Guild Wars 2

Prince.7198:

The thing I enjoy most out of an MMO is not it’s story or it’s gear grind or it’s lore (although its fun to speculate on that). I enjoy the development of my personal playstyle and the ability to show off how skilled I am at it, be it in PVE or PVP. I don’t want to show off a legendary with too much pixeleffects, or an xpensive piece of armor. No, i want to show off how skillfull i can approach different kind of game mechanics (boss fights, dungeons, pvp, ..)

To be able to do this there are 2 requirements:
1) An AWESOME combat system with a high skill cap
2) A lot of diversity in possible playstyles (yes, BUILD DIVERSITY)

You’re on the right track! Let me point out a few things that you do not need in order to accomplish this:
-level system
-attributes and stats
-gear

Proven by any racing game, FPS, RTS, TBS and figher game there is.

Tao.5096:

no offence, but 100 hours for gathering mats for crafting end game stuff isn’t much which I assume are rare materials. And yet you have a 100% chance for successful output.
And I’m asking what’s grind like in gw2 because I don’t really see anything grindy based here, except achievements which may be done out of boredom.

Repeating the same 3hours worth of content for 100 hours is grind and nothing else. It may be less grind than in other MMORPGS but it is still grind and that’s exactly what I said. I also said that this is only for exotic gear because we all know ascended is worse. If you already feel like replying with “ascended is optional” – please reread what you just quoted.

Still, game is more player friendly than most of the other MMOs.
And by player friendly I mean that you don’t really need to spend so many hours a week to get the top stuff so it does let you survive.

You are argueing against a point nobody has made here. Or perhaps, you’re trying to argue that a focus on trivial grind is better than an honest focus on hard/rewarding grinds. That’s not true. Again reread your quote. GW2 requires you to do nothing, no grinds, no specific build or class. That doesn’t mean it offers you a “take a) or b) choice”, because it only offers “take it or leave it”. Lack of longterm motivation is no feature.

here is a funny part because devs stay in contact with playerbase and playerbase one way or another has an influence what will be next in game or how the system will change – at least a partial influence.
And that’s what you pretty much can’t see in other games.

The last 5 games I played for longer periods had better communitcation between devs and playerbase, to be frank. That statement depends on whether you are comparing Anet to EA or some serious developers.
There is big potential for improvement in this game and I’m still sure the devs will try and use this potential based on their communication with us. If only yet unused potential would be the only thing that makes a game interesting.

Leveling isn’t grindy – you don’t have quests which make you – kill 50 mobs, here, kill 50 mobs there, kill 50 mobs everywhere, and so on till max level.
I solely am leveling thanks to some karma events….

Any level up system is by definition grindy.
The system offers you a set of rules on how and at what pace you may progress through the game. The goal is reach max level. The amount of hows (GW2 has plenty of them) doesn’t have any affect on the pace or goal, which means with a set pace you will repeat stuff at a certain point and you will only repeat it in order to reach your goal, even if you progress at such pace that you don’t actually have to be worried.
Each of my characters took me 1 week to level up. Considering I have 4 of them, that makes a month of playtime. Do you really think GW2, even though it offers plenty of “hows” offer enough to make a whole month without repetition possible? How entertaining is it really to farm all vistas for map completion, using waypoints? How entertaining is it after you completed the 10th area?

Another aspect is that you make whatever kind of build your imagination allow with any class you want.
Doubt any other MMO game allows that, because in most cases, if you’ll try do that, you’re capped in many ways and pretty much useless.

Still true in GW2 with the current balance situation. GW2 offers like an average of 40 weapon and utility spells per profession. Almost every possible combination is supposed to accomplish the same things, with compareable effectiveness, while avoiding to become a big pabulum.
Do you really think this will come close to be being balanced at any time soon?

Tao.5096:

So as summary, I can assume that people believe that spamming some Dunegons and running across all maps for materials for crafting may look grindy, but if we’ll look at other games – it is nowhere near.

Also, have to keep in mind that West MMO games, despite the fact they differ from pure Korean games and their 24/7 in-game mindset,….

GW2 was considered a saving grace for many people who grew tired of the way MMORPGs are designed. One argument was that it was supposed to drop the focus on grinds, not to make their rewards trivial – which are 2 different things.
Those people didn’t want a game like other mmos but a bit less bad. It’s also not their fault for thinking black&white if the game still uses black&white motivators, presented in different shades.

Tao.5096:

May someone fill me in how GW2 is grind based?

I’ve probably spent 100 hours in ascalon + fz for the sole purpose of grinding for gold and different exo gears for all my chars by completing all 3 paths over and over again. Not going to do whatever is necessary for uprading all that into ascended gear. Speaking of, leveling my 3rd char already felt like a chore, necessary in order to have a valid character.

If I hadn’t done this, what would be left? Grinding archievements? A little PvP (not that much into it)? An open raid once in a while? Totally not worth 100 hours.

The grind doesn’t take as long as compared to other games, but it is still one of the most important game aspects. Trust me, I recognize a grind when I see one – based on the experience of approximately 10000 hours of RO (most of it spent on achieving VP with a single character for everyone who’s unclear on what this means).

