Guild Wars 2

This really should be a part of their automatic workflow. Whenever a new area with a new currency is added, a space should be made in the wallet.

Ditto for crafting items into the materials tab (foxfire cluster, I’m looking at you).

“It’ll be ready when it is ready” is purely for public relations.

You can bet the people working on it have given time frames to their supervisors. No successful business uses “It’ll be ready when it is ready” internally.

Sure, it’s not “bake on 350 for 30 minutes” and it’ll be ready, but neither is cooking. There’s still “cake is done when toothpick inserted into center comes out clean”. Any professional, however, has a rough estimate for how long something will take unless they are fresh out of school with no experience.

But PR speak has to be “It’ll be ready when it’s ready” because they are ballparks, and might need adjusting.

If necessary, I’ll throw out a definition for grinding:

Engaging in activities that have little intrinsic reward (fun) for the purpose of gaining extrinsic reward (phat lootz, cosmetic or statistical).

Test.8734:

We just need to let them know that, between Ascended items and slow dungeon rewards and Legendaries and the new level-based unlocks and the new trait system unlock and etc etc, well… Their “no-grind philosophy” has been extremely grindy.

Twenty seven pages in, I thought I’d quote the OP just to remind people what started this long thread.

Along the way, the thread has shifted to “Is GW2 grindy”? The circular arguments indicate this is probably too general of a question. In reading through the thread, a lot of people have attempted to answer it, but end up answering a different question.

For example, “Is GW2 grindy?” Answer, “Other games are way more grindy.” Which really answers “Is GW2 more or less grindy than other games?”

“Is GW2 grindy?” “No, all the grind is optional.” Which really answers “Do I have to grind in GW2 in order not to be locked out of some content”.

“Is GW2 grind?” Answer, “A full set of light Ascended armor takes 10,800 silk!” which really answers “Getting BiS gear is grindy in GW2.”

So I’d like to throw out a more specific comment for reaction.

In GW2, rewards for grinding are vastly superior to rewards for playing the game without grinding.

True, false, or somewhere in between?

Ayrilana.1396:

You cannot have zero grind in an RPG and especially MMO’s. There is absolutely zero probability that developers can create enough content to keep those that dedicate all of their free time to this game. Grind, as well as RNG, is there to prolong the life of the content.

Unfortunately, a lot of the blame comes back on MMO players. No developer, regardless of the size or brilliance of their staff, can keep producing real content for players who want to play a game like it’s a full time job (or even more). The only way to keep them playing is to make them repeat content long after they’ve mastered it in order to get the rewards.

If GW2 was truly a game made for casuals, ArenaNet could signficantly reduce a great deal of the grind in the game and still keep the core audience satisfied. As it is, however, GW2 is being designed to try and keep both casuals and obsessives in game. That means weird kittenizations like Ascended gear, which neither wholly satisfy the obsessives’ need for a treadmill to run nor the casuals’ desire to play now and again and make meaningful progression.

Crowd-pleasing Guardian? Wonder if that means a strong ranged option.

As for Chronomancer mostly being about PvP, it’s a little bit sad for me as a Mesmer player. Mesmers are a hoot in PvP… I wish they had another option that wasn’t so awkward in general PvE.

I’ve been having fun solo. Many matches (with the exception of deathmatch) end up being quite close.

A OK.8276:

I’m making a slyvari reverent just to see how that opening story narrative looks. I bet it will make some of the crazy forum dwellers explode from rage.

Hah! My warrior ended up Asura specifically because there were raging forumites pre-launch expressing disgust that all races could be all professions when Asura are obviously too small to realistically be warriors.

If they do remove the option to make Sylvari characters for a while, that could be kinda bold and cool, but it should happen a little while after HoT release, as part of a living story update. That way Revenant Sylvari would still be possible for a while.

It works that way for Elementalists swapping attunements and Engies swapping kits. Even without the Dev confirmation, it would have been a very safe bet that legend swapping would apply.

The way conversion works, if you buy gems with gold, ANet still gets paid in real cash, because someone had to buy those gems with real cash to sell them on the exchange.

So it’s not a matter of them not getting paid for the expansion.

But can you imagine the price of gems in gold if they do offer the expansion for gems?

My list:

Get the last two professions to 80.
Craft Mawdrey (really for Mawdrey II)
Get my 4 mains completely caught up on the living story.
Get ascended weapons on all 4 mains.
Complete ascended accessories on all characters.
Finish my Ele’s look.
Finish map completion on my Ele.
Stockpile 60 tomes for insta-80 Rev.
Figure out which race I’ll use for Rev and play with the wardrobe to find a target look.
Possibly get some ascended armor under way.

