Guild Wars 2

All the in-game feature says is that a player is LFG, but not what they’re looking for… Awesome

Divinity’s Reach… if you look at it kinda like you do with one of those pictures with the hidden image, it looks like the birds are actually drifting through the air.

That or Malchor’s Leap, just cause the dude with his arms up is probably like “OMG I MADE IT THROUGH STRAIGHTS ON FOOT…FINALLY!!!! NOW I CAN ENJOY THE REST OF THE MAP”… oh how naive that dude is….

Kharel Arhew.1437:

While PvE commanders can sometimes be useless, there’s some awesome PvE commanders out there that don’t WvW, so I can definitely see the need to have a method to gain both a PvE and WvW title—perhaps separately?

As an example, on Northern Shiverpeaks there’s a PvE commander named Anths. I’ve never seen him in WvW, but he leads a zerg every night on schedule that rolls through and clears the Arah entrance, along with every single temple in Orr (yes, this includes Balthazar—if you need obsidian shards, chances are Balthazar will be unlocked once every 24 hours). He’s polite, fun, and leads well. Every night between 25 and 75 people show up for his temple zergs. However, I’ve never seen him set foot in WvW. This would be my main objection to commander becoming a title only acquired through badges of honor.

So maybe Commander for PvE indicated by a blue icon and Marshall for WvW indicated by a red icon (or simply the icon doesn’t show unless you’re doing the respective PvE/WvW content)? How you get them is different, but should still demonstrate something a little more than coin.

ComeAndSee.1356:

LFG tool hasn’t been necessary until Fractal’s came out. You use to walk in front of the dungeon and there would be 20 people parked out infront of AC and COF. I never had a problem finding a group back then.

Gamers expect every MMO now to come standard with everything WoW has.

Umm people have been begging for LFG tool (that is actually not garbage) long before Fractals…. because while AC and CoF have consistently been all the rage, some folks who wanna do CoE or some of the other dungeons needed to be lucky to find folks in LA overflow (or reg server) who wanted to go.

Yes, pardon that my request for having features from former games that were incredibly useful in helping players is so asinine. Seriously, breaking from tradition doesn’t absolve Anet from not adding in good user features.

I think it has to do with the way damage mitigation is determined. While soldier professions will have higher toughness/armor and therefore defense, their actual effective return on invested points in toughness is less than the scholar professions who invest in toughness…. partially has to do with the diminishing returns that armor/toughness play into when calculating defense.

^^ As Patton would say (or at least George C. Scott’s rendition of the man), “I don’t need them to love me, I need them to fight for me”

When I see a commander title, I just think of another dumb gold sink that replaced an otherwise interesting opportunity. What if it was based on some WvW ladder ranking (based on things like kills, deaths, points defended, what points were captured) where the top 10 players of each server were commanders (the title rotating after a month, or 4 WvW rotations)? Just kicking around an idea… at least someway to suggest that this person kinda knows what they’re doing.

Special weekly meta events might be interesting, but I think you’d get a lot of backlash from folks because it doesn’t happen at a time where they can play…. the whole adjusting timer thing can fall victim to this issue as well if the adjustments are too “harsh”. Though, with a more scaled DE system giving these weekly events uniform rewards regardless of where they occur, you could have a special weekly meta per map adjusting when they occur so that the majority of the population can participate in at least one weekly event.

Ponder.3647:

LHound.8964:

Sciva.4865:

Someone posts a positive thread and the doom mongers jump right in. You lot are delusional.

LOL. Quote for truth!

Don’t like the way it’s done? GTFO!

^ This. Just quit and come back when these terrible and awful game-breaking issues are fixed. Your negativity is not productive.

Actually, comments that provide no context of what specifically Anet did a good/bad job with as well as ad hominem comments are not productive… Like the one I’m currently engaging in.

I did like some of the profession tweaks (those who got them) and some fixes… I think it’s fair to say that we shouldn’t expect any major sweeping changes until the big patch update coming in Jan/Feb.