It’s true that you can enjoy the world of GW2 ingenuously if you let go of this archievement-mentallity. Unfortunatly this made me lose have the motivation to play the game.

There is difference between optional and trivial. And without a longterm motivation the content becomes trivial. Every other genre goes with improvements in player skill as a long-term motivation. MMORPG apparently go with grinds. GW2 only made their longterm motivation trivial- not optional, because they didn’t implement a real option.

Thobek.1730:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

It’s funny because the gear grind here is worse than it is in WoW.

You’re wrong.

Unlike WoW where you NEED to grind the gear to complete the next tier of content, in GW2 you don’t.

There is gear to get only if you like the look of it. Some of it gives you a very minor boost in stats but doesn’t allow you to see or play any content someone with only rares can experience.

You are wrong.

You don’t need to but you will want to, because it’s the only thing this game promotes beside casualty. This is not my opinion. It’s my conclusion of scores of threads discussing this topic. You could tell the exact same thing about WoW although it’s less likely.

Please don’t bother an objection because you can affect my conclusion as little as I can affect your opinion. The only possible outcome is derailment of this thread.

A game that is partly pvp, cusual gameplay and fractals with a combat system based on stats (gear and builds) you will either play casually or try to improve in order to overpower the difficulties. Since 2 parts out of 3 make you want to improve, people will try to do so and their first step is always a gain in stats – ascended gear, because the combat system still makes it the most effective way of improvement.
You feel a lack of damage? Try more power! It’s as simple as that.

It’s not their fault the combat system is made this way. It’s not their fault every other mmorpg focuses on this kind of progression. However, pointing out there is no necissity for grinds in GW2 is equal to claiming there is no necissity for fun in one’s life. “Nothing forces” you to, but you will do it anyway based on how things are.

The lack of difficulty creates less actual “need” for stronger avatars, but doesn’t take away the reasoning behind them.

CALLED IT.

15 characters.

I’ve never played GW1 but I still feel the same thing: GW2 is not what I expected. Take the appetiser and move on (although it’s not for free). Took me several 100 hours to get fed up on them which is actually a good hours per buck ratio for a major company game.

The only difference between today and back to the days of our favorite games is that we had variety back then. A broad variety of edgy creations- something for everyone to love or hate and no less. Today a game is considered a fail if it only caters to one audience. Today, gaming industry is a very serious business and it already established “which product sells”. They don’t want to create “art” -they want to make money. On the other hand, gaming has become part of our society so perhaps this will change some day.

There are already a few developers who care for their games as a masterpiece- not as a product. The way quite alot of things in GW2 are leaves me with no doubt there are at least a few devs of this type working for anet too. Maybe their vision got mixed up with marketing strategies. Maybe there are not enough of them. However, I still give them credit and I think it’s important to submit Anet this kind of feedback, so these devs will have more of a say in their future projects (including coming patches for gw2).

HiddenNick.7206:

hellsmachine.4085:

Those that say Vertical Progression/gear grind is necessary for a games longevity, then how do you explain successful games such as LoL, DOTA 2, GW1, DAY Z and TF2 (currently 10 x more popular than Planteside 2, even after over 6 years.) all thriving with little to no vertical progression/gear grind?

All those games are about PvP. That’s why they don’t need vp. Gw2 SPvP mode does not need VP either. But the PvE side of the game… I don’t want to go there but it pretty obvious that you can’t create long lasting PvE experience without time sinks and goals (that’s why gw2 achievements exist).
Also you’re forgetting that gw1 was all about endlessly progressing on the GvG leaderboard (ant that’s a vertical progression right there).

Even though there is a lot of pve content- the profession design, their focus for balance and the overall quality of pve compared to pvp give me the impression GW2 is mostly about PvP too. PvE is just a piece of candy on the side. Just my opinion though.

Anyway, there is a difference between VP as your single cause and goal for PvE and VP as a tool or feature to enhance it. If you only play PvE (“grind”) to prepare your character’s / 2nd character’s gear and level for let’s say PvP then that PvE is a waste of time. On the other hand, if you play PvE for the sake of it because you enjoy exploring or stomping evil / big kitten creatures with your avatar then you’re not wasting your time even if VP and grind is involved.

GW2 offers alot of the latter, for your first playthrough at least, but things get old pretty fast. There is still too much repetition, no other goal between playing casually for fun and reaching max level asap and all those little grind optimizers make it hard to immerse yourself in the game (e.g. waypoints, meaningless events etc).

I have to point out that Anet tried to tone that down with personal / living story, relativization of power, reduced importance of gear etc… but they could only do so much. The real problem is the fact that this game still relies on numbers for mininum 50%(proably more) of the combat and crafting, while it offers almost nothing aside from those 2.

Even without a strong focus on pvp (which we do have undoubtly), people will think about ways to improve their effectiveness at some point in the game. The first answer in every MMORPG to date including GW2 is still quality of gear (huuuge difference between the masterwork pieces your first char reaches lvl 80 with and ascended gear). Second place is still your stat focus and thrid is your build.
After you’ve taken care about #1 + #2 the only way to improve even further is to optimize your build, which means drop elements you want to play in favor for elements which are strong in current balance situation. (example: turret engi builds)

At this point the game is all about bad VP. Either you go for it then (games like RO) or you try to squirm out of this mess like GW2 tried. There is nothing wrong with the first way for many people (including myself) but I wish there was a clear alternative (which gw2 is not).

