While I think the anti-botting code tries to encourage you to do more things, if they combo’ed it with cheaper waypoint costs within the local map (where, at minimum, an event completion = cost of traveling to a waypoint in the local map) and being able to see all active events within the local map (rather than what you’re generally close to), that might give folks the drive to move about.
I’ve seen this problem as well and my only solution has been to try and fully beat dungeons… however, it’s hard to motivate others to want to do the full dungeon. Mainly because the rewards relative to doing other things, that happen to be less risky yet more lucrative, just isn’t there.
Yet when I say this and try to offer an idea to create the incentive for folks to do it (generally gear-based suggestions), a lot of people come to the defense of the game saying that gear progression, and even the “progression mantra” itself, is an ancient format, it breaks WvW, etc, etc… The only decent suggestion I’ve heard is advancing the guild and even world so that you essentially build a unique history of the world, post-Zhaitan, per server. While I think that’s cool in theory, it just kinda begs the question of “to what end?” You can use the same question for gear progression, but it often boils down to making your toon powerful and being the most prepared as possible for new content.
So I mostly have the exotic berserker set at this point (sort of a combo of crafted and dungeon pieces)… If I gem’ed for toughness in my armor, do you think that would be good enough or should I consider swapping some berserker gear with some other gear that has toughness?
So, in essence, the “endgame” is the evolution of the world, post-Zhaitan, and dictated by it’s inhabitants?
So you’re idea is that the events are player driven to enrich the world’s history and, in a way, have you’re own unique history per server…. maybe even have certain consequences to those actions?
That could be interesting.
I think I get the gist of what you’re getting at, but I don’t think I really understand. So your actions enrich the world/guild/other-things-besides-your-toon? If that’s what you’re getting at, I guess I don’t see the reward in that because enriching theses things lead to what?
If it’s the guild/world, you’re probably up’ing bonuses or unlocking something which is almost the same thing as gearing, but you’re just getting a passive bump rather than some icon with numbers being put in a slot.
Then maybe the solution is first identifying the problem properly…
1. What is the endgame in GW2?
2. How is it flawed?
If the “progression” mantra is a failed one, then what else keeps me playing? And don’t say fun, because I’ll counter with how do you make endgame fun and not fall into the “progression” mantra.
If you wanted skilled PvP, isn’t that what the structured PvP is for?
I’m assuming all this PvP talk and how PvE gear would make it unbalanced is actually talking about WvW and in that case… they have plenty of mechanics in the game to scale your toon to a zone, so I can’t see how it’s impossible to scale better PvE gear down to the exotic level equivalent when you’re in the WvW zone…. Since people seems to be staunch on this position that “WE MUST PRESERVE THE EQUALITY OF EVERYONE ON THE WvW ZONES” even though a true level 80, ignoring actual skill of the players, is almost always better than any other non-80 toon of equivalent class in WvW due to traits, gear, and stats.
There are clearly ways to keep separation of PvP and PvE so I still don’t see why we can’t have gear with more than just cosmetic incentives since the current system isn’t offering the right rewards for doing a full path or whole dungeon.
Why does striving to be the most powerful = snooze or not fun? Yet spending god knows how many hours for a skin is more fun? Why is it that wanting to have powerful characters so nish-nish these days?
Powerful doesn’t necessarily mean facerolling or making things more boring… Powerful gives you more leeway in what you can pull off. When I say powerful, I’m not talking Diablo 2 lvl 99 fully decked out toon that’s unkillable… I’m saying more like Mario with the flower power for fireballs; I’m powerful, but not game-breakingly powerful.
I know the game is not the holy trinity persay, but some classses clearly specialize in areas over others. I like GW2 because we work together through synergy of DPS and support skills rather than some holy trinity of specializing in one specific roll. Just because there’s no actual trinity doesn’t mean there are pros and cons to every class…. being powerful though amplifies your strengths and lessens your weaknesses. It lets you get away with more which allows you to be more aggressive… What’s wrong with that?
@ Avatar’s comments
I like where you’re going with that train of thought and can see how that runs congruent with the general philosophies Anet has adopted for this game… With all the things you can unlock for the guild, it would interesting if running these things gave your guild more influence or helped unlocked guild stuff faster.
Though I still think the endgame gear could use a second look. Why do my desires for my character have to shift? From 1-80, I’m trying to get as powerful as possible. At 80, why does my wanting be powerful have to rather be shifted to “I wonder if these pants make my character look fat?”
Colin Johanson
Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.
Ok… then maybe that statement should be re-examined? I appreciate trying to break from the mold, but there are some aspects of the “traditional MMO” that aren’t necessarily wrong. You can have prestigious gear that’s also more powerful… it doesn’t have to be leaps and bounds better, but it adds something more than just looks. I want to be an awesome hero of Tyria, not some fashionista… I think there are some Barbie games for that.
Buff legendary items and dungeon gear. If you want us to go after it and make it take awhile to get it, don’t make it as good (or worse than) items we can get through crafting at a fraction of the cost/time it takes to acquire those materials.
