Guild Wars 2

Just to summarize the last 3 years of this topic.

Against:

1. Waypoints.
2. Screen clutter.
3. Bad animations.
4. Balance around speed buffs.
5. Mount trolling.
6. Trivializing content by skipping
7. the Lore!11!!!1
8. I don’t like them.

For:
1. Whatever
2. Maybe you could turn them off?
3. See #2, besides ArenaNet does pretty good animations.
4. OOC speedbuffs shouldn’t be a balance issue, or don’t give mounts a speedbuff.
5. Lock them out of cities and vendor areas
6. See Waypoints.
7. List of examples where horseriding is referenced in both GW1 and GW2
8. I do.

Did I miss anything?

In before dead horse gif.

RNG is your friend. Any suggestion to the contrary is treason.

My order guess:

1. Chronomancer (Will be renamed “Time Changer” soon)
2. Dragon Hunter
3. Stealth Rifle
4. Death Hacker
5. OP Guy
6. Nature Caster (“Druid” was working title)
7. Weather Wizard (“Tempest” a little too punchy)
8. Rivet Hammerer
9. Glint Channeler

I heard if you put four closed beta portals into the Mystic Forge you have a 1 in 828 million chance of it giving you a gadget that displays the exact launch date of Heart of Thorns.

You can also buy one on the BLTP for 8282015 gems.

Time is all about perception. Very fitting for an illusionist to mess with it.

I like “Time Changer” as a better parallel to “Dragon Hunter”.

RabbitUp.8294:

I know immersion can be important, but honestly, if I saw that Norn walking past me, I would crack a smile. It’s a game, people want to have fun, I would only hope he was using the Princess Wand to compliment that outfit

I agree. While I find GW2 unusually immersive for a MMORPG due to the beautiful world and the way dynamic events work, it’s definitely not trying for serious lore, continuity, or deep immersion.

Also, I was kinda disappointed to discover that the OP was not authored by the same person that wants realistic melee staves.

felipelana.1963:

It’s impossible to “break” the dawn. Please explain me your name.

/thread

Felipelana wins.

Dante.1763:

Can i take the guy in the fourth picture home?

That’s what his outfit seems designed for.

Just to clarify, I’m not judging anything in any of those pictures for worthiness, just for ridiculousness in combat situations.

I suppose I should remove the Norn. He could be carefully calculating his look to inspire awe and terror.

;-)

RabbitUp.8294:

What’s ridiculous about the 3rd picture? That’s a manly man. Did you not see the beard?

The scowl. It’s clear that someone with such a manly beard and dreads, that adonis physique, and impeccable fashion sense, would be deliriously happy.

VodCom.6924:

The only thing you will accomplish by using the actual staves as melee weapons is make GW2 look ridiculous. Which is something none of us want.

Inimicus.7162:

I am reposting this from a reply of mine in a different thread to plead with Anet NOT to add melee staves into Guild Wars 2. Ever.

The staves we have right now are basically decorative 2 handed foci/scepters and are simply not designed realistically to be used in melee combat.

This is where I pretty much lost any ability to take your request seriously.

Have you seen the weapons in this game? Where did you get the idea that realism was anywhere on the list of design goals ArenaNet has for weaponry?

So much humor win in this thread.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

BrooksP.4318:

Karisho.3058:

I’m fine with fractals, but I was talking about the dungeons.

Fractals is what you are describing, and dungeons already have skins associated with each one. Granted the skins aren’t exclusive anymore due to PVP tracks, but still probably quicker.

Which reminds me and scares me at the same time: How much left until Anet implements a Fractal PvP Reward Track with a free skin at the end?

That would be beyond lame.

Yes, please! I could finally finish Mawdrey without doing Fractals.

I know, I know. Not that hard to get the relics doing fractal daily and all that. Just haven’t got around to it yet, and if I could avoid it by doing some PvP, all the better. Not to mention another option for ascended jewelry.

Okay, got my asbestos undies on. Feel free to flame away.

