Guild Wars 2

Serophous.9085:

I got my friend to try a trial. And he had a few complaints.

Wanted more character customization
Didn’t like starting armor, so now he runs around with NO armor…
And wanted a hyena pet. So I had to guide a level 10 through a level 40 zone for a tamable hyena….(to the people that helped, ty.)

I haven’t heard any complaints so far about the system.

Your friend sounds like a riot.

Serophous.9085:

Events are meant to be eon and completed. If someone trying to complete an event is being considered a ‘troll’ or ‘griefer’ nowadays, then this is becoming sad.

Well I’m pretty sure there are people who do it to troll the farmers, so things get rather muddled. Abusive behavior is never justified of course, but I don’t think it’s quite as simple as it looks.

Yes, then we can say, “And my axe!”

Hate me for saying the first part of this if you want, but hear me out: I have so far picked up rewards for the first two weeks and I got them both through EotM ktrain participation. That’s the part you might hate me for.

The rest of it is, “WTF?” I am super happy that I can get the rewards without playing actual WvW (it feels like Christmas) but it’s stupid stupid stupid that I can basically get free rewards just for paying attention while actual WvW players lose rewards because they didn’t pay attention to some blog post or mail.

If the goal is to keep people participating, then they’re really confused in how they put the system together because people can just jump in for 5 objectives each week and then watch for the notice at the end of the week and go get rewards from the Battle Historian.

I think the system should at least watch if you’ve spent a lot of time in real WvW maps and automatically give the weekly reward to you if you have (assuming of course that you’ve also participated in the achievement and whatnot).

Elsdragon.5109:

What I have a problem with is that most people who complain simply complain with no real reason. What he claims to be a massive uproar is similar to his complaints, without a reason or cause. It is true that saying something just so Anet will hear it is sometimes important, but not when it’s unfounded and simply because “they want to revert the system”.

Those kinds of remarks actually make it seem like the necessity to revert is not that high as people simply cry out for what they are familiar with rather than what is wrong with the current system. If you keep claiming that there is something obviously wrong, but fail to ever state that point, then I am just gonna assume you are trying to delay answering the question until people just agree with you in hopes of not looking like an idiot in your eyes. Ever read “The Emperor’s New Clothes”? Because whenever someone doesn’t say something they claim to be obvious, then I will assume they are trying for a tactic similar to the weavers in that story.

You’re reading way too much into one post. There are plenty of other posts in this thread where people may be more interested in arguing with you.

Guys, there’s no us vs. them. We can share the same game world, ok?

Elsdragon.5109:

They kinda are when you post them in a public forum and expect people to agree with you.

Nah, you’re creating the expectation that people need agree. Sometimes people just want to say something and Anet might benefit from hearing how they feel. Not everything needs to be checked at the door for logical soundness.

Elsdragon.5109:

Entitled to your opinion, yes. Does it make a good argument just stating your opinion? No.

Also, that was not a rebuttal but rather a request for elaboration as you’re points are all over the place. There have been changes, yes. However, I don’t see how they can make the game stale or are a means to “conform” to other MMO’s. The fact that you’re not saying anything but simply “this is bad” and “it ruins the game for me” and “it is gonna be the downfall of this game” means you have little to no proof to back it up.

Opinions don’t need to be defensible arguments, man. They are just that – opinions.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that when you go to report someone, there’s actually text there that basically says, “Don’t use this for bs” (I’m obviously paraphrasing lol).

That said, going by the screenshot, it looks like the overzealous, half-crazed champ farmers thought that they were legitimately reporting someone who was trying to complete the event to troll them.

So it’s mass confusion of intentions – yay!

I can agree with adding a lot of these as a collection. I think that rather than feeling overwhelmed, having a larger amount of collections is actually a good thing because it will make people feel more like collections is its own, large system. At the moment, it feels a bit small – like something you can largely speed through on the side.

I want to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of collections. It makes the prospect of completing them all that much more interesting.

That said, I do like the notion of a collection process of sorts (scavenger-hunt-ish like someone else said). A lot of items already get unlocked in your wardrobe, making the concept of unlocking them as part of a collection also feel a bit underwhelming.

