Yeah, thought it was weird that they had an option to select Stronghold when that isn’t out yet. So it’s clear us seeing that was an error. But it’s nice to see that we will probably have that option in the future. Hopefully, there will be an option for TDM as well.
Also it looks like they might encourage people to do Unranked/Ranked rather than going to hotjoin.
The generational difference is likely because early MMO’s were all subscription fee games, while today the free to play model is popular (and, obviously, used in GW2). Subscription games have an active interest in everything taking you as long as possible, so their leveling is far slower.
F2P and B2P games also need to make players stick around for a long time. That way they are more likely to make cash shop purchases or get friends into the game who may make purchases as well. GW2 has a lot of things that are grindy or time-gated in order to keep people playing. It just doesn’t do that with levels. FFXIV has a subscription, but leveling is fast as well.
I think people just got tired of leveling so modern games made it faster and moved the grind to something players were more willing to accept.
I’m for having WvW using the PvP build system. Some are opposed because it lacks the ability to have different stat combos on different pieces of gear and lacks food/utility buffs, but having the ability to freely switch between sigils, runes, and amulets and not having to worry about buying these things when the meta changes or having to buy consumables all the time makes for a better experience. Also, you can start a new character and have them go into WvW early without being a burden. The PvP system allows for more experimentation with builds and team comps.
WvW uses the PvE system because it was initially designed as a PvE/PvP hybrid and in a way, the end game of PvE. At this point, I don’t think it should be tied to PvE anymore.
As for the main topic, no, just get rid of racial skills or leave them as is. I’d rather not be better or worse because of what race I picked for a class.
but pretty sure this letting one person capture once enemies are gone is helping a lot.
Definitely. Since Conquest mode is 5v5 fighting over 3 capture points and secondary objects, the team more likely to win is the one that most effectively spreads its players. Having 2 people cap a point without any enemies around is a waste of 20% of your team. You are better off elsewhere.
It’s a bit awkward that Arah story is the final part of both the personal story and the dungeon story. It would be nice if the dungeon story was made soloable (by your average player, not just by good players) and merged into the personal story. The problem is that the personal story isn’t very repeatable. You either have to make an alt or join someone else’s story. They need to make it like LW S2 in which you can repeat old story steps. Just make it so that in chapters where you make a decision that will affect the next chapter, you are locked into the decision you made the first time around.
But they didn’t, dungeon forum brothers, someone please summon the dev quote saying they were fully aware that well run groups would glass up.
Thing is at this point we’re well past the point that “well run” means much more than “has been playing dungeons for a few weeks and learned exactly what to do.”
I do find your comment about getting rid of swiftness quite interesting. “the game would feel slower”, yup, exactly, same goes for if they made zerker bad.
Glass cannon is harder to play than tank as it requires the use of active defenses (positioning, dodges, reflects, blinds, blocks) rather than passive defenses (toughness, vitality) to survive. With an action combat system, it would be lame if instead of having to get good at active defenses, the best thing someone can do is put on tanky gear and survive a lot of hits. I do believe content needs to be harder so people who aren’t that good yet can’t play effectively in glass, but as players get better, they should be trading in tanky gear for glassy ones.
Good players surviving on active defenses is the best fit for an action combat system.
Balance between gear sets should not be a priority or even considered really. Existing isn’t a reason why something should be in the meta.
I disagree entirely. First, seeing how much some people play the game, any new content is bound to get “old” very fast.
With your logic, any new dungeon will be hard for the first week, and then we’ll be stuck with the zerk meta again for another year.
With the dungeons that currently exist, we already see some paths or fractals that are much harder for most groups than others. Ideally, the new content would be challenging enough that it will remain difficult for most groups for a long period. That said, the meta should still be glass cannon because those encounters, no matter how difficult they are designed, should still be able to be beaten using active defenses.
Secondly, glasscannon runs don’t need to be the ultimate solution everytime.
It seems Anet clearly designed this game in such a way that all gameplay styles should come to shine at some point. If you are chosing to build Shaman gear, you should in theory have an area in PvE where your Shaman setup is the ultimate best (this is in theory only, not in practice at the moment). There should be a dungeon or other instance where people put a party in LFG and say “we need someone using Shaman gear for this”. I can’t see any other reason for why there are 25 sets.
The way it is now is the stagnating, boring way you described: there’s a few sets there to learn dungeons with, and ultimately all playstyles converge to zerk if they want efficiency. This is bad for diversity in game and it discourages creativity and progress.
