Guild Wars 2

Being affected by the Hidden Arcana bug, where Ogden only offers the “history flavor” chat options, and can’t progress into the hourglass.

To clarify, I DID do the story a while back, this is for the achievement run.

How about a traitline that removes the hit cap for AoE?

Leo G.4501:

And you know the old saying: can’t please everyone all of the time…or something like that.

No I get that, and I agree, which is why I argue that fixing what we have is more important than introducing new stuff that likely will be just as broke.

I mean, after all this time, all the skill updates, etc., Focus Fire #5 is still simply a Fire Shield on a 40 second cooldown. You can Burning Speed and Magnetic Leap every 15 seconds for the exact same effect. I think that’s ridiculous.

My fear is that all the content that is being introduced (new weapon, masteries, specializations, etc.) will make the likelihood of logically balancing the Ele’s skills even less. And while some people want new shinies, I would suggest that a majority would prefer useable skills and consistent/logical balance.

Must go faster, must go FASTER!

I’m sorry, but I LOL’d hard when I read the post today.

Specifically, the part about Pact survivors building up their defenses during the day, to survive the onslaught of Mordrem at night.

Do we have any chance of seeing dinosaur sized Creepers?

Leo G.4501:

Rebalancing current skills could certainly be a topic of discussion but if this were on the table, it surely would have been tried. Precedence says the devs are only willing to alter/add/subtract current skills, not change or swap them.

As far as what a new weapon could accomplish, just search in the Ele boards. I’ve read and written a few and these were thought of before we knew of specializations are alterations to profession mechanics were in the realm of discussion.

Rebalancing happens all the time. As for the precedent set by ANet devs so far, they’ve literally done everything but moving them around on a weapon. Its the logical next step, especially on a profession like Eles who need, more than anything else, a logical consistency to the existing weapon sets.

On to what new weapons could accomplish, well yes, adding new skills does new stuff. However, Eles already possess between double and triple the number of skills other professions do. So if ANet can’t figure out how to make use of those skills, and balance them properly, what makes anyone think that adding a new weapon, with more skills will make any difference in gameplay or effectiveness?

Would I like to see an Ele dual wielding swords, whipping around a “land-spear” or even swinging from vine to vine with a bullwhip Indiana Jones style? Sure, more options are always nice, but not at the expense of making current options work properly.

Would be nice if instead of using a glider cobbled together out of plants that we could use the Magic Carpet bought in the Gem store.

Or perhaps allow each crafting profession to build a flying “mount” of some sort that could be used in lieu of hang gliding. Tailors get magic carpets, Huntsmen get a flying mount they’ve “tamed”, Jewelers get a nimbus cloud, Cooks make Gummi Berry juice, etc., etc.

The one thing I would say to watch out for is the voice of the character.

I initially leveled up a male Sylvari Ele, but eventually deleted him due to the whiny, faux British voice triggering every attunement change.

Now I roll as a male Human Ele, and its much easier to listen to.

Leo G.4501:

You may not but others likely will. Personally, I’d be underwhelmed if all Ele got was a weapon swap (with accompanying nerfs to keep 40 weapon skills in line) or they simply got the conjures as attunements. But then I’m not a min/maxer. I play the game for fun and interesting gameplay so I crave something that hasn’t been done rather than rehashes of what we have. There have been plenty of ideas for weapon skill-sets for sword, warhorn, torch, etc on the forums specifically crafted to by posters to be “what ele doesn’t have” which would be exactly what I’m looking for! A slight altering to the profession mechanic would just be icing on the cake.

I would argue that Eles already have everything, its just that its spread across attunements and weapons in a rather hodge podge, mishmash organization, Focus being the most obvious offender.

