Guild Wars 2

FOV for me is fine. Its the camera distance which is VERY annoying. You should be able to pull it back further. I understand about performance issues, but you don’t HAVE to pull it out all the way. That being said, the game plays VERY badly in mass WvW and DEs now. Allowing even more players on screen that I can’t even see, because they’re not being drawn in, would just add fuel to the annoying fire.

Its mostly the writing and characters. Its just not all that memorable. I watched it all, but I was barely paying attention in the later sections when its supposed to be epic.

It had its moments, but overall, its nothing memorable or special. For a MMO, its pretty good, but that’s not saying much. Kinda hard to go from Dragon Age or Mass Effect to this.

Like WOW did in 2004, GW2 takes a lot of good borrowed, adds in some of their own and wraps it up very nicely. Is that a bad thing? Certainly not.

The thing that stood out most as “fresh” is the lvl scaling, TP from anywhere, map completion design, and the nice edge graphic around the screen. Not competing for nodes or exp is also a nice touch.

Are dynamic events really dynamic? You can control the outcome, but in the end does the outcome matter all that much? Not really? Are the Karma items worth it compared to stuff on the TP? Nope. Will you care once you leave the zone? Not at all. Are they fun, yes, when they work. Did I do them in WAR and Rift? Yep I did. Are they better in GW2? A little bit.

The skills tied to weapons is different, but I don’t think it makes MMOs better at all. Neither does limiting everything to cool-downs instead of magic/enery pools. Limiting you to 10 active skills is also a step back as far as I’m concerned. Removing any real CC, healing or tanking is also a step back. You have far less control over a fight and NPCs just seem to act randomly and they do. There is no defined way to really KNOW what an NPC is going to do, which makes battle hectic and zerg-like.

AOE is also completely out of hand since everyone gets it. Spell effects are also too over the top. Works great in small groups or soloing. Its a complete disaster when 10+ players are in one spot. You simply can NOT see whats going on, which points back to how battles lose all their strategy, since if you can’t know exactly whats happening, you’re guessing too much. Maybe some people think guessing is strategy. I don’t.

DOTS are also way out of hand. Everyone should not have access to them. The same class should not have access to high dots and high DD, at least not at the same time. Its unbalanced. This goes back to how hectic and dissorganized battles can be.

As far as skill/spell combos…sorry I did those back in Phantasy Star 4 on the Genesis in 1994. When 2 characters cast a spell/skill at the same time, you get a new spell/skill. It was actually better back then because it was entirely new and unique, not just an extra effect added on. Its still nice to see them in a MMO though.

Oh yeah, the cities are also overly large for NO reason at all. Much of it for map objectives, but still its vast areas with NO PLAYERS. That says a lot. Its wasted space. Luckily you can warp around for free, but then you’re hitting loading screens, which is BAAAAAD. SPeaking a loading screens, there are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many. This is a MMO not a single player game. I shouldn’t be hitting loading screens between zones. Sorry. Blizzard did it, so ANET should be able to do it. DAOC sort of did it and the zone lines weren’t even defined, compared to little paths between the mountains. It breaks immersion and reminds you this is NOT 1 big world, just a bunch of zones slapped together with no real thought as to how they connect, like WAR. No synergy.

Oh well there’s more, but it would be a book=) Compared to WOW, I saw far more good things added back then, because what Blizzard removed were things I disliked in the first place. Everything they added made MMOs more fun. ANET added a few features, but they took away a lot of what I thought was good and replaced it with mostly inferior systems. OH well.

Edit: The Trading post NEEDS a filter by armor type, Light Med, Heavy… please. Sure, I can sift through everything, but why should I have to. If you made head, shoulders, boots, why not ONLY light Armor? Nah, thats too easy=)

Corian.4068:

Sunju.8310:

No, I gambled with my money when I paid for their product.

If you gambled you didn’t do enough research. Something I suspect a great many people who are unhappy with GW2 are guilty of, actually.

Would research have shown that in WvW you can’t see 1/2 the player in front of you? Same with large scale DE’s. They didn’t tell us their engine renders large numbers of players like a 15 yr old game…check that…some older MMOs were able to show a lot more player on screen=) How about the Necro still having more bugs than many classes combined? That wasn’t on the back of the box. 1 month ago, did ANET tell us they would make it SLOOOOOOOOOOOOW to gain any sort of Karma and drops due to the gold farmers? How about the hackers warping to places they shouldn’t?
They also didn’t advertise that a casual player would be able to max out their level in just about a month….fairly lame.

