Guild Wars 2

DeanBB.4268:

If you just bought them, contact support to see if you can get a refund.

And if someone bought them two weeks ago? a month?
Let’s face it, as far as pure utility go, buying any infinite gathering tool except unbound magic ones and watchwork pick is a waste, as they are objectively inferior to those. And (to repeat what was said before, during the watchwork pick debacle), that actually makes the value of any gemshop QoL purchase go down. Because now you can never be sure than next week Anet won’t release something that will be just plain better.

In many ways it’s exactly the same as if anet decided now to introduce a new gear tier, better than ascended and legendaries. Just applied to QoL purchases.

notebene.3190:

Astralporing.1957:

Oh kitten. Did the watchwork pick debacle teach them nothing?

I’m honestly not familiar with this, what is/was the issue?

Long ago, when Anet released first infinite gathering tools, they were asked if those tools will always remain the best option, or is anet going to release better ones later on. People asked, because that actually had a real impact on the price they were prepared to offer for those tools. We were told, that nothing like that was going to happen, and that anyone investing in them can feel safe.

When Anet released watchwork mining pick, they broke that promise (as the pick was objectively superior to prior infinite picks). They were called up on that, and since that time nothing like that happened again.

True, they released some tools with added chance of gathering some resources (wintersday, and unbound magic ones), but at least they were not infinite, so you could say it’s a trade-off.

With an infinite version of those, from gemshop, no less, it’s again an attempt to introduce gear progression of a sort. Now, you can no longer be sure that any QoL item you buy from gemshop will not be at some point replaced with something that made your previous purchase obsolete.

(basically, anyone that bought a normal infinite tool from gemshop can now rightly feel kittened by Anet)

CrimeMaker.8612:

You sound really ignorant right there. I said power dps builds do burst dps from 2k-10k your every hit isnt a 10k. Power damage scales depending on how much armor, vitality and healing power based your enemy is. If you against a minstrel ele with power build you are not killing it.

To be honest, against minstrel ele, condi builds won’t be all that succesful either.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Then I also said condition damage do dps 4k to insta down someone and conditions do 4k+ per tick.

You can’t instadown someone with 4k damage.

CrimeMaker.8612:

It doesn’t take much to keep reapplying conditions on your target.

About the same as keeping to apply power damage, i’d say.

CrimeMaker.8612:

If you don’t understand how the game plays don’t comment on it

Funny you say that.

Oh kitten. Did the watchwork pick debacle teach them nothing?

DeceiverX.8361:

Odds are doing this will just further-diminish what’s left of the community. Though one can never really tell; ANet seems fixated on the high-end PvE scene.

One does not preclude another. Just look at the results of Anet’s former fixation on esports.

That would be only a partial solution, as it would affect only the cases when the items are identical. That would be nothing more than duct-taping the system, and that’s something that generally should be avoided (as it leaves the mess that makes potential further changes much harder to implement, as well as making the whole much more prone to bug in some way)

Blek Lynx.8695:

No, you certainly did not understand what was being said. But I’m not surprised.

I’m not surprised as well. You certainly didn’t explain well what you had in mind.

I think, that we have to distinguish two situations here. One is forging using a certain recipe that uses stacked mats. Each forget uses up some of the mats, but the stacks remain. Another is forging using non-stackable items (like the gloves you show in your first picture).

First should definitely be repeatable until your mats run out (and should be able to use mats from bank as well – perhaps even via selectable recipe, crafting station style). Second is a much more tricky problem. You’d need a ton of selectable filters to make it really useful (like filtering by general gear type, weight category/weapon type, level range). It may be a bit too difficult to implement.
Though at least they should remove the final forge result accept button. It doesn’t really serve any function besides slowing you down.

In other way, you want to halve the condition damage in PvE without giving anything in return (i’ll give you time to read up and realize why your point 2 is total bunk).

Doesn’t look like a great fix at all. And that’s even without considering there’s no proof there’s something broken to be fixed in the first place.

Amaimon.7823:

And what if I deleted that character already, am I forever locked out of the collection?

You can always do the story on a new character, and pick the whispers backpack again. The wiki isn’t very precise here – you don’t need the same char, you just need a character that made the same backpack choice.

