Showing Posts For Bearhugger.4326:

How to get Legendary armor outside of raids?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Titles are not even close. I don’t even know what title my character has on. I want visually distinct ways to differentiate the feats of a player, and armors are the strongest and coolest way to do that.

If you get a set of Legendary armor for completing the raid and you get a title for completing the raid, then they are the exact same thing as far as “differentiating the feats of a player.”

The exact same.

The only difference is that the armor skin has an inherent worth, beyond acting to "differentiate the feats of a player, " and a given player may have interest in that skin alone, without caring about the skills needed to earn it via raiding, and would want to be able to wear that skin without having to run that particular content.

Then tough luck. You’re not wearing that skin without raiding, buddy. For the greater good of the game.

There has to be a long term goal for players to raid, and if you think a puny title is enough you’re out of your mind. A unique set of armor to show off your feats of strength is just what it takes.

In fact what got me to raiding in WoW is not the stats, it’s the skins. (WoW armor sets are pretty ugly now but they used to be great, especially mage, druid and paladin.)

Again, if you want legendary armors that can be obtained outside of raids that’s something I can sympathize with, but ask for new skins. Raider skins must remain raider skins and I really hope the devs never change their mind about this.

How to get Legendary armor outside of raids?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I want to be able to look at someone wearing those skins and know they are good raiders and have done raid X.

That’s what titles are for. Skins should NOT be used for this purpose.

Titles are not even close. I don’t even know what title my character has on. I want visually distinct ways to differentiate the feats of a player, and armors are the strongest and coolest way to do that.

Even in WoW, where you have gear tiers and iLvl races, unique skins remain the most powerful rewards, with many of their hardest content rewarding skins, and many people would love to put their hands on Marshall armor and Grand Marshall weapons…

In fact unique armor skins are how Guild Wars 1 rewarded very hard content as well, and GW2 was supposed to do the same thing, so it’s about time Arenanet starts rewarding their players’ feats of strength with unique skins.

If you just want a game with full unrestricted access to a wardrobe you really should play a single-player game. This is an MMO and in MMOs you can’t trivially get everything.

How to get Legendary armor outside of raids?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

The only thing that’s very important to me is that the skin of legendary armors can only be obtained in their respective raid and nowhere else, not even the tradepost. I want to be able to look at someone wearing those skins and know they are good raiders and have done raid X.

Now, if they want to make legendary armor skins that can be obtained without raiding, well sure, why not? As long as they have different skins than the raid ones. Personally I think the top 3% of the competitive PvP players should get unique legendary armors as well, and in my opinion the tournament armor skin they made should be instant-legendary when the raid patch hits…

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

What's your favourite specialization so far?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Daredevil and Berserker look the most fun but they’re also the most likely to be toned down before launch.

[Suggestion] Friendly pull

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

The problem I see with a Leap of Faith in GW2 is the huge trolling potential. Someone could use it to pull people in a damage field. Blizzard fixed the issue by making it only work on the people in your party, but in GW2 most of the grouping is “ad-hoc” so that kind of limitation would be alien to the game.

Beserker - Likes, Dislikes and Questions

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Nice catch about Sundering Leap vs “On my mark!”. Of course you can make the shout heal with the trait but it shouldn’t take a trait to make it worth taking over Sundering Leap. Perhaps “On my mark!” could get a little more oomph to keep it competitive. Perhaps increase the stacks of vuln or add a second condition to it?

Fix "To The Limit" pls

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

It also has the wrong audio line. You’re supposed to shout “To the limit”, but ingame it’s “I will avenge you!” – Wich is strange since that is not even a skill …

If my memory is correct, “I will avenge you!” was a warrior skill that once existed during development (was presented in a dev blog or something like that) and it would make allies rally if the warrior kills a mob after shouting that. It was probably scrapped when the down state system was refined because people can rally themselves when downed just by attacking the same mob that the warrior is.

They’re probably just reusing the SFX of the skill until they get “To the limit!” recorded by the character voice actors for all race/genders.

Backline berserker is gonna be a thing

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

That rifle burst into the Zerg stack though, lol

The Terminator build!
Step 1. Take the new heal.
Step 2. Take a rifle.
Step 3. Take Berserker spec.
Step 4. Find an enemy zerg in WvW.

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

Can we *please* not call it "Daredevil"?

in Thief

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Karl is going for the high risk high reward philosophy. Can’t you see that he’s trying to be a Daredevil himself? Maybe we’ll even get a “Clown” specialisation in the future. High hopes man!

clown spec inc

Even as someone who never touches “rogue” class archetypes, I would immediately pre-purchase Heart of Thorns Ultimate edition, create a thief and make it my main if they get an Evil Clown elite spec announced.

Whats your Opinions on Berserker ES?

