Guild Wars 2

Regardless of seige and no-seige, there are still plenty of opportunities to total mess with players because there’s one set path to solving the puzzle…. Unlike a tower/castle/whatever in the battlegrounds which have multiple options in terms of how you can get in.

I personally don’t think the jumping puzzle in WvW is well thought out, though I like the idea of having it.

I do agree the mob CC mechanics are annoying, but the biggest thing for me is the general slowing of movement speed when you’re in combat. I can see the need of wanting this for PvP, but it’s completely annoying in PvE esp when mobs also move real fast. In Orr I’m generally just chain-slowed cause I’m in combat constantly. If I wasn’t an engineer who can be permanently in swiftness (even at slowed combat speed), I’d probably just never go to Orr.

I think boss-encounters need to be examined, especially the explore ones. Too many of them are just “add damage, don’t die” rather than real team coordination. What I mean is like Giganticus Phase 3 where one person kites and other people dps and use slows on the boss… that to me is more coordination than Subject Alpha who just hits hard (I guess there’s the crystal prison, but I almost never both with it since I’m a condition build and do almost no damage against breakable objects).

Orr is only somewhat tolerable because my engineer can give himself unlimited durations of swiftness… Which only helps somewhat since your speed is reduced when in combat and you happen to be in combat almost all the time. I never bring my necro down there unless I want to do Arah EM (assuming the gate isn’t bug-locked), feel a real need to double tap ori-nodes or actually will myself to finishing the 100% completion for that toon.

The fact of the matter is that farming is the most effective way to get what you need for legendary items and playing the mystic forge for skins. Farming isn’t a very social experience and few people really enjoy it. If dungeons were a real viable alternative towards achieving the same ends, and were a little more creative in execution (imo), then you might see a more friendly community.

I find the main flaw with dungeons, aside from bugs, are the encounters within them. Most of the dungeon encounters are just summing up the collective damage. This is fine for trash and some boss fights, but not the majority of boss fights.

Things like the barrels in the Seraph run of CM or the chains section in AC are examples of good encounters in the sense that folks really need to go in with a strategy of cooperating together and executing it…. there’s more to it than just adding damage and staying alive. About the only boss fight that’s on a similar level is the Arah story mode when some folks are on the cannons shooting the dragons while others are keeping the cannoneers alive by getting rid of mobs and such. Phase 3 Giganticus is a good example where if you have aggro, you kite, while the team does what it can to keep the boss slowed and such.

Chests could use a little work, but they’re working on that? So… we’ll see how it hashes out.

Zoid.2568:

There is WvWvW aswell. Going to whine about that too?

Trust me…. folks have been even though this has been part of the monthly achievement since the first one.

I could be wrong… but I guess when I have 16-25 stacks of bleeds going and I notice the numbers getting progressively larger as vulnerability stacks increase, I sort of put the two together without actually seeing if that was the reason

LameFox.6349:

My main issue with it on warriors is that it uses condition damage on its autoattack. I mean… okay… admittedly I don’t like condition damage, but it’s also pretty out of place with all the rest of its skills. It even has one just for causing vulnerability. You know what vulnerability is really nice for? Not condition damage.

That, and there are no interesting utilities to go with range.

Actually, vulnerability does impact condition dmg… it’s just barely noticeable because 1% increased dmg on a 100 dmg/tick isn’t as noticeable as 1% increased dmg on an attack that’s typically closer to that 1000+ dmg range. Even at 25 stacks (25% increased dmg), it still favors direct dmg…. That’s because conditions ignore armor anyway whereas direct damage doesn’t and is multiplied by the ratio of power to defense.

I think they were added because moderators noticed that there was a general lack of complaints on the forums and told the devs they need to do something to generate more whining.

