Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve said. Play the way you want doesn’t mean every single weapon is going to be as effective as every other in every situation. That’s ridiculous.

The professions are designed with multiple weapons for a reason. I don’t know a lot of people who melee the Fire Elemental. Why? Because if you stand on top of him he burns you to death. That’s the game part. Figuring out what works.

The first part was from me but you replied to someone else’s reply then … are dailies now on part with world bosses/champs?

And – trust me on this one – when there’s 5 level 80 necros who have put their marks on the spawn zone and 5 level 80 eles who use staff 2/fire on that spot your little arrow is still in the air (if you’re a warrior) when there is nothing to hit anymore.

Of course people do weapon swap (after they’re level 15 – beofre that they can’t) and most people do carry s full set of weapons but the situation is different in the low level zones:

Monster health does not scale, monster amount does not scale.

I can go bow warrior in Frostgorge or Orr and get registered for every event – why? – because monsters live long enough so that my slooow arrow will still hit them and if it hits it does enough damage. Not so in level 15 – 40 zones, though, as – like I said – my arrow is still in the air when the monsters are already dead.

The problem could be solved very easily (and without tweaking the low level event code) by being less specific and make it 4 events in Kryta instead of 4 events in Queensdale.

Astral Projections.7320:

You know, this whole mess is because ANet does not communicate. If they had made a thread while this was in the planning stages and asked us about potential problems we could have pointed things out. It seems ANet isn’t good at putting themselves into the player’s shoes and seeing things from their point of view (traits, the commander tag issue, NPE and non new players, and now this)

Now – that’s a tad unfair. Ask 100 players and you get 150 opinions many of them being incompatible … and then what?

The idea is ok, the new system is better than the old but it still has a few problems like class specifications in PvP and group event definition the way it is now. Should they refine on those features (and make Stonemist a “Keep”) it’ll be better than the old one.

Zephyra.4709:

Let me tell you a story…

Once upon a time players could not reset their Trait points.. The only way to do so was to purchase a book/manual of sorts that allowed them to reset all Traits back to scratch. Yet one glorious day, ANet decided to implement a most generous feature for the player base that allowed them to add and remove Traits points at will, not necessarily back to scratch but it improved that particular feature vastly. Everyone lived happily ever after.

… If only ANet would be so kind as to implement a similar feature in regards to WvW ‘traits’; e.g – plus and minus buttons next to each respective option.. Arrow Cart Mastery etc.

I hope others grasp this concept idea or have similar like-minded thoughts/suggestions.

Hm – that’s two different things in my opinion. Doing a dungeon – setting up this way, doing a world boss – setting up another way – doing champ train farming … yet another way.

I’d really hate to have people to be able to insta-switch their WXP skills on demand. Oh … we’re trebbing, lemme reset and go to treb – now we’re going inside … everyone retrait to guard killer … now the enemy is attacking … everyone retrait to arrow carts …

Nope!

felessan.9587:

HtFde.3856:

The “do 4 events in” are a bad design – all it leads to are overcrowded maps and frustrated melee players who see enemies melt ebfore they have even spawned – add to this that in low level areas events to not scale properly – so you have still like 5 grawl in stage II of the ice shaman regardless of the 50+ players …

As a melee it is very hard to score a hit so that you get recognized for the event and for new players it is next to impossible to get recognized because a true level 5 does way less damage than a fully geared downscaled level 80.

So it would be better to have things spread out (like with the vista or the mining) and make it "do 4 events in the Shiverpeaks, Kryta, etc.) which would not lead to all that clustering.

Forgive me if I’m seeming rude, I’m really unclear on this point, don’t most people carry both a ranged and a melee weapon? I understand melee being your primary play style for serious events, but for tagfests like these, wouldn’t you want to have a ranged weapon? You listed Guard in your signature, so you have access to the Lootstick, no?

I should update my signature – there’s an 80 of all classes and – no – ranged is not really a good option for some classes. From what I expect (could be my fault) the dailies should be do-able by any profession and you should not be forced to re-trait or reskill just because of them, right?

Also keep in mind please, that many events take place in starter zones and that weapon swap comes a tad late in the game (level 15) now with the new NPE.

The problem is mainly that there are many people and that -especially so in the low level zones – events do not scale properly. It’s ok-ish for Orr – you have many people you get many enemies and elites and champs which “last a while” – in most zones, however, the number of enemies and their level is not adjusted wether there be 5 or 60 players so stuff just insta-melts in one hits.

Now think of new players … will they enjoy being in an event they have no chance to get credited for? I don’t think so.

Vayne.8563:

HtFde.3856:

The “do 4 events in” are a bad design – all it leads to are overcrowded maps and frustrated melee players who see enemies melt ebfore they have even spawned – add to this that in low level areas events to not scale properly – so you have still like 5 grawl in stage II of the ice shaman regardless of the 50+ players …

As a melee it is very hard to score a hit so that you get recognized for the event and for new players it is next to impossible to get recognized because a true level 5 does way less damage than a fully geared downscaled level 80.

So it would be better to have things spread out (like with the vista or the mining) and make it "do 4 events in the Shiverpeaks, Kryta, etc.) which would not lead to all that clustering.

