That’s simply untrue and illogical.
There’s no logical/rational reason to believe it would merely make a different gear-type optimal in the way Zerker is now. If you could make it so Zerker wasn’t optimal, we’d actually be likely to see multiple different gear types be optimal for different builds, and we’d be likely to see some considerable gear diversity.
Why does gear diversity matter? In what possible way does it improve the game?
If Soldier gear became the new Meta and people were wearing it would the game change at all?
I can understand wanting CC to be more important, or Conditions more viable but not just changing the stat combination you’re wearing.
Gear diversity matters because it’s a symptom of play-style diversity, which is inarguably a good thing, of there being more than one way to win in a reasonable fashion. It also matters because players are directed towards diverse gear by the game, but it’s a trap choice, right now. It should not be a trap choice, or if it is intended to be, they should clearly mark it. Building for survival in PvE should actually help with survival more than building for max DPS, yet, in practice, it does not.
If Soldier became the new meta, the game would change, yes. It would become more accessible to newer players, and generally work a bit better. But I’d rather see the “meta” be various different stat combos for different classes, different situations, and so on.
You seem to still be stuck in the totally irrational mindset that “THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!” like gear is Highlander. Actually, there can be more than one – it’s just a matter of reducing the delta between Zerker and “everything else”.
Of course changing Precision might not be the best way to do this – redesigning monsters and encounters so Dodging was less “god mode”, no longer a way to avoid virtually all damage, and so on, might get people thinking “Maybe I don’t want all-Zerker, all the time”. Redesigning conditions has already started this process.
how is it a problem that people can survive three year old content without having to use defensive stats?
Because it’s not 3-year-old content, it’s current content.
This isn’t WoW. We aren’t multiple tiers of equipment higher. That content isn’t significantly easier now than it was then. It is still current content, so yeah, it’s a problem.
Nerfing precision wouldn’t change anything it would just switch what gear type is most effective. In the long run you would just be back complaining about whatever the new best combo is.
That’s simply untrue and illogical.
There’s no logical/rational reason to believe it would merely make a different gear-type optimal in the way Zerker is now. If you could make it so Zerker wasn’t optimal, we’d actually be likely to see multiple different gear types be optimal for different builds, and we’d be likely to see some considerable gear diversity.
white-bread
That phrase does not mean what you think it means.
The real life profession hunter (especially during the medieval times) was hunting animals either for food or to protect the people in the area. The main part here is the protect thing. Which is EXACTLY what the theme of the Guardian is.
No.
Real hunters do not hunt to protect people except in extremely rare situations, and the people who do it are usually not called hunters, but rather rangers or the like.
Hunters hunt for sport or food, and occasionally might get drafted in to help put down a dangerous animal. In the same way anyone with useful skills might.
This is precisely the problem. Hunter in no way implies protecting people.
The theme of the Guardian is indeed protecting people and extracting JUSTICE (which can only be obtained from SENTIENT beings, not animals!), and neither of those matches well with this use of hunter.
I should note, too, that, contrary to what you probably think, in medieval and renaissance societies, it was largely something the rich did – poor people trying to do it, to hunt for food, were often tortured, killed or mutilated so that the rich would have more stuff to hunt for fun.
Not exactly a glorious history (obvs. this wasn’t true in frontier societies or less feudal ones).
(edited by Eurhetemec.9052)
Most of the whining is irrational. Arguing over whether the name is horrible or not, is like arguing if pizza is better than a burger in terms of taste, particularly with the description of what the spec does. As for traps, this implies that Anet is not doing anything to skill balance. Like people saying the new specs or certain traits are going to be useless in HoT, because they have no place in the current dungeon meta.
BZZZZT WRONG!
If you think arguing over whether people like pizzas or burgers better, and how they like them, is irrelevant to a company TRYING TO SELL FOOD, you should never run a business.
It doesn’t matter is it’s to some degree “a matter of taste” or “irrational”, what matters is that it IMPACTS YOUR BUSINESS. So you want to know.
I do agree 150% though about people whinging about how stuff wouldn’t fit into the current meta. That is irrational and largely useless.
Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
There’s a huge difference. The main one being:
1) World completion does absolutely nothing for you mechanically, the only thing it’s used for is legendary weapons, which aren’t particularly special other than for their skins. Stat changing is kind of nice, but without Sigil changing, it can’t be used particularly well. It’s still cheaper to just get an ascended copy for every type that you use. If I’m correct, almost everyone should be fine with grinding for skins.Secondary, but much less relevant point: They already had to go into the PvE world for map completion, and for far more than the WvW side of it included. It would only be an apt comparison in that regard if more than half the hero points could only be acquired in WvWvW, and you needed to play both of them to unlock your traits/skills.
Tertiary point: You’re generalising PvE as a single entity. But within that sphere there are also other playstyles which don’t include map completion in their purview who suffer from it. It was possible to earn your traits from playing dungeons/fractals under the second system.
This doesn’t just hurt WvWvW players, but every single play style other than; Map Completion, 100% sPvP (Or some combination of the 3), and 100% City Roleplayers.
Humm… Actually, World completion gives a ton of exp, a ton of craft mats, stuff like BLC Keys, Exotics, etc. Mechanically its a very rewarding activity. Exploring the World is fun… If people prefer to run around in packs from point to point, ok WvW for them, but i don’t see much the point of people complaining because they got through the game without playing the vast majority of it.
NOT TO MENTION that for over a year you didn’t have Scrolls of Knowledge to use, and no one complained then.I also am uncomfortable with the thought that stuff people already unlocked will have to be unlocked again, but then again masteries seem completely based on unlocking the same thing twice, so why are you even complaining.
Hey here’s a thought. They could actually add a repeatable mastery track specifically for WvW (like there’s masteries specific to the new map, and others for the original map, so make another for the mists) that adds 1 Hero Point on completion (which replaces gaining 1 SP every level even after you hit 80).
people keep saying things like this, but keep in mind they wanted limited amounts of hero points, and it to be primarily limited by the number of skill challenges and your level.
Then make a cap, and make it so that if you hit it by any means, the hero challenges would stop giving you anything beyond map completion ticks.