First of all, the current threads are overstating situation to the much greater degree than zerker panic then. Condi builds on average may be slightly better for many classes, but in no way is the difference as big as it was then.

Second, if you read carefully, you will see that those threads are mostly written by power-dps buils users that feel a bit threatened by the fact that the comparison between those two approaches is no longer as one-sided as it was before. In other words, they are written by people that were likely defending the zerker meta then.

Sooo, it’s like there were two different group of people complaining about two different things. Who would have thought something like that might happen.

Yes, the change devs were talking about was about making condi actually useful beyond some very niche situations.

Sold Out.7625:

I stopped having fun with this game the day they nerfed all my engineer combat visuals for their #esports. We’d have had them back if Colin hadn’t left the company, but they did. I’m still furious about that.

Colin promised a ton of things that never were delivered. Don’t assume this one would have been an exception.

People don’t dislike him because he isn’t grieving in a way they want him to. They dislike him, because the way in which he’s grieving, while accurate, reveals a lot about his character. And those things aren’t generally good.

Additionally, while accurate, this sort of grieving (and not only grieving, but the rest of his behaviour as well) isn’t really appropriate for the image people generally associate with the Norn. There’s just nothing heroic whatsoever about him. Basically, the only thing he does well since he first appeared in LS1 is whining.

A character like that is very unlikely to get sympathy of the players.

Mishoo.5918:

He who laughs last, laughs best.

That only really works if it’s a laugh at the expense of others.

Chadramar.8156:

Plus, it’s not like Eir did anything wrong or even unusual by norn cultural standards, which made Braham’s hostility towards her weird from the start, and me not particularly inclined to be sympathetic towards him.

It’s a result of his inferiority complex. He blamed mother, because he was always in her shadow, and because he thought that was why he himself never amounted to much.

Which, by the way, remains his modus operandi still. His whole behaviour is a result of him continuing to blame others for his own insecurities.

Jski.6180:

My ideal of ele is a mages class that dose mostly dmg with support not a tank class who can take hits.

And primary ele builds are exactly like that. Unless you are speaking about pvp, of course.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Raids aren’t designed with the “just have fun” player in mind; the rest of the game already focuses in that direction. Raids are for the people who want a bigger challenge and for whom the numbers are interesting.

And it would have been okay, if raids didn’t contain things that the “just for fun” players might desire. Unfortunately, they do.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Fun is subjective.

Indeed. Which is why it’s sad that Anet apparently started recently to think it’s not so, and that they can direct people to have fun the way Anet wants them to.

Sly.9518:

Astralporing.1957:

Sly.9518:

Adding Tiered difficulties waters down the raisin experience since lower tiered Raids would be easier hence making Raids not the most challenging content

Why? What non-raid content do you think would be more difficult?

Non that’s why Raids were requested by players wanting a challenge so they asked anet to make their own content that provided a bigger challenge. tiered difficulty will more than likely have easier modes than t3- and t4 Fractals

The only people that talk about braindead “afk autoattack spam” difficulty levels for easy mode raids are those that are against them. Having the easy mode be at the general difficulty level of fractal t4 would be enough for most people that actually want it. That would still place raids at the top of pve content.

Sly.9518:

Adding Tiered difficulties waters down the raisin experience since lower tiered Raids would be easier hence making Raids not the most challenging content

Why? What non-raid content do you think would be more difficult?

TexZero.7910:

It’s 100% comparable.

Hmm, let’s see.

TexZero.7910:

You want to play your way in your groups. Sadly your way has a 70% chance of failure. You made that choice.

Others have decided to make their own groups with their own reqs and have a <90% success rate.

Whose to blame for their own failure if not the people making the selective choice to fail ?

Yes. Pecisely. That’s how it works in raids. There, those choices do have a visible impact on success chances. The exclusion has a real basis.

In case of dungeons however, the success chance difference would have been insignificant, so any exclusion was fully based on player reactions. Which is why for every restricted lfg, there was another that accepted all comers.