I don’t suppose you could not melee for the span of four events? I don’t. Even on melee characters. I use a staff on my guardian and a bow on my warrior. My thieves use a bow or a pistol with ricchochet. It works fine.

I could – is it, however, the purpose to alter your build for dailies? And the problem for downleveled players persist – thanks to the new NPE weapon swap comes rather late in the game, so they can’t swap as easily as higher leveled players.

And – I didn’t want to name my least facourite classes – but on those event loot stick swinging guardians are a pest, indeed.

The “do 4 events in” are a bad design – all it leads to are overcrowded maps and frustrated melee players who see enemies melt ebfore they have even spawned – add to this that in low level areas events to not scale properly – so you have still like 5 grawl in stage II of the ice shaman regardless of the 50+ players …

As a melee it is very hard to score a hit so that you get recognized for the event and for new players it is next to impossible to get recognized because a true level 5 does way less damage than a fully geared downscaled level 80.

So it would be better to have things spread out (like with the vista or the mining) and make it "do 4 events in the Shiverpeaks, Kryta, etc.) which would not lead to all that clustering.

FugueState.3842:

Another thing I had to say about was communication across the map. Why is there no on-screen chat? Meaning, once again, in Aion, there are these Groups called Alliance, and the leader of the Alliance can send on-screen messages to EVERYONE in those groups, which can consist of 24 players at the max, which is 4 groups of 6 people. Why do we only have squads and parties?

You played this game for … how long? And still have not figured out how to use squad commands, party commands and /s and /m … sigh.

Just to enlighten you … /s works (in WvW) for everyone close to you who happens to be on your side and /m works for the whole map – again only people from your side can read the messages.

FugueState.3842:

There’s a reason major MMOs have loot go to the highest damage dealt players, its because they contribute the most damage to targets and do the most work most of the time. So instead of awarding WEXP to everyone when 1 person dies, boost the WEXP gained based on the level of the person and give it to the one person who contributed the most to killing them! Don’t just award ranks because of how long they’ve been running around in groups! Make people earn it!

• cough **

Yeah – give the mighty warrior all the loot and EXP and dispose of those guardians who gave him stability which enabled him to finish, who gave him retaliation so that the enemy broke off their attack and do away with all those ele whimps who spammed water fields to keep the stout warrior alive and the necros who threw wells of darkness who blinded his enemies …

Zerg and group fights are not won because one single brave super dps hero does all the work …

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

OP, World vs World means that one server fights another. I can’t possibly see how you could assume it would be otherwise […]

I am not the OP but the whole server concept with the megaserver being in place is actually ridiculous and it is much easier to assume a guild based concept than a home-server based one … especially if people have prior experience with DAoC and the likes

Just because you’re used to it -maybe from early beta on when the server based concept actually made sense – doesn’t mean it has to be self-evident – which it isn’t – especially for players who never experienced the before-megaserver time

sminkiottone.6972:

Before the removal of white swords the bigger zerg could carelessly Ktrain all over the maps and defend those objective that where tagged by swords, now against a smaller but more organized server it can loose more than it can conquer.

Nods – if they keep up that “one big zerg” idea – if they split, say, 5 people off per map with a 30 minute rotation, however, there’s no real difference – and the server that fields more people per map can easily afford those 5 sentries.

Population imbalance is the key and – as you said in that part of your post I snipped – it’s something that’s been present in all games. But you can do something to lessen the impact or you can choose do nothing about it and it is sad that ANet has chosen to simply not address the issue at all.

A dynamic alliance based system (preferably across continents to mitigate the time zone problems) with guilds forming the alliances wouldn’t be perfect but I think it would be MUCH better than what is in existence right now.

Heibi.4251:

Though, of course, you skipped everything else I said. I’m still not sold on the no swords bit yet.

I’m not sold on WvW as it is – white swords or no white swords

White swords are a pain in the behind for smaller groups as they allow a server with a higher population to send a few guys to check things out before the small group can accomplish anything.

No white swords benefit servers with lager population as they can place spotters more easily than servers with a smaller population so servers with a smaller population have the advantage of being able to cap something with white swords gone but they’re in danger of having their structures stolen now.

So the “no white swords” things is a dual bladed sword and cuts both ways. You’re a havoc player – you’ll love the change – you’re a defender – you’ll hate it.

For the servers with more population it is only an issue if they decide to zerg instead of using multiple smaller teams. If they do, you’re again at the losing end with your havoc teams because they can field 3 or 5 per map whereas the smaller servers can only field one or two (and keep up scouting).

And if both sides forget about scouts and just cap, cap, cap … well, then the bigger servers will still win (unleess they keep one big zerg instead of splitting) because they can flip more objectives faster by being able to field more havoc teams than the smaller servers – as a side effect you’ll be up against paper towers the whole time because upgrading keeps, keeping camps and speeding Dolyaks becomes meaningless because your havoc teams will have to jump from map to map to cap, cap, cap.

It’ll be (or in cases already is) like EotM where you run into enemies only ocasionally and by accident.

The discussion about white swords is, however, a distraction from the real problems that WvW faces – it would actually be a good change if server population was somwhat identical – and I don’t mean the people registred on that server but the active part of it that does WvW.