That’s a rather elegant solution.
The name wasn’t picked out of a hat… Its a graceful bit of shorthand both summing up and evoking many elements the profession encompasses.
The name may be many things, but graceful and shorthand, it is not. It’s a clumsy, double-barreled affair.
This is the thread for us crazy people who don’t think “Dragonhunter” is such a bad name. In fact, I personally like the name. I hear people call it “childish” as if a 12-year-old thought of it. And in the same breath those people suggest things like…
Guardian Angel
ArchangelAngels are associated with the christian and muslim god, and are supposed to be divine, immortal, and incredibly powerful beyond mortal means… Not exactly GW2 flavor.
Zealot
What is this, Starcraft? MY LIFE FOR HIRE
….no….Janissary
What is this, Age of Empires?
Sentinel
CelestialNaming things after gear now? Why…
Centurion
Cylons? Frakk that.
Vanguard
JusticiarWhat is this, Mass effect2?
Legionnaire
There are already legionnaires in GW2, and they are exclusively related to the Charr military structure.
Monk
There was already once a class with this name in GW1, and it was almost purely supportive and designed for healing. Anet clearly wanted to give the guardian an aggressive ranged option for combat. Monks were never about range or pure DPS.
Savior
Sanctifier
SaintToo religious… Christian in particular… Sorry but not all of us are Christian, and Anet has always been careful not to put any specific references to real world ideologies.
Diviner
Do you even know what divining is? What does that have to do with combat, particularly aggressive offense with a bow and mobility?
I just want to say that my personal take on the Dragonhunter name is that Anet took the established theme of the guardian as the “master of defense” and applied the adage “the best defense is a good offense.” In kungkittenis it said that the hand which strikes also blocks. Mordremoth presents a clear and present danger to the world, and Tyrians must adapt to the threat to survive. The Dragonhunter is a specialization which was born specifically to tackle the dragon threat. That’s the lore side of it anyway.
On to the practical side of the name. Anet clearly wanted to make a ranged attack spec for the guardian, should they want it. Something a little less defensive, and with the ability to tag mobs at range like everyone else. Guardian core spec has plenty of melee already. When coming up with a name for anything, that name must convey a sense of what that thing is supposed to be and do. You don’t name Game of Thrones “Fluffy Bunny Fuffles.” There is a purpose to a name beyond sounding cool on its own. It needs to convey the context of the item it describes.
These have to be the most ridiculous and petty objections to names I’ve ever seen. You’re basically saying “This name was used once before in a different and unrelated context, so you can’t use it!”, which is just beyond laughable and well into sad and shameful.
I mean, by your logic, we could object to every single name in GW2, and we could also object to well, Dragonhunter.
So wow, epic fail.
(I don’t hate Dragonhunter, but your objections here are embarrassing).
Adequacy simply means “good enough to get the job done.” So yes, very nearly every build, even deliberately random ones, would be adequate. In PvP yesterday I joined a match with a ranger whose build was something like 0/0/6/0/6. I forget the exact placement but the last 2 weren’t even allocated. One of his two adept trait slots was completely empty. Yet at the time I joined he had the highest score on his team and appeared the most effective in combat.
I’m sorry, I don’t buy that this is a proper use of the term adequacy in this context, because by the same logic, a 0/0/0/0/0 build is adequate. If the skill differential between players is big enough, he will beat meta players, sure. Of course with a meta build, he’s going to own even harder against the same, unskilled opponents. Whereas if he is against equally skilled opponents, he will get rolled, repeatedly, with his 0/0/0/0/0 build.
So you literally have to take skill out of the equation if you want to get any meaningful results. If you don’t, you’re failing at logic/math.
Once we’re dealing with players of EQUAL skill, then we can talk, and it’s obvious that a meta build will provide a very significant advantage over an “average” build, which will produce a very significant advantage over 0/0/0/0/0, etc. – so yeah, some builds are clearly better than others, and many won’t even be “adequate”. You will NOT be able to “get the job” done against equally skilled players with many builds.
Unfortunately, I do believe it’s about money, but not because balance = money. Because simplicity is money. It’s the same reason that game in general have fewer options and complications than earlier installments in the series, because they want to appeal to the broader market that isn’t as willing to put in the time or effort. It’s the same reason the NPE patch came into existence, an update that seemed to confuse and annoy much of the player base with changes nobody was asking for, but instead was clearly meant to make things “simpler” for new players. This specialization system is no different; it’s not about whether the gain is better than the loss, but about one group of players being shot in the back to make room for a group with more money to give.
This is just over-dramatic rubbish.
As I said, other games doing this have produced better games for everyone. People who moan about the good old days are generally moaning about the fact that they can no longer use out-of-game knowledge and tricksy builds to gain an advantage over other players.
Also, no-one is getting “shot in the back”. That’s drama-student nonsense of the worst kind. The game is being improved for everyone, and more genuinely competitive (let’s use that word, as you seem keen to run “viable” into the floor) builds are being made.
Elite Spec= subclasses: Predict the rest
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
I think you have to look more at the added skills than the class combos. Dragonhunter sure throws things wide open, though, much less predictable than I expected.
Engineer -Still predicting something more like Engineer with Necro minions for this (seems more likely than Spirit Weapon-style – not that there’s a huge difference).
Druid – Ranger w/Guardian Consecrates, only they’re all nature-based.
Warrior – Could go a lot of ways here, but realistically I’m expecting Pistol or Dagger. Venoms seems a bit too literal, so I’m expecting Pistol offhand and a sort of Buccaneer-ish “Fire-then-enter-melee” deal with BIG modifications to how Adrenaline works for them (not an F1-skill as usual).
Necro – I’m going to take a risk here and go with Necros getting Stealth and maybe more Shadowsteps, via new utilities and having a modified Death Shroud in the Elite spec (Reaper, maybe?) which perhaps grants stealth – agreed that they will gain burst. Necro/Thief if you want.