Vayne.8563:

I’m 100% sure changes are being made to not only the trait system, but other things about leveling alts. Colin let something slip in a thread, but of course, he wasn’t ready to talk about it.

Edit: Also if you have to complete a zone for a trait, the new content guide does help take the sting out of it.

Yeah, I do have faith that it’ll get a proper rework eventually.

Vayne.8563:

It’s good that when you do get those traits, you can respec for free anywhere you happen to be out of combat.

Yesterday I took an alt in WvW, and I ended up unlocking 3 traits. I killed a giant in Hirathi and unlocked another. It was pretty cool on that level.

But it still sucks. lol

Yeah, there is that. It beats the way some games do respeccing. I aspire to one day have all of my traits unlocked on a character, so that I can utilize the free respeccing to its fullest LOL.

Vayne.8563:

The NPE itself levels you about as fast as it used to. Trait gain is by far the most annoying thing in the game right now. It’s not the end of the world if you focus on it but a lot of us don’t want to focus when leveling. We want to go where we want and do what we want…especially the tenth time through.

I feel kinda embarrassed for Anet every time I level an alt with the existing trait system. 9 times out of 10 I have wasted trait points that I’m not using because I haven’t actually unlocked anything in a tree I want to use (or I haven’t unlocked anything in X spot period) and I have zero motivation to go pay through the nose for a trait that I may not even like.

I’ve been leveling an Ele recently and I find myself just going through and picking up all of the 1-point-in “free bonus” initial traits. They’re probably more useful than the crappy few that I’ve unlocked naturally through gameplay.

Sadface.

The fight would be a lot more interesting without the champs, imo. Can keep any mobs that spawn as part of the pre of course, but I feel like the champs are really dead-weight distraction at the end of the day. The fight still isn’t hard, even with the champs running amok – it’s just more time-consuming.

Let us focus on the real threat (dat dragon) and tweak a mechanic or two if you feel like removing the champs makes it too easy.

I think I just had deja vu.

Oh wait, no, it’s just that we did this all with Blix, like a month ago or something. It’s funny how people end up going through the same exact motions and arguments, too.

I gotta say, I’m pretty proud of the players who are making an effort to taxi people into a map where they can get their story done. That’s community spirit right there. We can never have enough of it.

The trait changes weren’t part of the NPE, though they’ve certainly received a ton of complaining, nonetheless. If I set aside the whole trait thing, I don’t feel like the NPE is really any slower than what the experience was like before it. The whole skill-point-chunk thing is incredibly dumb to me, but after the early levels (where you can spend 1 point per skill) I imagine I probably spend my skill points in chunks anyway for the most part.

I find it hurting me most during that first part where I just want a single frikkin point and I’m waiting on some stupid chunk.

I mean, it sounds to me like the main parts that are annoying to you are the trait changes (happened months ago) and the skill changes (part of the NPE). And I would agree that both were rather shortsighted – trying to accomplish one thing at the (likely unwitting) expense of other things.

IndigoSundown.5419:

• As far as efficiency players and laissez-faire players go, both groups would be better off if they only played within their own demographic. They really shouldn’t mix, because they are not after the same thing.

I agree, though it isn’t quite that simple. I have a fairly hardcore mindset, but if you ask me whether I care about efficiency, my answer may vary. Sometimes I care a lot, particularly if I have a goal I want to accomplish; for example, if I am trying to level quickly in EotM, I’m going to be more bothered by a derailed ktrain, than if I go in there to enjoy myself and get some karma on a level 80 character.

So it’s not as if there are two unchanging mindsets that we can segregate with ease.

That said, I do think it’d be neat if the LFG tool had a checkbox for group formation, where you could choose something like “hardcore” or “casual” run. It still wouldn’t solve issues of mismatched groups as it would be optional, but it might do a better job of directing people into the space where they want to be in that moment.

Here’s something odd to test, Anet: Try playing around with having a mini out vs. not having one out. An account that has no mini unlocked vs. at least one unlocked.

It’s hard for me to test it without having a controlled environment to test in. I played around with it some, but the closest to a difference I could notice is that my performance seemed marginally better with a mini out, as opposed to having none. And that didn’t stay very consistent, so it might be a dead-end-thread.

Harper.4173:

But he’s right – why should some work and others reap the benefits?

