Guild Wars 2

Mightybird.6034:

why would slow increase damage? confused

It makes animations take longer. In this case, with the help of the increased damage output we were given, it allowed the team to kill lupi while he was in what I think was his second animation preventing him from Phasing. Without the slow he likely would have finished his second animation and phased before they could finish the burst.

I believe it’s this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Gunk

Just to throw some numbers, with sinister gear, with full vuln and might, you’d be getting 625 per tick, to get 50k in 3s you’d need, 26 stacks of burning for 3s. Not something I see as even remotely possible by Engi. Unless they screwed something up between PVE and PVP condi’s, no, you’re lying OP, or something is seriously screwy. (and without vuln that means 33 stacks for 3s… LOL, exaggerating much?) My guess assuming the OP isn’t lying is that instead of reducing condi they increased it by a LARGE amount in sPVP. If in PVE…well kitten it’s broken and not what they intended at all.

I’m sure this will all get figured out quite quickly, but even so, I think/hope they’ll just get it down to the intended level. 500/stack/tick isn’t OP at all. Triple that, which is what the OP seems to imply, well, yeah needs to get fixed.

JonPeters.5630:

Cheshire.8761:

Are you going to address how you forced characters to train into builds using their hero points without their consent? :o

Why not. Basically there were two options, both with a large number of edge cases.

1) We wipe your stuff and let you respec as you see fit. Because so much had changed this was our initial plan. Here are problems it ran into.

• People return from a long hiatus and don’t remember what they were running
• People log in and the first thing they have to do before they can play is learn both the new unlocking system and the new build system.

2) We look at what you had equipped and unlock the necessary skills and traits to re-equip you. Here were some discussions points around that:

• We might give you stuff you don’t want
• at least this won’t matter for lvl 80s if we make all the unlocks possible by just reaching lvl 80.

There is a third option which I’m sure you will bring up.
3) let players choose
Here are some reasons we did not go with that:

• Its twice the work
• Its actually more than twice the work because it would have required temporarily saving both options until you choose which is more complex technical work.
• People who were unlikely to understand or want to explore the new system were going to be potentially more confused by the choice.

At the end of the day we wanted to ship this build so we had to decide. Based on instinct we erred on the side of helping people we thought would be more overwhelmed by the opposite choice, and I would make that choice again because it has less edge cases, impacts more expert users, and leans towards over unlocking for free to benefit most of the edge cases anyway.

Hope this info helps you understand our process a bit more.

Thanks,

Jon

My god, Jon, I think I developed a mancrush. If you ever want to go on a mandate I’m down. Seriously, the way you composed this… kyaaa.

While I personally would have prefered the “let the players choose” method, I can’t argue with the logic behind your decision at all. So far I’ve been able to unlock EVERYTHING on each character I own. I may see some trouble in the future with HoT specializations, but I’m ok with working to get the points to do so. Really, god, Jon, if I could have had the feedback you’re giving throughout my gameplay here, well, I wouldn’t be so skeptical about everything ANet does. <3 you!

Linken.6345:

Jerus.4350:

JonPeters.5630:

Just getting these out there so we know we are all in agreement:

1) Conditions seem a bit strong
2) World bosses are currently too easy
3) There are some bugged skills and traits
4) There are some overpowered builds

We won’t fix it all at once but these are four large topics we are talking about. In the meantime keep the feedback and bug reports coming, and I guess farm up some world bosses. We are dedicating time towards these issues and are intending to resolve them as quickly as possible. As we have said before, the live environment differs too greatly from anything we can reliably simulate internally so big changes like today’s build will cause things to sometimes change at an alarming rateTM.

Thanks for your patience,

Jon

Just… YES. Can’t say anything has re-assured me in this game as much as this simply post has. The fact that you came out an acknowledged some issues, well it’s a breath of fresh air to me. So for that Thank you Jon, take as much time as you need, the fact that you acknowledge the issues is all I ever ask. (cough cough, still waiting to hear about Lupi cough cough, but don’t take that with any negativity Jon, what you just did was strait awesome).

Yes I agree this is much much better then the wall of silence.

I don’t want to derail from this post, but god kitten , I can’t emphasize enough at how much my view of ANet improved by this singular post. Just… amazing. THIS is what we want. An open development team, accepting the shortcomings, and knowing it’s priority. Even if it’s not a priority, it’s nice to know. “hey we know there’s an issue here, but it’s a tough one to crack, and we have a lot on our plate so it may take a while” would be just as amazing to me.