Legendary items:
Maybe not so much fixed stats, but almost like a transmute template that takes an item you currently own, gives it a slight buff on the stats, changes the skin, and gives it some unique effect. So if I go for the predator rifle (and don’t want vitality or less power and precision than my pearl handled exotic rifle), let it buff the rifle stats slightly, give it the predator skin, and add a cool effect like when you’re out of combat, you have stealth (probably OP, but just to illustrate the point that it’s cool and I’d be motivated to go make it)
Dungeon gear:
As much as it’s a nice alternative to farming for crafting mats, it takes significantly longer to acquire over farming; especially now given the fixes currently aimed at dungeons and “anti-farming” (i put that in quotations because you can still farm fairly effectively even though this feature exists). A slight buff might make them more worthwhile to get over farming or at least motivate players to balance between the two or even farm first, acquire dungeon loot second.
There should be another tier, let’s say legendary tier, of items might also incentivize full dungeon clears. A full clear would give a special token, say a “full clear” token, on top of the regular token amount. These legendary tier items from dungeons would be a step up from the exotic dungeon set (yet have similar stat combinations) and require the same number of regular tokens as the exotics, but then also require a certain number of “full clear” tokens. Maybe even make the “full clear” token not dungeon-specific? Once a full legendary set of armor from a certain dungeon is worn at the same time, it adds a unique effect. For example, the CoF armor adds a burning aura effect to enemies in a certain radius (or maybe it’s a 20% proc on hit)… again doesn’t have to be exactly this, just illustrating the point.
This idea gets tricky for the legendary dungeon tier weapons just because it competes with the legendary crafting which takes a considerable amount of effort. Not sure what the best approach is, but it should try to balance the effort/reward between going for the crafted version or going for the dungeon-acquire version.
(edited by Bruno Sardine.2907)
I don’t think the nerfs are necessarily bad, but I think they needed to come with some buff… particularly on the legendary items and dungeon equipment. If it’s going to be harder and take longer to acquire these things, they should be better than the exotic pieces you can craft. Not saying exotic pieces aren’t affected by this nerf as they now take a little longer to make as well, but relative to crafting a legendary or getting a dungeon set piece?…
I can say personally that it takes less time to craft the exotics, I made 3 pieces yesterday just off the stuff I got within an hour or so of running about in Malchor’s Leap. Yes, I did events and used the trading post to help, but I didn’t have to spend anything more than what I earned from that time I was in the zone.
120g for prestige of purchasing essentially a lemon set?….
Anet might have thought these prices would be reasonable based on some assumption made on what the costs of a lvl 400 crafted set might go for, but they were wrong.
If you want to justify their costs, make them better than crafted stuff. If not, lower their prices significantly. Cause really… you’re just dumping gold for looks. I suppose that’s fine for some, but that’s just lackluster imo.
The toughness or vitality debates varies a lot based on class and circumstance. What I’ve seemed to distill from trying to find a good source is the following rules of thumb:
+ Total armor value should be at least 1/10th of your total health value. Just an FYI, vitality = +10 health/point whereas toughness = +1 armor/point.
+ If you generally take more direct hits, consider toughness over vitality but don’t necessarily exclude vitality altogether.
+ If you take more condition damage and get directly hit infrequently, consider vitality over toughness.
I think it really depends if armor is linear or does it have Diminishing returns. If so, we need to find out where the DR starts and that will help uskitten a good armor level to health.
Yeah I should’ve mentioned that… armor does have diminishing returns but there’s no real consensus (and Anet has not given us) on the damage reduction formula. My 1:10 ratio rule of thumb was based off of what I gathered from discussions in terms of having a decent defensive mix of health and armor to overcome any situation. The further investment in toughness or vitality makes you more resilient to a certain type of damage dealing; more toughness = taking more consistent hits, more vitality = absorbing more condition damage and big hits. It seems that if you’re generally close to this ratio to start, investing in toughness isn’t going to be too detrimental, but you shouldn’t invest exclusively in it.
@ Naughty, that server isn’t Yak’s Bend is it?
We have the Australian wave, it’s extremely effective; especially since they all log on at around the time 99% of the US player-base is asleep or going to sleep. So by the time you come back on, the damage has already been done extensively.
In terms of exploring and so on… I have 100% map completion. What’s the point of doing the dungeons if they yield nothing better than the stuff I can craft for my toon? As it stands, I can make more money and acquire those crafting materials faster than tokens. I do the dungeons for the…. skins? Prestige? I guess I could use an ego-inflation, but I’d much perfer some sweet item that can only be acquired by beating the entire dungeon a certain number of times or something to that effect.
It may not seem expensive, but relative to the crafted stuff…. I can get totally tricked out, head-to-toe with rings and accessories, all with better stats for about 1/3rd the cost (or less) of a cultural set of armor.
Same thing is true with the legendary… the cost and/or time spent for some of those are insane yet their stats are no better (in some cases worse) than their exotic equivalents.
The toughness or vitality debates varies a lot based on class and circumstance. What I’ve seemed to distill from trying to find a good source is the following rules of thumb:
+ Total armor value should be at least 1/10th of your total health value. Just an FYI, vitality = +10 health/point whereas toughness = +1 armor/point.
