Guild Wars 2

Parisalchuk.9230:

Lil Green Dragn.8049:

What, do you want everything handed to you on a silver platter? You aren’t meant to get these things within a week/s. There supposed to be long term goals.

GW2 isn’t about jumping from upgrade to upgrade. That would mean countless tiers of gear, which is a BAD thing. If it’s cosmetic things you’re aiming for, surly once you get something which you like the look of, you don’t want to be in a hurry to get rid of it.

People have been saying that since release. Well, its months into the game and I still have yet to get a Precursor from anything (Bosses, chests, mobs, MF). Fact is they keep saying they want the game to feel more rewarding, but with every new release items that matter get harder and harder to get.

But please, rehash the same “you want everything handed to you” line for the next 6 months….

You forget that MMO’s are not games… they are careers. 6 months is nothing… these goals are meant to take you 6 years of all the gaming hours you can muster. How else will you be convinced to spend 6 years of gaming dollars all in one place? Oddly, ANET convinced a bunch of people to buy GW2 with the premise that it wouldn’t be this insane.

Avatar.1923:

Fortuna.7259:

Avatar.1923:

another player who didnt do the content an is complaining..
i played fotm from 1 to 20.
i NEVER had to “stop” because i was missing gear, i just got the gear as i progressed….

What? 20 is where the gear gating begins…

somewhat, yes.
but going pas 20 doesnt really give you more reward.
you can get all the rings and backpack etc by doing 20 an less.
20+ is for players looking for ultra challenging encounters. thats all. for “fun”.

When did “doesn’t really” give you more reward come into it?

I can see from your posts here that you aren’t even responding to what people are discussing, but rather something else entirely. Good day.

Leo Paul.1659:

They’ve already stated that they are implementing ascended weapons. Might as well make us earn it via another random method.

Ascended weapons will come from the SUPER DUPER Mystic Forge (because too many people decided they don’t like it – we will MAKE them do it). First you have 32 guild members on 32 level 1 forges… when they get lucky (after spamming materials into said forges) the results pass to 16 guild members on level 2 forges, who then pass to 8, 4, 2, and finally the SUPER DUPER Mystic Forge will spit out a random account bound ascended weapon (good luck getting what you want). But to UNLOCK this PRIVELEDGED CLICKFEST you first need 50000 guild wazoo’s obtainable ONLY by farming level 1-15 zones (so new players don’t log in to a ghost town… and also so they want to buy gems so they can get the chocobo mounts they see the “dedicated” players riding)

And because there is never just one way to get gear, you can instead buy ascended weapons from vendors for 500 Stonemist Capture Tokens (guess how you get them?), 250 ecto (because does ecto drop in any other quantity? I don’t think so!), and 300 laurels (because the next expansion isn’t due till then).

Enjoy!

Avatar.1923:

another player who didnt do the content an is complaining..
i played fotm from 1 to 20.
i NEVER had to “stop” because i was missing gear, i just got the gear as i progressed….

What? 20 is where the gear gating begins…

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

You’re making a mess because you don’t want to do this and that.
Then don’t, and keep your exotic earrings or your 80 days or whatever.
GW2 even supports bullheaded people like that though you’re penalized for not wanting to properly coordinate with guilds by needing more time for the items.

Why should I be penalized for not joining a mega guild and running raids according to their time schedule? Oh how far GW2 has fallen from it’s mission statement…

Hicci.8761:

These made the Dredge fractal a total breeze. Also CoF p1. I used them but I can do well even without them. Good fix!

What the? CoF p1 is a total breeze period.

This and food nerf is going to make the Dredge really stupid. You are going to need particular mix of professions for fractal runs. Forget the old holy trinity… now you have stealth, reflect, and kite!

TexZero.7910:

Okay, so you admit multiple viable builds, you just dont like taking killshot to dungeons ?

Sounds like a user problem to me. I’ve personally used Killshot in dungeons with no issues. It works just fine.

Coming from a person that considers a healing build to out-DPS a DPS build when played by a good player, this means nothing to me. I know a rifle isn’t going to do much in a high level fractal with dredge spawning all over. And killshot is going to be pretty fun in that mess – I suppose you have perma-stability?

TexZero.7910:

Running a Condi warrior in dungeons suddenly isn’t viable ? Guess you cant replace your utility skills and traits to be less defensive … oh wait i just said you could if you build around that fact.

Condition builds in dungeons are limited to stacking 25 bleeds… meaning a Warrior that goes condition is just going to butt heads with someone else. Besides you were talking about heal-shout again… yeah we know you can do that.

TexZero.7910:

Considering you all like to talk about how meta it is to have 4 warriors and a mesmer… you all really aren’t optimizing your damage output if you have 4 raw dps and 1 support when you could have 3 raw dps warriors, 1 condi, and 1 support. Things would burn even faster.

Sorry, how exactly is a single mention of 4 warrior/1 mesmer translated into “all I like to talk about”?

TexZero.7910:

Again comes down to your QQ and inability to adapt.

TexZero.7910:

But its okay keep doing your metasheeping mindsets.