Seriously… it’s an achievement for doing things in the game not “hey we noticed you’ve been playing for a bit so here’s some complementary butt-kissing in the form of this goodie basket filled with karma jugs and mystic coins… Enjoy”

I didn’t particularly enjoy salvaging 500 items that I could’ve vendored instead, but I did it anyway. I wasn’t a huge fan of trying to get the trick or treat bags, but I managed to get them all anyway without spending hours in Halloween events. The 50 pvp kills has been around for awhile… it’s not my forte, but I did it anyway for the reward. Just suck it up…. I can’t even believe this is legitimate complaints or just really good trolling.

I mean the auto-attack on a rifle for the engineer is hardly “weak”, but the rifle scales extremely well with power as opposed to pistols which scale well with condition dmg. Engineers also have kits, so the rifle is merely one of many tools at your disposal that you use depending on the situation. For example, I use jump shot sometimes as a quick getaway or the knockback shot for a quick interrupt or the net shot if something requires a little CC.

For warriors, it might be weak… but considering the bread n’ butter is in their melee, why would you make them super awesome at range as well?

Rangers should be able to tame dolphins and whales…. just saying

Because inflated health values = easiest way to increase difficulty

Not sure this fixes the problem…. but 1 day transfers for servers you’re not WvW’ing against and 7 day transfers for the ones you are WvW’ing against?

I’m sorry, but 30 health per tick on 6/6 superior rune of doylak is total garbage compared to the damage being taken in… Oh, you stack it with other healing effects? Ok, but 30/tick is still barely contributing anything. It’s not like regeneration boon stacks and while there maybe other healing sources (like healing fields), these sources are at least 3 times more effective and actually do get benefits from +healing than the 6/6 doylak effect. Make it 75-100 health per tick and now we have something actually worthwhile. In general though, most of the 6/6 effects on superior runes are really not good.

I disagree with what Kierlak said… MMOs can have plenty of challenge in their PvP and/or PvE settings. WoW (at least pre-Wrath o’ LK since that’s as far as I went) had good PvE challenges especially in the raid setting. Gear helps a bunch… but executing the encounter counts for a lot of it as well. You could be in full top-notch gear, do Sunwell (the highest dungeon towards the end of the game) and still get your butt kicked by the first boss if you didn’t do it properly.

PvE challenges (in the DEs and dungeons)… there’s really few that are legit challenges or at least require some level of real coordination other than adding everyones damage together.

I don’t think the build you’re using is necessarily bad… but are you using the staff or scepter/dagger more often? My guess is ur using the staff when you should really use the scepter/dagger more.

Also, is this build more power or condition? The reason I ask is because certain weapons scale better to power or condition. It doesn’t seem like the build is really stating condition yet is using the scepter/dagger combination and all sorts of condition makers which scale much better with condition than power.

I would say check out the necro forum first… try some things out and if it’s just not working than consider trying a different class to see if it’s more your fit.

Yeah… hard dungeons. Where they at? There’s really only a handful of encounters that are tricky or challenging at best.

Because given the ability to scale and such, it’s impossible to make these “captured skills” impossible to use in the WvW setting?

Necros can be quite tough to kill, but it’s all dependent on how your playing it… Which can be a little confusing if you don’t really sit down and take a look at the class. My buddy had some trouble with his necro early on, but after setting him “on the right course” he’s having a much better time with the class.

Maybe you can expand by giving us an idea of how you got your toon laid out and maybe we can give you some suggestions.

Tutty.3024:

Yes Jakar, this is a good idea and one I have seen many people do. Thankfully someone had logged a char inside the gate and was advertising last night for a group. Even better that the group was well formed and we did two paths.

I am on this morning again, as it is the weekend and it’s still bugged.

As stated in first post. An update on this please?

Thanks

I would totally be a kitten and charge people for access…

And would name that mesmer toon Charon.

So this is guild wars… where’s the warring between guilds? You need conflict so make the conflict is access to the guild hall.

Why should a guild care?

