t propose we change it. However, all design decisions come with consequences and I can agree that the lack of a treadmill, while a great idea for many reasons, can make the game feel a bit aimless and unrewarding at times.

I’ve always wanted to get into mesmer, but have never quite found quite I’m looking for with this class. It’s time to give it another go and I had some questions after trying to get the hang of it for a few hours today. Right now I’m learning the ropes in open world PvE.

I’m currently using full berserker with scholar runes and force/air sigils, with S/S, GS for weapons. I feel pretty good with this setup, but sometimes my sustained healing feels pretty weak. I use the signet heal and try to rely on the passive as much as possible. However, it seems that if I am forced to use the signet active, I rarely recover unless the fight ends quickly at that point.

From experience with other classes, I’m pretty sure I could make these heals adequate for all but the most difficult situation if I added in some defensive stats. However, I’m not sure power shatter mesmer’s damage could hold up to it.

Possible other alternatives I was considering was going with something tanky based on conditions. Maybe trailblazer’s? I played around with the skill editor and came up with a build that would operate at around 2500 condi damage before might, with over 3k armor and 23k health. That sounds pretty good, like my damage wouldn’t be terrible but I could stretch my health indefinitely against just about anything.

Thoughts?

This one is really finicky. As I understand it, you are required to kill a certain number of chak in the room (you earn the achievement a bit before killing every single chak), but you can’t be downed in the process. I’ve also heard that you can’t leave the pit once you enter and that you should wait until the NPCs are done doing their thing before beginning. If attempting with other players present, you must ensure that you are contributing to each kill.

That’s about all I can recall about it.

I love these tonics! Great addition and I use them all the time. I certainly wouldn’t mind them removing the timer and allowing us to decide when we want to remove the tonic.

Djinn.9245:

Healix.5819:

Djinn.9245:

Why do you believe that people should be doing something they don’t like during their entertainment time? I completely disagree.

People need to be encouraged to try different things, otherwise they never will.

Like my Mommy? Sorry, I’m an adult and can decide to try brocolli or not. And when it comes to my entertainment, I especially don’t need someone else to decide what I should try.

Good analogy! And by not eating your broccoli, figuratively speaking, you may inadvertently harm yourself. That’s why Mom made you eat it, despite the fact that you don’t like broccoli.

As it pertains to game design, players are poor moderators of their own behavior. For instance, my friend loved AB MM. He found it so rewarding that it got to the point where he was logging in a few times a day to play it and otherwise not playing the game at all.

They likely killed AB MM in part due to players like this. How long do you suppose the average player is likely to maintain interest in the game if it doesn’t properly provide incentives to other parts of the game? Logging in to run AB MM a few times a day, it wouldn’t be long before most players started asking themselves: What’s the point?

Perhaps you feel that these are not similar situations. But honestly, how many players do you think want to buy an expansion only to play the core game to earn the rewards? How long before you find yourself asking: What’s the point?

Djinn.9245:

AliamRationem.5172:

slashlizardy.9167:

Anything to not lock down collection of Mastery Points would be a big improvement. You still have to earn the xp, but Mastery Points in and of themselves is a HoT mess. I used to spend money on this game, but as long as all we have is this HoT mess, I will not be spending any money on it.

I think it’s important for a game to have a structure that nudges players to participate in varied content, even if they sometimes do so only for the reward. “Play the way you want” sounds great as a slogan, but how long are you going to play a game where the goal is simply to gain experience to unlock everything?

Isn’t that the whole point of having alternative methods of acquiring rewards? We do achievements, play different game modes, etc. If we reduce that to simply gaining general experience, we risk making it more of a grind even while it may be more appealing to the subset of players who doesn’t enjoy the particular content in question.

Why do you believe that people should be doing something they don’t like during their entertainment time? I completely disagree.

Why do you believe that people should get rewards for content they refuse to participate in? I completely disagree.

See? Two can play at this game!

