Guild Wars 2

alcopaul.2156:

Bushido.2184:

alcopaul.2156:

comparing gw1 and gw2 is like comparing console based OS and touch based OS. sure memorizing commandline commands is cooler and requires more brains than a touching and pinching graphical user interface. but guys, which between the 2 is dead, obsolete and outdated?

Over 95% of all the servers and supercomputers out there in the world running Linux / BSD, and a bunch of programmers would like to disagree with saying the terminal is dead.

Keyword for you is programmers.

But i was referring to consumers (context clue: pinching gui, programmers code code and do console commands on servers, yes.). the regular joe guys who want to do computers. you are forgetting the tablet and the smartphones too, which are the envisioned computers in the 80s to be spread like hotcakes. Tell me, do you do console commands on your smartphone? or tablet? or on your Windows? Linux, yep, when you install on commandline but there is a gui version of application installation now. and linux is just a fraction of the en masse computer software for the market. If console is still the in thing, then Linux shouldve gotten hardcore being a terminal only OS. But they were extended to have GUI, to keep up with times. And Windows still dominate. For smartphones, you can raise Android but do Android users do console commands? Poke and pinch man.

from a reputable site:

“In the Linux Forum, there is an interesting debate going on about GUI (Graphical User Interface) and CLI (Command Line Interface), two modes for users to interact with the computer. Valid but opposing arguments were made by both sides:

— GUI makes it easy for the user, therefore makes the OS user-friendly.
— GUI interface means the OS is “dumbed down”

— CLI gives the user more control and options.
— CLI is stone-aged; it belongs to a “The History of Computers” museum. "

Obvious thing is obvious. MS-DOS is dead. Windows 8 is pinch and poke. Vanilla Unix is 70s and old. Ubuntu Linux is the most popular GUI UNIX based OS nowadays

I don’t even know what you’re trying to argue. Just admit you were wrong and move on. CLI still has it’s niche use and is far from dead. It gets used by hundreds of thousands of professionals and enthusiasts every day. The same applies to GW1, it still has it’s niche playerbase (GvGers and some PvEers) but it’s gameplay itself isn’t outdated, obsolete or anything. I swear, get a perspective. It’s a game that has only been out for 8 years and was supported for like 6. Which is much for a generic MMORPG but nothing for a serious eSports game (which I’m not saying it still is, but it could have been with the proper support), let alone a game or sport in general.

The only thing I hate about this is that they once again went with the ugly Asura aesthetic like many other consumables have.

Like every other path except for one (ArahP4) already?

Jesus people, some variance please. Just stay on your toes for the next faceroll Living Story content and leave this dungeon path as it is.

Sarrs.4831:

How many people here think that adding Taunt as an actual controlling condition, new abilities included, would be a good idea? One of the big things that these encounters need is the ability to immediately control an NPC’s movements, like the Oozes, and I’m wondering whether anyone else thinks that it might be a good niche in which to slot new utilities/weapon skills.

That’s a horrible idea. You can already control the oozes. It called “control”, one of the aspects of the GW2 trinity. We have tons of skills for that already. Immobilized, blind, cripple, interrupt, etc., you can get creative. With a taunt, it’s just exactly one button press to win.

I like that the oozes emphasize control actually, as contrasted by DPSing everything down like 99.999% of this game’s PVE. Hope ANet can filter through threads like this and realize that no matter what they do, a part of the players will always be up in arms about it.

Players never were able to damage walls.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

Also I’m afraid ANet is currently banking on the idea that when Leagues and Seasons start the new “WvW Achievements” are going to pull tons of PvE/Casual Players into WvW completely eliminating the population imbalances.

Sadly I don’t think it is going to work, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what they are thinking…

It will work maybe for a week before those exact PvE players get frustrated and quit forever because they get steamrolled by the stacked servers WvW regulars.

Bunda.2691:

I can see the potential queuing problems and so forth, but fixed-time, relatively short matches would be awesome. This would eliminate coverage disparities and allow for evenly balanced matches.

Anyway, discuss.

Dude I literally had fights over keeps that took longer than your 3-hour matchup.

Contiguous.1345:

Every time one of these pops near a battle the WvW fighting has to stop while it’s cleared out of the way.

What? I lived both on a Bottom 10 and a Top 10 server and I have never seen that happen, except maybe in the very first week of release.

