Guild Wars 2

I’d be happy with only allowing party members to interact with said objects because as others have pointed out there are times when conjures (especially ice bow) should be used by other people. It is incredibly annoying when you see a might stacked gs warrior pick up your LH in a dungeon to hit things with just because ‘oooh shiny’. As for the open world? If I can’t hide it in some corner I just don’t use conjures.

Well…if the cd was say cut in half I don’t think it would bother me that other people picked it up because chances are I’ll be able to summon another one in short order. Really the only times it annoys me is when something unexpected happen and I need to drop the hammer prematurely to use some attunement spell-most often it’s focus air 4/earth 4 and 5. After the crisis has been averted and I look for the other hammer…lo and behold, nowhere to be seen and I have to wait for another 40s to summon another one. Sure I could summon the fgs to do damage at that point (assuming it’s not on cd) but generally I’d prefer the fury+might stack+blind on the hammer.

Oh, as for warrior banners in open world…I don’t bother using them. I dropped a banner at boar once and some guy picked it up, ran off with it and placed it near the heart npc for no reason.

Hmm, why I like gw2?
-Buy once payment model
-No forced pvp
-Very interesting lore (not to be confused with story…story is beyond crap imo)
-One of the first mmorpgs to risk deviating from the eq pve formula
-Norn
-Open world concept is superior to every previous mmorpg’s
-Norn
-Jumping puzzles (I can’t do them and generally stay away but I appreciate that they are there in the game immensely)
-Norn
-Pretty good action/tab target hybrid combat system
-Music for Norn opening cinematic
-Norn

Those are the things that stand out in a good way in my mind.

This….still makes absolutely no sense. Ok you want to lazily have the pact say ’it’s not our business’…but remember who they made the player become? The COMMANDER of the pact? So the commander of the pact is running about saving a city from ruin but couldn’t command even a small unit of the pact to….I don’t even….sigh.

It’s this sort of thing why I say the storytelling in gw2 is just abysmal and seems to want to contradict everything the player does (especially anything related to the personal story). I won’t even get into the ‘logics’ behind making the person whose wyld hunt is to NOT kill an elder dragon, create and lead a pact that killed an elder dragon (…well he technically didn’t kill the dragon but that’s what it’ll be written as-first born created pact and kill elder dragon) while the firstborn WITH the hunt did…well…kinda nothing.

Every time I start thinking about gw2’s story I become even more and more annoyed -__-

Er…how to do this.

In relation to the title, yes it’ll end up being a bit of a gold sink as people would be more likely to experiment with different looks…I would prefer if it cost 1 charge per change regardless of the number of pieces you change-similar to the total makeover kit. But this is just borderline acceptable so it’s not too bad.

In relation to the actual post, the wardrobe is for skins-not stats, as others have pointed out. Those who wanted an easy way to access all the skins they’ve collected got what they want.

I also can’t recall a gear-based mmorpg that didn’t require you to carry different gear if you wanted different stats on the fly.

I keep hearing ‘dueling is something to do while waiting on an event’…well, I guess pleasant, polite conversation is a lost art now? It’s not my fault you’re socially inept, unable to understand and see the value in different view points so you have to resort to bannin-erm, I mean calling other people names and insulting them for the heinous act of thinking differently (‘carebears’…really do you think that makes you sound cool? Couldn’t be more embarrassed for you).

Aside from the lunacy of wanting 1v1 in a game that isn’t balanced around 1v1, I’m in the camp that if you want pvp head to the pvp zones. You can add your duelling option for the kids there (hurrah for condescending name-calling). The funny thing is when they add it (‘not high on the list’ isn’t a ‘no’ afterall) you can bet you’ll see a flood of ‘ZOMG THIEF OP-I CAN’T WINS DUELS!’ and demanding various changes based on that. Of course people will say the game wasn’t balanced around duels and so it doesn’t matter to which the most logical argument would be ‘well why bother adding a mode to the game if you’re not going to balance it’. Yeah…can’t wait till that happens.

When they add dueling I’ll just preemptively disable whispers…and I hope they added an auto ‘turn down duel request’ button simultaneously. Also expect to see a crapton of particle effects all over the major cities/hub if/when one resurfaces…who needs a stable framerate in towns anyway? Ah…I can just imagine what map chat will now look like as well…yup, looking forward to this degradation.

Darmikau.9413:

Doomdesire.9365:

We want more variety in builds too…

Now you can play a burning guardian :^)

A ‘burning guardian’ is an oxymoron…

By Bear’s bald butt, FINALLY! Now I feel that those skins in the gem shop aren’t a rip-off and this whole gear destruction thing is gone. Whew….tbh this is the best QoL change I’ve heard regarding GW2 in a year an a half.

Endless (easy) customization abound, April 15th can’t come fast enough. Initial overreaction demands that I even consider getting a legendary despite the horrid grinding…and even after cooler heads prevail it still doesn’t seem THAT bad an idea anymore.

The next time you’re in a dungeon and there’s a ranger with a longbow and brown bear in the party, just try-as politely as humanly possible, explain why that set-up brings nothing to the group. See how they react and you’ll understand one part of why people are very intolerable of rangers. That’s the sad part I feel-only the silliest of the silly 13 year old elitist hates the profession as a whole. It’s that one set-up: brown bear+long bow that makes people say ‘screw rangers and anyone who play them’.

Yes the pet isn’t the most wonderful thing and support isn’t as varied, but I for one will stay in a party with the ranger as long as they are using ANYTHING other than a longbow and a brown bear as it means at least they are thinking/experimenting. Which also ties into another thing-yes there are players who play the other professions and aren’t particularly good, but you can’t tell at a glance. You have no idea if that GS guardian is any good, but you are 100% certain the best you can hope for from that bearbow is he doesn’t actively hurt the group, so it would be a 4 man dungeon rather than 4 man and one saboteur.

I’m not an elitist and whine will people don’t follow what other people do and kitten about the ‘optimal’ way to have fun, but it does pain even my soul when I see the other 3 members of the party cleaving, giving boons, reflecting, cleansing conditions, debuffing, applying blinds, using combo fields (I mostly pug so I bet this one is purely coincidental-but the possibility at least is present) all that good stuff…then I see the ranger perched somewhere in the back (and STILL not even at max range so the LB’s attack are reduced anyway) just autoattacking ONE mob. Oh…and don’t forget such classics as using the lb at point blank range and firing knockback randomly whenever it’s off cd.