Is it already irony that this video is hosted on youtube?

silvermember.8941:

The problem you seem to have it, you are divorcing the money = from the design part.

Games are made to generate a lot of income especially games with AAA budgets. Indies can afford to go all crazy because they are not dealing 60+ million dollar budgets. So their threshold for profitability is extremely low compared to the bigger budget. The reason why most AAA video games seem safe when compared to indies is because they want to appeal to as many people as they can to recoup those high budgets. Indies can try all the risk because losing 10 mil is alot easier than losing 60 mil.

Roberts space industries would like a word with you, regarding that matter.

I don’t mean to divorce those 2 parts, because they don’t exclude eachother. You can produce an innovative product and have a certain level of guaranted success with it. If big budgets are a problem (as odd as this may seem) then reduce the budget, work with less, drop content that nobody wanted anyway and add things the community asks for after release for more money. I know it doesn’t always work out like that but the risk should already be lower since almost nobody dares this step so there is actually no competition.
I understand what it means to favor one audience over another instead of feeding everyone with half baked compromises. It means more people will buy the game initially. It also means the game will be abandoned after a few years and you will have to produce a sequel in order to stay in business. Ask EA how many sequels it takes until nobody bothers your generic crap anymore. On the other hand there is Blizzard doing their thing for decades, I mean really – you may not like their games but they live for more than just a few years.

My point is there is no proof or anything that the way games are designed nowadays by most big companies, is the only successful way. Success can happen in many different ways and scales. I doesn’t only depend on the size of your audience but on it’s ‘quality’ as well.

silvermember.8941:

There is a reason why MMORPG =/= RPG. If you hate grind don’t play an MMORPG.

MMORPG to me are inherently bad video games. The purpose of a video game is to have fun, the purpose of an MMORPG it to waste your time as much as possible in other to make you think you are having fun.

Ultimately, your definition of an MMORPG is irrelevant to anything. You can scream it all you want, but companies are catering to what they think is the majority of the market desire. So your opinion of the what constitutes an MMORPG doesn’t mean kitten, if you strongly feel that way make an MMORPG that suits that vision. Until then you will have to take whatever companies make and you can either play it or not.

Finally, it is always amusing seeing player idealize Everquest and see them bemoan how current MMORPG lack the soul of the EQ without ever trying to figure why that is. They complain how modern MMO don’t seem to capture EQ and blah blah blah. Let me tell you, the reason why no MMORPG can stand up to EQ is probably because people tend to idealize the past and they expect a other MMO to recapture an idealization (same reason why older folks love to idealize the 50s). Nothing will ever beat the first time you experience something you enjoy.

Yep that’s exactly my problem: Companies do not care about my personal opinion and why should they? I don’t denamd they do, I just wanted to write my frustation down for a change.
On the other hand I have see quite a few MMO games which come much closer to what MMORPGs should be. Yes some of them had VP too but it was a feature – not the point. And yet those game don’t seem to be a commercial fail. Indie projects occasionally proof that innovation can have marketing value and imo the biggest part of the current MMORPG audience is happy with what they have, but they wouldn’t cry if something fresh was created.
And yet Anet rather goes through the agony of balancing flawed gamemechanic ontop of flawed gamemechanics (called new feature), wastes ressources on content that doesn’t really matter/fit by design (turret and minions skills or stealth for example) and all the negative feedback from that smaller part of the community which cares about what they play, because they take it a bit more seriously.

All in all it just doesn’t seem impossible, hard or unprofitable to change the genre to me, which is what makes this stalemate so frustrating.

PS. Don’t get me wrong I don’t idealize EQ. I have never even played it but they say it’s origin of what most people call MMORPG today, and this genre simply never had any real innovation since birth, so EQ is also the first and last time innovation happened.

Aioros.4862:

Xenesis.6389:

If I wanted vertical progression I would have stuck to WoW, their game was built for vertical progression and is a much more rewarding experience. I came to GW2 to play wvw and the happy thoughts that I wouldn’t have to upgrade my pvp gear every season, like you need to do in WoW every 6 months, but two months into release and that illusion wkittentered.

Now every time I step into wvw I always have to think about obtaining ascended gear, because sooner or later enough people are going to have enough pieces to make a difference in battles. Why oh why was this game not build with spvp and wvw systems separate from pve.

I have the exact same opinion. I came to this game from wow for the same reason.

I came to GW2 from RO for the same reason as well.

Prysin.8542:

First of all;
Guildwars 2 = Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)
DotA 2 = Massive Online Battle Arena (MOBA)
LoL = Massive Online Battle Arena (MOBA)
TF2 = Online Multiplayer FPS
DAYz = Online Shooter/Hack’n’Slash

THESE ARE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT GENRE’S. AND AS THUS, THEY ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IN HOW THEY ARE BALANCED, MARKETED, EVOLVED, PLAYED AND CREATED.