^^ Not really… just need bodies; although the Balthazaar priest is legitimately tough and can wipe a group easily (mainly cause he’s all one-shot mechanics).

I’d prefer he not come as often and provide better drops than keep him on the 3hr rotation and be pointless.

Here’s 3 suggestion that really don’t require much other than a change of variables…

+ Remove or significantly reduce the travel costs (especially if you’re traveling within the map)… While some argue the travel cost isn’t that bad, it often disregards the reality that people are making decisions based on it, resulting in most players not trying to move around and really see what’s going on. Why am I going to waste 4+ silver to check out the Mt. Maelstrom zone if there’s a good chance nothing is really going on and I’ll need to hop back over to Cursed or wherever I originally was? And I can’t just check the map because I have to port in first to at least see what actually is contested or happening. 3rd party tracking sites often track the meta events, but why not just let a person port in and see what’s going on regardless of it being meta or not?

+ Properly scale xp/karma/coin reward based on the event itself…. A 14 minute defending the gates of arah event that happens every 40 minutes or so shouldn’t give the same xp/karma/coin as a 2 minute shelter defense that happens every 10 minutes. Also, events in lower areas shouldn’t automatically give less xp/karma/coin. If the entire map of Tyria is supposed to be endgame, then it should all be treated as such…. the difference being the drop potentials from the mobs themselves.

+ Adjust timers…. some events need to happen less often. Claw shouldn’t be every 3 hours, the Temples every few hours (not sure the exact time), a gate event, etc. If anything, their infrequency might make the event more significant and the drop rates could be tweaked. Similarly, failed events may push back some timers… so now that treasured plinx or pent/shelt run isn’t happening as often because the entire lower half of the map is contested. At level 80, the entire map of Tyria is at play so why have them mostly bottle necked in a handful of maps rather than wandering the world searching for events?

It’s just a pursuit devoid of skill…. I’d much rather it be minimal farming to craft gifts to put in the forge to get a precursor (account bound), followed by a unique quest (or chain) in order to “upgrade” the precursor -> legendary. The chain could be a combo of solo and group that’s pretty tough, but it’d be fun and unique and really say something about actually getting a legendary item other than “gg that your grind-hell is over”.

No offense, but the “we don’t make grindy games” and “we don’t want players to grind” statements are sort of invalidated by the nature of how all high end gear is acquired. “Just playing the game” doesn’t consistently net a player what they might want without it taking an exorbitant amount of time. Usually you grind because while it’s a dull activity, it increases the rate of you getting from A to B significantly faster; because it’s a direct means to an end. Rather than a direct grind, they prefer you indirectly grind through playing the game and trading; that doesn’t mean Anet has made a grindless game, if it was then you wouldn’t need insanely high material requirements for exotics/ascended/legendary items as they would be primarily obtained through skill-based activities.

You can hardly say it’s pure capitalism when the pool of supplies (whether gold or mats) is being controlled by “the government”.

No offense…. but just because there are 1500 events, doesn’t mean they’re all significant. By Anet’s design and our reaction to that design, we only make a handful of those events meaningful; not because we hated them out the gate and were like “no, we’re only gonna do these events out of spite and bugger off”, but because the small fraction of events folks do net the most frequency of rewards (xp/karma/coin and sometimes a chest depending on event farm). I bet a bunch of folks haven’t been in the Timberline Falls in awhile and who cares?… All those failed events haven’t impacted any other part of the world and ultimately don’t do a whole lot in Timberline other than a few wps can’t be used anymore.

Sorry if Anet making success/failure of DE’s insignificant for me to care is a lame excuse… but giving people a purpose in a game is usually a big hook in getting folks to play it.

50 games… that’s a little much? I mean all games generally contribute something to the industry even if they are awesome, suck, or are just ok. A more narrowed list or something more specific like “lessons to learn in 2012” would’ve been a little more insightful.