Vissarion.6509:

These are all so bad, sorry arenanet but this is not even a good try, THESE WONT MAKE ME CHANGE ANYTHING ON MY BUILD.

Remove the cd on fire trait.
Make the earth immune to critical a buff when u attune to earth (lets say for 5seconds) instead of perma buff while you are attuned to earth, eles get on an attunement use their cooldowns and they are out, how is this going to be any usefull??

Air and Water no comments, just terrible choices noone will pick.

Only viable may be the arcana one, but evasive arcana is still a much wider better choice, throwing 4 skills for 4 boons that 3 of them can have easy access anyway, is just BAD!!!

Sorry arenanet better luck next time.

Did you miss the part where they said the new traits weren’t meant to compete with current builds? They are present to potentially open NEW options, not upgrades to current options. Which means the point is to try and see if you can get any decent NEW build based on them, not see how well they fit into your current build.

Quite frankly if you’re the type who ’doesn’t change anything on your build’ then you’re just one of them who follows the people who actually do change things, experiment and discover synergies. So what you do or don’t do isn’t particularly important in the big picture.

Sorry, better luck next time.

I think they should do the pve equivalent-dungeon speed clear trials. The team with the fastest dungeon clear during the trials gets a guaranteed legendary. Might as well push the segregation and elitist mentality to the max.

Do we really have to get into the difference between an online game and real life again? Tell you what-show me a person named ‘Jesus sucks’ or ‘sexy Jesus’ in real life then I’ll start to explain the difference. There’s no discussion if you can’t even do that.

Also I do believe I saw a post saying they were looking into language differences in regards to the filter, because yes, on a Spanish speaking server Spanish names should be fine. However the server isn’t. And the potential for abuse and discomfort of thousands far outweigh the ten guys who might want to name themselves in-game. I do agree however that Mohammed should also be blocked. Granted most kids from the ‘developed, civilized’ countries tend to like to mock, ridicule and disrespect Christianity more than Islam but it’s best to not give sharp, pointed tools to children. Hell, even if people wrote their name as ‘Jesus’ disciple’ can you imagine the abuse they would suffer daily from immature kids/legally declared adults who think it’s ‘cool’ to say they’re atheist/agnostic and believe that means they should bash on people who believe in some kind of faith?

Best to not open that Pandora’s box.

Hmm…I won’t uninstall if that’s along the lines of what you mean….I mean I don’t see that many games coming out that interest me. But almost every time I log in, after doing the dailies I consistently get hit with this thought ‘wait…why am I doing this again?’ then I just log and play some ps2 games (yup…you read right-good rpgs are good rpgs, what can I say?). If July is when this game changing patch is to occur I think the game will gain digital dust on my hard drive rather than being removed. But…if there are games that I’m overlooking (no I didn’t overlook DS-just not interested) and I need the HD space, GW2’s getting dropped like a bad habit until it becomes appealing again.

Shhh! If you say anything that doesn’t kiss ANet’s kitten and insults everyone else who doesn’t agree with this obviously forced homosexuality and women-on-top thing you’ll get called a homophobe, sexist, infarcted then banned for hate speech for demanding equality for all sexual preferences that they themselves aren’t comfortable with (oh the irony).

But in response to the post…I think it would be better if they proved they could consistently write decent characters (and not die halfway through the personal story) before even remotely wanting cast balance. Given the…standard… of writing on display, do you really think adding more males would do any good? Atm, the only real ‘strong’ male character is Evon….and surprise surprise…he’s designed as an immoral, selfish, spiteful individual. Rytlock would be close up there…but he becomes increasingly less admirable the more he opens his mouth, so yeah. Also, check the ‘male bonding’ between him and Logan during CoE story….cringeworthy at best. I understand why you’d be annoyed, but quite frankly I think writing strong males (I’d even argue strong females as well-they just used ‘women-on-top’ and homosexuality to divert eyes from the fact that the characters themselves are just awful…except Eir and Zojja…Eir is awesome on too many levels and Zojja has a well realized personality) is beyond them tbh.

Oh, and to people who think ‘well we women have been poorly written in every game so now it’s fine to have the roles reversed’….thank the spirits you aren’t influencial in the running of world politics. Or else every black person would be ‘well we’ve endured slavery and racism for centuries-it’s only fair that now we enslave all white people’….yeah….that sounds STUPID doesn’kitten You can’t demand equality then go on a parade of justifying the very thing you’re fighting against..I…I don’t even….sigh

On a side note I like how this ‘progressive’ game would rather full the major roles with women and homosexuals but not include a single black person in a year and a half. Guess we’re even less important than sentient vegetables, go figure. But hey…nobody mentioned it and you don’t see me crying and calling people racist.

darkace.8925:

Nyel.1843:

I highly support number 1 but it will not happen I think. The transition with the personal story could be very tricky.

Why is it tricky? Simply reset the personal story for every race-changed character. I don’t see the problem.

People will complain about getting double ‘rewards’….like anything from the PS is worth getting two of. I wouldn’t mind if the item turned all gear soulbound to the character account bound (for people who have asc/rare exotics or spent a lot on transmutation crystals) as well. Well all gear that isn’t cultural of course.

+1 for race change. As for personal story, make the item require the toon to be lvl 80 (similar to item lvl restriction on transmutation crystals) and already completed the PS then apply a comic book-esque recap of PS giving the players the relevant options at ‘key’ (I use that term lightly) moments in the story (similar to ME genesis for ME2). You’d be out of luck in regards to the cultural stuff you bought though as far as I can see-but that’s acceptable.

But pfft…why bother with a convenient feature when you can add $10, one-use only skins in the gem store every two weeks.

This would certainly aid in the ‘elder dragons are a blight upon Tyria’ thing they want us to believe. Compare two dragon-centric games if you will; Guild Wars 2 and Skyrim. Skyrim’s world actually feels threatened by dragons (….yes after a certain level they get criminally easy and thus boring but it still reinforces that dragons are disasters in and of themselves), Guild Wars 2 however might as well be threatened by a lone necromancer in a tower somewhere. I’d like to see Mordy and his dragon minions ravage the whole maguuma jungle-with a couple legendary dragon events akin to the daedric portals in ESO or rifts in RIFT (with actual consequences, rather than ‘oops you failed the event-the dragon laughed at your failure then flew away…..try again in 3 hours). It doesn’t feel like these dragons are destroying Tyria.

