Guild Wars 2

900 range is fine. Lack of any and all aoe whatsoever really isn’t. I’d be fine with getting Ricochet back, or with changing Unload to hit multiple targets.

Sometimes I think the railroading they have implemented for the sake of balance (often a bad idea, since balance will always be an issue no matter what you do) does way more harm to the game than good.

I kind of think they need to start introducing more weapon skills for existing weapons across professions, and allow you to select from different weapon skills just like we currently do with utility skills. They could optionally allow some or most weapon skills to be weapon-agnostic (i.e. certain skills could be available to more than one weapon).

I think introducing this sort of building flexibility to the game could be very refreshing for the combat system. I think a lot of the reason the game tends to lose players quickly is that, while the combat is fun, it becomes trite and stale very quickly for a lot of players.

Arenanet’s communication has always been terrible, and it plays a large role in why the game doesn’t perform better (although the biggest role is probably just the slow pace of new content releases and profession updates).

They do a very poor job of regulating hype on both sides. They stay quiet for long periods of time, then spend periods of time over-hyping or hyping in the wrong way that leads to massive disappointment, followed by more quiet.

Additionally, the Gem Store is not as well utilized as it should be. It tends toward trite “more of the same” offerings, with not nearly enough creative and novel stuff that would appeal to a lot of random players.

All in all, it has always seemed like Arenaet has significant operations/management problems that affect the whole company’s ability to deliver content in a quick and polished way.

The biggest issue by far is that thieves are offensively similar to other classes, while having both bad attrition and bad utility.

I’m not a fan of compensating for bad defense with extra offense. I think some of the Thieves’ defensive tools need a serious reevaluation (i.e. Stealth), and perhaps a base health bump (I kind of think all professions should get this, as damage tends toward being too bursty in both pve and pvp.

Zodryn.4216:

It’s good they recognize the need to improve skills like Dancing Dagger and Vital Shot (should have had Body Shot as well but eh). The bound change is for when you bound off a ledge for example. The animation ends before you land, and it previously wouldn’t deal damage because you had to land for the impact. Nice little improvement along with the PI fix. The venom change is very nice, and I have been waiting for that for awhile. I wonder how that will affect venomshare DPS. It may be close to competing with the power meta, though it will always be less reliable.

Edit:
I am grateful that some CC seems to have been toned down or removed from other classes. I think they should continue that so group fights aren’t such a mess. They could probably stand to buff Dancing Dagger and Vital Shot more along with Body Shot, Hide in Shadows, Skelk Venom, Thieves Guild, and traps (basically less used stuff). I was really hoping Destroy Shadow Trap would become like Portal…maybe next time.

Edit 2:
The downed state invuln change is a nice QoL buff for Impact Strike.

Edit 3 (sorry, so many edits):
If the Mesmer nerf means reduced quickness uptime, that further closes any gap between power and condi Thief…interesting.

Vital Shot’s under-performance has, from day one, been the main problem with P/P (and to a lesser degree, P/D) due to the way it created a resource vacuum through over-reliance on Unload for damage. It’s only astonishing that it took them over three years to recognize it and give it two significant buffs back to back.

There was an attempt at an explanation for its removal that didn’t hold much water; not actual an good reason why it was removed.

HoT was very polarizing, and there are obvious reasons why. A lot of MMO players are casual, and they don’t want to experience a high degree of tedium just doing standard “end-game” content. Others enjoy the challenge.

I think there are a lot of things about HoT that were well-crafted, and I waffled a lot over how much I enjoyed them. There were often times where it felt like the maps were over-engineered and oppressive to be in, and other times where they were highly immersive and a lot of fun.

I think one continual issue I have with GW2 is how egregiously bursty combat always is, and, how, playing primarily a Thief, I constantly get downed by things I don’t even see without having a chance to react. They really need to find a way to polish the combat in PvE so that this isn’t such an issue. In general, difficulty in GW2 is about frantic reaction rather than actual strategy, which just leads to more annoyance than it does enjoyment for a lot of people.

This is actually something I don’t think gets enough attention. I honestly think this is one of the main reasons that GW2 does not possess the same ability to hold players’ attention over the long term that GW1 did. There’s too little of the type of character development which creates immersion – too many levels for the number of abilities you acquire, not enough character/profession personalization, too much on-rails gameplay.

