Guild Wars 2

In the transition from GW1 to GW2, they traded complex skill interactions for active combat. In my opinion the active combat is shallow compared to the old system. Faster paced perhaps and easier to attempt balance, but far less depth.

tolunart.2095:

This is exactly what I’m talking about – why do you think you should have these things without putting in the work to get them?

You keep saying this.

I want to be able to work for my rewards by exploring, killing monsters, WvW, farming, etc. What I don’t want is for the TP alone to be the method needed in order to afford nice items. By all means, let me work towards farming the specific items I want. I would welcome that with open arms. But again because of the way drops are handled, it is almost impossible for me to say I want to acquire X sword and go out in the world and do it without resorting to the TP.

Since GW2 is all about cosmetic rewards, I have a question…

Is it ok that someone who excels at many aspects of the game and actively plays it – and I’ll generically define this as someone with many achievement points as it shows they have actually done things – may not be able to have the most expensive/prestigious/rare/etc. rewards but that someone with only a handful of points yet shows great mastery of the TP can?

Ursan.7846:

JK Arrow.7102:

Not necessarily but the TP exists because there is no player to player trade ability. A player can’t trade a less desirable item for a more desirable item except through a monetary exchange.

Player to player trade ability doesn’t exist precisely because Anet implemented the TP, not the other way around.

JK Arrow.7102:

As well as the fact that one cannot go out into the world and farm for a specific item drop. If I really want a Crystalline Sword I have to purchase it off the TP because of the way the drop tables work I am unable to go to a specific area and attempt to earn one by farming. If the latter were true, I don’t think we would have seen so many people flock to things like CoF P1 to earn coins. It may even help spread out the population into more maps.

I don’t understand what “drop tables” do which makes you “unable” to farm something.

Many rewards in this game have pretty specific ways to earn it. Karma/Dungeon/Ascended/Exotic equipment, for example, all have pretty specific ways for you to obtain them. You know what the problem is though? People who don’t like doing X activity, but still want XY reward get shafted. I don’t like doing dungeons, yet I really like the look of Arah staff. That’s why gold is great. Gold gives you options, since there are many activities in this game which earns you gold (no, TP flipping isn’t the only method) and allows players to do what they want to earn rewards instead of ferretting them through specific content he/she may/may not like.

My reference was from GW1 where there was no TP and everything was done player to player. They went from that model to the TP model. Granted there are also positives that that system generates, I don’t find it solely a negative.

As far as drop tables, my reference is from GW1. If I wanted a Bone Dragon Staff I could buy it from other players or I could attempt to farm one myself in Shards of Orr. If I wanted a Celestial Bow, I could attempt to get one from one of the Cantha city zones. If I wanted a Voltaic Spear I could do Slaver’s Exile. That isn’t possible in GW2 because everything can drop everything. There is no way to influence your outcome or at least narrow it down. It’s why people attempt to earn money rather than attempting to acquire a specific item they want.

tolunart.2095:

Most items in the game have multiple ways to acquire them. Some items don’t. You don’t have to like the way they set things up, but if you are going to play the game you must accept it.

I understand that my sole opinion will have no impact on the game design and “it is what it is”. I accept that. But it doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t discuss alternatives.

tolunart.2095:

Are you referring to the new method of acquiring a precursor weapon that Anet has been working on for the last several months? It’s coming, things don’t just appear out if thin air because someone demands it.

Indeed.

Ursan.7846:

JK Arrow.7102:

For some of the items you mentioned, yes that is exactly how it works and I find that a good thing. However precursors, legendaries, gem store skins are not in the same category.

This is a problem because….? Do you wish to completely remove the ability for players to purchase items from other players with gold?

Not necessarily but the TP exists because there is no player to player trade ability. A player can’t trade a less desirable item for a more desirable item except through a monetary exchange.

