Guild Wars 2

Meh, every class attracts inexperienced/not willing to learn players, just as every class has its share of very experienced players. It’s just more obvious on a Ranger when someone isn’t so sure of what they’re doing.

Also, one thing that people forget, it seems, is that not everybody joins the learning curve at the same time. So while they admit it takes time to learn the encounter, they don’t admit that by this time some people wouldn’t have had time. The first time I had time to sit down and tackle the Marionette was last weekend. So others had obviously been doing the boss for 4 days. Some were absolutely amazed that I asked how the encounters worked before we started. There will be people at the end of this week only just coming to the fight for the first time – people in this game are not existing according only to one timeline.

Some also assume that watching a video of someone else doing something makes you very good at it yourself. No, it does not. If that were true, I’d be a brilliant comedian and also a concert pianist. I know technically the “rules” for holding an audience, setting up a joke etc, but that doesn’t mean I’m any good at it. That takes practise. And for some, that practise stage is longer. Phrases like, “If they even have to ask at this point then they should just leave” (which I have actually seen in map chat) only encourage newer people NOT to ask. Knowing you will attract aggro before you’ve even opened your mouth is not encouraging.

Vayne.8563:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Poor Vayne – attacked for supporting ANet, attacked for criticising ANet.

I feel Vayne has a very valid point in this thread – I’ve stated my reasons in another post above, but am just trying to bring this round back to topic.

I am guessing that the idea behind making these achievements “group” achievements is to make it “harder” to get achievements, since people have been asking for that. However, it’s not that it’s hard to get the achievement, because all it tells you to do is dodge, which most of us are perfectly capable of. It’s that it’s so tied to other people and an entirely random chance whether you get it or not. Which shouldn’t be the case on my personal achievement score.

It’s artificial hardness to me, and that I don’t like. And yeah the whole posting a negative thread thing is ironic, huh? lol

Very!

Yes, artificial hardness – that’s what I was going for. The phrase eluded me at the last moment. I completely agree. It’s the most frustrating thing ever. I should have got them all over the weekend, and instead only got two.

The one plus is that if you want the meta at least you can still get it without completing though achievements (though it would be nicer to have them – and as an achievement hound I can understand your frustration).

Warkupo.1025:

If a high level ranger joined my group and didn’t know how to hit the button that makes your pet not screw up everything, I imagine I’d be slightly irritated as well. I don’t know that I’d extend that to “rangers suck” but I might say something like “you should hit that button that makes your pet not screw up everything, <expletive>.”

Or leave out the expletive and just explain if they don’t know? Why would you be aggressive about it. Just ask them politely if they wouldn’t mind putting their pet on passive as it causes issues with the boss fights. If they ask how, just tell them. What’s hard about that?

If they get aggressive, sure, be aggressive back (though I would still suggest not, since it rarely resolves anything). But if they just don’t know something, then what’s the problem?

Poor Vayne – attacked for supporting ANet, attacked for criticising ANet.

I feel Vayne has a very valid point in this thread – I’ve stated my reasons in another post above, but am just trying to bring this round back to topic.

I am guessing that the idea behind making these achievements “group” achievements is to make it “harder” to get achievements, since people have been asking for that. However, it’s not that it’s hard to get the achievement, because all it tells you to do is dodge, which most of us are perfectly capable of. It’s that it’s so tied to other people and an entirely random chance whether you get it or not. Which shouldn’t be the case on my personal achievement score.

Ranger is fine if the player knows what they’re doing. ANY class is fine if the player knows what they’re doing. And every class can be a problem if the players don’t know what they’re doing.

The only “hate” towards Rangers I’ve seen on my server is a polite request (once only) that Rangers keep their pets on passive. So I don’t think everyone hates Rangers. They just get overly frustrated (it IS heartbreaking to have waited two hours for an event for only one or two chains to get severed) and take it out on the thing that’s closest, or the one person they noticed doing something wrong and they broaden that out to include everyone remotely related, like playing the same class etc.

To be fair, a lot of people are saying helpful things but they get frustrated and it comes out rudely. I’ve had longer chats with a lot of people on my server after the event fails (and my server is generally a very friendly place), and most of the people who seemed to be yelling at others totally calmed down after a quick reply and just explained their frustration very straightforwardly and not at all in a hurtful manner.