The guild hall is an instance within LA only accessible to say the top 20 guilds on the server for the week (but still linked with LA map chat). Within the hall are certain goodies, but your rank will determine guild hall bonuses.

Basic access (ranks 15-20): standard guild, repair, and standard vendors with 20% reduced prices, TP/Bank/Guild Bank, Azura Gates to Fireheart Rise (porting you near the border of this zone and Frostgorge, Cursed Shore (porting you near the border of Malchor’s Leap), and Mount Maelstrom (porting you near the border to Timberline Falls).

Intermediate Access (ranks 6-14): Basic Access + Cultural armor and weapon vendors of all cities with 20% reduced prices + PvP vendors with 20% reduced prices (for plans and gear)

Expert Access (ranks 2-5): Intermediate Access + Exotic Karma vendors with 20% reduced prices + 20% reduced guild research rates

Top Dog Access (rank 1): Expert Access + Crafting stations that offer double xp (thereby easier to level a profession) + Mystic Forge with more favorable odds (at first I was thinking reduced requirements to play the forge, but that might get confusing for certain recipes).

Along with the ranks are certain unlockables where guild officers can use influence to purchase “skins” for the guild hall… Almost like the old civilization games where you could decorate your throne room. GW2 is all about the skins afterall so why shouldn’t your guild hall that you compete for not look the way you want it to? Maybe give it a viking/barbaric look with all sorts of pelts strewn about. Maybe you like that Asuran look more with tech all over the place… or that steampunk-ish look of the Charr…. or just make it classy looking like a Manor with all the vendors dressed as butlers waiting to serve. When holidays come along too, you could potentially give the hall some seasonal decorations.

How is rank determined?

Rank is determined on a weekly basis using per capita influence gained that week. Influence should be expanded from just time a player spent playing to:

- completing story quests and story mode dungeons
- completing major DE event chains
- achieving map completions and other achievements (like first time solving the jumping puzzle and such)
- completing daily and monthly achievements
- completing certain WvW or PvP accomplishments
- influence scrolls (occasionally found in black lion chests, jumping puzzle chests, DE chests, dungeon chests)

Note: a slight bonus to influence should be given if more of the party members for a story quest/dungeon/event are from the same guild

I’m not sure if the rewards are too overpowered, but the idea is to have enough carrot for guilds to want to compete. I don’t think there’s anything game-breaking, yet enough enticement to make it worthwhile… with maybe a slight bias for higher level players.

The per capita idea is so that large guilds don’t overpower small guilds through sheer numbers. If a 10 member guild is doing a lot whereas a 500 member guild only has 300 people doing whatever with 200 people never really contributing, then the smaller guild will rank higher; level of active members doing stuff gets you the top slot. One game that does this type of competition for the guild hall, Shaiya, actually has an hour-long event to determine guild rank, but I thought that was unfair considering it doesn’t cater to when players play.

The idea is to also get people to run around the map and help folks. People not at level 80 can contribute just as much as folks at level 80. Guilds or members that like to WvW or PvP should be able to compete, though guilds that will rank highest are generally guilds with members participating in a little bit of everything.

In terms of knowing your rank and where you stand to the competition… maybe a guild NPC that you can talk to will let you know how you’re doing, how the top 20 guilds are doing, but not tell what guilds are in those positions (to prevent last minute guild swaps unless folks blert it in map chat I suppose). If you achieved a ranking to gain access to the guild hall, guild members will be given a piece of mail letting them know the rank they achieved and that they have access to the guild.

The only problem I see, from a technical standpoint, is guilds that exist across servers… I’m not sure how that would work entirely in terms of tabulating influence and giving guild hall access, but if there’s legitimate interest in pursuing this idea, I’m sure there’s a way to solve this problem (maybe guilds establish a home server, which they can switch on a weekly basis).

This is by no means a fully thought out polished suggestion, but if it seems like an interesting route to pursue… let’s talk about it.

