Guild Wars 2

Jerus.4350:

Bernie.8674:

The elimination of the trinity system was an attempt to fix something that wasn’t really broken, in my opinion. Some players hated having to rely on healers, so they got their wish. The flip side of this is that players who actually enjoyed being in supporting roles are now forced to DPS or find another game. Whether or not you’re happy about this probably depends on which type of player you were.

The bolded is absolutely untrue. I’m one of those people, I like playing roles that are more about supporting your team than simply doing what you do yourself.

What people don’t seem to understand is that you can still support without tanking or being an overpowered healer.

Aegis, blinds, reflects, stability, protection, and condi cleanses are absolutely amazing. There’s a reason people call guards " PUG carriers". Mesmers are also huge in that. I was in an Arah path a while back, warrior with less than 1k ap, pretty darn new to the game. Came in without any knowledge of Lupi, running an Axe+Axe build. Should have died. Well… he didn’t. We had 2 guards and a mesmer. Every projectile was blocked. Every swipe was covered by an Aegis and condi cleanse. And he was tanky enough to survive the lift attack. The rest of us had a good laugh after at the fact that we were able to keep this guy up even though he knew nothing about what he was doing.

While I can agree that you were fulfilling a supporting role, my admittedly limited experience in this game suggests that your primary role was to DPS and that the support you provided was on the side. The group you described had three DPSers with group-wide damage mitigation. That is not the same as a group with two DPSers and one mitigator. Also, as you pointed out, if this new guy hadn’t been in your group all that mitigation would have been unnecessary.

I will admit that you don’t need to find another game if you don’t want to do DPS as your primary role. However, you’re going to have a heck of a time finding groups who will accept you as such.

Sylent.3165:

So I’ve read a lot of posts about how this game doesn’t have the trinity in the game which is a great thing. However it seems the players themselves made a trinity. Warrior, guardian, elementalist.

This is not a trinity. It’s DPS with DPS buffs, DPS with mass AoE immunity, and DPS with both of those as well as enemy debuffs. It’s still all DPS. The reason some classes are ignored is that they don’t do as much DPS and/or their buffs are already covered in a better manner by the others.

The elimination of the trinity system was an attempt to fix something that wasn’t really broken, in my opinion. Some players hated having to rely on healers, so they got their wish. The flip side of this is that players who actually enjoyed being in supporting roles are now forced to DPS or find another game. Whether or not you’re happy about this probably depends on which type of player you were.

Personally I was never all that excited about eliminating the trinity system. The trinity system allows players to focus on what they enjoy most. That’s why most games have it.

Fyrebrand.4859:

TL;DR: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

The way I’ve seen it used in gaming circles it pretty much means “most popular at the present time.” I agree that this is not necessarily the same as “best,” but bad gameplay is seldom the most popular. In GW2 the zerker builds are considered meta for dungeon running because they tend to promote faster runs, and that’s what that vast majority of the GW2 population seems to prefer.

KingMilitia.9508:

After watching the Heart Of Thorns Trailer and reading alot of hoping its an expansion (
correct me if im wrong) and coming up with ideas for classes and what not for the next chapter of GW2. I think raising the level cap would be a great idea.

Then go play WoW. They have no qualms about resetting the gearing treadmill every three months and making you relearn your character every two years. One of the big reasons I came back to ArenaNet’s games was the knowledge that I can take a year or two off if I chose to do so without having to start back at square one upon returning.

nGumball.1283:

As many people hate Blizzard’s design decisions. While you are sitting here praising WoW and asking Anet to learn from them, many WoW players ask Blizzard to do the same.

No one has a monopoly on good ideas. While the over-emphasis on raiding drove me away from WoW, I still think it does many things much better than ArenaNet. Their in-game raid frames, while not ideal, would be a huge improvement in GW2 over the non-existent frames that are noticeably missing when joining a squad. They also forgot to put casting bars in their game, even though GW1 was very reliant on them. WoW’s move towards a fixed skill system was also a good move, IMHO. They also removed trainers from the game completely, making skill acquisition completely automatic. They actually include catch-up mechanics so that new and returning players aren’t completely shut out of current content for more than a couple of weeks. I still think GW2 is a better fit for me when all is said and done, but I have to admit that I miss some aspects of WoW.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

I can promise you that if Anet did link any fix to the trait system to the new content and made that content paid while leaving those that don’t pay for it in limbo that I would not only walk away from the game, but i’d walk away from Anet. Such an idea would be so ill conceived and ill received that it would sink them, so I cannot fathom them actually doing that.

Not to mention that it would actually be harder for them to maintain two trait systems at the same time. I seriously doubt they would do that.

Severino.3604:

It really baffles me why apparently in Tyria, the most valuable and sought after materials known to man are wool, cotton and linen. More precious than mithril or platinum, silk or gossamer. The peasants are clothed in gossamer while the richest kings of Tyria go around in WOOL and COTTON. Ooooh, it feels so rough and valuable.