If ANet were to “focus” the existing skillsets on Ele for each weapon, I think you’d find there really is nothing missing:

Melee – MH Dagger, OH Dagger focus on big PBAoE spells
Range Single Target – Scepter
Range AoE – Staff
Control – Focus

For example, Earthquake and Magnetic Grasp should be on Focus (KD and Immobilize, with Magnetic Grasp working as an PBAoE immobilize, and then Magnetic Wave as the chain skill) while Obsidian Flesh and Churning Earth should be on OH Dagger in keeping with the PBAoE theme (and needing survivability). Dagger #3 could then just be Magnetic Leap on a 12 sec CD, removing the target requirement, and offering a blast finisher at the point of impact. Another example, Comet and Cleansing Wave would switch places, again in keeping with each weapon’s focus.

Focus Air is decent, but Focus Fire needs a complete re-work, as Fire Shield is incredibly pathetic for a #5 skill, and Flamewall is pretty lackluster as well, given how both AI and players move in this game. I’d change Focus Fire to lava themed skills, that burn, cripple and/or are impassables like Unsteady Ground.

Going with the theme of refining and focusing, Ele skills could then be further broken down per element, so Fire would be big AoE, Lightning single target, Water damage+heals, Earth conditions+control.

I’ve argued this before, that the problem holding back the Elementalist is being TOO general across all weapons and attunements, and that ANet should re-work a lot of the skills to better fit a specific weapon’s purpose, and also fit with each individual element’s theme.

I honestly don’t see what a new weapon, such as a MH Sword will bring to the Elementalist, when we have so many skills already that with a little tweaking and refinement could seal up any performance gaps easily.

It may be higher quality content, but its still FAR short of a “full” game.

Can you eke out hundreds or even thousands of hours with the base game alone for $50 to $60? Of course, but the pricing of video games isn’t the same as a movie ticket or a free day at the park. Industry standards nowadays rate quality titles at around $59.99, or more depending on extras, editions and platforms.

Point is you’re paying for content. GW2 is a full game, and I think the average paid for it was around $50 per player.

Will the expansion bring the same amount of content? Of course not. Will it bring a measurable percentage of content? Harder to tell. For $50, we got a pretty full world, multiple classes and races, tons of skills, quests, dungeons, etc.

Given what I’ve read so far about HoT, I’d say it rates maybe $15 for a standard digital edition ($19.99 box in-store), and maybe a $25 deluxe digital edition, which should include perhaps an exclusive mini, 400 gems, and some other in game fluff or skin.

If the standard edition surpasses $25 in price, then I’ll have to wait til it hits the bargain bin. NOT because that’s out of my price range (lol), but because of the principle of the issue. I’ve felt that lately games designers on the whole have moved to the el cheapo cash grab department, and one need look no farther than gemstore pricing, such as unlimited gathering tools for $10 a pop. Get one character three tools and you just paid out more than the cost of an average expansion.

Yes, GW2 is subscription free, but so was GW1, and its expansions certainly were not the price of a full game, AND they brought sizable new lands, two new classes, entirely new storylines, etc. With all the new titles coming out every day (I’m flying my mercenary Asp in Elite Dangerous atm, and plan on getting Star Citizen when it comes out) ANet has to remain competitive as well as offering good content. Gamers are not poor beggar supplicants to the font of ANet’s generosity, it is not up to us to make them great, it is up to ANet to release a quality, affordable product that keeps its existing playerbase happy, and entices new players to join in.

Overpriced cash grabs for small amounts of content does not do that, and in fact tends to drive players away, especially when the next big thing comes around.

Honestly, if the Conjure Master idea doesn’t pan out, then simply allowing Eles an in combat weapon swap would be the ideal solution.

It would open up huge gameplay options and comboing ability, with the only question being how to balance it.

Example, you hit Churning Earth on Dagger #5, then switch to Scepter/Focus, would Obsidian Earth on Focus #5 be on cooldown, or would all skills have separate cooldowns?

Given that most of the skills on our bars already have much higher CDs then nearly every other profession, I don’t see it being game-breaking to have all skills on all weapons keep their individual, separate CDs.

