Guild Wars 2

roamzero.9486:

I think it would be cool if you could pay to transmute multiple skins onto a set of gear, and then freely be able to switch between the skins you put on the single pieces of gear.

That’s what most of us were expecting; unlimited free swaps after purchase and/or transmutation. ANet gets their sales and we get true cosmetic progression. Doesn’t look very promising so far, but I’ll reserve judgement until the 15th.

phantom.1675:

“Unlocked skins can be applied to items infinitely (for just one Transmutation Charge), which makes it much less stressful to try out a new look for your character, since you can always switch back (for just one more Transmutation Charge)!”

Wait. That’s how its going to work? Not just unlock with a charge/crystal then use it as you like? No playing dress-up willy nilly? Well, this is bloody pointless.

The ‘pressure’ agrante refers to is simply desire. Something that he/she as a player wants to do because it would improve the in-game experience. GW2 places a lot of restrictions on things like this that players value in order to make money. It makes perfect sense – but we, the players, generally dislike it.

I’m a little confused by this wardrobe, to be honest. Does the transmutation charge apply every single time you withdraw a skin? Or do you only need to apply it once per item (for each character) and can then withdraw that item as often as you please? I can live with the latter, but the former… would make me seriously consider quitting. I’ve been looking forward to a wardrobe for too long for it to be this restrictive.

For example. I’ve got the full Profane armor set on my Ele. I want to switch her look up now and again, so I plan to put together a mix of Sylvari T2/T3 Cultural and the TA set – Can I then switch between Profane and my mix-n-match set freely as long as I have transmuted them at least once?

There’s Fractal skins and Arah gear. Of course, you can kind of buy your way into Arah too though, lol.

Astralporing.1957:

Price is adjusted on both ends. Not only through demand, but also through supply. And supply options are controlled by Anet, not by players.

Yeah, this is what I was getting at when I mentioned RNG.

I just think there should be more options for interesting gear. There’s a massive gap in the availability and price of the nicer stuff. Lots of bland looking kit in the 1-10g range, then 15-50g, after that it’s 200g+. Grind, grind, grind → Buy is ‘okay’. I do like having definite and attainable goals, but I also really miss the ‘Wow, look what I got!’ kind of loot. Very, very rarely is any of it worth keeping.

We need more stuff like the Jotun greatsword, a really well designed weapon that you get by completing a low level heart. The skins don’t need to be easy to get, but they should be interesting looking, and obtainable as rewards rather than bought. I’ve been holding out hope that Anet add some of the older stuff (Sclerite, Aetherblade skins) as drops from appropriate mobs/events in the open world.

Class is a definite yes, Race… perhaps. I have a strong preference for humanoid characters and it’s likely the new playable race will either be too ‘cutesy’, or monstrous for my tastes.

New, permanent content will have far more positive than negative impacts though.

Can’t really give an informed response until April 15th, at the moment – No.

Ranger – LS stuff, guild missions, pretty much anything in the open world. He’s got the highest map completion (85%). Occasionally TA or HotW.

Mesmer – Main, and my personal favourite to play. He does dungeons and fractals and is a Lv. 500 Tailor/Artificer

Elementalist – Second favourite. Runs a lot of dungeons, sometimes fractals. Mostly AC or SE. She’s my Lv. 500 Weaponsmith.

Guardian, Warrior, Thief – Not really a fan of these classes to be honest. I take ‘em into dungeons, depending on the party’s needs. (Thief for CM etc.)

Necro – I got bored and made one for the hell of it. He looks pretty awesome but isn’t terribly fun to play in PvE. Might re-spec him for WvW if I ever get into that.

To be fair, I can see this from both sides. Clearly the OP doesn’t have enough play time or is missing out the more lucrative activities in game. It’s pretty easy to make 40g in a week, usually less.

However he does have a good point about being unable to afford nice things. There are too many cosmetic options that are priced out of the reach of most players, and essentially stay that way. Every few updates a new set of weapon skins is introduced, locked behind RNG, and you almost never see anyone using them. While I understand that here needs to be some incentives for players to spend cash, and also maintain a level of ‘exclusivity’ for some items, they’re overdoing it IMO.

Thief :
Magitech (head, chest, legs, boots)
Human T3 cultural (shoulders, gloves)

-She’s my current favourite, been made over twice.

Necro:
Devout helm
Exalted shoulders
HotW chest
Arah gloves
CoF legs
Exalted boots

-Pretty happy with how his look came out as well.

