I think leveling is important as it provides short term goals and a feeling of progression (even if that progression is ultimately hollow, it’s the “feel” that counts in this case).
However,
I do agree with the OP’s “let us make our own journey” message, and have been wanting an MMO that does so for a long time.
I think simple up and down scaling would more then adequately provide this in most MMOs.
In GW2, down-scaling is already present and allows us to revisit any piece of content in the game without trivializing it by being too high of a level. Furthermore, it makes playing with friends easier because you don’t have to worry about matching your level. This is great, and I feel all MMOs should do it.
Now they just need to add up-scaling, so that we can adventure anywhere we want without fear of being one-shot or facing impossible to complete content just because of an arbitrary ‘level’ number. You would be slightly better/worse for wear depending on where you go because of trait/ability availability, but that’s not a bad thing.
If the devs absolutely wanted to limit zone availability for the sake of the experience they are trying to deliver (for example, for the sake of story progression), they could limit up-scaling, making it so that you can only upscale a certain number of levels.
In the case of GW2, everything needed to make this happen is already available in the game, its just a matter of the devs deciding that they want to do so.
I really hope they do.
There wouldn’t be any here, or less in extent, IF THEY ACTUALLY FIXED THE BUGS THEY SAID THEY WERE GONNA FIX.
Do people still believe this?
MMO-forums are always:
Full of complaints.
Hostile.
Accusing the devs of being incompetent.
Accusing the devs of playing personal favours.
Talking about how much less of the above there would be if only the devs would for once listen to the obviously much-better-developers players.
Since this happens in any MMO, it’s probably safe to assume that this is an inherent “feature” of the community drawn to such games, and can be ~safely ignored.
One million cookies for you sir, this is exactly the case.
It’s the usual ‘blame game’ you see gamers across the board partake in.
And it goes beyond MMOs, most online games draw this kind of crowd.
It’s so easy to think “oh if they make XYZ changes it’ll all be great!”, but there’s always other factors that are going to throw that off.
I love to sit around thinking up ideas on new systems/balance for games, but it almost always ends with “ah kitten … nvm X would mess this up”. And the times it doesn’t end that way and I post the idea on a forum? someone else is sure to find a flaw.
I almost feel like it’s a placeholder. It’s obviously completely garbage for a GM trait, so it must just be there “in the meantime” while they evaluate the balance effects of some of the the other traits. Right?
I mean, the balance team can’t ACTUALLY think that was a good idea for a GM trait…
While I think mesmers got the worst of it, other classes got hit as well. Go check out the other profession forums, there’s complaints everywhere as usual.
I feel they have defiance backwards.
Instead of hitting the target with CC to get rid of a stack of defiance, and then losing immunity to CC when all the defiance is gone, it should be the other way around.
Each time the mob is hit by defiance, it gains 1 stack which has a duration. Each stack reduces the effectiveness of CC by a % until it reaches max stacks and becomes totally immune.
The only problem I have with what the OP is saying is that fixing CC doesn’t stop you from building pure DPS. There’s no way to “gear up”(stat wise) for CCing. It would make more weapon sets viable though.
I like it, it’s a unique way of increasing dps that we haven’t seen in GW2 yet. Usually we just get “increases power” or “does %more damage”.
Sword will apply bleed faster. Mace will apply weakness faster and not be so unbearably slow. Axe’s final chop (where a lot of the damage is) will come up faster (nice for helping you land it in pvp).
The only place it doesn’t feel right is PvE axe, which is already strong. But considering you’ll be trading either heightened focus or berserker’s power for it, it might not even get used for dps axe builds.
It remains to be seen if 10% is high enough to justify grandmaster though.
No thanks.
Why would I want to purposely drop money on an expansion when we’re getting content for free under the current setup?
I’m not totally satisfied with the content we’re getting, but an expansion isn’t magically capable of giving us inherently different content. Anything it could deliver can be delivered through the usual content patches.
My server gave up on the knights and just after the champions. Nice going Anet!
Epic Fail.