Indo.4587:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

So much for the engineer…

Lol, to be honest when I looked at that list I didn’t even notice engineer was missing. Rofl.

It’s ok… engineers rarely get any love, but are all sorts of useful.

So much for the engineer…

The only way it evolves properly is if we give them input… I agree that the manner in which we deliver that input could be less emotional/flaming.

I’m not sure I understand your comment about biased comparison to other games. Do you mean bias in that we like game A and GW2 should adopt this? If so, I think that depends. We can and should be biased when comparing a particular mechanical aspect (or combination of aspects) in GW2 to other games that have similar aspects which work well regardless of genre… For example, some people don’t like the matchmaking system. Can I not use an FPS matchmaking system that works well for comparison against GW2’s system? Asking for a better match making, LFG system, or encounters that aren’t so one dimensional, and using examples of games that implement these things very well, are sensible requests that don’t go against the design philosophy… asking for a trinity system, loot treadmill, or things specifically against the philosophy is another thing.

You at least got past the fire golem, which IMO is one of the hardest mobs Anet conjured up.

Plenty of open areas around Lion’s Arch that are not the center… There’s a huge expanse of nothing in the lower right corner of the map, just north of the bloodtide coast instance portal. There’s also something similar in the upper left corner on the LA map, there’s also the entire underwater area.

Hoelbrak has tons of open space as well (in the outdoor parts and some of the lodges are pretty massive) and I’m pretty sure you won’t have any issues with overflowing the server. Actually, the upper left corner of the Hoelbrak map is a frozen lake with almost nothing and nobody around… sounds like a perfect place to have a large meeting.

The Slyvari start zone has some pretty big open areas right near the entrance with non-hostile mobs scattered about.

I don’t think the presence or lack of presence of a trinity system really makes this game better/worse… the majority of PvE encounters are lackluster regardless.

Certain boss kills in dungeons do count towards your monthly as events completed (same is true for the daily)…. Maybe not the most efficient way to knock off that requirement, but at least you’re getting credit.

Story mode or explore… they’re kinda different in that explore is usually much easier than story (with some exceptions) even though it should really be the reverse.

ower.9143:

I really hope it’s nothing like MK. MK was a kitteny kitten WoW dungeon, group up.. take 10 mins to complete.. run it 15 times. yawn.

In fairness, it was available for folks who were level 2… You can’t slap them with a Giganticus-tuned fight. They’ll feel totally punished and probably quit.

As for loot drops, I was not so lucky as you guys, but I did like the general boss mechanics (scarecrows, pumpkins, porting around so there’s a little jumping puzzleness to it).

Actually if the room was small and had a 100 monsters to take on at the same time of all different monster varieties at veteran status or higher…. I would gladly take that over farm-fest (maybe some farming to meet the “quest requirements to open the portal to this zone”) so long as the challenge is do-able with a party of 5.

3 classes share medium armor, yet are all radically different in what they do from a fundamental standpoint; the other light and heavy armor wearers are just flavors of casters and heavy melee. Thieves probably want tightly fitted clothing, engineers need their pockets for gadgets and gizmos, rangers need to look more Aragon-ish… or whatever.

It’s a skin game with a lack of style… at least in this armor type. If I could xmute cross armor classes, then maybe I wouldn’t care so much cause I could really blend styles. The Dead Space was a joke because it’s one of the few games that makes an otherwise nerdy profession look like a totally mean mama jama.

penatbater.4710:

ohh ic. Well I’m in bomb most of the time but somehow I found it lackluster. Maybe I’m being too reliant on elixer B and elixer S. Elixer H at 25% is afaik a non-changeable buff/trait/thingy. Condi removal for me is very very important. I’m almost allergic to conditions)

Maybe i’ll try more using healing turret and not rely so much on elixers. I’ll put that trait as well and see how much healing goes. With the regen from the trait, regen from turret f1 and bomb, I hope to be more effective. Thanks for the suggestions!

