Guild Wars 2

All of ’em are pretty sweet.

We got two Canthan styled outfits in a row though, time to show Elonia some love.

People who autokick without so much as asking if you have another class, or about your build and what you could possibly offer the group probably aren’t the sort of people you want to run with. They might have done you a favor.

Big thumbs down from me. I like the direction they’re taking with combat suitable outfits. Of course, I’m all in favour of something that feels tropical and summery (maybe something….tribal or Elonian style gear), but swimsuits? No thanks.

I don’t think Anet are interested in balancing this rate to allow dedicated players to farm for these while everyone else buys them. Would be nice, but they are trying to make money here. So there’s no such thing as ‘out of control’. It is controlled, but the mechanism is not in our favour.

The old conversion rate really had us spoiled though. Those of us who got in early got to have a blast grinding gold to buy gems (I’ve bought at least 20k in gems solely from gold conversion), while subsequent players are just gonna have to grind smarter or suck it up and spend cash. In a year or so this game will probably be completely free to play, and buying gems won’t seem so ridiculous.

MastaNeenja.1537:

sorudo.9054:

what’s wrong with an easier dungeon, does it always have to appeal to hardcore players?
the current dungeons already suck because of this mentality, we really don’t need even more dungeons with HM in mind.

Except that dungeons are supposed to be difficult to begin with.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dungeon

… and an explorable mode, a more difficult mode which requires more co-ordination to play through and is unlocked after completing story mode.

I think a lot of things in GW2 were ‘supposed to be (x)’, but the reality is the game has evolved into something that might be a bit different from what the developers intended for and promised to us, yet here we stand. Dungeons have become semi casual and accessible now, and I don’t think that is a bad thing. There’s not much else going on in the PvE side of things after all. Imagine how this game’s population could have dwindled if dungeons were still a pain in the kitten.

We certainly don’t need another Arah or high level fractal-type experience. Both exist, and are sorely under utilized due to their demanding nature, and attitudes within the dungeon community. We’d be better off with another normal level 80 dungeon. Somewhere between HotW and CoE in terms of difficulty (challenging, but something you could see yourself repeating a couple times a week for a few months).

What would work best for everyone involved is a means of tuning the difficulty of existing content for higher rewards, not entirely new content that is unplayable for the vast majority.

This content is just ‘meh.’ Dry Top features some pretty unfriendly terrain, with all the jumping and arbitrarily placed Aspects. I’m competent enough at jumping, I just don’t enjoy it. The aspects are pretty fun in small doses, but there’s a little bit too much of ‘em in this area for my tastes. The whole thing just feels gimmicky like it’s intended to slow us down and detract from the map’s limited area and lack of content (Tossing kites into a basket? Kittening seriously).

That would never, ever work in the open world. Hardcore instances could be interesting though.

For me as far as aesthetics go, it depends on how the weapons and armour can be matched for the race, as well as their unique physical characteristics

Norn males and Charr are just…grotesquely proportioned to me, but they can do make good Warriors. Asura as well actually. Make the tiniest lil’ Warrior possible, slap a greatsword on him and use 100 blades. Hilarious.

Slyvari cultural gear looks great on Rangers, especially with the Spirit build and/or Kudzu. They’re ideal for Mesmers and Ele as well.

Asura make good Engineers. Second choice would be Human.

Guardian is kind of ‘vanilla’. That class works with anything. I guess if I had to choose I’d go with Human or Norn.

Human or Slyvari for Thief. (I have a Human female thief, no underboob top though… chuckles)

I’d go with Slyvari for Necro too because you can actually make them look pretty creepy.

Desert Ranger
——————————
Viper Monocle and Jerkin
Stalwart Shoulders
Firstborn Gloves (hidden until I can afford to transmute, someone gift me a charge! Lol)
Rubicon Legs
Leather Shoes

Mostly wearing the Shadow Assassin set for now though.

If I could use the Norn T3 Cultural medium armour on my Warrior, I would be so happy.

Hachiman.2470:

It looks like your outfit is dyed, I thought they couldn’t be dyed now?

Yeah dyeing is possible, it’s mix-and-matching that is restricted. The only option is to show or hide the headgear, which kind of sucks.

I feel like this outfit was made for my thief, Pretty amazing work by the design team.

Apart from the unwelcoming map design of Dry Top, the real issue with the jumping and aspects is that it interferes with regular PvE gameplay. Jumping is fine when it is optional, some players just don’t like it when you mix too many different types of content into any one activity. A great example of this is the TA Aetherblade path. Puzzles and cutscenes can add a lot to the game in the right areas, but are generally unwelcome in dungeons.