As long as we do have the situation, however, that one server can field more people on one map than another server can field on all maps combined, it is a bad change – unless, of course, you happen to belong to the server with the population advantage or you prefer a playstyle where capturing enemy structures dominates over your global score.

Bertrand.3057:

Yes and yes, but what solution do you suggest that would maintain the integrity of WvW?

Integrity? With all that server hopping?

It would actually make much more sense to have guild based alliances – you can track how many people from a guild do actively participate in WvW and adjust the amount of guilds in an alliance so that – for once – me might actually get balanced matchups.

So – do a nice big world, split it into x regions, have each region belong to one alliance and adjust alliance population by guilds and their active members doing WvW.

coglin.1867:

You need some sort of segregation for WvW specifically, so that you have a cohesive server of players to get to know and rally behind.

I am genuinely curios, how did you believe WvW worked? there had to be teams set when the weekly matches reset. How were you assuming the three sides were determined?

I’d have signed that before the introduction of mega servers. Now you “rally behind” a server that has no meaning outside of WvW, where WvW holds no longer any benefit to PvE and where yu can’t even rally people in the capitals because your “server” only exists in WvW … with all the imbalances in matchups.

It would, actually, make much more sense to build WvW servers based on guilds than on servers that have no impact outside of WvW because a guild is actually a community whereas the WvW server community is something we old farts from early beta on might feel and remember but it might be hard for a new player to understand the server concept as it is today.

Heibi.4251:

I admit I was skeptical about this, but after 2 of us capped 2 towers and several camps without being descended upon by 30 people to stop us, I find it interesting and useful.

You can do that in EotM … oh, lemme guess … the vet NPCs are too strong there … so, of course, bring it to borderlands …

I understand that you might feel good about doing two towers with just two people – I find this … ridiculous. If there was any newer version of DaoC I’d be over there in seconds – 2 people against downright stupid NPC API … hell, one of those troll perma stealth thieves can cap Stonemist …

With the introduction of all those nice runes and ascended armor + infusion GW 2 has pretty much turned into Gear Wars 2 and made pay to win quite possible. Many casual players cannot afford the horrendous prices for buff food and the “best” runes – especially if you’re after condition based builds and can’t even CRAFT dire or rabid.

So you have to buy those … great game design …

It’s unbelievable how far GW 2 has moved away from GW 1 where all money could get you was skins and you could get the same gear with the same stats and then see who’s better at using them.

It’s telling something when my sPvP guardian does just fine but get’s insta wiped in WvW … what’s the difference? Gear + buff food I cannot afford …

Edit: Got a tad distracted there … so we have Gear Wars already in place, we have latency wars (today was a very bad day with 2 -3 second delays in between skill activation), we’ve got population wars (because hardly any setup is balanced) and now we’re making the population war thing juuuust a bit more painful because we give (not intentionally, maybe) the server with the bgger population even more advantage … yay.

TheBandit.7031:

Leaving scouts at important points and havocing is the way to take advantage of this.

If you happen to have, say, 40 people on the map … yes. If you happen to have like 10 (except for our 2h prime time window) this is posing a bit of a challenge … 2 to cover your third on Eternal, maybe one more in a key location to see what the enemy is doing when not in your quarter … that’s reducing your zerg to 7 people. Bow you can split that in two teams .. 3 and 4 men each.

Apart form constant mat starving … whaddaya mean set up a defensive ballista? All our mats are in the catapault (4 man) to … oh, when we returned from the camp we had it flipped on us and when we returned our catapult was gone too (3 man) …

All you can do with a 3 man group (especially if the other servers are able to field 30+ players against your 10) is flipping camps and sentries …

So may have been intended to give havoc teams an upper (and probably much needed) hand but it backfired in making the stronger servers even stronger because they can afford to set up scouting while the outnumbered servers can’t without seriously hindering their offensive power.

If servers had more or less an equal active population on the maps the change might be ok but many matchups are seriously unbalanced and this is just even more power to those servers with more people.

BlueBoy.1236:

I endorse this patch. I’ve found more small group fight in the last few days than in 6months before the patch. I’ll take 10fights of 5v8 over a fight of 50men vs 80men zerg any day

Understandable if things work out that way for you – unfortunately it’s not what I experience. Over here it is me against a group of 5 (me being the spotter, can’t afford to have more people in a spotting group, enemy servers – especially Whiteridge – can field twice our number during their rush hour) or me in a structure yelling for reinforcements because there’s 20+people ringing the bell.

Whenever I’m in a larger group most of our enemies will show us their backsides – it is exactly like EotM and I think one EotM playstyle is enough and borderlands should be different.

briggah.7910:

Break out of your Zerg people..

If your server has dedicated small groups, roamers and scouts then removal of white swords shouldn’t be a big problem. You do realize that the other team has no white swords as well? You should be focusing on keeping the other teams off your side of the map.

Think the problem here is with the swords most servers thought they had excellent scouts and roamers.. Now with white swords gone they are finding out that they actually lack scouts and roamers because everyone is off k-training a map somewhere.

Sighs – you’re not getting it … I’m doing my scout thing. I come by our T2 – soon to be T3 – tower when I see 40+ enemies in front of it. I say … “Houston …” when the response team arrives, the tower has fallen …

It is not that I want to zerk – it is that the enemy does that in 1 or 2 30+ zergs and that they’re trashing our structures. So there’s no use upgrading because they walls are not strong enough to hold against 5 guild catapults before reinforcements arrive.

