Guild Wars 2

Seera.5916:

Astralporing.1957:

Seera.5916:

I know full well that level of discrepancy would likely never happen and you missed my statement that the price may not be realistic. It was an example that shows there’s a price for everything that players would sell at, even though the price may be unrealistic for the game.

In this case the players would sell not because of the price, but because of the discrepancy. Of course, that would never happen, because while in such a situation players would gladly sell coins, they would not buy them (and you do need two sides to any transaction)

I did mention that the sell orders were instant sell, not listings.

Yes, and that’s one of the reasons why i said it will never happen. While most people would want to sell at that price due to the discrepancy, at the same time noone would want to buy at it.

Remember, that an average players, especially average casual players, don’t generally use the sites like gw2eff, which brings the percentage of the “raiders” way up compared to the reality.
It’s the LotRO forum >50% → ingame <10% raid population case again.

Obtena.7952:

The association that success is linked so closely to the meta is just stupid. It was proven false in dungeons, we have already seen the same proof it’s nonsense for raids.

In dungeons the speed of your runs was not directly tied to the chances of your success. That is why going with slower, but buffier builds was an option, and why dps speed was for purists only. A raid group built so it could finish gorse in 30 minutes will 100% fail however, because there’s a hard time limit.

Failure rate was not tied to meta (all that much) in dungeons because their difficulty level was much lower (and even full wipe was not really a failure, as it didn’t set you back all that much).

Still, there were (and still are) differences between builds. For example, you’re not going to tell me that the current fractal comp of 4nec 1 druid requires the same skill level to finish the content as, say, a group of 5 engi.

Yes, there’s no requirement to be running specific group comps to win, but running some of them is going to help you, while running others will hinder you. And in some cases the difference between those two can be a difference between a win and a loss.

Vinceman.4572:

The bottom line stands: They aren’t able to develop a fractal within 4 months. They neither were back in the days nor are they at the moment.

You realize you have nothing to back up your claim besides some tinfoil-hat level conspiracy theory?

Seera.5916:

I know full well that level of discrepancy would likely never happen and you missed my statement that the price may not be realistic. It was an example that shows there’s a price for everything that players would sell at, even though the price may be unrealistic for the game.

In this case the players would sell not because of the price, but because of the discrepancy. Of course, that would never happen, because while in such a situation players would gladly sell coins, they would not buy them (and you do need two sides to any transaction)

Seera.5916:

If the item the mystic coin made was instant buy at 100g and one coin started instantly selling for 1000g and the crafted item had not caught up yet, that you wouldn’t consider even dumping the coins and just buying?

Sure. That is however a purely theoretical scenario that will never happen (just think about it for a second, and you will know why).

If you’ll try to use such examples as a basis for economical stability, don’t be surprised when things will not work out as predicted.

Vinceman.4572:

1. Players were asking about the other fractal from time to time after the vote. The answer was: We could but we wouldn’t undermine the coms vote.

They said they could make it, but they won’t, because they don’t want to undermine the vote. It would have been different if they had it finished already (if they did both fractals, they would never have made a vote that would completely exclude one from ever being implemented).

Vinceman.4572:

2. You haven’t played since headstart, do you? If so, you should know well about LS1 content. They threw it away after using it ingame only for a couple of weeks.

On the contrary, i have. And if you did too, then you should have remembered that those events were not made to last from the get go. In fact, those events that were (dungeons) were repurposed later on for fractals.

Vinceman.4572:

That was the worst decision but it was the game philosophy of the company and it was horrible. Sadly, the fractal issue fell exactly in this period.

Apples and oranges. You’re comparing story events that were designed to last for a short time, and (due to being open world) couldn’t really be retained with a fractal instance that would have been made to be repeatable outside of LS1.

Vinceman.4572:

You had a look at woodenpotatoes from time to time? He was datamining a lot of open world stuff in the past. Some maps directly in the heart of our game map are/were ready to go.

Have you looked at them? None of those maps were in a finished state.

Vinceman.4572:

Same with pvp maps, some of very well-looking maps were landing in the trash can.