I’m actually immensely happy with the last two outfits released, my thief looks amazing in the Shadow Assassin suit. O course, I’m sort of torn between a preference of armour skins vs outfits. Mixing and matching is amazing, but pretty costly. There’s also the issue of having to transmute it for each character. If they gave gem store armour skins the same ‘free for all’ treatment I would be completely for ’em

I’m new to PvP, but it is quite good. Very balanced from the gear side, as you have access to virtually every stat combo you need, and even skilled lvl 2 players can utterly dominate the arenas. It’s all about the build.

You seem experienced so this probably won’t be an issue to you, but matchmaking is borked. There doesn’t seem to be any division by rank in SoloQ, so as a newbie you get tossed right in with the veterans. It can be discouraging at times.

Yeah, my initial reaction to Dry Top was annoyance at all of the jumping. Then came disappointment that in spite of being such a small zone, it can be a bit difficult to navigate.

Aguri.2896:

You know what else get’s tiresome? Having nothing to do but fight and kill. MMOs are meant to have more than just kill kill kill everything gameplay. I am glad they tried something different and I hope each LS release has a unique gameplay element like this and at least a little jumping required for gameplay. This is the best Living Story stuff yet… feels like a real game rather than grindfest.

I’m the exact opposite sort of gamer. Kind of a ‘meat and potatoes’ kind of guy: Kill stuff + collect stuff = My character looking awesome/becoming more powerful, and I’m as happy as a Skritt in a junkpile.

Kind of a fail to me. Blade like this would look better as a one handed sword.

My thief is gonna rock the hell out of that Shadow Assassin outfit with dual Usoku’s Needles though.

I’m in the same boat as the OP. Story and events are less interesting that actual game features and things to tinker with. In the coming weeks I’d like to see at least a few new skills or weapon options for our existing classes, and some new in-game cosmetic options.

The real deal breaker for me is a feature that would allows us to store multiple gear and trait builds. I have been waiting on this for so, so long now.

Wanderer.3248:

Asura sized Charr? Like a Skritt?

Lmao. This is exactly what I was thinking.

For what it’s worth, I’d go with more humanoid looking charr and remove all of the bovine aspects. Kittening Thundercats! Ho!

You guys are waaay too harsh on bow using Rangers. It’s not ideal DPS for sure, but I’ve seen quite a few players in sPvP who were absolutely deadly with both long and short bows. Outside of dungeons it’s a solid option for players who want to attack from a distance and aren’t overly concerned with min-maxing everything. As long as you can stay alive and are having fun, I’d say go with it.

Also, Warrior is kind of an overrated class. Good DPS, but certainly not top tier, and not always that much fun to play.

Honestly, the gauntlet would be much better as a private or even small group instance. Having a bunch of other people around doesn’t do much to enhance the experience (much easier to watch the fights on YouTube), and furthermore they typically hinder your progress quite a bit. Waiting in queues, and the noticeable decrease in FPS on most PCs.

This really depends on your preferred play style (Ranged vs Melee ), but in my experience it’s been Ranger for all three.

Great for general PvE – This class boasts a solid array of weapons and skills to chose from situationally, also pets can be good and tanky. Only downside is occasional discrimination in the LFG, due to the number of bad bearbow players out there.

I run a Power/Precision/Toughness Trap and Condi damage build in PvP that seems to have a good balance of damage and survivability (it’s mostly limited by my own skills, and lack of a proper gaming mouse)

Longbow or the Spirit Ranger build is decent for WvW roaming, although for the most part success in that area depends on the size of your zerg vs the enemy’s.

We could probably do with a PvE reward track of sorts, linked to either dungeons/fractals or DE completion.

Khairiya.7240:

What the others said. It takes 3 minutes per charge by map completion, so no matter how expensive these things may be in the gem shop they’re fairly easy to come by.

Wait, what? Where are these three minute maps? Even The Grove takes a bit more than 3 minutes to complete. PvE maps easily take upwards of an hour. That approach presumes the player has a bunch of alts that haven’t already mapped the easy zones.

Right now I think PvP reward tracks are the best method of obtaining these outside of straight up buying them. There’s lots of other goodies in the chests, as well as a decent bit of AP to earn along the way. Also helps you to improve your combat skills.

The next few levels above them are already ‘junk’, lol (Bloodstone dust, T5 and 6 leather for example).

