Guild Wars 2

I returned to GW2 after 8 months or so away. The game has seen a lot of nice quality of life improvements but the fly in the ointment for me has been the new trait system…it’s completely fubarred new characters in my opinion.

Waiting until level 30 to get the first trait point, along with content gated/gold + skill point trait system all the way to level 80 has put a huge damper on meaningful character development prior to level cap. Essentially the game is on hold until you reach level cap and only then you can start to truly build your character.

Before this change, you could be well on your way of shaping your play style and build prior to 80.

Having rerolled a low level elementalist to give a fair “shake” in trying out the new changes…I can’t do it, it’s intolerable.

Leveling is duller than ever before with no noticeable incentives. It’s a pseudo-horizontal progression…a failed attempt at masking the actual vertical progression game.

Tying trait unlocks and enforcing hard level gating to tiers has hammered the nail into the little that remained of free-form play in the game.

Play it your way? Too bad ANet doesn’t understand that concept!

After returning to GW2 after 8 months, I’m out again after 5 days back.

Playing ALTs is now a joyless endeavor, the content is simply not compelling enough to warrant such a system.

The OP brings up a good point that would not have been relevant prior to the new trait system.

After 7-8 months away, I recently came back to GW2 and decided I would reroll my level 20 Elementalist and start a new mage from level 1.

Waiting until level 80 to build out a character is unacceptable; on my prior 80’s I was able to have a build and the anchor traits fairly locked in and on track prior to level 80. Now I face a trait rationing in dribs and drabs based on content as well hard level restrictions for basic tier unlocks.

Nearly all the mini-perks to leveling have been removed, the bulk of which now start at level 30.

This has completely ruined the game for me, the game already suffered from being “dry” and the new trait system has removed the last bit of incentive for as I level up.

Sadly, I have decided to leave GW2 again after just being back to the game for 5 days.

The new content coming out in July can’t take the stink off the gameplay changes ANet has implemented.

The great thing about GW2 at release was the constant feeling you had of progression and character development as you leveled to 80; that has now been stymied by this ridiculous new trait system.
This new system when coupled with GW2’s zone design linearity has made the game become stale.

Spinning your wheels for tens of levels is not fun and having to wait to build your character at level 80 is stupid.

I really dislike the idea of “strong-arming” players to do certain content: pay gold or do this particular thing to get this trait. Since ANet decided on a level based progression; they should have had the decency to keep character levels as the throttle for Trait Unlocks. Now we have a bizarre vertical progression PLUS a content locked system in place.

Horizontal progression is getting pruned, big time.

I really dislike being “herded” into underplayed game areas by the same devs who actively embrace vertical progression as a primary/dominant game system. It is that progression model which devaluates content far more than player choice. ( Frankly, I despised GW2 Dungeons, maybe they have been improved in the 7 months I’ve been away. )

I was always, and always will be, an advocate for horizontal progression, gaining skills and abilities versus straight up number gains on stats.

I don’t know how ANet did it, but they seem to have taken away a lot of the horizontal progression by rationing it even more severely than before.

This really makes it difficult to custom shape your character on a specialty early in the game. Instead, the professions are now even more generic than ever before. No self determination until 30 levels into the game and then only in a grudgingly small way.

GW2 is already a very “dry” game; the further extended intervals between gaining new traits as well as the other built-in level based restrictions has pretty much reduced the driving aim of the game down to the rather dull “gain as many levels as fast as possible in order to get to the good stuff”.

Hamster.4861:

Not all commanders are able to lead in WvW, It’s not as straightforward as taking a zerg through a PvE event train (like Modniir or an Orr temple).

I can’t speak to the circumstances on Crystal Desert, but I could recommend that you look at VII for a WvW guild if there is a frequently a lack of a commander.

Best of luck to you and your server, I hope some folks step up to the plate for you

Thank you, I understand . This is just something I noticed after being away from GW2 for 7-8 months.

It might just be a Crystal Desert thing, the reason I miss commanders is mainly as a means to find other allies on a map and join up. I like roaming solo but not all the time.

The quality/capability of the commander was almost secondary to the social aspect of being able to relatively easily join up with others in the WvW setting.

I’m on Crystal Desert, it appears the number of active commanders is drastically reduced in WvW. I have seen them in PvE areas though.

I agree with all of you about respecting obvious dueling participants and also concur that if they need to duel it should be in an area far removed from an objective.

