Guild Wars 2

The whole game is designed around sPvP. It is the core of the game.
All other parts of the game have to be adapted to the fact, that the game has to work in eSports.

Saying, that the game was not designed around PvP is therefore totally false. If the PvP part was just so minor, why all those changes, that work in PvP, but ruin or restrict features in PvE.

This is a PvP game with a PvE world set upon it. Unfortunately for the DEVs, the game seems to be seen as a PvE game by most players, and that is why all parts of the game are in constant trouble…

WoW was a big success, because it gave you quests for leveling and no meaningless grind. It gave you challenging dungeons, with great boss fights, compared to what else was available in MMOs at that time.

What raids did WoW have early on? The Molten Core. For a long time. Which was a chore compared to all other content in the game.
UBRS and LBRS where in between, and at least UBRS was endgame, with some other 5man.

Raiding like we have it now came way later, when Blizzard realized, that they could create relatively little content, that would entertain a lot of people for a long time, as long as the quality was good and the reward was a nice carrot on the stick.

WoW, early on, was a success, because it was a quest grind, instead of just a grind. People like doing stuff for a reason. People like to be involved.

And that is where GW2 fails. You never talk to npcs, unless you need to sell stuff. You just do heart quests, without ever talking to someone. So it feels more like a mindless grind than quest grind.
Endgame implies, that things that happen before are building up, and endgame is the conclusion. ANet tried so with the Zhaitan story arc and you can say, Arah is the endgame of this. But after that, endgame (like fractals) is just too random, too out of place.
The LS erases the connections to the new endgame (like the new TA path), which is even worse. For people who have missed the story, this place is simply a random place, with random enemies, so there is very little motivation or emotional desire to go there.

ANet has to build up content, and bring it to a conclusion. But the content has to last, like the Zhaitan story arc, or the final content (the leftover so to say) will become white dots on the map. Players need to be emotionally bound to the endgame on their way there, to have a desire to do it. Especially in a game without proper boss loot as motivator.

I want content. I want it to be challenging and entertaining at max level. I do not care if others are scaled up or I am scaled down.

If that is what you think of endgame content, give it to me, 10/10.

I do not want the zerg or achievement point grind or ascended item grind as endgame. If that is what you mean, 0/10.

The latter is the endgame we actually have, which is a failure.

I solo’d old Tequatl once while being in an oceania zone and on an EU server.

It took forever, but was no challenge at all.

The Zerg – a place where people try hard to press 1, 1, oh look they press 1 again.

In 99% group PvE, melee stacking is better than ranged. Yes, 99% is made up, but reality is probably closer to 99.9%.

The meta for group play is melee. If you go ranged, you are out of the boon zone and a burden to the group. If you take damage, learn to dodge.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Decoy

Applies a distinct Decoy effect that is different from normal stealth. As such, it can be used while revealed and can be active at the same time as regular stealth, but will not stack in duration. Attacking while under the effects of Decoy will still result in being Revealed.

Decoy is a clone generator and therefore a defensive mechanism, that will keep one version of you (clone) around.
We even have a trait that works the same:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Desperate_Decoy

So I think it works as intended, as it is a stun breaker too. Otherwise, it would weaken the clone aspect of the mesmer class even more.

It is sort of true though, that with a heavy phantasm spec, the phantasms play the game for you… ^^

The PvE meta is melee, all classes.
Btw, I have a Ford Ranger and it fails at killing stuff far away. But I can absolutely kill stuff with it in melee range.
Proof that Ranger is a melee class.

Read the guide in my signature for some ideas. ^^

The GS is still the GS.
Unless you played before the famous GS patch, when they increased the attack speed. Than it is better.
Or if you played before it pierced. In that case it is better too.

The manbearpig!

But the topic is about why people stop playing.

If you say you play for the sake of playing, good for you. The people who left probably had a bit higher expectations, so it’s their own fault after all.

How can you blame them. ANet tells you to get rich or die trying. And to farm AP or die trying.
So people run the content for the AP, like TA Aetherpath and then say, why would I do this again. No special loot waiting, no new skill to gain, no progression at all.