Of course, having a weapon swap might give up some of the “flavor” of the profession, but I still think that given the number of skills the Elementalist has, on both existing weapons and Conjures, its a better option to have a Conjure Master or weapon swap ability before ANet considers adding another weapon with a new set of 20 skills.

Simply balancing and/or focusing the existing skillset might be more beneficial, such as making D/D all about PBAoE, Scepter ranged single target, Focus ALL defense and Staff ranged HIGH damage AoE.

Also revert RtL!

How about a Conjure Master?

The FGS stays as the Elite skill. Then you get each of the four other Conjures as the new profession mechanic, i.e. Fire Axe in F1, Frost Bow in F2, Lightning Hammer in F3, and Earth Shield in F4.

Of course, as long as you’re in Conjure master “form” the weapons stay permanent, and you can switch through them as attunements, using the current CD on attunements. You could also gain the extra “attributes” from each weapon whenever you’re using that specific weapon.

This keeps ANet from having to develop any new skills for a new weapon (8 for offhand, 12 for mainhand and 20 for a two hander), makes it relatively easy to balance since the skills are already in place, and gives us range versatility with the axe and bow, and melee versatility with the hammer and shield.

If ANet wanted to preserve the “sharing” capability of conjures, they could also just setup each of the F1-4 keys as a sequence skill. If you’re in Frost Bow attunement, and you tap it again, you drop a Frost Bow for anyone else to use. Then you just give each conjure attunement’s drop option a 60 second CD.

It would definitely have to be: “Forgetful Was Uhhh…”

A good example of Battlemage armor would be the robes/armor worn by Jedi Guardians in SWTOR, or a cartoony example would be Obi Wan in the Clone Wars cartoons (either).

Basically its a getup that combines the flexibility for casting (legs and arms mostly protected by cloth) along with some form of hard armor over the torso.

Well I suppose for me its that GW2 has been out for over two years now, and the lack of interesting content is really starting to wear thin. There’s plenty of grind released every couple of weeks, but nothing that makes me say Wow!

I guess its just odd, when other MMOs try to give players permanent content, such as housing, guild halls, a selectively upgradeable garrison, etc. that is designed to make the player feel like they’re having an impact on a world that can’t change too much since other people also play it, GW2 enhances that feeling of impermanence and futility by making all content time gated or temporary.

Does anyone think ANet will ever release new features like mounts, housing, guild halls and all the other PERMANENT changes that keeps players around, or will they simply continue to add more LS chapters, gem store content, and item re-skins?

I really wanted GW2 to be “THE” game for me, but it already feels like how GW1 feels now at the end of its life cycle. A boring title grind for transfer over to GW3.

I’ll try not to make this a complaint thread/question, but it may be difficult.

I find myself routinely quitting and then coming back, usually when a new LS release comes out to see if the game AS I SEE IT has been “fixed.” And by fixed, I mean something more than a mouse whacking a button to get cheese.

I thought ANet was going to deliver a new MMO experience, with minimal grind, etc., etc. but after two years, I still see the same thing over and over. New titles to grind for, new skins to grind for, new stuff in the gemstore to grind for, a grind that takes uncountable hours to never quite accomplish, and what do we get story/gameplay wise? A couple of cutscenes, bad dialogue, character/skill balance issues, skill bugs, and a LS “release” that can be done in about an hour, even if roleplaying and without skipping anything.

I ask this in all seriousness, will GW2 ever be anything more than a Las Vegas slot machine or mouse-button-cheese psychological conditioning experiment? Silverwastes is a good example of this, with the hordes of players scrambling from Bandit Chest to Bandit Chest desperately hoping for something other than Account bound, un-sellable crafting materials to drop.

I want GW2 to be the be-all, end-all MMO for me. I really do. Frankly I love the way the Elementalist plays, and feels like something straight out of the Last Airbender. But that means nothing if there’s nothing engaging for that character (and me the player) to do or accomplish. Maybe that’s a fault of mine, perhaps its a fault inherent in MMO design and the game just isn’t for me. But I would like to know, before quitting for good, if the game has any intention of ever being something more than loot whack-a-mole, or a system designed to drive players to spend cash in the gem store.