I like Sentinel as well.

Dragonbane isn’t bad if they are married to the dragon specific concept. It’s at least more dynamic than Dragonhunter.

I think the problem, for me, comes down to lack of punch. “Dragon” and “Hunter” are very common words, and lack specificity.

Imagine if you had called the Mesmer elite, “Time Wizard” instead of “Chronomancer”. Feel the difference?

Or why not Dragon Slayer?

Dragon’s Bane
Wyrm Hunter
Wyrm Slayer

Dragonquisitor

There’s also the fact that they plan on adding more elite specializations in the future. So eventually we’ll be making a choice between mutually exclusive ones.

That is, if we get to that point without ArenaNet scrapping specializations altogether in favor of some new trait/skill system.

“Welcome, friends. I’m Karl McLain, and today we’ll be talking about the guardian’s new elite specialization: the dragonhunter—a ferocious big-game hunter that specializes in ranged combat and back-line support.”

ArenaNet, I’d like to request a pith helmet as our reward track armor skin.

Thanks.

Andred.1087:

Primeval Legplates?

Still looks like it has a miniskirt. Or is that attached to the chest piece?

Thanks for the suggestion.

*More armor of all weights that expose the arms and back, where the bioluminescence is on Sylvari. So much of the “skimpy” armor in the game exposes the stomach (where there is no BL) yet has long sleeves and a partially or (often) fully covered back.

*More leggings or chest pieces (depending on armor weight) with no butt-capes.

Try jumping up on some of the tiny fenceposts, plinths, or other random objects around the world. You’ll find some pretty funny looks as your character does that stance on objects that are far too narrow for it.

So far, in my quest for male pants, I’ve acquired them for light and medium armor. Ascalon Performer Pants for light (because butt-capes come with leg armor on light), and Glorious Brigandine for medium (because the butt-capes are attached to the chest for medium).

I can’t, however, seem to find a heavy male legging that doesn’t have a skirt, mini-skirt, breechcloth, peplum or other form of butt-cape.

Since pants are such a rarity, I wanted to make sure I’m not missing something as I look through armor previews and galleries. Is there an elusive Heavy Male Legging that doesn’t have curtains of any sort?

Verticality is why I’ve got my Mesmer slated for my first character to go into HoT. Don’t worry. The Order of Socially Responsible Illusionists will be there for our jumping-challenged compatriots.

Portal in 30 seconds…. 20…. 10…

They want us to make hard choices, rather than just picking out the best traits. That’s why they’re simplifying the system to make a lot of things mutually exclusive.

phys.7689:

so you have no problem with the idea that you will likely have to do 100+ skill challenges per charachter to unlock the elite spec?

I keep seeing this, but haven’t seen anything official indicating it.

Is it simply because 189-165= 124 and we’re assuming that the elite will cost all or most of the remaining HP beyond the core unlock?

I still have one leftover transmutation stone in my bank for sentimental value.

Some day, ArenaNet will make a trophy display in our home instance, and I’ll put it next to the Sanctum Model, Marjory’s Journal, and Ellen Kiel Support Button.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

This is one of the reasons I didn’t craft ascended armor. One patch can put all that in the trash.

Yes. I just recently made the leap to 500 for tailor, but regretted it soon after. Since ArenaNet can tear up the foundation at any time so they can lay a new one to build on, it doesn’t make sense to spend all of that time and money on armor that gives such a small bonus.

Most of my characters are in Ascended jewelry, and I’ll think I’ll stop once I get done outfitting them in Ascended weapons. After that, it’s just not worth it. I’d rather spend money and time on cosmetics. At least those can be reapplied whenever ArenaNet decides to reinvent the wheel once again.

[quote=5038780;joe.7684: ]I don’t understand why legendaries can be traded on the TP but not ascended.[/quote]

Because they introduced Ascended gear after they realized how big of a mistake it was to make Legendaries tradable.