So, we have
Exclusions of builds, circumventing the meta lowers your success chances, consequently non-meta groups are more rare and harder to find (especially the succesful ones). In your choice you have to balance your playstyle preferences against your chances of finding a group and chances of succeeding
vs
exclusion of builds based only on player preferences, refusing to adapt doesn’t impact you success chances, non-exclusive groups are as numerous and as likely to succeed as exclusive ones. You choose based on your preferences, and there’s no real downside to choosing either way.

How did you think those two are 100% comparable, i have no idea.

Asur.9178:

There’s nothing to think about. Read carefully next time; if needed, go run your own tests.

Go ahead, check that at the dps golem, and then go back and tell us how quickness and alacrity have no impact on condi builds dps.

I can only assume you were the one that never ran those tests.

Vinceman.4572:

Also, a look in the past tells us a different story. During dungeon peak time it was almost impossible to run as necro or ranger in groups with faster plays although they already have been easy.

It was however really easy to get in the “casual run” groups. And the chance of succeeding was about the same for both kinds of groups. Neither is true for raids however.

Vinceman.4572:

These exclusions were player driven and could be bypassed building own groups – same goes for raids now.

Not really. The success chance between more fine-tuned and casual approach groups is much, much bigger. The exclusion may be still player-driven, but the players do have a much stronger basis for it than they had during dungeon times.

The situation between those two modes is not really comparable.

RandomWolf.3986:

But seriously, are we ever going to see this back in the game? We’ve had some altered versions that worked out as Fractals, but they’re not… the same thing.

And that’s the reason why you won’t ever see LS1 in the game. Because, in order to be able to put it back, Anet would need to alter it first at least as much as they did with those fractals (And, in many cases, much more).

It will never be the same thing, because LS1 was too heavily dependent on it being placed in Open World. You will never be able to get anything close to those numbers again (that was only possible due to LS1 being a time-limited event), and thus, to have anything that you could actually play, the content would have to be heavily redone. And for many parts it would make them only a pale shadow of the original content.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Condition build literally sacrifice nothing.

That’s factually untrue. Condi bunkers sacrifice as much as PVT builds do.

Asur.9178:

Might want to read a third…perhaps a fourth and fifth time until it sinks in.

Might want to think a bit about what you wrote as well. Condi application (which affects condi damage) is as affected by quickness and alacrity as power damage is.

I’m not “more pedantic”. I’m pointing out that what you’re trying to presend as something simple, is simple only on paper.
Yes, it will be easy for some, but it doesn’t mean it will be as easy for others.

Is this really so hard to comprehend?

Feanor.2358:

Kumouta.4985:

Can’t cleanse all the power dmg someone does, but you can cleanse condi dmg after already being hit by it.

And you can block power damage.

You can block condi applications as well, you know. For the condi to be applied, the attack must hit first.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Why is the Arena net balance team trying to push condition meta and builds so much?

Condition builds are boring to play, requires no skills, they are brain dead, half of the players have quit the game(from WvW and PvP), other half hates it and just hopes one day conditions will get nerfed because all condition meta doing is draining these players who are still left to quit the game. Condition meta is forcing players to quit the game. Everyday players are quiting literally because of this brain dead play style.

Funny, i remember hearing exactly the same about power meta before.

Weasels God.8296:

I understand wanting to make conditions “viable” but that shouldn’t make them stronger than power builds. To achieve the damage they did on power builds they had to be “glass cannons” but what do condition builds “sacrifice” for their damage?

Vipers are as glass as Berserkers, if you haven’t noticed. And in the end you do need vipers for the damage to be comparable with zerker builds.

Weasels God.8296:

I do understand that is slightly using the bug that came out with epi but here is another more reasonable video. Not saying he is a bad player but just that the amount of condi damage he can put out by himself is sickening. (he is also running a hybrid build but you can see just by looking at the bleeding stacks he puts out)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP8kPL9d-Ug

“Another video from viper reaper roaming this past two days.”
Yeah, a hybrid build, all right…
(for your information, if you haven’t noticed, viper is full glass build).

Please, don’t use damage from full glass builds and try to claim those builds sacrifice nothing to get those numbers.

Also, please do not use the postpatch epi videos as an argument against anything. I agree, you could get some really sick damage (the highest i saw was around 130k DPS i think, but i heard some people went even higher), but that was just a result of a bug, and it got already fixed.

morrolan.9608:

Let me get this straight you’re saying anet don’t want class balance. Well that would explain a few things if true but I highly doubt that it is true.

