Guild Wars 2

Warlord.9074:

Ya so i have read and studied the crit damage nerf. And my analysis of the data and theory’s led me to the conclusion that wvw will only become worst.

This is why.

In wvw is all about numbers. The tactic of Turtle and zerg are so prevalent because the game mechanics. The Game Mechanics limit AOE damage to 5 players. So people figured out if we stack 40 players on a dime and somone AOEs us they are only hitting 5 people not 40. And the damage can simply be cleansed, and over healed.

Now what happens when you combine that issue with nerfing everyone’s damage. The Turtle becomes even more effective than before. Which makes WvW substantially worst.

I never thought that TESO was a real threat to WvW becasue WvW is free and TESO is not. I did think that many people would leave becasue Gw2 is stale and they are ready to move on. I now think TESO impact will be very much larger.

All of the things that we hate about WvW just got worst. Thank you for your consideration ANET.

TESO is going to be the same way probably. However in teso an entire zerg can appear invisible if they all crouch. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t be surprised if TESO’s WvW does impact Gw2s. However, from what I played during beta of TESO’s WvW (meta wise) it was very similar to Gw2s meta in beta. I would not be surprised if we start seeing teso zergs stack and other stuff like that.

First let me say I’m not say rangers are overpowered or underpowered or anything like that. I’m simply using two of its skill designs as an example of a skill design that needs to be taken from the game from all classes and locked in a container deep underground.

The two traits I will be using are Strider’s Defense and Shared Anguish.

Strider’s Defense’s main problem lies that is is based in RNG. It has no counterplay directly. Say I’m a ranged person. When I use one of my skills, these’s a 15% chance that the skill will be blocked. There is no way I can prevent this from happening unless my attack is unblockable. There is no way for me knowing this can happen. The entire counterplay and play in general with this trait is based in RNG. This is not a good design for PvP games. Having gameplay based in RNG and chance is never a good idea, especially when there is no call animation and things like that.

Shared Anguish is another example of this problem. Its not so based in RNG, but if you use a disabling condition, you have no idea if its going to be negated or not. Again, not much of a counter play.

The main counterplay for both of these is wasting a skill or spamming. I personally don’t think this type of skill design where in order to counter play it you have to purposefully waste a skill is too great of a design. With blinds and aegis, you have a condi and boon skills that can be stripped/cleansed.

Here’s a suggestion as a replacement for Strider’s Defense.

Make it so that every 15 (or 10, i’m not sure what the ICD on it is now or if there is one. If not I think 10 or 15 seconds is a pretty good ICD) seconds the little trait icon will appear where buffs appear for the ranger, silimar to the way kite refinement appears for an engineer. When this happens it means that the next ranged attack will be blocked. This allows for two things

1. More control of the ranger. He can adapt his playing to the fact that the trait is up and take the actions he wants with that in mind

2. More of a counter play. Attacks will see that is up and will have to decide how they will negate/counter it.

Here is a suggestion for Shared Anguish

Make it so that there is an icon for enemies to see under the rangers name to know that his first disabling condition will be negated. Don’t make it a guessing game during play.

I personally like this. Now I know the concerns many are talking about are reasonable, but adding more progression to PvP can actually to it a lot of good. Reminds me of Guild Wars 1 PvP. Something I noticed with friends and guildies that pvp’d is they usually get bored/stop pvping around rank 30. This is when it starts taking a pretty long time to rank up. Players need to feel rewarded and a sense of progression in an MMO in order for a game mode to be popular. With Gw2’s pvp players got most looks from ranked matches by the time they reached rank 30. It usually doesn’t take them too long to obtain the rank 30 looks that they want, along with achievement chest which speed up the process even more. By doing a system like this, players can look forward to something else as the rank up. So many complaints are about how PvP didn’t feel rewarding and how long it took to rank up. This way they can throw in more rewards for players to shoot for without making it very easy to obtain ranks.

Also keep in mind that what is discussed on the forums isn’t always want is wanted. I’m not saying your opinion isn’t valid, but I know a lot of people that prefer to not go on the forums. So while I understand your concerns about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if doing a system like this trait system can keep more pvpers involved in PvP longer, which to me is a plus any day.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Update to dev guests: Unfortunately, Darrin has been sick lately and is losing his voice, so Jonathan Sharp will come on the show instead!

That’s too bad. Well I hope he gets well soon! Someone should send him some krait oil. I hear it does wonders.

CoffeeMakesMeSmile.8172:

I get that Scarlet was the villain, but I felt horrible listening to Marjory and the others joke about her death.

Previous LS updates established that she’s been driven crazy by some external force that she encountered in the Eternal Alchemy and could no longer mentally fight it. We should pity her or mourn for those she’s killed, not make childish jokes about what it felt like to deliver the death blow.

Not to be rude here, but I’m genuinely curious – do dialogue ideas get checked before they are added? If so, did no one suggest that joking about killing a mentally unstable character might be in poor taste?

To be fair a vast majority of the community wanted her dead, didn’t like her, didn’t like her as the main baddie. Basically didn’t respect her. The characters reflect the community if you think about it. Like how Braham and them didn’t want to learn why Scarlet did it. They just wanted her dead. Why it may not be true for everyone, I saw a vast majority of people talking in this way. The characters didn’t respect her, so why should they treat her death with respect?

Roy Cronacher.1576:

ipan.4356:

Unlocking traits through content is a great idea though.

I’d even remove the option to buy them from vendors.

While we think going out into the world to unlock traits is a cool reward for completing specific content, we wanted to have an alternative option in case that wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. There are many different kinds of players. =)

While I understand that, perhaps not make it gold. If its gold I wouldn’t be surprised if a vast majority of players will just buy it and it wont do much for horizontal progression to them. Perhaps making it a mix of things. Like 5 gold, 5 laurels, and 10 skill points.

