Guild Wars 2

I want to tell my experience with GW2.
I was extremely excited about this game for all 2011. To know more about this game and franchise i bought GW1, logged in and said “what the hell? i dont know what to do, it is so confusing, my pvp characters do not even have skills!” and left.But i was still waiting for GW2 and when it released, i was extremely happy.
But now, i almost do not play GW2.
If i want to play PvE i play GW1, because
a)In GW2 combat is pewpewpew spam weapon skills, spam attacking utilites, dodge, repeat, GW1 is more exciting to me.(I have 20 lvl assassin now, and soon will get to echovald (; )
b)In GW1 i have goal to thrive for(find skills, gear, prepare for pvp), in GW2 i do not.
If i want to play PvP i play dota, because
a)it is much more fun, and has 100+ classes (and ultimately 100+ different playstyles) instead of 2 playstyles: dps/tank as GW2 has right now.
(It is almost funny, that 1 man-team during 10 years created a free game, that has 448 skills and a game that was promised to have “a lot of builds” created by 300-man studio in 5 years has 492.)
b)because GW2 combat is pewpewpew.
I hope that soon i will play a bit of GW1 pvp and form my opinion about it.

Vayne.8563:

The big thing Guild Wars 1 players miss from Guild Wars was the skill system. It wasn’t called build wars for no reason. Half the time your success or failure was decided before you left an outpost based on the skills that you took with you.

What Guild Wars 1 players often refuse to acknowledge is that very strength in the game was also it’s biggest weaknesss. It was literally impossible to balance. Sure it was okay in Prophecies. Once you introduced a new profession (sin/rit in Factions), it was over. No balance from that point on was even popular.

People say Guild Wars 2 PvE is imbalanced. They’ve obviously never encountered permasins and spirit spammers.

Isnt it obvious that “balance” is the exact opposite of “fun”?
Look at dota2, almost every hero is freaking overpowered, but it is still fun to play, and it is still e-sport.
GW should be the same, every skill should be overpowered and imbalanced and there should be a lot of them, but because you can take only fixed amount of skills this problem fixes itself, because while you take 10 overpowered skills, you do not take 200 also overpowered skills.

Or you can make skills drain endurance by default.
To give players choice what skills to use instead of pewpewpew…

I think that the right solution is to add possibility to customize weapon skills just like utilities.You have to choose 1 auto attack(just like healing skill) and 4 weapon skills with maybe 1 elite weapon skill(how it should be with utilities/elites).
Nobody would complain after that that certain skills are useless.Because you have chosen them yourself.

Absolutely agree.
Dodge is not a game defining feature by itself, choices that are based on this feature are.Now this choice is SPAMSPAMSPAM.
Dodging must be a choice, player has to sacrifice something significant for an attempt to save himself from damage.
For example if some weapon skills get endurance cost, then dodge spammers will be outdamaged, outcontrolled and outconditioned by more careful players…
Oh, what a dream…

So instead of fixing ai, game trinity and flawed combat lets just quadriple condition damage.
Well, i disagree.Bet that a.net disagrees too.

Well, you are WRONG.
It is a direct buff to conditions.
While 20 sec condition dealing 1k damage per second is tolerable, 6 sec condition dealing 3k damage is not. It is not tolerable just as 1 sec condition dealing 20k dps.
Get your mind together.

And author’s suggestion does not solve current problem.
The problem is that EVERY stack of bleeding has its owner – the person, that applied this exact stack.And bandwidth limitation exists because client has to receive information about every single stack and its owner so that everybody can understand, how much damage they have dealt respectively.
Creating LARGE stack of bleeding is not the solution, it is just “removal” of this problem, and developers are sure to know how to remove it, they just dont want to.

marnick.4305:

Sounds reasonably acceptable.

Other PVE solution would be to reduce condition durations by 66% and increase condition damage by 300%. Same amount of calculations, just bigger numbers.

Isn’t it obvious that this is a direct buff to conditions?
P.S. increase condition damage TO 300%

BillFreist.1527:

This is something that I miss dearly from GW1. Definitely something I’d love to explore and possibly add in a future update.

You’re not alone

-Bill

To explore?
So it is not in development already after 10 months after the release?
wtf?
p.s. no offence.

I want to throw in a couple of thoughts that may be helpful.
What is wrong with WoW’s trinity?Couple of things.
a)Number of healers does not equal to the amount of DPSers and does not equal to the amount of tanks.(usually it is close to 2:5:18 or 1:1:3).This creates disproportion in playerbase, and different sideeffects.
b)It is not equally fun to play as different roles.Healer does not interact with enemys at all.Tank usually stands at one place and just takes damage.This usually creates sideeffects such as “it is hard to find healer”
c)Some roles are weak as soloers(i.e. it is hard for them to roam the world and have fun). You think this is anavoidable? I doubt it.
What is good about WoW’s trinity?
a)It exists.This allows to create interesting encounters with decent skillcap.

