Showing Posts For Etienne.3049:

Scoring Discussion

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

break the 24 hour periods into 3 rounds
win two rounds, you win the day
win 4 days you win the match

this way, one 8 hour shift cant win you the day. 2 however can, but i think if you lose two timeslots, then ehhhhh you lost that day.

soo now there would need to be a reason to play when you are getting blown out.
hmmm

What would this actually solve? And how?
Wouldn’t this make having people at night even more important?

I also really don’t like this idea although I can’t quite determine why.

Scoring Discussion

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

24 hour coverage: I don’t feel this can be solved through a change in scoring. In my opinion whenever you play you playing should be worth the same and therefore scoring should always be the same. There are probably solutions to this but, in my opinion, those can not be found in changing the scoring. (The solution is, in my opinion, an overhaul of the outnumbered effect to buff certain NPCs depending on how outnumbered a world is.)

Stagnation: In my opinion this also can’t really be solved through changing scoring only through shorter matches (which could be seen as related to scoring in some far-fetched way but probably shouldn’t count as such). The obvious “solution” would seem to be to have scoring increase as the week goes on making play at the start of the week more or less worthless. Building an early lead should be just as valuable (purely in terms of the game) as a late comeback.

In short: In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the current scoring regarding the topics mentioned.

(edited by Etienne.3049)

[QoL Suggestion] Use material storage first

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Sorry, but there are no valid reasons to be against this suggestion.

First of all, this type of baseless claim is not constructive to any discussion.

Second, yes there are/is: The current system (coincidentally?) prioritizes materials by the value I assign to the slots they occupy so the more valueable slot is freed up first.

The values assigned to the slots are, of course, subjective but I order them like this:
Inventory: Is where loot goes so I’d want to have a good number of open slots.
Bank: Anything can be put in the slots so they are more valuable than materials slots.
Materials storage: Can only hold that type of materials so is of lesser value than the others.

Material storage allows you to free up your inventory, so by your own definition it is more valuable than bank slots due to the ability to automatically transfer items to it.

By my valuation a bank slot is worth more than the material slot, you can’t argue that’s not true because it is by definition an opinion.

[QoL Suggestion] Use material storage first

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Sorry, but there are no valid reasons to be against this suggestion.

First of all, this type of baseless claim is not constructive to any discussion.

Second, yes there are/is: The current system (coincidentally?) prioritizes materials by the value I assign to the slots they occupy so the more valueable slot is freed up first.

The values assigned to the slots are, of course, subjective but I order them like this:
Inventory: Is where loot goes so I’d want to have a good number of open slots.
Bank: Anything can be put in the slots so they are more valuable than materials slots.
Materials storage: Can only hold that type of materials so is of lesser value than the others.

Upcoming outfit

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Finally a good looking outfit, but when will it be available?
http://imgur.com/a/4Au0B

I’m hoping never, it looks far to modern in my opinion.
The mountaineer type outfit in Astral’s post somewhat less so but still too modern.

vote kicks

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Having a party leader to me seems a bad option, I’m not sure which I’d prefer out of party leader or 2-man kick but I’m leaning towards the latter being preferable.
If there was a party leader who couldn’t be kicked and could kick anyone I probably wouldn’t join anyone else’s parties anymore, if more people would do this it would lead to many parties being formed but few being filled.

Majority seems to me like the only system that’s actually any good.

[QoL Suggestion] Use material storage first

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I find the current order the most convenient, remove it from wherever it is taking up the most valuable space first. But then if I have materials outside of the material storage it’s because my material storage was full.
So I wouldn’t like a simple change of the order; more options is generally not a bad thing though.

Death Shroud Degen- Out of Combat

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

While there are alternative ways of gaining life force (like the incredibly bad staff autoattack) the default manner of aquiring life force is by things dying around the necromancer, when stuff dies often the combat is mostly over.
Adrenaline is gained by attacking, which tends to happen a lot during combat.

Summary:
Life force: Gained by things dying, so after combat.
Adrenaline: Gained by attacking, so during combat.

