Guild Wars 2

I am not sure why you would list global cooldowns in the profession comparison instead of the combat section unless you wanted to give that section to GW2 but couldn’t justify it honestly and accurately.

It would be like comparing WoW professions to GW2 professions and giving the win to WoW because they have elves.

I leveled a character to 80 for the first time since shortly after launch over the last week or so. I agree that the sequence issues are a problem. I do like the way chapters are grouped together now though.

Both (although I do continue to read the forums during periodic breaks from playing the game).

Have to say, the OP really seems to have a solid grasp of the problems with condition damage in GW2.

Bugabuga.9721:

Personal story-wise, “chunked” mode is disappointing, because of the large gaps. You play a few story steps and then it goes away for a while, and other than “new things near you” and dailies nothing shows up in the right top corner. That familiar green star disappears completely. Wen I’ve finished first chunk it was very weird. “That’s it? Where did the story go?” (and then read in the Hero panel that it “continues at level 20”). I guess it’s just impatience speaking in me, as story (and leveling up) gives cool loot and I always wanted to do the next step sooner

Oddly enough other than the out of sequence bits I prefer the new implementation of the personal story. Played a character to 80 for the first time since launch and was pleasantly surprised by the new system for personal story.

Sytherek.7689:

No one (almost) demands Ford have a public detailed five-year plan, or that an architect make detailed plans available to everyone who might someday walk into the new building.

I was under the impression that Ford does, and that architects are required to.

That said, we as customers have no right to make demands of Anet. We have what we paid for. The base game. The question is whether or not Anet wants us to continue spending money on the game. For some players the willingness to spend in an ongoing manner is dependent on having a sense of the future of the game.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• No, the game is not lacking direction. Nor is it lacking vision or goals, plans, ideas, concepts, or any of the other properties that guide our future. The quiet now is not an indicator of anything other than the fact that, at this time, the company is not talking about the future but is, instead, working on it.

Understood. Keep in mind that in essentially any other industry dealing with customers one is expected to be able to speak to what one is working on. Of course Anet may not speak about the future of the product they want customers to continue to buy but that is a matter of choice not a function of not being able to talk about it because they are working on it instead.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Game companies, like most major industries, experience a certain level of turnover, and hire to fill those spaces. They also hire for new or expanded roles. Nothing startling here whatsoever.

Completely agreed.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• The silence is decidedly not a distraction effort. As Mike O’Brien said, "We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: “We don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.”

By not speaking to the future/direction development of the game you (the company, not you personally) are stringing us along. This is a player retention tactic not an accident.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Living World and holidays are important, yes. They are not the only thing on which the team is working, quite clearly, when you see substantial updates coming out on a regular basis. (Case in point: feature packs, the coming PvP update, etc.)

Of course, “substantial,” is a matter of opinion. Removing functionality or content might lead one to consider such updates to be net losses for players.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• We are not “afraid” to lay out a roadmap. Quoting Mike again, “The intention of the CDI threads is to talk with you about the roadmap.”

This is incorrect. It may have been said but it is incorrect. A disclaimer stating that the entire process is speculative or for discussion purposes only means that it is, by definition, not a roadmap. Without a statement to the effect of, “the direction we are going,” or, “what we intend to do,” or something of the sort by Anet a CDI is not a discussion of a roadmap.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• In general, with nearly anything, there are ebbs and flows in communication. If we’re in an ebb right now, you can count on there being a flow in the future. That’s just logical.

I disagree. Counting on there being more substantive communication in the future when there is not a solid precedent for such is the antithesis of logical.

Gaile Gray.6029:

If you’re saying “the whole thing is broken” I’m going to call that hyperbole and move on. If you can detail exact, quantifiable elements that were and remain broken, I’m all ears! Because I can try to track things down if given sufficient details, but I surely can’t go into a room and say “stuff’s broken” and expect to get the information that you’d like to have, and that I’d like to share. (Please don’t post details in this thread. If you’d like to report the issues, would you please do so in the Bugs Forum? I will look for a thread if you care to share it!)

This makes me sad. It really does. Mainly because it implies that Anet is unaware of multipage threads that go into detail about problems with recent updates. Having NPCs greet me as if I were an old friend before I meet them for the first time in a later chapter of the story for example. Not everything that is, “broken,” is due to a bug.

For what it is worth, it is not hyperbole to say that something is broken because an integral part of it is broken. Not every system of your car needs to be non-functional for, “my car is broken,” to be a reasonable statement.

Chantelle.4539:

So basically what your saying is Legendary is Ascended? Because I thought Legendary was a higher tier?

