Guild Wars 2

Thieves’ Steal is borderline OP even w/o traits in pvp.

PvE on the other hand yeah.

I’d say Necro’s are pretty good at tagging.

Marks (pre-set marks as well), staff auto piercing, life transfer, wells, axe’s aoe.

I hate my Necro Underwater.

Some other classes are fantastic and fun underwater.

Also meleeing is such a PITA underwater.

Yeah they have too many blind spots for non-projectile attacks.

I can’t imagine I’m the only one who was annoyed when they finally found out about this thing.

I thought the only “tax” was the listing fee for the longest time, the fact that it’s costing you twice to sell things (w/o even telling you) is insane, I’m not sure why they didn’t just increase the listing fees instead of adding this invisible tax cut.

It wouldn’t be so annoying if it was actually reflected when trying to sell something, so it shows you the TRUE value you’re getting when selling something. =/

The only one that really throws me off is the Grawl voices.

Most out of place voice ever.

I’m enjoying playing this game like Skyrim.

But you know what? Unlike Skyrim, this game has some great combat, and it’s a huge shame it’s not put to full use, needs to be harder DE’s and fights to keep us interested (outside of dungeons).

If there were open challenging events that actually took some teamwork/communication you would have exactly what you’re looking for. They just need to work on the events, or atleast the meta events and their prerequisite event chains.

They need to make it :

1 – Useful for every type of necromancer.

2 – More Traits to add to/change how Death Shroud and skills function

3 – IMO, remove degen and have skills cost Life Force and make them worth their cost, true Life Force management.

TBH just keep playing, you’ll nail down your mechanical skill, timing your CC’s, managing life force better and timing Death Shroud better to absorb dmg, as well as just general kiting/dodging.

It’d pretty silly how much abuse I can take in a glass cannon build w/ no pets or aoe blinds, just my standard CC, Death Shroud, kiting, LOS, etc.

I agree on your first point.

That’s about all I could understand though.

Soulwatcher.2604:

@Dusk did you play at GW2 launch? Zones were packed to the max people were everywhere. Fast forward to today and your lucky to get a hand full of people to show up to events in the 1 to 70 zones.

To me that says two problems! (A) the high level people are not happy enough to make alts! (B) Sales have slowed way down and there not that many we people.

God his self could make the perfect mmorpg and people would still quit. It’s the influx of new players that keep the game alive. Its very bother some to me if in 5 weeks a sell out game goes from packed to the max zones to handful of people at events if your lucky .

IMO the main issue is there’s no reason to go back to old zones once you’re maxed (assuming you’ve already explored), I don’t think Anet intended for 80’s to be in Orr 90% of the time.

Well I do agree the lack of build variety makes me extremely sad.

Was the single thing I thought GW1 was brilliant for.

I’ve either been doing Sceptre/Staff conditions with Epidemic, or Axe-Focus/Staff power with wells, which uses Death Shroud Life Blasts as your main attack.

Dagger mainhand can also be good, the auto does very nice dmg.

Minion Master build is kinda boring, but can be very effective in some really difficult areas (don’t think I could’ve done Forlarn Pass’s jumping puzzle w/o em). As they bring alot of free dmg, extra CC, and absorb alot of dmg for you.

Our builds are pretty kitten limited, it get’s kinda boring, but ultimately weaving in and out of Death Shroud and managing our CC makes it a bit more interesting.

For Wells, well of suffering and corrupt as they do dmg, then Spectral Walk for mobility, and I’ve been using Flesh Golem as my Elite, it’s free dmg/cc/tank.

It does feel like we’re missing another 2 hander. I wouldn’t mind another 2 hander focused on MM, where the skills are similar to that of Mesmer Phantasms/Clones in how they act (temporary pets tied to targets). Could throw a spectre along with all the corporeal minions as well.

As for changing Staff the only thing I would want is support traits focused on making Marks… well more supportive, not changing the weapon itself.

Well if you’re doing a power Necro, Death Shroud Life Blasts will be your main attack, since that does way more than any of your weapon’s besides maybe Dagger Auto’s.