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I’ll need more time and probably a BWE to get a more definite opinion on this. I’ve been playing the game at a much more casual frequency in the last year and a half, so may want to read my comments with that in mind, but here are my thoughts.

  • I really like Headbutt. I like that I can have an instant adrenaline bar that doesn’t make me lose my Healing Signet. Also, the damage seems good, the cooldown is very short for an elite, and the stun is very long. That said, mace (normal) burst has a longer windup period and has a shorter stun. Is the half-a-second charge time for Headbutt too short, or is the self-stun enough of a disadvantage to balance it?
  • Dead or Alive sounds really cool since it may allow Berserk to work like a sort of desperation skill. It will increase your damage, and it will “block” fatal damage once and heal you instead. And if you’re going to die anyway, Headbutt into Berserk, and Dead of Alive may buy you a little more time.
  • Looks like we’re not getting the break bar, but a break bar is a double-edged sword and looking at the penalty that Revenants get if it breaks, I’m not that excited about the break bar now. Also we’re getting tons of ways to deal with stuns already so I think I’ll take Eternal Champion over it. Revenants can keep their break bar, I don’t think I’ll need one…
  • I love the AoE taunt on Bloody Roar because on top of working with the AoE damage stuff I can use it to release the pressure on a party member that is getting focused on and warriors can deal with the pressure with Shield Stance and Endure Pain. However, in PvE I’m not sure if I’ll want to AoE taunt every single time I berserk. Two concerns: 1) with the “challenging group content” I assume it’s going to require more complex strategies than stacking in a corner, so is it going to be considered disruptive for the strats if the warrior keeps taunting foes? And 2) are warriors tanky enough to take the auto-attack from a boss if they don’t use a shield?
  • On a single target, is the overall DPS on primal bursts higher than the DPS on normal bursts? That’s counting the fact that primal bursts are on a 5 second cooldown and that the adrenaline bar is shorter. A lot of bosses tend to be one single big creature so I wouldn’t want to kitten my DPS when I go berserk.
  • Does the healing skill scale on healing power? It does not seem very appealing to me, but I play a more support/tanky kind of warrior so it’s obviously not perfect for my character. However, if tons of healing power could change it from 30% to maybe 45% it may compensate for the lower DPS and make the skill worth it for less damage/crit focused characters.

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

Alternate Universe Berserker

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Sorry, but no thanks, I really don’t like the idea of having to juggle with my life bar to do damage. Keep that for the more daredevil classes like necros and thieves. Necros in particular would be a good idea because they have a second life bar if things go horribly wrong.

Berserker is supposed to be reckless, but it’s a warrior first and foremost so it should still be tough and resistant, an aspect of the class that self-damaging mechanics would directly compromise.

PVP pov: Berserker = Condi, too bad..

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Berserker does not appear to be condi only, only torch does, and we needed an extra weapon for condis so there is one.

Wild Blow does dot appear to be condi.
One of the trait line is said to buff berserk and physical skills, another makes you tankier. Only one is said to be condi.

Mace is getting condis which is kind of wierd because it’s our tank/cc main hand, but perhaps one of the condis is taunt or weakness, which would fit. I very rarely pvp so not sure how good that would be.

Can we get early access to Revenant?

in Revenant

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I think that’s a good idea from a balance point of view.

From personal experience, new classes in (MMO)RPGs are either disappointingly underpowered or ridiculously overpowered at first.

After the first beta I thought Revs would be very underpowered and in dire need for across-the-board buffs (kinda like D3’s crusaders) but with the recent buffs and the Herald elite I think they will be seriously overpowered, especially in PvE. (PvE is is not a concern now but might be if the devs are serious about “challenging group PvE content.”) Whatever they are, it’s either U/P or O/P at launch, can’t escape it.

So it’s probably better to send Revenant in the wilds while the game is dead and players have nothing to do while waiting for the expansion, so the game has a more balanced class at launch.

Berserker skewed by imbalance.

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I would have preferred something that improves defenses and brings warriors closer to what guardians and revs have defensively, but this looks fun as hell too and the animations look absolutely crazy.

I think they missed an occasion to give us an offhand burst though. Oh will, next elite spec then.

Break bars and overloads

in Elementalist

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

The break effect is skill-specific. On revenant it’s massive vuln and a stun but it doesn’t have to be that way for every class. The data mining stuff for warrior are getting out and the break bar they get doesn’t seem to have the vuln. (Or course, that’s just data mining.)

Warrior Torch Hype (Discuss!)

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I, for one, am pretty happy with torch. I was afraid to get something lame and out of theme like pistol or dagger and play a spec called “buccaneer”, lol. Staff would have been my preference, but I’ll be more than happy to go home with a torch in my off-hand.