Again, Thanks Jon, sorry to slightly derail, but yeah, this openness is, just… ugh, so nice. Can’t help but think some of my buddies would still be around if we saw this more often.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Things-we-know/first#post5199555

If they did this more often, well, I don’t think I’d be negative on them, and I don’t think dlonie would be missing right now.

JonPeters.5630:

Just getting these out there so we know we are all in agreement:

1) Conditions seem a bit strong
2) World bosses are currently too easy
3) There are some bugged skills and traits
4) There are some overpowered builds

We won’t fix it all at once but these are four large topics we are talking about. In the meantime keep the feedback and bug reports coming, and I guess farm up some world bosses. We are dedicating time towards these issues and are intending to resolve them as quickly as possible. As we have said before, the live environment differs too greatly from anything we can reliably simulate internally so big changes like today’s build will cause things to sometimes change at an alarming rateTM.

Thanks for your patience,

Jon

Just… YES. Can’t say anything has re-assured me in this game as much as this simply post has. The fact that you came out an acknowledged some issues, well it’s a breath of fresh air to me. So for that Thank you Jon, take as much time as you need, the fact that you acknowledge the issues is all I ever ask. (cough cough, still waiting to hear about Lupi cough cough, but don’t take that with any negativity Jon, what you just did was strait awesome).

Sins.4782:

Could be additional burns from Burning Precision and your fire aura from fire swap if you got hit. Still seems a little too low unless you’re running condi gear though, unless they broke the ICD on burning precision or something.

Good points. But, you need 12+ stacks to reach 2k with Power build.

Yeah, scratching my head on that one. Should only be able to see 3 stacks at most (burning Retreat + Flame Burst) for Ele. Unless you’re also laying down Firestorm, and maybe Fiery Eruption with FGS? but, even then you’re at what like 10-12 stacks in a power build? Yeah… something sounds screwy.

Either something is screwy, or Iris just happened to catch one of those instances where two numbers overlap and you see 200something overlap with another that looks like a 2000something?

Give some time for the new maths to be done if you want to be really min/max about it. However, I have a feeling Zerk/assassin will still be strong and a good option. However I have a feeling Condi may come in as better in less organized group with less burst potential.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Iris Ng.9845:

Meanwhile, meteor shower is hitting for 11k per tick (and close to 2k burn per tick- I have no clue) in a casual pug fractal. I really expect a nerf soon.

Ok, something is totally wrong here. I just did some math. In full ascended sinister gear with 25 might, you’ll be at around 2500 condition damage.

This is what the formula is supposed to be:

New damage over time: 7.5 + (1.55 * Level) + (0.155 * Condition Damage)

If you do the math, at max condition damage and might, that comes out to ~500 damage per stack of burning. That’s in PvE. If people were really getting 8k ticks, you’d have to have at LEAST 16 stacks of burn from a single person in PvP which is ridiculous on its face, and that’s not even considering the fact that PvP people have less stats and probably won’t have 25 might.

If you’re really seeing 2k burn ticks/stack Iris, I think they seriously messed up their formula somehow.

Factor in 25% from Vuln? Also potential other bonuses (iirc guards have a15% damage boost option). And with that Guard has some pretty silly burn application in certain situations.

So if ignoring Vuln you’re at ~500 a tick, to hit 8k you’d need 16 ticks as you said. Apply that 25% though and you are 625 per tick and need 12.8 and as I showed you in the other thread easily doable with a burst on Engi. If you’re a guard add another 15% on top for 718 a tick, and you only need 11.4 stacks.

Which as I said in certain situations is pretty darn easy. Radiant Fire, with Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath, you can AE a group and toss out short burns to everyone. Jumping in and laying down a symbol + WW had me landing 1.5k in zerk “build” (took those traits above). I have no problem believing with a modified build, esp including balthazar runes, that you may see a greatly increased effect.

I think there’s far too much to play around with to have found a build yet. Sticking in one at this point is, well, a waste. So much to explore.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

I think they’re lying. More serious estimates are 8k ticks in PvP.

Yeah I’ve seen a lot of spouting on about 7-10k ticks when I was running around SW. Just screwing around with traits though, picking some of the burning traits on my guardian I was able to see 1.5k burning ticks on top of my normal Power rotation. Of course I took some minor losses in doing so, but interesting none the less.

I will say, I hope they don’t nerf condi damage. I really don’t see it as being too over the top, maybe a minor adjustment. What I do think needs changing is GREATLY increasing the HP scaling in Open World content. The speed at which SW champs went down was stupid. I don’t think they factored in all the condi damage that simply wasn’t happening before because people were stupid and ran those builds even though they were completely impractical. Seeing a zerg of players wipe out SW bosses right around the time they do their first special thing, well, judging from my past experience we’re talking basically doing double damage compared to before.

