Got to ask, I see it getting complained about all the time. Is there really that much that they gain from it? Looting anything their minions attack while they are AFK. I could be missing something but thought a short time playing seriously would be a lot more rewarding than AFKing for a long time.
Well there are always people like me with multiple accounts, i could play one and set up the other 6 to AFK farm, tried it once (just with one account and i got about 3g an hour on a random spot i thought was profitable. ) doing it with 6 accounts, while playing the 7th would net me an extra 18g an hour if I were to do that. (ofc you’ld have to find two spots and rezone your necro from time to time as DR would kick in I guess.)
But the comment from 9 months ago states that you’ld have to use a skill. When i did it my necro just idled and the minions attacked anything that came close and attacked them or me. So I guess cindition 1 is not fulfilled in that case and no sanction can be made.
That’s might be interesting to do but only if I’m at my computer. I can just cycle through them every so often rather than rely on skills to stay logged in. I wonder how many I could have up at once before my computer slows down.
Well IF they were to do an easy mode, probably the easiest way would be to just remove the enrage timer. Or at least I think it would be the easiest because how hard can it be to remove the timer (rhetorical question)?
I don’t like the way Counter-Magic is used. I suppose it’s meant to be keybound, but I keep wanting to hover my mouse over it, expecting some sort of tooltip about what I’m supposed to be doing.
The counter magic tutorial was in the first episode, which explained that it reverses the effects of whatever you are countering. It’s a generic skill, so the tooltip isn’t going to help. In this case, it interrupts his shadowstep combo.
How are you supposed to know that if you don’t have time to look at stuff?
Generally just assume that anytime that it comes up on screen, you should use it.
At release, and for a good time after, participation was required to get the gift. Unless, of course, you just farmed the jumping puzzles.
I got a Gift of Battle bought from medals mostly from Achievement Chests,
Which happened a good time after release (around July 2013).
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
Everyone that grinded SAB last year for the skins should be prepared to have nothing to do but the dailies.
They said no new worlds. Did they ever say no new weapon skins? Because skins are far easier to make (and may only require a color change to an existing set of SAB weapons to make a new set).
They never said they would and all weapon skins have had their color schemes based on each of the worlds. The only skins left for grinders are the orange ones.
True. But did they ever say that any new weapon skin color schemes would always be based on the color schemes of the world? And if the choices are a new color based SAB weapon skin versus a brand new set of weapons versus nothing new at all (and all the complaints that would trigger about nothing to aim for that year) then I know which I’d choose if I were a dev looking for easy rewards and low number of complaints.
And they never said that they wouldn’t be. There’s been no indication of them changing what they’ve done in the past. “It could happen” isn’t enough to suggest that new weapon skins are going to not be tied to world.
At release, and for a good time after, participation was required to get the gift. Unless, of course, you just farmed the jumping puzzles.
I usually just use the search bar to filter and then spam click the same spot.
One issue I see is how to signify what is part of a group and then whether designating that actually saves time.
Everyone that grinded SAB last year for the skins should be prepared to have nothing to do but the dailies.
They said no new worlds. Did they ever say no new weapon skins? Because skins are far easier to make (and may only require a color change to an existing set of SAB weapons to make a new set).
They never said they would and all weapon skins have had their color schemes based on each of the worlds. The only skins left for grinders are the orange ones.
What, exactly, are you asking ArenaNet to do? Make groups take you? Make players ‘git gud’ for your groups? I’m confused about what you are asking for.
Good luck.
They could make the content so you could actually learn it from in game experience in the first place. Like any good game designer knows to do without being battered about it by their audience.
Making content that teaches you nothing, requiring material outside the experience to be understood, is like making a movie based on a book, and deliberately writing it to not make sense to anyone who hasn’t already read the book.
And that is how GW2s endgame content has always been made, it’s unintuitive, immersion breaking, elitist design that disrespects the audience and the work itself. And the stupidest thing is that even though it’s done more damage to the game than any other design mistake ANet has made, ANet still just worsens the problem with every single update to supposed ‘high-tier’ content, and then denies there is any problem as the playerbase continually shrinks.