I’m just worried it will end up like so much of the rest of the game and being gold driven. Many things in the game lost their appeal to some players as endgame items because of how easily they are bought on the TP. Players like to differentiate themselves from others and show off their accomplishments. If someone can farm a champion train a few times and get 1 gold and purchase the grandmaster trait as apposed to going out and kill a specific boss, it may not do much for the games horizontal progression.

If the gold cost isn’t that much in respect to endgame players, it may not be vaule as much. As with Guild Wars 1 owning a skill from a hard boss not only showed the player was skilled, but also showed how much he played in the game. I know a few players I’ve talked to recently compared your games endgame to pre 2.0 loot in diablo 3. Basically the TP is the main focus on endgame and it has caused gold to become the main endgame for players. The ones I talked to believed it was bad and that players are in the same situation as diablo 3. Low drop rates, not feeling rewarded, and sitting on the TP more than anything.

So is the new PvP map coming with the feature patch? I know a few people I’ve been talking to are confused if any PvP changes (aside from balance/skills) will be included in the feature patch.

The only way I’d consider using the new turret trait over rifled barrel turrets is…

1. If turrets get more utility (taking them over a kit isn’t as good, kits offer sooo much)
2. If turrets get cd reduction. Getting a turret destroyed means you’re without a utility usually for 30 seconds + (except for rifle/healing)
3. If turrets can manage AoE. AoEs are the turret killers. They destroy them in seconds. Projectiles aren’t as large as a threat to warrant taking a new trait over rifled barrled
4. If the projectile bubble can reappear again after 3 seconds. The bubble should honestly just reappear for 4 seconds every 3 seconds. If you did this it could be insanely useful in WvW on friendly siege. However, since you require it to be deployed to activate, you better hope the CD on turrets has been changed. If not it will probably not be used.

My philosophy is to just wait and see. I know from past experiences in games that if you go into a game patch expecting something, most of the time you’ll be disappointed. I usually like to get excited for what they offer us, not what I expect. If its stuff I enjoy then thats great. If its not something I enjoy I don’t get upset because I know there will be a good portion of people out there that like it.

So my advice is to not to expect things like Guild Halls, GvG, raids, etc. If they give those things thats great, but don’t expect them.

Just to clear up. We’re not sure if or how much of QA they’re outsourcing.

Keep in mind that many of those cons you see on the review sites are very very common in the gaming industry. Things like contracting, outsourcing, etc. Even blizzard has some that are similar to that.

So while it sucks to see Mr. Chapman go, don’t start going out into the streets of DR claiming the end is coming. Only time will tell how this game does and delivers on content. I still have faith in Anet. The great thing about Gw2 is that even if you don’t have faith right now, you can stay up with the game still. You can still come in whenever you want and see what they changed, log in and try it out, and more.

Wondering if anyone else has the gemstore not working for them or if it is just me. I can’t load any of the tabs except the default/home gemstore one (where it list the promotions and stuff). I can’t go into style, services, etc. Started doing this last night.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We also haven’t provided the person who is running that account with any information. Anything they post, that isn’t something that we’ve already announced, is pure speculation.

One more question Mark. Is the Scarlet Page Official?

https://twitter.com/ScarletBriar

Thank you for that clear up.

Is this twitter page official?

https://twitter.com/Mordremoth/statuses/441362472420016128

Reason I’m asking is because its creating expectations within the community. Since that tweet is up people are starting to think that you guys are going to unlock the Tengu area soon. Its wise to either confirm or deny these reports because for one they’re splitting the community up and creating unnecessary arguments (whether its real or not). Secondly if you disappoint people will be mad at you, even if its not you saying it. Although I love that someone is doing it, I don’t think it will work well for you in the long run if they start hinting at future content and it not be true in the long run.

Hello,

I’ve been playing since release and I’ve always felt the same way about World Bosses. They don’t include the world as much as they should. I can’t help that many of them, including the ones introduced in the living story, are just raid bosses in terms of the mechanics they use. I’m fine with that, don’t get me wrong. But I feel like you can do so so so so so much more with world bosses. I felt like tequatl was a step in the right direction though since then it seems like you’re going backwards.

World Bosses need more world. This means including things like…

1. NPCs
2. Pre Events that are Dynamic Events, not required but help.
3. The environment (destructibles, rockfalls, lava, etc)
4. Interactables
5. Usable Items (the airstrike in EOTM is a good example of a usable item that’s unlocked via event)

Right now most bosses are just raid bosses. They have mechanics that inhibit the way you play and require you not to stand in an area. Knights are a good example of this. AoEs and you can’t use conditions. Marionette was a good example of this with the champions. I understand that this is just my opinion and isn’t a representation of how everyone feels. I just think that you can add so much more depth into fights without just introducing mechanics that you’d typically find with raid bosses.

If you look at the link below, this could help spread out players and make fights more interesting instead of inhibiting mechanics, aoes, and tons of HP. By spreading out players you can also help reduce lag. Along with this since players wont just be in a huge zerg of people, it will help with players feeling more unique and more like heroes instead of just being another faceless grunt in a sea of players.

I’m going to look over some of my favorite boss fights that haven’t been touched to give you an idea on what I mean.

Here is my first one, Shadow Behemoth.
http://imgur.com/a/H46i9

If you have any ideas on how you would improve world bosses or perhaps some ideas for Shadow Behemoth himself, reply below. I’m interested in seeing what people think of the current bosses and how they may be better.

Hello,

Here is my review for this weeks Living Story Patch

Overall, I’d give this event a 7/10.

First lets go over the playable content itself.

