Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Amaimon.7823:

but.. its weird, in design, they’re perfect for the revenant, so I don’t understand why anet never returned on this subject..
did they think it was okay to stop at ‘we lost ’em somewhere’ ?

Why do you think they are okay with it? It’s easy to say they shouldn’t have lost them or that if it’s previewable, there must be code somewhere.

Except they haven’t really lost them. It’s the plans to implement them that were lost. Or, more accurately, forgotten about.

And they don’t really care enough to do anything about it now.

Murdock.6547:

I just want the community in raids to be closer to dungeons or mid/low level fractals where I occasionally see goofy titles and people not taking themselves so seriously. but in the end we have a good time.. even if the clear isn’t a sure thing.

I guess what I really want is to casualize the air of raids without compromising the difficulty.. which sounds contrary to what I post, so I apologize. It’s difficult for me to be neutral on a subject like this when it does directly affect me.

That kind of thing is possible for raids, but generally only at the edges of skill and experience. It’s either the truly casual groups that do that – and wipe (but that generally doesn’t last long before players give up on the content), or the people that are so good that they find raids to be a cakewalk. In the middle you have people that are more serious about it, because they have to be serious if they hope to be succesful.

I don’t see this ever changing without changes to the difficulty itself, which apparently is not what you want.

No, raising the entry bar won’t help. It will only remove the lowest group from the equation. It won’t make the last group any bigger. It won’t make the middle group any less serious.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Astralporing.1957:

And i hope for the exact opposite, since it caused my interest in fractals to go way down.

If i wanted to raid, i’d be raiding.

The neat thing about challenge motes is that you don’t have to activate them.

I wasn’t talking about challenge mote. I have no real problem with those being on a different level of difficulty (though i do dislike them having exclusive rewards).

It’s the basic level 100 that i was talking about.

Trice.4598:

It’s funny that all the people asking for easy mode raid for the past year, are all here saying the fractal hard mode is too hard?

Why is it funny? Do you really think it’s surprising that people that weren’t okay with difficulty level of raids would also speak of fractals when the same difficulty level was brought there as well? I’d say that this is quite consistent.

Trice.4598:

Or all the people who were asking for 5 man raid because, what was hard was getting 10 people, not the raid itself?

I don’t think many people were asking for 5-mans at all (i wasn’t). I don’t think i have seen even one in this thread.
And yes, getting the 10 people is still the most difficult part of the raid. Many of the raid encounters mechanic-wise, individually are way easier than fractal level 100 – it’s just that there are 10 potential points of failure, not 5.

Trice.4598:

Well here we are, with the same people saying the hard mode is too hard and that they don’t want fractals to be 5 man raids. If it’s too hard, do lower tiers, easy.

Previous time it was “if it’s too hard, do the fractals”. Now it’s “if it’s too hard, do the lower tiers”. What’s next, “if it’s too hard, do the open word”? “If it’s to hard, quit the game”? Because, you know, the difficulty creep is expanding to other, non-raid content as well. I’d rather not see this happen.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Now, if you did state your preferences beforehand, and the player that joined happens to not fulfill them, kick away.

Now here is a couple of different situations.
1) You advertise a training run let’s say for Vale Guardian.
People join, they fill the important slots of it, you get two PS Warriors. You are at 9/10 and another PS Warrior joins, maybe you didn’t have the time to update your listing. None of the PS Warriors can swap to another build. All of them fulfill the preferences. Do you kick the one PS (to be fair, the last one to join)

Training run? The third ps can easily run as dps with just a slight change to traits and utils. Won’t be as efficient, but for learning mechanics it will do.

maddoctor.2738:

2) You advertise for a daily fractal run. People join, including a healer Druid. The last person to join is another support build, let’s say a support Tempest. None want to swap their builds, going in with 2/5 support builds isn’t very good, in fact on many fractals even one support isn’t needed. Do you kick a support if neither wants to swap?

No, why? Done many fractal daily runs in worse setups. Besides, i did not set any specific group requirements in that example, did i.

maddoctor.2738:

3) In an anyone welcome group, you get that one person who is always on the ground, dead. He begins to drag the team down, ignoring mechanics, wiping the entire group and refusing to change because “That’s how he wants to play”. That person is holding 4 people back and their fun is diminished by having him drag them down. Is it appropriate to kick said person?

Not really. Usually i try not to give “all welcome” tags unless i am relatively sure the group can carry one person. Often discussing the problems can help as well. In the worst case i’d leave the group however (though i had to go that far only once or twice in my history – from my experience such players usually give up long before i get to that point)

maddoctor.2738:

4) In the opposite situation that 3. You join an all welcome group and that terrible person keeps harassing team members. The team succeeds in the encounters but that guy still goes at it. Do you kick said person or take his insults and move on?

