Guild Wars 2

IndigoSundown.5419:

Actually, I think you did make sense of it. There are times I picture ANet design meetings going something like this.

1 "So we all think that Content X is great, and that everyone should love it.
2 “I’m not so sure about everyone. There’s always some pesky group or other than only wants to do one kind of thing.”
1 So how do we get people to try it? Is there something we can do to the content to make it more appealing to a broader demographic?
<crickets>
3 Hey! You know that reward system we were working on. We could tie it to Content X! Then they’ll have to try it!
1 Great idea! Let’s figure out the particulars.

Fair point.

Mortifer.2946:

I was imagining them the same way you two did. A very wrong choice of words…. and I agree they should have brought back SAB instead… my infinity coin is really annoyed by this time

Yeah, the whole SAB thing as you and Indigo mentioned… I wasn’t around for SAB, but my assumption is that it was similar to these adventures? So I don’t know why, if that is the case, they didn’t bring back SAB. Maybe they lost the code for it or something lol. I guess it was too disconnected from the rest of the game.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Maybe this is just me…

When i first heard “adventures” I thought about actual adventure. Kind of like quests, or mini dungeons or anything I could do where there would be a reason to do it, and a sense that I was playing the character I created. Learning they were mini-games, some (at least) with different skill bars… well, color me disappointed. I don’t have an issue with mini-games existing. Some folks like them. Still, not what I think of when I hear the word “adventure.”

As far as this thread, I suspect there would be less complaints about mastery points in adventures if they were actually adventures — and for mini-games, they could maybe have brought back SAB…

My imagination went to a similar place. Like I was imagining a map-wide dynamic quest, or something of that nature. Something that spanned a large physical space and involved a lot of different elements. I guess I was imagining “adventure” in the explorative sense, rather than “activity” sense.

Either way, I don’t know what they were thinking attaching them to mastery points and collections. Just comes across like no faith in the content to sell itself on its gameplay merits. I had thought that the leaderboards would be the “mmo incentive” but I guess not.

I can’t make sense of it in my head.

Mystic.5934:

hehe, yeah. I think my post might of answered your post you were writing when I was writing mine about odds of getting it from a small sample size :P

Haha, yeah.

Mystic.5934:

current best way to forge Zap from 4 crafted items are rare items: 1x Assassin’s Godskull Edge + 3 x Rampager’s Krait Machete
it will take about 781 attempts (start with 2342 total rares), and throwing in any other rare/exotic you get out.
this will cost you roughly 864g
if you only spend 450g of this, that’s roughly a 52% chance you’d get it
that’s not the entire story, because that’s over long runs with hundreds of outcomes (average).
a quick google search found a similar answer to what would happen for shorter runs: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25qsv7/eli5_if_i_attempt_something_with_1_probability/
781 attempts = 0.1285% success
chance of not getting anything in 781 attempts = (1-0.001285)^781=36.63%
so, even if you spent 864g, there’s only a ~63.4% chance of getting a Zap (or more than one).
63.4% of 52% = 32.95% chance of getting 1 or more Zap with 450g
you could get it cheaper by buying level 65+ rares for under 33s to replace the Godskull, but you wouldn’t have nearly the same velocity.
I recommend gambling only if you want to have fun gambling. not because you want something cheaper.

Thanks for the numbers.

To my understanding, there is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

In probability theory, the law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem that describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times. According to the law, the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed.

Which only applies if you’re doing a bunch of rolls at once (and does not apply if you, say, roll once today, once again tomorrow, and so on). From what I can tell, this “law” does apply to the overall daily, or at least hourly/minutely, use of the Mystic Forge (and other rolls like it) which is why some people get lucky and some don’t get any luck at all (the deviation in rolls combined with the large number of them).

You can also do this on a personal level, I’m pretty sure, but you need a large sample size, which is why I was asking about the math of my chances. If we assume that I did every attempt at the same time and did a significant number of them, then I would think that overall my chances would be a bit different from 0.79% (the number the wiki gives). Remember I’m talking about the statistics of the sequence of rolls, not each individual roll one.

The question is, how close would I be getting to the number of rolls where things start to average out? Probably not close at all, I imagine, which screws with the numbers, I’m sure. But it’s not that statistics have “memory.” It’s averages. And it’s also unclear (to be fair) whether a program that is being accessed near constantly for dice rolls can ever truly be tested accurately for sample size; as in, even if I were to do 5,000 rolls at once, myself, is it really the same as rolling a virtual die in isolation on my desktop, or should the rolls of all the other players be counted in the equation? (which is impossible to do unless you have software that monitors every player’s roles at once).

