Guild Wars 2

AppleHack.7340:

The problem is with people staring at their character models, when they should be “feeling” their hitboxes. Once you manage to do this you don’t even really need to see your character, i bet i could do the puzzle without having a character model(Sure, it would be harder.) at all since i know how big it is and that it is always at the center of my screen.

Pretty much this. Since your character is always in the same place on your screen (assuming your camera doesn’t start having a seizure), it’s just a matter of feeling your character position, rather than keeping an exact eye on your character avatar.

Also, I plan on doing this puzzle again tomorrow on my asura thief, and I’ll be happy to come back and tell everybody how it went when I’m done.

Ryuken.2789:

After my HOURS of attempts, I find that I get most messed up when grouped with other people. A vast majority of my fails come from not being able to see my character at all in the crowd. During the times I do get past them, I fail, but get farther with each attempt.

Just as a little tip, I tend to stay to the left on the first section of the tower. I stay on the far left side of the stairs on the way up, sit on the left side of the gear at the top, jump on the left tile after the explosion, wait a heartbeat for everybody to go by, then I swing to the right and do a few mini-hops to get to the next section right behind the pack. But when I do, I swing back to the left and stay on that side (jump onto the plank, then the little tile with the treasure box on it, then onto the upright gear) all the way until I hit that tiny square stepping stone.

By staying to the left as much as possible, and giving the other players a fraction of a second head start during the traversal of the wall explosion tiles, I guarantee that my character is out in plain sight during nearly the entire beginning section of the tower. And by the time I hit the middle section, there’s maybe 4 people left.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Greyfeld.7104:

MithranArkanere.8957:

[…]

I literally had none of these problems, and managed to finish the puzzle within an hour. I don’t know why you’re having these problems, but it may have more to do with your problem controlling your character, than anything with the puzzle itself.

You not having those issues doesn’t mean they are exclusive to me and the way I control the camera.

In some places, only tall characters or short characters have camera issues, for example.
Have you seen a ‘This tall so the camera won’t randomly jump around’ marker in character creation?
No? I though so.

And it’s not just me the one multiple issues with it. Let’s see one example.
http://es.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1252on/official_clock_tower_jumping_puzzle_rage_post/

There are plenty of asura players who have made it through the puzzle, thusfar. So, while your complaints that the asura have unique problems may be accurate (I’ll be trying it with my thief tomorrow, so I’ll see for myself at that time), the puzzle is by no means impossible as it currently stands.

So yes, it is a “learn to play” issue.

atarigenocide.4987:

The speed boost doesn’t help that much with the jumps but in outracing the ooze.

I never, not a single time, had a problem outracing the mist. Every single failure was due to a misjump.

neon.4863:

Greyfeld.7104:

neon.4863:

Xenite.7418:

I don’t mind jumping puzzles, but I despise when they push time limits on you. One of my biggest pet peeves in gaming. Such an artificial way to increase difficulty.

Don’t expect much sympathy on the forums though, the standard reply to any criticims from the fanboys seems to be “omg l2p betterz”.

^ all of this

I despise time limits for pretty much everything. I much prefer very difficult jumps that take precision than feeling like I have to hurry. It’s especially bad when you have impaired reflexes (which I do right now).

I’ve been at this puzzle for over an hour and haven’t even progressed past the start. This isn’t fun, it’s just frustrating. I don’t even care about the reward, I just want to complete it.

Also there’s nothing wrong with doing things everyone can get or participate in, particularly as far as achievements you have a limited amount of time to get go.

There are already dozens upon dozens of achievements you can unlock with minimal to no effort.

That doesn’t mean an achievement we only have a limited time frame to obtain should be unattainable by people who, for whatever reason, just aren’t fast and precise enough. It wouldn’t be a problem if the achievement was permanently available (I’d just work on it daily until I got it), but in this case, yeah, I’m miffed.

What about the people who buy the game after the event? What about the people who couldn’t play during the event due to RL issues? Are we just going to hand out achievements to people because they were incapable of performing the required actions during the timeframe the event was available?

The clock tower isn’t required to unlock the holiday achievement, and the reward for completing it isn’t a unique item. It’s basically a standalone puzzle.

So yes, it’s perfectly acceptable for the puzzle to be too difficult for some people to finish.

You can get into the lab by talking to the NPC on the stone slab after you enter the mad king’s realm.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Exactly. Ive beaten all time challenges in games like Assassin’s Creed.

But in games like those, movement is fluent, and the camera is very responsive and smart.

I’m not playing the puzzle here. I don’t have problems knowing where to jump. The problems are jumping and the character not going there, because it collides with a minuscule corner and goes just up instead going up and forward.
And then there’s the camera, that I must keep within a small and precise angle at all times, or it’ll collide so I’ll end up seeing only the floor, and in some spot no angle will prevent that.
And then there’s everyone covering the view so you can’t see a thing unless you bring permanent passive speed boosts to skip ahead of everyone.