I agree that cloth seems broken. Thick leather sections go for 9 copper apiece. Silk scraps go for 1 silver and 63 copper apiece. That’s 1800% of the price of the leather equivalent!!! Something is off. On top of that it takes three silk scraps to make one silk bolt, whereas it only takes two mithril ores to make one ingot. I’m constantly swimming in mithril and elder logs, and I can purchase stacks of thick leather for tens of silver, but I’m always out of silk. I wish that either the drop rate would get buffed or the recipe for silk bolts would drop down to two scraps apiece.

Caro.2730:

So… To be clear. I know no one ever announced Tengu will become playable in Heart of Thorns (Whatever that is actually), but I think if it’s going to be an expansion, releasing Tengu as a new playable race is quite logical. Everybody is asking for Tengu since launch and now that Mordremoth is rising, Tengu might be forced to leave their walls to face this new threat that appears to be… Quite near them. They would be affected by it somehow and I don’t see their little walls being strong enough to hold off a dragon. Beside that, everybody is already so hyped about this possibility that not releasing Tengu is a shot in the foot. People will eat Anet in the forums and I think they know that. xD

Quaggan begs to differ.

Ayrilana.1396:

Bernie.8674:

Ayrilana.1396:

ExiledDiclonius.1653:

If you want to know why there is not so much hard content in GW2 go play Wildstar. Long story short, this game was dead mounth after release.

Yeah. Because that’s why it failed…

That’s pretty much what Carbine concluded, as stated at http://wildstar-core.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/ :

When Wildstar was launched, it was heavily toted as “hardcore” especially in the sense of raiding. It now appears Carbine is adjusting its view with both previous and this upcoming patch. I wanted to know whether this was a pivot away from hardcore or a resolve to “The Devs are listening.” The official word from Frost was “both”, after seeing the feedback and looking at gameplay analytics they found that there was a real need to focus on solo content.

It’s a blog post. Also I did not see anywhere where that was the sole reason for it failing.

A blog post describing a personal interaction with Stephan Frost, who was a Wildstar design producer at the time. Also, I never said it was the sole reason, but they certainly identified it as a factor.

Ayrilana.1396:

ExiledDiclonius.1653:

If you want to know why there is not so much hard content in GW2 go play Wildstar. Long story short, this game was dead mounth after release.

Yeah. Because that’s why it failed…

That’s pretty much what Carbine concluded, as stated at http://wildstar-core.com/2014/09/03/wildstar-omni-core/ :

When Wildstar was launched, it was heavily toted as “hardcore” especially in the sense of raiding. It now appears Carbine is adjusting its view with both previous and this upcoming patch. I wanted to know whether this was a pivot away from hardcore or a resolve to “The Devs are listening.” The official word from Frost was “both”, after seeing the feedback and looking at gameplay analytics they found that there was a real need to focus on solo content.

Beldin.5498:

The problem is that the hardcores need casuals .. just to show how much better they are.

I’m pretty sure your post was tongue-in-cheek, but this is the blind spot that many hardcores have. Casuals aren’t going to stick around just to admire your exclusive gear. They’re simply going to find something better to do. If some of them (note that I didn’t say all) had their way, there would be no one left to show off to.

Harper.4173:

Also how exactly did you compare the "as rewarding " thing? How do you compare rewards in a game with your earned sum? Do they stack up somehow? You’re making no sense.

Exactly. The concept that you deserve meaningful rewards for “working” hard at a game effectively equates a game to actual productive labor. As you yourself just pointed out, it makes no sense. I’m glad I was able to finally get my point across.

Harper.4173:

And the general tone of “doing things for others is more beneficial – look I did it and made a lot of money” is also purely your experience.
I’m pretty sure there are people out there who’ve been doing everything for themselves and their own sake and made more money.

Name one. I’ll give an example that should be near and dear to our heart: streamers. I was watching Trump’s stream one day and Totalbiscuit happened to drop by. He stated by his estimation playing well only accounts for about 10% of success as a streamer. The rest comes from self-promotion and networking. In other words, establishing connections with others.

Calling others self-entitled for expecting the same in-game rewards despite not working as hard at entertaining themselves is the epitome of irony.

Harper.4173:

Maybe I’m slow and don’t understand your point but if they work less at entertaining themselves why should be more entertained than someone who worked harder at it?

Because ArenaNet is just as happy to spend money from both sets of players. In fact, one could argue that the hardcore player is a bigger drain on ArenaNet’s resources because they are using more server time. They are also more likely to purchase upgrades with in-game gold than with gems. With ArenaNet’s perspective, the “lazy” player is the more desirable one. The casual player’s gem shop purchases enable ArenaNet to create more content that can be enjoyed by hardcore and casual player alike.

Harper.4173:

Look at the Liadri fight – that was a good example. Why not have more of that?

Who said we can’t have more of that? However, that is a bit off-topic because Liadri is a solo fight and the OP was complaining about the difficulty of group content.

Harper.4173:

Difficult doesn’t have to mean a WoW raid – it could have a smaller scale with more focus on individuals.

You and I agree on this, but the OP was specifically asking for more “organized group level difficulty.”

Harper.4173:

First of all the fact that you decided to include how much money you presumably made last year in this topic points out that you’re out of loop entirely.
Nobody cares how much money you made. Nobody cares who you are outside of the game and honestly I don’t care why they should.