Anyway, I’m expecting supportive skills from torch since it seems to be the theme with the elite specializations. Something that buffs yourself and allies with new boons we didn’t have access to. (ie Protection, please please please let us have Protection!) Or, since we seem to be getting access to taunt, maybe something a bit more offensive like putting a fire field around you and then AoE taunt so your foes are forced to walk in your fire unless they break taunt. You could do that offensively OR supportively (ie: to save a teammate) so I think it would fit the warrior’s theme nicely of being the more “aggressive” heavy armor user while still getting supportive and defensive stuff.

However, as far as off-hands go, it’s going to be hard to separate me from my shield, so I’m more interested into the berserk mechanics and everything surrounding it than the torch itself.

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

Hmm torch?

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Rev shield 4 is great but their shield 5 is meh and as a warrior I like my shield stance more.

As long as Rev shield roots is just going to delay the inevitable on top of the risk of you getting stunned in a zerg. Might not even need a zerg in fact, mace shield warrior says hello to revenant...

That said they will probably fix revenant shield 5 and make it better than ours. They listen a lot to Rev feedback. I don’t think they liked their new class being a catastrophe in the first beta.

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

Berserker ***i said so*** post

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Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I’ve been calling for torch for months already. I’m holding my bet on that one, but it’s also because I really don’t want a lame thief weapon like dagger or pistol…

I think we’re getting either an enrage mechanic or offhand burst skills. My preference would be for offhand bursts but if the enrage is cool (ie not just a lame damage modifier) I could be happy with it as well.

New skill, not sure. Upkeep that burn adrenaline would be cool but F2 will already use adrenaline and I don’t think they will give away the unique mechanics of their precious revenants anyway. (Even though they keep giving the unique stuff of other classes to revs. Coughcoughdefiantstancecoughcoughninetypercentofguardianclasscough.)

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

WARRIOR TEASER: Place your bets!

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I think they will keep warrior last since it’s a popular class and they will want to keep people coming back weekly for GW2 news for as long as possible. And I wouldn’t blame them for that even though it would suck for me since my main of warrior.

I think druid or engineer next. Then thief. Then warrior.

Herald

in Guardian

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Yeah.. not like Guardians are spamming blocks all over the place or anything while Revenants are absolutely loaded on defensive utility and abilities.

Heh, I’m telling jokes.

The issue here is that the rev shield is the guardian shield done right.

The shield is the iconic weapon of guardians, yet the class has by far the worst shield skills in the game. They can’t even block with their shields, which is frankly ridiculous.

And now new class comes out with shield skills that not only look excellent but step right over the terrain of predilection of guardians with protection buffs, self-heals, a damage immune, etc.

Guardians are not the only class which has that kind of issue with revenant, but they seem to be the ones that keep getting stepped over by this new class, first by Ventari and Jalis (why the hell doesn’t guardian get taunt!?) and now by Glint because of her shield skills.

It also tells a lot about the need for a new class when most of its mechanics are those of another class but done right. Couldn’t they just improve the mechanics of other classes and not add a new class?

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

Crystal Hibernation

in Revenant

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I’ll wait for the PoI for final judgement, but my guts tell me that this thing is going to be ridiculously O/P in PvE because I highly doubt the AI will be smart enough to burst defiant bars when it sees them, so revs are essentially getting an endure pain on short cooldown in PvE.

Normally I wouldn’t care because this PvE is already plagued to the core by the bum rush zerker lolmeta, but we’re supposed to get hard group content so it’s time to make the balance at least remotely fair in PvE too.

Warrior vs guardian diversity

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Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Ah. I thought you were supporting throwing away defense for more offense, that’s why I made that post.

To be fair I don’t login often enough these days to comment the meta (I’m just keeping an eye on HoT at that point) however from my past experience I have to say that I’m not surprised at all to read that.

What I hate about this game’s class system is that it’s never clear what you’re supposed to be good at. On one hand they tell you that they made classes that can support all roles, but on the other hand they make a class which is intended to be the king of conditions, another that’s intended to be the king of boons and tank, and so on. Which one is it?

What I love about how Blizzard makes games is that you always have a good idea what to expect. They tell you what’s the class fantasy is and what concrete roles it’s supposed to cover. If you discover that your class sucks at something it’s supposed to be good at, you can expect it to be buffed next patch. (And it usually is unless it would break PvP or something.)

In GW2 you never know. If your class sucks at something then you have no idea if you can expect a fix or if it’s intended, because they never communicate their design intent; they tell you that every class should support all roles while the reality of the first 2 years of the game’s existence says the opposite. And when you like to specialize into certain play styles that leaves you constantly asking yourself if you should give up your main and reroll, or keep playing your main and hope for a buff.

gw2 dropping to #19??? where are the players?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

WP (Youtuber who does mainly GW2 news) said that the viewership of his channel went up as of late, so that would suggest renewed interest for the game, but renewed interest is probably for the expansion so I don’t expect that to translate into daily logins.