And it’s all for the sake of balance. But an MMO really needs to have a lot of customization for players to experiment with. “Balance” is a terrible reason to get rid of options or lock down customization, because balance can never be perfect and tends excessively preoccupy game designers. It’s better to just focus on fun and creativity, and iterate frequently with changes to outliers.

I don’t really think we need thousands of skills, but, IMO, we need a few more than we have, and greater freedom to mix and match.

The whole outfit thing was a dumb idea. It’s what they did in GW1, but it wasn’t as big a deal in GW1 because GW1 in many respects was not a true MMO. The town clothes should have been adapted as original pieces. It’s just laziness, frankly.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Blacksarevok.8104:

i dont understand why they got rid of ricochet to begin with? it was a very popular trait (among the 5 people that actually played p/p)

Ricochet was really odd to balance around. It worked with some projectiles, but not with others, and each skill had wildly different results based on how much they ricochet. Ricochet had a 50% chance to bounce to another target, up to 4 total hits. Each bounce had its own range and wouldn’t re-hit a previously hit target. Head Shot could potentially hit 4 targets, and if we had current Unload with ricochet, you might possibly get 25 Might from a single cast. Shadow Shot would actually teleport you to the last person hit with the ricochet bullet, so who knows where you’d end up.

Ultimately they decided they wanted Pistols to go a different direction. Ricochet allowed pistols to encroach in shortbow’s niche of aoe ranged damage. From removing Ricochet till now, they’ve significantly increased pistol’s single-target capabilities, especially P/P. P/P is actually fairly viable in many areas of the game, much more so than when Ricochet was around.

Ricochet doesn’t actually need to come back, but I wouldn’t complain about getting a piercing effect for linear aoe purposes.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

And before anyone says anything, I played with Ricochet extensively and loved it. It just doesn’t need to come back.

It really wasn’t that odd, and P/P underperformed even with it. The damage buff to Vital Shot was needed for years until they finally did it. There’s really no good reason why Ricochet was removed, and it has the effect of making P/P useless in most PvE situations.

Dino.3680:

The givers armor stat stil uses the old “Boon Duration” stat instead of concentration, and it also only have 1% boon duration, much less than what its counterpart Minstrel has on its pieces since 15 concentration equals 1% boon duration. The givers armor stat also does not exist as an ascended option and you cannot get the stats on weapons and trinkets.

Yes, they need to normalize this.

DeceiverX.8361:

The more decoupling of traits from weapon combinations, the better. Traits shouldn’t fix weapon sets or allow them to work. Stats should. Traits should affect how a given player in general approaches combat.

I’ve been saying this for a long time. There was a long stretch of time where Anet seemed to be obsessed with fixing skill issues through trait updates, which is a terrible balancing paradigm.

Zenith.7301:

Vyrulisse.1246:

Makes me wonder how in the heck this got past testing. I noticed it within minutes of trying to use it.

Because they don’t test crap.

In case you didn’t notice, they don’t have public test realms like evry other godkitten MMO to test patches and garner player feedbakc before releasing said changes live.

Yeah, this.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Pretty much the situation is the same it has been since Season 2 ended:

Some devs want to bring Season 1 back, but the person/people who make that decision is saying no at the moment (and if neither Bobby Stein – a team lead – or Colin could before the latter left, the one who makes that decision can only be Mike O’Brian).

I cannot fathom at the decision behind it, truth be told. It’d be like telling the original Star Wars trilogy with only the first and third movies.

There’s a way to do it, but it’d take time and resources. If they make instances for everything, it can be done, but it would take a long time, especially since quite a few of the early LS chapters could be turned into 4-6 instances on their own.

Example, Frost and Flame. Instance for talking with Rytlock, instance where you save refugees and fight off flame legion and dredge, instance where you do the nursery saving with Rox, instance where you meet Braham, instance where you save his hometown, and finally an instance where you do the Frost and Flame dungeon thingy, except it’s now set as a permanent place you can enter on the world map (as a story dungeon).

That’s 6 instances they have to make, which is easily enough to be a LS chapter of its own. Sure that’s only a very early example, but now imagine they take everything we did and do something with it, including adding new dialogue and story to flesh things out. This includes saving the characterizations and problems originally there, such as Scarlet. Imagine, we beat her minions in the ‘invasion’ subsection and fend her off, only for her to say that thanks to us she now has battle data for her watchwork minions as well as their current weaknesses, so she can improve on them.