Stupendous Man.4920:

How about introducing scanners that can be planted similar to wards in games like League of Legends.

or … EotM …

caveman.5840:

u know whats funny – my server is against yours….. y dont u break some people off your massive zerg in EB to protect your borderlands if they mean that much to u lol…

Oh – massive zerg … ahem … yes, that’s us, for sure … cough

We break off when we can and respond in time – I’d say our daytime score proves it. Looking atm I see 2 lost camps.

caveman.5840:

if anything people may try to train right now because of the magic find buff/ wvw exp buff

but sounds like u just have a bad wvw match up

Not sure if that was directed at me but – you’re wrong

(a) Our matchup is quite fine – we’re nicely ahead but I know how much harder we have to work for it …

(b) The train is the direct consequence of the sword removal. There is much less chance for the train to run into an organised defense – that’s why the train is running. There never has been a “special” reward for EotM but it’s hugely popular by PvE style players – lots and lots of rank points (what a joke), badges and champ bags …

Borderland WvW was a less healthy playground for those players because you ran into danger of meeting a well organized defense. With the swords gone most of the time we ju-hust managed to arrive in force with the enemy already exchanging blows with the lord …

I actually fear the change will lose ArenNet even more players … for the choo-choo loooooot bag type of players there are the trains in Cursed Shore and Frostgorge Sound. For those who want to brag that they do PvP (har har) there’s EotM.

Borderland WvW so far was for those players wo looked for something different than choo-choo training from objective to objective. Borderland WvW has quite a few flaws but it still manages to attract players … with the new change they cater more to the EotM type of player than to those who prefer to do the typical borderland style – i.e. capturing and KEEPING.

So all in all ANet is quite lucky that there is no other game with similar objectives around or GW2 WvW would be dead already. But given some of the feedback I hear on TS when in the borderlands … if this change persists they’ll lose a couple of players.

coglin.1867:

Again, why would you need 5 to scout 1 blob? you can split into 4 groups of 4 and take 4 keeps at once, their blob can only be in one place at one time. You claim they are sticking together, so by your telling of it, they are not scouting.

Which is only partially right because there’s always people coming from the spawn points and taking keeps with 4 people is … wehell … suicide- at least during busy hours.

The other point – I posted that before – is that you apparently do not have any intention of ever upgrading a structure – you’re advocation EotM playstyle … cap, run to next objective, cap, run to next and never stop to defend – just run from objetive to objective, karma, champ bags … yay!!!!!

That is, what EotM is for, however – WvW could be played in a different style – the “white sword change”, hoewever, seems to bring EotM playstyle to the borderlands.

coglin.1867:

Why would you put spotters everywhere? if they are moving only as one mass, do you not have a single player capable of tracking the blob? your smaller force can split up and flip multiple properties, without white sword to tattle on you. If they are staying in a blob, they can only stop one of you from your goal.

We play different games … apparently you never payed to upgrade a keep or a camp else you wouldn’t ask that question which basically means you have tons of gold to throw away on updated structures that get torn down because you have one (!) man trying to cover (a) your third of eternal or (b) your complete homelands.

And – yes – a zerg of 30+ will destroy a fully upgraded structure if you just happen to be on the far side of the map and don’t spot them when they are arriving.

Phoenixlin.8624:

This game would be a better game if we don’t have those “It is a good change, because I am enjoying even if the rest of the universe suffers” people.

And because of such people, ANet won’t bring back white swords.

You don’t actually need the white swords as they were. You could use a sentry turret like in EotM that needs replacing every half hour or hour. Nake it buyable with badges only and it’d be a neat compromise … plant your sentries … get informed where enemies are (not, ahem, what they do ^^) and you have something that is different from what it was before but maaaaaybe a bit more interesting because you could use enemy sentries to, ehem, mislead your opponents.

coglin.1867:

Gudradain.3892:

Mitch the Fish.1947:

With the white swords gone the smaller guilds in all of Tier 1 now have a chance to show just how useful they can be. Instead of forcing servers to blob up in order to defend then now have to spread out which makes the game much more fair for all size groups to both attack and defend. Personally my guild is a havoc guild and now we have the capability to not only attack waypointed structures but if the scouts are not paying attaention we regularly capture them. Scouts now actually have to pay attaention to all the sneakier places for siege units to be placed instead of just semi-afk and wait for swords to pop then start looking. That being said ArenaNet should definately work out a reward system of some kind for those who ACTIVELY scout and find havoc teams being sneaky.

This. I experienced the same thing and I’m on tier 6-7.

It’s a good change.

I absolutely agree.

The problem as I see it, is that players posting here are simply crying because the game doesn’t tell them where everyone on the enemy team is anymore, instead of having them break into smaller groups and do a little thing commonly known as “searching”.

everyone posted crying about “blobs”, and “zergs”, now everyone is crying about not wanting to pull out of the zerg and actually roam around and “look” for the enemy. Then they want to make snide comments towards Anet.

Danged if you do, danged if you don’t, when it comes to the forums.