Gonna need a lot more motivation to do real maths! Either way seems fun, time to craft up my sinister, been just using Rabid for a screw around condi build till now and never got around to making the sinister before I just kinda stopped playing for a while.

I’m not sure what is gonna happen. Looking at burns I think we can spike up to 12 stacks. I need better gear (or some more info from someone /wink wink) to guesstimate anything. Could open with 10-12 burn stacks then default to some other stuff for bleeds for sustain is kinda my thought.

Blowtorch + Incendiary Powder + Incendiary Rounds + Napalm should be 3+2+6+3 initially, of course dropping off after ~6-7s with about a 3s ramp up time. But 14 stacks of burning followed by Shrapnel Grenade and maybe some bleeds already with Shrapnel trait. Maybe get EG in there toss some poison on as well as Poison grenade. And an Acid Bomb/Orbital just for funsies. As well as Confusion from Pistol. And if you grab the Pistol Trait that confusion/burning/poison it gives may be interesting. Lose some Vuln but in a group you should be able to make it up as a team.

But yeah, if you wouldn’t mind, providing your Sinister setup’s damage for Bleed/Burning/Poison/Confusion that’d be cool and easier for napkin math.

Aye, if we were talking long range grenades still, I could see grenadier, but at this point you’re unlikely to see much benefit if you’re just using them close range. Maybe if you’re kiting at 600-900 range?

37k!?! wow. I just know I felt like testing some stuff, so went to SW to screw around. Bosses just melt. It’s pretty silly honestly.

But, now I need to make a sinister set, and that means charged sheets, and well, kitten , honestly I don’t even know how I had the one

Today is a good day, seems some interesting changes in game, and I finally bit the bullet and got myself an Air Conditioner, so screw you summer I win!

This damage… wowza.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Jerus.4350:

Going to need much more motivation to start doing the math on it. But I do want to look into Fire Bomb and Blowtorch quite a bit. With Incendiary Powder, we should be having some very strong burns that last longer. Between all 3 of those, add in Napalm and the FT toolbelt skill (forgot name) we should be able to burst out quite a bit of fire.

Still many questions to be answered and asked, but yeah, really curious on a burning build.

I just did a fractal 26. I could reasonably keep 3k bleeds (peaking at around 4k), 1.5k burns, 1k poison on fire shaman. Let’s say that’s 5.5k pure condi dps.

That was with the build above, but WITHOUT might and WITHOUT food (Pugs ftw lol.)

That might not sound like a lot, but given that the party wasn’t organized I think it’s pretty decent. IDK what my direct damage dps would be, probably ~3k per grenade toss, plus burst skills like grenade barrage, orbital strike, jump shot, blunderbuss, flame blast. It’s DEFINITELY viable, now whether or not it’s better than a zerker setup, I don’t really know. I almost want to say YES for pugs which are unorganized, because you won’t be coordinating ice bow bursts, your fights will be messy, and that constant condi dps ticking will make up for missed grenade throws, ressing people etc etc.

Consider this a back of the napkin guesstimate :P

Think EG’s Poison/Acid Bomb is better than Bomb’s Fire + Confusion?

Also bleed and power damage of rifle better than pistol’s poison/burning/confusion ?(with potential 50% duration?).

Going to need much more motivation to start doing the math on it. But I do want to look into Fire Bomb and Blowtorch quite a bit. With Incendiary Powder, we should be having some very strong burns that last longer. Between all 3 of those, add in Napalm and the FT toolbelt skill (forgot name) we should be able to burst out quite a bit of fire.

Still many questions to be answered and asked, but yeah, really curious on a burning build.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

If anyone could help me max sinister engineer damage I’d appreciate it

Curious as well. I was thinking with the burning changes Bomb + Flamethrower + nade might be a nice combo actually. Stack up that burning nice and high while keeping might going, and decent damage from alternate things.

/shrug, should be some fun messing around with things. I may actually get on tonight if I don’t pass out first.

EcoRI.9273:

Nope I was running with a group of friends, who all know how to speed run and they invited a few thief friends of theirs from other guilds. Also if I remember right when I ran with you, you did d/p on abom

Personally sometimes I like running thief for the stealth and such, some fun gameplay outside defiant stripping. That role, well I’m not a huge fan. However I always felt expected. If someone told me “don’t worry about it on XXXX” well, I’d be quite relieved.