Pugs are never not going to be a mess in that way though. That’s what playing with guildies or friends is for – tracking down people who have a hardcore mindset and will put in the hours to understand everything and give top-notch performance.

Gregori.5807:

In WoW DPS meters did not tell the tale.

I was in a dungeon where we wiped, wiped, and wiped more times than I can count. A member of the team, a Hunter who loved to CC and was excellent at it, switched to her personal CC build, and locked down the mobs that were wiping us.

We finished the boss and she was harassed into leaving because her DPS was low, despite her telling everyone what she was going to do and everyone thinking it was a good idea beforehand. And… despite her being the reason we finished the boss.

I was almost kicked once on my Hunter because my DPS was low when, due to the tank sucking, I switched specs and pet tanked a dungeon, us completing it fine.

So, these addons did not show the whole picture even in WoW.

See, that’s the thing. Meters are a great tool for people who are already working together and understand how the game works. For pugs, I think they are largely a nightmare, as evidenced in other games.

And even if we look beyond dungeons… can you imagine meter wars at world bosses? The cries of “look at all these worthless bads who aren’t pulling their weight”? Oh man, I’m sure that’s exactly what Anet doesn’t want.

Ashley Segovia.8276:

Just curious to see the response here – is there any chance in performance when playing in FullScreen mode? We’ve seen this issue occur mostly in “Windowed” and “FullScreen Windowed” and we’d like to see if you all experience any difference while playing in FullScreen mode.

Thanks again everyone!

I normally play in Windowed Fullscreen mode. I just tested switching to Fullscreen and what I found was:
- I took an immediate performance hit. FPS was more consistently low (something like 30-40s, instead of 40-50s).
- I ran around other players with my Character Model Quality setting on Low (that setting has the most distinct affect for me) and although it seems like my FPS spiked up and down less, it was hitting about the same low point (somewhere in the 15-20 range).

Note that this was in a not-too-crowded Mystic Plaza – I imagine my FPS would have dipped further had I been at something like a world boss. As one person said:

Basically the more people around and the more they doing things the lower the FPS gets.

Which sounds pretty normal, if it wasn’t for the fact that the dip in performance is so extreme and immediate.

I think you will have the best chance of reproducing this issue if you do your testing in the live game, around lots of players.

Vayne.8563:

See this is how I feel about the statement “everything you loved about Guild Wars 1”. What if we all loved different things. One if some of the things you loved, I couldn’t stand. I mean there were people who loved standing around in Kamadan, hawking their wares, but I couldn’t stand it.

So yeah, it’s not even possible for that statement to be true. For one thing, it would involved Anet being psychic to know specifically what it is that I love.

I am a bit curious if there is any consistency to the GW1 love. I never tried it, but I hear so much “GW1 was amazing” talk. I imagine some of it is just rose-colored glasses.

I have seen games that are highly ambiguous in that way before. SWG in its original form was open-ended to such an extent that peoples’ reasons for loving it probably varied a ton. But if I (somewhat painfully) take off my SWG rose-colored glasses, I know that it did have some problems.

Fyrebrand.4859:

Ranger Warhorn 5 grants Might and Fury to the entire party, but doesn’t deal any direct damage itself. So, if a player wants to increase their personal DPS and appear to “pull their weight,” they must never use it — even though it would greatly benefit the party and increase everyone’s overall damage-dealing potential.

GW2 has all kinds of skills like this, with more complicated potential benefits hidden through support and buffs, or combo fields and finishers. Appealing to a raw personal damage meter as a measure of player ability or who is “pulling their weight” is incredibly myopic. You sound like you do not understand this game at all, much less sound like someone anyone would want to play with.

It is none of your business, how much DPS other party members are doing. If you don’t like playing with random people or don’t feel like most people are as “good” as you, find a hardcore guild and party up with them.

That’s a good point. This game has a lot of support skills fluidly built into it that would look bad on a DPS meter.

I used to play a game that had DPS meters and there was always that nagging feeling when playing a support role, “How much am I actually helping?” And of course, you would end up measuring your worth in healing and damage contributed.

Among friends it was never an issue because you all understood that certain builds are helping everybody’s damage and the proof was in the meter, but I’m not sure pugs were as understanding.