I disagree that “honor” or fairness is a factor in this…this is a fantasy battlefield with unregimented troops flowing over the map.

The Honor System in warfare was usually reserved to such things as:

a.) not killing those who had “properly” surrendered

b.) compliance with a location/time of a battle or other mutually recognized rules of engagement

c.) reliable adherence to verbal contracts, declarations and statements

d.) the real history of human warfare doesn’t hold up very well when scrutinized…sentimental and Hollywood-esque renditions aside, it was never pretty or neat.

None of these things is really part of the overall WvW conflict on the macro level:

a.) For starters, there’s no “actual” clear and consistent method to broadcast such intentions in the game world; communication basically.

b.) Hesitating and forgoing first blood opportunities in any PvP related scenario generally has no upside; incorporating polite “grey poupon” style questioning is not conducive to WvW.

c.) War, or in this case a video game virtual war, is about exploiting the enemies weakness, not pandering to it. Formal duels are not part of the game design in WvW and have no standing.

d.) Common courtesy should always rule number one in any social activity, but the burden of tolerance and accommodation is on the persons who deviate from the expected norm, not the other way around.

e.) ANet should just fix the issue by making free-form 1v1 dueling instances.

Thinking that duelers have any expectation of protected privilege in WvW is woefully misguided and counters the very reason for WvW.

DeWolfe.2174:

DarkFrost.2847:

It’s an exploit, screen shot or video capture and send in a ticket. It is a banable offense, though it usually takes a while for the ban to happen.

Should I screen shot every time I get attacked on the inside by a Mesmer phantasm too? Or… dragon’s tooth or Guardians staff or Engi flame thrower or etc, etc, etc….. You should get the point that gates are not solid by any means. The only thing they stop is you from physically walking in and physical projectiles. Everything else passes right thru them.

To be honest, if I had a magical portal to walk thru, I would have bricked up the gates long ago. Why wooden gates even exists is beyond me.

You pretty much summed up the issue and completely destroyed my suspension of disbelief, thanks a lot!

To me this is like swimming up waterfalls in Age of Conan, or LoS limitations in DAoC… some things are built in to the game and difficult, if not impossible, to fix.

There is a certain logic to these “glitches”. They have a consistency of logic: area effect type spells can pass through destructible barriers.

GW2 is lacking in the feedback or “conveyance” department. I think one of the reasons is the UI.

By design, we only get so many skills, locked to weapon type, and also locked to a specific slots on the action bar.

I would more readily “know” my active skills a lot better if I could arrange them myself according to their purpose and use.

Yes, I do know what my abilities are, but they aren’t organized in a manner I would choose. And, yes, I use key binds but the placement of UI buttons do matter and help complete the feedback loop.

This is a subtle thing but the generic treatment of the UI in regards to abilities removes but one more facet of player familiarity with their abilities.

To me this is game engine thing, same thing when you can send pets or AoE attacks through a gate. It is highly unlikely that it will get “fixed” because performance would probably suffer by such enabling more precise collision detection for area effects.

Fluffball.8307:

SMC is not a dueling area.

Thanks for the sanity check, this just rubbed me the wrong way because I just came back to the game and encountered this…

Deli.1302:

While you are not wrong for doing what you did, it’s considered common courtesy to not disrupt even numbered fights (1v1, 2v2 etc) or fights between 2 guilds.

Even back in DAoC this was a soft “rule” but duels were also fairly obvious, you’d have multiple friendlies and enemies standing in a large semi-circle with the duelists in the center.

This was me standing on the wall of SMC seeing a “red” fighting something, I jumped off and ran toward the enemy and started range attacks.

You come up over a ridgeline near Stone Mist Castle and see an ally getting beat down by an enemy, what do you do:

a.) Ignore it, it’s none of your business.

b.) Attack the enemy player, it’s WvW

c.) Don’t attack, and say, “Are dueling or PvPing?”

I answered “b” but supposedly the correct answer is “c” to the “ally” who called me a childish name and acted like I was the worst person ever in the world. (BTW I don’t usually read chat while in combat, so I didn’t the lame insults until after the fight.)

Please tell me that we aren’t catering to personal duelers in open WvW.

Nothing against dueling, but if you do it out in the open in WvW, do not expect people to give a flying fruit about it, I certainly will not be “asking” if it’s alright to fight the enemy.

