Guild Wars 2

Considering how hard they nerfed other content, I think that trivializing a few jumping puzzles is a small price to pay for a feature that would add real value to the core game.

Depends on what you enjoyed doing in-game. There’s a lot of topics discussing everything in detail but generally..

Dungeons are dead due to nerfs.
Fractals are a lot easier and less time consuming.
Raids are tough as kitten but have received favourable reviews
WvW has been neglected.
SPvP is a little tumultous but still fun
Core Tyria is still fairly active. You can get top tier crafting mats by completing open world events which is nice.

Overall they’ve added a little to the core game but also taken some critical stuff out as well.

The new content is hit-or-miss. If you enjoy challenges and large scale events then Maguuma is definitely the place for you. If you just want to cruise around, taking in the sights, occasionally gathering at a node or two you’re probably going to have a bad time. As a thief you will probably love the Daredevil Elite Spec though. Only takes a couple hours at most in the new maps to get enough hero points to max it out.

Honestly, it’s a relatively small price to pay so I’d say go for it.

The second one, definitely.

Also holy kitten you have nightfury!

The quest starts in the Silverwastes, check your story tab to activate it. Should be right under the one for Living Story 2.

Everything else you need to know is on Dulfy.

Fractals are far from dead. Scales 1 – 50 are consistently active, not sure about the others as my personal reward scale isn’t any higher. They’re not a gold sink either, you don’t have to spend a single copper unless you’re the type that just has to open all of the boxes at once. It’s easy enough to go through them gradually as you do get a few free keys from dailies, or just sell ’em on the TP for a modest profit.

I agree that dungeons are in a really bad place though. You will find a few listings for some of the more popular dungeons, but be prepared to farm a few PvP reward tracks to fill in the gaps.

At the other end of the spectrum, I can never get enough of these things. Sadly, they’ve reduced the number by half, but I’d be happy to get nothing but transmutation charges in PvP reward tracks.

Tommyknocker.6089:

My only character that wore them was my mesmer. Once chrono came out I didn’t need them anymore. Maybe others felt the same way.

Yup, same here. Salvaged the armour and sold ’em off.

A re-work might have been nice, but the original dungeon team are no longer a part of Anet, so they shifted the focus of challenging group content towards raids instead.

Also, dungeons were challenging back at launch, and for quite some time afterwards. There was a constant stream of player complaints about the difficulty. Remember when ‘TAFU’ threads were kind of a running joke in the Dungeon forums? Players just got better at them eventually, which is a good thing. Content that is consistently difficult tends to be avoided, and run only by a very small group of elite players. Many of them value that sense of exclusivity, but there isn’t enough endgame PvE content to justify that type of design, imo.

Either way, you can still find PUG groups for most dungeons quite easily if you’re willing to create your own listing and wait a while.

I think it’s mostly because Ranked queues are disabled, even assuming that the MMR was working…average types are gonna get tossed together with more serious minded and seasoned players.

I can get behind suspension for repeatedly using abusive and hateful language, which is not necessarily limited to profanity. Everyday profane and vulgar language is fine. We’re pretty much all adults here, after all.

Initial impression was around 7 or 8, dropped to around 4/10 now that the novelty’s worn off.

I love how beautiful some of the zones are, some of the mobs have interesting mechanics and the elite specs are fun to play. Story rewards have been surprisingly good. There’s some interesting collections to complete that will keep me busy for a while. I like most of the new armour and weapon skins as well.

But…..

Masteries do not feel like progression, just gating. Nothing I’ve unlocked is particularly special, just basic requirements to get things done in the new zones. Getting around is still a bit of a pain. Rushing from event to event to get enough participation points to be rewarded is tedious. I don’t care for the map-wide meta in general (my view might change if this stuff eventually becomes infallible and can be farmed for rewards).

And worst of all, my favourite content has been nerfed to death. I always did stuff in this game between dungeon and fractal runs, but the reward remoal made that content virtually worthless. As a result I’ve been spending more time in the new areas that I truly care to, which just makes the flaws I’ve outlined seem that much worse.

Sthenith.5196:

It’s not really limiting the game experience, but rather a gentle push towards what they intend for us to play, the way they see it.

You’ve made some very good points, except it’s much less of a gentle push than a swift kick in the pants.

Which, as many others have noted before, only shows up how flawed the expansion content truly is. They had to nerf half of the vanilla endgame content right into the ground to keep people in the new maps.

And it’s a shame, because small group content has always been a lot more satisfying for many of us.

This is pretty much the first thing that came to mind when I saw the topic title.

I’d pay $15 monthly if this offered something like unlimited transmutation, makeovers, bank, tp and merchant summons.

Definitely not for drops, though.