Warrior
Phalanx helm (always hidden)
Vigil (chest, shoulders, legs)
Barbaric gloves
Primeval boots

- I’ve spent a kitten-ton trying to find the right look for my warrior, none of ‘em really do it for me. This’ll have to do for now.

This again? We need to start making memes for these repeat topics.

Maybe your server is different from mine, but there aren’t usually many 80s in the Queensdale champ train. Those that do join in usually don’t stay for very long, but it is a good way to get some of the Monthly achievements done.

The loot isn’t that great to begin with and we certainly don’t need any more nerfs. To anything. Ever again. What is wrong with you people? I am all for giving players solid incentives to explore the open world but this should never be at the expense of one area of content.

You need to consider that a lot of people are enjoying this. It’s a vibrant, active and fun zone. It should stay exactly as it is.

Sanctum Sprint was a nice diversion for while, and Crab Toss was quite a bit of fun but in general I find these mini-games are far too awkward and clunky to play to get much enjoyment out of. I suspect most other players feel the same way.

ANet cannot improve average player skill, at best they could have developed and marketed this game toward the hardcore crowd.

Also, while there’s always some challenging content, MMOs have never been primarily focused on skilled, active gameplay. Don’t be surprised that an MMO is full of players who aren’t particularly interested in playing this way.

It mostly boils down to RNG I think. Not sure if it is MF% at work or just changes in the loot tables, but I did notice a significant increase in Rare weapon and armour drops around the time that MF% became account bound. Exotic drops are about the same as when I started and I’ve only gotten one Ascended weapon chest so far.

I support the idea of having zone-specific rewards and/or objectives, open world PvE really needs some love, but there’s no reason to try to incorporate this in the daily achievements. They’re fine as is.

Mah thief. Best looking ‘trenchcoat’ look.

It’d help if we could tone down or turn off particle effects. Not sure how things run on you guys’ systems, but for me 3 outta 4 boss fights just go like ‘flash flash sparkle flash sparkle ZAP! – downed’. And of course, it’s running at minus 10 fps for every 50 other people present. I honestly think most players are just overwhelmed by all the stuff happening on-screen.

SiXSeVeNHaTe.2561:

I wish they had just added “vanity” slots to match the equipment slots.

That way we could design our characters looks to how we want them.

Would be nice, but unfortunately isn’t very likely, that would significantly reduce transmutation stone sales.

What I can see happening is additional gear tabs; Spend some gems to unlock an additional ‘page’ of armour, trinkets and weapons. You’d only be able to have one page active at a time, and can only swap when out of combat. Everything else would remain as is.

This approach would allow us greater cosmetic and build freedom, with the potential to stimulate gem store sales.

I’d be happy with a wardrobe or even a PvE skin locker.

+1 for the OP

I recommended something very similar to this when the LFG tool was introduced. Back then the general consensus was that having an open field for text descriptions was adequate, and that any additional filters would promote ‘elitism’.

People keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.

Let’s not have this turn into another one of those ‘versus’ threads. And to be honest, for every ‘ranged saves the day!’ story there’s at least ten ‘bearbow fail’ ones.

I think we can agree that in PvE, rangers are about low to mid tier DPS. It’s a pretty versatile class, but awkward pet management tools make it a pain to play in most dungeons. TA and HotW are just about the only two I can think of where bringing a ranger won’t hold the party back a little. And of course, some dungeons ‘require’ specific classes so if you show up with a ranger when the group is waiting on a guard or mesmer, you’re probably going to be kicked or at least asked to switch.
And to the OP, since you don’t want to speed through dungeons you might want to stick to running with guildies or casual PUGs. Any LFG posting that doesn’t expressly state otherwise is likely for a group that at least -tries- to speed clear.

- AP Checklist
-3 Pack of Minis (that no one’s really going to use)
- Weapon Skin lottery

yawn

Haha, touche. I should hasten to add that I’ve never spent a dime in the gem store. Apart from a few silver for trait resets, the gold and gems were for purely cosmetic reasons because I enjoy that sort of thing.

All of the gear was either crafted or bought with dungeon tokens. I see your point though.

The boredom is periodic for me. Won’t bother adding any of my gripes to the thread since many others have expressed them far better than I could, but essentially every now and again I straight up run out of things I feel like doing, stop playing for a few days and come back.