There were reasons why, for example, old Capricorn got trashcanned.

Vinceman.4572:

3. At last, don’t forget that they had 0 focus to instanced content at this time. Dungeon team was already dismissed and things like dungeons & fractals were treated stepmotherly. Of course they wouldn’t focus on two fracs even though both were almost good to go.

They managed to redo 2 dungeons into fractals in that time, remember?

And since that time they had one new fractal made. Do you really think that after HoT, during content drought, they would have been working on Chaos fractal if they could just do some finishing touches on Abaddon and have a new content ready at a fraction of the effort?

Vinceman.4572:

Scipio.3204:

On the 4 months, Kiel won the election early August 2013 and they delivered the fractal late November.

Yeah, as if they have started developing this specific fractal after the vote. Both were ready to go and already in the drawer.

Yeah, right, while in the height of their work crunch, they decided to make two fractals knowing one will go in the trash bin.
And later on, being in the middle of content drought, having already done Abaddon fractal they still didn’t put it in game.

Suuuuure.

Ayrilana.1396:

And if they’re using the mirror comp then what?

Well, “better” is not a guarantee of winning, it merely increases chances of it. On the other hand, it does increase your chances. When the difference becomes too great, one would be dumb to ignore it.

Sectry.1236:

As an average player I take offence to that. I earned my kills just as everyone else through practice and a positive attitude, not by being carried.

Then, contrary to what you think, you are most likely an above average player.
(i mean, honestly, just the fact that you’re reading the boards marks you as above average. Majority of players do not frequent boards, reddit, do not read guides of any kind, and if they even use a meta build, it’s only because they happened to hear about it from a friend.)

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

What, and alienating every non-raider is perfectly fine? I definitely feel alienated right now. In a game that once was designed for players like me.

It still is designed for the common player.

On the contrary, by the official dev statements it is not.

Right so only people in their top tier test guilds clear raids right ?

Or are you going to ignore the fact that just because the devs “Said one thing” doesn’t mean that it was accurate. You know because the entire reason we have an LFG for raids is because its entire possible to pug raids even if it was entirely advertised that it wouldn’t be.

You were the one that said “designed”. No, whatever the end result, they were not made with common players in mind. And if they are a design fail in that regard, it is purely accidental and against the stated goals.

Besides, even the raid puggers are hardly representative of the common players.

TexZero.7910:

But clearly it is only the hardest of the hardcore that can ever clear this content!

Hardest of the hardcore? Not really. Above the average? Definitely. An average player is not likely to clear a raid unless they are being carried by better teammates.

Blackwyn.8127:

Guild Wars 2 has always been about ‘Do what you enjoy doing’. It’s as simple as that. Play what you enjoy playing.

Exclusive rewards that are there to entice people to play the content to get them, even if they do not enjoy said content, say that this isn’t as simple as you make it.

Blackwyn.8127:

Now the solution is easier said than done. The community as a whole needs to simply adapt to the new path Anet has chosen.

As you mentioned, it’s something you can say easily, but not something that actually happens. Make too big a change, and the community, instead of adapting, just leaves. Remember SWG NGE case? All the community needed to do then for the game to stay strong was to adapt to the changes. Ufortunately for Sony, community didn’t think it was a good solution.

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

What, and alienating every non-raider is perfectly fine? I definitely feel alienated right now. In a game that once was designed for players like me.

It still is designed for the common player.

On the contrary, by the official dev statements it is not.

Seera.5916:

The problem is there are a lot more being generated than are being consumed. There are players hoarding them, whether for sale when it hits a certain price or future usage is unknown.

So? I have a lot of them in my bank. I still plan to use up every single one of them eventually (and i know i still do not have enough). they could be worth 100g per piece, and still i wouldn’t sell them, because i know that eventually i’d have to buy them back. Almost certainly at a huge loss.

Seera.5916:

ANet has to move slowly to reduce that hoarded supply before they can do anything noticeable to it.

