Guild Wars 2

This should be sensible enough: we have two mechanics that could use slight buffing – vulnerability and condition damage. Oddly, the two mechanics are often combined (particularly on the Staff Mesmer, Axe warrior with points in Arms, any ranger with points in Marksmanship, etc.)

It’s a simple change. Make vulnerability effect condition damage. The 1-25% increase would be just what condition damage needs and vulnerability might stop being as much of an all-or-nothing condition as well.

The change would also encourage teamwork, and that’s always a good thing.

Currently, spending karma on obsidian shards for legendary weapons is borderline impossible because the chances of finding enough people willing to march on Balthazar’s temple are very low.

I suggest selling obsidian shards at all temples and the Gates of Arah. Obsidian Shards should be cost-restrictive, not availability-restrictive.

Killua.8041:

NoOneShotU.3479:

Just move it to Karka Land rather than in LA. Nobody is going out there anyway once you do the content. It’s one of the most boring zones on the map. Back to Orr or Frostgorge for me.

Probably the easiest map to get Orichalcum from.

I get them from all 3 maps though, so it hardly matters.

Slein.9573:

The combat is boring because of the way it is setup. The enemies rarely have interesting attacks and everything you do you don’t really “do” yourself. For example on my guardian I have a skill that allows me to jump towards my target and then hit it. While it would be so much more interesting if I could actually jump and then press an attack button to attack. Hotkey combat is basically outdated and really uninteresting for controlling a single character. Better to go play a hack ‘n slash like darksiders or something. Then you’ll feel the smoothness of movement.

Animations do have a role in this too, I do agree with you on that. But really most of the time it is best to just get out your ranged weapon and stand there attacking until you enemy drops. With the exceptions of some dungeon bosses.

That is a large part of it. Melee combat is typically more engaging than ranged combat and Anet made the horrible mistake of punishing melee with almost every boss in the game.

notebene.3190:

Unless you don’t care for dungeons or the baggage that goes with it?

I’d be happy with a new 80th level zone that looks like Queensdale with townsfolk to save and bandits and farmers, and lots of new DEs, but with more money dropping. I have a heck of a time finding that.

I do enjoy WvW a lot, and I’m a self-proclaimed PvP hater, which I’m still trying to reconcile myself. Pretty good money taking a keep. I’d like to see DEs out in the world offer that sort of money. And no, not in Orr, I hate Orr. Depressing place. We need more green.

Honestly, the game would have been better if levels were gone completely. It would make every zone equal with no limit to the sandbox before you.

Of course, you could say that downscaling sort of accomplishes this, but it doesn’t work nearly well enough. Higher levels and gear still make lower-level zones laughably easy with lackluster rewards.

Deadly Spirit Guy.4769:

Yea, let’s have a game who’s main PvE aspect is one dungeon!

Ironically, Aika Online was dictated by a single dungeon before its first expansion and this was the best time the game ever had, given that it was a low-grind game with good PvP pre-expansion. I enjoyed it heavily.

And let me tell you, Fractals of the Mist is 1000x better than the crap I ran dozens of times back in Aika. Hell, Fractals may just be the best dungeon I’ve ever played.

Now, Guild Wars 2 is a great game, and the combat SHOULD feel great, but it often doesn’t. Hell, the combat really only feels engaging during PvP or other particularly challenging fights.

One of the causes of “boredom,” as I see it, is the rather plain, dull way that characters tend to animate. Watching a Mesmer endlessly loop the same Greatsword auto-attack animation gets old (and annoying, given the sound effect) very quickly. There is no excitement to it. No alternate animations. No exaggerated effects. No feeling of power, or even impact behind each blow. Attacks rarely feel satisfying.

Say what you will about Aion as a game – personally, I don’t think it’s particularly good (in fact, it was one of my biggest gaming let-downs), but it had wonderfully over-the-top animations that made combat feel exciting (at least until you realized that you’d been grinding for hours on end). These crazy, energetic swings would have been incredible in a game that was actually GOOD – ie. Guild Wars 2.

One direct threat to the game’s longevity, in my opinion, is the low build variety. While the weapon system makes for an easy-to-balance type of gameplay that guarantees that a build will be “viable,” the template system lacks variety. This is largely because there is a lack of templates to choose from – and it’s one of the many reasons the warrior is so popular: they have more weapon options, and thus more variety, than any other class in the game.