Vayne.8563:

This is one of the best observations I’ve seen on the forums in a long long time. The thing is, for me anyway, I know I’m not the only one playing the game, and I don’t necessarily think my demographic is “the” demographic. It’s probably relatively larger, but I know I’m not alone here. So when changes are made to the game, reasonably, I can’t expect them all to be for me, or to like all of them.

I really dislike ascended weapons but I understand why they were put into the game. I really don’t like the trait system. I know why it was put into the game, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out any demographic that largely helps. I genuinely, however like the new NPE. I think it’s better over all for the game, and it doesn’t really hamstring me.

MMOs all evolve or die and they don’t always take everyone with them. For me, however, there’s no other MMO that even comes close to fitting my play style. For better or for worse, this is the best I can get.

And comments like that found in the OP are largely true to me. If you’re going to bring up some kind of questionable statement, this isn’t probably the one to bring up.

I think that’s pretty fair to say.

I learned some years ago that half of MMO marketing (heck, half of marketing in general) is bs. To those of us who understand this (which I think is most people after they see it happen a couple of times), it’s like a little game that consumers and advertisers play with each other. “You put out fancy high-expectation ads for us to get excited about and we’ll get excited about your exaggerated ads!”

So I am largely in agreement that to complain about a deceptive marketing campaign or mission statement (or heck, just one that is mildly exaggerated or misleading) is to complain about something that we’re all kind of complying with on a large scale throughout every day. I mean, yeah, false advertising is a thing and it’s not supposed to happen, but most marketing stays firmly on the line by being incredibly ambiguous.

And us humans love the heck out of ambiguity filled with excitement. We get to imagine cool stuff that is never going to happen (but we get to believe that it will!)

“Because good is never enough” is the perfect example of an ambiguous marketing statement that ultimately means “what you want it to mean,” but it sounds really cool – like something you want to get behind. “Good is never enough? Yeah! I can agree with that statement!”

Vayne.8563:

I may be a rabid fan, but I see flaws in the game. They’re just different flaws than some of my “detractors”.

I’m sure most rabid fans do.

Two different kinds of rabid fans come to mind: The ones who love the “thing” until it becomes another “thing” and then they absolutely flip the f out. And the ones who love the “thing” even if it becomes another “thing,” but are still critical of some of its various thingnesses.

I’m pretty sure you’re the latter. And a lot of the people you tend to argue with are the former.

As far as I know, there is already a DPS overlay or two out there (albeit probably a crappy one).

But in terms of them making or supporting such a tool, I doubt it’s ever going to happen. They have a game that is highly casual in design and unless they start adding raids that require 90% of your raid group to be giving out high performance of play to succeed, there is no reason for them to add or support such a tool.

It would just shine a light on glaring inadequacies of most players (which means more elitism and more players choosing not to cooperate with one another) and has the possibility of shining a light on glaring imbalances in DPS between classes (which means more balancing work).

Varakkys.2490:

Regardless of whether or not Vayne is employed by Anet, he’s about the only one here that talks any sense. And before you conspiracy loonies get your tin foil hats in a twist again, by ‘here’, I mean ‘on the forums’, not ‘here at Anet’.

Psh, if you defend him, you must be an Anet employee as well. :P It couldn’t possibly be that he’s an insanely rabid fan, like every single popular product has in significant quantities.

Swish.2463:

Updated the OP, but don’t let it stop you from voting!

Neat categorization thing you got going on there. I like it.

mtpelion.4562:

You are supposed to be guaranteed the same item type if you put 4 of the same type in.

For armor, all 4 pieces must be the same weight and slot or else the result will be random. For example, if I throw in a leather hat, leather boots, leather gloves, and leather leggings, my output could be a metal anything (hat, boots, chest, shoulders, legs, or gloves). If I throw 4 leather hats in, I am guaranteed to get a leather hat back.

One of the two of us is confused then. I thought sure I’ve tried 4 of same type before and gotten a different type.

At least, with weapons anyway.

Prophet.6257:

Strange that Anet actually has more people on staff now than they did in development.

Are you sure that’s true? Usually MMOs hire on a lot of temporary workers for the initial development.