Just saying, not everyone is opposed to being given tips or being told how a group runs.

But, I also default to D/P on Abom, it’s how I solo him, it’s how I PUG him, so it’s just what I’m used to, I’d have no problem not if someone told me not to worry about it

Funny to see them give in. Enough public whining never seems to fail. But, cool, character slot built in.

Now, is the expansion even worth the money?

Dead.7385:

Gern.2978:

First of all, let me just say this: Open world boss fights are not raids, and cannot ever be a replacement for raids

I disagree….

Raids existed way before instancing. EQ was highly touted as the “raid PvE” game before WoW. They didn’t have instances until a long time after, and the only reason they added instancing was because the CS service issues with Kill Stealing etc (which this game doesn’t have).

I would definitely go for pesudo instancing through the guild system though. Have both open world encounters and then ones you enter an instance version through for your guild specifically with a lower player limit or something.

As for 10 man, back when raids were 80 man “two grouping” something wasn’t raiding. It was a casual kill and would not be considered a worthy “raid target”. So the meaning doesn’t hold much until the devs literally make it in the game.

First, EQ first got instances in their expansion that released prior to WoW’s initial emergence. It was also retroactively applied to it’s final zone of the previous expansion.

And while it was primarily done for the “kill stealing” and broader competition for kills, there was certainly an element of zerging that had already emerged and there was a desire to counter that, which instances certainly did. And, why EQ also dropped to a 54 man cap with this move when prior to that it wasn’t uncommon to run with a full 72 raid and maybe even multi-raid group raids that had 100+ doing well to trivialize content (how I got my first Naggy kill ).

As for “10 not being a raid” to paraphrase, well, I raided DCUO and it was 8. It’s certainly weird when you compare to oldschool EQ type situations, but the same mentality is there. It’s just a shift in goals/focus, do you want individuals to feel more relied upon, having everyone have to do well, or do you want that giant epic feeling with a lot of focus on coordinating (or as we said in EQ, herding cats ). Certainly elements of both I enjoy, but I will say I enjoy the smaller more focus on individual efforts better.

Raids are simply multigroup events. That said, I believe there is an implication as to requiring an organized force to overcome challenging obstacles. With that in mind, I don’t think any Open world content would suffice IN GW2. I have seen open world content as raids in past games, but it was moved away from for various reasons (namely competition and availability between players, and zerging).

So I don’t think it requires instances, but I do think GW2 lacks the design to allow it to be open world.

I do fully support the idea that a wipe is a wipe is a wipe, no recovery, you’re donezo. I always felt that this mentality of “if we wipe we just WP and go again” has contributed to the more Yolo style of the game, it think it would change things up a bit and develop more options and strategies if a full wipe was punished.

But, but, every pair of pants needs a butt cape!

For solos it already has, so it is worthwhile IMO.

The main issue with condi is the ramp up time. Engi is actually really good with Condition damage (as I said already best in solo situations), but if a fight is short no matter how good it is you have to compete with a power damage rotation that will start hitting hard instantly.

It’ll likely take 5-10s to reach our max condition damage in a rotation, but if we’re talking doing a dungeon, well, many bosses are already just about dead by that point.

So yeah, condi’s are going to greatly improve, and they might be our best bet for more sustained fights, but it will still depend on the situation. So if you’re worried about money, I’d just hold off a bit.

Talyn.3295:

Sinister Gear is good against high armor. For some classes better the zerker in certain situations. I know with the incoming update that sinister gear is going to be more useful.

But I am thinking it isn’t going to replace zerker for guardian despite this change. Am I right with this assumption or am I wrong?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Just-hit-lvl-80-what-gear-should-I-aim-for/first#post5185150

Well, there’s still the big ramp up issue to deal with. Even if a max damage situation has sinister higher you’re going to have lower initially, your burst with power will be superior. So it will be a matter of finding where that crossing point is and how it applies in a practical sense.

What’s wrong with ground targeting? I like it.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

spoj.9672:

Why would we get compensation? The core game is just a free addition to the package. The price isnt that bad for standard.

The no character slot on standard edition is questionable. And we dont have much info on everything we have. But those are the only issues. I will happily pay more than £35 for the game. I just wont do it yet. I dont know what im paying for after all.

PS. Kind of sucks that the conversion to £ isnt correct. We are paying more in the UK.

Well, I just think that long-term customers should just get that one character slot when they but HoT; the one you get for the ultimate edition can stay, adding up to two slots for existing players, one for new players.
While the core game is free, it still feels like you’re paying for the core too; even more so with a price tag like this.