Does anyone else feel like the game is kind of…shallow and empty after this dungeon nerf? It’s really not meant as a QQ thread, but I really feel like I underestimated how much of my play time was spent in dungeons. Totally love the new maps, but the meta event zerging is starting to get old, and I just zone out like ‘Well, what the kitten do I do now?’.

Yes, dungeons are still there and surprisingly it isn’t too difficult to find parties but it really isn’t the same any more. The stakes are much lower and the motivation isn’t there. Might be time to take a break, I guess. Just wondering if anyone else is missing their daily dungeon tours as much as I do.

The biggest issue with gold earning in-game is consistency. Between dungeons and SW farming one could reliably estimate an income based on time spent in these activities.

That’s a lot less feasible now, and as a former dungeon farmer I can relate. A couple dungeons a day, with other activities in between and I made between 400 and 500g each month for the last two years. Then Mr. Smith swoops all like ‘No gold for you!’ It’s jarring, and as it is I have no way of pacing myself. It’s going to be a while before a lot of players can adjust to this.

Also, if you guys could stop speaking as though cosmetics as some kind of peripheral fluff that’d be great. The vast majority of endgame progression, and Anet’s business strategies, revolve around cosmetics. They’re kind of a big deal here.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Does anyone know what Auric weapon choices the Necromancer gets, please say Greatsword!

Auric weapon choices are:

Warrior: Warhorn/Hammer/Mace
Ranger: Longbow/Axe/Torch
Mesmer: Sword/Greatsword/Torch
Guardian: Hammer/Focus/Mace
Necromancer: Staff/Axe/Warhorn
Elementalist: Staff/Scepter/Focus
Thief: Sword/Dagger/Pistol or Sword/Dagger/Shortbow (need confirmation)
Engineer: Rifle/Pistol/Shield
Revenant: Staff/Mace/Sword

It’s not terribly difficult to get these weapons. Assuming you want a full set for one character, it shouldn’t take more than a week. You get a choice of one for completing Buried Insight (Episode 13 in the HoT story), and there’s also a Chak weapon chest rewarded for the ‘Chak Killer’ achievement which is unlocked after completing Roots of Terror (Episode 11). Basically just kill a kitten ton of chak. A bit time consuming and dull, but simple enough.

It’ll probably be a lot more practical to re-play the story on alts to unlock most these weapons than to buy them.

FYI, my ranger’s choices for the Chak weapon (Sword, Axe, Dagger) were different from the Auric (Longbow, Axe, Warhorn).

That would be absolutely dreadful.

Well…I can’t see myself using any of these but it’s a pretty cool set, and definitely not the worst of the Black Lion skins. Suitable for anyone who wants to roleplay as an adventurer lost in the jungle who has to ‘MacGuyver’ their way through it. I especially like how each piece is unique despite having an overall theme. Definitely would like to see more sets designed this way.

You should let this phenomenon incentivize you to not die.

It’s often too risky to revive players in HoT. Downed, maybe. But not the completely dead.

Engineer is the best by a long shot. It’s probably the easiest to build and run condi for, and the most fun to play. Most other classes can do comparable damage, but it can feel like you’re gimping yourself by not runing a power/crit build. Not so with Engy.

It’s actually quite hilariously ironic, I dunno why everyone’s trying to shoot the OP down. We get that it’s finite, and doesn’t affect the economy, but c’mon….they tried to kill dungeons and the one path that people are spamming is the same one that caused the initial change to dungeon rewards.

Carbon Footprint.3421:

To be fair, when you compare it to the number of the core game at release it is not a decent number at all. HoT effectively only adds what 3-5 sets worth of armor at best? There were 8 dungeon sets, and then karma, crafted, cultural, etc… on day 1.

It’s Anets choice to choose gem store outfits over HoT purchases. As there are at least a handful of us who are not buying HoT without better/more armor options. Outfits are easier and they seem to make more money, so they Anet is choosing to abandon us.

Yeah, I also expected more armours. Was hoping for a full set for each Elite spec, but with HoT it’s clear they chose quality over quantity. The new armour and weapon skins (aside from Reclaimed) are all very high quality and well designed. Vanilla GW2 had loads of armors, but most of them are ugly and ‘cheaply’ designed.

I’m also fairly certain that we’ll see a few more in the coming months. There are a couple datamined sets that haven’t been added to the wardrobe as yet.

Selkirk.4218:

it isn’t a whine. 2 new armor sets in an expansion is not acceptable. for those that like outfits and looking like everyone else-hey great! but some of us like individuality and customization

To be fair, there’s also the new heavy Mistward set as well as the upgraded Guild armour. Then there’s some pieces that are unlocked with the Elite specs. We actually have a decent number of new options for customization available to us, and they’re all earned in game.

