Guild Wars 2

It used to be that without magic find I was getting about 5 greens and a gold per three hour period of high level play. Since the announcement referred to, I have gotten 3 greens and no golds in over 15 hours of high level play. Even the amount of blues has dropped significantly (not that they are really worth anything).

I’m not really fond of the gating in the Fractals dungeon. Based on Chris Whiteside’s post, ANet is looking to revamp existing dungeons and “Fixing and improving existing content throughout the game, and better tying it into the overall sense of player progression within Guild Wars 2.” Might that mean that FotM will not be the only way to get the Ascended stats? Time will tell. If so, I will ignore FotM. I might ignore it anyway. If it’s just PRspeak to try to appease the negative reactions, oh well.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

The forums are for the people who still play the game, not for those who have left the game for whatever reason. The problem is, the second type of people are still on the forums spewing their hatred for the changes in the game. This makes it a hostile environment for those of us who do still play this game.

Again, this forum is for those who DO play the game. If you don’t play the game anymore for whatever reason, please move elsewhere. Thank you.

Sorry to have to disagree. The forums are for those who spent money on the game, whether they choose to play or not. These people are within their rights to ask for the developer to live up to its promises.

Naoko.7096:

Yeah, mmo needs to relate to human nature.
It must be built around human nature.

Some players said that games are supposed to be a leisure. I agree and disagree on this. In console games where it’s the world that only one player exists, yes it can be a leisure. However, mmorpg is a virtual reality with massive people. A world of virtual reality is a reflection of the real world. Human nature inevitably exists in-game. If some forgotten, life itself is a game. A good mmorpg revolves around both leisure and human nature.

It can be evidently seen. Players wants to feel special by standing out in crowds. Players want perfection and completion. Players wants to have something that 90% of the population doesn’t have. Players want to climb higher and higher. If we achieve some sort of rare item of use that most do not have, we feel like a “winner”. I believe everyone has some form of adhd traits in us. These are all human nature.

Imo back before 15th November, gw2 was pretty weak in playing around human nature in the game. I see that they’re already making efforts to improve in the basic needs of players. After the fractal and ascended release, they must have noticed in their database that their online players concurrency has increased.

“We’re very excited about the new content, and from the reactions we have seen, so are many of you. Players have already spent an incredible amount of time in the new Fractals dungeon, and their reaction to it has been phenomenal.” – by Chris Whiteside

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/chris-whiteside-on-the-lost-shores-and-beyond/

Keep up the good work.

Yeah, I don’t doubt concurrent use went up with FotM. It was down pretty hard after all. What happens once this surge of players get their three pieces? Will they keep playing because it’s fun? Or, will they log off and do something else until the next pieces are announced? Time will tell, but if concurrency does drop off after a bit, don’t expect an ANet announcement about that.

Most of my guild is still offline 24/7. None of them came back to do FotM. These were some of the dedicated players from GW1, who played constantly long after the game was put on the back burner for GW2 development. Why didn’t Fractals of the Mists float their boat? Probably because they like PvP, and weren’t impressed with either Wv3 or sPvP in GW2.

Me? I am playing marginally less. I am mostly only playing when my roommate wants to play. I still enjoy it when I do play, but the enjoyment is tempered by disappointment that GW2 departed from what I paid for so soon after launch. I am also disappointed that the many events in the open world that are so fun are under-populated.

GW2 was supposed to be about the whole game being endgame. It might still become that way, I’ll wait and see, but I will play less, and won’t pay at all until things change.

In both game and real life, I am an egalitarian.

In game, egalitarian means all players should have a chance to get the best stuff regardless of what aspects of the game they play, since the only entitlement worth kitten is that gained by paying for the game. I don’t buy the line that, “playing harder content entitles you to better stuff.” I don’t care if the best stuff is hard to get in terms of resources gained, effort and time, but it should not be gated into one form of content.