As well as the fact that one cannot go out into the world and farm for a specific item drop. If I really want a Crystalline Sword I have to purchase it off the TP because of the way the drop tables work I am unable to go to a specific area and attempt to earn one by farming. If the latter were true, I don’t think we would have seen so many people flock to things like CoF P1 to earn coins. It may even help spread out the population into more maps.

tolunart.2095:

JK Arrow.7102:

Let me rephrase that, I would argue that perhaps the “best” rewards should not be purchasable but rather earned.

“Best” is entirely subjective. Legendary weapons may be the most complicated and most noticeable, but are not the best items in the game. I get it… the rewards you want should not be sold on the TP but rather handed to you…

Nope, I didn’t say handed to me. I said earned.

And I agree that “best” is subjective which is why I put it in quotes to begin with.

Let’s use Legendaries as the example since they are top tier, BIS, cosmetically above average, etc. Wouldn’t it have been better if in order to get one you had to complete a large number of in game activities rather than having most of it tied to monetary wealth?

tolunart.2095:

JK Arrow.7102:

Since GW2 defines itself on cosmetic variation as end game, perhaps it would have been better design to award players with said variation based on actual game play rather than just amassing monetary wealth. And by actual game play I mean killing monsters and doing events since that is really what the game is all about.

You mean like the rewards for Living Story achievements, AP reward skins, vendors that sell armor and weapons for karma, dungeon tokens and W3 badges? The precursors and other items that can be crafted in the MF? Skins sold through the Gem Store?

The TP is only an alternate method of obtaining SOME items. Because not everyone wants to gamble on the BLTC keys, or do jumping puzzles, and so on. Many items cannot be traded so you cannot get them no matter how much gold you make on the TP, but in some cases you have the option of playing the game any way you want and accumulating enough gold to buy the items directly.

For some of the items you mentioned, yes that is exactly how it works and I find that a good thing. However precursors, legendaries, gem store skins are not in the same category.

mtpelion.4562:

JK Arrow.7102:

AntiGw.9367:

Zaxares.5419:

^ That’s true enough, Ursan, but we should also remember that for many players, they play games to get AWAY from that kind of inequality. Video game worlds are supposed to be a place where you can be someone you aren’t, where the playing field is (more or less) equal and everybody can have fun. If you’re someone who’s stuck in a dead-end job where people who earn much more than you can basically treat you like crap all day, do you really want to come home and log into a world where wealthy players are also doing their best to concentrate wealth in their own hands so they can also look down on you and show off all the nice things you’ll never have?

And on the flipside, if you’re a poor player in real life who wants to become rich in-game so you can gloat over poorer people, shame on you for missing the point. :P

There’s always inequality in every single game, you can’t get away from it.

In GW2 inequality is purely cosmetic. Owning mountains of gold simply means that you’ll look better than someone else. That is fully intentional design.

Few people will ever reach the top sPvP or WvW level. Few people will unlock certain skins. Few people will have certain minis. Few people will earn all achievements.

Should we start handicapping decent sPvP players because you want to get away from situations where someone is better than you? A certain movie where that’s exactly what people do comes to mind.

Since GW2 defines itself on cosmetic variation as end game, perhaps it would have been better design to award players with said variation based on actual game play rather than just amassing monetary wealth. And by actual game play I mean killing monsters and doing events since that is really what the game is all about.

Everything on the market came from players playing the game. You are rewarded for playing the game. You can simply get there more quickly if you take the effort to play the TP mini game.

Let me rephrase that, I would argue that perhaps the “best” rewards should not be purchasable but rather earned.

I play because I enjoy gaming. I loved GW1 and bought GW2 because of it. I’m currently “taking a break” because after some soul searching, I lost the fun. Because the game has no subscription fee, I can come back if and when I want to. But I still follow the forum because I’m interesting in what is going on. I voice my opinion on what could change because I would like the game to live up to its potential.

I posted this several months ago in a different thread.

