This is a real problem, it basically makes putting runes in level 80 exotic BoH (and karma) armor uneconomical. Those of us who play WvW know that good WvW runes, e.g. travelers, cost several times as much as level 80 exotic armor from the BLTP. Before the wardrobe changes it was possible to transfer the runes while losing the armor, but now that is not possible. I agree with salvaging BoH and karma armor and only getting the runes back. The current situation makes my 12000+ BoHs useless for buying armor.
This is going to be a problem in T3 until one of the T2 servers implodes, or the unlikely scenario that the T3 servers build up. Suppose the T3 servers cooperated against the T2 server and concentrated forces on one map. Given the population cap per map, if they could queue that map they would outnumber the T2 server there. This would not win the matchup, but might make the week more tolerable or even enjoyable. This is one case where double teaming doesn’t seem wrong to me.
OP, keep in mind that the composition of your team in Eotm will vary from week to week and day to day. The Eotm teams are formed from players of all the WvW servers of a given color for that week. Each instance of Eotm will also be composed of the players that joined at a given time. One time you may be with a group of PvE karma trainers, the next you may be with a WvW fight guild. The difference will be apparent when you see it.
First, I would not enjoy open world PvP in PvE. However to propose a constructive suggestion, how about having a single server where PvP in PvE was allowed. Then everyone who wanted to play in that environment could guest over and enjoy themselves without imposing on those of us who don’t care for duel requests. This server would not have a native population and would not participate in WvW.
I play WvW almost exclusively. My MF is 206%. I am almost always in a party of 4 or 5 and I have heard that improves MF a bit. I find 1 exotic every 6 to 8 hours of play, some from enemy players, some from NPCs. Given my play schedule I usually get about 2 exotics a week.
I’m on Dragonbrand and I have noticed the same thing for a couple days now. Our home borderland shows a queue of 1. So far, this queue has not affected my ability to join the borderland instantly. At least once I joined the map and had the outnumbered buff on arriving. I didn’t pay much attention to it or ask anyone else on the server about it.
I would prefer more options to complete the daily/monthly as existed before the 4/15 patch. The unified PvE, PvP, and WvW daily is good. I personally don’t see a reason for a daily/lifetime AP cap, but it wouldn’t gore my ox to have one.
I just had a problem with the new transmutation/wardrobe system. I have been upgrading my equipment from exotic to ascended. My exotic armor is Orr temple PVT armor purchased with karma and has superior runes of the traveler (about 8.5 gold each). Previously I could craft an ascended piece and combine it with the exotic via a level 80 transmutation crystal to transfer the rune. This is no longer possible. The temple armor cannot be salvaged with a Black Lion salvage kit (100 percent upgrade recovery) since it was purchased with karma. An upgrade extractor might or might not work on karma armor but it is pointless since it costs over twice what the rune is worth. The new wardrobe system accounts for the skins but the runes and sigils cannot be transferred. If the item cannot be salvaged then the rune or sigil is lost.
As someone who plays WvW exclusively in T3 or T2, dragonite is in short supply. Keeps don’t flip that often and when they do, you might not get to tag the keep lord. Consider that some classes (like thief) can use 4 main weapons not counting the 2 underwater weapons. Add in a couple sets of armor with different specs and the dragonite requirements add up. Now consider multiple characters for roaming and different zerg roles and the above number multiples by 3 or more.
I will make a very limited prediction based on my experience playing on DB.
First – FA. This is a T2 server and is in Silver because the ranking system could not react to the collapse of SoR fast enough to accurately determine the weaker of SoS, Mag, FA, and DB. One of these servers had to end up in Silver and was going to be the winner there.
Second – SBI. Just as DB benefited from the collapse of SoR, SBI suffered because of it. SBI faced DB in what were essentially 2 sided matches when SoR was the 3rd server. This allowed DB to focus only on SBI and they did not do as well as they would have in a more balanced 3 sided match.
INC (in green text) : An enemy attack force is in your area.
INC (in red text) : An enemy attack force is somewhere on the map.
I have never found even one dragonite ore while defending anything.
OP, I would consider upgrading the GPU. The GTS250 was a mid range GPU 5 years ago. The GTXs were the gaming versions, for example the GTX250 with 216 cores and 896 MiB memory. I recently upgraded to a GTX 650 1GiB for $110. The lowest frame rate I have seen is about 20 FPS, except when a zerg enters the map and even skill activation slows way down. Given the price, I would consider the GTX 650 the minimum GPU to upgrade to. Wikipedia has a comparison of Nvidia GeForce GPUs and you can compare the cores/memory of the GTS250 with more modern GPUs. I can’t comment on your CPU since I use an AMD FX4300 quad core at 3.8 GHz and 8GB DDR3 1600 memory running Win 7 64 Pro.
I have been on DB since I bought the game and have been playing primarily WvWvW there for over a year. Here are my answers to the OP’s questions.
> In the NA time zones there is seldom a queue on any map. Very rarely are all maps queued at the same time and that is mainly after reset for a few hours.
