The reason they don’t reward skill is obvious, they would alienate and subsequently lose a large portion of their players. Someone already mentioned that the only reward they earned by skill was the Mad King Slippers from the clock tower. Do you remember the backlash on the forums from the players who found that JP too hard to complete? In a nutshell: “How dare you developers create rewards that require that I complete a challenge? GASP!” Yeah. Entitlement.
An exception would be for example a fire dagger + watter dagger, that would look nice but those dont exist.
Hotw dagger and cof or destroyer dagger are a cool combo if fire and ice is your cup of tea.
I think how good you are at an MMO is pretty much entirely dependent on how you perform in combat (whether it be a 1v1 in PvP or soloing a difficult mob in PvE). As far as the other criteria, like currency saved up and number of endgame characters, for the most part these things don’t reflect how good a player is, just how much time that person has been able to invest.
Agree. I would buy lots of armor skins in the cash shop, and it kinda boggles my mind that they continue to favor the town clothes category.
I almost wonder if they’re trying to avoid selling cosmetics that are wearable in combat because in a game where endgame content is grinding for cosmetics, it may not be the best idea to make the best looking gear in the game a cash shop item.
I’ve never played Skyrim, but I am happy with the gameplay in GW2. I don’t get an `exogenous` vibe from it at all. Though to be honest, I may be missing your intended use of the word.
I am an evolutionary biologist and I am more than familiar with the word in a biological context.
I Promise You that culling will never be fixed, especially in Wvw. It is sad but what should we expect?, It Benefict the classes to be Op specially theif/war.
I love these completely ignorant comments, especially when they’re communicated with such confidence. You kids who think you know stuff really crack me up. See Habib`s discussion quoted several posts above, and stop assuming that the devs are sabotaging their game to perpetuate perceived class imbalance.
Nice try on the save.
He gave a perfectly reasonable reply. Kinda funny that you’d rather insist he’s just covering his kitten than accept it.
Or as you and your ilk might say: “Why so bitter, bro? Troll more, bro.”
I’d make cultural armor wearable by all races.
I have been opening these on my warrior, and my wife has opened some as well. Here’s what I’ve recorded so far, the formatting is kinda messy cause it’s pasted from excel and I can’t be bothered to format it atm =) These are all warrior boxes.
For a couple of the early ones I wasn’t recording it yet, so I just added what I could recall after the fact.
Tier Gear Level Rune Name(if named)
Rare Boots
Exotic Shield 80 (Kryta’s Embrace)
Rare Armor
Rare Armor
Rare Hammer 80 Debility
Rare Spear 80 Peril
Rare Chest 80 Grenth
Rare Boots 80 Eagle
Exotic Hammer 80 (The Ugly Stick)
Rare Shoulders 80 Citadel
Rare Armor
Rare Armor
Rare Sword 80 Serpent Slaying
Rare Shield 78 Corruption
Rare Rifle 78
Rare Axe 80
Rare Chest 79 Strength
Rare Gloves 80 Infiltration
HTH.
Sorry, I don’t understand the problem with dodging. You don’t have to go here or there to get it done. It doesn’t discriminate against classes. If you are playing the game, you are getting the dodging daily done. If you aren’t, well then you may be surviving in solo PvE, but I certainly don’t want to run a dungeon with you.
DR on Dungeon runs is character-bound. You can get full rewards on all three paths on one character, jump immediately to another, and get full rewards again.
Yes, in most cases this is how it works, but now and then I’ll do the same path back to back on different toons and get hit with what I presume is DR. Happens a lot with bags of wondrous goods not dropping, and I’ve even done a TA run where I only got 30 blooms from the final reward, not 60 even though I hadn’t run it that day on that toon, and not 20, even though that’s the expected amount for multiple runs.
Can you blame them, though? A very large number of people farm those dragon chests. Quite a lot of them don’t even WP in until a guildie or someone in map chat says “dragon up,” and in the case of Jormag’s Claw, many people wait another 5-7 minutes and WP in at the last stage of the fight to be a part of the mindless DPSing zerg and loot the chest. I don’t think this should be something that is rewarded by rares+.
