Guild Wars 2

Viking Jorun.5413:

The real question is whether or not Labyrinthine Cliffs is leaving, seeing as it’s a land mass which we have naval travel access to.

What’s ironic is, if you look at the map, we really don’t have naval access to it. Those folks from LA have to ferry through the Straits of Devastation to get there, which probably isn’t the most tourist friendly stretch of sea. Unless there’s an Orrian Canal I’m not aware of. But that’s just nitpicky.

Seriously though, I’m pretty sure the whole zone’s going away until next year. Lore wise, the bazaar moves around anyway, so if they left us the zone, they’d either have to put something else there (which they would then have to remove for the bazaar next year), or just give us an empty section of cliffs to hang out in. My money’s on the whole zone disappearing.

I find playing GW2 very rewarding. If I can’t find an exciting battle to join in WvW, I can hop in sPvP and have an absolute blast. Occasionally I even do the new PvE stuff, and enjoy that as well. I meet new folks, kill new folks, and all around enjoy myself. What’s more rewarding that that?

Oh, you want stuff, too? What’s it say that games don’t just compete on how much fun you have, but by how much stuff they’ll give you on top of the enjoyment you get from the game?

I… wha?

andthensomemorecharacters

Holy kitten. I started this thread off quite encouraged by the laid back attitude so many were displaying. Could this finally be the thread where common sense prevailed?

But alas, it was not to be. A couple things here. The only thing Laurels can get you that can in anyway improve your game that can’t be gotten by quicker means is ascended gear (assuming you avoid the fractals as I do. If you do fractals regularly, I have to assume you have no complaint with the Laural gating). Here’s the kicker, ascended gear isn’t that much better. Upon getting my ascended gear I didn’t stroll into WvW and feel my godly powers radiating all over the fools who would dare cross me. I didn’t feel like I had finally caught up, and had been fighting one handed up till that point. It’s a negligible stat boost.

If PvE is your thing, I’m surprised you didn’t get ascended gear from the fractals. If you’re a WvWer like myself, you should know by now that smarter play will take you much farther than a negligible stat boost.

In WoW you are forced to do dailies, because unless you are properly geared, you CANNOT do certain content. In GW2 not only is there nothing behind a gear wall, there are large segments of the game where you get upleveld to max just so they don’t exclude anyone. Until Mike O’Brien come to your house with a gun and demands you earn your god kitten laurels, I really don’t want to hear anyone talking about being forced to do anything.

Your pressure to do anything in this game is placed there by yourself. If you don’t get your dailies today, take a deep breathe, relax, and realize there’s always tomorrow.

I don’t think this is an unreasonable request, and have said as much on the suggestions forum version of this thread. Especially since you can’t just move your skins from piece to the other, you have to literally destroy something to transmute something. In basically any other game on the market where skins are the big real cakittenems, you get much better mileage out of them. In this game you have to A) have another set of gear to put it on, and B ) have somewhere to stash gear you’re not using. This is no big deal for first or second time purchasers, but in the long run, these limitations will very likely turn folks off of buying yet more skins. If a year from now I could just pop out another copy of the Aetherblade skin, I would have no problem dropping Magitek on that set. As it stands now, buying more skins, you’re literally working against yourself.

Plus, as stated above, the other way worked just fine in the original Guild Wars.

Hide your wife, hide your kids!

At least said tourists have to put up with being in WvW. If we’re going to give pure PvE’ers a pass, just give them a non pvp instance of the WvW where you can frolic all carefree-like. Or… just not make them do WvW in the first place. Not that I’m in favor of either of those, but they’re both better than ghost mode. Honestly, I think for world completion you should have to have at least played 1 whole match in each of the tournament spvp maps, too.

Silentsins.3726:

Here’s what Xeph of team paradigm, the current top EU team, had to say about stealth in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Current-state-of-the-meta/2452809/quote

Xeph.4513:

Stealth, is another issue in this game and plays right into the same category, it’s just so difficult to punish, and there is no real other counter for stealth than another stealth, there is no intelligent play behind; it’s just a free “do what I want” card.
If there was a reveal mechanic or a way to counter it, then you would see a lot more intelligent play and thought process put behind stealthing, but at the current state of the game there just isn’t.

