Guild Wars 2

Calavera.1086:

As it has been pointed out, when you find groups too easily you’ll also discard them too easily.

Because there is more players in todays MMORPGS then we had back in the 90s. When you had a player base of 50k-75k people you HAD to know ppl, and also you HAD to know the correct people or you would not get anywhere any soon.

Now there is so many players in the games that you don’t have the same need for social interaction. Look at our society becuase the same trends are showing there. We don’t communicate as much as we used to since communication have become so much more easier and more accessible by finding things for free on the internet and cell phones.

The influx of MMORPG players have affected everything from how crafting profits works to the game design as whole. I also remember the barrens chat in WoW but that was a long time ago and even in games as AO I remember that the social aspects was hard to get involved with unless you knew the correct people and IMO that was a terrible way to design a MMORPG; you had to know the correct ppl to anything but getting to know them was hard because you had to build rep and fame as a player first.

That is my opinion; a more social game is not always a positive thing since a big fraction of that social part will be trolling and flaming and namecalling which will force u to hire mods to mdoerate the chat and I don’t think that’s such a good thing either.

GuardianHope.8145:

Guild Wars 2 is perhaps one of the most anti-social MMOs I’ve ever played.

I believe in this statement. I just want to point out that I have nothing against ppl who want their game to stay social but the thing is that there is no social activity whatsoever going on in GW 2 outside of guilds.

A LFG tool won’t affect guilds but will make the dungeon runners happy while the social addicts can talk to their guild mates. It was the same in GW 1, if you wanted to talk then you had to join a guild.

I think this is the natural evolution of the MMORPG genre; new games is not as challenging as the old school games.
The new games is also much more accesible and tuned so that everyone even if you only play 20 minutes a day can enjoy it and therefor I conclude that the need for social interaction has become much smaller because you n o longer have to run dungeons or being in one of the top 5 guilds to win at the game.

Meh the problem with the system where you can get filthy rich in a MMORPG is that the game is then run by a small fraction of players who have the most money on the servers. New players will very rarely be able to get into the money making arena because the old players have so much money and own so much on the auction house that you are screwed.

I hated that in FFXIV, after a couple of days of playing you knew all the names of all the sellers because there was like 5 of them that owned everything. New players was just advised to stay the hell out of the auction house and crafting until 2.0 because there was no chance to get into making money at this time unless you joined a guild that could help you raise money.

As a fresh player with no contacts ingame you were literary screwed from getting into the crafting professions.

Fun… Not

Swagman.9013:

Wizardauz.3761:

A LFG system wouldnt ruin socialization and make people selffish.

This game has loot for all and everyone gets their share based on luck.

If you think an LFG system is going to cause people to be uncooperative or socially negative, then guess what theyre kitten-holes. When i join a group i usually like to say hi cuz im happy other people want to run this dungeon. Im not thinking about the LFG system and matching me with “zomg oh noes, Randoms!”

People will choose to be social or anti-social, cooperative or uncooperative, nice or straight up mean, With or Without a LFG system.

The LFG system would just help streamline the process to aquire a group for a dungeon. Allowing a player let says to run his Orichalcum rounds around Frostgorge Sound and Cursed Shore while looking for a group at the same time.

How exactly is this going to ruin the social aspect of this game, someone please give me a real example lol?

When getting a group becomes as easy as pressing a button and waiting 30 seconds the value of that group is destroyed because there’s another group always waiting for you. When groups are harder to come by and you have to put in the effort to make them you have more invested in it and want it to succeed.

I get that you may feel that this would change nothing for you but as wow showed by example millions of people feel the way I described. If you never played wow and haven’t seen 3/5 people instantly leave the group when someone isn’t careful and pulls an extra pack then you won’t fully understand how little value wow has made dungeon groups with their Lfg tool.

But I don’t understand the difference in this argument:

1.) Have a LFG tool where you add yourself to the queue while doing other things

2.) Spam and teleport around different Maps for hours until you find a group.

I just don’t see the positive with having to spam for a group. Spamming the same thing like “LFG AC 3/4” or whatever how is that being social?

I think if you want a game to be social you have to encourage that and one way is to make certain aspects of hte game required to be achieved by getting a helping hand like quests or crafting or something else.

I just fail to understand how spamming for a group in the Map chat is better then queing while going on with your business and also save everyone who reads the chat from your spam.

Recent MMORPGs that I have played (SWTOR was the most recent) have been pretty lacky on the social part but what I found was the reason for that in those games was because they were setup mainly as single player games thus ppl didn’t interact with each other because they were too busy leveling and doing their own thing and isn’t that a good change?

I hated the old days where u had to find a group for anything, the chat was cluster spammed with LFGs, Trades, LFG Crafting, Trolling and so on. I do actually enjoy that MMorpgs is turning into a more quiet platform. If you want the social aspects then join or form a guild and interact with ppl there but it’s nice to not being forced going into Ogrimmar and see 50000000000000 chat bubbles and chat text messages popping around everywhere on my screen.

People talk about LFG tool ruining the games social aspects, granting I’ve only ran one dungeon once so far in GW 2 but where is the social aspects that you are talking about?

I am member of 4 guilds ATM but there’s not much talk going on there besides sometimes when ppl look for explore parties etc. In the Map chat at least from level 1-50 theres not that much talk either other then occassionally a “event near X waypoint” other then that I haven’t seen this huge social thing you are talking about.
Even in the main cities there isn’t very much talk going on, so where is the talk you are talking about? :P

I would like a group finding tool but not WoW’s type of LFG tool but just something where you could add a note to yourself that said “I’m interested of doing this add me for fun and giggles”

Deth.4109:

what you described is not progression its only change, if i every time i do the same thing and my opponent learns to combat me shifting what im doing is not progress at all its literally re-tooling im not getting any better for it, sure ill be better off but ive improved very little if at all. infact if ive made any improvment its only in becoming used to my new method of play.

Either we have two very different perspectives of the world progression or we want two very different things from life.

I’ve been kick boxing for about 2 years now I’ll give you the advice to check out any contanct sport because what you are talking about is kinda far out the wrong direction of how things in the ring actually works.

Dictionary entry overview: What does progression mean?
• PROGRESSION (noun)
The noun PROGRESSION has 3 senses:
1. a series with a definite pattern of advance
2. a movement forward
3. the act of moving forward toward a goal

Time for me to go to bed NN

This generation of “getting something for nothing” is something new. I’m not old but I’m still from the generation that was teached that we have to work to accomplish, we have to strive to prosper.

This attitude of “getting it for free” is very weird and it sound very dangerous as well. So what you basically are going to do nothing in your life and expect to get the same rewards as ppl who bust their kitten off?

I can honestly say that I’m not busting my kitten off in life but doing so I am fully aware and fully agree on that when I’m making the choice to not bust my kitten of I am not entitled the same rewards as people who are working as crazy to reach their goals.