They’ve had content in the game to teach people mechanics but they just find ways to avoid it. Just look at the molten furnace fractal where people just stack in a corner. It will be no different if they had done the same for the raid bosses. Players would just try to find a way to circumvent those mechanics.
Masteries are not repeatable and I don’t want them wasting resources to create a system that allows that just so the holdouts that don’t feel like maxing their masteries don’t waste their XP.
Holdouts?
I have done fractals only twice. Neither time was it my idea but someone in my party kept pestering the rest of us to do them.
I am coming up on my third year and have yet to make a single legendary. The only difference between them and ascended is the skin and the fact I can swap stats out of combat. Now I can even do the stat swapping on some trinkets for unbound magic anyway if I can not just swap with another alt.
Please explain to me why I am a holdout if I do not max out those two mastery lines. Go on, I can wait.
Only if you want the spirit shards. If you don’t then it doesn’t matter if you max out all mastery lines.
Everyone that grinded SAB last year for the skins should be prepared to have nothing to do but the dailies.
With how easy large amounts of XP are to obtain, and the likely reasons Anet put mastery points behind a lot of achievements, they should not be obtained from XP.
I find this thread very odd … I can’t understand how it appears like the OP associated the evolution of the game with it losing it’s identity, implying that having a game that evolves is a bad thing? Perhaps I haven’t played enough MMO’s but … I’ve yet to play an MMO where the devs don’t tries to change a bit to keep the game interesting to it’s veteran players.
Sure, Anet has made some errors during this evolution but I don’t think this is very relevant; any expectation that Anet just scores homeruns is unreasonable. I wouldn’t want to waste a single minute in a game where a developer would just pump out the same old, just to maintain game identity. Frankly, I think the whole idea that a game’s identity is the sum of it’s content and lore is wrong; it’s identity is how the dev team implements the game and interacts with players.
I think that a lot of angst, (although it’s not mentioned much in these forums), is that this game is called: Guild Wars 2
Where are the guild wars? The WvW in gw2 is Server Wars, it’s certainly not Guild Wars. There really isn’t any incentive to have guilds battle although you see guild groups roaming around looking for fights here and there.
This is what makes me “chuckle”. I play a game called “Guild Wars” (2), and it’s a name that doesn’t represent what you do in this game in any way that I can see.
My understanding of the original guild wars was that you had actual guild alliances (I don’t know how they worked since I didn’t play it), and I assume guild battles? GW2 moved away from those things, although they did bring back the guild halls finally.
This game has LOTS of variety between mapping, story, bosses, raids, pvp, wvw… Enough to keep people busy for ages. But to me I don’t see what it has to do with guild wars.
1) This really has nothing to do with the thread nor many of the complaints.
2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.
- The complaints/comments in this thread are all over the map.
- That might be true but that’s not what the title implies. The subject of this thread is “Did GW2 lose its identity”. If it’s identity wasn’t for guilds to be at war based on the name of the game alone then tell us what the identity of guild wars was supposed to be. Telling me what is ‘not’ doesn’t help me or anyone understand what ‘is’.
This thread is pretty much another raids complaint thread in a thinly veiled disguise. Your post about the title being “misleading” really has nothing to do with this thread. Read the linked thread(s) if you want answers to those questions.
I’ve done all sides with less that 10 each before. A full map isn’t needed.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/The-Cantha-Thread-Merged/
There’s an Elona one too. Just because other games are doing something, doesn’t mean that this one has to. I’d prefer a brand new continent rather than Elona or Cantha. If I wanted to experience those then I can just play GW1
I think the only non-boss/champ/legendary enemy with breakbars that are a chore to fight are the Jade Constructs, and only because it is a mandatory phase because they become invulnerable.
Bristlebacks (why do they even have breakbars).
Also Mordrem Desolaters, because nothing about them makes any godkitten sense (why doesn’t breaking the bar make them vulnerable, instead of “wreck your face then arbitrarily become vulnerable”?).
Bristlebacks have breakbars for their annoying rapid fire attack. It becomes more relevant with veteran types and higher as the breakbar interrupts it.