The wiki says 0.79% with 2901 trials. So it seems to me like my chances would be severely diminished overall if I did all rolls at once and did a number of trials that was way below 2901. And my chances would be best if I did 2901 or more in the same sitting. Presumably, 2901 is a number people got from extensive testing with long forging sessions.

Scandi.5693:

No, this is horrid. Stop trying to turn an mmorpg into soft alternative porn. The skimpy feminine armour is stupid enough, like we women would go into battle in high heals and a teddy. Take your erp’ing elsewhere.

Well, to be fair to the people who request this stuff, it’s the art designers (whoever makes the final calls) who sets the stage for this stuff in MMOs. We get avatars with perfect hollywood bodies, perfect hollywood faces, perfectly styled hair, and then we get a hunk of ugly metal to wear that destroys the aesthetic. Or a hunk of ugly leather, or cloth.

It should be no surprise that some people want armor that highlights the hollywood look, rather than hiding it like some kind of “in need of a makeover” geek character in one of those “geek girl is actually super hot” movies.

People aren’t really asking for anything more than what is already there. They just want to be able to see it better. In fact, I’m of the opinion that some of the best armors are tastefully revealing or simply figure-hugging – as in, much like a well-designed website, the eye sees what was meant to be seen and forgets the rest.

Too many armors in this game are (at least to my eyes) antithetical to that. Rather than accentuating the framework of beauty that is already there, they detract from it by hiding it behind elaborate geometrical shapes that don’t even look like much of anything unless you’re zoomed in farther than the camera can go.

Example: Sorcerer’s Pants for human female. Really a very beautiful, elaborate design if you look closely, but from the distance that most of us are going to be viewing from when we play, it looks like someone attached a curtain to a pair of panties and snapped some pieces of metal onto it, too, for reasons that philosophers are still trying to figure out. God knows how the whole thing stays up. It’s like a cape with holes in it.

Doesn’t even make much sense and instead of accentuating, it sort of says, “Well if you look at the right angle, kind of, when the wind blows, there’s something under there I think. Not sure what it is exactly, but it’s probably sexy… right? I’m just gonna assume it’s sexy.”

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the art team for armor suffers from spending too much time zoomed in on the polygons, not thinking about how it’s going to look in the actual game.

Depends on class and what kind of build you’re going for. It would probably be more helpful to you to ask about elite spec for a specific class and aim (whether your aim is condi DPS, zerker DPS, tanky/healy, etc.).

In many cases, the elite specs offer superior traits, if not use of the weapon itself. But as people have pointed out… that’s not really the case with ranger, unless you want to heal. In fact, ranger synergy in general seems to be very pet reliant and harder to piece together than some classes.

And there are no doubt other instances where you can make a spec that is on par with others while using old specializations entirely. It’s just… Anet clearly wanted to make elite specs appealing out of the gate, so some of them are kind of OP in what they offer, when compared to the old stuff.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Or maybe people actually are just unreasonable?

Or maybe people are different? And we aren’t all clones of each other? As in, we aren’t exact copies and we have different preferences? As in, tastes vary?

As in, video game stuff is largely taste and not objective fact? And sometimes more than one person can get what they want at the same time?

Kal Spiro.9745:

Is it ruining your play experience having a single line of text on your screen that can be easily ignored? It will probably stay up there for a while. What does it matter?

Speaking for myself…

Ruining? No. Talk about hyperbole.

An ongoing nuisance and reminder of how garbage the UI customization is in this game? Absolutely.

zaced.7948:

toxicity is love, toxicity is life.
y’all should just l2p and join us, the elite.

It is kind of funny how people equate “elite” with “toxic,” when the two are only the same some of the time. Sometimes it’s noobs who act toxic and sometimes the “elite” are actually very chill and understanding.

This probably happens more in GW2 than most other MMOs, noobs being toxic, because it’s harder to measure skill in this game, so there’s tons of people who think they’re amazing and aren’t, but there’s no objective proof to show them otherwise.

Malediktus.9250:

-1 easy achievements should not give titles
You can tag all 5 bosses in one night cycle if you know what you are doing. There is no inactivity timer on these events.

Silverwastes.

Killer Queen.

Everything that comes from having played GW1.

It’s debatable the difficulty of some titles, but the ones I named there are pretty much cake. And a number of titles simply come from playing the game a while (ex: character age, 200g title).

So….

Qazwersder.3574:

If my memory is correct, when using exotics, the chance of a precursor is 0.79%.

If you can buy exotic swords for 2g per sword, you can have 56 forges with your 450g.