Frustration isn’t the same thing as difficulty. Frustration isn’t the same as challenge.
Frustration is the ANATHEMA of fun.

I literally had none of these problems, and managed to finish the puzzle within an hour. I don’t know why you’re having these problems, but it may have more to do with your problem controlling your character, than anything with the puzzle itself.

neon.4863:

Xenite.7418:

I don’t mind jumping puzzles, but I despise when they push time limits on you. One of my biggest pet peeves in gaming. Such an artificial way to increase difficulty.

Don’t expect much sympathy on the forums though, the standard reply to any criticims from the fanboys seems to be “omg l2p betterz”.

^ all of this

I despise time limits for pretty much everything. I much prefer very difficult jumps that take precision than feeling like I have to hurry. It’s especially bad when you have impaired reflexes (which I do right now).

I’ve been at this puzzle for over an hour and haven’t even progressed past the start. This isn’t fun, it’s just frustrating. I don’t even care about the reward, I just want to complete it.

Also there’s nothing wrong with doing things everyone can get or participate in, particularly as far as achievements you have a limited amount of time to get go.

There are already dozens upon dozens of achievements you can unlock with minimal to no effort.

If this is the case, ectos are going to plummet in price for a while, I think.

Dr Grinspoon.9620:

Female Norn Mesmer, lots of charr around but no speed boosts. I mean really, it’s infuriating and extremely annoying but it IS doable. Took me 50ish attempts I’d guess.

I don’t really understand why people think it’s easier with the speed boosts. There are maybe 2 jumps in total that are easier with a higher run speed, and that’s only if you’re terrible at timing your jumps (which admittedly happened to me a couple times, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly).

As for my stats…

Norn, Ranger, no speed boost.

Took me the better part of an hour to complete the tower on my norn ranger, but complete it I did. And with no speed buffs, passive or otherwise.

This is a brilliant jumping puzzle, and at all times, I felt like the failures were all mine. While there was one or two spots where I felt like the camera needed a little work, at no point did I ever feel like the puzzle was just poorly created, or was of unfair difficulty.

One part reflex, one part awareness, two parts memorization. Fantastic balance, and definitely my favorite jump puzzle I’ve encountered.

This is what happens when you combine faceroll-easy difficulty with a deluge of high tier equipment.

Even consumables are near-worthless in this game, which is a feat in and of itself, considering how lucrative crafting consumables is in most MMOs.

Frvwfr.4307:

Andele.1306:

What id really, really want is a Mini Zhai zhai. He is cute!

While funny, and also would make sense, I highly doubt this will be implemented as many users want something that will help them progress further

“Commander, it has been brought to our attention that a small, misshapen egg was found among the remains of Zhaitan’s tower. We would like to bestow it to you, as a sign of your achievement.” You acquire “Egg of Zhaitan, double click to use.”

(99.9% chance to get mini Zhaitan, .1% chance to get some super rare mini)

But no, unlikely

There really isn’t any progression to be had. You get exotics and you’re set for the duration of the game (unless Anet decides to raise the level cap). Exotics can already be attained through various means, so the end of the story arc is the perfect opportunity to give out something unique, that you can’t get anywhere else.

I’m on board with a Zhaitan mini.

RoyHarmon.5398:

I was surprised by just how many NPCs died over the course of the story.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

I played my storyline near-parallel to my wife’s storyline, and after seeing Forgal, Apatia, Tonn, Zott, and Kekt meet untimely deaths, I’m afraid to get attached to any NPCs. I’m avoiding my Priory character because I don’t want Sieran to die (and I know, based on the deaths of almost every other likeable NPC, that it is inevitable). Honestly, I’m almost afraid to play my norn and asura characters, based on the list above.

But I can sort of understand why it was done, from a storytelling perspective. I mean, we’re supposed to understand that fighting dragons is serious business, right? And how else to convey the sense of destruction but by making the character feel the loss of so many friends?

I actually made a thread about this very phenomenon, but nobody seemed to care about discussing it. Which is surprising, because I’ve seen plenty of people complain about it.

It seems to me that people should be worried more about crafting actually being useful before they worry about the charge to carry more than 2 crafts on a single character.

Malediktus.9250:

^Thats not an issue. If you transmute a skin onto different stats it becomes the quality of item used for the stats. Not a bug.

I also dont understand why you would want to transmute the legendaries at all. Their stats are perfectlty rounded. Power, Vit and Toughness is probably the most effective stat combinations for most classes and builds.

Because different stats work for different builds?