Djinn.9245:

AliamRationem.5172:

I didn’t play GW2 prior to HoT, and I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. But for me, HoT was a big hit! How do you reconcile that with some of the opinions on this forum?

Many (most?) of the threads complaining about HoT are from people who played GW2 before HoT like me. I really enjoyed GW2, it was the next MMO I was going to stay with long-term. When HoT was released, I was shocked. I HATED Verdant Brink. The entire experience there was horrible as I died and died – 50% of the time because I didn’t have the new Masteries. My solution was to get out of VB so I died my way across VB to Auric Basin. Auric Basin was better since it wasn’t so vertical, but many of the mobs were worse with more rapters, and adding so many more smokescales, arrowheads, etc. But while it was highly populated, AB is what saved me from quitting GW2. I eventually progressed into Tangled Depths and again was shocked: something worse than VB! I again died my way through TD in order to get to Dragon Stand. And of course there I was stymied as I couldn’t really do much of anything unless the Meta was active.

So HoT was almost a complete disaster for me. I left it after only progressing about 1/4 through the story and only returned because a couple Guildies came back and wanted to do the Story.

There’s another thread on the forums about Anet changing GW2 with extremes. HoT is a perfect example of that. If we had been introduced to the extreme vertical more gradually, and the expansion had more of a variety of maps, I would have liked it much better.

Meanwhile, TD and VB are my two favorite maps in the game by a longshot. So, you’re the developer: What do you do?

LS3 is probably a good indication of ANet’s answer to that question. It features more accessible events and a mix of vertical and flat maps. However, while I don’t mind the flat maps, I would be disappointed if the expansion didn’t feature at least a map or two that follow in the same vein as Tangled Depths and Verdant Brink. I particularly enjoyed exploring and learning these maps and I still return to them frequently.

Let’s hope the compromise is one we can both live with.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Vayne.8563:

My answer to all of this was to find a couple of friends. 90% plus of the hot maps can be done by a group of 3.

And this is the biggest problem I have with HoT maps.

I started playing GW2 because party play wasn’t required. Yes, you could make parties, but only because you liked the closer association that gave. Dungeons were the only place were parties where required. In all other areas you could do it alone. Having others around might have made it easier and more fun, but it wasn’t required.

Fast forward to HoT: parties are mandatory to even get the hero points, let alone events or most of the personal achievements.

I don’t have a lot of friends and I don’t want to always ask their help if I want to do something in HoT. They might be doing something else or just don’t feel like going to that one area/help with that one personal story bit.

And party play isn’t required. It’s like the temples in Orr. I can’t solo them but I don’t have to be in a party to do them either. It’s no different.

Really? No. Group events wherein most of the rewards in a given zone are found is not the same as wandering around a map trying to get HC’s, Vistas or PoI’s.

I think what Vayne means is that many of these events can be done by a single player. If you’re the sort of player who has little difficulty soloing a champion or charging right into an army of mordrem, then HoT doesn’t seem all that restrictive.

The issue, of course, is that players have different skill levels and tolerance for certain types of gameplay. Obviously, players like Vayne and myself love soloing champs, and even if a group event is annoying to solo, since we have little difficulty staying alive we know that if we start working on an event chances are good that other players will happen along and join in.

Different story for players who can’t do that. Instead of hanging in there long enough for others to show up and join in, they just die repeatedly and are forced to waypoint and run back. Frustrating!

Worse, the players who might have stopped to help could be in the same boat, so they aren’t likely to start on the event themselves and thus it seems to both players in this scenario that HoT events are too difficult and nobody is willing to help. Not a fun experience.

But what can you do? Players like myself genuinely enjoy HoT content. It wouldn’t kill the game for me to make some changes that appeal to players less inclined to enjoy HoT, but some of what we discuss in these threads would be a return to core Tyria style content.