I did mention that civility is one requirement i assume is always in force, didn’t i? Though, to remain civil as well, i’d likely just leave such group very fast if the person wouldn’t moderate their behaviour after being kindly asked to do so.

Also, many of these problems could be solved by just talking about it before even starting the instance (again, i did mention that not all requirements need to be immediately in LFG, some can be stated separately at/just after the party forming phase – as long as they are stated before the actual run begins). In no case a kick would be required partway through the actual dungeon/fractal/raid run.

Harper.4173:

The sad part is that you can write “exp only” and “meta comp, meta strats, no bads” and still get non-meta, non-optimal strat bads.

Then it’s clearly the joining people’s fault. Anybody has the right to create LFG with whatever requirements they want, no matter howstringent (or nonsensical) they might be – and those requirements should be respected.

I can also understand, that some kinds of requirement can sort of be assumed (unless explicitly waived) in some kinds of content. Civility and good behaviour for any content. Some sort of basic competence, and at least reading/watching the fight beforehand for raids. Some fractal experience and knowing the normal mode for CM’s. Having the required AR for the tier for fractals in general. Anything above that however should be either stated in LFG, or clearly communicated at the very beginning. If you didn’t do that, then the only choice later on is to either be really, really polite in explaining (and hoping the other side will understand), or leaving the group.

Now, if you did state your preferences beforehand, and the player that joined happens to not fulfill them, kick away.

Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497:

Wait… you’re saying the living story and trait changes were ‘unhealthy’ for the game? You… didn’t want the game to progress… at all?

Not going to argue about the changes themselves, because i have a …mixed feelings about the living story, but you do remember, that a change is not always a change for the better?
“progress” doesn’t mean “do any change whatsoever, regardless if it’s good or bad”.

Feanor.2358:

You mean some people didn’t adhere to your idea of fun and dared to have their own? Shame!

Well, it is a shame if those people try to then push that different idea of fun on me, and if i disagree i get told that i can either play along or get out. Those people did not follow that advice themselves, after all.

Baseleader.4128:

They’ve also implemented it very well with a challenge mote which offers a tad extra but keeps a normal lvl 99 or 100 which keeps it easy for players to do dailies.

I’m not complaining about the challenge mote. It’s the normal mode that is a step up compared to previous fractals of same tier.

Baseleader.4128:

This sentence is so incorrect. How is raiding isolating people? It forces you to play with 10 other people.

10 other people is not “the whole gaming community”.

Ziggy.3842:

I hope anet decides to make more fractals similar in difficulty to the new 100 cm, since it’s brought back my desire to do fractals.

And i hope for the exact opposite, since it caused my interest in fractals to go way down.

If i wanted to raid, i’d be raiding.

SoliSnake.9457:

i think with the new elite we will have so much opportunity, for example can replace 1 crono with firebrand

loss of alacrity. Possibly also loss of quickness (it currently depends on a gimmick that may or may not get adjusted before release)

and 1 druid with soulbest

No heal, no GotL.

And as for firebrand replacing chrono as a tank, so chrono can go dps… it’s already possible with all existing classes. Why do you think practically noone is doing that however?

TexZero.7910:

The raid isn’t taking anything away from you as a player. It’s your choice to either raid with the entire community or isolate yourself from it.

If you can’t remember, we have raids now exactly because some players, instead of playing with the entire community, preferred to isolate themselves from it, and asked Anet to help them with that.

Also, it’s no longer just raids now. Nowadays this kind of content starts to infect other areas (fractals, for example). If not for the massive backlash Anet got for HoT, i’m sure the PoF open world would have tried to continue on that path as well.

Which means, that pointing out to Anet what i dislike is important. Otherwise someday i may wake up to find that it’s not just some parts of the game, but the game as a whole that is no longer for me.

Or just make the specialization weapon unlock for the character as soon as the character fully unlocks that elite spec.

Yes, in many cases, without traits those weapons won’t be as effective. This is hardly a problem – as someone mentioned already, using core weapons without having their corresponding traits is not that rare occurence.

Background is one thing, but the lighting used in the PoF screen is really bad and makes the characters look weird.

Yeah, it’s just xp. Nothing to do with mastery points whatsoever.