The idea behind the system is to be able to put any stat combination on any weapon skin. If this entire premise is scrapped at the highest tier of weaponry, it makes the entire idea of Legendary weapons laughable at best, since they’re no stronger than their Exotic counterparts.

CelticWish.2314:

PsionicDingo.2065:

This is my feeling on MMORPGs (Not RPGs, specifically MMORPGs) making You, the Player Character, The Hero: It doesn’t work. The very concept is immersion breaking. Being A Hero works, but not The Hero.

I’ve felt for a while now a suitable MMO story is simple, there is a massive world war going on. There are multiple fronts, so multiple areas you may encounter, there’s your zones and variations, but all part of the same overall war. Use WW2 theater history for inspiration, but fit your lore/theme.

Every quest revolves something around forwarding the war effort for your side. No quests of “can you get me apples for a pie?” or “bandits over there being jerks”. It would be “go get these supplies so we can take them to the front line”," take these supplies to the front", “get this intel to the frontline”, “find the spies amongst us”, fight at the front, “return this from the front back home”. Play that scene out.

Then on to the next front, with it’s own story and characters, each growing in size and scope.

But all quest there is an urgency to support the war, because this is serious and we have to do it pronto or we lose everything. You don’t have to be the one, your just one moving the cause forward until success.

I believe it’s a simple formula, but a believable one of what would really happen in an epic story. No major off-shoots that make you lose focus of the grand story, constant direction of forwarding the war effort until the end.

It can even work if you don’t have the PCs start as part of the war effort. Wherever they start, the war should touch that area. “Beat up the bandits because they robbed me” doesn’t hold nearly as much context as, “Bandit attacks are on the rise, because the war has left the local militia thin and unable to properly police the roads.”

If you actually read my original post, in full, you’d understand that I’m not asking Anet to let all the characters live.

I think if there was a character with a personality that actually lasted more than a handful of missions, I would die from shock.

And if you’re going to kill off somebody pseudo-important, dedicate some time for some actual character growth for those who are still alive. Tired of seeing a named NPC die, then everybody shrugs their shoulders and never mentions them again.

Characters that are actually interesting are few and far between in the personal story, as it is. Most of them are bland, faceless, mono-toned “Pact Drones” that have no personality, and nothing interesting to say. The only time (the only time) the story introduces a character with any semblance of personality is if they’re going to be killed off in a half dozen missions.

This is lazy writing.

It has nothing to do with the “horrors of war” or whatever the hell you want to go on about. It’s about the fact that Anet’s writing staff is only putting a kitten effort into characters that they plan to kill off, in an attempt to create emotional impact.

This works the first time. Maybe the second time. But after that, it just means that I’m going to stop giving a flying kitten about any character that they write, because I now know what their red shirts look like.

Kendu Kuzal.3985:

tom.7468:

got to 97% world completion been trough all dungeons and pvp maps and most random events i feel like its Game over. you have only like 5 sets of weapon skills and you don’t need friends for anything but dungeons and I’m starting to realize that loosing the holy trinity was a horrible idea guild chat is just a chat room everyone just roam around the map without troubles. they are to busy to join you in dungeons most of the time. just my opinion.

Well, you ran through the game and didn’t experience any of the content. Of course the game is gonna feel over when you’ve burned yourself out in two months. Besides that, this game is WvWvW and PvP focused at endgame. Just like it’s predecessor GW1.. Which only had 20 levels! Should have done a little research before coming here and expecting a cookie cutter MMO. LoTRO should fulfill your undying need to consume content faster than the speed of light.

“I have 97% map completion.”
“Well obviously you ran through the game too fast to experience any of the content!”

lol sometimes I wonder if people actually read what they write before they hit the Post button.

Not for the first time, I was doing a set of personal story missions, started becoming attached to a character, and then watched as the story killed him off.

This time, it was Zott, during the push into Orr. Among the mono-toned and generic lines delivered by the majority of the NPCs during these missions, Zott makes a comeback with his new(ish) protoge Ellie, livening up every mission with their amusing, pseudo-abusive banter.

And when Zott insisted that we go find Ellie, I was like “Noooo we can’t leave her to die! Must save Ellie!!” And I was happy we actually got her back.

Then not five minutes later, you kill off Zott.

What. The. Frick.

And not only do you kill off Zott, but Ellie gets over it in like 2 minutes, because the pacing of the story doesn’t allow for actual emotional character development. No, we have to shove things along, because the “epic storyline” is waiting.

Seriously, stop killing off all the good characters. At this point, I’ve come to realize that any time any character is given some semblance of a personality (as in, not coming across as, “All I am is some random soldier in the Pact, and I do my duty, and have no other thoughts or feelings beyond doing my job.”), they’re the next “red shirt” in the storyline. I think if there was a character with a personality that actually lasted more than a handful of missions, I would die from shock.