The chance of you getting a precursor with 56 forges is 35.86%. (ie the chance of you not getting one to the power 56)

1-((1-0.079)^56)

Edit 1: Sorry I forgot to take into account the exotics you’ll get from your 56 forges, (an extra 17 forges worth) which will take your chance of a precursor to 43.95%.

Edit 2: my memory wasn’t correct, so my chances were a bit small.

Thanks for doing the math.

Magnus Godrik.5841:

The way I look at it, either way it’s gonna cost you gold. The question is, how much gold you want spend and do you want to spend time running around tyria doing this and waiting for that. Some precursor can be cheaper to craft than actually buy, just time consuming. Here is an example. I just recently crafted dusk and it cost me about 600g to craft, and it goes for over 1000 on the tp. Now for rodgorts flame it was a different story. By the time I finished the 1st tier I realized it would be way cheaper to buy. So I just suggest you research before you commit.

Yeah, I look at the “running around” as opportunity cost, in part. If I knew I would enjoy it, that would be one thing, but since I’m sure I’ll find half of it a slog, it would be time spent on something I don’t like that could be spent farming gold. So factoring in that kind of opportunity cost, I doubt it would be any cheaper for me.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I think it’s far more cost effective to buy the precursor than to gamble for it. If you have 450g to invest now, put in a buy order for Zap for 450g. Then every time you have 40-50g saved, remove the order and add 20-25g to it. Eventually, you’ll end up with all you need (and it is likely that you’ll get a better deal than normal if someone sells instantly and you happen to have the high bid).

The alternative is that you’ll spend the 450g and end up with nothing. Generally, industrial producers of precursors find that they can go through a ton of attempts without any and then get 2-3 within the next 100.

---

Put another way, you should only gamble 450g if:

• You’re willing to lose it all and accept the loss.
• You expect to get 450g worth of excitement from rolling the dice and hoping to get lucky in the first few dozen tries.
• You are willing to pay a potential premium for the chance you’ll get to build your legend sooner (the premium is if you lose it all).

Unless all of those are true (to some degree), I recommend strongly you avoid the risk.

Yeah, this is pretty much where I’m at in terms of weighing my options. I don’t know if I’m willing to risk it. I’m hoping to find some kind of percentages, so I know just how bad my odds are (cause I doubt they’re good). Like if it was 25%, for example… I might take those odds. If it was 5-10%, probably not.

Buy order sounds like a good idea, if only so I don’t have to stare at the unspent gold all the time.

In response to a couple others: Dungeon tokens sounds like a good idea if I did dungeons regularly, but I’d be going out of my way to do them and I don’t know the content well, so it’s not the greatest route for me. Crafting it would be nice if it wasn’t for the collections. I pretty much gave up on that at the Dwayna event part and even more so after I looked on wiki and saw all sorts of random Fractal stuff to get pieces of later collections. Going into instanced content for pieces of a collection is not my idea of fun and neither is being slowed by waiting for the right event to pop.

Ironically, the one part of the precursor crafting process that was supposed to be fun is not appealing to me. Maybe if it had stayed in open world and avoided events, I might have enjoyed it.

I’m saving up to buy Zap off the TP. But I’m reaching the point where I’m considering trying to forge and just say screw it if it doesn’t work.

What I’m trying to get a handle on is, what are my odds like for investing something in the realm of 450g into trying to get Zap? Most of the percentages I’ve come across seem to talk number of tries that are way beyond the budget of 450g, so I’m not sure.

Doggie.3184:

Guess this is a good spot to repost this;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHsll9LFZ4

God, I agree with that video so much. My first experience was a hugely emotional one, Star Wars Galaxies in the early days. I mean, back before they had any kind of mounts even or fast travel. I think developers forget how amazing the experience can be of doing something like spending 20 minutes traversing a vast environment on foot to get to the destination you want to reach.

For me, that kind of thing was part of what created a sense of scope. It made the virtual world feel more real and it made it feel more dangerous too. And there was also a sense of adventure in just wandering and seeing what was out there. Points of Interest weren’t a mechanic that you go to to make a bar move. They were special areas out in the middle of nowhere. They were interesting locations to explore for exploration’s sake.

I miss that feeling. I miss pacing that felt realistic. That’s why I continue to seek out MMOs that have sandbox elements… cause I miss the feeling of being able to blunder my way through a world that feels like a world.

If you have anything like nVidia Control Panel, make sure it’s not overriding game settings with higher performance stuff of its own. Also, I take it the video is just to illustrate and you’re getting FPS that low even without video? (I know, stupid question, just making sure.)

