Guild Wars 2

Hmm, I dunno. I think the latest map is pretty awesome, visually.

phys.7689:

AliamRationem.5172:

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

your opinion assumes poor balance. elites were supposed to be technically better than core.

No. My opinion assumes good balance. It assumes that players will always (or nearly so) take as many elite specs as they are allowed in their builds. They would only do so if elite specs were clearly better, as intended. That’s why I said it’s a smart move to make them exclusive. If they are exclusive, players will have many more potential builds (18 vs. 5) available to them because they won’t be able to lock themselves into having both elite specs for every build and only 1 slot remaining for a core spec.

Labjax.2465:

Pretty sure I understand what you’re saying. That if you can only use one elite spec at a time, it trivializes having more than one. Sure, it’s more options, but saying it’s more options as a justification for having to choose one or the other doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering you have 3 slots for choosing how to put your build flavor together.

Ultimately, it limits the kind of options you could have. Granted, for Anet, it’s probably technical reasons and it eases up on the number of combinations they need to balance for. But there’s no getting around the fact that if you have to choose one or the other, it means less of an expansion on build options than it could be.

Restrictions like this can actually expand diversity. Consider the current issue many classes have with only one elite spec: Since it is generally more powerful across the board, for most classes it’s difficult to justify a build that doesn’t include the elite spec.

If you add another elite spec and don’t limit it to one, you double down on that issue and further restrict diversity even while adding something new to the mix. We’re still limited to 3 specs, and now we have 2 of them that are very hard to pass up.

However, with this restriction we face a different scenario. Chances are good that you will still want to choose one of the elite specs. So if the elite spec is the base you build upon, you have now doubled your options.

In that sense it can actually make balancing easier as you are no longer balancing the elite spec against the original specs, but elite spec against elite spec. Diversity should increase and balancing should also be easier from the dev side.

I think it’s a smart move, personally.

Hey, look at that! Agreement reached on an internet forum between several people with different outlooks? I guess there’s a first time for everything. I’m with you guys. I have my preferences, but I don’t need to have it all my way.

I think they’ve done a pretty good job of correcting with the map design in LS3. We now have 2:3 ratio in favor of flat maps. That’s probably (correct me if I’m wrong?) more palatable to players who prefer flat maps than the original HoT offerings.

As a player who prefers maps like Tangled Depths and Verdant Brink, I still consider the flat maps in LS3 better than any of the core Tyria offerings. But the vertical maps, while good, feel like map-lite. BF is a tiny map and DM feels full of unused space. Probably due to the time crunch. I hope to see something more like a TD in the next expansion.

The other problem I have with LS3 the reward pool feels too shallow. I want to spend time on these maps, but I don’t have a goal to work toward. The shared currency between maps (unbound magic) has potential, but I feel it’s being underutilized. This may relate to the time crunch, but perhaps it can be addressed after the storyline is completed.

Oathkeeper.1453:

Hi everyone.
i just bought the game (+HoT) waiting for the download to finish at the moment
can you guys please give some tips for a new player? i never played GW before

what should i do first in the game?

Weapon Sets – In GW2, each weapon has its own unique set of skills for each class. This is a choice that has a dramatic impact on how your character operates.

Weapon Swapping – Most classes have the ability to swap between two weapon sets in combat. The exception are engineers and elementalists, as they have access to significantly more weapon skills than other classes. Don’t lock yourself into one set. Learn them all to really see what your class can do!

Unlocking Skills/Specializations – You will be unlocking every skill and specialization available to your class in the Training tab of your Hero panel by the time you reach the level cap. Your skill choices while leveling do matter, but only while leveling.

Skills – Skills (the abilities that fill the 5 slots to the right of your weapon skill bar) become available at level 11 and are unlocked using hero points. You can use 1 healing skill, 3 utility, and 1 elite skill at a time, but you can swap skills you’ve unlocked while out of combat. As with weapon sets, these choices can make a big difference in how your character operates.

Specializations – Specializations grant a range of abilities and bonuses that change how your character plays. Specialization slots unlock at level 21, 45, and 71, eventually allowing you to use 3 specialization lines simultaneously. As with skills, you use hero points to unlock them. Fully unlocking a specialization requires 60 hero points.

Gear Stats – Your primary damage stats are power and condition damage. Power applies to direct damage (like the initial impact of a flaming arrow), while condition damage applies to damage over time (like the burning that follows the arrow!). Your gear stats should reflect your weapon/skill/specialization choices. Both tend to pair well with precision, which increases your % chance of a critical hit. Damage stats are generally preferred for leveling.

Djinn.9245:

Starting in VB was a terrible idea. You start with basic gliding and when you run out of steam so much of the map has the vine floor that eats you. Or you might be up in the canopy when you run out. Its very disheartening that you often find nowhere to land that isn’t instant death. AB should be the intro map.