A MOBA is based upon competitive arena matches. Everything is supposed to be balanced in such a way that you have enemies you got advantages over, and some enemies got advantages over you.
A FPS game is just that, a first person shooter. You point, you click, you shoot and avoid getting shot back.
A shooter is simply a game where you blow enemies apart using guns and or whatever you got at hand without any real motivation behind the whole ordeal other then “kill because (insert shallow reasoning)”. If you kill random mobs using melee with that same conscept, it is called a hack’n’slash game.

For MMORPG’s, vertical progression is a must at some point, sometimes, it arrives too soon, other times, it arrives way way too late.

If that’s really the definition of MMORPG than this genre ought to die. Remember when MMORPG were RPG that were all about the immersion of playing a character/person with powers you can’t archieve IRL, just for the sake of it plus awesome adventures- but with thousands of other people who populate your world? Me neither. For some reason every single mmorpg there is got lost somewhere down the road and focuses on gear and stats / spreadsheet based combat now. However that doesn’t change my defintion of MMORPGs which doesn’t involve those things at all. VP is a degenerated feature which merely mutated to the most important aspect of MMORPGs because the last time somebody dared innovation was back when the first everquest mmo was released…

Asumita.2174:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

why? if raids were instanced you and all your friends in blues could get together and do the content? oh wait… no you couldn’t because you rely on the people in ascended to carry you through the current open world content already…

Then people with real lives would quit this game and GW2 will be filled with stuck up elitists.

Elitists will play the game regardless as long as there is gear progression/grind. It just satisfies their self-centered ego, and they are so eager to push that upon others. But once Anet allows those players to discriminate the people that have jobs/friends/life, it will 100% nail the coffin for the game.

What the hell? Are you saying people who strive to master a game in general are elitists (in other words “people with self-centered ego”)? Or are you especially concerned about those mastering games which are focused on VP?

I am not that kind of person, but quite frankly if someone spents his free time becoming the best virtual racedriver, streetfighter, multi-tasking prodigy or best geared fantasyworld hero then he / she deserves to feel special in that department.

How is it discrimination if these people play through the whole game and don’t have to share their reward with those who didn’t make such an effort? You are not in competition PvE wise and all that gear can’t be brought to PvP anyway.

Gibson.4036:

“Ascended gear is there because something was needed to entice people to keep playing the game.”

“Ascended gear isn’t enticing because it’s such a minor stat boost.”

The cognitive dissonance in this community is strong.

I fail to recognize any dissonance here. It just says ascended gear doesn’t serve it’s purpose.

What is “time gating” and what does it have to do with guild wars 2?

1. ranger
2. engineer
3. ele

You’re right forums are always a bad place to look for an objective opinion on balance, popularity, you name it. On the other hand there is really TONS of constructive feedback here as well as many valid concerns.
I sometimes wonder the point of feedback forums. I mean they introduced them for a reason which can only be “everyone else does it”, “we actually do try to care about feedback”, or “give customers a chance to complain, because they’ll quit faster otherwise”.
Frankly, some devs seem actually frightened of feedback because there will always be complaints, which is why almost all game companies share the mantra “make as few people angry as possible”. It’s not the best game that wins, it’s the game with a status quo which angers the least people. As result modern games lost all character over a truckload of comprises.
This makes me miss the old times were games with character were designed to fit nothing but the dev’s preferences… oh well they’re gone. Gaming industry is a serious business now. Designing a successful game for a certain niche where there is no competition left anyway can’t be that hard but who would purposly aim for mediocrity when you have the funds to create a triple AAA all star abomination from salvaged and proven products?

…but let’s not get sidetracked. They won’t redo entire aspects of the game based on our feedback (or for any reason at all actually) but when it comes to balance, they should at least point out their vision to us so we have a clue where the game is heading if our feedback is that wide off the mark. This would make it easier to differ plainly negative feedback from valid concerns and accurate, constructive suggestions.

So… this has been erased without warning for what reason?

The game is too easy but why would you change that? There is this “you are not forced to do anything” mentality in GW2 which resulted in highly optional and even frivolous – at times- end game achievements.
Dungeons only give you 2 things: a solid gold / hour ratio and exo gear. Both can be found outside of dungeons to keep them optional. If you make dungeons harder, it will only result in frustration because ‘grinding’ is already annoying but grinding difficult content is BS. Especially since people will just turn to tradingpost and crafting /material selling to preserve their efficiency.
+ It would require rework of many many PvE mechanics, which I tried to discuss in my thread, which has also been erased for some reason O.o…. or perhaps it’s bugged?

TL&DR You can’t make dungeons harder because GW2 offers no reward for difficult content and they’re going to be skipped completely anyway.

zMajc.4659:

I have never ever played or seen a MMO where people were satisfied with class ballance. It’s a battle with Windmills from start onwards.

The more you try to ballance them they more messed up it gets in the end.

I played like 5 ‘balanced’ mmos, which is kind of a high rate considering that I’ve only played 8 MMOs to a point where balance matters.

@OP I don’t think this will help at all, because
a) classes in GW2 are not meant be balanced perfectly and that sweetspot anet aims for is really hard to hit.
b) you can’t claim that anet has no clue where to go balance wise just because their goals differ from our wishes. They take community feedback into consideration only to a point and decide based on their own image of the game for the majority of changes. Addionally, there are differences in priority -mostly due to company strategy, I assume- which we can’t change either.