It’s still not burst, but wells/Lich Form is for the burst.

When I was doing Power Builds it was basically Staff/Axe-Focus. Focus Vuln skill + Spectral Claws —> DS Life Blasts —> Staff Marks —> Axe —> DS etc.

I’d prefer if they just added Disease and made that the “Necro” condition. =[

A Boil Blood type spell or even spectral fire (as opposed to guardian’s blue fire) would work pretty well I think, thematically.

Andele.1306:

Well yeah, that was kinda my whole point, that Utilites and Transformations arent affected by weapon damage while weapon skills are, but not by the number that the weapon states, well DS seems to have its own calculation, since you caught my attention with the removing amulet then testing with DS – forgot to do it on the first time, but an additional 916 power does still double the damage.

Lich form seems to have around 150 base weapon damage based on what the power boost would make the damage and what it actually is (you can test it by using the marks and removing the the power boost depending on how much power you already have) and yes it does work normally (never said lich wasnt working, just saying that either a big part of weapon damage does nothing or that the numbers are there for show/just to give a bit of RNG on the min and max damage).
Plague having about the same (maybe a tiny bit more) base weapon damage if you would remove Lich power boost/add the same amount of bonus damage to Plague (if you double the power/add 1835~ power if with amulet depending if you have points in spite or not).
Wells do the same amount of damage no matter what weapon is equipped. Same with plage.

Overall, the numbers on the weapons seem to be there for lolz of the RNG gods so that we dont get the same final numbers there (as in to nerf our damage) since the 1111 damage that the staff should give for the weapon skills is nowhere, its only the power that counts or the game uses a really complicated calculation.

I’m really not sure what you’re talking about TBH.

Are you confusing Attack (Power + Wep Dmg sum) for Weapon Dmg? From my testing the Attack stat is completely pointless as Power and Wep Dmg are being multiplied and not added to each other.

Lich Forms base weapon dmg (had it’s own) was 818 or something close to that, not 150. Unless you mean, 150 base dmg on the skills before power? Regardless of the actual weapon dmg it had, the skills still would be a coefficient of that, so if it had 1000 weapon dmg but the base skill dmg was 150 that’s just 0.15 coefficient. But again I’m not 100% what you’re talking about.

And the dmg spread isn’t there to “nerf dmg” it still averages out to be the same, it just keeps things from being completely static, nearly every RPG does this, still not sure if this is what you’re talking about lol.

As far as I’m concerned everything is working correctly.

Also is anyone able to confirm my “Life Blast Obstructed” bug? I swear I’m not crazy. =p

And sorry, I didn’t mean to make 2 posts like that.

@The Are Hashes

Sceptre Auto is actually a 5 second base bleed, and the 33% longer Sceptre Durations Trait is actually giving it a 45% boost in duration instead of 33%, but is still 33% for Grasping Hands.

With Hemophilia Sceptre Auto is 5 second bleed + 65% = 8.25 second bleed.

Was able to test that it’s 45% because adding 15 in Spite trree (15% duration) added up to 60% with the 33% trait, since every 20% of 5 second is exactly 1 second, the 33% trait + 15 in spite gave 8 tics. And when used w/o any modifier whatsoever was 5 tics base.

So 20% from Spite, 20% Hemo, 45% Sceptre Trait, 7% Sigil :

5s + 1s + 1s + 2.25s + 0.35s = 9.6 seconds. Which should be 9 tics, assuming that’s what you’re counting as it’s a more reliable way to measure bleeds.

If CC removal is mandatory, why didn’t they reserve a slot and force you to take one like they did with the heal slot? =p

TBH pvp builds get pretty stale since you really only get 1 slot to play with lol.

Yeah I agree too.

90%+ of the people I try to talk to completely ignore me lol.

I don’t think people want to interupt their “flow” when completing a zone, like if they group up with someone but don’t want to help them do a heart or something that the person already finished.

I’ve done a condition duration/condition dmg build getting 2 second fears with the fear on dmg trait.