Of course, maybe I hold the minority opinion on the matter.

I have seen the NPC to purchase “Commander” status, but haven’t seen one yet in game in the last two days. Is there just a dearth of active players at the moment that are commanders, or is that feature no longer enabled?

• UI Tweaks:

1. Have UI windows remember their positions (that kitten preview window is always in the wrong place!)
2. Fix the gawd-awful, eye-hurting smudge fonts in the trade broker window…
3. Do I really have to have my Chat windows on that side of the screen? Or the action bar laid out exactly like that?

• I have over 300K Karma and nowhere to spend it, the Temples with the armor vendors aren’t open and I can only buy weapons from karma vendors elsewhere that I don’t need…

• Engineer Profession needs retooled…I’m a longtime Necromancer, and I see this very well. (Necro’s have been improved hugely since release, btw if ANet doesn’t proceed to mess them up again)

• FFFS! Add a kitten filter to sort armor and weapons by class type in the trade broker! I don’t need 8 pages of heavy armor listed when I search for my elementalist gear!

• Did I miss the in-game practical reason for every doing non-Fractal dungeons? If you say fun, I don’t recall GW2 ever having “fun” dungeons.

• High priced Cultural Armor and Weapons…RARES, not EXOTICS? <shakes head>

• There needs to be more of a connection between WvW and the rest of game world, think Dark Ages of Camelot type thing here. Why does/should the rest of the server care if they lose their Border Lands?

GW2 needs a little bit of that design concept in their engineer profession, in my opinion:

http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Engineer_Abilities

Having played a Necro since release, deleted my original level 80 Necro and now recently leveled another Necro to 80; I am accustomed to ANet’s (seeming) lack of direction in profession design.

It’s obviously just my opinion, but I wanted the Engineer to be a choke holder, a blockader an anchor that holds a position in PvE and World -v- World.

The wanna be Elementalist Nuker builds with bombs and nades don’t entice me for aesthetic and enjoyment reasons (I find such builds clunky and dull).

Give me my grappling hooks, turrets, traps and rifle/pistol effectiveness and I would be a very happy camper.

At this time, the engineer seems rather underwhelming right out of the box.

I also find the various kits and "F"1 thru F4" key functions for the profession to be ridiculously cumbersome compared to other classes.

Seriously, it’s the only logical course to take. And, yes, I really will be deleting my Necromancer and re-rolling a Necromancer.

The profession “sucks hard but it’s pretty awesome” is the conclusion I have reached after pouring over these forums and elsewhere for many months. So, I shall act accordingly.

I stopped playing regularly over four months or so ago; starting a fresh character and leveling it up makes sense to me.

Why a Necro? Well, I already have one of every profession, it would be wrong not to have a Necromancer in that number after I delete my Necromancer.

So, here I am making the only possible decision that fits the situation and the current state of Necromancery in GW2.

Kill it, and the raise it up again.

ANet’s already stated they won’t get in the business of certifying third-party programs. They actually have a very common sense policy on the matter.

Just consider if they OK’d a current version of some third-party software and the very next day the dev for that software released something that broke the rules, obviously ANet isn’t going to dedicate countless hours to certify such things.

So, it’s up to you and common sense.

Does SweetFX give you an unfair, game breaking and/or cheating advantage?

Does having control over vibrancy and anti-aliasing make you over-powered?

Does having the aesthetic inclinations to tone down bloom glare in game mean you are an evil person worthy of scorn and perma-ban from Tyria?

You must ask your self these questions, and answer honestly.

Meanwhile, I have some further tweaking to do to my SweetFx config file.

Raine.1394:

I think undead make sense in terms of the story. The problem is that their combat ‘affixes’ make them a tedious foe to fight. Overall, we simply need more variety in level 80 mobs in the game.

Your dream has come true:

“A new life awaits you in Southsun Cove. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure. New climate, recreational facilities…absolutely free.”

mosspit.8936:

Then it depends what you value more: your time or the notion of how you think dungeons should be.

That’s a weak and cheap trash answer.

The game itself is optional, so let’s put that matter aside because it fails to acknowledge that there is a party involved in this relationship that has the power to change the situation.

It’s not the player, they can only choose to walk away; but ANet has the power to adapt their game in order to make it more appealing without going against any of their core game concepts.