And if you’re going to kill off somebody pseudo-important, dedicate some time for some actual character growth for those who are still alive. Tired of seeing a named NPC die, then everybody shrugs their shoulders and never mentions them again.

I completely agree, and I hope that Anet takes these complaints seriously, but…

QUEST COMPLETE HAVE SOME MAGIC PANTS.

This totally cracked me up xD

Blueroseknight.7954:

Why not have certain gear skins that are only purchaseable if you have a certain spread between the 3 traits? I am disappointed with ANet’s inability to think outside the box on this one. There are loads of ways that you could implement some kind of meaningful impact. As it stands currently there is no reason to have it in the game other than to remind the players that some features aren’t worth developing.

Because character aesthetics should never be tied to a roleplaying mechanic. SWTOR proved this for themselves, by pissing off the majority of the fanbase with their lightside/darkside-specific gear.

Roleplaying mechanics should have an effect on your characters’ actions and story, not on how you choose to dress them.

Efaicia.3672:

I think his point was guys, that pets are used for utility. I am not sure where on his list it says Pets are our most important DPS attribute. In fact, I am not sure I read on his post anything about DPS.

Should make one think, eh?

If this where the case, then there wouldn’t be an entire branch of traits dedicated to improving your pet’s effectiveness in combat, not to mention a multiple utilities and an elite that improve your pet’s combat prowess for a short period of time. Not to mention pets that have reduced survivability to make room for increased precision and/or attack damage.

If they were purely for utility, they probably wouldn’t have any attacks at all, or you’d at least have complete control over their entire skill set (instead of just 1/4 of their skills). But after reading through the beastmastery tree, and looking at some of the pets who trade all utility on a couple of their skills for pure damage, there’s just no logical reason to come to the conclusion that the pets are used solely for utility and shouldn’t expect consistent DPS from them to compliment the Ranger’s own damage.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

One thing that bugs me about pets is, if they are supposed to be such a big part of a Ranger’s DPS, why do they die so quickly? I have 300 points in beast mastery and the little traits and utility skills to add additional healing, plus another 200 points in toughness and mostly toughness gear yet I find unless I use a bear all the time, my pet is going to die within seconds of sending him in to fight something. Is this working as intended? Are most pets basically useless except for a small buff or cc they might provide and making a single f2 attack before biting the dust?

Unfortunately, pets don’t scale with gear. Which I think is a HUGE oversight.

Ohoni.6057:

Considering there are a number of traits that encourage swapping pets, it seems extremely silly to me that one of the big traits actively discourages it. And the response is simply to “not use it”? Shouldn’t the response, instead, be to make it actually synergize with the rest of the trait tree?

I also think it’s probably not positioned in the best tree, given that most of the other options in the tree encourage switching. It would probably be best put in one of the non-pet focused trees.

That was my point.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Having some of the ingredients that everyone wants in lower level areas promotes players going back and playing those areas too instead of staying exclusively in the 70-80 zones.

I feel like the people complaining about this are too used to how older MMOs do things. It’s really not that hard to revisit Caledon Forest and harvest some Herb Seedlings for vanilla beans. Going back there at level 80 will even give you experience and drops that scale to your level, and scale you down to make sure the content still provides a challenge. There’s no reason for people to avoid low level zones at as a high level character.

And if you really refuse to leave Orr, you can buy all harvested ingredients on the trading post with the money you get from playing in Orr.

This would be a valid point, if going to a lower level area to harvest herbs actually guaranteed getting the herb you need.

I have 8 characters, ranging between 13-74. I think I could count on both hands the number of times I’ve harvested vanilla beans from actual herb nodes. The majority of my vanilla bean stock is from when they used to sell them in bulk on the heart vendors.

And Vanilla Beans are only one ingredient that has this problem. I’ve only harvested 4 yams since I began playing this game during the headstart weekend. Four. Most of the “root vegetable” nodes I run into give me carrots, and I occasionally get potatoes out of them as well.

As somebody else posted earlier, what they need to do is place patches of specific ingredients around the world. It would encourage going back to lower levels, without the frustration and ridiculousness of fighting the RNG for high-demand ingredients.

Rukh.9287:

They really should let people turn their karma to gold through things like this, it would really help the economy and people would have a bigger incentive to get out and do things for more karma to make money from. Its really a win win for the game.

Personally, I’d rather see karma be used to reduce the price on things. Like, “You’re a hero! Here’s a discount for saving our lives!” It would amount to something similar, but there would be diminishing returns in place to encourage players to pay in a combination of karma and gold.

But yeah, concerning food… the problem is twofold:

1) The TP extends to all servers. It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again here; when you put that many people in the same economy, you’re going to flood the market.