The only feeling of progression is by amassing AP, grinding gold and farming for either ascended or legendary weapons (and grinding for more gold).

That is it. The LS is so abyssmally bad, that no person that has ever played any other RPG would log in for the story. Events can only entertain you for so long and leveling alts reset your ascended equipment status and therefore the grind back to the start with that one.

Why do people stop playing? Most of the time I ask myself why people still play.

Who is running TA Aetherpath anymore. It is not efficient. It is not profitable.
Isn’t it funny that ANet is trying to shift away from berserker meta, but people do no longer want a change?

The PvE meta is berserker DD melee. Anything out of that is not going to be fruitful for a long time. It will only get worse with ascended armor. People will grind out a set of berserker and than expect it to work for all PvE content.
There is no easy way to switch, so PvE has to work. Or people will get upset. Very upset for “wasting all their hard work”.

Too late, the damage has been done.

The game feels one dimensional, at least in PvE. All content feels the same, no matter what class you play.

How to play any class in GW2 PvE:

Get berserker armor. You will be more or less useless if you do not specc for direct damage. Most damage is done by auto-attack, take the weapon with the highest auto-attack damage for melee. Dodge in between. Done.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

They have 4 patches left to get it in. So at least we know it will be sometime in the next 8 weeks.

I wish they would decide in the next 8 weeks to leave it out forever…

Just play GW1.

If you really think you should play an old game to get some cosmetic items in the new one, you can simply go with the old game and skip the new one anyways.

And yeah, you will get stuff still.

This is what I am running right now for solo PvE. Sort of different from what most builds look like.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIRhG2IjW6elmxG9eCZqQ2A9oXwFQM6BxsMGDA-jgxAIsBRn/KiGbJrIasKJMtJRUtDpIa1A-e

In PvE, a lot of things work though, so I won’t say, my build is the way to go… ^^

1. They want ascended “content” to last for the hardcore players.
2. They know that hardcore players stockpile stuff.
3. They need a sort of timegate to keep new ascended items a long term goal.
4. They introduce new grind to get new ascended items.

ANet will introduce new stuff you have to grind for ascended armor. Most of your stockpiled stuff will not even be part of what you need for the armor.

Yeah, we can be happy, that this is not a story driven game, otherwise it would be a fair disappointment what we got in the last few monthes (since they’ve introduced the Living Story)…

domxnik.1453:

What’s the “end game” zone now?

Anywhere Scarlet shows up after the bi-weekly update, also known as the zerk-zone.

The problem with Tequatl is, that they tried to copy other games raid mechanic ideas, and for some reason most people in GW2 seem not to like it.

Bad implementation is bad implementation.

Yeah, “isn’t+it” is bad too… ^^

If every specc should be viable and shatter is no longer, there is a problem with shatter. Your words.

It is a shatter mesmer issue, as for now, with the december update, there is no more reason to play one already.
Less vigor will just make it easier to decide for phantasm in every single situation.

You get the whole setup then, strong phantasms, fast phantasm cooldowns, reflects and tons of damage in one uber setup.

What is shatter good for? You can just run a phantasm build and randomly shatter for effects, but as competetive option for DPS, shatter is gone.

It blows my mind, that people would defend something that is obviously broken. Even ANet said that it is broken.

An easy fix would be to implement a first person view, but for whatever reason, ANet loathes the idea of doing so (some talk about different points of view for different races comes to my mind)…

In the past, I thought it was sort of a chore to grind out legendary weapons in LotRO. But hey, the grind for ascended weapons in GW2 just showed me new dimensions.

ANet knows, that if they nerf shatter any further, the build variety will shrink down to phantasm builds in PvE. Mainly one build to rule them all (10/20/0/25/15) and some niche ones, noone cares about.

Shatter, while sort of the class unique system, is no longer meta in PvP, Wv3 or PvE.

Actually, the mesmer feels more like a caster with pets around. That’s why I play a necro lately.

Yeah, the reason I stopped doing jumping puzzles with my main norn. Half of the time, you have absolutely no idea where you are and what direction you are facing.