They won’t reduce that hoarded supply. The only people that may have a real incentive to sell are those that aren’t invested in game enough to actually pay attention to the market.
(well, and market speculators, but they won’t start selling until the trend has already started to reverse)

Seera.5916:

I’m not saying that the coins are sitting at the true equilibrium price and that nothing should ever be done. But they also shouldn’t rush into things.

I don’t think “rushing into things” is what most of the players expect of them. Doing something however is. And yet, currently “doing nothing” seems to be their whole plan.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’m not against a change to the sinks or sources for leather. All people really need to do is say that (for them) the game is more fun when the sinks for basic items aren’t so onerous and that defined sources are available.

People have been saying this about the sources of cloth and leather since the beginning of the game.

Anka.5086:

It takes them about 4 month to design 1 Legendary weapon. I’m pretty sure next set of legendary armor will probably take less than 6 months.

They have already mentioned many times how they can design many whole weapon sets in the time it takes them to make a single set of armor. And how making even a normal non-animated and non-glowy armor set can take close to a year. Lege is definitely not a normal set, and takes the problems that make designing normal armor a slow process to a nth degree.

Anka.5086:

It still doesn’t justify alienating an entire raiding community

What, and alienating every non-raider is perfectly fine? I definitely feel alienated right now. In a game that once was designed for players like me.

Anka.5086:

I like PvP Lege backpiece but I don’t like playing PvP. Do you think it will be fair on PvP players if i get that item outside of PvP?

Considering that many PvP players do not consider that backpack to be a prestigious item anyway, and would gladly get rid of “PvE noobs” out of their matches…

Anka.5086:

That item will no longer be regarded as prestigious item for PvP and justifiably it will be unfair on players who got that item for representing PvP prestige.

As i said, it’s not that prestigious even now. And as for the other point… well, i do have it already, and yet i wouldn’t care if another alternative to obtain it got introduced. (besides, let’s wait for the next seasonal year, and the reveal of new method to get it. For all we know we might end up with it being obtainable through another reward track).

Anka.5086:

The question we should be asking is; Why aren’t they asking for a separate Lege armor that can be obtained outside raids?

And what, wait 2-3 years for Anet to make it? Thank you, i’ll pass…

Anka.5086:

Let me answer that question myself; they’re not asking for a separate Lege armor because they don’t have any guarantee it’s going to be to their liking.

No. I am not asking for separate Legendary Armor because i doubt Anet would ever do one, and i am certain that even if they did, it would take years. I mean, just look as long this one is in development already.

They should have started working on several sets at the same time. That would have avoided the whole problem (or at least most of it). Unfortunately they didn’t, and now we have to live with the consequences.

Or maybe you’d be willing to wait for Raid armor till the sets for other contents will be developed?

Ayrilana.1396:

Astralporing.1957:

Ayrilana.1396:

They’re not accepting that there exists a realm between failure and optimal.

They do. They also know, however, that going suboptimal often increases the chances of failing (which for most players are significant even with the best group composition).
It doesn’t matter if the best skilled groups can do the boss with nonoptimal compositions if you happen to not be in such a group. And in groups where the success chances aren’t that great to begin with, not letting them go even lower is quite important.

In the context of an average pug group, “viable” would be something that doesn’t drag the group down. From such a point of view there’s not much difference between significantly suboptimal class/build, and a player that comes in naked and weaponless with no traits set. Even if the latter is also technically “viable” (as you can theoretically finish the encounter with one such player in the group).

Adding player skill levels distorts “viable”.

Perhaps. On the other hand, without considering that context, “viable” has no meaning whatsoever. After all, if we just use the dictionary meaning without that context, every single class and build combination is viable.

At this moment you’re merely arguing semantics while losing the sight of the argument as a whole.

Ayrilana.1396:

They’re not accepting that there exists a realm between failure and optimal.

They do. They also know, however, that going suboptimal often increases the chances of failing (which for most players are significant even with the best group composition).
It doesn’t matter if the best skilled groups can do the boss with nonoptimal compositions if you happen to not be in such a group. And in groups where the success chances aren’t that great to begin with, not letting them go even lower is quite important.

