Guild Wars 2

There’s nothing impressive or clever about disrupting the game/forums with offensive comments and destructive behaviour. It’s really pathetic when people go out of their way to provoke and annoy others, then pat themselves on the back for how annoying they were — as if that were an accomplishment of some kind. Wow, acting like a jerk makes people think you are a jerk and they get mad at you… that’s just amazing!

I’m sorry you feel a false sense of power from acting stupid, but no one is impressed. And yes, I am aware that this thread itself is basically a sad troll attempt. Hope you got what you wanted out of it, though I’m sure it will be locked/deleted soon.

Bad troll is bad.

OP, you sound like a complete clown. I don’t normally like comments like “Go back to WoW,” but I think for once this thread actually suits it. People who are new, or low level, should not be treated poorly or have “dominance” lorded over them by more experienced players.

You are ridiculous, and the fact that you’re even asking what a sign of experience and skill even is, makes you more ridiculous. Every word you say just demonstrates that you are a “newbie” yourself.

Picking the game up at launch, then leaving and coming back years later without a clue about what’s going on or how the game works, does not make you a “pioneer.” What a joke.

I really don’t have it in me to do yet another rant on why mounts are completely antithetical to the core of this game. They’re pointless, redundant, not feasible for jumping puzzles, possibly a competitive balancing issue, a waste of developer time and resources, etc. Mounts seem enjoyable because they are integrated into MMOs that are designed to require them, and would be intolerably boring/slow without them.

All I’ll say for now is you picked basically the worst time to bring this up again, considering the direction Heart of Thorns is taking. ANet is building their new maps with in-depth exploration in mind — in particular the element of verticality, and even hang-gliding to get to new places. A mount that carries you across broad swaths of flat terrain without incident is going to be more obsolete than ever before.

Recently I have been noticing a few instances where I’ll be playing sPvP on my Ranger, and after I die and respawn my pet will still have pre-existing conditions like Poison or Bleeding ticking on them after reviving. I assume these conditions are intended to be wiped upon a respawn.

Sorry I can’t be more specific. To be honest I don’t remember exactly what conditions they were or what other circumstances were going on at the time — but I do distinctly remember seeing DoTs ticking on my pet after I’d respawned back at home, so it had to be Poison, Bleeding, Burning, that kind of thing. Has anyone else noticed this lately, and can provide more details?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They could have used that time to run dungeons or farm instead.

Uh, well I know that gold to gem conversion has its ups and downs, but a quick look at gw2spidy.com is telling me that it takes 18g82s to buy 100 gems.

A Black Lion Key costs 125 gems, so about 23.5 gold. Even taking into account the cost of buying the cooking ingredients, or hoping for a lower gold-to-gem conversion rate, are you saying that there is any situation in the game where you can farm enough gold to buy a Black Lion Key in under 15 minutes?

uhohhotdog.3598:

Relaxing? No. They’re world bosses, they’re supposed to be challenging. If you want to relax go farming.

MrRuin.9740:

Tequatl was hated when it was first revamped into what it is now. I always liked it from the start and had joined TTS at the time to get in on the action. Now it seems to happen on random maps with pugs, now that people know how to do it.

The thing is, whether Tequatl is “challenging” or not has little to do with any individual’s skill level. It is entirely about what time of day it is, how many people happen to pop into your map, and if you got lucky enough to get people who are semi-organized and understand the basic structure of the event. Beyond that, it really doesn’t matter how good a player you are. You either need to be in a large, organized Tequatl-killing guild, or just get lucky with map RNG. Is that “challenge”?

World bosses are, by definition, large-scale encounters. As in, the individual means nothing — the masses rule. There is some degree of coordination required, but in general you are dealing with random members of the public who cannot be depended upon to know the fight or perform efficiently. Sorry, but that is always going to be the reality. I suppose it’s a shame, in some ways, but it would be incredibly infuriating if every world boss were on this level. No one would ever see these events through successfully, except for a couple of hardcore guilds. I know there are a few people out there who are in love with that concept, but it really isn’t the reason anyone makes an MMORPG.

If you want a chance to truly shine and prove your performance as an organized, highly-skilled individual or small group, go for dungeons, fractals, some elements of WvW, or sPvP. That’s where the true skill tests lie. For large guilds, there is off-hours Tequatl or Triple Touble Wurm in the open world as guild-spawned events. Otherwise, I really don’t know why you expect to gather together large swaths of the general population and expect them to come together as highly-trained, in-synch, well-oiled killing machines.

I’m an alt-o-holic, so there’s no way I could play just one class exclusively. I “main” a Ranger and Elementalist pretty much equally, and experiment with other classes on the side.

I do have a Thief and a Guardian at 80, but I feel like I barely understand how to play them. A big part of that is probably thanks to how ArenaNet has handled the leveling experience, with traits being very slowly drip-fed into the late game. I think it really discourages people from getting to know their class in-depth. I shouldn’t be max level and still have no clue about the potential of my class…

I agree. Equipment damage is pointless and ought to be removed. Failure to succeed is its own punishment. If you continually die/wipe, it takes significantly longer to complete content, and thus you are less productive with your time. I mean, consider why there’s no equipment repair required in sPvP.

Having to repair gear does not make the game more challenging. “Challenge” is what happens while you are alive and still fighting, not pointless busywork after you’ve already failed.

You think people who die a lot aren’t “inconvenienced”? Please. By and large, these are people who are still learning the game and trying to figure the mechanics of what’s going on. In a dungeon, 90% of their cognitive process is spent worrying about being kicked. They do not need their weapons and armor degrading into nothingness as affirmation of their inefficacy.

I remember the first time some guildies and I attempted Arah Path 3. We went in blind, just trying to figure it out as we went along. I think the entire run took us 4 hours. FOUR. FREAKING. HOURS. And you’re telling me it’s so darn important that our armor fall apart when we died? We weren’t having a rough enough time already?? It didn’t take us quite long enough as it is? Like, we weren’t taking each failure seriously enough?

Get real, guys. Armor damage doesn’t encourage better playing. It doesn’t make a game harder or better. It doesn’t teach anyone a “life lesson” about how failure is bad. It sure as heck doesn’t improve the LFG experience. It is a relic from the olden days of MMOs, when the main goal of the designers was to stretch every moment of gameplay to make it as agonizingly long and unproductive as humanly possible before people unsubscribed.