JK Arrow.7102:

Anchorwind.9016:

Within the GW model, I [as many others have] enjoyed the tactical nature of squad-based synergies and counter-play. I applaud the developers of GW for having a system that places ‘weaker’ builds on foes in appropriate areas and ‘stronger’ builds on foes in appropriate areas without resorting to ‘buckets of HP’ and other duller replacements. I give Slavers’ Exile as an example. Many of the foes in Slavers’ Exile had builds that encouraged their foes [we, the players] to possess a higher skill level than foes in other areas. Fortunately, Slavers’ Exile was also labelled appropriately [Elite]. By diversifying the builds we faced, and giving foes builds [more] worth having, we received difficulty increases without needless tediousness presently seen. Effectively built and run squads could still move out with purpose in any given area, a talent lost in 250 years with up/down scaling and buckets of HP.

Skill[s] over Stats. Perhaps a philosophy lost in the mists.

^ ^ A lot of this…

I don’t want to go back to all instances as this is now more an MMO than GW1 was in design but to balance this there were design changes that compound the removal of instances…

Open world balance for solo explorer ->
Enemy groups become solo enemies ->
Enemies no longer have interaction with one another (heal, prot, defend) ->
Limited skill set for single enemy ->
Extremely shallow encounters ->
Add HP and CC to make the fight longer

I’m not going to say that the instanced content in dungeons is perfect because it’s not but it is at least better than almost any open world content. Now if more of it could be balanced around a mixed group of 5 with varying abilities and skills rather than DPS a huge health pool or solve a gimmick, we could make some real progress.

AntiGw.9367:

Zaxares.5419:

^ That’s true enough, Ursan, but we should also remember that for many players, they play games to get AWAY from that kind of inequality. Video game worlds are supposed to be a place where you can be someone you aren’t, where the playing field is (more or less) equal and everybody can have fun. If you’re someone who’s stuck in a dead-end job where people who earn much more than you can basically treat you like crap all day, do you really want to come home and log into a world where wealthy players are also doing their best to concentrate wealth in their own hands so they can also look down on you and show off all the nice things you’ll never have?

And on the flipside, if you’re a poor player in real life who wants to become rich in-game so you can gloat over poorer people, shame on you for missing the point. :P

There’s always inequality in every single game, you can’t get away from it.

In GW2 inequality is purely cosmetic. Owning mountains of gold simply means that you’ll look better than someone else. That is fully intentional design.

Few people will ever reach the top sPvP or WvW level. Few people will unlock certain skins. Few people will have certain minis. Few people will earn all achievements.

Should we start handicapping decent sPvP players because you want to get away from situations where someone is better than you? A certain movie where that’s exactly what people do comes to mind.

Since GW2 defines itself on cosmetic variation as end game, perhaps it would have been better design to award players with said variation based on actual game play rather than just amassing monetary wealth. And by actual game play I mean killing monsters and doing events since that is really what the game is all about.

I’m not going to get in to a debate on whether CoF should be nerfed or how fast it is or how easy it is. I do agree that I’ve always found it silly that certain dungeons would be “closed” at all. I can see that during development and perhaps at release that it would have seemed epic to have to do a DE chain in order to gain access to a dungeon but after months of it, it just seems tedious. And why only certain dungeons and not all of them?

And no I’m not in favor of stuff being handed out.

Broadicea.8294:

CCs just aren’t necessary for bosses.

That what are CC’s for in PvE? If not bosses, then certainly not trash mobs. I’ve never understood why the specific enemies that would warrant using a CC skill on are either immune to it or have so many defiant stacks it’s not worth even trying to remove them. It shows why DPS is all that matters at the moment.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

well thats a good thing right?

People have been crying for more challenging content.

Care to give a detailed rundown on the dungeon? Would be very interested to know what bosses are included etc – just so i can make an assumption on whether another decent bit of content will be axed after a few weeks.

People want fun content, not necessarily just challenging. Here is a rundown of the dungeon.

Story mode: kill boss.

Explorable mode: kill different boss.

There are no trash mobs, no silver mobs, no areas to run through, no adds. Just a single boss in each instance.

MF was 1000x better.

I think you get a lot of complaints from different groups of players because the game was designed to try and cater to them all. Rather than focusing in on a specific target player, they aimed to get as many people from other MMO’s and even game genres. I feel this lack of focus is also why many people find fault with the particluar area that drew them here in the first place.