That sounds awfully similar to the OP’s comment.

I hate to say it, but this (this, being the entire post, not just those 2 paragraphs) is about as close to expert opinion as we can get on the matter. I still believe most of the thief rage threads are from folks who didn’t even try to understand the mechanic, but if the top level players really and honestly believe it’s a bad mechanic, and not just an annoying mechanic, who am I to argue?

That being said, I don’t think there’s an easy fix to this. As has been stated several times before, stealth is such a fundamental part of playing a thief, that you can’t just wholesale remove it and leave it at that.

Like mama used to say, bored people are just too stupid to entertain themselves.

You either enjoy this game, or you don’t. WoW and a hundred other mmo’s use tangible rewards to keep you engaged. Whether you enjoy that or not isn’t their concern, so long as you keep coming back. Some folks genuinely enjoy that style of play, and they have my blessing.

In GW2, you kind of make your own fun. Take WvW for example (which is about 98% of my play time, personally). Pretty much every week’s match is decided by sunday night, if not earlier. So do I stop playing the rest of the week? Nope. You just have to make each session about defending THIS tower. Or taking THAT keep. You just have to take pleasure in the simple act of playing the game, like in FPS’s before they got XP.

Any one match of Unreal Tournament meant absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. I wasn’t ranking up to unlock a golden flak cannon, or a title, or anything remotely prestigious. I played because playing is FUN. THAT is the part of the manifesto people so often overlook. GW2 is made to be fun. Whether or not is is for you, is up to you. But if it’s not fun for you, it’s not ANet’s fault for not giving you enough carrots. This game was advertised as RELATIVELY carrot free. Hopefully it shall remain as such.

TriggerSad.2597:

I feel like the poop-word needs to replaced with “skritt.” Who’s with me!?!

/signed

Your title and your OP ask two different questions. How much have I payed to play the game? $60 +tax.

How much more have I spent on gems? Probably another $60, maybe $80. Which, by the way is over the course of basically a year. Of course, I can still afford rent, groceries and booze, so it’s not like I weep over it.

Infinite access to stealth is about the opposite of the truth. Without speccing, you get 2 utilities that grant it, one of which involves a big “kill me” circle you can’t leave or it will end early. Their cooldowns are 40sec and 60sec, and can be reduced 20%.

There is 1 weapon skill (offhand dagger 5) which outright grants it, it must be used in melee range, and has a 1sec cast time (and a big, ridiculous, flourishy animation). If you’re on your game, you can deal with that skill using the same mechanics your class gets to deal with every other incoming attack (blinds, dodges, blocks, etc). If you have dagger-main, pistol-off you can also create a smoke field and leap thru it, using half your init bar in the process. This build isn’t really made for “abusing” stealth, so much as having it as an option if it’s needed. (Alternately, this is how WvW theives achieve 12 second at a time perma stealth. The tradeoff for this, is you’re no longer useful at anything.)

If you spec, you may also enter stealth when you steal, which best case scenario (read: 30 points in your not-stealth line) is on a 21 second cooldown. If stealth is your thing, it’s more likely 30-35 seconds. Also, you can spec to stealth when you take fall damage. All but useless outside WvW. Usefull for un-stealth related reasons in WvW.

TL;DR If anything I just said is news to you, you really don’t have a firm grasp on how the class works and are just complaining about things you don’t understand.

Edited for clarity

I’m a screenshot fiend as well, and would love it for that application, but there’s a practical consideration here too. In WvW when trying to aim up at the defenders on a wall, my camera already has to compete with all the others running around. It’s a shame I have to work around ME as well.

And for the record, first person was in the game for beta, but was removed before launch (between the first and second BWE’s, I believe).

CrossedHorse.4261:

The reason everyone stealths so much is because without it Thief has almost no survivability at all. No offense intended to pro-Thief players, I’m sure you are excellent (and I mean this genuinely), but for the average Joe, it’s pretty easy to say that without stealth the Thief is one of the most ridiculously squishy professions you can play.