In the heat of the moment, people feed off each other. Some don’t restrict it to yelling at their screen, but let loose in map chat. Most of them just need to cool down a bit. Some, clearly, are just obnoxious. But hopefully, it hasn’t put people off trying. Try enough and people learn, so it’s all fine by me. The boss isn’t going anywhere for a while.

What I really do wish? That the marionette was a permanent world boss. Oh, and that it spawned more frequently, lol. I much prefer the marionette to the wurm.

It’s true, I find it really frustrating to get the achievements for fighting the marionette. The number of times I’ve dodged an attack successfully and finished the boss on my platform to watch one single platform next to me fail. It’s not their fault, and I don’t mind that we don’t beat the boss overall, but it does irritate that I don’t get a personal achievement point for my personal achievement. It should at least read “group achievement”, then at least I wouldn’t have gone in expecting to achieve something I don’t.

It is quite funny to see them all ranting about “learn to dodge, how hard is it?” in map chat. They also say things like “people don’t know how to read map chat”, and I always reply that maybe, then can read, but they sure don’t want to because it’s just a line of abuse. Most people have it either turned off or have the people who abuse them on ignore, so they aren’t even seeing the abuse hurled their way. So it’s all just a load of excess energy gone to waste, imo.

Charr starting zone is harder than the others, I always find that I do worse there than at ones like the Human zone, Queensdale. Those ghosts can be tough, they respawn SO quickly and they do like to gang up on you, lol.

The thing that makes early levels whizz by for me? Grilled steak! Jump on the TP and buy yourself some grilled steaks, and some tuning crystals (no need to buy the fancy ones, just cheapest will do), and keep your weapon at your level if you can (should be easy enough through drops rather than buying from the TP). You should find that a lot easier.

Failing that, a quick map chat shout out if you need help usually brings some people running to give you a hand at whatever event you’re stuck on. I know there’s one particular skill point in that map that I STILL can never do without help

You will start the game with 5 empty character slots … I would suggest you roll five characters and see what you like (take each to at least level 20, 30 is better) and narrow down from there. You won’t earn/loot anything that you’ll miss on a level 30 character, so if it turns out you don’t like any of them (unlikely) then you can delete and reroll.

Warrior is probably the most versatile – since by versatile it means you can adapt to most situations. It isn’t, however, necessarily the most interesting class to play. It has a low skill-floor (high skill-ceiling if you watch some of the very best) and so is easy to just pick up and do well on from the beginning. Ranger is similar in this regard.

Other classes, Thief, Elementalist, Engineer in particular, require more attention when being played. They are without a doubt more complicated, but more interesting, I would say. For some, this constant attention is a turn off, for others, clearly, it’s a huge attraction.

Necro, Mesmer and Guardian, I would say hover somewhere in the middle (Necro is my personal favourite).

But give them all a go – and roll one of each of the races as well so you can check out their different personal stories, starting areas (though you can visit any starting area on any character) and class features (like Norns and Charrs being absolutely HUGE).

Most of all – enjoy your time! Welcome to GW2.

Nowhere in the open world PvE (including dungeons) is open for attacks from other players. WvW is another game mode (considered PvE by the devs for balancing purposes, but you have to actually leave the open world to go there so you won’t wander in by mistake), where players do attack other players. But in PvE dungeons you only worry about the mobs.

Nah, it makes SOME people unhappy, for a brief period of time. For two days, SOME people bought RNG boxes from the gem store and some dye prices dropped on the TP. The boxes are gone again – all they’re really done is act as a small check on the prices of certain dyes (NOT a bad thing) on the TP, and also reinforce the need to have the dyes in the market.

I’d forgotten about all these dyes because I look at the TP and think, “meh, expensive, I don’t like it that much” and go away. Every so often, I check back, but eventually, you forget. So when I see a massive reminder that these dyes exist, I am back to looking around and picking outfits for my chars I think will look good with these dyes. I’m looking at the TP to see where I can pick up the specific dye I want because I don’t want to take the risk with the gem store boxes.

And, ok, so some people had to sell at a bit of a loss (not really, since you still make a profit, just not as much as you hoped, which is NOT the same thing as being completely screwed over), but only for a very short while. The prices are still rising … look back to when they first came out, prices are higher a short while after each re-release.

Necros can disengage fairly easily with DS affording them more time, and equipping Spectral Walk as your utility skill (just let it run out rather than clicking twice, or you’ll snap back to where to you started). I’ve never found it difficult to disengage playing my Necro. Then again, with Engineer, put a few trait points into Tools and you can have Speedy Kits for near perma-swiftness.