When I do come back it’s always worth it though, and it helps if you find ways to entertain yourself rather than waiting on Anet to give us things to do. Just this weekend I spent about 150g and 1000 gems re-working my gear and builds. Switched from Staff Ele → Scepter/Dagger and changed my terribad AH Guard to proper DPS/Support. Pretty much all my toons are running the meta builds for dungeons and it’s making a phenomenal difference in my gameplay. Also did a bunch of crafting, transmuting and re-skinning (I now have the sexiest Thief in all Tyria, lol). This’ll keep me entertained for a while, sometimes it’s the little things that count.

lordkrall.7241:

So “not everyone can play every day” due to having lives.
But they can somehow do the same things * 7?

And claiming that people that spend about 30 minutes (doesn’t really take more than that) to get dailies have no lives is both silly and rather offensive.

It’s actually quite easy to see how ‘weeklies’ would be easier to complete. Lots of us aren’t able to play for days at a time, but when we do log on it’s a 3 or 4 hour gaming binge. Pretty easy to complete an entire week’s worth of dailies over a weekend.

Don’t take that comment the wrong way, poster is just saying some of us simply can’t play everyday. I also fully endorse the weekly achievement concept. We could even have the dailies ‘stack’ (max. 25, lol) until you complete ’em all.

I think OP is mainly referring to the white – green trash drops and actual junk. I’m kinda tired of seeing ’em too, they basically boil down to pointless clicking for salvage or sale to vendors. And it really is a lot of clicking. Would be nice to get more useful drops – crafting mats and coin, while the essence of luck could be deposited somewhere other than my inventory and I got notified whenever I go up 1%.

There’s not really a way around this though, and salvage kits are probably a necessary gold sink. I burn through roughly 3 or 4 in each hour of playtime.

Wearing a god’s armor makes perfect sense, regardless of race. It’s purely cosmetic.

You guys have any idea how many non-religious people in -real life- get tattoos of crucifixes/pentagrams/ganesh (hindu elephant god) simply because they think it looks cool?

Y’know, when I saw this topic I read it in a positive tone. More like, The combat system is sick! * high five*. But anyways…

Turak.3286:

Don’t Forget, if those changes would be made, the game would be a little harder for everyone. So the Risk/Reward factor should be changed more to the Rewardside

I’m glad you added this bit. While I’m perfectly happy with the ‘broken’ PvE combat system you outlined, bear in mind that even if it were to be changed to make encounters more difficult, there’s not likely to be a corresponding update to the rewards given as well. Just consider the Ascended gear fiasco, for example. 500% greater cost and effort required for 5%-10% in stats (vs. Exotic).

Really best to be careful what you wish for.

OHKOs help to balance out the weak AI, imho. Enemies aren’t very bright, but they will CC and Nuke the kitten out of you if you slip up. It’s not ideal but it works well enough (probably a lot easier for the devs to write code for as well).

Dodging also doesn’t always protect 100% unless your timing is spot on. I’m pretty sure I’ve taken half the usual damage from Malrona in TA and Subject Alpha during sloppy dodges. Could be wrong about this, though.

I do agree with you on combo fields and boons though, even though ranged weapons are less damaging some players have a much better time attacking from range and should be able to benefit from these, and contribute to the party in a more meaningful way.

I don’t see a level cap adding anything of value. Levels are kind of pointless as is. We could do with more options for set-ups (weapon swap on Ele), builds (multi-classing with any other class that uses any of the same weapons), skills, and maybe even new weapons though.

I was in a similar position. Had about 15 bolts of damask saved up and mid-way through my 6th or 7th Temple of Lyssa zerg (for the Dragonite, of course) just felt like ‘screw this’. Zoned into LA and sold ‘em all and bought some gems with the resulting gold.

Would’ve taken far too long and quite literally all of my gold just to outfit -one- of my five characters in full ascended armour. Since I enjoy playing them all more or less equally, and my play style makes it essentially impossible for me to equip all of them in ascended, I had to abandon that pursuit. There’s far more entertaining things to spend my coin on.

There is an ‘open world content’ tab as well, it’s just rarely made use of because few people bother to group up to do map completion or dynamic events.

I like your suggestion but the way guesting works might need a bit of a re-vamp in order to allow this, which isn’t too likely given the very limited interest in open world activities.

Vol.7601:

It doesn’t hurt to have a title, but I personally don’t need to make a big deal about it.