I felt like I was watching a Looney Tunes cartoon…

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We understand that this is an important topic for the community and appreciate that players have been talking about it. We’ve been triaging bug reports, developing fixes for them and discussing what design changes we will bring to you next week. We’ll continue to both work on the next updates and read the feedback from the community on this topic!

Thank you

The problem isn’t bugs, we’ve been dealing with those since beta (some have been present since release).

The problem is assuming players are morons, and making the game experience a chore. Stop making gameplay changes that annoy people (GATING IS BAD) and stop assuming the majority of players are two steps away from a lobotomy, and the rest will sort itself out.

Charleston Chew.1209:

…the forum warriors thinking that they got it all figured it out, annoyed at the rest of us for our inability to see their glorious vision.

The forum is the place for feedback. Statistically speaking, the forum is a percentile slice of the greater player base as a whole. Therefore its logical to extrapolate player response on forums as representative of the greater whole, with of course a certain margin of error.

Were there no value to forum members’ feedback, there would be no reason to operate said forum. Given that most games today operate discussion and balance forums, its logical to conclude that forum feedback is valuable as a development tool, and is representative of the overall player base.

To claim that “negative feedback” is unfair or unwarranted is laughably naive, and to also claim that those who post said feedback somehow are non-representative of the greater whole is also foolish. The reason I claim irony in your post is that every single word of it, according to your own logic, applies to you. And for you to be unaware of how forums represent player populations yet still be able to comment about you and the cheerleaders somehow representing the majority is downright silly.

Charleston Chew.1209:

This is a thing that will never go away. Of the players actually playing the game (any game, any genre) only minuscule percent visits the forum and the kind that usually does are the forum warriors thinking that they got it all figured it out, annoyed at the rest of us for our inability to see their glorious vision.

Best thing is to do is keep enjoying the game you enjoy, the trolls are part of internet and there is nothing we can do to make them go away.

Irony, thou art a heartless mistress

Vayne.8563:

Now if you pick up a new weapon at a higher level, every skill is automatically unlocked without killing anything. And by a higher level, I mean 15.

If you only used a bow and nothing else, by level 12, you’d have every single weapon skill unlocked. I don’t see that as grind.

A Warrior could unlock every weapon skill by around level 5 (or earlier) just by cycling through the weapons and killing mobs. Which encouraged experimentation and learning the weapon’s function organically.

Prior to the patch unlocking weapon skills was simple, and after the patch it is also simple. The difference is, post patch its not fun nor intuitive and takes longer. Learning new weapon skills now requires gaining levels, the very definition of grind.

See if you can guess who represents the players and who represents ANet…

GW2 has adopted Common Core. NO GAMER LEFT BEHIND!

Darude-Sandstorm.

My personal theory is that ISIS and Al Qaeda mounted a combined attack on ANet’s headquarters and released the NPE as part of a coordinated terrorist action.

Its the only explanation for such total disregard and disdain for your playerbase ANet. Can someone go check on ANet and make sure they’re not being held hostage?

You must be mistaken, these Quality of Live improvements (QoL) were guaranteed by Dr. Kevorkian, M.D.

Rathon.5840:

Now, I’ve seen the post about how extensive testing found far too many players confused by early gameplay before the feature pack.

This extensive testing failed to reveal the actual cause of said confusion, that being an extremely limited and kitten UI.

A Necromancer can’t even see what stats are on his Death Shroud skills in the skills panel of the Hero window. There isn’t a single blurb anywhere in game about movement speed and how different types are not additive.

No game stays fun for very long if every player has to do research on external websites about how core game mechanics function.