Not really a higher tier in the normal sense.

Legendary has an advantage over ascended in the ability to switch stats. This makes alternate builds and the like easier for a character with a legendary than one with ascended. Legendaries also have signature cosmetics in the form of footprints and unique appearance.

Healix.5819:

ArenaNet already said the system wouldn’t be coming here and I don’t imagine they’d risk all the bad press.

Anet has established the precedent that what they say and what they do are not necessarily the same thing when money is involved. I am not saying that there will be a VIP system here, merely that we should not assume that anything is off the table.

For the first time I like an entire weapon set. Every one of them looks amazing. I am almost, almost, tempted to step back from my decision to not spend any more money in GW2 until such a time as I have at least one full set of ascended gear for each level 80 character (or ascended is removed from the game).

Devildoc.6721:

#2. +33% run speed is the slowest attainable top movement speed in any MMO (aside from GW1 as well),

Are you sure about this ? Just out of curiosity could you list all of the MMOs that you checked ? I am really curious about this.

Astralporing.1957:

But all of those already exist. Mounts as some people would want them do not.
Changing the status quo is harder than keeping it, especially in face of heavy opposition. And without devs favoring your side (and so far it seems they don’t want mounts in GW2 at all).

And the cost/effort involved in changing the status quo might be a valid argument against mounts. The fact that they are not needed is not. Keep in mind that any content that the devs might add to the game at some point in the future is not part of the status quo and is not needed.

Personally I have no interest in seeing mounts added to GW2. There are other things on which I would rather see dev resources spent. My primary reason for opposing the addition of mounts is the opportunity cost.

Cuddy.6247:

Ashen.2907:

Cuddy.6247:

The inflation is a result of stagnation. More gold to spend, still the same amount of precursors.

Not sure if I understand this point. It seems that you are suggesting that without farmers the number of precursors in game would remain static ? This is not the case.

No? Stagnation isn’t the same as stationary. Essentially the only farm that genuinely exists is a goldfarm and everything else is a footnote to the fact. What the OP suggests, and I’m inclined to heavily agree, is building actual farms through limited acquisition and higher drop tables, which generate actual farms. Dry Top/Silverwastes are no more a farm for precursors than doing EotM ktrain, dungeons or world bosses. Saying that anyone is farming Dry Top/Silverwastes, or anywhere for that matter, is farming for a precursor and not money is negligible stupidity, at best.

Precursors rise in price because of inflation, money enters trade at a faster rate than precursors do. If the game had any actual farms instead of just one massive goldfarm, you’d see farmers actually generate items for sale and money would enter at about the same rate and prices would massively stabilize until the demand for whatever item in question drastically changes.

My apologies, I was referring to the, “same amount of precursors,” comment you made. I completely agree that if currency is being produced, proportionally, at a much greater rate than are precursors then the price will continue to rise with the inflation.

Cuddy.6247:

The inflation is a result of stagnation. More gold to spend, still the same amount of precursors.

Not sure if I understand this point. It seems that you are suggesting that without farmers the number of precursors in game would remain static ? This is not the case.

I keep seeing the argument, “GW2 doesn’t need mounts.”

True.

It doesn’t need mesmers, axes, waypoints, etc. either. Anyone arguing that GW2 needs mounts is mistaken. Anyone arguing that a lack of need for something in a form of entertainment is a viable reason for it to not be included is similarly mistaken.

There are plenty of very good reasons for mounts to not exist in GW2. “They are not needed,” is not one of them.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

scerevisiae.1972:

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

The average game dev salary for the region where ANet is located is between 70k and 80k. The cost to employ is between 1.2 and 1.3 x base salary. The 100k estimate mentioned is a bit high but is significantly closer to normal than the 60k mentioned as a counter argument.

Except we simply don’t know. It’s all just guesswork. I’m not sure what the point is. We’ll end up arguing numbers that no one is ever going to confirm.

Actually we do, or can, know the average cost to employ a game developer in the region where ANet is headquartered (the claim I made). This information is fairly readily available. The numbers I mentioned were from memory researched for the last time this subject came up. Any errors due to faulty memory I apologize for.

Of course ANet could very well be paying above or below that average but the average is still there at approximately 85-95k per year. Note that the numbers given are cost to employ (including benefits, payroll taxes, etc) not just base salary.

scerevisiae.1972:

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

The average game dev salary for the region where ANet is located is between 70k and 80k. The cost to employ is between 1.2 and 1.3 x base salary. The 100k estimate mentioned is a bit high but is significantly closer to normal than the 60k mentioned as a counter argument.