Some titles:
-Magical
-Looter
-Lucky

+1

These are the best suggestions I’ve seen in this topic so far. ‘Lucky’ seems most fitting, imo.

yayuuu.9420:

As a reminder, I’ll tell you my point again, because maybe you understand me wrong. I’m not saying that this encounter is too easy, but that bringing spider to the corner makes it too easy. If everyone stay on the spider queen, she’s not using her poison AOE attack and without that attack you can really tank and spank it. My point is that advantages of stack-in-the-corner tactics should be removed to force players to active play.

Understandable, but what are the benefits of this exactly?

This is a common theme in most anti-stack posts; you don’t find it fun or challenging, and it detracts from your gameplay experience, presumably because most people you group with prefer this approach. Anti-stack players are then forced to find other like-minded individuals to group with, which I imagine takes some time and further adds to your frustration.

However, your suggestion would make the game less fun and more frustrating for a large portion of other players as well. We’ve been enjoying a level of speed and efficiency for too long to have it taken from us. ‘Active play’ won’t make dungeons any more fun for us because we’ve fought the encounters over and over ad nauseam.

I understand your point of view although I disagree, but despite the superior ethical position you may think you’ve taken, your request is still a selfish one.

Virtually none of the humanoid races appeal to me, aesthetically or otherwise. Tengu are kind of a ‘maybe’, I think they’d have been a better choice for the obligatory monster-type race than the Charr. Them or the Grawl, I kind of dig those guys as well.

Would much rather have Cantha and Elona available though, with their citizens as distinct races, their own cultural armour and weapons etc.

Missed those earlier, just went to have a look. Holy kitten that was awesome!

Its also a far, far cry from the typical dungeon run. 1500+ hours of game time and I have never seen anyone do anything quite like that. But then, I’d also not call that cheating so much as a ‘display of skill’, and I don’t think that anything a player is able to do using only their skills while playing the game (no add-ons or code manipulation) can be considered unfair. If the devs don’t like it, they’ll patch it (which has been the case with a lot of content).

Weird how that video upsets you, and I just wanna try it for myself, lol.

yayuuu.9420:

Jahroots.6791:

yayuuu.9420:

There’s a simple solution that can prevent players from stacking, which I should probably start doing asap, because I don’t want to play with people who stack, so in future I’ll be sure to create parties with this in mind.

FTFY.

Also, I think this is the thread for you.

The thing that I won’t do it will not change the fact, that (let’s call it by name) players are cheating. It doesn’t work as intended, it’s not how the game was designed to play, it kills role diversity, it favors only few classes that can push the wall, it favors only zerker, because you won’t get much damage during kitten fight. I can go on like this, but the point is that cheaters will earn 5x more gold than I do playing without cheats.

I don’t consider it a cheat. The combo field range, for example, suggests that players are meant to use melee attacks and stay close to each other.

The terms ‘not being played as intended’ and ‘way the game was designed’ keep getting thrown around in these threads, but dungeon design heavily favours high DPS parties. Spec for anything else and you really just end up wasting time.

There’s no trinity here so role diversity is extremely limited. Pretty much just DPS with a side of either support or control abilities. Tanking, holding aggro… these things do not exist in GW2.

Also, you want to talk about using exploitative tactics to earn gold, take it up with the TP players. The dungeon runners barely make in a week what they spend on listing fees every hour, lol.

It is immensely satisfying to kill things quickly, especially after you’ve fought them in other ways and grown tired of doing that.

The thing is…dungeons are made up largely of predictable, episodic encounters. Whether you run ‘em legit, optimally or even use exploits its still the same story we’ve been through dozens of times before. The only real difference is the time taken to complete.

Some people crave a challenge, I don’t care for it. Just give me some enemies that can kill me if I don’t pay attention and I’m good.

I agree completely, but we’re just discussing ways to make regular dungeons more challenging, not Anet’s abysmal reward system. Fractals should at very least reward the same amount of gold as Arah, especially since the update.

These people seem to enjoy the challenge itself, so let ’em take the same rewards as the rest of us. lol.

But I suppose the rewards should be about on par with higher level fractals. Slightly better drops and tokens to exchange for ascended gear and random other account bound goodies.

unleashed.8679:

Harper.4173:

I like how a lot of the players who complain that the game is easy and trivial weren’t here on day one.

When the game started pretty much everything in the game was tough.
Since then players have gotten better – and having done the content hundreds of times not only have they become adept at it but have figured out the most effective strategies – which are now being used by new players from day 1 thus creating the false impression that the game is easy.

The game is not the problem – players have just gotten good at it.

The solution is NEW content.

probably players are getting better, but in the beginning everyone went into the dungeons with the suggested level and probably green gear, now everyone has exotics or even ascended gear and is going into dungeons with lvl 80.