The only thing is I wouldn’t want to see anything less than legendary dragons-elites, vets and even champs will cheapen the threat they’re supposed to be imo.

Novum.2395:

how can anyone be hyped for another dragon fight when this was unfinished and that we still have no idea what a legit Elder dragon fight should be like?

What are you talking about? It is finished. Highly disappointing, but finished.

As for reason to be ‘hyped’, well…precisely because the first one was underwhelming. A new dragon is a second chance of sorts you see-a chance to wipe the slate if you will.

It’s the number 2 key-and don’t you dare forget it; ‘2’ is mvp. I think they want to just sweep Zhaitan under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen. I just hope Mordy isn’t a disappointment. Granted I’m not particularly wowed by the idea to reveal the ‘secret’ dragon immediately after Zhaitan rather than involving the other dragons everyone knows about but meh.

This has been suggested before and a rather common ‘counter-argument’ put forth by the most logical of creatures on this earth is you’re not ‘manly’ enough if you don’t like pink/purple…..I kitten ye not. That and some bull kitten about purple being the colour of royalty so we should feel honoured that….w/e basically people who like it don’t want people who don’t like it to feel comfortable (even though people were always asking for the option-not a total redesign). Oh people also say it would be too hard to change the colour of particle effects-waste of resources and what-not.

cough spinal blades+knight power cores cough

Sorry-something was in my throat. Also, didn’t WoW add something you could imbue gear with to have different graphical effects on skills some time ago or something like that? Glyphs I think they were called? Yeeeaaaaah…..WoW managed to survive just fine with different graphical variations (and animations if memory serves) of spells and that was never touted as a ‘cosmetic’ game, just saying.

Peetee.9406:

Here’s the problem,

All the speed runners, min/maxers, and zerker heavy onlys have chased the casual player base away from the dungeons.

ANet looks at their metrics and sees no one in the dungeons. They see that the TA:Aetherblade update was unsuccessful. Most players like myself did it once and will never do it again or simply passed on it. Meanwhile they look at Lion’s Arch and there’s 10k people doing it. You have an update that interests 10000 people at any given moment or one that interests maybe 50 people in total a day. Its not a very hard decision as to what’s better for business.

Not pointing the finger at you or anyone in particular but its the price that gets paid for being an kitten. Hardcore WvW guilds push players away, ANet stops doing WvW updates. sPvP players rip on people that play ele in tournies and rage quit on skyham, ANet stops doing PvP updates. In this case, the same is true for dungeons.

Well said sir/ma’am-except for that last paragraph…don’t agree with that 100%.

If you want proof of this just head over to the dungeons sub forum-there’s been a couple of posts by people wanting to play together with others who aren’t interested in cookie cutter builds+stackfest+exploit…and you should see the vile reactions from the ‘elite’ (hurrah…you pressed a button on a keyboard so you’re awesome, I guess). Add to that more than a few people are easily influenced and have no backbone and they’ll simply follow the ‘cool’ thing in an attempt to not stand out and you’ll have more and more people adopting this elitist mentality leading to a very toxic environment. Or perhaps a more direct route would be to press ‘Y’ in game-you’ll see very few dungeon posts and nearly all the time you’ll see ‘zerker only or kick’ ‘exp only’ ‘<insert high dmg class> only’ ‘no noobs allowed’ ‘5k AP only’ ‘80s only….for a lvl 35 dugneon -__-)and similar garbage. Now I have zerkers, I’m fairly experienced in most dungeons, it so happens that the classes I like can do high damage (ele, guardian, mes, thief) and I have 6k AP, but I’ll NEVER join any of these groups (although I like dungeons in mmorpgs). So as the poster I quoted rightfully observed fewer and fewer people participate in the ‘party play’.

Now compare all that garbage you have to sift through to the open world content-yes it tends to be zergy, but the recent patches actually had some enjoyable mechanics that you engaged in WITHOUT having to deal with kids with self-esteem issues….much. The knights into Scarlet events are the most fun I’ve had with this game in over a year-back in the earlier days when this obnoxious elitist mentality didn’t infest the game.

I really do hope they add public dungeons (well, more and more pronounced) similar to ESO (one of the few saving graces for that game imo, but I digress) so I can still get something akin to a dungeon experience, but other than that fractals is probably their best bet to ‘simply’ add new dungeons with new mechanics and not force it on people.

So to your question-what happened to party play? Well…the parties killed the fun of playing-that’s the simple answer. Unfortunately now that this mentality has taken root it will never leave so…yeah….we’ll shed a tear for the days when people weren’t kittens and everyone just wanted to have fun.

It’s likely they’re taking a look at the current situation regarding dungeons, but in the meantime it makes sense to push out content more people can/will participate in-especially if the whole point of said content is to keep players participating.

DogCompany.1062:

Hello Guild Wars Community,

I’m sure everyone has noticed how simple Dungeons have become and the high demand for Damage (Berserker) Class characters. My issue regarding this topic is not the Dungeons, but the ability to complete a Dungeon within minutes with Berserk Class characters.

I have spoken with other fans of MMOs and League of Legends was mentioned. I am not a player of League of Legends and know nothing about the game, but what they described to me was that each party needed particular classes in order to complete Dungeons and obtain the reward. They informed me that it is recommended that a Healer, Tank, Damage, Range, etc, is necessary to complete any Dungeon. So, I thought to myself, “How come Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have something similar?” This is where the discussion of the topic begins.

I understand the flexibility of each class and the chosen profession. I understand that the creators of Guild Wars 2 did not have the desire to restrict players to one particular play-style. In the end, my question still stands. Why are the Dungeons so simple to the point where no defense is necessary to complete? Why is it that one profession, or one build, complete Dungeons almost effortlessly?

Since this is my first committed MMO, my goal here is not to criticize Guild Wars 2, I enjoy Guilds Wars 2 much so that if this topic can enlighten new ideas to the game that maybe players may not be restricted to the social norm, and that it may bring new experiences to current and upcoming Guild Wars 2 players.

Thank you for your attention and please leave any comments.