In theory, no one should be kicked for watching cutscenes in dungeons. They are put in for a reason, and they are not all that long.

In practice, you might get kicked if you watch the cutscenes, particularly if you have some impatient jerks in your group or if you joined an LFG listing asking for experienced players. The best thing you can do to avoid being kicked is either create your own LFG saying you aren’t skipping cutscenes, or “all welcome” or “fun run” or something to that effect. Also, just be honest up-front with your party that you have never watched the cutscenes and would like to see them.

What I’d like most of all is for Maw to not consistently piledrive my frame rate down to 3 FPS. Granted, my system is not the best, and there are a lot of other players around at once. But I don’t get nearly the same problem with any other world bosses. I can barely follow anything that’s going on with Maw.

I can definitely see why you’d say some of these bosses need more health, especially Fire Elemental (that thing goes down in two seconds, I swear). But at the same time, if you ever happen to get into a world boss event where there aren’t a ton of players, they do last significantly longer. I think taking another look at how these bosses scale according to number of players is the way to go, before making other changes.

It’s not an “either, or” situation. I’m sure ANet does extensive testing on their own, but no MMO ever goes without bugs or oversights. Sometimes there is no way to know how certain features are going to play out before the savage mob of the internet can tear into them. Even if people don’t report bugs directly, there are a lot of statistics that can be gathered simply by running a beta, seeing where people are burning through content due to unforeseen exploits, melting servers, etc.

I don’t think any MMO should have “only in-house testing,” or “only public beta testing.” I think a healthy mix of both is the smart decision.

Lately, I’ve been participating in the Tequatl event a lot more, and it’s caused me to think about why I’m bringing Berserker gear to this boss, and most other world bosses. A lot of world bosses can’t be critically hit at all, which means two thirds of my stats are literally dead weight. Precision means nothing, as the crit chance is a flat 0%. Ferocity means nothing, as without crits there is no damage boost. And in the case of Tequatl, unless I’m dodging everything perfectly I’ll probably wind up on the ground a lot more than I should be.

So I’ve been taking Power, Toughness, and Vitality on the bulk of my gear for such events. Power still works as intended. The Toughness and Vitality just keep me alive more often, while others flounder around on the dirt. And instead of “on crit” sigils on my weapons, I switch over to an alternate piece that has Sigil of Force (flat 5% damage increase), or an on-hit mechanic of some kind. MUCH better results.

Then I thought: “wait a minute, what if I took some modified version of this into a dungeon?” Well, I played around a bit with it, keeping the PVT armor but switching my traits and weapons to adjust for the fact that critical hits are still functional. I queued for CoF1, the typical lazy player’s “fast” dungeon — and there was no real change in efficiency or completion time compared to my old zerker build. Its was basically the same as with a lot of PUGs: a few people screw up and die, but we get through it in 10-15 minutes or so. It’s CoF. It’s no big deal. The stakes are low, and we muscle through it. Except, rather than be the glass cannon guy who winds up on the floor when things get hairy, now I’m the one who survives and completes the room while others are fallen.

I can’t stress this enough: “speed runs” are what organized pre-made groups perform as a cooperative team, with voice communication and coordinated efforts. They all know the workings of the dungeon — and each other’s classes/builds — perfectly. That means they can afford to go “glass cannon” and put out a perfect performance, completing the content in record time, as a kind of sport. LFG is not an appropriate environment for that. I’ve been through the typical “CoF Path 1” run countless times, and I know darn well that a successful, speedy run is more about people surviving and adapting to problems than maximizing their own personal DPS. Even if the failure is not your fault, it’s far better to be able to bear the brunt of the blows as a result and try to power though a tough situation, than to wipe and start screaming at the “noobs” for not dodging at the right moment. You have to make your choices: do you want to yell at strangers on the internet, or do you want to complete the dungeon and get on with your life?

Berserker gear is fine, for situations that are completely optimal and organized, or for low-level no-brainer situations where you’re compeltely comfortable and there is zero risk. Anything beyond that, and you are taking a serious risk. Always keep in mind that many world bosses cannot be critically hit at all, so more often than not Berserkers are more of a liability than a benefit. Plus, doing PvP or WvW as zerk will lead to serious problems unless you really know what you’re doing and are incredibly lucky.

I used to be caught up in the romance of the “zerker meta,” and how expediently it seemed to get things done. Well, that’s fine for farming open-world, non-boss events and killing random easy mobs — but when things get serious, a zerker build will drop you like a ton of bricks, and may not even increase your damage for all the trouble.

CELE: Caithe Enters, Lettuce Exits…

If SAB were intrinsically tied to a specific Living World event that is no longer going on, or were anachronistic in some way, that would be one thing. Like, if you went in there and talked to Scarlet Briar, or if the computer that ran it was powered by Zhaitan, then it wouldn’t make sense for it to exist.

Or, if we were talking about a recurring holiday event that only made sense to appear at certain times of year, that might make sense as well.

But as we all know, SAB is not any such case. It doesn’t contradict any story events. It isn’t tied to any particular holiday or festival. It isn’t time-sensitive. And it’s entirely optional, for those who don’t enjoy it. The deletion of this content is utterly purposeless and unjustified, and to be honest I feel it is a huge blotch on the record of a company like ArenaNet whom otherwise I have great respect for.

Since when does a responsible developer remove game modes for no reason, with no plans to supplement or reinstate it in any way, despite outcry from players? And when you factor in the players who paid good money for the Infinite Continue Coin (with no option of a refund), it transcends distasteful game management and becomes blatantly disrespectful to customers.

ANet, please see reason on this issue. I don’t know what behind-the-scenes politics are going on at your company, or who is on an embittered power trip where they feel the need to make a point by withholding enjoyable content from GW2’s players, but please just swallow your pride and work it out. When Super Adventure Box came out, it made waves. It was a powerful symbol of what GW2 is capable of, how masterful the content designers are, how deeply you understand engaging level design, and how limitless the potential of this game really is. It showed the world that anything can happen in Guild Wars 2.