I heard you get the short end of the stick quite often when it comes to pricing. Sucks indeed.

I don’t see it as paying for the core game at all. Maybe it’s because it’s a strategy I’m used to seeing. Last game I actually bought an expansion for was EQ, and there they did the same thing, buy an expansion you get everything before it. For a long time it wasn’t that way but eventually we were talking $200 to just get into the game, pretty silly to expect new players to come with that type of price tag. So they went to this type of system and I think it’s a good idea.

Thing is though. I see it as a great bonus for a prospective new player. “ohh I heard about this expansion, looks cool… ohh nice, I don’t even have to buy the base game and if I pre-order I can just jump right in and get ready for it, sweet deal”

While as a current player, it’s just “ohh… I’m paying to test your game…”

No reason I should pre-order, no incentive.

But that said, yeah, I have no intentions of buying the expansion with what we know now about it so for sure I wouldn’t pre-order. I just want them to get to the “challenging content.”

I get your point. But, I’m a fan of segregation just not forced segregation. I loved having my Bard chat, my more highend LFG, various groups of friends each with it’s own channel, and so on.

I find GW2’s system to be quite restrictive. If I want to talk with a group of friends while we all do various things then we have to represent the same guild or be in a group. But there are many situations where that’s not easy to pull off. Doing guild missions with one guild, you can’t represent with your friends. Doing a dungeon, you can’t be in a group with them. Just very limiting.

I will say, when EQ moved to include that system more, yeah, I totally get your point, it was annoying and most turned off the feature and simply set up their own stuff. And, the autojoin was certainly clunky, such that most just had a “log in” macro (macros were built into the game) that did it all for you.

Anyways, I just miss being able to do something like “/1 hey, anyone down for a 50?” and hit up all the people I’d want to do a fractal with in one message. Or have quick access to discuss something or ask questions to a bunch of good players of a certain profession.

Majic.4801:

Josh Davis.6015:

Jerus.4350:

Curious, will it have minimum ranges like the old Mortar? If not, sounds pretty sweet, one more thing to add to rotations. 5kit Engi ftw.

No minimum range. Shoot it at your feet!

Well, now I know what I’m going to be doing all day Tuesday.

Imagining your Michael Bay? BOOM BANG KABLOOIE.

speedbox.1473:

Why didn’t anet change the name for it , if mobile its not a mortar anymore it’s more like a RPG ,bazooka kit now

If people can swing around surfboard sized swords that are made out of some super dense material that never dulls, well, I have no problem believing that they can stand there and be the base for a Mortar.

spoj.9672:

Yeah ive seen those chat channel things in a lot of MMO’s. Ive never been a fan because they can be confusing and overwhelming for new players. I think this cross guild chat is a good middle ground. But it would be nice to have private chat groups as an addition as well (maybe friend/followers chat).

… huh? I’m actually curious what you mean.

spoj.9672:

Snowball.3497:

deSade.9437:

I gave up on guilds long time ago and use the forum. You may wanna consider building a strong fl.

Now imagine ANet introducing alliances GW1 style. It would be amazing to keep guild identity but at the same time play with likeminded people

We are getting pseudo alliances with the cross guild chat coming into the game. Just means we all need to be invited as guest ranks to other guilds we dont rep. Should be interesting.

Something really nice that they had back in EQ (and all SOE games I believe) was chat channels. You could be in 10 at a time, some of my channels were as low as 3 people, some hundreds. No requirements, could form on the fly by just doing “/join Fractal50” and it’d auto create and anyone could join and simply be part of a chat channel and nothing more. Could even put passwords on them to make it private and could even never tell anyone the password but simply have people join by invite only. And, something cool they did at one point (but later broke and never bothered to fix) was that they had a stand alone client that just tapped into that chat. So you could be outside the game still chatting with those who were playing in the game.

It was nice.

Thief has better blind. Thief has better Stealth capabilities. Thief has better single target damage. And, thief has a few tricks they can do which is a nice bonus (like arm seals in Cliffside for example).

So basically Thief is just more specialized, and fills that role better. Engi can contribute some might, but why when you already cap out with a PS war and/or Ele’s. Engi has great vuln, but on any burst fight between the war/ele(s) you’re more than covered. Basically Engi is just too diverse, not specialized enough, though the one real niche they have is Immob which is very nice in fractals.

That said my Fractal last night was 3 Engi’s, a War, and an Ele

Damage modifiers alone make it a must have for PVE, toss in the sweet blast options in the GM tree, well, quite frankly I don’t know what you’re talking about in thinking it lacks anything.