Thief – Errr, well, if Guardian wasn’t Paragon, maybe this won’t be Sniper? Um, still, assuming that masked man with a rifle was Thief, let’s say it is sniper. What would that get from other classes? Engineer does seem a possibility, but there’s no way they’re getting more than 1-2 kits, maybe sniper rifle is itself a kit. Maybe Steal is necessary to get the Kits or ammo for them or something? All seems a bit unlikely TBH so I’m very unsure on this.
Elementalist – Mantras do seem a good fit, I admit, if they were done right, but with the Tempest name and swords, I dunno, expecting something fast and aggressive, not something with a lot of charging and discharging. Maybe Stances, Warrior-style?
Revenant – Is it even confirmed that they get an Elite spec? I could see all their specs being “Elite” in a sense.
TLDR: Name it PARAGON, please!
By every color of cuddly kitten NO.
If it doesn’t have a terrestrial spear, its NOT a GW “Paragon”.
Do you see a spear? Me neither. Ergo, NOT A PARGON.
Next.
No.
I played Imbagon pretty much forever. Paragons do not use what GW2 calls a spear. They use a 1h throwing weapon which is called a spear. It absolutely is not the 2h melee weapon of GW2, even if that were on land.
They could put that weapon in GW2 and call it “Javelin”, though. But, no, you’re objectively wrong, Nike, sorry. Terrestrial spear wouldn’t be Paragon any more than Longbow. At least Longbow is ranged for goodness sake.
Personally I am 100% glad we didn’t get Paragons. I didn’t like the name to begin with, the Guardian is already supposedly a composite of Paragon and Monk, and from what little I know about Paragon, Guardian with a Longbow ain’t quite it.
Er, actually, they used throwing spears and the closest weapon to those in GW2 is pretty much inarguably Longbow (due to the way Scepters have been implemented). Not very close, but closer than GW2’s idea of a spear.
At least it’s not another instance of abusing “mancer”. Does anyone involved in fantasy even know what the word means..
Yes, lots of people do (i.e “tells fortunes via X”). They choose to ignore it because -mancer usually sounds better than -Wizard or -Mage or the like.
Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
so you have no problem with the idea that you will likely have to do 100+ skill challenges per charachter to unlock the elite spec?
Not hugely, because I will still at 100% of previous. Elite is extra. I’m okay with that!
My objection is to being forced to ditchwater dull no reward content for stuff I already have, not future stuff.
No problem that every alt you create in the future will need 65 skill challenges before they are core complete?
I don’t love it but I’ll deal. Can grab as I level. HP system should make leveling more interesting anyway.
as to the items, its unclear, the video had them but its unclear what he unlocked to trigger them(could have been achieves), so ill withdraw that.
Ah, oh well.
Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
Its not a waste of time because it gives you something of value skills, traits,
Nope.
I already had them. Taking my lunch away and making me pay again for it isn’t two lunches.
and in fact, with the new system it does give you various mats, skins, weapons, etc. Did you not notice the shaky chests that were popping up with each unlock?
No, I didn’t. With non-Elite spec lines? Can you link the right vid?
the content of skill challenges is not drastically different than the content that gives you gold/mats anyhow. Go to the event, complete the event and kill stuff. Thats not really any different. If you hate going somewhere and killing enemies or interacting with objects, what exactly do you do in this game
SC Content is much easier, and reward is different (i.e. nothing). It’s not remotely comparable.
Is your beef the loss of progress
or is your beef having to do skill challengesbecause these are fundamentally different things, and have different solutions.
The former leading to the latter. Solve the former and the latter isn’t an issue.
New Speculation on Elite Specs = Dual Class
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
Charge Rate? Do you mean cooldown? Cause that was 60 seconds, but will increased according to A-net. So yes, I actually DO know. Also i do know the cooldown on the “reset all shatters” skill, so there is that. If you mean the amount of phantasms/clones to shatter for x seconds, you can tell from the POI that 2 of them are enough for most shenanigans you wanna pull off, and thanks to the traits you even get a replacement for them. So again, I actually DO know. Your move.
So what’s it being increased to?
Signet of Illusions will either not affect it or get nerfed, count on it.
As for “you can tell from the POI that 2 of them are enough for most shenanigans you wanna pull off” – how long, precisely? That sounds like vague waffle.
All this “TWICE!” nonsense means twice in a specific window, not “when u feel like it”, too.
New Speculation on Elite Specs = Dual Class
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
CONTINUUM SHIFT IS NOT A FREAKING DEATH SHROUD X_@
Well no.. it’s significantly better in every way, but it is the improved DS that won’t be used as an excuse to completely screw over the mesmer at every turn (hopefully), and won’t lock them out of their entire class, and won’t take 30+ seconds to charge up.
Uh, no.
Until we know how long it takes to charge, and whether it has a cooldown associated with it, and/or a casting time, and/or whether it activates automatically, you cannot say “it’s significantly better in every way”.
Period.
Yes, you can, cause DS is a glorified downstate you can enter by choice, and a badly executed one at that, plus it is one of the main reason we Necros don’t get any type of good stuff. No stab no perma vigor no block no invlun no stealth no anything to protect us from being 100-0’d at the beginning of any teamfight, because DS doesn’t scale with the amount of enemies present. Now if there was a maximum of how much dmg we could take per second in DS, or we could heal through DS, and have our utilities in DS… maybe you could argue. But that isn’t the case. You have acces to all of those things on a mesmer plus good CC (which Necros also lack), even in Continuum Shift (and then you get them TWICE), aswell as those awesomne traits that recreate your clones and phantasms when you shatter them for CS, so you do not even lose anything. Yes, it goes on a cooldown… But it is avaiable from second one of a match. And there even is a skill that immediatly resets shatters.
And keep in mind, while heals while in CS don’t do anything, the Mesmers new Heal-Well has the bulk of its heal delayed, so you can cast well-> CS -> cast elite and a utility or weapon skill -> leave CS -> get immediatly healed by the delayed major healing of your well (alternatively use the well while in CS to be able to cast it twice).
So, yes, it definitly IS better than DS in basically every situation. Except if you play like someone that is missing 99% of his brain.
Nope. You still don’t know the charge rate etc. so that’s all rubbish.
Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.
It’s not 3hrs of PVE.
