Guild Wars 2

Are they event-specific materials, or are they passion fruit and stuff like that that’s going to stick around?

Did passion fruit get a bank slot?

You were never promised five pages of balance changes.

http://oi46.tinypic.com/xelzja.jpg

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/12wne4/according_to_jon_peters_profession_part_of/

EDIT: GAH, lost the chain of conversation in the merge so it looks like I’m yelling at nobody in particular. Someone claimed they were “promised five pages of balance changes.” This was for one person, not yelling at people in general.

Ziggy.7319:

-Thieves still at large. there was a sizeable CnD nerf, but nothing to mug or backstab or pistol whip.
-Warriors still at large, no nerfs (besides dual shot), very surprising.

They nerfed the burst without nerfing the skill that’s designed to burst. That’s literally the only thing it does. This seems logical to me, and if it isn’t quite enough they can do more later.

Warriors are still just pubstomp mode.

FYI, Spectral Grasp is about as fast as an elementalist’s fireballs now.

Just in case anyone wants something common to compare it to.

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

You realise most of the changes people are calling for ARE bug fixes?

Every patch since launch has been fixes to minor bugs (many of which people didn’t even know about) whilst major bugs continuously go ignored. There are traits that don’t work, traits that cancel each other out, minor traits that become redundant with certain major traits in the same trait line. These are the things ANet should be fixing but instead they fix things people have never complained about.

Yes. Hence my own frustration.

Yeah, we want huge, sweeping balance changes on top of all the broken and buggy stuff! Don’t bother getting everything working as intended and see how your intended balance works, that wouldn’t make sense. If fixing the bugs afterwards unbalances everything again, do another huge sweeping balance change!

The slow going is frustrating me too, but do you even hear yourselves?

Since when has that kept channeling outside of DS?

icedutah.1752:

Now when you cast Dark Path you can’t leave death shroud during it’s cast time or it cancels the skill. Well, I guess that was kind of a bug. But funny as a Dev used that tactic in a post not too long ago

Leaving DS always canceled spells you were still casting. Leaving DS never cancelled spells in flight. Very different things, there.

Nothing broke there, you’re being paranoid. It still works fine, you’re just leaving death shroud too early.

Kirika.9120:

Yeah, noticed this too. Made me smile.
The only thing Anet are good at is trolling their necro playerbase, well maybe two things actually.. being clueless about their own game as well.

You too.

Xolosheep.1649:

“Effect will only activate during combat. "

Meaning if there is nothing attacking you, u’re not in combat, then the blast will not activate.

Are you guys testing this on dummies or foes?

It does not work in combat, either. There are zero blast finishers whatsoever.

I can’t say I’m surprised, but it’s still sad to see ;_;

I think it’s supposed to be a throwback to minions degenerating in the first game, the problem with that approach is that in the first game you were constantly replenishing your supply of healthy minions even as the old ones died off. You can’t do that here since you only get one of each and they only go on cooldown after dying.

If they’re dead-set on not letting them regenerate, I think a good compromise would be to set the cooldown ticking as soon as they’re summoned, rather than on death.

That’s cool, that makes it a lot more appealing than the other “permanent” minions that just die after a while no matter what. The disposable minions don’t bother me so much because they’re designed to die anyway.

I was just curious because I’ve never seen or heard that mentioned anywhere until I noticed it just now.

I’ve known that most minions have never had out-of-combat regen, but since this is my first time getting the elite minion and using it, I have no way of knowing if it changed. Has it always been different in that way and it’s just never mentioned anywhere, or is this a new thing?

That’s also a good point. Price alone is a poor indicator of something like drop rate.

juno.1840:

The TP explains it all — you don’t even need to guess. The prices are higher than they were before the excessive drop rate was in effect. That’s all the evidence you need.

You’re forgetting the human element here. People aren’t terrible at estimating, but they panic easily and it’s difficult to make a proper estimation of value with entirely virtual things. Their perceived value is now higher because all people saw was the sudden sharp drop in supply. They never noticed or cared before. The only thing that will answer it for sure is the drop rates themselves, the trading post is a fickle place.

Oldbugga.7029:

What about the infusions? Where do they come from? Are they going to end up like the BL Keys and be almost impossible to attain through play rather than having to buy them (or their components to create in the forge). My fear is that the components WILL end up having to be purchased….opinion only.

If it’s possible to buy them, then there is literally no purpose to adding them in the first place. Their entire purpose is to give people something to play towards in-game, so they feel like they’re advancing or something. If you can just outright buy the things then they mean even less than the little they already do.