I am beginning to find GW2 to be a very “dry” experience as a player. ANet has a bad habit of taking away or proscribing player choice within their game. Even when player choice is allowed to remain, it is in such a narrowly defined field that it matters little to the outcome.

The dungeons show this proscription in their design:

- oh, you want to skip the boring parts/non-rewarding parts? Why not, it’s all about playing your way!

Giving players a choice to bypass crappy content isn’t a great design feature, it’s a surrender to failure.

ANet, why are players wanting to skip content?

Adesam.9823:

GummiBear.2756:

seriously you been a guild leader since release, yet you haven figured out yet that no one person can have more than 1 permission at a time? Hard to sympathize with you when you don’t even seem to be able to think logically

I agree, and fail to see how anyone could see this other than being purely OP’s fault. A lack of a warning does not take blame off OP. I don’t understand how one can think that making a new rank is more efficient than editing the current rank, or how she expected GM rights to magically transfer to a brand new rank.

My 11 year old knows how the guild system works, yet a grown woman who is obsessed with her guild to the point where it affects her emotionally didn’t take a minute to learn how it functions?

While I agree that a warning should be implemented, it does not take away from the fact that the OP is responsible for their own actions, no one forced her to make a new “Godess” rank and assign herself to it.

Are you all the worst kind of people or is that just how the internet is presenting you?

Let’s leave the holier than thou, should have known better crapola and just agree that in a game where you have a confirmation to salvage a green item there should be freakin confirmation for Guild Leadership change.

It’s really that simple. People make mistakes, get tunnel vision, happens all the time. It’s why we have confirmations in nearly everything!

Stop being jerks and just admit that a confirmation for Guild Leadership changes should be in the game and stop ragging on the OP.

I think ANet should have known better, and I’d be right.

>Don’t try and force other people to kill stuff that is boring, not challenging, lacks reward and takes to long.

That would appear to be ANet’s job, and yes I understand that players like boiling everything down to the bare elements stripping away all that “crap fluff of lore, setting and ambiance” and extruding the game into a stick figured blur of expedient tasks and soulless blather.

And, we wonder why.

Compared to other companies, ANet stays somewhat distant from the community.

While this can always be considered a professional stance, it more often than no,t just comes across as stark and business like to players.

Most interaction is of the form generated kind or hidden behind a moderation note that sounds more robot than human.

A couple of notable exceptions: Gaile Gray, for Guild Wars she was the face and voice of ANet, now for GW2 she’s neck deep in Account Issues.

The other exceptions are some of the devs and “live response embeds” who occasionally delve into profession related topics and threads and other specific bug issues.

The rest is all clinical and rubber gloved.

@Incarmine.1953

OK, that’s weird, I agree but it appears we are saying the same thing using different words.

In short, I find Necromancers who wish to maximize potential of a certain play style not as flexible by a rather large degree as the other professions.

So, after many game hours of trying to make my Necromancer more globally satisfying (relative to my experience with all the other professions) I came to the conclusion that I should just stop doing that.

My Necromancer is now a Minion Master, based on the build by Nemesis/IAmOneandIAmLegion here: The minion master: a necromancer guide

It’s really a great MM build for PvE roaming and presumably sPvP (which I don’t do).

My Necromancer is a farmer now, I can take down Veteran Karka’s and have a huge survivability.

Nemesis really made things clear to me in his video, but he’s good at explaining things.

I decided my Necromancer isn’t going to be a dungeon runner or a WvW-er, he’s going to kill things for fun and profit, because he’s good at it. Not so good in WvW or dungeons as a Minion Master.

I chose to play a Necro because I wanted to be a Minion Master Necromancer, those hopes were dashed early on because such a focus in GW2 does not lend itself to certain aspects of the game.

I decided to face facts and stop fighting the system, either it will change or not, but in the meantime I have a level 80 Necromancer to play.

My Guardian, my Elementalist, my Engineer, my Warrior, etc all have builds wide enough to accommodate any given situation whereas a Necromancer must re-trait to be as effective.

That’s is the Necromancer’s problem in a nut shell: too narrow of a focus, lacking the relative versatility of the other professions in the game.

So, roaming around the various zones in the game world I can farm mobs and accumulate drops and make loads of money so my other characters can benefit.

And, more importantly, I can play my Necromancer (mostly) the way I wanted to from the get go by having minions at my beck and call. I just have to give up WvW and Dungeons so I can avoid becoming disgusted with my play style.