Bifrost has some of the easier/cheaper requirements of any of the legendary items. Be lucky you don’t have to get any lodestones (some of which can cost 2-3g apiece).

Nothing wrong with either classes, but what you’ll find as you start to get into higher content or do things more in group play is that melee does a lot of damage, but often is really risky…. though both those classes can provide some unique support choices and aren’t too too bad at ranged.

As a necro I feel really underpowered underwater since most of my skills are blanked out. As an engineer, I feel mainly unchanged underwater (except for the nade kit changes). As for engineer lack of stats, we’ve had to deal with it since the very beginning regardless of being underwater or not (at least if we’re using kits)

Well probably 2 tips….

1. Know now and get used to the fact you can’t be exclusively tank/dps/heal… They’re merely components to the larger theme of support/control/damage which all players have to do (at least outside of solo play).

2. You can choose any class and go to heart of the mists (located in the little PvP tab in your HUD). Regardless of your level, in this area you’re level 80 with all the skills unlocked. You can try out your toon here. Although it’s not a perfect gauge of how it’ll actually play, it’ll give you an opportunity to get an idea of what each class is about.

Would be interesting…. or even a box that randomized the number of cores/lodestones you could get (guaranteeing at least 1). The number seems fair, but realize that an individual would have to run at least 200 paths (which would take up to 9-10 weeks doing 3 paths a day for the max token reward) of anyone dungeon just to get 100 lodestones O_O…. Although the market might drastically drive down prices so that they could also be purchased for a reasonable amount of coin.

Raf.1078:

I don’t have a problem with waypoint costs. Just by playing the game, you’ll make more than enough coin to travel and still have enough to pocket a substantial %

The presumes alot about players…. specifically that they are playing the game in such a way that every minute playing is being directed towards gaining money. What if I’m ping-ponging around to see what events are up in certain maps? What if I’m trying to help a lower level buddy out? Why is my desire to move about and experience the open world as I wish overlayed with a cost/profit decision (and isn’t there a death tax already in the fact you have to repair when you die from not falling to your death)?

^^ but gambling is also partly entertaining while being a huge waste in the long run. D2 had the best gambling system because gold was super easy to get while providing the best opportunity (albeit super low rate RNG) of getting godly circlets and such. There’s a trick to getting people to gamble, even if just a little bit.

Zeldain.5710:

Part of the monetization strategy is, yes, to pray on people who have an addiction to gambling.

It’s also an easy way to keep people playing… but the “slot machine” costs are really high often. Vegas knows the money is in the penny slots and cheap games… and they at least have the decency to comp you as you’re handing them your money.

Some events and a dungeon could’ve been cool… the events to keep people playing in the zone, the dungeon for some lore and skins specific to the zone (like Polynesian tribal looks almost).

I think Planetside 2 does a better job in the “WvW” scenario… granted, we’re talking about an exclusively PvP-type game that came out after GW2, but one thing they did right was that the entire map is relevant; even WoW did this with it’s Arathi Basin (granted, it has it’s own flaws and such). Sure, you still have your zergs for major points, but you still have folks doing other stuff around the map because it’s all relevant. You can hardly say the same for GW2’s WvW map.

Link isn’t working for me… but I’m not sure I’d vote GW2 as GOTY… Maybe best MMO, though not best RPG. As it currently stands, I feel there are more polished games. I will certainly acknowledge bold concepts, but GOTY and “best of…” is about delivering on those concepts and not just big talk.

Pennry.9215:

I’m against free waypoints. It’s not hard to cover the fees and if you’re having trouble, plan your trips better. Honestly, port fees are so minimal as it is. What are people doing? Porting across map (4s ish), just standing there, then porting back?

Well maybe… what if people want to see what’s going on in other zones? Why do I need to go to a third party website to track what major events are going on in other zones? Why am I basically being tolled based on my earnings potential rather than the actual distance (if you wanna keep wp fees in general)? The fact of the matter is transportation and gold earning play a big part of how people interact in the world. Remove the transportation fee barrier and you might be surprised at the level of activity throughout the world….