Or, alternatively, they do nothing and as more and more new players go through the game, they have absolutely NO bloody clue what’s going on with these suddenly popping in characters, don’t know and don’t care about Scarlet Briar, are confused as hell as to why LA looks different in story instances. And on top of that you have old players who were there for all or some of Season 1 forgetting and being unable to replay the content – less an issue but still an issue – with no true means of a simple recap via story journal (the original purpose of the thing).

Which is what ArenaNet is doing. They are trying to sell the original Star Wars trilogy without the Empire Strikes Back movie being available.

Yeah, it’d take time and resources to do, but not only is it new content for so many players now, but it’s story important too, and even old players would enjoy replaying that content again just as they would new content.

flog.3485:

The best way to bring back LS 1 is through fractals I would say…..Who knows, maybe that is what we are going to get for the new ones. If not, fingers crossed for the next expansion

In my opinion, that’s the worst way. And in all honesty, probably would take more work than just bringing it back as story instances with the minor open world events being permanent.

I wouldn’t mind them turning the bigger fights (mainly: Ancient Karka, Twisted Marionette, and Battle for LA) into a guild mission or raid – but only on top of a single player version (we don’t need a repeat of Arah story).

Agree with this post on all points.

Kaedian.9463:

Jia Shen.4217:

Honestly season 1 should have never been temporary. All making season 1 temporary accomplished was alienating players who couldn’t play during the time each part was available and denying future players the enjoyment of the hard work that went into making the content.

As a player having come back from a 3 year hiatus, I can’t agree more with this quote. I paid for the original release three years ago, I’ve picked up the expansion recently and I’d like to think I am actually entitled (I despise that word, but quite frankly I’ve paid for the content) to play the entire story. I’m not looking for S1 to be free, I’d just like it to be available. Since S2 is permanent and S3 as well, there is no logical reason to have made S1 temporary. In fact, in light of the recent reduction in S2 pricing, it’d be AWESOME if they simply made a S1/S2 bundle for the old cost of S2. #marketing

Most people knew it was a mistake even at the time. Doing temporary content as anything other than supplementary fluff makes zero sense for the longevity of the game.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

I signed off on the first episode of Living World Season 3, and we’re getting ready to announce the episode and its release date. I’m super proud of the team for hitting this milestone. Over the past few weeks the team has been processing up to a hundred pieces of feedback each day, working to get all the details right.

Reaching sign-off on an episode doesn’t mean we’re done. Now we integrate the episode content with the other updates that ship in this release, and with localized text and voice-over, and we do final testing of all that. To give a sense of the scope of this process, this update has about 1,500 distinct lines of new voice dialog, each of which must be recorded, integrated, and tested in each supported language. For the player character’s voice, we separately record each race/sex combination in each language, so that means 40 actors for each line.

With this release, we’re bundling a Living World episode with additional content for other areas of the game. You’ve seen that we’ve been following a pattern of releasing a bundled update each quarter; this is a content-focused continuation of that kind of thing. Of course, we’ll give this release a name, not “July Quarterly Update”. And we may be able to increase the pace, ramping from four bundled releases per year towards six, so we’ll move away from calling these “quarterly”.

Some of you may look back nostalgically at 2013 when we shipped updates every two weeks. That year we shipped a wide variety of things: nine or ten releases that we’d today call a Living World episode, plus updates to systems and content for other parts of the game, plus festivals. So it was the extreme unbundled version of this. It was nice that there was always something new, but I’m personally not wistful of that cadence, because we sacrificed so much to be able to ship that frequently. With Season 3 our goal is to deliver content sustainably, at quality, establishing a pattern we don’t have to take breaks from.

It feels great to be shipping Living World again. Thanks for your patience through the recent content draught. Having been through it, I’m sure you understand why I’m focused on sustainability.

Stay tuned for a more formal announcement, and for more details from ArenaNet and our partners.

Mo

That’s all great. Now, how about you making getting season 1 back in the game a priority like it should have been two years ago? Its absence ruins the presentation of the game. The majority of people playing didn’t and now can’t experience the content under which all of the major supporting characters were introduced and developed.

The fact that they “aren’t working on this” perfectly exemplifies the dubious decision making under which this game has been managed.

Its absence single-handedly ruins the entire presentation of the game. Getting it in should have been their top priority two years ago, and now the majority of players never experienced the content under which nearly every major supporting character still being used was introduced and developed.

