Guild Wars 2

In addition to the lighting I would like the night to feel like the night, you know a change from day? As is, the only difference is light levels-where are my nocturnal mobs? Night time events? Why are so many people still loitering in the streets? Also…was I mistaken or was it not this game that said they’d have dynamic weather and it would affect dynamic events? If I am mistaken and it’s not this game….well…it’d be nice to have.

All channel skills use Asuran heat-seeking technology…did you not know this? It’s common knowledge to the denizens of Tyria.

Aside from thinking pvp in any rpg is a light-hearted, fleeting diversion at best (mechanics of a rpg doesn’t lend itself to proper fair competition imo so it’s just be for lols), the main reason I don’t pvp would be because of ‘pvpers’. Really the majority of them (and ‘leet dungeon runners’) are among the most obnoxious, toxic, fun-sapping and immature people you could have the misfortune of meeting…and why would I subject myself to such an experience?

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

noelclover.9408:

Silent.4378:

Totally agree , every character ive made ends up been offensive. there no mechanics or need for a defensive person in a pve point of view.

So… I have one question.

What mechanics are you talking about here? You have blocks, blinds, dodges, stuns, knockbacks and skills that grant invulnerability.

PS: Not fully directed at you but also towards all who claim to want to play defensive characters. Quoting you because you put out the idea that there is a lack of mechanics for defensive play.

PPS: Really curious, hence question.

Let me explain to you when people say “defensive” in this game. They mean they want to run PVT or Clerics gear, and be able to face tank enemies by way of Toughness and Vitality(with some healing).

People who run Zerker gear, know that defensive means using active skills such as Reflects/Blinds or Interrupts/Aegis/Dodges(In that order). And if you have ways to mitigate full damage, then why bring pvt?

Let’s assume you’re right for argument’s sake…you just explained that the game is designed to invalidate vitality and toughness. It’s all nice and good that this is a ‘new way to play’ but it’s still…inconsistent/incoherent/incomplete if the ‘old way’ made use of stats that the ‘new’ way still carried over, but ignores.

Obvious elitism, kitten stroking aside (‘people who run zerker’…really), I agree that when people get more familiar with the game they do realize there are ways to-as a matter of fact THE way negate damage is as you’ve described…but again…why the hell have vitality and toughness in the game then? They serve no purpose. Also with those mitigation skills by no means limited to particular skill trees or anything it makes very little sense to try to make a character focused on defense because, as you just implied, a full damage character can do the very same thing. If the defensive skills’ effectiveness were increased by vitality/toughness and their base values reduced then MAYBE that would help. ‘Weakness’ base value 30% chance to deal 50% damage, scales with vitality to70% chance to deal 50% damage or something along those lines…but as is, weakness is weakness with 2k armor and 3k power or 2kpower and 3k armor (and the armor does little to actually protect you from damage and doesn’t save you from the numerous one shot/red rings of death attacks anyway) so why not kill things faster? There is no need for a defensive character because an offensive character can achieve similar results with the added benefit of killing things.

Also when the person says no mechanics or need for defensive characters I think they meant dungeon/mob/event design rather than game mechanics (coupled with what I just said about offensive characters being capable of very similar defensive capacity with the benefit of killing things). As a matter of fact, defiance alone shuts down one aspect of a defensive character, one shot attacks/red rings of death reduces it further (dodge/invul or gtfo).

(This is from pve pov)

Karizee.8076:

I think the people complaining about this really haven’t grasped the concept of this game yet. Look at it this way, if they left all the content permanent it would be the most confusing clusterbomb of a game ever created.

Just imagine, we would have a world where we are simultaneously building road signs for the refugees Wayfarer Hills while the refugees have already arrived and are camping in Lion’s Arch AND have already moved on to Southsun Cove where they are being exploited by the Consortium all the while Queen’s Pavilion balloons are taking players to the Jubilee while Molten Portals spawn everywhere and we have just started to open/build Southsun but the Ancient Karka has already been defeated but karka are still invading Lion’s Arch. Or how about Evon Gnashblade politicking for votes at the same time he’s bemoaning his loss while election banners are hanging everywhere and Ellen is already in the Council? Or how about Kessex Hills with the Tower of Nightmares both up yet blown up at the same time?

Those concepts work well within a linear game where you are working your way through the story via quests and such, but it simply doesn’t make sense here.

I do think the 2 week tempo feels a bit pressured and I’m happy they’ve moved towards letting the content overlap in one month chunks, but I simply don’t see how everything could be left in game within the freeform/nonlinear/multiple layers of content in zones way this game is designed.

-__-
……..

Do I really have to point out that if the development was done with permanent rather than temporary content in mind the updates would be different? I think you haven’t grasped the concept of the objections people have to temporary content-you’re saying if they created temporary content and made it permanent (see how ridiculous that sounds) then it would be bloated…everyone else is saying why make so much temporary content in the first place.

Hmm, I wouldn’t say pve is dead-people still do dungeons and fractals and those are pve. I would say the exploration is dead-all that’s here is farming (efficient farming at that-which results in the exclusivity you see in dungeons and all the trains). If you want to see more people (double edged sword imo) visit Queensdale, Frostgorge and w/e random zone the LS is centered in, but you’re right-venture out of those zones and it’s a single player game without designs made for a single player game.

I’m not part of this reward-driven-carrot-on-a-stick generation of gamers so I honestly don’t know how to even begin fixing it. Increase the rewards in one are and all the hamsters flock to that area and you end up with the same problem. Perhaps levels are part of the problem as it makes downlevelled zones far easier to handle. If QD had lots of poison mobs and Iron Marshes had protection mobs then rather than QD being easier it’ll be more along the lines of pick condi removal for QD and either burst or boon strip for IM so the difference is in flavour. But they won’t suddenly remove all levelling so idk (and that doesn’t solve the exclusivity resulting form ‘efficient’ farming in dungeons/fractals either).

Jornophelanthas.1475:

What Guhracie said. Go play Zelda or Skyrim if you want your accomplishments to be reflected in the game world.

MMOs have something called an “Open World”, which means that all players, regardless of their progress share those environments. Which means that those environments won’t change much.

Ah this dismissive attitude that doesn’t promote change…and then EQN comes along as an open world MMO and says ‘screw all that-it’s fine for different players to experience different things’. I agree with the OP; if the living world was to create the illusion of a changing world then the world can’t be dynamic while being static. It doesn’t mean that Kryta needs to be peaceful once the human/centaur war has ended-you have bandits, harpies, oakhearts and other wild life to cause chaos-you can even add newcomers to the mix. These things and what the OP mentioned are in-game, you’ve experienced them over your levelling and they have context. When ANET just says ‘oh here’s some obscure baddy you’ve never seen before and she’s threatening the world’ it lacks context that would otherwise make it meaningful.

Also, suggesting skyrim for having your actions reflected in the world is just cruel.

Now, awaiting my infraction message for this post

Konrad.9587:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Just have some patience. I know it’s hard.

Patience? How much patience do you think we need to cope with this 3 month interval until the next feature patch? To give you an example, last update revamped the fractals – however it also brought plenty of new issues and did little to solve the old ones. How can we feel about the fact that we will have to wait at least 3 more months for a dredge fractal revamp, on top of other pressing issues?

Just like cesmode.4257 said, revamping unattractive content, bug fixing, QoL improvements should have an absolute priority over the LS stuff. Too bad this does not generate enough gem store purchases.

….How old are you? The way you speak you’d think gw2 is the only game-or the only means of entertainment in the world. Are you saying you can’t live without gw2 for 4 months? How did you manage the <insert number of years you’re alive> before gw2?

I’ll say it appears you can’t see beyond your nose; maybe you need to take a few steps away from your monitor and see :a) the rest of your game collection b) the world…might give you some perspective.