Argon.1563:

On the topic of “Why is there no homophobia in Tyria”, I think the denizens of Tyria are a lot less wimpy than the people in the real-world. Considering they’re facing a potential apocalypse via Elder Dragon, I don’t think they really care about what gender their friend is into. They have bigger things to worry about, whereas people in the real world, have too much time on their hands, to formulate ways to be nasty to eachother. and take into account the vast majority of characters we meet in the GW2 storyline are soldiers in one form or another, and generally soldiers are more focused on reaching their goal (in this case, killing the Elder Dragons), rather than being focused on who they’re achieving that goal alongside.

I can see how you are coming to this conclusion, but it doesn’t really hold up with history.

Liberal sexual mores tend to show up in highly developed cultures that have established a measure of security. People tend toward more conservative mores in times of real crisis.

You could probably chalk that up to evolutionary impulses. Propagation of the species becomes more crucial during threat. And yes, in the current day and age homosexual couples have ways of producing offspring, but things like surrogacy and artificial insemination are luxury methods that aren’t going to be as likely in a time of crisis.

Bringing it all back to the game, though, we have the problem of some inconsistency in the game. Parts of the world seem to be under imminent threat from the dragons, but other parts of it don’t seem to be all that threatened. As much as they talk about the Centaur threat and the terrible dragons, Divinity’s reach and human culture as a whole don’t seem to be in a siege environment. Outside of the Maguuma Wastes and Orr, human society reads more as a fading empire that hasn’t yet encountered its final threat.

In which case, liberal sexual mores wouldn’t be surprising.

Rin.1046:

Until Anet clarifies this point, however, we simply cannot know how it will play out. We just need to wait for more information before getting annoyed. I think we are all worrying needlessly.

Or we need to make it very clear to ArenaNet that resetting progress undermines the player-developer trust, in hopes they will make the wise decision and avoid it.

The “It’s not the right time to complain” cycle.

Muusic.2967:

You’re going to be starting a new profession so to speak so don’t be lazy and want to have it all on day one or you’re going to get left in the dust.

Is anyone asking to have their Revenant fully unlocked on day one?

Is anyone asking to have the new elite specializations unlocked on day one?

Not that I’ve seen. I see two things people are concerned about. 1) We don’t want our current characters set back on day one. 2) WvWers would like ArenaNet to hold to the concept they originally pitched that you could completely progress a character without ever leaving WvW.

I don’t see any examples of lazy here. Except, perhaps, for lazy thinkers who can throw “embrace change and be happy!” out like it’s a meaningful argument.

If you actually think about it there’s a lot of easy skill points that are going to become something else and those of us who are getting as many as possible before the xpac hits are either going to have a reserve of augur, philos etc. or are going to have a ton of MF conversion.

Woohoo for you?

A lot of us are going to be sitting on piles of whatever converted mat. But it looks like some will still have fully unlocked core traits and skills, and others will be set back.

I’m not sure what the mat conversion has to do with that.

phys.7689:

However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.

It’s the difference between 3 hours of effort going for a goal you haven’t reached yet and being required to put in 3 hours of effort to earn something you’ve already earned. And multiply that by the number of characters that need to do it.

like your interior decorating analogy, if you really want a pretty house, you are going to have to put forth some effort into making it pretty, thats not really a crazy concept

Except, in this case we already have the pretty house. But the guy who sold us the wallpaper is planning on coming in and stripping about 20% of it off the walls so we have to put it up again. That is a crazy concept.

Ceridwen.6703:

The individual shows a suitably low enough waistline and the difference between a random try-hard window and a window for a reason (which has nothing to do with being functional armour in the slightest!).

Yes, the Castanic looks like he put a coat on without a shirt underneath.

The Daydreamer’s looks like “if we just cut away a piece here, it’ll give all those people who want skimpy male armor a thrill”.

Someone at ArenaNet has really odd ideas about what looks good in a “revealing” design. What’s the deal with bare stomach and all of these fully covered backs and long, flaring sleeves? It makes the bare stomach look like a mistake, rather than a design that just has low coverage.