But apart from that, yeah, HoT is definitely more taxing, I’m assuming because of all the dead space that needs to be rendered for map layers and whatnot. It seems like they could add more settings in the way of distance rendering (as in, don’t render as much of the map at once). You might have weird stuff then with a broken airship rendering in front of somebody in mid-air, but it could theoretically help reduce the verticality load.

I’m just kind of theorizing here. I’m not too familiar with 3D rendering.

People are usually nice until things go wrong and then the insults come out of the woodwork very fast.

But I’m not convinced that the open world environment has changed much in this regard with HoT. I’m inclined to believe that many were resting on their laurels for a while with things like SW farm and world boss train, and forgot what losing is like. Now those same people are getting hit hard with a combination of new/complex/coordinated zone events and raids, which are probably keying them up to yell at screwup play.

Speaking more specifically, I’m concerned about how quickly peoples’ attitudes morph when Tarir goes south (meaning it screws up, or communication is poor, not a reference to south being behind most of the time :P). I see a lot of competitiveness in people seeing their “sides” as some kind of separate entity, apart from the overall goal and I’ve seen it morph into outright insulting of the ability of other sides when something goes wrong.

I don’t know what to do about it though. I can’t make people see Tarir as a team event. If they want to see each side as a separate team, I can tell them off when they go off, but I doubt it’s going to do anything positive. Interestingly, I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed the same attitude with something like SW… I’m guessing because with SW, it is very easy to kill your breach boss early and then go help others. With Octo, you more or less pick a side and stick there.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know. Chris Whiteside told us he found it offensive when he still worked for Anet, so I guess maybe it’s offensive.

Now you may not think it’s offensive but he did. He was protective of the team and seemed to think they were hard working. I’m guessing he’d know better than anyone in the company.

It kittened him off and he did write something about it.

So maybe, just maybe it’s offensive even if you don’t find it offensive And since there’s no reason to be offensive, not at all, my crusade is just me being decent.

Well clearly Chris Whiteside speaks for all developers and things can be objectively offensive and developers can’t take criticism at all and need people defending them (which is pretty much what you extrapolated there.)

Chris Whiteside was the leader of a pretty big list of people, as far as I know. Of course he’s not gonna take kindly to the implication that his people are lazy. You are not Chris Whiteside though, last I checked.

Your crusade is to protect an imagined group of developers who are offended in your mind. Chris Whiteside isn’t even there anymore.

You know I’d like to ask another question. Instead of defending the use of words like lazy, why are people so resistant to simply speaking to the problems in the game? How does this negatively affect their ability to provide constructive criticism.

I have not defended the use of the word lazy, but since that’s the line of thought you’re going down here, you’re acting like the person who used the word said absolutely nothing else. Regardless, if someone thinks that lazy design is a problem with the game, the word and the criticism go hand in hand. Laziness, when it actually happens (not saying whether I think it has for this game) is something to be criticized for a AAA big-budget product that is sold for money.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

I am a big boy /flex /flex !

When some ppl dont listen to reason (other posters) or going in ‘’hurp durp mode’’ , then some1 has to inflict as much damage as posible in the shortest of time , without delering the threads .
Othewise i must create something that is called a ’’dialog’’ … ‘’dualog …’’dialogue’’ and its kinda bothersome and long , in this anime/beer season i am having :P
And most of the time , i cant effect them , when they are hiding behind a screen :P

(Ppl can call the Devs lazy , but i cant call and treat them like kids ?
The badge of hypocrisy is accepeted and worn with honor! :P)

Don’t forget the first rule of internet forums: What is ignored doesn’t exist.

Or rather, what is ignored exists for such a short period of time that it might as well not exist. The best way to handle a post one doesn’t like is to let it die in the ether. Persistence draws attention though, that is for sure, and, after a while, it becomes hard to ignore.

In other words, Vayne’s “crusade” in this case, has drawn more notice to the use of the word lazy than the guy’s off-hand comment ever would have. If anyone was going to be offended by it, they certainly have more time to have found it and been offended, since the topic of it has stayed alive so long.

You can call people what you want, but that goes both ways, as long as it doesn’t break any forum rules. So it’s like… both or neither, ya know. Lazy and kids, or neither of them. It’s sort of a trap, really. If you condemn the one, then you should be condemning the other, and vice-versa. But I do tend to think that with the exception of things like racial epithets, personal attacks are worse than a vague criticism tossed at a general group.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

/quote /
Tactics is, incidentally, what Vayne’s crusade against the word lazy looks like to me… painting it as rude, using it as a platform to discourage criticism of the company. Looks like tactics to shut out criticism to me. I’m not saying he has any ulterior motive other than being a fan, mind you
/quote /

Excuse me , so if a person is hiding behind his PC with his anonymousity , like a little kid , spouting his nonsense, he should be left untouched ?
Will he magically ‘’grow up ’’ some day ?