Necros can be pretty tanky because of Death Shroud. Engineers lack that added surety, but I think they’re a more complex class because of the toolkits. That said, I love my Necro. She’s the only char I have that hasn’t gone through multiple reincarnations in the form of deleting and rerolling.

Definitely try them both up to level 20 (30 is better if you can bear it) to see which you prefer.

I started out with the Necromancer class (and yes, WASD keys confused me too!). Necro is very forgiving – not as fast as Warrior, admittedly, but I liked the light armour look better and found the caster types more interesting. Warrior is pretty cool, but I don’t find it captures my imagination as a class. Necro also has Death Shroud, so she’ll have a second health bar, effectively, to cushion her a little, and it has some awesome skills.

People say that Necro is a selfish class to play, but I find it synergises well with just one other player (and I assume you’ll be playing as a duo more than in a full party to start at least). Chill skills and other conditions can be spammed from a distance, while you go in and melee, or she can run daggers for melee but gives her some space (skill 2 and 3 main hand, and both skills off hand do not require you to be in melee range).

Generally, I just find the class relatively straightforward, tankable if you’re nervous, and more interesting than Warriors, Guardians and Rangers. But I have all of them, so none of them are boring! It’s just my personal opinion (from a girl gamer who was totally new to MMOs with GW2, and PC gaming in general).

lakdav.3694:

Just imagine how the cave troll in Queensdale (zerg-trains aside) would feel if the cave was only as bright as the light-sources in it allow until you get out of the cave. Or if the Shadow Behemoth would actually have anything to do with shadows, applying effects in the area that makes you see no further than a few feet.

^^^This, would be awesome. I’m someone who likes bright light and, for instance, the almost glaring light in Ascalon is brilliant because I’ve been to areas in the world with similar terrain and the light is so intense it can hurt your eyes (luckily, that isn’t the case with Ascalon, but I like the brightness). But I agree that shadows could be darker, particularly in areas as mentioned above. Not everywhere, mind. I dislike peering at the screen because it’s so dark for hours. But I really like the section in the Weyandt’s Revenge JP in Lion’s Arch where the room is completely black, only getting very weird, pale light in flashes. If the troll cave in Queensdale was like that, it would be amazing (though particle effects when the zerg rolls round would be pretty blinding).

Shadow Behemoth using shadows in his attacks would be cool. I loved the toxic hallucination effect of the toxic gas in Kessex Hills. It’s properly disorientating and makes the fights way more interesting. Something similar but with shadows would be cool.

I’m always in starting zones because I’m always running new alts through the game. Or I’m just doing the odd daily in an easy zone on a higher level character. Some of the starting zones (and other lower level zones) are also huge, which spreads people out a lot … sometimes a quick shout out in map chat that an event is starting and does anyone want to join in brings people running.

Also, time of day and how close we are to a patch release makes a huge difference in terms of where you’ll find everybody. Sometimes I’ll log in early on the weekend and there’ll be nobody around so I’ll trot about, slowly getting my daily, then in an hour the place is packed. And right now, everybody is in Bloodtide Coast or Lornar’s Pass because of the Living Story update.

It’s absolutely fine to ask for larger characters or more different body types for characters for the sake of diversity or whatever.

However, I find it sad that the OP finds it hard to relate to a character who isn’t larger in size. I mean, I have lots of friends who I feel very connected to, but we don’t all look the same, we aren’t all the same bodyweight and we don’t all have six packs. I connect because of other things. That the OP can’t connect to a fictional character because of size alone says more about the problem than the fact the options aren’t there in game, to me.

Also, in terms of it being a game and playing a hero … well, does it upset people that heroes in all media, books, games, films etc are all pretty or handsome? Would you only read a book where the protagonist wasn’t pretty? Just to feel more normal? Just for a connection? I wouldn’t. Sure, it’s nice when the heroine isn’t a classic Barbie doll, but if she is, does it really matter?

If we’re going to ask for more body types, let’s ask for them because we want more variety and to build more interesting characters. Not because we’re so bound by real-life imposed worries over body image that we can’t connect to anything if it isn’t a “real” size.

I have issues with the camera as well – never more so than with this new Marionette boss, who I can’t even see because the camera won’t accommodate it, and when I am fighting it swings around a bit so in the end all I end up seeing is a massive foot come crashing down in front of me. When the marionette would be so cool to be able to look up at easily.