In real life, egalitarian for me does not mean entitled, it means that I should have the same opportunity to work my kitten off as anyone else regardless of race, etc. RL and game are different in that regard, since if doing what I like is not worth as much to others as doing what I hate, then I will make less money. In game, the only “others” who can determine the worth of what I choose to do are the developers, certainly not other players. The money I paid for the game is worth no more, but certainly no less, than anyone else’s.

I don’t want ANet to make GW2 just like GW1. I want them to make it like the game they promised they were making.

I’ll say 4 things.

1) I am not going to be spending any more money on GW2 due to my displeasure with their apparent disregard for one of the reasons I spent the money I already have in the first place.

2) I am not going to recommend the game to anyone, for the same reason.

3) My stance on 1 and 2 will be reversed if they make it clear that Ascended is the final pre-Legendary gear tier, AND they implement ways to get it other than the fractals dungeon.

4) I have nothing against the Fractals dungeon, and think it and its successors should be in the game. However, I also like having the best gear, and don’t believe its acquisition should be gated into only one type of activity in a game where there are so many other things to do, at least some of which are currently un-attended.

Obsidian.1328:

Now if you want to point to the towns in gw1 as your evidence, well that is your prerogative. I doubt any gamer worth his weight in Doritoes would count 1% of the game, and a non-combat part at that, as evidence for this.

I’m not taking sides, but it is funny that some of the current “real MMO’s” have turned into what GW1 is, with players sitting in town waiting to party up for instanced content. There may be a persistent world, but it’s ironic that in some games, less players use it regularly than they use instances.

Eveningstar.6940:

Raine.1394:

I would really like a non-PR recounting of the thought process that led to this.

I can give you my best guess, but I don’t know how much that’s worth without solid evidence. The justification for Ascended armor is to bridge the reward gap between Exotic and Legendary—one is relatively easy to get; the other is going to take months.

I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re telling the truth. That’s probably why they added Ascended in the first place. So why did they make Ascended armor one tier higher? This time I’m just deferring to Occam’s Razor; the simplest explanation is most probably the correct one, and to me the simplest explanation is this:

They just didn’t think it was a big deal to add another item tier—one they felt was missing from the game. They felt that a relatively small stat bump would deflect fears of introducing a gear grind, and just did not anticipate as large and angry a response as they got.

Of course this explanation assumes that the Manifesto was never a sacred document but more of a combination of vision and PR spin. ANet always intended to take the pragmatic route and design a game that’s supposed to be inclusive and fun for everyone, casual and hardcore alike. Therefore the inclusion of Ascended gear is actually consistent with the overall design of the game, but not the Manifesto.

In short: They honestly thought a tier was missing from the game. They honestly thought it wouldn’t be a big deal if they added a new one with a modest stat upgrade to bridge a rarity gap. They honestly thought Ascended gear is something that could benefit the game in the long run, which wouldn’t alienate casual players but would also appeal to hardcore players, which wouldn’t result in a grind but would create a sense of progression.

They just didn’t anticipate such a massive outcry. And now that it’s happening, there’s nothing they can say that won’t lead to yet -another- outcry because their credibility is shot.

The Manifesto is idealistic, but ANet is being pragmatic. They did what they did with perfectly good intentions, and did not anticipate the response they got.

No conspiracy theories. No Under New Management interpretations. No Nexon Overlords. This is my sincere and honest guess at what happened behind the scenes, just based on what little evidence and patterns I can discern.

(P.S: This is roughly more or less what happened with LOTRO and Radiance. The Devs wanted to be bold and honestly had good intentions with it. They tried hard to sell it despite outrage. It didn’t work. So there is precedence for this kind of thing.)

The cynical version is that the NCSoft/ANet braintrust realized that they had sold about as many copies of GW2 to those who believed in the Manifesto as they were going to, but there were likely more gear grinders out there to sell to. Personally, I hope it was your version, but my thought processes with regard to MMO’s have been tainted by experiences with Cryptic/PWI, Bioware/EA and En Masse/Atari. Hopefully you’ll forgive my pessimistic mindset, but this way I can only be pleasantly surprised.