Guild pool party!

I jumped at the idea. I love betas, and have participated in them for several games. As soon as I saw the announcement I made sure to sign up all my family’s accounts.

Then, this morning, I suddenly wondered whether I really want to. It’s not like this is an entire new game, where I won’t really scratch the surface during testing and will have plenty left to explore at launch. What if testing means it’s all old hat by release? And I’ve got plenty I still want to do in the core game in preparation for HoT. Time testing would take away from that.

Hm……

If skill points are any indication, there will be more mastery points than needed.

I wonder, as far a alts go if you can earn a mastery point for doing the same thing on a different character. Can I zone complete three times on three characters for three points, or once I earn that point is it considered complete for my whole account?

If mastery points are pooled for the account, but the activities to get them are per character, that’ll leave plenty of room to do the content you like to unlock masteries as long as you have alts.

Pretend you’re working on something like this. You have an eager customer base, but it will be several months until you can release it.

Do you:

A) Tell your players everything you can about your plans and then go silent until release?
B) Keep all information to yourself so they can stew in silence and be surprised at release?
C) Look at all the information and create a schedule over the time left until your projected release date that will provide a steady stream of info to keep the anticipation going and the product in your player’s attention?

Even if everything was set in stone, and there was no chance that information you give would change, option C makes the most sense.

Chimpanzee
Orangutan
Spider Monkey
Lemur
Giant tree frogs in assorted colours
Python
Anaconda
Toucan
Parrot
Quetzalcoatl inspired flying snake
Giant ant (red and black variations)
Giant termite
Giant tarantula

Diovid.9506:

You seem to be saying that more maps is worth more money and less maps is worth less money. And that might be true for you but it isn’t true for me. It’s everything together, both features and content (in any shape, including story instances) take developer resources and both give or improve player experiences.

Although some of the new features, like the gliding mastery, are limited to new zones. So even those features can be weighed in terms of number of new areas.

Chobiko.9182:

@Gibson. No, no and no. Idk what you play, but last time I played pvp I was ganked by a trap ranger. I have also seen very good power rangers, condi rangers, spirit rangers etc.

It’s possible it’s just my level of play and who I get grouped with. Seems pretty consistently meta, with only the occasional outlier.

I know I leave the game for six months, come back to see what the community is saying about a given profession, and find not a whole lot has changed, and where it has, there seems to be a lot of consensus about where the change has gone.

Of course there are people who play outside the meta, and of course there are other viable builds. I tried to acknowledge that. But the game design and the community don’t seem to lean toward “many equally viable builds”.

Based on the history of both ArenaNet’s development and the community so far, I fully expect that within a short time of HoT release there will be a consensus on each profession that either the specialization or the core profession is inferior to the other and not to be bothered with.

Look at the introduction of new skills and traits, and how quickly they were declared either worthy or useless.

Look at the small number of meta builds for the professions that we have now for each area of the game.

Yes, you can play other things. But I expect it won’t be long before you go to PvP and find that 90% Druids with only the occasional Ranger, or do a fractal and get 90% Rangers and only the occasional Druid. The combination of game design and community doesn’t seem to support a half dozen ways of playing each profession in any given game mode, and I haven’t seen any evidence that it will change.

I doubt Revenant will remain the profession of choice for everyone past the post launch honeymoon period, but fears about specializations eclipsing core classes or being considered useless are supported by the history of the game so far.

For me, a lot depends on the price point. If it’s only going to be a couple of zones, it better not cost as much as the original game, even with the interesting new features.

I could swing $20 for two or three zones with three layers a piece, a new profession, and some specializations. But it better not be $60.

I’ve always been under the impression that the segement of the MMORPG population that really cares about this kind of thing, the roleplayers, tends to ignore the game’s story anyway because you can’t have an entire community of the One Savior of the World.

So I’m surprised that this issue has so much traction.

Also, do we have confirmation that Rytlock is the first Revenant, story-wise?

Also, just to repeat, this game is definitely not so tightly scripted and exacting in its magic/tech systems to not support a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey wave of the hand.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Definitely some insightful comments on player/consumer behavior.

I tend to forget that a lot of players don’t keep tabs on the game nearly as closely as I do.

Thinking about it, though, I’d expect the people who don’t would be more of the population that just buys gems outright with cash. I’d expect players who play enough to amass the kind of gold you need to buy gems for vanity items to be the kind who also keep up on the state of the game, so to speak.