Jumping puzzles are a bit of a nightmare, where my camera is either stuck inside a wall, or suddenly zooms right in (between the wall and my character’s back) and I’m unable to see anything at all or change the view angle.

I thought the chest was going to be permanent? I’m pretty sure that’s how it was advertised.

Haha, that’s pretty funny. Anyway, I’m jealous because I keep checking out the skins to buy with fortune scraps at the Black Lion Weapons Specialists and wishing scraps still dropped. Would like to be able to nab a skin that costs 70g, haha. Good for your friend.

Me too. I’m sure it will make a reappearance, but they only brought Rox’s quiver back for the 1 year anniversary of the game afaik, so if they do something similar with the staff skin, we’ll likely be waiting until August.

Pandemoniac.4739:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Pandemoniac.4739:

CrossedHorse.4261:

The Asuras are really cute (and best race for jumping puzzles – Norn and Charr are too big to see anything!).

Well someone else pointed out in another thread, you can always use a tonic to shrink yourself down for the puzzles where it’s a problem, so there’s a workaround. But after using an Asura for jumping puzzles, I’m really having a hard time doing them with any other race

Huh, I didn’t know about those … what tonics are they?

There’s an Asura tonic that’s available from the COE dungeon apparently, bandit ones, and others that turn you into human figures. Some allow you to keep your utility skills so you can use any speed buffs, but I think there’s only one (Potion of Ascalonian Mages) that lets you keep weapon and utility skills.

Some of them are quite inexpensive on the TP.

There’s a complete (as far as I know) list on the wiki http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Tonics

Oh, thanks! I’ll check them out.

If you want melee and ranged options, want to wear heavy armor and use magic, deal decent damage but also have survivability, you can really only choose Guardian, as this satisfies all requirements. However, ranged options are more mid-range than long-range, just so you are aware.

I usually go for whatever traits I think look interesting and which synergise well with what armor I’m wearing/weapons I’m using. Generally, I like a hybrid build, so whatever I’m lacking, I’ll trait for.

But, on a Warrior, the fastest way to level up (doing general open world content) is to shove all your traits into Power and Precision and go crazy on the mobs in PvE and get your maps and events completed.

Pandemoniac.4739:

CrossedHorse.4261:

The Asuras are really cute (and best race for jumping puzzles – Norn and Charr are too big to see anything!).

Well someone else pointed out in another thread, you can always use a tonic to shrink yourself down for the puzzles where it’s a problem, so there’s a workaround. But after using an Asura for jumping puzzles, I’m really having a hard time doing them with any other race

Huh, I didn’t know about those … what tonics are they?

They actually do periodically have short sales of some of the convenience items such as the everlasting gathering items. It would be nice if they could bring back some of the more popular but limited-edition skins more frequently though. The did bring back Rox’s quiver once, but only that once and a lot of the people who missed it the first time round missed it the second too. I’d like them to bring back the Toxic gauntlets and shoulder sets, and most of all Kasmeer’s staff skin, but unlikely that will be any time soon.

The Asuras are really cute (and best race for jumping puzzles – Norn and Charr are too big to see anything!). However, I think there’s a lack of decent looking armor for medium armor types when it comes to the Asura. As Pandemoniac points out, some of the Asuran racial skills synergise really nicely with the condition elements of the Engineer class.

I think the Charr medium armors actually look pretty good, and a Charr Engineer obviously fits thematically with the rest of the lore. But I dislike playing Charrs just because they’re so large and I struggle to see in jumping puzzles etc. Same issue with the Norns, but the Norn females are better than Charrs.

I never use the racial abilities on any race except Asura, so I can’t say if there’s anything more attractive for one over the other unless going for a particular effect to do with your class (eg, maybe the human elite, Hounds of Balthazar, if you are a minion Necro – but then you’d probably take Flesh Golem).

Necromancer with dagger/warhorn maybe? It’s offensive, melee and generally single target but has aoe damage (like warhorn skill 5 or dagger skill 2). Lots of sustain, but difficult to disengage from a fight if you need to (though Death Shroud basically gives you a second health bar).

Or, Ranger with sword/dagger, sword/warhorn, sword/torch or greatsword. Lots of evades, if you keep your pet on passive you only call it to attack specific targets and so can make for very active combat if you want it. Or, if wanting a relaxing time, send your pet in and use shortbow or longbow from a distance. Ranger melee attacks have cleave, so it’s not single target, however.