Farmer Necromancer, there’s glory in that.

Shadow.4871:

Wow, you guys play this game for a month or less?

Really weird topic..

Actually, what you talkin’ bout Willis?

kash.9213:

In any game you never need the best in slot gear to complete anything, but soon enough you will need it to lock in your place in regular groups if you want to do anything. So, you answer the question, why wouldn’t you want the best gear, especially more will be added?

I’d go even further with this:

In any game you should never need the gear tiers, player progression should be based on characters gaining more abilities or skill sets. Tying MMO progression to never ending loot curves results in a game that will burn itself and it’s players out.

After jumping sharks for so long, shark jumping gets boring.

Progress should be more akin to the trait system in the game and not gear stats and gated content based on gear.

salameri.3768:

The dungeons are so different and some more challenging than others. Sorry but in about every mmo I can think of you must do dungeons to progress in gear. Its a FANTASY game/mmo.

This was GW2, not every other MMO out there, at one time.

salameri.3768:

So people complain about having to put time into a game that is fun and beautiful to explore? What game isn’t a time sink?

Beautiful, maybe; fun is debatable, hence this forum topic.

salameri.3768:

If you want immediate rewards for casual play then MMOS are not for you sorry. I earned my kitten asceneded gear did you?

Maybe not everyone is a loot-centric grasper of carrots, may be some people want to play a game for fun and not for endless progression based on loot.

How about make content fun, and reward players by having them gain abilities or skills in a horizontal type or broadening method?

Why resort to gimmicks like gear-gated content, or make on dungeon (or any dungeon for that matter) completely central to a players measure of success.

The player should be able to freely set their own goals and achieve them without ANet telling them to specifically play the game a certain way in order to be successful.

I used to log in to GW2 and feel I could pretty much do anything I wanted based on my mood or whim, regardless of which character I logged on.

I could roam and explore, craft, WvW look into new skins for my armor/weapons. Just wandering around bumping into events and hidden “quests” was very rewarding. I got karma, coin and some XP and another notch toward some achievement.

Now, I have a daily system that has a nice reward but I can’t stand half of the taskers, and let’s not even talk about the monthlies. I don;t like GW2’s dungeons, none of them, ANet does awful, un-fun tedious dungeons.

My opinion was fine, never bothered anyone, until ANet decided to make dungeons mandatory for progression.

The game is getting more and more hoop-driven.

ANet is social engineering players to the point where: who the bloody hell is playing this game, me or ANet?

I also realize that I will never, ever have Ascended gear on my characters. I had been content to know I could acquire exotics and have the BIS items for the game, but that’s toast now.

I acquire karma, but what good is it after you by exotic armor? Where are the exotic weapons to purchase with karma? Or skins? Or things other than basil?

The proliferation of in-game currencies is a tell-tale indicator for how the game is creeping into that very familiar place all MMO’s tend to go.

And, the game’s not even a year old yet.

@Ari Kagura.9182

I don’t wholly blame the players, I consider the blame mostly to be on the very poor designs and dungeon flow. Yes, cheating in the sense of exploits, I think is serious but this is endemic, it’s institutionalized play styles for dungeon running.

I’d be hard pressed to run these dungeons without relying on what I have learned from experienced players having never did it any other way.

Nor do I desire to, it’s not gratifying.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Kuldebar.1897:

Running with a Necro, using Warhorn #4 for speed through mobs which can knock you down and interrupt isn’t especially easy. Nor is it made any easier when you assume that everyone might not know where they are running to in the dungeon.

spectral walk, death shroud, well of darkness, plague (if things get super hairy), reapers mark/chillblains behind you if youre already in combat, in some dungeons (well… TA) necro has an advantage over some other classes
- it may not be as easy as ele or thief; but its still easy

All those things don’t matter when you get knocked on your kitten or interrupted during the casting, additionally the idea is not to pull more mobs on you because that would increase the likelihood you will get knocked down and swarmed. We are not talking about running across a large room here, it’s the catacombs maze tunnel portion of the dungeon

No one is saying it’s impossible, just saying it’s stupid unfun and not a reason I’d want to group with people for such an experience.

If players go to such lengths arms to avoid content, I’d start questioning that “content”.

mosspit.8936:

Kuldebar.1897:

Not opposed to that idea, it’s being proactive, that could be a way to mitigate some of the things that perturb me, but not all.