I mean, I myself keep an interested eye on the expansion, but I haven’t logged in a month or two.

Warrior vs guardian diversity

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

<snip>I could totally get behind putting warriors in a more offensive role while guards were more defensive, <snip>

I’m not sure I can get behind that.

All classes are supposed to be able to cover all roles, they just do it with different styles and themes.

Ideally, I should be able to specialize my warrior in tankiness or support, and have hopes to be about as good as a Guardian or any other class.

I dont wanna dx12 because...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Honestly I’m much more concerned about Google than Microsoft and Windows 10 (or Apple) when it comes to privacy. I actually read Microsoft’s privacy statements on their online services and it’s not that bad. They tell you what they are collecting, what they do with it and you can sign out of a couple of things you may not like, such as targeted advertisement. It seemed pretty reasonable to me.

On the other hand, Google’s entire business model is to give away free apps in exchange for a free pass at spying people. Use a Google product and Google spies on you to better its ability to sell you things you don’t need. It’s as simple as that. Unfortunately, the Google search engine and YouTube are ubiquitous so you often have to use them, but I’m quite happy with my first impression on Microsoft Edge and as soon as they allow adblockers I will throw Chrome away.

I dont wanna dx12 because...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

FOR DEVS
i’d like to know from a dev if is too much difficult or expensive develop with vulkan (or another free engine) the next engine you will make for gw2/3/4 instead dx11/12/20 or make also a Linux client… i dont wanna know if u will do it (ok i’d like to know but i know u cant reply) i will apreciate just a tecnical reply from someone who really know what we r talking about because is your job
i really hoping to have a reply on this, just tecnical, i dont wanna give you truble with your boss

Game dev here. (Not Anet)

The advantage that DirectX always had on OpenGL on Windows is independent certification. From what I understand (not a driver programmer) Microsoft will write all the DirectX interfaces that the game programmers “talk” to, then they will give the technical specs to NVidia and AMD that tells them how their drivers must interact with DirectX. And then once a driver is ready, it must pass Microsoft’s tests to be certified as DirectX compliant. This ensures that the DirectX API works well regardless of the graphics hardware manufacturer.

Technically, OpenGL is a standard, but in practice, on Windows it is up to Intel, NVidia, AMD, etc. to validate their own implementation against the standards because Microsoft does not care, and they tend to cut corners, especially AMD. Microsoft will give you some API to set pixel formats that are compatible with OpenGL, but then you’re at the mercy of the graphics hardware vendors and you have to trust them to have a competent implementation of OpenGL.

Until that changes, I don’t expect Vulkan to take over DirectX12 on Windows, and yes, if Guild Wars 2 ever upgrades their archaic engine, expect it to work on DirectX12. There is a reason why companies like Blizzard that makes games that work for both PC and Mac bother to create a DirectX-based renderers on Windows and an OpenGL one on Macs.

Speaking of Macs, note that Apple does with OpenGL what Microsoft does with DirectX so Apple platforms tend to have outstanding OpenGL compliance. On Linux it’s been free-for-all, but perhaps Valve can do something about it. Although for now SteamOS seems to be a dead end.

Warrior Speculation

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Given the leaks, my prediction would be this:

F2 skill: Berserk. Gain a massive buff but burns adrenaline while it’s on. When the berserker runs out of adrenaline, he loses Berserk. I know it’s a bit similar to Death Shroud, but Anet said we’d get a new way to spend adrenaline, and I don’t expect the devs to be so generous to give us an off-hand burst for every weapon that fits in our off-hand. (Which would probably include a double-burst for 2-handed weapons as well.) But I would be happy to be wrong.

Weapon: Torch. It makes the most sense sense to me. (I don’t know why some people want dagger or pistol so bad, those are way out of theme for a spec called “berserker”.) I expect Torch to be massively support or defense based. I expect the skills to be themed around rallying, and I expect berserkers to gain access to ether Protection or Taunt. (Or both.)

New skill type: I really have no idea there, maybe mantras? I dunno.

datamine: elite spec - the berserk(new)

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

^

Considering the name “berserker” the F2 could just be a berserk skill that makes you stronger/tougher while slowly draining adrenaline. That would be stepping on necromancers Death Shroud mechanics though…

They did tell us that specializations would bring me mechanics so while I don’t think it would be a bad idea I’m not so certain we’re getting an offhand burst skill.

Warrior getting screwed by Maths!

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

The damage formulas of this game are awfully bad designed. Anyone who has studied even elementary calculus can spot the scaling problems right away. I suppose they don’t make game designers study math, so perhaps they should let their programmers tinker with damage formulas instead.