The content was pleasing to the sight, but the depth of the combat was probably one of this weeks lowest points. The mini fights themselves were fun, but when the knights spawned is when problems started to arise. The Knight fights and somewhat the hologram fights are very boring and again have very little depth. Lets start with the Knights. The knights have a very high HP, immune to CC, and conditions are very bad to use. This basically means that 75% of the games skills are now useless because of the anti CC and anti condition mechanics. This also is very hurtful towards classes that main meta and “good” skills are centered around conditions. I found the gameplay style of sitting there attacking, dodging his ocasional AoE attack for 10+ mins at a time to get very stale/boring fast. The hologram fights were better, but similar in problems. The Scarlet fight was much much better and was probably the best fight.

Next up is Rewards.

The rewards were great. I like the new guns and helm. I would have loved to see more weapons that would’ve dropped instead of just a rifle, but we can’t have it all. I’d like to see more armors and weapons outside of the gemstore. I know that the gemstore is kind of like progression since you can get gems with gold. Though with the promise of delivering content through the livign story that you’d find in an expansion; I’d rather have an expansion than the current setup for the armors in the gemstore. RNG is another factor again. It kind of irks me that me getting that rifle is based on tons of factors I can’t control. I can’t control who I play with to a certain extent so if I get a “bad” group then there really isn’t anything I can do. Then you have the drop rates. Low drop rates are good and all, they increase the value of an item. However, with the events being spawned at only certain times it makes earning them a much harder process since if I don’t get it I can’t instantly do it again.

Quality

For the big finale of a living story season, there were a large amount of progression blocking bugs. Map crashes, none spawning buffs to get into the drill, Knights resetting/healing 100% to full, etc. The other parts of the content and LA in general seemed fine however, so that was good.

Vol.7601:

I disagree on your last image.

The cutscene shows, in order
1.) LA
2.) Kryta – most likely Kessex Hills since that is directly west of LA
3.) Reactor (you can see Asura and the distinct outline of the eastern face of the reactor)
4.) Unknown land – I don’t think this is water, even though it looks like it. Leyline energy would be hugging the water sea floor, not the top, I would suppose
5.) Maguuma Wastes/Magus/Falls

2) It’s gendarren fields I’m fairly certain. The boat you see is the iconic boat that would normally be above the northern Gate into LA. It is true that it is destroyed now, but its more plausible than anywhere else since you can’t see a boat anywhere else pre destruction. You also see at the top right a city on a mountain. This is most likely the Ascalonian settlement and the random tower in the middle of it is a key feature of this town.

3)Agreed that its probably the reactor

4)Yeah this one is hard to tell. It looks like a very flat land that is grey/gloomy and perhaps near water (left of the picture in the cutscene looks like water over there). There’s not many areas in the world that can have this type of look. It’s very possible it is the maguuma waste and just as likely can be the area around tequatl.

Hey there,

I found some information that I think will/is important to discovered where the next Living Story may take place and where the big baddie that woke up is.

http://imgur.com/a/wOmf8#0

Just thought I’d share.

Indeed. I would love if someone has a link. My server got a map crash when we were about to beat it. Second time around most people left or went afk inside the map so we lost again. Rather just watch the cut scene now instead of waiting and wasting another hour and a half.

killcannon.2576:

Would increase inflation in top tier goods by more than 250%. New players may as well not even bother with the game.

The problem (or core of) with the economy now is that almost the entire reward system is gold based.

Something I notice is that a lot of people say that dynamic rewards just aren’t good enough. It was something I was trying to solve with an increase in gold reward.

Also why would it increase the inflation of top tier goods? Sorry I’m not too familiar with economics.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

It’s called making a new character.
Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but this idea literally sounds like it replicates making a new character – just without making a new character. So you may as well make a new character and use your level 80 for WvW and PvP etc.

Thats exactly what it is except that you get better rewards. I thought about making it so that the player actually gets more downscalled than normal so that it is harder.

Hello,

So something I’ve been trying to do is think about a way to create a form of progression that would get people to go back into the living world, make it long lasting, and also have some sort of effect in the other game modes of the game. I didn’t want to make it required to do the other game modes, but rather compliment them.

Here is the basic idea of what I’ve come up with. I’m hoping to get some constructive criticism to improve on it and refine it.

So once a person reaches 80 and does map completion, he gains the ability to activate Luminary Mode. This mode does the following

Downscales you back down to level 1 in the open world. It will still say you’re 80, you’ll be able to use 80 gear, and it boost you back up to 80 when you do things like spvp, WvW, dungeons, fractals, etc. All your stats will be downscaled to level 1 though when you go into the open world. You can then level again. Your map will be reset so you can do map completion again. When you do map completion again you could receive reduced rewards in terms of gifts of exploration. So you can basically level again in the open world. You don’t have to do this however.

You can do Luminary Mode 5 times. So you get to 80, do map completion, then activate luminary mode, repeat. Maybe it will take more exp each time you do it to reach 80 in luminary mode.

Now then, whats the point? The rewards will not only be able to get more than 2 gifts of exploration on one character, but also the following

1. Each time you do luminary mode you get 20% increase to MF

2. You can increase dynamic rewards. For each Luminary mode (up to 5 times) you get 20% more karma, 10% more exp, and 50% increase in money rewards for events. So if I were to do an event that grants 200 karma, 1,000 exp, and 2s then do it again after reaching max Luminary (level 5) I would get 400 karma, 1,500 exp, and 15s and 18c.

3. Access to special events and vendors. There would be special vendors spread out throughout the world that give you special things. Food buffs, flags, tonics, etc. These could be for money and karma. There would also be special armor skins and weapon skins. Each luminary level grants you access to certain vendors and theres new vendors for each level. There are also special events that players can start only if they’re a certain luminary level and these events can drop special skins and unique things like that. Any player can participate in them, however to start them you need to be a certain luminary level.

So what do you think of it? What problems could arise from it?