Respectfully,

DogCompany

Hmm, few things:
1-Tank/dmg/healer is an archaic playstyle that most people have grown tired of. One major selling point of gw2 is the removal of said trinity as it has one main flaw-you’ll spend hours waiting to go into a dungeon ‘LF healer/tank’ <-infamous group advertisement (most players play damage classes as opposed to tank/healers). That SHOULD allow for some new, interesting mechanics…but…well…run-to-corner-stack-auto-attack-win!.

2-Defense is required, but it’s not stat based. Defense here comes from dodging, blocks/invulnerability, reflects and blinds. These things have nothing to do with defensive stats such as healing, armor or hp so…well…they are more or less pointless (to my everlasting disappointment).The result is since defensive stats have no impact on defense you might as well pour them into offensive stats to kill things faster and pick the one or two skills that give the defense you need.

3-Finally, when you limit yourself in such a way that all dungeons must be cleared by all classes (another selling point of this game), this is what you get. I don’t think anyone who’ve played older mmorpgs can say the dungeons there (when you actually got to do them) weren’t a lot more interesting than the ‘advanced’ dungeons here. Because older title actually had a system in place dungeons were designed in such a way as to be puzzles to be solved-and the tank/healer/dps/control (in later mmorpgs) was the tool players had to use. GW2 has no system so dungeons are mostly ‘stack on this mob, spam blinds/reflect (<-occassionally you need to pay the bare minimum of attention for this) and auto attack to win-oh and become invincible in whichever way makes you feel heroic when you see red circles’. STRATEGY! SUCH DEXTERITY! That’d be fine for a dungeon or two…but for virtually every one? Meh….

Personally I’d even add their focus on pvp into the reasons why dungeons leave much to be desired. Again, comparing cc in older trinity based mmorpgs-fear with 6s base duration isn’t surprising, likewise 3s base stuns. With these in place you can have encounters where cc players in the dungeon group incapacitates mobs to allow the run to succeed. Here? Well…what the hell are you going to do with a 1s fear and 1/2s stun on 30s cd? It works fine for pvp, but in pve it literally shuts down any form of control spec. As if that’s not enough of a reason to not try any cc-heavy spec…there’s good old defiance stacks on bosses.

Basically they wanted to differentiate this title from typical mmorpgs and one way was removing the trinity-and consequently any related strategies/gameplay…unfortunately they forgot to replace the trinity with something and that’s why dungeons are in their current state.

…and lose out on those transmutation crystal sales? Pffft-HELL NAW!

I think it’d be interesting to see pole arms, nunchakus and scythes in-game. I’m not a profession fanboy (people will align to anything these days won’t they?) so I couldn’t care less which class they’re on-only that the warrior doesn’t get any. As someone mentioned they already can use most weapons in the game so it does feel a bit off.

Judge Banks.9018:

So you’re saying your armor, that which exists to protect your body from attacks, needs to have more opening around the leg area?

Is this correct?

Oh look…we have a kitten over here. Tell me which armor under the sun can protect you from a plague, fire breathing dragon and ice breathing dragon. I’m sorry but you discarded claims to ‘reason’ the moment you signed up to use cat people, giants, rat people and plants to kill an undead dragon…yes…I would LOVE to see the type of armor that can protect people on such an endeavor.

OP…troll post obviously, but I’m eager to see how many ‘U R SEXIST!!!’ posts will pop up. Brain washed white knights-your time is now! Hmm…I’m don’t subscribe to the notion that what gw2 armor is lacking is leg skin. For instance use vigil/norn t2 (I think) leggings with an exotic medium chest piece (name eludes me unfortunately-duelist I think) and you’ll end up with a character looking like she’s wearing nothing but underwear. Personally I was like ‘Aha-I bet they (artists) didn’t think of this combination.‘, killed a couple mobs then went back to norn t3. The former combination is skimpier yes…but also just doesn’t look good-it has no flair. Simply removing some cloth/metal/leather won’t make an unattractive armor set attractive-or fashionable, as you said.

Lol wait wait wait…did I really just see people scream ‘I have no personal preference, very low self-esteem and require validation from others in the form of (what they believe) is envy over pixels or my existence will be meaningless!!!’ and really think that’s somehow a valid argument? Wow….so now I really do feel sorry for you people. +1 to global disable option…some of you need to toughen up and stop seeking validation from others-if you like it, you get it…doesn’t matter if no one else does. What’s funny is really it won’t affect you in the least bit as you won’t know whether or not the other player has it turned on/off…but just the mere knowledge that they could possibly have it turned off is enough to irritate those people….oh my sides.

Dang…this…I am actually depressed now. ‘Waaaah waaaaah I want to think people are jealous of me waaaah waaaaah!’ Lol….great now I’m alternating between laughing till my sides hurt and being just totally and utterly depressed

Funny when people claim other people don’t know the meaning of p2w when they themselves don’t know. P2w is simply any premium item that gives an advantage to the player-by some people’s definition you could need 100 000 000g to buy that item in gw2 and it still can’t be called p2w because ‘you can buy it with in-game’ currency. Simply stating that you can buy it with in-game currency and not factor in (a) how much of an advantage the item gives, and (b) the grind needed to get said item as reasons for why a feature isn’t touching ‘p2w’ is ignorant at best.

That said, an item can only be called p2w if using it gives an advantage to the player (of course there are degrees, but in the strictest sense, degrees are irrelevant) so I ask you…really how much of an advantage does it give you? Don’t people usually stick to one load-out in wvw sessions? Also if you’re planning on changing load-outs does the extra 20s run time matter that much? Couldn’t you be ganked by a say a thief while changing stats which would be much worse? (<-actual questions for wvw as I don’t play that format) In pve, for the most part a single load-out will get you through any dungeon-just swap out some utility/weapons as the need arises.

So convenient? Sure. It’s not applicable in pvp so it can’t be p2w there. There isn’t any content that requires entire gear and load-out swapping so it isn’t p2w in pve. WvW’s the only thing it could matter in, and from my limited experience it doesn’t offer a blatant advantage. However, the wvw thing could change as players tend to be more dynamic in terms of finding unexpected uses for items so idk. I think we can all agree it would have been a nice feature to have in-game without a pay wall though.