I’ll congratulate them on making a game that at least compares with WOW on a fun factor level at times. I’ll give them that. At least they succeeded where many have failed since 04. Its a fun MMO, but there are major problems still. If they didn’t hinder my gameplay I probably wouldn’t care either.

I already paid them. That was my thank you. My next thank you will be whether I bother buying an expansion. If they don’t fix what I expect them to fix within the next month, they won’t see any more money from me, because I just paid to beta test their game for them, something I thought I already did for them.

The reason its still a beta test is because major sections of their game are unplayable due to tech problems an their end, including WvW, many high level DEs along with all the caps on any progression after 80. If they expected us to just grind at 80 oe reroll, they should of flat out said it….

And yes, I’ve beta tested and played most major MMO releases since the late 90s, so I know about the whole new release “thing”. I just can’t tolerate it now as much as I used to, since I figured developers learn from others, instead of making some of the exact same mistakes over and over again. I think many people just don’t have the patience any more, sad to say, not that I should have to need patience to expect a working game=)

Last night I used Lich a few times and I had to turn on auto-attack every time.

A Volcano.2510:

If you don’t enjoy it, don’t play it.

I like how tanky it is…I was just in that lvl 80 Orr zone around the temple of Grenth and soloing a ridiculous number (like 10 guys) of mobs at a time. And you can just keep doing it because you have so many “get out of jail free cards”…Death Shroud, Plague form, 4 wells that siphon health, etc. By the time one is on cooldown some other one isn’t, and you can just rotate them.

I just played another class (low lvl engineer if you must know) and I was startled that a mere couple mobs can make a dent in my health bar. That hasn’t happened with necro (outside of dungeon mobs obviously or champions—although I have solo’d a couple of champions) in a long time.

But if you don’t enjoy it then don’t play it. The bugs are getting fixed slowly though, so if that is your major concern I wouldn’t worry about things.

Edit: Build is 10 death, 30 blood, 30 soul and use dagger/horn + staff if anyone cares. Full clerics/dwayna sets and heal gear.

Sounds like you’re a damage sponge that hits back like a wet noodle. Good job though, being creative=)

Its one of those changes that makes you scratch your head. Instead of FIXING obvious bugs like pet UI/pathing/healing, they go and change a skill that nobody thought was a problem and “fix” a skill that was our ace in the hole. Why don’t they just limit the number of targets Epidemic hits while they’re at it, because THAT would be important=)

TBH, we should get power AND LF, so its actually useful in PvE and PvP. Nah, that would be so OP.

So yeah, it changed my feelings. It showed their priorities are FUBAR.

Seems like another bug in a long list of EASY to fix bugs. I have to control/right click to turn on autoattack everytime I use it. VERY annoying. Did they forget or is it another knife to the gut to annoy us=)

Just wish rewards for map completion were tuned to your class. Its just not all that much fun getting something you have to sell. They might as well just give you the coin, since I’ve never received anything from any map completion that I was able to use and I’ve completed every zone I’ve leveled in. Just vendor or TP trash. Why are story rewards tied to your class, but map rewards aren’t? Makes no sense. The code is there. It takes no real effort to tune it. Since almost every MMO since 2004 has tuned rewards to your character, it doesn’t make sense why ANet would do something that adds NOTHING to the fun of “winning”. Yeah, more gold…big whoop really.

Just did a DE at the Cathedral of Glorious victory. It wasn’t glorious and there was no victory. Why? Because even with loads of people there, we barely made a dent in that Champion. Apparently there are mobs that heal the thing, but since you can’t even see what you’re attacking, its sort of hard…check that…LAME as hell. Better yet, you can’t avoid anything because he just pops on top of you then you die in 1 hit. I’d say maybe 30 people were there, but maybe more, hard to count when players are popping in and out of view and there are so many spell effects going off at once, its just a complete, utter mess.