Do keep up with your personal attacks to hide your lack of productive things to say. Ironic that you put people down about having metasheeping mindsets when you go on and on about the heal-shout meta.

Martin The Brave.8731:

Nothing, worth having comes easy….

This is a game. It shouldn’t involve built-in chores before we can play. I have enough chores in real life. Seriously, what is wrong with the MMO mentality?

TexZero.7910:

I’d say the did nerf the wrong build. But that would be admitting a build was nerfed, which it wasn’t. A consumeable that allowed a gimmick to exist got nerfed. Not an entire build. A Good Zerker can still do work post patch, they just aren’t as durable.

What are you saying? It allowed a gimmick to exist, but no it still exists and isn’t a gimmick? Double-speak more please.

TexZero.7910:

For the record, Soliders gear + runes is blatantly broken for warrior combined with shout heal.

That isnt to say there aren’t more broken things. Running a Killshot warrior is equally as broken. 1200 range snare followed up by a 20k+ crit ? Yep balanced.

Running a shouts heal condi warrior with Sword / Axe + Shamans Gear … Equally as comical and Just as broken. Always heal never die, watch your target burn / bleed constantly.

But its okay everyone keep thinking there’s only 1 viable build, and arena net just nerfed your only options!

Ohwait…. they didn’t.

Nice… you keep talking about shout-heal in different forms. Oh and killshot is not a dungeon build… that is where there is concern.

From my point of view, as both a Zerker warrior as well as other classes, it is funny people are cheering the nerf. As a Zerker warrior I was eating expensive food to help everyone whereas on say my mesmer I stock only MF food. So as a Zerker I was actually giving to the rest of the party, all because I found Zerker to be fun. Also I could carry some bad PUG’s by popping some food. For example, I can do defend Magg in P2 CoF without food in a good PUG, while in a bad PUG I would just donate to the common good and shield others from a lot of aggro.

So now… I can do a tanky warrior build with MF food and everyone can watch the health bars go down in slow motion, OR I can be very picky about who I group with because stuff must die quickly (yes terrible auto-attacking bow rangers I’m talking to you).

And just to note… 4 warrior/1 mesmer zerker teams running CoF all day don’t even care.

TexZero.7910:

Yeah, you know i dont see it…I can cleanse a condition every shout, have 3 shouts. I can Heal for 50% of my HP every ~30 seconds. If i need a quick heal i can shout once again on roughly ~20sec cooldowns and get healed for ~1.5khp

So really what’s the problem ?

Right, there is ONE build that works… what could be the problem?

TexZero.7910:

I dont need the gimmick of food to be stupidly tanky and survive burst. I can still do all of this with a Greatsword, and guess what because i dont have to worry about DPS’ing from the floor ever. I put out more sustained DPS than any Zerker warrior, who basically falls on their face when blinked at.

OK, having used a Warrior with both a “heal-shout” and a “zerker” build, I have to say you are delusional if you think “heal-shout” is putting out more sustained DPS than a skilled zerker warrior. And actually if everything you claim were true, is seems like “the problem” would be that they nerfed the wrong build… LOL

Martin Kerstein.3071:

As this has probably been buried deep by know, I would like to quote Izzy again. I put aspects of his post that touch on the actual discussion in bold:

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

I know there have been some concerns about Guild Bounties being in the Art of War line. Our goal with this system is to give guilds activities and long-term progression that they can accomplish by working together as a guild. These missions are meant to be difficult and challenging to not only unlock, but to accomplish.

We would also like to make every guild upgrade line valuable to every guild. Currently, Art of War is very focused on PvP and WvW, but our plan is to continue to add more guild upgrades in the Art of War line to accomplish this. These Guild Missions are the first step. Along with this system, we also added a number of new guild upgrades that guilds can earn.

In the end, our goal for all of this content is to give guilds new goals and challenges to accomplished once they have researched deeply into each line, as well as require guilds to have researched multiple lines to unlock some upgrades. We expect guild members to have to work together as a guild to earn the influence needed to unlock these new missions, as well as overcome the challenge of the missions themselves.

In the future, we plan to continue to add more guild upgrades, as well as continue to add challenging guild missions, as we don’t want guilds to run out of goals and accomplishments they can achieve.

~Izzy @-’—-

Sure, that post describes your goal. And this discussion is about the actual results, so that you can see where the disconnect is.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Fortuna.7259:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Like I said, I must be either a moron or in need of different meds, because I don’t see an insurmountable problem.

I see, so it isn’t insurmountable. But… it IS a problem… and who wants to play a game that gives them more problems? If it is dull, grindy, and just not fun then our question is not “How difficult is it to overcome?” but “Why subject ourselves to this?”

I didn’t say it was a problem in that post.

Saying that you don’t see an “insurmountable problem” is conceding that it is a problem because otherwise you would just say you don’t see a “problem”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I say it’s one now, but the question you pose is valid. “Why subject yourselves to this?” I ask myself that every time I click on my bookmark for the forum, you know . . . I know I will see mostly negativity and things that make me crack molars trying not to rage-post.