As a fairly casual player 60 gold is a huge amount of money.

Interesting to see the drop off last night after the initial spike, and then gem cost spiking back up again this morning.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Because most people don’t follow it and don’t know how the gold —> gem or gem --> gold system works. They probably don’t care.

You’re probably right, except there are usually people complaining that gems are getting so expensive, so there’s at least a portion who knows they should have bought earlier.

This happens with every new release of remotely interesting new gem store items. There’s been buzz about the wings since last week.

Why don’t people buy gems in advance of the gem store releases and avoid the crazy spike in prices?

Not that I’m complaining, since I’ll time turning some gems into gold with these spikes. I just don’t get why people wait until the last minute then complain when the thing they want is suddenly more expensive in terms of gold.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Back packs are in the trinket section, not the armor section, so they don’t have an armor weight. In addition, they have no seams and no dye channels, like the armors do.

Good point.

But with each item having independent dye channels, why would there be bleed? I can do acid green low key cloth texture boots and magenta leggings with a high key metallic texture, and never have a problem with them interacting. Why would crossing armor classes make that happen?

Yes, Gobble, thanks for identifying several other things that really belong in a materials slot.

Donari.5237:

There are programming structures deep baked into the game that prevent this for armor already made. The different weights don’t play nicely together. It goes beyond clipping. You’ll get texture bleeds, odd undyable patches, and twisted up messes. I’m sure ANet wishes they had done their rigs differently when building the game, but now they’d have to completely redo all the armor to allow what you ask. That’s no small task.

I’m no expert on what goes into these. I’m confident you have more understanding about it. I don’t understand why that would be a case. Each part has dye channels independent of the others, and you can wear different pieces within the same armor class with vastly different textures without issue.

They’ve also released items that are universal that don’t conflict with current items. Does that mean for every universal skin like, say back items like the Fervid Censer, there are actually light, medium, and heavy versions that the game uses to make sure there aren’t these texture and geometry conflicts you allude to?

I expected the clipping issue to come up.

My thoughts:

1)People complain about Charr clipping, but even my very humanoid Sylvari has issues with her thighs clipping through some of the narrower skirts and her hands clipping through the fuller skirts when she drops them to her side. I’m afraid the clipping-free-design ship has sailed long ago. It’s hard to imagine how someone’s spikey death-knight heavy legs clipping through their thiefly trench coat would be any worse.

2) In a game with no collision detection, characters are constantly standing inside each other, inside NPCs, inside pack dolyaks, and even cosmetic bits of environment that don’t have collision geometry. How does anyone who gets upset about clipping even play this game?

3)Finding your look for your character involves finding pieces that look good together. Similarly, it can be about finding pieces that play well together in terms of geometry. Don’t use combinations that don’t.

Waiting to see if today is the day we get access to them. And whether there will be a gem/gold cost spike because of it.

I know this has been brought up before, but as far as I can search out, the thread is now located in the archived “crafting” subforum.

I’d just like to add my voice requesting a materials slot for foxfire clusters.

Yes, I’m a bit late to the party. Just now working on my Mawdrey. But judging by the 24/7 Cypress farming in Malchor’s Leap, I’m not the only one. I’m hoping this is a simple enough fix that if it gets on ArenaNet’s radar they can make it happen. It would be a small, but appreciated QoL change.

Even for those who long ago completed their Mawdrey, since this is a permanent part of the wood chopping table, I expect we’ll have further use for them down the road.

Yes please. Bank space is not that big of a problem, until you start building a collection of unique, long term rewards and trophies. Infinite use tonics are space hogs, as well as unique story rewards like Marjory’s journal, the Sanctum model, and toys like the kite or balloon.

I like these flavor items as much, if not more than receiving a cool weapon skin as a drop precisely because they feel so unique, and separate from the “kill lots of things” that comprises most game play. They add character to our character’s possessions, but because that’s all they do, it’s a struggle to keep them eating up bank space where more “useful” items might go.

I would greatly appreciate an Endless Tonics collection. And if they do it like they’ve done the wardrobe/finishers/minis, we’d also be able to see the ones we don’t have yet, which would entice players to hunt them down.

MadVisions.4529:

If you want to have balanced matches …..

Take a look at the leaderboard. 6 ppl in the top 15(even #1) got <=50% win rate. how is that even posible ?!?!

How does the win rate reflect on the player’s ability? Isn’t % win rate a function of whether the matchmaking system is functioning well or not?