But I do agree that as long as you play it for what it is, you can have a mostly enjoyable experience in the game.

Key farm can be under 30 mins if you get the right aggro at certain spots and have at least 1 other person with you. Idk about getting it below 25 mins though. 10 isn’t possible unless there is a route that nobody else knows about.

I’ve had them drop from enemies before, albeit very rarely. I have never had one from a node and this is the first I’ve even heard of it. I think a screenshot would make more people believers though…

Raven.3248:

FYI- tokens are account bound

Switching at end for XP on alts most likely.

As has been said, only the instance owner cannot swap or leave.

I posted this in the thread about the new crafting stations but it holds true for any item that is similar. My last line is most relevant to this discussion.

JK Arrow.7102:

I tend to agree with OP. No matter if you look at it from a gold or real life money perspective, the maximum 30 seconds or 5 silver saved by going to a town clearly is not worth the 3 gold or $1.25 used to buy them.

Honestly when I saw the item for sale I thought, who would actually buy this item? I can’t for the life of me picture a scenario where I would have to craft something that second away from a town…

Convenience/showoff item for sure but I can’t believe they would sell this in the gemstore instead of some of the other items people are begging to spend their money on.

I tend to agree with OP. No matter if you look at it from a gold or real life money perspective, the maximum 30 seconds or 5 silver saved by going to a town clearly is not worth the 3 gold or $1.25 used to buy them.

Honestly when I saw the item for sale I thought, who would actually buy this item? I can’t for the life of me picture a scenario where I would have to craft something that second away from a town…

Convenience/showoff item for sure but I can’t believe they would sell this in the gemstore instead of some of the other items people are begging to spend their money on.

Mourningcry.9428:

darkace.8925:

Your “useful, rational example” is just as much “random garbage” as what anyone else has said. Making numbers up, even if you’re attempting to do so logically, to prove a point or support an argument is a wasteful endeavor because it proves nothing. It’s baseless speculation.

What my “garbage” was intended to show, was a thought process, based on reasonable assumptions, of how I came to my opinion. Of course, it can offer no proof. Nor was it ever intended to.

The point it made was to offer up some rational behind the value of what one of those random items may be. Do you know what they’re worth? Me neither. But at least now I kind of have a pretty good idea that they’re probably worth a lot more then 800 gems.

If you can’t appreciate the difference between theoretical analysis and a “gut feeling” in the abscence of hard data, well, then there really isn’t much to discuss.

I think there are 2 numbers you would be after here and really only one of them is relevant. But please correct me if this is not what you are looking for.

First is the gem value of items that are no longer for sale via RNG. Things like the Fused skins, Halloween skins, etc. Extremely hard to place a value on the ones that are account bound such as the Fused ones. You can however convert the gold prices of the others to gems to see what they go for. Greatsaw at 234g is worth 7800 gems if gems are 3g for 100 (rough current prices).

Second is what should item skins sell for if Anet was to sell them individually rather than via RNG. I’m not sure this is as hard to estimate. Surely they wouldn’t sell for 7800 gems as there would be very few people who would pay that much for them. That would be around $100 worth of gems in real money. There may be people that would, especially those that paid that much or more for the RNG version. But my assumption is they didn’t intend or want to spend that much.

If you look at current offerings in the store you have basic consumables in the 150-200 range, armor and town clothing sets for 500-700, and the most expensive item (DD upgrade) at 2000. Wintersday skins were sold for 500 and the Flame and Frost weapons were 600. So based on this 500-600 gems seems to be about right for a single weapon skin. It equates to about 16g or $7 per skin.

The big question is would the sale of skins in this price range have higher or lower total sales than what RNG currently provides? Anet wouldn’t have the high paying outliers it currently has who were willing to spend upwards of $250 to get their desired skin. But on the other hand they also had many people not participate at all that would have gladly done so for a reasonable fixed cost. If people felt the in game gold cost was low enough to convert to gems, the cost of gems would only continue to increase and potentially bring in people who want to buy gold with real money and in the end Anet still gets paid either way.