So why do I bother? In the hopes there’s this one interesting thing that gets my attention, that makes me smile. Something to make my day go a little bit better.

That’s why people play games even if they have to wade through some sewage to get to what they want to enjoy. It’s something to make their day go a little better.

Yup, that is what everyone wants in their game. Sewage. And we all want a White Knight in the forums to wade in, taste it, and tell us it is gravy. Or at least that it is possible to swim across without drowning — because you actually described it for what it is – sewage (although apparently sewage is not actually a problem after all). Thank you.

Iures.2894:

Renegade.6325:

Sleeme.5893:

This makes me seriously consider trashing gw2 and never look back. There is nothing more in it for me than fractals, and even that they ruined quite hard now.

They ruined fractals? Just by making you play certain parts of it?

Except that the gear required to progress in fractals is increasingly coming from non-fractal sources. As it stands, there’s only one piece of gear that must be gotten from fractals (backpiece). Fully half of the ascended items aren’t from fractals at all, but are just a daily grind. I like the concept of laurels, but fractal gear should be gotten through fractals. . .

Actually, you can get backpack outside of fractals…

This ascended there. That ascended there. That ascended? Oh you got to do this… This game doesn’t even know what it is any more. There is just the developers pulling your chain to make you do whatever content they want more people to do.

Riduy.1682:

tl;dr I have to jump through hoops just to PLAY THE GAME.

Remember, Guild Wars 2 is a game where you “don’t have to wait to have fun…”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Like I said, I must be either a moron or in need of different meds, because I don’t see an insurmountable problem.

I see, so it isn’t insurmountable. But… it IS a problem… and who wants to play a game that gives them more problems? If it is dull, grindy, and just not fun then our question is not “How difficult is it to overcome?” but “Why subject ourselves to this?”

Palador.2170:

rootnode.9546:

If ANet had created this thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/first let’s say…. 1 or 2 months ago and not 4 days before the patch, they could have figured out that 30k and 50k point barriers just to unlock it is a horribly stupid idea, especially for small to medium sized guilds. But hey, that would’ve been communication. Not their forte.

So, we should welcome our new era of “Zerg Wars – Bugs and Patches”

No, we should NOT DO THE CONTENT.

Ignore it. Because what happens when people spend all their time working on “content” that nobody touches? If ANet has any sense, they get canned, or at least shifted off of content development.

If you don’t like it, don’t do it. If enough of us don’t do it, it becomes a problem for ANet, not for us.

Oh yes, I actually think that many people would never touch this content. And so did the developers it seems, because they told us “do it or grind dailies for 2 months for ONE pair of earrings.” Anyone with more than one character or build simply has no choice. Most of the player base WILL toe the line, and ANET can ignore your noncompliance. It’s brilliant.

New content is supposed to be worth playing and should give rewards consistent with the rest of the game… not unique stat improvements available nowhere else. The carrot and stick has been overplayed by ANET. They are telling the players when (and how high) to jump (and dodge).

Urxx.6840:

Now what will you do? Wait for some small guild to spend all their influence on the lower tiers of Art of War and then in the next patch apologize and move the entry point somewhere else, so they feel betrayed twice?

Or leave it as it is and fracture you community yet again?

This is pretty much the state of the game. Overly expensive things that could be dramatically cheaper any day now (but never are) or might be made obsolete tomorrow.

Esoteric.5490:

Fortuna.7259:

Esoteric.5490:

People are being quite a bit harsh. This is content designed for larger guilds to have something to do.

First of all, gating content by guild size is a bad idea because you are pointlessly lowering the amount of content available to other players – and because it hurts small/new guilds more than ever.

BUT attaching the only reasonable means to follow the “gear progression” to being in a large guild is reprehensible.

And before someone says you can save 80 laurels and 100 ectos for the gear… Guild. Commendations. Is. The. Only. Reasonable. Way.

When I said designed for larger guilds I meant there are not inherent limits on participants so larger guilds can actually do events together that are structured, similar to a dungeon. Large PvE guilds now have a relative purpose. Moving on though, smaller guilds can buy the influence. I think 30k is quite a bit expensive; it’s 3x the price of any upgrade prior. I feel that guilds had plenty of prior opportunity to upgrade their AoW, though. I upgraded everything even though i don’t use half of it in my 320 person guild because I knew I’d need it eventually. You can buy your influence even if you didn’t upgrade AoW, make enough influence, or save enough influence. Gold is plentiful.

Why should people pay taxes to have a smaller guild? Why does giving large guilds “something to do” involve penalizing smaller guilds out of existence? Giving large guilds “something to do” doesn’t mean making a huge influence drain just to get personal gear. Are you kidding me?

Esoteric.5490:

People are being quite a bit harsh. This is content designed for larger guilds to have something to do.

First of all, gating content by guild size is a bad idea because you are pointlessly lowering the amount of content available to other players – and because it hurts small/new guilds more than ever.

BUT attaching the only reasonable means to follow the “gear progression” to being in a large guild is reprehensible.