Guild buffs…pretty much it in terms of gameplay. If you’re into exploiting the game to the point of boredom then finding speed run guilds will ‘help’ or WvW as you’ve mentioned…other than that…meh, you’re not really punished for not being in one, mechanically. Of course if you happen to find a group of ppl that’re like-minded that’s its own benefit.

Rizalee.4593:

Why would you not want to reward the people who actually worked to open the gate in the first place?

Does this generation of gamers crave a pat on the head so much they’re blinded to what it is they’re actually doing? Firstly ‘worked to open the gate’ is hardly a fair representation of the difficulty or effort required in those events, but more importantly we get champ bags, xp, karma, loot and a bit of silver from doing the events-there’s your ‘reward’ right there.

Hmm…personally I’m ok with people missing actual living story gameplay as long as they can at least catch up story-wise. You aren’t paying a sub so any content beyond what launched with the game isn’t something you’re entitled to. I’ve gotten fed up and flat out skipped the last 2 or 3 story patches knowing full well I won’t get any little title or backpack (in terms of content it’s unlikely anything particularly game-changing happened, and even if it did it’ll likely be permanent if it was such a huge feature), but I’m back know, back up to speed and thoughts about the 2 patches I missed: ‘meh’.

You can argue that because I felt no drive to play the LS it of course wouldn’t matter to someone like me, however my original point still stands-you aren’t paying a sub so content post-release is not something you’re entitled to.

To the OP’s other main concern…I have to ask-are we looking at the symptom or the cause? The reason why so many people are being kicked into overflow is because of the way the LS is delivered. Literally the game says :‘hey all 4million+ players flood to this one map!’ and that’s the problem and as a result I feel the solution would be more likely in changing the structure of LS in some way. Maybe future LS could be multi-directional; human-centaur and charr-flame legion hostilities (and eventually the human-charr relationship) are two aspects of the world that could be used to bring the world to life simultaneously (that was the goal right?) while not herding everyone on one map. Have it play out with political intrigue and wars akin to Game of Thrones for instance and based on player influence during the events, player-dependent story events will unfold and the landscape between warring factions change (something like how player action impacted the elections). This does apply to dragons (as they are typically singular entities unlike race specific hostilities), should they appear in the LS in that their events would have to be multi-mapped offensive (of course similarly difficult events and similar loot to herd the loot hoarders and prevent them going to the most ‘efficient’ map) for the dragon or perhaps having two dragons at once to spread the players out-and more players in more maps means less OF annoyances.

However, with all that said, if at the end of the day you don’t want the game world to change (and not simply only be able to play with friends, avoiding OF annoyances) then perhaps those other games are what you should be playing because it appears this is the direction they want to take GW2. I like the idea of a transient world (not too thrilled about how it’s presented thus far, but that’s another story) but if you don’t like the idea then you aren’t going to have fun in a game that sports a transient world. It is unfortunate though, that you bought the game when this philosophy didn’t exist-if they had planned for this and marketed it as such pre-release then you wouldn’t have bought the game and would have no problems.

Firstly you use lore and story interchangeably and they’re not. Lore is a body of knowledge (how and why things work the way they do in a given world, in the case of games) while story is a sequence of events. For example, I found skyrim to have wonderful lore-the gods, daedra, vampires and other mythical creatures, factions and the political climate set a very immersive backdrop for the game….the story on the other hand is ZZzzzzzzzzzz.

That said, when it comes to rpgs I value being given a compelling reason to do a given task to be the most important. As far as gameplay goes rpgs tend to be very….lacking in comparison to other genres. They aren’t as reflex dependent as and lack the spectacle of action titles, they aren’t as strategic as rts titles, they aren’t as dynamic and transformative as fighting games, but they do usually have the advantage of putting your actions into context. Indeed if you trace the history of the genre back to its pen and paper days, story is the ONLY thing (….and rng-but it was a fun story-impacted rng) so its always been a core part of the experience. Another example in-game is this patch and the gauntlet (I think or Jubilee..one of them), where we’re essentially doing the same thing-watching the minimap for an orange circle then rush there and kill things, but during the DR LS it felt hollow, cheap, pointless. Here there’s context and so doing the very same thing feels different, directed, focused, worthwhile, immersive and as a result I have greater satisfaction/appreciation for this event.

One of my main wishes however is they realize a mmorpg is not a single player game and crafting a single player story and sticking it in a mmorpg is just a horrid idea *cough*personal story*cough*. The story must take into account that there are multiple players and have it in such a way that it’s only through the combined effort of multiple players that it will be progressed-and to be fair this particular LS is just that, so fingers crossed for the future.

inazuma.7021:

We do know what’s going on. Scarlet is drilling for something beneath Lion’s Arch. Something she has been searching for for the last year. Something driving her mad with voices in her head that she is determined to find. She has plotted and planned for this. She has assembled an army to shield her from us. She has developed technology to track down the source of her madness. Now she is very close to uncovering it.

It’s all there if you pay attention.

Now what is it Scarlet is drilling to reach? We don’t know yet, nor should we. That’s why it’s a finale. We’ll find out at the end.

The idea that we should already know the end result is silly. That ruins the surprise and the mystery. You don’t flip to the last page of a mystery novel before you read the rest.

Well, if you do, you’re just weird.

Hardly-that style of story telling is archaic and only amuses children: ‘wait until the very last episode then here-exposition dump and last moment twist!’. I’m sorry but most people roll their eyes when they see this type of technique. As a simple way to counter your ‘argument’ that exposition dump at the end is the best way to tell a story-Lord of the Rings. Imagine if for three movies you saw hobbits walking seemingly endlessly for no reason, going through all manner of trouble and turmoil and having spectres chase them-all of these epic things but the story didn’t tell you why. You don’t know they’re going to Mount Doom, you don’t know why they’re going there, you know they have some kind of magical thing-but you don’t know what it is or its effect. You guess it’s this little gold ring everyone keeps looking at but you’re at a complete loss as to why so much focus is placed on this seemingly normal ring-all because they think it’s a good idea to keep ‘mystery’ and explain everything in a 20minute monologue in the last movie. Yeah…it would be a horrid experience-even if you suffered through the first film you’d be hard pressed to watch the second and third.