Sorry, but if this is what I saw in WvW and why I never bothered going back…players I couldn’t see…enemies I couldn’t see, then I could, then I couldn’t. This engine is HORRIBLE at what it should be great at…large scale events. If this doesn’t get fixed quick, I’ll be avoiding all large scale events because I just can’t tolerate it.

I thought maybe turning my graphics down to lowest would help. Nope. Still couldn’t see 1/2 of what was going on and everything just looked terrible as well=) No performance boost to speak of and my box can handle it. Or, do you need a 10K gaming rig to run the GW2 endgame=)

I’ve heard people call DE’s easy….just zerg the targets down. What? I think there was a pretty massive zerg and it didn’t mean squat….unless the whole encounter is bugged and we’re just a bunch of idiots smacking a brick wall with a wet noodle?

Haven’t seen this sort of issue yet. I’ll always try to res someone as long as its not an obvious death for me;)

Punny.9210:

Since everyone plays PvE, probably most, why should we suffer for it?

Where did u get this one from ? loool

i dont have a 80 necro yet but im working on it as my 3rd 80s char. i like playing a hard class

We wouldn’t be all that hard to play if our abilities were balanced, minions had proper AI and our trait lines made sense and of course worked as intended…sort of like most other classes=) I’d be laughing too.

Corpus.5347:

I agree, necro’s need something like ‘disease’ or a ghostly/spectral fire damage type. confusion is pretty heavily associated with mesmers, i’d like to see a new DoT type associated with necros.

Agreed. If we had a unique DOT damage type, there would be no problem with stack limitations, besides bleeds.

For example, recently I’ve run that 3 part DE chain in Straits of Devastation that pops constantly a bunch of times and always get Gold, using wells, marks, epidemic & life transfer. You’re juggling your whole skill set, which means EVERYTHING, but you’re hitting everything as well. Lots of players there essentially farming the thing since you get around 1000 karma each round.

Ergo Proxy.6219:

Honestly I think the community needs to get pasts its “I’m a necromancer, all I can do is spam conditions” mentality.

Considering its our strength, what is the alternative? Minions?? Read up on how substandard they are with too little hps and wonky AI.

After that all we have is a DS build and frankly, most people don’t find it all that much fun and more effective in PvP than PvE. Since everyone plays PvE, probably most, why should we suffer for it?

Don’t make excuses for Anets faults. They’ve screwed up. They know it and all they’ve given us is a “learn to DS” and “we know there are issues”. Yeah, thanks=) I know how to DS fairly well thank you…now fix minion AI and their effectiveness and all our broken traits/skills.

As a Necro, my wells don’t work underwater, so with my build I lose a ton of effectiveness. I have to break out my minions which as everyone knows, do jack squat if they’re not traited. And they despawn if you pop out of the water, so you have to wait another 30sec to cast them again. REALLY ? The fact some classes have great underwater skills and other don’t is just another in a long list of “WTF Anet”?

So, lost effectiveness underwater+ invulnerability bug+crazy respawns=not a fun experience. It COULD be fun under there but its not. Prefer WOW where your character plays the same but you just have access to the Z access. Intuitive, effective, fun change of pace, but not an entirely new battle system.

“Level 80 Minion Master here; did my 100% completion thing without any real complications. I was usually able to run through a crouded area with them ridiculous respawns.
I see how it causes problems for other classes, though.”

You think running through a zone with a train is working as intended? I know that tactic as well and as long as mobs don’t have any sort of root, you can outrun them for the most part. But is that by design? I sure as kitten hope not.

If right after you kill a few mobs, then look behind you and they’re already back...the spawn rate is waaaaaay too fast.

Maybe if there are loads of players, a spawn rate can be that high, but if theres no one else around, it’s completely out of whack. You shouldn’t have to even think about a mob you just killed literally spawning back before a fight ends, because 2 others spawned mid fight.

I’ve only noticed this being a problem in the 70+ lvl zones. Sorry but plenty of other MMos never had problems with spawn rates except in dungeons. It was never really an issue in the last few I’ve played. N sure why it’s an issue here. Just seems like a case of developers never actually playing in the zones, since you’d know in about 5 minutes that something was very wrong.

If there were no underwater areas, I wouldn’t miss them at all…if that answers the questions. Wow did it better….sorry.

I would’ve rather had classes that were balanced and had working trait lines or DEs that worked or FAAR more interesting dungeons than underwater areas I mostly dread going to.

