Guild Wars 2

It’s worrying how many people equate “groups are not required” with “ANet doesn’t care about social aspects”.

As if the defining feature of multiplayer content is being in the same group instead of working together to achieve a goal (which is what I currently do during hearts & dynamic events without needing to join a group) or working against each other to see who is best (which is what I do in WvW without needing to join a group).

Hopefully someday people will realise that GW2 gives all the benefit of grouping (resource nodes not 1 use – all players can use them, anyone who tags a mob gets credit, more than 1 person can loot a body, etc), all they are doing is not requiring you to join a group to get them.

Of course it is.

Whether it’s as simple as enabling a piece of currently disabled code or rebuilding a significant portion of the code I don’t know, but it’s certainly possible.

But GW2 already has WvW and PvP, I’m not sure why it would need PvP enabled starter areas (except for the inevitable spawn camping of noobs).

I’m not saying there is no way to transfer between alts (guild bank would also cover it), just pointing out that a mail system which stops you from mailing yourself must logically be designed to send mail to other people.

So it must be designed to send mail, potentially with attachments, to other people. I have yet to see anything even remotely official stating that it should not be used for trading, and if you claim that it would be “subverting a game mechanism” I’d be eager to know where you get your info from.

Please provide a link to official confirmation that you should not trade via the mail system.

As I said, I can see where they are by the names.

The red text, not the green text of allies.

I can also see the red arrow above the name which shows which of the enemies is targeted, so if I were melee I would know which mob to run up to.

Why does it matter if groups are encouraged? Why should people feel the need to group?

Guilds are far more social and have significant benefits via guild upgrades, etc.

If you want social, join a guild.

As long as you are after Karma rather than loot, you can do enough to get gold contribution and leave.

I often do this when many DEs have spawned, instead of trying to complete them all I try to contribute enough in them all to get gold credit.

If in group, they can call target and pressing T will target the called target.

If not, I can clearly see where the mobs are by their names in your screenie, tab targetting would be no challenge in that situation.

Valca.1234:

@Logan
I agree that shared rewards are a positive thing. Never liked it in previous MMOs, people either party up to share the rewards or don’t and some even spontaneously throw derogatory remarks just because they got the mob.

Umbra.5180:

I must be antisocial.

Since I always decline guild invites that happen without a simple Hello..

Same with group invites from players I’ve never seen on screen and I look around, each time.

I believe these are the kind of habits that we should attempt to eliminate. Although I’m not sure what drives the mass of the people to reject invites besides being busy, not interested,being invited into a guild that you know mainly speak in a foreign language or just want to play alone all the way which is weird to me since it is a MMORPG and not an RPG, unless you bought an MMO just so you can show off things to people you obtained by playing solo.

For me, I usually accept group invites and often, they are people who were close by and have a DE that they required help in or they found the way to the puzzle and such. If it was some bullocks I’ll just leave the party then. I know I can just look for puzzles on the .net but that kinda dulled the feeling of finding it.

For guild invites, how I perceive it for those guilds inviting without chatting first is that those who invite usually are hesitant of opening up first especially towards a specific person even when its just through whispers. Based on my past experiences I believe that it demoralises the person to continue recruiting when no response is given although not substantial and even unnoticeable at first.

Finally, I agree that voice chat are becoming more of the way to go since it is accessible while in combat although it does require purchase of peripherals and setting it up for which most casuals won’t want to do.

It’s not anti-social to expect some form of communication prior to a guild invite. It’s perfectly acceptable.

As for casuals who cannot afford / be bothered to take a few minutes and a tiny amount of whatever their local currency is for a cheap headset – that’s their choice.

If someone wants to invite me all they need to do is ask if I want to join their party. If that is too much then why would I even want to group with them? Given that the only benefit of a group is an extra chat channel I’m not interested in someone who doesn’t chat.

roqoco.4053:

caveat emptor – you have to take at least some responsibility for what you do. The fact that a face to face trading system doesn’t exist should tell you that you aren’t meant to trade that way. If you choose to ignore that, then you do so at your own risk and shouldn’t expect someone else to sort it out for you. I am sure that Arenanet support have enough things to do without following you around and recovering any money that you drop on the pavement.

Except, isn’t the mail system specifically designed to let you mail items / gold to other people but not to yourself? I recall having to send gold to a 3rd party who would then send it back to me so I could get the gold on my alt.

When only looking at a single aspect of the game, like the number of enemies hit by the basic attack, you could be disappointed by any class.

What they could do is alter the mail slightly.

If you could choose to send or ask for cash then you could mail an item while asking for 100g. If the person accepts he gets the item and automatically sends 100g via another mail.

COD (Cash On Delivery) has been in other MMO mail systems and worked well. For the user it just means 1 extra control allowing them to change “send gold” to “request gold” (or whatever they choose to call the options).

Didn’t particularly like the medium armours of any of the orders.

But I chose Whispers in the end.

Agent Mulder.4531:

There are dozens of jump puzzles in the game, you can find them on wiki I think. You can try to do dungeons too.