2) The content is too easy. There’s no reason to buy buffs that enhance character stats, because steamrolling content takes very little effort. And to make the problem even worse, leveling is quick, making lower level consumables obsolete almost right after buying them. The only consumables that are saved from this issue are +MF (and even they’re still massively underpriced), because it helps mitigate the money shortage issues.

Ohoni.6057:

From my experience, not all traits are useful in all situations and areas. Finding the right ones that work well in respected areas is key to adaptation.

As it stands, the Master’s Bond trait is useful in pretty much no circumstances, since it not only resets on pet death, but also swapping, and even when you touch a bit of water. It doesn’t build up nearly fast enough to justify how quickly you can lose it all.

Thing is, fixing those problems would be as simple as putting the buff on the ranger instead of the pet. That way, it stays in play unless the ranger dies (or changes instances, as the case currently stands with any of those stack buffs).

Considering there are a number of traits that encourage swapping pets, it seems extremely silly to me that one of the big traits actively discourages it. And the response is simply to “not use it”? Shouldn’t the response, instead, be to make it actually synergize with the rest of the trait tree?

Chadramar.8156:

If you could bring back some of the early NPCs from the cultural story arcs, and focus more on that sort of content instead of a “generic hero” story that treats a sylvari just the same as it does an asura, I’d be a very happy player.

The thing that really bothered me is that the “3-act story” they pieced together doesn’t flow at all. It’s like they had 3 different teams working on each part of the story, completely separate from each other, then tried to connect them with gum and duct tape. There’s no sense that the cultural story builds into the order story, which builds into the Zhaitan story. They’re just, quite literally, three completely disjointed and unrelated story arcs that happen to feature the same central hero (your character).

What’s even worse is that even some of the cultural stories feel like they’re broken up in this way as well. Say what you will about the post-50 story, it at least had better flow and cohesion than half the cultural stories, where each major plot point was completely unrelated to each other.

Denial Of Service.5732:

Greyfeld.7104:

osuracnaes.4930:

Enter jaded contrarian.

I disagree. :P

While I definitely feel he’s one of the more fleshed-out characters, I didn’t like him at all. I joined the Order of Whispers as a thief because it sounded like a secret organization based on intelligence gathering and shadowy intrigue. Then I meet some goofy-cat, bumbling Charr who’s supposed to be my mentor? Ugh.

Great character, just in the wrong place.

It’s ok, I agree with you. I also happen to think that Tybalt (like the other Order mentors) is 2-dimensional. Which still makes him better than the slew of 1-dimensional NPCs to date, but still a bit flat.

Tybalt can be characterized as, “Apple-loving bumbler.” That’s pretty much his entire character concept. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but it sadly feels like his popularity is held in high esteem over a sea of characters awash with mediocrity.

I was also a bit disappointed that the Order of Whispers, the most secret and shadowy organization on the planet, has such a lax recruiting platform. With recruits like Tybalt and Demmi, the order’s secrets should rightly be front-page news within a month.

in fact i disagree with both points, there is no need for an order to be serious and emo and i love the comic relief and i would like to see it more often, there is enough with a dragon corrupting tyria, theres enough with divinity edge fighting over each other and hatred overflowing the personal story.

Tybalt =3 ftw.

Nobody said anything about being serious and emo. But when you’re working for a secret organization whose strength of agency relies entirely on staying in the shadows, you don’t send in your most bumbling agent whose most common approach to any situation is “we’ll just wing it,” and can’t seem to pin down a mission without leaving a trail of bodies a mile wide.

I would have found the Order of Whispers storyline much more engaging if Tybalt’s lack of discretion had actually caused problems for the order that needed to be squashed by somebody with more experience and a steadier hand. This also would have given Tybalt an extra layer of characterization, as he struggles to deal with his failures, as well as creating a real reason for the Master of Whispers to step in and take a personal hand in your character’s training.

Hell, it would have been a fantastic hook for the final “I’ll hold them off while you get everyone to safety” heroic death scene.

Sadly, that wasn’t the case.

osuracnaes.4930:

Enter jaded contrarian.

I disagree. :P

While I definitely feel he’s one of the more fleshed-out characters, I didn’t like him at all. I joined the Order of Whispers as a thief because it sounded like a secret organization based on intelligence gathering and shadowy intrigue. Then I meet some goofy-cat, bumbling Charr who’s supposed to be my mentor? Ugh.

Great character, just in the wrong place.

It’s ok, I agree with you. I also happen to think that Tybalt (like the other Order mentors) is 2-dimensional. Which still makes him better than the slew of 1-dimensional NPCs to date, but still a bit flat.

Tybalt can be characterized as, “Apple-loving bumbler.” That’s pretty much his entire character concept. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but it sadly feels like his popularity is held in high esteem over a sea of characters awash with mediocrity.