There are two things in that post that I like and made me hopeful. Firstly they’re taking extra time to polish content-that’s exactly what some people were asking for. Trying to feed impatient gamers or treating all of us like we have ADD (no offense to those who do) with unreasonably frequent ‘blink-you-lose’ buggy content is kitten near insulting. This shows respect, care and giving due diligence for their work-and I think more people can and will respect that. Unfortunately I don’t care for this season of LS so it’ll likely be 4 months before anything in the game interests me but that’s fine-other things to do, other games to play; if it means those who are into LS will have 4 months of truly compelling content rather than convincing themselves their engaged b/c fanboy syndrome or simply don’t want to admit they wasted time then that is awesome. I repeat, taking time to polish content=win for everybody, very nice.

The second thing that is a silver lining is…the end of the LS is almost here lol, and hopefully this new direction will be permament (work on one aspect of the game at a time, polish it to a shine then move on). So LS lovers will get their fair amount of attention and later those more interested in features and mechanics or other game modes will get their fair amount of attention without any crisscross mess from trying to work on the other 5 areas of play (4 if you lump fractals and dungeons together as…idk dungeons?).

Odd that rather than any features or events I’m more excited over the fact that for the first time they basically said ‘Ok look-this multi focus development thing isn’t working out; let’s take our time and work on one thing at a time’. Is my optimism clouding my judgement and I’m reading too much into it? Possibly…but I sure hope not.

The only two classes I play (albeit that has become a rare thing now) are Guardian and mesmer-tried everything else and wasn’t impressed. I was always a fan of defense and the aesthetic of the guardian (blue fire ftw…and norn t3, not going to lie) was really appealing, the mesmer kind of reminded me of the pscionicist-a control class with clones that I liked from another mmorpg that’s why I stuck with those two. However as time went on I started liking the mesmer less and less as it just felt I wasn’t particularly useful outside of a 210s elite, unlike the pscionicst int that other game and compared to what my Guardian could do. Recently I’ve been entertaining the notion of re-leveling a ranger as the thief is just horrid and I like to have one profession of each armor type…no deep reason behind this-just something I need to do.

This is from a non-fractal, non-elitist, non-role playing pve oriented perspective (basically I’m not obsessed with white numbers, like having utility and spending time in regular dungeons and open world events).

Hmmm, probably…
-deletion of all professions except warrior and guardian from pve
-removal of all gear other than beserker and knights from pve
-lots and lots of Living story…episodes I guess?
-lots of reskinned ‘rewards’ for said Living story episodes
-lots of people whining they aren’t ‘winning’ for sitting around a computer pressing 1 in a blob
-no change to stackfest-dodgeroll-gimmick runs…I mean dungeons
-no change to theme parks…I mean dynamic events
-increasingly elitist and toxic community

…as a matter of fact pve is now removed from the game-upon logging in you’ll be ported to lion’s arch where everyone stacks and auto attacks the training dummies in the most efficient order for exotics (and of course the obligatory elitist bragging of how I can press ‘1-2-3’ like a boss from the kids).

Oh and new skills to satisfy clamoring for ‘progression’ and gating them by having them cost almost as much as elites…for people who’ve been around a year….and have hundreds of skill points….and will just buy them as soon as they log in anyway…sucks to be the new guy.

Lopez.7369:

lordkrall.7241:

I have a counter-question:

When will people stop thinking that the main reason to play games is to get “phat lootz” instead of having fun?

Is not having fun reward enough?

Because getting good rewards makes the whole experience more fun and longer lasting.

It’s very basic game design. Once that big challenge is complete or those achievements are grinded down, it’s extremely satisfying knowing that something will be attained from it all.

Besides, what’s the downside to good rewards? I see people pose your opinion all the time, but they never explain why the “status quo” is a good thing. What damage would be done if the game was rewarding on top of being fun?

Except you never mentioned the ‘when will the game start being fun’-you only focus on rewards so that betrays the illusion you’re trying to create that you don’t care only about the ‘leet loot’. I take it you don’t play any fighting game right? How about rts? Single player games (obviously non-item centric ones like diablo and such)? No? Didn’t think so. Good games of those genres use inherently compelling gameplay-not a carrot dangling from a stick to keep players engaged.

The problem with people who pose your opinion is you actually encourage bad/lazy game design; make a mundane, simplistic, brain dead dungeon but make the end item an epic and you’re all happy. Contrary to what you just posted people with your mindset don’t do dungeons/activities because they are fun and the rewards are just the icing on the cake-rather you do the dungeon only if the rewards tickle you in the right places; and that my friend, is prime grinding mentality.

This is not to say the current state is remotely fine, however I can’t help but think you misunderstand people who say ‘play the game for fun’. I think (assuming they’re not simple fanboys…we ignore fanboys) the point they were trying to make is: why do you want better items from doing boring tasks to continue to do more boring tasks; fix said tasks first THEN take a look at rewards.

aspirine.6852:

Supreme.4051:

“LFP <Dungeon> full ascended only”

Well Easily answered with yes, there is no inspection in this game

“LFM <dungeon> beserker asc only, PING GEAR”

I’ve already stopped spending money on the game in anticipation of that inevitable state, the moment I see that LFG I uninstall…then again I play like once a month for 5mins now…might as well not be playing the game anyway.

I’m sorry but for months the game has just been getting more and more boring (from LS to exploit-filled-skip-all-the-things-stackfest dungeons to champion trains to event trains…just too much head shaking for one person) and there are at any given time ten things better worth my time. Now with ascended gear there will be hundreds of things better worth my time-including games where I actually have fun rather than grinding for months in the hopes that I might have fun. Hmm, play a fighting /strategy/rpg/action game for 3 months where every round/match/dungeon/level is fun by its own merit…or play one game filled with an immature, elitist community and grind-do boring tasks ad nauseam for 3 months to get higher numbers so I can play with and how (zerker only right?) said immature elitists want and grind the same bloody things with those people for another 9 months…..I’m no masochist -__-.

Yeah you ‘hardcore’ young gamers go be ‘hardcore’… meanwhile I’ll be ‘efficient’ with my time (oh the irony) and having fun.

As for asc gear…well once the people who want the gear treadmill have it and everyone else leaves the game will be just like every other mmorpg-that’s what I think anyway. I also imagine the next tier of gear will be in the first expansion. I also think the difficulty level of mobs will be raised soon otherwise I don’t quite see the point in releasing more powerful gear than the content-and with no news of an expansion…yeah….it’s just a huge mess I don’t want to deal with.

I agree the OP is a bit tunnel visioned on healing, but his point that the game is one dimensional is valid imo. In the few games that actually does support well, the playstyle is often paired with control-a good example is the psionicist in Allods online. To the people claiming gw2 has anything remotely resembling a decent support/control, I suggest you test out the psi then re-evaluate control in gw2.

Honestly the first major problem is this is a mmorpg trying to focus on pvp and all the skills and mechanics are based on that. PvP in a rpg is a total joke-oh my set of percentages are better than your set of percentages…or ha!-I have skills that you didn’t happen to select counters to…wow…so competitive and skill-based. Strategy games, fighting games, fps-those are games that can have worthwhile pvp since you aren’t limited by the set of skills your opponent picked or percentages; your opponent does something (not by chance) and you react-and you have your full kitten nal to make your choice. As such a pve centred game will have terrible pvp and a pvp centred game will have terrible pve…this is a pvp centred game.

The second problem is this obsession with accessibility-every dungeon should be completed with any profession set up and any build within that profession…well you just severely limited what type of content you can produce. Everything will be based on gimmicks then. Since you can’t rely on groups having perma protection/reflection/blind/condi dmg (flaws aside) etc the only thing your encounters will be based on is ‘get this red bar depleted asap’. What I think would have been better is to create dungeons that require certain roles, but not make ways of fulfilling that role unique to a single class. E.g. this boss does this thing that horribly murders you-you need anti-projectile to protect your party…well fine ele/guardian/mesmer/thief/ranger all have ways to defend against projctiles-is ’ X dungeon lfm, need anti-projectile’ really such a terrifying thing?