Interesting to see some nice discussion on this instead of the very emotional responses that were coming out following the Ascended announcement until the recent future.
I agree with the OP, I’m glad ascended is here but I have no interest in spending all my game time running fractals for it. I think it caters to people who don’t like to play the way I do, and I think that’s a good thing to have in a game. I personally believe that many of the players who left following Nov. 15th did so because of where they feared the game would be going, not because of where it was/is.
I don’t view the current Ascended pieces as “must haves” to run (non-fractal) dungeons successfully, or to win in WvW. I do really well in my full exotics, and I’m of the opinion that build, skill usage, and profession understanding trumps a couple extra stat points.
My only concern is that ANet has failed to rule out another gear tier in the future. This is possibly not a problem, but if they do release another gear tier, and my exotics are no longer just a few stat points off, I’ll need to get that gear. But what if they make it accessible only through a fractal-like dungeon where you need AR to get it? I will never be willing to grind for Ascended gear just so that I can grind for the new tier. But if my not having that new tier will mean I can’t contribute in dungeons or compete in WvW, I will stop playing. I already see signs that this will not happen, as ANet has made statements and taken actions to expand the “play your way to get what you need” options for the game.
TL;DR – I don’t want Ascended gear, but I have no problem with it. I do see that its implementation is a slippery slope, but for now I’m going to trust that ANet will make good choices in the future, and I’ll keep enjoying the game the way I enjoy it. I will not leave the game because of where I’m afraid it could go, I’ll leave if it ever gets there.
sPvP is not my thing, but for precisely this reason. I tried it many times over the course of a few weeks, and it was fun, but I felt like my game time would be better spent doing PvE because I find it equally enjoyable but can make progress toward something, like new dungeon gear or whatever.
My understanding of sPvP rewards is that the glory you get is limited to use in the mists, and the rewards you get from it are also limited to the mists. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to create an option to use glory to buy PvE exotic gear similar to the gear you get in the Temples of Orr, that can be worn out in the PvE world. I don’t see why a PvE player would object to this, I am a PvE player and I don’t see an issue. In the end, every reward system in the game is trading rewards for your time, ANet has said they want you to be able to get rewards for playing the way you want, so why not have reasonable PvE rewards for sPvP play?
it’s immersion-breaking!
For the first time that I can remember in this game, I realized I could do my daily much faster by standing there and watching those allied NPCs die. So I did. Then I revived them, and realized that by training aggro onto them, thereby killing them in the process, I could complete it all in one go.
Sorry but this seems like an invented problem. If immersion is so important to you, you could have saved the NPCs and gotten your daily done very soon after by just playing the game. Solo PvE, group PvE, dungeons, WvW, however you like to play, the res and dodge dailies will do themselves. It just seems like many ppl are blaming ANet for somehow forcing them to rush through the daily with as little actual playing as possible.
Actually, they sent mails out but not everyone got one, while some people who did get to loot the chest got another reward in the mail. Last I recall, ANet acknowledged that the mail rewards didn’t go out correctly, and were looking into a fix.
Just to add some info without starting a new thread: I opened a Warrior’s box on my 80 warrior (not sure if class/level matters) and got some generic level 80 rare boots worth about 37s, and an exotic 80 shield called Kryta’s Embrace, worth about 4 gold.
Where’s the fun in playing invincible build, isn’t it like playing with god mode on? ;p
Ah, I see your point but I don’t necessarily feel like god mode is turned on, since I have to be actively engaged in play to stay alive. Same with my D/D ele, I have a lot of potential survivability, but I do have to work to keep it.
I think many classes can get close to this feeling when played correctly. In fact, these are probably the classes that people say are broken, like stealth build thieves, etc. But I think that this is actually a really promising combat system that ANet has built. If they ever get all the classes to where D/D ele and guardian are now, and the players know their classes well, combat could get very interesting.