Stealth is capped at 5 stacks, no timer cap that we know of (tested with the old extended time trait on elixirs and having 5 engi’s drop Elixir S at the same time for 20s+ stealth). But, you can drop your Elixir S once room is made and get that 20s stealth through blasts for 15 and then an S to finish it off.

But, yes Might is better handled by a PS warrior, which got a huge damage boost and thanks to banners will certainly remain Meta. For us to really do well stacking consistent might we have to take quite a few concessions dropping our damage considerably, not something we really want to do when even doing so we won’t match Ele/War.

As for Vuln though, I’ve always seen pretty much around 15 in ideal conditions, but losing that duration bonus yeah a bit over 10 is probably about right.

We won’t be meta, we’re already good though and will get better. You just can’t compete with the Banner Bot’s guaranteed spot, the Thief’s superior niche at stealth/blind/damage, the Ele’s burst and sustained damage while providing more than enough utility and that perma fury. Then Guard when you need support or Mesmer for the sweet sweet portal tricks as well as support.

Again, we’re already fine, nothing one should feel ashamed to bring, we’re not necros, but we won’t likely become meta, unless somewhere in there we got some crazy damage buffs, which may not be too far fetched of a possibility (Run in Grenade Barrage w/ SD, drop and Acid bomb, dodge first attack and drop a bomb, Mortar StrikeX2X2 when traited right with 2X SD procs, quite nifty burst right there. )

As for build, I’m thinking you’ll surely want a different master firearm, fury comes from your Ele. Takedown round will probably be “meta” just like S/D is over Speedy kits currently, but that’d be it as far as a guess. Though I am curious how Condi’s will do, Shrapnel/Incendiary Powder don’t look half bad. Just still issues with ramp up time on Condi.

Curring.9752:

I never really enjoyed dungeons as the only character I liked playing in there was engineer as I felt the other classes felt boring. The engineer has a challenging rotation to perform and learn (more so than the others at least) however still come out sub-par to the other classes.

My question to the dungeon vets is will we become more of a viable-meta choice with the new core spec changes?

I was thinking thinking this kind of build would be used; http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgEB5AL4BVQ~

Engi likely won’t be Meta, but it’ll be just like it is now, where you’re a solid option, not optimal but anything outside thief/war/EleX2 and either Mes, guard or a third Ele is non optimal. Engi however can sub in just fine for the thief or second ele. And, most notably in fractals there are some things we do better, you just have to have a fight that lasts longer than 15s for it to matter, or have immobilize wanted/needed.

Point being, you should feel fine playing Engi now and in the future, the only time it will matter is if you’re trying to set a dungeon speed record.

Galen Grey.4709:

Jerus.4350:

No, the expansion isn’t incentive at all in this discussion. They’re asking for my money right now but not offering any reason. Why wouldn’t I sit on my money till release?

Maybe it isn’t as common practice as I thought, but god I don’t know why if you’re talking digital download. If you’re talking hard copies, well your incentive is to reserve it, so that if they’re out of stock on release you have yours. But, in EQ we always got some trinket of appreciation for the advanced purchase. So maybe my view is just tainted.

But, that doesn’t change the fact that there’s no incentive to buy now.

Yep there is you get to try it before everyone else during beta events + a little title which granted is not going to change anyone’s life. But actually I am happy they’re not giving away anything spectacular if you prepurchase, especially in light of there being a lack of information on what the expansion offers. the worst that could happen is having people pre purchase the expansion for goodies only to find out they dont appreciate the actual content when its released.

I honestly dont see this aspect as a bad thing.

You got me there. Good point. Still strikes me as strange that anyone would pre-order but I guess those that are hyped up can throw their money now.

Like I said, I’m just tainted by EQ I guess, they certainly treated us well, why I stuck around for 15 years.

Galen Grey.4709:

Jerus.4350:

Offair.2563:

I am still trying to figure out the rage about getting a core game copy for free. People surely didnt mind to get a 2nd or 3rd account when it was on sale for 10$ ish. So why moan about a freebie?

And yes Anet are people too, just like us. Maybe it is a bit over priced but none of you have been forced to pay more then the game it self.

There, my 2 cents on this matter.

To me it’s pretty much because they’ve offered no real incentive to pre-order. You get to test their game for them, that’s your reward for giving them money now. It’s pretty typical to offer something for a pre-order, and with the inclusion of the base game they have offered a pretty sweet deal to new players. So it’s just another instance of them treating their new players while ignoring their current players, and people are upset about that.