Well – it may depend on how your server and opponents play the game. Over here it is usually one big enemy zerg that has fun killing players and tearing down structures. They do not build – they just run Karma trains. If we put spotters everywhere we lose our offensive as our biggest “zerg” usually consists of 15 people.

Assuming you need 5 to do proper scouting we lose 1/3 of our offensive potential and we become way more predictable because after every siege it’s mat-gathering time.

Good change … I don’t think so – especially when you’re being constantly outnumbered as we are and are up against at least one opponent who’s only playing in a destructive style.

Rednik.3809:

BlueBoy.1236:

Then my point was right. No server ts? no map hopping? no one responded to map chat? no one tried to ninja stuffs? It’s pretty obvious your server just doesn’t have any intention to defend at all. EBG is like the most populated map, you always have ppl to do something. When you don’t have anything on the map, it’s pretty obvious you just don’t try to do anything

Wow, looks like we have a someone from a mythical server with crowds of selfless scouts who is happy to sit and watch 24/7. Pls, tell us a name of that magical place.

Well, I’m not the original poster of that reply but on my home server, Dzagonur, which is in the lower bottom, we do have a TS and we have enough stragglers who can be organized into a raid and even to something as complicated as “tie their population by attacking their home fortress with a small force and then get our tower back and let’s treb our fortress open” …

If you happen to come at “the wrong time” (i.e. they have 20+ men on the map and your server has 5) – come back later.

If the OP never (assuming multiple attempts) managed to get a team together and if they do not have a server-wide TS … I’d say that server has either given up doing WvW for the current match or they’re just plain hopeless.

Hm, I’m actually good with the new system. Shortly after the day break – make it 15 minute – while doing regular WvW I had my 3 – dailies done, laurel earned.

Bedtime now but I’ll probably get the PvE and PvP ones does quickly as well.

The last set – most people seem to complain about was the Queensdale 4 quest thing – was done quite fast – if you know the zone you know where events spawn fast (like aroudn the water pipes) and you’ll even make a little profit by selling all those jute scraps.

The ones I never did were the dungeon or fractal related ones simply because I can’t stand either. With the reduction of quests I may find a day when I won’t make the PvE dailies but it matters less now because doing 3 WvW or 3 PvP will also give me the laurel and I’ll only miss the APs.

Mufasa.8415:

Even in gw1 skills were much much harder to come buy than they are gw2. You wanted an elite you had to travel half way across the world to steal it from the one maybe two named creatures who had it available to them. It’s the gw2 version of skill signet or skill capture or w/e it was called, it’s been three years since I’ve played it.

In Prophecies … in Factions … go Michiko, pay, done.

And – we’re not talking Elite Skills, we’re talking kittening level 1 traits that you often got as quest reward in GW 1 that you now have to travel to a zone 10+ levels above your own level (45 zones when you’re 30).

I would accept if the grandmaster traits were to be unlocked like that – but tier I traits????

Scrivs.4501:

I agree, but this does come second though.
Because I don’t even have a clue about what’s required to unlock certain traits in the first place. As this is not mentioned anywhere in-game.
if I would look this up on the wiki and then realise that I have to travel across the entire map for a specific trait then yes, i would indeed be very discouraged.

Well, the locked traits do have a spyglass at the right of their description that’ll tell you what you have to do – it’ll even move the map to the location where that task/event/boss is – although it’s quite confusing. When you get the task for the WvW jumping puzzle and click the spyglass icon it tells you you have to be “on the right continent” …

As a veteran of GW2 I know the locations and bosses – how “helpful” the spyglass might be for new players … can’t say … but “you must be on the right continent” instead of a direct tip that you have to enter WvW seems quite … er … strange.

Ah – I misunderstood.

Yes, you’re actually dis-couraged to unlock the traits because you’re sent all over the place and into regions you may not have any interest in visiting (like, say, doing the JP in Eternal. WvW).

So I think what many people will do is look up meta builds, continue without unlocking and – once they have the money – unlock the traits needed for their meta.

Nomad.9708:

And sorry about your experience with the living story. Can I just say that being an unintentional victim is not a representative example of actually playing the content when you are a part of it? Hope you have fun when you do.

Hehe, I seem to be prone to these little glitches. Just today there was event on Karka island which was to defend the village … so, naturally (I think), I went into the village and was expecting waves of crazed and non-crazed Karka to approach it … boy was I wrong. All of a sudden I was surrounded by Karka which popped out of nowhere and I was barely able to say “Oh Sh…” when I was in downstate …

I ran into those Mordrem events in low level areas but after my initial, er, experience I’ve learned to check the map very carefully for green dots and if none are nearby to give them a WIDE berth …

Silverwaste is pretty tough but with a well co-ordinated team quite enjoyable – as is Dry Top.

So those two new areas are ok – gotta think of them as Slaver’s Exile or other end game Elite areas and they fulfill that role. I’m just not too happy with those plants on steroids to have found their way into the low level maps as well

Let’s see how the new storyline develops – I just hope it does not culminate in the same experience I had with the Karka story … a truly epic battle in Lion’s arch and later on on Karka island that unfortunately degraded into a 5 fps slideshow for most of the fight (and no, it is not my hardware not my internet connection).