…so, unspent mastery points for HoT are a problem, but unspent mastery points for core and other expacs aren’t.
I see…

Faaris.8013:

RedZebra.2345:

Could be easy however, Anet implements a key who want to show there dps ,and the tool makers act accordingly. OR BETTER Anet just implement this themselves in the UI, no fuss, no grey zone just a better interface and better control for Anet

LFG: exp, pots + food + activated dps key

Well, that would at least put the requirement right in the LFG, instead of players trying to enforce requirements that weren’t stated.

They consider the whole 2nd gen set to be HoT based (because it’s been advertised as part of HoT), so i don’t expect the gift requirements to change. Not until they finish that set at least. They did mention also that while the remaining weapons will be released alongside ls4 (ls5?) and the new expac, they won’t be tied to PoF (well, except maybe in narrative way, similarily to how last 3 legendaries were thematically tied to LS3).

Gotejjeken.1267:

I dunno, but to be blunt…do half of you play ranger? I love the pet, I really do, but there is no way someone can tell me with a straight face that it’s better to have it out. That AI is ALWAYS a liability. Always.

Soulbeast would have been a good idea if it compensated for the built-in nerf to ranger weapon damage that is here because devs assume that 20-30% of your damage comes from your pets.
UUnfortunately, it doesn’t do that. It doesn’t even compensate for the loss of damage that pets actually do (which due to abovementioned AI problems is smaller than original ranger design assumed).

That doesn’t automatically mean that soulbeast is useless – with a few balances to the dagger skills and traitlines it may possibly end up replacing base ranger as a condi option. Maybe. Still, it does mean that its iconic class mechanic is… dissapointingly underwhelming to say at least.

Amaimon.7823:

Astralporing.1957:

Notice also, that it would still prevent Anet from ever adding any new mastery to core/past expacs.

Core is no issue.

Why not?

Amaimon.7823:

HoT is 100% if not more, finished now. All future masteries will cost CD-mastery-points

Sure. HoT is most likely finished now. What about PoF? Should this subsystem wait till the next expac is out before you will be able to spend PoF mastery points?

Also, again, it means they wouldn’t ever be able to introduce any new core mechanic masteries – ones that wouldn’t be expac-specific. Even if they at some point decided that some might be useful.

That’s extremely limiting design.

Ardid.7203:

IMO, everything can be justifiable with some imagination. Updrafts are quite common in real deserts, while ponds and volcanic activity can be almost anywhere. Poison could also exist in different places (I’m sure some of the new foes will be venomous).

And i definitely would like if the “see through stealth” mastery worked on some of the non-HoT mobs as well.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

I can give you two scenarios that mounts are always helpful. Farming nodes and map exploration. In both you’re not really Waypointing around and the mount will increase efficiency. So they have a place for people who do both.

For farming nodes they may actually not be so helpful, due to the “dismount to farm/need to remount later” mechanic.

Notice also, that it would still prevent Anet from ever adding any new mastery to core/past expacs.

Henry.5713:

We just can’t have nice things. Going to miss the tool.
I am interested to see whether anyone is going to pick it up and continue the work in earnest given the leaked code and also about the number of infected versions that will pop up now.

You can be sure that in such a case there will be forthcoming bans. And not only against possible new creators, but also users of those clearly noncompliant versions.

Remember, that the Anet’s statement about how they will blame the creator, not the users and that using the program was not a bannable offense was sent with an addendum “for the moment”, and made before Anet decided on ban. In short, they aren’t going to ban the users that might have been operating under assumption that using BGDM was okay (even if some of them were clearly aware that one version breaks ToS). They didn’t say they won’t start banning users of a tool that got clearly marked as noncompliant however.

TexZero.7910:

Like heck, just because you want a social guild doesn’t mean the guilds that do content aren’t social.

Agreed, however, just because there are guilds aimed at specific content doesn’t mean that hard content requiring a lot of people is the only reason for guilds’ existence, like you claimed.

TexZero.7910:

It’s also extremely baffling to think that you clamor for solo content but then whine and complain when you cannot do group stuff. So much for the social part i suppose ?

Oh, i clamour for guild content as well. Why do you think i ask for easy mode raids, for example? And why i’m so set against turning fractals into 5-man raid instances?
Hint: it’s not so i can solo them.

TexZero.7910:

Given the average reaction time of someone ages 18-25 is .25ms you have 12 times the that frame to work in.

well, yeah…
http://www.censusatschool.ca/data-results/2007-08/average-reaction-time/
http://www.censusatschool.ca/data-results/2015-2016/average-reaction-time/

it’s around twice that actually…

That’s an average reaction time, by the way. Outliers can sometimes be off by over 50% in either side.
And it starts dropping somewhere after 25 yrs, at the average rate of around 1% per year. If you weren’t that good at start, by the year 50 you can run into near second of reaction time.