Also the idea behind them is completely different, adrenaline is, well, adrenaline while life force must be something like STORING the life force (or souls?) of the dead to power certain spells.

Just because both use a bar doesn’t mean they are anything alike.

Although, considering only power and not what it’s supposed to represent, I wouldn’t mind life force decaying out of combat if in exchange necromancers would gain it as quickly in combat as warriors gain adrenaline; which probably wouldn’t excactly make necromancers any weaker.

[PROs and CONs] New Trading Post

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I’d say there are several problems with the new trade post:

we are aware some players have ‘hidden’ orders they can’t manage.. and that’s not good.

This alone is plenty of reason for me to prefer the old one (by a lot).

I really miss the information provided by match my lowest listing.

Minor annoyance: there are places where tab doesn’t work anymore where it used to (I have to use the mouse to switch between inputting min and max level of the items I want).

And what we get in return for these problems is armor filters (which I would assume could also have been put in the old TP) and a slightly increased speed?
Doesn’t seem worth it to me. I’d prefer if the old one was returned (or made a selectable option if the two are compatible) until the new one is fixed.

I also dislike some interface stuff of the new one but for now I’ll assume that’s because I was used to the old one.

EDIT: I remembered some more things that annoy me about the new trade post.
Pickup is slower because it seems to want excactly 100 items in the pickup tab but in some weird way which causes the button to take stuff to not do anything while the TP is rearanging stuff.

Can’t click a certain price to see how many are listed up to that price is the total is over 250 (it used to be you could click any displayed price and it’d show how many you’d have to buy to buy all listings at that price and below (in red if it was over 250 ’cause for some reason 250 was and is the limit of everthing but gold)).

(edited by Etienne.3049)

[PvP/WvW]The only thing that is truely OP...

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Are you really arguing against balancing?

“play whatever killed them” seems a horrible idea to me for multiple reasons.
It assumes all there is to PvP and WvW is 1v1, which is false.
And in a situation where build A has the advantage against build B, which has the advantage against build C, which has the advantage against build A, you’d be constantly switching builds for no good reason.

I know I could be better, I just like playing a condition necromancer; that’s not pride, it could be called stubbornness but certainly not pride.

Outnumbered - Make It Useful

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Outmanned originally had some buff to it. It was changed to a measurable reward, and no buffing, because there shouldn’t be a map mechanic that encourages a smaller set of allies to argue with a larger set of allies when the buff is removed from play.

It’s a closed case.

I can’t find anything about that on the wiki, are you sure it was a buff?

It shouldn’t encourage argument if:
The bonus scales with how outnumbered you are (starting from giving a nearly unnoticable bonus when a server has 1 player less than the server with the nost players).
And the effect never fully compensates for the players you lack.

Outnumbered - Make It Useful

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

If the buff applied to keeps it would not effect small scale fights at all.

I suppose a havok group working as a distraction for their blob would not be able to take the tower they are on, but still they have a blob on map and are outnumbering you because they know coverage gaps are easy wins.

You’re referring to Atherakhia’s idea? (I was referring to the first post only in my post.)
That idea could work but isn’t complete enough to really discuss in my opinion, but I’ll try anyway. When would a lord be outnumbered? Is it the same as the current outnumbered? (If so why move it from the players to the lord in the first place?)
Gates and walls being 20x as tough is far, far too much.
I don’t like the idea of siege being powered up in certain circumstances (2 or 3 ACs are often enough to scare a group off, they are powerfull enough), extra health wouldn’t be that bad (though 10x is a bit much).
If this would be on or off (as opposed to scaling with how badly outnumbered you are) it might be an incentive for people not to play (both on the outnumbered and other server) which, to me, is a bad thing.

In my opinion, if outnumbered would affect the actual battle, it should still always be better to have more players (a player joining should always be good, a player leaving always bad). Outnumbered could compensate for a part of the lower numbers but not all and definitely not more than all. Objectives that can be (easily) done alone now should remain doable alone. It should not have much, if any, effect on small scale fights.