Don’t misunderstand-there are some such things in game, but for the most part (in dungeons) it’s ‘aw, isn’t that cute’ rather than a role such as: ‘quick everyone run to the whirling ranger/smoke screen/shield of avenger/wall of reflection/iwarden-temporal curtain/ele..wind…thingy if you want to live!’ that’s more prevalent in traditional mmorpg pve encounters. The support/control durations are waaaaaay too short, cd waaaaaay too long and they are rarely even useful anyway-obviously a side effect of the game being developed with pvp in mind.

…..Hmm….I just made myself sad and very disappointed in gw2. Dungeons are underwhelming and gimmicky (and either poorly designed or buggy, depends on how you look at it with regards to stacking), pvp in a mmorpg is always laughable and open world is now either a champion zerg train or an event zerg chain….

TLDR: support/control roles exist in only pvp, if you don’t like pvp and want to play a support/control role in pve you are out of luck-better start looking for another mmorpg. And if you think stacking might is the extent of a support/control role take a look at support/control classes in other mmorpgs.

I prefer the concept of the living story to the personal story (execution is another matter)-it’s more in line with a mmorpg; personal story just feels like a bad, disjointed attempt at a single-player rpg. For instance: Oh yah I’m the one and only commander of the only pact in Tyria created to defeat zhaitan…just like the other 3million players running around. I think it’s more coherent when the players are seen as adventurers (or as a collective) rather than heroes (or individuals). Another example; why not have the orders (every character has to choose one anyway) play a role in the living story? This big scary tower is in Kryta-have the orders come up with battleplans to deal with it and only allow the player’s character to partake in the battleplan of their corresponding order. Whisper operatives find ways to infiltrate the tower to learn weakpoints/enemy deployment etc, vigil warriors build war machines/explosives powered by krait shards, priory scholars research magic to enhance vigil weaponry and nullify enemy magic and it at the climax there’s an epic siege on the tower utilizing the combined efforts of the orders and…I guess the seraph.

Such a direction would lend to better narrative and coherent world imo while still allowing the player to choose how they interact with the world rather than the inconsistencies between the persistent game world (one might even call that the ‘real’ game world) and the instanced world in the ps. In the example above a player might say/have the experience ‘I am a vigil warrior. I was assigned to demolitions during the Nightmare tower incident. My unit (meaning +other players) delved to the depth of lake (…idk something in Kryta)for three days where we found a volatile compound for use in the explosives. On D-day we were ambushed etc etc etc’. That story is personal imo-choices that you made as an individual, working as part of a collective for a common goal; no need to have someone beat you over the head with ‘this is YOUR story’.

But with that said…you’ll likely get an update on your personal story with an expansion (whenever that is)-no real reason or point to advance the PS without it as far as I can see.

There are ppl playing this game old enough to remember/know ff7…sniff brought a tear to my eye (the thought of a whole bunch of ‘uberl33tskillz’ gamers thinking ‘wtf is the emerald weapon?’ does make me lol though).

If you’re comparing her to emerald weapon then it’s not that bad-ruby weapon was the one that gave me nightmares. However…this intrigues me greatly-will have to check the gauntlet out this weekend…maybe next week and see what all the fuss is about

colesy.8490:

If you remove zerker, people will just move to the second best stat combination.

lfm <insert dungeon run> knights only, ping gear!

I think both the profession and encounter mechanics need to be revamped. Going back to older mmorpgs, zerkers were still there but we didn’t run into this problem because the content was designed around having tanks as well as healers. Yes zerkers do immense damage (in terms of ratio to non-dps specs/classes perhaps even more than in gw2) but the mobs did oh-so-much damage and they (the class/spec) didn’t have a way to mitigate the damage, thus they NEEDED someone to protect them-enter tanks and healers. Here on the other hand…you give that element of protection against damage to all players-including the zerkers…the result? Well…why do you play anything else? The zerker can heal and mitigate damage that it’s usually dependent on tanks and healers for-so beyond role playing or simply wanting to not follow the crowd…there’s not real reason for not going zerker (although I personally don’t go zerker).

For players not content with a) being told how to play or b)playing like everyone else, this is a most infuriating development. Hell at least in the older mmo’s you had three ‘recognized’ choices (dps/tank/heal), here there’s only one. I share a similar sentiment with the OP…guess that’s why I haven’t been playing for too long anymore

cesmode.4257:

All that Ive heard are that you will be able to purchase skills via skillpoints.

Hopefully its the same method as we did during leveling…no real “trees”.

If they did trees, it would be terrible, but just more of the ‘same ole’…making the game less of a gem and more run of the mill.

But the current utility/elite skill system is akin to a dubbed down skill tree-you need to spend x skill points in this tier to unlock the next tier, and you can only unlock this particular type of skill after a level requirement. I think some people are making the game to be more of a gem than it really is.

As for skill trees-if they’re linked to our orders then I think it could be interesting; however if it’s just ‘poof’ you now have access to these abilities for no apparent reason it would be rather underwhelming.

Myst Dawnbringer.9138:

Guild Wars 2 was going to be all about innovation and a living world. A world where dynamic events happened that changed everything. Now we are deluged with boring mini games, 5 man pug dungeons, and the mind numbing reality of farming for junk to fill our bank with stuff we don’t need.

Yeah I have issues with the current state of dynamic events-a good start for bringing the concept, but it is faaaaaaar from living up to its name. I had given what I thought I would be in for with dynamic events in gw2-using Queensdale’s troll event as a template. Bandits raid farm, players fight back bandits and save farm→players continue to push bandits back into their caves→bandits forced to retreat deeper into cave and awake cave troll→cave troll gets mad, kills bandits and rampages the countryside→troll destroys farm and nearby towns until player intervention→troll dies, but it’s slaughter of bandits leave cave open for harpies→harpies ambush supply dolyaks→use supplies to lvl up etc etc…instead we got was ‘wait 10mins, troll stone popped→kill troll….wait 10mins again’.

When I realized what the dynamic-I mean rotating static events were I had hoped they’d build on the system in the coming months…but no….instead it’s jumping puzzles, minigames and collect-a-thons as you mentioned. I haven’t checked the thread but I’m just about sure a lot of fanboys reacted violently (maybe even saying it was impossible) to me saying the dynamic events are not dynamic and are underdeveloped….however recently at a certain conference for a certain Japanese company that made the first hugely popular mmorpg a certain game was announced…and that game had pretty much everything I just said I thought dynamic events would be like added with the spontaneous nature you apparently are seeking, so I’d say look there for spontaneous dynamic content.

subclavian.5839:

I do take issue with people that try to force everyone to play the game their way. Accusing people of selfishness for not dressing in full zerker, requiring armor checks and achievement points to run dungeons, kicking non-DPS builds etc is simply raising the barrier of entry and making things needlessly difficult, imho.

Hit the nail right on the head there.

You can take the raid out of the game but you can’t take the raid mentality out of the player it seems. Oh noes-you’re in pvt; now we’ll take a full 5 minutes longer on the dungeon run! Those 5 minutes will put me at a great disadvantage 2hours from now, 3 days from now, 1 month from now, 1 year from now-be sure I will be worse off and you’ll be the sole reason. I suggest stop arguing with these types of ppl-the thought process of someone who believes that is obviously immature, and due to the anonymous and safe nature of the internet it festers arrogance of epic proportions. Maybe when they grow up they’ll realize how silly they were, but for now let the kids be kids….because you can’t do anything to an immature mind on the internet anyway-noway to show them reason.

Also, how silly would it seem for you to be seen arguing with a child in real life? So why bother arguing with them in the internet? They will (most of them….I hope) grow out of it in time.

Regarding OP: personally I like knights armor, zerker weapons with variable trinkets depending on the class for my ‘one set to rule them all’

Aye, most objective people (who are interested in story) would agree that the PS in gw2 is…lackluster to say the least but tbh it has more problems than continuity (which you yourself brushed on in your post). It’s just bad-and fixing no one thing could possibly redeem it so the next best thing is, if and when it does continue they learn from the mistakes. Tbh I think it was doomed to failure the moment they tried to make it ‘all about the player’-oh look the mighty slayer of Issormir, light bringer of the order of whispers and second in command of the pact….just like the last 500 Norns who came this way.