GW2 has done some pretty ground-breaking stuff (or at the very least, refreshing – I haven’t followed the history of all MMOs).

Whether they have continued to be “ground-breaking” 2 years later is up for debate. The depressing reality of MMOs is that they all start with a huge development team to put together the initial product and usually end up with a relatively small team to maintain it.

What that means is their ambitions can be huuuuuge when they’re putting together the MMO, but they don’t have anywhere near the same amount of steam when the limitations of their bite-sized (comparatively) dev team sets in.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Arzo.8671:

Otokomae.9356:

tpcalc.com

Use it.

Thanks for this. I’ll use that until they fix it internally.

It’s obvious to me that since no Dev has bothered to comment on this in at least a dozen threads since the change that they have NO intention of “fixing” it.

Again, I’d just like to know why it wasn’t included in the UI to begin with…..and why that answer seems to be some verboten subject…..

They did comment on it somewhere, but I don’t remember when or where. I also don’t think they said anything that indicated it was a priority at all. That may have changed though.

Vayne.8563:

And herein lies the problem. This is what Anet is dealing with all the time. Here’s our consensus thus far. With 18 responses, only two items got more than one vote and those 2 items only got 2 each.

Admittedly some of these are said flippantly but the real answer is this community is deeply divided and no matter what Anet does, one group or another is going to feel disenfranchised.

And there’s no game developer in the world that can do all of this at the same time, so people will continue to feel disenfranchised.

This is just jumping the gun and being absurd. 18 responses means something? Really?

Anyway, as others have pointed out already, the point of this thread was to name one feature that you’d like to see. Which is a pretty open-ended question, making it that much more likely that people are going to ask for a wide variety of things. If the question was more focused (e.g. something like “what feature would you like to see changed/improved”) then it’s likely we would see a more immediately common set of responses.

The way questions are worded has a greater affect on what answers are given than some people realize.

Removed cost on transmutation, making them like Dyes in terms of changing your look.

Reasons: Cause I want to utilize the massive wardrobe system all the time, not “every so often when I have the charges to pick an outfit on a level 80 character, whose gear won’t be changing any time soon.”

Yeah, I know they got the charges in the Gem Store and all. It’s a wish.

Behellagh.1468:

I can’t understand why players are complaining because it’s totally useless IMO. Unless you are picking your price based on “the profit”. See I pick my price based on how “quickly” I think it’ll sell relative to the current trading range, favoring the high end of the range.

If you are flipping then you are going to break out the calculator and divide by 0.85 to define your lower limit.

You don’t need to worry about getting less than the vendor amount any longer.

And give me an example, other than being … retentive, that you want an exact amount back as “profit” and set your unit price from there? What kind of OCD trader cares that it’s a specific amount? The market is dynamic, everything is always in a state of flux with the exception of vendor merch.

Please someone explain WHY this is so important.

Because having the number right there means I don’t have to go pull out a calculator, or do quick head-math with the numbers they do give. And I’m someone who is pretty decent at head-math – some people are plain bad at it.

So yeah, the reason is the same reason you put a Shortcut on your Desktop, instead of going and finding your programs in the Program Files folder every time you want to open them. It’s convenience.

Bottom line, I like to know what coin I’m going to be getting back from a sale. Some sales I don’t care and some I do. I mean, I’m pretty aware of the numbers on the side that say what the taxes will take, but if you’re not familiar with what that stuff means, the sale price can be downright deceptive (in UI terms, it’s much more eye-grabbing than the smaller numbers on the side).

The old projected profit was even worse in terms of being deceptive, but now that we have all the information there, this is a good time to finish the job and be clear to players about what they’re actually going to end up with from a sale. What we have currently is a step in the right direction, but it’s also just an information dump. Knowing what the tax numbers are allows me to do head-math and that’s about it; I’m still just going to punch in .85 on a calculator when the numbers matter.

Ropechef.6192:

When my 60 year old mother, Playing her very first MMO, on her very first computer.

has 5 world completions in less than a year and working on her 6th.

I apologize but I tend to not take these kind of complaints seriously.

I can’t decide whether you just insulted the people in this thread or your own mother.

Maybe both?

Vercinorix.3021:

If you’re not willing to play to achieve a goal you don’t deserve to have it handed to you.