Fatalbert.5476:

IndigoSundown.5419:

One group wants the content gated to limit who can get it, the other wants it available via more means, so that it can be obtained by doing what they find fun. GW2 was supposed to cater to the latter group.

This comports with my understanding of the dichotomy that necessarily exists in every MMO. Every MMO has something fun about it. Whether it be interesting boss fights, or getting to play dress up with your avatar. To make sure you’re forced to sit and work to earn your fun, they’ve come up with some rules. So the way I see it, all MMOs have fun content on one end and rules on the other. Problem is finding the proper balance.

The ascended gear seems like new content with access mitigated by new rules. I think they mean for the new content to exist parallel to the game’s existing ecosystem. As I understand it, There’s a new stat only relevant to the new content, and that new stat is the only way in which the new gear is better. (that could be a misstatement, I haven’t kept up to speed on it.)

So there is new content, but the new rules that come with it are limited to that new content as I understand it. Comparing it to other exotics seems like apples and oranges. But I take the point that at least for now, until there are other paralel systems that dole out like-content elsewhere in the game, it does seem like a subset of players are getting what they wanted, and that it wasn’t what the bulk of players wanted.

But I think they’ve done enough to separate the two paralel content mechanisms in such a way that it gives on group what they want without hurting other groups. Seems like the typical maximin you go for in such balancing situations.

Anet seems smart enough to do this right, even if their first pass attempt falls short. So I think all the fuss is a little premature.

Fwiw, an Ascended ring, in addition to the infusion slot, will have ~15 more stat points thsn sn exotic one, so they are not equal to exotics. Across the current three pieces, that’s ~45 stat points. Eventually, if those numbers remain consistent, across 6 armor, weapon (or 2) and 6 accessories, it will be over 200 points.

In the final analysis, that ~200 points might mean a little, or a lot. However, let’s say for the sake of argument that one subset of the player-base were to just get another 20 trait points. These points boosted stats but did not open up any of the 5/10 point talents. How would people in the group that did not get those points feel? Would the players who got them have an advantage in: getting credit in massive event DE’s, ease in getting around areas to farm; having an easier time in “normal” dungeons, and in Wv3? Probably.

Unfortunately, Robert, if you don’t put BIS gear into the “old” dungeons, they will continue to be under-utilized. Your company’s own departure from the promise of no gear progression proves that.

Kuldebar.1897:

No, Ascended will remain acquirable via narrowly proscribed ways. If ANet does open up on the acquisition it will because they know they screwed the pooch and will need to backpedal.

Well, they promised Ascended gear would come via a variety of ways. However, they also promised no gear progression, so you may well be right. Unfortunately, there are two groups of players who want BIS gear. One group wants the content gated to limit who can get it, the other wants it available via more means, so that it can be obtained by doing what they find fun. GW2 was supposed to cater to the latter group.

As for using the term locusts… well, the gear grinders race through gearing-up content as fast as possible, mostly ignoring all other content that does not feed them better drops. Once they’ve fed (gotten BIS), they look for more new content and better gear so they can continue to race to get it. That behavior sure reminds me of locusts.

Yes, games are supposed to be about fun. Yes, you can do most of GW2’s content regardless of your gear level.

However, there are apparently a lot of people playing them whose fun consists, at least in part, of getting the best available gear for their character(s). If this were not true, there would have been no reason to create Ascended Gear.

The people whose fun consists, at least in part, of getting the best gear exist in two camps. One camp favors increased gear stats locked behind gated content. The other favors multiple paths to get the best gear, so that they can do whichever content they find the most fun and also get the fun of getting and knowing they have optimized. Based on GW2’s pre-launch advertising, which of these two camps was the game aimed at?

The first-campers apparently did not read these advertisements and came here anyway. They then complained about “no incentive” and were listened to. Now, the second camp is complaining that ANet reneged on their promises, and these complaints are correct.

So, yes, OP. This is indeed about fun. Your definition of what’s fun is going to apply to some people, but it does not apply to everyone.

Dee Jay.2460:

As far as I see it it’s just another place to pick up some Orchialicum and to complete your daily thanks to more mob variety.