And before someone says you can save 80 laurels and 100 ectos for the gear… Guild. Commendations. Is. The. Only. Reasonable. Way.

Loosifah.4738:

By “plenty to do for smaller guilds” he means the normal content in the game that you don’t need a guild to do. Good job screwing the smaller guilds on GUILD content.

Yup, there is plenty for smaller guilds to do… like sit around and WAIT for 40 laurels before they can get 1 piece of ascended gear… OR you can jump ship and get 1 piece of gear per week. IF you play any alts (or just other builds) you have no choice really. Brilliant.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

There is no reason to postpone the patch or delay it. Guild Missions can be deployed as announced, I doubt there is time now to change anything. What can be done is make the changes to the system after it is released (adding “lower” tier Guild Missions). Postponing the patch doesn’t make any sense.

meaning, to add one more point to the “we say it will be fixed eventually, but don’t want to bother doing it” list.
Why everything they roll out needs to be seriously flawed, with fixes promised but never actually arriving?

Something is “seriously flawed” when it affects the vast majority of players in the game. Guild Missions, and more specifically being on the Art of War line, doesn’t affect the vast majority of players and in fact it’s completely optional content.

So, if ranger pets aggro and attack/kill party members it wouldn’t be “seriously flawed” because the vast majority of players don’t play rangers. Yeah, sucks to be you, Mr. Ranger, but most people can still play without problems! We will fix it one day!

Voxdeus.1034:

ASB.4295:

Mungrul.9358:

Gah, 50 ectos as well as 40 laurels?
Sure, no grind here.

The whole ascended set has to last people until at least Jan 2014, thanks to the overreaction of some fraction of the player base. That the ascended items are a lot grindier is basically their fault. Had they not complained so much, we could have had much quicker releases of gear at lower costs, and a completely new tier by summer. ANet did the best they could while staying true to their “no new gear tier in 2013” statement. :/

But most of us don’t WANT a whole new tier by summer, and if there was, then that too would be a grind.

Yes, we could have had a whole new gear tier by summer to obsolete all of our “cheaper” ascended gear. It would have been so glorious, I mean yeah you would throw it all away BUT it would have been cheaper! But wait a minute… ascended gear was designed to cost 250 T6 mats + 50 ectos (With stupid costs for +5 stat infusions) before people even knew about it, let alone complained about it.

VOLKON.1290:

Bad math is bad. You can’t compare them to each other… you need to compare them as a whole. Your example adds 12 power.

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

So, plugging in numbers using the amulet on my mesmer as an example:

Before: 1100*1982*.5/1000 = 1090.1 (Assuming a coefficient of .5 and an armor of 1000 to simplify the math)
After: 1100*1994*.5/1000= 1096.7

(1096.7 – 1090.1)/ 1096.7 = .0060 or a single attack damage increase (not DPS) of approx. 0.60%.

Bad math is bad. You accounted for only one of 3 stats, ignoring the compounding effect of precision and critical damage boosts. An ascended amulet raises my beserker warrior’s effection power from 5231 to 5315, which is a 1.6% increase. Amulet, rings, backpack boost from 4937 to 5315… which is 7.6%.. and that is only 4 items! 10 items left to go, including the all important weapon (the only thing to affect weapon damage multiplier) and armor (free built-in toughness stat). At this rate an ascended berserker will chew through an exotic berserker by the time it all plays out.

ASB.4295:

Chuo.4238:

This kind of price for gear with the best stats is ridiculous. What happened to grinding for cosmetic items, but no grind for stats? I thought ArenaNet didn’t make grindy games?

BiS gear is optional, making it just as much an end game progression as skins and titles. If you want the privilege of equipping the best possible gear, you have to put your mind to it, not expect it to be handed to you after saving up for half a week.

Uh… what Chuo alluded to was a quote from ANET’s president that says exactly the opposite of what you just said. But thanks for your opinion.

ASB.4295:

There needs to be a way for the really dedicated players can differentiate themselves from those without the time or conviction grind out this slightly better gear set.

“Really dedicated” players earn fancy glowing gear, titles, and knowledge about the game and how to play. Within 5-10 minutes of pugging a dungeon, I already can tell who is “really dedicated” from those who are not. Plenty of distinction already… no need to make them hit 15% harder “just because.”

Fyrebrand.4859:

Honestly, aside from world map completion and a few laurel rewards, what does “horizontal progression” even mean, and how does it avoid grinding? Because from what I’m seeing, people are doing an AWFUL lot of grinding in dungeons, fractals, and in the never-ending quest for a Legendary weapon.

Horizontal progression isn’t about preventing people from grinding. It is about making grind completely optional. My friend can grind for 300 hours to get a glowing sword while I do no grinding and look plain, but at the end of the day when a new dungeon is released we both play together on equal footing.

Vertical progression is an effort to chain people to the game. Some of course will be chained and others will prefer freedom.