I play Knight’s with Emerald Orbs and TBH I feel pretty invincible and very supportive when I play it right, but not so strong. Which is ok, because I made a guardian for support and survivability with decent damage. In my opinion, AH is currently the most popular build for guardians for a reason, because it let’s them really excel.
When I want to run into a battle on a glass cannon/Berserker build, I’ll do it on my warrior where that playstyle is more effective (in my experience). I probably won’t change my warrior build to support/shouts with Cleric’s gear for the same reason as above, I won’t be able to do that as well as I do it on my guardian.
Just my opinion, some will disagree and may be right depending on how they play.
Just to add my experience those already here:
This combo did update in the achievement sometimes, and others not. I would get an aura after a leap combo or have my character say “Impressive combination” to confirm that the combo was performed, but get not update to my daily. At the time of reset, I had 8/10 after working solely on that part of the daily for almost an entire hour. The rest of my daily was done.
I would also like to add that I am not among those who said “Combo? What’s a combo?” When the daily first appeared after the patch. I’ve been using them since launch and am aware of how they work.
I’ve got a level 73 guardian and 73 thief. Straits is already cleared on the guardian, but other than that, I’m excited to start map completion in Orr on these toons under new drop rates/mob skills/event changes, etc.
TBH, I really enjoyed completing all 3 Orr zones on my ele and my warrior. It’s reasonably profitable and a bit challenging at times, unlike most of the lower maps. I only see it getting better with the changes in this patch. =D
Gnome’s leggings are from the “Barbaric” set.
I’ll second the notion that there is a creativity void, particularly in the area of armor skins/models. I’ve had a hard time with all my toons, but medium armor seems to be particularly tough. For example, I’ve been looking for something unique for medium leggings for my human female engineer. I previewed every cultural piece for my race, every dungeon piece, faction piece, and crafted/world drop pieces as well. Out of all of them, there looks to be about 4 different ‘silhouettes,’ most of which are very plain looking pants with a variety of skin textures.
1) The plain pants w/ varied textures (overwhelming majority)
2) The Duelist low cut.
3) The (human) T3 low cut.
4) The vigil underwear-with-stockings look.
None of these are really to my taste, and I don’t expect that devs should be catering to me particularly, or any other individual player, but more options would have been appreciated.
Congrats on the drop! I don’t think this has anything to do with this JP’s chest specifically. Chests seem to be tiered, e.g. Splendid, Magnificent, etc, and the chance to get better items from one is likely dependent on the tier. But still, I’ve only heard of a handful cases of getting exotics from JP chests, so you’re a lucky duck =D
What I’m saying is that magic find works, …
Last week we just made a test (i wanted to kow it): Fractals Level 10, MF Gear, MF buff food, 50% MF potion, MF-guild banner. We killed every single mobs in all fractals (as far a possible). What i got wit all that MF was white and blue and two or three green. The others find more green and some yellow from the normal mob. For me is MF bugged and dead. Not a single reason to use it.
No, you have not performed a test. Repeat this 100+ times and you have performed a test.
All these features sound awesome, but does this mean there is gonna be new pve content in any form on the 28th? It’s a bit unclear now.
On the 28th? My guess would be probably not, since they have stated that most of the content will be rolling out of the next few months. I realize I’m not a dev so maybe you could care less about how I’ve read it =)
I’ve got the same issue, though admittedly I do not craft. just fished map completion of Queensland and Wayfarer Foothills on my new engi. She is now level 16.
Honestly, this is the kind of thing that gets me upset at game companies and their policies. The guy made an honest mistake brought on in part by an item label that makes no sense. Just be a person helping another person out and return the blooms and remove the item from his inventory. Why does it have to be a big deal? And the rest of you who would rather make snarky comments than offer sympathy, I guess you’ve never hoped someone would have your back after a mistake.
A few of my toons are named after characters in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series.