If I had intentions of buying the expansion (which with the current amount of content even $5 to me is too much as I simply don’t intend to play it) I surely wouldn’t be pre-ordering it because there’s no reason to, why pull my wallet out now when I get the exact same thing if I pull it out at launch.

Why should they? inst the actual expansion incentive enough? Gw2 didnt give any incentives with its standard edition either yet there was no uproar over it!

I dont know where this is coming from, standard editions dont have goodies they’re just the product, thats what deluxe and collectors editions are for after all!

care to point at all these awesome insentives to sweeten the pot other MMOs do with their pre-order programs? because I am not seeing any really. Only thing I can find is Warlords of draenor which offers a instant level 90 option though it wasnt even a pre-purchase reward since its still available now and I have a feeling they did it more for them then for the players considering mists of pandaria had the lowest sales of any WoW expansion I guess it was a good move for them to include the instant level up so that people who skipped over that expansion could still buy and enjoy Dreanor by using that instant LeveL up to bridge the gab skipping over pandaria caused.

No, the expansion isn’t incentive at all in this discussion. They’re asking for my money right now but not offering any reason. Why wouldn’t I sit on my money till release?

Maybe it isn’t as common practice as I thought, but god I don’t know why if you’re talking digital download. If you’re talking hard copies, well your incentive is to reserve it, so that if they’re out of stock on release you have yours. But, in EQ we always got some trinket of appreciation for the advanced purchase. So maybe my view is just tainted.

But, that doesn’t change the fact that there’s no incentive to buy now.

dlonie.6547:

Haha, I know right? I actually just put that in a comment on the Love and Lashes post. It is disgusting that people are attacking devs personally, thought. That’s completely uncalled for.

I agree, it’s pretty sad, and lashing out at employees like that is certainly something to be ashamed of. Though, I want to mention someone’s response to one of those threads. My personal opinion is that it’s uncalled for, but I do see some truth the persons response, which is basically just this video with some commentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGOVbXF7Iog

You’re just being mean dlonie, ANet is full of nice people and because of that they deserve nothing but love and adoration. You have no right to be upset with their company policies because the people working for them don’t deserve it.

Once you know how to actively defend yourself in content passive defense becomes simply a safety net, one that the longer you fight the more likely you are to need kinda defeating the purpose.

The only time we might see a rise in these defensive builds from current zerk players is if we get content that throws us for a loop such that we want those defenses while we poke and prod the new mechanics to learn them better.

Offair.2563:

I am still trying to figure out the rage about getting a core game copy for free. People surely didnt mind to get a 2nd or 3rd account when it was on sale for 10$ ish. So why moan about a freebie?

And yes Anet are people too, just like us. Maybe it is a bit over priced but none of you have been forced to pay more then the game it self.

There, my 2 cents on this matter.

To me it’s pretty much because they’ve offered no real incentive to pre-order. You get to test their game for them, that’s your reward for giving them money now. It’s pretty typical to offer something for a pre-order, and with the inclusion of the base game they have offered a pretty sweet deal to new players. So it’s just another instance of them treating their new players while ignoring their current players, and people are upset about that.

If I had intentions of buying the expansion (which with the current amount of content even $5 to me is too much as I simply don’t intend to play it) I surely wouldn’t be pre-ordering it because there’s no reason to, why pull my wallet out now when I get the exact same thing if I pull it out at launch.

spoj.9672:

Dungeons should scale up though. Just like fractals. I understand the avoidance of scaling up in open world. But it doesnt make sense in instanced content.

I can agree here, aside from the stories.

Fractals do this I believe.

Ranael.6423:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Bleh. They should make all regions level 80 and just scale low levels up.

That was their intention during development but then they thought it was weird for people to go to Orr two days after release while not having developed their character or not knowing how to play.

This…

And it was a good decision. Not only do you avoid that awkward “why is it so hard!!” feeling from new players, but you also create a sense of progression, opening things up that were previously “unavailable.”

The downscaling was right, the effect of the 2014 April patch, well, that was bad.

Unloveableone.6082:

This article sums up basically everything there is about this whole fiasco and everyone should read it.
http://www.killtenrats.com/2015/06/18/gw2-lash-and-love/

They’ve worked kitten this expansion. It’s their life. What they put their hard work and passion into. Some of you think they’re just greedy dirtbags that want to screw you over…why? Have you ever created a work of art? A painting? A musical piece? A game? A story?
How would you feel if when you announced that it was ready for purchase, people spat on it. People lashed out at you on not only your official accounts, but your personal ones to.
How would you feel if your hard work and what you’ve dedicated a year or two to, was ridiculed and hated before it was even released?
You don’t want to pay the full price for the pre-order?
Don’t. That is your choice. But they owe you NOTHING.