For me, that’s a deal-breaker. I didn’t play GW2 prior to HoT, and I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. But for me, HoT was a big hit! How do you reconcile that with some of the opinions on this forum?

slashlizardy.9167:

Anything to not lock down collection of Mastery Points would be a big improvement. You still have to earn the xp, but Mastery Points in and of themselves is a HoT mess. I used to spend money on this game, but as long as all we have is this HoT mess, I will not be spending any money on it.

I think it’s important for a game to have a structure that nudges players to participate in varied content, even if they sometimes do so only for the reward. “Play the way you want” sounds great as a slogan, but how long are you going to play a game where the goal is simply to gain experience to unlock everything?

Isn’t that the whole point of having alternative methods of acquiring rewards? We do achievements, play different game modes, etc. If we reduce that to simply gaining general experience, we risk making it more of a grind even while it may be more appealing to the subset of players who doesn’t enjoy the particular content in question.

Moonyeti.3296:

Yeah, it is a strange design choice, but Anet did indeed build it to be used as a leather farm, and now everyone is upset about the engineers farming it.

I’m not really “upset” about it, but it does kill the leather farm for me. I rather enjoyed going in and battling in the main village area. But with turret farms auto-killing everything I get less loot and it’s more just trying to tag things before they go down. That isn’t as enjoyable for me.

Plus I haven’t seen a group for the champion run since the turret farm sprang up. So it killed that, too.

Luckily, I wasn’t all that motivated by a leather farm to begin with. But now I just avoid it completely due to the engi turret farm on every single instance of the map I’ve been able to find since this started.

Vayne.8563:

And on topic, the mastery system is something I quite like as well, and I don’t think it needs much changing going forward.

I’m fine with the mastery system, but it’s not perfect. They could have avoided a lot of trouble if they had made different choices.

Basic gliding, updrafts, and bounce mushrooms are critical to navigation in HoT. They should have ensured that you receive these masteries BEFORE entering Verdant Brink for the first time.

Itzel poison lore. I hate this skill. It serves literally no purpose beyond gating content. Poor design.

Mastery points from adventures. I don’t necessarily mind gaining mastery points from these mini-games, but the games themselves I find utterly unappealing. I would have appreciated more alternatives. Too many points were locked behind these games.

I also wouldn’t have linked the post-cap experience reward (spirit shards) to the mastery system. It seems to me that gaining points that do absolutely nothing for the player is a situation to be avoided.

I really don’t think any of these choices would have killed the mastery system for those who currently enjoy it, but I think it would have made a difference to those who dislike the current system. A QoL upgrade, if you will.

Thanks for the advice, guys! I found especially useful the description of scenarios like when to stay on point and when you’re just holding your team back by doing so. It sounds like I will have to simply play and let those decisions become automatic, but it’s good to have in mind some of the mistakes new players make when making these decisions.

Whitworth.7259:

Wolfric.9380:

And i love to drag 2-3 enemies over the mp for a while with ele ….. If they are so stupid to chase me my team can do as they please…. Unfortunately sometime the team is just bad and i wonder why i did fight 2 minutes 1:3 before going down and we got 100 behind :-(.

This everytime.

I started playing pvp for the first time just before season 6 and ele was my prof of choice too. Still my favourite now. Personally I do prefer D/F auramancer for the heal. Feel so much more useful playing a powerful support role.

Yeah, I’m with you. I used to PvP in WoW a lot years ago and my favorite class was restoration druid – the unkillable healer. I’m using a somewhat different build starting out here. I’ll probably end up using focus eventually, but for now I’m sticking with my favorite weapon set for ele: daggers.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYnMMA9MgVOAOYCcYilNAjYFkBGBu31/6hdoBEAKgA-TJxHAB/s/gyPAAAOBAyXGAA

I’ve chosen mist form and aftershock to compensate for the lack of earth focus 4 and 5. Of course, I have to give up a couple of short cooldown auras to do so, which makes it less of an auramancer build. So I also switched some traits around to focus less on applying auras. The result is a build that is less effective at team healing, but seems to work well for keeping myself alive.