We can only assume Anet has done this study and has determined they are better off with the RNG model regardless of the impact it has on the player experience.

As I have said in previous threads, I am not in favor of the current RNG model nor did I expect it coming to GW2 from GW1. I have yet to spend a dime of real money in the gem shop and most likely will never do so. I have converted in game gold for items or upgrades I felt were worth it. Time will tell if things will change but I’m not counting on it. There is a lot of really good dialogue in this thread and we can only hope Anet is reading it and seeing how a small but representative sample of its player base feels.

I have opened about 100 chests so far. I have not spent any real money nor gold to buy gems for keys. These were all received through in game play and farming. I have 1 ticket so far to my name. I’m trying to eek out a 2nd before they stop dropping (even though we don’t know if or when).

I have never nor will I ever buy gems with real money. Sorry to disappoint Anet but there are many people like me that play this game even though the business model is set up for us to buy more things. Here is the reason…I will not pay $10 for an additional character slot, $22 for a server transfer, or $50 for some keys that give a “chance” to get something out of an RNG chest when I can buy the entire game for $50. I hear stories of people spending upwards of $250 or more on gems just for a chance to get a single item skin. Why does any of the player base find it acceptable to spend the same amount of real money on a single item skin as a new CPU or GPU?

Until people stop doing this Anet will just continue to operate this way. If some people are willing to shovel money their way, why would they stop taking it? I don’t blame them and I highly doubt they will change, after all they are a for profit business.

However, I would love for Anet to try an experiement. Next content update, create some great looking weapon or armor skins. Then, place them in Black Lion Chests as well as being able to buy them outright for gems. I would be curious to see how many they sell outright vs. the drop in the number of keys sold that month.

JJBigs.8456

In a non fractal context. The difference between
4 Zerker Warriors 1 Guard is also masive time difference between the same team of 2—3 rangers, thief, necro.

Also add the gear multiplier and the tactics multiplyer.

The stages help, but honestly, its your team, tactics, and DPS they bring to the floor

Here’s your test. If you enter FotM and get Dredge as your first fractal, do you reroll? Yeah, that means it’s long compared to the others.

I have 7 80’s and my last profession is lvl 68. I like having alts. Because of the limited number of skills available, it helps keep the gameplay fresh. The downside is you end up doing content over that you might otherwise not want to. You also have to gear them all.

I would probably have a few more nice skins, a legendary, or just more money if I threw everything I had at my warrior but I like the variety.

I think a lot of what you put together is great and could really help the major events get better. I hope Anet considers and implements some of these ideas.

For some reason when I first read the blog and saw some trailers of the Shatterer battle during development, I pictured something like this below (and I wish there was a better video that showed the boss battles better but you’ll get the idea).

I have never actually played Shadow of the Colossus so I can’t say for sure how the feeling of the fights went but I have heard the game was pretty good. Granted it was single player so it may be difficult to implement some things for an MMO. But a few things I can see from the videos:

The bosses are epic in size and the camera and FoV helps this
The bosses are mobile and require movement while fighting
Because of the huge size of the bosses, they actually become part of the terrain and you climb on them to attack different parts or to avoid attacks

Seems like pretty good stuff for a game released in 2005.

I had saved up 51 keys so I decided to finally use them. 51 keys ended up opening 72 chests. I got 1 claim ticket. Total money spent buying keys $0.

I think a simple first step is offering 60 tokens for first time story completion per character. It motivates the first time player to try explorable paths in order to collect enough tokens for gear and it also will motivate people to consider helping others by using alts.

The harder issue is what to offer for completion after the first time in story mode. Perhaps story mode works just like any other explorable mode with 60 tokens per character the first run per day with DR setting in after.

I really don’t think people will exploit story mode to the point it was necessary to remove the token rewards. I have yet to be in a dungeon where the story path was shorter than the explorable paths (or at least one of them).