I can’t say much about desolators as I don’t encounter them often.
It can be killed with a party of players or with a zerg if enough of them actually break its bar. Have you tried posting on LFG for it?
Which they could then play the raids on normal to get the rewards.
Its sole purpose was to give players that want a challenge just that. Raids entire existence is for those that wanted a challenge. Adding a story mode changes that purpose.
It’s time to be realistic, however. They have already expressed an interest to get more people into raids or to “ease people into them.” The first three fights in wing 4 are the early, half attempts at making that happen. The path forward, if they stick with what they are doing now, will pretty much beone compromising that purpose you talk about – in the attempt to expand the appeal of raids.
It won’t be either/or – it will be a watering down for everyone.
And, I strongly disagree that ADDING a story mode changes the purpose of the actually challenging mode. That really is just common sense.
In fact, for the very reason I list above, the additional mode would give them more developmental freedom to adhere to that original purpose. It would allow them to design truly challenging encounters without having to worry about these other issues and criticisms.
As strange as it sounds, staying on the course they are on now will be exactly what kills their ability to offer that challenge so many (including myself) want to see thrive in the game.
Or they can just allow players to open empty instances and experience the story elements there. However, if there is an actual story mode, there are several things that should go along with it:
- No achievement progress which cannot be done in a cleared instance
- No collection progress
- No LI
- No magnetite shards
All people get is the story. That’s it.
We played GW2 from launch and we loved it. A casual friendly MMO that we could jump in and have fun with friends. GW2 was so much fun to play.
Then came HoT, and it was harder and not so casual friendly. Suddenly the game had a grind to it, that we never felt before. We ended up leaving the game.Recently, I came back to see how things are today. The base game is still there and is fun for short play sessions. HoT is less fun.
So for us, yes GW2 did “change” on us, and remains so today.
Pity.
Except the game had grind prior to HoT. That didn’t change.
The difficulty did raise a bit as enemies now have mechanics rather than the simple auto attacks they often did with another skill or two here and there. Once you learn those mechanics, things get a whole lot easier.
There’s a lot of people with little experience. Have you tried creating your own group to include others of similar level? Have you tried joining a raiding guild for players in a similar situation as you?
I don’t see any reason why that couldn’t be done. It’s really no different than someone opening up a completed instance and then posting it on LFG. This could also encourage all lore/story elements to exist outside of the actual boss encounters unless in a cutscene.
cutscenes are also able to be viewed in cleared instances
Yep. I just added that to make sure they continue to be done that way and to include anything else that may not be included in them at this time.
Did it ever occur that they actually want players to complete at least one raid which is why the mastery line is locked behind it?
I have no doubt that Anet would like more players to try raiding. However, the design of raids and the means by which one can join to do them favor players who are dedicated to raiding. I have no problem with that per se, however if ANet really wanted as many as possible to try raiding, they would have used systems aimed at broader swaths of players.
The gain of a spirit shard from leveling is a game mode wide reward. It’s not just an open world reward system. It’s not just a dungeon reward system. It’s a PvE system.
Which is why gaining access to it should be available in any form of PvE. The way it is now rewards only the completionist.
Then that’s your choice to not do them. This however doesn’t mean they can be done by casual players. Gaining a spirit shard from leveling is a reward that expands across all PvE.
I find your typo to be especially ironic. While there are easier raid encounters and harder ones, do you really think the people that get downed by the Dwayna statue in Malchor’s Leap are going to beat a raid boss, or be carried along by others? I see this happen any time I do that event, unless someone glitches the statue.
They could nerf raids to attract more players. They have set expectations of what they wish raids to be. They’ve made small concessions to that with having the first encounters be a little easier. Yes, doing all of the raids are for those dedicated enough to learn them. Raids were designed for those people. This doesn’t mean that other players cannot learn them over time.
Thanks for pointing out the typo. Players that get downed likely are not paying attention or know what to look for above it’s head to know when to dodge. The three encounters I mentioned are simple enough to learn and do in a short amount of time.