3hrs of PVE would give me several gold, tons of mats, fuel for the mystic toilet, lots and lots and lots of XP (Mastery, here), and so on.
This is 3hrs of LITERALLY WASTED time.
Don’t lie about what it is.
also, as i have said before, the average is 3 minutes per skill point. yeah, some take longer, but you dont need every skillpoint challenge, and some also take substantially less time.
My calculations make it 5 mins avg.
so basically, just go for the easy ones.
Every character has different ones done, so not possible without a lot of time/money wasting.
like your interior decorating analogy, if you really want a pretty house, you are going to have to put forth some effort into making it pretty, thats not really a crazy concept
I already had a pretty house. Why did you set fire to my bedroom and refuse to fix it?
New Speculation on Elite Specs = Dual Class
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
CONTINUUM SHIFT IS NOT A FREAKING DEATH SHROUD X_@
Well no.. it’s significantly better in every way, but it is the improved DS that won’t be used as an excuse to completely screw over the mesmer at every turn (hopefully), and won’t lock them out of their entire class, and won’t take 30+ seconds to charge up.
Uh, no.
Until we know how long it takes to charge, and whether it has a cooldown associated with it, and/or a casting time, and/or whether it activates automatically, you cannot say “it’s significantly better in every way”.
Period.
We have had the same tattoos since launch, I’d like to see options to add more tattoos and skin patterns. I’d like to see more tattoos and skin patterns added.
Other ideas include:
-Runic tattoos that glow.
-Sylvari outgrowths such as thorny skin, glowing moss, etc.
-Two-tone hair colors/highlights
-Body jewelry/piercingsWe need some more cool stuff like Chronomancers with giant glowing clocks drawn on their backs and etc.
Great ideas, but we need either more revealing armour for all armour types (not necessarily sexualized-type revealing), or the ability to turn off more pieces than just helm/shoulder/back, to make it worthwhile.
Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
I’m guessing that now is the time to unlock all your core skills and traits by whatever means necessary (gold, skill scrolls, etc…) then. Because I’m fairly certain those unlocked skills/traits on a max 80 character will be grandfathered in when the changes hit. For Anet to not do so would bring an avalanche of bad publicity and player backlash that to be honest simply wouldn’t be worth it from a business stand point.
If they do grandfather stuff in, this conversation/thread is moot.
But here’s the thing – the reason this thread is here is that they indicated (vaguely, but still) that they would not be grandfathering stuff in, but rather resetting you to the number of Hero Points you “should” have (i.e. for an 80 that’s 400 + number of Skill Challenges done, and you need 465 just to get back to where 99% of 80s already are).
So right now it does seem more likely that they’re going with the backlash/bad publicity route.
Does it make sense from a business standpoint? No, I agree that it does not, but sadly, much bigger companies than Anet have made much worse business standpoint-type decisions when implementing new systems. All it takes is an internal culture where they make important decisions without thinking them through critically and skeptically (a good example is WoW’s RealID, which caused massive backlash and was eventually completely revised).
Acquiring 65 skill points is not a big issue at all. You are just required to travel only 8-10 maps to get those number of skill points. Pretty easy, right? But the Specialization may require you to do a bit more exploration. The latter one makes sense as it is a HoT implementation.
It absolutely is a “big issue”. Only required to travel to 8-10 maps? Yeah, you are, but you’re then required to spend about 5 minutes per skill point travelling around the maps (esp. as you likely do not have all the Waypoints, nor know the routes to the challenges – many of which involve a fair bit of jumping, climbing or spelunking to reach). So 65 × 5 = 325 minutes = nearly 5 and a half hours!
And that could be per-character!
Realistically most 80s have some Skill Challenges, but looking at mine and those of friends, many have in the order of 10-30 done, so that’s still multiple hours per character, just to get back to where you were (you gain nothing – no loot, no XP, nothing else from doing Skill Challenges).
“Pretty easy” – Well, it’s not hard in the sense of “requiring skill”, sure, but it is tedious and time-consuming. By that logic, re-decorating an entire house top to bottom is “pretty easy” – most adults have all the skills they need to do it. But we don’t all have the time required to do it, and you’re aggressively ignoring that part of the equation.
New Speculation on Elite Specs = Dual Class
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
No from the developers own words its comparable to dual classes.
Also wells are similar to Necromancer because they “Wells”. Of course they have different effects, but they still “Wells” which was necromancer exclusive. Also the Chronomancer have their own spin on Death Shroud with a secondary health bar from their time jumping ability.When the Guardian Elite Spec is revealed, you will see the same pattern with another class.
You’re taking the Dual Class comment way too literally. They mean it adds diversity comparable to that, not that it’s literally the same as mixing in another existing class in a straightforward way.
And I’m not seeing any evidence whatsoever that Chronomancer’s bar is a “secondary health bar”. That’s rank speculation on your part, and doesn’t match up with what we’ve been told. If you have something confirming that, please link it.
Wells are just a type of skill, and whilst they did happen to be Necro exclusive, they’re no more of a big deal than giving a class with no Shouts, Shouts.
As for when we see the next class, well, that’s rubbish, frankly. I mean, you will definitely be able to pretend that any Elite spec is “like they added Class X”, but that doesn’t mean it actually is, it just means you’re willing to convince yourself of it.
Seriously, whatever Elite spec that add, doesn’t matter what, you will be able to claim that, because it’s such a vague and meaningless claim.
You’ve been just fine because every single build in this game is viable. Viable = Can complete content. Build Diversity has always been there. Just because it’s not Dungeon/Fractal, WVW, or PVP meta doesn’t automatically make a build not viable it just makes it not meta.
Oh, and just incase y’all forgot what viable means:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/viable
" capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately" = in GW2 that is every single build available. If you think a build is not viable because it is not meta, then you are wrong by viture of the definition of the word viable.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diversity
“an instance of being composed of differing elements or qualities " = In GW2 that means that there aren’t limits on builds. If you artifically state there’s no diversity because it’s not meta, then you are wrong by viture of the definition of diversity.
You’re wrong to claim every single build is viable by that metric. There are tons of builds, by that metric, that are not viable, in that they are inadequate and perform poorly, and struggle to the point where normal, decent players can’t complete content reliably if everyone (or even most people) in the party have builds along those lines.