I disagree. I think VB was the perfect map to start with. When you first enter VB you’re following the storyline where you just witnessed the fate of the pact. And then, there it is. Right in front of you in the open world. I thought that was really cool.

I also think VB is a great map for putting those early masteries to use. You definitely feel like you’re getting something out of your mastery points when you unlock those first few masteries. Not so much later on, where I feel there is too much filler in the mastery tree. It’s a playground for those masteries in the same way Draconis Mons gives you plenty of opportunities to put its unique mastery to use.

Clearly, you don’t enjoy this sort of gameplay so I suppose there was no such appeal to you. That’s too bad.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I am not interested in playing navigation or maze games. I want maps that show me where to go.

That’s cool. I’m not interested in flat maps where reaching every objective is as simple as following a clearly marked path. To each their own. Personally, I’m glad ANet decided to offer maps for both of us.

I was really glad to see another vertical map released (bonus points for the new mastery!) with Draconis Mons. I was getting a bit worried after they followed up Bloodstone Fen with three flat maps.

I hope they’ll continue to offer vertical maps moving forward, and would especially like to see them outdo Tangled Depths with another exploration masterpiece in the next expansion. I think this is something GW2 does extremely well while other MMOs don’t even offer anything like it.

A few thoughts:

The new map – Fantastic job! I’ve been waiting for another map more similar to bloodstone fen and the original HoT maps. A map with some verticality to it. You not only delivered that but one of the most interesting landscapes in the entire game. It does have quite a bit of empty/unusable space, so I’m sure it will suffer from being too little map just as with bloodstone fen even if the area feels larger. But overall I’m really impressed with the new map.

The storyline – The reveal on who Lazarus is seemed out of nowhere. It wasn’t so much an interesting moment in the story so much as a “Where the heck did this come from?” moment. I’m hoping you guys really pull it together in the final installment. However, I’m not sure how confident I should feel after such a short episode this time around. On the plus side, it was fun to see Taimi out in the field again.

Rewards – Another way to earn pieces I can already earn in other maps. Not too impressive. The grow tonic was a nice touch. And there may be other rewards that will compel me to spend more time on this otherwise excellent new map. That’s been the issue with these maps for me. The available reward pool is pretty shallow and there is overlap between maps, so I find myself not spending much time in these maps.

The new mastery – Great job! It’s new, it’s fun, and it definitely makes itself useful with the terrain in this map. I do wish it were a little bit more convenient. Perhaps add a new button like we have for the counter magic mastery? And maybe let us store charges? I hope this won’t be the last we see of this mastery.

Also, thanks for adding the currencies to material storage.

If you open your map and mouse over the name of a map you’ll see a list of rewards. You receive these rewards for completing events on that map, and sometimes you’ll receive multiples of up to 10.

The game provides numerous examples of niche gameplay. What you find too complicated or confusing, others consider a great feature of the game. There are 4 maps in HoT, and only one of them really pushes the envelope on this. You say it’s poor design, but as TD is my favorite map and I’m dying to see at least one more like it in the next expansion, I have to disagree. They didn’t make all of the maps so confusing.

Djinn.9245:

AliamRationem.5172:

I also don’t see how the layouts hinder “casual exploration”. I could tell right away that I wasn’t going to figure out these maps in a day.

You just answered your own question.

What does unlocking Waypoints have to do with them being contested?

So casual means the map has to be easy enough to figure out in a day?

If I can unlock every waypoint on the map in 7 minutes, it indicates that it doesn’t take very long to get to any particular point on the map even if you don’t have access to the waypoints.

Cyninja.2954:

AliamRationem.5172:

Sartharina.3542:

Vayne.8563:

Okay you don’t need five people to get the vampire. You can do it with two as long you both people have the ability to break the bar frequently. I know because I’ve done it. The bat guano hero point is all about breaking the bar.

The frustrating thing about the Guano hero point is the bar resets when it does its “BREAK THE BAR NOW! attack” – even if you had JUST broke it, and all your CC is on cooldown.

You’re probably referring to the attack she uses when she reaches very low health. It connects a red beam between the boss and a player and causes her to heal rapidly. If you break her bar at this point it will simply refill as if nothing happened. Instead, anticipate the attack and get out of range until it’s over so she doesn’t heal so much. She also heals for a lesser amount with a debuff she applies, so try to kite her and avoid letting her hit you if possible.

I finished the fight earlier for the x-th time and the breakbar definately interupted the animation and the champion was stuned. life leached was from 25% to 35% instead of 25% to 65%.

It was me and 1 other person so we did not have the damage to burst her down too.

Running away also does not work. The enemy will catch up to you and the range on the channel is above 1,500.

Yeah, I could be wrong about the range. Looking up videos on it, I believe you actually need to use line-of-sight to avoid healing the boss. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening at 7:30 in this video of a thief defeating this boss solo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRssyOmCR8Y

The boss doesn’t heal but the thief isn’t attacking or breaking the bar. That raised bit of the damaged platform between them must be blocking the life drain.