So let’s think.What if we create a system, that still has benefits of WoW’s trinity, but do not have its weaknesses? I think that is the right solution.
Arena.net’s decision to eliminate roles is strange imo.Every popular game has roles.Dota 2 has roles, LoL has roles. It is not EXCITING to watch games without roles.
Of course it is possible to allow players to switch roles to some extent, but eliminate them completely – that is just not right.
And of course, number of roles does not have to be three. It can be 4. Or 6, why not?
The main problem is to make them all important in challenging content, fun to play and to give them ability to solo soloable content without switching role.

T-up.And by the way, why cant message length be less than 15 letters?

Well, your solution from video(if i understand it correctly) punishes players cooperation, because it is inefficient to use control in succession, it is better to wait for defiance stacks to go away naturally.Mine solution directly promotes cooperation.
However, the main idea is definitely the same – fix defiance buff and make control important in pve encounters.

To fix problem of Control in pve simply changing defiant buff is not enough.
Fights have to be designed to promote control, for example boss should have an attack that will wipe players if the do not interrupt it.
Since it is not true as of right now, it is somewhat useless to change defiant.
P.S. And a.net would not add any “meters” to bosses.Solution has to be simple to fit current system.
P.P.S. For example defiant buff every 10(can be adjusted for different bosses) seconds give 10(can be adjusted as well) stacks of stability to boss.
If players have managed to destroy all 10 stacks, they can control the boss as they want for the rest of this 10 seconds.
Combined with uberpowered skills that will wipe players if they are not interrupted, this will make a little bit better system.

Stealth.9324:

@Op:

Sorry but I feel Offended when you said this :“Hybrid Elementalist: Just spam all the weapon skills on cooldown and you are an addition to the team.” Sorry man, only a New Elementalist would do that way because all of your skill has VERY HIGH CD . Once u spam them all, you are a DEAD MEAT and a nuisance to the team.

Disagree. Ele has 16 skills on cooldown.That means that he always has something to cast.

Absolutely agree. Skillcap for all classes has to be increased in order to create diverse combat.
And also, it is probably moveton to quote yourself, but i will do it anyway.

…
Suggestion:
Increase casting time for a lot of skills to 0.75-1 seconds.
Make interrupted skills to be put on full cooldown.
(those changes will reward players that actively interrupt foes, thus increasing the importance of control)
Give some skills endurance cost, for example 4 and 5 on twohanders have endurance cost, 3 on onehanders and 5 on offhanders have endurance cost.
(This will give a lot of defence/offence tradeoffs, also improving risk vs reward factor:
you tried to finish your enemy with 80 endurance cost hammer bash, he dodged and now you lost your advantage)

Developers are defenitely to implement templates in the future, , but we do not have eta yet. They stated it in latest state of the game, check it out here
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1153-gurus-spvp-state-of-the-game-show-with-evan-lesh-jonathan-sharp/

I just thought about on interesting thing.
Imagine a rpg game with dynamic combat, where roles are completely nonexistent.Of course there is dps and heal and control, but no roles.Everybody does everything.
And then let’s try to look at it from the casual spectator point of view.How can we describe fight 5v5?Well, only couple of words: “they are fighting. everybody does everything”.
But imagine a game, where there are a lot of roles(for example dota 2)
And there is fight 5v5.How can we describe it?Well, something like “Great initiation by xxx, yyy is ganked far away from his team, failed control attempt by zzz, and in the end it is a tradeoff of carry for 2 supports, that did not worth it.”
What i am trying to say is that lack of strictly defined roles is ruining the interest of a game for spectators, because there is nothing to watch on strategic level.
What do you think?
(all examples are exaggerated)

Having limited skillset and being locked into one rotation are completely different things.

Imo former made GW1 great, latter made GW2 not so great.
And being locked in one role is good.If it is done right.(Take Dota2, you are locked in one role for the whole game, still it is awesome game)

Well, that is strange.One of you wants rotations just to be longer, other is fine with them as of right now.
I believe, that good combat is never about rotations.No matter how long they are, they are BORING, 5 buttons or 15.
Good combat is about pressuring the opponent and reacting to enemy’s pressure. If your enemy is aggressive, you have to react defensively, if your opponent is defensive you need to find a clever way to breach his defences, if your opponent is just bad you punish him by obliteration.That means, that every single skill has to be situational(where situation is defined by whose side has the advantage, and what sort of advantage it is), if you have 3-4 skills, that you are using all the time(and that is currently the case), then just unite them in 1 and call it autoattack.