Human Elementalist – Dracarys. The High Valyrian word for dragonfire. Danaerys Targaryen speaks it to command her dragons to let loose a bit of flaming death. =D
Norn Guardian – Argilac Durrendon. An obscure character, not much more than an historical reference in the story. In ASoIaF, House Baratheon’s (as in Robert Baratheon, king when the series begins) sigil is the stag and their words are ‘Ours is the Fury.’ King Robert’s ancestor, Orys Baratheon adopted the sigil and words when he and the Targaryens took Storm’s End from House Durrendon, of which Argilac was the last lord. I really only went with this name/theme because the Norn T3 cultural armor is amazing and I wanted a toon where the stag theme had some significance.
Human Warrior – The Kraken Queen. Named for Asha Greyjoy. She’s not much to speak of so far in the HBO version, but in the books she’s quite the BAMF warrior queen. The sigil of House Greyjoy is the kraken, and she is one of those fighting for the throne after her father’s death.
I’m a dork.
(edited by Facepunch.5710)
Hi engineers! There is a tldr at the bottom, if you don’t want to read all my nonsense =D
I’ve just bought a third character slot, bringing my total to the magic number, 8. Like you, I am all too familiar with the vocal negativity from some in the engineer community, so I’m sure you don’t need helping figuring out which class I’ve saved for the last slot. Having tried every class except engi to at least level 40, the two I play the most are my 80 elementalist (which I run as D/D bunker), and my 80 warrior (which I run as prec. signet because I can’t bear to give up 20k hundred blades every 6 seconds).
I prefer playing the elementalist because it’s much more versatile (GASP) and the combat is more engaging. Don’t get me wrong, there is a certain amount of joy that comes from running around in Cursed Shore on a warrior, pulling groups of 6-7 Risen and melting all their faces in <10 seconds. But this is only entertaining for so long. Yeah, I could spec a different build with support or survivability, but why bother when I can kite and dodge to keep myself alive and deliver insane damage with little to no effort? My point is that big damage is nice, but I’ve been there and I still prefer a class with engaging play over mind-numbing single-skill spam.
So now that it’s the engineer’s turn to entertain me, I have to say there are disappointments and potential right off the bat. I’m prepared to get excited about the potential and take my engi all the way to 80 to see if the fun sticks around, but I’m looking for some reassurance from those of you who are there. I spend a large part of my endgame time running dungeons, sometimes with my guild, sometimes in pugs. From what I hear, engi won’t support as well as a guard or an ele, and won’t DPS as well as pretty much any profession. I honestly have little first-hand knowledge of this, because there are almost never engis in my groups.
My concern is just how far the subpar-ness goes. I’ve heard that engis often take boss aggro and get pummeled into the ground within seconds. I’ve heard that the damage is embarrassing and frustrating, especially compared to the work it takes to put it out. I’m ok with being less than stellar, and I don’t run high fractals, so I doubt my group would care either. But I don’t want to be useless and I don’t want to be carried. It doesn’t matter how fun a skill set is to use if it’s completely ineffective and your group has to tow your slack. Thoughts?
TL;DR – Engi clearly has issues, but they seem like they could be uniquely FUN to play. I will sacrifice massive damage of other classes for enjoyment with this one, but I don’t want to be “that group member” that is more of a burden than a help in dungeons. What has your dungeon experience been like on your engineer?
wtb steam punk themed cash shop armor.
Jasher, I suppose it depends on the guild. I agree with you that most of the active ones do a lot of WvW. My guild has over 450 members and we do a lot of WvW, but we also do a lot of PvE content. Just keep looking, and don’t feel bad about joining one for a time and moving on if it isn’t your cup of tea. Eventually you’ll fine a guild that balances the two well and doesn’t pressure members to play outside their interests.
We want to bring up all the weak weapons/traits on par with strong weapons/builds/traits in addition to reduce AoE effectiveness.
If they would do this in the same update as the AoE nerf, I have no issues. Problem is, they won’t. They’ll nerf AoE (acknowledging that it will gimp certain classes way more than others, I’m thinking of my D/D ele, but my god, if I was staff ele I’d be in the corner crying), then they’ll compensate for the nerf when they get around to it. Meanwhile, half of the players out there have to take the hit and shelf their preferred class, or just put up with the nerf in playstyle/competitiveness/enjoyment. I’m not trying to be cynical, and I would love to be proved wrong.