This is to align the expectations of the party. It takes a little effort but it can potential save a lot of negativity so it is worth it. This coming from someone who run dungeons often and mainly skips trash. Remind the party of the circumstances in which the dungeon is run beforehand. Naturally that will also be the advice I’m giving for those who do not skip trash.

My only hesitation is that getting groups has already been difficult depending on the time and the dungeon so forth. On Crystal Desert, AC is rather popular, and I think CM would be the 2nd most popular -but of late there’s not always players queuing outside for them. (although Saturday night seemed to be an exception.)

Dresden.1736:

If you would prefer to sit there and grind through trash mobs which have literally no purpose in the dungeon besides slowing you down, then start your own group and make it clear to people who join you that you want to waste everyone’s time for no reason what-so-ever.

You don’t see a problem in that? The gimmicks come in all varieties; the trash mob gauntlets just being one of them.

Dresden.1736:

I agree cheesing your way through a boss via exploit is dumb as I get a lot of joy from beating a boss properly, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to sit there and kill no-loot trash mobs for experience I don’t even need.

Fair enough, looks like we are mostly in agreement.

Players are short circuiting/bypassing content in dungeons because the content isn’t fun, it’s tedium.

This is coming from a person who hasn’t ran every dungeon 100 times, it’s fairly tedious from the very first run -which usually isn’t the case when experiencing new content.

mosspit.8936:

Create a group under the premise of “newcomers welcome”, “no exploits”, “no skipping”. Run dungeon.

Not opposed to that idea, it’s being proactive, that could be a way to mitigate some of the things that perturb me, but not all.

I prefer enjoyable game experiences, not exercises in frustration with random people on the internet.

ANet believes in running a game like it’s a circus and the players are the circus animals jumping through a never ending series of hoops to play.

The dungeons are just more of the same in that regard.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Kuldebar.1897:

- running through great numbers of trash mobs in order to get to remote portions of the dungeon (not always easy to do on every profession)

running is easy on EVERY profession. and barely anyone clears trash because… thats exactly what it is; trash, its not worth the time it takes to clear it (- and in most cases players have already cleared it before and cba doing it again – because its not worth it); if something is to be done about it; it has to be Anet; rebalancing it so clearing is actually worth it

though i do wish some of the actual exploits were fixed much much faster (i stopped running CM because EVERY party wanted to exploit over the terrain); and invuln spots suck majorly; its just so boring… like before HK was fixed; standing on the stairs; i remember asking if we could fight it normally because stairs are boring, the reply was ‘you can go down on your own if you want’ – by which time he’d spawned a ton of adds (and doubtful that i could aoe/cleave them down as they spawned on my own anyway) and the breeders hadnt been cleared

Running with a Necro, using Warhorn #4 for speed through mobs which can knock you down and interrupt isn’t especially easy. Nor is it made any easier when you assume that everyone might not know where they are running to in the dungeon.

Skipping trash mobs, sure, every game does it but not to the degree it appears be done in GW2.

Thanks for your observations, besides a few details, you have noticed some of the same things.

What happened to the days where groups actually cleared dungeons as they progressied through them?

I don’t do a lot of instance running in GW2, perhaps only 20 times since game relase, but every experience has contained the following:

- avoiding mobs by the use of terrain

- attacking and eventually burning down bosses from strange places (underwater while boss is on docks, from edge of platform behind pillars, etc.)

- running through great numbers of trash mobs in order to get to remote portions of the dungeon (not always easy to do on every profession)

Everyone of the events above has happened in CM and AC, routinely. In many of the groups, most of us were new to the dungeon and we were being shown this or that procedure.

Does anyone every do a dungeon from start to finish without resorting to shenanigans?

Why is ANet designing their dungeons like this?

Even when some dungeon events can’t be avoided, you almost wish they could be.

Example: The kite fight in the room protecting Hodgins from the gravelings/skelks. I think I’d rather have my finger nails pulled out slowly with pliers. Kiting, ok not too bad but relying on an NPC to stay alive, that’s a bit of a running joke in GW2.

ANet’s traps and environmental interactivity adds a lot to the game, but this is largely spoiled by how players actually play the dungeons.

Players will always choose the path of least resistance unless some gain outweighs the desire for expediency.