ComeAndSee.1356:

It’s not power creep if you go up like 20 stats every couple of weeks.

Power creep right now is the amount of burst damage people are able to put out because of broken abilities / builds. Warriors can use haste + Hundred Blades + other abilities on you and dump out 10,000++ damage in 2 seconds.

No, going up 20 stats every so often is the exact poster child of power creep. It’s also the most blatantly obvious form of it, as well as the least valuable for actual gameplay, AND the least interesting. What you’re talking about with warriors is either imbalance or a L2P issue, depending on who you ask. There’s no power creep when nothing is moving.

GW1 had some power creep in the form of new skills being added over time, but those were still bound by balance with to the old skills, and here’s the important part: They actually added gameplay and options. Imagine that, adding options instead of requirements!

It does seem lower, but I’m just as prone to kitteny estimations and overcorrecting assumptions as the next guy, so I’m withholding any actual judgment. It sure feels worse in contrast to the busted rate, but it’s not like I paid any attention to the old drop rate. I didn’t even think it increased, I just thought I was getting lucky.

I imagine “hitting 100%” and “getting your star/gifts” are two entirely separate events, so world completion dropping down by 1-2% affects nothing more than the number on your map screen.

This is an odd situation, there’s not enough here to warrant a new achievement like a full expansion would, but it’s definitely a new part of the world.

Of course. Why this even has to be asked is beyond me.

I’m not reposting my whole response because it’s in the original thread.

Ensio.8172:

Seems to me that the ascended (and eventually legendary) quality items are the “plateau” Anet talked about before release.

Agony bullkitten aside, my last shred of faith is hanging by this thread. This is not an easy job and it never will be, things get over- and under-estimated and things get cut to make deadlines, or the game would never launch. It’s still reasonable to me that this is all an honest attempt to re-fix the plateau at the level they intended in the first place.

If it goes any further than this, it’s also gone beyond my comprehension.

Just be HONEST about this for godssake, and even if you decide to move the target again down the road, you’ll keep me around right up until that point.

wookie slayer.4259:

Why do people hate chasing gear? I like it, you do the new content and get your shinny’s as a reward and as a token that saids hey i did this. Do people just want content that is new and dont like reward i dont get it.

People obviously like chasing gear or they would have stopped at 80 and bought the cheapest exotics they could find for their class.

People obviously like it because they sought out TWO sets of exotics so their stats could also look good.

People obviously like it because they made legendary weapons, despite the fact that they do nothing but look pretty.

Prestige isn’t the problem, mechanical advantage is.

The instant you make people feel like they’re being pressured to spend sheer time in order to stay competitive, everything changes. You cheapen skill as a factor. A LOT of them are going to hate it. Especially when you went to such great lengths to assure them of the exact opposite in the first place.

Kathmandu.2417:

Would you trust someone who lied to you once? About the same topic, actually?

This is the main problem here.

That is a huge part of it. Again, I can understand where they’re coming from if it stops here. I still have some small faith that it was an honest underestimation on their part, and it’s not like they could very well go back and take away exotics to deal with that. Maybe I’m the sucker here because I’m into dev myself, but I can’t help but think it’s all coming from good intentions in the end. It ain’t an easy gig.

I’m trying my best to stay in wait-and-see mode here because I want to make a reasonable decision about all this, but they aren’t giving me the opportunity. That alone says a lot and this move put them on terrible footing as is. At this point, no answer is just as bad as the answer I don’t want to hear.

Seriously, I just want a straight answer. If they say there’s more coming in the future, I can quit while I’m ahead.

If they say this is it, no more stat bumps ever, I can deal with one tier. It honestly seems like something that got cut right before release anyway. And then if they do add more down the road, I know their true colors and can get out as soon as news breaks.

Really though, I’m just as worried by the fact that they’re touting damage/resist as an “exciting new combat mechanic.”

Helterskelter.8490:

Everyone is complaining for ‘horizontal’ progression, but I don’t think you guys understand what that means.

New class? Sure, enjoy playing a Bard from 1-80, in content you’ve already done (perhaps several times).
New race? Sure, enjoy playing a profession you’ve most likely already played, with a pointless storyline that only lasts 25~ levels to suit.

At least gear progression gives you something to work towards, as the race/profession of your choice (and if not, why play?) to improve yourself. How can you experience a game if you intend on just re-rolling all the time with new content?

Adding a new dungeon, a new zone, new quests, skins, skills, classes, and races, those are all horizontal progression. It’s new stuff to see and do and experience. This new Diablo-esque dungeon is horizontal progression, and it’s really cool! I love pretty much everything about it except Agony Resistance.