Do other classes have the same issue? Are Mesmer clones or whatever their class defining ability is, not that great unless you specifically tune your build specifically for them?

Just like our minions…only really useful if you actually specialize in them. Otherwise, most are useless.

Is this fair at all or am I way off mark?

…and barely any real fixes since release. We’re the most broken and least paid attention to.

I think they didn’t really plan very well when they gave classes with superior DD also the ability to stack bleeds like crazy as well. Maybe they thought we don’t want to be like other MMOs. Well, the reason other MMOs do that is because it works. I see Gw2 trying to reinvent the wheel in certain areas and they’re mostly failing at it. Far too much AOE and dots from all classes. In beta I noticed this to a be a problem and it’s come true.

Yah, they might as well say don’t bother soloing once you hit 80. Although, every time I’ve ever died leveling was always due to the spawn rate. Mobs dropping right on top of you. Sort of lame.

The odds of finding a useful random drop is almost nill. I’m lucky to find a drop that’s even my lvl, much less has the stats I want. I find more heavy armor and swords on my Necro a nd I find more light armor on my Guardian. I think it’s almost a sick joke Anet is playing. Instead of writing code to steer class relevant drops in your favor they actually stack the odds against you. NOT cool.

Adding another condition doesn’t add problems exactly since its just another “type”. It would help greatly with the stacking issue. All the condition, dot stocks in this game are completely out of hand in the first place. It’s another mini game within the game that mostly adds unneeded complexity to the damage system. It just seemed they tried so hard to be different, but in the end it’s really not better at all.

You can buy Rare sets and weapons for a reasonable price from the TP or craft your own. That’s about it. Then again, the reward is simply playing the game…so they tell us. In part it’s true, just playing has been rewarding since the pace is so fast, buying new skills, ect. By the reward system is fairly unimpressive.

For some gems, sure why not. It’ll be in there once important matters are taken care of. Bet on it.

Karma prices are completely over the top, since you have to grind A LOT to afford anything on the way to 80. Whats the point in spending all your Karma you’ve gathered by 40 on a weapon that will be obsolete by 50? Since you level pretty quickly, the balance is completely out of whack. Rare weapons on the TP are far more reasonable and just as good. I was easily able to afford full sets of rare armor at 40, 50, & 60. Haven’t seen any lvl 70 armor that I want, so I’ll ride it out until 80. Same with weapons. Every 10 or so levels I can buy a staff, scepter and dagger easily with money I make from gathering or vendor trash. I have around 5G now approaching 80 and that’s piddly for what I’ve seen some stuff go for on the TP.

Karma costs are far too extreme to be of any use until 80. I really can’t imagine how long they expected people to grind DEs to all that karma. Even at 80, how many weeks of doing the same DEs is fun? There are some that repeat far more than others, so those are the obvious ones to do. Looking at how many dungeon runs you have to do just to get 1 set, it seems mind boggling.

phamtrinli.6425:

I just can’t bring myself to weigh in on a discussion about necromancer balance until all of our skills actually work the way they were supposed to in the first place (bug fixes)

You might not be commenting for a while then=)

I’ve never had any issue in PvE yet…lvl 71. Screpter/dagger & Staff, lets you take on 3+ mobs a few levels above you and blast them with conditions. You just have to juggle weapons to make the best use of bleeds. Minions are mostly a waste except in certain situations. Started using the worm for taking on veterans/skill challenges. Pumps out decent dps when AOE is useless.

PvP seems like a cluster atm. Waiting until I get to 80 to really delve into it, hoping as many bugs will be fixed as possible before I get there.

We certainly do NOT suck in PvE. Sure, some other class can hit 2 buttons and do sort of the same thing as all10 for us…but…thats the life of the necro. You can’t /faceroll the keyboard and do well like some other classes. It keeps your brain active at least=)

I watched a Ranger for a little bit and thought how boring it was to be using the same attacks over and over again. Send in pet, pew, pew, pew…dead mob. Rinse repeat. I would quit if thats all the game was.

