Guild Wars 2

Solo PvE? Lazy Kai every day I say.

Adapt to Lazy Kai PP on the fly for soloing champions.

I would go 25/30/0/0/15 for open world PvE.

It is actually the current installment of my Go Go Power Ranger Build, which I have to update at one point:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR8cl4zioHSTlGa9IB6DYnMDVn6SPwNvlNA-jgBBYfCyJPFRjtMsIas6aYKXER1mxFRrGA-e

I am suprised that it is not the best choice to roll your face on the keyboard when you are downed.

People seriously log into the forum and write a post, instead of reading the skill describtions? People make it to 80 and do not understand how the four skills work. Unless you have never died before because you are such an awesome player, this is sort of a shame.

How do people not see the following points is beyond me:

1. The BiS item is only available on the gem store (P2W)
2. All following items on the gem store in this category must have the same effect or better to be attractive to buyers (P2W power creep)
3. Items of this category formerly sold on the gem store are inferior (end of P2C for this item)

This is just the first item in a row of many to come. It is like ascended rings leading to full ascended. It is bad.

Kaos.9162:

Oh man, I can see some of the guilds that like to turtle in towers with a ton of siege having some real fun camping PvE objectives, that’s gonna be great.

Arrow carts everywhere, build more arrow carts! Oh the fun to be had.

It is just ascended rings, just some minor stat upgrade they said. Now a year later look how much more damage a full ascended character can do.

It starts small, but if you look carfully, you see the signs, or you don’t and play sheep.

Peetee.9406:

November 15th 2012 – The day the gear treadmill began.
January 28th 2014 – The day pay-to-win began.

ANet seems desperate, why such a move? This is obviously a door opener for more items to come. What is next? A vip subscribtion?

bri.2359:

If you do not like LS content in WvW, for whatever reasons, the best message to send Anet is to simply ignore the content!

It will be gone in 2 weeks anyway, and then the WvW’ers will have the new map all to themselves.

This is like:

“Here is your new toy, but the first two weeks, you brother will be allowed to play with it. After that it is all yours.”

Wow. What a great idea!

Wv3 players want Wv3 on their maps. I think that concept is easy enough to be understood.
Scarlet and LS sound horribly PvE to me, and PvE crowd does not necessarily mix well with Wv3 PvPers.

PvEers will feel ganked and PvPers will feel like the update is not focused on them, even though they waited forever for it to happen. Sounds about right to make everyone unhappy. Good…

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

If this becomes another raiding game, where people wait around in cities for their queues to pop, I know I won’t be very happy.

Think this through. Think about how these events actually work. Are you saying that waiting at one spot in the open world is preferable to waiting at one spot in a city?

Supporting a living world is one of the reasons I believe true raid-like events should be instanced. Because they are inappropriate for the open world, they will only serve to empty the world in which they take place. Sure there will be some interest initially and Teq is a good example. Go there and you will find it dead compared to what it was before. Open world raids are bad for the living world. If this is the direction they want to take the game, open world raiding is the last thing they should do.

Some people are waiting at one spot and some people aren’t. That’s the point. If they have to be in that zone anyway….which they do, they’re now NOT in a city, that’s the point.

Did you see what Kessex was like during the last living story. It had been a mostly dead zone and suddenly it had it’s own champ train.

But if you make it an instance that anyone can just enter, at any time, from any city, yes, that WILL take people out of the world.

You didn’t see people running all over Lornar’s Pass this week? Because I sure did.

And Kessex Hills is dead again, and so will be Lornar’s Pass after super mario is gone.
LS is a bandaid fix with a best before date written on it.

And if I wait an hour in a zone being it a city or somewhere else, just to be part of a raid, it is still waiting for a raid.

I see where the disappointment comes from. Edge of the Mists was announced monthes ago and everyone knew it would happen at one day.

But, just putting Scarlet and therefore PvE content randomly on the Wv3 map so it looks like an update to the LS? That’s bullkitten.