Hyper Cutter.9376:

JK Arrow.7102:

Eternal Ice – Accessory – Frozen Maw

If you’re counting this, then the Shatterer and the Golem Mk II drop unique accessories as well (Breath of Kralkatorrik and something like Emblem of the Inquest, respectively). I’ve only ever gotten them as blues, but I think exotic versions drop sometimes as well.

Forgot about those. Named exotics that drop from limited chests so they should be included.

Again, if that is what the OP even was trying to list in this thread…

I feel the devs went with traits as our variation instead of the skills themselves. But that still doesn’t solve the issue that there are only a handful of good skills to trait around. GW1 builds were based on the elite (and if no elite, a specific useful purpose). GW2 builds are based on…well…after 1200 hours I’m still working on it…

I find there is a major distinction that is not mentioned enough in the gear progression discussion: stat progression vs. visual progression. I would venture to say that most players of this game are excited about visual progression. Working towards rare and beautiful looking gear and armor. I would also say with confidence (and judging but the kitten storm that the introduction of ascended gear caused) that many players are not as excited about stat progression.

In fact, I find the idea of increasing tiers of stat progression aka gear treadmill to be a useless idea in a game that promotes up and down scaling.

The beauty of GW1 especially was that max stat progression was achieved very early on. While the remainder of “end game” consisted of visual and achievement progression. That is where GW2 took a wrong turn in my opinion. I still enjoy the game a great deal but am dreading the day ascended weapons and armor are introduced…

Edit: I see a few posters above me mentioned the same thing, guess I should have read all the posts!

I think this thread has some of the best discussion yet on the subject of wealth gap, PvE vs TP earnings, and reward structure going forward.

A few random thoughts I have after reading through this, sorry it isn’t more organized…

TP warriors will most likely always earn more than farmers. As a guildy once told me, I don’t farm mobs, I farm farmers. I’m not sure anyone here is saying this can be changed completely but the compromise is making general PvE rewards feel like it is a close comparison.

Minimum of 1 rare per world boss chests give the feeling that rewards are better. Even though rares have decreased in value since this was implemented by roughly 20-30% people enjoy seeing the rarer loot.

Some ideas for drop or item aquisition: Soulbind on use is acceptable. Accountbind on use or aquire is acceptable. Soulbind on aquire is not acceptable. This makes drops of item types not usable by your profession at least somewhat valuable for alts and alts need all the love they can get right now.

There will always be a “most efficient” run/speedclear/method for making money in PvE. Currently it is CoF P1. The main issue is that the most efficient run should not be substantially better than the next best option.

The TP creates a dependence on other players to farm needed items for you rather than allowing a player to get them themselves. Anet loves to use stacks of 250 of something for recipes rather than more reasonable amounts. It would be good from an individual player’s perspective if it were a more difficult decision to either farm something or buy the items rather than the current state of having to buy them.

I would like to see more PvE rewards mimic those of SAB. The ability to get a random drop or the same item via tradable tokens seems to be welcomed by many PvE players and may help with the feeling of accomplishment and reward.

And one last idea that I’m not sure I really like because we have more than enough currencies already…What is the one numeric value that players of all parts of the game (PvE, Wvw, etc.) use to compare themselves to others as well as against in game accomplisments? What if somehow achievement points were used to purchase high end rewards? I think I would be more in favor of it if fewer of the points came from daily and monthly rewards and a higher portion from in game activities but thought I would at least mention the idea.

I swear there was another thread on this…

Wall of Thorns – shield – Jungle Wurm
Eternal Ice – Accessory – Frozen Maw

You have many listed that are not unique to just a single chest so I’m not sure what exactly you are listing here.

Josh Foreman.8250:

World 1 cages are meant to be a cake-walk. The problem comes with grinding and feeling the need to fight them 20 times a day. That’s a problem I hope to address next release. Also the cages in future worlds will have more interesting attack patterns that will require some level of strategy. Also I fully endorse finding secret spots where bosses can’t hit you. That’s part of classic platform game strategy.