I’m not sure how effective the turret is as a healing skill… I’m getting regen mainly from Healing Mist, which is an F1-F4 skill from having the elixir gun as one of my utility skills (or I’ll have a healing turret up if I use my supply drop skill)… but give it a whirl if you really think there’s opportunity to switch it up and get good outcomes. Just an fyi too, the elixir gun’s healing ability when it lands removes conditions and is a condition removal field).

@ Hellkaiser

No offense, but you committed a logical fallacy of introducing the red herring with your insights…

Back to the the issue at hand, legendary items should be fun and memorable to get. Thunderfury bindings sucked with the lame RNG followed by weekly resets, but at least there was a cool event tied to forging it.

My all time favorite legendary item has to be ES3: Morrowind. In order to get the Spear of Bitter Mercy, you have to travel to some crazy man’s hut to grab the Fork of Harapaloran and go slay this giant creature with it. Sounds simple right? You go to the hut and it’s littered with spears all over the place, but none of them have the item name you’re looking for. Then you look at the dinner table and see a shiny fork next to plate. You’re like “no kitten way” and sure enough… it’s the Fork of Harapaloran. Then you go slay the giant creature… which is MASSIVE. The spear sucked, but it was cool looking, fun to get, and a memorable experience.

GW2 has almost none of these qualities when it comes to really getting any item, let alone legendary ones.

@ penatbater

just to let you know, the backpack regenator trait (in alchemy tree) only works if you’re wearing a kit and it heals for about 130 per tick at level 80 with no +healing…. I haven’t really tested +healing to see how if it affects this trait and if so how the +healing scales. So if you’re not using the bomb kit all that much, probably not worth it… Also, you could consider removing the elixir H @ 25% rather than CD reduction or condition removal.

Doesn’t seem like much healing, but in my build the combination of skills available, including the ones in the F1-F4 slots, gives me a lot of methods of gaining health should I somehow lose it.

What are your play times (also specify timezone or put it in GMT)? Personally, i don’t really get online until about 6pm-7pm Eastern Time (which is more like 10pm-11pm GMT).

It’s all relative… what did you have before crafting/acquiring exotics? Personally, I was in greens before I really dove into dungeons. At first I was in berserker greens, then I went into knight greens… that was a big help especially when I was learning encounters. Exotics gave me a little more wiggle room, but nothing that drastically made me that much more powerful.

Traits matter…. more for the passive effects rather than the +stats.

You could always get other armor with the desired stats and transmute the inquest look. TA has toughness, so does Arah and SE…. There’s also crafted armors. It depends on the other stats you want.

This is where GW1 kinda shined, cause it skipped the whole collect another set of gear to transmute and just let you collect skins almost like color dyes and then applying the styles.

I use earth/agony… but I also have high crit and stack bleeds quickly…. I also have a good degree of +condition duration through traits and runes so I can usually run 20-25 stacks of bleed constantly really easily and get to that amount quickly. Yes, I’m also a necro that uses the scepter so that helps.

I’m gonna take a stab and say you’re not that thankful?

The lack of fixed aggro or taunt mechanics does promote some need to help one another. Some bosses like to fixate on a particular guy, so you need to be ready to help them out… hell, sometimes I do a body block or two on a ranged mob just to help out.

Jack of All Trades

Eng with 30 explosives/10 firearms/20 alchemy/10 toolkits

Rifle + Healing Kit + Elixir Gun + Elixir U + Grenade Kit + Supply Drop

Rifle for CC’s, the jump shot for escape, and triggering some combo field effects (depending). Healing kit for additional heals to lay down, debuff removal, increase crit and perma-speed buffing. Elixir Gun for slow/weakeness if the situation calls, an extra heal, and an escape move. Elixir U for instant endurance regen and also can be used to help rez and remove debuffs if tossed. Grenade kit for primary damage, vulnerability stacks (can usually keep up 25 stacks on my own), poison combo field, slow and blind… Also because you’re spamming and you have at least 5 points in toolkits, you get endurance per toolkit skill used (you can imagine that’s fairly quick when nade spammin)… You also get regen for having a toolkit equipped thanks to 20 alchemy that does stack with regeneration. Supply depot pretty self-explanatory.