Prerequisite:

Get not placed in a random overflow (probably the hardest challenge).

I do not believe that the ANet coders actually can fix DE the way they described.

So I am fairly sure, that the “fix” will be a straight nerf to Debilitating Dissipation. Without changing DE or how it works in combination with DD.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Thanks for the feedback guys, there were some good points brought up here. This is why we wanted to discuss these future changes so that we had time to adjust to your feedback.

We’ll be discussing this change more internally. Most likely we will make some adjustments or look at other options such as replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation so it does not impact mesmer play as much which wasn’t our intent.

Over here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Merged-PVP-Deceptive-evasion-change/first#post3513573

The DE change will not go through.

Btw, if you do not understand what I am trying to explain, read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

No, I explain it a last time:

Why would players leave the save haven of the underflow for a possibly still emty home server instance?
There would be no winning for the player in this move. He might be the only person going back to the home instance, than what was the underflow good for?
He might be forced by the technical solution, but this might kick him out of a group with players from other servers, would that be fun?

The only solution to populate the home instance to the “minimum” would be to force the players to go back, which would make the players unhappy.

So no underflow.

Who would opt for the home server with the risk that no other would go there? Most players would just stay on the underflow. Or if they just want to finish an event chain on the underflow. They will miss the opt out on time for the meta.

This system is flawed, that is why we don’t have it in game.

It will not work, as different servers will have different event progress. You would have to adapt all the events of the underflow to the actual server without all the people from the other servers. Most events will fail, and I am not even sure if the game engine can do the transfer for events.
You would get kicked out of mixed groups and lose progress on events. That would be annoying as kitten.

Why would ANet want a system like that?

That would just kill the main server instance. You have two solutions on this. Guesting or transfer. ANet will not “kill” their own servers in favour for a system like this.
It would not work.

Well grats, sort of.
Thank god ANet makes no grindy games, looks like some really world-saving deeds you have been going through. A real accomplishment!

There are no inactive accounts. Players buy the game and have an active account till the servers close down.

Simple as that.

Which permanent zone did we get since January when we were told to get a whole experience worth of content? Most fractals have been in game since November.

We got some content before January, but hey, we are talking about the amount of permanent content added since afterwards.
You know, solid content, not fluff. Like new zones, new classes or races. new game mechanics or instances. How much of this did we get in the three monthes (originally meant to be split up in two monthes). And afterwards.

Some new fractals, TA path (replacing content actually), Tequatl update (downgrade ^^), now the worms. In over a year. Did I miss something of value?

AoC has had instance of playfields seperately for servers. But now they use world servers and have instances depending on players around. You can still switch between instances normally.
On the other hand, I have not played AoC in ages, so I do not know if it works (or if there are enough players left to fill a full instance of a zone… ^^)

So I do not see overflow as a new thing invented by ANet, just new instances like in AoC. The problem is, that those overflows are badly adjusted to fit the event system, which the mario is a part of.

Poorly executed game mechanic with a poorly designed open world event = poor player experience.

While the big zerg fights should be in their own instances by nature, the LS makes each server just another instance of many.
In fact, the main server becomes more or less an overflow instance by itself, and the overflows become the main server, as I have yet to be on my own server for many LS attemps this time.

If instances are off topic, than how do you explain, that the root of all problems are the instances themselves? Overflows are instances, the home server is an instance. I want to be on my home server instance, I can’t. The instances and how they are handled in this game are the problem.

Actually Vayne, you are derailing the topic by starting a discussion about the definition of instances. Did you do that on purpose?

Warrior/warrior sounds about right for PvE.

Or just play whatever, everything works.

“Most games, you go out and you have really fun tasks ocassionally, that you get to do. And the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff.”

They thought the grind is boring, so they replaced it with waiting.
Waiting is not boring, it is like Christmas, the best is yet to come. Stay on this map for one hour if you do not want to fail on an overflow. Well you can do some boring grind on the map if you do not like waiting – wait wut?