The point that you missed here is that the work I performed in the real world was rewarded because it benefitted others. The time you spend playing the game provides you (and only you) with entertainment. That’s why expecting for it to be as rewarding is unrealistic.

Harper.4173:

People who theorycraft do it because they enjoy the game. You’re trying to make it sound as if they could be better off doing something else or putting less effort into the game. Maybe taking it less serious and that’s the whole problem.

That’s great. By all means enjoy the game. That is reward in and of itself. Theorycrafters have already been inherently rewarded. They don’t need exclusive in-game content as a congratulatory gesture for enjoying the game. The enjoyment is all the reward they need. I’m saying that they should put their efforts into perspective. Working hard at entertaining oneself does not yield rewards the way that working hard at entertaining other does. Calling others self-entitled for expecting the same in-game rewards despite not working as hard at entertaining themselves is the epitome of irony.

Harper.4173:

See – time spent doing something you enjoy and care about is never wasted. If these people feel this is what they want to do with their lives then this is absolutely the right thing for them.

I don’t begrudge others their entertainment. It is, however, unrealistic for them to expect a special reward for entertaining themselves more strenuously than everyone else.

Harper.4173:

It’s false because GW2 has a lot of hardcore content with unique rewards tied into that content already. And it hasn’t killed the game. And it hasn’t set the world on fire.

Call me ignorant, but I’m not aware of any “hardcore” content in this game. I have yet to see anything in Guild Wars 2 that is anywhere near the level of difficulty as a WoW raid. Just take a look at any of these raid guides in Icy Veins if you don’t believe me. Pay particular attention to the Mythic versions.

Harper.4173:

We’re not asking for this to be the main thing of GW2 but rather to have more of it in a game that has more of everything – keeping the current proportions if you will.

The title of this thread, “Why can’t we have difficult content?” implies that the current content is not difficult. I don’t think anyone begrudges anyone else more end game content, but I don’t think we need raid-level content in this game either.

Harper.4173:

I would also like to know how following a zerg and pressing 1 for rewards is in any way being penalized. It’s so easy you can do it with no gear on while watching TV.

It’s boring and monotonous. Playing a fun game is a reward in and of itself.

Harper.4173:

@Bernie

If you think a good player playing the game and investing thousands of hours into improving his ability to play it equals “screwing around in a game” you’re dead wrong.

You’re missing the entire point. I’m not saying that they’re not putting in effort; I’m saying that the effort could have been spent productively. Furthermore, I don’t think the gaming industry is obligated to support or even encourage that approach to gaming.

Harper.4173:

Perhaps you haven’t come across these facts since you seem rather uninformed to their existence.

Or maybe I’m all too well-acquainted with it. I won a Guild Wars 1 PvP template contest on IGN a few months after the Guild Wars 1 launch. Know what I had to show for it? A title on a forum account that was eventually purged when its forums were reorganized. Oh, yeah, and my build got nerfed. Know who cares? Absolutely no one. Did I find better uses for my time going forward? Absolutely. I made over half a million dollars last year (about five times what I typically make, but still) by spending less time theorycrafting and more time building products that benefit others.

Harper.4173:

The game doesn’t have to feel like a chore but good plays and good strategy and good theorycrafting should be rewarded.

And they are rewarded. By smoother runs and more frequent drops. That’s all that should be expected. We don’t need an entirely new level of content that provides exclusive drops to players who would rather treat a game like a job than a hobby. There are plenty of games out there that provide that. This isn’t one of them, and many of us are glad for that.

Harper.4173:

There’s no reason the worst of players should be rewarded on par with the best of players.

And they’re not. They spend hours in fractals that other players tear through in tens of minutes. They mindlessly follow zergs for hours while “hardcore” players knock out organized fights in minutes. They are already inherently penalized. ArenaNet is not obligated to alienate them further to stroke egos.

SkylightMoon.1980:

People who complain about an event being too difficult for them and that they need to try too hard or coordinate are the worst type of people though. They arn’t comparable to people who ask for hardcore content. This is part of a bigger problem in MMO’s from what ive seen. Its self-entitled gamers.

By whose standards? Keep in mind that this is a game. You’re not contributing anything to society by excelling at it. Where do you draw the difficulty line? If you want harder games, there are plenty of them out there. ArenaNet has always targetted the more casual player. This isn’t a game design decision; it’s a business decision. Don’t you see the irony in calling other players self-entitled in a post where you’re effectively demanding that ArenaNet cater specifically to you?

SkylightMoon.1980:

Content like the Jungle Wurm was specifically made for hardcore groups. That means that yes you have to coordinate, not just smash your head on the keyboard with a bunch of random people.

Exactly. And how many players do that content regularly? I know of only one guild on my server that does it a couple of times a week. That’s pretty much my only option for ever seeing that content. Is that a good return on investment for ArenaNet?

SkylightMoon.1980:

We need to stop giving in to people who feel like they deserve everything and who don’t want to put any effort in for a reward.

You’re not putting in any effort that merits meaningful rewards; you’re screwing around in a game. If you want reward for effort then get a job where your contributions to society are rewarded meaningfully. Quit calling others self-entitled for not wanting their game to feel like a chore.

Ankushp.7245:

What am I supposed to do with the stacks of potiions such as griffon/princess doll ? Cant even sell them….millions unsold in the tp.