Danicco.3568:

Run.

RUN!

This made me laugh so much. So true.

I think Engineer is the more versatile and more interesting class, if you enjoy the building aspect of professions and analysing traits etc. Necros, for me, are more fun. If you want to run zergs, both are viable provided you have the right builds, but Necros offer less in the way of support to anyone else you may be playing with than Engies do.

Assuming none of the classes, skills etc changed, nothing would be different.

If everything were rebalanced to have the traditional trinity back? I’d leave. I play most of this game solo, and while I now have the option not to run DPS builds only, I wouldn’t if I wanted to solo anything in a trinity-based game. So, it would be limited in exactly the same ways that I found other MMOs to be, and I’d leave. A lot of people would.

Then again, probably a lot of people would join, so maybe we’d have similar numbers, but a very different crowd.

Sundar.1735:

I don’t think critical damage is the only problem here. I think the problem is that because they want to do away with the trinity they intentionally made tanking and healing weak in this game and because every profession has damage, healing and condition removal and there are mechanics like dodging, reflection, stealth, corner stacking, downed state it makes very little sense to take defensive stats because you get 1 or 2 hit by most bosses anyway unless you dodge. Even if they nerf critical damage people would still take only offensive gear, maybe condition damage would become more popular but I don’t think people would ever take healing and defensive gear. If they make true tanking and healing viable then that would contradict their manifesto so I don’t think there is a solution for this problem.

The problem is that healing is pointless if you have no damage. And the way the enemies behave, particularly bosses, is that you need to have at least significant base damage to play at all (unless you’re running in a group the entire time with at least one DPS person, which makes it more like the trinity). I mean, you can’t stand there and heal an enemy to death, can you? Sure, you can not die, but you can’t kill him either. So there is a reliance on DPS. Defense, that is necessary, but again, only if you also have DPS, otherwise you don’t ever move anywhere. And since the best defenses of all are still available on heavy DPS classes (eg Warrior), there’s really only a very short path of logic to take until you conclude that the most efficient profession to use is a Warrior in Berserker gear. Not necessarily the most fun (depends how you’re wired), but certainly the most efficient if you know how to use your defense skills well.

It’s not that they made tanking and healing weak … they could make them stronger and we’d have the same problem. They definitely made control weaker (mostly because most bosses have Defiant), and healing isn’t as strong as it might be simply because everyone has access to a self-heal. It’s just that DPS remains the cornerstone because any other kind of attack (like condition damage) is capped out. And, since you HAVE to have DPS to play this game solo (as they intended for it to be possible to do), you need to focus on DPS.

I doubt they’ll nerf it to the point where a team of zerkers took over an hour to complete a dungeon. It’ll probably be more like maybe 5 minutes longer for a skilled speed dungeon running team, and maybe 5 minutes faster for a skilled non-zerker speed dungeon running team. If they nerf it at all – they’ve said they’re looking into changes, not necessarily a massive nerf that will outright destroy the berserker build (they know they can’t do that as too many people will be affected adversely).

People will think what they want to think – a video won’t change their minds. Does it really matter to you if they think you are playing an easy class? Will it change the way you play or the class you play? Do you think that they aren’t also offended by people who play berserker looking at their class and coming to the instant conclusion that the only reason they don’t play berserker builds is because they aren’t good enough? I think both opinions are highly insulting and based off prejudice, not knowledge of the individual person.

I should hope a team would resurrect a dead berserker. But then I should hope a team would try and resurrect any dead team member – with no regard to their gear at all. I know I would try my best to resurrect anyone I could if it were possible. If it isn’t, I would always apologise.

The reason why people say berserker builds need no skill (and please note, I am not one of these people) is because the speed at which most mobs die is such that if a berserker gets off two hits (which they can usually do before needing to dodge or block any incoming attacks) then the fight is over. Any remotely prolonged attack would see a berserker at a disadvantage, but most fights don’t last that long. If bosses had different AI, had more, faster but less one-hit attacks, then I doubt anyone could say berserker didn’t require any skill.

People who don’t run berserker have longer fights. That’s just a fact. During longer fights, naturally there is more need for dodge, reflect, blinds, blocks etc. Sure, your extra toughness might be a little more forgiving if you mess one or two up, but generally, you need to know how to use your defense skills just as much.