Also as you mentioned the missions are ‘run here, kill x’-you honestly expect me to believe someone who is apparently interested in a solid story driven experience will be satisfied if they ‘fixed’ some of the instant teleportation/amnesia funny business in the PS? I imagine every person who’ve played a sylvari up to claw island the first time thought this: " Wait..why is twig-boy acting like this is the first time we’ve met?" but really-would fixing that absolve the torture that is the next 30 levels of ‘kill x’?

Big Tower.5423:

It isnt factions its orders! they are supposed to fight dragons not erchoter! its like asking NATO to fight erchoter…. Sry, this idea wont really work and dont try to make gw2 WoW it do suck horrible anywhy as is from unskilled players which dont know of better games.

I don’t see anywhere the OP mentioned any sort of pvp…this is why I say biased opinions contribute nothing.

Regarding OP I agree that the orders are criminally underutilized in the current gw2-hopefully they’ll bring content that highlights and uses the orders in the future. I actually made a similar suggestion (in terms of challenges/missions or something that utilizes the orders) a while back… but idk how many ppl actually like the idea though-I don’t check feedback for any post in the internet; not worth the headache.

+1
Also been wondering why there isn’t a way in-game to see which dungeon’s story mode you’ve completed per character-either that or make unlocking access to exp mode of dungeons account bound…………………………………………would rather that one tbh-finding story mode parties tend to be tedious. But I digress-dungeon tracking for story mode and exp paths completed would be a most welcomed addition

Well an argument could be made for ppl who use laurels for asc trinkets-had they known they would eventually be craftable they’d save up the laurels as opposed to using them. Do they get refunds? Also, as other people have mentioned, if you are willing to give up every copper earned due to gold find from the moment you bought it until the refund then we’d have something to discuss-but I doubt you or anyone who wants refunds want to give up all the gold made through gf/mf.

Yes the upcoming changes to mf and dungeons will give ppl the short end of the stick who built their entire gearset around that one particular mechanic (doesn’t sound so smart when you put it like that does it?) but asking for a refund is unreasonable imo.

Basically it comes down to :
player x1000: hehehe, Anet didn’t think this through-I’m so smart. Going to get more gw2 money than GOD muhahahaa!
(few months later)
Anet: hmm…this mechanic is causing unforeseen and undesired consequences…let’s close this loop hole
player x1000: -__- NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!! REFUND! REFUND! REFUND!

If they removed gold from all mobs and only allow us to gain gold through jumping puzzle chests THEN a refund would be up for debate. Really depending on how they balance dungeons henceforth, all it might mean is you have to kill trash mobs to utilize gf-and as someone mentioned it still works in all other aspects of the game so, yeah…no grounds for a refund imo

I have no idea why people think ‘I play x profession in dungeons and it works therefore I am a good player and the game is balance’ is a good counter-argument. Firstly, it could just be that the other professions in your team are picking up the slack in terms of group contributions-so whereas you might not be a bad player in terms of getting yourself killed often…your actual contributions are pitiful to say the least. Secondly you can take a party of 4/5 warriors or guardians and do anything in game ( dungeons……well TA p3 is the odd one) and have a reasonably comfortable time doing it. A party of 4/5 eles or thieves or necros on the other hand…outside the very simple, broken and straightforward dungeons, won’t work so well-perma downed and decade-long fights ftl.

Now you can argue that ‘good’ players will play the ele/thief/necro and not go down…but so what? Those good players will still will be more useful on a warrior or guardian-and have an easier time doing so. So then those professions generally considered lacking are difficult to play without any benefits? What’s the point then? This is why I cannot understand fanboys smh. The people who comment that x profession cannot contribute as much as warrior/guardian in pve aren’t bashing on the profession nor players of that profession (since fanboys take everything personally)-rather what they say is “I would like this profession to be as valuable as these two professions in dungeons”…and you honestly have a problem with that? If you think the profession in question is of equal value an they are wrong then prove them wrong-‘my profession is bad? really? I hadn’t noticed-l2p noob’ is an ignorant response and does nothing to disprove their perception. Just be prepared that comparisons will be made with what you said and a profession the speaker considers valuable (if the speaker uses combined skills of the remaining 7 professions to counter your points on one profession then the feel free to not take the speaker seriously).

But as people said…the game doesn’t know what it wants to be. Marketed as casual with lots of focus on pve, but aspires to be an esport with class changes based in pvp. Crossplay mentioned Portal….oh the story on that. Every change was based from a spvp and wvw standpoint-totally irrelevant in pve. But, with clever use of portal in pve it allows players to bypass entire jumping puzzles and glitch bosses by pressing f, thereby rendering the work done in creating (and subsequent value in rewards) said content moot…yet that hasn’t even been looked into (with the exception of that one thing in coe). Go ahead, tell me one use of portal in pve (besides claw and that swamp fractal) that isn either an exploit or can be considered ‘cheating’ or ‘cheap’. Only thing you can come up with are little puzzles like in cof an coe right? So that’s the purpose of portal in pve? To have the mesmer alone go through puzzles then have everyone else skip it? Wow…truly a frightening skill totally warrants all those nerfs in pve to make it ‘balanced’.

OP, regarding your damage suggestion-remember most squishy classes are range based. So what would happen is you’d have the people who stay safely in the back ranks doing more damage then those in the thick of things…doesn’t sound too balanced now does it? It works with other mmo’s because of the trinity-squishies do big damage because the tanks allow them to go pew pew in peace; healers allow the tanks to allow them to go pew pew for extended periods of time-and of course heal the occasional splash damage. It’s an unfortunate side effect of the hybrid system I feel-heavies and squishies as defined by professions doesn’t fit as nicely. It would have probably been better to not health/armor lock professions and have players wear what they want-of course the gear itself would have properties that players would weigh. Heavy armor gives more direct+condition dmg protection but you have less endurance/movement speed reduction, light armor gives more condition dmg protection, less direct dmg protection, a movement speed boost and more endurance whereas medium armor gives more direct dmg protection, less condition dmg protection and idk..something else.

To close, I don’t think the game is anywhere near balanced (in terms of valuability of all professions-notice I didn’t even get into the condition cap) in pve, however your solution is simplistic and appears to stem from a desire to return to the archaic mmo formula- ‘oh I’m not as valuable as a warrior…reduce his damage and give it to me’

At first I was neutral to legendaries-hey if you want to punish yourself and grind to be literally no better of than me that’s your busniess. However after playing with multiple people with legendaries I see them as harbingers of low self esteem/very low competence/elitism now-someone addressed it before as well; that one guy with the legendary in your party is perma-downed making excuses ‘oh that’s strange-this never happens before, maybe the game is bugged’ or ALWAYS rushes ahead to be the ‘leader’ or ALWAYS is the first to throw a tantrum with petty insults thrown all over the place and ALWAYS act as if w/e way they do things is the one and only way to do things………commence eye rolling of epic proportions.

I think the players are their greatest enemy when it comes to the perception others have towards legendaries (the player think it makes them look cool) but that mindset makes them act like total fools with a big shiny ‘look at me, I matter’ sign over their head. Result? That ‘look at me, I matter’ sign makes people think ‘oh Lord…this one’s a fool isn’t it?’ rather than actually make them look cool-so there is a reputation as far as I’m concerned…thought a ‘stigma’ would probably be more accurate.

Would I get one? If one fell in my lap I’d say 50-50 keeping/selling in light of the added functionality to legendaries but for me to grind/buy one? Ha…hell no.

Anything worth appreciating? Well…I’ve already divulged my experience with people with legendaries (on a tangent I’ve noticed people with very high AP’s tend to act the same way…almost want to stop gaining AP’s so as to not be lumped with that lot tbh). Hmm…now that I think of it….no…there’s nothing I appreciate regarding legendaries. Sure they have elaborate particle effects but I find them to be obnoxious-the effects from named exotics are what I appreciate…….although a great many of them I will not get, still I like seeing them in action

I’ve come to the conclusion that such a thing is impossible when still in the boundaries of a typical mmorpg (gw2 did change a few things, but it’s still more of a hybrid rather than say outright action-mmorpg in that some of the ‘skill’ involved in doing damage and avoiding damage is taken from our hands and hidden behind spreadsheets). Not when damage/effects are based on chance. Not when you have 2minute CD on skills that severely limits their use in the first place. Not when you can’t negate all damage. Not when there’s no system to grade your performance. Not when there aren’t secondary/tertiary objectives to consider.