Totally kittening ridiculous.

A lot of this is a consequence of how they handled season 1, and the fact that they somehow don’t see it as a priority to get it in the game in a format more similar to season 2 despite the fact that it should be their top priority because its glaring absence ruins the entire presentation of the game.

Kythan Myr.4719:

Einlanzer.1627:

Tekoneiric.6817:

I think they have missed out on a true living world by not using the player’s story to give the players slightly different version of the maps depending on where they are in the story arch. I’d like to see a post Zhaitan version of Orr where one or more of his lieutenant are trying to take power. They could limit it to the 3 Orr maps and it would explain risen on other maps with some slight change of dialog to remove direct references to Zhaitan. I know there are quite a few people who would like to see the old LA map. I really don’t think it would take many changes on ANets part to do it since missions mostly take place in private instances on Central Tyria maps. Tweeks of dialog here and there to avoid references to characters that die in the story on non-changing maps. I think that’s the best way to reuse content.

There could be missions to replace the self-destructed energy probes with ley-line collectors. Since they appear to be an item that could easily be flagged to use one model or another to any given player without having a dedicated post changed map. They could hint at the mission by having ley-line energy coming out of them. The Pact could see them as dangerous and give the mission to replace them. If done right they could explain a reoccurring event on each spot to collect the energy not unlike the ley-line events they have now. There are many ways to adapt content to make it fresh.

I am surprised they haven’t done a summer festival or even a wintersday in summer.

Yep. I’ve been saying this for a while. They did it with old Ascalon in GW1, I’m not sure why it’s such a bizarre concept now.

I liked pre-ascalon in GW1, it was one of my favorites. This is a good idea, but I don’t think they’d want to split the community up like that. That would force newer players into zones without veterans and so far that’s goes against their direction for the community.

It would be nice if they had an Orr update refreshing it with life coming back, but that will most likely never occur. Dreams of a healed Orr will have to remain to our imagination.

I’m not actually convinced this would be as much of an issue as everyone acts like it it. If they tied it to living world progress (which is how it should be done), then players would have the ability to go back to older maps. You would essentially have a choice of which version of Lion’s Arch you wanted to go to based on your current Living Story step. Some veterans would undoubtedly use the original version of Lion’s Arch or other maps simply because they prefer them.

I really don’t see how this “splitting the community” would be an issue.

Tekoneiric.6817:

I think they have missed out on a true living world by not using the player’s story to give the players slightly different version of the maps depending on where they are in the story arch. I’d like to see a post Zhaitan version of Orr where one or more of his lieutenant are trying to take power. They could limit it to the 3 Orr maps and it would explain risen on other maps with some slight change of dialog to remove direct references to Zhaitan. I know there are quite a few people who would like to see the old LA map. I really don’t think it would take many changes on ANets part to do it since missions mostly take place in private instances on Central Tyria maps. Tweeks of dialog here and there to avoid references to characters that die in the story on non-changing maps. I think that’s the best way to reuse content.

There could be missions to replace the self-destructed energy probes with ley-line collectors. Since they appear to be an item that could easily be flagged to use one model or another to any given player without having a dedicated post changed map. They could hint at the mission by having ley-line energy coming out of them. The Pact could see them as dangerous and give the mission to replace them. If done right they could explain a reoccurring event on each spot to collect the energy not unlike the ley-line events they have now. There are many ways to adapt content to make it fresh.

I am surprised they haven’t done a summer festival or even a wintersday in summer.

Yep. I’ve been saying this for a while. They did it with old Ascalon in GW1, I’m not sure why it’s such a bizarre concept now.

The #1 problem this game has always had is that it sees too little change/update over too long a time period too frequently. I’m not sure why Anet doesn’t recognize this as a problem and seems to be largely apathetic about doing much about it.

Marauder is best IMO. The offensive loss is very, very marginal while the defensive gain is pretty huge.

It is kind of weird. Lion’s arch would be fine if the new theme wasn’t explicitly linked to marine life instead of terrestrial life.

I have more trouble with my thief than most other classes. This is due to a combination of two things – their stealth doesn’t work very well as defensive utility, leaving them with very poor damage mitigation in conjunction with low health. This means they go down a lot. The second thing is that their downed state is terrible in solo PvE.