I dislike it when either side says there’s no skill involved. But, posting speed runs actually only reinforces this idea. People watch and see a boss go down in two minutes flat and say well, naturally, no skill is needed because the boss isn’t alive long enough. No matter what people say, the other side is going to have an answer for it, so there’s little point trying to prove anything to people who start with such radically opposed views.

Lamir.6702:

CrossedHorse.4261:

I fail to see the OP as anything other than a blatant attack.

I fail to see your post as anything other than a blatant attack, and ignoring almost all points of discussion because you don’t like sarcasm.

Oh I get sarcasm.

But this post doesn’t prove anything or lend anything towards discussion. All it intended to do was to provoke reaction, not discussion. That is an attack. I am simply saying that abusing people doesn’t exactly promote anything healthy at all.

I fail to see the OP as anything other than a blatant attack.

Both sides of the “to berserk or not berserk” debate have acted badly. Both sides call each other horrible names and snub the other. BOTH sides. I can hardly fault someone for calling someone “elitist scum” when the other person has just labelled them as “bad”, all based on the kind of gear a person likes to use – no other evidence AT ALL. This is ridiculous. Equally, I can’t blame people for being defensive at being called “elitist scum” for the exact same reason – gear choice.

The fact is, it’s a game. It’s a game designed for people to play how they want to play. And, guess what? It works. You can do the PvE in Cleric’s, you can do the PvE in Berzerker. Nobody should care. If you want to do a speed run, then do a speed run with other people who want to do a speed run. If you don’t, then don’t. Using one set of armor over another isn’t always indicative of skill – what if someone was simply experimenting. Or what if someone is filming a build video for other people? What if they simply LIKE playing that way? Or so what if they aren’t very experienced? Why should you hold inexperience against someone and treat them like they’re not worthy of respect? I run berserker gear on my Necro – doesn’t automatically indicate I’m more skilled than the next Necro without berserker gear (I’m probably not).

I’ve seen some very mature and interesting discussions on gear on these forums. They’re interesting and both sides raise good, valid points. But then I’ve seen threads like this, which is basically just someone whining and claiming they’re “calling out” the people who insult others, while doing exactly the same thing. And they ruin the forums, split the players and further exacerbate the issues at hand.

People need to learn to express their views calmly and listen to each other. If you just shout a one-sided argument at someone, they’ll end up doing the same back to you. If you listen, maybe you’ll both learn something.

That would be really helpful. I was just thinking that I could do with a different set of keybindings saved for my Engi!

RedCobra.7693:

CrossedHorse.4261:

0 gems. By the time I hit 80 on any character, I’m invested in that character and everything to do with that character, specifically AS that character. Changing the race would change the character. I do my research before I make any new character, and make sure I get it right at character creation. If I feel I can’t take a character all the way to 80, I’ll know before I hit level 20, and then it’s no loss to me to delete and re-roll.

thats the opposite effect, i doubt youve played one of your characters more than i have, i just want to renew the character thats all, i wouldnt mind trying out the other races without having to start again

I probably haven’t. But I wasn’t criticising your opinion or your desire to roll a race change. I was just giving my opinion. I get too attached to my characters, so I wouldn’t want to change anything about them and would rather create and level a new one (no matter how boring and annoying levelling can be!). If ANet implemented a race change option, I personally, think it would be a shame as character creation is such a large part of GW2. However, I wouldn’t make a fuss and complain about it on the forums because it doesn’t need to affect me at all. If they do release something, then good for you (and them).

Oh ok. Well, Warriors actually have quite a lot of mobility, and because they can use longbows and rifles, you have decent ranged options as well as melee. It is probably one of the more versatile classes, and some would argue, the easiest to play (it is definitely easier to do ok on a Warrior than, say, an Engineer).

Guardian is slower and doesn’t have a lot of mobility options, which is a pain, but if you prefer boons and more support/control oriented builds then Guardian does this better than a Warrior. They have the lowest health pool in the game, afaik, but they are very durable as they have loads of cc and blocks etc. Guardians also use a mixture of magic and physical weapons – don’t know if that appeals or not.

Elementalists can also get up close with daggers, and you constantly have to dance in and out of attunements (instead of weapon swapping), which can make for fast gameplay. Engineers have kits that you swap to, which also requires a lot of fast thinking and quick fingers on your part. They both have good traits or skills that allow for great mobility as well, which is a big plus in this game.