I agree with this. Now, over time, more events might be added unless the unseen evil overlords have told ANet that they can only produce more dungeons going forward.

I also wonder if the hard-hitting nature of certain mobs was intended to make a zone that was more challenging for all who said, “The Risen are not hard, just annoying.”

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Did you find yourself really caring when Zhaitan died? Did you even care a little bit? I did not …

The Lost Shores release is in the not so distant past. Instead of having hundreds of events, with The Lost Shores that had a very small set and unfortunately they couldn’t even get that right. Their quality control is subpar even by MMORPG standards…

I agree. There is absolutely an optimal team size at which these events are a lot of fun. There is a range 4-6 players for most events. How many events have I been able to enjoy with an optimal number of players? Perhaps a handful. As with my best moments in dungeons I see those times as glimpses as to what the designers intended the entire experience to be like. Sadly they added no play mechanic for zerg control. Instancing for some events is one path I can think of…

No. It’s very difficult. You can judge someones contribution in dungeons only based on your expectation of how they would play their profession. Since each profession provides the player with an array of choices for play style (e.g. Guardian support or Guardian DPS) this just creates invalid judgements and often unwarranted arguments when people are paying attention. The call the game a disaster might not be an understatement.

I did care some when Zhaitan died, although the fight itself was not all that interesting. However, that is not a writing issue, rather an encounter design one. While the story was not something I would pay to read as a book, I found it about normal for an MMO (i.e., not as good as I’d expect from a SPRPG.

I did some of the Lost Shores events, one of them bugged out with Ellen Kiel just stopping in the middle of nowhere. The bigger issue I had with QC in the event was the invisible mobs and skills not activating, or taking 20 seconds to activate in the LA battle. If the server wasn’t up to it, they should not have attempted it.

I find myself in optimal-sized events rather more often than that. It may be the zones I’m in, the server I’m on and/or the times I play making the difference.

On dungeon evaluation… well, it probably helps that I’ve gotten all 8 classes to level 20 at least, and will have a 3rd 80 sometime this week. In cases where I don’t understand class mechanics that well, I judge by other things: success w/out need for zerg; does the person position properly for ability use; do they dodge out of the area when a friendly AoE is put on them (so many wasted Marks of Blood); do they focus on a dying target and rally if downed and in an AoE that contra-indicates revival by others; do they just stand in melee (I cannot count how many times I’ve revived Guardians who do just that, and given the comments about the class’s resilience, I know that is poor play even if I have not yet figured out how to optimize the class).

My primary issues with the game are whatever internal-to-NCSoft dynamics caused the game to launch before it was ready, and the current change in focus. While I enjoy the game and will keep playing for a time, I’m done paying unless I see something that indicates they are not going to cater only to the locusts going forward.

Nachyochez.9758:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Nachyochez.9758:

Absolutely. The only reason to make it difficult to obtain is that you’re lazy and can’t design content that people want to play without carrots.

If the content is good, people will play it, and Guild Wars used to be proof of that.

I disagree with lazy. There is plenty of content in GW2 that does not reward carrot-seekers. The issue is that it is spread throughout the game, and across multiple servers. People are doing this content, you just don’t always see large concentrations like you do for one-time events or dungeons, since everyone looking for a dungeon party goes to the same place.

In the old dungeons, you’re right. My comment was purely in the direction of the ‘ascended tier’, which aims more at lazy. Even worse is i would have played the heck out of fractals had they not shoehorned in a crap stat bump.

Carrot-on-stick has always been the sub-retention formula favored by MMO designers, as it’s the only way to get the locusts to repeat anything, and programmers cannot program fast enough no matter how industrious they are. No sub here, but there is something going on. I currently favor the tinfoil-hat theory of interference from Nexon over them being lazy.

I started a thread in the dungeons forum asking if people would play FotM without Ascended Gear. With 14 responses, yes over no by a good margin. Of course, the locusts could all be in the dungeon…

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Here are my issues with GW2 and why I will not recommend the game to friends.