So, basically, you go down more easily than most classes AND have a harder time rallying than most classes.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Glox.5942:

Well if it was that easy as you liked to think, then it would have been done years ago, since it’s been a wish from alot of players since launch.

Don’t just asume something are easy programming wise, just beacuse it sounds easy.

We know that saving the build is easy, since there are many websites that do it using just a URL. What’s difficult is:

• Loading the build: does it include prefixes (e.g. zerker’s) and suffixes (sigils/runes) and slotted weapons?
• Presenting the build (the build websites use a variety of interfaces and users have preferences, although everyone also has complaints about each).

For the first complication, there are economic (and account vault) ramifications of switching builds.

---

That said, I’d rather they simplify the question into:

• What’s the fastest way we can get people to save just the traits & slotted skills, in a comfortable interface?
• Let’s save for later the problem of inventing a true build ‘wardrobe’

This. The lack of ability to simply save traits so that they don’t reset every time you change your line is by far a more pressing problem in need of resolution than the fact that we don’t have a fully developed build template system. Considering the difference in scope involved – priorities.

The fight is kind of fun, but IMO it’s a little too on the chaotic side. All large scale content that isn’t painfully easy suffers from a similar problem in GW2 of it just being too difficult to see or avoid attacks because everything is such a clusterkitten mess. This in and of itself naturally causes poor player organization and atrophy of control.

In fights like the Shatterer I find myself frequently one- or two-shotted from things that I never see and spend a lot of time in a downed state, which takes away from how fun it would otherwise.

I agree that GW2 is overall the best MMO on the market, but I think there’s more wrong with the build/training system than just the lack of ability to switch builds out and save templates. I would redesign it from scratch if I could (I honestly still think it was much better before the massive revamp they did last year).

But, yes, this is very badly needed.

Raven.1524:

I don’t know if some people are trolling or simply lazy.
I started playing HoT and never bothered in grinding any masteries at all. I just went to the jungle to explore and find out a bit more of what the hell was happening to the jungle dragon and stuff… Ended up with a mastery level over 100 when I noticed.
Honestly speaking, if those people complaining about the grind, are focusing in playing for the sole purpose of maxing your masteries before, well actually playing the game, then of course you are getting bored. Don’t blame Anet for your simple minded way of playing that comes with a mechanic way of doing things, because that’s your problem.

Yeah, no. You don’t get to 100 mastery points without trying.

SyllyReth.2495:

I am perfectly fine and happy with the expansions as long as they keep doing living story and other updates in the between time. The most common comment I see is people wanting more content and there are these weird down times we have without any content being added to the game. HoT was clearly not enough to keep the bulk of people occupied and exploring until the next thing comes out.

In addition, we have a bunch of new players that have never played season 1. I know that some sort of way to add it to the story journal is being discussed, but not a priority because of the amount of work going into it.

Season 1 content is already prepared, ready to go. They should bring it back to be replayed (and played for the first time by new people) in the meantime.

Agreed. I really am not sure why it’s not more of a priority than it is, regardless of the amount of work involved. If I was in charge it would be the #1 priority because it severely impacts the overall presentation of the game and the cohesion of the narrative.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Laughing so hard. A long time ago, I said that if Anet decided mounts were worth selling, we would have mounts.

And now we are seeing the slow progression into that. Gliders in Core (see “no reason to have them” argument), and now this little change.

All of the dead horse gifs and expressions of horror accomplished nothing. More Mounts will come, people will buy and use them enthusiastically, and still stubbornly proclaim “It’s not a mount”

So very amusing.

It is indeed. I wouldn’t be surprised if this update was to test the community’s response. But, yeah, I see no reason to assume we will never have mounts. They are a big seller in every game, and there aren’t very sound structural arguments against them.

Zergs.9715:

The only reasonable argument I see against mounts is screen clutter which does not necessarily has to be the case if they continue making travel toys in style of broom and carpet.
Everything else borders with pathology.

Yeah, pretty much. Also, the only time screen clutter is really a big issue is during combat scenarios anyway, and mounts would presumably not work in combat just as they don’t work in wvw maps.

It’s really a non-issue, and all of the naysayers just have a really hard time accepting how weak all of their arguments are.

Ayrilana.1396:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ayrilana.1396:

Substance E.4852:

Ayrilana.1396:

Substance E.4852:

Ayrilana.1396:

People seem to want these toys to have swiftness by default. After that they’ll ask for something else. Eventually they’ll get it to the point where we have mounts.