Shame I missed the End of Lion’s Arch and the beginning of the new season but if I keep playing I’ll consider unlocking those episodes.

tofumon.5924:

Diabolus Anur Kaya.8379:

I agree but will even go one step further and call this “new” system a game killer.

It IS a game killer. How do people not get bored leveling from 30 to 80 without traits? What is there to unlock/what is even the point anymore? Without traits you’ve basically gotten all the skills you need by like level 30 to 40.

Not quite – in the old system you had three books to purchase. So you weren’t really done by the time you were 30 or 40 …

What is the game without traits? Just weapon attacks without synergy. Many traits from tier one traits are from level 40+ content … which means unless you’re willing to cough up the cash ANet expects you to go 1-5, switch weapon, 1-5, switch weapon until then – oh what fun for a Necro to not be able to throw wells …

It’s hard enough to have any kind of impact in WvW with an uplevelled char. It’s impossible if your relevant traits are still locked and you lack the funds to unlock them … NPE … indeeed … stands for Negative Player Experience, right?

Nomad.9708:

HtFde.3856:

So I quit GW for about a year – some of that was … just hoping it won’t be at level 80 in full exotic gear

I just returned recently, but I mostly came to different conclusions. You might notice, for instance, that the stat increases from Ascended armor and Legendary weapons is laughably small considering the work they take to get. I think I read somewhere that moving up to Ascended gives you about 1-2% damage increase. So I conclude that these are mostly aesthetic upgrades for bragging rights.

I’m lousy with splitting quotes so please excuse me to take this part out and answering a second as well that I cut …

According to my calculations a full ascended berserker set will do 15 – 20 % more damage than a full exotic one. While it’s of little to no consequence to PvE (unless you’re really, really serious about speed running dungeons) it does matter in WvW.

And regarding Orr … I’m not talking about vets blocking the path I talk about a group event champion (Acolyte of Lyssa, to name one, and there’s one of those winged knights as well that spawns right on top of one) blocking the point. GL trying to solo that one … it is a humiliating experience. I never ate so much dust accomplishing nothing. Of course … my thief had an easy time … using those communing skill point types doesn’t break stealth.

Living story is something I haven’t mentioned because I am still unsure of what to make of it. My first experience was a VERY negative one as I was leveling my Asuran warrior in Ascalon (Iron Marches, if I remember it right) and all of a sudden one of those Mordrem events spawned on top of me … not fun. And since the map was empty I had to wait for it to disappear before I could get to where I wanted to go.

“Hello to “I just came back and still don’t like the game” threads.”

Assumption: I didn’t like the game – wrong

“Because, you can’t just log in and not like the game, you have to come to the forums to tell us all about it.”

The first part is a bit unclear in meaning … I can log in and login issues wouldn’t affect my “liking the game or not”.

Your third assumption is that if people are unhappy about something they shouldn’t complain … which isn’t going to get the game anywhere – if people leave the game and not tell WHY the devs have no clue what to fix. It’s often the case that developers perceive the problems to be somewhere else than the players do.

Like, say, NPE … there’s an awfully long thread about it in every language forum. I bet many devs thought this would be nice idea the players would accept … not so.

I was fully prepared to buy a few extra char slots to raise a little Asura army – one profession each. With NPE? Forget it – I’m not going to spend 100+ gold just to unlock traits.

cranked.3812:

CMM.6712:

Seems like we have one of these posts every day… player leaves for a year and comes back to complain with nothing constructive to say. If I had 1g for every time it has happened lately I’d be rich.

Goodbye to mount threads for the most part.

Hello to “I just came back and still don’t like the game” threads.

Because, you can’t just log in and not like the game, you have to come to the forums to tell us all about it.

Assumptions … and bad ones

I quit GW2 mainly due to work issues – not because I didn’t like the game – what I don’t like is what GW2 has become in the meantime – especially the new NPE. If I had a choice between GW2 as is and GW2 as was I’d gladly play the old version and be much, much happier about it.

I hoped to see some of the old problems fixed – like cloth acquisition, lag/latency issues, random disconencts (that strangely only ever occur with GW2), empty PvE environments on a WvW oriented server …

cloth problem: still persists and worse than ever
lag/latency: still persists – may affect US players less but have a look at the EU forum
random dcs: still persist, especially on big events and -no – they ma come even when there is no lag or latency

empty PvE environments: fixed – Megaserver was a good idea

DeathPanel.8362:

This is true. At this point I am willing to tolerate things as is but if any nerf is made to the way laurels are earned which according to their preview may very well happen even I may need to consider moving on to something else.

Fun thing is – maybe someone from ANet reads this – I kinda like the cuddly Asura. So I was actually prepared to pay for a few character slots to make an Asura for every profession … then I encountered the NPE and … no, thank you – I’m probably not even going to level up my newly started Asuran necromancer and – as long as this NPE stuff is around – I’m certainly not going to buy extra character slots.

DeathPanel.8362:

It’s the same with any mmo game. The main point of a MMO is not to be fun but to keep players playing. Therefore you see this type of slowdown in progression over the lifespan of any mainstream MMO. You also see this type of dishonest spin speak every single time they nerf something. I’ve played MMOs since EQ original and reading between the lines for nerf patches is pretty much second nature at this point for me.