It is my desire to see every class eventually able to use every weapon type. Think about it – Necromancers dual-wielding axes or executing the foe with a Greatsword, the return of the Bunny Thumper (Hammer Ranger), Elementalists using torches that change from fire to water to lightning to earth. It would be glorious!

I was thinking more along the lines of

Adept – Quick to Die

Gain quickness for 2 seconds on entering Death Shroud.

Master – Death Into Life
10% of your Power is given as a bonus to Healing.

Grandmaster – Siphoned Power

Unchanged.

Adept Traits

Death’s Embrace – 50% more damage while downed.

Spiteful Talisman – Increased range and descreased cooldowns on focuses.

Parasitic Bond – Killing a foe removes a condition and restores some health.

Spiteful Spirit – Gain retaliation for 3 seconds on entering Death Shroud.

Signet Mastery – Your Power and Malice are increased by 25 for each Signet you have equipped. Signet recharges reduced by 20%.

Reaper’s Might – Life Blast and Plague Blast grant Might for 15 seconds.

Master Majors

Axe Training – You deal more damage with axes. Axe cooldowns are reduced by 20%.

Spiteful Marks – Marks deal 10% more damage.

Training of the Master – Minion damage increased by 30%.

Chill of Death – Cast Spinal Shivers on an enemy you hit below 25% health.

Grandmaster

Closer to Death – Deals 20% more damage to enemies below 50% health.

Burn in the Underworld – Death Shroud skills burn your target and surrounding enemies.

This should open up quite a lot of build paths.

Edit:

Apparently, I have no idea how to use spoiler tags.

There’s still a serious flaw in that you have to max your Spite tree to even buff your axes (whereas most weapon-based traits fall in the Master section) and you cannot stack the two major damage increasers from Spite – the Grandmaster majors.

This will have to be fixed for power necros to be viable.

The Death magic tree should have its minors separated from minions. Tying minor traits to a particular build type is bad, especially for a weak utility tree like minions.

Look, I LOVE Guild Wars 2, just as I loved Guild Wars 1 before it. I think you’re a capable, honest developer with a lot to offer its community. I’ve logged well over 500 hours and have no intentions of stopping. And it’s because of these things that I worry about the direction the game is heading.

At this stage in the game, we don’t need new content so much as we desperately need improvements on existing content. Yes, the Fractals are great. Borderline perfect, actually. But the rest of Lost Shores was comparatively lackluster and highlights major game issues or shows that game issues can be fixed.

Endgame lacks variety

“But didn’t adding a new area add more variety?”

In answer to that, the Fractals DID add a lot, but Southsun is just another stage with a low diversity of enemies. Currently, there are only 4 level 80 zones (counting Frostgorge and Malchor’s Leap). Of these zones, only Frostgorge has a large variety of enemies. Malchor’s Leap ONLY has undead, elementals, and Inquest. Cursed Shore ONLY has undead and elementals. Southsun is mainly populated by the same Karka, Drakes, and Reef Riders with the same Skelk, sharks, barracuda, etc. that we’re used to. It leads to a lot of repetition.

What Southsun Cove DID accomplish, however, is showing that you have learned your lesson on enemy density and can program and endgame area without a foe every 5 feet. It’s actually possible to navigate much of the island without having 5+ Karka on you, and for that I am thankful.

So why not apply that lesson to Orr, even if only slightly? One of Orr’s major problems is that it is a PAIN to navigate due to excessive enemies, almost all of which have CC.

Class Balance is still shaky at best

Jon Peters stated that there are only 2 staff members working on balancing professions. That’s really sad. Rangers (and all minion/pet users) currently suffer from bad AI companions that limit their worth in PvP and in high-end PvE.

This is just an example. There’s a lot more to fix. The biggest thing is my next point: build diversity.

Build Diversity is rather low.

Entire utility lines and weapons are underpowered to borderline unusable. We’re already limited by a small weapon selection and small utility + elite pool and this only compounds the issue. When combat gets repetitive, this is a direct threat to the game’s longevity.