Labjax.2465:

flog.3485:

I understand your reasons, but I disagree so much with your perception of what the game should be. First of all, HoT was never supposed to be the core experience that you describe. They marketed the expansion as being challenging, they provided beta weekends for it and they always said that HoT was supposed to be end game content that the game didn’t have before. And quite frankly, do you really believe that they would create only 4 for maps that you can breeze through as easily as core tyria maps? Maybe you like that perspective, but to me it would have felt like a rip-off. Imo the easy nature of core maps only work because there is plenty of those. Second of all they have always pushed for more difficult mobs and content. You don’t breeze through karkas and silverwaste mobs the same way you breeze through core levelling maps. The thing is, even in core levelling maps there is content that require players to know more about skills, traits and weapons. These are called current events such as the anomaly, the bandits and the bloodstone crazed creatures. Even defending the colony of ascalon in gendarran fields is quite hard with no people around you (and to be honest I have already failed twice at it though I need it for a collection). Let’s not forget that Orr maps was harder at release also. And seriously, to conclude, what is the point of having this fantastic combat system if we can just breeze through easy content without having to take notice of what we need to do ?

Again though, it’s not just about breezing through or not breezing through. It’s about how the maps are designed. You can have a map that has difficult content in it, without arranging it in a way that makes it an exercise in frustration for casual exploration.

Part of this has to do with waypoints and them being contested or not contested. It ends up with the meta taking priority over getting around. Frankly, you should be able to waypoint into a contested waypoint if you want, just with the risk of dying and that’s your choice to take that risk. Even if it’s on a cooldown, so you can’t just zerg an event. It should at least be an option, for those who just want to get around the map and don’t want to wait for meta progress, or take the long route.

And again, there’s a difference between punishing design and challenging design. Punishing design can be challenging, but challenging doesn’t have to be punishing.

I think back to some of the old maps and what I remember is dangerous areas, but also a lot of open space where you aren’t going to get immediately attacked by anything. Maps can be challenging, without being too crowded by mobs. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Some of the old maps did it fine; you would have areas that were dangerous, some of which you’d have to go into to complete certain parts of exploration. And you’d have large spaces that were not dangerous at all and which you could just stand in with ease, while you planned your next move.

I get that HoT maps are supposed to create a sense of danger because you are going straight into mordy’s domain, but at a certain point, prioritizing story immersion can damage the gameplay experience, if done the wrong way. It’s like the example of a repeated dialogue phrase from a companion in a single-player game; you have to be careful about choosing something that isn’t going to drive the player crazy.

Similarly, designing maps in such a way that they can quickly exhaust people seems wrong-footed to me.

HoT doesn’t seem any more mob-dense than core maps to me. If anything, it’s easier to find a safe place to collect your thoughts because you can glide and enemies can’t. But I suppose if you find those enemies truly threatening, then it might seem that they are everywhere and you can’t catch a break from them.

I also don’t see how the layouts hinder “casual exploration”. I could tell right away that I wasn’t going to figure out these maps in a day. So instead of worrying about it, I just played until it started to make sense. I did this for every HoT map, including Tangled Depths (which became my favorite map!).

The waypoints don’t strike me as much of an issue either, as masteries usually give us alternative means of getting where we need to be. I hear a lot of complaints about contested waypoints in TD, for instance. Yet I know from experience that a player can walk into that map with no waypoints unlocked and have every single waypoint available in under 10 minutes (did it in 7 minutes on my thief, in fact). That’s almost certainly faster than navigating a core Tyria map. So is it really contested waypoints that are the problem, or the fact that the people complaining about them never learned their way around in the first place?

Sartharina.3542:

Vayne.8563:

Okay you don’t need five people to get the vampire. You can do it with two as long you both people have the ability to break the bar frequently. I know because I’ve done it. The bat guano hero point is all about breaking the bar.

The frustrating thing about the Guano hero point is the bar resets when it does its “BREAK THE BAR NOW! attack” – even if you had JUST broke it, and all your CC is on cooldown.

You’re probably referring to the attack she uses when she reaches very low health. It connects a red beam between the boss and a player and causes her to heal rapidly. If you break her bar at this point it will simply refill as if nothing happened. Instead, anticipate the attack and get out of range until it’s over so she doesn’t heal so much. She also heals for a lesser amount with a debuff she applies, so try to kite her and avoid letting her hit you if possible.

Frege.7683:

… the new zones. It’s impossible to get around without grinding mastery first.

I hate that it’s so hard to get hero points and the fact that I have to grind several hundred just to play how I want.

After killing 2 veteran mushrooms only to have them respawn nigh instantly, oh and those stupid charging mushrooms, such that I can’t even get the hero points … I have officially reached my breaking point.

Screw this. This expansion has been nothing but frustration.

Feel free to hate HoT. I’m not about to change your mind. But why the exaggeration?

4 mastery points is a “grind”? Really? Because that is all you need to reach the vast majority of areas in HoT: gliding, updrafts, and bounce mushrooms.