I’m stubborn enough to play a full tank warrior and while I’m maybe 1.5 or 2x more durable than other warriors, they do maybe 4x more damage than me. The living story bosses were just boring: they were easy but they took 20 minutes.

With the armor formula of Guild Wars 2, how good a +X toughness is depends on how much you have so it’s harder to judge how good a buff is. A buff of a certain amount of toughness can be a 10% damage reduction on what you took if your toughness is low, but only 3% if it’s high. And it works against itself because those are in the defense line, the line that wants you to have high toughness…

For armor, I really liked the inverse exponential formulas of Guild Wars 1. There was one rule to know: for every +20 armor you got, you had a 50% damage reduction. It didn’t matter if you had 60 or 100 armor: if you get an additional 20 armor you take half the damage you used to take, period. (That’s how inverse exponential functions work.) Then you can find other values easily with a calculator, and again those are always the same.

Warrior getting screwed by Maths!

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

It’s like Anet are afraid to give us damage reduction. No access to protection, and as you so clearly showed, the passive DR traits suck and have sucked for a long time. It’s like we’re supposed to work around block if we want to take less damage, BUT they keep spreading unblockable skill all over the place everytime so have fun blocking. (And Shiro’s going to be even more ridiculous with the unblockable stuff, might as well give him passive unblockable; that’s easier to program.)

I hope that the elite specialization gives us proper damage reduction stuff, maybe access to protection as well. But given the name “berserker” it’s probably just going to boost our DPS and do nothing to our defenses and support.

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

Elite Spec. Idea: Swordmaster/Samurai (Long)

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Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Focused Blade seems way too focused on defense. We don’t really have a defensive burst so I would at least add some blocks or evades to the skills of Focused Blade to make it more versatile.

Although personally I’m not very interested in samurais and katanas. I think their armor was hideous and rubbish, and while the katana looks like an excellent cutter, I find it quite short for a two-handed sword and its hand guard looks lackluster as well. And just in general, they have been given more than their share of glory in animé and Japanese RPGs so I’d like Arenanet to get us something more original for elite specs. I’ll welcome a samurai elite if we go to Cantha because it will be more in-themed there, but otherwise I’d rather they didn’t pull out a samurai spec.

Berserker? Well, it makes me wonder if our F2 will be an off-hand burst or just a “Berserk” skill that burns adrenaline. If it’s just “Berserk”, it better be an awesome berserk that does more than increase our damage by X% because that’s not going to cut it with an off-hand like torch. (Which is probably what we’re getting.)

give us warrior elite spec next!

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I would be fine with a torch off-hand for my warrior. It fits with the theme. More than pistols, shortbow or dagger anyway.

I’m kind of worried about the number of skills we’re getting though. If the F2 skill is just a “Berserk” (because, you know, berserker) it’d better do something at least as cool as the Chronomancer’s time warp and not just be a flat % damage increase or something, because 2 weapon skills and 5 utility skills is not a lot. If the F2 is an off-hand burst though I have no problem at all.

Hard content confirmed !

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

(laugh) Apparently, if you think raids help create a healthy PvE community, you’ve never been in a World of Warcraft guild where the need for new gear and bigger egos rule the roost. -100 DKP for you!

-shudder-

Now it’s a definite pass for me. Thanks Argent Dawn.

Funny because “zerk or gtfo” is all this game’s high-end PvE is these days so when it comes to big ego rules I can’t think of anything worse.

I currently play WoW, even despite the trainwreck that is WoD, and I am the main tank of a very successful semi-casual raiding guild so I know what raids do to a PvE community.

Bringing challenging raids that take time to plan out and make up strategies for, while keeping GW’s tradition of “no gear treadmill, all gear’s cosmetic” is the best thing that could happen to revive this game’s grouped PvE.

New to GW2, not having fun

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Going to beat a dead horse but I think the NPE completely ruined the early impressions that people have of this game.

I used to think of this game as the greatest one for leveling, but last week I created my first new character since the NPE patch and it felt even worse than the FF14 or Wildstar leveling experience. The excessive unlocking was silly, pointless and just annoyingly frustrating. Their focus groups must have been composed of people with absolutely no interest in gaming to mangle the early moments of the game this much.

What’s worse is that even if you use an Experience Scroll to skip the early levels, you’ll have to spend 10 minutes acknowledging 20 levels of unlocks, even though you obviously know those things if you have an Experience Scroll.

To the new players, you used to unlock weapon skills by actually using the weapon, giving you a sense of fast early progression and discovery, and you kept trying to get different weapons to unlock more and more weapon skills. Because you wanted to unlock all weapon skills, you naturally wanted to do more hearts and events in the early game, and the game hooked you up quickly. It could get a bit annoying later to unlock skills for weapons you probably aren’t excited about (like the underwater weapons) but it’s still much more exciting and engaging than the NPE experience.