In the context of an average pug group, “viable” would be something that doesn’t drag the group down. From such a point of view there’s not much difference between significantly suboptimal class/build, and a player that comes in naked and weaponless with no traits set. Even if the latter is also technically “viable” (as you can theoretically finish the encounter with one such player in the group).

Anka.5086:

We didn’t see any of these topics up until Lege heavy armor trailer was released.

You haven’t been reading forums much then. Those topics are pretty much a constant since even before HoT launched.

Go druid. In pugs where you can’t expect anyone to play on the level a little healing can make wonders. Just be prepared for people trying to run away from your heals.

Dawdler.8521:

Dont worry, they added leather nodes to WvW! I mean you only get jute scraps 99 out of 100 times, but still Anet is on it!!!

That actually increased my leather acquisition rate really significantly.
…which just tells me how bad it was before.

Crinn.7864:

Vayne.8563:

I"m not saying it shouldn’t be a component of raids. I’m saying there should be an alternate route besides raids. The raid component wouldn’t have to change at all.

If there was another route to get them, people from all sides would be in here kittening about how “other route” has it easier and how Anet is clearly personally discriminating against them.

I haven’t seen that many complaints about differences between fractal and pvp backpack acquisition method.
Yes, some people would complain (because some people always complain), but that wouldn’t be all that common.

When in doubt, erring on the side of raids getting their version faster/cheaper (as long as the difference wouldn’t be massive) would be perfectly fine.

Haven’t you heard? It’s all players’ fault. Once the players will stop buying, using and hoarding it and start to sell it at half the price, it will all magically fix itself.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

We don’t have a dedicated Fractal team though, or a dungeon team, haven’t you noticed?

We might have had one, if we didn’t have Raid team though.

maddoctor.2738:

The question is, would it be worth it.

The same question remains about raids as well. And the answer is not as clear-cut as you might want.
I for one think, that if the same effort and developer workforce that’s now dedicated to raids was used on fractals and dungeons instead, the payoff would be better. And without the amount of negativity raids generate.

Those are some Rose tinted glasses, I remember since a month or two after launch only seeing Zerker Speed clears if you didn’t have full zerks you were kicked same with fractals it was a lot more negative than Raids are today.

for every zerker speed clear lfg there was another (or two) casual ones. I have been pugging dungeons up until HoT with an AH bunker guard and didn’t get kicked (or fail the run) even once. And by the time i have finished the inefficient and long run, the restrictive LFGs were usually still waiting to be filled.
Same with fractals (though i pugged them less, and used guild runs more).

Not sure what that has to do with the worth of developer time when applied to different types of content however.

maddoctor.2738:

We don’t have a dedicated Fractal team though, or a dungeon team, haven’t you noticed?

We might have had one, if we didn’t have Raid team though.

maddoctor.2738:

The question is, would it be worth it.

The same question remains about raids as well. And the answer is not as clear-cut as you might want.
I for one think, that if the same effort and developer workforce that’s now dedicated to raids was used on fractals and dungeons instead, the payoff would be better. And without the amount of negativity raids generate.

MorganLeFay.5816:

Thank you for this spreadsheet qT. Awesome job as usual.
One tiny suggestion tho (to make ppl understand better and get less angry), substitute “viable” with “optimal”.

I’d suggest “recommended”, as not all of those builds there are optimal, but those that are close, or offer something in exchange, are still considered okay.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

But isn’t the Deep Sea Dragon named Steve?

That was only an inside dev name for it. It’s real name is Bubbles.

Shadowstep.6049:

How is it helping when they write: build X is not viable.

Reading comprehension and a little bit of thinking of your own help a lot.

Shadowstep.6049:

Posts like this pretty much doom any player that is maining class that is currently “not viable” for qT elitist speed runs.

Nope. Anet dooms those builds by their sledgehammer approach to “balancing”. Unfortunately, the differences between “optimal” and “not recommended” setups are so big, that, for all practical reasons, only the small groups of top skilled raiders can afford to take them. An average pug just has to be aware of the fact, that taking any of the hugely suboptimal builds can signifixcantly negatively impact their success chances.