If the top ten players in the game are at the skill ceiling, they would have a roughly 50% win rating because they’d be playing equally skilled players.

Just like a complete newbie lumped in with a bunch of others would have a 50% win rating.

I suppose you could have someone with a crazy high win % up at the top if they were so much more skilled than any other player that they didn’t really have piers. But I keep hearing how this game has fairly shallow mechanics with a comparatively low skill ceiling. If that’s the case, then you would expect a large number of players to reach that skill ceiling, and settle into something very close to a 50%/50% win/loss.

Quaggan like flying.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Here’s the male version previewed without a helm.

Nice, thanks!

I thought previews didn’t reflect hidden slots.

Much appreciated.

I was pretty disappointed by what we’ve seen so far as well. It does seem like the traitlines, weapons, and legends are too closely tied to make for much diversity. It’s too bad they can’t be a little more modular.

Then again, we haven’t seen it all fleshed out yet, so who knows how it’s actually going to play out. I remember when we first got to see the Ele and it looked like it was designed to heavily invest in one attunement and end up camped out there. But look at the standard D/D setup, where you heavily invest in water but actually spend a lot of time between fire and earth, setting up fields and blasting them.

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I had no idea you could hide helmets on outfits. Anyone got an image of the male Lich outfit with helmet hid? Googled for it, but didn’t come up with any.

When I first saw it, I thought parts of it would make a great Satyr themed outfit with some dye changes, the was very disappointed to learn it was an outfit, and not a real armor skin.

-Getting as many characters to 80 as quickly as possible makes some things much more possible. For example, foxfire clusters are agonizing on a single character, but five level 80s parked near a grove make getting them manageable.

-Unranked PvP is actually more friendly than Practice Arena for newer PvPers, as the matchmaking system is pretty good at low ranks and you end up getting steamrolled less. (I played Practice Arena far too long for less reward because I was nervous about being a noob).

-Stay caught up with the story. It’s much more pleasant to do the updates while they are fresh and more populated rather than trying to get caught up on old story once the majority of players have moved on to the new thing.

-ANet does indeed follow the pattern of making things more accessible down the road. If requirements to craft something or accumulate enough special currency seem ridiculously onerous, in time ANet will likely open up more avenues to those rewards.

-When the Devs say “nothing is off the table” they really mean it. Don’t get married to anything about the game, because whole design philosophies may be replaced. The upside is that if you don’t like a change, with enough time it may come full circle.

I understand the idea of creating easy to identify silhouettes for the various armor types. It’s a common design principle that you should be able to distinguish light or heavy armor at a glance.

At this point, however, outfits have completely undermined that principle. A Guardian can run around looking like a lich, a Warrior can go to battle as a chef, and Thief can wear full plate.

So I’d like to suggest going the rest of the way and completely decoupling armor appearance from armor class. Please let us transmute any look onto any other piece of armor of the same slot, regardless of profession.

Thanks.

Love the look of the helmet on the Asura. I’d buy it, and wear it on an Asura Revenant, if it was actual armor. As an outfit, I’ll pass.

Also, obligatory butt-cape. :P

As cool as the game is, part of what’s so interesting about this thread is seeing how different locations can look with different computers/settings.

Elrey.5472:

My advice for Vistas, Gaile: Just try it like if nothing in the world matters.

There’s a lot of truth to this. Anxiety about the jumping puzzle is a huge part of the difficulty of it. It’s amazing how much easier they are if you can stay relaxed while doing them.

Looked in this thread, expecting it to be about face sliders and anime fans.

My request for an invite seems to have gotten missed. I’d love to join the NA guild, please.

Probably after something else significant gets release about HoT. For the moment, the Rev discussion is one of the major things keeping the HoT forum active.

Once they reveal Guild housing or specializations or whatever, that’ll be enough to fill the HoT forum, and Rev can be sidelined off to its own.

It sure would help me to decide whether to allocate resources toward finishing up characters or stockpiling for insta-fully-geared-lvl80 Revenant.

So torn….

I would expect the professions attraction to uber-tragic emo types would be more frustrating than godmode players.

While I don’t expect to be able to achieve everything a big guild can, I do hope basic access to guild halls is within reasonable reach of tiny (five person) guilds.

Won’t the fact that nobody knows how to play Revenant yet be balanced by the fact that events will be mobbed by a ridiculously big, launch-day zerg?

KyreneZA.8617:

Colin Son-of-Johan only confirmed that they are looking at it, nothing else…

Read closer:

Colin Johanson

…we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/78#post4733414