If they remove his post or ban him , then the company is bad , and he will start spouting silly things on the fan-forums , otherwise they must cherish him like their filled teenager hormones child ?
And permit them to be called lazy , or their products is the worst in the history of MMOs , because only the Modarators are reading those or getting paid ,
or ‘’because they are proffessional and they they know that the forums are filled with passionate ppl that use those words , because they love the game’’ ?

I have a theory :
1) If you want something …. say , like a mature guy
…or You Know … Just Dont (Sky Williams 2015)

2) Whatever you say it will effect the game …even after you leave for other games …
PvP: As long as there athelete ppl will flock = we dont need Balance for the cauals 2013
WvWvW : We want less PvD and bigger maps to split the zergs = less fights atm
PvE : we must create hardcore Rids that offers the best Rewards + Money = ops theres some pricks on the LFG that wants ppl with full Achentand + 16.000 Achiv ….ops its the comnpany fault ..
Conculution : ……dont kittening insist and later on do a 180 flip flop and say it you didnt say it…and they should watch the ‘’pros opinion"’

3) If you are Test, Iason, vesper,fixit, NecroN, , you should w8 till the price of the x-drops …. or move as you intent to , in other games

4) If you want to be a prick because you think there will no backfires , then a bigger prick you will poke you with a watered-wood-plank on your skinny kitten .

Because its the inernet i can do whatever i want too :P
Dont you like how this work too ? :P

I have a pretty clear understanding of how this works. I stated how Vayne’s persistence about the use of the word lazy came across to me. You are, of course, welcome to disagree.

I don’t know where you get words like “should be left untouched.” I am questioning the act of making a big deal out of one allegedly disrespectful word directed toward the developers, especially considering that much worse is said on these forums near non-stop. You can “touch” what you see as disrespectful all you want, but if you see people who say such stuff as equivalent to a little kid who needs to grow up, then it’s obvious you don’t have the presence of mind to help him grow up in the first place, even if he truly needed to, which is a hypocritically insulting presumption.

It’s also a vast oversimplification to act as if the only thing the guy said was that the developers are lazy, with nothing added to it, and reeks of tactics itself. You are painting him like a petulant child who knows only swear words.

But sure, be mature whenever possible if you are going to say something. I can agree with that. The funny thing about it though… it’s very easy to sound mature and clamber up onto a pedestal. Much harder to embody maturity.

“Every facet of the game was touched, polished, tweaked, or overhauled.”

This is simply untrue, but I have nothing against it winning an award from MMORPG.com

IndigoSundown.5419:

Labjax.2465:

First of all, it’s not really maligning if the person is saying stuff about the company’s practices that they believe to be true.

I couldn’t disagree more. Baseless belief is not a free pass to say whatever one wants in a private setting.

Second, you pretty much have to criticize the company if you’re going to criticize the game. The company as a whole is what made the game and made the decisions that turned the game into what it is (this is more so relevant for AAA games, with hundreds of employees, less so for 5 person indie teams).

It is completely possible to criticize both the game and the company without resorting to pejoratives. I do it all the time. You do, too. Use of such terms is in itself the mark of a weak argument.

Third, there is a bit of a distinction between developers and company because most devs have very little say in what goes on (which is why I, personally, tend to avoid criticizing developers themselves). But either way, hemming and hawing over the use of the word lazy is extremely idiotic.

If it’s idiotic to comment about the use of a word, ANet might as well delete 80% of the posts on these boards, including some of yours.

So what if it’s not entirely respectful? There are more important things in this world to get offended over.

Are there more important things to care about? Absolutely. None of us are posting on a game forum to change the world.

Unless you work for Anet, chances are, the developers are not your friends and you know nothing about them. Why defend them over one word in the first place? Just because you like parts of their game?

I’m not posting my opinion of cynical forum tactics to defend ANet. I’m not pleased with the way ANet management has moved the game, either. I just don’t like cynical forum tactics.

Just stop and think for a moment how absurd that is. They are adults who are getting paid to do a job. If they were getting harassed and stalked, I would be right there with you defending them. Them getting called lazy as a whole, in a generalized sense, is not worth the blink of an eye in defense, much less an ongoing argument.

I made one short comment. You made a longer response. If it wasn’t worth commenting on, why was the comment worth commenting on?

FWIW, my post was more directed toward Vayne than yourself. He has been going on about the use of the word lazy for a good page or so.