An option not to loot it would be nice, though.

Yeah, there’s enough usable junk in this game that we shouldn’t have complete trash filling up our inventories.

Here’s hoping we get some updates that find better uses for some of this stuff.

Did you read the rest of my post? I don’t have a problem with a cash shop in this game, I just think $10 for a skin is pricey.

Zacchary.6183:

To be technical, GW2 shouldn’t have either of them. It keeps potential money from going into the store and at the same time completely destroying any prestige a Legendary has. And despite what the white knights think, it also turns a game into P2W.

Having overpriced items on the store doesn’t help either.

In complete agreement with this . Would much rather have the gem store sell the absolutely useless fluff items for gems only, along with perhaps a few prestige skins. Everything else should be unlockable with either gems, gold or though grinding some area of content (a bit like the tomes of knowledge and transmutation charges in PvP reward tracks).

And the pricing is definitely out of whack, imo. Kind of surprised there haven’t been more threads about this. Or maybe I’m just a cheapskate. Having entire game cost $40, while a single armor skin is $10? That’d be pretty pricey even for a f2p game.

As it is I’m just glad I got on board early while gold -> gems was still a viable option. A lot of new players must be pretty bummed about this.

Heh, I don’t think I’ve ever done that temple without at least one person making an emo joke.

Best one I saw was about Balthazar secretly tapping that.

Yeah, PvE player here. Gotta admit the reward tracks are pretty sweet. Got bored of daily dungeons and decided have a go at PvP for Transmutation Charges and Tomes of Knowledge. It’s a dreadful game mode though, even more newbie unfriendly than Arah. Probably gonna farm two or three reward tracks and be done with it.

For me it feels like 60% of the challenge is a test of PvP skills, and the remaining 40% depends on PC processing power and internet connection speed.

Roughly one in three tries fails outright because I’ve been one-hit before everything’s loaded in properly and visible on screen.

XApocalypse.8739:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I’ll pay Gems to Anet to be sure this does not happen. A consumable like this would break the racial character stories, and thus break the game. If you want a different race, buy a new character slot, and start another character.

How would this break the game? Other games do it and its perfectly fine, all anet would have to do is to reset the story.

+1

Nothing that happens in the personal story affects any of the open world content, dungeons, PvP or WvW at all. I don’t even think that players who bother to complete their story give it a second thought once it’s done with.

It also doesn’t affect anyone but the individual player who chooses to change their race. Just reset the story, give us the option to play through our new race’s storyline (perhaps minus rewards) and be done with it.

That’s understandable, but if you want a slow paced run you should also be patient when forming your party.

There’s lots of friendly, active guilds with no TS requirement. Hang around in LA for a while, whisper to anyone who’s repping a guild and looks ‘important’, lol. Chances are there might even be someone recruiting.

As always, this points toward a need for some new dungeon content rather than buffing the current phases. Especially when the NPCs, dialogue, mobs and rewards remain the same.

LittleZoe.4970:

I get it, everyone has played every single dungeon 100 times already and it’s boring for them, but how should i play it like it was meant to be played, if i can’t find anybody who wants to do the same?

Assuming you don’t have friends or guild mates to join you, try posting some creative LFGs. Specify ‘First timer’ in the listing, and chat a little with the people who join, make sure they’re on the same page.

I’ve seen a few listings like that, you’re not alone.

Why do so many people think a boss fight needs to be long? Made sense in single player games, gotta give the consumers value for money after all. That translates roughly to a minimum number of hours you can complete the game in. Made even more sense in subbed MMOs, because you’ve gotta keep players around as long as possible. None of that is necessary here in GW2.

Of course, you can always create your own challenges, like the rest of us. Ever tried a duo? Solo even?

Some of the simplest dungeon paths can be surprisingly tough if you run them that way.

I think good players are internally motivated. In dungeons, we try our best to avoid even getting downed so we don’t slow the group down. In large scale battles we’d rather not inconvenience others who’d have to revive us, or have to run all the way back from a WP.

You do make some very good suggestions, particularly the buff for surviving, but they seem like they’d be far too much trouble for the devs to implement at this stage in the game’s life cycle than they’re worth (monetizing anything related to a death penalty would be too ‘pay 2 win’ and cause quite the uproar).

NewTrain.7549:

All that being said; I have a nagging suspicion the majority of the GW2 community doesn’t actually want difficult content.

Essentially. Most players are primarily interested in rewards; titles, gold, tokens, skins, useful gear and so on. Everything else comes in second at best.