Orpheal.8263:

LOL, people posting they will leave GW2 if the cap gets increased are so ridiculous.
As if they would waste their accounts they have put in multiple hundreds of hours of effort inmto, or even real monney by buying gems, only to just throw the game and all this effort away, …

Yup, nobody ever quit an MMO before… or any hobby that they have invested time/money into for that matter…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zookeeper.2513:

I can see the health pool issue in PvE (mainly world event bosses) but I don’t think it would have much affect in dungeons or WvW. In dungeons, it would help multiple condi classes in a 5 man keep up with the non-condi, serker (while not cancelling each other out) builds that people are running. In WvW/sPvP I don’t think it would have an over reaching affect as the amount of passive and active condi removal is insane as it is now. I definitely believe your point on a shift, but I don’t think it would be completely overwhelming.

. . . I think it could have a huge impact in WvW if combined with zerg tactics. And if each person got their own 25 Stacks of Bleed/Poison/Burn? Condition-damage zergs might become a “thing”.

What is the big deal about dying from 100 stacks as opposed to 100 crit/power projectiles?

Pennry.9215:

eisberg.2379:

Sylosi.6503:

Purgatory.5296:

You realize there are separate teams for different aspects of the game, right? The team fixing traits and skills that you expertly identified with precision above is different than the team putting out new content.

You realize that is irrelevant to his question, right?

No it isn’t. Is the content team supposed to just sit around and do nothing? Very unlikely that anyone in the content team have the skill sets needed to work on bugs. His post is very relevant.

The problem is the “content team” puts out a bugged product. IMO Anet is too compartmentalized and needs to pull its self together. Yes, new content should be top priority, but it should be quality stuff that builds on existing content. Currently it’s “hey look at what I did, now you go figure out how to make it actually work.”

Exactly. The “content team” needs to release quality content. Case in point: Giver’s Armor. Not only is sacrificing 72 stat points for 1% Boon Duration absurd… but reportedly the bonus doesn’t even work. Yes, bugs are going to happen, but this reflects something just slapped together. Also, saying that the “content team” can’t fix problems reflects an excuse or excessive bureaucracy… a team member can be reassigned if the Suits require that much.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

When looking at relevant boons (regeneration, protection, vigor, might, and fury), the ease at which defense is obtained has to be considered. Looking at the armor levels above, the protection boon can be considered a virtual additional amount of toughness added on to the player. For low armor, it is 966 toughness. For medium, it is 1020 toughness. For heavy, it is 1096 toughness. This is assuming the base armor amount, since more of the real toughness stat will cause protection to give an even higher virtual bonus to toughness. With this knowledge, it is safe to say that defensive stats are not far harder to gain through boons than offensive stats.

Protection multiplies toughness, while Might adds to Power. That is the key difference.

As for the rest of the analysis:

1) You can not ignore the increased effectiveness in healing from toughness, unless you can burn through your enemy without the need to heal (given boss hp pools and damage this is unlikely in many situations).
2) You assume that you are the only one doing damage.
3) Having toughness/vitality to not be “one shot” is important.
4) Once your additional power exceeds your armor rating, even by your analysis, toughness becomes useful.
5) Gear comes with 3+ stats, meaning you need to compare Toughness with other stats than Power before declaring that it “sucks”.

The reality is:

1) Your Healing/Toughness must be sufficient to keep you optimal in a sustained fight. The moment your warrior kites is the moment you have forgone your advantage from stacking Power.
2) Having one slightly Tough guy around can be useful to draw fire from your DPS.
3) You need a minimum Toughness/Vitality or you can not use your Healing before being downed. Warriors have no real worry about this but ele’s might.
4) Once your total Power + expected Might Power exceeds your Toughness + Armor, Toughness is worth considering.

The result is that in general you want a lot of Power from your gear (unless you can pull off a pure condition build), but you may very well want some Toughness mixed in. For example, trading a few select pieces of Berserker’s gear for Knight’s might work out well, especially if you are already stacking some Might, have offensive traits, or are stacking bleeds. However, gear that does not provide Power can be considered special purpose… Power is important enough that it almost always in the top 3.

Kai Ich.9174:

So I’ve been playing gw 2 for a week or maybe two and I still can’t seem to find a class that I actually enjoy. They all seem to be fun on paper, but the more I play them the more bored of them I get. I feel like that is because the classes and the combat itself is VERY simple and lacking any kind of depth whatsover, as well as the “skill ceiling” on pretty much any class is super low.
I know people will go “bs’’ ’’go f yourself moron” on this one and let me say I am no pro gamer by any margin, but I literally feel like I can master a class at about 95% by reading one guide, playing few hours of sPVP and getting level 10 or 20. And it’s not a easy to learn, hard to master thing it’s just easy to learn and easy to master, honestly there is pretty much nothing to master.

With the “skill ceiling” being “super low”, I disagree. Perhaps you are incredibly talented at playing GW2 and in 1-2 weeks of playing several different classes you have reached (or can at least see) the “skill ceiling” for all of them. I have not met such a player.