You have to grind “several hundred” hero points. I mean, yeah, except for that whole 10 points per challenge thing making “several hundred” into “25 or less”.

Blue.2734:

Wow, not a very nice person, are you? When you are lost and trying to figure out where you are and where you need to be takes a few minutes and the spawn rate is pretty high for mobs. It is so nice to see there are still the elitist that think their mean and not helpful things to say are okay and just for the record, I have played it, although not as high as some I have seen my mastery level is 23 all zones open with completion between 57 to 96%. If you have nothing nice to say, then please say nothing at all.

Hey, relax. I was just poking fun at your hyperbole. I can’t even open my map! That’s laying it on a little thick, don’t you think?

You’re welcome to your feelings on HoT. Don’t like the mob density/difficulty or the complex layouts? You wouldn’t be the first and you won’t be the last. I happen to disagree and hope to see more HoT-style maps.

I guess we’ll see what happens in the next expansion. Right now, I enjoy the LS3 maps but I find their design (with the exception of bloodstone fen) uninteresting and their lack of a meta or long-term goal beyond farming currency leaves me wanting more.

Having said that, I don’t require all maps to be exactly what I personally consider a great map. Overall I’m pleased with the maps provided since HoT released, even while the LS3 maps haven’t quite hit the mark with me. If, in the next expansion, they offered a mix of meta and non-meta, complex and “flat” maps I doubt I would have any complaints.

Xstein.2187:

Amaimon.7823:

I think the best aproach would’ve been a combination of the current exp grind, and an unlocking point that’s character bound. That way it would make some sense.
“don’t glide until you did the story chapter where get the glider”
“don’t eat mushrooms until you’ve actually learned to”
“don’t autoloot around you until you killed a demon who gave you a million long invisible arms”

I couldn’t agree more with this statement. Awhile ago, before this discussion was created, I watched a video on how “levels” in mmos don’t make any sense, at least compared to the real world. The better system would be to learn new skills throughout the game. When I heard this, it immediately made me think of the mastery system in contrast to the level system. The idea behind the mastery system is great. However, they have to really make it feel like you actually learned these skills, just like real life. How is grinding mobs or meta events suppose to teach you how to use updrafts while gliding or how to communicate with the Itzel? Learning them while playing the story or going through side stories/quests would be perfect.

This is not a new concept. There are numerous examples of systems that have attempted to do this. Of course, they come with their own problems. To simplify, instead of grinding for experience you’re forced to grind skills. Want to be proficient at gliding? You need to go glide around for several hours. Want to be good with a sword? You need to go beat on monsters with a sword. And so on.

That doesn’t really alter the situation significantly. If your primary focus is unlocking the skill, then this still feels like a grind just as filling an experience bar would. And just as with the experience model, you could always opt to just play the game let things happen when they will. Let that experience bar fill while you play the game or let that gliding proficiency increase to fill your “proficiency bar” while you play. Pick your poison.

There is a relationship between convenience and immersion. And I don’t just mean “immersion” in the RP sense, but also the relationships that form by necessity in a system that lacks some of the convenience options that have become standard in the MMO universe.

For instance, in the early days of WoW they didn’t have an easy system for quickly forming groups and entering dungeons. Instead, you had to form the group the hard way and get everyone physically to the instance entrance (made even more interesting when the instance was in enemy territory!).

I’m not sure I would say WoW would be better off returning to such a system. It required far too much time and effort to run dungeons. But a side-effect of that system was that you tended to build a network of players in the process. The less we’re forced to rely on and interact with other players to achieve our goals, the less we build those networks, and the less immersive the game feels.

In any event, while I recognize what this suggestion is intended to do, I really don’t think it strikes a good balance. The benefits of immersion are minimal while the cost in convenience is huge.

I agree that the rewards generally don’t match the time required to find a group, get into the map before it fills up, and defeat the boss. But it may be working as intended. There are other reasons to participate from time to time (legendary crafting, masteries, achievements). And unlike the rewards you typically see, I know that people who defeat these bosses on a regular basis do find better rewards such as ascended chests, exotic skins, etc.

Personally, I don’t find world bosses particularly enjoyable. In fact, I find them pretty boring and I hate the waiting involved with finding a group and getting to the map on time. I would probably participate in them sometimes if there were more reliable rewards, but as it stands I don’t find it worth it so I usually only participate when I need something from them.

Blue.2734:

Just to add my two cents worth to this forum. I too do not like HOT. The game play is so different from the base game. I was looking forward to being able to do things like the hearts and events if I felt like doing them. In HOT there are no hearts and the events are zone events and if you can not find your way around, you miss out on them. I only ever played the Silverwastes once a month or so because I do not like that kind of game play. I have tried to get around in HOT but in order to do that you have to open your map, and once you open your map, you are mobbed to death! To have an entire expansion based on the same kind of game play like the Silverwastes is very disappointing. Hope the next expansion returns to more game play like the original.