I know they wont remove these mechanics and they’re fun mechanics. However, I would like to see them spammed less. Personally I think that classes should only get the ability to evade through dodges, no weapon skills. Then vigor should be 1/4th of its application rate of what it is now. Many of these mechanics like blinds, aegis, and blocks can be fine if only they weren’t so prevalent in the meta. Blocking is not as bad, but I think blinds and aegis are applied way too much. Thieves, engineers, guardians, etc. All classes do it to too much of an extent.

DanyK.3842:

So you play MM necro and say that you hate thieves. Nice block of text to hide it. :P

MM=micromanagement sorry. Not minion master.

The Kurt.2518:

I don’t really agree with all the things you say, how is a combat system where every attack hits its target more skill-based? O.o And those “wasted attacks” you talk about, you can just use your #1 weapon skill to get rid of aegis and blind, usually at least :P

It’s not just every attack that hits your target. Here are some things I’ve noted from looking at competitive gaming.

1. Counters. Usually everything has a counter in some way.

2. Skill shots. Skill shots are very popular. They required a higher skill floor which in term makes the game a bit more competitve and entertaining to watch. Seeing somebody land an amazing skill shot is always awesome.

3. AoEs that aren’t just circles. Very few games have an abundance of AoEs. Not saying they don’t have any, however they have a lot less than Gw2 does.

4. Adaption. Players needing to adapt based on whats going on in the game provides a higher skill floor, ceiling, and entertainment value. Gw2 has some adaption, but it is not a lot. not nearly close to what is needed for it to be successful as a PvP game. Watch the combos and skill rotations of players, especially in duels. It is mostly the same each time, they don’t really change it up too much.

Hello,

Now I’ve been playing since release. I’ve played just about each class and I spectate a lot, especially in the fight club. I’ve been doing pvping in games for years. I was heavy into the pvp in gw1 and WoW to name the more popular ones.

Now the main point of this post is to point out why some defensive mechanics that this game has fail for the most part and why they may have been the cause of pvp in this game not looked upon in the gaming community as competitive or popular. Now as many of the pvpers from other games that I talk to have said, this ship has sailed. Much of this game is designed around these things and I don’t fully expect them to change much of it. I also understand that many people wont agree with me. I’m not saying I’m right and everyone else is wrong, but I can’t help but there is a reason this game’s pvp fell on its face and I tried to compile the common complaints I hear.

1. Blinds- Blinds only way to remove is condi and wasting an attack. Condi removal is on long cooldowns for the most part, applying blinds usually isn’t. Wasting attack= spamming. Lowers skill floor and ceiling because of this. Hard to counter, easy to apply.

2. Aegis- Only way to remove is stripping boons and wasting an attack. Boon stripping is not very widely used in the current meta and is usually on a long CD or has a large skill punishment. Very few skills are unblockable and in the meta.

3. Blocking- same as aegis but with the only counter being unlockable skills.

4. Evading- Probably the worst of the bunch. No counter to evade skills. Character model promote advantage. Personally I think Vigor is a horrific boon that does nothing for this game. I also don’t think any weapons should be able to evade while attacking. Any class that relies on evades to survive is poorly designed in my eyes because the evade system lowers entertainment value, skill floor, and skill ceiling.

5. Stealth- No counter, easy to apply, easy to spam. Again lowers entertainment value, skill floor, and skill ceiling. Stealth system in this game is one of the worst I’ve seen in all my years of gaming. Planetside 2, Teamfortress, WoW, every MMO, they all have counters to stealth and no class relies on stealth to surviving in fights. I understand how heavily some classes do rely on it and I think they should be reworked. The whole combofield for smoke being rework would be a step in the right direction. Smoke fields are way too strong currently.

6. AoE- AoE is way too strong in this game, especially for conquest. Classes apply it way too easily. It lowers the skill floor tremendously, lowers the skill ceiling, and clutters up the UI causing a lower in entertainment value.

7. AI. AI is good, if theres micro managing involved. MM is something that is requried for games that utilize AI because they raise skill floor, ceiling, and entertainment value. Games like MOBAs who contain AI often required a good amount of micromanagment. This game doesn’t have a lot. They follow you around and are one button wonders.

Those six points are often ones brought up by the PvPers I know from other games on why they can’t get into Gw2. Like I said in the first paragrahp I really don’t expect these things to change, I just hope that they work towards making them less…prevalent.

Hello,
So something I enjoy doing in this game is wandering around the world. Doing events, gathering, etc. Every once in a while I come across a new player thats doing his first level 80. Most of the time this person will have no idea what the Living story is or what has happened. What I usually do is give them a summary of recent events and take them around the world to show them the sights of previous LS content. I always get the best reactions with the zeyphr sanctum model or the toxic tower cinematic. So it gave me idea.

Story Tellers Campfire: Place an item down at your feet that when players interact with it, it will play a cinematic of your choosing.
It works similar to the funbox in terms of how you choose. The person who put it down can select which cinematic they want played when players interact with it. It could be new cinematics or just all of the old ones (Maybe the karka coming up during lost shores, the final bosses appearing in the Molten Alliance weapons facility, things like that).

The camp would be your typical camp fire. It could be more if they decided to make it like a campsite with a tent, chairs, maybe a roasted pig over the fire, etc.
Just an idea I had. What do you guys think of it?

Hello,

I’m creating this post to ask you what got you hooked to Guild Wars 2. What about it made you think this game is awesome?

Here is mine : http://imgur.com/a/bi0yw

I am doing this thread because I hope that the developers for the LS read it and perhaps find the popular things and carry them over into the LS more. I’m interested in what everyone else’s features caused them to love Gw2 like I do.

Nausiation.1469:

lol k so OP wants a small group to retake an entire city. Thank god he isn’t a game developer.

It’s not just about being reasonable. It’s about fun. I don’t think many people will find lasting value in a mess of models, animations, and just numbers. I can’t help but find that during these huge zerg battles I lose my sense of uniqueness, my sense of being a hero, my sense that I’m doing something. That I’m not just another grunt.