But then we’d almost be just like WoW! * le gasp! *

I sure hope they never implement Raids or this game will surely be over…

But seriously, have you ever even played another MMO? Mounts in pretty much every game either prevent combat while on them or disable when you get into combat. Swiftness while on the broom or carpet is functionally no different from the standard MMO mount. I’m not sure what these other mystery features you speak of are.

I’m not speaking of any other features so please don’t state that I’m suggesting something when I am not. Thanks.

Feel free to clarify then.

Ayrilana.1396:

After that they’ll ask for something else.

Players that wants mounts will slowly get them implemented bit by bit rather than all at once. Anet had stated that they had no intention of adding mounts. These players realize this so they instead try to get them added indirectly through a series of updates to toys.

Again – mounts are in high demand, and the arguments against them are incredibly weak. I don’t even care that much about them, personally, but this is an easy reality to observe.

It’s almost inevitable they will be added to the game at some point. It will generate controversy, and the controversy will quickly die while Anet starts making a lot of money off of them.

They only seem weak because you want them. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why there should not be mounts. Just check the mount thread where this thread will eventually end up in.

The majority of those reasons are, in fact, not legitimate. People just desperately want them to be. I’m actually largely ambivalent to mounts.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Einlanzer.1627:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Devildoc.6721:

penelopehannibal.8947:

No thanks. The travel toys are toys, not combat aids. We don’t want to get into that conversation again…

You can only use them outside of combat, so it’s not a combat aid.

That’s exactly what I said!

penelopehannibal.8947:

The travel toys are toys, not combat aids.

The point is that giving them swiftness would not somehow turn them into combat aids. Mounts are almost inevitable because demand for them is high and the arguments against them (at least outside of combat) are just not very sound.

I actually think in-combat mounts have the potential to be really awesome, but it would probably take a lot of resources.

They would because if they were given permanent swiftness, a character would be able to zip about in the PvE maps, with the 33% movement bonus, getting into and out of combat as they like, as quick as they like without the effort of up keeping your own swiftness. Then eventually this:

Ayrilana.1396:

People seem to want these toys to have swiftness by default. After that they’ll ask for something else. Eventually they’ll get it to the point where we have mounts.

Uh, no, because the mounts don’t work in combat. Sheesh.

Ayrilana.1396:

Substance E.4852:

Ayrilana.1396:

Substance E.4852:

Ayrilana.1396:

People seem to want these toys to have swiftness by default. After that they’ll ask for something else. Eventually they’ll get it to the point where we have mounts.

But then we’d almost be just like WoW! * le gasp! *

I sure hope they never implement Raids or this game will surely be over…

But seriously, have you ever even played another MMO? Mounts in pretty much every game either prevent combat while on them or disable when you get into combat. Swiftness while on the broom or carpet is functionally no different from the standard MMO mount. I’m not sure what these other mystery features you speak of are.

I’m not speaking of any other features so please don’t state that I’m suggesting something when I am not. Thanks.

Feel free to clarify then.

Ayrilana.1396:

After that they’ll ask for something else.

Players that wants mounts will slowly get them implemented bit by bit rather than all at once. Anet had stated that they had no intention of adding mounts. These players realize this so they instead try to get them added indirectly through a series of updates to toys.

Again – mounts are in high demand, and the arguments against them are incredibly weak. I don’t even care that much about them, personally, but this is an easy reality to observe.

It’s almost inevitable they will be added to the game at some point. It will generate controversy, and the controversy will quickly die while Anet starts making a lot of money off of them.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Devildoc.6721:

penelopehannibal.8947:

No thanks. The travel toys are toys, not combat aids. We don’t want to get into that conversation again…

You can only use them outside of combat, so it’s not a combat aid.

That’s exactly what I said!

penelopehannibal.8947:

The travel toys are toys, not combat aids.

The point is that giving them swiftness would not somehow turn them into combat aids. Mounts are almost inevitable because demand for them is high and the arguments against them (at least outside of combat) are just not very sound.

I actually think in-combat mounts have the potential to be really awesome, but it would probably take a lot of resources.

Yes, please. It is of no combat value because they don’t work in combat. We also need more of them because they’re cool and would be useful with the speed boost – they’re likely to sell a lot more than other cosmetic items.