Imho they know exactly where to go, it’ll simply take upwards of 2 years until they come close. Whether the game is still populated by then is another question, but they set this course back when they decided their game’s core and there is no way of changing it now- even if it turns out to be bad.

Wat? Did you mention bugfixes? I want those… and spandex for some reason… Give us bugfixes and spandex next patch! And maybe a matching wig for engineers and their turrets.

boring is relative to the time you’ve spent playing a game – success is not (if you’re a warrior)

I didn’t read OP- only the title because what else is there to know? However I didn’t have a set opinion on this. Reading through the posts made me realize that a good discussion will leave me with exactly that: no opinion, no favorite side to take. Omg I so missed the point of good discussions all that time! but.. what is that? What did he say?

goldenwing.8473:

I believe this thread is less about the gem store and insta-80 and more about how Cond Build is apparently OP in WvW.

<cough>

LMAO. Apparently perfectly placed cynism can change the entire subject of a discussion. xD If you don’t believe me, re-read the replies from there ’til here.

chemiclord.3978:

For what it matters (which is next to nothing), I DO use full “zerk” gear. If a different “best gear” emerges, I’ll likely switch to that. Oh well. That’s how MMOs tend to work.

Is the change justified? That’s an entirely different argument. But the point is that the change IS being made due to player demand, not some conspiracy by Arena.net to bleed players dry while they can because they know they have a failing game that will die the moment [insert next golden-boy MMO title here] comes out.

I can’t recall hearing pre-teen mothers screaming assasin and valk sets are so gamebreaking! Nerf them please, they’re much worse than berserker gear! Think of the children! This is nothing the community has asked for. It’s failing feedback translation if anything feedback related at all. The implementation of ferocity will only enforce zerker meta.

I wouldn’t call the game itself a fail though(not saying you did either). Anyone halfway into MMORPGS will place this game among the best games of that genre he / she has ever played. It’s so easy to reach 400h played in this game, while standard for generic triple A games seems to be 30-50. Imho the reason why this game won’t survive the (“promised”) next step of MMORPGs is because this step was teased in their feature list, yet did only happen as bundle of compromises. One of these compromises was being able to play (effectively) the way you want, which turned out to be condi bunker and zerker dualism, with only a few builds and utility sets supporting these niches per class – which is what kills the game for me personally,

Ralathar.7236:

Yeah I randomly caught that video. Even the guy saying it was kind of amused that he said they would be nerfing a turret. However that doesn’t mean that net turret will stay in that state. Its possible it could end up getting a lower cooldown, higher range, lower time between shots, etc eventually to help make up for that nerf.

I don’t think they’re stupid or play a restricted dev only build of the game where turrets work perfectly fine either. They ought to know how bad turrets are currently, but the question is: when will they fix it?
It’s been like that for how long? Engineers are getting a few nerfs if anything in the upcoming season so it will be another couple of months until they even start thinking about it. Even if they did priorize turretfixes in the following season(no idea what the chances are), they will hardly fix/change everything in one patch.
There is probably no chance that turrets will be fully viable before winter at that rate and honstely I doubt I’ll be even playing the game anymore by then :/

Aberrant.6749:

Escadin.9482:

Aberrant.6749:

Escadin.9482:

style.6173:

@OP: If ANET is basically going to admit they messed up and then implement this ferocity change, they should at least give everyone the ability to change armor on a 1 time basis. […]

the sarcasm is strong with this one….

I don’t think a refund will be necessary though. If they some sort of refund for lesser reasons already then fine, otherwise I wouldn’t mind either.

Must be PvE only or not have ascended gear… in either of those cases it’s very much deserved. WvW you want to min/max more than just one stat/aspect. Ascended gear is far more painful to replace. In either case it’s needed.

how will zerker not be the maximum dps gear anymore? care to explain?

Where did I say that?

OP is about refunds for zerker gear. If you wear zerker pieces in wvw they will just be as useful for their purpose post patch as they are now(relatively to the other stat combos). Feel free to correct me though.

Aberrant.6749:

Escadin.9482:

style.6173:

@OP: If ANET is basically going to admit they messed up and then implement this ferocity change, they should at least give everyone the ability to change armor on a 1 time basis. […]

the sarcasm is strong with this one….

I don’t think a refund will be necessary though. If they some sort of refund for lesser reasons already then fine, otherwise I wouldn’t mind either.

Must be PvE only or not have ascended gear… in either of those cases it’s very much deserved. WvW you want to min/max more than just one stat/aspect. Ascended gear is far more painful to replace. In either case it’s needed.

how will zerker not be the maximum dps gear anymore? care to explain?

style.6173:

@OP: If ANET is basically going to admit they messed up and then implement this ferocity change, they should at least give everyone the ability to change armor on a 1 time basis. […]

the sarcasm is strong with this one….

I don’t think a refund will be necessary though. If they some sort of refund for lesser reasons already then fine, otherwise I wouldn’t mind either.

Zietlogik.6208:

MMOs chose to not have that type of immersion.

Fixed it for you.
It’s totally possible (especially in 2014) to create an mmo that is based on a core of immersion, 100% active combat (no spreadsheet based combat whatsoever), and more than 60% horizontal progression.