No one is asking for how it ends-just a reason so the story seems coherent and people can put things into context. We’re entering into the highest stake moment of the story…with no context/attachment beyond ‘That kitten blew up my mystic forge! Imma kill her!’ Imagine for instance we knew Scarlet wanted to summon Majin Buu from a parallel universe and she needed vast amount of magic to do so. The priory tries to find places and come to conclusion that LA is one such place just as she attacks. Her initial attack is successful and now we have the evacuation. However there is a sense of agency and impending doom as you know she’s summoning Buu. Then next patch you are able to put the stakes in context…but if all of this is suddenly revealed at once then it is far less impactful as there is no build up. Timing is very important in story-telling.

But still, it’s the first time such a thing has been attempted so although it’s clearly not good story-telling, I personally am willing to cut some slack-however, yes, I agree going into a high-stakes battle without knowing the stakes is just ridiculous.

Einlanzer.1627:

This is only one of many reasons why the LW is simply not as good a concept as Anet management seems to zealously believe it is.

I disagree-I think it’s great concept and indeed the direction mmorpgs should be rather than a poor imitation of a story driven single player rpg. However, the problem (aside from delivery thus far…although this patch is a lot of fun imo and inspires hope for the future) is the single player rpg story came first then LS was an afterthought. Imagine if the game started with LS as the method to convey the narrative of Tyria and the PS never existed. Continuity issues? Gone. Excessive plot holes? Gone. Parallel universe syndrome? Gone…….Trahearne? Gone (<-WIN! seriously, how can you argue with that?). Imainge if Zhaitan’s blight was the LS…ah what could have been.

Eivene.9127:

This would have us believe we’re going to take back Lion’s Arch

I hope we fail. I was-am interested now that a city was destroyed and thought we might finally be getting a true mmorpg with a changing online world. However, if we really do retake LA and eventually rebuild it (especially if it’s only like in 2-3 patches) then it’ll be: ‘well..what was the point of destroying it in the first place?’ It will fall into the same trap as virtually every single LS patch prior-a player took a year’s break and comes back to find…nothing’s effectively changed…at which point they take another year’s break -__-.

You know now that I think about it, I’m almost sure that’s exactly what will happen-maybe the time frame is increased from 2-3 patches but it will still be disappointing.

As for new HUBS-these things will sort themselves out in time, no real need for concern imo. The only concern I have is communication-if players populate the starting cities then obviously map chat alone will not suffice-some kind of global chat can/should be added imo.

TankinJankins.3276:

I bought GW2 on release, grinded to 80, and tried out the endgame. And while the levelling was fun, the game featured no endgame PvE, exotic gear that you have to grind for hours for tiny stat boosts, and a completely broken dungeon system. The PvP itself was so unbalanced as to not be any fun, along with no gear to be earned in structured PvP whatsoever. Have they added ANYTHING worth hitting level 80 in the year and a half?

I really have to wonder what people want with ‘endgame pve’-because in all the games I’ve played what that boils down to is ‘…gear that you have to grind for hours’. If that’s the case then you’ll just love asc items, so there’s that. Imo you’ll never find a mmorpg with a pvp that’s anywhere near balanced-they aren’t a competitive genre you see; pvp is just some add-on that people take waaaaaay too seriously. For balanced pvp you’d better go with genres that’re wholly devoted to giving every player an equal footing-not percentages and luck that you happened to pack the right moves. Genres like fps, fighting games, strategy games…yeah those are where you get good pvp from.

If you’re actually willing to play a mmoRPG and not loot collecter 2014, then LS is actually entertaining now (I know right). LA’s been destroyed, and although mechanically it feels very similar to the Jubilee, here we have proper context and that makes all the difference in the wold. For the first time since I’ve played the game I feel like it has begun to realize the RPG in the genre and also realize it is NOT a single player game-and that’s awesome.

Long story short, if you want a mmorpg then GW2 is finally starting to deliver an intriguing storyline and consequently, world, that you can enjoy. If you want loot collecter 2014 then you bought the wrong game a year ago and it’s still the wrong game now……ish.

+1 for race, class and faction change in the gem store. Yes they’ve said it won’t happen, but if demand is great enough…or even just loud enough cough vertical progression* cough* you never know.

Also if anyone mentions ‘immersion breaking’ as a reason not to have it I’ll slap them with a pink quaggan backpack while dressed in zodiac armor to the sounds of the pact celebrating zhaitan’s defeat in a parallel dimension as LA burns.

I love it when people use ‘realism’ to describe armor when speaking about an environment with fire breathing dragons, frost breathing dragons, plague bringing undead, way points, teleports, all forms of magic, rat-people, plant-people, horse-people, cat-people, giants…do tell, realistically what type of armor will protect you from a plague? Well realistically we all need to wear hazard suits when fighting undead..but you can’t move as freely in hazard suits so you can’t attack…realistically speaking of course. Or what about say Fire elemental-that thing has got to be a million degrees…what realistic armor would you wear in that situation? Everyone needs fire-resistant suits…but again…you can’t really leap through the air in that now can you?

Tell me-would you like the idea of Mount and blade suddenly having skimpy outfits? No? Didn’t think so. You want ‘realistic’ armor you go for a game that focuses on such things-this game focuses on FANTASY armor. I think you should learn to appreciate differences in games.

If I’m on the thief, then dredge. Simply because I tend to use blinds as defense and dredge say ‘kitten please-I was born blind!’ Outside of those both the little frezy-poison spewing undead and the krait are things I generally tend to want to stay away from (the former especially if I’m on an ele/mesmer).

+1

Also, not just LS imo-should be all achievements like say idk….DUNGEON PATHS? A ‘to-do’ list should be as clear as possible…or else people will have difficulty figuring out what it is to……..do.

Also something that crossed my mind, but rather than whether or not it was morally acceptable (…obviously it isn’t) and since it’s clear they want to make gw2 light-hearted contrary to the horrible things that are going on…and the way it was marketed pre-release, I’m more annoyed they didn’t use it as a spring board to implement a missing feature. Wow…that was one helluva sentence, but I have no regrets.

They have the ‘good/bad’ person for these items but the only thing they did with it is say ‘grind this for the next couple days to get this item’-another blasted carrot on a stick (still, why rise above such tricks if that’s what gamers these days are happy with?). I would have hoped you earn say ferocity (or renegade for all I care) each time you traded with the bad trader and paragon (you get the idea-maybe charm here) for the good trader; if you go out of your way to get the items to the people you get dignity. Then, ala every other moral-slider rpg people will randomly/periodically comment (similar to how you have transient npc dialogue in-game atm) on how ruthless/dignified/kind you are…and perhaps have that devil horn/halo appear after you’ve gained sufficient points in that attitude; this could be a long term goal-not to be completed at the end of a LS patch.