If you have mystic coins you can transform those into snowflakes via the mystic forge.

Zanshin.5379:

Now, maybe the bosses at ArenaNet don’t care about veterans like me. Maybe they prefer new blood and would prefer if we just stayed away from the game. But if they do want us back, they’re gonna have to give us a lot of content. Doesn’t matter how.

Traditionally a player in your position is on the hunt for the latest and greatest skins. That was the paradigm in Guild Wars 1. In fact, there was no hunt for ascended gear back then. Your character ascended through the story line and then you purchased your end game gear for a nominal price. After that you spent a couple of weeks hunting down the superior runes that you wanted. From then on it was all about finding cooler gear models. As you pointed out, there are plenty of games out there that are more than happy to reset the gear treadmill for you every three months (WoW is a prime example). I, for one, am relieved that this isn’t one of those games. Try playing one of those games for a few years like I did, and then come back and tell me how much fun it was to have your character’s gear reset to sub-par status every three months.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Bernie.8674:

I personally don’t understand why so many people want an expansion. ArenaNet has been constantly giving us additional content for free. Why do players want them to start charging us for it? We’re not getting many new skills. They tried that in Guild Wars 1, and it made managing game balance a nightmare for them. They probably won’t raise the level cap. In fact, one of the reasons I came back to this game was ArenaNet’s aversion to tinkering with level caps. So when I imagine a Guild Wars 2 expansion I see us paying $40 for a new race. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about that idea.

Because they see other MMO’s with expansions getting 100x more content then we get and they want that too.

For those saying you don’t want a “traditional” expansion, what would you like to see instead? I have seen multiple people say that, but I am not sure what this new type of expansion would entail, how it would be executed and what it would give us… can you elaborate on what you think it should be?

I don’t think this game lends itself to expansions period. I don’t want an expansion for this game. In fact, I would like to pose your question to you. What are you expecting? A “traditional” expansion is more levels, new areas, new classes, new skills, and new races. The reason we have Guild Wars 2 is that ArenaNet realized that the traditional expansion paradigm didn’t fit in with their vision. Adding a new class and a new set of skills every couple of years brought more imbalances to PvP than they could keep up with. Even when they were putting out expansions they neglected to raise the level cap time and again. Given that those options are off the table, an expansion will consist of new areas and/or new races. Since we’re already getting new areas for free that leaves new races. So are you willing to pay $40 to roll a tengu? Because that’s pretty much what I think you can expect out of an ArenaNet expansion.

Gibson.4036:

But, at one point, they did trumpet the idea that, for example, a player who liked WvW could stay in WvW full time and not feel left behind players in other game modes.

I saw how well that played out over Wintersday when my guild mate got an exotic water breather for every single one of his characters through the PvP track while I got a grand total of 0 over my entire account despite doing all the meta achievements, doing the Wintersday daily every single day, and opening every single present I could get my hands on. The changes in Guild Wars 1 always went in the direction that you’re describing, but I think that vision has been abandoned.

I personally don’t understand why so many people want an expansion. ArenaNet has been constantly giving us additional content for free. Why do players want them to start charging us for it? We’re not getting many new skills. They tried that in Guild Wars 1, and it made managing game balance a nightmare for them. They probably won’t raise the level cap. In fact, one of the reasons I came back to this game was ArenaNet’s aversion to tinkering with level caps. So when I imagine a Guild Wars 2 expansion I see us paying $40 for a new race. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about that idea.

pupi.2465:

Charr, Humans and Asura against Sylvari, Norn and (New Race) Tengu?

Factions would bring a very interesting feeling in the game

Quaggan will shelter the Sylvari.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

blakdoxa.7520:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

At least with Elite Skills your target would use it. (This was a considerable problem with some of them.) After they changed the capture system, it was not too bad but the initial one was even more BS than Traits are now.

How?

You had to have the Signet of Capture ready, and you needed to hit it while targeting the user, while they were using it. For some of the Elites I just can’t see how that worked at all.

I’m not sure when you stopped playing GW1… But all you had to do was have the Signet of Capture, kill the boss and use the signet on their corpse. A menu would pop up that would allow you to select the skill you want to take, which would usually be an elite skill. It’s way easier to capture skills in GW1 than it is to obtain traits in GW2.

At the end of the day, this was still a method that gave the player far more control over getting the skill or not as compared to what we have today, which is the problem with the traits we have at the moment. There is no real agency here. We are at the mercy of events and whether we’ve farmed enough gold, SP, tomes, etc instead of getting to do level appropriate content and/or having a nominal fee to purchase said traits if hunting them isn’t our cup of tea.

At the end of the day it is simply broken, needs fixing and hopefully will be fix before any of this HoT mess comes down on us. (Pun greatly intended.)

Another take-away from this story is that even back in the GW1 days ArenaNet lowered the difficulty of skill capture. The above change was one way in which they did so, but they also acknowledged PvPer demand for skills and allowed skills to be unlocked exclusively through PvP. Eventually players were even able to purchase whole skill packs with cash. That’s what makes the current trait system so puzzling. It feels like the game is in the hands of amnesiacs.