I don’t see any reason why that couldn’t be done. It’s really no different than someone opening up a completed instance and then posting it on LFG. This could also encourage all lore/story elements to exist outside of the actual boss encounters unless in a cutscene.
Masteries are not repeatable and I don’t want them wasting resources to create a system that allows that just so the holdouts that don’t feel like maxing their masteries don’t waste their XP.
They don’t need to “create” anything, just unlock the raid mastery track without having to deal with entitled salts who want to dictate others’ play experiences.
Flip one switch, and boom, this entire argument dissipates (instead of coming up every week).Did it ever occur that they actually want players to complete at least one raid which is why the mastery line is locked behind it?
Requiring casual players to complete a raid in order to obtain non-raid related rewards for playing non-raid content is bad design. Raids, in most games, are participated in by less than 5% of the population. Nothing non-raid related should ever be locked behind content that such a small minority of players enjoy.
Casual has nothing to do with this. There are several raid encounters that can be done successfully with a random group of players with two of them being the very first encounter. The gain of a spirit shard from leveling is a game mode wide reward. It’s not just an open world reward system. It’s not just a dungeon reward system. It’s a PvE system.
This has everything to do with being a casual player. I will never do a raid in this game. They can add a legendary reward and it still won’t happen. I hate raids and always will. I bought this game because it didn’t have them. If they become required I will find another game without them.
Did it never occur to you that It has nothing to do with being able to win. It’s a shame so many can’t see that.
Then that’s your choice to not do them. This however doesn’t mean they can’t be done by casual players. Gaining a spirit shard from leveling is a reward that expands across all PvE.
Edit: Fixed typo. Thanks for pointing it out.
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
Masteries are not repeatable and I don’t want them wasting resources to create a system that allows that just so the holdouts that don’t feel like maxing their masteries don’t waste their XP.
They don’t need to “create” anything, just unlock the raid mastery track without having to deal with entitled salts who want to dictate others’ play experiences.
Flip one switch, and boom, this entire argument dissipates (instead of coming up every week).Did it ever occur that they actually want players to complete at least one raid which is why the mastery line is locked behind it?
Requiring casual players to complete a raid in order to obtain non-raid related rewards for playing non-raid content is bad design. Raids, in most games, are participated in by less than 5% of the population. Nothing non-raid related should ever be locked behind content that such a small minority of players enjoy.
Casual has nothing to do with this. There are several raid encounters that can be done successfully with a random group of players with two of them being the very first encounter. The gain of a spirit shard from leveling is a game mode wide reward. It’s not just an open world reward system. It’s not just a dungeon reward system. It’s a PvE system.
Vale Guardian is not possible for a random group of players who haven’t raided before.
It requires team composition, knowledge of the mechanics, and voice communication.
But escort, prison camp, and cairn are. Note that I did not say VG in my post.
No need for a raid story mode … i think removing boss enrage timer on old wings should be enough.
People could use any build and enjoy old raids encounters while PvE focused guild still have challenges on new raid wings.Which defeats the whole purpose of why raids were created in the first place.
Which is part of the reason why story mode is needed – to preserve the integrity of the hard mode. In fact, the existence of greater accessibility would most likely give the devs freer rein to make more difficult encounters moving forward.
There are two real solutions to this issue, imo – tiered levels or a gradual compromising/watering down of the content to the point where it doesn’t really meet anyone’s needs.
We are already starting to see the second make its way into the game in some of the wing 4 fights. Is that really the direction anyone wants to see them take raids?
Its sole purpose was to give players that want a challenge just that. Raids entire existence is for those that wanted a challenge. Adding a story mode changes that purpose.
and raids are the ultimate 10 man end game content….
And water is wet and sun gives light. Point is – PvE endgame was changed harshly, along with rewards, development focus, balance focus and so on. And that change left a lot of people behind due to new format and amazingly badly made learning curve, which created one of the worst entry bottlenecks in GW2 history.
And old f50 was not that hard at all btw. Only Trin and Archdiviner was kinda dangerous due to damage output on inexperienced players.
End game wasn’t changed; just expanded. What players could do before raids, they still can. They can ignore raids if they wish.