Serious suggestion: guest to another server.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so and it works just fine. Even if you get into an overflow you can still succeed the event, in some cases the overflows actually do better then main server (a perfect example of which being Marionette a few weeks ago, where overflows were consistently doing better then main on my server).
Content
Content was fairly good, not meaty enough due to constant use of zerg events though. They need to reduce the frequency of zerg events and polish small group(3 to 10 people) content.
Story
Story wise they went in strong, fell off HARD through the middle, and then recovered a bit after Christmas with a pretty satisfying conclusion. Over all, they need to find a better way to get the story to the player. While traditional questing is boring for leveling, it would certainly serve them well for certain story content so I would suggest that.
Overall
Largest problem of the LS continues to be that the content is temporary, and is presented in a format that often times doesn’t allow it to be persistent. Heavier use of instances for the story (perhaps Personal Story style), and lowering the number of zerg events(since they can’t be done at the players own pace and occupy large parts of the world that need to be reclaimed after the patch ends) would help fix this.
Now if arena net would just rework defiance, we’d have a really nice PVE dungeon build going on with this.
Not really. You can already proc interrupt traits through defiant, you just wouldn’t take halting strike because the damage it provides pales in comparison to empowered illusions.
O.o didn’t know that, thanks for the info.
Still think they should revamp defiance though xD with a reworked system CC would be more valuable so the build might be good for reasons other then raw damage.
Lion’s Arch is in complete shambles, the landscape being outright changed in areas from all the destruction. The Breachmaker will also presumably sit as a significant piece of wreckage in or near the city. So instead of rebuilding LA (at least immediately) what if we get to go into the Dominion of Wind with the Tengu.
From the wiki page for Dominion of wind, by Talon Silverwing (a Tengu from gw1):
“My people tell tales of the day when we will be free, when our lands will be revealed by a heavenly star and rise. When that day comes, human, only then will our races live in peace.”
During the end cinematic, the lay line creates a huge surge of light that goes into the sky. Perhaps the Tengu will take this as that very sign and will open up to the rest of the world.
We’ve also heard that the Tengu have information about Elder Dragons, perhaps they will be our source of information about the currently mysterious Mordremoth who just woke.
Granted, that’s an old quote (though it is on the gw2 wiki), and the Tengu were rather indiscriminate with their hostility through the event in LA.
Depends on your mindset, I suppose. To me, a grey-and-grey Japanese anime villain ending is far less unoriginal and lazy rather than an American comics villain which got crazy for some reason and kills people because he enjoys it.
These are the same “blank spaces” which can be filled by any imaginative reasoning, but more so appear to be simply a far-fetched game content. That said, I should note that I am generally perfectly fine with bad simple writing as long as it serves the purpose of amusement, but I do prefer it to have some extra depth and reasoning when it can. (E.g. like having the Marionette itself to stomp the hell out of LA.)
It’s done to death in American media as well, no need for the cultural division.
And inference is a writing technique you learn in high school, I really don’t see the need for everything to be explicitly spelled out. We’re still lacking answers, but we’re also 2 weeks short of an epilogue.
Rather happy it DIDN’T end up being a “Scarlet was a hero in her own way” type of bland B.S. ending. THAT would have been unoriginal, uninteresting, and lazy in my opinion. That kind of moral grey has been done to death
She was mind-broken by the dragon and then driven to awaken it. I’m happy with that, this isn’t a mystery novel. Now we just need the supporting information to come in, since we killed her without listening to what she had to say.
I found a lot of the so called “interesting” speculation ideas on the forums to just be stupid to be frank. Twists for the sake of twists in many cases.
And I’d suggest you read around the forums a bit and look at past releases, because some of the things you brought up as “unanswered” have inferred answers.
Miasma to keep enemy forces out of LA while she drills, clockwork machinations to bolster her forces, the marionette itself was a distraction to take our eyes away from her plans in LA. Things like that.
And with regards to twists, we had months to speculate about something that in a book (or similar media) would have been equivalent to a few pages, perhaps a chapter. It’s kind of like saying “I knew that would be the bad guy!” as the protagonist is walking up to confront the bad guy.