So you’re hoist by your own petard there, I’m afraid.
As for the ranting about “TIME = MONEY”, well, that’s a gross oversimplification. Balance isn’t about money. You can’t throw money at it and hope to get balance. You can’t just add more members to the team and/or make them work longer hours and hope to get balance, so actually, not, looking for balance isn’t about “MONEY!!!” as you suggest.
It’s about balance actually being possible, about more builds being genuinely viable, as opposed to merely technically viable.
With other games where we’ve seen them vastly cut down on “build diversity” in order to improve balance and accessibility, it’s typically been a resounding success. WoW is a good example – they ditched the old, wildly complicated and fiddly talent system for an ultra-simplified one, and guess what? Their game got both easier to play for non-experts and vastly more balanced for everyone.
Anyway, you’ve scored a double-fault with your reasoning. Balance isn’t about “money”, and not “every” build in GW2 reached the level of adequacy.
Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
Well, I do enjoy PvE the most, even with all its imperfections…but I’m pretty frustrated too. I have 13 characters, 12 of which are level 80. Getting skills for all of them will take some time. Maybe it’s a good thing. It might be interesting. I just hope that they will include an alternative in case it’s not.
It’s not going to be interesting because there is only 1 (ONE) method to get those skill points, and it’s a trivial, boring one that you will have to repeat across every single character who doesn’t have at least 65 skill challenges done (and that’s probably the majority of your 80s – probably the majority of most people’s 80s outside of real hardcore map completition obsessives).
So if that is the only way that is really bad, and it is a breach of trust.
I mean, I’ve got a new 80 just now, and I’ve been doing skill challenges as and when I find them, and I have to say, it absolutely is as much of a pain as I thought it would be. Many of them take quite a while to reach, some of them are hard/impossible to get to unless certain events are done/live, others have non-instant respawn times (admittedly not many), and/or are hard to get a tag on even with a few people doing them.
I’d guess, conservatively, that it will take an average of 5 minutes per Skill Challenge, including all the travel time (sometimes requiring long detours around obstacles or elaborate jumping/climbing) and that some will take moments to do and others will be kind of annoying. This means if you say, needed an average of 30 Skill Challenges per character, you’d be looking at 2.5 hrs/character, which in your case would be at least 30 hours. I dunno how long you have to play per-day, but for me, that’s weeks.
New Speculation on Elite Specs = Dual Class
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Eurhetemec.9052
This “A+B” speculation is pretty much 100% baseless.
Chronomancer has essentially no relation to Necromancer, despite the wells (which work differently anyway), so assuming other classes will do makes very little sense.
We do “know” some weapons, at least, and that’s the smart point for jumping off from.
Elementalist – Sword – Tempest – I think we can expect melee-range stuff, probably some teleporting. No reason to expect Thief-style abilities. I’d expect more survival-oriented stuff if anything.
Thief – Probably Rifle (given the trailer) – Well, Sniper, obviously. Probably a spec more focused on staying still than the very movement-focused specs Thief already has.
Guardian – Longbow – Probably Paragon – Barely a guess at this point. If they aren’t shouting to help their friends and debuffing enemies with that bow I will be very surprised.
Necromancer – Greatsword – Probably something like the Dervish from GW2, because that worked pretty well and wasn’t a million miles from Necromancer anyway.
Ranger – Staff – Druid – Focuses on buffs/heals, probably still likes rooting enemies etc.
Engineer – Hammer – Hard to guess, actually – we know he’ll have drones, like disposable minion-type followers, but not much beyond that.
Warrior – I’m guessing Pistol – The only other likely one is Short Bow and that’s not very likely. Short-mid range burst and control. Maybe “duelist” or “pirate” themed or the like.
Anet has been pretty clear about NOT introducing features that would discourage partying with other players and Heroes / Mercenaries from GW1 would certainly discourage general human interaction.
I don’t agree.
Prior to Living World S2, yeah, that was true, but the Living World S2 essentially provides you with a mini-party for most of it, and certainly you are not encouraged to seek out other players to do the episodes with (it is an option of course).
Dungeons are being essentially moved away from in HoT, and they had the most inarguable “other people” requirement outside of Group Events/World Bosses.
So I think that whilst we will continue to see a lot of stuff in the open world which does encourage grouping with real people, I suspect that instanced content, if there is more, may actually move more towards a Heroes/Sidekicks model – probably not in LW S3, but maybe in S4 and beyond.
Usually when GW2 feels grindy to me, it’s because I get frustrated sometimes at how slowly gold trickles in for me. On other games I play, I make money very easily. GW2 was culture shock for me in this regard. I’ve been told the absolute fastest ways to make money are 1. Buy low/sell high on the TP and 2. Dungeon running. People tell me that if I run every single dungeon path every day and get the daily for it, I’ll have tons of money.
But I really can’t stomach that. I do dungeons once in a while, not every day. And not all the available paths. That would be too much of a time commitment for me. I wish there was a way to make the same amount of money as I would dungeon running doing something that I actually enjoy. But the things I enjoy don’t really pay out well. In the end, I just had to be okay with the fact that this problem isn’t going to be solved and not worry about getting much money.
This is the biggest problem with money making in GW2, imho – the wild disparity in how much money you get for different L80 activities – dungeons are disproportionately rewarding, for starters.
…….You don’t buy a phone and then have to pay more just to be able to use the apps that are supposed to be free on the phone …….
Besides storage (that you CAN get with in-game gold, BTW), name me ONE thing you ABSOLUTELY NEED to spend RL $ on to play GW2?
Also, the fact that EVERYTHING can be obtained via in-game gold (gold to gems) discounts every claim that Anet MAKES you spend RL $. Is it more convenient? Sure…but there is an option (a HUGE distinction from most F2P games).
GW2s economic model has NOT changed since release (tho I will agree it has leaned more toward gemstore based rewards than I would like). The fact that it is highly successful for ANET (and NCSoft seems to like the status quo), attempting to change this model with some sort of grass roots player movement is just a waste of effort. If you feel that “grinding” or "nickle and diming " is beyond what you can stand, there are hundreds of other MMOs you can go play.