I think you know what you’re trying to say, but your sentence makes no sense. Why would you ever need the goal handed to you if you’re playing to achieve it?

Anyway, statements like yours are great in spirit, but they’re an absurd load of hyperbole. It isn’t black-and-white, “You either put in the hours every single day for years and years or you get it handed to you.”

There’s always a middle ground and the ground that the OP is asking for isn’t even in the middle. It’s still hugely to the advantage of people who have been around for years and put in the hours.

What I don’t understand from some of the people posting here is the complete lack of openness to any sort of change – even something that would still be in their favor. Are you afraid of losing the goal to work for? Is that it?

I mean, I’m just a little baffled is all. At the end of the day, this issue means nothing to me.

It would be a good time to add new professions or something like sub classes. These professions, etc. would be behind a pay wall (you would need to pay in some capacity to “unlock” them). Same idea with a new race or two.

General content, like any world maps, dungeons, WvW, fractals, etc… essentially any content that requires a lot of players to function, would be open to people who don’t pay for the expansion.

You would sell things like exclusive titles with the expansion pack, exclusive skins. etc.

Basically, you make it something very desirable to pay for without making it a required wall to pay your way through to play the game with other people. You don’t want to restrict peoples’ access to playing with each other because, yes, that would fracture the playerbase in a game that is “buy box and play as much as you want.” So you put the money-making part in features that are not necessary but add an extra dimension of flavor to the game (sort of like Gem Store items, except on a larger scale).

fireflyry.7023:

Sorry, that analogy makes no sense and seems way out of context.

As stated previously I have no issue with a “split”. One title for WvW, one for PvE and a third for attaining both entailing the relevant reward. I do however take exception to those wanting the same reward for less effort.

I’m not confused in regards to the aspects bothering players.This and other threads on the topic show a clear consensus. Not sure why your so adamant on attempting to tell me what I really mean or why I’m confused? I’ve clearly stated my opinion on the matter.

I don’t know. I guess in some alternate dimension it matters if we argue about something like this.

By the way, I don’t want it for less effort. I want it to make sense. I actually feel like a revamp of the whole system is needed to make it better.

But that’s probably like priority negative one billion for the devs right now, if they were to even agree that it could use some revamping at all.

Here’s an example of where your “veterans” argument is confused: When the NPE hit, what were the majority of complaints about? Most of the veterans who were complaining were upset because now when they go to level alts, they will get a “dumbed down”/altered experience. They weren’t upset because new players will have an easier time leveling, that’s for sure; some of them were upset that new players may have a less fun time leveling, due to the altered experience, but they actually weren’t bothered about the kind of thing you’re referring to.

In fact, I bet that if a change like this happened, most veterans complaints would be about “me, the veteran” not being able to do map completion the “hard way” anymore. You’re confused about what aspect of those changes even bother people significantly in the first place.

fireflyry.7023:

Read more.

As an individual I could not care less, commenting on how that effects the game as a whole is totally different. Hardly rocket science or merit for rebuttal.

Outside that games like this have core foundations and mechanics based on time investment for reward which have been in place since two cave-men started playing rock/paper/scissors…or Ultima. Basic economics either via coin or time, both valid currency in any MMO, are a core foundation of any online game.If you retro-actively alter or cheapen a reward players have invested timesink towards you are really kittening on your player base.

Mapping used to be a chore/challenge/effort/timesink. Now you just follow the arrow in easymode akin to how this whole game is going, and people want a legendary component for it.

Get real, or do you want this game to die faster?

Whatever. I can’t make you admit that it affects you personally. It’s kind of amazing the lengths you’re going to to deny it though.

Anyway, retroactively making rewards somewhat easier happens all the time in MMOs. I mean, have you ever played a raiding MMO? Do you know how often gear sets get updated, making the current gear obsolete? Or a really difficult boss gets nerfed? That stuff is par for the course. I’d like to think that most players have come to understand that them earning a reward before a change is something to be proud of – they can say that they did it the old/harder way. It’s actually a way that veterans can feel more proud of being a veteran.