You mentioned MOBA games-notice that in either of them the gameplay doesn’t end at ‘fight this dude’ whereas mmorpgs tend to end exactly there-your only objective is to make that red bar at the top of your screen go away; no multitasking or strategy or gymnastics of cognitive faculties needed. The ‘defensive’ condition “Weakness” improves your defense at a percentage chance. Crits also occur at a percentage chance as do some on-crit effects; they aren’t reliable as say doing an uppercut in street fighter and cannot contribute to skillful play imo as their effects are out of your control. Notice that in fighting games and action games you can actively negate damage through skillful play-your damage mitigation skills aren’t on cool downs leaving you with a myriad of spreadsheets to determine your survivability. There isn’t a combo system or ranking system for combat performance like say dmc so that entire piece of potential reward for skillful play is gone.

Hmm…..out of that mini rant I think I actually like the idea of a combo/style point system for combat. Laying down combo fields, cross-profession combos, reflecting/blocking/absorbing projectiles, evades-have these things contribute to one’s combat style points which will award bonus silver/items depending on the amount of points gained…doesn’t sound like a bad idea imo. Since we don’t have the ability to negate all damage it can’t reset on injury like original systems-perhaps accumulative until downed or hp < 50% or something. Ah, it would also need a ‘style point radius’ or something around the boss/mob (say melee-mid range?)to prevent that one guy staying waaaaaay in the back mashing his number keys with his long range weapon from getting anything.

Beyond that I don’t think anything is really possible as far as systems go-mmorpgs tend to not be about skillful play in the first place but rather cooperative play (of course a minimum amount of individual competence is required but you get what I mean). I suppose you can have solo challenges (because once it’s group content it WILL be exploited) that tests a player’s grasp of game mechanics and have the rewards be titles or skins or something…but having a bunch of solo instances kinda defeats the purpose of a mmo doesn’t it?

Marduh.4603:

smoke field>>guardian

I…I don’t….I….what?
Did I really just read someone imply that a couple of seconds of a combo fields is better than an entire profession?
I…you….

I’d love to live in your world for short periods of time…I suspect extended stay might be detrimental to one’s health. But on to off chance that you have some secret knowledge…please do share-simply saying x >y doesn’t make it so-support your claim

Icarus Pherae.4680:

On my thief I feel like I am always contributing to the group. I bring shadow refuge, smoke bomb, and smoke wall. with those utilities I can grant stealth, aoe blind, and block projectiles. Also I have a Sbow, now realize my group has two rangers in it, both use the healing spring, but essentially, you inherently, regardless of which weapon you bring, have quite a few combo finishers, what that means of course is that you can offer a lot of support that way. Cluster bomb is probably the best combo finisher we have because you can essentially spam a blast finisher, which if it is done into a water field is a significant aoe heal. I guess it takes a little thinking outside the box, but I hope that helps!

Shadow refuge is a gimmick and you know it-it’s most useful application is stealth rez but it doesn’t help when the player is downed in aoe or such. Smoke bomb…meh….you’d have to outline the useful of this in a party setting-the only thing I could come up with was 10s regeneration…however if certain other classes are in the party then there will be high regen uptime in which case our trait won’t kick in. Oh, and don’t try to say one blind every 32-40s is worthwhile-with 5 in radiance guardians can do better. Smoke screen is decent enough, but guardians have 2 anti-projectile skills that blow it out of the water and feedback has the benefit of allowing the party to reposition/continue attacking (smoke screen first of all requires coordination-not happening in pugs, and even then everyone has to stay behind it. Feedback is just a better skill). Smoke screen also gives a dark field…that…is…kinda well…not that useful in pve (dungeons)-not when a mesmer’s reflect can give aoe chaos armor and guardian’s light fields can cleanse conditions or give retaliation. Quite frankly I’d even put ele’s whirling wind above it because it doesn’t interfere with combo fields-the ele can drop fire fields for aoe might stacks and protect the party from projectiles in a more efficient manner….what can we do? Oh, don’t forget the traited focus for mesmers…yeah

So let’s recap: stealth-gimmicky, doesn’t really contribute much; aoe blind-dark fields interfere with fire/water/etheral fields that yield awesome party buffs w/blast finishers. Also guardians can aoe blind+apply burning to everyone’s attack at least once every 30s-aoe 3stack of might might also be possible; block projectiles-decent enough if noone else wants to have an anti-projectile skill, however it only blocks (i.e. does no damage), creates dark field (see above). Do you honestly feel satisfied with just that?

As far as party support goes I think the blast finisher (although it needs a minor work around-air time is way too long, better to get close to the field you want to fire in rather than stay at range) and weakness are the thief’s strengths…and even the weakness has a downside b/c it’s the result of a combo field and might mess up interactions with fire/water fields. So really, flat out, the best support the thief has is the blast finisher…sounds pathetic doesn’t it?

Oh for combo finishers-sword has none, daggers have none, the autoattacks for the sb and pistol have a 20% chance to act as projectile (…think it was 20%-it’s fairly low is what I’m saying) and whirl/blast finishers are the only ones that give party boons.

I hope people don’t misunderstand-I don’t hate the thief nor am I saying it is unplayable or has no support, rather nearly every support option available to it is kitten in some way. Venom share is the only thing it has going for it as far as proper party support that another class can’t do better….but for the life of me I can’t get around the range of venom share in pugs

I’m not sure more trait points-increased level cap or not, is a good thing as all it will do is make some classes have the ‘can do all the things’ or ’it’s super effective!’ set-ups. That and I’m not particularly fond of the trait system-I find it dull and inflexible though functional so the less I have to deal with it the better (imo the ruby grid system of a certain f2p title developed by a Russian company is the best trait type system-not naming anything because it seems there’s a ‘infract me plz for things others get away with’ on my profile or something -_- but I digress).

Wasn’t it this game that said each profession would go through profession-specific challenges to gain access to some system to further modify their skills? That wasn’t a bad idea imo-that I’d actually like to see; yes you are more than your profession but it shouldn’t mean that your profession has NO impact. Elementalists get arcane training or do…elementalist…things at sources of power, rangers undergo pet bonding challenges or something, thieves get infiltration/stealth-steal challenges ala thieves’ guild in skyrim for example (if they ever change it from being a one button gimmick)-stuff like that to gain another resource to spend in another system to customize our characters. What about the orders? In terms of gameplay (and arguably story) they are utterly unexplored and underutilized. How about order specific challenges/missions with it’s own skill system?

I just remembered they did something similar in wvw where you have wvw skills now to customize your character-THAT’S cool (although I’m not a fan of wvw) and is far more fun than 10 more points to create god-mode toons only to be nerfed into oblivion after forum qq imo

Happyfool.8951:

Xenon.4537:

Excursion.9752:

I would like to see it happen. I agree the story should reset and as for the armor well it seems like to much work for them to make a convenience to us. So I would say all cultural stuff would be at a loss. Because if you look at it from a new characters point of view it would be at a loss if you decided to make a new character with the race of choice.

Why would it be a loss? Every race has X, Y, and Z armor pieces that are equivalent. If I changed my Charr to an Asura, My Charr T3 helm would become an Asura T3 helm. It’s logically simple, the only issue is the code behind the scenes.

and what of the personal story? just convert too? you make it sound so easy.

A possible solution is to give us the freedom to make the choices we would have made in story mode in an interactive comic book form ala Mass Effect Genesis. Since the rewards aren’t affected the only real impact would be the panes in your hero story panel-of course this would be voice acted in the voice of the new race for a nice touch and one can only change race after completing the personal story in the first place.