So just how long are you staring at your map exactly? Presumably, the enemies weren’t there to mob you before you opened your map. So they must be spawning while you’re staring at your map.

Here’s what you do: Next time you want to begin a marathon map-staring session, stand somewhere that enemies don’t spawn. Contrary to players-who-hate-HoT-but-don’t-actually-play-it, this is no more difficult to do than it is in core Tyria and in fact may be a bit easier with gliding, etc. since you can often just glide over to an object that enemies can’t reach.

Somehow I don’t expect this to resolve your issue, though.

Djinn.9245:

Cyninja.2954:

Djinn.9245:

Silmar Alech.4305:

What? Taimi is our sunshine. If not for the dragons, for her alone I would walk through whatever she sends me.

She might be your sunshine, but she’s not mine lol.

Silmar Alech.4305:

She (and Canach) are the best developed and believable current story NPCs.

You find it believable that a young asura who hasn’t finished school yet is allowed (by her people AND the Commander of the Pact) to join a team in the field battling dragon minions? Nevermind the danger to herself, why would anyone choose her over any number of more proven “geniuses”?

No, this isn’t “believable” – this is an artificial situation created by Anet in order to get this “cute” character into the story for the “awe, so cute” factor. Whether I think Taimi’s character is cute or not, nothing about the story treatments that include her are “believable”.

Taimi is 17 so it’s not like she is an infant. This is reflected nicely in her character as I had mentioned earlier. Her not finishing school has nothing to do with it, who knows what it actually means to finish school as an asura.

Yes it is an artificial situation with a disabled and young character who is ment to require the player characters aid. We can’t have all those war heroes constantly messing up asking for help, sometimes it actually has to be someone were it makes sense they would be in need.

I don’t know what your answer is supposed to do with my post. No Elite Seal Team is going to take a disabled person into a high-risk combat situation. Period.

Now add to that she’s a 17 year old who is still in school (i.e. isn’t a child super genius already on a think tank) telling the Commander of the Pact what to do. If she was really that smart, why didn’t her government scout her ala Good Will Hunting?

And we don’t need an artificial situation to introduce someone who needs our aid – the entire planet already needs our aid.

Not only is this situation with Taimi not believable, I laugh at the silliness every time she is involved in the story.

At the base of the matter is that all of it is subjective. You wouldn’t have written it this way, but none of the questions you ask build a convincing case that Taimi is not a believable character that fits in to this story.

The origins of the pact lie in breaking with convention. They’ve repeatedly cut through politics, red tape, and bad blood to forge alliances and get the job done. I see no reason why it necessarily must be a deal-breaker for one of their members to be a 17 year old disabled prodigy who uses technology and brainpower to mitigate her weaknesses and make herself a useful part of the team. Particularly when Taimi has proven herself loyal to the pact and not the corrupt leadership of Rata Sum to the bargain.

Djinn.9245:

I do think that they use Taimi too much to the detriment of the other characters. It’s funny that Anet styles our PC as “the hero” and yet what we have done this Season is be Taimi’s assistant. People talk about making a believable story but the former Commander of the Pact is not going to run around at the request of a young one with no position. Even if the Commander is a really nice person and doesn’t mind Taimi asking him to do things, he would be too busy dealing with leaders, planning meetings, or leading battles for this to be actually realistic.

This on top of my general complaints that Dragon’s Watch should not be babysitting children (Taimi or Braham) while we are trying to save the world.

I guess that’s one way of looking at it. I think Taimi has proven distinctively useful to the team. It’s not like we’re out picking up her laundry.

Okay, so maybe the idea itself isn’t so super, but thinking ahead to next year’s SAB festival here. Personally, I’d absolutely love to see world 3 and 4, but regardless of whether or not we get that, we’ll still need new rewards, right?

So here’s a thought. What if we pulled a reverse SAB? Instead of creating virtual reality (e.g. the SAB collection weapon skins), what if reality attempted to make replicas of virtual rewards?

TL;DR: Make a collection of 16 weapon skins that attempt to recreate the current SAB skins in “real” (game) life. For example, the super sword skin in this collection might look something more like the Priory historical sword skin: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Priory's_Historical_Sword_

To each their own, but Taimi is my favorite character in the storyline. I wouldn’t change a thing.

But I do have to give best interaction to Logan and Rytlock.

Logan: “You got something to say to me? Say it to my face.”

Rytlock: “I would if you weren’t always running away.”

LoL

Yannir.4132:

Crinn.7864:

They actually fixed this problem to some degree in the expansion zones, where mobs have mechanics to them that the player is expected to counter.

Sadly most player’s response to this was to whine how “hard” it was.

Yet none of those enemies is truly challenging either. The only way you die is really when you get overwhelmed.

Apparently they’re challenging enough that you die when you’ve overwhelmed?

I prefer to leave it up to ANet when it comes to where to allocate resources. Speculation is useless because I, like the rest of you, don’t work for ANet.