1 Story (quality of writing) -snip-

2 Lack of monolithic path -snip-

3 Bugs -snip

4 Manifesto amended -snip-

5 Unbalanced play prevails -snip-

6 Dynamic events -snip-

7 Solo friendly design -snip-

1) I found the story writing to be very uneven. Some parts were quite good; I enjoyed the Claw Island missions, and some of the longer stories that happened later in the progression. The death of Forgal Kernson was a pivotal moment, one I enjoyed tremendously.

2) Didn’t bother me as much as it did you. That said, some of the stories could have used additional touches. When you help the Grawl and they promise to help versus the dragon, you never see them later.

3) Got me there, there have been plenty of bugs, but there are plenty in every game. I remember a different fantasy game that I came back to for a 2 week free trail a year later, and my character was still stuck with a bugged mission that hindered progress. ANet has been squashing bugs, a lot.

4) I also find this disturbing.

5) PvP always has imbalance, sometime for years. GW1 did a better job of fixing things than most, but it took time.

6) I find the most enjoyable DE’s to be the ones I complete with the bare minimum of people needed to get it done. Following the zerg is not a fun experience for me.

7) I don’t know about you, but I can determine if someone is good to have in a dungeon party by their play. I don’t need them to have a distinct role to see that they are doing what their class allows in a way that contributes. As to solo-play… the days of MMO’s that force teaming in the open world are done. GW2 is no different in that regard, However, the most fun I’ve had in open world has been with a small group, taking on everything and anything that we could.

Nachyochez.9758:

Absolutely. The only reason to make it difficult to obtain is that you’re lazy and can’t design content that people want to play without carrots.

If the content is good, people will play it, and Guild Wars used to be proof of that.

I disagree with lazy. There is plenty of content in GW2 that does not reward carrot-seekers. The issue is that it is spread throughout the game, and across multiple servers. People are doing this content, you just don’t always see large concentrations like you do for one-time events or dungeons, since everyone looking for a dungeon party goes to the same place.

I agree with coding that there is little difference. However, if your reaction to ranger is “worst class on the planet,” it sounds like you’ve already made a decision.

Thanks for all the responses so far. I’m really interested to see if we can get a broader response base going forward. I’m also interested in what people think about the staying power of this type of dungeon, whether the mechanics are enough for sustained use or if the rewards are the only reason for repeated entries?

… there was no Ascended Gear, and the dungeon rewards were gradually increased chances for rares/exotics, plus tokens for cosmetic skins? I suppose another way of saying it would be, “If the gear mechanics remained the same as they were before this weekend, would the dungeon stand on its own merit, or does it need the loot to be worth doing?”

People have the right to play however they want. within the confines created by the game. Random people playing the game are not, nor should they be, responsible for enabling anyone else to do game content. That is the province of a social network in which people have agreed to be helpful. This is best found in a guild.

Attempting to change the minds of people who want to exclude others from their dungeon runs is like kittening into the wind. You’re likely to get kitten on you, and you won’t get anywhere.

drkn.3429:

Ask your guildies to use their alts on low level Fractals – it’s also a way to level them up a bit.
Since Fractal progression is character-based, your guild vets at diff50 will still, in theory, need to start over with their alts if they ever want to reroll or even just try out a different playstyle, especially that GW2 really promotes altoholism.

I could see where FotM would discourage altitis for some people.

I’m still reserving final judgment, but some of the things I am seeing about FotM, RNG, DC’s and the tiering in the dungeon are worrying. It’s pretty clear to me that ANet has betrayed the portion of their fanbase that bought into the no gear progression statements prior to release. While I will still play the game, my enthusiasm is much less than it was. I will not buy any more gems, and am unlikely to buy any expansions unless ANet reconsiders its current approach.

It isn’t any party member leaving that produces that effect, it’s the one who first entered, and thus “owns” the instance.

Also, as to dungeons, if the character who creates and thus “owns” the explorable dungeon instance, the other members of the party need not have completed the story mode of that dungeon to participate.