I was also a bit disappointed that the Order of Whispers, the most secret and shadowy organization on the planet, has such a lax recruiting platform. With recruits like Tybalt and Demmi, the order’s secrets should rightly be front-page news within a month.

BobbyStein.2315:

Chadramar.8156:

2) There are too many disposable NPCs.

Agreed. This is something that was discussed during development. I know that the personal story team tried to address this during the polish phase leading up to launch. I was in a few meetings where we added additional lines and talked about where the characters should reappear. The iconics got new voiced dialogue, and many of the side characters were reused in different places throughout the game.

I think the main issue is that many characters come and go every 10 levels, so it’s hard for people to really care about them in the long run. That’s something we intend to focus on more in the future.

I’d like to point out that new characters swapping in every 10 levels wouldn’t be such a huge deal, if gaining 10 levels didn’t come so easily. In 10 levels, you have something like 3 personal story quests, all of which can be completed in a half dozen hours. And those quests last maybe 10 minutes at most (and of that 10 minutes, 9 of them are running and killing things).

We don’t necessarily need more exposition, but more time spent with these characters before they swap out (or just a reason to relegate them to the background, while still keeping them around) would go a long way toward fixing the jarring nature of this issue.

I’d also like to note that the personal story tells very very little story outside of expository cutscenes. There’s a lot of time dedicated to telling me what’s going to happen before it happens, instead of just letting us play through the quest sequence and taking things as they come. Seeing NPCs react in real time to real threats with dialogue that isn’t the same canned response you hear every time you hit the F key would make the entire storytelling process feel a lot more realistic and believable.

The same repeated warnings that Trahearne utters without a flicker of concern or worry for his troops during the dragon fight in Taking Claw Island echoes in my head like a monotonous broken record.

Still waiting on somebody to come up with a better argument than “That’s just how it works, deal with it.”

As it stands, nobody’s been able to refute the stance I took in my OP.

While he may not have correctly worded it to fit your pedantic argument, he was correct. Skill tracking needs a target. Sure, you can spam your skills without a target all day, but unless you have a target selected, the skill will never track anything. The point he was making, by extension, is the fact that these skills (which will not track unless you have a target selected) should not be tracking once you lose your target (which is what happens when stealth is applied).

Stiv.1820:

@Mrbig: nothing in this game requires a target. If I am using Heartseerk without a target to move somewhere quickly and happen to land next to a rabbit I will hit it. Same goes for if I land next to someone in stealth. If they don’t dodge they will get hit. The split second you enter stealth, you aren’t stealthed on their client side and HS will still go to that location. It’s a latency thing, you can still dodge.

I can use unload (or any ranged attack) pointed in the general direction of someone who has stealthed and hit them, even if I don’t start the unload until after they stealth.

This is all obviously by design. It’s real time combat with active dodging.

You obviously missed the point about these abilities actually tracking through stealth, not just happening to hit by pure dumb luck.

Singularity.1486:

Redscope.6215:

Singularity.1486:

Ok I get the point there that projectile still fly in the same direction as it was released/shot, but Rapid Fire still hit you in stealth no matter which direction you move and also Spatial Surge continue to focus down on you in stealth

Have you ever tried just quickly strafing back and forth during rapid shot? Depending on the range it’s a nearly sure-fire way to make every shot miss. Even if you’re not stealthed.

It do seems to be an exploit >.>

Yeah, I forgot to touch on this earlier, but I’m almost positive this is a bug, and should be reported.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Here’s what his issue is with Stealth in PvE (I believe).

It’s not a problem that a monster continues attacking after entering stealth. The problem is that the monster still acts like it can see you perfectly when it comes to channeled skills. For instance, take the Wasp enemies that use long chains of rapid attacks while sitting in place. That chain is one long channeled attack, and you can walk out of range, and walk in a circle around it while it’s still attacking, and it will constantly turn while stabbing to face you. That’s fine and all, but when you go into stealth, it acts in exactly the same way. You can drop a Shadow Refuge on the area for a long stealth, walk around in circles around an attacking Wasp while in stealth, and it will still constantly turn to face you even though it shouldn’t be able to see you. Same thing with stuff like bow Volleys and the like.

Gameplay wise it isn’t that big a deal for me, but it does seem odd. It just feels weird that you go invisible and still be attacked perfectly accurately by some archer’s volley like you didn’t stealth at all. No one is claiming that going into stealth should make you evade everything or immune to damage like a dodge roll or anything, just that going invisible should feel like, you know, going invisible.

I should point out that this is especially a huge pain in the butt for the trait that stealths you when you hit 25% health. It’s a great trait in theory, saving you at the last second from being killed… until you get gibbed by those channeled spells that didn’t stop when the auto-stealth triggered, and they chew through your last chunk of health.