Roll another warrior. No reason to play anything else in PvE.

Half a year ago I would have still given my money to ANet even for a mediocre expansion with some new regions to explore – in a heartbeat.

But now, there is too much other stuff coming and I am in the mood for something new to explore, something like a new world.
ANet tried hard to force me in the old zones for their temporary content to really get tired of them.

The grass is always greener on the other side. But hey, the gras over here is pretty stomped and ruined by the stampede (the zerg) running around.

So maybe I will just get a new game with a game worth of content and skip the expansion worth of content thingy…

LS stands for Lousy Stuff.
Did we get an expansion worth of content? Sure, Back in the 90s there were expasions to games that had that little content. People being foolish enough to think an expansion would mean the size of let’s say Rise of the Godslayer, Mines of Moria, Wrath of the Lichking, or any other AAA MMO title expansion were just out of their minds.

An expansion worth of content – this was actually talking about the additions to the gem store. ANet put more new items in the store than other MMOs would do for an expansion.

True story is true.

Full zerker shatter without any real defense for Wv3 with questionable choices like Sword training (when you will die in one hit in melee range anyway) instead for phantasmal fury for zerker-dmg and not a single condition removal?

And that additional shatter every 60 sec will not outweight the damage of a constant 10% extra critical on shatter. You will spend most of the time dead with this build.

This is a PvE build with some mediocre choices on traits. Unless it is meant for pure zerg running, in that case it is a Wv3 build with poor choices.

Opened the five boxes of Scarlet.

All of the boxes were filled with crap. The greatest villain of GW2 and she is a horder?
Now she makes even less sense. Why did she not salvage this crap to get some resources for her machines.

Seriously, I would have prefered if there were just the journal pieces in it. Or some real reward. But that…

Sorry, the overflow server system is not the problem, the problem is putting giant raids in a regular zone.

First they told us, there would be no raids.
Now we have raids with an insane amount of people needed.
And ANet thinks that it is better not to place them in instances.

Open world failure.

Open world raid content works.

For two weeks if you have a medium amount of players on your server.
For a bit longer if the server is packed like Desolation.

If you are stupid enough to try the event on your own server and it has a low population, it is your own fault. At least that is what people will tell you. You are the red headed stepchild and ANet doesn’t care if you do not want to go somewhere else to do the content.
Your server fails. Better buy some gems and move on.

tolunart.2095:

Yes, I’m familiar with the forum doomsayers “Game X is coming and it will completely destroy this game! BWAHAHA!”

Anet is aware of the impending releases as well. Do you think it’s a coincidence that this spring, around the time when ESO launches, the LS finale happens, a new LS is launched, and between them a “features” update is scheduled? There are a lot of things happening to keep players focused on GW2. And the B2P nature of the game means that a person can set aside the game for a while, play the free month of ESO, and evaluate whether they want to pay every month to play or come back and play for free.

Every MMO release is overhyped and overpromised, and eventually every MMO launch is declared a failure, usually by the same individuals. Anet is not afraid of these people, or the games they will be disappointed by.

While ESO is sort of a challenger for GW2 in matters of Wv3, I wasn’t just thinking of that.
Reaper of Souls might make D3 the game people were asking for, Destiniy looks very promising. Both are without a monthly fee. I have seen too little of Everquest Next, which will be F2P, so all together, that is a fair line-up of things to come. There are more multi-player AAA games coming I have not listed.

What came out 2013 in regards to AAA titels? FF14 redux? I just said, that GW2 will feel an impact 2014 that is stronger than 2013.

If you want to play shatter, you pretty much have to go x/20/x/x/30. IP is a must for damage, and DE too.

You should try 20 in Domination to see how fast you can kick out clones with a double traited GS to get a feeling for shattering. Inspiration offers very little to shatter in PvE.

Just my 2c.

tolunart.2095:

Those players who are committed to obtaining a full set of gear and/or Legendaries are far more likely to stay with the game as competing products are released.