I’m not playing ranked matches on an organized team yet, so I look at it as the equivalent to my solo open world build in PvE. Solo PvP! Sort of. I still want to heal my team, but often I find myself on my own and outnumbered on points. So far, this build lets me handle that situation very well.

I’ve been playing for a year and a half now, but never tried PvP before today. I was (and am) concerned that the game types available for PvP feel a little shallow. However, it was a lot of fun to battle other players instead of computer generated enemies for a change.

I feel that I did well for my first day. I decided to play elementalist using a dagger/dagger + cantrips W/E/T build, monk runes, energy/cleansing sigils. With 21 matches played, I came away with 11 wins (52%), 8 kills per game avg, 42 top stats awarded and achieved rank 12 (deer). I was able to win nearly all 1v1 encounters, and felt I could hold my own and at least survive when facing multiple opponents.

That’s honestly a lot better than I expected it to go, being that I have no idea what to expect from other classes or how to counter it! But where I feel I really wasn’t doing well was in determining where I could have the most impact for my team.

Should I be focusing more on capturing points? Holding points?

Is it ever worthwhile to attempt to tie up several enemy players away from points if I think I can hold out on my own?

This is the kind of stuff I’m struggling with as a new PvP player. Any advice? Now that I’ve finally tried it, I’ll probably keep playing and see where it goes. Might as well get better!

Vayne.8563:

TwiceDead.1963:

A lot of this thread boils down to this:

Players complain about dead maps.
Players are wrong, and are given tools and advice to help them find filled maps.
Players refuse to make use of said tools and advice, and proceeds to complain about maps being dead.

Repeat.

Actually that’s almost what I’m saying, except not in relationship to dead. I don’t get on many dead maps, using no LFG, no external website. Most of the time just bopping around, I don’t end up on dead maps.

My advice to get into meta maps, if the meta is your main concern, is to use LFG and a timer site. But to just play, I barely ever have to change maps at all, and the maps still aren’t dead.

It’s likely an issue of perception. If you’re comfortable with the HoT maps and enjoy playing them, you’re not likely to notice an issue. However, if you have difficulty surviving on your own and get lost easily, being alone even for a few minutes is much more of an issue. Given that, it’s perhaps not surprising that players who dislike HoT tend to view the HoT maps as “dead” while players who enjoy HoT do not.

A failure to understand how megaserver and LFG work is likely a major contributing factor as well. If you didn’t know why it was happening, repeatedly being prompted to change maps due to low population is sure going to make it seem like HoT is full of dead maps!

bearshaman.3421:

Dawdler.8521:

Haleydawn.3764:

Then I made a female Norn Necromancer. Perfect. Holds a greatsword strongly, runs with daggers as if she was born with them, looks Majestic with Nevermore weilded.

You forgot trots like a horse. Thats majestic too. It makes you forget about the back hair and constant drunkenness.

So sad. So much norn hate. I think everyone is just envious of them for some reason. My first reaper is male norn and he’s amazing. Looks exactly how I wanted him too. Even more so now with that ice armor outfit. My second (yes OP I have two necros too!) is human female in the dry bones garb and has that primitive witch priestess of Grenth thing going on.

OP, make the character you want to play, and will enjoy seeing running around on the screen. I leveled a mesmer 3 TIMES before I got it right, and it ended up being a female charr (Ash legion of course) lol! So seriously, make what you want to play and play it. You can always sell/salvage/etc the gear and remake it on the new one. Ascended can just be tranferred, anything else isn’t that much to craft (unless you are using some of the more expensive stat sets like trailblazers).

Here’s a little norn love. I dusted off my norn necromancer with a new look, but I’m not sure which way to go. What do you think? Angel or Devil?

Malice.8439:

Maybe once they add the option for me to disable other player’s glow. The game’s currently full of people who make as large and obnoxiously glowy characters as possible, thinking it’ll make them stand out.

Hey, who you callin’ obnoxiously large and glowing?