Shadowstep.6049:

What is worse, now we are going to have revs being insta-kicked from raids (yesterday i had to listen to chrono throwing tantrum about how rev is useless and we should kick him zzzz) which will result in a lot of QQ which once again will result in some massive buffs to revs and cause them being stupidly broken in pvp and wvw.

Which points again to most problems you brought up resulting from not paying attention to what you read.

The post linked up above clearly states that

qT

In the end if your group still decides to run with a Revenant, it won’t make the difference between success or failure in a raid, Rev still brings some nice utility to a group but is now an optional safe, decent DPS choice rather than a mandatory slot in a raid group as it was before the patch.

Reading comprehension ftw.

WvW is a third category. There were updates that happened in PvE, but not in PvP and WvW for example (i.e. ranger pets hp buff).

Anyone invested in the game enough to actually be able to find those guides should already know that “viable” there would really mean “passing our stringent requirements”.
After all, if some people can do it in less than complete group, your build would have to be actually detrimental to the fight to not be viable.

So just read it as non-viable meaning “we really, really don’t recommend this” and you’ll be fine.

No need to hate on the people that are trying to help you.

JaddynnStarr.5201:

there is already a work around in place for this… if you do the dungeon achievement you get a box that allows you to choose 150 tokens of your choice from it after every 8th path you do… doesn’t matter the path, or how many times you repeat it, after 8 paths you get 150 of your choice. just do AC paths over and over, or COE… or COF… whatever floats your boat.

Actually, those need to be different paths. Fortunately there are more than enough fast and simple dungeon paths around.

Famine.3164:

Ascended will always be top tier, no more creep there..
Elite specs are most of the time better than core classes but the new Elite specs are side grades to the existing elite specs. This is what they said, if they hold their promise or not, we’ll we’ll see..

Remember, that the current elite specs are also supposedly only side-grades to the vanilla classes. That is also what Anet said.

Considering that the elites ended up plain better because Anet wanted them to be incentive to buy the expac, and this very same reasoning will also be true when next expac hits, i just can’t see the new specs to be anything but another upgrade.
When people will be making the choice whether to buy the expac or not, Anet will want the “buy” option to be stacked as much as possible.

TexZero.7910:

When you surround yourself with a certain type of people it does become harder for the individual to see the trees in the forest

Do remember, that it’s the same for Raiders.

Sarrs.4831:

Multiple modes is a bad idea because reasons that have been discussed ad infinitum.

At the same time it’s also a good idea because of reasons that have been discussed ad infinitum.
It just so happens that arguments of one side generally do not hold any weight on the other side. Mostly because what one side considers to be positives, the other generally sees as negatives.
Yes, i am aware it works both ways.

nagr.1593:

guard has aegis of course,

…i don’t even.
(in short: no, Nagr, you are very, very wrong. Learn up on all classes and their stunbreaks – including warrior – first. Then post)

Scipio.3204:

They said raids doesn’t influence the development of other content, not that it doesn’t influence how rewarding they are.

And even that statement is not true. The very fact that raids exist influences the development of other content. For one, there are things that are called “raid exclusive”, which prevents them from being developed elsewhere (at the moment raid legendary armor seems to be in this category). On another, much simpler level, if not for raids, they could have set those devs on some other content (dungeons, for example). A team of people working on raids means that this team doesn’t work on something else, which definitely influenced development of this “something else” (whatever that might have been).
Remember WoW and the “it would cost us a raid” argument? Remember, that it also works the other way. Every raid also costs us something else.

Ayrilana.1396:

Has the bolded been proven? Most groups that I have seen/heard that fail do so well before the enrage timer because of the mechanics.

It’s not only those that fail on enrages. It’s those that win by pulling off that last % of damage when the most of the group is already dead. Seen quite a lot of videos of those – and i know that all those groups would have failed if they had even 1% less DPS.

Azoqu.8917:

And because it is actual hard content instead of press 1 to win/exploit AB for money, it deserves the best rewards in the game.