Traits need work

There are still a large number of non-compressed traits in our line. Before the game released, you set a precedent for combining cooldown reduction traits with other traits for a weapon or skill type. Don’t let this end there. Keep compressing them. Never allow a trait that only offers CDR, even if you have to do simple things like add 5% weapon damage to it.

If a trait looks like it is somewhere it doesn’t belong (such as Traps in the Precision/Prowess tree, move it to the correct one).

A lot of these are common sense fixes. Will they immediately change the face of game balance? Of course, but it will also set a ground work for future balance work.

There is a lack of drop diversity

Ascended gear wasn’t the way to go. A lot of loot-oriented players are upset that there is no excitement to loot. Not no power. “Yay, this rare sword uses the same exact skin with the same generic effects as the last 10,000 common swords I found.”

What I mean to say is …. add more skins. Guild Wars 1 was known for, among many other things, a large weapon skin variety.

Quite frankly, I don’t care if you have to recycle these old Guild Wars 1 skins with Guild Wars 2 graphics. I’m sure most Guild Wars 1 players would appreciate the homage. Things like the Icy Dragon Sword, Black Dragon Sword, the gothic and jade weapons, crenallated weapons, and many others would make fine additions.

Orr was designed for large player populations

With its dangerous large-scale group events (temples) that must be captured just to complete basic tasks such as map completion, karma exotics, and trading karma for obsidian shards, adding the Lost Shores KILLED Orr.

Something needs to be done about this, lest the work of many players go to waste when their large stores of karma become useless and their maps hover at 98-99% completion until they have the good fortune of a guild doing these things.

Considering how much more difficult the new zone is as compared to well….. everywhere else, you would expect for the drops to be decent.

Nope. There must be something seriously wrong with the loot algorithms here because the enemies drop next to nothing, even with MF gear.

If the area is going to be this challenging, it should provide enough items to warrant the repair bills you will likely incur while playing here.

mulch.2586:

The moral of the story is good players don’t condition-build.

Was the same way before launch.

Go ahead and make one. Play a Mantra Mesmer. Play a Signet Ranger. For most of the game, you’ll be fine, cuz the game’s just not that dependent on dps. Your choice.

But it’s absurd to complain about your choice. Cuz you’re the one wot made it.

It’s absurd to complain that an entire build archetype is unviable?

They give loot. It just seems to be rare and crappy considering how much stronger Lost Shore mobs are as compared to…. any other mobs.

There is probably something wrong with the drop algorithms.

It really is a bad fractal. Far too much luck involved in the wall spawns, the trap spawns, and the various other random factors.

The Fractals are like a beautiful woman. Except for the Swampland Fractal, which is like finding out that she had herpes.

Eleazyair.5716:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Hey all, we are aware of the bug with Ranger traps. A fix is slated for to take care of this bug tonight.

So are you guys starting to call “class balance mistakes” “bugs” now? Interesting way of putting it…

Let’s see:

It wasn’t announced.
The tooltip doesn’t reflect it.
They clearly stated it was unintentional and intend to fix it TONIGHT.

It’s a bug.

I’m sure it’s in progress. The bug fix may very well need a large-scale change to the animation of the weapon or its mechanics.

vespers.1759:

let me guess… you bought a triforge pendant and now you realize that soon you will have wasted all that gold right?

i guess that’s just life. it’s an exotic and idk why you should get a free upgrade just because you paid an inflated price.

Actually, I don’t even own one.

I love my Ranger. I just wish there was more of him to love.

Awesome.6120:

Why shouldn’t they take inventory space?

Why should they? They don’t contribute anything.

tigirius.9014:

sure why not buff all the gear to ascended and stick them all in dungeons only and add gearscore dps meters and make them all drops instead of bought with tokens specific to the dungeon and add a cross server lfg tool system. what does that sound like.

while I share your frustration on the cost of the items end game what they are doing with this game on nov 16th is scary enough. one step at a time.

Whoa. That’s quite a slippery slope you’ve got there.

Much like Legendary weapons are meant to be an absurdly expensive prestige version of the best weapons in the game, the Triforge Pendant is, in terms of cost, the most absurdly expensive accessory in the game.

The problem is that, with the release of Ascended jewelry, the Triforge Pendant may become out-dated. This is disappointing given the high cost of the item and its unique theme.