Cosmetics in the gem store, I don’t see a problem.
Were really expecting Arena Net to make a large number of weapon skins specifically for dearest you?
As long as they don’t neglect to also add skins that are earnable purely through in game means, I don’t see a problem. And they have, not terribly frequently, but they have (they would do well to up the frequency a bit though).
My only real complaint is that they once again stuck them in those infernal black lion chests.
Just to show the trend continue, we once again have a nice release page that outlines what the patch contains as well as a patch note page with detailed information, but the only date we get is “Starts march 4th” and “blade shards will permanently drop from aetherblades now”. Furthermore, last patche’s meta achievement was removed with no warning.
Why?
I want to know how long LA’s event will stay in this state, I want to know for how long I’ll be able to do the end-instance vs Scarlet, I want to know when heirlooms will be removed from the city rubble, I want to know if the related vendors will stick around or when they’ll be removed, I want to know when the meta-achievement will be removed, I want to know when the new BLC skins will have their ticket price increased.
Why?
Why is none of this information being shown to us.
It’s bad enough that they structure so much of their content in such a way that it’ll be removed in the first place, but on top of that we don’t even get to know when it’s being removed? Ridiculous.
I’d hardly consider the zone-wide mass events of LA to be a “dungeon”, there’s not enough structure and direction.
Furthermore, there’s nothing “outdated” about 5 man dungeons, that would imply larger or smaller grouped numbers were somehow a new improvement to the format (they’re not, it’s just a different number and has been done before). 5 man is the “traditional” number, and is an old number. It’s constantly re-done because it’s what people have grown accustomed to and as such is the number groups have formed around, making it easier to migrate from one game to the next.
While the LA event was/is great, I’m not very interested in seeing them do more of it because it’s not something they can bring back later. Once this is over, we’ll never see it again. At least with dungeons they have a chance of coming back. Furthermore, it’s just more zerging.
Also, they’ve done content like this before (tower of nightmare for example), it’s kind of weird that the OP has a tone of “this format is something new!”
Oh I know it’s being asked a lot. This was actually a thread I’ve been thinking of making for a few weeks though. It’s really a recurring problem with each patch, information about when things end is constantly missing.
Looking for heirlooms earlier just reminded me about it.
Put simply, we need better documentation about the dates things start, and more importantly END, for patch content.
The most recent example being Found Heirlooms, will they be gone tomorrow? or stay until the next patch.
Similarly with the marionette, for some reason we needed dev responses on the forums to find out it was leaving, instead of just having the dates it would be available on the release page. In that same patch, we didn’t know when the living story missions pertaining to the Wurm would disappear (the next patch, as it turned out).
And the examples go on for nearly every patch.
We need better documented dates for these things, the players shouldn’t be left guessing when these things will go.
Oh look, someone else is trying to sell their opinion as fact through poorly construed justifications.
Sorry but I didn’t think GW1 was very good, specifically the combat was absolute trash, but in general there were several elements of the game that I just didn’t find were that appealing/good. That’s not to say it was a bad game, just that it didn’t suit my preferences, an important distinction that people seem unable to make.
Cherry picking strong elements from GW1 and integrating them into GW2 is a great idea, but these blanket “GW1 was superior” statements are getting really annoying.
Tequatl is getting stronger because Zhaitan is actually still alive an is starting to recover! In comes the Zhaitan fight remake we’ve all desperately wanted =D
Agreed 100%
I really like the concept of Illusionary Leap, but it doesn’t matter how good the idea is if it’s broken and can’t be fixed.
The ability is broken, it cannot be fixed, so change it. There is no compromise, we can’t just keep using a broken product because “it works sometimes and the idea is cool”.
If Arena Net can fix it at a later date, that’s great. But until then give us something that actually works, even if it means replacing the ability.
A clone generating ability which acts as a gap closer and imobs the enemy. There’s plenty of ideas that fit those parameters for a replacement.
Personal suggestion: make it work/spawn like Phantasmal Rogue
He left all on his own! He’s got business to attend to!