You are fast becomming my favorite Dev!

How about these:

In a day where 4k res and quad SLI GPU’s are available, graphics don’t make the game, fun game play makes the game.

Simple can be more fun than complex.

Working for rewards rather than 100% RNG works well.

If something is found to be fun by your player group, expand on it!

Josh said earlier that the SAB team is rather small. I’m hoping all the hoopla around it and the very minimal complaining about it would cause Anet to take notice. Give the team some resources!

Buy a legendary for all my guildies.

Wurm definitely needs to scale up better. There are times when the health bar doesn’t show as it takes damage prior to being targeted.

Maw on occaision can go down before people can get hits in.

The others at least have some mechanic that allows them to live a bit longer.

I would suggest it doesn’t make sense to be charged a listing fee at all when you aren’t listing something and are instead selling to the highest bidder outright.

Actually a PvP Locker for PvE would be very convenient. And I would buy stones to unlock stuff if this were implemented. But I doubt it will ever make it in game.

I’m actually surprised they havn’t dropped more. With the timer websites and guesting (although I don’t guest), 10 chests in an hour really isn’t out of line. You can open them once per character per day and there are at least 10 chests you can open per character. Just think if you have multiple 70+ lvl characters…

Between normal leveling activities and playing I did as many chests as I could get to in an afternoon on just 3 characters. I ended up with 3 exotics and 25 rares. That’s pretty good for an afternoon and much better than any afternoon spent farming in Orr that I’ve done.

Anchorwind.9016:

Within the GW model, I [as many others have] enjoyed the tactical nature of squad-based synergies and counter-play. I applaud the developers of GW for having a system that places ‘weaker’ builds on foes in appropriate areas and ‘stronger’ builds on foes in appropriate areas without resorting to ‘buckets of HP’ and other duller replacements. I give Slavers’ Exile as an example. Many of the foes in Slavers’ Exile had builds that encouraged their foes [we, the players] to possess a higher skill level than foes in other areas. Fortunately, Slavers’ Exile was also labelled appropriately [Elite]. By diversifying the builds we faced, and giving foes builds [more] worth having, we received difficulty increases without needless tediousness presently seen. Effectively built and run squads could still move out with purpose in any given area, a talent lost in 250 years with up/down scaling and buckets of HP.

Skill[s] over Stats. Perhaps a philosophy lost in the mists.

^ ^ A lot of this…

I don’t want to go back to all instances as this is now more an MMO than GW1 was in design but to balance this there were design changes that compound the removal of instances…

Open world balance for solo explorer →
Enemy groups become solo enemies →
Enemies no longer have interaction with one another (heal, prot, defend) →
Limited skill set for single enemy →
Extremely shallow encounters →
Add HP and CC to make the fight longer

I’m not going to say that the instanced content in dungeons is perfect because it’s not but it is at least better than almost any open world content. Now if more of it could be balanced around a mixed group of 5 with varying abilities and skills rather than DPS a huge health pool or solve a gimmick, we could make some real progress.

Working on it currently. 3 80’s, a 76, 3 65’s, and a 50. Some are a lot more enjoyable than others for me. Still need to work on gear for them all without dipping too far in to the legendary fund.

I can’t recall seeing anyone in the town clothes in my 1000+ hours of gameplay. A dancing naked norn with bunny ears and boxing gloves yes, but no town clothes.

I couldn’t even tell you if someone was wearing town clothes, whether they were the original ones or ones they bought off the gem store. Until they work like GW1 costumes I find them worthless.

Money is already account wide. There is just the barrier of having to log out, log in, log out in order for it to be transferred. Sometimes it’s annoying but I’m used to it so I could go either way with this idea.

Eladriel.7295:

JK Arrow.7102:

I bet this gets merged somewhere but the best solution to guesting I’ve seen is that you actually need to be a guest. Someone from that server has to actually invite you there. I mean, isn’t that what guesting is supposed to be about anyway?

Nope, you don’t have to know anyone to guest on any server. I guest on Tarnished Coast and don’t know not one player on there.