And that is how it should be. You work your kitten off you get rewarded, if you don’t then you have made your choice and won’t get the same rewards thats just how it is, its the basic nature law, ppl who are providers are more important then ppl who leech.

I worry that your attitude of gaming reflect your world opinions. If you don’t believe that you should work hard to get better at a game then how can I believe that you actually are trying to accomplish anything at all with your life?

Deth.4109:

being new to something and then learning the ropes is totally different from progression when you all ready know the ropes and are chasing a new goal. "Evolving your understanding is not the same is Evolving your streangth, when you win a championship the only thing left to do is defend your title you cant “progress” any further you must simply face new challenges as they appear in your plataeu and thats guild wars 2s philosiphy same as in guild wars 1 no gear treadmill just new content and once you reach your personal plateau you are now at liberty to do with it what you like.

The things is if you already knwo the ropes then if you are talking about competitive games its done. The reason MoBas, Starcraft and WoW PvP is still going strong is because they all are evolving. Players find new ways to manipulate the mechanics and new crazy ways to handle their characters.

And I don’t agree “with defending is the only thing left” no it’s not because if you are talking about for example Boxing.. lets take that there will come a champion that are hungrier, younger and maybe want to win more then you. How will you as a older champion beat him:

1.) ofc using your longer experience against him, but if your opponent are stronger, faster and hungrier then you what do you do:

2.) You look at what he does when fighting his opponents, what stance is he using? When does he jab? When does he go for the KO? And what is likely that he will do against you? What is your weaknesses that he that is stronger, and faster and more hungry will try to use against you?

You evolve your game, the only way to keep on winning is to evolve, when you are too old and too tired and can’t evolve anymore that’s when you will lose your title unless we are talking about random occuring things like, dehydration or lack of sleep.

The bottom line is as long as you keep evolving you will do great things. Look at musicians you got oldies like BB King, 87 year old man and still rocks the sock off everything.

Yes he has the rare gift of having talent but so does everyone who are great at something. If you don’t have “talent which makes things easier for you to learn” then you have the talent to take a bigger beating then everyone else to achieve your goals. If you are hungrier then everyone else then you still have that talent.

Now compare BB King, Steve Vai and whatever you want against a musician who does a great album that sells big and then just fall to obscurity. Is this just random? No, ofc you can be unlucky and get signed to a scumbag record studio but the reason BB King still is so great after playing for kitten 87 years is because he still are evolving his way to play, always finding new ways to play better.
People who want something very much and works much harder then everyone else often are rewarded for it, not everyone (because you need luck as well in this world) but most are.

A champ that “only defends his title” won’t be a champ for long dude because if you have that attituted someone will beat the crap out of you. The minute the glow in your eyes fades then you are done. Look at Tyson, he was older but not that old he just didn’t have the fire anymore and he got wrecked.
The moment you can’t run after the antelope and kill it with a spear anymore then you are done and someone new will replace you, someone that is hungrier and want it more then you.

If everything is handed down to you for free then you will never get challenged and thigns would be boring very quickly. Think of it like this; If I gave you 100 million euros tomorrow for free how long before you got bored? Ofc you would travel around the world like 10 times, buy cars, houses, party whatever but sooner or later you would get bored because nothing challenged you anymore.

We humans need challenges and one of the challenges is that 0.0000001% of all ppl (fake stats) are economical independant while all other of us are dreaming about being independant, dreaming of not having to worry about studies, education, getting a job.
All the others of us are chasing a dream of someday be able to support ourselves and our families without having to worry about the bills in the end of the month. We don’t have to be rich but we want this. We want to not having to worry but having to worry about it is also one of the things that balances us.

No worries at all != not how humans work

When we have this we want our children to have it, then we want our grandchildren to have it, life is a constant struggle and trust me without that struggle (yes this is non poverty fortunate struggle) we would be bored and then depressed and prob ended up killing ourselves by alcohol or heavier drugs sooner or later just to feel anything at all.

Life is about challenges and overcoming them and games without constant challenges gets old quick

funny that u used mario 64 as a argument xD you do understand that every game that can be turned into a competitive thing has a competitive following right? literrary ANY GAME.
That’s how hardcore ppl is and that’s how much ppl enjoy winning and that is how much ppl like watching other ppl who like to win and be the best and that is the reason that games is fun.

PvP = defeating other players

PvE = defeating the game then maybe compete against others (find all achievements, solve all puzzles, get all costumes, get all secret weapons, time limit etc etc)

Games that is easy mode from the start and automatically hands you the “I win button” = not fun and won’t last very long

Why do you think ppl watches sports? Because they like the game, yes ofc they like the game but what is the other reason…?? Because they like when their team, the team they are rooting for beats every other kittening team in the league! Because then the supporters get the satisfactionly feeling of winning!

Deth.4109:

can you get a higher score in monopoly?, can you progress at tick tac toe? can you play a game like metal gear solid 4 or any mario 64 and worry about higher score?. or what about basket ball or football do you play to win or just ot see a higher number on the score board each time? these are vidoe game and real life examples of games that are about loving the simple playing of them rather than your imaginarry carrot progression.

Yes, you can get a “higher score” in monopoly. The first time you play it you will suck. You will make the wrong plays, buy the wrong streets, invest your money at the wrong times of the games.
The more you play the game the better you will become at it and the better you become the better plays you will do each time you play the game and that is the progression.

When you have played enough you will prob be better then your parents and lay waste to them. Punish them through the whole game, buying everything exactly as you should, outsmart them and get more money then them and then you will continue to rub it in their faces and laughing at them.

Mario 64 there is ongoing world high scores where you have I think its 3 best in the world players who compete at getting all stars the fastest by manipulating the game mechanics. It have a huge stream following. They try to beat each others scores all the time.

If you don’t want to win at football or whatever real sport then I don’t know why you would be playing them. Ofc I also play on summers with friends “for fun” but you still want to win badly when playing and you will do everything you can to win the game except ofc hurting someone but you get the point.

Talking about MGS or Hitman which have similar mechanics ofc you try to get better. First time you will alarm everything and die. After that you will start to study the game more. What should I do here? What is the patrol routines? Can I get away with this or will I get discovered? The more you play Hitman or MGS the better you will become at making huge plays.

Games is all about progession, if you are at the same level of skill after 3+ hours as you were when you picked up the game the first time then the game is a terrible game. Challenges is what makes games funny, esp against other players where a lot of mindgaming and outsmarting/outthinking/better reaction is involved. Why do you think ppl like watching MoBA or Starcraft tournaments? Because that’s what happens in those games.

If you’ve played DnD for 3 years do you really believe you will still be as bad as it as you were the first time? No you won’t your imagination have evolved and your understanding of the rules, what is possible, how to make good and big plays have evolved.