Saxophone…. and some outfits so I can look like Sexy Saxophone man from that George Michaels Song

Yes crusading…. heaven forbid a game deliver on properly executing what it advertises and bettering the systems it already has in place, and consumers demanding more/better from their suppliers.

I feel like this discussion is like that scene from Mallrats where the dude keeps asking Stan Lee hypotheticals about various superhero sex organs

It’s great that folks like the game…. but it’d be nice to know what Anet did right in your opinion; it’s more informative for devs to know what people are liking/disliking rather than generalized feelings about the game as a whole.

Honestly, the Ascended and FotM conceptually don’t bother me…. but the execution in the horizontal progression just wasn’t enough; good HP requires a truly dynamic world of change or continuous content. Planetside 2 has better horizontal progression than GW2 interestingly enough… the 3 massive continents are always shifting in terms of who has what and no piece of the map is insignificant; you log off and come back on later and your faction could be better/worse off than it was before. In GW2, you or others failing/succeeding in a DE or WvW really has little impact on the world. When horizontal progression lacks consequences for participating/not-participating, then people generally don’t give a kitten about playing it after awhile.

The armor skins reveal all (pun might have been intended)…

Yeah anything takes heavy damage from a combo…. what I’m saying is there’s not necessarily an encounter where that’s especially important; or any encounter where there has to be a certain utility mechanic that people do other than provide damage. I think part of that has to do with the fact that every dungeon is supposed to be doable with any combination of professions…. So you can’t necessarily have an encounter where reflect is mandatory because an all necro party couldn’t get past it.

Dinny.5310:

Alex.9268:

Good taste is subjective, and if you don’t like kittenty outfits, then don’t wear them.

How do you people even manage to go out at night, do you confront every girl in a short skirt or visible bra straps in the club?

Cause they aren’t out in a kittening battlefield, in stabbing distance of someone else who is looking to stab.

It has nothing to do with prudence, and everything to do with being reasonable and practical. As I said before, while it’s a fantasy game, you can only suspend your disbelief so far. No matter how you slice it, a girl character charging into close-range combat with a metal bikini is just ridiculous.

Actually, this is where town outfits would be most applicable…. I you have a female toon that wants to run around in a porn-girl scout outfit or whatever, get gems to buy it from the store. Similarly, guy toons that want that leopard printed banana hammocks with some sandals and sunglasses to soak up the rays on the LA beachs… whatever, grab em at the store. I can understand as the female toons start out poor and not well armored, that the attire may not be “fully covered” and if people wanna transmute those styles, fine…. but there should be cool looking feminine armors that “fit the features” without necessarily making her look like a bimbo at higher levels. Maybe there are some? Frankly, I find the non-scholar female professions have some of the best looking armors while also having their fair share of the more revealing armors.

^^@ Creslin

Yes crazy to classify best of a genre based on how it is as that genre of game. Maybe the shooter analogy I used isn’t the best example, but here’s another…. Say the award is “Best Beef Dish of 2012” here are the nominees:

+ A huge piece of steak that’s been overcooked and burnt to the crisp
+ A decently prepared beef dip sandwhich with some pretty good sides
+ A 5 star out of this world dish that has no beef incorporated into the dish except the little piece of subpar beef jerky on the side

Which one wins? My argument would be the sandwhich since it embodies the characteristics what it means to be a beef dish and does it well along with having some good extras to it. Your argument would say that the 5 star dish is the best beef dish even though it’s actual beef component is garbage and the dish as a whole barely embodies any of the qualities of actually being a beef dish; it relies more on everything else than the core attributes associated with being a beef dish.

Creslin.1758:

Winning “best RPG” does not mean that the game exemplifies the ideals of the RPG genre the best among its competitors…it simply means that the game has been categorized as an “RPG” and is better than all other games that have been categorized as “RPGs.” Personally, I think it would be ridiculous to try to award a title based on what game exemplifies a genre, because if forums have taught me one thing, it is that NO ONE agrees on what a genre really means.