“Have fun storming the castle!”
Define “hasn’t changed”.
The basic nature of the transaction hasn’t changed. Gems haven’t got more expensive with RL money. That’s good.
But the gold-gems conversion rates have changed so much that it’s gone from a game where you could have a serious expectation of buying stuff for gems without serious farming to one where you will have to farm farm farm, and where it gets more and more extreme.
I understand why, but it is kind of sad.
Between GW2 Wiki, Dulfy, and YouTube I’ve been able to learn everything I’ve wanted to know about the game. As far as I can tell of the games I play, this game has the best and most online resources available. Unlike some (Rift) where it’s next to impossible to get info about anything from their most recent expansion – Nightmare Tide. Even their forums are terrible for this.
I’m sure it’s better than some games, but for an AAA-quality B2P game with a large player-base it has absolutely terrible guides for most things.
What is interesting is that GW2 has superb guides for money making, for crafting efficiently and so on. Something absent even from games like WoW.
But for general gameplay? For how to get into the game and what to do? GW2 is abysmal.
You have to work your kitten off to find out accurate, up-to-date information for GW2, and as I said, and I’m double-checking and it’s correct, GW2 wiki and most reddit guides assume tremendous amounts of basic-game knowledge.
The dungeons in GW2 are also vastly more complex and involved than those in similar games, and that’s even before skipping, and guides to them are of highly variable quality (and tend to be Youtube only, which means hours of listening to poor narration and unclear guidance).
So no, if you think this game has “the best” online resources, you are, I’m afraid, rather obviously wrong. It has superior resources to some (but not all!) F2P games, but and has superior resources to any MMORPG for making money, but that’s it.
2. Reduce the number of viable builds to make balance easier
Because viable builds now are so overwhelming…
I don’t think he means “viable” in the normal sense, but rather, technically possible/likely.
Certainly it will make balancing easier, and that’s actually good for build-variety, because it means that lines which are weak/rarely used will get highlighted much more. I mean, right now, with the pick-and-mix approach, a lot of weak trait lines are getting picked either in large part for the stats, or more often, because there’s some particularly killer/synergistic trait in there, even though the rest is worthless.
The stats are going to be entirely separate, so that’s one improvement, and now because you get all six traits in a line you pick, you’re going to get the double effect of people dropping weaker lines (because even a synergistic trait is worth less than 6/6 traits in a better line), and people complaining more about traits because they have them anyway in their build (where before they ignored them).
So I think in terms of build variety, it actually does open things up – if and only if Anet are willing to actually say “Yes, we want more build variety and will back that up by making trait lines work better”.
I don’t know, I think he used viable correctly…problem is there aren’t a whole lot of viable builds right now, anyway. Too many things are actually too weak to function, which is just a meltdown.
I don’t know any exact statistics, but I agree – if anything, this will only improve the number of viable builds (via concentrated balancing efforts). I’ve even went ahead and rebuilt a staff mesmer for when the changes come, because 0/0/6/6/6 (with illusionary elasticity being baseline) will improve staff’s performance. It won’t necessarily make it a godsend, but at least I’ll be able to summon illusions much more quickly, with plenty of defense (and iWarden providing great DPS in the meantime), higher attack rates, all while being able to maintain heavy pressure through a stronger Mind Wrack. As it currently stands, that’s just not possible – you have to sacrifice one of these benefits as if staff is actually strong enough to PvE to afford such a sacrifice.
It will potentially increase the number of genuinely viable builds, at the expense of reducing the number of builds you can technically make, and it will also remove some complicated-but-viable builds. That seems like a win overall to me, for the majority of players.
TL;DR: The grindy feeling comes from ArenaNet changing their philosophy from “Play how you want” to “We want to make rewards draw people into all parts of the game”.
I define “grind” as “repeatedly doing content for the extrinsic reward with little intrinsic reward”. Extrinsic reward is something you are given for doing an activity. Intrinsic reward is the enjoyment you get from doing the activity itself.
One place that GW2 does not feel grindy, where they got “Play how you want” right, is in leveling. The game gives me experience points no matter what I do. I can do zone exploration and level, WvW, EotM, Dungeons, Personal Story, or even sit around crafting in order to level my character. I don’t have to focus on the extrinsic reward of XP at all. I just go out and play the game how I want, and the levels roll in.
At endgame, however, the philosophy shifts. It is clear that ArenaNet is structuring rewards to try and guide people into playing all parts of the game. That means if I want a reward, unless I enjoy every part of the game, I’m guaranteed to be lead into an area that will feel “grindy”. I’m there, in spite of the fact I don’t enjoy it, because of the shiny at the end.
Theoretically, the fact that so many things can also be achieved, or at least shortcut with gold, should alleviate this problem. Don’t like a particular part of the game? Get gold and buy it from people who do.
Unfortunately, in order to maintain a stable, open economy, ArenaNet has to keep a tight rein on gold. That means there is wide disparity in how much gold various activities generate for the same amount of effort. This is put into sharp relief by the effect of any open market system, which is going to pay the best return not to people who labor, but to those who trade on the market.
So gold, which should be the work around that lets you play the game how you want, an trade with other players who are playing how they want, actually makes it feel more grindy because it draws people into doing the content that has the greatest gold return, rather than what they enjoy.
Pretty much a perfect analysis.
As of WoD, Blizzard are way ahead of Anet on making their game fun for different playstyles, hilariously (should be the opposite).
Except a wiki isn’t a guide, at all. GW2’s wiki is particularly bad in terms of the knowledge it assumes, and the stuff it leaves out.
It depends on the wiki, in GW1 i never used videos or any other website but the wiki when i needed help. It didnt have everything but it had more than enough so that i could figure out the rest.
True, but GW1’s was exceptional and GW2’s isn’t a fraction as good.
Suggest your new guildies type /wiki (topic of choice) in chat. There you go! A complete guild to Guild Wars 2. =)
Good luck.
Except a wiki isn’t a guide, at all. GW2’s wiki is particularly bad in terms of the knowledge it assumes, and the stuff it leaves out.