(the web-based tests show usually around .28-30, because people with bad reaction times don’t usually try them at all, this is a known bias)

Also, that is just a reaction time to an easily recognizable stimuli. If you have to react to something that’s harder to immediately recognize (which is often a higly personal factor), it may add a lot of extra time on top of that.

You may think that all the tells are easily recognizable, but it won’t be equally true for everyone.In fact, seeing some responses in that thread, it already isn’t true for all the posters.

Hannelore.8153:

By that notion, you have 25 maps from Central Tyria to go auto-hit mobs in. Having 2/3rds of the game tailored to you isn’t good enough?

No, core alone is not good enough when you bought an expansion expecting that it would have something for you, and then found out that it didn’t.

The problem with HoT was that Anet wanted the whole game community to fund the expac meant for only a small minority. I really hope they won’t make that mistake ever again.

And back to new expac, personally, i haven’t seen any problem with PoF mobs and definitely wouldn’t want them to be made any harder than they already are.

Being decorative doesn’t prevent the item from being useful as well. It may be decorative, but it’s still a jetpack after all.

TexZero.7910:

If everything in the game can be done solo, at what point in time would you ever look to join a guild & form friends ?

At the point you will think it’s nice to have friends.
Guilds are, and should, be more of a social construct, not exist just for the sake of doing content.

Considering how, say, fractals are changing, i’m not holding any hope for that.

Mirage.6754:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I give up. You’ve missed the entire point of “surplus”. Not every thing we do in the game has to have a reward in addition to the satisfaction of getting things done (not to mention the other rewards that we got while earning the point).

The point was NEVER to have extra points lying around for no reason whatsoever. The point was to have flexibility. Surplus was the means to that end.
And if that end has already been reached, surplus are worthless.

And if you give a secondary purpose to those points, that end won’t be reached.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Machiavell.7396:

• Mistward Weapons are still missing

These were lost; they are missing from ANet’s backups (and no, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either, but that’s apparently what happened). They have to recreate them (not quite from scratch, since remnants of the details remain).

…how can they be lost from the game, if the chatcodes still work?

Rhanoa.3960:

HOT didn’t fail, the Players DID!

Nah. It was Anet’s fail – a failure to consider what kind of players form the basis for their game.

Rhanoa.3960:

It was a significant change and the players failed to learn and adapt to the new content.

No. The players decided not to change, but it was their decision to make. The failure was on Anet’s side in not expecting players to make that choice.

TL/DR; if you try to sell something to your clients, and they happen to not be interested, it’s your mistake, not theirs. Any business that thinks otherwise is going to fail eventually.

Amaimon.7823:

As long add the reward isn’t something game changing no player should feel forced to go after every mastery point.

Please, do read again the threads about locking skill points from xp behind raid masteries. Now think how game changing skill points are.

Consider, that to achieve your goal, the reward would likely have to be significantly less important than skill points.

phys.7689:

i understand both sides, but i will say this, mastery points are designed to be an incentive to complete content. At the point at which they become surplus, with no purpose, they no longer achieve their goal.

They still are an incentive to play a multitude of content. What they aren’t (and shouldn’t be) is a strongarm to make players play and excel all of the content.

From what i’ve seen, it’s going to be a little better with PoF than with HoT, but the game is still much more strongly tilted towards hardcore crowd than before. And it’s not better for it at all.

Tanner Blackfeather.6509:

In GW1 pvpers could buy unlock packs giving access to the skills and professions from a campaign without access to its PvE areas. I don’t really see a difference between that and selling expansion e-specs in the gemstore.

I do. In gw1 you weren’t able to do that for ingame currency.

Gaile Gray.6029:

NeuroMuse.1763:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I hope you can join us for the Preview Weekend. I can’t wait for you to see the Crystal Desert and have a look at some of the starter content!

Will we be able to preview the elite specs in anyway during this be it in heart of the mists or the starter map?

Check out this blog post, where you’ll see that players can experience and experiment with the new elite specializations in a second weekend event on August 18-22.

In other words, we won’t be able to preview the new elite specs in pve environment at all?

LimeSamurai.9140:

Vagrant.8613:

Reddit already has a gallery of armors/weapons. Lots of trenchcoats and butt capes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6sls75/datamining_chatcodes_and_screenshots_of_the_new/

Edit: Dulfy has a picture gallery of everything

http://dulfy.net/2017/08/09/gw2-upcoming-armor-outfits-and-weapons-from-path-of-fire/

I wonder if you’ve read the OP or just link dropping based on thread title.