But thinking of such things will make you annoyed and frustrated-here, press 1 and enjoy some loot. I’m serious. Thinking beyond ‘press 1 (or series of buttons at the right time for more difficult content) and collect loot’ will negatively impact your experience with this title. Oddly enough it’s not necessarily a bad thing…just is.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The guy killed an Elder Dragon. The least Anet could do for him was to offer some vacation time.

HE did no such thing…zhaitan was brought down by a group of 5 random ppl throwing yellow confetti at him for 15mins.

But in relation to OP-this is another problem with this living story thing (which people who cry about ‘immersion-breaking’ race/faction change option ignore I might add -__-). Where exactly does it fall within the story? If you level a new toon now and hit lion’s arch you’ll see the destroyed architecture but everyone continues like there isn’t toxic miasma around (right down to the little kids playing as destiny’s edge). Also what about the order of whispers? Didn’t they pride themselves in knowing everything? Yet some plant caught them off-guard and their long time arch-nemesis, the Vigil didn’t even ridicule them? Although that contradicts what eventually happens in the story, it can be explained by saying only small groups still have animosity towards each other (similar to the rebel groups against the charr-human alliance).

I’ve learned to stop trying to role-play and immerse yourself in this role-playing game as you’ll just cause yourself frustration and confusion…in the meantime, here have some loot and be merry. I am of the firm believe it would have been better if they remembered this was a mmorpg-a persistent world shared by millions of players rather than trying to craft a single player game with co-op elements (story-wise).

I find it hilarious players find the excuse ‘well it’s an invasion-it’s supposed to be a zergfest’ to hold any merit-clearly it shows they’ve never done any form of tactical thinking in their life. Some of you should play SC2-when a player nydus worm/warp prism harras/terran drops into your base, try sending all your units to attack by attack-move somewhere in that general location without making on-the-moment assessments of the enemy force’s strengths and weaknesses and decide how you can use your forces to minimize damage supplemented with a heavy amount of micromanagement. No no no, one would think that especially because it’s an invasion strategy would be paramount.

Also, am I to believe this city has no contingency plans for invasion from say idk….A FREAKING UNDEAD ELDER DRAGON that has been terrorizing the world so as to make a plant catch them with their pants down?

I would love to see them use mechanics that are already in game as part of these larger events. Bosses/mobs only vulnerable after being exposed to light fields, mobs/bosses that need their armor destroyed by blast finishers, mobs/bosses that prioritize attacking ppl with lots of boons-or a particular boon, mobs/bosses that prioritize ranged attackers…you know something-anything fun/interesting.

My guess is they simply didn’t think of it, and so the game wasn’t designed to facilitate it. You can argue ‘oh it’s not possible because no game has ever done it before’ all you want…but if that’s the case why the hell did you say your game will be the first to do it and not do it? Do you really expect the entity that made that claim to NOT be held accountable when it falls? EQN also is claiming a more dynamic pve system-if they succeed what will be your excuse for GW2’s promised dynamic pve not being dynamic?

Having been burnt by GW2’s interpretation of ‘dynamic’ I’m rather skeptical yes, but at the very least in their press conference they gave an idea of how the system they’re building works-and it’s pretty awesome. Mobs with actual behavioural attributes? Transient colonization? Spontaneously kill a bunch of bears, nearby trolls will starve and relocate-possibly trying to raze a town? All these things are awesome and what I thought GW2’s dynamic system would be like. But the system isn’t designed that way so the best I think they could do is add more events…which really doesn’t solve the problem. If GW2 were to add such an event chain, you’d be killing bears until your fingers are numb but until some npc runs up to you and say ‘hey I want to kill these trolls’ to trigger something…yeah nothing would happen.

Espionage.3685:

Almost every dungeon I’ve ran so far (after coming back from a few week break), everyone seems to just ignore certain enemies, and LoS others with stacking (the spider queen in AC is a popular one).

Quite frankly, I find it pretty annoying and cheesy. Not to mention, really time wasting too if mistakes are made (such as one person not making it, having to run back, or somebody not stacking properly, getting downed, and causing subsequent downs and death, etc). You didn’t make it to the stack zone through waves of enemies? Either try again by yourself, leave, or get an escort (all wasting the time of those who made it through already), and lose some coin for repair bills. I’ve seen repeated partial and even full-group wipes resulting from just trying to run past enemies.

I spoke up about it on a few occasions, and nobody really cared, which really surprises me. How on earth is that better than to just kill enemies and not have to worry about them later, and even get a bit of loot, gold, and experience in the process? Is killing non-essential enemies really that detrimental?

If I had to have a suggestion to fix this, it would be to have enemies chase you down to the death; like how they do in instances on WoW (if I recall right anyway). I can understand the open PvE space; enemies might not want to chase you to the ends of the earth. A dungeon on the other hand is a finite-space, and I’m sure the enemies there should know this.

I’m wondering whether I’m just unlucky, or if this is a normal thing? I can understand intentional speedrun groups doing this (to an extent; I still find it really cheesy), but this seems to be done in any dungeon that allows for it, story or exp, 80-only or any level.

Most people in groups just explain the concept of stacking and running past enemies as if it was a legitimate mechanic, but surely this couldn’t be the case right? I could also imagine this being somewhat off-putting to newer players too.

No it’s not just you who’s annoyed with it-and it apparently is a legit mechanic (I’m guessing it is because I’ve actually been infarcted in the past for saying it isn’t and should be fixed, I kitten ye not -__-). Actually it, the champ trains, the event-failing farming and the ever-infarction happy moderators drove me to quit the game months ago (recent buzz around ESO made me curious to see if anything has been fixed…apparently not)-so if it’s off-putting enough to older players who’ve played through the dungeons when they were challenging I can’t imagine the impression new players get.