But, by continuing this farce and keeping such great content to yourselves, you destroy that image completely. As it stands, SAB now only exists as an eternal stain of disgrace on GW2’s record. It’s like you all just took the ball and went home. Do you really think it’s wise to let that image be ANet’s last word on such a beloved piece of GW2 content?

phys.7689:

i think what this shows, is that the overall item system, isnt very intuitive for newbs. This maybe because they now give you a lot more stuff early on.

From the sounds of it, he’s hoarding loot bags because he was told to hang on to them until he can open them on a max-level character. The game doesn’t tell you to do that, nor is it the natural thing a player would ordinarily do. Some endgame player probably told him about it, so he got it into his head that it was incredibly important to do that.

Frankly, I think it’s silly — especially if you don’t even have a max level character yet, and have gotten to the point that you’re raging on the forums about bank space. I mean, just take a step back and consider the big picture here. You’re letting item bags stress you out and stop you from enjoying the game.

Seriously, OP, just open the bags. Either equip what you get, or sell it, or salvage it for materials and magic find so you have a chance at better equipment in the future. Sure, it is more efficient to open bags on an 80 character — but if doing so sours your experience and possibly prevents you from even reaching 80 in the first place, you are wasting your own time.

shifted.4086:

It’s all loot boxes and legendary gear from boxes that I can open without them depending on my level.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means…

What color is this gear you’re talking about? Because you obviously aren’t talking about legendary stuff here…

shifted.4086:

Don’t… demand I drop another $10 to be able to store a tiny fraction of the stuff I get in the first 10 hours of play.

I don’t want to deconstruct legendary gear, and I don’t want to open good boxes on low level characters.

Do you actually have a legendary weapon??

As for the equipment bags/boxes, just open them, dude. You will get A LOT of them. They aren’t intended to be hoarded in your bank forever.

shifted.4086:

you’re just saying I don’t have a right to complain because I can buy more space if I “really” need it.

No one has said you don’t have a right to complain. You DID complain, and no one stopped you. We just think your complaints are petty, and you are fussing over nothing.

Seriously, what is in this bank of yours, that’s so important??

I actually don’t care at all whether the level cap stays were it is, or goes up. Think about it, if Heart of Thorns brought the level cap to 85 or 90, you could just use some Tomes of Knowledge to instantly bump yourself up to max, or train a bit of a new crafting discipline for some quick and dirty experience. In the long run, gaining a few more levels is nothing.

“But what about the gear treadmill!? What happens to all my Level 80 gear I worked so hard for!?”

I dunno, maybe 80 gear levels up with you if it’s exotic or higher tier. Maybe there simply is no gear above 80, even if your character level increases.

“But won’t a Level 90 player be more powerful than a Level 80 player!? Isn’t this the dreaded Vertical Progression!?”

Who says you have to gain more stats past 80? Maybe you don’t get stronger at all, and it just unlocks higher capacity for those Mastery points, or it gets you access to the specializations.

“Oh, so I have to grind XP levels in order to play the new fun content, now!? So it’s all just a big grind-fest after all. Thanks, Obama!!”

Please. First of all, if you have a serious problem with gaining 5 or 10 levels, I don’t know how you ever made it to 80 in the first place.
But second, maybe you don’t even gain levels past 80 through the regular experience bar. Maybe levels get bumped up by accomplishing certain tasks, events, story chapters, or discovering areas on the map. Like, instead of talking to Old Man Charrington to learn how to hang-glide, you talk to him and he boosts you to level 81, which in turn gives you the hang-glide ability. This is all just arguing semantics, and a phobia of higher “levels” is just an irrational fear of simple number on your character menu.

“Levels” don’t necessarily have to mean anything. ArenaNet made the rules, they can break them any time. They decide what a “level” means at any given time, and a promise to never go above Level 80 is neither a good thing nor a bad thing to me. A guarantee of “no vertical progression” is only as good as what they install in its stead. If my Ranger has to grind out 5 million xp in order to unlock Druid at level 90, that doesn’t seem all that fun. But if the alternative is to fight a daily-locked world boss for 5 million Maguuma Jungle Bananas that I need to trade to unlock Druid, that’s even worse.

Now that Season 2 of the Living Story has capped off, Super Adventure Box would be a wonderful feature to bring back while we wait for Heart of Thorns! Not to mention, all the new players who just bought the game during the recent $10 sale will likely get a kick out of it.

Guild Wars 3: Heart of Thorns is a new first-person shooter, exclusively for Xbox One.

• $60 at retail, $15/month subscription fee, cash shop and paid DLC
• Over 30 varieties of pre-order bonus packs, available exclusively at GameStop!
• 20+ hour long tutorial featuring Trahearne telling you how to jump and climb ladders
• 50% of the game is NPC escort missions
• The other 50% is PvP arenas with paid boosters that increase your attack and defense, as well as mandatory voice communications with all players
• Sends non-stop updates and notifications to your Facebook, Twitter, Google +, MSN, MySpace, Friendster, Tinder, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, and whatever else there is
• Every time you run out of ammo, you must pay $2 to reload
• Totally in-your-face rap/dubstep hybrid OST!
• Featuring the voice acting talents of Megan Fox, Adam Sandler, Keanu Reeves, and Eddie Murphy!
• Experience levels not earned, but rather you get a chance to win a “Level Up” code found inside specially-marked cases of Doritos and Mountain Dew.
• Guild Wars 1 and 2 shut down. No, not just lack of updates. Actually taken offline. Because reasons.

Ashen.2907:

What woul.d be offbeat would be revealing the business plan for whatever it is before telling us what it is.

“Hi, there’s this thing coming, not gonna tell you what it is until the day after tomorrow, but its gonna cost $30.”

Cost is irrelevant until you know what you are paying for. Without knowing what it is you cannot determine whether or not a given price ($0 or otherwise) is appropriate for you.

And yet, believe it or not, there are publishers these days that actually announce pre-order bonuses before saying anything else about their new game. So stupid…

JustTrogdor.7892:

Prepare to be disappointed. Jan 24, 2015, watch tears drop all over the forum. I hope there are a lot of mods around for the meltdown.