I’d also like to point out that I acquired all available skills (for the time) through the old system without a complaint. Even this supposedly difficult system that they deemed to be in need of nerfing was far easier to contend with than what we have now.

Zypher.7609:

There is a lot of truth in this, it takes a while to prep a patch and make sure systems are ready. Pretty nerve racking ordeal, doesn’t matter how many times you have practiced it. Live servers can be a pain sometimes.

Kudos to ArenaNet for having the best patching system in the industry. Most MMOs shut you out of the game completely for a half a day or longer while patching. ArenaNet has always minimized the inconvenience to us as players on patch days. This is one aspect of the game that they’ve always done well.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

At least with Elite Skills your target would use it. (This was a considerable problem with some of them.) After they changed the capture system, it was not too bad but the initial one was even more BS than Traits are now.

I beg to differ.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You had to have the Signet of Capture ready, and you needed to hit it while targeting the user, while they were using it. For some of the Elites I just can’t see how that worked at all.

I’m a bit confused. I never had a problem with that. You just had to be familiar with the boss and watch his cast bar very carefully. I usually did one trial run to analyze his patterns, and then I would retreat and figure out a plan of attack. This is why I preferred the old system to the one we have now. I have very little control over when and if I’m going to capture a given trait. Many require you to camp events and hope you get enough people to participate to make it happen. Under the old system I could H&H bosses at will. I was in control over whether or not I would get a given skill. The current system puts that control everywhere but in my hands for many traits.

Worblehat.8697:

All I did was ask a very simple question about why everyone else felt the SP part of the unlock costs was the worst part, while I consider the gold cost to be worse. Astral Projections and naiasonod understood that perfectly well and gave clear and helpful answers. I’m upset at the prospect of losing an arm, the rest of you are more upset at the prospect of losing a leg, either way it’s ridiculous.

I used to be right there with you, but you answered your own question. Crafting ascended gear requires materials that are purchased with skill points. Once you start down that path, all those skill points that you’ve accrued are going to go fast. I’m in your boat, however. The gold costs in and of themselves are prohibitive to me. I’ve gotten most of my traits through event/boss/WvW acquisition. I’m still missing about 18 of them, however.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ayrilana.1396:

It seems they were trying to base the trait system off a similar one in Guild Wars.

Trying is the operative word. The GW system was capturing elite skills from the corpses of bosses who had and used the skill.

• Being completely instanced, most of the GW bosses were on demand. GW2 trait capture is often not on demand.
• Elite skills were not level-gated the way traits are. Acquiring them was generally a max level pursuit, not a leveling pursuit.
• All elite skills could be capped with just Heroes or Henchmen. Some GW2 traits require a group.
• Skill capping is a system that was implemented alongside the elite skills in the first place. Trait capping is a revision of an earlier system, utilizing existing content.
• One can only enter a GW instance with one Elite Skill. In Gw2, one can have up to 7 traits equipped. Thus, in order to fully flesh out a build, one has to cap 7 v. capping 1.

The only real similarity is that players do stuff to get something pertinent to their build. Beyond that, the two systems are very dissimilar.

Pretty much this. I’d also like to add, however, that they eventually realized what a downer this system was for PvPers, and they added a way to acquire skills strictly through PvP. They even went so far as to allow players to purchase skill unlock packs for cash. This is what has me so thoroughly confused. In the past I had the feeling that ArenaNet was always learning from mistakes and moving forward with better designs. This trait system feels like the complete antithesis of their previous design choices.

It’s not just traits, either. This morning I watched my wife run halfway across the Straits of Devastation on her first level 80 character, unlocking three different waypoints along the way, only to die and have to go back to the beginning of the zone because all the other waypoints were contested. Why even have a waypoint if you can’t ever use it? When they created GW1 ArenaNet understood that walking back to the same place players have already struggled to reach makes for a boring time. At least, that’s what they claimed in their media releases. Now they’re rolling back the clock on that and moving back to punishing players for exploring. I hardly recognize the company anymore.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Here’s why I also believe that an expansion is coming; http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/download/192028.pdf?attachmentId=192028
If you review this data they not only call for the expansion but say it will come in the 3rd quarter of 2015 which is key piece of information in all of this, why?

They also go on to base their revenue projections on the fact that the Guild Wars expansions sold almost as much as the original game, completely neglecting the fact that the two have completely different business models. The expansions were the primary ongoing source of revenue for Guild Wars. Microtransactions are the primary ongoing source of revenue for Guild Wars 2. That document is a prospectus put out by a brokerage firm. It is aimed at investors who have very little knowledge or interest in Guild Wars 2. Its goal is to retain investors, not to accurately inform. They didn’t “call for” an expansion, as you put it. They “expected” one. Given the flawed reasoning that accompanied their other expectations surrounding the expansion, I have very little confidence that they have any actual inside knowledge. Their thinking is just as wishful as yours and mine.

tevoro.1587:

Feature patch March 2015 can’t wait to see what the devs cooked up this time.

Some additional mail carriers, a new gem-shop-exclusive mini, and the removal of a popular feature (Teq maybe?), if the past is any clue. While I appreciate Gaile taking the time to soothe our ruffled feathers, I still have to wonder why we got a revamp of dailies that no one asked for and carrier pigeons when this thread has been prominently featured on the front page of the forums since before I even started playing.