> Our SEA guilds usually go to sleep around 7 to 8 AM server time. Then follows 1 or 2 hours of sad time where we start out owning a lot on the maps and don’t have enough people to defend it. After that, until about 3 to 4 PM server time it depends on the relative strength of our opponents. If they are weak we will do ok, if they are strong things can be somewhat discouraging.
> As others have said, we have a night crew and they are top flight.
> I don’t roam much so I can’t say for sure. I do see 1v1 and small party skirmishes when I’m playing. When we are losing to a server it is often because they have formed a mega zerg. Roamers might have fun with that because the mega zerg can’t be everywhere at once.
> Unless we are absolutely getting owned we usually hold the keep and the 2 close towers playing green and blue. When we are playing red we hold the keep and Veloka (hope I spelled that right). The other towers flip more or less frequently depending on the strength of our opponents.
On Dragonbrand.
I had a similar thing happen a couple days ago. I had just entered WvWvW in my home borderland. While moving inside the Citadel I took damage of about 1/2 my health. Obviously not combat related.
None of my buy or sell orders show up. Hope it gets fixed soon.
GW2 encourages teamwork and cooperation. Not a bad lesson for real life.
Engineers and elementalists only have one weapon set.
Cutting the enemy’s supply/reinforcement lines is standard military practice. This was the point of sieging a castle. WvWvW is a war zone. Trying to distinguish between military tactics and “griefing” would be impossible, since the point of war is to grief your opponent. As a bit of advice, wait at your spawn point until you have a large enough group to take out the siege. Also, I believe there are NPC commanders at the EB spawn points. I haven’t checked the ones in the EB but the ones in your home borderland take 10 players to start the event. Having fought them, I can say these NPC commanders are rather tough. If you cannot manage this, I don’t know what to say.
The lack of guard rails in Rata Sum is the Asura way of sharpening your awareness of your surroundings. As Zojja once said “We don’t need guard rails, people learn from their mistakes.”
OP, in only a few days playing WvWvW I have over 400 BoH and less than 50 were from the JP. Unless you have a portalling mesmer the JP is far from easy.
Casual = It’s all about the journey.
Hardcore = It’s all about the destination.
Mark Twain would have been proud of you. Best short definition I have ever seen.
It is also highly untrue that average mmo player is above 30+, if it were true how would you explain masses that use terms like kiddo, noobs, pro, leet, etc. They must be mature gamers for sure!
I learned those words talking to my children, reading the forums, and using Google. :-)
Mature content = blood, nudity, terror, coarse language, violence, politics, economics, moral controversy and scientific material. …
I am over 30 and don’t believe a family oriented game like GW2 would benefit from the addition of the items you mention. There are other games for people who desire that kind of content.
It may not have been “broken” before, but it was very annoying to have a warrior autocasting “for great justice” at the BLTP or crafting stations in LA. I would turn off my speakers but then I couldn’t listen to the background music.
I like the current music throughout GW2, including the LA music. I really like the clarinet piece, it sounds authentic, but it may be a synthesizer. People’s taste in music differs and if for some reason people cannot add custom music for LA I would support adding that option.
Doing temple runs in Orr is an achievement to me, especially Grenth. My warrior still wears Orr temple armor, I didn’t re-skin it either.
I have to agree with the OP and I think I have found the problem. The lore enforcement software module that assigns each new character a race and gender is broken. It seems completely non-functional and is allowing players to choose the race/gender of their new characters!
I bought GW2 for the PvE. Since then I have discovered that WvWvW is amusing and I run with the zerg from time to time. I don’t do sPvP, just not my style.
If open world loot drops were the only way to gear a character I would say you have a point (except for the “additional logic” part), but they aren’t. As mentioned above, level 80 exotic gear can be obtained via crafting, dungeon tokens, karma, and WvWvW badges. These methods reward working towards a goal, not depending on RNG based loot drops. For example, if I want a piece of level 80 exotics PVT (power/vitality/toughness) armor I can run 4 or 5 paths of the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon. Dungeon runs can take from 5 minutes (speed running) to maybe 1.5 hours for a PUG. So I can get my level 80 exotic PVT heavy armor boots in somewhere between 20 minutes and 6 hours. Those boots are also available for 42K karma from the Arah and Grenth temple karma vendors. You don’t even need to participate in the temple clear, just show up when it’s done. Having RNG based loot drops that gave me those exact boots in the same amount of time would be absurd.
I consider a difficult achievement to be a challenge.
I don’t view the game as a job and I don’t expect to be compensated for playing it.
Other than changing the title to “The core engine design trade-offs betweeen a client/server MMO and an FPS running on a dedicted PC” I don’t have any suggestions.
I only group games into general catagories, trying to pick the absolute best isn’t something I can do. That said, GW2 is on my short list of most enjoyable games I own. I believe the reason people troll the forums like it was a second job has more to do with human nature than with the game itself.