If you get 40% condition duration from 20 in Spite and 20% condition duration from runes + 50% Fear duration trait you can get 2 dmg tics from the Dmg on Fear trait (which is condition dmg btw, scales with condition dmg stat) and is basically like Burn but slightly better. Could get up to 750 dmg per tic.

Still sucks that you have to go out of your way just to get average fears, but yeah. =/

And yes 20 + 20 + 50 = 90, but that was giving me 2 tics.

Are you sure it’s 10 seconds?

I remember testing it along time ago and seemed quite fast.

Does that mean if you have a group of necro’s together all using it, and they get a condition on one of them, will they just copy/paste each other to death? Lol.

I would love to try this.

Andele.1306:

2. Knote, I thought so myself at first, but if you test it with utility skills/Lich/DS, you will see that weapon damage actually gives the % scailing and that power buffs the damage by a flat amount.

Just tested this again on Utilities/Lich Form/Death Shroud.

Death Shroud skills with no weapon have their own base dmg (Life Blast w/no weapon was like 330 or something).

Placing a weapon “replaced” that number with it’s own based on your weapon dmg.
pStaff = PvP Staff // sStaff = Steady Staff

No Amulet + pStaff = 518 Top Life Blast
923 Amulet + pStaff = 1039 Top Life Blast
No Amulet +sStaff = 67 Top Life Blast
923 Amulet + sStaff = 134 Top Life Blast

Using on Heavy Dummy reflected this (66 and 133 dmg for Steady Staff). PvP Staff of course had it’s randomized dmg range, but was around the stated average.

I tested the 2 dmg dealing wells, weapon dmg has absolutely no affect on their dmg, they always have their own base dmg based on level. Power increased them the same, (923 amulet increased them by 101%).

Something a bit odd about the wells, they had their own hidden dmg range similar to that of weapons, basically they had their own seperate “weapon dmg” with a dmg range, as each cast would give a slightly different consistent dmg (yes Suffering applies Vulnerability). Corruption used by itself showed consistent dmg either 118 tics, or 123 tics, or 126 tics, etc. per cast and when the 923 amulet added showed the dmg doubled as well within similar range, so working normally. I figured slotting the Steady Weapon would normalize the tics, but they kept their dmg spread.

Lich Form is a special case, it also uses it’s own Weapon Dmg thus equipping either weapon, and then unequipping both did absolutely nothing. Lich Form had it’s own base weapon dmg (of like 818 or so) as well as adds free stats such as an extra 1800 or so Power and other stats like Precision. It still used the Amulet’s Power, adding the 923 bumped the dmg from around 800 something to 1300, considering it already had it’s own free Power Boost this makes sense and is working normally.

kurtdg.2370:

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but in PvP matches, I’ve been noticing that at the beginning of a new match, my life force will be completely drained even though I had life force remaining at the end of the previous match.

It doesn’t always drain it, but it does seem to happen quite frequently.

Everything get’s reset with match changes.

Vadren.9045:

@They are hashes,

I already posted this, but I wanted to reiterate because it seems my addition was overlooked.

Regarding:

Scepter
Feast of Corruption
(NB0010) Does not give Life Force.

Feast of Corruption currently gives 2% life force per condition on the target, so it gives 0 life force when no conditions are on the target, 2% life force for 1 condition, 4% for 2 conditions, etc… I’ve tested with signet of spite and it gives 12% life force for 6 conditions.

Likely this is working as intended and just a tool tip error.

Just tested this myself, working perfectly fine.

They are hashes.4523:

@Nolhian
(NB0077) Traits that increase “% output damage” are not improving conditions damage.
We are “Mixing” some bug reports if the cause is related to the same problem.
This way developers can fix it sooner.

IMO % dmg increases not affecting Condition Dmg is not a bug and is 100% intended.

Curses tree is sort of meant to be hybrid when you look at it. Feast of Corruption working similarly, Crit/Condition combo, decent base dmg on Sceptre Autos.

% Dmg reductions not affecting Condition Dmg means % Dmg increases shouldn’t either.