Arietta The Broken.1875:

As far as the reporting thing goes. I’ve reported plenty of people for being hostile and using offensive language. I have added them to my block list and still see them log in daily so I’m not entirely sure reporting anyone does a great deal unless multiple people are reporting them:/

But have they continued their hostility and/or offensive language? I imagine you wouldn’t know since they were blocked. I’m just saying that in every other MMO I’ve played, this kind of behavior runs rampant (multiple instances of per day). That, to me, is an indication that consequences are lax and/or non-existent. I see this kind of thing in Guild Wars 2 maybe once a month (if that). This tells me that someone somewhere is cracking down on this behavior.

Djinn.9245:

Carighan.6758:

The problem, DeceiverX, is that your example hinges on the idea that someone cannot beat a piece of content. I’m sorry, but my dad recently picked up this game and has never dodged once. He clicks his skills with his mouse, slowly (he had multiple strokes last year).
He doesn’t block.
He doesn’t dodge.
He doesn’t do anything reactive.

And he has only ever run into issues in a dungeon, and only because he was kicked, party never even remotely wiped.

There is no “stuck on X” in GW2’s PvE. That’s by design, it is extremely easy so as to never exclude someone.

I’m sure not a lot of people want to admit it, but it is certainly possible to get stuck on content and there is definitely content that is not “extremely easy” for some people at least.

I’m not sure why you assume that your experiences are the same for everyone else.

Even if the experience applies to everyone, the example has very little to do with this thread. Just because this game allows people to be carried through content (to be clear, that’s a good thing, IMHO) doesn’t mean that traits should be effectively withheld from post-April 2014 players. As Chris Rock put it, “you can drive a car with your feet if you want to, that don’t make it a good ****ing idea!”

Zaklex.6308:

Existing players make it out harder than it is to obtain the Traits now, it’s not perfect, but it doesn’t kill the entire experience.

I’ve never played a character under the old trait system, but I did play Guilid Wars 1 extensively. I’m telling you there’s a problem when I get 100% map completion (and that requires 100% in the PvE areas as well as WvW) and still have 19 locked traits at the end of all that. This game is not like WoW, where you hit level 80 and suddenly start naturally accumulating more money than you know what to do with. After 7 months of play I finally maxed crafting in two professions, leaving me with about 11 gold banked. I imagine that it will eventually go towards the remainder of my ascended set, since I’ve only crafted two pieces so far.

As for killing the leveling experience itself, you’re right that it doesn’t do so. However, it does make traits completely irrelevant to leveling, and that’s a shame. From what I understand, gameplay didn’t change drastically between levelling and end game in the past. Now you pretty much play one way while levelling and then switch to a traited playstyle afterwards. I think that this is the complaint players are making when they say the overall experience has been killed.

Gregori.5807:

Anet says that all races take up the same amount of space in game but Asuras feel more agile and it is definitely easier to see around them.

Taking up the same amount of space is a problem. A norn can’t tell whether or not it’s safe to jump to a given beam because he’s effectively the size of an asura. However, it’s not the biggest problem. The winner in that regard is the camera. Since ArenaNet’s solution to clipping issues is to automatically pan the camera until there are none, norns get terrible camera angles in most jumping puzzles. As you said, Asurans are definitely the best race to have when doing JPs.

Halor.8163:

I’m sorry the questions keep on comming, but where do I go after level 15?

In the upper right hand corner of your screeen you should see an indicator that points at the next step in your storyline, point of interest, vista, heart, skill point, scout, or the new area. In most cases it points at the nearest thing available, but it should be noted that it prioritizes storyline above all else. When in doubt just follow that indicator.

If you don’t like the indicator you can just open your world map (the ‘M’ key) and look for a telescope. The telescope denotes a scout. Go to that telescope’s location and talk to the scout. He will open your world map and expose nearby hearts.

Fermi.2409:

There’s plenty of sub-80 exotic stuff…

I second this statement. I got an account bound exotic level 18 hood from somewhere (I think it was an achievement chest, but I’m not positive). I also have exotic level 71 boots.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I see two concerns: The player who cleared the area and the offensive language. The first isn’t as big a deal as it might appear, or as it might be in other games. This is because the Level 80 is “down-leveled” to a level appropriate for the area. So s/he isn’t operating at true Level 80 powerfulness.

Well, yes and no. Yes, we’re down scaled, but recent changes have increased the gap between down-scaled player in ascended and new player in level-appropriate gear. My wife recently started playing, and when I joined her she was astonished that I was practially one-shotting almost everything in sight with my full berserker exotics, my ascended bow, and my ascended chest piece. That having been said, the new daily system is exacerbating matters further because sometimes even level 80 players wind up with dailies in level 15 areas. This leads to a situation in which a mass of high level players waypoints from event to event in a race to complete their four daily events as quickly as possible. To a new player this might seem like a group of players trolling, but it is, in fact, just some completionists looking to get their 10 achievement points for the day as quickly as possible.