Mesmers carry over a few of the stealth mechanics (with different skills, obviously) that you might have liked about playing a Thief. And, as Malchior points out, they are good if you like swapping between melee and mid-range. They are, however, very slow at killing things at early levels and don’t really come into their own until later (though I would also say the same about Thieves).

Which aspects of playstyle from the Thief profession do you most like and would most like to carry over into a new profession if you could?

Hey, look me up in game. I usually play some evenings during the week or most weekends! I’m on Aurora Glade too, and though I’ve had the game a while, still consider myself a newb. Am looking for friends to explore with, run quests, and who knows, maybe a dungeon or two? Have lots of characters at varying levels, but it doesn’t matter so much to me where we go or what we do (or what level I’m on).

I think the Snaff lab is through one of the Asura gates on the mid-level at Rata Sum? One of the big portals. If you get close enough, they should be labelled with where they lead to.

Vayne.8563:

Okay, let’s look at the opposite point of view. Let’s pretend that Anet didn’t try to please everyone and instead focused on one segment of the community. So they did that and not enough people played the game and not enough money was made to continue making updates. Would that percentage of the playerbase then be happy that Anet made that decision?

The problem is, it’s very easy to say something like the company is trying to please everyone, but that’s what a themepark MMO really needs to do. It’s got a huge overhead, and it needs a whole lot of players in game to keep this game running. In fact the game is designed around having tons of players in game.

If they make decisions to keep players they’re doing it for the benefit of the game, even if some people leave because they’re doing it.

Oh, I absolutely agree that taking just one portion of the gaming community would be a problem and most likely cause them more problems with people leaving than they have now. However, they have, imo, spread themselves too thin in trying to please almost everyone.

Now, one of the reasons I love this game so much is that there’s a little bit of fun for everyone – I don’t run dungeons or fractals, I don’t WvW or Pvp, and there’s still a lot of stuff left for me to do that I enjoy. That’s wonderful. But ANet have limited themselves to the point where it’s like they’re afraid to make some really huge changes that could greatly benefit the game (like changing the enemy AI on a large scale) because they’re worried about backlash from, say, three portions of their players, when actually it’s something that’s needed. Or the legendary precursor scavenger hunt. This has been bandied about for ages, but if ANet ever do release it, it has to be absolutely perfect for, what, five, six, different groups of players? They won’t please everyone, and they can’t, but they’ll try to until we get some sort of baseline grind for it that will just maybe not infuriate anyone, but won’t make anyone happy either.

Vayne.8563:

mrstealth.6701:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

The poster implied over all disappointment.

There is a rather large difference between him implying something and you choosing to infer something. A statement referring to addictive gameplay seems like a fairly solid counter to a claim of implied, “overall,” disappointment.

You really are arguing just to argue at this point. Here then is the exact quote:

“This game is trying too hard to please EVERY type of RPG gamer: story-follower, PvP, casual player, PvE grinder, smart people, people with no-life~~~~ending up disappointing everyone”

I’m not inferring anything here. He’s linking a cause and affect I don’t agree with. I don’t think trying to please everyone will cause disappointment in everyone PERIOD. There’s nothing else to discuss.

He was making a rather obviously generalized statement, and one tends to be true most of the time. Trying to simultaneously satisfy groups of people with completely opposite preferences is unlikely to succeed without some degree of disappointment/dissatisfaction from at least one side. You even attempt to debunk his statement as false based on your own lack of disappointment, yet contradict your own claim by stating aspects of the game you are clearly disappointed with.

I still like the game, and enjoy playing, but I am definitely very disappointed with quite a few aspects of it. Probably more so than many others, but I find it unlikely that you will find anyone that is not disappointed by at least one aspect of the game. Even if there is just one minor area you feel should be better, that is by definition, disappointment.

Still not my point though. He specifically linked two things. Making a game for everyone and people being disappointed because Anet is doing it. You can play the everyone has some disappointment somewhere card, but most people will not read that statement and understand it that way. It’s bad communication at best, completely wrong at worst. It should be rephrased or it will turn off anyone who doesn’t feel disappointment.

There are plenty of people who play this game casually who aren’t disappointed, because they play it casually. They don’t have enough time to be disappointed. These debates fly under their radar. They don’t bother questioning if the game can be better.