This. It’s not like you roll a thief, start spamming CnD and become a God Walking Among Mere Mortals. It takes skill to master, and that skill is rewarded. Also, all that stuff about being our only defense. That’s definitely true too.

Now THAT, my friends, is trolling done right.

I’m not going to say you’re wrong about any of what you’ve said. In fact, I pretty much agree across the board. I will say this though, Colin’s indicated that they’ve heard us in this regard, and they are working on more adventury, less party-y stuff. We also know each set of two updates (a month’s worth) takes about 4 months to make. Many of the complaints from the first couple living stories, were getting fixed this summer, IE, sky pirates vs flame and frost.

Also of note (though I don’t think ANet have said this specifically) is that a lot of the first year was spend building infrastructure for future updates. They won’t have to build Halloween from the ground up again this year, LA is already decorated, and we’ll probably see the JP and mini dungeon return (hopefully with some things as well). So all that effort that was spent making the Halloween version of LA, for example can be put toward whole new things unrelated to festivals, like zones or dungeons, whatever. Same goes for Wintersday, Dragon Bash, et al.

That probably wasn’t the most helpful response, since it can be summarized with “just keep waiting!” but I hope it gives some perspective. And if nothing else, there’s always the option to take a break. A couple months off did wonders for me.

Peetee.9406:

What challenge? Those camps require you to just throw bodies at them.

The only challenge is finding 20 people willing to do it.

Let’s be honest, that’s the only challenge in WoW’s raids too. Well, that and doing the raid before to get the gear needed.

one of this games biggest shortcomings, in my opinion, is the first 5ish levels. The game wants you to go out and explore!… but only in this small area at first. Once you cet a couple levels and have more map that’s accessible, running around looking for DE’s get’s much more enjoyable.

As for your story missions, they generally aren;t more frequentr than every other level, so I recommend you save them and do ~10 levels worth at a time. It’s a much smoother experience that way. otherwise you end an instance with “Hurry! We must get to the blah before blah can blah!” Then you have to level twice before you can get to the blah.

Of course I read the original post, I just didn’t read the whole thread. Hence “a whole ’nother thread.” And I’m sorry, but this debate has been raging since BWE1. You’re not saying anything new. The fact is, in almost every other mmo with stealth, stealth is something you can do until the fight starts, then you maybe get one more shot mid-fight to escape or whatever. It generally lasts forever out of combat, and has no application inside combat, aside from getting a first strike. ANet have tried (and in my opinion, mostly succeeded) in making stealth an interesting in-combat mechanic. Not because I feel insanely powerful when using it (which I don’t, sorry), but because it’s one more thing to manage, and when managed well, is very rewarding.

Just answer me this. Have you played a thief? If so, how much? Also, what class(es) do you main? The devs have made it clear that some classes just have advantages over other classes. That’s why it’s a team game, and that’s why there are no duals (though I’d still like duels anyway). It’s like a big game of paper rock scissors. Guardian’s constant blocking is the bane of thieves. You learn to cope. Sometimes that just means outmaneuvering them to the cap points.

In any event, you are right, a well played thief should never die. Is it because they’re invincible? No, it’s because a well played thief will escape. But here’s the thing, in WvW and sPvP both, escaping may as well be losing, because the name of the game is holding territory. Yes, in sPvP, running away denies you the 2 points for a kill, but that’s hardly the meat of any team’s score, and it’s not like we’re the only class with GOOD escape mechanics. We’re just the class with the BEST escape mechanics. Of course, we get that by trading health, armor, most boons, and an unreasonable amount of hate from the rest of the player base.

Stealth has counters. Move around unpredictably for starters, that does wonders. Being stealthed means you’re not “on the point.” The longer you make a stealthed thief chase you, the longer YOU control the point which is… well, the point.

First lemme preface by saying I didn’t feel like reading a whole ’nother “nerf stealth” thread.

I main a thief (though I usually run d/p, rather than the super trolly d/d, and I usually don’t run glass cannon, but I’ve played with it plenty), and I gotta say, thieves have to work. Even the d/d backstab spammers. d/d glass cannons play balancing on a thread that can easily be broken, and the theives that take you down in the blink of an eye are the well practiced. Don’t believe me? Roll a glass canon backstab thief for yourself. If you’re right, and they’re grossly OP, then you shouldn’t really have to try and you’ll steamroll everyone.