This could just as easily be a future expansion zone, much like Southsun Cove. Some kind of Tengu-themed expansion or event will be coming eventually, but I don’t see any reason to assume it’ll be a playable Tengu race just yet.
I prefer Kodan =D
I have to agree, I’m working on leveling up an alt and would LOVE to wear that Wintersday/Santa hat while bombing around.
My main is ele, but I was fortunate to level her up during launch, so the DEs were packed. I feel for you, I could see this being very tough to do all alone. Unfortunately, I’m not sure switching servers will help. I’m on Jade Quarry, one of the most populated, and the low level areas are often desolate. Maybe you could level up with a guildie?
Bruno, I hear what you’re saying and I agree that the game isn’t perfect, but you yourself said that ANet is working on improving the game. I guess, as you say, the issue is that the game isn’t enjoyable for many people right now.
I myself am working toward my first set of TA exotics, which I find to be less than enjoyable, because I need ~20 TA runs for the set, assuming all are first-of-the-day runs with 60+ blooms per. I’ve already considered whether this is something I want to work toward and whether it’s just going to end up causing more frustration than reward, but it’s short-term enough that I decided to bite the bullet and get on the hamster wheel.
Now, what if ANet decided to change the dungeon token reward system to something more skill based, like you get many more tokens if your group completes the run with fewer than X amount of deaths, or in X amount of time. I think this stuff sounds good at first, but it’s just going to propagate elitism. All dungeon runs will be 80s only, people will be kicked and replaced at the first sign of inexperience, etc.
That said, I think there is room to do it correctly. The tokens can be distributed on a per player basis. If you do more than your fair share of DPS to one of the bosses, guess what? You get more tokens than the base reward. If you heal/revive teammates X amount of times or as X percentage of total heals given through the run, you get more. If you get an achievement during the run, like highest damage you’ve ever gotten in 1 hit, you get more tokens. If you get X amount of combos with teammates during the run, you get more. Promote teamwork to finish, increase the rewards for going the extra mile, but don’t make the rewards that the level 80 who has run the dungeon 100 times dependent upon the performance of the minimum level, 1st time dungeon runner.
Less mindless grind, more active engagement in each moment of the run in order to increase your own rewards.
While I totally agree with this sentiment, I think that almost all of the discontent stems from a certain amount of boredom with endgame content. What content is truly left to do that they haven’t done? What rewards are left for them but these grindy rewards?
Fair point, but when it comes down to it, we’re all adults. If you see no content worth playing besides painfully grinding for days/weeks/months for a virtual item, simply stop playing the game. Come up with another way to spend your down time. Yes, it may be disappointing for you to admit that you’ve milked this game for all it’s got, but imho, it’s not healthy to do something you find stressful/unenjoyable for extended periods of time, especially if the reason for doing so is simply to maintain the delusion that you are having fun in the game you’ve been anticipating for so long.
Yes because if people are trying to play they way they’d like to play and Anet is making that style of play absolutely maddening, then it’s clearly the fault of the player.
Can you be more specific about what play style you’re talking about?
(edited by Facepunch.5710)
If I’m having fun, I win.
This. It seems to me that many complaints about grinding or whatever are coming from people who say they feel forced to do this or that, and it isn’t fun. No one is forcing you to get on the hamster wheel, guys. Go play in your water dish, or make a tunnel under your bedding, if that’s what you prefer.
I have to agree about clearing an area. Here are 2 specific examples I encountered yesterday in Blazeridge Steppes:
In the Northwestern-most corner, there is a skill point with a couple of branded ogres and their pets patrolling, and a veteran branded guarding. I killed the ogres+pets, fought the veteran, and before he was dead, one of the ogre/pet combos was up again. In this particular case it wasn’t a problem because I took the vet into a corner to fight him, so I was out of aggro range.