They are hashes.4523:

• (NB0059)[Fix – Unconfirmed] Does not give 3% lifeforce from Soul Marks when triggered.
• Mark of Revival trait does not seem to create a mark when reviving.

All marks (including Mark of Blood on Dodge) were properly giving me 3% Life Force when triggered as I just tested. However it was only a single tic of 3% per trigger and now for each mob hit by the aoe I’m sure that’s intended however.

Just tested Mark of Revival in the mists. Can confirm it does spawn a mark properly when ressurecting, only lasts 6 seconds (bug, not sure), properly triggers a 1s fear (dragged soldier mobs over), and seems to have a proper cooldown for 45 seconds. Does NOT trigger 3% Life Force with Soul Marks, and does not become a bigger aoe (in size NOR in effect) with Greater Marks.

Not working with Greater Marks is indeed a significant bug as w/o the size increase it’s not nearly as good at protecting downed allies.

Necro skills are boring and awful underwater.

And trying to melee is a huge PITA, I have a problem with depth perception when trying to melee underwater lol.

Except for Wall of course. Still broken and terribad.

It’s our best skill underwater.

Was doing an event underwater to kill a champion mob, died instantly and was able to sit at ranged just life tapping to maintain hp and rotate between the Piranha’s and Poison/Fear and do better dmg at a safe distance compared to our crappy underwater weapons lol. And that was w/o the downed state trait. =/

I don’t think this one is up there.

But I’ve noticed this multiple times now so I’m sure I’m not crazy.

Life Blast seems to be randomly obstructed once in a while, when there is truly nothing in the way to obstruct it. It’s hard to replicate and doesn’t happen often, but usually after quickly jumping into Death Shroud to pop one off it can vanish in thin air and say “Obstructed”.

I’m not sure if it’s related to the Trait that allows it to pierce or not.
———————————————————————————————————————
Also Andele, I’ve done my own testing with Power and scaling to see how it works a couple times already and I’m very confident I know how it works.

Direct Dmg from skills scale with your average Weapon dmg by a certain coefficient (obvious), and has NOTHING to do with Attack (the sum of weapon dmg + power).

Basically 100 average weapon dmg = 80 for one skill, 150 for another, etc.

Your base Power (916 @ lvl 80) is 100% Base Dmg. Every additional 100 Power is 11% increase (916 + 100 Power = 111% base dmg).

With no other modifiers, Power Amulet (+923 Power) changes tooltips on Axe skills from:
236 — 472
269 — 540
808 — 1616

100% increase, although +923 power is actually 101% increase which is reflected on the dagger tooltips (besides Life Siphon) so there is an extremely small difference on tooltips for some skills but essentially the same.

I also tested this with the Steady Weapon on the dummies to make sure it’s not just a tooltip change. 35 Dmg with Unholy Feast on Heavy Dummy was doubled to 70, dmg on other golems also doubled.

And yes the golems are a messed up, Medium is actually Light armored, and vice versa.

The dmg scaling was the same for the other weapons when I tested as well, feel free to do it yourself incase I’m wrong.

I also tested doing increments with the power trait tree instead of amulet as well. Also, direct dmg % increases from traits or runes/sigils are calculated after Power.

Yeah piercing attacks are really annoying to use correctly. Especially when mobs like to move if you try to maneuver around them.

Bouncing attack would be so nice on Staff and fit the aoe theme, plus it would justify the low DPS it does. I would either like that, or have Marks be instant cast lol.

Also speaking of Pierce, that trait that makes Life Blast pierce should be changed to make Life Blast splash instead, and give it a sexy green explosion, it’s so hard to pierce multiple targets with Life Blast.

I actually wish minions were just like Phantasms tbh. =/

There’s always boon duration bro.

Would definately agree that the no stealing aspect is a great feature.

I would like to say DE’s although most of them are dissapointing, but it has the potential and that’s what counts. In time DE’s could very well be amazing. There’s a few that were actually pretty fun/interesting.

My biggest dissapointment is the lack of builds, and depth with combat based on the low amount of abilities. That’s something that’s very important to me in MMO’s and one thing I was sure Anet would deliver on. Again in time they will most likely fix this.