The camera is abyssmal. They said it is hard to fix. Which translates to: Deal with it!

Profano.9514:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Who wants that?

Ehm, me :P
I’m using a build than apply conditions on clone’s death, and scepter is perfect!
Scepter + dodgeroll + Mirror Images: Clones, clones everywhere…

You should read the first line of my post again. If you find the word “shatter” you are one step further to understand what’s going on im my post.

No, by having 2 out in roughly 24 secs than one ever 20 sec. ^^

- People who are looking for a good story will start with a new game.
- People who are looking for endgame content are going back to other games.
- People who like character progression will start with a new game or go back to other games.
- People who do not like character progression will play some other games.
- People who like competetive PvP have better options and will play them.
- People who like to play roles in a role playing game will play another MMO with roles.
- People who like challenging content will play other games.
- People who like to play dungeons will play games that release more dungeons frequently.
- People who get tired of The Zerg will play other games.
- People who want raids play other games.

GW2 is a jack of all trades but in the end, it just satisfies noone really. It has no niche to fit in, so people most of the time have just some better option on what they like to play.

On my mesmer? Probably no.
On my necro? Hell yes!

LordByron.8369:

I wonder btw it there is any adept trait better than compounding power ._.

Nope… ^^ At least not for PvE.

You can nearly double your phantasm DPS in a switch build, how can this just be a “very small benefit”?

The forums are sort of broken for firefox, my edit took forever to go in. As said, the warden is the only exception.

Sorry, my typing failed and the brain was not up before the first coffee.

What I meant was that you can cast phantasms 20% faster. If you double trait the phantasms, they will have a cooldown of 12 sec or less, which would even fit in your weapon swap build.

Exception would be the warden, he has a base cooldown of 25 and 15 sec double traited.

You see no benefit in 20% faster cooldown on phantasms? And 20% on any skill that is related to an illusion.

Someone must have cast blind on you. ^^

Xaylin.1860:

Ryn.6459:

Xaylin.1860:

Ryn.6459:

Anet,
Is it possible to exchange positions of “shattered conditions” and “phantasmal haste”? I do think that both traits are in wrong trees.

I do agree on Phantasmal Haste. It doesn’t make any sense. Shattered Conditions is okay where it is. All supportive shatters are placed in Inspiration which offers shatter builds some diversity.

Actually there is no any supportive shatter in Inspiration. Also I don’t heard of any shatter build that runs with 30 on Inspiration.
For the typical shtatter with 30 on Illusions, shattered conditions will compete with Illusionary Invigoration (also a defensive trait).

How is Vigorous Revelation not a supportive shatter? It already is quite powerful and will become even more interesting when the Vigor nerf is through.

Right now, Inspiration is so unappealing for shatter Mesmers due to two reasons: 1. Most shatter Mesmers just want to go BOOM and deal damage. 2. There is no appealing shatter trait on the Master level and the Grandmaster traits are just lackluster when compared to IP or ID. The first issue will never be fixed. The second issue could be fixed if Malicious Sorcery was reworked to be more meaningful and Shattered Conditions was improved which actually is going to happen.

The Shattered Conditions buff is HUGE. With Mindwrack alone you will have 3 condition cleanses in a 600 radius. Every 10-15s. This is unarguably better than Nullfield. And maybe one of the best condition cleanses ingame. You could even bump it up to 4 conditions with IP. Or you could go for Shattered Concentration instead.

Since IC moved down to 15 you will be able to play a pretty strong supportive shatter build which does not even need any utility slot for removing conditions. Go 20/x/x/30/15 and put the remaining points where you please. Nice boon stripping, great group condition removal, high up time on group Vigor. For the cost of some damage (IP) or CC (ID). Or you could go for 10/0/0/30/30 if you don’t care for the boon stripping. And yes, you won’t have DE. You will have to use a Scepter.

Shatter Mesmers just need to get their head out of their butterfly and stop whining about the Inspiration minors. As if the Domination or Duelling minors were that great for shatter builds. The only totally undesirable minor is Phantasmal Strength but now that IC got switched there actually are no super exciting grandmaster minors left anyway.