My main character is ranger, i play BM build with GS/SB.Wherever i play the game(pvp or pve) my usual playstyle is take greatsword, mash all buttons, take SB, mash all buttons, then autoattack from the back.
Even if i want to play skillfully, there is not a lot what i can do.
a)put poison before heal
b)interrupt heal with dazes(interrupt postpone heal for 3 seconds, that is not very rewarding)
and that is all what i can think of.
Combat is good only on the surface, but if you try to find interesting choices, risk vs. reward tradeoffs, you won’t find a lot of them.
Suggestion:
Increase casting time for a lot of skills to 0.75-1 seconds.
Make interrupted skills to be put on full cooldown.
(those changes will reward players that actively interrupt foes, thus increasing the importance of control)
Give some skills endurance cost, for example 4 and 5 on twohanders have endurance cost, 3 on onehanders and 5 on offhanders have endurance cost.
(This will give a lot of defence/offence tradeoffs, also improving risk vs reward factor:
you tried to finish your enemy with 80 endurance cost hammer bash, he dodged and now you lost your advantage)

I suggest to remove critical damage from the game completely.
After this change critical effect is not defined by critical damage stat, but by skill itself.For example heartseeker crit.strike deals 200% damage, warriors mace autoattack critical hit dazes target for 0.25 seconds etc.
With such change Burst capabilities of the build are not defined by the amulet person chose, but by his weapons and skills.And it is much more appropriate solution.

Author’s suggestion won’t be implemented never ever.It burdens current simple and elegant mechanic with unnecessary math.

Inpired by Neverwinter’s foundry and Warcraft3’s map editor.

Couple of hours ago a crazy idea visited my head. What if GW2 players had an opportunity to edit GW2 world?For example create their own maps, battlegrounds, change current skills or add new ones, change or add weapons, even change RPG system from power/precision/vitality/toughness to something like SPECIAL?
Just imagine, inside the game you can buy your own shard in the mists that is completely under your control.With a script language, that slightly resembles WC3’s JASS you can change almost everything in this world!
If you are dedicated GW1 fan you can change GW2’s rules to resemble complicated and interesting rules of GW2 predecessor.
If you are roleplaying gamer, you can create you own adventure to experience it with your friends.Or create your mansion in the mists!
If you are hadcore pve player, you can create your own boss that will yield to only most powerful and skilled heroes.

I believe this will be an excellent addition to GW2.And with competent monetization can create good revenue for Anet.
What do you think? Do you think that arena.net should open the gate to the mists, that is limited only by your’s and ours community’s imagination?Or that they should focus for nearest and not so nearest future on more important features such as living story updates?

This patch is amazing, especially this

• Changed all elite skills to be more similar to build defining skills rather than add-ons. Elite skills from this patch onwards will generally have much lower recharge rates (less than sixty seconds) and will greatly impact the focus of a players build. For example, ‘Epidemic’ is now an elite skill and many of the previous elite skills have been changed to heavily modified utilities. In addition, the use of an elite skill is now optional and players may use a utility within the elite slot if they so wish. We feel this will allow players to make more practical use of elite skills and make more varied builds.

Why are developers silent?
Here is discussed the most important problem of GW2, and we do not have any comments.Except for something unintelligible.
Players won’t be brainstorming game’s problems if they are ignored.It is two-way process.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/A-client-for-Linux
TL;DR
Too much effort, not enough outcome.In the end, almost everybody has its windows distributive.

frOst.2198:

the way to eliminate zergs would be to require multiple groups to be in multiple areas to conquer objectives.

For instance. in order to bring down a gate, you must first capture and hold the “gate shield” which happens to be on the other side of the keep. Occupying this area would allow the gate to be damaged.

That wasn’t really hard…but then again, i’m a genius, and the devs are only normal.

Like in Planetside 2.Yep, this could be the way out of current situation, if developers were willing to improve WvW.

To reduce zergs in PvP you have to incentivize solo/small group play via gameplay mechanics and WvW maps overhaul.
Changing UI will not help at all.
P.S. And also developers have to have desire to change the game to reduce zergs.And apparently they do not.

Good point about defiance buff on bosses.It amazed me when i saw it for the first time(in september, if i recall correctly), why the hell it was important to render control absolutely useless against bosses?
Weird decision.