WoW is quite a bit more complex in many respects, but the UI is not only customizable but very informative, and tends even on default not to hide information from the player. If you’re going to dev an MMO, you can’t go into it with the idea of obscuring basic gameplay concepts as some sort of playstyle philosophy. Especially when your game, even with just 5 players on screen, can fill the view of a player solid with particle effects such that a 30 ft. tall boss is totally obscured, you cannot expect a player to “read enemy tells and cues” when they can’t even be seen!

GW2 has one of the worst UIs I’ve ever seen to be honest, and is likely one of the main reasons why people tend to leave the game AND why the idea of competitive gameplay is laughable.

Adamantium.3682:

Hindsight bias and all that, I know, but it’s not as if this scenario is a total surprise. As soon as SAB was “postponed indefinitely” and this whole New Player Experience was announced many people have been skeptical.

Its like ANet is literally trying to torpedo the game and sink it. I cannot fathom in any way how anyone with any experience in game design or market demand would think that changes such as we’ve seen recently would make players happy or draw new players in.

It feels like ANet is playing the Banker in the fourth hour of a marathon Monopoly game. Everyone is sick of the game, its no longer fun, but stick it out just to be able to say they finished it, while the Banker player is skimming from the till when no one is looking.

I wish they would remove their heads from the dark places and realize these simple truths:

1: Balance the game. Stop working on skins, and balance the professions. This should have been the priority since Day 1

2: Keep content in. How would GW1 have fared if the devs had decided to deactivate Nightfall for a year to “keep it phresh!”

3: Work on new, repeatable, challenging content. Not play through once LS updates followed by title/achievement grinding, but instead maybe a new dungeon (or more dungeon paths) that offer new challenges, rewards, and more players, i.e. Raids.

4: More PvP modes. Perhaps GvG to finally fit with the title of GUILD WARS???

BlueZone.4236:

A full blown minigame is too confusing and overwhelming for new players and veterans alike.
On the bright side, anyone who purchased the Infinite Coin with real money will appreciate their that money went into funding the New Player Experience.

I seriously hope you’re joking. The only way SAB is confusing is if you’ve been lobotomized. Its difficult due to the need for timing and reflexes, but the gameplay is exceedingly simple. SAB should be the yardstick by how GW2 goes forward, conceptually simple, but complex in execution. Players should have content that is easy to figure out initially, but take time and effort to master.

As to the idea that removing content and reintroducing it keeps it “fresh” or somehow part of a “living story” then why aren’t dungeons introduced and removed on a regular basis? I must have killed the Searing Effigy in CoF a bajillion times, yet it just… keeps… coming… BACK! Not very dynamic and “living story-esque” is it? The reasons ANet lists for not having SAB permanent are ludicrous, and yet another example of their dev team either not knowing what the players want, or not caring and instead focused on introducing more BLTC content. Skill overhaul and balance? Instead here are some weapons with hearts in them!

At launch, GW2 was not a difficult game to pick up, learn and play. The only downside that keeps people from getting into the meat of the game is the extremely lackluster UI, and the lack of basic information that ANY other MMO with a skill system has. This is an unacceptable state of affairs.

Players don’t as a rule like game aspects that are gated, regardless of how it is implemented. Especially for a game that was and still is billed as SKILL>TIME, meaning that a player’s skill is more important than time/grind investment, gating content and definitely core game features behind level constraints is, for lack of a better term, stupid.

The game was never especially alt friendly, and now is even worse. What player, having an account filled with 80s and playing since Day 1 is going to want to work through the new system? Have the devs tried playing for several levels with only auto-attack?

The game’s character system should be two things: discoverable and informative. Everything a player needs should be on the Hero UI, and unlockable at level 1.

I cannot fathom who at ANet thinks these changes are good in any sense of the word, and why said people are even listened to? Are you going to go to Minecraft style graphics because they’re cheaper to produce and code? Certainly wouldn’t have to pay as much to the art department for the wonderful visuals any more.

The only reason I’ve even logged in these past few months is because the playstyle of the Elementalist is as close as one comes to an Avatar style of element bending in a video game. Not for the lackluster Living Story, the cheesy writing, or the extremely obvious push to the Gem Store. IS GW2 just a GUI front for a money converting trade house?