If you form a party in a Lions Arch overflow that includes players from another server, you can all enter the same dungeon instance as long as you are all in the correct zone (e.g., Plains of Ashford for AC, Lions Arch for Fractals).

Genesis.5169:

What does one do about the flood of tears coming from gear you don’t have to get to be usefull in other settings.

Why do you have to do anything about it? This post completely misunderstands the main issue and the OP’s issues. ANet listened to the flood of tears from the people whining that there was no progression. Now, folks are complaining the other way. Since that was how the game was advertised, one might ask why the gear grind crowd bought it in the first place.

Don’t listen to the gear grinders. They will leave the game long before the end.

It’s looking as if the FotM dungeon will shake out into two broad groups of players. People doing it casually, for fun, and those doing it as serious business. It’s likely that in order to get deep into it, you’ll have to form a dedicated group.

Fractals was put in for the grinders. I’m waiting to see if all of the better-stat stuff is made available elsewhere, or if some items will be in FotM and others elsewhere. I am not going to be able to get very deep into Fractals.

Anyone who didn’t see this coming, including ANet, does not understand human nature.

I was surprised that the expensive cultural level 80 was not Exotic. It was probably made as rare with the thought that if it were exotic, the next demand would be to have variations for Berserker, Clerics, etc. If you were going to transmute it anyway, one set works.

As for me, given that I’ve managed to accumulate 50-60G, not going to buy a cultural 80 set, ever. Rather, I’m going to transmute lower level armor that I like onto exotics or ascended.

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

Vaulken.6983:

I brought that up early on when I started playing that combat feels like it’s stuck between two worlds.

If you took melee combat and removed all ranged, made all attacks anticipatable you’d have a proper combat system that makes ‘sense’; “big sword is coming, better get out of the way”. The way ranged works now is simply “blow for blow” just like any other traditional MMO: “big arrow is coming, better get out of the way, oh wait it’s following me. Never mind”.

I think the best way to summarize the combat in GW2 is that it’s “counter intuitive” this is because it’s trying to be combat from two very different paradigms.

What’s odd is that some ranged attacks you can dodge and others you can’t. The one that REALLY annoys me is that rapid fire golem laser thing. It is impossible to do anything about it unless you have an interrupt (which are always on long cooldowns) as the golem tracks your movement. Having to eat that on an ele or thief is extremely frustrating…

Then there’s the Eye of Zhaitan’s laser eyes of death. You can dodge twice during that thing and still take half your health. Imo a dodge should cause target lock to drop.

Can anyone link a statement where ANet promised that Exotic would be the max gear level? Without that…

Rejam.3946:

Rejam.3946:

Ascended gear goes hand in hand with the artificial gating of Agony. The slow release of ascended gear has little to do with making it easier on the players to obtain. It has a lot more to do with gating the deeper levels of FotM.

With no ascended gear we can do level 1, with back and ring, we can do level 2, when they add the next ascended we can get to level 3 and so on. They are controlling how far we can get in the dungeon with a passive stat held to ransom on ascended gear.

That is also the reason they couldn’t just add the new slots to exotics. They wouldn’t be able to control how much agony resist we could get.

We will have to see the mechanics of the dungeon before we can say no skill is required but this system certainly makes sure that no matter how good you are, you will not be progressing faster than anet wants.

A cogent analysis, and likely. If you read between the lines in Linsey Murdock’s statement about not expecting people to progress so far, so fast, ANet failed to account for players’ ability to break systems.

Devil’s advocate: ANet promised “No gear treadmill.” They never promised that Exotic would be top of the line. We assumed that exotic would be based on two things: it was the best available, and the holy grail of legendary items had the same weapon stats. Now, it’s pretty clear from yesterday’s damage control post that they are not planning to introduce further tiers of gear, and that Ascended drops will be added over time to existing content. If both of those promises are kept, I’m OK with this. If they break those promises, I will accept that their word cannot be trusted.