Perhaps I am missing something here, but why would you buy it if you consider it a waste of money ?

Sparrow.5936:

This game wasn’t designed to be played the way it is.

I disagree completely. The way it is played is entirely due to conscious design decisions made during and post development. This is not a matter of an unexpected exploit or bug.

Your supply and demand explanation is on target, but a couple of points:

1) In the real world money is generally not backed by a supply of gold. Thank heavens for that.

2) If the supply of lodestones is cut in half in your example it is highly unlikely that the first 50 will sell at the old price of 2g each. The average price will jump almost immediately.

Astralporing.1957:

The general problem with berserker is not because it offers best dps (some gear set will always be in that place). The problem lies that the combat engine changed the “high risk high reward” case into a “High reward for risk that just maybe is a bit higher. And often is actually lower”.

This.

I tend to play glass in games where such is available. I don’t try to claim that it makes me in any way better than anyone else. Its just what I enjoy. In my opinion, as much better expressed by Astralporing, GW2’s cannons just are not very glass.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Any time you say “a lot of people” you’re projecting

So if I see a large number of an opposing server players coming towards the supply depot where I am resupplying in WvW, but don’t want to take the time to count them, and announce in map chat that, “a lot of reds headed towards depot X,” I am projecting ?

“A lot of people,” merely means a significant number which one has not counted exactly. Could someone be projecting when using that phrase ? Of course. Then again that person could be projecting by claiming that others are doing so.

Vanive.3804:

You should thank us for supporting a game you play for free.

He spends more than twice as much on the game as you do.

See its really easy to make stuff up.

Souto.2716:

I just don’t see why veterans are angry by this change…

In the first place it isn’t targeted towards you. It’s like pve players getting angry about spvp/wvw mode changes..

If you throw a paint bomb into a group of people it doesn’t matter that only one of them was the target, they are all going to be a mess. If a company does something that they know is going to affect people other than the, “intended target,” group then those other people are also being targeted.

If a player does not participate in WvW or SPvP then changes to those game modes do not really affect him during his open world PvE play. On the other hand any veteran who plays a new character is affected by changes that were supposedly not targeting him.

Souto.2716:

Secondly, and seriously more important, the changes make it so a player is more familiar and has more experience with how each specific skill/utility/trait work. It’s not being dumbed down, it’s being explained in better detail..

Where are specific skills, traits, etc explained in better detail due to the NPE ?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Actually, Drarnor, both are true in relation to the U.S. Civil War. The Union and Confederate armies both lined up and shot in ranks and used stealth methods as well. You can see reasonably accurate reenactments in the amazing films Glory and Gettysburg, which present the fact that troops definitely did march in ranks on many occasions. Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg was a long march, in ranks, across a huge open field; no stealth (and major slaughter).

Exactly.

Generals at the time of the American Civil war were still drawing heavily from the tactics of the Napoleonic wars despite the fact that advancing technology had made them dangerously obsolete.

Hopefully this works out for you sooner rather than later OP. It is an abysmal business practice and speaks ill of the company using it.

For those asking why the OP needs the gems, he doesn’t. None of us need gems at any character level. We buy them, giving Anet our money, because we want them.

Malediktus.9250:

With that logic you can grief with anything in the game. Some people are annoyed by quaggan backpacks. Some from legendary effects. Some from miniatures. You can probably apply it to anything.

Someone who buys a backpack because they like how their character looks with it on is very different than someone who buys and uses something for the admitted purpose (at least in part) of imposing it on those who dislike it and who then opposes suggestions that would allow him to keep the thing he likes without imposing it on others.

I wouldn’t say that I consider Dry Top to be difficult, but its design makes it not fun for me.

Malediktus.9250:

You cant grief with this.

The above is proven wrong by the below. If you are buying something not because you enjoy it for yourself but, as you have admitted in this thread, so that you can force it upon others who do not wish it, and then admit that you consider spending money/gems in order to cause others displeasure to be a good thing then you have proven that it can be used to grief and that you either are or intend to do so yourself.

Malediktus.9250:

I am highly amused by people complaining about it. Makes the 500 gems well spent.

Ykfox.3825:

it obviously wouldn’t even be an attempt at recreating the Charr/Human war….

You are correct. The Human/Charr war was not a civil war. The OP is referencing the American Civil War of the mid nineteenth century.

I tend to main a ranger in fantasy MMOs and yet will frequently curse out loud at other ranger players on screen (not in game) in GW2 for using Point Blank Shot.

khani.4786:

Last few times I’ve done this the ground doesn’t break and Rytlock just jumps into the solid rock. o.o

Its a Char thing

I would love a melee dual axe alternative for rangers.