I’m going to be cliche and say that if the game doesn’t improve (you know actually being fun) and SOON, I will be leaving. At this point, its about even on fun to grind Paragon levels in Diablo 3, and that should say something to ANet. ANet should feel guilty over all the people who’ve spent real money in the Gem Store, that keeps the game in development, when what we’ve received wouldn’t merit staying on the first several pages of any other game’s modding forum. I mean seriously what’s next, $9.99 Horse Armor in the Gem Store, with no intent to introduce mounts?

Lishtenbird.2814:

I also agree that there is an overwhelmingly surprising amount of people who just can’t handle the simplest things without being spoonfed -

I will point out that nowhere on the skills tab of the Hero panel is there a listing for the character’s Downed state skills.

Just like there is no listing for Death Shroud skills, the possible Steal skills, Toolbelt skills, Ranger pet skills, Conjured weapon skills, etc.

GW2’s UI is and has always been extremely underwhelming. I know that the design philosophy is to get players to look at the environment, which is a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t really bear out in a fast paced MMO. Every skill a player has access to should have its statistics listed in the Hero panel. Saying “just mouse over the skill” doesn’t work when you only have access to it for limited amounts of time (i.e. Steal, Shroud, environmental, etc.). The skills tab in the Hero panel should be the reference for players, one should not have to do research OUTSIDE the game to figure out how a skill works or what it does, that is what the UI is for in the first place!

How about a stepladder?

VPhantomWarriorV.2803:

Andrasta Ethereal.8726:

@Ameno, love that 9/10 , My Asuran Engi is Dr. Whizbang xD

@Goldenwing, very asuran in name but to me seems very generic, sorry man, 5/10

7/10. Interesting name, but doesn’t sound too much like an Asura.

Mine is Zaddas
My friend’s name is The Wizard Gazoo

8/10, makes me think of Slayers (Zelgadis).

I have a female Asura Mesmer named: Trixxzi

I think a lot of these ideas were thrown around by players during development, as the Mesmer was always a unique/interesting character in the MMO landscape, and had a pretty devoted playerbase. My main in GW1 was of course a Mesmer.

As others have stated though, the likelihood of a full re-work such as this is close to nil, for two reasons, first that it would take quite a bit of time to program (money) and second, and probably more importantly it would set a precedent that ANet would have to follow for all the professions. Imagine how the versatility, customization and to be honest, awesomeness of your collated ideas would make Warriors feel, with their extremely simplistic Adrenaline mechanic!

Full Celestial or a mix with other pieces to round out deficiencies works well for WvW.

It really depends on what your friend’s strength/desire to play as. If he wants to D/D roam or small group havoc, then having more toughness and vitality (mixing in some Knights or Soldiers) works well. If he wants to zerg staff, then full Celestial or even Cleric or Nomad’s mixed in for helping with water fields and such works well too, as your personal DPS is not nearly as important as keeping the zerg up.

And don’t forget that having a lot of gold isn’t all that necessary, once your friend starts playing WvW, he’ll be able to pick up full exotic armor from badges of honor.

There are many paths to full exotics, such as crafting and dungeon tokens too. I’d recommend he looks at getting a full Celestial set (craft exotic via Tailoring or armor box Ascended) and then mix in the Zerk pieces he has while acquiring alternate pieces via badges and dungeon tokens.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Nah… I don’t think you.

Have you seem some sort of spikes sprouting out of the ground, holding corpses and turning them into husks?

Of course not…

Wait…

Waiting to see if Belinda Delaqua comes back as a Husk. A MORDREM husk of course. Not the glowing blue reanimated zombie type from ME, but the glowing red plant zombie from GW2…

I will also quit forever if I see an option in game to talk to Rox repeatedly, where the PC simply says “Rox” and Rox replies “Shepard”… I mean “Commander.”

If we follow the ME storyline, the Sylvari-ized version of Saren will show up next chapter.