Well, they did say several times that they prefer a form of “dynamic balance” that is a result of shifting the balance every now and them to make new builds rise to top, while nerfing former meta leaders.

I guess it’s easier to do than trying to aim at a true balance.

Precisely. the people that passed the hurdles had more time available for playing, more time flexibility, already had enough friends that could form a group, had lot of luck, or all of the above.

In short, they were in a situation that doesn’t hold true for all players, so please stop trying to pretend that it’s exactly the same for everyone else. It’s not.

TexZero.7910:

Everyone who came before you faced the exact same hurdles and formed their own groups, joined guilds etc. If they can do it so can you.

Not everyone faced the same hurdles. Also, you conveniently skipped the part where most of the people trying that didn’t make it.

No, progression doesn’t save based on the leader. It’s done individually for every player based on the bosses they did kill.

Now, what you probably wanted to ask, is how the state of the instance is decided. It’s based on the progress of the first person that loads into the instance. So, it’s possible, if the first person to enter has slow loading time, someone may load before them (if they join the instance fast enough).

So, if you are a leader and want to start at the third boss (because you have already killed first and second boss before), tell other people in the group to not enter until you are fully loaded. Because if one of them didn’t kill one of the earlier bosses, and, by accident, loads faster than you, that’s what will be the starting point of the raid instance for the whole group.

Sublimatio.6981:

they could at least fix all the bugs and only then abandon the content…

One of the main reasons behind Anet abandoning dungeons is that they couldn’t have been bothered to fix bugs. If they had the energy and will to fix them, it’s entirely possible that dungeons would still be a supported content.

Tekey.7946:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I am unsure; is your idea a copy of launch Heart of Thorns maps? I thought players weren’t happy with the original Heart of Thorns maps; at least, there were a lot of threads full of laments regarding those maps.

IIRC, people were mainly upset about the difficulty (of enemies) and navigation in the HoT maps. Plus the Dragon’s Stand incident that happened to be a giant meta which only started every 2-3 hours. But we’re talking about the reasons to play these maps right now.

There were as much complains about the map rewards being locked behind the main metaevent, and the smaller events up until that point giving next to nothing. Which, coupled with the fact that all those metas are on a fixed 2-hour shedule, turned it into 4x DS problem. That was the main thing the April HoT patch attempted to fix (partially, anyway).

I’m quite sure that turning new LS maps into huge metaevent chains would end exactly as bad.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

ArchonWing.9480:

Except exotics being the ceiling was not really a thing for long. Ascended was introduced within a few months of release. It was due to complaints that exotic was too easy

Astralporing.1957:

The complains were about lack of content, not about exotic gear being too easy. It’s just that Anet didn’t have any content to give, so they panicked and attempted to “do something quick”.

There were all sorts of complaints at launch, including that exotic was too easy to acquire.

Sure. There were also complains that exotics were too hard to acquire. I don’t remember the former to be any more numerous than the latter however. And both were marginal.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There were some people saying there wasn’t enough content, but not nearly as many

There were more of them than those that asked for new tier of gear (in fact, discussions about new tier of gear were mostly one-sided, with one person starting the thread asking for new tiers, and everyone else bashing him for it).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Regardless, the point is that ascended was introduced so that there was some gear progress, some sinks for various mats, and some profit for crafting. It was not introduced primarily as “something to do for people who ran out of things to do.”

So you say. I remember it differently.

ArchonWing.9480:

Except exotics being the ceiling was not really a thing for long. Ascended was introduced within a few months of release. It was due to complaints that exotic was too easy

The complains were about lack of content, not about exotic gear being too easy. It’s just that Anet didn’t have any content to give, so they panicked and attempted to “do something quick”.

ArchonWing.9480:

and also suggested that ascended was planned already but they didn’t have the time to implement it.

They suggested it, sure, but somewhere around HoT reveal they admitted that it wasn’t actually true. In this version they introduced them because people got exotics earlier than expected. Which might have been a result of them having different expectations when they’ve been developing the game.