Blues and greens really become a chore after a while. Would prefer it if their drop rate was halved and we got a few coppers and the equivalent mats instead. Would save some inventory management time getting rid of worthless runes and sigils too.

Depends on how much you value that 199.00 of your currency.

If that’s the equivalent of a night out or a dinner for you, and something you would do now and again, I’d say go for it. The jungle is pretty awesome, and there’s not a whole lot going on in vanilla GW2.

You can always wait for the price to drop if money’s an issue, but prepare to be utterly bored.

The one to Rule.2593:

why would u ever use anything but zerker on anything? it’s only wasted stats if u have a warrior with 100% banner uptime and a ranger with spotter at all times. Which isn’t that likely. well, especially since warrior cant have 100% uptime on banners also.

That was true until the HoT release. Now that dungeons and fractals have been kittened, and the new maps are full of mobs that hit hard, there’s room for some defensive stats, especially if you’re going to melee.

People cried for the end of the berserker meta, Anet took it a step further and straight up killed dungeons. Lol.

Well, it it was a breeze there’d be someone complaining about that after unlocking everything in a week. /shrugs. It’ll be cool to have something to work on gradually, adds some purpose to your game play. A little grind is a good thing.

Besides, there should be some guides popping up pretty soon though. Dulfy is usually on top of everything right quick.

Serophous.9085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

gems to unlock all waypoints (requested today)
gems for immediate level 80 (requested yesterday)
gems for mounts with 100-300% speed boost (frequent)
gems to convert PvE maps to PvE/PvP (frequent)
gems to unlock all hero points (requested today)

Just because someone wants it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It may benefit you and other players yet be bad for the game as a whole.

Case in point, Second iteration of the trait system

But why stop at hero points? Come on guys!

Gems to unlock all PoIs, WPs, and vistas.
Gems to unlock dungeon explorables
Gems to unlock fractal tiers
Gems to unlock pvp and wvw ranks
Gems to complete events
Gems to complete masteries

We can do sooo much more than just HP…

Sarcasm aside, you do realise that aside from PvP/WvW none of those things can affect anyone else’s game experience, yes?

This is probably the least competitive MMO on the market. Other people paying to gain nice things quickly and easily doesn’t stop the rest of us from earning (and enjoying) them too. For the most part, the game isn’t designed in such a way that we lose out by not spending money.

I think the general perception of P2W games affects a lot of people from considering how more convenience options would actually work in GW2.

Sykper.6583:

Never pay to win. Pay to win entails you can skip past practically all content required for certain items. It’s a ‘Pay for Advantage’ which is different, and does not influence the gameplay of other individuals.

What you propose for Hero Point acquisition through Gems is actually pay to win as those who get their elite specs through this method have an inherit advantage in the gameplay over their fellow players.

So no, absolutely not.

But Pay2Win is about having advantage. I won’t quibble on this because definitions will vary.

Also, there’s no inherent advantage. You’d have an argument if the only way to complete the Elite spec was through the gem store, but it’s not. Everyone who buys the expansion can still earn their Hero points out in the world the old fashioned way. Most of us vets are halfway there anyhow. Spending real money to save time is an integral part of GW2’s business model.

I don’t get the outrage at the game becoming pay2win. It’s always been pay to win. They literally sell us gold. Dropping enough money allows one to bypass a ton of drudgery, and look cool while doing it. If someone wants to buy their Elite spec, kittening let ’em.

Not that this is a major problem anyway. Everything we can spend real money on can also be earned by playing the game, and in a reasonable amount of time (for now, anyway. The gold -> gem exchange might skyrocket after HoT is released)

I predict a bit of lag, frequent disconnects and daily patches for about a week. The forum’s probably gonna go down too. Remember when that was a thing? We haven’t had that happen in a while.

Blaine Tog.8304:

This is an assassination job, not an economic balancing act.

Correct. Here’s an explanation as was posted in the dungeon sub-forum.

John Smith.4610:

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

Ashen.2907:

John Smith.4610:

Q.
why are you nerfing the income of players who prefer your old content over your new content? I for one don’t care much for raids but really enjoy dungeons..

A.
We don’t intend to nerf income, just shift where most players derive their income. You won’t be forced into raids in order to earn value though.

Players who enjoy playing dungeons will have either lower income or will have to play content they do not enjoy as much in order to maintain their existing level of income.

The only way you can accurately claim that you did not intend to nerf their income is to state that you intended to reduce their enjoyment of the game instead.

Edit for clarification: I did not mean you personally, but rather the collective of those who made the decision.

This is called false dilemma. I think you should probably restate this.

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons

Is the intention to reduce targeted liquid gold earning, or are you putting that liquid somewhere else thats targetable?