I’m sure many people here will agree that we are find for big battles with lots of people. Though there needs to be more depth to the fights. Throwing 100+ players into a map and having them run at NPC zergs spamming F for drops isn’t that entertaining. Some of the mechanics are badly designed too. For example, the molten boss that does an AoE invurn thing for him and his allies. Just pull him out, right? Well sadly he’s going to have 50 stacks of defiant.

The turrets at tequatl are a great example of how they should use interactables. They need to not only do this, but also put in some NPCs to help and things like that. Spread the missions out more.

They just need to learn how to split people up.

1. Too many Events spawned in close areas

2. You awarded based on kills, not on event completion.

3. No depth to the fights. They’re just like the Scarlet Invasions. No interactables, not really interacting with NPCs.

The thing about Gw2 is there is no holy trinity. That means that each class is basically trying to fill similar roles. Do damage, support, and defense at maximum output for each. This means the build diversity is much much less diverse than a holy trinity class. Anet can add a thousand different skills to engineer, but if the bomb/nade/[skill] meta build is still the best all those skills will be mostly ignored.

If anet is going to add more skills, they’re going to need to do one of the following.

1. Make builds more specilized. Make it harder for a class to be able to output a kitten ton of damage and have really good survivability. Survivabliity doesn’t just mean toughness and health. Being able to evade a ton of skills over time a bunch, spamming blinds, tons of aegis and blocks, tons of invurnablities, etc are all things that factor into your survivability.

2. Make objectives in the game that require different builds. I’ve seen a lot of people complain about skyhammer because they run “trolly” builds (ones with lots of knockbacks) to knock people off. More things like this may need to happen. By doing something like this you’ll be seeing more diverse builds on that map. maybe people will trait more into stability. Maybe blinds. Things like that.

I’ll call this now and I’ll keep calling it. If anet adds more skills, if they’re not better than current meta skills than the amount of people who use them will be very low. Just look at the new heal skills. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone using them in this whole weekend I’ve played.

It is not just thieves and warriors. Its almost every class in the game demands a very strict setup for builds. The ability to fully negate damage a lot (blinds, evades, aegis, blocks, etc) and do lots of damage. Each class honestly has issues with it that cause this game’s pvp to basically be in a very poor position.

Warriors- Tons of AoE CC. Would be fine on one on one since their animation tells are kind of obvious, most of the time though our attention cant be fully on the warrior and if we miss one of his attacks it is very very punishing to us.

Mesmer- Tons of clones. This not only crowds up the UI and makes for a terriable viewing experience, but it also demands that builds have lots of aoe to take out the clones. Again like the warrior, getting hit by a shatter is a huge punishment.

Engineer- Jesus too much AoEs. Crowds up the UI even more, makes for a horrible viewing experience.

Thief- The most punishing class in terms of gameplay. With the large asortment of teleports, leaps, blinds, evades, and attacks that can do 5k+ damage within seconds; it is a very punishing class. This is made worse by stealth which has no counter. I want to try out a build that may be more supportish? Well that thief just used his shortbow and dagger to gap close and also go in stealth with d/p, then did 9k+ damage to me within a second after he reappared on top of me. If I"m still alive he ran away or blind spammed me till his rotation was up again.

Guardian- Gets a ton of boons and support spam no matter the build he chooses because of his class mechanics. This means you either need high dps or boon stipping capabilities to really get through to him.

Ranger- Basically autoattacks and is able to do its damage. Very boring to watch and to fight.

Ele- like engineer has a ton of AoEs. This class isn’t nearly as bad as the others, but still crowds up the UI a lot.

Necromancer- Tons of AoE conditions. Only interesting thing about this class is how he uses his DS and corrupt boon. Aside from that it is an AoE condition spam like engineer.

Every class spams something. It all boils down to too much AoE/Passives in this game and a huge lack of skill punishment. Necro, engineers spam AoE conditions. Mesmers spam clones. Guardians Spam boons/support. Thieves spam blinds/evades/huge damage attacks. Rangers just spam bow skills. Warrior spams AoE CC and physical damage.

milo.6942:

Deified.7520:

Balancing MMOs is very hard to do. They have to account for 3 game modes. WvW, PvE, and sPvP. I know I know, split the modes. However, that makes the process of balancing twice as long. Anet is also very much against wack a mole. So they take things slow and test them out. Warriors are probably their favorite example. Everyone demanded warriors be buffed, that they were useless, etc; for 6 months. Six.months. Then around the necro buff hambow comes into play and its now one of the most OP builds.

Yea I remember that. But doesn’t that also speak to the amount of time it takes for changes to happen? You say yourself, 6 months.

Another thing to note is how wildly the meta swings when they do release updates. It seems like large infrequent updates change the meta drastically and then it sits that way for months and months until a new patch drops.

I quit the game because there’s only dps and tank. There’s little room for utility playstyles, no debuff or disabling playstyles that act as enablers for your teammates to win. I think as a consequence balance is on a razor’s edge, with damage in and damage out being the main 2 variables. Who can kill who and how fast before help arrives? If you can’t win run or die, respawn, repeat. Balancing around that doesn’t leave much room for errors.

edit: to say it more simply: It’s not that balancing mmos is hard, it is, but it’s especially hard here because there are basically 2 roles: kill or live, spread out over 8 professions. There isn’t enough diversity built into the game to cushion balancing errors.

They did do changes in those 6 months. Engineers got nerfed, other specs got buffed and nerfed, eles had some major changes, etc.

You state the reason you quit the game, fixing that reason is no simple matter. People need to realize this isn’t just a number issue. This isn’t something they can fix in a couple of months. It is a mechanic issue. The way the skill mechanics are made and set up is whats keep the game down. It’s whats hurting build diversity, it is whats causing the skill floor and skill ceiling to be so low, and it is one of the main reasons why this game will probably never go esports.