I’m still seeing a lot of, “This is how things currently work, so suck it up.” I’m amazed that there are so many players who won’t think logically about how stealth currently works, and encourage the developers to make fixes to bring the mechanic into line with its intended usage.

Vijil.5786:

Actually stealth is working as intended. This game was built with the idea that you can dodge all attacks be it sword arrow or spell, they can all be dodged. Similarly if you are in their path you will get hit by said attack. Therefore, being stealthed doesn’t change your position in world space, nor does it transport you to some other dimension where you are invisible or some nonsense. You’re still there, just invisible. So if you stealth and they’re mid swing and you don’t dodge, expect to be hit. If there is a channeled spell in progress, same deal. The abilities run for their duration whether you stealth or not.

If my character is invisible, tracking skills should stop tracking, as they can no longer see my character. This is logical and a simple concept to understand. If stealthing doesn’t immediately break off aggro, then there’s no reason to stealth to begin with, and I should just replace all my stealth utilities with something that’s actually going to work properly.

The problem isn’t that channeled skills keep working, it’s that they continue to track.

Also, please refer back to my post where I outline the 3 reasons why “just dodge after you stealth” isn’t a viable reason for stealth not breaking off attacks and tracking.

Stiv.1820:

Channeled thing is hopefully a bug, agree there. If you dodge, you will avoid even if they track you for their swing. I’ve never had a mob attack more than once after stealth though.

Some channeled attacks are strings of attacks, like the wasp “fury” attacks, some mage channeled attacks, etc. (And keep in mind, they all continue tracking, so just strafing around to the side doesn’t put you out of range of the attack.)

But where this really hurts is when fighting multiple mobs at once. It’s near impossible for me (and I’m assuming many other people, but I won’t speak for them) to keep track of the attack animations of 3-4 mobs at once. Stealthing and reappearing is part of my kiting strategy while I let Death Blossom chew away at their hitpoints, and repeatedly getting pegged to the wall by stray arrows after I’ve already entered stealth goes a long way toward killing my survivability.

Stiv.1820:

You are basically complaining the AI is too intelligent. No player will just stop what they are doing because you enter stealth. They at least finish whatever move they are doing and will likely spam that area. If you stand still in stealth while a 100 blades warrior instagibs you well then……

So risen with huge clubs will continue their huge swing when you stealth, big deal. Dodge it!

The problem isn’t with enemies that attack an area and you just happen to still be standing there, and get walloped by it. The problem is when the enemy continues to track you after the stealth has gone up. Strafing around an enemy’s side before his attack goes off doesn’t work when he still turns to target you. Popping stealth against ranged characters is pointless when their channeled skills continue to follow well after the buff has gone up.

Also, I’d like to note, if you maintain your stealth, any enemy who finishes their channeled ability will drop aggro and path back to their spawn point. If the AI was intended to be intelligent, it would continue poking around the area and swinging, hoping to hit something. But it doesn’t. It drops aggro and walks away. In light of this, the fact that it continues tracking you once you’re in stealth during channeled attacks is an anomaly in the behavior of the enemy AI.

metaphorm.6904:

seriously, this really IS a situation where you should stop complaining and just play more until you understand the class better. you seem to not understand the appropriate use of stealth and how it fits into the play dynamic of a Thief. its an offensive tool, not a defensive tool. its an opportunity to get in attacks without suffering counterattacks. its not a way to stay alive when you’re being attacked. until you understand that you will continue to think the ability is broken. it isn’t. you just don’t know how to play.

If the goal was to create an attack without counterattack, then why not just stick with blocks or evasions? They seem easier to code and less likely to throw balance out the window. Completely disappearing from your opponents’ sight seems overly dramatic if the only intent is to let the thief get a suckerpunch into the fight.

And mind you, this doesn’t just affect thieves. Mesmers also struggle with this issue, with their handful of stealth abilities.

ShneakySquirrel.7491:

Stealth isn’t broken. If you continue getting hit while in stealth, chain your stealth for longer stealth, or use your dodge-roll while stealthed to avoid any additional damage while stealthed.

“Stealth isn’t broken, because we can circumvent the problem” isn’t a legitimate argument. If we have to circumvent the problem to begin with, that’s proof itself that the mechanic is broken.

I shouldn’t have to burn 2-3 skills to make sure that the utility granted by the first skill actually works properly.

As far as dodging while stealthed is concerned, there are three problems with that solution (aside from the whole “I shouldn’t have to circumvent a broken mechanic” argument):

1. Not all windup abilities on NPCs are visible or well-telegraphed. This means that it’s not always possible to tell when a mob is still winding up a shot that needs to be dodged. Under the assumption that all aggro is broken off, since I’m in stealth, I’m still liable to take the shot to my face given a second or two, especially in the case of ranged attacks.