All I can do is tell them what I’d like to see and what I’d be willing to pay for. SAB is definitely high on the list for me. I didn’t enjoy HoT adventure games at all, but for some reason I really enjoyed SAB. I would absolutely pay to see more worlds, and more achievements, titles, and rewards. And I’ve already put my money where my mouth is by purchasing the super cloud glider, super mini trio, and the super adventure pack.

So here’s hoping we see more worlds next year. And if we need to put some gems/cash down to make that happen, I consider it well worth the cost. It may not have any relevance to the story, but it’s a very GW2 thing in my mind, by virtue of being exactly the sort of thing you don’t expect to find in an MMO!

Making it instanced content just makes it a little bit harder to get help. If you want a challenge, then just do them by yourself. They can all be done solo, even if some are clearly intended for a group.

I happen to like the seamless cooperation in GW2 open world PvE. I think requiring formal groups and instanced content is the wrong way to go.

WARIORSCHARGEING.2637:

no thank you do not want it in the gem store or in the game . and will be glad when it’s gone the end of the month . not even done any of the stuff for sab at all and plan on not doing so even tho they made a rank for it . things like this is what makes me not want to play the game any more at all

Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine?

I’d pay gems for SAB. More worlds, more achievements, more skins, please! SAB is awesome!

Any chance you want to extend the Super Adventure festival to cover the gap a bit better?

The super holocopter and super cloud gliders are awesome!

Sorry about your sensitive ears, bro.

nosleepdemon.1368:

Congrats! I’m 8/16 runs through zone 3 and it’s a lot easier than zone 2. Everything about that zone is simply better – pacing, variety, colour scheme, monster placement and behaviour… The only downer is the screwed up ice physics but that hasn’t killed me often. However the rams can go burn in hell, them and their walk on / walk off pressure plates. My current best time is just under 21 minutes.

I’m just a few runs in, but holy cow! 21 minutes! I must be missing a shortcut somewhere. I mean I know I have room for improvement, but I didn’t get caught up for very long on any particular part and it took me 48 minutes last night! Zone 2 took about the same. Am I missing something? Or do you just never fail at anything in there at this point? LoL

So you think instanced meta events would be better? That it would solve these problems? How do you figure? You’d be even less likely to find a group for the content you wish to complete and you’d be even more reliant on LFG.

LFG may not be a perfect solution, but it is a solution that works. It’s unfortunate that many players don’t seem to understand how it works or why they need to use it in order to have reliable success with meta events. It would resolve most of their issues.

You seem to prefer non-meta maps. But that is all they are: a map that doesn’t have anything going on that requires any sort of organization. I fail to see why you need such maps. Why can’t you have hearts and small scale events on a meta map? In fact, isn’t that exactly what the HoT maps are? I’m not sure I understand why this is an issue that must be resolved by removing meta events and relegating them to instanced content.

Your solution seems worse than the “problem”.

VandreadGT.8461:

Hello, I am trying to find a class that has a battlemage feel to it. Kind of like playing a melee range mage in ESO. I want to deal dps or be more support based. Please help me i know this isnt much to go on and i am interested in more pve content then i am pvp

Give dagger/dagger elementalist a try.

I noticed the titles available are for normal mode SAB. As a big fan of tribulation mode, I’d love to have a fancy title for that as well.

Gudy.3607:

Danikat.8537:

If it says the copy of the map you’re on is closing soon then the game will not place players who enter the map into that copy automatically.

That sounds reasonable, but I’m not sure it’s true (anymore).

In the last few months (but never before LS3 started) I’ve had several instances where I had the “this map is closing soon” notice displayed from the moment the loading screen went away, and I joined those map instances simply by waypointing into them. Granted, it could still be just an unfortunate timing issue, but it’s happened frequently enough that I’m doubtful.

This often happens during HoT meta events, world bosses, etc. You waypoint in to the map while other players are using LFG to join a squad that is rapidly filling a different map. The players who were on the instance you’re zoning into transfer themselves to the LFG map instead. At that point the map you just zoned into becomes depleted and the megaserver system sends out the map closing dialogue.

This can even happen repeatedly. You zone in, accept the map closing dialogue, then end up on another map that is being depleted as players jump to a meta map. So that map ends up closing too!

It’s a little confusing when you don’t know what’s happening. But the only solution available is to familiarize yourself with LFG and event times. If you’re looking to get in on world bosses, etc., don’t just show up on a map 20 minutes ahead of time. Use LFG so you end up on a map that is organizing for the event you want. Otherwise you run the risk of ending up on a depleted map even though you showed up early.

Vayne.8563:

And yet this is the sentiment I came to this game to get away from. I don’t care if they EVER introduce another dungeon.

In most games you burn through the new zones, go quest hub to quest hub, get everything done and never return to that zone. This game is a very different animal.

I can’t compare VB or TD or DS for that matter to any expansion zone in any game I’ve played, ever. I got far more replayability out of those zones.