I use it for traveling now. Never bothered with it before. Seemed like one of those, “what were they thinking” skills. Now, combined with the horn, we have a perma 33% speed boost for getting around. Its actually, gasp….USEFUL. Whoops, now that we like it, Anet will just nerf it again, because we’re not allowed to have working skills=)

Working minions would at least give the Necro 2 VERY different styles of play. Conditions or Minions master. Once we have a true viable siphon/evil leach vampire style fo play, you could say the class is “fixed”. IMHO

Having them siphon health off the dead instead of self healing is a nice compromise and fits with t he lore perfectly…makes sense. Little demon that spawns when something dies, why not feast on death around it.

I initially chose the Necro because of all the minions. I never played a class like this in any MMO and wanted to try something different. It certainly didn’t take long to see how messed up most of our pets are, which was a BIG let down. Die too quick, agro the wrong targets or don’t work much at all. Flesh Golem and Worm are the only ones I bother with now and gaain, unless I’m underwater.

Dorn.5867:

I’ve recently started a necromancer and I can’t for the unlife of me understand why it doesn’t heal after the fight is over, why it draws so much aggro. I’ve seen mobs target it even before it attacked them despite the fact that I’ve just hit them with everything I’ve got. Why does it have some super taunt? When I tried one in beta it was also much more resilient. Now it drops in about 3 attacks.

One of many nerfs in BE2 I recall. Necros went from a very strong class(ability-wise) to the bottom in BE3. We were strong and the overdid it….and now we are what we are.

I do very well in PvE by the way, but I squeeze every bit of juice out of him. I use everything. Compared to a Guardian or Ranger, who can do what I do barely having to think its sort of depressing. On a side note, I’ve found it almost boring to play other classes after my Necro, because you truly don’t have to think all that much to do well. I hate using /faceroll but it really is. 2 or 3 skills on other classes can accomplish what our entire arsenal can do…the question is why?

Dorn.5867:

As a side note, I’d imagine if you went on each professions board you’ll see posts like this. “My class sucks, X class can do what I do only better”. Grass is greener syndrome if you ask me.

I’ve gone to the other boards and only Elem have a similar number of complaints, which is deserving. Complaints from Warriors, Guardians or Thieves for example are utter whine fests. They don’t truly understand what broken traits and skills mean=)

Fear, for example. Other classes have better FEAR abilities than we do. How is that possible, seriously? How could the game get out of beta with FEAR for Necros being so underutilized. What? Knock downs as an example, serve the same exact function and other classes have plenty of them.

Yes, the well heals, but its also on a long cooldown. So we have to sit around in one spot and wait for our minions to heal up after every fight? Might as well dismiss and re summon. Takes the same amount of time=)

All I can imagine is whoever the lead is didn’t actually play a Necro for any length of time to easily spot all the obvious annoyances or their testers were horrible or they simply don’t care enough about the class to fix the obvious flaws. I’m betting #3.

It just makes no sense that the Flesh Golem heals itself while the other don’t. Its so simple and no one will complain because in PvP it really means didly squat. They’re still going down fast, but at least give them a fighting chance=)

Knockdowns you can’t avoid because they’re instant, is sort of lame. Otherwise, the concept I like. The fact the not all classes have access to them is a bit unfair.

Worth the money, but its just too fast a ride. Playing just a couple of hours a night, I didn’t expect to be max lvl in around a month. The dungeons are WAAAAAY too much of a grind after seeing them once. The rewards aren’t worth doing them 50 times. WvW in its current zergy state doesn’t seem like more than a few nights worth of entertainment. I can’t PvP for more than a few days either, since the same maps get boring quick. I’ll reroll another character once I hit 80 pretty soon and mess around in PvP for a week. Hopefully I can get another month out of the new character. Otherwise, thats pretty lame overall for an MMO.

Although, I haven’t lasted more than a month in any MMO since 04-05 and WOW. So at least Anet made a MMO I actually liked, as brief as it will probably be. Can’t say that for anything else released online the past 8 years. Back to single player PC games and Xbox=)

We’re not allowed to have any abilities that are as good as a Mesmer, didn’t you know?

Who needs a staff when we just need to master DS and be better than everyone? Kidding….sort=) Our staff attack should be as fast as anyone elses long range attack. Why its slower is just another slap in the face. I’d love to hear a developer claim it would be overpowered if it was actually as fast as a bow, considering we have such MIGHTY DD abilities…snicker.

cerulean moth.2743:

I’d love it if they’d just make it significantly more tough and leave it the way it is healing wise. If it’s a chore for players in PvP to knock down, it would actually play a purpose for a minion master. Right now, it’s a balloon that’s popped far too quickly to do anything of worth.