Rolling a new class IS experiencing more content. With a new class or race, I come out the other end of my playtime with a new class to play, a new playstyle, and another complete character to call my own. It’s not just the world itself, you know. My choices determined what they look like and how they play. Over time, more options will become available and everyone will find something new they like enough to work towards. And if not? You already paid, no need to pay more until you feel like something has come along that adds that much more value to your purchase.

With better gear or higher levels, I get bigger numbers. To combat the enemies’ bigger numbers. And everybody else is getting the same bigger numbers, so you aren’t distinguishing yourself or working towards anything at all, you’re just playing catch-up. Nothing is new or unique about your bigger numbers. The only thing they do is keep you from playing certain sections of the game too quickly. We have enough of that in leveling.

Why not just cut out all the bullkitten before it gets out of hand in the first place?

nachtnebel.9168:

They can introduce more skills and traits without increasing the level cap. Trait points on the other hand shouldn’t increase, builds are about choices, not about getting everything.

After the latest news I’m pretty sure they will raise the level cap with each expansion, but I’m also very sure that I won’t buy even the first expansion pack if that’s the way this game evolves.

This guy gets it. More and deeper trait lines would be interesting, and open up more choices. Adding ten more points into the current system does little for variety, it just means people will go straight for that one trait they would get if they “just had 5-10 more points,” which is unlikely to drastically alter how the build works.

vespers.1759:

the point of an MMO is that you never complete it or if you do, it’s right before the next patch.

I’m sorry for your loss.

Why can’t “character progression” be all about unlocking more skills? That can continue past 80 and nobody will ever complain about it because it’s actually interesting and doesn’t gate you because you can unlock whichever ones you want at any time. Why does it always have to be about gear and boring kitten numbers?

Why does it even have to be character progression? Why not player skill progression? Why not have harder and more complex stuff to challenge people who beat the rest?

Kript.3291:

It’s not fair to those people who had their similar topic post moved there though is it? If this topic isn’t moved, then forum should move all similar topic back so they can be heard again, since the kneejerk action has gone. (according to you).

No it’s not fair to them, but that’s because I don’t think that should have happened in the first place.

I’m a reasonable guy, I understand wanting to keep your front page from becoming pure rage and creating a soundproof chamber for people to vent, but this is effectively censorship. Throwing all those threads in the pile destroyed any individual threads of discussion they may have had and turned it all into a broken mash of people raging mixed in with coherent posts nobody is ever going to see. Let them come out and talk once they’ve calmed down.

Kript.3291:

Discussion is all fine and good. There’s no need to spam the forum and fill the front page with related thread when there’s a 8000 post thread that’s dedicated to ‘discuss’ this issue.

Be serious here, discussion can’t happen in a thread that big and moving that fast. It’s a garbage can to keep complaints out of sight and out of mind. Now that people have cooled off a little bit, let the non-kneejerk thoughts be heard.

I enjoy progression too. I just enjoy the kind where I’m getting better, not my character’s gear.

Yeah, I would deeply enjoy seeing them improve bosses as they move forward. I don’t reminisce fondly about WoW often, but when I do it’s all about Karazhan. And my Dreadsteed quest chain.

Kill graveyard zerging while you’re at it, it cheapens the fights we already have.

Sinnyil.3648:

Due to the progressive nature of both zones and the personal story present in the game, I find an increased level cap inevitable. In fact to do otherwise would make no sense with regards to story flow, every step is a different level (besides the last couple) and every “arc” is bracketed by segments of 10. To suddenly have that flow halted while the story trucks on would fly in the face of the precedent set and be completely jarring to any new player.

You can separate story segments with space just as well as with time or levels. Say your previous mission ends, and the next story step is at the far end of a new zone, behind events and stuff related to the story as it stands at that moment.

Focksbot.6798:

In single-player RPGS, the point of increasing stats and armour is to have a system that regulates the pace of the game so you don’t blaze through it – it keeps you juggling smaller tasks as you advance the plot.

The thing the “gieb character progress!” people keep misunderstanding about this game is that leveling is the gating mechanism here, not gear. As long as you’re slapping on whatever random drops you find, you’ll be able to survive any zone at or below your level. Once you hit 80 it’s a short hop to the stat ceiling and suddenly world is now your oyster, go explore and do everything.

The fact that these people are already out of things to do is a combination of the game being brand new and not GW1+three expansions huge yet, and blazing through it all ridiculously fast. It’s already a TON of stuff to do and see.

stayBlind.7849:

I wish the max level was 30

If the max level was capped somewhere around 40 and all the current 41-80 content was brought down permanently to that level, this game would have an identical progression to the first Guild Wars.