Two factors that might give a false impression of a super low skill ceiling:

1) To be challenged, you really have to seek it out. Standard PvP opponents and PvE content isn’t going to require you to develop past a rudimentary level to “succeed.”
2) GW2 has a shallow learning curve. What this actually means is that your skill at playing increases slowly as you practice. Your improvement is subtle but is still important and measurable over long periods of time.

GW2 is not as cerebral as many MMO’s, and certainly not as cerebral as GW1. It is more like a fighting video game akin to Tekken. Timing, anticipation, faking, reflexes, and flawless execution under any pressure are things that slowly improve your ability to play. GW1 was more about understanding the metagame, the importance of various skills and how they functioned, and how to overcome builds by exploiting their weaknesses. If you had no such knowledge, then you were the mending Wammo in random arenas and immediately identifiable as completely useless. If you had a little such knowledge, you were the assassin that shadow stepped in with your combo only to kill yourself because you were hexed by Empathy. And so on… each level of knowledge brought about a significantly different ability to play.

As for “depth”, if you believe a cerebral nature is required for depth then your assessment is reasonable. But I think then you could argue martial arts do not have “depth,” which doesn’t seem right to me at all.

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

It took me around 2 weeks to gain money I needed. It wasn’t a simple task but as you can read for yourself its absolutely possible and I have learned so much in the process.
I knew straight away that simple grind is not a solution here. I am a casual player, hate grinding and I prefer to enjoy and play the game, rather than force myself to focus on one task or goal and do just that.

…

The hardest bit was to get first 50 – 100 gold. After that I had the knowledge required to achieve what I wanted. All I needed was time.
The reason I am telling about this is simple. Because I was forced to expand mu knowledge and try to find different ways or any ways at all to gain my goals I actually learn how to make money in GW2, I have learned how to work around problems, I became a better player.

So you are a “casual” player dedicated to earning as much gold as you possibly can in a 2 week period (I swear “casual” has no meaning any more)?

The hardest part was getting the first 50-100 gold… the obvious conclusion is that you made the rest from market transactions. Yet, you “became a better player” because you learned to buy/sell on the market?

Sorry, but the whole thing makes no sense. Sure, you can work your kitten off silly for 2 weeks and get 500 gold. How does that support your argument!?

Both are good classes. Guardian is generally easier (especially soloing in the world) and has very valuable dungeon skills. Elementalist is good if you want to nuke in WvW, but imo are trickier to play.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Honestly? There was also the expense of the prestige armor, which cost 15k per piece to start with, then cost rare materials which might not be easy or cheap to get. There was the insane cost of getting certain weapon skins, or buying Armbraces. As much as people want to talk about the high cost of Precursors here? I just remember what some people were charging for Armbraces (and by extension “Gem Sets”) in the end days I was on GW1 and sigh.

I earned 15k+ from an evening playing pvp, which I completely enjoyed. The earnings in WvW are really abysmal by comparison. An armbrace was SO much more affordable than a highly demanded precursor. Really, the only GW1 item comparable was a full set of Obsidian Armor. And even that does not compare to the full requirements of a Legendary weapon.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . you use the word “coerce”, but I think you meant “entice”. See, there’s a nontrivial difference there. If they were coercing you to log in every day, that would be by charging you for not doing anything, penalizing you for not playing. Enticing you to play involves putting rewards into place so that you want to play so you can get the rewards.

Let’s see a definition of “entice”:

Entice: to attract artfully or adroitly or by arousing hope or desire.

No, that definitely is not what I mean… nothing artful about saying “dodge 15 times every day and we’ll give you a few more stat points.”

Coerce: to compel to an act or choice.
Compel: to cause to do or occur by overwhelming pressure.

Now I wouldn’t exactly use the word “overwhelming” when describing the pressure, but it is a pressure. Yes, “coerce” is pretty much what I mean.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . and “falling behind”? Look, if you’re not doing Fractals with agony, then you don’t need Ascended Gear yet. There are four slots currently holding it and until armor starts being released those four slots aren’t critically important. The Amulets have the new “Utility Infusion” which have interesting effects but “required”, really? I don’t have Ascended gear . . . heck I’m still running around in mostly Rares . . . but I’m not seeing where I can’t do content other than high-level Fractals.

As hard as it is for you to understand, people have satisfaction from achieving the pinnacle of their character. Introduce a system where they are drip-fed new and better gear, and they feel compelled to play along. After all, there is no possibility to “catch up”… you are always going to be down X laurels and who knows why you might want those? Or maybe they just quit.

alcopaul.2156:

I see many people hating on RNG.

BUT..

Life is based on RNG. Your conception was RNG. Out of 375 million sperm cells, one only get to fuse with one eggcell and formed you.

1/375000000. that’s still worse than the mystic forge.

Pointless argument. A game is not constricted to merely model reality, but to free us at least somewhat from its constraints. Besides, 374999999 alternate selves are not here to experience the displeasure of your described RNG, but there are a number here able to experience the displeasure of the mystic forge.

Vol.5241:

The price is what the market is willing to pay

Which is what you see the buy orders at, or however much someone bought from the outpost from the lowest seller.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the price of precursors.