Also a good suggestion. It should be a lot more durable. It dies fast enough in PvE, and in PvP it is a joke . Nothing suggested by anyone would really unbalance us at all. Its just another poorly thought out skill in a long list of poorly thought out skills=)

They just didn’t test it long enough to really understand its usefulness. To fix it, all they have to do is have it automatically heal you when it dies. So at least you always get the benefit even if its not at an ideal time. Obviously let us sacrifice it at our leisure so its actually useful. Hard to see how this would imbalance anything in PvE and would make it actually useful in PvP since it gets nuked and killed too fast as it is.

We need a bigger DD ability for DE’s essentially. If everything I’ve been reading is true that once you hit 80, its overly difficult to score gold because EVERY other class has much higher DD than us, it should be fixed asap. What good is a 20 sec bleed if it only ticks once or twice and the mob dies or our bleeds don’t even register because everyone else stacks bleeds AND better DD, filling up the cap? Its a massive oversight that should’ve been handled in early beta, not ignored for what could be, months, far longer than most normal players will even stick with this class.

Or just change the code on DEs to just read “hits” not damage. Then all our bleeds and conditions will register as high as anyone else. Basically, if you’re there for over the 1/2 the fight, you’ll get gold, as it should be.

They should all heal like the Flesh Golem. Why does it heal “properly” while the others don’t? Not the I use minions all that much, BECAUSE of this exact reason and the crappy AI.

To those saying they did it in GW1 so it works the way it works…GW1 was essentially a lobby PvP game with a linear on-rails, mostly boring PvE world tacked on. GW2 is a real MMO. Comparing them is sort of stupid at this point.

Having to re-summon some of the minions because they’re at 2% hps at the end of a fight, then wait 30+ secs to resummon them, is just a mindless annoying bump in the road that gets worse the longer you play. The more time that goes on, you can’t comprehend why exactly Anet would do it. Just tokitten us off? How are Mesmer Illusions so much smarter and more usable than our minions? Its much like how the AI for Ranger pets works the way its supposed to and ours is screwed up. Shouldn’t it be the same code? Hello!!! How hard is that? Just let us set them all on aggressive or defensive stance so they attack anything within range or only what we’re targeting. Stick it on the control/right click like autoattack and let us cycle between the 2 modes? SIMPLE!!! My ranger pet does it, why shouldn’t a minion? Hello??

The problem is the concept of major damage coming from bleeds. Bleeds should just be a little something extra, not your main source of dmg. The system is broken at the core.

Just compare dmg of thieves vs necros. Thought everyone was supposed to be equal, just different?

forrae.6708:

to some extent, i really feel as if necro was supposed to be a more supportive class, providing some healing, dispelling debuffs, converting debuffs into buffs, providing combo fields and keeping conditions stacked. now i really havent been playing for too long now, but the more i look at it, the more that it feels like a supportive class.

yes, there are bugs. a lot of them. not enough to make the class unplayable, but more than a fair share.
i find it fun just to kite things around seeing as necro does have some decent control abilities. and it really is pretty hilarious standing in a well of power and watching every debuff thrown at you get turned into a buff..

From a solo perspective I like the Necro. Too bad there is no such role as “support” in groups, when you compare it with other MMOs that truly have supportive classes. Classes here are just a bunch of people playing alongside each other, with no real synergy that a healer/tank/dps/CC system provides. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from my month in GW2 and playing MMOs for more than a decade.

Yes, our wells can play good support, but our heals are worthless in groups when you add up the numbers. Add in the long cooldowns and the system breaks down completely since you’re mostly waiting around a lot for your next support skill to come up…sort of lame compared to having a pool of magic you can burst to provide healing, damage mitigation, buffs, ect.

Pirlipat.2479:

Josher.9612:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I don’t understand the whole we don’t want it argument.

If it’s players, how is it affecting you negatively, esp. if the gear is confined to the PvE realm?

If it’s the devs, how does this ruin your game precisely other than not fitting into your philosophy (which is a guiding principal, not a mandate)?