Outnumbered - Make It Useful

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Not letting people in seems like a bad idea, sometimes you can’t help that your server has more people.

I don’t think excluding people would happen in practice. Only because their would be no way for players to enforce it on their servermates. People would accept it and not try to rely on a buff but instead welcome reinforcements, if their ever come.

It could also add to strategy. Say someone says “oh they want to blob huh we’ll stay here and with our tiny force and the other 4 people online go to their borderland and make them pull off to defend.”

The not letting people in bit was referreing to the second suggestion in the first post.

Assuming you are in fact referring to the first idea in that post:
Nobody could enforce it but I still wouldn’t like an incentive for having fewer players.
And there’d still be the even more unbalanced small scale fights.
(and 500% increase seems utterly ridiculous to me, not entirely sure how many people you’d need to take down 1 with such a buff but I’ll assume that’s just a number given as an example of the concept and not as an actual idea.)

Outnumbered - Make It Useful

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Not letting people in seems like a bad idea, sometimes you can’t help that your server has more people.
Stat boosts to players doesn’t seem good for multiple reasons (trying to get players to leave to get the boost, even more unfair 1v1 or other small scale fights…).

What I think might work is a boost to NPC stats.
For example: for every player a server has less than the server with most players that server’s NPCs get n% stat increase and m% respawn time reduction.

Possibly the numbers would need to be different for different types of NPC, camps shouldn’t get too much of an increase as I think they should still be able to be taken by a single player, sentries should definitely not defeat a decent player, but towers and the like could use some extra power as you probably shouldn’t be soloing those anyway.

I think that it’d be important that this would not be an on or off thing (like the current outnumbered) but depend on the number of players of each server.

new tournament achievements are awful

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I, for one, much prefered the achievements of earlier seasons.

DO NOT change the dungeon owner system

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

A problem I could see with your system (voidwater’s, that is) is that there would be a huge incentive to be the party leader. I could see that leading to far more parties being created but never filled, as everyone would demand to be the party leader (under the current system I’ve never felt a need to, under your proposition I might well never join a party I didn’t create). Apart from that I would, in almost any situation, prefer to require 2 jerks for stuff to go wrong to requiring just 1. There is plenty wrong with the kick system but I cannot see your proposal fix anything (minority to kick, party leader kicked/leaves ends the instance with no way to see who it is).

I think the soon to be current system is quite decent (especially in comparison to the current one as it fixes 1 of my two main problems with it) and if they ever really change things there are far better things to do (require >50% of the players not about to get kicked (3/5, 2/4, 2/3, 1/2) or allow people to vote against/cancel the kick).

The only way I could see your system implemented in a way that would be acceptable to me is alongside another system (as in choose between egalitarian (system after the next patch) and autoritarian (yours)) but I would never join a party under your system unless I knew the party leader.

What Is Life Like For A Necromancer Main?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I primarily play a condition Necromancer so this won’t necessarily apply to other types.
In WvW (in large mobs mostly) I’d say I’m doing well enough, good attacks on my weapons (staff and scepter+dagger) and rushing into a large group of enemies using plague (and sometimes death shroud to get out alive) is great (both fun and, probably, effective).
In solo PvE I’d say I’m doing well enough, other classes (especially Warrior) are a lot easier in PvE but that’s not a problem with Necromancers in my opinion.
In large scale PvE (say, worldbosses or such) however due to the condition cap functioning as it does I do far too little damage.
Even in small scale PvE (say, dungeons) it’s not optimal, in a party with a second condition user (who uses the same conditions as I do) we’d both lose a small part of the damage we could do (to a single target), a third is basically useless. It also doesn’t help that some attacks by non-condtion users inflict conditions anyway (which costs damage due to the cap).

I still have fun playing my Necromancer (if I didn’t I wouldn’t play it as a main, or much at all) but the current implementation of the condition cap annoys me every time i meet more than a few other players in PvE.