The big announcement is……. [drumroll] ………Guild Wars 2 is going SUBSCRIPTION-BASED!!

I think the way to make boss battles more interesting has less to do with icons and stat buffs, and more with making bosses more animated and elaborate in their behaviour.

Want ranged damage to play a bigger role? Have the boss teleport or jump around the room a lot, making it a hassle to get maintain melee range sometimes.

Want condition damage to gain importance? Have a boss who puts up a visible force field that regularly shields itself from direct attacks, but continues to take damage from conditions throughout the shield duration.

Want to make players move away from the boss or avoid stacking? Have it cast an electrical field or flaming barrier that heavily damages anyone within range. Or put debuffs on the party which inflicts small-but-stacking AoE damage bursts. Or have the boss leap to the opposite side of the room and hurl projectiles toward the party for a bit.

Bosses should be challenging. They should make you play your class effectively. But more than that, they should be fun. There are too many dungeon bosses in GW2 that seem content to settle for those first two and get lazy on the “fun” part.

Of course, no bosses should require ranged damage, condition-based builds, or any other particular demand. But it would be cool to see more emphasis on rewarding alternate playstyles, so that every build can have their 5 minutes of fame, or a section where they feel “Alright, now is my time to shine!” Maybe if more dungeons come out, you could even have particular ones where players would say “This is the conditions-based dungeon” or “This is the ranged-combat dungeon.” It still wouldn’t be mandatory to succeed, but it would be a speedier way to get through it. Then you’d have different cosmetic gear, sigils, runes, etc., that suit those play styles, as token rewards.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure ArenaNet is all that interested in developing new dungeons at all. Hopefully an upcoming announcement will prove me wrong on that, but for now it seems like further developments instanced content are not forthcoming.

I know this will sound like nit-picking, but I find all the talk about “meta” this and “meta” that to be kind of bizarre. People seem to be using this word to refer to “the best strategy” or “most powerful build,” which is not at all what the word means.

Outside of these forums, when people talk about something that’s “meta,” it involves context, subtext, reading between the lines, breaking the fourth wall, self-awareness or a work that comments on itself or its own medium.

This can certainly apply to video games — for example, in Metal Gear Solid when the colonel instructs you on how to climb ladders using “the action button,” or when Psycho Mantis psychically “moves” your controller, that could be considered a piece of meta-game dialogue.

“Meta” can also refer to game mechanics and gaining a competitive advantage, as well. But it goes beyond just recognizing good trait combinations and taking the game at face-value. Often it involves taking advantage of the interface in some way, thinking ahead and considering how other players will behave, or using technical aspects of the game’s infrastructure to maximize efficiency. It’s behaviour that — while operating inside the bounds of the rules — may be unintended.

In GW2, some simple examples of “meta-game” might be:

• Parking an alt in front of a gathering node or chest, just to grab it on server reset
• Back when “daily revives” was part of the achievement cycle, players would intentionally jump off cliffs and rez each other
• If you want unidentified dyes, don’t buy them with Laurels. Instead, buy Heavy Crafting Bags, sell the materials, then buy the dyes off the trading post
• Rather than spending the silver to port to Lion’s Arch, instead enter the PvP zone or WvW, then take the free gate to LA
• Manipulating the trading post market for profit
• Using overlays or fan sites that tell you when world bosses will spawn
• Using an otherwise-unused alt character as a free “bank”
• Crafting rare greatswords just to sell them, only because so many people want to dump them in the Mystic Forge in hopes of a precursor
• In-game roleplaying
• Logging on for a moment just to grab your daily reward chest, then exiting
• Rapidly burning through Personal Story 1-10 to farm keys

Note that “meta” does not necessarily mean “the best move” or “instant win.” It has less to do with in-game success and more to do with the level on which you’re thinking and interacting. It’s something that happens above or around the game, rather than strictly in it.

Of course this is all subjective, and you’re free to use whatever words you want in your posts. But I cringe whenever I see someone talking about “the current meta” of whatever game mode, when what they really mean is a build that players typically find effective. What it seems to boil down to a lot of the time is just playing smartly, picking traits that harmonize with each other, and using weapons or stats that suit your play style and the content type. That is no more the “meta” of Guild Wars 2 than dressing warmly is the “meta” of winter.

You could say this thread is sort of a “meta” post of this forum. Anyway, thanks for reading. I’m sure most of you will go on as you did before — but I wanted to give my two cents, as we all get to do.

TL;DR: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I agree. Wild, videogamey “novelty” hair styles are cool and all, but don’t always suit the personality/look of the character we may have in mind. Some more variations on “real” styles would be appreciated.

Also, hime cut please!!

If ArenaNet is nerfing Might in all game modes, it’s because they think it’s overpowered in all game modes. They aren’t just responding to PvP with a clumsy blanket-nerf across PvE and WvW as well. They’re aware these modes exist, and believe the change would benefit there as well.

You can disagree that such a change is good for PvE and WvW, of course — but it’s silly to say they’re “changing the whole game in order to address a problem in one part of the game.” They are not doing that, you just disagree with their decision.

A little late to the party, but here’s mine!

I have a crackpot conspiracy theory that Anise and Jennah are the same person, and one is the alter ego of the other. I always found it suspicious that they’re both Mesmers — and especially odd that they would specify that the Queen (a non-combat NPC) would have a profession at all. Whenever both figures need to appear at once, perhaps one of them is an illusion (the “real” one may vary depending on the situation). Is the “true” personality Anise or Jennah? It may be neither, or some combo of both. Whatever the case, I assume Logan must be in on it.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

She “has served in the Shining Blade for many years” and “defended Jennah as her personal guard while Jennah was a young princess.”

Now assuming that Jennah is 20yrs old, that many years of service in Shining Blade is also 20yrs, and she joined the Shining Blades at the age of 20 — she is over 50yrs old.

When did Jennah become queen? If she’s only 20 now, then that is still easily considered young. She could have been “a young princess” as recently as a few years ago.
That feeds back into the theory that Jennah/Anise may be one and the same, actually. It explains how someone so young might make it into the queen’s personal guard, without any special decorations or honors. Then again, I guess a more realistic/mundane explanation would be that Anise is especially well-informed and has many useful connections — which in Divinity’s Reach is more important than some old brute who beats up centaurs.