:)
Thanks for the info
This is unfortunately exactly what is wrong with the living story right now though. All that work, and the only way we can ever see it again is to ask a dev on the forums to post conversation logs :/
I really hope you guys get the technology required to circumvent this problem before the next “living story chapter” gets started. Whether that be through some form of instance replay system, a restructuring of how the story is delivered, or whatever else.
The Atlas kinda feels like Arena Net wasted their time….
I mean it’s cool, but it doesn’t really offer anything. Just annoyingly click around until you find some bit of information that was much better delivered through the regular release pages.
If they tied this into the game though, it could be quiet nice. For example, if there was an NPC or intractable item at the in-game locations of the things you find on the Atlas, which then had something interesting to say to the player.
Edit: also, what’s up with the “hidden points”, are we expected to click the entire map until we get lucky and find one? That’s annoying, not fun.
The whole situation with the personal story is really annoying. They’ve completely dropped it. Hopefully they’ve abandoned the “oh but we don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t done it yet” reason from here on out. It’s been a year and a half, and we need things to start moving forward.
I really hope the next story “chapter” brings back the orders/pact (as-is, disbanded, or otherwise), as well as the characters we met through our personal story (at least the ones that are common to all paths).
Successfully duo’d many events with my gf over the course of several attacks. You don’t have to go with the zerg if it ain’t your thing. This event is actually pretty solo/small group friendly.
Furthermore, to reach the highest reward tier (1500 survivors) I strongly suspect that zergs will have to break into relatively small groups(10 or so people?) in order to cover the map and complete everything.
That’s not true at all either. There are literally fighting styles dedicated to only using a sword that are extremely effective in the combat field. I get video games have beaten it into peoples heads that dual wielding or having an off hand is the “way” to go. But there are many 1 handed sword techniques that can out shine someone using something in their off hand.
There are fighting styles dedicated to using single one handed swords, and they are effective. Have you heard the term “bringing a knife to a gun fight” though?
Those are styles that are good for dueling (sport, yes even in medieval context. Or for settling disagreement, broadly speaking), or for civilian confrontation (where you don’t walk around armed to the teeth, and your opponent will have little more then clothing that can’t even protect against a crappy rapier).
They aren’t for fighting on a battle field.
If they’re going to add more abilities, I think new weapons/utility skills would be better.
That isn’t true at all, a shield can get in the way of technique. it’s all a matter of sword fighting style and skill level.
Outside of sports, or in-town situation where you were fighting un-armored opponents and all you had was your personal protection weapon (i.e no access to an off-hand), people didn’t fight with a single 1-handed weapon.
It’s not a matter of sword style, you either gripped your weapon with both hands, or used your other hand for something else.
Wielding only one 1-handed weapon in GW2, and as such being reduced to 3 skills, is a pretty good portrayal of what you’d be doing to yourself by only wielding one weapon.
Don’t really see the problem with no expansions. An xpac means they’ll stop updating for 6+months just so that they can bundle into a box and release it all at once.
The fact that Anet is choosing to make a bunch of the content from the LS temporary is also not something an expansion will necessarily solve. They could just decide to stop making the LS content temporary instead.
You don’t just “change servers”. That’s like saying “Oh since this apartment building is getting vandalized, management should just relocate everything to the building down the block”.
First of all, that’s not a feasible solution to implement. Second of all, it won’t prevent the vandal from walking down the street and continuing on your new building.
I like this idea but how would you implement it? Make it available after the next update when it not available any more?
As I stated in similar thread, I am sure the Asure or another race could come up with a device that could recall memories.
Implement it as in story-wise? It doesn’t need some convoluted reason, it could just be a feature made available in the UI.
They could put a tab in your hero panel under story called “Living Story”. It would essentially be the same thing as the current personal story tab, except it would list living story steps instead.
Then just add a “tracking” feature that lets you select a step, and subsequently go to the instance entrance(where ever that may be) for that step.
Welcome!
Just thought I’d throw this out there: if you’re feeling lost with the story/direction of the game or are interested in general information about what’s going on, I highly recommend the youtuber “woodenpotatoes”
Historian NPC would work well. Alternatively, some element of the UI that lists all the story steps, then let’s you track (and subsequently enter) what ever step you want.