However changing race would automatically mean recreating your character so I’d be for renaming the total makeover kit to ‘scroll of reincarnation’ and have it give both the option to change your race (changing of personal story would only be available to race change) and change your appearance. Unfortunately there are achievements in the game for completing story plot points for each race-this suggestion would essentially allow you to bypass that and kinda make the achievement pointless. Then again ‘cooperative-competitive strategies’ in minigames to get achievements as well as ‘clever manipulation of game mechanics’ to make dungeons and meta events more ‘efficient’ also result in said activities/achievements being pointless and that seems to be acceptable so idk.

Blix.8021:

So you want anet to remake every dungeon

yeah, they’ll get right on that

“Some of the dungeons that we may not think are as exciting? We may just blow them up entirely and come up with something else from the ashes. New mechanics, new new bosses, new rewards. Polish-wise, some of our dungeons are much closer to where we’ll like them to be and maybe, you’ll see smaller changes and smaller upgrades.”
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/colin-johanson-talks-dungeons-dragons-and-chairs

Yeah…..not as crazy as you thought eh?

Regarding OP-it seems ANet is at the very least aware that players are um using ‘overly clever use of game mechanics’ that results in trivializing virtually every dungeon and are looking into ways of making that aspect of the game…feel like…you know, a game-not a cow clicker. However they aren’t looking at disabling such things from what he said later on-they plan on offering alternatives (which I assume would be just as viable but…without modifying dmg itself I don’t see how it can be ubiquitous). I imagine what they’ll do is make cof p1 give very little rewards, change say hotw to have lot more mechanics and unfriendly to mass zerker and give hotw greater rewards to incentivize play. Bezerkers still have a place to autoattack for less rewards and non-zerkers have a place with advanced mechanics for better rewards<-purely speculation on my part though.

But the important thing to take away is they acknowledge dungeons aren’t being utilized (and when they are they’re done in a way that cannot be described as ‘fun’ using the most liberal definition of the word)and are willing to made radical changes-we just have to wait and see.

snaplemouton.1294:

I play this game to have fun. I love dungeons and I enjoy boss fights.
But then I meet groups that only glitch bosses, standing in a corner pew pewing the boss without fear of being hit at all.
Then when I ask them how they can have fun glitching, they say they don’t do this for fun, they do this for farming. I’m not expecting any other answers from them. I’ve rolled around the internet long enough to know I’m not gonna find anything else then cheaters, glitchers, trolls and farmers.
But seriously… I wish ArenaNet could fix all the glitches in dungeons, especially for all the bosses. Nearly all of them can be glitched… it’s lame enough that nobody plays for fun, but theses people are ruining MY fun telling me to stand in that freaking corner when I don’t want to.

Tbh I don’t think they’re glitches/exploits…least not anymore. At first I thought it was players exploiting a glitch because the gameplay required to ‘succeed’ is just clumsy and unrefined…however….these…um…‘clever use of game mechanics’ have been around for months and have been reported repeatedly-nothing is ever done. As a matter of fact a couple posts/threads got deleted and infracted for ‘accusing of exploits’ or some crap like that for mentioning them. So running up to the boss and stacking while autoattacking is apparently either acceptable or was always the intended gameplay…go figure. Same with running by entire rooms (kitten near the whole dungeon) of regular/silver/champ mobs or even skipping bosses. So yeah…not glitching apparently bro-and as such there is literally no worth in doing anything the ‘correct’ way…because what you perceive as glitches ARE the correct ways.

As for ‘fun’…seems (keyword: SEEMS-not accusing…last thing I want is another ‘infracted for accusing’) what we consider fun isn’t what the majority of players-and indeed the devs consider fun either. The dungeon itself isn’t supposed to be fun-not working with other players, not the regular mobs, certainly not the silver/champs, not the bosses and most assuredly not the ‘story’ of the dungeon; what’s fun are those 60+ tokens and near 1g of gold at that end. They might as well make all dungeons a colosseum with 2-3 bosses-no actually just a small circular room (we will be stacking afterall) with a boss in the middle; when that boss is defeated another one spawns 10s later…defeat all three to get your fun tokens and gold.

However, if you still want to do things the more difficult, time consuming way the dungeon (apparently) wasn’t intended to be played you can try posting with such details on lfg-that way you’ll attract like-minded players…..how many are still around I can’t say though.

…can’t believe I actually had more fun with trinity-based dungeons…

Yeah I got that message too…about what? Idk. Which thread? Idk. What was the issue being complained about? Idk. ‘Complaint thread with exploit accusations’?…I have no earthly idea what that even means. Who was the one with the ‘exploit accusation’? Me? The OP? Idk. Will this be considered a complaint thread? As a matter of fact, what the hell is a ‘complaint thread’? Surely it’s not simply complaining-visit any class forum to see threads about complaining-that aren’t removed.
I…I just….forget it. The more interactions I have with the moderators the less I want to play the game

……probably will be infracted or something-idk or care anymore

runeblade.7514:

I wrote long paragraphs before but I could never get around to submit it so I will keep this short.

Dungeons are boring and easy. There needs to be a hard mode. A mode where you have to think even after doing the dungeon 100 times similar to sPvP. Call it hard mode so that players can’t complain how dungeons are hard.

Combat needs to be more like sPvP, where the combat is most fun. Mobs need to be more active. Mobs needs to give more boons that make their attack deadly. Mobs need to chain CC and actually kill the player. Dungeons should not cater to brain dead grinders that wants the game to be easy. Mobs need to evade player’s burst. PvE Hundred Blade Zerkers needs to be as effective as sPvP Hundred blade zerkers.

Battles should never be “Stack here! and DPS the mob down.” Sure, it is a tactic. But it makes the game boring. There needs to be counters to that.

Mob AI should be reactive rather than spammy(See Subject Alpha). Mobs fighting a full group of hundred blade zerkers? Place weakness on them, dodge backwards, observe how sPvP players counter those. Mobs should never be static. Mobs should heal like players can to replace the high hp pool.

Bosses should never be a punching bag. Instead, they should act like your 5 man party is fighting a skilled solo player or a computer AI that cheats.

In conclusion, the dungeon team should observe sPvP and tPvP to design the mob and boss AI. Of course, Computer intelligence will never be the same as human intelligence but when making comptuer AI as close as possible to human intelligence, it can be much more fun than the trash AI we have right now. GW1 was designed the same way, until heroes were added that can instantly interrupt everything. I am sure that GW2 won’t add heroes or henchmen anytime soon.

Why? Because our skills are balanced around sPvP. If we have a PvP/PvE skill split, it still won’t make dungeons any kitten ring. It will make other profession kill faster.

Your title and post content are misleading-you say dungeons should be fixed, but when you elaborate what you’re saying is ‘we need better AI’. Why are they not necessarily the same? A dungeon can be put in with randomly generated environmental threats at a particular say jumping puzzle-it could be difficult. It might not be boring or easy, and you’d still have to pay attention after doing it 100 times-the mobs could still behave like mindless drones. Or to use games to illustrate-‘I want to be the guy gaiden’ is not boring, not easy and you need obscene amounts of dexterity regardless of the amount of times you’ve beaten it but the AI is mindless-it’s not Alma from ‘Ninja Gaiden’.

I’m all for better AI though-not just gw2; it’s something I’ve been clamouring about for years. With all the advancement and focus made on making smoke, walls, water, hair and grass look prettier this past decade or so-why on earth are game still using enemy AI that appears to have been used in the 1990’s? Sadly…it won’t happen-because, as I said it’s not just gw2, rather the entire industry.

WTB adaptive AI

Tbh you could have left out ‘truly’ in the title because as is the DE’s aren’t dynamic in the least bit and they do nothing to tell the story of the zone or make it feel ‘alive’. I agree that random timers would lend to unpredictability and would be better able to give a ‘dynamic’ feel than static timers, but with the current limited state of DE’s I’m not sure it would make that much of a positive impact.