The first day at your new job you might be a little unsure about your responsibilities but after 2 weeks you will hopefully feel safe there, you understand the rules, you have evolved and your skills have evolved.

Everything in life is about evolving your skills and games is no different. What we like as humans is to get better to evolve ourselves, if we can’t find what we do evolving we won’t continue doing it for a very long time. Most ppl don’t work at MC Donalds from 18 until 65 because as humans we need constant new challenges to feel good about ourselves

SneakyErvin.3056:

I wonder exactly what Deth wonders, whats with the gaming community these days? When did people stop playing games to have fun and when did people start playing games to have a second job?

GW2 takes us back to how games were done when they were indeed good and fun without a carrot around every corner.

This game lets you focus on what you like, grinding new gear, RvRing, BGing, Crafting, farming or you name it. For me its great, there are no money sinks unless I really want legendaries, so I can grind a bit and focus on alt when I want. Just like it is with BGs, even if I slack for a week or two I wont fall behind because the gear is just looks, the way it should be, BGs are about having fun, thats the main point with the whole gaming industry. Something many gaming companies have forgotten about, A-net not being one of those.

You are aware of that old school games also had progression right? Sure there was no internet and there was no “gear treadmill” but what there was, was a high score. This high score system encouraged players to get better at the game they were playing. That you had 3 extra lives encouraged you to use less and less lives each time you were playing the game.

: Games have always had some sort of “progression” or “goals” but a lot of people today have their rose tinted glasses on and talk about “when did games stop being fun” because I can’t even begin to fathom how much money I have spent on a Arcade machine (Pinball or a fighting game) wasting both my childhood and my money to beat the last boss on my last life, fail and have to put in more money to contine playing. You know why I spend so much money on those arcade machines? Because I wanted TO WIN.

And the arcade games was designed to punish children who didn’t know better so they would be so hard that you would keep on playing, keep on spending money on the game because you could not save your progression and they were so kitten unfairly designed but you just didn’t want the game to beat you!

Don’t you even remember that there was “King of Nintendo” titles? Players who had high scores like speedrunning Super Mario or beating all levels on that god kitten forsakly difficult game?
If you had a Nintendo Power subscribtion back then you were the man because you knew a lot of tips and tricks that noone without subscription to the magazine could know of unless they by a miracle were so good at games that they figured them out because there was no internet where you could look up cheats and solutions.

Games: Have always had a carrot attached to them, been about getting better, even board games has this you want to win you want to beat your opponents that is what makes games fun. If you remove the competitive part of any game then that game would be boring.

Oh yea… yathzee would be really fun if you couldnt beat your opponents… no wait it wouldn’t. I don’t mean this as a paralell to the GW 2 discussion but talking about “just having fun” games have NEVER been about “just having fun” NEVER.

You want to talk about Pong ? Ok, we’ll talk about Pong. It didn’t take long until Pong got a high score attached to the new series of Pong systems that you could buy. You and your pals competed about both beating each other in points but also getting the highest high score and of also save as much goals as possible.

Game is a competitive hobby., If you don’t like to compete then you shouldnt play games. Although games can have “friendly competition” where you don’t play with money and where everyone is friends you can bet your kitten of that everyone on a game night will go full out to beat their opponents.

That is how humans works. We want to win, we want to beat others, we want to get the rewards. The rewards of beating someone in yathzee and then rubbing it in their face the whole evening is enough of a carrot for people to get motivated.

Games without any carrot = won’t last. There is a reason that basic card games is still played because the challenge is to beat your friends or play chess against a good player because then the challenge is to try to outsmart and beat that player . If everything is easy all the time you won’t continue doing it because its not only the game itself that is funny but the challenges and the satisfaction of winning.

Knuckledust.5621:

Completely agree with this, I don’t play the game its been 3 weeks… there is absolutely no replayability.

Dont mind the fanboys OP, they will keep using the same old and weak “arguments” to stand by ArenaNet on the terrible developer choices like the skill system.

When I started playing it really astounded me I would be stuck with that same 5 skills forever. The person in charge of this must have been drunk at the time.

That’s what I am afraid of. I like this game but before this game I played TOR which I also think had a lot of potential. Unf the nagging fanbois destroyed the game due to their moronic belief that “change is bad/the game is perfect!” agenda and unf again Bioware listened only to the white knights of the games.

Guess what? Most of those die hard defendng white knights doesn’t even play TOR anymore. Fanbois = defending a game like their life was depending on it, continue to defend it when it loses subs and when the company admits that it didn’t go well then all white knights jumps the ships and jumps into the next game they can viciously defend.

kitten I hate kittening white knights. What’s wrong with critique? That’s what forums is for and even if someone is posting something that might not be constructive it’s still feedback. What you kittening white knights think that arena net cries themselves to sleep if someone bash GW2?

If you really believe that then you need to grow up.. ssly. kitten

silvermember.8941:

1. Guild wars 2 is not guild wars 1. Guild wars 1 had a lot of useless skills, in life quality is more important than quantity.

2. guild wars 2 has no sub and it just like every other game you buy for 60 bucks. You play and once you stop having fun you move on. And if an expac peaks your interest you return or not. That is how guild wars 1 was set up

Extremely bad argument, maybe one of the worst argument for anything I’ve heard for weeks. This game unlike GW 1 is a open world MMORPG, not instanced like GW1 was. What does this means then?

1). It means that to be able to progress through PvE and PvP in GW2 you need a healthy playerbase because you need people to do the events witj so you’ll get EXP and Karma.

2.) It means that ArenaNet needs a big enough community to both support the game and the development through micro transaction but they also need a lot of people playing it in order to make the game enjoyable. As I said before try to imagine this game if you only have 10 players running around in a 10-25 level area.
It just doesnt work because of the choice they did to design PvE progression partly around events, without enough ppl doing events you won’t get EXP and you will never progress. This is not a quest hub game where you can run around solo and take quest after quest until you hit 80, you are hugely dependant on other players doing events with you in GW 2.

Without a steady playerbase this game won’t function because in difference with instanced GW1 or Quest Hub based MMORPGs this games lives entirely if it has a community big enough that players are running around and getting involved in events everywhere.

Pls use ur head before posting. Thanks!

CMF.5461:

=( I like the longwinded npcs and the clip scenes. Again to each their own and for the most part you can skip all that talking if you wanted to (skip button or press esc)

Personally I find the writing and voice acting terrible but it’s nice that you enjoy them

Dunno ATM. haven’t played it for awhile.
I’d say that I don’t regret buying it like I did with TSW but I don’t really enjoy playing it either right now. Too much bots, too much bugs, too few choices. My list is long

^what he/she said

“Lenin was a good guy, a hero”

Not sure if OP is trolling… Hopes that OP is trolling…

This is a good game and the ideas with it is good but it needs a lot of work ATM to be able to pull of what it advertises itself to be because atm it doesn’t

I know that they didn’t want to do GW1 again but I still thought that they would take some of the mechanics and ideas that from the first games and ship them over to the 2nd. Having weapon locked skills was a pretty bad idea since it directly forces you to use this set of skills with this weapon and limits character building.