“Generations” of GW2 players are learning to run the dungeons this way. The worrisome thing is, in many cases, I can’t always tell if it was in the designer’s intent or not.

I often wondered:

- Did they really want us attacking the boss from underwater while he is stuck up there?

- By standing on this wall and attacking flame turrets, is this how they designed it?

- We’re supposed to run though all these mobs without fighting them?

And sometimes, I think that the player expediency is more a haste makes waste type of situation.

The shortcuts like running through corridors and rooms of mobs is a really great way to have your group strung out and killed off one by one.

The boss fights take an eternity because it’s up to the last remaining group member to DPS the last curly-hair of health down. The boss was mostly, but not altogether successfully, blocked by dungeon terrain.

I wonder, what would the dungeon run be like if we (or the designers?) didn’t resort to such cheap tricks?

Every time I do a dungeon in GW2, I am reminded why I don’t do dungeons in GW2. Which is very strange because I love dungeons and grouping, been doing it in MMO’s for twelve years now, but something is just completely off to me in GW2’s dungeon system.

I wish ANet devs would run dungeons with some random pugs and let us know about it after the fact. I’d be very curious if the dungeon experience lives up to their expectations.

So, does anyone understand where I am coming from concerning dungeons?

CallMeWatrous.3687:

Ok, so I bought the game on pre release and played a character, and now I just came back and started a human. My issue is that i have to log off the character to make any changes happen, like I entered the inn, didn’t do anything. Then I logged off and back in and then it said it was completed and to talk to the captain. I have tried quitting the game, shutting down the client, pretty much everything. If anyone has had similar trouble or if this is a known cause, please let me know. Sorry if it’s a bit noobish, I haven’t been on in a while. :/

What are you expecting the NPC’s to be doing? They might have dialog if you click on them or have an icon over their head. You won’t be receiving any quests in the conventional sense.

Healing minions is purposefully convoluted and involved. (add that to the list of minion dissatisfaction)

Also, if I am not mistaken, not all minions have a natural out of combat health regen, I know the elite does.

To mitigate this, you may want to consider targetable Wells so you can plop a Well of Blood on your minions in a fight.

Bas.7406:

@kulde – In our last podcast, Symbolic pointed out that the main issue with running anything other than conditions in a tournament is the unreliability of power builds setup. Wells are easily avoided, and is an all in build whch can lead to serious issues in high end tournaments. In pve where things are more static or in wvwvw where you have a mass zerg of 20 people wells are strong and prove to be more reliable. However in tournaments they are very unreliable because of how active classes play.

In fact, I would say a MM has a better chance in tournament play then a well melee mancer.

In pve, they both face the same push. Wells show up better in aoe situations with static movement, and Minons show up better in situations where we can focus something down and we aren’t standing still getting hammered with continual aoe (fractals).

I can’t argue with you on that point, but let’s point out that to most players of GW2, PvP tournaments are simply not part of their play time routine. There’s like a few hundred people that participate in those, the last I heard.

Fikitten513:

So it seems as though the general consensus is that minions are bad due to AI/reliability. Not trying to be rude but those are both excuses for bad play. It’s really not that hard to get them to attack your target especially when it’s a boss since all you need is to hit it twice. Beyond that, their reliability comes down to the player managing them.

You aren’t being rude but you completely miss the point being made.

It is a matter of choosing one method over the other, one method where you don’t have to fight the UI or the AI in order to get fairly repeatable results.

In almost every other MMO out there pet/minion classes are easy mode, cruise control for leveling. ANet has simply reversed that situation here.

As someone pointed out in this thread, minions aren’t a core profession mechanic, they are utilities. Yet, I can build my character around Wells and have very reliable results in 1v1, WvW, Dungeons, PvE, solo group situations. Not so with Minions. Minions aren’t even close to being as universally practical. So, one might ask, why can a well build be so globally useful, but a player who dedicates himself to minions be so sporadically reliable in the range of situations?

Fikitten513:

We have limited control over them, but it’s enough to keep them alive for them to more than make up for the well you could have had. The only ones you cannot control are the blood fiend and bone fiend, but these are both ranged thus are usually the ones I never see go down. Don’t be bad about placing the wurm, pay attention to where the bone minions are and explode asap, use your golem’s charge to get him out of melee aoe.