What type of instanced content do you see offering marketable rewards that players can take part in on a regular basis?

do you see players seeking to earn main methods being through open world and tp trading

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

Is the intention to reduce targeted liquid gold earning, or are you putting that liquid somewhere else thats targetable?
The intention is not entirely to reduce liquid gold earning, we’ll be using up the slack we generate in other locations

What type of instanced content do you see offering marketable rewards that players can take part in on a regular basis?
Fractals

do you see players seeking to earn main methods being through open world and tp trading
I don’t understand this one

200 and 170 on my oldest characters, around 40 on all the others.

Mitch.4781:

I’ve never been kicked for being ranger or necro. I always wonder about these stories and feel that those who HAVE been kicked are often not giving the full picture…..

It’s pretty rare to get kicked just for a class, usually there’s some other factor…like low AP or a clearly suboptimal build. At worst, some groups will ask you to switch if there’s too many non-meta classes.

Kittening hell, no.

All of that is just busy work. Why would we want to add more tedium and micromanagement in order to deal with excesses of an item that currently causes minor inconvenience?

Beyond that, raising the stakes that high would cause an unprecedented level of elitism and selfish game play.

It was always a mistake to make luck a physical item, imo. I’d rather they just have your MF% increase by the appropriate amount with each salvage.

I got the warhorn skin a few weeks ago on my first level 20 fractal. Only completed the fractal frequenter achievement this week.

Tentonhammr.7849:

Honest question: why do you guys argue about/discuss changes like this, that any rational person can surmise will never, ever happen….ever?

It’s actually not that far-fetched. They’ve already added completely free and easily accessible ‘insta-80’ items via PvP and birthday rewards. It’s not at all unlikely that in the future they’ll make some of the vanilla content easier to get into, especially if future updates and Living Story content requires the expansion.

Full map completion will never be account bound, but I can definitely see it becoming a lot less tedious in the future.

mXz.4512:

So yea, nothing could convince me to accept something like this. Same could be said for irl, taking shortcuts makes you complacent.

Throughout the entirety of human history we have been looking for ways to do things better and faster. Also, we’re talking about a video game. This is fundamentally the opposite of being productive.

I can kind of respect your view, and that of others who think some things need to be earned in a game…but there is no objective, inherent value in taking hours of your time to hoof it around a map once so that you can conveniently teleport around the next time you visit.

Carbon Footprint.3421:

Map completion is what Anet calls ‘content’. Why would they remove ‘content’?

Surely this is tongue in cheek. There was an entire year’s worth of one-shot content.

Also SAB, TA Fwd/Up, That one underwater PvP map… countless weapon and armour skins….

Also, the map itself is the content, re-discovering locations is more of a gate/grind.

Yeah, I’ve got 3500+ hours and only managed map completion once. From time to time I have a go at it but lose interest after a couple minutes. That’s just insulting, lol. It’s almost certainly never going to be account bound but there has to be some kind of middle ground. I can think of a couple options:

(a) Emelyn’s suggestion is good. Maybe some kind of mystic forge recipe to unlock all waypoints using a Gift of Exploration, a bunch of Hero points and other crap.

(b) Remove hearts from the map completion. They’ve served their purpose, might as well retire them now. The new maps and expansion don’t have ’em anyway.

© Add proper incentives for open world exploration. Yeah, there’s some neat stuff after completing each zone, but hardly enough considering how long each map takes. Vanilla open world PvE needs waay more love. Something along the lines of the PvP reward tracks.

It’s garden variety scamming, old as the game itself. The worst were the phishing emails from a couple years ago. The level of detail on the fake account login page was impressive.

There’s also a reason why they added a kick feature.

The real issue is people who can’t accept that not everyone wants to play with them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just stay in your lane.

Won’t really matter in a couple days anyhow.

I would have taken some money, sent half to the guard then we’d both drop party and have a good laugh about it. If he sent even 20g that’d be a win.

Sigfodr.9576:

Averath.6283:

First I will start with a disclaimer. I am not a PvPer. I do not enjoy PvP, and I am not interested in PvP. I don’t like the idea of being forced to PvP, so I’m going to ignore this method.

To bad, PvP is already the by far fastest way of getting tokens/dungeon-skins. I have a guildy that wanted the HotW skins and got them all in 1 day from PvP. It took alot of 1)run in
2) press 1
3) jump down and die
4) start over from 1)

:/

LOL. It’s true though. 3 losses give the same amount of progress as 1 win in unranked/ranked matches.

People like that infuriate ‘serious’ PvPers to no end, but hey, what can you do.

If dungeon paths pay out anything less than 1g in total (counting both the chest rewards and dropped coin), we’ll definitely see a reduction in LFG activity, and I suspect it will be significantly less than that. Probably in the 50s range. SW will look far more profitable in comparison.

Point taken, forgot we were looking at this primarily in terms of the economic impact.