Another idea I had is to leave everything else as is but make the autoattack of each thief set a combination of the two weapons, with the second chain skill being that of the offhand weapon. E.g. in D/P you would attack first with your daggers, then your pistol for ranged damage, then again with your final Lotus Strike.

This would also have the implication of making the P/P autoattack a chain, and the second part of which you would attack with your left pistol. Looks cool and would certainly solve the P/P looking boring issue, but also would have tangible gameplay effects.

As always this idea is public domain.

Knighthonor.4061:

I believe the towers and keeps are just the game mechanics for War structures like in a RTS game, without actual building.

Maybe in WvW we are just the pawns of a giant RTS game for the Mist deities.

Signed.
As an altoholic, I’m always low on laurels. This doesn’t exactly make me want to use them for my WvW alts when they still don’t even have Ascended jewelry.
I’d rather be willing to spend 100 badges than 1 laurel for WXP.

No they shouldn’t.
The intention behind them is to make them a strategically valuable target, not something you do for rewards. If you do that, there would be no strategy involved behind their capture. Servers who are able to muster a force to cap them are intended to be rewarded under the current system. Your suggestion would automatically (meaning, even more so than usual) reward the servers with just the largest population, because if you have a server with 100 players on the map and one with 50, the one with 100 will have naturally more players who would want to just cap the ruins for added WXP/karma/coin.

To cap them has to be an individual sacrifice (time and the risk of getting killed) for a reward that benefits your server (bloodlust) to disincentivize said behaviour and incentivize “higher-level” decisions, just like scouting, upgrading, killing dolyaks (no one does that on hours for the rewards), etc.

The only thing that needs to be changed about them is the bloodlust buff itself.

They could add fluffy kittens as free permanent minipets and someone would still find a reason to complain about.

Before release, we all agreed upon that this kind of sales is the right kind of cash shop monetization strategy for the franchise, as contrasted for example by tangible gameplay advantages or dramatic shortcuts like found in most F2P MMOs. In fact, there was quite a pressure from the fans on ANet for this.

Deal with it.

Yes sadly I come to inform ANet that those sets are objectively bad designed. They follow the design mantra:
1. Make a boring run-of-the-mill silhouette.
2. Put lots of “detail” on it. In fact, cover it wholly in it.
3. That must mean it’s an elaborate, aesthetically pleasing armor set.

But that’s not how it works. Silhouette is more important. This is aesthetics 101. Most GW1 armor had less “detail” than the GW2 ones but they still looked leagues better if you ask your players, because they had more memorable and variable silhouettes. GW2 silhouettes are incredibly samey on anything but female light armors.

I am really concerned if they will continue this trend and only put the good looking armor sets into the cash shop – for doubly obvious reasons.

Just because it’s the LS spotlight doesn’t mean this dungeon is intended E for everyone. Sometimes updates are aimed at the more “hardcore” crowd, and that’s good.

How does ANet ever expect to satisfy the harder content needs of their players if with every single instance the more “casual” (hate to use because I am one myself in PVE) players are up in arms over the difficulty? For that reason alone expansion packs are better for expanding a game in all directions.

XRKUN.1782:

whats all the QQ about?
SFR will be dominating gold league, but thats hardly news. So get over it. Better train and organize all of your players, prepare them for the league and who knows…maybe with skill and willpower you re gonna be number two.

Implying you wont get picked apart by Piken Square.

Replace SM wird a krait & quaggan filled lake.

Please can we have this hairstyle for female Norn? Been waiting since the BWEs.

Covis.6037:

and its usually just a zone blob for few hours

As contrasted by T1 servers? Don’t make us laugh.

haviz.1340:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Devil’s advocate time. The pinatas did have a bug in that when you hit them within seconds of another hitting them you would receive no candy. IIRC they patched it within a few days but it was not bug free even for simple content.

I should have really start to use /s.

I think he knew.

I want Mad King to smoke Scarlet.

At first I was like

But then I was like

Izzy League, Devon League, Colin League

Here comes the tradition.

ArchonWing.9480:

So umm, if I go into wvw to finish my gathering daily, am I a terrible person for not “participating in the match in good faith” and should be prohibited from doing so?