Voting on Lion Arch rebuilt

in Living World

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

The problem with letting people vote is that a fair part of people will be disappointed with the result. If the devs just do something without listing an alternative there won’t be a clear thing we didn’t get so while there may still be some disappointment it won’t be as great.

Achievement Points

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

They don’t give a good indication (at best they give an extremely rough estimate) but elitists will always find a way to discriminate. Though as long as people list their requirements it doesn’t seem worth complaining about to me. If they don’t list any requirements and kick people anyway then yeah, they should do that differently.

It’s probably best not to join any groups with requirements. And if anyone flames you: right-click the name, select report player, choose verbal abuse, send, there is really no reason to accept that.

Megaserver and WvW

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

The EU and NA mixed bit seems extremely unlikely (the character data is saved at a different place or such, which is also the reason you can’t guest between them and they have different megaservers). Apart from that it seems like a decent idea to me. You’d have to force some balance of course (at some point friend guilds might have to be placed on different teams to prevent on team being too big).

Save GW2: turn WxWxW in GxGxG.

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I like to play WvW every so often, I do not have a guild. I would hate to see this happen.
I wouldn’t have a problem with GvG being added in a proper way but not as replacing WvW.

Laurel Vendor now sell LS1 stuff

in Living World

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

If you mean Selfless and Thoughtless Potions (Devil Horns is an actual item, Halo doesn’t seem to be), they were originally released quite recently, I think they might want to wait with those for a while (and I agree they should).

Add Karma tax to buy orders?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I can’t see this being a good idea. Adding costs to buy orders would mean they need to be even lower for people to make a profit which should increase the difference between buy and sell prices which seems undesireable to me.

Please stop with the Account Bound Crafting

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

And I would be happy to craft those items for a small profit.
I really can’t see why this was done and still hope they’ll change it.

Sell the ore, buy the ingots?

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Selling on the trade post costs 15% of the coin, leaving you with 85%.
You would need to make more than 1 silver per ore.
1 / 0.85 = 1.176
If you can sell the ore for 1 silver, 18 copper each or more you’d be better off selling the ore and buying the ingots, if not you should craft the ingots yourself.

Traidingpost Flipping should brought in line

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

During war people is willingly to pay absurd prices for food and medicines.

People gathering stuff to resell are consideered criminals.

This is a game and even if stuff is not needed as food would be, its basically the same thing.

Since the purpose of the game is FUN, people is forced to trade mostof their rewards in order to be able to have fun.

This is where your economy is totally wrong.

While I agree “wow” is probably the proper answer to this I’ll try to respond to this.
Sentence 1: Correct, also largely irrelevant to this game as this game contains no scarce resources people need to stay alive (actual people, not characters in a video game).
Sentence 2: While I’m not sure about criminal it’s definitely immoral (although other people might have different views).
Sentence 3: This seems self-contradictory to me, first you admit there is a difference (that the entire point is not applicable I’d say), and then you assert that it’s the same. The entire point of buying and selling certain commodities during a war being immoral is the necessity of them for people to not die.
Sentence 4: I agree on the first part, the second part though not so much, you can play about the entire game buying nothing but a full set of exotic weapons, armor and trinkets (about 10-25g per character I’d estimate).

Buying and selling essentially unnecessary items is more like what regular merchants do, and they aren’t considered immoral by at least a vast majority of modern civilzations.

Suggestion: Account wide crafting

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Loading into Lion’s Arch costs me 30 seconds or so and my computer can easily run this game, at quite high graphics settings outside of large scale events. adding going to character select, loading into a random map, waypointing to Lion’s Arch and walking to the crafting table to that makes 2 minutes seem like a reasonable estimate to me. I’ll admit that assumption was unfair though, I should at least have given you the benefit of the doubt. Although I am still intersted where you get the certainty it would take at least as long as the account wallet.

Suggestion: Account wide crafting

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

What do you base that on?
And it’s not that relevant how long it’d take compared to the account wallet as that’s neither an absolute time nor a time relative to creating new content.
Switching characters can easily take minutes, it takes me at least about 30 seconds just to log into a city (so 30 seconds would be the lower estimate for a character logged out next to the crafting station).