Or you could just use Sceptre with Sigil of Earth and that crappy crit bleed trait instead. =p

You guys can flame the OP all you want.

For a game where the only carrot is cosmetic skins, their sure as hell isn’t much of it.

Plague is spot on actually.

Nailed my main gripes with the game for sure.

Skill/playstyle customization, uniqueness, complexity is something I always look for in MMO’s and is one of the things I thought GW1 did best at by far, and was why I had such faith in GW2.

It’s a shame they were afraid to go any further than they did. Just removing dual-profressions could’ve easily made balancing a x1000 easier, w/o having to gut any build variety/skill quantity.

And as he said, for a game where the only objective/carrot is Cosmetic skins, there sure as hell isn’t many options for them.

And having 0 reasons to replay lower levels is a massive flaw indeed, in fact I thought their intention was to have people re-playing low level areas even at cap. Nothing encourages that though, no scaling rewards/loot, high waypoint costs scaling with level, high lvl gear making down-scaling a joke (nearly 1 shot mobs).

There should atleast be things exclusive to the old zones for people to go back and hunt down new skins or pets, or w/e.

Granted Anet may do something about any of these problems, so I’ll still wait and see of course. Hopefully build variety is one of their priorities, and that goes for both PvE and PvP.

Vaerah.4907:

But this is true of every single MMORPG in existence. It’s not unique to GW2 in the slightest, and the mechanics that Anet worked into their game don’t actually encourage socializing. Which is sort of the point, I think.

I take it, you are one of those players that would not even breath if the game wouldn’t “encourage” you to and possibly stick a carrot for pushing you to do it.

I have always been part of “public in game chats” and similar that foster a community even just talking about random things. I don’t get a “reward” nor the game “encourages” that stuff, but I take initiative and play an active role.
If people prefer to be passive guinea pigs pushing the red button only because there’s food at the end of it, it’s not my – or the developers – fault.

It looks quite alike to GW2 PvE 5 men instances. They are hard for most, are limited to a specific number of players and force (how I hate that word, in a game, another sign of accepting to be treated like labor animals) to discuss strategy etc.

Never the less, people manage to whine against this content as well.

“WHAAAA THERE’S NO REWARD WHAAAA!”

The reward is in managing to finish them, getting a decent amount of gold (I have made 1.5G in one run, lost 6s for 3 repairs…) and eventually a fashion set of choice.
Isn’t it enough?

What’s enough? A purple pony, “autopwnsauce” daggers to 1 shot people in arena and a dedicated achievement: “today you breathed 2500 times, you are PRO!” for the epic effort of killing lolPvE?

Someone’s had a bad experience from the looks of it. lol

It’s obvious you didn’t actually read his posts or atleast understand it. z.z

VendettaDFA.9368:

I dont have any problem with a proper review that discusses the pluses and minuses of a game. Yahtzee is not one of those proper reviewers whose opinion I could respect. He outs himself as not being a fan of MMO’s right at the beginning.

Several reviews that have a negative slant to them are also written by those who have similar issues. A critic at forbes who wrote about the PvE weaknesses of GW2 admitted at the start of his article that hes not a PvE fan but prefers PvP .

Well then …. write what you know about. Someone who writes a negative review about something he is consistantly negative towards is obviously not a person whose opinion will matter to me. A troll is a troll….. whether it be in chat , in the forums , or in a supposedly legitimate article.

Well I haven’t heard of him, but people say he’s there to just bash games and be entertaining when doing it, not a fully serious review.

Corian.4068:

Schurge.5194:

I think that these players who continue to say that “Guild Wars 2” is about fun are missing the fact that people don’t repeat dungeons for fun. For most people leveling is not fun after the first go ’round.

This is exactly the kind of thing I meant. If you aren’t having fun with the gameplay, why in the world are you playing to begin with? I’m not saying quit, but have you seriously evaluated why you’re spending time on something you consider to be “not fun after the first go’round”?