Torvic.8256:

Lucy Lawless.

Call me xenaphobic, but I never thought the Lawless gear was really up to snuff anyhow.

I see this attitude all the time, and not just in this game. Some people just can’t handle the idea of their favourite MMO suffering points of criticism. Why do we have to think GW2 is perfect, in order to enjoy it? If you really care about this game and it maintaining a standard of quality, you should be first in line to point out areas where it’s slipping up.

For example, I haven’t really been able to get into the direction open-world PvE content has taken this season. Dry Top is a cool zone, but I can’t really dig how it’s all set up around loading my bags with tons of junk, and a perpetual cycle of event-farming. And Silverwastes is about the same, from what I can figure. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have some fun while I’m there, or that stopped enjoying the game, or that I don’t have hope that it will get better.

I would still much rather play a so-called DPS in GW2 than an actual DPS in any traditional “holy trinity” MMO. I do not enjoy waiting over an hour, just to be able to get into the game content. I’m not even exaggerating. I’ve been playing a bit of FFXIV on the side, and DPS queues are often an hour or more. I just abandon after 75 minutes and log off…

There are people I know and trust.

There are people you know and trust.

But if we don’t know or trust each other, then I don’t see how we’re going to find a reliable mediator that we both mutually know and trust.

If only there were some sort of TRADING service in-game, where you could POST your items for gold…

Hannelore.8153:

He is confirmed 100% dead by the developers.

Source?

Regardless, that would be a very weird thing for them to say. Even if Zhaitan is intended to be totally dead and gone, and ANet has no plans to bring him back, what would be the point of releasing any kind of confirmation statement? They don’t need to do that. Let people wonder about it, what is the harm? In the meantime, they have clearly written their story in such a way that they have plenty of outs if they change their mind in the future.

Hannelore.8153:

It is the whole reason the Dragon Bash festival was held exactly one year afterwards. But newer players would not know that because ArenaNet removed those festivals from the game.

All the Dragon Bash festival indicates is that the NPCs of Tyria believe Zhaitan is destroyed. The fact remains, there is no hard proof Zhaitan is finally dead. And for an undead, magical lich-dragon thing who was always kind of “dead,” and whose powers are anything but fully defined, that is kind of a big deal.

arenta.2953:

that makes me believe zhaitan is alive even more.

we SHOT his tail off. of coarse it would be left….the only thing that would confirm it is his head…

Wow, that’s an excellent point! I have always suspected/hoped Zhaitan was still “alive” somehow, trying to recover. The tail they acquired and are storing at the Priory disappointed me, but I forgot that Zhaitan’s tail wouldn’t have even been attached to him anymore. Basically, it may still be the only piece of the remains anyone has yet located.

Never trust a “death” scene where the villain gets knocked into a hazy, dark abyss. It’s too vague. No one really finds a body. It is a common trope used in movies and video games as an excuse to bring a “dead” villain back for a sequel.

And this is the dragon of death we are talking about, here. Can he even be killed? His “body” seems to be cobbled together out of parts of other dead dragons. He uses countless undead minions as his senses and sources of energy. His true essence doesn’t even seem to be tied to any one organism — a physical “body” seems like more of a luxury for him, rather than a biological necessity.

We blasted him directly with those lasers a bajillion times. We tore parts of him off, and he still kept on kicking. Oh, but because he finally let go and fell into the ocean, we assume he’s dead? Sure, a multitude of blasts from heavy artillery weren’t enough to do him in, but a bit of a fall into some salt water are what finally did him in. Uh huh. Sure.

Are we even sure the tail is Zhaitan’s? He had all kinds of other dragon champions flying around up there. Maybe the tail is one of theirs. Or, heck, they’re all ancient, long-dead creatures anyway. Maybe the scavengers found a random tail from a creature that died centuries ago. How would they even know? Do they have Zhaitan’s DNA on file?

And of course everyone in Tyria is talking as if Zhaitan is dead. Because that’s what they believe, and that’s what they hope for. And true, the undead threat has receeded. But this doesn’t necessarily indicate Zhaitan is no more — only that he is weakened, retracted, regathering his strength, or reconsidering his strategy.

The way I look at it, Zhaitan is basically the ultimate evil, and the most powerful dragon. He doesn’t live, so how can he be killed? Anything that dies, he potentially gets. To attack Zhaitan’s body is to attack a symptom, while the root of the problem remains a complete mystery.

What are the other dragons? A plant dragon? A rock dragon? A watery dragon? Pffft, okay. Certainly formidable to mortals, but their domains are not infinite. They can, I assume, be killed. And once we have defeated them, Zhaitan swoops in an snatches up their powers for himself, enslaving the most powerful lieutenants his army has ever had. The guy’s name is practically a sound-alike of “Satan.” This guy is The Big Bad. The Final Boss. At least, I have always thought so.

Danikat.8537:

If you jump off the airship at the end of the Arah story dungeon (and have a revive orb) you actually can see the body.

Yes, although I always considered this sort of a glitch, or at least unintended behaviour. No offense to ArenaNet’s amazing work, but the final battle of the Personal Story has always felt rather lackluster, rushed, and anticlimactic. The mechanics of the fight really felt like an afterthought. I would not be surprised if the coders just hastily tucked away his character model down into the ocean like that, as an easy way to dispose of it, never thinking anyone would find it.

And heck, even if that really is intended, and it’s really his body down there, so what? He could just be temporarily unconscious or incapacitated. Or playing possum. Or abandoned his previous body, slipping away in some other form, for all we know. He’s such a vaguely-defined and nebulous force, I have no doubts he could do that.

Cryolyptic.2738:

I am certain there are a several thousand accounts that have been inactive since the game has started. So why should these dormant accounts have reservation to a particular character name, when they haven’t set foot in Tyria for over 2 years?

Cryolyptic.2738:

Lol, there’s always that one person on the forums who makes baseless assumptions.

move along

The lack of self awareness is real. For all you know, the name you wanted might still be used by an active player.

ANet shouldn’t be taking names away from players, even if they haven’t played in a while. What kind of incentive is that to come back? I’m sorry “Cloud Sephiroth” and “Khaleesi Stark” were taken, but you’ll just have to come up with something else.