Gaile Gray.6029:

The second issue is language, and it sounds like here, your reports were exactly right. We have team members watching reports 24/7/365. I’ve seen people disappear from the game in a matter of minutes due to a report, because the agents read the report, read the chat strings (that are sent to them with the report automatically) and they can take action very quickly. That’s not to promise that every report will be answered in minutes, and it’s not a statement that if a report is not acted upon in minutes it won’t be acted upon at all. But overall, things can move very quickly if you make an in-game report.

I’d like to take a moment to say that all my experiences with MMOs indicate that ArenaNet is head and shoulders better than everyone else in this regard. I see far less abuse in this game than any an other. I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but as a non-ArenaNet employee I’d like to assure you that this type of thing is rare in Guild Wars 2. Definitely report the abuse. Your report won’t be ignored.

Typhus.3502:

The trait thing sucks, but as a vet you probably have some idea of what you’re going to use the character for. The few characters I’ve leveled since the NPE just use meta builds, so I don’t have to unlock every trait.

If this is the style of play that ArenaNet wants to encourage they may as well go the way of WoW and give you a fixed set of traits depending on a chosen role. Why offer 50 worthless traits at prohibitive prices knowing that only six of them will ever be used? Your proposed style of play discourages experimentation. Granted, the low condition cap and defiance system already do a pretty good job of doing that as well, but this doesn’t help either.

Farming Flats.5370:

Ranger longbow , because of skill #4

80% of the ranger push the button #4 because it’s available on the skill bar.

I don’t even bother to push it. I just ctrl-left-click it and forget about it.

Rethmar Stokestrike.1927:

Pandaren confirmed as the next playable race…
er…
I mean Skritt.

Would be the worst development move ever.

Quaggan is waiting to occupy a character slot.

I’ve been struggling quite a bit with this topic too, but I think I finally have it figured out. The problem with carrion stats is that the primary boost is to conditions, and the condition cap is low enough that a group will hit it just about every time. For that reason most of the points that are going into conditions will be wasted when participating in group content. Groups value damage output very higly, so the optimal combination for that is Berserker. The major stat is in power, which boosts base damage. The minor ones are precision and ferocity, boosting crit chance as well as crit damage, respectively. Valkyrie is amost as good as this because it primarily boosts power and ferocity, but you’re trading off precision (crit chance) for vitality (more health).

The part I really struggled with, however, was what to do about my infusion slots. The laurel vendor has some offensive and defensive infusions, but I’ve found out that these are pretty much worthless. Instead you should go to the fractal hub and purchase a Versatile Simple Infusion from BUY-4373 so that you can put agony resistance on your gear without having to infuse your gear further. Later on when you have more fractal relics than you know what to do with you can infuse that gear to add actual agony slots.

Galen Grey.4709:

Most of them are like 15 – 30 minute jobs (including waiting for event spawn)
I can understand the story mission ones and zone completion can bee a big hassle, I am not too fond of them myself to be 100% honest but for the rest its just a 30 minute expedition. This is like the signet of capture in Gw2 only with more variety.

This is very different from the signet of capture. Many events and bosses spawn infrequently and require large groups to defeat. I could spawn every single boss in GW at will and solo it. I didn’t even have to kill it; I just had to interrupt it mid-cast. After getting 100% map completion in this game I still had 19 traits left to unlock. After 100% map completion in GW1 I had every single skill there. Not just that, but GW1 let you unlock skills through capture OR through PvP. Here there is no choice.

Aenesthesia.1697:

Beldin.5498:

But .. but .. there is all this endgame that we don’t have .. you know you can raid, and
then you can raid even more .. and after that .. what a about some raiding ?
Oh .. and don’t forget .. there is raiding !!

Yeah, like raiding is all the endgame in wow.

I find it pathetic when people try to ‘sell’ a game based on the content it doesnt offer.

I don’t know how things stand in WoW now, but when I quit it for good last year, that was what the end-game had become: SOO Looking For Raid, SOO Flex Raiding, SOO Normal Raiding, and SOO Heroic Raiding. No new heroic dungeons for the entirety of the expansion. If things continue as there were, don’t expect anything but raids for the next two years. The fact that there is no raiding period in the Guild Wars franchise was a huge motivator for coming back to the Guild Wars fold.

Edit: Actually, I think I do know how things stand with WoW now: 91 pages of players complaining that:

Other than the raids I do 3 times per week, 3 hours each, there is nothing for me to do that would keep me occupied for more than 1 hour.

Faux.1937:

A dungeon taking 5 minute compare to 6 minute your completely right. I do Speed clears but I dont do the crazy portal tactics and I still want to goof around with my friends. But I dont want to spend 15-20min in one that I know I can do in 7min.

This unreasonable expectation is the reason there is even a meta for this game. Faux’s attitude isn’t even extreme by this game’s standards, but as a long-time WoW player I’m amazed that it’s so prevalent. In WoW a 5 minute queue just to get into an instance was amazing. After that, with a decent group you could expect a quick 20 minute run. 45 minutes to an hour wasn’t entirely unexpected. When Cataclysm first dropped, completing a dungeon at all without swapping out members every fight was considered an accomplishment. Under the LFR system, a 45 minute run is considered pretty efficient. I remember spending 4 hours at a time in LFR trying to grind out gear when new raids dropped.