Which I mean, that’s fine. Not everyone’s going to like the gameplay, but why would you want incentive to keep playing a game you aren’t having fun with? This makes no sense to me.

Anyway, a couple of the more recent posts mentioned that progression is an RPG staple, to which yes, I agree. And it’s very enjoyable to see one’s character grow stronger. I said this. I make no attempt to claim otherwise. My thing with this thread is that lately MMO players seem to play only for progression and not because they enjoy the actual playing part.

Now, you PnP roleplayers didn’t gather over a table for loot written in different-colored pens. You gathered over that table with your friends because it was a fun way to spend an evening, whether things went right or wrong, whether you progressed or didn’t. Don’t even pretend otherwise; I will call you a liar to your face if you tell me you were into PnP RPGs solely for gear upgrades and wouldn’t play without them. So, what happened to that mindset where having a fun time with your friends was good enough, for those of you that want to evoke your PnP experience? Where’d that go, and why is it no longer acceptable?

Speaking more on subject to the game, I would challenge each of you to ask yourself and answer honestly whether or not you are enjoying the gameplay of Guild Wars 2? And if the answer’s no, I’m wondering why people who aren’t having fun would think gear progression fixes the problem. Why not suggest changes to the gameplay and combat to make it fun instead?

And if you are having fun, well… isn’t that what’s important?

This argument comes up alot.

People WANT to keep playing, they love the game, the combat, etc. They want it to be more fun, more rewarding. w/e

And no I doubt anyone doing PnP were in it JUST for the upgrades. It was for, well all of it, the story, the loot, the general fun-ness of it.

Same here, if a dungeon isn’t very exciting, not enough to keep you doing it after the first time w/o rewards, atleast if there ARE rewards and it does feel like you’re progressing, then it doesn’t feel as bad, it’s atleast a little fun because of that. Granted that’s not good for the most part, it’s pretty much the definition of grind, but that means it should be made, more fun.

If something’s not fun, but rewarding, it’s ok.

If something’s fun, but not rewarding, it’s ok.

If something’s fun AND rewarding, it’s excellent.

I’ve done some challenging puzzles/crazy fights that gave me crap afterwards, dissapointing, but it was pretty fun so I’m content.

I’m just grinding a DE or mobs and it’s getting pretty boring quite fast, but hey after 20 minutes or so I’ve gotten a bunch of loot, a pretty rare drop, materials etc, it feels good.

Now if only the there was more challenging/fun stuff (like most of the boring DE’s being made more interesting/challenging), as well as said challenging/fun stuff being as rewarding as the boring stuff. Things would be fantastic.

However, on topic of gear progression or w/e, like I said before if Anet can fill that gap with something else, it would be quite amazing.

Draennon.8576:

About the socializing part… do you need a game to tell you to talk to other people? Can’t you do that on your own? A few days ago, I saved someone from a veteran mob. I ran into the same guy an hour later at a waypoint and we talked for like 2 hours. There was no benefit in it. We didn’t need to communicate, we just did. Why do people think, the game has to give you challenges in order to socialize with other people. You can very well do that on your own. Or do you not care to play with others, just because you can do all content on your own (except dungeons)?

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I think this is a poor argument. You can blame the player for anything wrong with a game, but it’s still about good or poor game design.

A game “encouraging” social behavior is usually part of good design. No one is saying that the game has to be forcing people to interact or should be 100% responsible.

Elthurien.8356:

Rpg players have been slowly conditioned over time to expect monetary and item rewards for the majority of their adventurea. This isn’t just MMOs, if you go all the way back to tabletop RPGs, PC games like Bards Tale, Ultima, AD&D gold box, Final Fantasy, these games started over 30 years ago, progressed into games like Baldurs Gate, Diablo, Neverwinter and MUDs to make the and EQs and UOs and all the other MMOs we see today.

As far as I’m concerned, it was the introduction of token currency to buy loot that killed MMO dungeons for me. I’ve been conditioned over 30 years of RpGs to be excited about downing a boss and taking his loot, not saving up foodstamps to buy gear.