The first story mission being unlocked at level 10 also contributes to deteriorate the early experience in my opinion. If story is such an important piece of this game’s PvE, show it at level 1. Since leveling the first 10 levels is so fast now, make the missions of the first chapter go from level 2 to 10. Other chapters should go something like level 17-20, 27-30, 37-40, etc. otherwise there’s too much wait between missions.

Instead of controlling the rate at which the player unlocks things, give him a chance to discover the feature on his own then pop a tutorial message box when he does for more information. If the player hasn’t discovered something that you think he should have a long time ago, THEN pop a message to say “Hey, GW2 has X feature. Go to Y to try it.”

The game should also have a “battle class room” in the home cities where it let you practice things like dodging, a bit like the Heart of the Mist.

Hard content confirmed !

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Well one of two things will happen now: people will ignore the ‘hard’ content or they’ll complain about it.

Maybe both.

Well if there’s no rewards, people might try it once and then forget it ever existed. If the raids (assuming it’s raids) put some really cool armor and weapon skins that people will want and that can only be obtained by grouping up and doing that content, I think you could get a healthy PvE community.

But yeah, as soon as you put something hard, there’s going to be complains. And there’s probably going to be a lot of cold-showered zerkers in the angry crowd.

Revenant- The Anti Guard

in Guardian

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

There are so many unblockable skills around the game that block is becoming useless. What is the point of block if almost everyone can get through it with unblockable skills. If they want to reduce the effectiveness of block, they should just reduce the sources of blocks and stop throwing infinite unblockable skills.

They want to reduce blocks because of things like Aegis and Shield of Wrath that let you fight while being protected. Those need to be counterplayed because you can use it offensively.

The problem is that you also have skills like Shelter and a bunch of warrior skills like Shield Stance, Riposte or Counterblow that block but don’t let you fight while blocking so those are more reactionary skills that you can’t really use them offensively. Those skills should NOT be counterplayed; they ARE the counterplay. Those blocking skills should not be so easily bypassed.

What I think Arenanet needs to do is to change Aegis to be a stackable effect where 1 stack = 1 block. Then, change Shield of Wrath to add 4 stacks of Aegis. (And do the same for all other skills in the game that let you fight while blocking.) Then change Signet of Might, those Shiro skills and traits, and all other skills that don’t really have any business being unblockable to just ignore Aegis instead.

That change would make it so that blocking skills that can be used offensively can be properly defeated by unblockable skills because they all use Aegis, while other blocking skills that are used reactively can continue blocking.

I realize that wouldn’t be much of a buff to Guardians as it would to Warriors because Guardian blocks are mostly based on Aegis, but it would make Shelter more reliable in a game that keeps throwing unblockable skills everywhere.

Shield Rework Suggestion

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I think both of the shield skills are fine as they are and don’t need to be redesigned. They could be improved though.

For Shield Bash, I’d like a much longer range with maybe an evade or blocks during the animation because you’re running at high speed with your shield raised.

Also, if it’s OK for revenants to get a 2-second infinite block on a 15 second cooldown with off-hand sword on what’s designed to be an offensive weapon, I think it’s reasonable for Shield Block to get its cooldown reduced to a 20 seconds cooldown on a 3-second infinite block, especially since Engineers already have that on their kit. It’s a bit stupid that a gear shield is better than a real shield.

Guardian shields, on the other hand, need a full redesign… Even though I’m a defensive style of player I prefer playing a defense warrior because I love shields and warriors have actual shield skills and can actually block with it. Apparently, blocking with a shield is not obvious to whoever designed Guardian weapon skills.

(edited by Bearhugger.4326)

[Suggestion]Superior Rune of Taunting

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I don’t like 4 either. Auto-taunt could get me killed if it procs on a boss and I’m not expecting it. Let’s do something like this for #4 instead:

  • Whenever an ally below 25% health is attacked, reset the cooldown on all skills with Taunt effects, and Taunt lasts 3x longer. (With some sort of cooldown on the rune and blah blah.)

The only major disadvantage I see of doing it that way is that classes without Taunt won’t have a use for it. (And I’m sure a lot of Guardians are still scratching their heads on why they won’t get Taunt…) For classes with Taunt though, I think this is better, personally.

Guildwars 2 and Windows 10

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Windows 10 and Windows 7 share the same major version of the NT kernel (6.x) so that shouldn’t have any impact on the game whatsoever.

The game needs a content bridge before HoT

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I think I’d rather the Devs not take time out to develop something that would likely only entertain players the same amount of time it would push back the release of Heart of Thorns, leaving us exactly where we started.