2. If I have to burn my dodge during stealth, I’ve been forced to use one of my finite evasion abilities to backup a failed evasion ability. This is a level of redundancy that makes one question why anybody would bother using stealth utilities to begin with, when there are more sure-fire utilities that work on their own.

3. While dodging, a thief is not repositioning, which is one of the key reasons to use stealth to begin with. With such a short duration on most stealth buffs, any time spent not repositioning is time wasted. Which essentially means that, any time you’re forced to dodge right after burning your stealth utility, you’re cutting your effective timer by 1/3, just to make sure the utility skill works properly.

Stiv.1820:

Greyfeld.7104:

Stiv.1820:

Yea it seems that it’s pretty much a requirement to dodge as soon as you stealth. In both PvE (espcally vs risen) and PvP. If you don’t you just get trounced where you stand since nothing really requires a target.

Which, effectively, nullifies the point of stealth to begin with. If I have to dodge to avoid being attacked anyway, I may as well have gone with a different utility skill entirely.

There are still a lot of buffs you get while stealthed and in PvP it’s still really useful.

Yes, if you’re traited into stealth, there are other perks. But what about those who aren’t traited into stealth and want to use it for its intended purpose? An aggro dump for positioning (or running away, as the case may be) is the first and foremost use for stealth.

As I said, I don’t know how well this works for PvP, but the issue of the aggro dump remains for PvE, which is a major concern.

metaphorm.6904:

my suggestion is to play your Thief more and reconsider your opinions.

Playing my thief more won’t suddenly make stealth not broken.

If anybody has a logical and objective reason as to why the current stealth is not broken, I’m open to listen to it. However, if your reasoning boils down to, “It’s fine, learn to play,” then please find a different thread to troll.

Stiv.1820:

Yea it seems that it’s pretty much a requirement to dodge as soon as you stealth. In both PvE (espcally vs risen) and PvP. If you don’t you just get trounced where you stand since nothing really requires a target.

Which, effectively, nullifies the point of stealth to begin with. If I have to dodge to avoid being attacked anyway, I may as well have gone with a different utility skill entirely.

I haven’t played enough pvp to know how the stealth mechanic fairs there, I just know that I’m tired of getting beat on after popping stealth. It just doesn’t last long enough for an immediate aggro-break (meaning ALL attacks stop!) not to be part of the mechanic.

Kurow.6973:

The major issue I have with stealth when downed is that it resets the camera and in that short time while the camera is resetting, you do not have enough time to teleport to a desired location with your other skill even if you wanted.

Well yeah, that is a major issue. But I wanted to dedicate this thread specifically to the aggro issue with stealth, and the camera reset (I think) is a problem with downed states in general, not just the thief’s.

As much as I enjoy my thief (36 asura, double dagger, death blossom kiter/stealther), there’s always one niggling issue that pisses me off every time I play.

Stealth doesn’t break off attacks in PvE.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal if stealth was a long-term buff, like in other MMOs. But with stealth being a ~3 second buff, and only used as an emergency aggro-drop measure, it’s just not fair that I should be getting pelted with attacks 1-2 seconds after I stealth. This is especially bad against ranged attacks, which don’t have the drawbacks of proximity or direction to contend with while moving around the battlefield.

And don’t even get me started on how badly this effects thieves’ downed state. Our only method of getting away from a fight while downed is to stealth->shadowstep. And having an enemy continuing to nail your backside to the ground after popping stealth usually means death, because it doesn’t give us enough time to make distance and lose aggro.

So please, I implore the developers, while you’re working on class balance and fixing bugs, please please work on a proper aggro-break for stealth!!

Andele.1306:

@Any dev here
Just to say, if you get to implement a replay of the personal story trough some way from your home instance cough a asura/charr replica of the scrying pool cough and get the VAs (or even new ones – would be better in some cases) to do different voice/character type options, i would buy em (and i mean real money, not gold to gems to shop), since it would be worth giving like 10£ so that i get a cynical, british, a tad pessimistic tomboy that doesnt cry because of a dead bone minion and sticks to the type of character i chose in conversations (as in if going all out diplomatic, you dont flirt or say that you will punch kitten or even worse say well this is the plan, run for it!) or a shy charr whos sire is a traitor, but that still tought him the powers to fight back oppressors, doesnt know how to make a giant freaking lazor cannon, but knows how to… well lets say summon a massive lightning elemental and likes to do the field research side, not kill this so that we get results or activate this so that we get results and after a while, when on orr and he finds a searing cauldron, remembers that it stands for everything that charr shouldnt do!

Seriously, general personality change packs would be epic for the store!

I wouldn’t pay for it. That’s a total ripoff, and could be deemed a bait-and-switch.