Yep. According to people like Riondron or Sir Arthur.8905, you should be banned from every regular activity taking place in WvW apart from siegeing and defending castles. Even open-field battles are frowned upon by the new generation of WvW purists, because they at best have the same effect points wise as a GvG. Going by this new doctrine you are to avoid any fights (or like mentioned any other activities) that don’t take place in the context of capturing an objective.

50v50 zerg fights are indeed still plenty epic, problem is, you will almost never get all on the map in one spot. There need to be roamers, camp/harassing groups, not to mention you’ll have people afqing/crafting/merching in spawn taking space away and other non-zerg relevant activities, or a second (guild) zerg doing their own thing.
Which means you would very rarely even get a 40v40 or 30v30.
So 50 is way too low. Maybe 80.

Riondron.1069:

I merely explained (quite plainly, so even the not-so-swift could under stand) how gvg matches affect the wvw community.

By providing WvW guilds with an organized way to hone their combat skills and theorycraft, and give that back to the larger community?
By recruiting/retaining players and commanders who originally wouldn’t have touched WvW with a ten foot pole because of the unorganized nature of the format, into WvW and make them a valuable asset of open field combat?

By making them actually care about WvW, whereas they wouldn’t if there were no GvG?

I may be mistaken, but the initial game descriptions state WvW and sPvP, not GvG. So who are the fools? Not the people who bought the game as-it. No, it is those who bought the game knowing the game description, and demanding that it be something else. Even a caveman can understand that very very very simple concept.

What is WvW? Chopping trees? Doing jumping puzzles? Fighting veteran boars? Standing around in the spawn to craft? Because you can do all of that in WvW.
And it’s not PvP.

100% agreement.
This needs to be fast-tracked. Not something that is on the “table” for the next three years. You know what else is on your table? A mug of coffee. GvG isn’t just some cheap Walmart coffee, it’s the soul of the franchise’s PvP.

As OP said, doesn’t have to be something fancy till you laid out GW1-type GvG.

Opc.4718:

inb4 hurr durr the game is called GW2 because of the lore. Yes because I’m totally playing this game for its pitiful excuse of a lore. The “Guild Wars” aren’t even relevant to the story plot, it happened some time in the distant past blabla cares were given and then more dragons were needed. I had to look it up on the kitten wiki to find out what the heck people were going on about.

Now why can’t anet be creative and do something like a re-enactment of the guild wars – with real guilds! Invent some lore behind the battles! Just like in fractals! Plenty of people would be all over that and plus, you get content relevant to the game’s namesake!

The lore argument is objectively wrong anyway. I do not think a game called “Guild Wars” with a heavy emphasis on GvG (originally) and a company called “ArenaNet” are result of some contrived lore coincidence. Last time I checked you don’t do RP or PvE in an arena, you fight against other people.
If you check out old articles of the GW1 alpha on IGN or Gamespay, you see that GvG was a much promoted central feature of GW1. They were probably still figuring out and conceptualizing the lore, traditionally backseat in development, when they were already debating the upcoming GvG meta. Lol.

Alex.2108:

LC good bye Raid. Thx to Drakkar vor the nice time we will miss you guys
Some pics from the GB raid…

Hey LC, where are you going? Kodash too?

I like T1 servers, they’re like giant piñatas. Double the loot bags for half the effort of a silver league zerg.

Did somehow everyone being vocal in this thread against GvGs miss that those GvGs mostly take place on Thursdays or Fridays?
Are you putting your fingers in your ears and your hands on your eyes and pretend (and just for this topic) that most matches aren’t a complete blowout by Saturday afternoon, let alone Thursday or Friday evening?
Really?

Cynz.9437:

Thoughts?

Did you think you were the first one on page 1 even with that idea?

I have never once even been able to attempt Tequatl because of not being able to join my servers instance (either home or overflow), and I am sick of depending on complete random players with 0 coordination. That isn’t be my concept of fun, ANet.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Actinotus.6410:

And how come EU seem to be more relaxed about all of this? Makes we want to shift SoS over to EU matchups.

The EU servers seem to be more relaxed about this because the Germans and French have their own language based forums and you’re probably not reading them.

Guilds here are moving. The Arborstone server is practically dead because most of their WvW guilds moved to Fort Ranik. It seems to me that a lot of the Dzag WvW guilds left too, but I don’t know where they went.