I thought the previous Daily Achievements system was perfect, and needed no change whatsoever. They were concrete enough that it encouraged you to participate in content and go out and do things — yet general enough that it didn’t matter where you were or how you wanted to play. I barely ever had to even think about consciously going after the dailies. They just sort of got themselves done, through natural gameplay. And that’s how it should be. It got people logging in regularly, and playing at least a little bit each day. GW2 is a game where a big part of the “endgame” is about setting your own goals and finding your own fun, with myriad different paths to success and rewards.

I guess the consolation is that the “easy to complete, play how you want” aspect of the dailies is now represented by the log-in rewards track. Even the ultra-casual, play-20-minutes-per-day crowd who complained that dailies were too hard to complete, can now have their rewards for logging in and spending their limited time how they please. It levels the playing field a bit that way.

But now the game is holding achievement points for ransom, and offering additional rewards and advantages to those players who are willing to waste time farming monotonous, menial tasks. Cutting down 4 trees in Kryta? Viewing a vista in Ascalon? This isn’t even gameplay, this is just time-wasting busywork.

So, the extreme casual people who have barely any time to play, still get their log-in rewards. And the no-life “I play 8 hours a day” crowd can run around farming your random chores for added profit on a daily basis. But it feels like the middle-of-the-road players, who have some time to play regularly but don’t necessarily want to waste a whole hour completing an 11-20 level Fractal, or play a class they’re not comfortable with in sPvP, are left to the wayside.

I love Guild Wars 2, and I love the ridiculous amount of changes, improvements, and overhauls this game has gone through since launch. But sometimes, I really have to shake my head as ArenaNet makes perfectly enjoyable features demonstrably worse. I think this is one of those times. You have tried to fix something that wasn’t broken.

I would be wary about saying that “all the bad players” are gone. While I’ve noticed my interactions with other players in GW2 are generally more friendly than in other games, I hesitate to make broad generalizations based on my personal experience. There are rude/mean jerks everywhere, in any fanbase. Go to the forums of any other MMO, they are bragging about how their community is the best ever and soooo nice.

That said, I do think that ArenaNet has very cleverly designed this game to encourage and reward teamwork, and to see other players as assets or allies.

• Other players are not your enemies. They will not kill you.
• No one can steal your kills, gathering nodes, or loot. Everyone gets credit for helping to kill a mob, but doesn’t steal the “tag.”
• Anybody can revive anybody else. There’s no reason not to, and you get rewarded for doing it.
• Dynamic events, world bosses, and champions are way better, faster, and easier, the more people are there contributing. Everybody wants to succeed, everybody has the same shared interests. Even if you are “fine” with the numbers you have, you would always like to have more. Somebody is almost always posting a waypoint link to the current world boss event in the Map chat, and links the waypoint to the next one up after it’s beaten.
• There aren’t “factions.” Everybody is on the same side. Even in structured PvP, somebody who is your opponent in one match may be your ally in the next one. I’ve seen it happen, and complimented my “enemies” for their skill. I know trash talk and trolling happens, but I’ve seen just as many positive sporting attitudes, and even apologies for benefiting from 4v5 matches.
• No “holy trinity” means no grief/drama about a tank or healer lording over the group, acting like they have clout in the party or are more important. If somebody abandons your group, you can just get literally anybody else, and it will be fine.
• This is arguably the most “casual” MMORPG going, and attracts a different kind of audience than some other games. Of course, there are aspects of the game that hardcore, highly-skilled players can excel at. But you can have fun, see all the content, and advance very easily and in little time, compared to a traditional MMO. There is no down time. Grind is largely optional. Even if you aren’t the best, your efforts in open-world content and WvW are totally welcome, no matter your skill level.

Even if no single point seems like that big a deal on its own, I think that the combination of all these things working together nurtures an overall positive feeling toward other players, in a way that can be hard to quantify.

The only way I could get behind a DPS counter is if it’s built into a training dummy NPC in a controlled environment, visible only to you. At least then you can test out different builds, gather solid data on what actually produced the highest DPS over time or in a burst, and keep improving on your personal best.

But those who want to be able to display a DPS counter in a party for purposes of comparison, don’t even know what they are asking for. Guild Wars 2’s combat system is heavily dependent on buffs and combo fields, most of which will not even be provided by you personally. If that Ranger blows their Warhorn 5 skill, they give the whole party Might and Fury without doing any direct damage themselves. So the whole party’s damage goes up, but their relative DPS number goes down compared to you. Or maybe they put down a field, or did a finisher, that buffs allies.

Or maybe they had bad luck getting aggro or being targeted by an AoE that they had to dodge out of, while you sit there mindlessly doing your DPS rotation. Or they are going out of their way to target the enemies that will help the most and progress the fight the most directly, while you’re just hitting whatever is in front of you to maintain DPS. Or maybe you keep standing in the fire, and the others are throwing out AoE heals and protection to try to keep you off the floor.

Okay, your Thief did more DPS to a boss than a Guardian. So? What does that even mean? Do you know WHY? Do you know how many Might stacks were YOURS, versus how many were put on you by others? Does the DPS counter factor sort out Vulnerability stacks on a per-player basis?

Aiming for the highest possible personal DPS is not only contrary to teamwork and friendly play, it’s contrary to actual party DPS and completing the dungeon more quickly. And if you have no idea whether to kick someone from the party until the computer spits a number out for you, then maybe it’s not something to get worked up over.

I realize that a lot of the “hard core” dungeon farmers freak out if they see anything other than Berserker gear, afraid that it might add a minute or two to the run. But it’s one thing to have that attitude — it’s quite another to be so delusional that you expect Arena Net should share and promote that attitude.

Rialen.1524:

bunny ears are worse enough. This game isn’t kawaii-wars diddle simulator 2014.

Officer Killjoy, of the Fun Police.

Also, have you even played Kawaii-Wars Diddle Simulator 2014? One of the top games of the year, hands down.

bolam.6294:

Wow, I’m sorry for how many people I’ve offended with my crafting comment XP was nothing personal.. really..