In many MMOs players are attached to their characters because they had to pay a monthly fee to keep going – depending on how long you played you may have forked over a small fortune and quitting means throwing all that away. It is different with GW2 … I lived 1 year without GW2 and it was quite ok – if they manage to mess up the dailies now (I’d need the laurels for ascended amulets and rings) then it’s time to free up some disc space on my computer – I am already NOT impressed with the changes to the game (NPE, ascended items, cloth “drop” rate, etc.) , this would kind of close the coffin.

Strangely I’d gladly play GW2 the way it was a year or so ago … but the “new” GW2 seems … meh.

Siobhan.3582:

DeathPanel.8362:

Most likely what this change will do is make progression even slower and earning laurels even harder along with even less daily rewards. Every change ANET has made to gameplay has resulted in slowing progression to date without exception.

Wrong. leveling is now faster after the changes back in Sept..

Only if you already have a ton of gold to unlok the traits. If you don’t and want to unlock the traits by doing the required tasks you’ll be 80 with a handful of unlocked and a ton of locked traits. So … you’re not really 80

Trixie.7614:

HtFde.3856:

the weapons do WAY more damage

What?

Haven’t crafted one (still not 500) yet – info as per wiki:

Zojjas staff: 1,034 – 1,166 – 188 power, 134 precision and ferocity
Exotic staff: 985 – 1111 – 179 power. 128 precision and ferocity

Apart from the small increase in power, precision and ferocity (which does add up, however, when combined with other ascended berserker items) that’s 49 more base and 55 more max damage.

May sound meh but that’s about the same as a sigil of force will give you. Have to do the exact math but from just juggling the numbers asscended berserker set should give you about 15 – 20 % more damage than an exotic berserker set.

Healix.5819:

What basic/introductory systems? I remember a lot of the complaints.

You do have a very good point there – I don’t play WoW but I did test it with their free account (which allows you to get to level 20). I wasn’t impressed by the game but I was impressed by the ingame help system.

GW2 now relies heavily on the wiki which naturally isn’t context sensitive and in most cases highly specific. So it’s pretty bad if you do not know the exact term to look for or if you want a “broad picture” about some things.

Of course, other websites offer guides that cover a broader range but I do think that this should be offered ingame and not externally.

A “What’s this?” icon in heart quests or events wouldn’t have hurt and neither would an ingame compendium

chaosdeity.6287:

Well then let’s look at another aspect of his post, the NPE.

(snip)

Was it a good decision to disrupt the most deeply entrenched players (those who have multiple alts) by making their experiences less enjoyable compared to a previous implementation of a system (i.e. trait hunting, skill point scroll / gold sink creation, altering of personal story)? Do you think there is a better and more constructive way of having implemented an assistance program to aid new players?

I’m brushing up on the forum posts and I see there is a combined post now about the NPE changes … given the amount of posts in there I’d say it was not a good decision.

Some decisions seem especially silly like requiring a Necromancer to get their Trait II in Curses (oldschool: available at Level 30 once you bougth the manual) by completing Twilight Arbor in story mode … can’t tell offhand now what’s the level requirement for TA in story mode but it should be 40+ … so why require completition of a level 40+ dungeon to obtain a skill you should be using at level 35?

If the devs thought this trait was “overpowered” at this level they should have given it a higher number and make it obtainable later or – if the trait was adequate for this level – they should have required an action to unlock it which is actually do-able by a character of that level.

Like a couple of other things … this seems ill thought out.

CMM.6712:

Seems like we have one of these posts every day… player leaves for a year and comes back to complain with nothing constructive to say. If I had 1g for every time it has happened lately I’d be rich.

Hm … I guess there was something constructive in my post:

(a) get rid of the NPE and revert it to what it was before or a hybrid with X+ being unlockable

(b) change cloth drop rate

© rework spawn points of group events in Orr

I’d say … you’re not really an attentive reader, are you – so if I may counter: If I’d be given a gold for every post were someone just posted their standard reply without bothering to at least comment a single detail of the post he or she is commenting I’d be richer than you

Obtena.7952:

Wynne.3908:

It doesn’t matter to the average player WHY the things they want are so expensive. The point is the ‘good stuff’ in the game is FAR out of reach of the average player. Anything constructive to say to the OP at all? Are you concerned at the price of stuff?

The good stuff being what? Even the average player should have zero issue outfitting themselves in full exotic … is that not considered ‘good’ enough for you? Full exotic armor is 1-2% lower stats than Ascended. Are you seriously suggesting that if a player can’t get BiS gear, it’s not good? That sounds a little stupid if you ask me, considering all permanent content in this game was crushed in the gear you aren’t classifying as ‘good’.

You can do fine full exotic in PvE, ascended doesn’t matter in sPVP but it does matter in WvW. So if you’re into WvW you’re at a serious disadvantage if you (decked out in exotic gear) run into an opponent decked out in ascended gear – the weapons do A LOT more damage, the armor SET does a lot more + you get those nifty little infusion slots that you can use to add even more stats (depending on you using an offensive or defensive WvW infusion) – it’s not quite like infantryman vs tank but I always know then I am attacking an ascended player – I do a lot less damage and they hit a lot harder.