Shortly after first introducing ascended they have been talking about continuing on the path of “low curve item progression” (for example we do know they planned stronger stat infusions, as well as different types of agony-like effects for other parts of the game) but all of those ideas were abandoned later, because (surprise surprise), it turned out that the majority of players didn’t actually like them at all.

Amaimon.7823:

Some will argue if you don’t raid, you don’t have a need for it.

But the more knowledgeable people will remind them about existence of WvW.

Feanor.2358:

So how is acquiring Ad Infinitum any different?

In that the hardest requirement for it is still easier than almost all raid ones.

Feanor.2358:

It is still locked behind endgame content. You need to play a lot of fractals, including T4 ones.

True. I guess that’s a bit unfortunate, and i’m pretty sure i did complain about it at some point. Still, the amount of grind and effort required does not compare to raids.

Feanor.2358:

Let’s be realistic – the people who are invested that much in fractals aren’t orders of magnitude more than the active raiders. If anything, both groups overlap heavily.

I wouldn’t be so sure. Any dedicated raider should be able to do t4 fractals easily, without putting too much effort into it, but the opposite is definitely not true.

Feanor.2358:

Raising these concerns seems quite late, at the very least.

I keep raising them since legendary armor got announced. Up to recently, raiders were replying that i shouldn’t worry, because surely there will be another set acquirable outsode raids, so i should just shut up and wait patiently.

Apparently other people believed in that, and that’s why they were silent until recently. Unfortunately for them, putting faith in Anet turned out to be completely unwarranted, so i’m not surprised they’re angry now.

Impossible to compare, since they’ve retconned the world setting (and lore) inbetween. For example, the human gods you brought up are a much smaller deal in gw2 than they were in gw1

NikeEU.7690:

They said 2 years ago legendary armor would be a raid reward only. Why are these threads popping up now? Please don’t tell me that this all came as a surprise to you?

What is a surprise to me is that, after two years of threads like this one, you suddenly act as if they never existed.

Besides, no, throughout those 2 years even raiders were – or claimed they were – mostly sure that raid legendary is only the first of legendary armors. Anet clarified that’s not going to happen only in the recent AMA. I guess some people just chose to believe in Anet team, and now they’ve decided that their faith was misplaced after all.

Nash.2681:

Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

It’s not the 10-man requirement. 5-man content done with raid approach would also be much harder than t4 fractals. It’s mostly because raids are extremely unforgiving of failure. There’s a ton of mechanics where failure of one player can cause things go from good to really, really bad in an instant. Now couple that with much smaller ability to recover from those (not only you can’t ress the dead, but also any recovery attempt is asking for someone to make another mistake, causing a chain reaction of doom)

On the other hand, individual influence is very high. It’s just that it’s usually seen by their impact on failure, instead of success.

thrag.9740:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

You can get the material from any part of the game. It doesn’t ask you to play content you do not care much for. LI on the other hand…

Yeah except that’s not really true. Yes you can get gold and buy materials via any part of the game. But we can’t just ignore how much faster the gold per hour is from certain parts.

Actually, yes, we can ignore it if we want. Because game is giving us a choice.

Feanor.2358:

Because I’ve tried it myself. It seems like a convenience, but it’s actually too much of a hassle to do it constantly.

True, it’s mostly useless… if you can do it with a weapon only. The more gear with such a capability you posess however, the more useful it becomes. Besides, the reasons why people might swap stats is different for everyone.
So no, you not swapping stats on your legendary weapon is not a proof having a stat-swappable weapon and armor wouldn’t be useful for others.

Feanor.2358:

There will always be those who quit “earlier”. Your goal isn’t to keep everyone “in” – which would be literally impossible – it is to keep as many as you can.

Sure, but, as i said, extending the grind may keep some players longer, but will make others give up (because, for them, it will push the goal so far away it might seem unreachable). Choosing the correct amount is a really precise job, and Anet is unfortunatly not known for precise balancing of anything. Quite the opposite, whenever they tried that, they have been known for overshooting the mark by a mile, repeatedly.
And that’s exactly what i think happened in this case.