Gear isn’t a playstyle in itself. In fact, it is less important compared to traits and skills as it should be. And the meta playstyle for pve is a good one. All players should contribute damage. All players should contribute support. All of the meta builds sacrifice personal dps to help out the group.
Playstyles like being a dedicated healer shouldn’t have a place in the meta due to how the combat is designed. And having all stat combos appear in the meta just isn’t realistic.
If you want to play differently while still running a meta build, play a different class.
Edit: It takes too long for me to post. Looks like some of you already have this covered lol.
5 players going into a dungeon for the first time in full zerk would be a nightmare. Ofc, a new player or two accompanied by 3-4 experienced party members can certainly get by in zerk.
But a full party of inexperienced players? Not so much.
Yep. I bring new people into dungeons regularly since I am a guild leader. 3-4 experienced people can carry 1-2 inexperienced people giving the impression that dungeons are easy even if inexperienced. Once the number of inexperienced people outnumbers the experienced people though, the run becomes very difficult. I cannot imagine a full group of level 35 inexperienced players could complete AC explorable paths in any acceptable amount of time.
Dungeons are easy for us because we are level 80, geared, have full access to traits and skills, and have done the paths so many times that each encounter is memorized.
A glass cannon meta is the best meta we can have for pve. If content is meant to be completed no matter what stat combo our gear has, then purely offensive gear should be viable. And since they are harder to use than gear with defensive stats, the payoff should be faster kill times (assuming you can survive without defensive stats). The problem isn’t berserker gear. The problem is the lack of new content to challenge people. If new challenging content is released, players would have a hard time surviving in zerker gear until they learn the encounters.
Your choice in server will only affect World vs World mode (a large scale fight between 3 servers). Outside of WvW, the game uses megaservers. NA players can’t play with EU players, but all NA players can play with each other and all EU players can play with each other.
Between NA and EU, you should pick based on where you live and what time you usually play.
If you are interested in WvW, the most populated servers that aren’t full are Fort Aspenwood in NA and Seafarer’s Rest in EU.
There were 4 T2 servers (current T2 + DB). All tried to stay in T2 and received transfers. Then DB hit full status lol. Most guilds left and a lot of them went to HoD.
It is level 3 now. Definitely think it needs to change to 2, but leveling up once or going to your home city and taking the portal to LA isn’t a big deal. Once you step into WvW or HotM, those tabs are unlocked on your account even if you haven’t reached the level for them yet.
Haha. Was thinking about making a topic like this because of the other topic.
People have been asking for 2v2/3v3 Annihilation for a long time now. There is also a community that does 15v15/20v20 Annihilation and wants official support. It makes sense to me that TDM should be switched to Annihilation.
Conquest, Annihilation, and Stronghold would be separate queues. When you choose Annihilation, you pick between 2v2 or 3v3. Custom arenas would support up to 20v20.
Add a map with a large open space.
At this point, I don’t think there are too many people who cared about 5v5 TDM that will be upset by the change.
For 5v5, I don’t have a preference between TDM or Annihilation. But since people on this forum suggest 2v2/3v3 Annihilation frequently and since there is a community for 15v15/20v20 Annihilation, I figure switching TDM to Annihilation would be a step to making both groups happy. I doubt they would try to support a fourth mode after Conquest, TDM, and Stronghold.
In my ideal scenario, Conquest, Annihilation, and Stronghold are separate queues. When you choose Annihilation, you pick between 2v2 or 3v3. Custom arenas would support up to 20v20.
Watched it live. Definitely great analysis. The one time him and Texbi were commentators for pug quest was both entertaining and educational. Of course we will never see anything like that again lol.
I understand that shoutcasting is mostly about calling out what is happening rather than deep analysis. Perhaps someone who is knowledgeable about high level strategy would make a youtube channel dedicated to analyzing past matches.
I hate when I get CY/TDM when playing unranked, but I will queue for it if it was separated. Being in a different queue would mean everyone in the match wanted to be there and will be running builds tailored to winning team fights rather than holding points.
A separate queue would be nice on its own but if they do decide to do more, here are some other suggestions:
-Change TDM to Annihilation. No respawns, wipe the enemy team. Maybe best 2 out of 3.
-Add new maps including one that has a large open space.
-2v2 and 3v3 queues.
Good suggestions. Perhaps instead of a separate soloq, the matchmaking system should enforce symmetry or at least near symmetry with regards to premades and pugs. 5 man premades should only fight other 5 man premades or 4 man premades. Queue times will be a bit longer, but we won’t have separate queues for solo and team.