So while RPG may mean stat progression and lots of skills to one person, it might mean excellent story to another, and then gaining exp to another.

That’s why it’s important for those giving out awards to convey why something is determined the best (and ultimately why they don’t convey the process)…. Because the awards that don’t seriously weigh a genre by the general qualities associated with its genre are garbage awards. By your argument, the devs could’ve called GW2 a shooter (hey, people are flinging projectiles and such) as well as an MMORPG and it could feasibly win “best shooter of 2012” as well. Since the qualities associated with being a shooting genre are minor compared to the overall game, GW2 would have a good chance at beating COD: BO2 since the cod game merely focuses on the same old multiplayer whereas GW2 has a lot more to it.

Creslin.1758:

All the people struggling to discredit GW2 from having earned this award by claiming it isn’t an RPG amuse me…

Congratulations ANet, you earned it. Haven’t enjoyed an MMORPG this much since UO.

I haven’t watched the video (I prefer reading) to see why they claim GW2 to be the best RPG. I think in terms of combat and from an MMO standpoint, they do a lot of things right and better than things that came before it (even if it doesn’t all flawlessly execute). But these are all non-RPG things. Yes, RPGs should have good gameplay backing their RPG-elements, but what does it say when the best RPG this year has really meager and weak RPG-elements to it? That either the competition was weak or earning the award is less about the actual RPG-parts and more about the other stuff.

Also, gamespot awarded Skyrim RPG of the year for 2011… weaker RPG-elements and story telling compared to the Witcher 2, but both pretty impressive games; though Skryim was arguably shinier and had “more”.

roles isn’t necessarily what the character does in terms of combat, but how they interact in the world. You as the player are responsible for acting out the roles within the narrative through the decision-making; that’s more the RPG part than the dpsing/healing/evading and tactical choices you make to complete an objective. I’m not saying I approve of the “bare-minimum” approach, but it does fit the criteria by providing “bare-minimum”

Because rather than trying to portray women as strong hero archtypes, marketing says skimpy outfits + females with huge “tracks of land” makes the player’s feel funny in their pants area and that makes them wanna play the game and acquire more skimpy outfits…. so they and others can eye-kitten the toon all day.

So what happens is that the Jade Maw dies and there’s a chest, then right as you get the option to leave, you’ll see a chest in the lower righthand corner appear, that’s the daily chest with a chance at dropping a ring.

I suppose GW2 can be considered an RPG because you do create a character with choice in backstory, faction choice, quest direction, etc…. granted those choices and interactions mostly end up being meaningless, but enough (bare minimum if you will) to qualify it as an RPG.

TWMagimay.9057:

Combat depth is in the hands of the player. It’s neither better nor worse than the combat system in any other MMO. Buttonmashing is what bad players do in every game(including supposedly revolutionary MMOs like GW2, Tera, B&S), skill planning, timing, positioning is what good players do in every MMO. I’d actually say, dodging makes it easier(although I think it’s broken in GW2, because the invul frame isn’t always synced with the actual dodge animation)…especially compared to having to move out of range to avoid a skill in some other games. All of this(dodging, targeting etc) has always been there, just nobody advertised it…

It’s also on the hands of the designer to build encounters that take advantage of the combat depth. Say what you will about WoW and it’s trinity, but a lot of encounters do take advantage of the combat depth…. because it’s not just dps/tank/heal, it’s different styles of these which all have pros and cons. A tank warrior isn’t always the ideal choice, bear druids have lots of armor, dodge, and are better at handling aggro of groups rather than single target; similarly the prot pally is a hybrid that’s incredibly effective against undead (only played up the BC so I’m not sure how deathknights fit in). Sometimes effective tanking isn’t maximizing defenses like block, parry, dodge, and armor because you still have to generate a certain amount of rage (which is generated more from taking dmg than skills).