No offense taken, it’s just frustrating to hear someone complain about aspects of this game, which it actually goes to great lengths to improve upon, especially in ways that you would really appreciate if only you had played any other MMO that came before it.

I really don’t know the best way to explain it. Imagine if your city’s fire department was so inept and unresponsive that they only ever put out 10% of fires. So they hire a new fire chief, and under his management strategy they improve performance enough to put out 60% of fires. Then someone comes along the next day, and complains that this new guy “only” gets 60% of fires put out. That’s what your post sounded like, to me.

I don’t blame you for not knowing about what came before. I don’t mean to sound like “it could be worse” is an excuse to ignore any problems in GW2. And I certainly don’t want to give the impression that GW2 is perfect and without flaws. But if you think GW2 is a bad example of grind, achievements, crafting, character customization, etc., let me just advise you right now to never touch another MMO, or you might very well suffer a heart attack. You have no idea how bad it gets. I envy your ignorance on these issues.

Palador.2170:

It’s not that the crafting system here is good, it’s that most of the other ones we’ve dealt with before are bad.

Oh? I think the crafting system in GW2 is quite good. It levels you up, even if your crafting level is far behind your character’s experience level. If you do keep it up, it gives you great gear for your level, of any stat combination you want. It’s incredibly useful and versatile, yet at the same time it’s not required for those who choose to ignore it. I agree that materials like blood/claws/scales/etc. should drop more often, but what is it about the actual crafting system that you think is bad?

bolam.6294:

I’ve never played an MMO before

And it definitely shows. Not your fault, everyone has to start somewhere. But unfortunately for your post, it means you are coming at this game without an experienced perspective of what MMORPGs have been like until now, and you lack a lot of relevant context for your points. If you’d played even one or two other MMOs before GW2, I think a lot of your criticisms would either vanish completely, or be heavily altered.

It sort of sounds like somebody complaining about Netflix’s price and selection of titles, when they are completely oblivious that the previous alternative was to drive down to Blockbuster Video and rent a movie for 6 bucks, or just hope that what was on TV at the time was something not terrible.

For example, I really don’t understand people who complain about GW2’s crafting. It gives you a serious XP boost, and keeps you rolling in excellent gear while leveling. You can put any stats you want into your gear. You don’t have to level a “gathering skill” of any kind, and can insert easily-found jewels/crests/runes/sigils into your gear at any time regardless of crafting proficiency. Salvaging unneeded gear even gives you back materials to put toward your crafting. And odds are, the game must have thrown at least one crafting or gathering booster at you by this point. If you use those even remotely intelligently, it will be a huge help. And while it’s not an ideal solution, you can invest some laurels to purchase those crafting material bags for various tiers. And if you want to switch crafting disciplines, you can do so at any time.

Almost all of these points are completely foreign concepts, in any other MMORPG. And while getting the needed materials can cost time/gold in GW2, it is nowhere near the abyssmal level of grind found in any other game. Unless they’re talking about Ascended or Legendary stuff, I just shake my head in disbelief every time somebody complains about “grind” in this game’s crafting or leveling. But even for those, at least they are account-bound and not really needed for anything.

And as for changing your character’s appearance: sure, most games let you change your hair style/color for “free” with in-game gold. But if the game doesn’t outright charge a monthly subscription, they will often lock many exclusive hair styles behind extra purchases anyway. Or if they don’t, I guarantee they make up for it elsewhere by hiding something else behind a pay wall. And when it comes to changing your face, skin color, or race, I don’t know any games that let you do this for free, and some don’t allow it at all.

ArenaNet will never implement a DPS meter. It implies that skill and party contribution can be reduced to a number, which of course it cannot. It also pushes the idea that DPS is the goal of combat, and is what the gameplay is designed around, which is not the image they want to project for this game.

I believe ANet is also currently not interested in creating new dungeons or content for dungeons, so a DPS meter would be a pointless addition.

Frankly, not all professions are equal in their ability to deal damage — or at least not in a standard way that would chart well to a DPS number. In traditional MMORPGs with the “holy trinity,” DPS was an objective role that had to be filled, so the classes whose job it was to fill that role had to be standardized and on an equal playing field. “Balance” in those games meant balancing damage output. “Balance” in GW2 means a lot of different things, where lesser direct damage per hit may be made up in other subtle ways.

Higher personal DPS comes at the expense of overall party DPS. The skills which grant damage-increasing buffs to you and allies are not always your highest-damaging skills. If you are sticking to your prescribed “rotation” so that Recount spits out a higher number for you at the end, then you may even be lowering the potential damage of your group and indirectly making the dungeon take longer than it had to.
As has already been mentioned, Ranger Warhorn 5 applies Might and Fury to the whole party while doing zero damage. This would quite obviously increase DPS for the group as a whole, but lower your own relative DPS number spat out by Recount. There are also traits that give off passive stat increases to the whole party, which people take at the cost of their own personal solo damage because they are better for group contribution. And then we have combo fields, yet another way that “your” damage might be increased because of what other players are providing for you.
And finally, all the dungeon mechanics where success is not dependent on just standing there dealing damage. You can be randomly going after enemies just for the sake of it, while more experienced players who actually understand the dungeon are going after the relevant targets that will advance the event, or carry an object to where it needs to go, or hit the Fractal titan’s chains with the hammer, or any number of non-damage-oriented tasks. Or, heck, maybe they saw that you were just hacking away at the boss while standing in an AoE or getting hit by attacks, so rather than concentrating on upping their own DPS they opted to toss out some protective buffs/heals your way, and felt like they had to keep one eye on you in case you went down.

Even if you count “heals per second” or “buffs per second,” that means basically nothing. I don’t think anyone really needs to be told that using heals or protective skills at the right moment is a lot better than spamming the skill every time it’s off cooldown.

In essence, you think “How many times can I do this thing per second” is a measure of skill or mastery. It isn’t. That’s like a chef measuring their culinary expertise in “burgers per second.” There is no context to such a number, and more often than not an effort to consciously increase that number results in a drop in competence elsewhere.

Ranger Warhorn 5 grants Might and Fury to the entire party, but doesn’t deal any direct damage itself. So, if a player wants to increase their personal DPS and appear to “pull their weight,” they must never use it — even though it would greatly benefit the party and increase everyone’s overall damage-dealing potential.