From an Asuran NPC after a DE: “You are so awesome! Thanks so much for helping, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

I think this has the potential to be a quite elegant solution to the problem created by the dichotomy between the folks who want to run a dungeon now and then and those who want to do it nonstop for several hours and want to be challenged while doing so. Usually, the latter group will want rewards, and the Ascended gear provides that.

It looks as if Ascended Gear will also be available from existing content down the road, giving the former group an avenue to get it, also. Now, if they put a chance to get Ascended Gear in chests at the end of major DE’s, we might actually see people doing them again (apologies to servers where this is still going on, for those of us on some servers, getting people to do Lyssa, for example, is difficult at best).

Shuguard.7125:

Well ladies and gents i have an idea as to how this is going to work in the future. Keep in mind this is an educated guess as to how the new gear will work without breaking the manifesto.

-snip-

There will be no treadmill, and there will be no over-reacting to a lack of information provided by anet. When in doubt do as the moas do, squawk and look adorable.

Except we don’t know that that will be the case. Like Weapons and Armor, existing jewelry has a slot, usually filled by a gem which provides the same stats as the item. The way the sample ring was depicted showed two blocks for each stat, one slightly larger than the exotic item’s base stats, the other slightly larger than the gem. There was also an infusion slot. We have no evidence yet as to whether armor and weapons will still have a rune/sigil slot, have a second set of stats similar to its base stats or some different mechanic. Also, we don’t know that Ascended Weapons will have infusion slots, or if just armor/accessories will.

Wiser with Age.3714:

1) Proc sigils share the same cool down. However you can stack multiple copies of the same proc sigil to increase the proc rate (instead of causing multiple procs).

2) The GW2 Wiki calls the stacking system to be multiplicative. Basically you take your failure % and use it as a multiplier against the base proc chance of the 2nd sigil. You then add this reduced proc % value to the original sigil’s proc % value for a combined total.

Example #1
You have a Superior Sigil of Water with a 30% proc chance. This means that Proc #1 has a failure rate of 70%. You then multiply the starting Proc #2 value of 30% by .7 (to represent the failure rate). This reduces the proc rate of Proc #2 down to 21%. Finally you add the value for Proc #1 (30%) and Proc #2 (21%) for an adjusted total of 51% proc chance for your Sigil of Water.

Example #2
You have a Superior Sigil of Purity with a 60% proc chance. This means that Proc #1 has a failure rate of 40%. You then multiply the starting Proc #2 value of 60% by .4 (to represent the failure rate). This reduces the proc rate of Proc #2 down to 24%. Finally you add the value for Proc #1 (60%) and Proc #2 (24%) for an adjusted total of 84% proc chance for your Sigil of Purity.

Thanks for the info and the examples! (rushes off to get another sigil of fire).

aliquis.9180:

piitb.7635:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

That 5 extra power and precision sure is game changing…..

Arenanet seem to think so, otherwise they wouldn’t have put it there.

Actually, the increase is going to be (eventually, since it’s going to be 5 accessories, back item, 6 armor plus weapon(s)) as much as 70 each.

Arnath.2319:

Ok, they may have “promised” Exotic gear would be the best, but did you read the blog post? They did not intisapate people getting Exotic gear so fast, they did not exspect people to be working on legendarys for many more months from now.

Now THAT I find disturbing. Have they been cloistered while working on GW2 and not looking at what has been going on in other games? Of course people burn through content at the speed of light. Not for many more months? That’s just publicity speak for, “We did not anticipate how many customers would be unhappy with the lack of gear progression.”

The OP’s post sparked several thoughts:

1) On being powerful: in many MMO’s, I’ve been in dungeons with anywhere from 4 to 7 other such powerful heroes. One of the standard lines from some of these dungeons was, “There are two of them. We’d better try to pull one at a time.” This was especially poignant in AoC, whose namesake would slaughter entire rooms full of foes, and we, the age’s new heroes, were going 6 v 1 on some nameless Stygian minion.