But, good luck.

It’s a balance.

If it’s what it take to make the expansion perfect, I can tolerate a content drought of the level that Mists of Pandaria had, simply because this game has no monthly fee so I don’t have “expectation of content” when I have no monthly fee.

At the same time they probably don’t want the game to bleed it’s entire population and have them “forget” about Heart of Thorn.

If we’re going to have more than 6 months before the expansion, I think they would need some content to keep people interested. Even if it pushes the release by a couple of weeks, on half-a-year wait that doesn’t make a huge difference to me.

No tank, No healer, No trinity

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

What Colin is describing is what I thought the game was going to be in 2012 when I was hyped.

At launch, I think the devs underestimated how much some players like going full defense or support, thought that Guardian and water Eles would float their boat, and said in all interviews “We know that you hate LF1M healer/tank so we threw those roles out of the window. Enjoy!” Then they realized some people just love playing those roles so this time around they’re going to be more careful about putting PvE content and elite specializations that challenge these kinds of players too.

Though that still doesn’t fix the problem of Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power not being very effective in PvE because active defenses are better than defense stats. I don’t like the idea of having stats that serve as a crutch for lack of skills. If I choose to gear in Nomad gear (I don’t) my tankiness should bring something desirable to the group since I sacrificed all my DPS for it. I don’t PvP but I know that those stats are useful in PvP; I don’t see why those wouldn’t be useful in PvE.

Shield stance not blocking conditions

in Warrior

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

I’m kind of annoyed at how many skills are unblockable in this game, and they keep adding more. Warriors have no access to invul at all and no access to evade outside of dodge roll and Whirlwind so if we want to go tanky, block is our main mitigation mechanics and it’s getting bypassed everywhere.

I can understand for ground-based attacks like traps, or gas-based stuff like poison gas, but then you have random skills such as Larcenous Strike, Shadow Shot or Phoenix that are unblockable for no apparent reason.

I know that Guardians have stateless “fire-and-forget” block skills such as Aegis or their focus thing that still allow them to fight while being protected by block, and as such their blocks need counterplay because there’s no penalty to using these skills. (Other than the skill’s cooldown I guess.) But a warrior using Counterblow, Ripose, Parry or Shield Stance has to stop whatever s/he’s doing and cannot attack, evade, or do anything else from under these skills unlike someone protected by Aegis, and as such I find it frustrating to block against something I see coming only to have it ignore my block because it was given the “unblockable” flag for absolutely no logical reason.

I wish the game had a distinction between “weak block” and “strong block”. All “state-less” blocks such as Aegis and that Guardian focus skill (ie: those that let you fight, evade, etc. while under block) are considered “weak block” and can be bypassed by random Thief stabbies, the “Unblockable” buff, or whatever. “Strong blocks” on the other hand would only be bypassed by ground or gas-based attacks. (ie: The stuff that makes sense to be unblockable) and otherwise are considered the same as “Evade”.

Revenant Feedbacks [merged]

in Revenant

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

All you guys are claiming the sky is falling already. The game is still in beta. The revenant is NOT finalized. We don’t even know what the rest of the legends do, and not all of the revenant’s utility skills are in the game. We don’t even know what the elite specialization is or how it changes the class!

How can you claim this class sucks when you don’t even know everything about it yet????

Based on what we know of the class’ design philosophy, it’s the core design that seems flawed, and it’s difficult to see a way that this would work.

For example, if they add stun breaks to Shiro, yes it’s going to fix the stun break problem, but now the players are pigeonholed into using that legend in PvP. If they add them to a weapon, then it’s even worse because it’s going to be the only weapon that’s viable in PvP and no weapon swap.

The core class design is questionable on many other aspects too.

Even if they add the weapon swap as some people are suggesting, it’s going to be a faux choice because the weapons are closely tied to a legend. If I use Ventari as my main legend, what’s the point of using anything other than staff? And if I pick staff, what other legend is going to work with it? Certainly not Mallix. I guess Jalis for Rite, but I don’t really have a use for the Taunt if I want to play a healer/support Revenant.

Add to that the (apparent) lack of customizable utility skills and it is poised to be the most rigid, and least customizable class in the game by a long shot.

But, from experience, in most RPGs that add additional classes, the new class is either disappointingly underpowered or ridiculously overpowered, then the devs go in a cycle of overnerfing and overbuffing for the next year until it finds balance. I don’t think this game is going to be different.

Awful Female Human Heavy Armor Art Design

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Personally, I don’t really care about super skimpy armors, I just want more variety in general, not just about skimpy vs not skimpy. For example we could use a little more “knight” styled armor sets. (Like the Paladin set from FF14.)