I do think GW2 has a lot better combat system in terms of potential, but the execution of encounters really doesn’t make you feel a synergy between classes. In many respects, it really does play a lot like D3 in the sense everyone is just adding a little something to the encounter than really needing to work together in a truly cooperative sense. Some encounters in GW2 are better than others, but often time the cooperation is more that someone (or a few folks) needs to interact with something while everyone else is doing business as usual. It’s not like "oh this boss takes heavy damage from combos, so we should really switch our skills around to maximize the ability to create and finish combos.

Fay.2735:

I’m glad Guild Wars 2 won they deserve it but I am surprised it beat mass effect 3 purely because of mass effect having a huge fan base + it’s a lot more RPG than GW2 (I never played mass effect 3 just surprised seeing how successful mass effect 2 was).

I think a lot of that is due to the fact that the ending almost obliterates every good thing about the series. True, the story telling and dialogue in ME3 is phenomenal for most of the game; GW2 could definitely take a page from Bioware regarding story. The combat system is pretty well paced and balanced with respect to guns vs. powers, the classes all play uniquely different, and the AI is fairly smart; ME3 might still not be quite a professional shooter like Gears, but pretty good. And then the end… The end is almost a complete betrayal on the idea that culmination of your decisions from the beginning of ME1 (if you played it), all the way to the last decision of ME3 would have significant impact on the ending. Not only is the ending cliche bordering on unoriginal, but practically ignores all the decisions prior to that point. They tried remedying this with the extended cut, but that really didn’t fix the heart of the issue. It’s like how GW2 said dynamic quests would really affect the world and they really only do so in very minor ways.

There’s also controversy with ME3 regarding the fact that certain parts of the game were taken out of game prior to it’s release as a way to get more money for “the complete game” via DLC…. I say this because these DLCs added major components to the main story arc; one of which was released the same day as the game’s release date. The best analogy I could give is like saying GW2 came out, and on the same day there was a content you could buy which would unlock the faction (priory/whispers/vigil) missions.

don’t forget wintersday starts real soon…. gem prices tend to go up quite a bit as these events get closer. Inflation is probably also causing gems to be pricey.

Agree with many of the sentiments expressed in this post

Rewards are too uniform in terms of xp/karma/coin relative to the level of event. Defending the gates of Arah is a 14 minute timer quest that gives you the exact rewards as a 2 minute timer shelter defense; the real difference being generally shelter has more zerg mobs so more chances for drops. Similarly, why go backwards and do events when they give less xp/karma/coin (other than maybe nostalgia or for a chest which has a potential for a precusor drop)?

The other caveat is lack of consequence…. aside from a wp being contested and maybe NPCs aren’t in the area (because it’s enemy occupied), is there really consequences to doing/not doing stuff? Like what does Claw of Jormag not getting killed do for the rest of Forstgorge or even that all the snowy Norn areas? Not much. Even if you kill him, good job, see you in 3 hours…. huh?

Yes, the events are dynamic, but not really to the point of them having real consequences on the world as much as providing minor annoyances/rewards within their respective zones… and because of this in tandem with the other points mentioned (and possibly the wp costs), there’s not a lot of reason/purpose/incentive for folks to go around and do a variety of things.

Mesmer or thief…. they’re pretty good all around. I know some thieves will say I’m wrong, but I think they have a good niche in PvE

Genesis.5169:

People complaining they can’t steam roll all content.
You guys won’t be happy till everything is 1shot k.o. and you get free exotics for just a login.

Infraction inc. But i really had to put that out there.

Actually the past couple of posts have been talking out the way various game components are structured so that there’s not much incentive to do a variety of event, while the OP and a few of the earlier posts were talking about ways to still encourage folks in a zone with few player to participate in events (chicken or the egg if you will)… No one’s asking for anything handed on a silver platter, but that all content be desirable for players regardless of them being higher level.