Why not let us play around with skills for the sword? Limit them to 5 skills but give us maybe 10-20 skills to choose from that we can have in those 5 skill slots. You can have “suggested” skill builds to get people started on figuring out how to build their characters.

What always have been the huge part of RPG except from “roleplaying” has been character progression and when you remove that by locking skills to weapons and minimizing the skill combos you can play around with you end up with a pretty flat game sadly.
I’ve talked about events before but a huge problem of making them the central part of GW2 since u cant get to 80 by only doing heart quest is that you need a healthy playerbase to get the events rolling and the problem with this is ofc that if ppl stop playing or the majority of all players get to 80 then newcomers won’t be able to do events cause noone is doing them.

What made GW1 amazing was that the game started at 20, thats when you could start play around with skill builds and runes. GW 2 unfortunately trashed all those goodies in the bin and instead moved the game from a deep intuitive skill system focused game to a streamlined, borderline ez mode game with very few chances to actually evolve yourself outside of PVP.

Just to clarify I like that they removed the gear treadmill and the trinity system but they didn’t implement anything in place of removing those systems which makes grouping feel very meh.

And again GW 2 is nowhere near of doing the events, non trinity and whatnot stuf. If you really believe that GW2 is the first to do this and “changing the world” then you have to try out some more MMORPGS. IF you haven’t already go try FFXI, FFXIV, EvE and Champions Online and that is only naming a FEW.

I just don’t see the freedom that you are talking about in GW2. I see that freedom in EvE, FFXIV and Champions but I do not see them here.

Kendu Kuzal.3985:

I think you’re mistaken if you think the RPG part is non-existent. In comparison to GW1 and especially the first release of GW1, the RPG element in GW2 blows it away. This is the only mainstream (big name) MMORPG that offers this type of customization. You aren’t forced to go down any path, and you can literally play your character however you see fit. There is a huge variety of builds. There are no set roles, as in the holy triumvirate (tank, heals, dps). It’s far more open than most of what is available and it has the audience that could truly be opened up to the sandbox style that true MMORPG’s presented in the past. I know this isn’t a sandbox style game, and it never will be.. But it has the elements there that give players accustomed to the WoW style of “dumb” MMO’s a taste of what they haven’t been exposed to.

I think the problem you are having is grasping their attempt to meld the WoW style linear development with a open skill point development. It’s not perfect, but at least someone has been brave enough to stray away from the WoW clone mentality. I also think people are silly to try and compare games like WoW or even other sub games to this. It’s not a sub game and it does things that subbed games don’t. They are different animals with a common ancestor. The original RPG.

I’d say that what you are talking about describes City of Heroes(RIP), Champions Online, EvE Online and Day Z.

What do you mean with “not being forced?” I might misunderstand you and I apologize then but these are the options you have in GW 2:

- PvE (heart quests, events)
- Dungeons
- Exploring
- PVP
- WvWvW

I’d say what this game does really well is to not “force you to play because you are paying sub for it.” but when you are talking about all these options on how you can play then I’m just not following you.

The options you are talking about is something that I think rings true for as I said a game like EvE, GW 2 forces you to do the same thing as WoW does it’s just that you have replaced the quest hubs with events which in the end since u are doing them with other players “feels” like you do not grind as much but in reality you grind just as much from level 1-80 in GW 2 as you would in any other game in this genre.

There is a huge problem with not having “set roles” but I won’t get into that here but basically not having any sort of “real roles” or at least the option to really go all out in one role when you please means that you will have huge balance problems and that evolving the dungeons (which really needs something done with) is hard because not having any form of trinity limits the mechanics that you can pull off a little bit.

The last thing you wrote also again rings true for games like CoH and Champions Online.

“It’s not perfect, but at least someone has been brave enough to stray away from the WoW clone mentality.”

You obv haven’t played that many different MMORPGs. Going away from the WoW meta game is nothing true, having the game setup with events is nothing new, having exploration as a big part of the game and not having any “real trinity” is nothing new.

“I also think people are silly to try and compare games like WoW or even other sub games to this. It’s not a sub game and it does things that subbed games.”

Weird argument. WoW is a MMORPG, GW2 is also a MMORPG they are in the same genre that one of them is sub based and the other is not have nothing to do with the argument.
So what you are saying is that we can’t compare Call of Duty and Battlefield? We can’t compare Street Fighter with Tekken because one of them is “2d” while the other is “3d”?

I like this game but I would like to se improvements. The things that GW 2 is good at haven’t really been implemented very well so far. The non-trinity system doesn’t work very well yes you removed the trinity system and what did you exactly replace it with? “Everyone can be everything” no the can’t, a ele can’t tank sorry. Guardians is the best tank class ATM, warrior is the best Burst class so in reality you haven’t removed the trinity system you have just locked the “roles” to classes and in doing so screwed over the viability with some build and some “roles”.

I’m all for trying new things but if you remove things that other games in the genre has then you actually have to develop NEW systems to replace them. ATM the “non-trinity” doesn’t work as advertised in dungeons and in world events. They also removed gear progression (i like that) but they didn’t replace it with anything?
They didn’t take anything from the GW1 skill system which means that we atm have a pretty flat game with so much cookie cutter skill builds that it gives me nightmares. Traits isn’t implemented well (5% more damage when over 75% hp, 5% more damage against bleeding foes), the passives is just for the most part not interesting.

Kendu Kuzal.3985:

.

The problem is that what you say about GW 2 isn’t the reality. It’s the potential that GW 2 might become one day but atm it’s nowhere close to “deep character customization”.
Champions Online and City of Heroes (R.I.P) have that, GW 2 doesn’t because while it feels like the game is deep ArenaNet lost it touch with the skill system that many loved in the first games.

This is almost more of a console-action game then a “real” MMORPG make no mistake there is indeed MMO to GW2 but the RPG part is pretty non-existant in terms of actual character development.

“It ain’t all about dps. Its about the challenge of playing difficult classes regardless of inequalities.
Parity in video games is as boring as parity in football.”

The problem with this is that this rings true for a single player game but as soon as a game has a competitive (PVP) platform, classes most be compared to each others in both PvP and PvE.
That some classes are “harder” ATM then others is just a testament to that the game is badly designed-. It’s a great game in many ways but they really fekked up when it comes to PvE balancing or rather PvE class design.

Masher.8051:

This IS my first MMO, never been the kind of person to buy a game and then keep on paying just to play, since GW2 allows me to play without a sub, i decided to give it a go, played close to 200 hours so far and i don’t just love the game, i’ve become addicted to it.

I guess not playing any other MMO’s allows me to fully enjoy this game for what it is, no thinking to my self, well it does this okay but does that terrible compared to this and that MMO.