But something is wrong with the market. This is a game, after all.

The laurel system is about as exciting as washing the dishes. The pace they are dolled out is completely controlled and contrived – metered to a satisfying rate for those that play every single day and yet have just one character to equip.

“Dailies” are just a manipulative method to inflate online presence by coercing people to play when they don’t want to play. Apparently the old daily wasn’t ham-fisted enough to do the trick. However, people begrudgingly logging on to hurry through them don’t really add to my experience when I play, because they just want to “get it over with”. If they are in my guild they might not even say hello.

This isn’t new content, and falls somewhere between inconsequential (you already play every day) to pure grind (you played the game a lot already and still want to play sometimes so now you have to log in to avoid falling behind).

Apparently ANET plans to complete the laurel system later. But let me ask you… Why does ANET release broken systems with the promise of fixing them later? This game should remain functional and satisfying at all times.

Firegoth.6427:

You all want a skill based method or a scavenger hunt of some sort to get a precursor, but what if I told you it would be just as long, tedious and hard as making 660g?
That you would have to go through same equivalent lengths to get it?

Yes, everyone is asking for an alternative tedious chore so they can get a precursor. They aren’t asking for an enjoyable process because if you had fun getting one then it wouldn’t be special. And getting that one part of a legendary in 100 hours is just unthinkable. Am I right?

Firegoth.6427:

There will always be complains, no matter what – this situation right now is best for everyone.

That is a ridiculous leap in logic.

Lyenyo.2891:

I don’t think Anet really cares about what price they ‘should’ be, because the economy for precursors are entirely player driven.

Why do people keep repeating this? It just isn’t true. Anet has 100% control of the supply, which helps determine the price. They also influence the demand through promotion (why is it exactly that “Equip a legendary” is an achievement posted on login) and lack of alternatives (why are seemingly half of the “rare” exotics just rehashed skins of phantasms and other skills)… not to mention the great idea of selling legendary weapons directly (which increases demand by catering to gold buyers above anything).

Yup, it’s all the players’ doing…

Ursan.7846:

You completely miss the definition of a “luxury” item. It’s not necessary for normal gameplay. If you want to make it a PvE endgame, it is your own choice. No one else is forcing you to do it.

No, you completely miss the fact that the entire argument is flawed. “Luxury” items, as you define them, are an inherent and central offering of the game. If it is poorly balanced, people should be free to say so. This isn’t an “it’s optional” issue because the entire game is optional. All of it. And this is a major part of it. If it is dissatisfying, there is nothing wrong with expressing that fact. If your argument were valid then I could use it to dismiss anything people criticize the game for. “Crafting pointless? Oh well its optional! Ranged weapons useless? Well nobody is forcing you to use them!” That’s completely unproductive response and here it is even combined it with a false sense of moral superiority.

Ursan.7846:

Do you think everyone should get a Legendary?

Strawman argument. Everyone won’t get a legendary if precursor prices are a more reasonable price.

Ursan.7846:

Fortuna.7259:

And by the way, you must not understand the economy of GW2… because skyrocketing precursor prices drive up the prices of ALL decent gear… including stuff that would seem to be not “luxury” by your definition.

You have no idea what you’re talking about. Though I would love an explanation of how that happens.

Mental exercise… you have a lot of cash (10,000 gold) and want to increase it. You wake up tomorrow and discover with certainty that Dusk is steadily selling at 2000 gold, but all other prices have remained the same. What can you do to increase your wealth?

Ursan.7846:

By the way, here are some exotic items. Just a random sample, but all their prices are remarkably steady.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/155

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/25967

So prices of ALL decent gear are going up, eh?

Your argument is flawed because you assume that the inflationary effect must dominate all other market forces or it is absent. To be fair, the effect on an exotic armor whose drop rate exceeds usage will be very minimal unless prices increased dramatically more. Popular exotics that need to be crafted to meet demand are a different matter.

goldi.3129:

Luxury in the means that a legendary (which the mentioned precursor is a requirement for) is only eyecandy and not in anyway necessary to suceed in any part of the content.

By your definition, a huge component of the PVE endgame is centered on acquiring “luxury” items… yet we aren’t supposed to say anything if it is seriously unbalanced and not fun? Uh-huh.

And by the way, you must not understand the economy of GW2… because skyrocketing precursor prices drive up the prices of ALL decent gear… including stuff that would seem to be not “luxury” by your definition.

Illogical.6218:

Every single price increasement is market manipulation according to everyone here

No it isn’t.

Buttercup.5871:

Fortuna.7259:

Iures.2894:

Increasing the droprate is completely unnecessary in this case. Crystalline Dust and Ancient Bones have roughly the same supply rate: ridiculously high. Seriously, go farm events in Cursed Shore; you’ll have so many Dust-dropping mobs running at you it isn’t even funny.

This changed with the new patch. Risen now drop various T6 mats and more bags, apparently at the expense of bone and dust. Which means the supply of bone and dust has dramatically decreased.