ANet bithacked Mass Effect!

Just finished the second chapter, and I couldn’t believe it.

One of your NPC friends checks out an ancient device, you toss her away from it, and experience the prophetic vision instead, and at the end dialogue you can say “I have to go.”

Mass Effect or GW2? Omadd’s device is a Prothean Beacon, and Mordremoth is a Reaper. LOLOL

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

if you can get it to the point where all you do is look over at the screen for a few seconds between each fight to autorun to the next boss and trigger AFK auto-attack on him.

Try that on Mai Trinn and let me know how long it takes for you to get kicked. Of course, any competent group is going to kick your worthless self to the curb way before then, but even IF you made it that far its likely you’re going to cause a full wipe, repeatedly, because you’re not contributing.

AFK leeching is the dumbest metric for gear comparison I have yet heard. As others have said, a mix of Celestial is generally the optimal gear setup (here and other forums, Reddit, etc.) and while going FULL Celestial is not the optimal setup all the time, it does offer the most flexibility in build diversity and stat usage.

Though, I don’t even know why I’m arguing the point with someone who is convinced the optimal way to play a game is to leech.

I’d like ANet to adapt the Spear as a land based weapon for Eles.

The imagery I would reference is Donnie Yen’s character Long Sky from the movie Hero. This could be added in a Canthan expansion, or whatever LS content sees some Canthan influence.

The skills could be modeled after the E/A Starburst build that was awesome at capping points in Alliance Battles. A teleporting, PBAoE nuker. Starburst, Teinai’s Heat, Bed of Coals and Double Dragon could be the Fire skills for example, with Lava Arrows being the auto attack.

The difference between this and D/D would be the use of more teleports in the weapon skills, that mimic the effects of Aura of Displacement (hop in, unload skills, hop out), along with all skills except the AA being PBAoE. Whereas D/D is more of a dueling set, Spear would be focused on maximum damage (and could be our main condition set) and designed for world PvE.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Leeching off your team is objectively the best thing you can be doing in a dungeon format, in terms of effort expended versus reward gained.

Well you just lost any credibility.

Using leeching (i.e. not playing) as the baseline for determining the worth of gear is about the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week. If you’re fine with leeching, then you don’t need ANY gear, and the question becomes moot.

Your argument ignores the extra time required for a 4 man team to accomplish what a 5 man team could, as well as the possibility of dungeon failure and the reduced rewards. Which equates to a waste of time, all because you weren’t geared properly.

Tell me again how leeching is awesome?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

You’re also the only person attacking trash so a 50% hit in DPS in a direct doubling of kill time, as opposed to in a dungeon where it’s only a 10% increaste.

So you’re saying its ok to drag down a team that depends on you not being a weak link, but not ok to take a bit of a hit vs. trash mobs while retaining more flexibility across game modes?

Sorry, but I like my reasoning better.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Why would you want to REDUCE your damage for open world? That’ll just make things take exponentially longer to kill. If anything the damage reduction is less noticeable in dungeons since you have teammates to leech off of, solo you take that DPS hit 100%.

Its not about reducing damage. Its about survivability and versatility, as well as not having to cultivate eight different sets of ascended armor, trinkets and weapons.

Dungeons and Fractals are usually at least somewhat coordinated, and any hit to DPS efficiency is noticeable and may get you kicked. For example, running Fractals with someone who doesn’t have sufficient AR is VERY noticeable, and if you dungeon enough with the same people having less than balls to the wall DPS gear is noticeable as well. Plus, high end Fractals your defense is irrelevant, being hit means you die, so full out DPS gear combined with active defenses (skills) and dodging is the optimal route.

As for open world, Celestial gear gives you the option of running efficient (although not fully optimized) builds that can accomplish a variety of tasks, from laying down staff water fields in WvW to D/D champ train farming with 100s of players, where your DPS “hit” is far less noticeable than in a 5 man dungeon. Open World PvE/WvW is about tagging, so Celestial is fine, whereas dungeons and Fractals you have to kill before being killed.