That said, Anet can delete whatever they want, including my own stuff. I commented on it mainly because of Vayne going on and on about it at the guy. It’s borderline obsessive the way he is/was defending the developers against one word. It’s almost as if he considers himself one of them.

No one gets a free pass, sure, I was just pointing out that there’s a difference between saying what you think about the content produced by the developers and creating elaborate lies to make them look bad. Pejoratives are a weak way to criticize, sure, but if they’re weak, why is anyone giving it the time of day?

And I’d hardly call the use of the word lazy “tactics.” It is an opinion, and arguably a rude one, but it’s hardly tactics to describe a group’s work as lazy. I’ve seen “tactics” all the time on internet forums and this is nothing like that. Tactics is, incidentally, what Vayne’s crusade against the word lazy looks like to me… painting it as rude, using it as a platform to discourage criticism of the company. Looks like tactics to shut out criticism to me. I’m not saying he has any ulterior motive other than being a fan, mind you.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure it’s necessary to malign the company to critique the game at all.

It’s absolutely unnecessary. It’s either people acting out because it’s the internet and the consequences are trivial, or it’s a bald-faced (and ill-advised) attempt to shame the developer into acting. Either way, it’s rude and uncalled for.

First of all, it’s not really maligning if the person is saying stuff about the company’s practices that they believe to be true.

Second, you pretty much have to criticize the company if you’re going to criticize the game. The company as a whole is what made the game and made the decisions that turned the game into what it is (this is more so relevant for AAA games, with hundreds of employees, less so for 5 person indie teams).

Third, there is a bit of a distinction between developers and company because most devs have very little say in what goes on (which is why I, personally, tend to avoid criticizing developers themselves). But either way, hemming and hawing over the use of the word lazy is extremely idiotic. So what if it’s not entirely respectful? There are more important things in this world to get offended over. Unless you work for Anet, chances are, the developers are not your friends and you know nothing about them. Why defend them over one word in the first place? Just because you like parts of their game?

Just stop and think for a moment how absurd that is. They are adults who are getting paid to do a job. If they were getting harassed and stalked, I would be right there with you defending them. Them getting called lazy as a whole, in a generalized sense, is not worth the blink of an eye in defense, much less an ongoing argument.

Color me impressed.

As long as I’ve been following the game, they have never been very reactive when it comes to class balance. They have a pacing to it that they aren’t apt to break from, especially for the argument of an overall broken build, as opposed to a single offending ability.

It’s actually one of the more reasonable approaches I’ve seen for PvP. Class balance is a really precise thing and it’s very easy to muck it up by fudging a few numbers in the wrong place.

It’s not that they want anything to be broken. It’s that the moving parts of builds and how they are used in relation to other builds is a hard thing to get your head around and mesmer might be dominating today, but get overwhelmed by some combo somebody discovers that wrecks it tomorrow.

That aside, imbalanced specs are imbalanced specs, it can be very frustrating, and it would seem, sometimes, like the answer is obvious. And maybe it is, even to them. But if they jump on the first answer they see, it may only be the right answer “for this week” and they can wind up playing whack-a-mole with class problems as one abrupt balance change sets off another imbalance and the whole thing continues endlessly.

In other words, I tend to think that in this particular case, the best practice for the game also happens to be the one that is worst for players in the short-term. Long-term, it’s arguably better, but it’s hard to see it that way when you’re getting wrecked by somebody and can’t figure out a way to counter it.

Vayne.8563:

And I’ve worked on creative projects for a good portion of my life, and I know a few things for a fact. It’s often things take longer to produce than the public thinks they dfo and just about all developers know this.

People who say this takes X long or this takes Y long, or this is or isn’t complex without examining the code and what was required to make it are essentially expressing an opinion that is tauntamount ot making stuff up.

Or do you approve of calling people you don’t know and haven’t worked with lazy?

This would be a great rebuttal, if it addressed a single point I actually made.

1) Working on creative projects doesn’t mean you’ve worked on games.

2) “It takes longer than the public perceives.” Ok? This is relevant to what I said how?

3) “People who say this takes X long.” You said a year and 300 people. You’re the one who threw out numbers.

4) Once again, never said zero complexity. But like I said, they would have to be one of the worst run companies if they didn’t have the sort of tools to make things like their events easy to repeat the creation of. And like I said, you obviously know nothing about game development. Creative projects are not all the same, sorry. I wouldn’t pretend to be an authority on filmmaking because I’ve made games, for example, or vice-versa.