For example, open your hero panel, go to the story tab and click “The Battle of Fort Trinity”. That story step would then appear at the top right of your screen (the green star thing) and you’d be able to enter the instance. Then just make the same thing available for living story instances.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of story content, in particular, character relationships. The recent recap helped with keeping track of the over all direction, but we desperately need a better system as the details are steadily escaping.
As soon as you miss some character interaction somewhere along the line, it starts compounding and gets harder and harder to follow the details. And unfortunately the wiki doesn’t document it very well.
In my case, Bram and Rox being so chummy chummy with Marjory and Kasmere. I saw their meeting in Kessex Hills, missed some content (IRL stuff), and next thing I know they’re on first name basis hanging out at the bar in DR.
This is rather minor, but it’s growing into a problem (and probably is a rather big problem for new players, or players who take frequent/large breaks). The crux of the issue is that we have no way to verify what’s already happened once that part of the LS is over.
I think the personal story instance system was great (UI tracking of the story included), and feel this should be put in place for the living story. Story information is delivered through instances that you can do at your own pace, as you progress through the steps of the living story (just like with the personal story). Summaries of the events are then documented in their own section of the UI, with related items (Shashoo’s Pearl anyone?) there as well.
You’ve been gone for two months? well unfortunately you missed some content, but so far as the story is concerned you just continue where you left off and catch up with the instances.
Add to this the ability to replay story instances and you’re golden.
The representation of gay relationships in the over all game seems okay/well balanced/appropriately representative, but there’s definitely a huge over representation of homosexual relationships among non-single important/main characters.
I don’t want to see every important character paired off, but they do need to increase the representation of hetero relationships amongst the main cast. It’s kind lame if they just make every non-single main character homosexual to draw attention/make them “special”.
I’ve no problem with homosexual characters, but as the OP alluded to, it’s starting to feel “cheap”.
Not that’s a very important/pressing issue though.
The problem with the proposed solution is that high attack speed will now have the advantage.
I think it would work well if only the base weapon damage affected objects. That way, regardless of builds (condition or otherwise), your effectiveness will be relatively even.
Or they could make it so that your condi dmg stat contributes to your direct damage when attacking objects.
I can understand the request, it’s totally reasonable, but seriously OP get off your high horse. Irresponsible that a fantasy game’s characters are idealized? Check your privilege and start acting like an adult. I’ll second your vote for weight sliders or something of the sort, but don’t expect a constructive thread with the tone you’re using.
And thanks for effectively calling everyone ugly and/or fat. I’ll have you know that I’m rather thin and relatively good looking, as are many of the people I know who play.
Had a thought, they are buffing. What do you call the sigil/rune changes? There are people expressing fear of power creep because of that in other threads.
The nerf will sting, but I’m all for it from a power shatter build’s perspective if they back it up by increasing clone gen in some way for shatter builds.
Using dodges to generate clones instead of using dodges for.. dodging, is pretty lame and I’d like to see it changed. I’m happy with this nerf if it leads to that.
We’ll see how that goes though.
Terrible idea.
Ever heard of stat inflation? Balancing entails both buffs and nerfs, you can’t just stick to one or the other, it’ll screw up the over all balance in the long run.
This is why it can be a terrible idea to listen to your player base sometimes, they talk with authority about things they don’t really understand. If anything, it is precisely bad player ideas like this that are bringing the game down in any capacity.
I don’t like IC. It affects close to half of our weapon skills, and for one trait that’s pretty sick. Especially for minor trait. Before the patch I was totally cool without getting it, but now it’s just too darn close!
To encourage more build diversity, maybe there’s shouldn’t be a trait “that’s needed for most mesmer builds”
I agree, and wish they would either get rid of or rework IC. It’s a boring trait that affects our potency way too much.
I actually really like the medium armor (male human), and the light armor is good except the shoulders and pants.
The heavy armor(legs and chest in particular, shoulders look good) is the only one I dislike.