Different queues for different game modes is needed however. Courtyard/TDM would be much better if everyone in the match is a willing participant running a build good for the mode. Perhaps it would be even better if TDM was replaced with Annihilation. Wipe the enemy team and the match is over instead of having respawns and making it to 500 points. Have 2v2 and 3v3 queues and I don’t think queue times will be a problem for this mode.
Stronghold definitely needs to be its own queue. It can’t be like TDM is now. Hated because people expect and prepare for Conquest. Similarly, the people who want to play SH shouldn’t have to play Conquest most of the time in order to play what they want.
I think matchmaking should require symmetry or near symmetry.
If you queue as a full 5 man premade, you can only play against another 5 man premade or a 4 man premade with a strong solo player. Queue as 4 people, and you can only fight 5 man premade, another 4+1 team, or a 3+2 team. And so on.
Queues would be longer for premades, but the matches would be more fair. It is not fun for solo players to get farmed by premades. Serious premades would find the match to be a waste of their time because they don’t get challenged. Premades that exist for the sole purpose of farming leaderboard rankings don’t deserve the free wins.
Courtyard is hated by many, including myself. But if Anet were to support TDM by adding more maps and putting it in its own queue, I would actually queue up for it. Maybe instead of having unranked and ranked queues, it could have 2v2 and 3v3 queues.
Edit: Even 5v5 would be fine if all 10 participants wanted to be there and were running builds for it. The biggest problem with CY/TDM is that it is in the same queue with maps that belong to another mode. Almost everyone is in it for Conquest. Allow TDM to be by itself and maybe a community would form around it.
Will we get new items that give hero points for playing SPvP or find them in player loot bags in WvWvW?
If not, it would be a huge nerf to progression via PvP avenues.
Unlocking all skills and traits (except elite specializations like Druid) will require 465 hero points. You get 400 by getting to level 80. The other 65 you will have to obtain through hero challenges (currently skill challenges). As far as we know, pure PvP or WvW players will have to go into PvE to unlock everything since there are no skill challenges in PvP and very few in WvW.
They said on stream it will be converted to a new currency that will be in the wallet. Currently skill points have two functions. Purchasing mystic forge materials and learning new skills/traits. The new currency will take on the former function. Hero points will take on the latter one.
You will need 465 hero points to get all the traits and skills for a character. That number doesn’t include elite specializations like druid.
Getting to level 80 will give you 400 hero points which means you will need to get 65 points from hero challenges (currently skill challenges). I somehow doubt there will be 65+ skill challenges in WvW. The few skill challenges in WvW already feel out of place.
It’s disappointing that we have to do boring skill challenges to fully unlock all traits and skills for a character. The way of acquiring traits pre-April 2014 was the best.
This topic again lol. It hasn’t even been a week since the last one.
You’re right in that all classes share the role of damage dealer. What you missed is that all classes share the role of support. With the latter, each class offers group support differently making it worth having a more diverse group rather than taking five of the highest dps class. I’d say playing guardian effectively vs playing thief effectively is more interesting than playing healer vs playing tank.
Ele is definitely a top class for each game type and undeniably the top class for dungeons, but I wouldn’t say they are the top class for pvp and wvw. Shoutbow warrior is arguably more useful for the team in pvp and guild groups in wvw run more guards than any other class (unless this has changed since the stability change…I haven’t played much wvw recently).
That said, all three of those classes are in the meta for each game mode. If you pick one of them, you’ll be safe playing them wherever you go. It would be nice if necro was more useful in dungeons and engi was more useful in wvw.
I watch Phanta, 5G, and a few others. It really does bore the viewer to have half of stream be waiting around in hotm. Personally, I just browse the internet while waiting, but if I were a high mmr streamer, I would probably play a turn-based game (or something that can be easily paused) in windowed mode while queued up. That would give something more interesting for the viewer to look at.
That said, Anet really needs to make it so people can continue playing GW2 while queued.
Individual score isn’t a good indicator of performance. If someone on your team is free capping a point and you decide to stand on it, you will get credit for capping the point, but you weren’t helping your team. If individual score was rewarded (more than it already is), people would be incentivized to get a higher score to the detriment of the team.
Play Unranked/Ranked. The vast majority of matches will be 5v5 from beginning to end. Every now and then there will be people who disconnect or ragequit, but it’s far better than the hotjoin experience.