The number of zones is not as important to me as the complexity of the zones.

I agree. Although, if I could have had twice as many HoT maps of that quality and level of complexity, I would have been even more pleased with the expansion!

Wow. A lot of responses about how it would become boring. But isn’t that true of any content? I mean I’m pretty bored of Queensdale. How would you guys feel about making access to that map restricted to an annual 3 week festival? Raids seem pretty repetitive, too. Festival. How about PvP? Only one game mode over and over again. Festival time!

As for rewards artificially adding replay value? Show me the content that stands on its own with no rewards. Rewards are used in the exact same way across pretty much every type of content we have.

Not that any of this indicates that we MUST make SAB full-time and expand upon it. But how about letting individuals decide for themselves how fun and rewarding it is, huh?

I’ve come to expect the unexpected in GW2. There are so many things I look at and say, “Well, I didn’t expect to see THAT in an MMO!” In that sense, SAB is very GW2 to me. It’s just not what I expect to see from an MMO at all.

It’s also very well done, in my opinion. The graphics and music are perfect and for a half-finished project, it brings a lot to the table with the various difficulty modes, achievements, and items to unlock. I would love to see more worlds released.

This is my first time participating in SAB and it’s been an absolute blast. I will be sad to see it go.

I expect the next LS3 episode will go live following SAB, given the timeframe the others were released within. However, if it isn’t quite ready I wouldn’t be at all sad to see SAB run for an extra week or two this year!

As for the expansion, I hate to speculate with no information. All I know is that they mentioned something about putting more development resources toward completing it. Still, that tells me nothing about when to expect its release. I certainly hope for sooner rather than later, but I also want it to be done right.

I really think you should consider making this a permanent part of the game. I know it’s been suggested before and I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why it shouldn’t, but I think you have something special here and you should really think about expanding on it.

The moment I stepped into the lobby I was laughing at the silly graphics and music. It really took me back to the early console gaming era of the 80s and 90s. I find it especially awesome when you get the item that reacts to the tribulation clouds in tribulation mode and the music changes to rockin’ out mode! Run! That angry cloud is coming after you!

I particularly enjoyed tribulation mode. I went in for the first time with a party of guild members and we all had a blast, even though we must have died 100 times. Then I went back on my own and ended up knocking out two zones I had only done once before on normal mode…and died a few hundred more times in the process!

Whoever made this thing was an evil genius for sure! I’d love to see more worlds. In fact, if it makes a difference, I’d even pay for it as a gemshop unlock. I liked it enough as it is to purchase the Super Adventure pack (mainly for the infinite continue coin which is quite useful for tribulation mode!).

On a related note, I absolutely love the super cloud glider as well. Super silly with great sound effects, just like SAB! Nice work on this! Hope to see more some day!

Carnach.5342:

Thanks Danikat, that’s good info. Saturday I should be installing this on my new Windows 10 machine and I’ll look forward to that. In the meantime its given me more opportunity to read a bit. I am leaning towards Warrior as my 1st profession using a signet build with great sword until I get comfortable with the game. I’ve been reading up on the crafting also. Seems like there is a split some saying don’t craft and you’ll make more money to buy things. Others saying the crafting while expensive is rewarding at the end. So I’m not sure yet on the crafting though I am think I want to give it a try either chef/weaponsmith or chef/armorsmith. Thanks to everyone for the tips so far.

It’s sort of a kitten ed-if-you-do/kitten ed-if-you-don’t scenario. If you sell your materials you’ll make a lot more gold, which is useful initially. However, the moment you find yourself needing the materials you sold you’ll wish you hadn’t! But then you’re broke all the time!

As for crafting, it’s useful in the long run. If you want to craft legendary and ascended items it’s good to have crafting. It’s also useful for some of the collections. So you will probably want to level crafting on several skills sooner or later. It’s also a good way to bank materials since you can refine a lot of what you find. Those time-gated ascended materials especially will come in handy later on if you end up trying to craft a legendary precursor that requires 60 days worth of them! So I would say don’t worry about it right away, but put it on your list of things to do and keep in mind that selling materials that are worth a lot usually means you’re selling something you will find useful later on!

kyykky.6349:

Okay, Im a new player so this maguuma thing is kinda overwhelming me. Events everywhere, followed by big runs rewarded by tons of trash from chests.

What is exactly the point people are doing these, leveling? or because they want something specific of that currency?

Am I missing some bigger picture?

And dont get me wrong, I plan to do every series of events just for FUN but Im just wondering if there is any REASON to do them other than leveling and currency items.

Collections, achievements, legendary weapons, mastery experience. Once you start digging into these, the collections and legendary weapons especially require quite a bit of time spent in the maps from unlocking the masteries to gaining a ton of map currency to purchase all the required items.

Oh look. Another post complaining about HoT meta events by someone who obviously doesn’t actually play them or know even the basics of how they work! Totally didn’t see this coming…again. I’ll be sure to let Chuck Gerent know about these issues.