Written so long ago, still so very true.
Just sad.

Remake condition: cripple
Reduce movement reduction to 33%
Deals condition damage for every 200 distance walked.
(Obviously the combination of current cripple and Chains condition that was suggested earlier.)
This change fits the name of the condition and at the same time differentiate it more from chill condition.

Regarding silence:
It is also possible to make it stackable, (since GW2’s character has a lot of skills, approximately 15) 1 skill with 10 second cooldown should apply 2-3 stacks of silence for 3-4 seconds.
Silence duration is still disputable.

New condition: Silence
Stacks duration.
If a hero under the effect of this condition tries to use certain skill, silence is removed, but this skill is placed on a cooldown for 5() seconds.
()Duration of silence is disputable.

Evan Lesh.3295:

TL;DR Going from bits->bytes is a trivial change, but takes 8 times the space. Going from 1 bit to 2 bits is a much more complicated change. In any case, people shouldn’t focus on why collections only store 1 of something. People should be thinking of why we don’t have something entirely better than collections.

Because you are working on something entirely better?)
The next question is, however, when will we see this system?

Evan Lesh.3295:

Collections can clearly support more than 1 item per slot, as seen elsewhere in the game. The problem is that it takes 8 times the amount of space to support more than 1, and PvP has a ton of items. In this case, “technical limitation” means size constraints.

To make collection store 2 items instead of 1 is only twice amount of space.(2bits instead of 1), and you also don’t need 2 slots for all the items, only for specific weapon types(e.g. daggers), so i suppose it is maybe 10% larger at max.Such small fix would definitely help untill fully featured unlock-system will come in place.

T-up.
But don’t touch heal skills, or it would require much more effort to balance skills properly.

I dont think, that the problem is the WXP distribution.Most importantly because people do not generally play WvW to farm Wlevels, they play, because WvW is interesting.
However the problem is that a lot of WvW design decisions directly or indirectly support zerging. Couple of examples:
When you run in a zerg, you dont die all that often.And even if you die, you will probably be resurrected. Running in a small group results in increased number of deaths, that costs money(tolerable) and makes you to run to the fight all the way from the starting waypoint.(intolerable)
Decision: make death less punishable in a way of decreasing time to get to the fight after death (examples: Planetside 2)
Then, if you run in a small group of average players (4-5 people) you have low chances to capture tower or keep.(even if they don’t have defenders, if they have – it is impossible), all that is left for small groups to do is to capture supply camps, that have 5min cooldown on them, and that discourages players to fight for supply camps.You either conquer the point in a couple of minutes and chill for 5min+, or you die/run away.(i am exaggerating, but i hope you understand my thoughts) .
Compare that to Planetside 2 point capture system.(Check out the web if you are not familiar with it).It has its own advantages, such as:
a) There is no cooldown on capturing point, so it is essential to keep pressure at the point all the time, thus forcing world to spread forces globally.
b)Capture point is divided into 3-5 capture circles to divide forces locally.
-without obvious drawbacks.

…that ArenaNet, company that implemented one of the best horisontal progression based games (GW1) implented in GW2’s WvW horribly dull vertical progression system?
I would prefer to have some sort of slot based passive skills system rather than what we have now.

What do you think about when somebody says “World versus World”?
Well, my personal thought is “wasted space”.What do i mean? Just look at attached image.I marked places, that are wasted from pvp prospective.There are nothing important there worth fighting.So at least(that is my evaluation) one third of the map is wasted, this third is not going to be used for it’s primary goal: pvp.
What do you think?Do you agree that all this place is wasted?

I played my own variation of this build, and i liked it! Thanks for sharing it.
Also in my variation i swapped signet of shadows for binding powder permanently and since all three utility skills are deceptions, shadow arts I major trait(-20% to deception cooldowns) becomes great.And 50% movement speed while in stealth also helps to move faster.

Just add new modes and gather data about what is the most interesting one.Because the best way to lose audience is to force them to do what they don’t want to.