Raids were made for those that wanted a challenge. It’s a little entitled to think that everything in OvE must be catered to you. Anet has also added some easier encounters in raids to ease players into them. You should give them an honest try.
Not sure why raiding changed anything for you since if you choose not to raid your experience remains exactly the same.
As very minimum – he is already denied from content that could be made instead of raids. Like, you know, fractals were promised as “ultimate endgame instanced content”, but now changed to mere “gateway to raids”.
They’re not being denied. Raids are created by an entire team hired for it. There’s also a team currently working on the next fractal.
Masteries are not repeatable and I don’t want them wasting resources to create a system that allows that just so the holdouts that don’t feel like maxing their masteries don’t waste their XP.
They don’t need to “create” anything, just unlock the raid mastery track without having to deal with entitled salts who want to dictate others’ play experiences.
Flip one switch, and boom, this entire argument dissipates (instead of coming up every week).Did it ever occur that they actually want players to complete at least one raid which is why the mastery line is locked behind it?
Requiring casual players to complete a raid in order to obtain non-raid related rewards for playing non-raid content is bad design. Raids, in most games, are participated in by less than 5% of the population. Nothing non-raid related should ever be locked behind content that such a small minority of players enjoy.
Casual has nothing to do with this. There are several raid encounters that can be done successfully with a random group of players with two of them being the very first encounter. The gain of a spirit shard from leveling is a game mode wide reward. It’s not just an open world reward system. It’s not just a dungeon reward system. It’s a PvE system.
Masteries are not repeatable and I don’t want them wasting resources to create a system that allows that just so the holdouts that don’t feel like maxing their masteries don’t waste their XP.
They don’t need to “create” anything, just unlock the raid mastery track without having to deal with entitled salts who want to dictate others’ play experiences.
Flip one switch, and boom, this entire argument dissipates (instead of coming up every week).
Did it ever occur that they actually want players to complete at least one raid which is why the mastery line is locked behind it?
I find this thread very odd … I can’t understand how it appears like the OP associated the evolution of the game with it losing it’s identity, implying that having a game that evolves is a bad thing? Perhaps I haven’t played enough MMO’s but … I’ve yet to play an MMO where the devs don’t tries to change a bit to keep the game interesting to it’s veteran players.
Sure, Anet has made some errors during this evolution but I don’t think this is very relevant; any expectation that Anet just scores homeruns is unreasonable. I wouldn’t want to waste a single minute in a game where a developer would just pump out the same old, just to maintain game identity. Frankly, I think the whole idea that a game’s identity is the sum of it’s content and lore is wrong; it’s identity is how the dev team implements the game and interacts with players.
I think that a lot of angst, (although it’s not mentioned much in these forums), is that this game is called: Guild Wars 2
Where are the guild wars? The WvW in gw2 is Server Wars, it’s certainly not Guild Wars. There really isn’t any incentive to have guilds battle although you see guild groups roaming around looking for fights here and there.
This is what makes me “chuckle”. I play a game called “Guild Wars” (2), and it’s a name that doesn’t represent what you do in this game in any way that I can see.
My understanding of the original guild wars was that you had actual guild alliances (I don’t know how they worked since I didn’t play it), and I assume guild battles? GW2 moved away from those things, although they did bring back the guild halls finally.
This game has LOTS of variety between mapping, story, bosses, raids, pvp, wvw… Enough to keep people busy for ages. But to me I don’t see what it has to do with guild wars.
1) This really has nothing to do with the thread nor many of the complaints.
2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.Point 2 is true, but at the same time that was the draw for a lot of people and the name made sense because, well, there was guild vs guild action, and it was quite active. So to just dismiss it because technically it refers to the Guild Wars as historical lore is a little disingenuous. People came to associate the game Guild Wars with, well, guilds warring against each other. It is understandable that they would think this would continue into a second game called Guild Wars 2.
I’m not dismissing the GvG aspect of GW1. Different aspects of the game appealed to different types of players. I’m dismissing the claim that the game’s title was based on it.
If you want to continue on with this discussion then make a new thread.