And of course, like I stated multiple times they could (though I don’t think they should) put it in the cash shop.

But yes this would be a convenience thing and if you think it’s not worth it that’s fine. So far I haven’t seen any arguments actually against the idea just against the (unknown amount of) time it would take.

(edited by Etienne.3049)

Suggestion: Account wide crafting

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I’d say this suggestion wouldn’t be anywhere close to redesigning.
You both seem to have a great knowledge of the time costs of different things the devs could do, I do not have any such knowledge but would think changing crafting to account bound would cost relatively little time, especially compared to making proper new content (stuff worth playing).
And if the time it takes is a problem they could put it in the cash shop, it’s got to be a better use of their time than the usual stuff they put in there.

Suggestion: Account wide crafting

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

It can take quite a bit more than 10 seconds, loading screens can last quite a while, the character may need to be moved…

It’s not difficult at all. It is inconvenient though.
And in my opinion there’s no need to accomodate people who want to level useing crafing, just play the game to level.
It wasn’t difficult to switch characters to access other currencies either, we do have an account wallet now though.

crafting rare items from vendor recipes

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

The wiki has (almost) all answers and according to it, no it seems there aren’t any rare items for levels 40 and 45 (crafting works a bit weirdly in that regard) the next rares are at lvl 50 and crafting lvl 200. The good news is that you generally don’t really need rares or level appropriate items (although it can make things easier).

Suggestion: Account wide crafting

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I would love to see crafting become account wide. Which would mean the limit on simultaneous crafting skills active would be removed, the highest skill level on an account would become the account level in that craft and recipes would work similar to the account wallet when it was introduced (as soon as you log in on any character they are added to the account, possibly, but not necessarily, refunding any duplicate recipes).

The only thing the current system accomplishes is that people have to switch characters to craft. With the account-bound ascended/celestial crafting (which I must state again I find a very bad choice mostly because it forces people that don’t want tocraft to craft and denies people who like crafting to make a bit of gold) even the possible incentive to trade for things the other skills make (the only possible reason I can come up with for limiting the number of simultaneous active crafts) is no longer relevant, everyone will need a number of crafts (probably 6 if you play at least 1 character of each armor class).

The possible downsides of this idea:
People use crafting to level: If you consider this a legitimate way to level (I don’t) it should easily be possible to make an item that costs roughly the same as leveling to 80 through crafting that instantly boosts a character to lvl 80. Alternatively make characters have to talk to a crafting trainer and choose to add that character to account crafting, those characters that haven’t yet chosen to access account crafting could then still be leveled through crafting.
The recently introduced 3 crafts on a character cash shop item: the item could be refunded.

The ability to craft account wide could even be sold for gems if absolutely necessary; I’d pay quite a few for it anyway. Although I believe fixes to bad design desicions (which I’d say the limit on active crafts is) shouldn’t be sold.

Summary:
The current system only forces people to switch characters to craft.
Account wide crafting would stop people having to switch characters to craft.
If you think leveling through crafting is desireable, alternatives could be implemented.
This could be sold though I think it should be free.

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

in Profession Balance

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

My opinion on what the strengths/weaknesses should be:

  • Warrior:
    Strengths: high power damage (especially at melee), good survivability.
    Weaknesses: Low mobility.
  • Guardian:
    Strengths: Great survivability, good support.
    Weaknesses: Only moderate damage without allies.
  • Ranger:
    Strengths: Best ranged power damage, decent mobility.
    Weaknesses: Not so great when in melee range, only moderate armor/health.
  • Engineer:
    Strengths: Versatility.
    Weaknesses: Not being great at anything.
  • Thief:
    Strengths: Great melee burst damage.
    Weaknesses: Very low survivability (which would mean very little, if any, stealth or a rework of stealth (maybe only let it work out of combat)).
  • Elementalist:
    Strengths: Great damage.
    Weaknesses: Very low survivability.
  • Necromancer:
    Strengths: Great condition damage.
    Weaknesses: Barely any burst capability.
  • Mesmer:
    Strengths: Clones, decent support.
    Weaknesses: Low survivability once the real mesmer gets attacked.