Keitaro Dragonheart.9047:

Everyone should be allowed to play how they want without having ignorant comments like “face roller” being thrown at them by zerker elitists

Now that is comedy gold,

Elden Arnaas.4870:

EotM is not intended for zerg farming.

I disagree.

Zerg farming was a known factor, predating EotM’s development. EotM was designed to encourage/reward zerg farming.

If I know that X is the consequence of doing Y then doing Y carries with it the intent for X to happen.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

re: Isn’t that what EotM is? – EotM is neither PvE, nor intended for farming. And the farming zergs have generated hostility on both sides because of this. So no, that isn’t what EotM is.

It seems to be as much PvE as it is PvP.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Obviously they are working to avoid any sort of PvP in the open world.

According to their actions Anet does not want PvP in the open world that is caused by a bug. Anything more than that is supposition.

ANet has stated that they would like to add open world dueling at some point in the future. That does not mean that they will. Wanting to do something, or even liking the idea of something, does not mean that one will do that thing. Similarly not liking something or not wanting to do something does not mean that one will not do that thing.

And This:

IndigoSundown.5419:

There are opportunity costs to most choices in game design. I believe:

1. The opportunity cost for dueling would be fairly low. The possible negatives of dueling could be offset by offering an opt-in that players would check in options to enable dueling. You don’t want to duel, don’t check that box.
2. The opportunity cost to implement open world PvP would be high. A lot of developer resources would be required to make open world PvP make sense — and I believe ANet would be unwilling to just slap it in in a haphazard fashion. It would also require its own server or a separate mega-server cluster so those who want to use it could and those who want to avoid it could.

SpinDie.9105:

Whenever i run around the map the green scaling number next to my rank constantly changes a dozen times a minute..

Obvious exaggeration does not really add credibility.

SpinDie.9105:

So why do i even have a rank if it means absolutely nothing?.

This question cannot be answered because it is based on an inaccurate premise. Your level does mean something.

SpinDie.9105:

Amongst all the hive-mentality attacks toward my argument,

Disagreeing with you is neither an indication of hive mentality nor of an attack.

SpinDie.9105:

i have seen very few arguments that actually shed light on why this system makes more sense than the traditional the mmo system. Because quite simply it does not.

Your inability to see something does not mean that it does not exist

SpinDie.9105:

If the developers don’t see how contradictory it is to downscale players in a leveling game, then i am sure i will run into a hailstorm of other stupid developer choices as well (like their choice to incorportate sci-fi blue nano-teleports over the traditional riding of horses, or their choice of dividing players up into multiple map instances on a single server, or their choice to charge $30 for a mere server change)

Your understanding of the game, its lore, and its systems seems to be flawed. A proper response to this post would be sufficiently time and effort intensive that instead I will suggest you do a bit more reading on your own. One tidbit that you might find interesting is that you do not have to spend $30 for a server change.

SpinDie.9105:

So far i am level 15 and i have never been exposed to such mindless PVE quests in my entire life. All i have done so far is set traps in the woods, taken care of peoples farms, and escorted an ox shipment repeatedly.

You are skipping most of the game, the interesting portions in particular.

To Anet: Is this how the NPE is supposed to work ?

Tomas.5029:

I actually dig the shoulders. They fit well with the rest of my transmutated set for my mesmer.

Gotta say, nice look.

Not something that I think is worth spending dev resources on.

Morsus.5106:

Tail clipping is part of the Charr culture.

It is what makes them so aggressive.

Garambola.2461:

But…Where on Tyria is Asia?

So much this.

Apolo.5942:

So this is either an intentional game feature to give SOME players the ability to gather coveted resources and profit from them, Thus rendering the whole “Player Driven Economy” a meaningless term. Or It is an unintended feature thus a bug thus an exploit.

Actually ALL players had the ability, some just did not know they had that ability and so gave it up (I am one of those who did not know and so gave up that ability).

It really does seem that those who opened the most ToT bags, and so who had the most foil wrappers, were those who bought the bags off of the TP, not necessarily those who farmed ambients.

phys.7689:

you do realize, you have the option to do it one at a time in the other system right? you realize thats what most people who didnt want to read all of them at once do. They pick one, try it out, try a new one when they get bored of the old one.

I wanted to quote this bit for emphasis. It is a point overlooked all to often in discussions touching on this subject.