Furthermore, you have once again missed the point. BY COMPARISON. There, maybe if I put it in all caps, you won’t miss it. Obviously MMOs are complex. Obviously the design of them is complex. But if we’re comparing games, it’s absurd to act like making new events in GW2 is so much more harderer than in other games. Like I said, if it is, then the GW2 team’s tools are awful, which is highly unlikely for a company of their size and caliber.

It doesn’t take being a fly on the wall inside the GW2 office to figure out that when you have the framework for, for example, an escort event, you can copy that framework for future events. If you couldn’t because you made a system that is impossible to copy, you wouldn’t be very good at your job and your game would become increasingly unstable over time.

5) See where I already said that I’m speaking nothing against the individual developers themselves? And I’m talking about the process of the company itself, which is not something that individual developers control? Don’t try to pull that guilt trip crap with me. Especially when it’s not even relevant to what I’ve said.

Some would say
you are to be believed,
that in the infinite wisdom of development and the burning passion
of a thousand souls in the state of flow,
there is nowhere to go but up.
And if we’d only see the truth before our eyes
of the nature of a sunrise rising over Tyria’s torn and broken, beautiful and glimmering
jungle,
we’d know that it’s alright to cry,
as long as we remember where we’re from.
And where we’re going.
Is it enough to say I love you and dream,
or is it like a waking nightmare.
A Heart of Thorns thrust deep into the life of rest and recovery
coating all in a thick layer of fear and anger.
The Nightmare Court chooses only one above the rest,
good and bad,
broken and healing,
and if that is enough at last then perhaps there is no glass ceiling to the realm that we reach for
and the garden that we reap for.
Perhaps there is only up and down, equal in measure but unequal in pound,
the creation of a delirious cacophony, transcending even the Pale Tree’s hazy dreams.

An option to enable/disable this in the Settings UI would be killer.

I liked them originally, but have grown to dislike them upon realizing that they are barely optional if I want to fill out my masteries.

Like I said in another thread, learn from the Proof of Heroics design you did in WvW… give us other ways to get Mastery Points and then give us some consumables we can spend extra on as well. Then it’s still a useful mechanic and people aren’t being forced to do content they hate.

Vayne.8563:

No, but I know 300 guys working on a game for a year aren’t doing nothing. That is to say, this would have to be the worst run company in the history of companies if it doesn’t take a long time to create.

These quests aren’t really cut and pasted. They’re hand crafted and it takes more time. They interact with each other and often overlap each other and that takes more time.

This copy paste thing you’re talking about? Not seeing that so much here.

Oh, so now you know how many people were working on the expansion and how long it took too? Lol… you are something else man. Of course, ignore the fact that you have no idea how your numbers compare to other games, too.

Obviously some of it is not cut and pasted, like the dialog. But it’s obvious that the overall design of it is. There’s nothing hand crafted about another escort event or another “kill X number of mobs in Y area.” Creating an event chain would not be hard either if you have tools made for it.

You talk about the idea of a company being badly run if it doesn’t take a while to make stuff, as if time spent is the metric for making good game content. You have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to the process of making games. That much is obvious. I didn’t want to go there, but since you keep insisting, I feel there’s no point in holding back on that one. They would have to be one of the worst run companies if they didn’t have the sort of tools to make things like their events easy to repeat the creation of.

Perhaps you are taking the phrase “copy/paste” too literally? But I think it’d be obvious that if they copy/pasted entirely, then the content would be exactly the same as other content with different graphics and it’s not.

Anyway, I’m sorry to burst your bubble of rose-colored glasses with which you look at the development of GW2. Its development is not extra-super-hard because the game has a few innovative features. The reason stuff like the Living Story has proven so hard is because, in addition to story they have to write (which has to be strong, since it’s their flagship narrative) and the voice actors they have to hire, they tend to change existing parts of the game world in some way and that’s anything but cost-effective. It goes directly against the idea of saving and re-using assets. In some cases, they have had to both trash old assets and create new ones in their place for part of LS.

But that, I think, is why more recent LS has been so tame in its world-effecting influence. Somebody higher up probably stepped in and said, “This is hurting us more than it helps.” (I remember when that one WP in LA was blocked… that was our piece of LS for that time. Almost like a consolation prize “here’s something at least… we tried.”)

You have to understand that for the most part, when it comes to this subject, I’m speaking from the mindset of a developer, not a player. I hate pulling out experience cards cause it sounds so silly, but I do have some experience making games (albeit on a much smaller scale) and as silly of a major as it may sound, I studied game design in college. I’m not just pulling this stuff out of my theoretical backside. Most of what I’m telling you is the application of general principles applied to scale.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve played a lot of MMOs. Not one or two. A lot. The complexity of these zones, and the events in them dwarfs what most MMOs give you.