All they need to do is jettison their current, overrated, core which is based on grinds, stat based combat/character progression as well as the pain of balancing this kitten and overdone classdesign for a bunch of run-of-the-mill classes which end up in the melting pot called balancing process anyway. (I mean making a mage type class just for the sake of it? really?)

Don’t get me wrong GW2 is one of best MMOs I’ve played until now, but that’s only for MMO standards which haven’t really changed in a decade for some odd reason.

@topic
Immersion is fun for the first few days, even surpringly good for an MMO. Then the personal story starts to get really generic and lame (even ridiculous in some cases) and once you hit lvl 80 and try to create a powerful build based your preference immersion is gone – not only because this has already nothing to do with immersion anymore, but because this is only possible in a few cases.

+ the points Zietlogik mentioned and probably some more.

saalle.4623:

“Why can’t you people answer a simple question. Why are you so against a dueling option? If you’re worried about people spamming duel invites, simple fix, have an option that blocks all duel invites.”

Cause people are selfish.Welcome to the real world

You mean this new place where insulting people doesn’t get you anywhere? ^^ I don’t see their point either, but reason why I want to a duel mode is 100% selfish to be honest…

Karl McLain.5604:

Engineer:
We feel that the engineer is in a decent place right now, but we did take this opportunity to scale down a few outlier skills in terms of potency. Net Turret’s immobilize duration has been lowered to reduce the amount of lockdown after a Supply Crate drop, and Poison Grenade’s poison duration has been lowered to account for poison field stacking.

Those are not my words….

It’s simple:
-fix the ridiculous amount of bugs pleaguing turrets
-let them scale with stats
-see how it works out and revisit the issue (This will be the earliest point to even consider balance changes- I suggest to start with traits)

However it’s also simple that:
-engineers are fine overall in pvp
-some engineer builds are even arguably op in pvp
-pvp matters most regarding balance
-fixing stuff has a much lower priority than toning down outliers for anet
-there’s been no mentioning of any fixes, buffs or anything for a year, nor the upcoming season

I don’t mean to sound offended or to break your hopes but let’s face it: turrets are a toy and will stay that way for quite a long time. Try to have fun anyway or quit your profession due to grief.

Molch.2078:

You could:

• make a 500g give away
• suggest free cupcakes for everyone
• present the solution for world peace

but as soon as you use the word WoW on this forum…

First time involved this kind of discussion and I already have a feeling you’re right. I don’t know how duels worked in wow but during the first month I’ve desperatly looked for a sparringsytem to help me with:
-learning the influence of my abilities on a potential enemy in pvp (net really easy to figure out if you have to face rank 12543534 solo roamer or lag your way through a zerg. Different gear in the mist doesn’t help either).
-comparing builds
-picking up basic movement and aim abilities required for pvp.

I don’t see how this could hurt anyone. If you don’t like it, then just don’t do it?

Not a real proof, but thanks I got it now. ^^

Frankly, I don’t think it matters. They have buffed immobilize too much and now, every source if it is somewhat overpowered. I know that net turret is probably the worst source for immobilze but they didn’t care for turrets so far, and they didn’t mention any changes to them within the next big patch season. Engineer is in a good place- a bit OP if anything and if you take a look at the current state of ranger, it takes a lot more constructive and negative feedback for even the smallest (or not even barely helpful) changes – all that while ranger is neither considered to be OP nor in a decent place.
It’s just very very unlikely this will be heard by anet at any time and imho it’s impossible to happen before summer. They will nerf them together and that’s hopefully the last thing we hear about it, because fixing stuff is way down on their priority list, regarding professionbalance.

Xar.1387:

I love to heal people :|

Yep I miss it too. I expected to play a heal engi, sometimes switching to turrets or a hybrid of both. You know the rest of this story… :/

spoj.9672:

Your missing my point again. Crit damage depends on crits to be used. So with less crit damage the extra critical hits become less beneficial than the extra power. Beserker will lose lets say 10% damage. But assassins will lose more because its designed to rely on critical hits and critical damage to achieve its damage. Im not sure how i can explain it any better.

I understood your point but this is wrong. Critical damage and the chance of it happening rely on attackdamage as their main value. Assasin doesn’t rely on critical hits, it relies on attackdamage (zerker too). Your basic attack damage is equally increased by crit chance and crit damage in both cases.
If you want to explain this any better, a mathatical proof of your statement, would be much appreciated.

spoj.9672:

Think of it logically. Best example is assassin gear. If you are trying to maximise dps and lets assume assassin and beserker are about equal at the moment. If you reduce the crit damage on both which has a greater loss in dps? Obviously it is the gear which relies on crits more. Beserker doesnt get hit as hard because power scales up your damage when critting or not critting. But for heavy precision gear the idea is too maximise crit chance to utilitize that crit damage as much as possible. With lower crit damage, maxing precision becomes much less beneficial compared to boosting power.

Essentially with lower crit damage, precision is weighted as less important and power remains unchanged.