+ If you generally take more direct hits, consider toughness over vitality but don’t necessarily exclude vitality altogether.
+ If you take more condition damage and get directly hit infrequently, consider vitality over toughness.
I mainly went with berserker-type stuff, but at the same time, my engineer is stated heavily in the alchemy trait so I have lots of +vitality…. I was considering toughness and even +healing power, but most people who have crunched numbers on this with the good ole Excel spreadsheet and such have found that investing in the non-offensive stats have little in return value relative to vitality and the offensive stats.
I don’t necessarily think vit needs to be slapped onto more gear, but at the same time Anet should make the defensive stats somewhat competitive with the offensive stats. Not saying that someone should never be a glass cannon in a dungeon, but if I want a more rounded character, I’m at least giving up an equal, or close to equal, amount of offense for defense.
I think the speed runs were on par with the alternative of farming crafting mats… You can argue that you’re going for skins, not stats, which maybe true for most; my only question is how long does that keep a player interested? Yeah, it’s sweet to look like a mean mama-jama, but it’s even better to have the looks and back it up with awesome stats…. Maybe that’s the “traditional RPG” philosophy, but there’s something to be said about looking and being the part.
My main disappointment is the alchemy/explosives traits not complementing the elixir gun much.
Why is the ground-based healing skill on the elixir gun not considered either an elixir or a heal even though it heals directly, also heals overtime and says in the tooltip that your shooting an elixir? I should get that skill to deal damage from explosives (tossed, aka ground-based targeted, elixirs deal dmg to enemies), apply 1 stack of might from alchemy (1 might for self/allies affected by elixirs) and another 3 stacks of might from explosives (3 might stacks when you use healing skill).
The same is true for the elixir gun shot that cripples the target while giving nearby allies swiftness…. the gun and tooltip say it’s shooting an elixir, so allies should get the +1 might on top of the swiftness if they’re nearby.
I can live with it since I still pump out good dps and support, but I hate when descriptions are misleading.
Cool looking gear isn’t the same as cool looking gear with awesome stats. Farming crafting mats is low risk yet can yield just as high of a reward as learning an entire dungeon? And the difference is style, which is entirely subjective anyway?
Maybe it’s just medium armor, but I kinda like the exotic berserker leather set over the styles most of these dungeons are offering…. again, subjective. Don’t get me wrong, I want to do all the challenges that all the dungeons in this game have to offer. It’s just nice if I get that effort validated with some legitimate reward other than pure ego-inflation.
There’s nothing wrong with dungeon’s being hard…. there is a problem when your successful efforts yield rewards that don’t match up with the challenge. I can do this entire dungeon for minimal (or any) profit and some tokens…. Or I can speed run for faster token yield per hour and/or farm crafting mats; both of which give me the same powerful armor as the “completionist dungeon crawlers” and I can probably get those items faster too as well as make a good profit on the side.
Crafting exotics should only get you so far, getting the tokens for the gear should be better than the crafting. There needs to be an incentive to actually want to do the entire dungeon other than bragging rights. Maybe a “legendary tier” of token-based gear that requires some item you can only get from a successful dungeon completion (but you only need maybe 3-4 of these per legendary item purchase). I don’t know, I’m not the designers. I just know as it stands, there’s little point to do dungeons (in general) or make legendary items.
I see what you’re saying Gies, but challenges should be balanced with reward. I want to try the challenges, but most folks would rather farm… whether that’s for the mats for crafting exotics or the speed runs in dungeons. I understand why, it’s a quicker way to get upgrades.
Why spend the effort for really no incentive other than to be a fashionista and have some bragging rights when you can be just as powerful through farming? If the tokens offered gear with a little more to them other than looks, like set bonuses or extra stats (a 4th stat or 2nd gem slot perhaps), might be more incentive to not only do them in general, but to really do the entire dungeon. Same point applies for the legendary items imho.
The real Issue with Dungeons! From a person who enjoys completing them.
Posted by: Bruno Sardine.2907
I think while there are some issues with relative difficulties of certain aspects of dungeons over others, I see the more fundamental issue being the rewards… specifically the stuff you get with tokens.
The fact that crafting exotics is on par with dungeon gear is kinda lame (the same holds true for the legendary items as well)…. If there was some added benefit to these dungeon items other than skins (something like set bonuses, higher stats than exotics, 4 stats rather than 3, maybe even a second rune/gem slot), might make them more worthwhile.
As much as I like trying the dungeons out, whether they’re buggy/overtuned/easy or whatever, it sucks not really having people motivated to do it because they’d rather farm for gear of equivalent stats than try the challenge… and I can see their standpoint. Why go for these if they take hours longer to get, end up costing you a bunch in repairs, and ultimately add nothing to your character except bragging rights?
I should work on getting rare/exotic pieces, whether found or crafted, so I can push further into these explorable dungeons in order to get more tokens faster…. I don’t necessarily NEED these pieces to do the dungeon, they just make it easier to progress in it. When there’s no incentive to do dungeons, why bother?