That’s not a bad thing at all mind you, just saying. It worked before.

rtommaso.3120:

The content locusts finished the content in less then 1 month. GW2 lacks content. It has less content than prophecies alone.

Adding more content can be done without adding things that alienate a sizable portion of your players. Those people cannot be appeased, they will have every new item before the next week ends and ask for another helping.

Junk gear (white), dropped gear (blue), quest reward gear (green), top-end stuff to work a little for (orange), and extreme cases (purple).

Rares seem like a fairly pointless tier currently, only used to deliver special skins without handing out exotics in the process. I can see why they didn’t just bump rares up to exotic’s spot and make exotics harder to get, because that would mean all the extra work is only for people who start the climb afterwards.

If it absolutely, positively ends here and they do this right the first time, then it’s not going to be a huge issue once everyone cools down. The problem is that they’ve given no firm words on the matter, just lawyerspeech damage control.

Plague.5329:

Is it possible for games to maintain a sense of personal progress without tying that progress to an investment in gear numbers?

I feel truly sorry for anyone who honestly answers “no” to this question.

yurtshone.7325:

It will be alot more than 8% by the time they add in the rest off the ascended gear. Someone cleverer than I did the math by extrapolating the two pieces they already showed us in that threadnaught and it came to 36% I think. :-(

That’s not how percentages work. If each piece of ascended gear is 8% better than the equivalent piece of exotic gear, then a whole set of ascended gear will be 8% better than a whole set of exotics.

Now if the ascended ring is actually 36% better than a gemmed exotic ring, you would be correct.

Ingmar.7530:

And that’s without accounting for whatever the infusions themselves bring.

I think (hope) that infusions are going to all be Agony Resistance and Crab Shell Penetration styled stats, only good in PvE as a gear gate. If that’s not the case and infusions matter in PvP then oh god they done goofed hard.

No, no no no no oh god no.

Please no.

More weapon options, more/new traits and maybe even trait lines, more dungeons, more zones, more stuff in current zones, more recipes, more events, more puzzles, more whatever, but not more levels. All at 80. As soon as you make it a ladder, nobody’s going to stop on the second-last step to look around.

Encaladus.5291:

Murdock also stated current Legendary items will receive stat bumps to Ascendancy’s level to maintain the appeal of undertaking the enormous resource and time efforts to get them.

bolded the part of the statement that I read so it shouldnt be too difficult to read

“Legendaries aren’t getting stat-boosted this weekend.”
this weekend
this weekend
this weekend

Encaladus.5291:

Legendaries aren’t getting stat-boosted this weekend. Anyone saying that is just proving that they didn’t read carefully enough.

quoted from http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/13/arenanet-guild-wars-2-ascended/

Murdock also stated current Legendary items will receive stat bumps to Ascendancy’s level to maintain the appeal of undertaking the enormous resource and time efforts to get them

so after reading that do u agree legendaries are not being stat-boosted?

“Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game.”

Bolded the important parts so you don’t have to read carefully.

And if you don’t think legendaries are worth it for the skin alone, that’s totally cool. Legendaries aren’t for you. This game wasn’t for you until now.

Legendaries aren’t getting stat-boosted this weekend. Anyone saying that is just proving that they didn’t read carefully enough. For the record, I do think that legendaries deserve to be equivalent to the best item tier, because all they should be is a really pretty skin. It’s the fact that that tier is now moving that is the problem.

And yes, the pretty skin is the WHOLE POINT of a legendary. Time spent improving your play and personal skill should dictate your improvement in performance, not time spent farming and buying.

vespers.1759:

i have no interest in grinding 300 gold for the precursor alone. i want content, not crazy grind.

i would do dungeons more if they were actually fun. if the mechanics were there, i would enjoy doing them, but as they are now, they are not something i want to do after i get the gear.

as for pvp i don’t see much room for improvement as wvwvw is based around mindlessly zerging from place to place. if they added arenas for 1v1 i’d be thrilled.

Exactly. My. Point.

These are the things they should be working on, and the sad thing is they actually ARE! This “scavenger hunt” talk about precursors has potential to be a very nice thing. New dungeons are always nice, and this new one actually sounds really cool apart from the lazy damage/resist mechanic. I just hope the bosses get more interesting as the game gets older, this dungeon will be the first test of that.