And of course, there’s always the odd, asymetric underboob of the medium human cultural armor.

Instead of a character creation, makeover kit item, they could do your suggestions as armor skins. That way they are designed to be revealed appropriately while still wearing an armor piece.

Perhaps your Chronomancer idea could be the clock tattoo across the back, with some time-themed arm bands. The female version could include a chest piece that has straps across the back to reveal the tattoo.

They already have a couple of skins that work this way. Male Feathered Vestments have those odd, glued-on looking pieces, and the Tribal armor (why isn’t it in game ArenaNet?) has tattoos.

It would be really nice if this would get fixed. Been watching the patcher drop down to 0kb/sec, then start back up again later, then drop down again for a while now. Seems like this happens every couple patches or so.

Derenek.8931:

Most of these posts sound like “I got a level 80 guy, so I shouldn’t have to play anymore to unlock all the cool stuff from the expansion!”

I haven’t seen anyone asking for enough Hero Points to unlock the new elite specializations from the expansion. We just don’t want to lose access to core game stuff we already have because there’s a shiny new way to earn them.

but seriously if you never did any skill challenges and stopped playing once you hit lvl 80, your toon wouldn’t have all the core skills, elite skills, and traits unlocked anyway. So why should a character who didn’t have enough skill points to even be maxed out in the first place suddenly get enough points to get all the expansion skills as well?

Because people who have leveled in ways other than open world exploration were given skill point scrolls they used to unlock skills. If our characters were created before the new trait system, they unlocked traits by purchasing trait manuals from their profession trainer. If they were created after, they either went and did things like specific events to unlock them or paid more skill points and gold to unlock them.

It’s very possible to have characters who are max unlocked in the current system, without having done a single skill challenge.

And to repeat, I haven’t seen anyone expecting to be given enough Hero Points to unlock expansion content.

Just buy the expansion and play it. You’ll get to unlock all the traits at the same rate as everyone else who plays, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

That’s not true.

About half my characters have enough skill challenges done that when the system changes they will still have access to all core skills and traits. On day one of HoT launch they will be ready to start getting Hero Points toward elite specializations.

On the other half, however, I will need to go back and re-earn some of the trait unlocks and skill unlocks they already have.

That’s why people are unhappy.

It’s not a matter of wanting the new content for free. We just don’t want the old content we already earned taken away.

tboneking.2531:

They’re rats and they must be exterminated like rats. My biggest motivation for wanting faction/race wars in this game is so that the Iron Legion and I can mow down your smug little faces and end your egocentric blabbing, and rest a new Black Citadel on the ashes of Rata Sum! (I dont like asura)

That’d be a huge step backwards. Rata Sum has a nice, logical layout with crafting stations radiating around the bank and TP. The Black Citadel is a confusing mess of a ground plan. Kinda odd given their Roman inspiration and how methodically Roman military camps were laid out.

The recent camera changes are awesome.

CrimsonDX.4821:

Gibson.4036:

CrimsonDX.4821:

Your example is real world theft. This is just a game. example is invalid.

Ah, good point. So if my character could access your bank and pull stuff out of it, that would be all right. Why don’t we pretend?

You send me a couple dozen ecto. You can just suck it up and go farm and salvage some more rares.

Why does this in any way relate to the topic at hand?

You dismissed people complaining about having to go back and earn things they already earned. You said people should just suck it up.

I was curious how committed you are to the attitude that because it’s a videogame, if something we earned is taken away, we should just suck it up and go back out and earn it again.

I eagerly await your mail with two dozen ecto.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I’m not cranky that future characters will have to unlock skill challenges for hero points. So be it. I’m cranky that my existing, geared and traited and read-to-use characters are downgraded by the upgrade. I spent time and energy getting them to where they are now, and I don’t want to spend the same time and effort on the same characters again, doing menial tasks for weeks, to regain their usefulness.

That’s the crux, right there. Saying 65 challenges isn’t that much misses the point. Judging how many alts is excessive is also off the mark.