But being complete jerks about all of this is revolting and reflects poorly on us as a community. And think of the devs. They have feelings too. And I’m sure many are upset right now. This may just be an expansion to you, but it’s much more than that to them.

Arenanet, thank you for all you have done. For putting the time and effort into giving us an amazing series of games that only get better as time goes on. I’ve been looking forward to HoT since it was announced and cannot wait.
Keep the amazing work

No, Arenanet is not people, Arenanet is a company (though I guess that’s people legally…) It’s a shame people over-reacted and attacked individuals who work for this company, but the company as a whole deserves all the backlash they’ve received.

That said, on one hand I’m sitting here thinking that whoever did make these decisions should be thinking “kitten I screwed up.” But on the other hand, well, it’s a cold harsh business decision. When we talk about getting a character slot with the expansion, we’re talking a potential $10 extra dollars per unit. If even only 10% of the people buy their gems for this, and maybe 25% just jump to the next tier of purchase to get the char slot with the other goodies, if you sell 100,000 units, we’re talking an extra $100,000 in gem sales and $625,000 for jumping to the next level. That means they’d have to sell 14,500 more base copies, or basically have a 15% increase in sales. So, is that a level they could achieve by being more generous to their customers? Apparently they didn’t think so. (note, I’m just making wild assertions on the numbers, surely far far far less educated guesses than they had).

They took a large PR hit, but they did so by their own decisions. They welcomed the backlash to pull out some more cash. Those who attacked specific employees, yeah you should feel ashamed, but those expressing their disinterest/disgust with ANet as a whole, no, that’s not wrong. If the Employees feel poorly about this backlash, don’t look at the players and deflect the blame on them implying that we’re unreasonable, no, look at your own company for selling you out. But, hey, hopefully it all works out for you guys, and you get a fat bonus on release because of it, but lets be honest we’re talking a modern company here, profits don’t trickle down to the employees.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

papry.8096:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

They’ve bundled it for free with the expansion. So what?

You don’t go out and buy a $60 game off of Steam on its release week and then complain that it is on sale for 75% off a couple years later. You don’t complain when said game is given for free to PSN/XBOX live players some years down the line.

Okay let’s clarify: That’s two totally differents situations.

I already brought the game at 60$ & enjoyed it.
Then a new offer directed at new players comes they sell the game at 10$.
I’m not eligible & not interested because I already own it.

Now our situation:
I already brought the game at 60$ I played it for 5K hours.
I’m waiting for the expansion.
Anet releases a selling offer for the expansion adressed to new players and existing players.
Except that the offer is amazing for new layers and seems like a ripoff for existing players.

To me is like Anet says :
You are a newplayer you can have a freebie + the expansion.
You are an existing player, you are not eligible for a freebie. thx for your support.

How many sequels are released with the prequel bundled in? Quite a few. Bayonetta ringing a bell?

WoW bundles its previous expansions together for free. Its community doesn’t complain. EverQuest did the same.

The only issue here is the FAQ misadvertisement and the number of recent sales on the game. These players were mislead and they have been ripped off. You have not been. I have not been. They deserve compensation. We do not.

EQ also gave me gifts with a pre-order, you know, something to sweeten the deal to make me consider giving them money before I could use their product. A return on my investment. Pretty standard practice.

Right now to get what EQ gave me for pre-ordering the base expansion I’d be paying $75.

Ranael.6423:

I didn’t see that much discussed but the patch notes for next week’s update state this :

Level scaling changes
In general, scaling down has been weakened, and scaling up has been increased.
Stat Scaling now better accounts for level ranges where equipment start offering more possible stats (e.g. one, two, or three stat pieces of gear).
Rarity scaling now takes into account how close you are to the maximum available rarity when scaling up or down.
Some Minor stacking on kill Sigils have had their values reduced.

So I guess the bugged downscaling from March was actually only a “leak” between Dev build and Live.

Basically low level dungeon should be harder, I suppose they want to promote more needs of tanky or healer for unorganized groups which is what a lot of people are more or less asking for.

Nevertheless I don’t think SC teams will be touched in their gameplay but record times may be affected. So you should maybe plan ahead a reset of those records…

The swiftness/leap changes plus the triat changes I’d assume a reset was already in order, so kinda icing on the cake. I like the idea though, just like I liked the idea back in March.