My suggestion is simple. Buff the Triforge Pendant to Ascended tier with 45 to each stat (instead of the current 40) and +7% crit damage (instead of the current 5%) with an infusion slot.

Minos.5168:

One death plus waypoint cost can amount to 5 silver.

It’s absurd, really.

I never even had to consider repair costs in WoW, but here they’re thrown in my face.

Also, have any of you been to Orr where there’s Risen every 5 feet and they respawn every 30 seconds?

5 silver is literally nothing. A single dungeon run with mediocre drops typically amounts to about 50 silver.

And yes, I’ve been to Orr. I thoroughly disliked it and I actively avoid it in favor of the more interesting and more fun Frostgorge Sound.

Repair costs are almost negligible unless you personally die a lot. I’d argue that this game has one of the most reasonable durability systems I’ve seen.

If you want excessive repair costs, look at Aika Online, where gear naturally degrades through use (and even more on death) and repair costs are so high that you basically have to grind to pay for your grinding.

I think the dagger is superior to the torch in PvP. Not so much in PvE.

Currently, Spirits are terrible, except for rare occasions with many players (ie: WvW) and Dynamic Events.

Why? They are fragile and have poor trait support – it’s non-compressed, meaning that you need to fill ALL of your nature magic slots to make them a little less useless, and you still won’t be able to get all spirit-related traits. Their effects are relatively weak for their fragility, most of their traits are things that should be baseline, and they have a long cooldown.

In other words, I’d like to see them reworked to a large degree:

My solution

Spirits currently work as a constantly refreshing aura that has a 20/35% chance to provide a benefit with each attack (fire seems to work on a cooldown and with a longer duration than listed).

Instead of this, I would like to see them work as a single-attack application that is guaranteed to give its benefit on that attack and refreshes every 5 or so seconds. This removes the RNG factor and makes them a reliable form of support that is easier to balance to the more guaranteed numbers.

In addition, compress their traits. Remove +15% effect achievement, because it is now a guaranteed effect. Combine the spirit health bonus trait with the spirit skills trait. Combine the grandmaster spirit trait with one that reduces the cooldown of spirits.

For example:

Frost Spirit
Provides an aura that refreshes every 5 seconds. All affected allies deal x% bonus damage with their next attack. Does not stack with other next-attack bonus modifiers.

Bam. Fixed.

The Karma Invader armors are a massive tease because they use the icon for the skin I’m looking for (PvP Stalwart Medium) but use the generic Duelist/Marksman appearance.

Could you change these into Stalwarts to give players a way to obtain this elusive set?

I seriously hope that the entire set can be found in the game outside of the story, because I remember it animating fantastically well.

I don’t particularly care about the head piece. I typically hide those anyway.

Took about 80 gameplay hours for my Ranger to hit 80. You could probably do it faster though with more efficient play.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Stalwart_armor

I can’t seem to find this in PvE. It doesn’t seem to be a crafted or karma armor and I KNOW it isn’t a dungeon armor.

Knowing the name of the PvE version of the set would probably help, but the wiki has no such information.

@Doombunny

Lack of build variety is a very common problem to almost all of the game’s professions at this moment. Almost every profession has certain utilities that clearly outshine the others – and most have utilities that are outright useless in any practical situation. And we’re certainly not the only ones who MUST take a certain trait line to be efficient. Look at the Elementalist class – they are required to spec heavily into Arcana just because Earth and Water are their only other decent trait lines (with most of their traits being so bad that they outright contradict their role).

As for the pet dependency issue – that’s intentional design. Arenanet had stated before the game’s release that a Ranger who does not wish to use his pet is better off rolling a ranged Warrior.

People can talk all they want about including a trait or skill that removes your pet and buffs you, but it’s not that simple. Our weapon sights are innately DESIGNED for use with pets. They would need to restructure our weapons or code an entirely different skill set into this trait or skill – otherwise we would simply be kittened horribly.

Phoenix (Bird family) – Burns foes and you can activate its long-cooldown pet skill to revive it from downed state.

Bat (By itself) – Pet skill evades attacks and dive bombs foes.

Gryphon (By itself) – Activate its pet skill to make both you and it leap at the foe.