Also, there isn’t much point to moving to another server if you can’t speak that language and that’s just a fact of life for EU servers.

Drakkar Lake died as well. It probably lost around half of it’s regular players and 80% of it’s regular commanders.

This is by no means a NA exclusive problem.

That’s cute OP, but I call them “wub” and “mini-game” respectively, which seem more fitting.

yungwizud.1827:

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

“world v world”

please elaborate your ideas.

Well for one thing, “Mist War” doesn’t describe kitten, while you get a pretty good impression on first hearing what “world versus world” and “structured Player versus Player” mean, just as I knew exactly what “realm versus realm” described (server vs server PvP) when I first heard about it pertaining to DAOC.

Top lel m8.

Without an event being able to be lost even after multiple tries, winning it becomes meaningless. I hope you realize that.

SRG.3607:

It’s not at all technically “hard”, it’s just a (chosen) design implementation.

Arena Net wanted overflow servers to be like they are. The idea behind that is that you shouldn’t take care of where you are. You just TP to that area, there you are, being on the “main map” or an overflow server is not supposed to be of any concern. It’s the concept of “open world” vs “instanciated servers”.

(of course, any players that already have been put in an overflow server for Jormag or Tequatl knows that those assumptions are totaly wrong in game)

Yes, you “shouldn’t” take care of where you are. Which is why you would automatically put in the lowest-populated district. But let it be an option for large groups of players who actually want to organize.

I guess they are so mortally horrified of people turning this into a quasi “instanced raid” and creating WoW 2.0 that they’re deliberately crippling user experience.

If he appears every 2 hours or so, ironically despite the faster cadence, he would be deader than if he appeared less often, simply because there will be no pressure for everyone actually wanting to do him to show up on time, and is instead spread out inefficiently.
If they only make him appear like once every two days, introduce a ton of obvious pre-events so you know exactly when he’s about to show up and maybe let a NPC town crier in LA (of course, there’d also be an API integration) announce that Teq is landing, there will be enough of a critical mass to fill several servers and overflows, likely.

Why not just make numbered and selectable districts for overflows, like in GW1? Is it really that hard?

Thread #2453244

Still a kittenty suggestion.

You have to be purposefully dense to sugarcoat the fact that this game has indeed massively expanded that theme. It launched with a maximum of 40% (generously, let’s say two races are 100% industrial tech and others 0%) steampunk/magitech. This is the gold standard the OP and other posts are asking for, not some medieval high fantasy straw man you set up.
Every single Living Story has had a full-on steampunk/magitech vibe, from megalasers to automated mines dropping golems to giant holograms, and you can’t deny that. All we’re asking is for the average ratios to be returned to normal.
The only exception where I think this original ratio was achieved was with Zephyr sanctum, which coincidentally was also the most beautiful LS installation.

AlecFair.1270:

Fantasy can have technology in it and still be fantasy. Fantasy does not equal Medieval only. The fantasy in GW2 is based around games like the Tales Series with magitechnology with use of golems and weaponry powered by mana. Everything doesn’t have to be from a Tolkien book to be considered fantasy.

How about it doesn’t equal technology only?

Asudementio.8526:

PvE feeds WvW and WvW feeds PvE, you demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding as to how game modes overlap.

Then explain how they “feed” each other.

Christopher.8049:

To be honest I’ve been in WvW for 4 days now trying to get all the last points and I love it! Hate the exploration bit but a decent team (When available) and Zerg upon Zerg is also fun too :p

I am only bitter that it’s a pain the PvE and WvW world are combined for the exploration title/achievement! when in reality it should be a PvE thing in my opinion.

And if it were purely PVE you wouldn’t have set foot in WvW in a million years.
So maybe the reason for WvW POIs et al becomes clear?

Lurch.9517:

to excel in WvW these days you need to spend a fair amount of time in PVE or spend a truck load of cash on gems.

wat

Wraistlin.6072:

I truly doubt the gap is as big as everyone thinks between the two. I’m hard pressed to find anyone considering themselves a hardcore WvW’r that hasn’t or doesn’t run a dungeon or participate in anything outside of the borderlands, at least not from the WvW side of things. I’m sure their are plenty of folks that call themselves PvE’rs that haven’t stepped foot in WvW.