Just a fresh and very enjoyable(a tad buggy) experience so far.

Glad to hear that you enjoy the game

Kendu Kuzal.3985:

I think something a lot of people are missing is the fact that this is called Guild WARS.

If you would have played hte first games you might not have been this hateful against people. The fact is that with GW2 ArenaNet pretty much butchered everything that made their games and their world into the marvelous being that GW1 was with dual-classing awesome skill trees etc etc.
GW1 was about playing around with skill builds, that was the endgame. GW2 has the WoW kinda endgame, grind grind grind for gear urghh…

So coming from GW1 (Proph, Factions, Night and Eye) GW2 is a little dissapointing ATM because it’s shallow and not deep at all. I hope they can evolve the game with some expansion packs because ATM the game is pretty meh…

Ofc I knew that the game wouldn’t be like the first games but I didn’t think it would be this eazy mode meh game either

Dead.7385:

GreenZap.1352:

Can’t you even see the BS of your argument; WoW was released 2004!!!! NOT 2012 when the MMORPG market is huge!!!!

Pathetic argument is pathetic

Bugs don’t magically disappear based on a date of a calender. WoW release after the first batch of 3D MMO’s came out so it should have been perfect on release. See what I did there?

As I said you didn’t have any THAT big MMORPGs back then. MMORPGS was still a Niché in 2004. There wasn’t any “casual” gamers that played Everquest or UO because it’s learning curve was too steep which meant only ppl who dedicated all their time would enjyoy playing it.
WoW was the first of its kind to get so many active players none of its competitors hadclose to the players on release date that Blizz got and that’s why the server couldn’t handle it. Noone was prepared for the huge amount of ppl waiting to get in and play WoW.
Bugs do not magically disappear indeed, but when you have a history of them you learn how to handle them better and what to expect. You do not invent fire every day you know. So no your argument def shows that you have not played MMORPGs for a very long time and also have no knowledge of gaming history.

Back to the topic, GW2 is a great game it’s only a shame that they removed some things that made the firt games really really good in order to “dumb down” the game. I hope that in the coming expansions ArenaNet can bring back some of the first games features.

“Wow was buggy at release” Well to that I say

1.) WoW was released around 2004, the technology that existed back then was not as advanced and good as the tech we have today.

2.) WoW was “the first of its kind” to take and combine all the good aspects of other MMORPGS and cram it into one product. Also Blizz managed to get people who never had played a MMORPG in their life interested in the World of Warcraft which lead to an income of population that noone not even Blizz had calculated for.

Therewas no game back then that had as many active players as MMORPGs have today, they just didn’t know that there were so many that wanted to play.

You know I see this “wow was also buggy” thing on a lot of MMORPG forums nowadays and to actually use WoW’s release to defend a new game is the worst excuse and absolutely pathethic and insulting to… everyone.

Stop comparing a game from 2004 with a game that was released 2011 or 2012. The last game where people were debating with this BS argument was SWTOR and this lead to that Bioware got away with a lot of issues that they should have been punished for which in the end lead to the game losing subs and going F2P and if you look at that games structure it prob won’t even go well as a F2P title.

The only thing you contribute with using the BS WoW argument that is stupid as kitten is that you give the companies that develops games a huge slack and if there is one thing that developers need atm is to shapen up and understand and admit when they get things wrong but they won’t as long as you keep on spitting this BS about WoW’s 2004 release. Can’t you even see the BS of your argument; WoW was released 2004!!!! NOT 2012 when the MMORPG market is huge!!!!

Pathetic argument is pathetic

isn’t there enough “whitey-hair” already in the game? How about giving us some “non-caucasian” types of hair like you know maybe a normal small afro (not the plastic fake afro that you can buy in a toy store thats in the game). And cornrows maybe not only for asura but for humans?
I’d like to see dreadlocks that actually looks and behaves like real dreadlocks as well. How about a real buzzcut? Curly hair and so on and so on.
There is enough “caucasian-esque” hair in the game already.

working for me aswell now

Jezath.7395:

:) thanks for the support there raging bull

I agree constructive critisism is constructive.

However the naysaying isent. Thanks for your input.

You do understand that Ragin Bull was highly sarcastic right?

The problem with LoL is that Riot has based their whole means of income on releasing new heroes like it was a industry.
Now it’s like they are almost releasing one hero a wek (slightly overreaction but still ) while that happens they are not really doign any changes to the gameplay itself and new heroes that are released with more utility then old ones are grinding the older versions in the mud.

The worst thing of Riots hero concept is that the only thing they do is releasing the same heroes over and over but to make it “feel new” they just swap around some of the abilities from older heroes.

LoL is the worst attempt balanced pvp game I’ve ever seen and therefor it sucks as a e-sport and therefor ArenaNet should stay the hell away from that kittenturd

No please dont take balance lessons from Riot since they are the single worst developer when it comes to balancing. It is in fact so bad that u only have handful of viable champions in ranked. Its really that bad.

Guess we just have to pressure this until ArenaNet admits that the patch broke character deletion.

Fix this ASAP pls

can’t play the game atm then i guess :P

Yep same here it’s broke. Tried to remove 2 different characters. ArenaNet… ssly?

Thanks for the link Robotsonik, the game is broke. Tried to remove a different character, same issue.

I have no weird lettering in the name, the name is; Kyna the Dreamer

Since yesterday I have been unable to remove one of my characters. When typing in the name of the character (my 5th character out of 5 slots if that makes any difference) and hitting delete nothing happens??

Has anyone else experienced something similar and/or is there an solution out there?

Mekboss.5069:

This game basically has the same problem LoL has, you have a bunch of heroes who basically have very similar skills like ‘do X physical damage on next hit’ and then they get something a little extra like a slow or something, it’s not very creative or interesting to use at all.

You more or less summed up my negative feedback in a short set of sentences.

Edge.4180:

I believe the reasoning behind that was that it is easier to balance that way.

True but this is the problem with the current game for me: in a way I understand that it boils down to a matter of opinion and I applaud the idea of not having to “grind until end-game” to have fun. But the problem on the other hand is that in some ways it feels like that GW2 doesn’t scale well for different types of players.

The following is not meant to be a ”elitist rant” because I’ve never been that good personally at competitive games.

If I were to compare two other games: League of Legends and DoTA2 I always loved DoTA (all the way back from W3 DoTA) more then LoL because while LoL managed to remove a lot of the “newbie-traps” and do some things different and better than DoTA, LoL did at the same time fail at being a game that scaled well from beginner level to tournie level.
Watching a LoL Tournament at the same time as a DoTA2 tournament you will rarely see something similar to the crazy stuf they pull off in DoTA because LoL is a much simplier game with much more set rules of what you can do that instead of focusing on deeper strategic teamplay relies mainly on the “laning phase” where your goal is to outfarm your opponent.
You rarely want to leave your lane in LoL because you lose too much EXP and gold while doing it and this is due to how Riot choose to design how heroes scales with items.