Don’t worry. You only need to unlock basic gliding, bounce mushrooms, and updrafts for the vast majority of jungle navigation. That’s only 4 mastery points and associated experience. You will want to unlock a lot more than that, of course. But at least you won’t get left behind every time the group uses a mushroom or updraft.

Ele is pretty notorious for being squishy, although with a more defensive set like marauder they can be remarkably survivable. Since you’re new to the jungle, you could almost certainly benefit from some extra vitality to take the edge off and give you more time to recover from the hits you’re inevitably going to eat until you learn jungle combat.

I think there were clearly some mistakes made with the release of this expansion, but much of it has been addressed since release. That isn’t going to make us all agree that the mastery system is a great system. I happen to think it’s pretty good, but not perfect.

PvP/WvW alternatives for leveling the mastery system should have been there from the start.

Filler masteries like Itzel poison mastery should never have been a thing. We want meaningful gameplay (like the LS3 mastery line or the gliding line), not pointless grind-gating.

The spirit shard reward for post-cap experience should not have been linked to the mastery system.

Legendary armor probably should not have been implemented at all. It seems the amount of effort that went into them was very great, given how long it took for them to release the armor. Yet it’s entirely locked behind a niche game mode (raiding). If we had multiple sets it wouldn’t be an issue, but it doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort to produce multiple legendary armor sets.

Having said that, for me the mastery system was overall a success. I enjoyed exploring the jungle right from the start and the mastery system succeeded at its goal of providing a feeling of progression in that context. I was fine with the way it tied into the story. The whole thing worked for me.

Eurothemist.5964:

Hey guys, So I used to play Guild Wars 1 many years ago.

A week ago I decided to try Guild Wars 2, I like it so I bought it. Anyways, I’ve leveled a character to 18, decided to use my boost on a Necromancer. I went around the one area ( Forget the name ) killing stuff, Finding treasure chests with the shovel and opening them with bandit keys which is fun.

I just feel.. Kinda lost. Should I just level another character from scratch?

Thanks.

The general advice experienced players give to new players is to level to 80 the normal way your first go at it. The fear is that new players will find HoT a bit overwhelming and get the wrong impression.

However, you’ve already consumed the boost (right?). If it were me, I’d head to the Verdant Brink map via the portal in the southwest corner of the Silver Wastes (Note: You may need to progress the HoT storyline through the silver wastes to get there).

Fair warning: The HoT maps are designed for experienced players. The monsters are more dangerous and more numerous. The maps are also huge and layered and you begin with only basic gliding – one of many masteries you will need to unlock in order to progress through the jungle.

Worst case scenario: The monsters kill you every way you turn and you can’t find your way anywhere in the jungle. At least you gave it a try, right? Maybe playing through from 1-80 isn’t such a bad way to go after all.

Or maybe you’re old hat at this sort of thing and this is no big deal for you, even as a new player. You may find HoT a lot of fun right from the start. And you can still take your level 80 back and play through the personal storyline so you know what’s going on.

I’m fine with the suggestions to change this. I see little reason it necessarily has to be this way.

Approaching the complaint from the perspective of what we as individual players can do to minimize frustration, though, I feel like you might be showing up to the map too late. For TD, I find most maps that organize for the meta usually begin doing so about 15 minutes prior to start time. If you’re showing up much later than that, you might have trouble getting into the map.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Daddicus.6128:

Cyninja.2954:

Use the lfg feature.

Doesn’t work unless you have a lot of patience.

You don’t need a “lot” of patience to use LFG. You need a bit of discipline though. Which is different from patience. That is to say if you can follow a timer and set an alarm,you can get to where you’re getting early and do other things in the zone, while waiting for a specifiic meta. There’s plenty to do in each zone, including events that lead up to the meta.