And you need your home server or indeed any fixed server for that how? Events are constantly overflowed anyway. LFG has basically abolished server-side dungeon grouping.
You can and will guest to other servers for temple assaults.

So um.

King Amadaeus.8619:

And I will say again:

It is utter BS that if 7 people attack me I can only hit 5 of them at a time, whilst all 7 of them can all hit me at once….

While I completely understand that the AoE cap “is needed so your servers don’t implode”, there is also no question that it gives a noticeable advantage beyond that of just having more people.

What I am saying is: If I can only hit 5 people at once, why in the world can more than 5 (five) hit me at once?

(Also don’t focus on the 1vs7 aspect of the example, same is reasonably true with 10v25, 20v35, or another other combination where one side is simply not doing damage because the other side is triggering the AoE cap)

Daendur.2357:

And what about introducing the same cap from attackers?
I mean I can only hit 5 targets (players should have priority in this) and it would be correct that I can be hitted only by 5 players, at least simultaneously.

If 10 ppl come and hit me with their #1 skill, ok, I’ll take one after one every attack, but if 10 ppl put 10 AoE on the ground (eg: well, meteors etc etc) only 5 of them hit me.

Right … first propose a change that makes zerging weaker, then in the very same thread suggest something that would strengthen zergs even more.
Since you yourself point out that AoEs aren’t exactly zergbusters due to the cap, where exactly do you guess the damage comes from that damages the zerg? Correct, cleaving skills.
You’re proposing that an organized 10 man group becomes even less effective against a 20 man random blob due to them not being able to actually hurt them.
Not to mention that accurately calculating which skills are allowed to hit every player and which aren’t just introduces additional calculation work on the server, I reckon.

So, which commander would order to cap those new ruins of yours?
Yeah I thought so. You’re introducing PVE content.

Stop with the economical buff suggestions. They are objectively dumb.

I still find it unbelievable how they’re willingly destroying the self-organized budding eSport where their own attempt at eSports failed.
They just need to make a tiny part of the map not have the kitten buff.

The underlying issue behind this is that they try to insert a “trademark GW2 style”, which they established on the quirkier and whimsical side for marketability reasons, at every corner of the physical world and narrative.
There can’t be a part that is not drenched in this signature style. There can’t be a part that is more subdued, less flashy. It seems almost obsessive.
ANet thinks this improves the overall experience, by linking everything together and creating a seamless flow, when all it accomplishes is for everything to become a bland, grey, unappetizing mush.
But you do not create a successful, memorable fictional world like that. There shouldn’t be one all-purpose trademark style.

There is no grand vision behind the mood the narrative and world design should take as it progresses. There are no significant build-ups and climaxes, the mood throughout the story and world is constant, flatlining.
Every writer/artist seemingly tries to add their own disjointed, disconnected quips and quirks, which just emphasizes the lack of vision.
Good zone design (not saying GW2 particularly shines here either) alone doesn’t work. You can’t just throw in some more menacing looking mooks and a dreary landscape if the tone doesn’t reflect that, if it doesn’t take it and work with it.

Nightfall was a perfect example (within the franchise) of how you do it right. The story had plenty of build-ups and climaxes. To identify the three central climaxes:
*The Istani assault on Gandara
*The fight against The Hunger/human Varesh
*The battle against Abbaddon
The Vabbi story arc in the middle, to contrast, was a giant build-up with a mellower tone, reflected in both story and world design, which was a great shakeup from the warlike, political one of the previous two “chapters”.
As you progressed through first the Desolation, then the Realm of Torment, the mood became darker and bleaker.
This contrast enabled both parts to shine. If it was constantly one tone it would have been much less interesting storytelling.

My suggestion to fix that would be to hire (or promote) one senior writer to direct the next big story arc. A director.
Preferably one who has a formal degree in writing (hate to suggest that because talent is unrelated to that, but still, I think it’s a safer bet for ANet than pulp fantasy credentials)
And for the love of good, DON’T make mastery of the Guild Wars lore the foremost qualification, like seems to be your present policy. Lore is nice to have, but it arises organically in the writing of a compelling story, while the reverse is rarely true.

The best feedback you can give ANet is to just not log in to WvW, since that is the only feedback they care about.

They falsely think PvEers and WvWers mutually care for each other somehow.