My warrior is fully covered, using a draconic/heritage mix-and-match, and I think she looks really great like that. (I’ve been using that same look for 2 years.) But I had to do a lot of experiment with armor skins because most heavy armor skins look mostly the same, save for the 3-4 that are skimpy. (But too skimpy for my taste.)

That said I’d like to see her leg skin more often. (The Guild Wars 1 Elite Templar set is how I’d like her to look, ideally. But no skimpier.) It’s kind of silly how 90% of the heavy armor skins are “skirts” but only 2 or 3 of those are bare legged. Especially with most GW1 warrior armors being bare-legs, even on the gents. That’s the kind of thing that would have been easy to do to break the monotony of the so many armor sets while leveling.

But yeah, more variety in general.

I’d like to see them revamp the personality system (aggressive/noble/charm) and then reward with a unique “RP” armor skin that matches the personality: aggressive characters get something imposing, noble characters gets something knightly and scoundrels get something skimpy. So if you absolutely want to be skimpy you’ll have to RP like that.

Thief needs rifle, not melee staff

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Might want to watch WP’s video on elite specs. He has good reasons to believe that it might not necessarily be the thief spec’s background that we’re seeing.

So whats your thoughts on Taunt?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Well yes, you will see people want trinity roles because that’s an engrained attachment with MMO’s. There are also people who like to play a defined, rigid role. That ill be the case forever during the game’s lifetime.

However, I see far more people against the trinity role in GW2 by a country mile. It’s a huge selling point to the game. Whilst the game continues to tweak it and ofc has had problem with the zerker meta (which highlights why a full dps set of stats could have been a flaw from launch), generally it pulls if off pretty well.

That’s a playstyle preference, not an attachment to the ways of old MMOs.

A lot of players would be happy just being able to play tanks and healers and feel useful. Having a tank or a healer can stay optional, as long as it’s not a waste of a party slot to have someone play those roles.

Other MMOs do that just fine. There’s no reason GW2 should stick to that broken design of completely disabling tanking and healing. It makes the PvE meta completely one-sided and boring. It makes players with defensive/supportive playstyles ignore PvE or just quit the game.

I commend Arenanet for having the audacity of trying something new instead of just looking at what Blizzard does, but now it’s time to admit it failed, to let it go, and to think of something better. It hasn’t worked in the last 3 years and it’s not going to work in the future. It’s pretty obvious that the dungeons are a failure when every MMO that came after GW2 copied everything except its DPS-only dungeons.

Taunt, but also the Revenant Ventari and Jalis legends, and the defiant bar are all steps in the right direction for me.

any new spec announcement today?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

it seems like they just upright stopped the reveals. They WERE supposed to continue after the ventari legend. then just didn’t do it anymore.

Perhaps they simply haven’t finalized the other elite specializations yet and aren’t ready to talk about them. I mean, if you’re to believe the datamining, they presumably changed the Elementalist weapon from one-handed sword to warhorn.

After the Dragonhunter reveal fiasco I don’t blame them for taking their time on the next batches.

I just hope that they will publish the elite specializations before the datamininers do. The name of my main’s elite spec was already datamined.

Where's all the content?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Unless they announce something that gets me crazy excited, I doubt I’ll buy HoT at launch and even less pre-purchase it, but I gotta play the devil’s advocate a little about the “lack” of open-world PvE content.

So far we know there are at least 3 maps, and each of those maps has 3 biomes. I don’t know how expansive those biomes are, but what I understand from all that talk about biomes and verticality is that we are getting the equivalent of 3 “maps” stacked one over the other. So we would get 3 maps but with the size of 9 vanilla maps.

It’s still a bit lacking compared to EotN in terms of added maps and I hope there’s going to be at least twice the maps, but it’s in line with other MMOs. Except that those other MMOs raise the level cap so while they can have 7-10 maps only 1 or 2 of those are relevant at end-game. In HoT, on the other hand, every map is end-game content since the level cap doesn’t budge.

Speculation: Don't let ele spec be warhorn!

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Well the sword is an overused weapon. I think there are 5 professions that can use it, and it’s going to be 6 soon because you can bet whatever you want that Revenants are getting them too. (Rytlock has a legendary sword.)

It’s possible they originally intended to go for sword on Elementalist, then figured they’d dump it and spread more use for less ubiquitous weapons such as warhorn.

There could also be the fact that, due to how Elementalists work, a main-hand+off-hand weapon would require them to create 20 new skills, so going to an off-hand only reduces it to only 8. Of course, they could just make the sword off-hand only as well.

No Mordremoth fight?!?!?!

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Bearhugger.4326

Bearhugger.4326

Well I could see the HoT story being about establishing a base in the jungle and readying your troops, then in LW S3 you take the fight to Mordremoth, then LW S4 introduces the next dragon and brings us to the next expansion.