The good with the LoL system: it’s easier to understand tournament matches for people that are not so experience in LoL where on the other hand Dota 2 tournaments requires more knowledge of the game when watching it because ; hero/item/ability knowledge doesn’t have the same huge leaps between a newbie or a pro player in LoL as it has in DoTA.

For those who are not familiar with both “MoBAS” we can talk about Starcraft 2 instead; watching SC 2 requires a knowledge of the game to understand what happens in the game and why players do the plays they do. The difference in skill between a pro player in SC2 and someone in the gold league is not even close in a million years.
You have to understand micromanagement for example why you do it and more there is just so many variables; in SC2 that just watching a stream requires you to have a good knowledge of the game to understand what’s happening.

Back to the MoBA scene; LoL is like football(soccer) in a way while Dota 2 is like Cricket (the sport). Everyone understand the basics of football(soccer), basic rules etc but not everyone understand Cricket.

This doesn’t mean that LoL is worse than Dota but the end effect is that Riot choose to work backwards in some areas of the Meta game which dumbed down the game and boxed it in with a set type of rules to it. Ofc a 2000+ elo player is much much better then a 1700+ player but the fact is that the difference is not as huge as it it would be in Dota.
As a beginner LoL player you will more or less always understand what happens in LoL tournaments because the heroes and the items and the meta game is much much simpler.

I always believed that when creating a good competitive game you have to design it for as many as possible. WoW does this really well (even though I’m not a huge fan of WoW) because it’s designed in the way that it appeals to everyone whether you are casual, competitive, extremely competitive or want to go pro. Whatever your agenda you can enjoy WoW because the game allows your skill and knowledge of the game, the abilities and the classes to scale for near infinity.
ATM for me it feels that GW2 does not deliver on the “scaling” part. There seem to be no “carrot” for those who want to really experiment to find the “best of the best” and therefor I don’t find the game interesting to watch streamed either.

I do enjoy that this game don’t focus solely on endgame but at the same time I want a middleground between giving the player the carrot at level 1 or at level 80 . If the carrot is given in the mid-teens what are we trying to achieve continue playing?

Maybe I’m just bitter because I am one of those who grew up with extremely punishing and unfairly crappy designed Nintendo 8-bits games but I want to look at GW2 and think; what is the challenge, what do I try to achieve here? And ATM I just don’t see anything really pushing me for the long haul.

This game is fun but atm GW2 feels a lot like D3 for me, it’s designed in the way that you play it and complete inferno once and then ur done with the game because it didn’t have the polish and endgame goals/challenges that D2 had or in this case GW1.
I want a deeper skill system (not WoW’s) but one that doesn’t allow you to unlock every weaponskill on lvl 5 and where you are not forced to use the same skills for 1 type of weapon every time. And I want Traits to have a much bigger impact on how I play my character.

Edge.4180:

Well, in the case of “For Great Justice” you and the people around you get a +20% crit chance for 8 seconds and three stacks of might, which boosts your power and condition damage for 25 seconds. I’m not quite sure how you would show that (and other shouts) off in a video other than having a Warrior yelling his battlecry and everyone around him suddenly kicking butt. Obviously it’s a handy skill in the right situation; just because it isn’t flashy enough for a video doesn’t make that not so.

As for the people who want more skills, I’ve had my fill of that from countless years of WoW, Rift, SWToR (overkill!), etc.. I didn’t come to GW2 looking for that setup all over again. In fact, I always liked that the original Guild Wars gave you access to a lot of abilities but forced you to create an effective loadout with just a few of them.

I agree with the force to make use of skills like GW1+expansion have. The problem in GW2 is that weapon skills are defined by the weapons u are weilding with no choice of changing and play around with them.

PotatoOverdose.6583:

If you feel a lack of variety in combat, I suggest you roll a kit heavy engineer or an elementalist.

Complaining of a lack of variety and then citing warrior skills….speaks volumes imo.

I have one and they really are not that varied or different as you want them to be. I do agree that they are fun but playing my engineer vs playing my Sword/board warrior isn’t really that huge in difference other then that my warrior is a little more head on while my engineer is a little more about pushing pots, run around the mobs while barbecuing them but in the end that really is one of the only real differences between those 2 toons (speaking of PvE here).

In GW1+expansions playing to different classes really were 2 completely different experiences. It wasn’t as straight forward cookie-cuttah as GW2 is atm.

Searingarrow.4637:

Traits are another disappointment. Most of the traits are just stat increases like “6% extra damage against burning foes” or something generic like that. Every class has the “20% reduced cooldowns” trait for nearly every weapon. Nothing really too interesting.

I agree with you on what you say both about the skill system and the trait system. Also as I typed in another post a huge problem in the game and this is coming from a PvE perspective is that the classes is not that different from each other really.
I won’t get into that discussion again here but those are the three biggest issues I have with the game esp when I compare it to GW1 + expansions. Still I really enjoy GW2 but kitten did they fekk up with the combat :S

Just to add to my earlier reply; I am fully aware of that ArenaNEt said that GW2 wouldn’t be a 2nd GW1.
I look upon GW2 as it’s own game but still it has the same world, the same lore but it falls flat on actually make use and implement that lore and it also falls flat on a lot of technical related issues.

I like the game but it really falls short on some points. The combat system (in PVE) is really… not that great IMO.

1). Having skills locked to weapons and traits that really don’t require that much theorycrafting when creating a build is very; meeeh. “Change weapon” some of you might say but that won’t solve my issue with how the skill system works because even if I do swap weapons the skills are still locked to the weapon. Thus I am still forced to make use of a predefined palette of a handful of skills and it won’t get more fun because I swap weapons.

2). There isn’t (in PVE) that much theorycrafting around choosing skill setup, yes ofc there is “role-builds” but from what I’ve seen they seem very straight forward (I want to do this then I need these traits and these 2 weapons) there seem to be very little actually depth and problems when trying to figure this out and I think it was a shame that they didn’t invest more time in building a really robust skill system. Also Dodge should have been a choice of utility not a “you MUST dodge now!” mechanic.

3). Dodge system.Ofc I understand what they tried to do with the dodge system; having players more active in combat but the problem is that the game (in PVE) still works a lot like other MMO games where the basis is to defeat mobs in a linear way. Even as a newly rolled shield/sword warrior my gameplay isn’t that interesting because of the lack of shield related skills. My choice of weapons does fairly little difference in PVE at least that is my feeling. I can go GS or Axe/Axe for more damage but it doesn’t really change my playstyle from using sword/board that much.
One of my main gripes with the dodge system (in PVE) arises when you compare how the system of dodging works between the different classes in the game and how it seems to greatly favor low mobility classes (right-clickers if you will) more then some other classes.