The other example:
In the Northeastern corner, there is a separatist camp. If you are at the campsite, you can take a short stone tunnel (I think it’s in the SE part of the camp) to a small area with 3-4 separatist mobs and veteran separatist stormcaller. I killed the mobs, started on the veteran, and the mobs started coming back up before he was down. I got downed a couple of times and only survived the mess because I’m a warrior using the trait for the 100% chance to revive after a ‘vengeance’ kill. Eventually I got them all, but I think I ended up having to rekill two of the original mobs while fighting the vet.
I guess I can’t complain, because this was actually fun on my warrior, but at a lower level or with a different class, I don’t know that I would have come out on top. In many cases I haven’t, and it makes me QQ. Then my wife tells me to shut up and enjoy the game. Thanks for paying attention and working to fix this stuff, Jeffrey.
Congratulations, kiba! I love that skin. Enjoy!
I agree, it can be difficult. I’ve been leveling a warrior alt and at low levels it was difficult to handle an entire DE by myself. Only now, at level 60, am I starting to come across another player or two while doing a DE. My advice would be to push through a 1-15 zone. Then go ahead and start another 1-15 zone and you should be able to handle the DEs by yourself, with the slight edge in your level vs mob level. Leveling is a little slower, but it’s a more rewarding solo experience. Plus it’s always fun to solo a 3 or 4 part DE and change the world all by yourself.
I really love the way traits contribute to elementalist d/d playstyle. That said, it’s really just one combination of them that works best, so it does seem to me that eles are sort of stuck in this build if they want to maximize their effectiveness, which is a problem. My ranger is in his 30s and I’ve lost interest in leveling him because nothing about the traits make me excited about trying some theorycrafting on him.
These points make a lot of sense to me, maybe I’ll try it on my warrior. One other thing though, in the past I’ve noticed that the sigil in the offhand weapon seems to have no effect. I’m talking about bloodlust mainhand, precision stacking offhand. I only get the stacks for the bloodlust. Is it really correct that I could use two of these sigils if I’m dual wielding?
You may be thinking about GW1 players who have rewards on their GW1 account. ANet set up a reward system to give free GW2 stuff to some of those players, one of which is a flaming sword skin. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to get that stuff unless you played GW1.
edit: Fro beat me to it ^
Can you explain why a sigil like this is good? Seems to me like a waste of an upgrade slot, as it is only useful if 3 things happen all at once: 1) Get condition cast on you, 2) Within the few seconds that it lasts, get a critical hit, 3) Proc the 60% rate to transfer.
I am an ele, and I have a ridiculous amount of condition removal, so this would be useless to me. But even if I weren’t, it just seems impractical, am I wrong? Is this actually a viable option for condition removal on classes with fewer removal skills like warriors?
I spent 10 bucks to buy 10 chests and ended up with a festive golem mini. They’re pretty cool looking if you ask me, but I really have no interest in minis at all. Seems to me that there are some people who really want certain minis, and havent been able to get the one they’re after. Make em tradeable and I’ll give mine away.
I understand that being unable to skin your weapon with something festive (without resorting to gem shop) is disappointing, I use longbow. But I think it’s a little presumptuous to say that the reason certain weapons were left out was because ANet wants to push us to the gem shop.
I think about it this way: during the Mad King event the greatsword got the chainsaw skin, while other weapons seemed to have little attention given to them, or none at all. Many people complained that this was clearly playing favorites to the greatsword users. Now, the greatsword has been left out and other weapons have their chance to shine (Princess wand, anyone?). Maybe there are too many weapons in the game for ANet to do full sets of themed skins for every event, so they’re giving us what we asked for, and paying attention to all of the weapons in turn.
Can you imagine the uproar if there was a greatsword available at the gift exchanger and, once again, it totally outshone the rest?
Then again, the uproar would probably seem about normal, since no matter what ANet does to appease/compromise/add free content, some people treat it like the end of the world.
There are designs for infusions, I believe. Other than that, just cosmetics.
I have never seen a game deliver this kind of content for free twice (in a row) at the holiday events. They are fun, easy, enjoyable, relaxing and cause spontaneous fun. We get dungeons, rewards, jumping puzzles. I have never felt so spoiled during holiday events until I came here.
Fixed that for you.
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