Yes there is the down scaling and stuff, but that does not compensate your traits and the much better gear. In the low level dungeons your armor also has 2 instead of 3 stats, …

New content wont fix this and the other problems mentioned (stacking, slow attacks, …)

PS: I am a casual player to, no dungeon farming, champ trains, … and i have to say, there is no challenge in GW2. It is to easy and this makes it boring!

We do need new content, though. I’d love to play in a Branded dungeon. Just think of the possibilities for armour and weapon skins!

Honestly, I think most players are satisfied with the level of difficulty in dungeons. Just min-maxing and burning down bosses as quickly as possible is pretty fun in itself. The people who think everything is faceroll easy are clearly not joining any PUGs. Ever so often I’ll join a group where 2 or 3 people fail repeatedly in the most basic, straightforward paths.

I don’t think we should make things harder, that would just exclude people and that’s bad for the game, imo. If anything the dungeons need a mechanism for difficulty scaling. Some form of Elite mode where every mob is a tier higher (vets become elites, and so on), maybe remove WPs so that you need to be manually res’d.

whyme.3281:

Taygus.4571:

I have to overcome difficulties all day in my kittening life, and you think that because you like to “overcome difficulties” the game shouldn’t be for me?? Go play WoW or something.
This game was advertised to be more casual, accept that that is what it is.

And the next thing you want is a giant button on your screen, that will give you a free precourser per day?

Even Monopoly has no walk through, you can get to jail, or pay on other persons hotels…. thats life.

And I’m pretty sure, that casual doesnt mean walk through, it means “able to use the core mechanic of the game” and understanding, whats going on on the screen -> understanding teamplay and is able to dodge

Can’t you express an opposing point of view without becoming so….. hyperbolic?

A high population is good for the game, period. Makes it easier to find groups, lots of guild activity, socialising in LA and map chat, keeps WvW alive, etc etc.

Even us cheapskates contribute in ways that make the ‘legitimate’ gem shop supporters happy and want to stick around. Everyone wins.

This guy is actually suggesting that this game should actively seek to reduce its population? Lol.

yayuuu.9420:

There’s a simple solution that can prevent players from stacking, which I should probably start doing asap, because I don’t want to play with people who stack, so in future I’ll be sure to create parties with this in mind.

FTFY.

Also, I think this is the thread for you.

Brahmincorle.1264:

6. zerg open world content…. whole personal story is you you you you are the hero you this you that you help to save the world you you you. Once you get into open world… you are just one of the 150+ Joes dps-ing some random wurm disturbed by Anet version of Rita Repulsa from Power Rangers for whatever meh reason devs can imagine.

Lol!

What’s funny is I still remember how awesome the Scarlet’s Invasion LS was, calling up my mate like “Get online, there’s an invasion!”, zerging around the map from champ to champ. That was probably the most fun I’ve ever had in this game. Back then everyone loved her (well, the loot anyway).

I’ve only ever been kicked solely because of class once, and that was on my Ranger. The conversation basically went like this:

“Hey”
“Hi hunter, please ping your utility skills 6 – 0”
“[Healing Spring][Signet of the Hunt][Sharpening Stone]…
You are not in a party

T_T

To be fair, I can’t really blame ‘em. I was pretty nooby at the time, running in Rampager’s gear and a completely random trait set up.

From a layman’s perspective it seems simple enough to implement, honestly. Just reset the personal story but I think any AP you gained along the way should remain, whether you keep the character or not it is still something you completed. Actually, if you change races after finishing the racial storyline then this is even less relevant.

In general, PvE is moderately challenging and I like it that way. I’ve been one path away from the dungeon master title for months now (feel free to guess which one, lol) and PUG a handful of dungeons daily.

I’ll go out on a limb here and state that I place absolutely no value on extra-challenging content in MMORPGs. If I want that kind of experience I’ll play a single player game, online FPS or MOBA type game. I like GW2s for the immersion, character building, exploration and so on. Dungeons are enjoyable because I’m a sociable dude, and that’s the only aspect of the game you really need to play with other people that gives a decent reward for the time invested.

It’s very, very easy to swap a utility when you’re out of combat. You can’t compare sacrificing one skill slot temporarily for permanent swiftness to trait adjustment and constant skill usage for temporary swiftness.

Runes require even greater sacrifice. Traveller runes are a bit too pricey for a ‘one trick pony’ kind of set.