Why?

in Living World

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Why do people want expansions, When living story will add more content for free over time? https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

So far it hasn’t, it’s added what? 1 map? (And not a very good one either.) 1.5 years after release GW1 had had 2 expansions which together more than doubled the amount of content there was at launch. Now if season 2 proves to be as good as they try to make us believe (which I doubt it will) there might be fewer people asking for expansions.

Also, a game without expansions or subscription has to get it’s income from the cash shop. With expansions the importance of the cash shop could become lower, which to me seems like a good thing.

Suggestion : Choose the maps

in PvP

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

In either case, anything that increases queue times or effectively creates separate queues is probably not something we want to implement if it can be avoided.

Why not? Using a filter should mostly increase your own queue times (and for what it might impact others’ I’d say people should be playing for their own enjoyment, not to provide others with opponents).
I’d gladly take a slightly longer queue time to avoid Skyhammer; in fact the chance of ending up on Skyhammer (which would mean I either play while not having any fun whatsoever or I quit the game, go play something else entirely and leave the other players 4v5) is the main reason I hardly play any queue PvP games.

How would you change WvW?

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Personally I’d love to see worlds gone completely. So I suppose have people pick a colour (and probably some sub-designation within that colour (meaning for example Blue2vRed2vGreen2)) every week (or every few weeks in case of a tournament). Obviously this would need incentives to spread out (lower rewards for joining the most popular colour within a matchup would be a good start).

re-releasing items

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I for one am glad they returned (even though I had most already), I hate it when things in games are permanently unobtainable. And in regards to your first sentence: yes it has, several times in fact. And in those theads it seemed the people who didn’t mind the items returning outnumbered the people who were upset by a good amount, so there may well be many others who share your opinion on this but it seems far more people don’t.

Item Prestige: Not being respected?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I really don’t care about this “item prestige” of yours. I much prefer everyone being able to get everything, no matter when they started and could or couldn’t play.

Have you ever sold a precursor?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I have, can’t remember what I did with the 20-30 gold I got for it though.

Zerker meta: Possible solutions

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

whats so bad on running zerker?

i dont get it

is it bad running a gear where u actully need to doge ?

do u want us spam 1 as we do in wvw already

just leave the meta its fun and fair since everybody can do it

What is bad is that if someone were to ask “What armor should I use?” there is one answer the vast majority of players would give; not “What class are you?”, “What build do you use?” or “What do you mainly want to use it for?”; only different spellings and abreviations of “Berserker(’s)”.

Suggestion/comment regarding tournaments

in WvW

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

The result of a WvW match is barely influenced by personal skill: The main factor being numbers; skill and organisation are distant seconds. And due to the large scale even with similar numbers personal skill will matter little (even a very skilled player will just be one of hundreds of players on the server).

Because of that it seems a bad idea to me to have tournaments like the one now that reward players based on their server (this also encourages people to all join a single server because that server would then have the numbers to win). The problem is made worse by the rewards being unobtainable except for these tournaments.
The existence of such prizes will also encourage people to form alliances between servers (people sadly still do so otherwise but I would expect it to happen far more during a tournament).

There are several alternatives to this:

My favorite would be to not have WvW tournaments again and just have an achievement category like the one for the tournament (with similar rewards) every 2-3 months. This would also ensure that only 1 server per region constantly loses as opposed to 3 (one per league).

Another alternative would be to have the tournaments but give everyone the same reward, I’ll want my server to win regardless of there being any prizes, only I, and probably others, would have more fun if there wasn’t such a reward for winning. If you feel any need to offer larger prizes at least make it thing that can be obtained elsewhere (gold, badges, materials and such). Ideally to me this option would be retroactively implemented for the current tournament.

And there are probably more alternatives that would be far better then the current system.