I hoped/thought the dynamic events would be like (using champ troll in queensdale as template) having a looming threat over a district-champ troll. If players push back nearby bandits into their caves they (the bandits) might breach the troll’s territory and aggro it. Troll will go on a rampage destroying bandits, outposts and nearby towns until player interaction. Destroyed bandit cave could mean harpies/centaurs invasion. Supply dolyak routes to towns could be intercepted and resources used to uplvl the hostile npcs relative to the player (when downlevelled) thus making the entire zone a battlefield if things are left to deteriorate. Maybe doing the grub event depletes the troll’s food supply and it starts to venture out-in this case since the player-bandit interaction didn’t directly lead to the troll maybe temporarily the bandits become allies to take on a bigger threat…you know, that kind of thing. Of course the outcome of the ‘looming danger’ of this district can affect another and another and eventually the entire map becomes a web of events. Also the state of affairs and challenges the map poses will alter rewards accordingly-fighting uplevled mobs give mf boost or teaming with bandits give gold find boost or something.

Unfortunately what we got was a theme park; at noon this ride will occur, at 12:45 this ride will be open. That means the events themselves (barring farming where applicable) has very little impact/significance apart from that champ-so if the champ is random in this setting it would destroy the entire event imo. It wouldn’t even be a boss event anymore-just boss instances. Additionally, with no global chat in game it would be difficult to inform other players as to where a boss was spotted if it was just randomly pop up anywhere on any map (large guild will obviously have an advantage). Finally ask yourself why ppl boss-event hop? It’s because those events are the most worthwhile-not just in rewards but in impact…in other words every other event in the zone is boring and yields nothing of note (again, not including mf farming horde mode). Take away the one worthwhile event on the map and drop it on a random timer and ….well…it’s going to be messy.

You see it’s not a matter of tech as a matter of how the game was designed imo.

Bismuth.3165:

They shouldn’t nerf zerk builds, they should buff support builds so that the healing/offensive support is so good that zerk parties will want them, like, make level for fury depending on your healing power, level 1 has 10% more, level 5 has 50% more, same thing for other buffs like might and protection and retaliation and quickness, and healing power increases boon duration, etc…

Well here’s the problem with that idea-cof is the most frequently run dungeon (next in line is hotw I’d say) and berzerker functions a bit too well in those dungeons. You aren’t going to kill a mob by crippling him or using healing spells so in a situation like this, where the most frequently run dungeon (by most frequently I mean to the point where other dungeons are ghost towns comparatively) is super effective in bezerker gear and people are expecting an easy sub 10min run…why on earth would they take supporters that would only add to the time taken to complete it? Yes they may make the other dungeons easier to play…but those other dungeons aren’t getting played anyway. From what I understand even fractals at higher level is like that-you take so much damage you die from one hit anyway…might as well get zerks and hit hard before you go down.

However I like the nature of your suggestion, but I don’t think you can simply leave zerks alone and buff control/support for the reasons I outlined above-we need something that negatively affects zerks…and no, not flat out nerfs. Protection is a hell of a buff-giving more mobs long duration protection buffs will significantly reduce zerker’s effectiveness while the buff is up. Solution? Simple-remove the buff. Mesmers/Necros/certain Guardians (only professions I know of w/buff removal/corruption)…your time to shine-of course those classes won’t be necessary to complete the dungeon but it will make things go faster. Weakness is also devastating-what if mobs cast weakness on the party? Mesmer/Necro/Guardian/Warrior/Ranger/Ele enter stage right.

Also I think some form of role in dungeons that require specific skills would be good in the long run. Yes it will require the need of some classes with some skills but consider this-AC p1 final boss does a heavy three-pronged multi-directional projectile attack. For most classes this means you cannot dodge all the attacks but since they are projectiles, if you have a guardian/thief/mesmer/ele in the party they all have skills to defend the party against the attack. Yes it will require a profession w/projectile reflection but it’s one of four (half the professions have some anti-projectile skill) which is a lot better than trying to find that one healer from the 10 classes available that we all ran away from…but you must admit not having some form of role dependency took away something from dungeons.

Oops…ran a little off topic-zerkers need to be addressed I agree, but through the addition of mechanics that actually require support/control, not simple blanket nerfs to their damage/survivability.

I think jewelcrafting will be as relevant in asc tier as it is in exotic tier-especially if you have alts (which, unless you’re a kid and have a ton of free time, will most certainly not be fully decked out in even one set of asc trinkets let alone 2-3 sets for multiple builds). A simple benefit is it frees up laurels for infusions and dye packs and such, for example.

Tbh I’m more…worried/concerned/annoyed that I have to well…basically grind 800 levels in crafting (100 per discipline)…..again-w/t6 mats at that. That will not be cheap by any stretch of the imagination but still allows people who simply ‘lfg zerker war+mez ping gear no noobs super l33t pro run’ cof all day to pretty much buy their way to 500. Unless the level cap is increased to unlock those new skills and traits they mentioned I see no reason why crafting has to go through this heavy grind-the asc items are already time gated so there’s no need to further time gate the items behind increased crafting levels imo.

Jayw.1045:

What’s the point in legendary weapons? I notice some have certain perks next to their damage (fire) etc.

Are these weapon’s worth the effort? I don’t know why I would want to get a legendary weapon when other weapons have higher stats? Or do legendary weapons do damage that isn’t blocked by armor I dunno what the point is can someone tell me?

To impress people who are impressed by such things if you care to impress them…yeah that’s pretty much it.

Currently the time it takes to get a legendary can be spent getting maxed out (even when asc gear is fully added I’d reckon it would still be far easier to get maxed out w/asc gear than craft legendaries), but they added some stat changing out-of-combat thing to them so stat-wise you don’t need to have 2-3 sets of gear in your inventory. However since you can’t change out runes/sigils/traits in the same way I wonder exactly how useful it will be-usually your different sets of gear have different runes as they serve different purposes and require a different trait load out as well.

So…really it’s just to show off if you think getting a sword based on luck in a game is noteworthy.

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

…am I the only thief who sees beyond this petty little white-numbers quarrel? The mere fact that there’s a debate (for some reason) between whether or not a thief has a higher dps potential than a warrior or vice versa shows that whatever the result the difference will be miniscule. So let us for the sake of argument-and to illustrate the problem beyond those white numbers, say the thief is capable of higher dps (single target…which is a huge handicap by itself). The literally few more points of damage the thief does to a single target doesn’t compensate for or nullifies the amount a warrior can still do to a) single targets b)multiple targets c) warrior’s significantly higher hp pool and +300 armor that adds survivability (which factors into the damage and overall effectiveness anyway-less time dodging, less risk of going down and needing another party member to rally) and d)party utilities the warrior is STILL able to bring.

I mean even if the thief has slightly better single target dps it’s nothing to be happy about because on a whole the profession is still light years behind a warrior in …well..just being useful.

This is from a pve perspective.

Esplen.3940:

Explain to me why you need an aggro system when you don’t have a tanking system.

I think what he really wants is a mechanic to plan and strategize around, and in some respects it would be cool. You notice the boss is really putting the hurt on a party member who’s low on health so you ‘taunt’ for a few seconds to take the pressure off and buy some time for him to recover-tell me that doesn’t have an appeal. You don’t necessarily need permanent aggro (as that would require tanking as you said) but just some way to reliably manage the boss’ killing intent is an intriguing notion imo. Just think of the encounter like the ones seen in movies or anime where a friend would lure the threat away to save another without ‘tanking’ perse.

Rhaps.8540:

There is an aggro system, you just cant completely bypass it with some tanking class that sucks all aggro in making the system redundant. It means you have to dodge, position well, use control skills and effects, drop fields in the right place to combo, know when or when not to pick up a downed team mate etc. etc. It’s an entirely different tactic to most mmos and far more active, but for a lot of us that’s the appeal.

In theory anyway…in practice most dungeons are ‘run here to bug out this encounter’ then ‘run past all these mobs and this boss’ then ‘stack here and autoattack’-just exploit after exploit after exploit. The gameplay you described is appealing, but generally non-existent with the sheer amount and frequent use of exploits in nearly every dungeon.

I really hope all the exploits get fixed soon (….unlikely) as that will lead to the type of game you described, however as it stands now older trinity based mmo’s have the advantage in terms of strategy and group coordination…which is just sad.