Honestly, the anti-mount crowd is desperate to validate their stance when it just isn’t rational.

Celine.6857:

Okay, I have to ask after reading most of this thread….

Those of you who have said HoT felt “rushed”…. How? Why? I simply don’t get that comment. Unless you were on the development team and there were many more things in the pipeline that were missed or you just quickly shoved this and that together, how can you say, as a player, you ‘felt’ it was rushed?

#intrigued.

As for the op… I disagree entirerly: your opinion however, but why not go play something else rather than complain about a game a huge number of people still love.

It has to do with various things, many of which are legitimate:

1. the unlock/addition of elite specs with literally zero narrative or buildup surrounding it. You just ding 80 and your spec unlocks, but then it takes forever to finish it out, which is silly because why would you use it if you haven’t learned all of the traits yet? This highlights some problems with the current training system in the game.

2. ditto for the Revenant, including Rytlock’s famous and cringeworthy “I’ll tell you later.”

3. the lack of any redux of LW1 content, which played a pivotal role in HoT’s story

4. The general lightness of content – 4 zones, 0 dungeons, and 7 armor skins is much less content than a typical expansion for most MMOs, even if it had a normal pricetag. Granted, the zones were fairly robust in scale, but still.

As for your second question, people who are paying customers have a right to come to the forum to complain about things they don’t like. It’s done out of passion – most of them love the game, or at least want to love it. It’s the nature of the beast. I do it frequently, although I’m also not above praising Arenanet when it’s due, such as with the overwhelmingly positive changes brought from the last patch.

Don’t you think you could make the argument that ill will is harbored with a greater number of players than enjoy the thrill of the badly rigged gamble?

Yeah it’s not very good. Too much green and glue gear and too many containers, not enough of anything else.

How in the world do they sell enough for Anet to not drop the price or revise the rewards for chests? They feel like a complete waste of money.

Vayne.8563:

Einlanzer.1627:

Vayne.8563:

Turamarth.3248:

Or buy it with gold.

This. Despite the drama I’ve seen about it (and it’s not much drama) you can farm some gold, turn it into gems and buy the story that way. That’s perfectly reasonable. It’s not like you have to spend cash.

It actually is not very reasonable, Vayne, and arguing otherwise cannot be construed as anything but white knighting. Buying the $60 expansion should include LW2 if it includes the HoT story after it, rather than giving you the beginning and the ending then requiring additional money or action on your part to get a section of the middle, while the other section of the middle is unavailable.

It’s actually completely preposterous and shows how their management of the expansion was very amateur and unpolished. They really need to do better next time.

Actually if they sold the Season 2 already it’s paid for DLC already. Why should paid for DLC automatically included in an Expansion. I mean people are already complaining the core game is included in the expansion. Wouldn’t this just engender more complaints.

Veterans are already complaining about how much new people get. Why should they get this too?

Saying something is white knighting because you don’t agree with it, is just a way to say I don’t have valid arguments, so I’ll try to discredit you.

There are good and bad points to not including it. It was a decision. It’s not automatically white knight to support it. But once you charged people for it seperately, including it in the expansion would have opened an even bigger can of worms than had already been opened.

I don’t think your argument is valid, for obvious reasons. I’m just calling it like I see it. I’m not saying everyone should get everything for free. That has never been my argument. They just need to do a much better job than they have been doing of packaging the game and handling its presentation to people so that what they’re getting and not getting makes intuitive sense and has a certain cohesion and continuity around it.

For example, the fact that we still don’t have LW season 1 in the game is completely ridiculous. It ruins the game’s presentation to such a degree that getting it in should be their #1 priority, when it clearly isn’t.

They need to just do the work required to get S1 in the game in full, not just a recap. It’s ridiculous that it’s taken them this long. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as everyone acts like it is; the vast majority of it was instanced just like S2. Of the open world stuff, some can be left out entirely and some can be revised to be instanced.

It ruins the presentation of the game to such a degree that it should be their #1 priority.

I don’t think they needed squad functionality. LW1 just needs to be brought back in the style of LW2, period. The longer they go not doing this the more ridiculous it is. It single-handedly ruins any cohesive presentation of the story and makes the game feel very unpolished.

Galtrix.7369:

I find it very interesting that they want us to pay 50 dollars for an “expansion” that doesn’t include a whole lot of new content. The amount of content in HoT does not equal that of the basic Guild Wars game. My question is, why pay so much for so little content?