AP, a real measurement of player ability?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

No it isn’t; except maybe for the first few hundred (altough you could have 500 points without even having played the game). I’ve got quite a few AP but no experience with most dungeons, those paths I have done I’ll only remember faintly and if I’d try to play a dungeon with any class other then Necromancer (by far my most played character) or Warrior (overpowered (and as far as I’ve played it easy to play) class) you might well be better off with someone with a tenth of my AP who has played the dungeon path a few times before (not that I’d be truly bad but the other player may well be better).

…or they may be full-DPS glass canons who’re used to killing bosses in seconds with 25 stacks of might, perma fury, timewarps, blinds/aegis/reflects but go down if a PUG is not as coordinated as their usual guildies/friends party with Teamspeak/Skype.

Are they bad as players? No, they’re probably better players than many “casuals” because they’re playing with instincts that they’ve been sharpening for thousands of hours. Are they bad in suboptimal PUGs? You may say so, or you may say that the PUG is not good enough for them – it all depends on your mindset.

The hypothetical players you describe fail to take the different party composition and the far lower degree of organisation into account (two rather obvious factors when changing from guild party to PUG) so I would in fact say they are bad players.

Good-bye Underwater combat??

in PvP

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

To me it always seemed underwater combat was unfinished/rushed.
There are only 2-handed weapons of which you can use (I think at least for most classes) exactly as many as you have weapon slots (which almost means no choice which weapons to equip).
Underwater headgear is neither craftable nor available at max stats.
Many skills don’t work under water (especially bad with elites, which don’t have that much choice in the first place) but no skills work only underwater.
You are forced to use the same attribute allocations and armor/jewelry as on land even though the available skills/weapons might mean another build would be preferable.

I’ve never really liked it in most circumstances (though there is an underwater fractal I don’t really mind). In general I think I’d have liked the game better if underwater combat had never been in the game in the first place (or if it was more worked out), removing it from the game at this point however is nearly impossible (and shouldn’t even be tried); fixing it, on the other hand, seems possible (add a few weapon types, some underwater only skills, seperate attributes and (optional) equipment for each of PvE land, PvE water, WvW land and WvW water (PvP already having its own stats)).

Banned "Circumventing idle-time Restrictions"

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

Do enemies killed entirely by pets even give loot? On my ranger it seemed enemies killed only by my pet didn’t give loot, although the sample size wasn’t that big.

Also, to people saying this counts as botting, if I understand correctly botting itself is technically not against the user agreement or rules of conduct; it’s using a third party programme to do so that’s forbidden (at least the only mentions of bots or botting I could find in them give them as examples of the type of third-party programmes that aren’t allowed).

Suggestion: fix or remove conditions

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

If only build changing was easy… Honestly if you craft ascended armor / get pieces you should be able to change stats when ever you want.

I’d be okay with having to unlock every combination, for the full price of a piece if need be (though the time gating is horrible design and light armour is probably quite expensive), it’s just that I don’t want to store multiple armours. Nor want to make that much effort to change my build each time, it should be a single button, from say a drop-down menu, to change to any build. The problem is that any solution I’d consider good would involve getting rid of transmutation stones (it does leave the option for decent solutions though).

Suggestion: fix or remove conditions

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

At first I though there were different bosses, one vulnerable to conditions the others immune. But all bosses are the same.

I assumed so too after fighting one.

What about the husks while doing the Great Jungle Wurm? Melee can’t damage it and they were not shouting out that the sky is falling. This is just one instance where conditions are not effective. It’s not the end of the world. Now if they continually do this…

Now I haven’t played the wurm much (I also consider success being dependant on about 100 random people to be poor design and would rather wait for those 100 random people to get a reasonable idea of how to do the encounter) but:
Due to the condition cap conditions are never really that effective in the first place.
You don’t have to choose melee or range when making a build whereas you do have to choose condition or power.
If melee doesn’t work, you can bring a ranged weapon and still use every other piece of equipment; to go from condition to power you need to change more or less every single piece of equipment (as well as trait), (storing an additional weapon should not be too much of a problem, a second armor set (12 pieces counting jewelry which would still require the same weapons to work) quite a bit more).