The autoleveling in GW2 has a side effect, if you do not keep your equipment within 5 or so levels of your character level you actually get weaker as you level. This is not a big deal since any equipment will do. Blues and greens are fine, and these are cheap on the TP. Karma vendors in the level appropriate areas will provide good equipment for little karma. Also, the Citadel karma vendor in your home borderland in WvWvW always sells PvE equipment for your current level (autoleveling vendor). If you don’t WvWvW, the citadel is a safe area, no combat necessary since it is your home borderland entry point.
My thief would prefer a poncho, like the one Clint Eastwood wore in the westerns. Also a cowboy hat and cigar if you please. And then theme music as a finisher …
OP, can you please give a couple examples of MMOs that provide the combat mechanics that you prefer?
Just a caveat to start, what is fun for me and what is fun for you are not necessarily the same things. My current short term goal (fun objective) is to level my thief from 65 to 80 and get exotic armor for him. This is not my first character so I know how to proceed. I am playing through the personal story and proceeding towards the temple karma vendors in Orr. I am doing the dynamic events I encounter and harvesting every plant, tree and ore node on the way since they generate considerable experience. I also pop into WvWvW occasionally and see if I can find a zerg to run with, taking resource camps, towers, etc generates lots of experience. Yesterday I got 29K experience (and a few badges of honor) for being killed several times while taking the central castle in the eternal battle ground. Not bad for a few silver in repair costs. There are multiple ways to speed up leveling, for example on one of my characters I crafted from level 70 to 80. On another character I leveled from about level 45 to level 80 by completing dailys, which gave me about 1 level per half hour. Having looked at your posting history I see that you have tried different character classes and tried to find a quick leveling method previously. I cannot imagine that you do not know about crafting, dynamic event chains, heart quests, resource mining, WvWvW, etc. I can only conclude that you, as you originally state, find them boring. I wish I could be more helpful.
For PvE, warrior. For WvWvW, should you be brave/foolish enough to venture out alone, thief.
Since enjoyment is a matter of personal preference, these are difficult questions to answer exactly. I will attempt a generalized answer based on reading the forums. Who is this game for? In my opinion the PvE content is enjoyable for cooperative (non-competitive), recreational gamers. Gamers who are competitive or desire to have “better” equipment than others tend to be less happy. What is the right way to play? Wandering around doing whatever comes to mind at the moment works well for me. Players wanting the level up/kill tougher enemy/get better loot/repeat forever model tend to feel the game is lacking. Also, the fact that the best items in the game are available through karma and dungeon tokens rather than via open world loot drops takes some getting used to.
I have 3 level 80s in full exotics, an engineer, elementalist, and warrior. I don’t do PvP so the following applies to WvWvW and PvE. The only thing my engineer does better than my warrior is jumping puzzles, because of rifle jump. The warrior is not bad for WvWvW, but I prefer the elementalist for his excellent speed, ranged AoE, and crowd control spells. Although armor and damage numbers may not show much advantage to the heavy armor classes, they do not take into account skills and traits. Play a warrior for a while and decide for yourself.
Welcome back. Guesting has been implemented and now you can go check out the various servers yourself. Different servers have different WvWvW and PvE emphasis so find a server that does what you enjoy. Also, since guilds earn influence on their home server, finding a guild that you fit into may influence your choice.
What, and deprive yourself of the journey of discovering those things yourself? But if you decide to, don’t come back to the forums saying you are bored.
A few days ago I discovered WvWvW is fun. My level 80 warrior is great for zergs. My level 80 ele is great for holding keeps, my level 80 engineer is good at jumping puzzles (rifle jump). I am currently leveling a thief to 80.
Your sample size is too small. I tried high MF for a while and noticed a definite increase in loot quality. I gave up using MF when I realized that I could gear up faster and easier through karma and dungeon tokens. I ran without any MF until I got my ascended amulet and put the MF infusion in it. A couple days ago I got a level 80 exotic from the Fire Elemental. It’s just RNG in action.
I lost all faith in “media” recommendations of the entertainment value of video games. At best these “media” opinions represent only the individual opinions of the authors, at worst, well I won’t go into that. I have seen rave reviews given to the worst games (for me) and bad reviews given to some of my favorite games. I no longer even consider “media” opinion when purchasing new games, and definitely not in deciding if I should keep playing or recommending them to friends. Except for recommendations by personal friends, I now make purchase decisions based on forum posts of games I currently play. Recommendations (good or bad) made by posters who share my opinion (good or bad) of the current game are used directly. Recommendations made by posters who do not share my opinion are inverted. That is how I found out about GW2.
TLDR: Opinions are like kittens, everyone has one.
Is this the most casual AAA MMO ever? I know some of you will get offended by this statement thinking I’m attacking the game, but clearly, it was a design decision that Anet went for. Just curious if there has been another with more casual elements?
I didn’t think you were attacking the game, I though you were simply stating that GW2 is a great game for casual gamers, which of course it is.
In my opinion GW2 is going to be successful long term by not following the traditional MMO rapid vertical progression gear grind treadmill model. Doing this would put them in direct competition with the other MMOs, including subscription model games that introduce new gear every few months. By staying with a slow (or even non-existant) vertical progression model they appeal to a large market of players who either do not enjoy rapid vertical progression, or are simply tired of that model and would like to try something different.