And this is, where you might be wrong. ANet was very lucky with no other big releases out there since launch.
The players you are talking about are the ones that always want more than is available. ANet got greedy and instead of cultivating their niche, they streamlined the game for the big crowd. 2014 will be a tough year to convince players that always want new and exciting stuff to stay with a game that old.

The players you described will leave GW2 like a locust swarm for the new greener looking other side(s). On the other hand, GW fans and people that liked the idea displayed in the manifesto are gone and GW2 will fill no niche at all.

GW2 will not just die, but the already empty zones will get just more barren.

Guild Wars 2 had a really good and promising start.

But then, ANet descided to start a devolution spiral. Now, GW2 is more generic than ever, with more and more replaceable temporary raid content sold as the best thing ever.

It is actually a pain to watch something nice being butchered by the Dev’s for the sake of not having a clue what to do and start copying other MMOs.

Vertical progression.
Grindy achievements.
Raid content as endgame.
BiS items gated artificially.

What has this game become…

On one hand, WPs make the world feel terribly small. On the other hand, even if you walk the world is terribly small.

The wold of Tyria is one of the smallest MMO worlds around. Even if you’d remove all WPs the world would not feel much bigger. Additionally, it would totally break WvWvW.

I logged in, I was placed in overflow directly (my char was still in LP).
Event started, about 40 people in overflow, Event failed.

Logged out. So much fun doing other things than that.

I will create the lousiest build ever and hand it in, just to troll someone hard!
Nope, no build from me, as I am way to busy to test some other build in exchange.

Fun fact: My second most liked character is my lvl 80 D/D necro! ^^ But I still prefer to play on my mesmer.

Feel free to read my leveling guide for mesmers in my signature if you feel lost.

Mesmer is the best profession by a mile in GW2.

Everything in this game is a DPS fest. I wonder that you are surprised, I truly do.

My guide is for mesmers, but there are some useful information in general for leveling too. Feel free to check the link in my signature.

A dungeon mesmer without reflection is like a coffee without caffeine.
It looks like it will help you to get things done faster, but it will just leave a bad taste in your mouth in the end.

Get a focus. Get the reflection trait. Use it.

Shatter is not an option if you want max dps for dungeons and stuff.
0/30/0/25/15 mantra phantasm build will give the the most punch, 10/20/0/25/15 is the alrounder phantasm build as you can use whatever utility you want.

Shatter is, imho, still better in open world, but open world you do not want to run around with just sword in your main hand. GS is your best friend (and nothing creates clones to shatter faster than a GS ^^).

Tequatl on my server would drop like a million ascended weapons the day he gets killed.

The good part of massive zerg fights is, that I really feel like being the hero, the center of the action.
My decisions and actions alone will decide about the fate of Tyria. It is as if I was part, no, if I was the story itself. I feel unique and important and get pulled into this fantasy world.
Thanks to the vast amount of lore in game, I can delve into the history and see the motivation of my powerful nemesis called Scarlet.
While in a zerg I understand her motivation to act instead of being passive and I know that I will have to face her in the end.
Only the bravest of all would face such a foe alone, but with a zerg it will feel epic as it will be my victory alone.

Thank you for the zerg!

Is the zerg the general direction we can expect this game will head for the future.

While story itself seems to be sacrificed on the way, large scale events seem to be the bread and butter of every LS update nowadys.
I can not speak for others, but I for one tried to get away from shallow raiding for a more immersed gameplay. Now we are all back to raiding again, just more chaotic and random in open world scenarios.

Is this it, is that what we get for the last few updates of the story arc? Don’t get me wrong, I love to kill giant creatures, but it is simply not enough.

Are non-raiders wrong in this game now with all the new content being designed for 40+ people?

This feels wrong, at least for me. Go get on TS they say, if you want to kill the big thing. Go listen to the commander! Wow, yeah, wow…