And really, implying that people would leave in droves (“make this game die faster”) because of the kind of change being proposed is absurd. Yes, the idea has some problems that have actually been outlined clearly in this thread – like the fact that WvW players and PvP players would still have to go into open world to do a crap ton of map completion (putting WvW players at an even worse feeling of being disadvantaged when it comes to the mapping process).

But please drop the chicken-little sky-is-falling nonsense. You can’t even support your argument. It’s just conjecture.

Phantasmal.5631:

So, what is your intent in completing map world completion? Is it for the title, OCD in getting 100% map completion, or legendary, or simply because you can complain about it since you despise pvp altogether. Someone already posted that you don’t even need to kill anyone. Just press B and see if the POI you need got taken. Running dungeons requires more work than pressing B and checking.

I don’t see what difference it makes, but I don’t have one particular intent. It’ll be nice to have it done in case I ever do pursue a legendary. It’s a fun, relaxing goal for me to go for that I can do on my own time. It gives a nice title. And uh… I don’t despise PvP. I don’t know where the hell that came from.

As I already said in this thread (and I probably wasn’t the first one to point it out) completing WvW maps doesn’t technically require group play at all; in fact, you can just watch the map every day/week and grab stuff when your team has it. That’s part of what makes it stupid to me. The intention is clearly to get a certain crowd of people into WvW, but it’s questionable whether doing so does anything more than make those people never want to enter WvW to actually play it.

Honestly man, I get what you’re saying about doing something and finding out you like it, but that’s almost never how things work for me. If I do something because I feel I’m forced to and I hate taking the time to do it, I am likely going to have lingering bitterness about feeling forced to do it, even if I enjoy it some in the end.

It’s one thing to have that happen in real life; I mean, it’s life – I have to just get over it. But I don’t play games to be told what to do. If a piece of content isn’t significantly appealing on its own merits, then the content has problems. We don’t blame the consumer for not being interested in buying our products. And it certainly isn’t the consumer’s responsibility to find the good in a terrible product.

I’m speaking generally, mind you. Don’t take it personally to a particular game type. But the bottom line is, no matter what comes out of trying a piece of content, I am always going to resent things that I consider to be bad design and if it reaches a point where the bad consistently outweighs the good, I will eventually be gone. That’s just the way it goes.

Ashley Segovia.8276:

Submitting a ticket is the best way for us to collect this information from players, but on top of the information requested by Gaile, it would be incredibly helpful to get system information as well: OS, CPU, GPU, RAM, Mobo, and whatever else you feel like sharing. It would also be helpful to know what your FPS was originally, and what you’re seeing now, or if there is anything in particular that causes these FPS drops or if they’re consistently low.

Remember, the more information that you’re able to provide the more helpful this will be to us in investigating this issue.

As I said earlier in the thread, my testing has shown that for me, having normal character models show at all means a drop in FPS whenever I’m around other players. “Normal” meaning anything other than the generic models that show at Lowest setting.

That is the most significant drop as far as I can tell. I don’t know what my FPS was at before – I just know that it was playable before the patch, even in world boss playerclusters. Since the patch, I have had to neuter my character model settings (essentially put them all on Lowest) to get my FPS back to where those events are similarly playable.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

The point I’m trying to make is, though other games have done condition DoTs in a similar way, there are actually a ton of things that you might not consider that will actually make huge differences in the calculations being made. GW2 has a deeper conditions system, which means it might not be able to support the same breadth that other MMO’s are able to employ. That being said, if you do know of any other MMO’s that do it to a similar scale of GW2, I’d be happy to hear you out, because I personally don’t know of any.

Rift is what I think of. I can’t remember now what the highest stacking DoT was for a single player to achieve, but although they don’t have as robust a system for open world as GW2, they certainly have world bosses where you can have a lot of people at them at one time. I’m not really sure what the concrete numbers are on that, comparatively (I’m not sure I ever new).

I just know it’s significantly more than their raids, which were (I guess I should say are – that game isn’t dead yet) 20-man at the largest.

But yeah, the whole 25 stack thing might need to be toned down if it was changed in the way I’m referring to. It really comes down to how powerful the DoTs actually are at 25 stacks.

Phantasmal.5631:

Let’s be honest. The people complaining on here are truly here for Gift of Exploration for LEGENDARY item crafting with fairly easy WvW completion to get.