It really comes down to whether ArenaNet wants to communicate to their player base that progress can be reset whenever they decide to change things up. Do they really want to make us second-guess playing because any effort we put in might removed at some later date?

Just, please, no pelvic thrusts. I remember the first time I arrived in LA in GW1.

shudder

I have 8 characters, one of each profession (really 9, but that one’s just filling a slot that will go to my Rev, if I end up buying HoT). I use all of them on a regular basis, so I don’t consider any of them “alts”. I also do several different areas of the game, so I’ll need access to more than three trait lines and one or two skill types so I can adapt to suit what I’m doing.

About half of them have over 100 skill challenges done. Two are within spitting distance of 65. The other two have single digits.

It took me about 30 minutes to run 10 skill challenges the other day on one of the 50 challenge characters.

With roughly 150 skill challenges left to get all my characters unlocked, that looks like about 7 hours of work just to get back to what I already earned. And I do a lot of running around the open world.

It’s terrible for those who are more focused on WvW.

phys.7689:

they are seperating out the class progression, from the post 80 grind part of skill points, which makes sense

It does make sense, and could have been implemented in such a way to adjust it going foward, without rolling back characters of what they’ve already earned.

They could have introduced elite specializations with hero point and hero challenges in the HoT zones, and left core specializations to be unlocked with skill points from all sources.

At this point, it looks like, “Oops, we threw out way too many skill points, our mistake. But the players are the ones who get to pay for it.”

Seera.5916:

And they won’t give you one.

They won’t tell you no because you may get mad and not buy HoT.

They won’t tell you yes because then they then have to guard against players reading forums and seeing that X will given out to players who unlocked traits.

Yes, this is pretty clear.

Historically, it appears they count on the forum readers to be a small part of the population, and hope that the majority of the players who might be upset by a change will shrug it off because they don’t find out about it until it’s in game and the train moving forward.

It all comes down to one thing: Does Arenanet really want to communicate to their players that they may, at any time, undo character progress?

I don’t think they want players second guessing whether they want to spend time on their characters because at any point the developers might find some shiny new system they want to work into the game. Instilling that kind of doubt is not good for the game’s longevity.

Time gates keep you playing after you’ve exhausted the content.

Once you no longer receive intrinsic reward from playing, the goal is to keep you in game waiting for extrinsic rewards.

TL;DR: The grindy feeling comes from ArenaNet changing their philosophy from “Play how you want” to “We want to make rewards draw people into all parts of the game”.

I define “grind” as “repeatedly doing content for the extrinsic reward with little intrinsic reward”. Extrinsic reward is something you are given for doing an activity. Intrinsic reward is the enjoyment you get from doing the activity itself.

One place that GW2 does not feel grindy, where they got “Play how you want” right, is in leveling. The game gives me experience points no matter what I do. I can do zone exploration and level, WvW, EotM, Dungeons, Personal Story, or even sit around crafting in order to level my character. I don’t have to focus on the extrinsic reward of XP at all. I just go out and play the game how I want, and the levels roll in.

At endgame, however, the philosophy shifts. It is clear that ArenaNet is structuring rewards to try and guide people into playing all parts of the game. That means if I want a reward, unless I enjoy every part of the game, I’m guaranteed to be lead into an area that will feel “grindy”. I’m there, in spite of the fact I don’t enjoy it, because of the shiny at the end.

Theoretically, the fact that so many things can also be achieved, or at least shortcut with gold, should alleviate this problem. Don’t like a particular part of the game? Get gold and buy it from people who do.

Unfortunately, in order to maintain a stable, open economy, ArenaNet has to keep a tight rein on gold. That means there is wide disparity in how much gold various activities generate for the same amount of effort. This is put into sharp relief by the effect of any open market system, which is going to pay the best return not to people who labor, but to those who trade on the market.

So gold, which should be the work around that lets you play the game how you want, and trade with other players who are playing how they want, actually makes it feel more grindy because it draws people into doing the content that has the greatest gold return, rather than what they enjoy.