That’s about it

As a group, racing to see who can do a hard jumping puzzle first can be lots of fun

Brings you back to your old platformer days.

roqoco.4053:

There was (probably still is) a feature in Rift where players could group up without asking and invitations. All you need to do is click on an individual or existing group and join up. If you aren’t interested in grouping you can just set your private flag. That was something that worked pretty well. Warhammer had public groups too and they worked well. What you don’t want though in PvE is huge zerg groups forming, of course (Warhammer groups were unlimited or at least very large).

But this would give no advantage in GW2.

The only noticeable difference between a 3 players working together and 3 players working together in a group is that one has access to the /group channel.

There may also be a difference in guild rewards, the tooltip of it (I forget, is it karma at the guild level or something else?) seems to imply that guildies grouping up will increase the rate at which you get it.

My hound is called “Scooby Doo”, my feline is “Mr. Bigglesworth” and my bear is “Yogi”.

Oh and my shark is "Shark"y (as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharky_%26_George – I assume the rest of the references are common enough to not need explaining)

I’ll be aiming for the underboob-showing human medium tier 3 cultural armour: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Divinity-Scout-Tier-3.png

Agent Mulder.4531:

Can anyone explain why there’s a tax in this game?

Cash sink.

Same reason that level 80’s are forced to spend their currency on repairs and waypoints cost more as you level up, to try to stop people (especially level 80s) accumulating millions of gold.

The tax pays for a secure trading method though.

Personally, I hope you cannot because I can’t see how “going back on your word” should be something that devs involve themselves in.

However, I expect they will set something up if it becomes a frequent issue to stop people complaining.

HawkMeister.4758:

Yeah, groups are pretty much useless here.

And the game isn´t helping either.
Just like in any other MMO you have to create your own group chan by hand and it actually hinders you in communicating with the rest of “the Zerg”.

This is one design idea that should´ve simply been killed of or actually upgraded in some useful way. Instead to just coping it over from their old game.

How is my communication hindered by joining a group?

It takes less than a second to type "/s " or "/g " to change channels, if that’s what you are talking about I see it as a non-issue.

I think you are basically right (although 1. and 4. are often the same thing) but sometimes the mob will agro someone else and while you have not met any of these conditions, the person who took agro might be on another level, etc.

Doesn’t matter what the legal position is.

GW2 is not public property. it’s privately owned and the owner decides what’s acceptable.

It’s like when I see posts about lack of free speech on a privately owned forum…

Works fine in Chrome, the only browser I have tried it in.

I don’t see why not, as long as it’s clear that it’s ingame currency.

Perhaps the mod speed-read the post and thought you meant RL cash.

Using a <80 transmute stone, I thought both original items disappear and a single item with the combined stats / model appear?

Meaning he would have to buy a new set of armour with the model that he likes and use up 6 transmute stones each time he changes his armour.

What you have to keep in mind is that there is limited use in grouping.

Without grouping you still get xp from joint kills, buffs tend to be AoE rather than group-based, etc.

When people have to lie and exaggerate to try to get people on their side (like claiming that every single person is complaining) you can see how serious a problem it really is…

Not grouped = unsocial?

Since when?

Refusing to group, that could be unsocial. But simply not being in one at this moment in time?

chumppi.2814:

Jestunhi, what negatives!? The reasons the OP gave are, like pointed out by many in this thread, “not very good answers”. Using that term so my post wont get removed.

Do you think that some people should be able to see around corners while others cannot?

Does that sound like a positive, balance-improving change?

Perhaps it doesn’t matter in PvE, but in PvP it sure does.

:edit:

If they tie model rendering to line of sight to remove any unfair advantage gained by FoV, I have no problem with allowing it to be alterable.

chumppi.2814:

@Jestunhi You can’t argue against a FoV of at least 90.

Really, why not?

Your post isn’t exactly full of reasons why it would be an improvement and explanations on how the negatives caused by the change could be negated.

The FOV debate is balance vs. preference.

Letting it be changed means balance suffers, people who choose the warped, fish-eye view will see around corners, etc.

Keeping it the same will mean you will get militant forum posters stating that the FOV is the sole thing which they consider when deciding if they should play a game, and they will try to convince you that everyone they know bases their choices on the same thing too.

Personally, I think balance trumps a few forum threats.

I bet it would look better on my human female. :P

Seriously?

“Worst grouping support” because there is a limit to group sizes?

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

Jestunhi.7429:

So, after carefuly checking the TP before vendoring each item I now need to check the prices at 85% of listed value vs. the vendor price?

…

Or go to tpcalc.com

Input what you bought the item at and desired sell price… bam – you now know how much profit your making.

Not quite as quick as comparing the value on the tooltip to the value on the TP window though.

I’ll just go back to vendoring anything that wouldn’t fetch a significant profit if I listed it on the TP instead.

So, after carefuly checking the TP before vendoring each item I now need to check the prices at 85% of listed value vs. the vendor price?