Nike also explains it in this video: http://youtu.be/AYX4f5pehSU

Well thats the thing: It doesn’t sound logically to me at all . If you ask me assasin gear ought to do less damage already which is compensated by the fact that you crit more often, hence you procc on crit effects more often.
The reason is that critchance and critdamage increase your damage almost equally, while power increases it up to several times (depending on how much critchance+critdamage you have). They say both sets will lose 10% overall, which means they will both lose the same amount in % . Peroid. If both dealt equal damage atm, the total loss will be equal. If assasin is already weaker, then assasin will obviously lose less, because 10% of a smaller value is less than 10% of a bigger value (duh). Sorry but the video doesn’t add anything new either.

It’s quite interesting to see that this thread hast 530 replies and like 500 of them are negative feedback regarding the (lack of) balance changes or alternative suggestions, like 15 are asking for patience or clearification.
I’ll definetly stick around to see their reaction, because it will clearly indicate how much community feedback matters to them.

Edit: well there’s also a good portion of thankfull replies due to the reverted mesmer nerf. Let’s not be biased ^^

So yea, after some thinking, I couldn’t come up with a reason why the ferocity change should hit any precision based prefix harder than berserker. The math provided by Deceiver doesn’t really nail it for me.

Could somebody explain to me why this should be the case? (indepth math preferred)

Salt.4621:

Beldin.5498:

Vayne.8563:

My issue with taunt is that it kills any illusion the enemy is intelligent at all.

I’ll keep banging way on this guy, even though he’s not taking damage, and even though I’m a super intelligent demon from the abyss, I have no idea healers exist or someone is keeping him alive.

It’s just too contrived for my taste.

I always have to laugh when people in a trinity game say they want a better Monster AI since i know that they don’t really want that because any AI would kill the trinity.
If a monster is intelligent it would ignore the low damage tank, and first kill maybe the healer or the squishy DDs.

I’d very much disagree. Taunting works on human players all of the time. I played WoW for years and in every single BG I played I’d often simply /laugh at someone (usually rogues) when my ret pally was OP’d and smashing anything that moved. 9 times out 10 that player made a bee line for me every single time in sheer frustration and annoyance over a simple emote. Out healers loved it. The other 10% didn’t fall for it but boy does emote tanking work. Its a taunt. It works on human players a lot. I’ve had players log out, log into my realm a some level 1 character and abuse me in typical WoW fashion. “F%$$%#g scrub, blah, blah, blah, rage, rage” all over a /laugh or a /mock. Music to my ears!

extremely off topic
Taunts and ‘detaunts’ in warhammer online worked in pvp because their effect was to half the damage you deal while under the effect of a taunt unless your target is source of that taunt.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

UltraFlyingTaco.7452:

1- I use greatsword and axe+wh (greatsword let’s me dodge,which is critical for 1 hit bosses)

2-Yes.

3-Yes.

4- Spider and jaguar/jungle stalker for might.

5- No, I use soldier with zerk trinkets.

I am a dungeon forums frequenter. And the axe on a ranger is seen as a giant No No. That thing is terrible, and will often get you kicked. Running stuff like that will create the bag stigma people have with Rangers. The Longbow is the obvious kick on sight, but axe rangers are generally viewed as not knowing their class(I’m not being mean here, just letting you know what the perception is).

Same as Guardian. If they join the dungeon holding a staff, mace or scepter then they get the boot. Unless its TA, and the staff is only for clearing blossoms.

Point I’m trying to make, is that Rangers dig themselves their own grave by running terrible builds, then it makes everyone who plays the class suffer. The reason why guardians are often saved from being so strictly banished, is because people are dumb. A bad guardian is a bad guardian. They should be booted just as quick as bad rangers, but the general masses of pugs don’t know how to properly filter out bads from goods, so they just use the “kick all X class”.

Any group worth their salt will keep a ranger who has:
1.) sword
2.) spotter, frost spirit
3.) zerker

So if you run the right build and get kicked. Its their lost. If you run a bad build, then you are to contributing to the negative stigma of your class.

I don’t mean to offend you (it’s not like this is your opinion) but this is far away from being able to play any content any way you want to and imho it should be Anet’s first priority to fix since I suffer from playing a underpowered/ generally hated build myself and it really breaks the most important point of the game.

spoj.9672:

Escadin.9482:

spoj.9672:

Your making wild assumptions about me because I told you you were wrong. I have no problem with making dungeons harder and making stacking and LoSing less desirable.

I do have an issue with forcing people to kill everything and using stupid puzzles and timegated events in dungeons. I dont mind making bosses all required for end reward. But forcing us to kill all trash mobs is just absurd.

Where does it say I want to force the whole community to killing every single mob there is in every single dungeon?

*edit: I mean, obviously I should have chosen a different way to express this. I didn’t expect people to actually defend the way it is right now. However, many people in this thread seem so overly determined to feel ‘insulted’ by the whole topic that it makes wonder if there’s any way to this discuss it in a mature manner.

I know you didnt. I was just expressing my opinion on it. Because a lot of people who dislike skipping decide they want to make things unskippable. Sorry for the misunderstanding. :P

I edit OP so this doesn’t happen again. My apologies.

spoj.9672:

Your making wild assumptions about me because I told you you were wrong. I have no problem with making dungeons harder and making stacking and LoSing less desirable.