Personally, I run two sets of gear for my Ele.

Full Celestial with Traveler Runes for general PvE and WvW.
Full Berserker with Strength Runes for Dungeons/Fractals.

Weapons are full Zerk, if I ever get a Legendary, gravy.

The only time you need max damage/efficiency is in dungeons and Fractals, as the stuff here one shots you. In general PvE, nothing is really a threat, and WvW you want to be more versatile anyway, especially if solo roaming or havoc. There, Celestial damage is fine, and Celestial makes trait re-speccing less painful overall, as going from a 6/6/2/0/0 build to a 0/0/2/6/6 build isn’t as great a change compared to running a specialized set. Plus having the move speed bonus means not having to run SoA, or optimizing rotations for swiftness, which is a nice bonus.

Twice now, while playing, I get disconnected and sent to the character screen with a message stating that another client has logged in using my account.

I of course, immediately change my password.

What I don’t understand is if I am logged in and playing, how is another client able to login and disconnect me? Shouldn’t whoever is doing this be unable to login because I’m already playing?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

snip

I don’t believe you understand the meaning of the word “personal” and have argued with others back and forth about the “you” and the “me” while being wrong the entire time.

The Personal Story is about the player character. Period, full stop. If there was no PC, the story wouldn’t happen, Tyria wouldn’t exist, heart quests would not be completed, the map would never be explored, dynamic events wouldn’t exist, and absolutely the Personal Story would never even be touched. The PC is the protagonist, whom the story is about, because without a protagonist the story could not exist.

This is pretty much fundamental writing 101.

As to the gaps in the narrative, flexibility in roleplaying may be a factor, but most commonly is due to it being an MMO, with multiple character possibilities and choices, such that nailing down a certain variable alienates a percentage of the player base’s choices, race and sex being the most obvious.

There’s no Schrodinger’s Cat version of the personal story, no illusion of whatever you’re trying to point out. The PERSONAL story is about the player. The Living Story is about the world, and the problem I and others have with its implementation is that so far the PC’s contributions to the world of Tyria are being marginalized in favor of two dimensional characters that are George Lucas-ing certain plot elements into the game, such as Marjory and Kasmeer’s “love” which literally is the Jar Jar Binks of a homosexual relationship.

So the last week and a half I’ve ran Fractals quite a bit.

In the last ten bonus chests, in a ROW, there’s been nothing but the one pristine relic and empyreal fragments.

I understand how RNG works, but statistically speaking isn’t ten in a row close to impossible?

Tim.6450:

Even then I do not see any reason to notificate players untill it is done. Say they said they would relook the drop rate and then decide that it is fine. Every player would have build their hopes up and would even be more outraged.

Not really, erring on the side of caution by informing your players breeds goodwill, not contempt. Players would get the sense that ANet is looking out for them, not tossing them under the bus.

Plus, in your example, no player is out any effort, which means no one lost anything.

Taygus.4571:

Kaleban.9834:

Tim.6450:

I disaggree, players on the forums should not get an advantage over the other players.

Who said anything about forums? There is this snazzy thing in game called e-mail, ANet could simply send out a mass mailer to every player. Boom.

EVERY player?
how do they know which players wasted 1000’s of chances? or even a 100…

They’re not gonna check through EVERY account.

Am I not clear? Let’s see, didn’t every player in game receive e-mails from ANet during the Living Story, like the one that included the “present” from Scarlet?

I’m not asking for reimbursement, which I thought I stated clearly. I am saying this is a good example of poor communication, and ANet needs to improve.

Altering drop rates on rare items weeks into temporary content is extremely bad planning, this is the kind of stuff you expect from Indie games on Steam, not major MMOs.

Tim.6450:

I disaggree, players on the forums should not get an advantage over the other players.

Who said anything about forums? There is this snazzy thing in game called e-mail, ANet could simply send out a mass mailer to every player. Boom.