This is a great point. Huge mistake putting all the rewards on vendors. It was the only way to make it a grind I w/o having the random factor I suppose. Though they could’ve made it so you have to hunt down certain mobs/bosses for the components for your gear.

I for one hope they utilize their massive world/zones to put mobs that you need to hunt down for new skins or even skills (if/when they do add more).

Greyfeld.7104:

Vaerah.4907:

GW2 gave you options.
You can play like an hermit or you can join a medium (150 people) guild like I did and have a blast together.

Just because you were given the choice to solo does not mean the game does not provide ways to multi-play.

But this is true of every single MMORPG in existence. It’s not unique to GW2 in the slightest, and the mechanics that Anet worked into their game don’t actually encourage socializing. Which is sort of the point, I think.

One day a few years ago, when I was extremely bored, I went googling for a free MMO to play. I stumbled across a little-known gem called Fiesta, published by Outspark. This little game didn’t do anything particularly impressive with its combat, its classes, its gear, leveling, questing, crafting, mounts, or even pvp (hell, I don’t think it even had pvp). But there was one thing that, to this day, still sticks out to me: Kingdom Quests.

Kingdom Quests were instanced quests that were recruited for, once every two hours. So, every two hours, you check a board in town, and queue up for this quest, and once the instance you’ve queued up for is full, you’re whisked away into the instance itself, with a group of other people who also queued for the same instance.

The beauty of these quests is that they’re hard. They’re limited to a specific number of players, so they don’t have to be scaled up or down for some random number of people, which allows the developers to micro-tune it perfectly. It forces the players to not only work together as a unit, but also to manually form groups for quest credit, discuss strategy with other players, and take the time to teach new players the basics of the more difficult fights.

And you know what this all does? It encourages socialization among complete strangers.

That’s the point. When all your content can be steamrolled by tossing enough warm bodies at it, there’s no sense of community, and no reason to socialize with anybody. At the end of your average DE, you may as well have been playing alongside a dozen (or more) NPCs, for all the social interaction it encourages.

Probably the most social parts of the game are dungeons and pvp, neither of which are going to be especially attractive to your average casual player, who just wants to explore the world and take the content as it comes.

This is such a good post. This is exactly why I want DE’s to be more complex/challenging and have multiple objectives. People should have to actually be working together and communicate like in WvW when trying to push Event Chains and even to beat bosses.

DusK.3849:

Greyfeld.7104:

the feeling of progression has to be maintained past the point of the level cap.

I take it you’ve never played GW1.

I only played between the Prophecy-Factions time period. But this is the thing I would like to know, considering I’ve heard multiple people that have played and enjoyed GW1 PVE for years yet find something wrong with GW2’s “endgame”, is what that difference was.

2-3silver =/= 15% of 1.5g

About 21 silver is 15% of 1.5g.

And as Kailthir said. As long as lower level areas give less money/reward, waypoints should be less their as well.

Until they make going back to lower zones more rewarding for a lvl 80 it’s kinda silly.

Although I’d much prefer if they scaled the rewards in older zones instead of reducing waypoint costs.

More direct dmg from power and a different sigil is also useful. I’m not wrong, Earth Sigil is the only reason crit is useful for condition builds.

That trait gives a 1 second bleed. The only thing it’s useful for, is adding a tiny bit of extra dmg to Life Transfer. Power over crit does the same except for all your skills.

kKagari.6804:

Well, the problem with your ideal scenario is that you can’t have two primary stats in the one trait line, as with secondaries.

That said, I would love for toughness to be with DS too.

Well that’s why I said ideal. =p

chuiu.4985:

Trait + sigil means precision is still very important in condition builds.

Sigil of Earth is the only reason to take crit for condition builds.

Was a bit pointless doing it with and w/o the power amulet considering power is the same % dmg modifier for everything. =p

Realistically :

Spite – Power/Cond Duration
Curses – Precision/Crit Dmg
Death – Toughness/Condition Dmg
Blood – Vitality/Healing
Soul Reaping – DS/Boon Duration

Ideally :

Spite – Precision/Crit Dmg
Curses – Condition Dmg/Condition Duration
Death – Toughness/Vitality
Blood – Healing/Boon
Soul Reaping – DS/Power

This is w/o any regard to what traits are in said trees of course.