Try not to lump complaining into a pretty little box, so that you can dismiss it.

I think it’s poor design. If I ever make a legendary (or even if I don’t) will I still go into WvW and complete the maps if it hasn’t been changed? It’s likely that I will.

I can think something is poorly designed and still do it. But when I play past design that I don’t enjoy because there is no other option, it doesn’t exactly endear me to the game more. It just adds another building block to the choice in my mind that asks, “Do I leave?”

When I encounter design that is impressive and enjoyable, it adds a building block to the choice that asks, “Do I stay?”

It’s pretty simple; significant complaints over a long period of time means increased chance that I, as a customer, will leave. And it works the same way in reverse. I’m not saying I matter much as one customer, but I think you’ll find that when you break it down, that’s how it works for most people.

Vayne.8563:

OP, I have a question for you. How is “this game isn’t for you” and more dismissive than “you white knights will defend anything even if it’s bad”.

Both sides of the equation dismiss completely legit commentary. Human nature at its finest.

Well if we’re being entirely fair here, both phrases can be legitimately relevant, or complete nonsense. I’ll use some purposefully exaggerated examples to illustrate (I’m making them absurd so that no one will take them as serious arguments and try to spar with me…):

If a guy comes in and rants at the game because it doesn’t have wandering bands of pink unicorns who dance and juggle, then it probably isn’t the game for that guy. (Legitimate use of “this game isn’t for you.”)

If a guy comes in and rants at the game because its end-game is more grindy than its marketing promised. (Patronizing use of “this game isn’t for you.”)

If a guy comes into a complaint thread about the removal of all professions from the game, merging them into one, and dismisses the OP’s complaints. (Legitimate use of “you white knights will defend anything even if it’s bad.”)

If a guy comes into a complaint thread about balance changes that affect the OP’s class and dismisses the OP’s complaints. (Patronizing use of “you white knights will defend anything even if it’s bad.”)

It’s a fine line. But in my experience, people most often get told “this game isn’t for you” if they are repeatedly asking for things that have little to do with the mechanics/design that is in place. And people most often get told “you white knights will defend anything even if it’s bad” if they are obsessively defending certain features (like a soldier on a field, hacking away at enemies).

I’ve seen worse arguments thrown around with stunning frequency than those phrases. I actually don’t see those two very often.

I wouldn’t worry about it. Enjoy the game as it is now, not what it may be. If they decide to raise the level cap, I’m sure they will think of some way to make the Legendary/Ascended stuff still relevant – either by making it some kind of special veteran item, or by giving you a way to upgrade them to the new max level.

kuben.9826:

This is what i wrote few posts earlier. Somebody linked topic where guy wrote, that letting everybody to have “personal” conditions cannot exist. But i can’t understand why. It’s so mystic for me…

Weird. I certainly can’t see why not on a technical level. It’s been done before successfully.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Well, there are a couple reasons behind that. For starters, every new stack of a constantly-ticking condition is just more calculations that the game has to go through every second, on top of other things already going on. In huge boss fights like Teq, having 100 players each have their own stack of Burning or Poison or Torment on Teq would just be awful. Who knows what kind of issues we’d see from that? It wouldn’t be pretty, I’ll say that.

Secondly, is that they might be doing it to cap damage numbers as well. Since condition damage circumvents armor ratings (at least partially), conditions deal more damage on average than regular (physical) weapon attacks. If they let people do individual stacks instead of group stacks, we would see the meta shift purely to a Ravager Rampage meta, and the condition damage would mean enemies would burn down far quicker than they do under Berzerk meta. Which means people complaining about staleness and easiness of enemies will have more reason to complain…

Fair points. I think the engineering of it is largely in the implementation though. Yes, it’s more calculations, but if other games have done just fine managing it, then it’s clearly not a guaranteed engineering problem.

As for the meta, it would undoubtedly require some tweaking, but any significant change to the condition system is going to require that. The only no-risk/no-work way to handle this situation is to let it continue as is.

Perhaps I’m missing some part of the issue here, but I don’t understand why they don’t just let more than one person stack conditions of the same type. Other games have done it in that way just fine.

If they’re worried about PvP, they could just add an exception that it stays the way it is now when applied to players.