Balancing MMOs is very hard to do. They have to account for 3 game modes. WvW, PvE, and sPvP. I know I know, split the modes. However, that makes the process of balancing twice as long. Anet is also very much against wack a mole. So they take things slow and test them out. Warriors are probably their favorite example. Everyone demanded warriors be buffed, that they were useless, etc; for 6 months. Six.months. Then around the necro buff hambow comes into play and its now one of the most OP builds.

This is the problem with the community on this forum sometimes. So many people complain about mechanics only when it works against them and not for them. The problem isn’t just automated response. It’s passive full counters. There are tons of them in this game. If they’re going to nerf AR, they’ll need to nerf all the passive full counter players.

Instead of saying AR needs nerf cause it’s working against my class, say that Passives that allow you to fully counter something should be nerfed and use multiple examples from other classes (including AR).

That’s the biggest problem I’ve found with some of these balance passes. They nerf something then let other classes have a very similar mechanic. Next patch they’ll finally be nerf other classes vigor application which I think they really should have done when they nerfed engineers.

Romek.4201:

Deified.7520:

Romek.4201:

Deified.7520:

Romek.4201:

Deified.7520:

So if automated response is so good with the meta, how come we don’t see more engineers? I mean it is the least played class , so something must be up.

you even paly the game atm?

go soloQ and you have 2+ engis per team

i even had 4 engis in enemyteam

its fun

Yeah I play pvp every now and then. Not nearly as much as I use to. I’ve been in situations when I’ve had 2+ guardians per team, 2+ eles, 2+ thieves, 2+ mesmers, etc. Does that mean these classes are OP?

Just curious , what class do you main?

my most tournament games played per class i have on engi – why ask?
And YES when you have CONSTANT over population from 1 class in games than this class became somehow op now and all the bobs rerolled it.

ATM it looks like all hammer monkeys play now decapclown

BUT

this has nothing to do with thema and its about AR and AR is total broken and fail design and it need to be REMOVED from game. Not nerfed – REMOVED

Most tournament teams I have watched also always have a guardian. Mesmer too. How should they nerf those two classes?

Man you post bullkitten and it has nothing to with the thema.
You waste my time

I’m just trying to use the reasoning with AR and engineers and apply it to other classes. If you’d like some advice with AR, try timing your conditions right before he goes below 25% hp. Or perhaps try not building so heavily into conditions that you can’t deal enough physical DPS.

Romek.4201:

Deified.7520:

Romek.4201:

Deified.7520:

So if automated response is so good with the meta, how come we don’t see more engineers? I mean it is the least played class , so something must be up.

you even paly the game atm?

go soloQ and you have 2+ engis per team

i even had 4 engis in enemyteam

its fun

Yeah I play pvp every now and then. Not nearly as much as I use to. I’ve been in situations when I’ve had 2+ guardians per team, 2+ eles, 2+ thieves, 2+ mesmers, etc. Does that mean these classes are OP?

Just curious , what class do you main?

my most tournament games played per class i have on engi – why ask?
And YES when you have CONSTANT over population from 1 class in games than this class became somehow op now and all the bobs rerolled it.

ATM it looks like all hammer monkeys play now decapclown

BUT

this has nothing to do with thema and its about AR and AR is total broken and fail design and it need to be REMOVED from game. Not nerfed – REMOVED

Most tournament teams I have watched also always have a guardian. Mesmer too. How should they nerf those two classes?

perilisk.1874:

Been a topic of some discussion lately. General thinking was that, if it did mean anything, she was going to die or need saving from Canach

But what if it wasn’t happenstance, but something dormant that Scarlet could later use for leverage?

I could just see Scarlet using Kasmeer’s condition to demand that Destiny’s Edge 2 stand down and let her get away with something, or even help her.

Scarlet: All right, I’ve heard enough. Would you explain to these foot soldiers why they’re going to do what I tell them to do?

Marjory: What’s she talking about?

Aetherblade 1: The Toxic Spore venom.

Aetherblade 2: Improved from the version you saw the Tower of Nightmares. 100% pure death.

Aetherblade 1: It starts with a slight headache, then turns into a hallucinations that gets worse and worse. After a short time, you crash. You bleed out like a stuck pig. Not a pretty sight.

Kasmeer: I get it. You figure that you inject that poison into me, and under the threat of death, I’ll do whatever you say…

Aetherblade 1: You got it, Meade!

Marjory: One question: which one of you kittens gets to die trying to stick her?

Aetherblade 1: You don’t understand. It’s already in her.

Kasmeer looks down at the scar from the Tower.

Aetherblade 2: Catches on quick, doesn’t she?

Wait, where did this dialog come from? Did I miss something?

Romek.4201:

Deified.7520:

So if automated response is so good with the meta, how come we don’t see more engineers? I mean it is the least played class , so something must be up.

you even paly the game atm?

go soloQ and you have 2+ engis per team

i even had 4 engis in enemyteam

its fun

Yeah I play pvp every now and then. Not nearly as much as I use to. I’ve been in situations when I’ve had 2+ guardians per team, 2+ eles, 2+ thieves, 2+ mesmers, etc. Does that mean these classes are OP?

Just curious , what class do you main?

So if automated response is so good with the meta, how come we don’t see more engineers? I mean it is the least played class , so something must be up.

I agree with a few points.

Personally I feel that if the devs want battles to be more depthful and entertaining to watch, they’ll need to reduce passives, aoes, and put in more skill punishment. Though those things would be huge changes to the game and much of the game is built around the opposite of those changes, so I really don’t expect too much to be done with those. They are reducing the spam of some things like vigor and poison which is nice.