Better than SWTOR, though, talk about “nickle and dimed”!
The in game reward systems in swtor are in actual fact less grindy than GW2. Yes swtor has a lot available in its gem store but you can buy them with gold as well and its easier earning gold via a variety of methods in swtor than it is in GW2.
Grind and nickle-and-dimed are two different things. Guild Wars 2 is pretty decent about not making me feel “nickle-and-dimed”, i.e. that I am being charged for every little thing. I do think some prices are a little unreasonable (to the point where I simply don’t pay them, so if they were better priced, I’d actually spend more money! Transmog and hair style stuff fr’ex), and the default bank size is kind of pathetic, but I don’t feel like I’m being ripped off, at all.
This is very different to a lot of F2P games.
What it does feel like, for me, is that every minute GW2 exists, the possibility of using in-game found gold to buy gems gets further and further away, rather than merely staying even with inflation. Which is sad but… meh…
2. Reduce the number of viable builds to make balance easier
Because viable builds now are so overwhelming…
I don’t think he means “viable” in the normal sense, but rather, technically possible/likely.
Certainly it will make balancing easier, and that’s actually good for build-variety, because it means that lines which are weak/rarely used will get highlighted much more. I mean, right now, with the pick-and-mix approach, a lot of weak trait lines are getting picked either in large part for the stats, or more often, because there’s some particularly killer/synergistic trait in there, even though the rest is worthless.
The stats are going to be entirely separate, so that’s one improvement, and now because you get all six traits in a line you pick, you’re going to get the double effect of people dropping weaker lines (because even a synergistic trait is worth less than 6/6 traits in a better line), and people complaining more about traits because they have them anyway in their build (where before they ignored them).
So I think in terms of build variety, it actually does open things up – if and only if Anet are willing to actually say “Yes, we want more build variety and will back that up by making trait lines work better”.
i dont think any require non skill challenge events. Some are easier when people do an event, but there is always a way to get to them i am pretty sure.
For every class? To get to them AND attune to them? I’m skeptical.
Random thought of the day*
Gw2 4/5/6th expansion
A few years from now, GW2’s story might focus on the deep sea dragon.
Expansion of Underwaer combat, new maps will be 75% underwater, underwater boss fights, specific underwater professions. Complete overhaul of the underwater combat system, etc.Hmm, might there be a possibility for this? o.o
It would be very unpopular, history of MMOs shows pretty clearly. Probably they’re too smart for that.
So for those who compare gw2 to those F2P mmos I’ve grown to detest so much (especially after playing gw2), I dare you to actually try to get into a real F2P mmo, filled with Pay-to-Win ideologies, before QQing about GW2 just because you are too lazy or too cheap to invest time and/or money into the game.
It’s actually very similar to a lot of Western ones, like Neverwinter or Star Trek (only things worse in NWN are character slots and bag slots – but spending $50 in that would get you more than GW2).
Better than SWTOR, though, talk about “nickle and dimed”!
Whats the problem with a physical note pad and a pen to write down your build specs and have close at hand? kitten todays people are so lazy
Feature was already in first game so it’s logic to demand same feature in this game. Especially when you can change builds between fights.
Even if the first game was not a mmorpg?
That has nothing to do with anything, and is arguable anyway.
you never have to wait for a skill point, if someone else is doing it, you can join in.
having to play your charachter for 3-5 hours before reaching maximum power level really isnt that crazy an idea.Oh.. ok, so I was doing a skillpoint yesterday it was in fireheart rise and locked behind an event, I had to do 3/4 of the event before that skillpoint became accessible. that was about 15 mins.
Also when the mob had just been killed you have to wait around 30 s for it to be up again, so yeah, you have to wait.
On topic: I’m getting all my characters to 65 SP challenges – it’s okayish and with some I wanted to do that anyway. But it is grindy (6 characters for me) and given that a lot of us have suffered the trait system the past year it’s a further disappointment – of course it’s way less grindy than the trait system but I somehow want an acknowledgement that leveling characters under the current system is a pain in the kitten .
what skill point in fireheart rise.
dunno about 30 second thing, i was map teleporting after completing and someone restarted the npc before i could map out and i was placed in combat.
The SCs vary dude.
Some are insta-pop (or don’t even die).
Some respawn after 30s+.
Some are always up (attunement ones).
Some require events, etc. etc.
so serious question, would you feel better, if they made it so you had all your skills, but you still needed to fully unlock all specs to get access to unlock the elite spec.
you would still end up having to do the same amount of skill challenges to unlock elite, the only difference would be, you have access to your skills ahead of time.
seems a bit pointless to me, but would you prefer that?
In a word, yes.
It’s a big difference.
(edited by Eurhetemec.9052)
Someone asked for it in the Specialization stream and one of the devs said “that’s a good idea, we should look into that.” So there you go.
Which is bananas, because they’ve said that before, so why is it news to them now? It shouldn’t be “a good idea”, it should be “part of the plan”.
The problem with underwater combat is that it’s underwater.
Skill-wise and weapon-wise and so on it’s pretty okay,
But it’s underwater – so you have to deal with the feeling of being underwater, which, for a lot of people, is really oppressive and unpleasant (esp. when it’s done really well lol!). You can’t drown but it’s still disturbing for a lot of people.
This is the main reason why it’s disliked, I’d suggest. Some people don’t suffer from this (particularly non-swimmers in my experience, bizarrely), and that’s cool, but a lot of people do.
They went too big on underwater combat in GW2’s initial design, and I understand that they’re scaling it back with HoT, which is smart, I think.
It should be just normal/standard: they implemented it in GW1 after a while. And many games have it. I don’t know why they don’t do this. Can’t imagine this is a big thing to do.
It shouldn’t be, if you implement it at the same time as working on other aspects of the skills UI.
But that seems to be the problem here. They’ve kept saying “Oh we’d like to do it but not now…” instead of saying “We’re working on this area so we will do this now”.
I mean, if they don’t do it with this huge skill re-work (or very shortly thereafter), they probably won’t do it, period, because it’s just so low-priority to them.