How on earth do you want to play a shatter build half decently, without Deceptive Evasion? 20/x/x/30/15? What kind of madness is this?

What you need for a shatter build is x/20/x/x/x. With the patch, x/20/x/x/15 looks inviting. Putting 30 into Inspiration for shatter still sounds like a bad idea for what you have to give up on the other side.

If they keep the traits the way they are now, 10/20/0/25/15 will be the only build you will ever need in PvE.

Even I will go phantasm, if you just can get every single trait. It is too good.

On the other side, I have way more fun on my D/D hybrid Necro lately. I will probably store my Mesmer. I do not want to fall asleep on my keyboard, while my phantasms play the game for me…

The problem with scepter in shatter build is, that you have to wait a whole attack sequence until you finally spawn a clone. This fails hard.
You want your clone, you want your phantasm, a dodge and do your shatter. That takes about 2 sec for a full shatter.

With scepter, you will have to wait 4 sec to get a kitten clone out, spamming auto attack. Who wants that?

Read the guide in my signature for information on how to level a mesmer. ^^

Qaelyn.7612:

That’s one perspective.

From where I sit, I see lots of casual players saying they have lots to do and are mostly enjoying doing it, while a few hard-core players tell them they’re actually not having fun.

Because they are playing Skyrim right now?

It is like you are telling the casuals to play what is left of the days when GW2 was released.
“Here you go, you still got the vanilla experience. It is still in the game.”

We are over a year later, we got a new tier (ascended, but actually, every release of ascended items is managed like a whole new tier of equipment in other games), we got The Zerk that runs somewhere else every two weeks and mindless champion farming.
So you tell the people that do not have the patience to grind out their dailies and mats for ascended, or do not want to jump around (thank the holy kitten we have jumping puzzles, I always thought this game would be a platformer), to play one year old content, or take a break.

This is not Sparta.

Lighter.5631:

… so get over it, efftard.

I do not have to get over it. The game is fine for me. I just tend to look beyond the egoistic lines of my own interests and try to see the bigger picture.

I see the flaws that will arise if you play below a certain level. I see the reasons behind people in a guild no longer logging in.
I don’t say the game is dying. I just say, the game that GW2 could have been is dying. A utopia, where hardcore and casual players can live side by side.

On my side, the sun shines bright enough, it is just the other side, that steadily drowns into darkness.

Then why all the catering to the people that play so much and not to the ones that play 5 hours a week? Why the ascended stuff, if those people burn through it anyway? Why the achievement rewards?

What else is there to do that gives players at least the feeling that playing the game is rewarding. If there is nothing else people will go with what is available or quit.

The game feels stale, unless you decide to go for the grind towards ascended right now, or you are hunting AP. There must be more to entertain the masses.

And ANets answer was The Zerg. But that got old way too fast.

Label yourself as whatever you want, ANet will classify you by numbers.

And everyone who thinks that casuals come here on the board and moan about stuff, you are dead wrong. They do not give a kitten about the forums, they just disappear.

And declassifying players by making fun of them is very childish. ANet runs a business. They actually want feedback, preferably negative ones. Emotional ones. Glorifying the game as it is will not bring it or them forward.

Every lost player is a lost costumer and lost money. Everyone knows, that a lost costumer that has left because of disappointment is the hardest one to convince to come back. Kitten, it is already 10 time harder to recruit new players compared to keep existing customers satisfied (taken from recruiting costumers for any business).

If ANet wants one thing, than it is to keep their players. They won’t keep them by listening to the players who say everything is alright in the game…

This is not about me. I played the labyrinth for a week to level a Necro from zero to 80 without wasting to much time on running to hearts and doing random events, that last way too long.
I have finished the meta achievements for PvE, as I just want distraction when playing GW2, not challenge (anymore). It would be futile to get enough challenge anyway to stay entertained.
I will not leave, at least not until I find something new and exciting.

That’s the difference. If you simply play for fun, you are in a tight spot with GW2.