Debating me for saying that something that was said is obviously untrue, even if you can fiddle it to make it true only illustrates my point. It’s bad wording. If it’s not what he meant, it should be reworded. I certainly took it that way and I’m pretty sure that a good percentage of people will take it the way I did.

I think you’re taking your point a bit too far. It was clearly a generalisation and not necessarily to be taken as a literal truth. And, as generalisations go, I’d say it was pretty accurate. Of course some people are happy, and some will be disappointed no matter what ANet do. But I think it’s very fair to say that in trying to please everyone, ANet has sort of been unable to narrow its focus enough to really make any one thing shine. This is, and always is, the problem of trying to please everyone. It’s practically unavoidable.

Both of you have valid points, but I think for the sake of being picky, this point has gone too far now.

All this is only if they nerf berserker gear to the point where it’s no longer useful. As many people have already pointed out, this is probably unlikely unless many other bigger changes happen in the game. Berserker will still very likely remain the go-to build for most people. So, no need to change your gear, so no need to offer you the option. The option for MF gear wasn’t really an option because they simply removed the stat entirely. Berserker people will not be left without armour.

Fenrir.3609:

Einlanzer.1627:

Zerker needs to be nerfed, badly. I’m not necessarily opposed to a free respec on zerker gear like what they did with MF, but I don’t really think anyone is entitled to it either.

It’s odd how the people who say “zerker needs teh nerfbat!!”, never come up with a valid reason as to why that should be the case.

They probably think it’s obvious.

Even zerkers themselves will admit that the reason they run it is because it’s simply so powerful compared with any other build. ANet want to balance things better so other builds become more useful. This is likely going to come from a nerf to zerker (to only change enemy AI wouldn’t necessarily make other skills more useful to the same extent as altering both slightly). So, a nerf to zerker will probably happen, but I doubt to the point where zerkers find themselves completely useless. Yes, maybe they’ll find that they can’t kill everything in 2 seconds flat, but then maybe we’ll see a correlation between that and some of the complaints that things are far too easy in this game.

Are your graphics settings up too high? Sometimes that can cause lag.

Though, I have been noticing much more lag recently – never used to get any except in extreme cases like running the Sanctum Sprint. I haven’t changed a thing on my settings, yet now even in fights against one random mob in the open world my server will often start lagging (to the point where I’ll very nearly die against a mob about 20 levels lower for no reason other than my skill 2 didn’t work when I hit it).

Innovation isn’t always, to me, coming up with something entirely new. Sometimes, it’s looking back over things that we already have and finding ways to improve upon them to the point where something becomes new.

I used to work for a very successful entrepreneur, and he used to have several meetings with young, up-and-coming folks who would come to ask about setting up their own businesses. They always say “I just haven’t had a great idea about something new yet”. And he’d always reply “most businesses don’t start with something entirely new. Yes, it happens, but it’s the very rare case. If you have it great, but if you don’t, don’t force something different just to do something different. Instead, look at current systems – heck, look at toilet cleaning, and work out how it can be done better.”

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Instead of always rejecting things people want just because “it’s been done before”, companies should look at how these things were done, why they were successful and how to make them even better. Then, they can try new stuff. But if the core of their game isn’t solid to begin with, they’ll face more trouble than ease later.

I very much doubt zerkers are going to be hit as hard as they are fearing at the moment. And I also doubt that this will in any way affect the meta. As others have said, making other builds more useful does not make zerker less useful.

The most likely thing they’ll do is a cap on crit damage, but even a cap at 100% is still totally fine (and yes, I do run zerker on my Necro because that is how stupidly OP it is at the minute). They’re not taking away any defensive abilities EVERY class has – some variation of reflect, invulnerability, blind, cripple, chill and, of course, dodge. Essentially, things will stay more or less the same, but non-zerker builds will find themselves on a more equal footing. For any zerker “elite” player, they’ll still be just as useful as they ever were. Until mob AI changes completely, DPS will still be the fastest way to kill anything in this game.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

CrossedHorse.4261:

Brilliant ideas! I’d love this, and it satisfies far more wants than just repopulating lower levelled zones. It provides other ways to access Ascended, gives people more events, specific loot areas, objectives … so many things.

I really love the PvP and WvWvW inclusions as well, and think that it would be really popular with everyone.

+1

If you would, drop a +1 on my post with the PvP/WvW inclusions so it gets noticed

I almost wish this had shown up last week, to be linked over into the CDI thread which just wrapped.

T’is done! And this last one, just to reinforce my point!