Kythan Myr.4719:

There’s been an AFK ranger in SW exploiting the mechanics of their pet to farm events, or so I think. Somehow the player has been there all day (6+ hours) and not moved once, but they don’t seem to be auto logged out. Other players report the same player there yesterday too, afk in the same spot. So somehow the player is avoiding the auto log out. So would that be a bot report? Not sure. Also, not sure how they would benefit doing that because the loot eventually times out and fades away doesn’kitten Very confusing.

Well – you can AoE loot – it’s unassigned by default but you can keybind it. I use that when doing WvW – it has a pretty decent radius. So let us assume the bind that to Y all they need is a keyboard macro that goes TAB, F1, Y over and over again …. I guess that’d count as active play and might circumvent the afk detection.

nGumball.1283:

… and having issues to do events is just another given thing when the MMO is 2 years-old and people won’t bother exploring areas anylonger.

I’ll treat that one seperately … yes, you’re right. Few games, however, decide to park a group event in front of a skillpoint or vista that is needed for map completition which is also something that a solo player should be able to achieve (according to the info given during the beta phase).

Few games have a veteran upscaling mechanism that levels a veteran for 40+ players when a zerg runs by and leaves said veteran for the unsuspecting solo player who enounters him 5 minutes after the champ train has passed …

Events can trigger … veterans can upscale … no biggie … but decent programming would have those events check once in a while if there are enough players around to complete the event or kill the monster and disable themselves (group events) or downscale again (veterans). GW2 unfortunately does neither of those …

You’re not even getting part of what I am saying …

Before those changes players didn’t have to unlock those or could do so at a much smaller price tag.

Assuming new players know nohing is very elitist – many new players have experience from other MMOs so they know pretty well what traits are and how they’re to be used.

A player can, of course unlock the traits … I do get the suspicion you haven’t started a fresh character lately but are just writing kind of automated responses, hm? It now requires them to visit a lot of dungeons in a lot of areas they wouldn’t have had to visit before the change unless they also went for world completiton.

My Norn played the Norn area + starting line and ended up level 78 in cursed shore. Now I’d have to go to Ascalon and Maguuma just to unlock the traits. Purpose of this? It’s just slowing down and annoying … nothing more, no hiher purpose.

Just for fun: Start a new character and unlock the first two tier blocks and you’ll probably understand.

You are a bit wrong in actually pinning down the culprit. From the very beginning the acquisition of cloth has been borked. You drown in leather, you drown in metal – you’re never to drown in cloth.

It used to be ok as long as the intermediate materials (cotton, wool, linen) was only used to level crafting to 400. After you got your character to 80 and crafting to 400 and you had your toon decked out in exotics there was no need for linen, silk, wool or cotton – so the prices stabilized, albeit at a pretty high standard.

Now with ascended cloth these items are in demand more or less continuously (especially with the silly 100 silk sink) and since the supply situation NEVER got fixed … prices are skyrocketing.

Same with T6 blood – there’s no reason to not run Berserker in PvE and T6 blood was hard to come by and with almost everyone doing berserker armors and weapons … that’s another pool that’s not gonna be filled in the long run and will thus suffer from highly inflated prices.

BlueBoy.1236:

Ascended and legendaries are luxury items. It’s supposed to be expensive, and a long-term goal. That’s the reason why anet make it time-gated.

Take a look at ecto’s price instead. It’s relatively stable for the last 6 months. The gem price is maybe a bit out of control, compared to 2 years ago. But it happens to any gemstore/market store items in all mmos

If only they were … when, in WvW, you go 1:1 with you all in Exotic and your opponent all in Ascended …

They’re a “nice to have” in PvE, they’re obsolete in PvP but they DO play a major role in WvW … they should have made those just a skin …

I checked the wording by starting the game in English … I meant Traits – the little things you can only start messing with once you have reached level 30. Nothing to do with weapons … like “ground targetting for wells” for Necromancers.

Seabreeze.8437:

Seriously, I think there’s lvl 30 traits that ask me to go to Sparkfly Fen. WTF?!! Who thought that was a good idea? Especially from a NPE perspective, you’re asking new players to go venturing to areas far beyond their level. I can’t imagine that turns out well for them.

Oh, my newly made Asuran Necromancer has to do Twilight Arbor in Story mode to unlock Trait II in curses … just plain silly. “Elite Skills” … ok, maybe … but butter and bread skills?

Zaklex.6308:

Honestly, I don’t see the problem with the new Trait system, and I’ve done it both ways, grandfathered and NPE characters. Having followed A.net since before it was called A.net and playing both games, this is as close to GW1 as you can get. Granted, some of the events chosen for some of the Traits are questionable, but they’re all doable to some degree, and if there’s one you aren’t interested in, then just skip it and buy the Trait if you really want it that bad. I think people want it easy and that’s what they are really kittening about.

Um – no. And only epic fail Prophecies (the campaing I really, really hate) has you waltz all the way all over Tyria up to Amber Camp where you FINALLY get all skills from the campaign.

Factions for example has Mychico who has EVERY skill you can get in Factions … except, of course, for the Elite skills. But GW2 does not require you to unlock XI, XI and XIII but I – XIII and that’s extremely unlike GW1 and a silly idea to boot.