Lion (Cats) -

Raptor (Moa)

Think you have it bad? Well, I thought I’d show my appreciation for the Ranger.

In my honest opinion, despite our glaring issues in a few areas (spirits, MH sword, and various utilities and major traits), we are the exact mid-line of Profession balance – the (OVERALL) most well-designed and most well-balanced profession.

In here, I focused on our superb trait compression, trait attributes, and the synergy of pets to the Ranger’s role.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Aeander/102012/24094

Maliceo.3207:

Aphix.9846:

I agree but the only complaint is that for example beating the mad king in the dungeon is not worth it. I solod it because I can’t group and basically it was a waste of time, since the only achievement you get there is the one when you enter. Loot was absolutely abysmal. :/
Otherwise it’s all good, just the common mistake in GW2 of dungeons not rewarding people anything.

Did you ever consider the XP for lower levels, the money + karma for first run, the fact that it takes ~10 minutes in a group and u can loot the chest, and that it’s fun? I got an exotic my 2nd run, so maybe you should try again instead of raging that u didn’t get garunteed amazing free loot..this isn’t WoW

Pretty much. And hey, I would have settled for nothing. I legitimately enjoyed doing it.

Aphix.9846:

I agree but the only complaint is that for example beating the mad king in the dungeon is not worth it. I solod it because I can’t group and basically it was a waste of time, since the only achievement you get there is the one when you enter. Loot was absolutely abysmal. :/
Otherwise it’s all good, just the common mistake in GW2 of dungeons not rewarding people anything.

Unique dungeon tokens with a new armor set would have been amazing for this dungeon.

Let’s list it all:

A one-boss dungeon with short platforming parts. (Today’s event).

Two PvP modes (Lunatic Inquisition and Reaper’s Rumble). I really hope the Inquisition becomes a permanent mode later.

An infuriatingly difficult but impressive jumping puzzle.

A scavenger hunt across Kryta.

The random doors in certain areas and the candy corn all over Tyria.

Unique enemies and items.

Costume Brawling and several new costumes.

That’s INSANE. It’s a huge burst in content for a temporary event and I can’t help but wonder how many hours the programmers slaved over these things.

Issues are to be expected when there is this much content with this short of a development window, but considering how much they offered and the overall quality of it all, I’ve never seen a more impressive holiday event in any game.

I had that problem as a Sylvari. Granted, I roleplay as the shortest male Sylvari possible.

I have 3/4 and have only been on the blue team in the Rumble (with no win).

I beat it. After 3 hours of frustration and screaming into a pillow.

You couldn’t pay me to do that puzzle again.

No disclaimer could possibly be disclaimy enough for this EVIL.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

After losing solely because I took falling damage + knockdown on the required jump down towards the end…. yes, this puzzle is horribly, horribly designed.

This happens to quite some people, sometimes it’s because you are too late and the fog is there already, but many other times you die if you jump instead letting yourself fall in there.

All professions have a first tier trait that reduces fall damage…

… all but elementalists.

I use the trait. It doesn’t help. The knockdown screws me over.

I’m one of the fastest jumpers in the room and I still have problems with that. It’s a joke.

After losing solely because I took falling damage + knockdown on the required jump down towards the end…. yes, this puzzle is horribly, horribly designed.

SolarNova.1052:

MithranArkanere.8957:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Verteiron.8734:

This puzzle is an excellent showcase of the camera bugs.

And the inaccurate jump physics.

And the badly placed collision boxes.

And how whiney many people are when they are not handed somthing to them on a silver plater

I’m sorry, but if you actually think that this is challenging, rather than masochistic and poorly designed, you are insane.

Verteiron.8734:

This puzzle is an excellent showcase of the camera bugs.

And the inaccurate jump physics.

Would be a better idea to remove it from the emissary achivement.

“Fun.”

Right. Totally.

Change the npc dialogue outside the door to something like:

“Warning”

“This puzzle WILL make you lose faith in whatever god you may hold.”

“You will want to commit suicide.”

“Do not hold us accountable if you are charged for violent crimes in 9 states.”

“You may become alcoholic.”

“This will be the most horrifying moment of your holiday. Happy Halloween.”

Also, making it solo would get rid of that INFURIATING wait time.

But as it is, it’s obnoxious.