However some people do bring up certain points that make sense-namely the limited radius of buffs along with how poorly virtually all encounters are designed (hurray for insta-gib moves!), to suggest that whether intentional or not the game’s mechanics actually support such…er…strategies (I use that term lightly). Just to compare, Force on youtube just posted the first ESO dungeon…and that actually was fun-the type of thing I thought gw2 would be like. Now, it could degrade into gw2 style dungeons but in the vid they didn’t run past 90% of the mobs, they used cc and positioning (you know, real strategy) to make difficult encounters manageable, did a bit of aggro bouncing-very fun concept. It’s actually enticing, even though I found the animations hideous, to the point that I might consider buying it if it’s monetary aspect wasn’t so greedy.

Long story short, stacking is endorsed by ANet and if want to do dungeons and don’t like it, then either a) try to put a party together with like-minded individuals (…good luck with that) or b) quit now before you’re in too deep and wait for another mmorpg with decent dungeon mechanics while keeping an eye on this one just in case they fixed it. Ignoring enemies becomes natural because if you stack in some random corner they’ll forget you ever ran past them and they don’t give you anything worth your time anyway-not even experience if you’re already 80 (the amount of lvl 80’s I saw back when I still played made me wonder if new players were extinct or something). I believe the term is ‘working as intended’?

kamedin.4698:

Now I know the game is in for a bunch of changed and what I’m about to say doesn’t have to affect it but in a Living World, doesn’t thing usually get better? I mean we can have stuff that permanently changes the world but I don’t remember a lot of good things happening, like maybe with Orr? We “cleansed” it but nothing changed. But with Scarlet, things actually changes, like we got a tower, then blew it up. The land wasn’t ruined forever but there was damage. Are we ever going to see good things actually happen to the world instead of “Oh you beat Scarlet, Good job.”? And is a Living World just concerned with Living Story like if the Living Story doesn’t affect it, it shouldn’t do anything (like with the cleansing of Orr)? I’m just kind of curious.

‘Living world’ is just marketing talk to fool us just like ‘dynamic events’ and aren’t representative of the nature of the content. Similar to how ‘dynamic events’ are simply theme park rides that open on a strict schedule and are not ‘dynamic’ even when using the liberal interpretation of the word, ‘living world’ has nothing to do with an ever-changing (doesn’t have to be ‘good’ per se) or evolving world.

Think of it like this: ‘you have a new superficial/temp villain/threat to pacify every two weeks for a backpack…go go go go go!’ and ‘attention patrons: Jungle wurm opens at 12pm, Maw at 12: 15pm, SB at 3pm and FE at 4pm. We will announce the opening times for the other rides at 4:30pm, thank you’ as being the components of the ‘Living world’. Your personal story, because they forgot this was a mmo and not a single player rpg, is so world-changing that it can’t actually affect the world without being a bother to other players-without breaking immersion anyway. But really…the illusion was already broken when I see little green specks of light hovering in the open world and when I’m running around the same Tyria under threat of the same Elder Dragon with a million other one-and-only commanders of the one-and-only Pact in Tyria.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Imbune.5497:

And if you sacrifice everything in favour of player OPTION you’ll end up with a half-hearted mess that is prone to any number of exploits (hmm…kind of like the state of gw2 now imo,the irony).

How do you want to exploit a light engine???
Also, like I and many others said, the current light system wont be gone.
You just get the option to choose how dark you want the night to be. Its only for the esthetic.

Love how you take one part of what I said out of context-how about you read everything or don’t bother reading at all? I’m sorry but it makes no sense for me to reply further to this post because I’ll just end up repeating the rest of what I said in the post you conveniently snipped that bit from and took out of context.

There were requests a few months back…but the fanboys ridiculed everyone who said they wanted the option for new spells for God knows amounts of stupid reasons including them not being ‘man enough’ to handle pink and breaking immersion. That’s right….breaking immersion…with people with holographic dragon wings, tentacles, minis, quaggan back packs, everyone being the only commander of the only pact in Tyria and a complete sex change in the shop they’re talking about breaking immersion by having different coloured particle effects.

+1 for option to change colour effects (you know it won’t happen though right?).

Pandemoniac.4739:

Imbune.5497:

That’s practically suicide, I call BS on that ‘leak’. If an online game is doing poorly they go f2p, not sub/vip foolishness in addition to purchase.

City of Heroes and SWTOR both went to a hybrid model when things started going downhill. Lots of F2P games have “founders” packs that have similar types of benefits. It’s not exactly a new concept to have different tiers of players based on what they pay for the game.

I’d like you to highlight where in the post you quoted I said this is a new concept.

Frankly if you left months ago nothing’s changed since that would alleviate that. However, the accursed living story will soon (3-4months I think?)end and then maybe we will get proper updates. I’d say check back around that time-it’s what I’m doing….and hoping that enough will change that I can convince my 5 friends who stopped playing to come back. I am of course hoping that by that time the new thing won’t be ‘LFM <insert sub-lvl 80 dugneon> lvl 80 zerker asc only, PING gear’ because once that happens I won’t be staying, let alone getting my friends to come back.

…..you know, now that I think about it, it might make sense to just quit now. Asc gear is in the game so it will come to that state in time; might as well get off the train now.

That’s practically suicide, I call BS on that ‘leak’. If an online game is doing poorly they go f2p, not sub/vip foolishness in addition to purchase.

Hamfast.8719:

+1 for Slider. Player’s OPTION is always better than forcing something on them. I would love to see it darker during game night and in underground settings, but I have some friends who already can’t see very well in some spots. If “true” darkness was forced upon them, then they would have to wait around in town until the sun came up again.

And if you sacrifice everything in favour of player OPTION you’ll end up with a half-hearted mess that is prone to any number of exploits (hmm…kind of like the state of gw2 now imo,the irony). I know the in-thing is to clamor about ‘freedom, choice and option’ now but that’s a fairly immature way to look at everything; having a clear goal and delivering it is the most polished state is the way to deliver enjoyable content. If that goal is to give the players options and choices then design decisions will be made around that and not hamfisted to compromise the end product (like darkness sliders which people who do pvp will simply ignore).

Compare having the sliders to having light play an actual role in wvw (I don’t pvp but it’s a good example). The zerg will have to change tactics during night time if they want to do some sneak attack-can’t have people simply running around with lights broadcasting your presence when you’re doing something covert now can you? That can add to the gameplay experience so in the long run imo, that would be better than forfeiting design decisions to ‘player option/choice’.