The fact that players still find a situation in which non-optimal pugs can complete runs in about 20 minutes to be unacceptable is astounding. Back in the day, I remember a MMO fan who facetiously created a browser-based game in which your character was granted gear for simply repeatedly clicking a single button as fast as possible. I’m beginning to think that even this wouldn’t satisfy some players.

This is honestly why I think that vertical gear progression is so bad for the game. In GW1 we ascended through the storyline and were instantly awarded our ultimate end-game gear. After that we could enjoy new skins and/or achievements to our hearts’ content. I spent many an hour in the Underworld and/or the deeps just happy to participate in content that required serious coordination and/or know-how simply to complete. I don’t remember anyone ever complaining that class X simply wasn’t putting out enough damage to take down boss Y in 30 seconds. We were just glad to get the horsemen down without a full wipe. On the other hand, those who were simply in it for the phat lootz had the option to spec smite monk and repeatedly solo the first portion of underworld for their ludicrous greens. They could live in their elite world of loot while the rest of us enjoyed our slow-paced albeit challenging content without being ostracized for failing to kill all bosses in under a minute. The game felt like an adventure rather than like a box to tick off the to-do list before the night’s end.

I’m surprised that no one has pointed out the stay-ahead nature of this whole system. At some point in the future the daily and monthly pools are going to be merged, but for now anyone hitting the 10K daily cap is out of luck with repect to hitting the monthly cap. Even so, consider the new players starting out now. AP grinders of old were hitting the cap in May of 2014, less than two years after this game’s release. When you do the math, at 10 AP per day, hitting the cap requires 1500 days, or 4 years and 10 days. That’s twice the time that it took original players to cap. Heck, under this new system a diligent AP farmer would still have another year and a half left before capping! From a new player perspective this is consistent with all the other get-ahead-stay-ahead mechanics that are currently in the game: account-bound MF/GF, tripling the cost of commander tags, the new trait system, etc., etc.

Keysha.2815:

A very simple solution has been suggested… repeatedly. An NPC in one or all of the major cities that sells skill points for karma, or lets us exchange skill points on a character to scrolls usable by all our characters. Or make skill points account bound, not soulbound. Any of these would work, freeing us to buy when we want, as the skill points are the sticking point more than anything else.

I have skill points coming out my ears; gold is my problem. Then again, maybe I’m comparatively broke because I didn’t start playing until after this new trait system went in. Most of my guild mates have 100+ gold banked with nothing to spend it on. The most I ever had was 100, and that was when I made a concerted effort to do nothing but farm so that I could grandfather into the old commander tag system. Since then my gold has stayed below 50. I have yet to max a crafting profession that goes over 400, and whatever gold isn’t going into traits is going into that. From my perspective the trait system is a gold sink that really has no effect on the portion of the playerbase that is most in need of a gold sink. If I could sell you my skill points I would gladly do so.

I recently stumbled on this (indirectly) from a link in a different thread. I suggest that you view these videos to help you decide what you want to run:

Nike!’s What To Do In Speed Runs Series

Ayrilana.1396:

Randomize achievements across players so not everyone has the same ones.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it alleviates the crowding in zones, but on the other it discourages organized guild groups from knocking out their dailies together.

Rauderi.8706:

You could copy-paste the entire thread to an email and send it to them?
Lemme stop giving bad ideas. =P

I want to add something new. I want to add something constructive. But, it’s all be said. If we need a short-short list, I’ll put it here, again:

1. Don’t make us wait. Make trait challenges available like skill point challenges. Don’t hide them behind 100% maps or tee-hee-can-you-find-jumping-“puzzle” tasks.
2. Give us choice and agency. Specific unlocks behind specific, often level-gated tasks damages the intent of the system.
3. Don’t back-weight the progression. The nonsense of starting at 30 and waiting until 80 for grandmaster traits doesn’t help.

Honestly, just the first two would be kittening grand.

4. Make trait unlocks account-wide. If I’ve unlocked my entire domination line on my mesmer then my baby hunter should have his entire marksmanship line unlocked too. Granted, he won’t be able to spec into most of it until he’s acquired the trait points, but at least by level 80 he should have access to everything.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

Refining Ascended mats doesn’t count. You have to actually craft something.(unless there has been a very recent change)

I crafted a Spool of Silk Weaving Thread, and that counted. I imagine that a Spool of Thick Elonian Cord (which is much cheaper to craft) would have worked too.

Rentapest.6503:

For first time players, this new trait system might work because it forces them to complete zones and explore. Basically unlocking the game and map in order to progress.

It could work for new players, if the tasks required to unlock the traits were level appropriate and agnostic with respect to story path. As it is, it doesn’t force completion so much as yank the player away from their level progression. Since traits have far less effect at the lower levels than level, they go largely ignored.

Sturmruger.3920:

However, money was only really an issue early in the game for me. Once I got magic find up to 300% things really improved. I get a ton of rares, quite a few exotics and snag my share of ascended drops (which rarely have stats I can use). I can make 200g a week no matter what I do.

I think you’re proving the point here. New players have 0% MF. I’ve been playing for 8 months and I don’t think I’ve even hit 150% MF yet. How is a new player who makes 10 gold per week (most of which goes into crafting) going to outbid an older player who makes 200 gold per week?