However, you’re other points I’d like to discuss. Try to imagine this from the developers perspective on the playerbase as a whole. The fact of the matter is that the forums are a vocal minority for the most part. Its not to say anet doesn’t care about your opinions, but the popular opinion on the forums may not be the popular opinion of the game as a whole.

On skyhammer, sure it can be a bit frustrating at times; but I find it more entertaining to watch skyhammer every now and then because people use different builds. I’ve played this game since release and the meta for most of the classes hasn’t changed at all. Everyone plays their classes in the same fashion. Seeing a new build makes it a bit more interesting on some occasions.

On you talking about the dysfunctional meta. I have seen a lot of people hate on the condition meta. I haven’t seen that big of a difference. Engineers are still doing the same thing they’ve done since release. Conditions have gotten better on necros but they’re still counterable. It seems like most people who complain about the meta think that their class should be able to counter everything. Those types of thoughts is what causes a low amount of build diversity. If you’re fighting a team with a lot of condi pressure, try seeing about making a build that involves more condi cleanse. Figure out the classes respect weaknesses. They can’t just nerf them either. Say they nerf necromancers condi pressure to appease the forum crowd with the condi meta, what happens to the necromancer class? Does he become useless? How is that fair to him? Just buff his physical damage? Then the meta goes back to an exact clone of launch meta of nothing but physical dps and that hurts build diversity even more. Every class has a hard counter. Pre launch up till the necormancer buff I saw a ton of guardians, mesmers, and thieves. It wasn’t till around the time of the necromancer buff that we saw more necros, engineers, and warriors come into player. Most of the complaints I find with the condi meta comes from mesmers, guardians, and theives because condis are their hard counter. Secondly it took the community like 6 months to form the hambow. Now that build is considered by many to be very overpowered. So the entire community on the forums agreed from launch till around the tiem of the necro buff that warriors sucked. That they were useless. That they needed a ton of buffs. This whole time they had an amazing build that no one discovered yet. This is just a testament to how hard it is to balance MMOs because you never know what OP builds are at your disposal that you just don’t know about.

Finally the speed at which things are released. Anet has a lot on their plate. PvP is least played and least popular game mode in gw2 among the community. So naturally you’d expect them to put a majority of the funds towards gamemodes that are more popular and would do more good for the game. So they are working on PvP. They have talked more than once about these secret back burner projects that they may or may not reveal this year. So who knows what they’ve been working on behind the scenes with pvp. Not only this, but theres also a bunch of confirmed projects their working on. New modes, rework of the reward system, etc. These things take a ton of time to make from scratch.

I’m not disagree with the general theme of this post. I think gw2’s pvp is in a really poor position right now. However, I try to understand things from anets perspective and the game as a whole. My advice to you is go out and explore the other game modes. Play things besides PvP. Go play WvW, PvE, dungeons, heck just roam around the world. That is what I’ve been doing and I have kept a watchful eye on the pvp streams, updates, and other patches dealing with pvp.

Romek.4201:

i want an “autokick engineers around the map at 25% hp”

Why?

I don’t understand the anger with this sorry. I haven’t kept up on it and wondering why I see comments like this so much?

Hello,

So I joined Edge of the mist earlier and my internet cut out (disconnected) and I lost connection to my internet services. After resetting the usual stuff I was able to connect again. Web browsing, steam chat, teamspeak, etc. All worked fine. However I tried to get in game with the character I was in EotM with when I got d/c. It was on the loading screen for the zone for about 5 mins till crashing with no error and relaunching the launcher. So I signed back in and got on another character. I was able to get in game fine, the loading took longer than usual but I got in. After getting in I attempted to go back into EotM (with the other character, not the one I crashed in) and when I clicked join eotm nothing happened. I tried it twice. I was able to talk in chat, play the game like usual, so nothing appeared to be wrong. I then all of a sudden lost connection to the server and was kicked to character select. I reentered with the same character (again with the other character, not the one I originally crashed in) and first the loading screen from the zone I was in appeared, then the edge of the mist loading screen appear, then the zone loading screen appeared again, then it loaded back in. Now that I was in I lasted a couple of seconds before losing connection to the server again and getting kicked back into the character select screen. Internet was still working, i was still talking over teamspeak. Tried reconnecting again and got into the game no problem. I entered eotm fine.

Just a weird bug that was a bit on the annoying side, wanted to give you guys a heads up.

1. Thief (having classes that do 10k+ damage in one strike or do a ton of damage very quickly isn’t that fun to watch nor fight. It may be fun to play, but if you want this game to go esports this class needs to get a more depthful interesting role in combat rather than just tons of damage on one target in 2 strikes. Plus it limits class diversity because if I decide to choose a build that may not have a lot of tankyness or blinds or defensive spam, then a thief can kill me almost instantly depending on the build you decide to try out).
2. Engineer- although the three kits are cool and all, i’d like to see it have more interesting builds arise. I feel like gadgets and turrets have a ton of potential, but aren’t viable in this games meta
3. Mesmer- although this class can be good, the concept of illusion spam/phantasm spam isn’t good esports or gameplay wise. It crowds up an already very crowded UI and can turn a battle into a mess. I’d like to see them be more like mesmers from gw2 rather than a minion blaster (summons minons for quick burst over and over again).

Yes. Make sure you do research on things like credit cards and debit cards before using them.

Hey,

So Anet has said they wont be doing a living story after it ends in march (not sure when or if it will start up again). Here are some ideas you guys can do. Also, you don’t have to make these last over a year. Assuming you do it every 2 weeks again, making these last 3-5 months should be enough. The current living story has gone on for almost a year and a half now and thats a bit too long considered what’s been covered lore wise. Anyways, on to my ideas.