Of course, if you do actually roll a theif and learn how they play, you’ll be amazed how much you learn about them, and how much easier it is to take them on. Seriously, give it a shot.

Now, on other other hand, I rolled up a necro a couple weeks ago, and built a MM bunker. That’s hardly playing. All you have to do is stand inside the circle and keep throwing circles of your own on the ground. Remember to switch to death shroud if your heal is still on cool down. Repeat. I haven’t played a guardian, but I wonder if bunkering them feels as passive as necros. Do I hate necros for being OP? No, but now I know if the fight’s not going my way in the first few seconds, they’ve papered my rock, and I depart for another point. It’s called strategy.

The number of slots allowed in WvW isn’t a number that ANet figured was the right one. It’s the number that the server can support. It doesn’t matter what your character does in there, or if he does nothing at all. At the end of the day, packets of information have to be sent from your computer to the server, to all the other computers of those playing and back again. It has to do this an absurd number of times per second to make sure everyone’s computers are relatively synced. Even if your ghost people weren’t using skills, your computer would still need to know about a squillion times per second every step that each of the hundreds of characters make, and every skill they use, where it was targeted, and how much damage was inflicted.

TL;DR the population cap of WvW maps is a practical function of the limits of technology. Adding tourists would use resources that could be used for players, no matter how you spin it.

What Tuomir said. You’d also be eating up a slot that the people who would like to use to play WvW could use. If I ever get a que and then see some ghostly tourist, that’d be the day I go back to DCUO.

K, I’m not going back and reading 5 pages, but I need to throw my 2 cents in. Had this thread not existed, I was going to make one.

The new medium skin in the gem store, is excellent! I’d love to give you ten more dollars, anet, but I tossed ten bucks your way for the Aether skin already. Without any sort of system to easily access both, you’re not getting my ten bucks. I do WvW about 98% of the time, so I really only need my PVT set, I have no use or desire to spend in-game gold to get another of the same set so I can use the skin I would be spending actual money on. Just not happening. (Also there’s the issue of storage…) While some of the more robust options I skimmed above would be excellent, really, all I need in the short term would be a system similar to zenith weapons for stuff purchased in the gem store. That would be great, thanks. I’m sure I and many others would be much less hesitant to buy multiple skins were that the case.

For long term solutions, I would look at DCUO. They’ve got a pretty great system for visual gear.

So the drop rates are crap? Yeah, it’s gambling! The house always wins. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a better way to get these out there, I’d love to be able to just buy what I want out of the store. But that’s not how it works, and no one has obfuscated that fact. If you’re going to gamble, you know you’re going to lose. You win some, lose some, it’s all a game to me.

I don’t think the goal was ever to not generate a meta. In fact, Colin mentioned (in the recent stream, I believe) that it was never intended that all of a classes weapons be viable in all cases. That would be boring anyway. IE, a shortbow is indispensable for almost all thief builds in WvW, but its usefulness varies in all other forms of play. Is that bad? Not really. If all weapons were always as effective as all others all the time, we would be living in a world where vanilla is the only flavor.

As for zerker being the end-all be-all set, that’s really only true in PvE. In WvW, PVT is closer to the “standard” stat set, and PvP sees a wide array of builds.

Face… book? People still do that?

Slayer in a major scale just isn’t Slayer.

How am I going to play Raining Blood if I never get sharps?!

I haven’t touched the flute yet, but does it have sharp notes? If so, that would probably account for the change, and it’s one I would welcome. If not, dunno what’s up.

I’ve been back from my own break for about a month, and not much has changed in any practical sense, except the huge balance update we got a couple weeks ago. I would scope out the patch notes for the June 25thish update, and that’ll tell you pretty much all you need to know.

That, and LS updates are now bi-weekly instead of monthly, which is good news in my book.