GW2 has all kinds of skills like this, with more complicated potential benefits hidden through support and buffs, or combo fields and finishers. Appealing to a raw personal damage meter as a measure of player ability or who is “pulling their weight” is incredibly myopic. You sound like you do not understand this game at all, much less sound like someone anyone would want to play with.

It is none of your business, how much DPS other party members are doing. If you don’t like playing with random people or don’t feel like most people are as “good” as you, find a hardcore guild and party up with them.

Allelya.6830:

Quoting Brother Grimm “running proper builds”

They said we wouldn’t have to worry about cookie cutter builds. That’s all there ever is. It’s this build or you’re bad, get out. Really sick of this mentality and the fact that the game requires it.

The game requires it? Or some random guy requires it in his LFG dungeon speedrun listing?

1) There is an achievement/reward for doing a certain thing.
2) I want the achievement/reward, but don’t want to do the thing.
3) Therefore, give it to me.

It was the same thing during the Queen’s Gauntlet event. If you could defeat all the bosses, you got a mini Liadri and the title “The Blazing Light.” But some people were not able to succeed, so they posted threads demanding that they be given the mini and the title just for trying, and did not seem to care a whit about those who put in the effort and earned it normally. I think their token “compromise” was “Just give those people a different title,” completely oblivious to the fact that they would probably just end up wanting that title as well.

You get the title, star, and gift of exploration for completing all maps, including WvW. I had to do it, and so did all the other people walking around with the gold stars. It’s been like this for 2 years, and although it is not a simple matter, it isn’t supposed to be. It’s also partially an incentive to get people to check back into WvW more than once in their lives.

And, finally: it is not mandatory. You don’t need that gold star, you want it. It is exactly like the title and mini for defeating Liadri in the Queen’s Gauntlet. There’s something you want, but you aren’t willing/able to complete the content to earn it. So? Is this locking you out of a story chapter or new zone? Why is it so important that the bar be lowered for you, when so many others have been earning it the legit way for over 2 years?

Resubian.5823:

You guys can defend it all you want, but I’d like you to open your world map right now. Now, can you show me where on the map WvW is? It isn’t there. So why should it count for map completion if it isn’t even on the map?

So, if a zone isn’t included on a certain “map,” it doesn’t exist? I’m pretty sure the Outlands existed in World of Warcraft, but it wasn’t on the default map of Azeroth. Play a few fantasy MMOs, and I think you’ll find there are all kinds of areas to explore that don’t technically fit on the same plane as the so-called “normal” world.

This is like if Capcom removed Guile from Street Fighter, on the grounds that “our data shows he was not the most popular character.” But some players still enjoyed that character. They invested time and effort learning his moves. Some people bought custom outfits for Guile, which are now useless. And since when has unpopularity ever been a reason to delete characters from the roster?

A year later, people continue to ask “Where the heck is Guile!?” Can’t they just put him back in the game? Can we at least get a refund on his alternate costumes? Why isn’t Capcom saying anything about it other than “We realize people enjoyed this character, but he does not fit into our current plans for Ryu’s new Story Mode.” What does that even have to do with anything!? You don’t have to shoehorn Guile into Ryu’s story. It doesn’t even take time/money to put him back in the game — he already existed! He was done! Sure, Guile fans are always rooting for balance updates and new moves, costumes, etc., but the lack of those on the horizon is no reason to keep him out of play. There are clearly no new kicks for Chun Li on the way. Zangief isn’t getting a new suplex. And yet you aren’t deleting them.

Piogre.2164:

Charge 800 gems in the gem store for a home-version in your home instance to access it year-round, I don’t care. Just bring it back.

Why should Guile be turned into a paid DLC character, for about $10 USD? He was already in the game, for free, not as a paid extra. And still the people who bought alternate costumes for him don’t get a refund? They just have to pay an extra 10 bucks on top, to regain their initial purchase’s functionality.

• “Cat Ears” headwear.

• /meow voiced emote, complete with maneki-neko “lucky cat” hand gesture

• Super Adventure Box made permanent, with occasional new worlds added, as well as a SAB-themed fractal

• Warriors nerfed into oblivion. Rangers become the new meta in every game mode.

• All Legendary weapons permanently deleted from game.

• All loading screens display the message: “No, there will never be mounts or GvG. Not now, not ever.”

• LFG system for dungeons is scrapped, in favour of purely randomized match-ups. No “level 80 berzerker only” nonsense tolerated. Kicking a player out of the group requires 4/5 members to approve, barring a few exceptions.

I assume you mean the ability to change our character’s voice? I would love that, but consider you are asking for basically each gender of every race to be completely re-cast for every line of dialogue, including all the stuff the character says in the Personal Story. I don’t think there is any possibility of this being worth the investment for ArenaNet.

I can’t believe you are still referring to your alternate personae as “characters.” It sounds so stupid and juvenile, and really demonstrates how you don’t take GW2 seriously enough. Spongebob Squarepants is a “character.” It’s very silly indeed to use such a word.

I’ll bet you’re still referring to GW2 as a “game,” as well — a mere child’s amusement! Don’t you know, it is now called a “collaborative virtual world”? Although, I don’t think even that term does it justice, as “virtual” suggests it is somehow inferior to the “real” world. The English language is tragically insufficient to express just how seriously I take all of this!

/s

I am as frustrated by some of the dev decisions as much as anyone, but leave the “manifesto” video out of it. It is over four years old, and was dreamed up long before GW2 even entered its first closed beta.

The game has switched gears and adjusted mechanics constantly since then, and most of those changes have been very positive. Of course I am not defending crap like level-gating weapon skills, deleting bundle items, or otherwise mutilating starting zones and removing all the fun. I’m angry that there is seemingly no work being done on Super Adventure Box, new dungeons, or new skills/weapons/professions. But using some 4+ years old mission statement to “prove” how bad things are is obsessive. You sound like a crazy person, every time you link to the manifesto in so many threads that have nothing to do with it.

Just wondering: will this WvW tournament be using the same reward tokens as last time? I still have some kicking around from the last one, and not sure if I should hold on to them or spend them in case they go obsolete.