I realize that. I said it is a possible solution to the issues at hand if guesting were limited to being invited to play on a server.

Locoman has it. Guesting in and of itself isn’t the issue. But when you combine it with easily timed events that reward at least 1 guaranteed rare, now you have an issue.

Overflow pops up because of all the people jumping to a server with an event that is happening during the period of time they can play the game. They have an hour and they can get Claw, Teq, Shatty, Behemoth, Maw, Fire Ele, and Jungle Wurm in whereas normally it might take 4 hours. The only way to do that is to jump servers.

Again, the best solution to the guesting issue I’ve seen is you need to be invited to a server by someone to play there. That will help with the overflow issues. Whether or not it was a good idea to put guaranteed rares in these chests is a different discussion.

I bet this gets merged somewhere but the best solution to guesting I’ve seen is that you actually need to be a guest. Someone from that server has to actually invite you there. I mean, isn’t that what guesting is supposed to be about anyway?

Astralporing.1957:

In one of the pre-patch infos there was something about treks not giving commendations (because they are so easy, or something). Not sure how that works now, however.

I can’t actually see them spending the time and resources to make large scale group content that doesn’t reward anything because it is so easy…

This has to be a bug because if it isn’t..well then I just shake my head.

emikochan.8504:

I love the improved enemies, you don’t want a bag of hp that is no threat.

It’s more about the depth of combat as TwoBit said. There were quite a few areas in GW1 were if you took a group of all DPS players, you would last about 10 seconds. It wasn’t because the contents was insanely hard, rather it was balanced around multiple professions and interactive mechanics. Enemies healed each other, they protted each other, they cast AoE on players standing too close to one another. They would interrupt your important skills. You needed varying professions and builds to counter this.

This is what is missing currently. If we are able to take a bunch of zerker wars and faceroll most everything than there is something lacking in the depth of combat. At no point should maxing DPS > anything else. While the action may be faster paced and more similar to FPS games, the depth is also similar…dodge, shoot, and move on.

Yeah, we’ve been talking about this since launch. FOV and camera snapping/collision. It’s too bad really, such a beautiful environment that has been compromised by the camera.

One of the major steps backwards in my mind from GW1 is the lack of mixed enemy groups. Very rarely were enemy spawns solo in GW1. You would have a mob of mixed professions who had differing abilities from those professions. Later on in the game cycle you even had enemy groups with dual professions based on meta builds. It was interesting to have a group with a healer, melee, ranged, defensive, interrupter, etc. This was used not only to provide variation between enemy types but also to ramp up difficulty in different areas of the game.

Much of this is lacking in GW2. A melee Flame Legion Charr feels the same as an Ascalonian warrior feels the same as a moose. There seems to be very little interaction going on with enemy groups but most times the enemies are solo anyway.

There was another thread that seems to have disappeared now that discussed rewards from guild missions and bounties. I can’t get confirmation now because of this but it appears that while the commendations at an account level reset weekly, it is still PER GUILD. Meaning a player can receive weekly rewards for every guild they are in that participates in an event. Can anyone else confirm this? Huge bug/issue/whatever you want to call it that needs to be fixed. There was an image that again has disappeared of a player with 18 commentations because of this. Thought yall might want to know…

Ohara Scarlett.2859:

Is it the case that ANYONE in the zone can kill the target once the bounty is activated, but that the guild only gets the credit if (at least one?) guild member is involved in that kill. With so many bounties ongoing this seems a significant issue, that wil only get worse as more guilds attempt L2 and 3 bounties.
It would also be good to know how quickly the bounties respawn once killed – is this immediate?

Anyone can talk to the NPC’s but only people in the guild with the active bounty on that NPC gets the option to turn them hostile. So in a case where 2 guilds popped bounties and ended up with the same one, either could set it hostile. I wonder if at least 1 person from each guild hit the NPC, if both would get credit for the kill?

We found bounties to respawn what seemed nearly immediately although their location along their path is random so you’ll have to track them down again. We were able to do 2 back to back.