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
Yes it was. “The Guild Wars” lore event is merely justification for the game’s title, and an out for when they did start focusing more on PvE content as its own reward instead of stepping stones/training for the GvG endgame.
Source?
No mention of what you claim from a briefing about a year before it released. I also found an interview from 2003.
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
I find this thread very odd … I can’t understand how it appears like the OP associated the evolution of the game with it losing it’s identity, implying that having a game that evolves is a bad thing? Perhaps I haven’t played enough MMO’s but … I’ve yet to play an MMO where the devs don’t tries to change a bit to keep the game interesting to it’s veteran players.
Sure, Anet has made some errors during this evolution but I don’t think this is very relevant; any expectation that Anet just scores homeruns is unreasonable. I wouldn’t want to waste a single minute in a game where a developer would just pump out the same old, just to maintain game identity. Frankly, I think the whole idea that a game’s identity is the sum of it’s content and lore is wrong; it’s identity is how the dev team implements the game and interacts with players.
I think that a lot of angst, (although it’s not mentioned much in these forums), is that this game is called: Guild Wars 2
Where are the guild wars? The WvW in gw2 is Server Wars, it’s certainly not Guild Wars. There really isn’t any incentive to have guilds battle although you see guild groups roaming around looking for fights here and there.
This is what makes me “chuckle”. I play a game called “Guild Wars” (2), and it’s a name that doesn’t represent what you do in this game in any way that I can see.
My understanding of the original guild wars was that you had actual guild alliances (I don’t know how they worked since I didn’t play it), and I assume guild battles? GW2 moved away from those things, although they did bring back the guild halls finally.
This game has LOTS of variety between mapping, story, bosses, raids, pvp, wvw… Enough to keep people busy for ages. But to me I don’t see what it has to do with guild wars.
1) This really has nothing to do with the thread nor many of the complaints.
2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.
Masteries are not repeatable and I don’t want them wasting resources to create a system that allows that just so the holdouts that don’t feel like maxing their masteries don’t waste their XP.
no body is forcing you to do raids stop complaining the game has to appeal to a lot of types of people
Dungeon, Pvp, and Fractal rewards were all nerfed I’d mention WVW but they didn’t have anything to nerf.
Dungeons were indeed to push people into raids and raids were exempt from the so called changes to normalizing gear aquisition.
It’s not that people are forced to do raids but the things people like to do are getting nerfed in an attempt to shovel those people into a mode they have no interest.
Raids are the teachers pet never getting into trouble and getting free passes in life while the others are in a corner with those cone hats. So of course people will be resentful in regards to raids. Probably could have used a better example but meh..
Exactly how were they nerfed?
For what its worth, its what made me pretty much quit GW2 (I have logged on occasionally but no where near as much as pre HoT, so sad because GW2 was meant to be the MMO without the grind) was so excited about HoT too.
GW2 has always had grind.
No need for a raid story mode … i think removing boss enrage timer on old wings should be enough.
People could use any build and enjoy old raids encounters while PvE focused guild still have challenges on new raid wings.
Which defeats the whole purpose of why raids were created in the first place.
Evolution is mutation though or was it the other way around. Not arguing for or against what you said other than to correct that one part.
What do gem store sales have to do with the status of the game itself?
That’s an amazing question. It deals with the over all health and viability of the game, because long term, if the game makes less it’s less likely to be supported. Ask the people who played City of Heroes, which was also a title owned by NCSoft.
We’re not in any kind of danger yet. But showing a slacking of gem store sales, means people are less willing to spend money on the game. Obviously there could be many reasons for this, but from this thread, at least some people seem to believe the game has lost it’s identity and I can see why those people feel that way. I’m spending less. I could spend more,. but I’m not as happy with the product as I once was. It’s my decision to support it less than I did.
When I see that the game is moving more in a direction that benefits me, I’ll start spending more again.
I assume I’m not the only person who does this.
It could mean that people are less willing to spend money. It could also mean that there’s nothing worth spending money on too.
What do gem store sales have to do with the status of the game itself?