4). Events Building the games PVE progression more or less around events are a risky thing IMO but it’s fun. However; It’s great now when everyone and their mother is playing but what will happen when the majority of players hit 80/ppl stop playing as much? Suddenly you might end up with new players being unable to complete events and progress through the PVE part of the game because of lack of ppl in low level zones.

Speaking of events; who bothers going melee in boss events? You can’t see the kitten that happens with all kittening aoes and flashy kitten everywhere so you just don’t bother with it in the first place and swap to your ranged weapon and only go with that when you fight event bosses/world bosses. Sorry but that is bad design.

5). Is it a success? I think it’s a solid game and it does a lot of things just right for me but at the same time GW2 lacks a lot of what made the 1st game+expansions original. There is instead a lot less choices then most of it’s competitors offers however the ”quest system” in GW2 is more then enough to keep me here.

6). IMO a lot of classes plays the same. There just seem to exist too few defining elements that really makes one class different from another more than the difficult level it takes to play them.

Playing a guardian vs a warrior is more or less the same experience, playing a ranged thief vs a engineer is more or less the same thing and so. The only thing that really seem to make a difference is that some classes are easier then others.
In one way I can applaud this as you try to make everyone self-sufficient but it also creates problems. Instead of having the ”mage class” and ”warrior class” you have 2 classes that is very similar but one is squishier while the other is tankier, one needs to make use of dodge more while the other don’t. That is my experience of the game so far. Classes lack own flavor and it’s a shame because the first GW+expansions didn’t have that problem.

GW1: playing a Dervish, a Paragon, a Ritualist and a Necro for ex. was 4 completly different experiences while in GW2 classes are so similiar that I’m not that hyped up on playing all my chars to 80.
Speaking of the expansions of GW1 why did Arenanet not make more use of Factions and Nightfall expansions (EOTN seem well implemented) in the character creator?

I understand why they decided to not add some classes since they would been hard to balance but actually not being able to use the appearances/details/cultural flavors of the different humans people fleshed out in the expansions of the first game when customizing your character is just kittening lazy IMO. You create a great world with different ethnicities, something that really makes your game different from other MMORPGS and then you just drop the ball on all that lore and all that flavor in the 2nd game? That is really kittening lazy.

GW2 is a great game in many ways but it saddens me that ArenaNet had so much more potential with this game and kinda dropped the ball halfway. It lacks flavor.

Fav: Asura (cause they are condescending awesomesauce, I also love their technology and architecture)

Least fav: Human male (kitten I tired of the male human sage VO from SWTOR, it sucked in TOR and it sucks in GW 2)

TotalLamer.2470:

The most annoying thing about Sylvari having no surnames is that makes it MUCH harder to find a good name. Like… my Norn’s first name is Astrid, which would surely be taken, except that since Norns have surnames, she becomes Astrid Svandottir, which isn’t.

Not to be a hater but “Svandottir” is not a real name if that’s what you were going for. I have however heard of the Icelandic surname “Svansdottir” with an (s).
In old Norse naming rule the children had their surname created from (often but probably almost always) the fathers name. Svan is the Swedish name for the bird species Swan and not a person name, you could ofc have made up your own name and get it registered but back in the day that didn’t happen.
It’s not until much later that ppl started to come up with their own lastnames like for example: Silverhjälm (Silverhelm) and Stridsberg (Battlemountain). They do sound funny translated to english lol.

Back to the “Viking era”; if your dad’s first name was called Sven for example you would be the Son of Sven: Svensson or the daughter of Sven: Svensdotter. The reason for doing this was ofc to honor your family and your elders and if your father or grandfather had gained fame etc your name had a real value to it. First names was often passed down through generations; every male in your family would often have the same first name.

Being the son of Harald who were a great trader was a big honor and ofc you would swagger around with your lastname: Haraldsson and at the same time you would have to work your butt of to be a better farmer, fisherman etc then your father and when you were old and your son was the next person to lead the family name you passed the baton to him and he would be the new great fisherman in the Svensson family.

I can also add because I see this a lot with Norn player characters; “-dottir” is the Icelandic version of daughter. In Sweden you would write it like this “-dotter” just a note.

In Denmark, Sweden and Norway names like: Svensson or Andersson (Svens son, Anders son) still exist but the name doesn’t have the meaning they had back in the day e.g. just because your surname today is Svensson doesn’t mean your father or your grandfather’s name is Sven.

It’s just a fragment that still exist from the past however while the two last names Svensson and Andersson (surnames that ends on dotter eg. daughter is almost non-existant in Sweden nowadays but they still do exist on Iceland) is extremely common not everyone have a last name that has a name and son after. There is a lot of other names now because ppl came up with other types of lastnames during the 1800s and forward on.

My lastname for example is Landgren which means Land and branch: eg. Landbranch which doesnt even make sense in Swedish.

~ Source: I am Swedish

@Zenyatoo I haven’t experience dungeons in GW2 yet mostly because I have done dungeons so many times over and over in games pre GW2 (ToR was the last dungeon game) that I just can’t muster doing it again. I’m fed up with dungeons but ofc “being fed up with” isn’t a valid argument from my side in this discussion.
I just haven’t done dungeons and I have no knowledge about dungeon setups and how the Ele perform in those situations.

I think my question was if it might not just be so that the game design in itself is flawed and not so much the classes? Maybe instead of nerfing and buffing away, ANet should look into balancing areas in the PvE enviroment (again only talking about PvE here) so that more classes and more “builds” can enjoy it.
I do not mean dumb down but maybe take a look at respawn timers and mob mechanics in paralell to how the different classes should work.

In a strictly PvE enviroment I do in fact not believe that everything “has to be balanced” I believe that you will have more diversity if you think more of concept then balancing.

When it comes to competitive play against other players though there has to be some sort of equalizer between either player skill or class mechanics/potential and since this is a PvP game firstmost I understand complaints about the performance in PvP but again from a PvE (solo) experience I have yet to run into trouble but taking Ravenhearts insight in mind trouble might be brewing on the road ahead .

@ Ravenheart

That’s what I’ve heard as well but my post was more about discussing the issue ppl seem to be having before you get to high level since there have been a huge influx of those kinda of threads.

Since I do not have insight from level 60-70 I’ll trust your experiences with the class and I never tried Ele in GW1 (Got addicted to Ritualist and Paragon) but, and again correct me if I’m wrong if the biggest issue is between 60-80 isn’t it more of a faulty game design as a whole at end levels then a fault that lies with the class itself?
That’s atleast what I don’t like and I will QQ a little now; with the Risen cause they obv was put into the game to screw over the classes that has low hp/def and relies hugely on kiting.

The opposite would be to have ranged mobs screw melee classes over but atm that is not the case since when you get in melee range, the mob damage drops and for both War and Guard getting into melee range at least at mid levels is not a problem.