The biggest problem is that mounts will simply break the game.
Maps are obviously not designed to be rided on a flying mount(that is why there would not be those) but they were also not designed for plain mounts(and this is what not everybody understand).So i dont want mounts to be usable in current zoned.
Also i dont want another game, where all that mounts provide are skin, model and speedboost.If Anet is going to create mounts, let them make them good, with some sort of physics and mount combat.Also i think they will implement them on a new continent, Elona for example.So that new maps could be designed according to the fact, that players can travel at much, much faster rate(i hope for at least 250% bonus movement speed)

My first question is about GvG.Do you have any plans for it, and if you do, can you share any general ideas(very general, thus you won’t upset us as consumers) about what it will be like? (maybe something like WoE from RO or GvG from GW1?)
I am asking such question because the most powerful reason for a person to stay in online world are the social connection, often created in the guilds, so it is important to keep players playing the game AS a guild, not as individuals, but now there is hardly in the game place for guild(no matter how big) to work together on some epic goal.(WvW does not provide that of course, as you can’t be in your castle 24s to assure it’s safety.And there are generally little to do for guilds and no sources of satisfaction inside WvW, no feeling you have accomplished something important)
My second question is about skillshots. There are not a lot of them in the game, but i am sure they will provide a lot of depth in the game, as well as increasing skill cap)What opinion does GW2 crew have about such mechanic?
Fot those of you who don’t know, skillshot are skills, that you have to actually hit your target with to deal effect.As example Ezreal(as well as many others characters)from LoL or all characters from the Bloodline champions game can be given.

Class balance philosophies
We normally try to employ metered and controlled balance changes with each pass, rather than huge reductions or improvements to classes. We want to get all classes on the same playing field, and we want to avoid “whack-a-mole” style balance. HUGH increases and HUGE decreases lead to meta instability, and thusly, we try to make multiple small tweaks rather than putting in massive changes that we have to later correct.
When designing and balancing the classes, we try to make sure that class roles and identities stay intact. So, in doing so, we make sure that there are rules and boundaries outlining the capabilities and weaknesses of each class.
Warrior
We want the Warrior to be capable of good melee damage in a sturdy body. They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet). They have a hard time taking enemy boons down, and instead, have to just go through them with raw force. They may have a hard time with enemy conditions, and may need to ask for ally help in order to keep themselves free of hampering conditions.
Guardian
The Guardian is a heavy armor class who relies on boons to make up for their low levels of innate health. They focus on area control and punishing enemies for the position on the battlefield. We want them to feel very powerful when their boons are active, but if those boons are removed, they will start to feel pressure. They can remove conditions more easily than the Warrior, but share the Warrior’s need to be in melee range to dole out maximum damage.
Ranger
The ranger class combines its own innate abilities with the skills of their pets. We’ve balanced the class around the idea that you always have a pet with you to aid in any fight. The fact that the ranger can have multiple pets allows them to combine their pets in ways that most impact the current fight. We want the Ranger to have some of the evasion enjoyed by the Thief, as well as the mobility other classes employ. The class is able to deal physical or condition damage, and it can do this in melee or at range.
Engineer
The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.
Thief
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.
Mesmer
Mesmers rely on illusions in order to accomplish their goals. They need illusions to accomplish some of their highest damage and control, and without the illusions, they become fairly fragile. They can deal with enemy boons better than most classes, but enemy conditions can often be a problem. They share some of the stealth and mobility that the Thief enjoys, but suffer from a low health pool if you get past all their tricks.
Ele
We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.
Necro
The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.

From Jonathan Sharp

SPvP is about competition, WvW is whole another thing.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I have to disagree strongly. Basically all professions are about dealing damage.

Not true.Damage control support – that is what important in this game(not mentioning teamplay), and don’t dare you say tthat control and support aren’t important.

A good game is about versatility: a series of meaningful choices. Now GW2 is narrowed down few over-powered classes and weapon choices, which are mostly braindead easy to play.

Not true.Check setups of paid tournaments winners – you will find all classes, and that means that there are no “braindead choices”.

But the developers will get it, i mean it is their job to know about game trends)

1000h of enjoyment for 60$
Hail Anet
Agreed on the GvG though, i believe there does have to be some sort of battle between guilds on one server.The most obvious answer is to integrate GvG into WvW.Guilds from one server are fighting with other servers all the week and fight against each over one or two times per week, as in GvG from GW1 or War for Emperium from RO.
And because we already have WvW open world we can enhance the strategic part of the experience by adding sophisticated resource management.

Problem:Engineer does deal little damage with his weapons.
Answer: There is no problem, that is his point. If you want to deal damage as an engineer you have to use weapon bundles, if you want to deal damage with your weapons – you have to use warrior lol.
Classes are designed to be different.There is nothing wrong with that.

I never understood, why anyone would need duels.
But the fact, that developers force players to participate in one game mode (to devs: it doesnt matter that you cant easy add secondary mechanics to TDM, people have asked for it since BWEs, so deliver them it, dont be stubborn).I hope that custom arenas will allow us to create TDM matches(for example increase spawn timer to eternity, give 10 points for one kill, 50 points = win, objective points do not give points at all: voila, you have TDM), however we need maps designed specifically for that.