Do you really think there will be more armor sets in that expansion than already datamined? I really, really doubt that.

maddoctor.2738:

After many years, they added content in the game that is good for guilds and guild teams, groups of friends, and organized players.

Sorry, it definitely wasn’t anything good for my guild and my groups of friends. Quite the opposite.

usnedward.9023:

Astralporing.1957:

usnedward.9023:

I still take the response from ANET is that it is nerfing a build that takes advantage of all in one build and that is how I see it.

That’s not what they did however.

usnedward.9023:

In PvE it is hard to see it, only in PvP and WvW can you see where ele is built for sustain, heals and damage all in one and to this I see why they are making the change.

Okay, please, do show me that OP build from sPvP that did all 3 of those things, and did them well.
Because last i saw ele builds were mainly built around going full sustain, if they wanted to last more than few seconds against any opponent.

I stand by my interpretation that ANET doesn’t want this profession to be ALL THAT IN ONE. That is what I get out of it.

I don’t hate on the ele. I hate I can’t take ‘em out without some sneak attack burst but by all means watch this video. I take no credit as it is not mine but look at the cleanse, sustain, damage etc…. This is what I believe ANET is trying to point out. I don’t have an active ele… never enjoyed them… BUT I do go up against them and many are very close to this. Can’t point to a specific build because once again I do not play it nor do I care. I just want to beat them :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9HaQ_22__I

Yeah, all those hits for 200-500. Mighty dps indeed.
…seriously?
To inform you: no, there were no builds that could have top healing, sustain AND dps in one package. At best you could specialize in one of the three with a lesser secondary option. Usually, if you went for dps, you’d have to forego the other two. If you went for sustain, you would have to be okay with a massive dps drop.

That’s because of “Charrmanders”, i guess. Charrs are cats after all.

Kameko.8314:

They won’t have any purpose.

But they do have a purpose. Their purpose is to provide you with a safety net so you don’t need to do every single mastery point.
Doing what OP proposes would destroy that purpose.

usnedward.9023:

I still take the response from ANET is that it is nerfing a build that takes advantage of all in one build and that is how I see it.

That’s not what they did however.

usnedward.9023:

In PvE it is hard to see it, only in PvP and WvW can you see where ele is built for sustain, heals and damage all in one and to this I see why they are making the change.

Okay, please, do show me that OP build from sPvP that did all 3 of those things, and did them well.
Because last i saw ele builds were mainly built around going full sustain, if they wanted to last more than few seconds against any opponent.

Miellyn.6847:

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

The flaws are also incosequential if you just ignore their existnance. Something that you can do in a non raid centric game.

Actually no, the problem is that the raids do have an impact on the whole game. You can’t really ignore them, not even if the emphasis is not on that content (which, by the way, in gw2 is still debatable).

Why can’t you ignore them?

As i said, because the raids are not a self-contained system, but have an impact on the whole game. Both on the game itself, and on the game community.

Miellyn.6847:

It is not debatable that GW2 has a extended emphasis on raids, that is just not true.

Suuure, it’s not debatable, and that’s why we’re debating it since HoT got launched.[/sarcasm]

Vindicus.2130:

It’s not really Anet’s fault, unless you want to say their game design is conducive to creating this kind of elitism.

But that’s exactly what it is – a result of a game design that Anet introduced into the game. Thus, Anet helped to encourage this kind of behaviour in the community.

zealex.9410:

The flaws are also incosequential if you just ignore their existnance. Something that you can do in a non raid centric game.

Actually no, the problem is that the raids do have an impact on the whole game. You can’t really ignore them, not even if the emphasis is not on that content (which, by the way, in gw2 is still debatable).

Razor.9872:

To play the devil’s advocate, the fractal is new, so people aren’t used to its mechanics yet. Give it some time, and I’m sure pugs will clear it more consistently.

Sure, because the people that can’t clear it consistently will stop pugging it.

It’s exactly opposite. Many of the raids’ flaws are inconsequential in a raid-centric game, because they are a huge issue primarily to non-raiders.

Yobculture.5786:

Astralporing.1957:

Erzian.5218:

Or you just do it in normal mode which is super easy once you have understood about 5 (special action key, catching the ball, pushing orbs at the last boss and evading a couple of highly telegraphed skills) mechanics in total?

I heard pretty much the same about every single raid encounter: “it’s really easy, once you understand the mechanics”. Somehow it doesn’t work like that in reality however.

They meant to say it’s easy once you’ve played the content for a time so you can familiarise yourself with the mechanics.

The “it’s easy once it becomes easy” argument?
Right…