The problem is that crystalline dust has a special status among T6 mats because of its prevalent use in the Mystic Forge. So now the Mystic Forge recipes are becoming broken.

Its use in the Mystic Forge is peanuts compared to its use for sharpening stones, oils and tuning crystals. It is the key component of these three consumables. They get sold by the thousands per hour.

I can’t speak for the total volume of dust going into each category because I’m sure some players use a ton of one and none of the other. However, if you can’t afford paying 1-2 more silver for master maintenance oil, you can get quality maintenance oil on the cheap and lose 2% crit chance or something. But many mystic forge recipes are just broken and that’s my point.

wildcode.5403:

I hope this is the right place to ask. I have a character who is up to fractals level 10, but has not got any ascended items from any previous levels. Do I need ascended items to complete level 10 fractals? What level should I do to try to get ascended items?

No you don’t need to worry about ascended gear for level 10 but you will have a slight disadvantage. You need ascended for agony resistance. Agony is only on specific attacks by end bosses and can be dodged. However, Jade Maw has unavoidable agony so having some agony resistance for even-numbered fractals is a good idea starting at 20.

Nanfoodle.2439:

Im a old school MMOer. I enjoy play my char and crawling through dungeons and killing mobs. GW2 community seems to like to run and train from point A to B and not play. Trying to get everything done as quick as possible to get a few tokens. Where is the fun? *****I wish the devs would change mobs so that you cant out run aggro in a dungeon.****** This is becoming a make or break it deal for me. This is not fun, its just turning into a race and people are not playing together doing so. Team work to get a job done needs to be brought back to dungeons.

Why is killing every last mob more fun than say, using stealth, swiftness, and stability to run through packs of mobs? Fighting every last blob in Arah sounds as boring as anything, but running through them should be a team effort to make sure everyone makes it.

Malvagite.3254:

The dungeons in this game are full of horrible designs. ie, …

1 shot deaths (mossman even does this from stealth with zero way to react to his attack)

bosses that carpet bomb football field size areas with red circles (dodge the red circle being the core boss mechanic of guild wars 2)

Defensive stats that basically dont work ( 3000 toughness = just as dead as the base 916 toughness in many, many fights)

many boss fights where melee is sub optimal or flat out impossible, yet your trait points are spent to enhance your greatsword ..

Encounters like the knockback shooting harpies in fractals where your options to fight them totally depend on long cooldown skills that not every class has. the end result being death zerging them down.

thats garbage design.

You enjoy that? great….there are people that enjoy opera and burnt toast as well.

But most people do not.

You are more or less wrong on every point. I can melee most bosses with a mesmer that has all of 200 extra toughness from base (and no vit/healing). I can’t get 1 shot except in high level fractals or MAYBE from some red ring that is easy to dodge (can’t remember that ever happening). If you can’t do it with a 3000 toughness warrior that just means you can’t dodge. Football field of red circles is irrelevant because that just means you learn timing to dodge. Harpy arrows can be avoided with proper movement… and every class has reflects, blocks, or immunities to help.

Iures.2894:

This changed with the new patch. Risen now drop various T6 mats and more bags, apparently at the expense of bone and dust. Which means the supply of bone and dust has dramatically decreased.

The same bags that contain dust and bones, as well as all the more expensive mats?

The bags contain the entire spectrum of mats, which lowers the amount of dust you get by substituting other mats in their place. So lets say instead of 10 crystalline dust you get 2 dust and 8 bags. You open the bags and get maybe 1 dust if lucky. So you now have 3 dust where you were getting 10 before.

Tarang.7562:

Fortuna.7259:

Tarang.7562:

Nike.2631:

goldi.3129:

I will never understand such threads in which people seem to insist that they have the right to certain endgame items for almost nothing.

I can’t say that I’ve EVER seens someone claim they have the right to certain endgame items for almost nothing… except for poorly disguised attempts at strawman arguments by defenders of the status quo.

So, what it boils down to is this: People are whining because they think something is expensive. Tough luck.

No that isn’t what people are complaining about. Precursor prices continue to increase about as fast as some people make money. 200g then 300g then 500g then 700g then… ? Meanwhile, all the cash they are saving is suffering from inflation across the board. So they are just spinning wheels. You show a notable lack of empathy for what is really happening.

I should show empathy towards people that whine about luxury stuff?

The entire game is “luxury”. What are you even talking about?

Sigmatics.7056:

Fortuna.7259:

Iures.2894:

Increasing the droprate is completely unnecessary in this case. Crystalline Dust and Ancient Bones have roughly the same supply rate: ridiculously high. Seriously, go farm events in Cursed Shore; you’ll have so many Dust-dropping mobs running at you it isn’t even funny.

This changed with the new patch. Risen now drop various T6 mats and more bags, apparently at the expense of bone and dust. Which means the supply of bone and dust has dramatically decreased.

The problem is that crystalline dust has a special status among T6 mats because of its prevalent use in the Mystic Forge. So now the Mystic Forge recipes are becoming broken.

Market data suggests otherwise.

What “market data”? Please tell me you aren’t referring to the amount posted on TP.