The whole thing is really bizarre because every aspect of the game which actually requires good play requires a degree of skill/build switching/matching, dungeons, hard world-bosses, competitive PvP, etc., and not having saved builds just means having to click click click and double-check you didn’t miss anything, which is tedious non-gameplay.
I am concerned, yes.
The big concern I have is that they will force me to go back through the game do dozens or hundreds of skill challenges. All of which are utterly trivial but take say, 2-4 minutes to get to assuming you have a nearby WP, and 1-3 minutes to do (as you may have to wait), so say 5 minutes each, and that means each 12 is 1hr, and I might need, say 180 across my characters to get back to where I am now, so that’s FIFTEEN HOURS of my bloody life, gaining NOTHING else (because no loot etc. from these), just to catch up to where I’ve been for years!
You better believe I’m concerned!
you never have to wait for a skill point, if someone else is doing it, you can join in.
having to play your charachter for 3-5 hours before reaching maximum power level really isnt that crazy an idea.
I’m already at maximum power level. So asserting that I am not makes no sense.
I’m talking level 80s here, all with all skills purchased, all traits known (but it will hit sub-80s too, harder in many cases as alts tend to have more Skill Scrolls spent on them). Only one has significant world completion. I’ve looked and it looks like I will need 180 SPs across the lot. That’s horrifying.
So explain to me why it’s okay to force me to do content that:
A) Is trivial (there is literally no challenge to any of these skill challenges, especially for a L80 in exotics+).
B) Gives no rewards (it’s irrational to assert that “you can do what you did before!” is a reward).
C) Is time-consuming.
Just to let me get back to where I already was? When other people, simply because of their choice of gamestyle (i.e. enjoying world completion) do not get punished in this way?
(As for waiting, well, last I checked there were some Skill Challenges which took a minute or two to reset, and a lot of others where, if they’re being zerged, you cannot reliably get a tag because the NPC or whatever gets killed in under a second, so you may have to go through multiple spawns)
If this is what they’re doing, they’re effectively punishing a large group of players who playing the game the way they wanted to, even though that is the whole idea of GW2, according to the devs. If I’d known I was going to have to go back and do bunches of Skill Challenges, I wouldn’t have spent so many Skill Scrolls etc. on y’know Skills, I’d have always done Skill Challenges for those SPs, and I wouldn’t be looking at a 15+ hour block of doing pointless, boring content to obtain things I already had!
It’s also totally unnecessary. Skills aren’t unlocked in a pick-and-choose way by spending Hero Points, they’re unlocked in Lines – so they could just keep anything unlocked, unlocked, and put some sort of other reward at the end of the line (for everyone – they’re already doing this with Elite specs, for example), giving a reason to spend those Hero Points.
I am concerned, yes.
The big concern I have is that they will force me to go back through the game do dozens or hundreds of skill challenges. All of which are utterly trivial but take say, 2-4 minutes to get to assuming you have a nearby WP, and 1-3 minutes to do (as you may have to wait), so say 5 minutes each, and that means each 12 is 1hr, and I might need, say 180 across my characters to get back to where I am now, so that’s FIFTEEN HOURS of my bloody life, gaining NOTHING else (because no loot etc. from these), just to catch up to where I’ve been for years!
You better believe I’m concerned!
You are aware that looks is rather objective, right?
Subjective not objective.
Because it’s so prevalent to the point of completely dominating LFG.
After almost 3 years of the same dungeons, do you blame them for wanting it to be as fast and efficient as possible?
They are doing it to farm.
Not for fun.
It stops being fun when you do it daily.However you perceive it, try to look at it objectively.
You’re asking me to look at it subjectively, actually, but to look at it from your perspective. That’s fine, but don’t confuse “See it from my PoV” with “objective”. People are misusing that word to the point where it’s becoming the new “literally”.
No, I don’t blame them, either, where you getting that from? I just think they should have a separate LFG (I mean, I go in those groups sometimes, too).
No.
After almost 3 years of the same dungeons – fact
farming – most efficiently done fast, zerker supposedly the one gear supporting fast runs – fact
Not for fun -fact.
It stops being fun when you do it daily – possibly debatable, but repetitive actions heavily lean that wayYou are wrong, no matter what imagined slight you suffered at the hands of “elitists” changes that.
The imagination is all yours dude, don’t put words in my mouth because of your own problems.
If I’m “wrong” you’ll have explain what I’m “wrong” about. If it’s objectivity, no, you are making a “literally”-style grammar/English comprehension fail. You are asking for understanding of your subjective perspective. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not objective and writing FACT a lot doesn’t have anything to do with your perspective.
None of which is actually grinding, it’s all just farming. Now all you whipper snappers git off mah lawn.
Removing grind by redefining it to not be called grind. Pure genius.
I guess since we solved that problem, people will stop complaining since they won’t be grinding anymo…
oh wait.Um, no? You’re the ones redefining farming to be grind because you happen to be doing the same thing twice. That’s not what a grind is. If you had to actually deal with a real grind you’d probably kill yourselves.
As someone who has dealt with real grinds in EQ and DAoC and Ye Olde WoW and so on, I have to say that GW2 does on occasions veer into grind territory.
It’s not EQ’s 10000 bone chips quest, nor is it some of early WoW’s rep grinds, but there is a lot of (optional) grind in GW2 (and some semi-optional). Just because something is kind of optional doesn’t mean it’s totally not a grind.
I would say, anyway.
I never understood the love affair with steam. Having something that runs in the background eating resources no matter how small will always be a bad thing to me.
For me its mostly the sales and the fact that its my primary communication program at this point. I like how I can see and respond to messages while playing a game without any extra steps, as well as access guides the community puts up on steam.
The resources it uses are pretty much a non-issue.
You realize you can do all of the things except for game sales in your first paragraph without steam right?
With extra steps, though. That’s what he’s saying – it’s easier with Steam because everyone is in one place.
I don’t think people here realize that Valve demand a cut of anything sold via Steam. At the very minimum they’re going to want to be able to sell Gems (and have sales on them, quite likely).
Actually… that’d be a lot more convenient than the in-game Gem buying thing which is a pain, so… sign me up!