Sorry to disappoint you, but if we were to follow that train of thought, the best rewards would have been exclusive to pvp. Not Raids.

There’s no “lobby map”. There’s only “lobby subgroup”.
And yes, you move your icon to the lobby before switching the maps, you move your icon to the correct map subgroup after you have switched.

Primary reasons you can get kicked:

1. you stay in the lobby for too long.
or
2. You’re on a different map that your map subgroup suggests.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

What if the commander is the jerk rather than player?

Then don’t join his squad. Eventually he will end up alone in it.

Basically, if you’re making a squad, you should be having a bit more control over who can join without needing to put it on lockdown.

maxwelgm.4315:

It just so happens that such items are inside raids instead of open maps, but how is it really different from other legendaries aside from that?

Accessibility. Open world legendaries were just that – open world, so practically anyone could work towards them at their own rate. Most players would never reach them, of course, but they were still following the same road.
In the case of armor, however, the road is a narrow path most players will never put a foot on (and that’s by design).

pelle ossa.9705:

Ayrilana.1396:

pelle ossa.9705:

it’s really great how fanboy can be soo angry for the word promises and totally avoided the problem…. ty for ruin this game everyday

So you got proven wrong and are now resorting to casting out insults by misusing the “fanboy” term?

ok kitten put “they say” instead “promis” , then there is a preoblem or not? 6 it’s a bit more than 3 it’s not like they released 5 wing and they said 6 there are 3 and the fourth is bound to complete the legendary armor , and the legendasry armor need some month of work to be released and they try to sell the expansion telling us you can finallt craft legendary armor , and still 1 year pass and legendary armor is not ready , but yhea , it’s all fine they are slow as slowpoke , but it’s rainbow everywhere.

They said that they possibly could make up to 6 wings per year. They never said they would do it – there are many other considerations than a simple work cycle, you know. Besides, they don’t have that armor yet (only heavy set is mostly done at the moment, according to their blog post), so…

maxwelgm.4315:

I don’t want to get experimental envoy armor which is lore tied to the Forsaken Thicket

Not to nitpick, but Envoy armor and/or weapons are not Lore-tied to Forsaken Thicket but to Cantha.

Warcry.1596:

They announced with the announcement of raid content that Legendary Armor will only be available through raid content.

They haven’t actually. They strongly suggested that at the moment raids are the way to do it, but they never said it won’t change in the future.
Note: that doesn’t mean it will change, just that they like to keep their options open. That saying, there were a lot of other content-specific restictions for other things that were at some time eased or removed, so…

Rising Dusk.2408:

thewaterguy.4796:

Please give me one objective proven reason as to why I am wrong, […]

It would (at least) double the development and maintenance time of raids

Would it? I’d say that’s extremely unlikely. There’s no way doing an easy mode of an existing raid would be more work than making a completely new comparable instance.

Now, show the same winning streak in conquest matches…

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Ah this post again, think how WvW and PvP players feel they are forced to grind pve for any Legendary and it takes a lot longer than 8 hrs max of WvW.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Wanze.8410:

Kitsumeo.8754:

Remember decorations are suppose to be fun.

Kind Regards,
Kitsu

Oh wouldnt it be horrible to take your guild in a game called Guild Wars into a Hidden Garden and wage war on Air Elementals to farm Essences of Light in order to decorate your guild hall with the trophies you have earned.

Were is the fun in that?

Exactly. Since there aren’t that many air elementals in there (and their respawn rates aren’t great either), that hunt would be mostly standing in one place and complaining.
Not really fun.

RyuDragnier.9476:

now you just need to buff Rev damage next patch and all will be good.

They said that buff to Rev damage will be in this patch, so i guess they decided Revs are good now and need no further buffs.

Muchacho.2390:

dodgerrule.8739:

You do still earn them through xp. It’s just not as glamorous as it was because of masteries. You’ll see the spirit shards go into your loot side when you get one.

They explained this before and after heart of thorns launched people.

Sure about this one?

If so the whole tread is pointless.

I’m pretty sure he is mixing it up with getting spirit shards as direct drops from mobs (which do happen on occasions).