Feanor.2358:

Maybe you should consider the possibility ANet have a better judgement on that

Their history doesn’t give me much hope in that regard. They have been known to make some really bad judgements about player expectations in the past. Especially where grind was concerned. And they definitely haven’t ever shown to be really good at balancing the reward versus effort.

So if i don’t really trust them to know what they’re doing, it’s only because i have some pretty good reasons for it.

Henry.5713:

Good thing I never pug raids. Would probably have to lie about not owning my 500+ LIs then.

On a serious note, there is some truth to that. You can only judge people by their amount of currency, AP or anything similar to a certain degree. Anything past that is just silly. Although, it still seems to make more sense to exclude those with very low numbers rather than those with very high numbers.

I think you misunderstood. Satenia didn’t say that people with large numbers of LI’s are a problem (because that would be just silly). What was said was that people asking for high LI numbers is also a clear indication of possible problems.

Feanor.2358:

You’re missing the point. There, I’ll repeat myself:
It’s just a way to keep players interested in that specific content.

Oh, i’m very well aware of that. That doesn’t make what i said any less true however.

Notice also, that while it does keep some players “interested”, it also makes other players give up earlier than if the requirements were lower.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Coffietire.2783:

OriOri.8724:

They said in the AMA that they have no plans to ever release another set of legendary armor. So I wouldn’t hold your breath

On the bright side, that does not equate to no plans on other ways to acquire the current legendary armor.

They said that, too: envoy armor is for raids only.

Yeah, but if they were to change their mind (which i’m sure they will, at some point in the future), making the current armor more widely available will likely require much less work.

Brigantia.5746:

Basically I want to know how high I can get it past 150%.

There’s no cap. How high can you go will depend on specific gear, boons and traits (and thus be different for each class).

Feanor.2358:

Amaimon.7823:

Feanor.2358:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

That’s a separate issue. Any “pleb” can get every other legendary in the game except this one.

This isn’t true. Try getting The Ascension as a PvE-only player.

I’m a pleb in PvP, I already got 2/4 tiers done. You don’t need to play platinum league to get it, bronze1 is just fine, it just takes a little longer (I dance around bronze 2-3, once got into silver, but didn’t like the toxicity there so went back down to bronze)

So now you’re saying “I can take the one, I can’t take the other”. It’s the opposite for me – I’m fine with raids, I dislike PvP to the point I don’t play it at all any more. So it appears all your argument is just subjectivity.

No, he’s saying that the pvp requirements of the Ascension are on the level of only farming escort and never needing to do any other bosses. If that’s all what envoy armor required, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Electro.4173:

Ele getting dual pistols would mean a whopping 20 new skills from the new weapons alone.

And maybe 3-4 of them useful.

Feanor.2358:

Astralporing.1957:

thrag.9740:

I always find it strange that the only complaint about legendary armor is always the LI requirements. No one ever seems to mention the huge amount of materials necessary.

Lot of materials necessary are generally considered to be normal, given that it’s a legendary gear. It’s the fact that one of those materials is so strongly tied to a single content (and one that’s not too widely liked) that creates a concern.

It’s not a time sink that’s a problem. It’s the specific content that this time sink is tied to (and that it is heavily timegated).

Time-gating I’d say is a necessity. Otherwise players would just be farming Gorseval or Mursaat over and over again for LIs. Nobody wants just another CoF farm.

Tying to specific content shouldn’t surprise you. It’s not the first item to be tied in this way, it won’t be the last. Ever did a gen-2 legendary? They used to require ungodly amounts of grind in HoT zones. This got severely reduced, but you still have to play each and every HoT maps multiple times to get the materials required. It’s just a way to keep players interested in that specific content.

the problem is not about just tying a material to a single content. The problem is about what content it is tied to (the more narrow, the greater the problem usually), and how big that grind is. The HoT maps grind is not even remotedly in the same category as the LI one.

thrag.9740:

I always find it strange that the only complaint about legendary armor is always the LI requirements. No one ever seems to mention the huge amount of materials necessary.

Lot of materials necessary are generally considered to be normal, given that it’s a legendary gear. It’s the fact that one of those materials is so strongly tied to a single content (and one that’s not too widely liked) that creates a concern.

It’s not a time sink that’s a problem. It’s the specific content that this time sink is tied to (and that it is heavily timegated).