There have been attempts to create challenging content, but most of it was lacking in proper rewards and as such, was/is largely ignored.

Which is why I’m always surprised to see topics like these. The posters never seem to see beyond their own desires, or whatever lofty ideals they hold to. The bottom line, imho, is always will this add value to our game experience?

An increased death penalty simply won’t.

‘It hurts! Assistance needed…’

tolunart.2095:

Again, how does anyone but you benefit? Do the thousands of people who already did what you don’t want to do get their time and money back?

And thousands more would benefit by finally being able to craft.

Someone thought it would be a good idea to make players take part in everything in order to craft Ascended weapons and armour, but it’s really not. Would probably have been better to add all three materials to each type of endgame content to encourage people to play more of the stuff they do like. That, or just treat them like normal materials and allow us to sell what we don’t need.

Hah, hardly anyone uses these at all. I made a pretty sweet Rastafari/Paragon themed Guardian though. They’ve got a kind of ‘Biblical’ look that I dig.

Basically. The thing is, the event has to be active in order to do it. This poses a problem because short of wandering from map to map, you never know when a boss is going to show up.

The temple train in Orr was a much better option, but the megaserver update made ’em a bit less predictable.

Lingie.6417:

Tried running Sorrow’s Embrace earlier. Couldn’t go with any party because I wasn’t stacking or skipping everything but the bosses. When I went to make my own party, people were joining it to kick me out of it, because I didn’t want to skip or stack.

The community has become really toxic about “stacking” and I wish ANet would put an end to it. The skill requirement for the majority of the game is out the window from it, and it doesn’t allow for a good experience for players who have no idea what’s going on. (i.e. getting kicked out without warning.)

Toxic maneuver, filled with toxic players. That’s about all I can say about it.

Sorry to hear this, but I think you just got unlucky. There are lots of successful no-skip/stack groups. I’d suggest trying this with like minded guildmates and friends if you can. If you absolutely have to PUG be sure to communicate these requirements via chat. Oh, and open the dungeon yourself first.

And don’t blame the community on this. If you choose to adopt a play style that requires more effort, then forming your parties will also take a bit more time as well.

IrishPotato.6327:

People who say warriors “are crap” are just biased. No class is crap per say just some do more damage than others.

Necros. Necros are pretty rubbishy. Even bearbow rangers are better in most cases.

I don’t see any connection between the points you’re making.

The bottom line is that you can get Empyreal fragments and Bloodstone dust at any time, even by playing all alone if you’re a Billy-no-mates type. Dragonite requires a bunch of other people, and a specific set of conditions. Perhaps this is what the devs intended, but this particular topic pops up often enough to suggest that the disparity between these materials is problematic.

I’d imagine going after a legendary would be more likely to put a disgruntled or bored player off the game, rather than encourage them to keep playing. For most of the desirable weapons precursor prices are just ridiculously high. Even ascended weapons and armour can be a pain in the kitten if you don’t enjoy playing through a variety of content.

Personally, short and medium term goals are what keep me going. Crafting ascended back items is much more accessible, imo.

Yup. Sword/Focus and Pistol on Mesmer hits pretty hard, especially if you set traits for increased illusion health and damage.

Thief is good as well, but just doesn’t feel as powerful to me.

I’ve heard there’s a Guardian sword build that does 7k autoattacks. No idea how true this is. I PUG too much to run full berserker on that class.

There is a difference between hard and frustrating, though.

Take Liadri, for example. The fight itself, as far as her abilities and mechanics go, is challenging (for the average player). The cost of tickets to enter the arena, having the arena in the open map, thus subjecting the player to lag and waiting for a turn to get back in to fight – these things are merely frustrating.

Champ train is still active in Frostgorge, they killed it in Queensdale by scaling most of the champs down. There’s a good karma train in Edge of the Mists though, especially if your server is ‘green’.

Warrior and Guardian are the generally most versatile classes for dungeons and fractals.

I’ll let an EU player answer #3

The ideal team comp for dungeons is a mix of Guard/Warrior/Ele

Yup, WvW still counts

LS …er. It’s mostly throwaway content imo, but you will be able to repeat the bits you missed for 200 gems each sometime in the future, as a part of the Story Journal.

Hope this helps.

The ascended crafting materials aren’t properly ‘balanced’ for PvE players. Bloodstone and Empyreal can be obtained through both open world and instanced content, while Dragonite is only found in open world zerg-fests only.

Would be nice if they’d put this in dungeons and fractals.