In terms of the actual treadmill part, does it have to follow the “oh I gotta do Dungeon A and gear in it to be able to do Dungeon B and so on….” or is there another way?

Say you have an “elite path” in each dungeon with the reward being a specialized token at the end; this path is real tough and requires players to really understand the game mechanics, their class, and the synergies with other classes. You need X of these tokens to get the top tier gear… but unlike the other dungeon sets, it’s all scattered about so you have to go to all sorts of different dungeons to make up the full set. Does it have to be token-based? No, whatever might work best, I just used it as an example because it’s familiar. The entry requirement for “elite path”? Nothing more than what it takes to get into the explorable mode for that dungeon… if you and your group have the skill and determination, you can get it.

Exactly. If its a tough challenge that’s not “cheap” and you don’t have to do it 40 times, how is that NOT a good thing? I’ll spend the time learning a tough encounter as long as I don’t have to do it again and again. Most of my friends are the same.

But thats rather about asking for a challenge to gain a reward and not about the reward itself.

The challenge isn’t worth akittenif the reward stinks too….in MMO terms. Maybe its a mindset, but I don’t treat MMOs like single player RPGs. Then again, if I got a great story, a cinematic ending, ect like in a single player game, the challenge would be enough. Winning the game is the reward, but you can’t beat a MMO. If Anet’s idea of winning GW2 is grinding for skins for months until the next expansion, that’s a lame ending or rather a lame endgame, in MMO terms=)

Cloesd.3025:

Say I were to drop an Ethereal Combo field via Chaos storm.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chaos_Storm

Then someone were to use a blast finisher, to give AOE chaos armor:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chaos_Armor

This essentially means these effects are happening:

• You gain Swiftness
• You gain retaliation
• You gain Aegis (Avoids one attack)

Ontop of this you gain Chaos armor:
Which upon being hit gives you:

• Protection (33% damage reduction)
• Regeneration (390~ HP heal).
• Swiftness again.

Enemies that hit you get:

• Blindness
• Cripplied
• Chilled
• Weakness

All in all this combo field means that:

You move 33% faster, You reflect damage, block hits every few seconds, all hits that aren’t blocked are reduced by 33%, You heal 390 damage.

• The enemy is slowed by 50%
• Chilled so it’s speed decreases by 66% more
• It will miss it’s next attack (which you will avoid with aegis anyway)
• Any attacks it does land will do 50% damage, (further reduced by 33% due to protection).
• Finally the enemy will damage themselves due to confusion.

Overkill? Overly Complicated?

Couldn’t it simply be the target can’t attack for the next X seconds, you can’t be damaged while under the chaos storm. Targets are also slowed by 75%~.

Its part of the problem with the entire combat system really. Everything does a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y, instead of Fireball does 100 dmg plus 3 secs of burning. Now THAT’s intuitive. Whats not intuitive is… Your mark does X dmg, and gives you life, and causes weakness and 2 stacks of poison for X seconds AND you get weakened for 3 seconds, ….huh? what? Too much going on to be honest. Overly complicated for the sake of it.

Not intuitive at all.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I don’t understand the whole we don’t want it argument.

If it’s players, how is it affecting you negatively, esp. if the gear is confined to the PvE realm?

If it’s the devs, how does this ruin your game precisely other than not fitting into your philosophy (which is a guiding principal, not a mandate)?

In terms of the actual treadmill part, does it have to follow the “oh I gotta do Dungeon A and gear in it to be able to do Dungeon B and so on….” or is there another way?

Say you have an “elite path” in each dungeon with the reward being a specialized token at the end; this path is real tough and requires players to really understand the game mechanics, their class, and the synergies with other classes. You need X of these tokens to get the top tier gear… but unlike the other dungeon sets, it’s all scattered about so you have to go to all sorts of different dungeons to make up the full set. Does it have to be token-based? No, whatever might work best, I just used it as an example because it’s familiar. The entry requirement for “elite path”? Nothing more than what it takes to get into the explorable mode for that dungeon… if you and your group have the skill and determination, you can get it.

Exactly. If its a tough challenge that’s not “cheap” and you don’t have to do it 40 times, how is that NOT a good thing? I’ll spend the time learning a tough encounter as long as I don’t have to do it again and again. Most of my friends are the same.