It’s like they’re serving a delicious meal with one hand but flicking snot on it with the other.

vespers.1759:

if it gives me something more to work towards then yes. I have 100% map, i have most of the armor i want, i’m bored of WvWvW and there’s nothing to do.

the only limiting factor to how fast you get bored of endgame is gold. you can grind for costumes, bank slots, bags, armor etc.. but when you have all you want what reason is there to continue?

What are legendaries?

What are speed clears and other self-imposed challenges?

What is playing PvP and getting better at the game?

Blacksarevok.8104:

I feel like Arenanet is dangling above the pit TOR and countless other MMO’s fell into.

And that pit is: trying to cater to “MMO hoppers”. Instead of focusing on the people still playing the game without issue, they are focusing getting back the players that aren’t playing anymore. And it will most likely fail. There is a significant portion of players who get bored very quickly and just go from MMO to MMO to MMO. They are never satisfied, no matter what. Wasting effort on trying to tie them down when the effort is exactly that: a waste.

Do they really think that adding a gear ladder is going to bring back that many players that stopped playing? And even if it does, do they really think it’s going to tide them over another 3 months? Most of them will be done within weeks, if not days, and just stop playing again. They upset a huge portion of the dedicated playerbase in attempt to get the flaky/non-existent playerbase back. They are risking players they know would have kept playing the game on the chance they might get some of the hoppers to return.

This just doesn’t seem like a smart gamble to me, and for the most part, history will back up my feelings on the matter.

Quoting for truth of truths.

JBleezz.2697:

Look yes there is a sort of cosmetic bridge between exotics and legendaries in the form of expensive exotics with in general cooler looks than the easy to obtain exotics. At the same time however there is an inherent problem with the cosmetic bridge so to speak. Everyone has different tastes. I personally don’t want any of the hard to get greatswords so I am left with nothing to go for except a legendary which is a huge grind, as it really should be.

But the purpose of the Ascended gear seems to be to serve as partial legendaries with incentive for everyone. Its a carrot to make the road to a legendary seem not as bad. Unlike the brick wall a lot of players are currently hitting after easily getting all of their exotics and seeing the insurmountable path to the legendaries.

You almost had it, but riddle me this. Why is everyone now forced to work for a “partial legendary” just to keep up in stats? Nobody had to farm for forge exotics just to hit max stats.

What part of “time spent on ascended items is time NOT spent moving towards a legendary” makes the road any easier?

Kaizz.7306:

Therefore, that makes Ascended armor kind of an alternate armor set, just like MF gear, right?

Well then there’s that part about Ascended being better. It’s only ~5 point difference.

That’s the thing, it’s not only 5 points. Each point of magic find is worth a dozen or more points of any other stat, and since they haven’t bothered to say “these items are packed with gobs of extra magic find for no reason” we’re forced to understand that they’re following the usual stat distribution rules.

Power/Prec/Vit ascended items will have a very noticeable jump in Power over exotics. Every primary stat looks to be making an enormous jump. And it was hidden by the magic find.

JBleezz.2697:

How is this added tier to bridge the time acquisition gap between exotics and legendaries a gear grind or a treadmill?

And its only a treadmill if they continue to add tiers which they have made it clear they have no intention of doing. So why then is there such a fuss.

Spending time on this is time that could have been spent on a legendary. It’s just a smaller shiny that doesn’t take as much work to get, to distract impatient people from the bigger shiny down the road. Except now both of those shinies are statistically stronger than what everybody has at the moment, so now we’re forced to put in the time if we want to stay at the power plateau. The power standard has moved, and people have to chase it. One step on the treadmill.

I’m also no fan of the walking-on-eggshells, marketing/lawyerspeak Chris is using to try and assuage everyone’s fears. All this could be put down so easily by a simple “No, there will be no more tiers ever.” and they aren’t doing it.

Draeka.5941:

Why is everyone up in arms when y’all cried out for more normal endgame, and when they give you new armor, recipes and dungeons….you complain?

These two groups of people are mutually exclusive.

Draeka.5941:

I can’t recall, but did anyone beat GW1 without getting infused armor? That was a pretty big chunk of the story, dealing with the Mursaat. So really, what we have here is do the dungeon for slightly better gear, or don’t and enjoy the current game with hardly any loss on your end….as opposed to not finishing a game.

It’s a big chunk of the story, but what isn’t a big chunk is dealing with Spectral Agony. You bring a thing to a Seer once and it’s done for your whole gear. It’s a mere sidequest if anything, no grind at all, and you only have to come back if you made a new armor set. I believe it used to require five runs, one per piece of armor, but they realized that was stupid and reworked it to one run per armor set.