Edit: Also, they’ve added custom arenas into the game. People could make 8v8 servers or even 10v10 servers if they wanted to. Unfortunately, having your own custom arena is expensive.
So long as the npcs are limited in what they can do and are predictable, I don’t see a problem. Anet has made it a point to mention that this is the case whenever they explain Stronghold. I do dungeons as well and hate the dungeon npcs, but I am not worried about the ones here.
My friend and I decided to run turret engis today just to see if it really is easier to win as them.
I have been a warrior main since the start of the game. Got into spvp last fall and got Champion Legionnaire a couple of months ago. She has been a necro main since the beginning and got into spvp a few months ago earning Champion Phantom a few weeks ago. We aren’t great players, but we’ve worked on becoming decent with our classes. The players in our matches usually have Champ profession and Legendary Champion titles so we’ve made it past the point where we play with new players.
Engi is one of my least played classes. Besides EOTM, Mad Kings Lab, and the first couple of story missions, I haven’t played it. My friend made her engi today. We went to our guild’s custom arena to learn the build a bit. She was basically getting an idea of what the buttons do. And then we queued for unranked.
We won our first match and narrowly lost our second one (got 450+). While two matches doesn’t seem much, these were our very first real pvp matches playing engi. As mentioned earlier, we had little to no experience with the class. We should have been liabilities for our team. The build is way too easy to be effective. You just shouldn’t be able to play a class for the very first time and win 1v1s and 2v2s against pvpers who have experience with their class.
Fighting mobs isn’t fun. I too enjoy the game’s combat system. Fighting mobs isn’t where it shines for me. I’d rather spend my time fighting other players who will give me more interesting encounters than mobs will. But going back to dungeons, fighting mobs takes time that doesn’t justify itself in terms of rewards. Makes sense to do more dungeons quickly than less dungeons slowly.
I didnt specify, I was talking about custom arenas. I dont consider myself a great player, not only that but Im trying to teach my cousin a thing or two so I dont wanna hurt the team Im at cause of my lack of skill. Thats why I most of the time play custom arenas and from what I know you cant join as a party in custom.
Play unranked and don’t worry about it. You won’t get much better if you mostly play hotjoin.
Another thing, I don’t like to lead or create any group for a place that I’m not familiar with, hence why I look for the groups, and not make one myself.
Last, sorry but… 90% of the groups advertised ARE for speedruns, unless I’m being terribly unlucky.
Putting up a lfg doesn’t make you the party leader. I make my groups most of the time, but once people join we are equals. It only seems most groups are speedrun groups because normal groups fill up fast and are no longer listed.
What is stopping you from doing a dungeon with your guild to learn the dungeon first and then pugging later on?
This isn’t an issue with there being a toxic community. It’s an issue with not taking initiative.
We get a topic like this every week. The solution remains the same. Don’t join groups that clearly want to get through the dungeon quickly. It will be obvious based on the description of their lfg. Join or make a group that has no requirements. Inform your group at the beginning that you are not experienced. Make sure to look at your chat throughout the dungeon in case someone has typed something out to help you.
Also, skipping mobs is not hacking. Fully clearing a dungeon would be tedious, especially once you have done the dungeon many times. Making dungeons longer like that would not give a good impression to new players.
Looks like if you rep a guild, you get everything said in guild chat as far back as your chat box can go. When you unrep, it wipes out guild chat (and replaces it with the guild chat of the guild you switched to). Really nice.
You should be able to do AC P1/P3, SE P1/P3, and CoF P1/P2 in under 90 minutes (none of those paths should take you over 15 minutes) and you will get over 10 gold for doing them. This is what I do for my usual rotation. I end up with a little over 10 gold than I started with, but that’s not including materials I have deposited or exotics that I threw in my bank to figure out what to do with them later. If I had to guess, my rotation is closer to 15 gold. Possibly more.
Gold to gems exchange has been been better recently. Yesterday it was 228 gold to get 1800 gems. Better to do dungeons for a couple of hours a day for a couple of weeks (assuming you have no gold to start with) than switching to a new MMORPG altogether.
Conquest and TDM are very different. If Stronghold is different enough from Conquest to warrant its own queue (this is something I agree with btw), then TDM should have its own queue as well.
Or perhaps it shouldn’t be in Unranked/Ranked at all. If the population isn’t there to support it and Anet themselves aren’t going to support it, then they should just have a couple of official hotjoin servers dedicated to TDM.
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