Healix.5819:

Imbune.5497:

Let us look at other multiplayer games with rewards (i.e. all of them)-do you ask everyone in nfs/cod/halo/lol/dota to let you win? How about sf4 or sc2-do you ask your opponents to let you win to progress to the next rank? No, no, no,no and no-every win is done by your own skill and achievements such as ranks or aesthetics unlocked are done by your skill and your skill alone.

fyi, win trading exists in any game and sometimes they get paid for it for compensation. Head shot trading in shooters for example was common and was also bannable on ranked servers.

But usually, in order for someone to win in those games, the other team has to take a loss, which will negatively affect their rating, brining them down. Without compensation, no one’s going to just let someone do that, unless they wanted to be down ranked.

Instead of 1st achievements, they should go with a high score. For example, for the sprint, the achievement should be for completing it in under X minutes. Or, they could just leave it as is and also award “1st place” to anyone else within X%. For example, if 2nd place comes in a few seconds after 1st, they should both count as winning (though in this case, the traders would want everyone to walk across the finish line in a ball).

Well yes, true (and your ideas are intriguing imo) but the sentiment I wanted to get across is doing such things in those titles are seen as cheating, in poor taste and universally frowned upon. Granted, as you pointed out there are other factors that makes throwing a game in such titles not an act of charity (the ‘winner’ usually has to pay for that victory) as opposed to letting someone win in the minigame but either way it diminished the meaning and worth of ‘winning’.

You know after re-reading I really like that timed achievement idea-preferably discrete instances rather than tiers so players can be rewarded for you know…actually achieving something while simultaneously not make it equate to ‘you must get 1st place to get this time’

I see some people have misunderstood the points I was making; it’s not a matter of allowing or not allowing people to win. People who are ‘merciful’ and allow others to win think they are the holy paladins of justice; people who say ‘win on your own strength’ think they’re uber hardcore with l33t skills…and the name calling, insults and childish behaviour begins. That is to say, this causes a divide and hinders the enjoyment of everyone involved-and this occurs simply because people want first place for that achievement, ergo, remove the source and the effect vanishes.

Which brings up achievements. What is the definition of achievement? What key words are used:‘special effort’, ‘accomplishment’, ‘challenge’…sounds about right? So how then can you call something an achievement in having it handed to you? As a matter of face the ‘special effort’ is made by the other players who made you win-they’re the ones who should get the ‘good samaritan’ achievement.

These people don’t care about the minigame but facilitate a practice that divides the player base and trivializes the very thing they set out to get. They only care about getting that achievement to get something else-so why not give achievements that facilitate that mindset WITHOUT dividing the community or trivializing the very rewards?

@Crimsony…..guilt? In the online populace? I like your optimism and faith in this generation

I’m not a dev nor have any experience in game balancing so generally I ignore player’s ‘suggestions’ on how to balance a class…because most likely they don’t have a clue either, however, from a pve pov I agree 100%-the thief is just….meh. I’ve been fiddling with it for weeks trying to get something I feel is worthwhile but in every case I end up thinking ‘my guardian does this better without sacrificing x’ ‘my mesmer does this better’…it’s infuriating to say the least. However, steal at least is worthwhile if you trait for it and something I can look and go ‘alright-this is a good addition to a party that neither my guardian nor mesmer can do’. I wouldn’t mind them tweaking the mob encounters that use buffs to have longer durations and shorter recast times to make the skill a tad more useful but that’s about it.

Weakness? Good, but protection is better. Blind? Good, but between all the cleaving from melee mobs and lack of coordination in pug groups resulting in the mobs being scattered all over the place, it’s effectiveness is reduced imo. Smoke screen is decent enough-not as high profile as wall of reflection or feedback but ok. Venoms…..see player-scattering in pugs as mentioned above (for venom share)and uselessness of the actual venom effects (especially on trash mobs). Might on venom activation? Guardians with 15 into radiance and 5 into virtues would like to have a word with you…or simply bring a staff. You can deal good damage…but a warrior will do it safer while still being able to provide some sort of banner/shout support to the party. Traps…………obviously have no place in pve.

You could say the warrior is too pve oriented while the thief is too pvp oriented so when a player tries to use them in pvp/pve respectively you tend to run into problems (not saying that either is totally impossible, but you see a sharp decrease in effectiveness).

+1 for thief rework in some fashion
Edit: By ‘agree 100%’ I meant that a rework is in order-not with the actual proposed changes

Crab brawl and now this sprint-two minigames with such types of achievements and what do people do? Form a gentleman’s agreement that everyone gets first place or w/e competitive requirement is needed for an achievement, rendering your new title utterly pointless as it doesn’t speak to your ability in the game…so I ask you is this not defeating the whole point?

New Player: Oh nice, how’d you get that title?
Player: First place in a minigame
New Player: Was it hard/fun?
Player: idk-everyone took turns getting first place
New Player: ok…..-__-

….Sounds silly doesn’t it?
Don’t get me wrong-it’s good to see players willing to help other players, but in this case it runs counter-productive to achievements (as you haven’t actually achieved anything). Things like top 3 scorers and use x skills (depending on the mechanics of the game)are fine-each player has to actually play and get better at the game and no bypassing the minigame to get the achievement. Admittedly you can still bypass with the latter achievement, however if you decide to do it it would be you and your partner in crime-the rest of the players need not be involved. Let us look at other multiplayer games with rewards (i.e. all of them)-do you ask everyone in nfs/cod/halo/lol/dota to let you win? How about sf4 or sc2-do you ask your opponents to let you win to progress to the next rank? No, no, no,no and no-every win is done by your own skill and achievements such as ranks or aesthetics unlocked are done by your skill and your skill alone.

I realize gamers these days always want a pat on the head for anything they do-in this case the chest system in the sprint works fine. Top 3 players get better (but not exclusive loot-basically just increased loot tables) chests than those who finish outside the bracket. That way even if you’re not particularly good at the minigame you still have a chance at getting that item you want through perseverance (you’re either skilled and complete in less time and get better rewards or not so skilled and take longer to do it…seems fair to me). This way people who want a particular item (they obviously aren’t doing it because they find the minigame fun-just chasing the achievement for a meta or a title) will get what they want and people who want to have competitive fun w/the minigame will get what they want. They would sign in, play x games, use x skills, get title that says ‘sprint addict’ or ‘aspect spammer’ for their efforts then leave in search of another achievement while others who like the game would stay, have fun knocking each other senseless and get a bit of gold/loot for doing so.

This is why I feel ‘first place’, ‘top 3’, ‘last standing’ type of achievements should be removed from minigames-give innately ubiquitous titles/achievements for minigames to satisfy those who only play it for that reason so they won’t have to circumvent your system (and annoy other players in the process)to turn make those achievements ubiquitous.

Opinions?

I don’t understand what this thread is about-are you asking for the best utilities per profession? Or utilities that aids in countering popular specs from other professions? Or utilities that people expect/demand you have for dungeons?

Also an apostrophe doesn’t denote sarcasm, the title and OP doesn’t really address any actual issue so there’s nothing to mock or ridicule in the first place-result sarcasm is impossible, " force’s" is an apostrophe; ‘forces’ are quotation marks. Once again your post is basically ‘what utilities do you always use?’…I cannot fathom how you could find anything to taunt/ridicule/mock from that-at best you could say you used ‘force’ ironically…but again without proper context (e.g. a post investigating why dungeon groups ‘force’ profession x to bring skill y; or why guilds ‘force’ their members to bring skill z in wvw) it’s just poor choice of words imo

I believe guardians are OP-with this 40/30/30/30/30 build I have this trait that causes aegis to explode and deal 9999999999 unblockable damage in a 100 000 yard radius that travels through walls when removed and virtue of courage is instantly recharged once aegis is removed…it’s some bs. All I do is knock at the front door in wvw and when someone opens to say ‘hi’ everything and everyone on or inside the keep is destroyed. You people were complaining about mesmer’s into the void? Pffft

Thank you for the replies. Position has been filled