It may be discipline to you. To me, it’s, “The tail (the game) wagging the dog (the player’s life).” While I’ve made my peace with the idea that my completing a zone meta in HoT is going to be a matter of happenstance, I am not going to play a game based on some timer, nor am I going to play as much as you seem to, to where using a timer is simply a matter of altering where in the game I’m playing.

I suspect, also, that the patience referred to is related to the use of Join In which results in a Zone is Full message. If one refuses to tailor life around game, that happens all too often. Now, maybe an MMO is supposed to suck your life away for you to get things done. Been there, done that, never again.

Regardless, BSF is an indication that ANet is moving away from HoT event design — although I’ve no idea if they’ll ping pong yet again (or if they did in later LS zones).

You can’t be troubled to show up to the map 15 minutes ahead of the meta and keep an eye on LFG until you secure a spot on an organized map? That’s what you call “tailoring your life to the game”?

JackOfAllGames.2409:

Hello all. I know this is kind of a broad topic here…but I’m having trouble understanding elementalists. I have quite a few classes up to 80 now. Most of ‘em make sense and have several interesting builds I’m toying with…but when it comes to the elementalist, I just don’t get it. (…which kind of stinks. The “wizard” is usually my favorite option in any given RPG and this class seems like the one I should like most.) I guess what I’m having trouble understanding is what makes ELEMENTALISTS good? Why them over another class?

To narrow things down a bit, here are some things I’m having trouble with:

1. How do you handle the lack of weapon swapping? All the builds I’m looking at focus on very short range attacks, almost always using main-hand dagger, but a lot of fights are A LOT easier with ranged attacks. Do I just need to “get gud” at melee? Am I missing something great about the ranged weapon options? (I’d much prefer a ranged build, but scepter seems to have trouble with AoE situations and staff seems poor against single targets.) I’d try using conjured weapons…but unlike the engineer, the weapons disappear within a time limit or number of uses. =/

2. What are some of the standard methods of breaking the defiance bar? I don’t see a lot of options offhand. Is there some standard rotation or something obvious I’m missing?

3. Is Tempest spec worthwhile for solo PvE? The overcharges seem really nice, but A LOT of the traits seem underwhelming. I finally had to give up the notion of using the druid specialization to make a hunter build that I could enjoy (condi axe/torch + shortbow). Perhaps this is a similar situation.

4. How do you normally handle survivability? As a cloth class, I’m having far more trouble surviving combat than with my necromancer or mesmer. Again, being in melee doesn’t help.

5. I’m having trouble deciding on a build. Nothing seems to “click” with me. What kind of build do you normally run in solo PvE? Condition or power? What specializations do you choose (and which trait synergies should I watch for)? Which weapons and utility skills do you utilize? The closest I’ve come to liking a build so far is Fresh Air. Any other good ones?

Thank you!

That’s a lot of questions! I’ll try to answer them.

Weapon Swapping – I haven’t found this to be a huge issue on my elementalist. Our “melee” range is actually significantly longer than standard melee range (300-600 vs. 130), so circle-strafing at maximum distance combined with our mobility and area effect options is quite effective at dealing damage while avoiding damage. But if it really bothers you, there’s no reason you can’t carry another weapon set and swap before entering combat if you anticipate needing the extra range.

Breakbars – As with any other class, you’ll need to learn your CC abilities. For dagger/x builds, most of the CC will come from your off-hand. For example, I use dagger/dagger for solo PvE and my strong CC comes primarily from air 5 and earth 4, with plenty of soft CC available in earth attunement.

Tempest – I think tempest is pretty solid. Besides, you aren’t going to want to give up overloads in PvE so what are you gonna do?

Survival – It’s solo PvE. Do what works for you. So, if full glass isn’t working out, try some other pieces. Maybe throw in some marauder and/or celestial gear. Those are my preferred stats for survivability, and I have solo’d every HP champion in HoT with my dagger/dagger ele including the obnoxious ones like Balthazar and Mushroom Queen. That’s about as survivable as it gets! I prefer more offense for general play, so I just carry some extra pieces and swap depending upon what I’m doing.