TBH Crit is worthless for condition builds out side of Sigil of Earth. The bleed on crit trait was made worthless a LONG time ago, and then there’s the crappy 25% on crit for weakness competing with longer Sceptre durations, and weakness is not in short supply for necro’s.

Hell outside of Sigil of Earth, Power/Condition Dmg will net you more dmg than Crit/Cond.

Just conditions. Not stacks. Should definately apply for anyone’s conditions.

Were you playing different races?

Ceallach.8740:

A lot of people are saying “human nature”, but I think culture has a huge impact on this. American culture in particular puts a large importance on individual achievement – and it makes sense that what a culture values is what it will seek even during “play time”.

Psychologically, the reward system of “bigger numbers” for doing something a certain amount of times feeds into this. You see this examined a lot with why games like Farmville got so popular.

This isn’t hating on America or bigger numbers (we could spend a lot of time examining how the Japanese value achievement and comparing and contrasting, for example). :P In the end, different people’s cultures and environments and families and what all create individual people – and they value things differently. That’s why we have different leisure activities – so that many different people can find something they enjoy.

Well it’s not like WoW is only successful in America.

knightblaster.8027:

It is also not an mmo thing it’s an form of rpg game. If the story line remains at the same difficulty throughout the entire game and the pc remains at the same power level for the entire game the game becomes boring really quickly. The story line needs to progress and the player needs to feel as if they are getting stronger for completing more difficult content.

The interesting thing is that GW1 did not have this. You capped out at level 20 and gear very early through the content, and played the rest of the PvE content capped. People still enjoyed it in the millions of players. So while I’d agree that it’s a common thing in RPGs, it isn’t ubiquitous or necessary.

I never played GW1 that long past Factions, so forgive me for asking, but what is so different then if people that successfully enjoyed GW1 pve for so long but don’t in GW2? Besides the skill/build complexity.

To be fair, it’s human nature. There’s nothing wrong with it.

It’s like someone who chooses to be celibate and condemns others for going out and fornicating because they like it.

After seeing alot of game design material and seeing the psychology behind game design there’s multiple types of players, and for the most part progression is an important part for most of them (for nearly any game), there’s nothing wrong with it.

Just because WoW has gotten to the point where the only thing to do in “endgame” is gear treadmill and makes access to that gear easy and quickly moves on to the next tier cheapening the experience/achievement doesn’t mean it’s bad, just the implementation is bad.

Not that I’m saying GW2 needs to have a gear treadmill, I highly doubt that will ever happen and I am quite glad about that. But if they CAN manage to fill that gap with other achievements/rewards (optional/cosmetic/whatever) as well as continue to pump out fun and CHALLENGING fights/content (such as making their DE’s less faceroll, bosses much more interesting and difficult to fight etc.) it can be very successful.

Hell even WoW had such a thing, recall having some really tough achievements or challenges that rewarded special Mounts you could really show off and be proud of, GW could use more of that. I’m not sure if Legendaries can even fill that role, considering Legendaries are grinded for as opposed to “achieved” from some really tough challenge.

From what I recall from doing “Raids”, it wasn’t the phat loot I was looking forward to, (well I WAS looking forward to it but it’s just a simple carrot designed to encourage you to go there in the first place) it was the fact that there was a challenging, interesting fight that took great teamwork and practice to finally beat, and was incredibly fun/satisfying when you pulled it off. And the fact that there was always something you haven’t beat/finished yet to come afterwards.

I wanna see the end game DE’s or World Bosses that have more complex mechanics and multiple objectives that were tough and required teamwork to beat. Can see guilds or random people trying to organize to work on pushing a chain of events to cause a World Boss event that’s actually tough. Instead of having a gear treadmill (content chaining to content) have a skill/teamwork treadmill with events.

Keep in mine this is coming from someone who quit WoW years ago and used to be one of the classic “WoW haters”. I’m not being biased in the least bit.