Anet wants us to play berserker warriors.

It’s starting to look like that but I really hope it isn’t.

Suggestion: fix or remove conditions

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

This new fight (the green/blue/red (or other colours) bosses) seems a new low in how conditions are handled. For most of the fight they aren’t just immune to conditions, they reflect them (as far as I’ve seen it appears to be 75% reflect, 25% where conditions work, though this may be wildly off). And simple condition immunity would, in my opinion, be good reason for complaint.
This is while it has been know for a long time conditions are, at best, sub-optimal in large scale PvE fights.
If I recall correctly there have been exactly 0 attempts at improving conditions in PvE (while it needs it for anything involving more than 2 condition users (who might still be competing with power characters with secondary condition effects on attacks)).
There are plenty of ways in which condition damage could be fixed in PvE (say, a personal condition cap (25 of a condition per player per enemy) or variable condition caps depending on the amount of players expected to fight the specific enemy (like different caps for standard, vetran, elite, champion, legendary and world boss)).
At the moment the complete removal of (damaging) conditions seems like a good step to me, just the removal of all damaging conditions and adding some of the damage those conditions might have done to the skill’s damage (which would be a shame as I like playing conditions).
I would love to see conditions fixed of course but I’ve seen no indication of any intention to do so and at the moment the complete removal of (damage) conditions would seem to me like a good thing in PvE.

On a semi-related note, I kinda miss from GW1 that it seemed (to me at least) that which class was most powerfull changed regularly with balance patches, it would at least prevent the current response of “play a berserker warrior” (there is no need to say so in this thread either, I strongly disagree with you (and am still hoping for a cripling balance patch for warriors)) to all complaints (legitimate or not, though I’d guess most are) about certain playstyles being underpowered.

Collaborative Development: Edge of the Mists

in CDI

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

I would actually love to see the current world/server system gone entirely (not just in WvW either) but that would probably be unpopular and possibly technically problematic.

About the shorter matchups. I think 8 hours is far too short, I’d love the 1-2 day matches we had at the very start of the game to return occasionally though (by which I mean every 3-4 weeks have a week that’s made up of 1 and 2 day matches).

Overregulating silk market supplies

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

(preferably 3 scraps to a bolt to maintain consistancy with other ectoplasm refinement recipes))

Mithril is 2 ore to ingot. As are other metals. It was never about consistency.

What I meant was: out of the options “100 bolts per thread” and “3 scraps per bolt” the latter would seem preferable to the former because all other ectoplasm refinement recipes use 50 refined material while normal refinement recipes need between 2 and 4 (I think) unrefined material per 1 refined material.

Overregulating silk market supplies

in Crafting

Posted by: Etienne.3049

Etienne.3049

I’m kind of disappointed with this too. It seems to me they made a mistake (both making silk 3 scraps to a bolt and 100 bolts for 1 ascended material, one of those might have been resonable (preferably 3 scraps to a bolt to maintain consistancy with other ectoplasm refinement recipes)) which leaves us with 1 ectoplasm refinement for:
50 ingots = 100 ore
50 squares = 150 sections
50 planks = 150 logs
100 bolts = 300 scraps (more then can be placed in a singe TP order)
With the sraps being well over 4 times as expensive as any of the other unrefined materials.

While I can understand why they might have made the recipe require so much resources (though I disagree with it as in my opinion the solution to this problem (the wrong price for a dropped, as oposed to harvested, material) that may or may not have existed should be on the supply side (change the drop rates ‘till it’s good)) I really can’t understand the replacing of 10 Thermocatalytic Reagent (14s96) with 25 Spools of Gossamer Thread (16s).

I hope that at some point soon the requirements will be changed to be the same as the other ectoplasm refinement recipes (50 refined material, 1 glob, 10 reagents). I wouldn’t really mind my silk weaving thread losing value.