In GW2 in order to simulate challenge, ANet decided to make controls for the minions as sparse as possible, purposefully gimping them essentially in terms of the directing them on the battlefield. Bone fiend die constantly, they don’t actually stay at range or kite if an enemy closes in on them. Cool-downs blow any real chance for responsiveness, etc.

Look if you like micromanaging, just say so. That’s great, have a ball, but most players don’t consider that a fun and engaging style of game play. They actually consider it to be more like a smeared layer of frustration that has been lathered liberally over a less than rewarding game experience.

Fikitten513:

And I can confirm with Bas’ numbers in that I did some testing on minion dps vs wells (taking into account the additional personal dps a well spec would give the necro) and, given that the pets are alive, they out dps the well spec by a large margin. In my opinion, the added complexity of pet micromanagement is more fun than placing down a well, you get a LOT more defensive capabilities, they contribute more total damage (if you pay attention to them), and can absorb conditions for the team (my spec includes this).

I am glad to hear that you can get some pay off from minions, but we aren’t talking the about just the high end results you can get we are talking about the long haul, the situational, the general purpose, the average solution, not the exceptional and so forth.

Terok.7315:

Until minions become reliable (i.e. “they work sometimes when you press x, x, square, circle, start” is not reliable) they shouldn’t be considered anything more than a novelty. When I occasionally blow off the dust of my minion utilities, I’m reminded why I don’t use them. Sure, on paper the damage disparity is fairly impressive — but our other utilities are much more reliable damage/defense because they aren’t at the mercy of the atrocious AI.

So I guess it boils down to this; minions are like a piano hanging by a string — if it happens to land on your target it could be devastating. Wells are like a high-powered rifle, they take a while to reload but are dead accurate and fairly damaging. Which would you take into a dungeon? I imagine the piano would be fairly burdensome…

Heh, I could do this all day.

Now why the frack didn’t I say it that way!?

Well, good job, that’s what I was going on about earlier in this thread.

I think it was said best by Poledo.3256:

Come on I have to press an OK box to break down a green item and there is no confirmation box for changing guild leadership?

KitteNet can be fairly numbnuts about some things especially in regard to UI’s. It has never been their strong suit.

The disturbing thing is they will tell you they can’t involve themselves in guild situations; although it would be nice if they could make some exceptions to their bonehead policies on occasion, you know? Just to prove they aren’t all lawyers.

I want the dailies we had originally, they weren’t intrusive and they were applicable to anyone who spent 20 minutes in the game.

Softspoken.2410:

Meh

TLDR, tooltips in GW2 are hosed! :p

Thanks for answering Softspoken.

spoj.9672:

Bas did you play MM in gw1? MM in gw1 was completely different and worked a hell of alot better even though your minions would die constantly.

Oh and people mentioning marks. I would never recommend using the staff in any build unless you really need that 1200 range. Marks do poor damage with power builds and you barely get any condition damage/stacks out of them either. Plus the auto attack is the worst auto attack of any weapon of any class in the game. It makes the axe auto attack seem amazing.

Yeah with power builds, but otherwise Marks are pretty much what a Necro is about in GW2.

I like power builds but I drift back to the Necro’s AoE because it is solid and I can use it to apply to all situations without being boxed into a corner.

Bas.7406:

CHIPS.6018:

The thread is about how “weird” the necro skill tree is. We do go off topic a lot. ^^

Haha, I thought this topic was about how awesome the warrior tree was compared to the Necro which made me laugh because I have an 80 warrior and that tree is a joke. Traits in odd locations, Abilities you would never use. Strong abilities early in the tree, and really weak stuff later on.

Elementalist have the same issue they have quite a few 30 point horrible talents which is why so many of them go 30 arcana or 30 water because those are amazing talents.

Yeah, it was about how “weird” the Necromancer trait tree is, and was never to say it had no synergy just a relatively low amount of flexibility in that category. I like harmony and balanced design and aesthetics, I personally don’t “get” that with the Necromancer profession in GW2.

Softspoken.2410:

That seems pretty correct to me, really… After all, it applies protection to everything inside the well. It’s not like the tooltip says “Gain protection for 3 seconds when casting a well”

That kind of sucks big gree..well that bites.

I was hoping it and had originally assumed it would apply to the caster of the well.

I’d like to see that 3 seconds of protection apply on cast to the Necro and the players in the well.

Think about how life siphon works on the well trait. Is it the same principle?