…

However, if you have 2 weapons which give the same charge in the same weapon set (i.e. without changing) you can get 2 stacks per kill. Same 25 stack limit, but twice as quick.

I didn’t realize this when I tried it, I hoped to double the cap. :p

lothefallen.7081:

I don’t like the Guardian options either, they seem to be disjointed from how the game plays. The tomes don’t really function within the trait builds well and other skills on most bars. The healing one is out of place because healing is marginalized to a blanket feature in this game. It seems that the most objectively useful utilities are the spirit weapons, so ive built around them. The options feel very shallow, so im pretty much stuck with the invulnerability elite. Even then, cool downs kill the usage of the skill. The class mechanics just create homogenous, passive effects that you really can’t SEE helping your teammates. I’d like a load more options for utilities and elites when they release the next expansion. I’d like an elite spirit staff that auto’d AoE flames.

You’re a class with loads of buffs in the form of shouts, combo fields, etc. But you use spirit weapons for dps and complain that it doesn’t seem like you are helping your teammates?

You’ve gone for a the pure DPS spec and avoided just about all of the PBAoE / ground target buff skills!

Generally, the best bet to find other players at this point is the place where leveling is best.

That means the zones with a good group of dynamic events close together which spawn frequently. This gives good xp and lots of loot (as long as the anti-botting code doesn’t kick in).

I’ve got from 44 to 54 in just 2 small areas of 2 maps because they have a high spawn rate of DEs close to one another or in a chain.

tolunart.2095:

“Source for this data?”

Observation and estimation, not scientific research.

No need for scientific research, I was wondering if you had a link to a forum member list or something similar (I’ve not seen one for this forum).

But it’s now clear that your arguement that it’s more likely to be done via hacking because only a few hundred people are registered on the forum appears to be based on complete guesswork.

You in fact don’t know how many people are on the forum, nor how many people are receiving the gold spam.

For Faux Sake.8457:

Dang. Id accept the crit=base(1.5+crit dmg %) if it was actually like that consistently.

At a chance, based on critical chance (player statistic) and other modifiers (like the Fury boon), a normal hit may become a critical hit, which results in a damage multiplier of minimum ×1.5 (plus Prowess). It is currently unknown if there is a cap to this damage multiplier.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage#...from_critical_hits

So:
Damage * (1.5 + Prowess) = Crit Damage

:edit:

Not sure exactly how prowess is stored, whether it’s a decimal, a percentage, or a larger figure which needs to be divided first, etc.

Maybe 1 more is needed?

:edit:

Fixed!

Not just time to kill, but damage too.

As the quality of loot is effected by how much of the damage you did to a mob (or so I read, should be simple enough to test by equipping a lvl 1 weapon and comparing with a level-appropriate weapon – but for much more than 50 kills!)

I think this post will fix it!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Would-you-pay-for-a-Baby-Quaggen/page/1

It’s incorrectly trying to access page 2 – a couple more posts in the thread should create the 2nd page properly.

:edit:

Added a few posts to fix it.

This seems to happen sometimes when a thread reaches the limit of a page…

Post added to display 2nd page

For Faux Sake.8457:

Did you find anything else on critical ccalculations as well Jestunhi?

Nope, sorry. I happened across that link when looking into how to balance toughness vs vitality, but I don’t see anything on crit damage on that forum.

tolunart.2095:

Jestunhi.7429:

Or they just saw “tolunart.2095” on these forums?

Occam’s razor.

“Usually” the best answer is not necessarily the correct answer.

Nor is it necessarily the wrong answer.

But if you wanted to get a list of account names to mail, would you develop an application to slip past whatever anti-hacking software is used in GW2 when you could just get them fropm this forum with no risk and considerably less effort?

:edit:

Re: your edit

“hundreds” of people?

Source for this data?

Oxnan.2459:

As far as I know… there is no difference between light/med/heavy armor in dmg calculation other than the simple fact that lighter armor has less armor on it… they don’t follow any special rules…

Agreed:

(P + M * 35) * WS * SC / (T + D) = Total Damage

P = Power, M = Might Stacks, WS = Weapon Strength, SC = Skill Coefficient, T = Toughness, D = defense

Source: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60838-math-damage-reduction-toughness-and-vitality/

Or they just saw “tolunart.2095” on these forums?

Occam’s razor.

Dopplegangr.9678:

tolunart.2095:

“I don’t play X any more” does not mean death. It means you choose to spend your money elsewhere. How many MMOs have actually shut down all their servers and closed up within six months of release? A year?

I’d say pretty much every MMO besides WoW is dead. I don’t know anyone that still plays AoC, Rift, Aion, Tera, SWTOR, etc. I’m guessing the same will be true for GW2 soon.

I’d say that a playerbase the size of WoW’s comes with increased costs for support staff, server hardware, bandwidth, etc, etc.

And once you realise this, you see that simply having the highest population is not the only factor. A game has to be profitable to survive, not have the biggest playerbase.