Let’s not forget that Cantha and Elona each have pretty distinct regions in themselves. Assuming that going to Cantha (should it ever be allowed by NCSoft) merits a bigger dedication than that of just one LS (like those long-term teams Collin talked about), it might be reasonable to expect 4ish zones of say, the Imperial City in either one big, or two small updates. Then we get 4ish zones of the Jade Sea in an update or two. Maybe Shing Jea is a warmup update for the 2 weeks before the big one where we go to the mainland. If exploring new continents 2 weeks at a time is the price I pay for not having to drop $60 on another box (metaphorically speaking), then I’m just fine with it.

Plus, it’s looking like this might be a quarterly(ish) thing from now on. I almost promise you they set the cutoff in july because that’s the start of the next free gift period. Maybe you’ll get free Halloween stuff!

Now that ANet has done this twice, we’re establishing a pattern. Clearly, the pattern is that those dastardly minds at ANet occasionally give evil thank you gifts to those that have continued to support ANet NCSoft after the initial purchase. Considered yourself warned. If you don’t want the underhanded, “gifts,” you best not buy any more gems.

@Elothar, couldn’t have said it better myself.

I’d be much happier if all achievement based skins worked like the apex ones. Let me make a set of shatterer wings when I want them, instead of stashing them next my my mad king books and my toymakers’ bag, and all the other crap collecting digital dust in my bank.

Shock, seriously. You know what i did when I was getting stressed about the direction the game seemed to be taking? I took a break. I did some stuff that was fun for me, instead of standing around here shouting on the forums.

We can go one of two ways from here. You can sigh, realize this is just a game, take it how it is, and continue enjoying the parts that you enjoy. Or, you can go do something else. At this point, you’re just starting to sound like a would-be ex who between sobs keeps saying “but you said you’d love me forever…”

And when you do find that game where the dye system reflects your ideals of social justice, please, come back and tell us about it.

Holy crap, Shockwave, You’re right! ANet is eeeeeeeeeevil! Let us all run! Run from this place! Yes let’s go, go somewhere else full of bunnies and golden coins! Yes let us run… run… is he gone?

Look, the manifesto is an ideal, and it contains the guiding principles behind the development of this game. I think they’ve largely stuck to the broader manifesto itself. I think the fractals were the beginning of a step away from that, but I think ANet also saw the blowback that resulted and learned from it. Is the manifesto still relevant? Absolutely. Is it a contract between anyone and anyone? Nope.

Now let’s be honest. The dye thing isn’t about the manifesto. The dye thing is a matter of you liking the idea of a beta iteration of a system you never tried. You like it better because it adhered to your ideals better, and because you never tried it, and don’t know the drawbacks first hand (which have been discussed at length by now). In your mind the equation is as simple as account bound=good, character bound=bad. There’s a lot more to this, and your oversimplification of the system as evil and money grubbing doesn’t really further any discussion.

How can dailies possibly feel like a grind? They just happen! All by themselves! As long as your play experience involves leaving Lion’s Arch occasionally, you’ll get your required dailies. I don’t think of achievements very often, but I notice I get my dailies pretty much every day I log in, for just having played the game. And even if doing irritating things like killing any mob or participating in any event were really such a pain that you didn’t like doing them, don’t. It’s just for shinies and negligible boosts anyway.

Well, it’s good for your e- (breakingupthekittensoyoucanseethe"E"atthebeginningandhopefullydeducewhatImtryingtosay)peen too.

Negative. GW1 was only ~250 years ago. Trade was wide open then.

It could be some old freakin’ bamboo, too. How long ago did Cantha cut off trade (and everything else)?

I’m fairly certain I read that they were usable across all characters, so I’m betting and hoping that ’they’re also reusable.

I kinda understand the pressure to log in, even in a game like this. I’ve been on break now more months than I’ve regularly played the game though. I’m a competent player, and an avid WvWer, but by the numbers I “only” have 500 hours in and “only” have ~2000 achievements. At a glance, I probably don’t look very hardcore.

You know what though? None of that matters. If your guild judges you by your kitten, and that’s not your bag, you’re in the wrong guild. It kind of sucks being behind on achievements now that you are being rewarded for them, but it only sucks a little. If not getting Hellfire skin any time soon is seriously impacting your life, you seriously need to reexamine your priorities.