I’m still refusing to buy HoT, and my refusal is costing me dearly because now I have a disadvantage in PvP from not buying the darn thing. It just makes no sense to me how or why I should even buy HoT or continue playing the game when

1. - It costs as much as the basic Guild Wars game, with maybe 1/25th of the content
2. - The shear number of expansions they’re going to throw at us in the future will each cost 50 dollars, and then go free (possibly) when the next expac is released
3. - I will be at a disadvantage if I choose not to buy an expansion

I agree wholeheartedly. Expacs may have ruined the game for me.

No one is arguing that HoT was exceptionally well handled. That doesn’t mean expansions aren’t a sound concept.

Xyonon.3987:

Pretty much all tooltips are wrong. There is almost no skill that has exaclty 1/2, 3/4 or 1s cast time. NEVER trust the tooltips.

That’s not the point. The tooltip activation speed doesn’t take aftercast into account, so it doesn’t reflect the recast time and therefore the attack cycle of the skill.

However, the fact that Frag Shot has an activation speed that is lower than Hip Shot would lead you to believe that it is balanced to shoot faster than Hip Shot, except it doesn’t. Frag Shot must actually have a much longer aftercast than Hip Shot. It’s hard to not wonder if this is unintentional.

DeanBB.4268:

They should just move to an unlock system. Once you’ve unlocked runes/sigils, then you can set them on your gear while out of combat. Or in a city. Whatever.

Yes, it will mess with the TP values of those things. But we’ll get over it.

This would make sense to me also.

That it’s a bit of a problem at this point that you can’t change stats on non-ascended gear? Especially now that we’re getting a somewhat overwhelming number of options, I really think there should be a way to. It could be a MF thing, a crafting thing, a vendor thing, or even a gem store thing. I don’t really care, I’d just prefer to not have to collect a dozen sets of armor and trinkets to be able to experiment with different builds.

SugarCrystal.8764:

I finally purchased the order of whispers armor and weapons to complete the collection for the back piece from HOT. I hadn’t purchased these before because I wasn’t very fond of them. I think its a bit outdated that you can’t mystic forge these pieces, salvage, or at least sell back to a vendor for half the price. I understand the cost of these items as its an exclusive set. On the other hand they are only rare items and are very old sets at that. It’s so easy to get exotics as soon as you hit level 80 so what use are these items except for skins. You can’t use them to transmutate like before, since we use charges now. Even if you do buy them to collect the skins you still have to spend a transmutation charge. Anet can we get an update on these older sets?

Suggestions –
Make them exotic so upcoming 80’s or alts can use them as a main set of gear.
Make them salvageable.
Make them viable to put in mystic forge.
Make them skins so we’re not stuck using charges if we decide to use them.
Please make these more useful in some way beside a skin. I’m sure there would be many others that would appreciate this including a lot of the new players =)
Thanks <3

Part of the problem is that rare gear was supposed to be somewhat usable at level 80. They made it a bit too easy to get exotics, especially following the introduction of Ascended. Rare is awkward because you pretty much never use it in the game. While leveling, it’s generally better to sell or salvage it because its gold value is worth more than its statistical value relative to blue or green gear. At the level cap, it isn’t worth bothering with because you can generally just start going straight to exotic.

In other words, there’s a slight logistical problem that exists in the game where rare is generally a bit too hard or costly to acquire while exotic is not quite hard or costly enough to acquire. This is just one of many reasons why adding the Ascended tier was just kind of stupid.

That said, I generally agree that only having the option to destroy is pieces you buy is weird and a hassle, much like with Karma gear. You should at least be able to vendor them.

This is more of a game-wide question than specifically a thief question – but what do you think about weapons that, in particular, have autoattacks that are designed for AoE and do really bad single-target damage? In this case we’d be talking about Shortbow. It’s present on some other weapons also, like the the lightning attunement on Ele staff, and Ranger’s axe.

My thought is that there’s no real legitimate reason why these should be so bad against a single target as it only succeeds in making the weapon useless in situations where it doesn’t need to be. Why not make Trick Shot do more damage against the initial target, and then the same it does now to additional targets? I’m not saying it should do the same amount of damage as a truly single-target skill, but it should do more than it does currently.

I like how he clarified he was talking about skill flavor and not animations per se, and everyone continues to discuss animations.