I do have an issue with forcing people to kill everything and using stupid puzzles and timegated events in dungeons. I dont mind making bosses all required for end reward. But forcing us to kill all trash mobs is just absurd.

Where does it say I want to force the whole community to killing every single mob there is in every single dungeon?

*edit: I mean, obviously I should have chosen a different way to express this. I didn’t expect people to actually defend the way it is right now. However, many people in this thread seem so overly determined to feel ‘insulted’ by the whole topic that it makes wonder if there’s any way to this discuss it in a mature manner.

spoj.9672:

Escadin.9482:

spoj.9672:

We were correcting you on encounters you seem to think are being abused. The encounters you mentioned are far from being completely negated by corner stacking.

This is only your opinion. In my opinion they’re being abused. I don’t want to change your opinion and you should leave mine alone. You brought this topic up in the first place and it has nothing to do with my suggestion.

It is your opinion but we were explaining why your opinion has faults. You dont understand the encounters. Like we have explained, the bosses arent negated by corner stacking like you seem to think so. Therefore your opinion is based on your own ignorance.

Yes, perhaps that’s true, but it doesn’t matter because my opinion on common boss tactics is not the topic of OP. You only brought that up because you were picky about my choice of words, because you don’t like my opinion (whether it’s for a reason or not) on common boss tactics that you felt I might have, because you have no valid arguements for the actual topic at hand.

spoj.9672:

We were correcting you on encounters you seem to think are being abused. The encounters you mentioned are far from being completely negated by corner stacking.

This is only your opinion. In my opinion they’re being abused. I don’t want to change your opinion and you should leave mine alone. You brought this topic up in the first place and it has nothing to do with my suggestion.

I don’t get it O.o
What is it exactly you’re fighting here? My opinion? The way I express my opinion? That I suggest to motivate people to kill more dungeon mobs, because it takes more time than skipping but doesn’t give anything of value in return? (I mean it’s clearly that way otherwise you wouldn’t mind a change). Do you think I want to abolish your playstyle? And if so, do you even think I have a chance of success?
I just don’t get it…

I’m not here to play who can be pickier about gamemechanics or to discuss where we should draw the line between exploits and ‘clever tactics’. I’m here because gw2 managed to promote skipping content over beating it as the best way to success. I can’t remember any other game where this is the case and while I still think it’s ‘ok’ they gave us this option, I don’t see why it should be the most effective.

spoj.9672:

Well in that case im fairly sure loSing her to the boat doesnt negate her attacks. The clones will LoS so they can be dealt with quickly. Its exactly the same as LoSing them on the crates. Which must be intended seeing as fighting her in the middle will now get you instantly wiped when she daggerstorms.

It’s not the exact same because a) he/she will try to run around those crastes instead of stupidly unloading against them all the time and b) they can actually break after too much damage. The daggerstorm is simply meant to be dodged or outranged.

spoj.9672:

Escadin.9482:

Pirate mesmer in arah p3. Nothing seen a group not dragging him into that crashed boat, so all of his attacks and those of his illusions get obstructed by those wooden planks.
Spiderqueen ascalon any path, fight her in the corner so she never spews those poisonfields.
Rescue the engineer in citadel of flames (the one mentioned in op) until last patch, just run down the ramp so you lose monster aggro and wait for more acoylites to spawn.
List goes on…

Pirate mesmer in p3? What? No idea what you are talking about but theres no mesmer boss in path 3.

Spider queen still kills people in the corner with her other attacks. Her poison field is triggered by range. Stacking makes it easier to keep her in melee so she only uses her bite and imob spit. But you can do the exact same thing in the open. The advantage of the corner is so you can burn her down fast with fgs.

For cof its not really an exploit they still followed you down sometimes and they are still annoying to run past.

Alphard, Serpent of the Waves (path 2 – hit the wrong number sorry). He summons clones and teleport so he is a mesmer to me.

And of course it’s an exploit, why would they fix it otherwise? This is off topic anyway. My point was to reward facing the content more than now and not to defend my view of the common skip and bug methods.

OldSomalia.6180:

Escadin.9482:

Dragging half the bosses into a corner so their attacks automiss or bug away?

Oh my.

That is pretty serious.

Feel free to give very clear examples (path, boss, stack location, abilities) so that I, or anyone else, can inform you that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing, or why it works (see: explaining the actual mechanics, not just making things up).

I’ll wait.

Pirate mesmer in arah p3. Never seen a group not dragging him into that crashed boat, so all of his attacks and those of his illusions get obstructed by those wooden planks.
Spiderqueen ascalon any path, fight her in the corner so she never spews those poisonfields.
Rescue the engineer in citadel of flames (the one mentioned in op) until last patch, just run down the ramp so you lose monster aggro and wait for more acoylites to spawn.
List goes on…

I don’t have a problem with speedruns, but with the fact that they’re the only promoted way to beat a dungeon and the toxicity that partially results from that (the other part is lack of buildviability outside of zerker).

Maybe an odd word choice there. Still:
Dragging half the bosses into a corner so their attacks automiss or bug away? That’s cheating to me.
Getting insulted because ‘I don’t know how dungeons work… because only the final reward matters" by randomgroups? That’s no ‘morality complex’ that’s simply gamebreaking.