Builds – Fresh air is a great option for dagger/x. I basically never switch out of air/tempest for my build. The third trait line I frequently swap between fire and water, depending upon whether I benefit more from the damage output of fire or the strong healing and condi cleanse from water.

Also, I know nobody recommends it, but since this is a solo build you might consider might stacking to boost your damage. I use strength runes and a strength sigil. Paired with might on fire weapon skills, it’s easy to maintain 25 stack might in any combat lasting more than a few seconds and this vastly increases your damage output.

Finally, don’t get too caught up in the “meta”. Remember that those builds are not designed for solo play.

TheOrlyFactor.8341:

Am I the only one that finds the possible addition of mounts to be concerning? (Okay, this is probably a rhetorical question.) I feel like homogenization is going to be the thing that kills GW2 by trying to appeal to players of other MMO’s. By trying to appeal to everyone you attract few to no people.

I mean, if I want mounts (I don’t) I’ll go play WoW or BDO. If I want open world PvP (I don’t) I’ll play LOTRO. There’s already a market for those things.

It’s why, for example, games trying to capitalize on the Call of Duty craze/demographic don’t do well or fail when they try to copy CoD and/or appeal to the people who play CoD. There’s already a game/series that does that. It’s called CoD and they’re going to go to that and stay with it rather than try something that’s trying to steal CoD’s thunder. :\

I haven’t played WoW in a few years, but mounts over there have always been nothing more than cosmetic speed boosts with flight capability (sometimes). The closest thing we have in GW2 are the gliders linked to the mastery system. However, while both are game-changers, they don’t feel in any way similar.

If the leaks turn out to be true, mounts in GW2 will bare as little resemblance to mounts in WoW as gliders did. Mounts will gain skills via the mastery system the same way gliders did in HoT. These are not going to be cosmetic movement speed boosts. Different types of mounts will have different combat and mobility options available to them that will change the way players move around, not simply increase their movement speed.

I would tend to agree that GW2 has no need for WoW-style mounts, but I’m excited to see the mount system indicated in the leaks. I think it will be a lot of fun, just like gliders are in HoT.

This takes us back to the current issue with megaserver. How can you allow “first come, first serve” and also allow players to play with their friends without recreating the problem?

Let’s say you create a separate instance for the meta with a first come, first serve queue.

If you allow group queuing, what is to stop players from using LFG to organize prior to queue time and simply joining as a full squad? Result: Maps still get depleted during the meta for those who aren’t participating and players who don’t use LFG are left out in the cold. Not really any different from the current situation.

If you disallow group queuing, players can’t play with their friends. I think that’s just a dead-end, honestly. It’s a feature that must be included. But it’s also the source of these issues and why megaserver has never been “fixed”.

Trakarg.2095:

There are tons that I simply can’t get because HoT maps are DEAD. There’s no one doing the events. How the heck am I supposed to get event-related masteries?

That’s odd. I’ve noticed the usual bump of players purchasing HoT during a sale. Lots of first-timers doing hero points, events, etc. And I’ve been completing the meta without issue, same as always.

Zappix.7928:

To be fair it’s a good map but we need some more flat maps just for a change and no more ridiculously long JP’s. Something a little bit easier for the future please, the hardcore gamers that love the tougher stuff have had their share of goods, us softer players need some goods to!

Thank you

We just had 3 flat maps in a row and there are now 2 vertical maps in LS3. I guess that’s not enough for you?

Exploring, for me, is about learning my way around a map. Finding a particular point of interest for the first time isn’t my goal. The accomplishment is in mastering a challenging map like Tangled Depths. Video guides don’t spoil that for me. It takes more than watching a video and finding a point of interest one time to master these complex, layered maps.

The fact that these maps also provide an inexpensive path to ascended pieces that can be easily solo farmed makes them more attractive than most maps. The karma, experience, and unbound magic farm only enhances their appeal. I imagine many players will find them worth the price.