Might not be a unique build, but it can meet just about every need a possible encounter can throw at you.

Gear: as long as it has precision for triggering vulnerability stacks. Power > Condition just based on what effects you’re trigging and that the grenade/rifle dmg scale better off power. Knight isn’t bad, Berserker if you think you can handle it (usually not what I use unless I know I can execute the encounter really well).

It’s ironic that the more desirable an item in this game, the further they stray from the “no grind” philosophy. I’m not saying it shouldn’t take time… but I’d rather the time be spent learning a challenge and getting better at playing than needing to farm ad nauseum. That’s a big reason why botting is so pervasive in this game. It’s lucrative for some who want to get in on this exclusive market where there’s high demand and convenient for others who don’t want to spend their time doing the same uninteresting brainless activity for hours.

Meh, I just see it for what is it… the skin jackpot, but only if you play the slot machine or just buy it straight up. Say what you will about RNG in D3 or WoW or other loot games, but at least the slot machine is cleverly hidden within the main objective of the game (fight baddies, get lewtz). This game simply removed the real rewarding parts of the RNG and internalized it into their marketplace.

Deep in the bowels of Arah is the Orrian Gym where undead get their swell on… bro. You just haven’t found it cause it’s very exclusive membership (no living allowed <.<).

Sure legendary items shouldn’t be obtained in a week, but they shouldn’t be obtained solely through farming efforts. You could easily reduce the farm, and replace the reduction with challenges. If the precursor and the gifts are easy to get, but “quest chain” is legitimately challenging (involving some parts you can solo and some where you need a team), wouldn’t that suffice? I basically learned how to play the game better rather than how to farm efficiently… even if the legendary offers nothing more than a skin and particle effect, at least it made me a more skilled in PvE.

We don’t necessarily need trinity, but encounters need to be designed better to respect the skills and mechanics at hand and require coordination.

The sum of everyone’s dps isn’t coordination. Combo-fields are optional at best. There are really very few encounters that require a coordinated effort where we need to chain a particular effect or have people doing different things at the same time to win. The coordination is more to make certain aspects of the encounter more predictable and thusly easier to overcome; Phase 1 Giganticus and certain Subject Alpha encounters ring a bell? It’s not like say “we need 2 people over here to do A, while 2 people are over here doing B, with the last guy going back and forth because we need to kill these two mobs at approximately the same time or they’ll just rez one another (stealing a WoW example, but just illustrating the coordination point)”…

Actually a good example of coordination in GW2 is Arah story mode with the cannons where you have some people doing damage the dragons and others killing mobs… It’s not necessarily a perfect example, but the idea that folks are doing different things in a coordinated effort. If I’m not shooting the dragon with a cannon, then I’m doing what I can to keep the people still on the cannons healed/protected in whatever capacity my class can do that.

Elitism will always exist… all this game does, and really all it can do, is lessen the gap between the “geared” and “non-geared” and removed the barriers so that the entry fee is simply “tall enough to ride”.

Yeah it’s a bummer that folks want 80s and all these requirements… but not all dungeon runners care. What can I say, people are lame sometimes.

Speaking of semantics, we’re talking about fundamental systems here which can transcend genre. If we were talking about match making systems, are we not allowed to use FPS games with good match making because they’re FPS’s? A good idea is a good idea… a great idea is learning from good ideas.

Don’t think that’s true, look at smartphones and wonder what it would be like now if the developers stuck to just the phone aspect because “it’s a cellphone so we can’t compare it to anything other than other cellphones”. What did they look at to develop smartphones? Computers… cause basically a smartphone is that (but can also make calls as well).