Got one for my human Thief. I dig it, but I wish the goggles were down. What I reeeeeealy want would be to have the light version on my thief, like a steampunk James Bond. Ah well, I’m not disappointed with what I got.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Yeah, end-game begins at level 1 and the whole game is end-game are two ways of saying there isn’t any end-game because you’re already there. That is, the game is the game and you keep playing that game and there’s nothing to prevent you doing that. I can see what ANet were going for there, but I can see why it’s got people who have come to expect “end-game” up in arms about it. We need to learn to adjust to the fact that sometimes playing the game for the sake of playing the game really is its own reward … that WILL be difficult, but I think ANet needs to be strong on this one. People will adapt or they won’t, and then things will settle down.

/signed

I just want a way to put down the goggles on my medium aetherblade armor.

And that’s the real magic of WvW. It manages to keep hardcore well occupied while still providing a nice casual friendly playground. I’m not saying WvW is quite perfect, but it’s the reason I’m here. Maybe it was just my impression, but it seemed to me pre-launch that the devs were kind of nudging everyone into the WvW is endgame mentality. Of course, they also kept saying that endgame begins at level 1. So there’s that.

As for sPvP, I think it intimidates quite a few people. On one hand it was brilliant to make sPvP its own thing separate thing, but on the other, there’s a pretty clear wall there that most folks don’t want to bother to cross (or take the portal through).

I’m with you on doing away with the concept of endgame thing though. WoW’s endgame is what made me buy Guild Wars in the first place.

OP, I’m with you all the way.

@Peetee Fractals are exactly the kind of thing that make me nervous. I ducked out of the game for several months after they introduced the dungeon with a mandatory grind to get BiS gear. Fractals are the biggest symbol of “those people” in my mind.

@CrossedHorse GW2 is extremely casual… if you’re mostly into PvE. This what I haven’t understood since launch. People seem to be baffled that the company ARENANet would put out a game where endgame is pretty much PvP (And c’mon, WvW is a form of PvP). GW1 was the same way till EotN released and they needed things to tide folks over till GW2 released. If anything, what keeps PvEers away from sPvP is that sPvP is too hardcore for most.

@OP I didn’t get to listen since I’m at work, but I followed you. You can scope me out at soundcloud.com/00nothing

If I’m not doing anything else at that moment, I try to appreciate others’ gear. I even screen cap the real good ones. And much like several above, I like a good looking mix’n’match better than anything that serves only to point out that you grind dungeons. Put some character in you character, man!

That being said, I basically just WvW, with some light PvEing on the side. I’ve been playing since launch, and there’s at least one whole zone I hadn’t even heard of until yesterday. So needles to say, I’m not exactly an RPer.

I’m not going back and reading all 18 pages to find out, but I hope someone has mentioned that the lottery style RNG boxes are immensely popular in places like… for example…. oh, I don’t know… Korea. I’m not going to defend the practice, but it is one of those cultural things we don’t get. (Or you could argue “they don’t get.” Whichever.) I know NC’s overall business is something like 65% Korean, but I’m not so sure GW2 has the same split. Regardless, we know for a fact now that the gem store money goes to NCSoft, not ANet directly. So it’s not much a of a leap to believe that ANet isn’t entirely in charge of this one.

Granted, I’d still like a better system than the equivalent of buying scratch-offs. I just don’t think screaming at ANet is going to have much effect. Of course, screaming at NCSoft never has much effect, so what do you do?

Guild found. Thanks all!

Here’s the thing though, even if it gets ANet’s support, and you can move the free-floating camera around like your head, you’ll never see it in tpvp. A group of people who have to control the camera with their mouse vs people with neck control might be about as fair as sticking controllers vs mouse/keyboards in FPS’s.

Of course, the alternative is incorporating it, then anyone who’s “very serious” about pvp will be using one, and that’s one more degree of separation between the “pros” and the casuals.

It could be disruptive to WvW too. If you can zoom your camera the whole way out, position it above you, and then “look up” with your OR, you might be able to see over keep walls, and we know ANet’s (justifiably) not cool with that.

As for PvE, yeah, OR support would be sweet.

WvW…

…annnnnnd maybe someday I’ll go for map completion.