Probably easier to just bring back the cost element. I mean, if people find it pointless strictly because there’s no cost…
It’d be easier to change nothing, unless there’s a good reason. There is no good reason.
As an easy-ish QoL improvement:
Comment out the line that does the armor damage. The actual functions don’t need to be removed, just the command that executes them.
Change the Repair Canister items into something else. The item reference codes probably stay the same, they just reference different items. Hard part is deciding what goes in place of the various repair canisters.
It would be easier to do nothing. I was directing that at those that think something should be done and that would be easier to solve the problem than redoing the entire armor damage system which would have a high chance of something getting broken.
Probably easier to just bring back the cost element. I mean, if people find it pointless strictly because there’s no cost…
It’s still there as a penalty for dying as you’ll have to eventually go and repair the armor. It becomes more relevant in instanced content.
When the game first launched, Dungeons were seen as stupidly hard, and required specific builds to beat until players figured them out, several got nerfed, and player skill in general increased. I bet in a year or two, several Raids will be seen as ’Playhowyouwant" in terms of difficulty – not from the power creep, but from improved skill at the game from experienced players being able to carry the newer ones even in mixed parties.
Even at their worst, masteries were never as bad as The Time We Had To Unlock Traits.
There are huge differences between dungeons and raids that will keep this from happening. Raid encounters, due to lazy mechanics like enrage timers and “kill fast” elements, are more math based than dungeons. If the math isnt there in a dungeon, the fight takes longer (which is fine). If the math isnt there in a raid, the fight fails. Second, raids are considerably more punishing to builds and compositions that are far from the “meta.” (I know highly experienced players can do the raids on just about anything, but that isnt the group we are talking about here). That was also less of an issue in dungeons. That isn’t going to change either.
I also think people overstate the difficulty of dungeons at launch. I dont remember failing many dungeons for any reason other than just running out of time (and that was mostly in early runs in Arah where we thought it made sense to kill all the mobs) – even with fairly inexperienced and casual guild members.
This is a pervasive issue that will only worsen as time goes on rather than improve. As more and more raids are added with more and more “side” stories/interesting bosses/other experiences, the rift between raiders and non-raiders will only widen.
They need to address and fix the issue now – before it gets any worse.
Enrage timers have a specific purpose that is necessary which has been discussed to death already. You’re free to feel that they’re lazy mechanics.
Undoubtably with enrage timers, there is some math and minimum DPS that must be done before the timer ends. When groups fail, what percentage of the time is it because they reached the enrage timer?
Edit: Removed the extra ‘e’ in “purpose” since I’m OCD like that
(edited by Ayrilana.1396)
Awesome, thank you! So I know, would a reply be sent or only if additional info is needed?
Maybe if addtional info is needed but you typically won’t get a reply back.
And we lack a decent way to obtain those numbers and what threshold Anet uses to consider it as successful.
The biggest trouble I see with getting t4 is that people won’t defend the rally points. There will be a mass of people at one or two points and the test continuously fall.
I can hold a point with 1 other person but I find it really hard to solo. I don’t die but the enemy just outnumbers me and caps the point. Can’t kill fast enough and despite posting the poi and wp on map and squad chat, no help ever comes. Frustrating!
Try killing the initial wave and then leave a mender from the second wave alive. This prevents further waves from spawning. At just about every camp you can do this and solo them.
The HoT and lws3 stuff is absolutely soloable. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I do it on a kittening thief. It’s definitely a big jump from core Tyria, however, and takes some training/getting used to. I also feel that difficulty jump was necessary, as everything in core now feels like I’m always playing on godmode. Plus, once you learn the maps, the HoT maps are absolutely gorgeous pieces of design.
Yeah, going through LS2 makes the ramp much more gradual, but it’s also something that requires spending real money (or significant gameplay time => gold => gems) to acquire, so you get the much sharper jump into HoT.
If I had any advice on this for anet, it would be that if the players skill level desired for the next xpac is comparable to Lake Doric &c., consider making it part of the price of the expansion, so that people do get the ramp up in challenge.
You can get most of the experience just playing on the DT and SW maps by doing the metas as the mobs are the same there as in the story.