In the original system those who felt overwhelmed by too many choices could opt to focus on one, or a select few, at a time for experimentation. Meanwhile those who preferred to compare and contrast all of the traits for their class could readily do so. The trait changes took away, or at least more heavily gated, the preference of the second group without adding anything for the first.

There is no upside to these changes. They add nothing that did not already exist as an option for those who like the changes.

Dont get me wrong, the free respec is nice but is not inherently dependent on the other changes.

When I first heard of the Mystic Forge I thought, “what an interesting idea.” Over time that interesting idea has evolved into, “what an insidious idea.” Not much better than Black Lion chests IMO. Encouraging gambling-like behavior in a game intended to be teen friendly just seems like a bad idea to me.

warduke.1780:

So if you were running along and saw, say, a group of moas and started killing them… and then an Anet CSR messaged you saying “please stop killing these moas” you’d stop?

We agreed to that as part of the TOS.

warduke.1780:

What about if you were walking down the street and a police officer stopped you and asked to search you for no reason? Would you be okay with that too?

The game is private property, most streets are not.

warduke.1780:

People who have power often abuse their power. Blindly following instructions isn’t a good thing. The player in question wasn’t doing anything wrong.

When on private property following the instructions of the owners (or their representatives) is a good thing.

Yes the player was doing something wrong. The only people who get to decide what is wrong on private property are the owners (and their representatives).

warduke.1780:

The point is you can’t pick and choose when to apply rules, especially when the rules are “I just feel like banning you for ‘griefing’ because some greedy players whined about you.”

He was banned for violating the TOS, not for killing ambients. He was directed to cease an action by an individual whose directions he agreed to follow according to the TOS. He refused to follow the direction. Ban.

Terrorsquad.2349:

Never found/forged precursor ever.

Eight hours a day, seven days a week ?

Wow.

Hamfast.8719:

Ashen.2907:

The BBB would take the complaint and likely use it as a means of encouraging Anet to pay to become a member.

As an example,

I used to manage a clothing store. A customer attempted to, “return,” a car tire that she had been using for several years. The store never carried car tires. Ever. Clothing store. Even if we had, the customer admitted that she had been driving on the tire for close to a decade until it had recently blown out.

We did not accept the tire as a return.

The customer went to the BBB. They contacted us. We explained the situation. They went back and forth between us and the customer, suggesting in increasingly stronger terms that this situation might just disappear if we were members of the BBB. In the end the customer would not retract her complaint and so, despite every bit of proof that our clothing store, which had not existed at the time she claimed to have purchased the tire there, had not sold her the car tire the complaint was counted against us.

My final contact with the BBB rep was a reminder about how much more “smoothly” the situation could have gone if we had opted to pay for membership.

Nope. Sorry. I don’t buy that. The BBB is not some sort of underworld protection racket as you seem to want us to believe. If the BBB gave black marks to companies for obviously improper reasons such as that, they would have NO credibility. It would be super-easy for competing companies to give each other negative reports.

Your little fiction aside, I’m done here. I wasn’t interested in the topic when I first posted. Only curious why it had gone on so long. Some of you have taken this into the realm of the absurd, and I’m beginning to feel like I’m arguing with a drunk. Get mad at me if you want, but I don’t plan to return to this thread. And I’m not gonna lock horns over something that doesn’t matter to me. I was just giving you one outsider’s opinion of your issue, but I should probably never have done that. I’m blowing this turkey stand. Peace.

An outsider’s opinion of my issue ?

What issue ?

I don’t have a problem with the farm. I cannot participate due to having finished the instance, but I don’t consider that inappropriate. I have stated my opinion in this thread previously that this situation is not an exploit.

As to the BBB,

“When the BBB gives black marks to companies for obviously improper reasons such as that, they do have NO credibility. It is super-easy for competing companies to give each other negative reports.”

Fixed it for you.

Its a solid game that has enough content to justify the initial purchase (particularly if its on sale) but don’t expect follow through on hype, advertisement, or promises.

Zoso.8279:

Im a Star Wars fan so I don’t go to Star Trek conventions and tell people how bad Star Trek is of example

The difference is that what we have here is GW2 fans talking about disappointment with the current development of GW2.

Star Wars fans do go to Star Wars conventions, fan sites, etc to complain about current and past developments in the Star Wars universe. “Han shot first.”

Would it be possible, instead of scaling such as we see in certain events, to have two individually balanced settings for the raid.

1) 8 characters
2) 25 characters

Obviously a bit dev more work than a single setting but could address the small guild vs megaguild concern and might be better tuned to the individual settings if balanced individually for their respective group size.

Perhaps even a dungeon and a raid version of the content

1) 5 characters
2) 25 characters