I’d be on board with the VB meta changing to only require defeating the 5 bosses. I think the requirement of holding camps on the ground makes it more difficult than it needs to be and the rewards aren’t really there for it.

The TD meta difficulty is fine where it is. However, I agree that the incentive isn’t there. They should increase the rewards for this event.

It’s a little odd to me that AB provides such vastly superior rewards while being the easiest meta.

Ashandar.2570:

only if they expand the water areas in wvw, so I can kill regular quaggans. The risen ones taste bad, I wanna try the other kind.

Just stay away from the fugu.

flog.3485:

Vayne.8563:

Djinn.9245:

Rednik.3809:

Djinn.9245:

Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion, but this is how gaming works. Raid loot is always much better than anything else and it should be. People dedicate a lot of time and effort to raiding and they should be rewarded for that.

So, at first people were asking for challenging content and rewards to show off. Now there is “I’m entitled not for just exclusive, but for the best rewards because I’m doing content I asked for”. And then some people are wondering why raid community have such reputation.

I don’t really understand what you are saying, but traditionally in MMOs Raiders get the best rewards because Raiding requires the most dedication / time investment in the game.

What I believe is being said is that the raid community said we want challenging content and in many of those threads, they weren’t talking about rewards and whenever someone who didn’t want to raid brought up rewards, the raiders didn’t come forward and say we want exclusive rewards only we can get. They often said things like they’d be happy with at title or a mini to show off.

Now, suddenly people who want an alternate path to legendary armor are slackers and beggars, because we don’t enjoy raiding but we still want access to those potential rewards.

It’s always been my argument that keeping rewards like legendary armor exclusive, after legendary weapons could be grinded out by almost anyone given enough time, wasn’t good for the game.

Raiders often want the best rewards, and they want the raids hard enough to keep that club exclusive. But there are less of them, and therefore, the devs start catering to a smaller user base.

People say only a small number of people are working on raids, but part of working on raids, at this point in time, is also people working on legendary armor. Unfortunately if we’re all waiting for more armor sets, and a set comes out that only raiders can get, it’s most likely not great for the game over all.

It will please the small number of people who can get it, while making everyone else feel like a second class citizen.

But why exactly will you feel like a second class citizen ? And how can you predict it ? Because you locked off of an armor offering stat swap while at the same time the game never required to actively change stats on a regular basis ? I personally don’t and frankly I don’t look like the fact that you consider everyone else not playing raid a second class citizen just like you said you will be. There is plenty of things that has been locked behind some content and it is not because all the other was content was easy to do or a straight up grind that all the players will go for it.

So it’s the stat swap everyone cares about, huh? Not the fact that this is the first (and likely also the last!) legendary armor set? You sure make a good case, bro! Nobody saw the sleight of hand at all!

…that what this game needs more than anything is an epic quest for an ascended aquabreather that transforms the wearer into a quaggan whenever they enter the water. Amirite?

Amaimon.7823:

I mean, I would like to say “don’t like it, don’t do it”
but the problem with this is that it requires dev attention that’s withdrawn from raiding, LS or other content. And it adds weapons that break immersion worse than a set of huge wings. And lets not forget the miniatures with their cringy 8-bit sounds.. Sorry, but this ‘festival’ does actually do harm

By that logic, absolutely anything that consumes development resources may be said to cause harm. As you have no means of performing a cost/benefit analysis on SAB, this is really just a reflection of your preference. It is not an indication of actual harm to the game.

As for immersion? Seriously?

I was too new to the game last year to really get into it, but I am totally excited about SAB this year! It is confirmed that it’s going to be here next month, right?

Genlog.4983:

what i see in many meta maps most players are to squishy build focus way to much only for full dps with no good vitality and toughness they die in a few hits like the sniper mops

I agree and I’ve discussed this often on the forums. I’ve come to the conclusion that raid-level players don’t much care about solo open world play. Efficiency and group damage contribution are more important in that context. Many group events can be done solo by skilled players with a full glass build, and the rest are simply a waste of time. Given that, why would you use anything but the most efficient build?

However, players at the lower end of the spectrum can use all the help they can get. Many players in the above category push the idea that defensive stats do nothing (literally nothing!) and that the only way to succeed is by killing enemies before they can kill you. From their perspective, there’s a lot of truth to that. But it often doesn’t work at all for players with different priorities and a different skill level.

I use ESDF for movement rather than WASD, which frees up two keys within easy reach on the left of my movement keys. I find the function keys are too far away for my tastes, so I move these down into easy-to-reach keys like QWRT. 1-5 are fine where they are. A, V, C, and G are also conveniently located (your mileage may vary) and I can easily apply shift in combination with any of these keys, although I prefer to use shift+R and/or shift+T. But it all comes down to personal preference.

General rule of thumb: All keybinds should be within easy reach without having to move your hand away from your movement keys. This is the quickest and most comfortable way to play.