I’m just wondering how you would “remake” the Ele because if they get a damage buff wouldn’t they be a little too good considering the skills at their disposal?

Mornin y’all

@ Ryld : I’ve not played PvP but I understand the complaints regarding it, my post was about PvE and only up the point where I currently am; level 55

@Scarface: I’ve heard about the terrors in Orr but what I’ve heard and I’ve only got to level 55 so far so I have no knowledge about the last levels. Regarding Orr though (and correct me if I’m wrong here) is that every class have complaints about Orr and esp I’ve read a lot of complaints regarding the mob respawn timers which apparently make a lot of ppl trying to skip Orr altogheter.

Risen is annoying already and this may be a little QQ on my part; but I personally believe that the Risen is badly designed when we have a game that is based around a dodge-n-kite system.
They are kinda like a issue of Superman; you have a invincible guy but to make it interesting (because it would be boring if he could never get beaten) you have to pull out weird situations where his invulnerability is compromised. How do we nullify the ability for players to dodge and kite? We make super fast mobs who you can’t outrun, why not let them stack conditions on you when they hit you also? And have a good setup of different classes in a mob group as well so they can knock you down and swarm you? Fun :P

@ Scarface again: I agree that Eles need tuning but personally don’t agree with some of the playerbase opinions that I’ve read so far (there have been a lot of opinions that I agree with as well but most of it no). And no I don’t think people are noobs, noob has been turned into a very patronizing, why would I be sniffy against ppl I don’t even know in the first place? o.O

I don’t believe that Eles need to up their fire damage, however Arenanet have got to start to look into the elements that are not Fire because with a lot of weaponsets there as just so many pointless skills there that just waste a lot of space.

I spec Fire 30 -Air 20 -Arcane 20 ATM:

• Fire: (VI, VII, XII)
• Air: (III, VII)
• Arcane (I, V)

Dunno if that’s good yet but so far I don’t feel kittened but I’m still in mid levels so might have to change when I get higher :P

Earth so far have been a pretty meh experience (Scepter seem to have some interesting setups but I have yet to be a fan of Scepter) for me so far and nowadays I usually only use Earth to summon my Earth Golem or Magnetic Grasp and sometimes If I’m grouped I use Churning Earth.

I think that Arenanet kinda dropped the ball on Earth altogheter which is sad since they could really have had gone wild with the imagination of Earth based powers.

The other way to think of it since everyone seem to like to compare Ele to Warriors damage for some reason is that maybe Warriors is overtuned in their current state? That’s a interesting way of looking at it and who know what will happen with PvP balancing if Warriors are tuned?
It would be interesting to hear some opinions on what Arenanet should do with Eles because “they need more damage, more survivability” is not really a valid feedback. What exactly do you think that the Ele lack (I have no experience with PvP as I said before so keep it to PvE) to be able to compete?

As it kinda is now you have Warriors and Thieves at the top of the DPS charts and Necro at the very bottom. Warrior/Thief has a lot of burst going while Necro doesn’t really burst but can outlast things for like forever.
Ele is kinda in between (in my opinion) they can’t outlast long and have medium-to-high damage. Give them more deeps but what does that solve really? That just sound like you would end up with an FOTM class since Eles have so much utility already that with more deeps sounds like you would end up with a class that has just too much things to its disposal comparing to other classes.
I might be wrong but that is how it looks for me on paper: Give Eles more deeps and keep their current element trees; who is going to stop a constant; Flashing/Blinking/Knockdown/Stunning/Burning “pain train” that can use mist form while waiting for CDs?

That sounds like a real problem with balancing :P

I’m kinda confused to what ppl complain about regarding the Elementalis (this is for PvE issues). I posted this in another thread but hey discussion is fun!

Just to explain my 2 cents; I played a Warrior to level 30, Thief to 21 and a Guardian to 50 as my first characters.
While these classes managed to entertain me for the first 20 levels or so they got old really fast; in short I found them extremely boring to play whatever weapon set I tried to make use of they were more or less one trick ponies with boring design and boring skills/utilities (my opinion and ofc everything written here is my opinion).

- This weekend I started a Sylvari Ele and with a combination of having “no-life” as you say and also being a student who currently studies from home at 50% speed I managed to get my Ele to 55 very fast. Now forgive me because 1.) I’m only level 55 and 2.) I never play PvP but this is my feedback so far from the PvE experience I’ve had:

The least issue I ever have had with the Ele is damage and I find it weird that there are so many complaints on the forum regarding that topic because there are even topics complaining about Eles PvE damage.

I started out with staff and stuck with it until level 50 and during that time what I found personally to be the staff Eles biggest issue was immobilizers. In essence with staff I want to keep mobs stunned/slowed etc for as long time as possible so I can put a lava font below them followed by the ignite skill and get might stacks on burning while auto-attacking and kiting the mobs around in the lava font.
While there are several immob skills at your disposal, switching between the Elements that much actually costs me a lot of damage potential and is just not worth it when fighting trash mobs.

When grouped or duod with ppl who can stand in front of you or having a pet out that distracts the mobs to attack them I can really just burst away old-school mage style with staff.

While I did enjoy Ele staff until 50 I thought of; why not give dagger/dagger a try?
Ride the lightning to the mob > the electric rollback with knockdown > fire slide skill through mob > electric shield for stun > extra earth pull/knockdown if needed sounded to me like a really fun concept and to my delight this combo has so far shown to be extremely efficient because mobs just can’t walk out of it like they could with lava font. They just melt in seconds.

Also my experience with dagger/dagger is that it’s a more “lazy” weaponset then staff (only my opinion) and what I mean is that I when I get tired and unfocused in front of my monitor after playing for a couple of hours dagger/dagger is so much more forgiving then staff because the ways to do dps with d/d is so easy because you don’t have to rely on keeping mobs in lava font since with the fire slide mobs will “perma-walk-through” the fire and get burning when they chase after you.

I have not used any damage tooltip comparison and whatnot but my experience between Ele and Warrior is that everything went faster for me with the Ele even if damage may or may not be lower because and esp with d/d there is so much action going (it’s like watching a Hong Kong movie) so I just don’t get bored and start playing as crappy as I did when I played warrior which just bore me to death.

This is my 2 cents;

• Eles is not lacking damage (prob though is that fire is the only element that really do damage and some of the other elements lack a good full set of abilities) however:

• The implementation of the dodge system somewhat may or may not screwed some Ele builds over and therefor some weapons are more viable then others (my opinion).

• The lack of having a pet out 24/7 à la Ranger may or may not create some issues with forcing mobs into “the danger zone” and therefor some weapon sets seem more efficent then others.

• People seem to want to play their Eles like WoW pew pew Mages but due to the lack of pets 24/7 and the forced-to-dodge system that kind of playstyle where you just stand still and throw nuke after nuke just don’t work. You can still pew pew but it’s handled a little different here.

~ GreenZap