2) On progression: while identification is important to some folks, progressing is important to others. In computer games, progress can be in terms of influence or wealth, but those have arguably less effect on one’s fellow players than being good at the game’s primary activity, smashing or melting face. Further, fantasy as a genre is full of stories wherein the hero is either all that from the get go, or progresses from swineherd to mega-dude over the course of the story. While the better author’s present more involved, flawed characters, many do not.

3) Limits to existing technology: until a better form of artificial intelligence is available, every reaction to a player’s actions has to be pre-scripted. Offering moral choices and having those matter in both the game’s present and future is an enormous undertaking. While SP games can offer some of that complexity, programming in enough interactions and choices for millions of players and keeping track of who did what to whom would be a vastly different game than MMO’s offer. What then comes to question is, would the investment in making such a game pay off?

4) Role-playing: what you seem to be talking about is role-playing in which you become invested in the character. While some MMO’s are more conducive than others to RP, I have yet to see any in-game RP in GW2, at all. That in itself is unusual.

I’m waiting for an official announcement, not something posted on an independent site. If this is gear creep, I will have to accept that ANet has broken its promise, and that will be my second disappointment with the game and the company. If it isn’t gear creep, well, that will depend on what it actually is, instead.

Oh, and when Lost Shores was first announced, I predicted a return of the Mursaat. Now that it looks like there might be “infusion” …

I’ve been very disappointed in WvWvW in comparison to GW1 Alliance Battles or WAR’s PvP instances. In Alliance Battles, numbers were/are equal (except for Luxon MM swarms), in WvWvW they never seem to be, and the more numerous server has the orbs, so it’s an uphill battle that you really can only win if your side gets numerical superiority, which isn’t going to happen.

I’m with LithePanther. The only accessory drops I’ve seen are either masterwork (green) or rare (gold). These items would normally be bound if equipped. Why are they bind on pick-up? While there might be some esoteric reason known to ANet, I’ve seen no comments by them, leaving us in the dark.

@Jure: I’m not sure Jewelcrafting is less-used. After all, it is the only source of maxed exotic accessories outside of PvP or the Mystic Forge.

For Engineer and grenades, make sure you have the trait to make ‘splosions bigger. Other classes I’ve had AoE success with: 1) D/D Elementalist with Burning Speed to the middle of the pack, then Ring of Fire and get out of dodge; Necromancer with either Staff Marks with enlarged area traited and/or wells with increased area trait; and warrior with off-hand Axe; use skill 5, move through everything and profit.

It’s an event chain in a war setting. It was not meant to be soloed. Complete the game means you can get to 80 solo, and do all but the final mission in your personal story solo. It does not mean that you can do all of the game’s content solo.

That said, some of the Orr Temple clears, especially on lesser-populated servers, are not being done regularly. Perhaps if the rewards for such things were considerably greater than for the simple DE’s (Plinx, I’m looking at you), people would be more inclined to do them.

I’ve dungeon pugged once in GW2. It was Arah story. The run went fine, except the two guardians kept getting downed. Still, no one raged, no one quit. We finished, good experience by and large. There are random people out there who are good players, and good people. The problem with pugs is, you never know if you are getting in a group with them or with the other kinds of folk.

As far as dungeon mechanics changes go, if the instance generator leaves, the instance should become the “property” of someone else in the group. This might be kittened up in an explorable, however, because the instance generator has to have done story mode, but none of the rest of the group needs to have done so.

wauwi.9162:

you’ll be still member of your current guild
but keep in mind, you can’t play with your friends/guildmates during the time you’re on a different server and server transfers are limited to every 24H

Isn’t that a 7 day wait to re-transfer now? Or is that still pending?

All fights in computer games involve pushing buttons and moving the mouse. I’d guess this gets boring to folks, thus the desire for shiny pixels to make doing it worthwhile (and I’m no exception). What difference there is in fights comes with the look and feel of the fight, the mechanics of the foe and how much, or little skill is required to win. While many Champions do not have interesting mechanics, some do. In those cases, the fights are more challenging than most other open world encounters. That makes them worthwhile to me. Now, if they throw some better loot in (hint, I don’t mean just greens and blues), I wouldn’t complain.