1. Each Elder Dragon (duh)
2. Ascalon and the ghost
3. Ebonhawke and the survivors/charr
4. Palwa Joko
5. Largos and the sea
6. Unseen Ones/White Mantle
7. Dhuum
8. Menzies
9. Scepter of Orr
10. The Gods (I know they left, doesnt mean you can’t do something involving the)
11. Cantha
12. Tengu and restoring relationship with them
13. The Centaur Threat
14. Something Jotun (so much lore with them now. You can really make up some cool stories about them, perhaps a rise of a Jotun side faction/race, not playable)
15. Gargoyals

You can make them into short/half stories like Southsun. Maybe have them unlock a zone, new dungeon, armor set, etc. I love the dragons as much as they next guy, but don’t forget you have a ton of lore to choose from that I think has a lot of freedom

IF you got any ideas about story topics, post em as a reply.

Most things required for map competition can be done by yourself, perhaps the exception would be Orr, Frostgorge, and Southsun.

Something you need to keep in mind (this is just my observation), is that Anet I believed had expected more players to be out in the world more instead of sitting in LA. Heck there weren’t even waypoints back in the day, thats why at the order bases you have teleporters to for trinity.

After they realized that the open world wasn’t good enough (90% of the complaints at launch was lack of endgame), they released Fractals (I’m not sure if that started after or prelaunch. The location of the portal is just a bit weird for me) and ascended (people farmed up and got exotic gear way faster than they predicted) to make up for the lack of endgame.

That being said, I’m probably 50% sure that Anet has some projects going on that may help with the open world population problem, so we may see something about it after march.

My personal idea was incorporating guild halls into the open world. Make it so theres some form of upkeep (guild halls are in areas inside a zone. These areas have a stabilization rate. This rate goes down over time, goes down even more when an event fails, and perhaps when an event is up for too long. It goes up upon doing things inside the zone. Unlocks rewards, buffs, bonuses, etc; for the guild in levels). So that endgame players have a reason for going out into the open world and it makes guilds feel more important.

My advice to you use fill up your guild roster with as many guilds as you can. Don’t have to rep or get involved, but just be in one. Then when you encounter something that you need help for you have 5 guilds to ask in.

I like roaming the world personally. I just do some random build that would normally suck in the rest of the game (like turrets for engineers) and roam around. Talking to new players, answer questions about the game, helping with events, etc.

Here are some more details you may have overlooked. There are a lot more in the world probably.

http://imgur.com/a/VLCZO#0

So I found a potential big exploit. I recently submitted a bug report via ingame reporting it. You guys should probably take a look at it. If is not intentional, someone is bound to find it again soon and exploit the heck out of it. Just wanted to warn you guys about it, perhaps stomp an ember before it turns into a wildfire

BobbyStein.2315:

DarksunG.9537:

snip

I’m just asking that people reserve judgment on the next release until they’ve played it and absorbed the story components.

If you honestly think someone apart of anet, let alone someone like Bobby, would tell a player on the internet that he can’t have an opinion, you should re look over why you think that. That would be PR suicide and no one in the right mind would do that.

Anyways, I felt the need to say this. Bobby, I’ve been with you guys since release. I was there for the spectacular lost shores event. It had problems with lag, but it was pretty kitten fun. I was there to save Norn and Charr from the molten alliance. I was there to save the refugees on Southsun and stop Canach. I was there. Story wise, you’ve guys dont a pretty good job. You have had a few bumpy roads here and there. Starting off slow, not giving enough information, perm affect on the world. That being said, since October you guys have DONE AMAZING job improve. The amount of progress you made on this content is amazing. Halloween was an awesome story line. Wintersday was fun. The main thing that truly amazed me and still does to this day is Kessex Hills. PLEASE do what you did there again. The event was awesome, but how you ended it. Sweet baby Jesus that was the best ending delivery I’ve ever seen. First you have the ruins and the obvious destruction it caused. Then I can rewatch the cinematic with new players! Thats not it though. You put in NPCs actually reacting to the Toxic Tower. The NPCs on the eastern side of the lake talking about the giant toxic shark. The quaggan refugees. The detail is amazing. It is a HUGE improvement since Flame and Frost. Then you have marionette. The boss has it problems and I’m sure you guys learned a lot about world bosses this time. However, Scarlets secret lair and how you tied lore into the reward system. This was an amazing design. I learned so much and I’m so hyped up to see how this will end. I can not wait. It’s true I’m a bit worried for the heart of the mist, but I’m also at the same time very excited. If you were to have announced this after tequatl, I wouldn’t be too hyped up for it (I always felt like tequatl was too loosely tied into the living story and felt forced). However, since Halloween I felt like you guys have really started improving and listening to player feedback. After marionette, the instance and voice acting, the lair; I have high confidence in you guys in finishing this. I really think the ending will surprise people and I can’t wait for it.

To the players, try explaining the living story to someone. Something I do for my endgame since I really dont need gold or items anymore is I roam the world helping players, talking to them, etc. I especially love the low level zones. I encounter new players (even 80 players who dont know the LS exist) and I love talking to them about the LS and they always love it. I get the best reaction out of them when I show them the zephyrite sanctum model, toxic tower cinematic, telling them how the players actually voted for someone, and then showing them marionette. After you explain the story to someone, the story seems a lot better and you realize it is. I think the main causes of this is because we had to wait for the chapters, but when you read it you knows what happens next by reading it and not waiting another month or two weeks to find out. The story is a lot better than we give it credit for.

I know that anet might not see this and it may get buried. I know that people will probably scuff and reply in a laugh, think im brown nosing and stuff. I’m not trying to I assure you. I just see all the hate Anet gets and the developers get and Anet is the only company that I’ve seen actually take pretty large risk and done experimentation for the MMO industry. I think they’re doing a terrific job and I can’t wait to see whats next.

Good Job Anet. I know you may see a lot of hate, but there are a lot of players out there that think you’re doing a good job. Don’t get discouraged!