Remember that static quests are far easier to program and control. Events that don’t scale, same thing. Adding gliding to the game with updrafts and speed/breaks and layline gliding, that’s complexity.

I think you’re confusing the kind of new zones you get in other games with the same old static quests, with what this game is doing.

Every single zone in this game is harder to create than a typical MMO due to the lack of static quests and scaling. The verticality of the zone is huge as well.

These maps too a very long time to design compared to zones I’ve played in other games. So no, I don’t believe he is right.

It’s not really relevant how many MMOs you’ve played. It doesn’t matter whether Anet’s quest system is more complex. If the framework is in place, with the right tools, the copy/pasting is virtually the same. The hard part is in the initial creation of the system, not making new events down the road.

As for verticality, yes, that was one new system and they only did it in the four new zones. Where did I say “zero complexity” though? I said “a lot of,” not 100%.

Frankly, you have no idea how long these maps took to design unless you worked on the expansion start to finish. Nor do you have any idea how long zones in other games took, by comparison, unless you also worked on those games. You can guess and that is it. Acting like your perception of how long it took is fact… is just silly.

Being well-versed in playing MMOs does not make you experienced in how they are made.

Are you sure you’re thinking of the same thing? O.o I haven’t heard of anyone using it if so.

Kheo.2504:

Thanks for the heads up, I got a little fed up with never seeing anything positive on these forums. Especially the really sarcastic threads.

Negativity mostly thrives in discussion >

Positivity mostly thrives in action >

Thus, internet forums at bound to be 90% negative, allowing for the rare positive to slip through (but it doesn’t last long).

It’s a simple matter of, when people are happy and things are going good, there isn’t a lot to talk about. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that talking in general largely comes from the discussion of problems (whether problems in the sense of “malfunction” or problems in the sense of “question/answer”).

There is friendly banter too, but seeing as how game forums don’t like people talking about stuff other than the game, that sort of thing is limited. So in a way, game forums tend to force the negativity by design. They remove one of the few things that can go on for pages while being positive (friendly banter) by keeping things on-topic. The result is that game forums tend to be either really negative or really inactive. One of the two.

Compare hub city map chat when it’s busy, to any old thread on here, and you will see what I mean. That stuff can go on for hours, and be largely whimsical and friendly, because it’s allowed to go way off the rails.

Imagine it… you start a squad and queue up in LFG… you can taxi in 49 people before your party is full. No getting suppressed. No endless requeing to taxi in more people.

Just a few tags and next thing you know, map is full. Blessed be the name of Dwayna, wouldn’t that be awesome?

Vayne.8563:

Anyone who thinks the Jungle and the Raid are easy to produce doesn’t know enough about programming. That is all.

If we take scale into account and compare it to the programming of other MMO’s features, they are doing a lot of standard procedure (e.g. nothing particularly interesting in terms of effort invested) – reusing assets, copy/pasting event design, etc.

In other words… obviously it’s not “easy” in a vacuum. However, if you compare it for scale to other MMOs, it’s not exactly hard either.

Manthas is more or less on the money. A lot of the bread and butter content they put out with HoT is copy/paste caliber of effort. I’m not saying anything against the individual devs who did what they could with the resources they had and the time allotted them, but let’s not obfuscate the point with technicalities of language.

Somewhat unrelated, but also somewhat related, it occurs to me that this game would probably be forgettable as hell without its A+ art team.

Tabootrinket.2631:

So here I’m going to put some logic in it.
Your character gets like 2 new skin sets by playing HoT. The rest is through the gemstore. Every week, we get to see new outfits going through the gemstore, while not seeing any new skin unlockable by playing the expansion.
There’s a clear overwhelming balance issue here.

Now people are going with a “but it’s f2p” as an argument. The thing is, this expansion is sold the same price as the core game when it came out. But the core game came with a lot more skins than this. The core game came with a lot more maps than this.

Yeah, you’ll come back by saying, “the expansion provides whole new mechanism which is a lot of work etc”. Well I agree. But they could at least provide at least a satisfying amount of new gear set so we could further customize our character.

And then you’ll say “They didn’t have time to create many new gear skins because they focused on providing actual gameplay”… well they have time to create those outfits every week.
“But it’s f2p” uuuuuhh…

Naw, I actually agree with you. The imbalance of it is very over-the-top and HoT probably should have been free (or close to it) with how much they are asking for on other stuff.

Nothing about it makes me want to give them money again. Some will read what I said here and think I’m being dramatic over nothing. But the fact is, my standards aren’t really that high when it comes to buying from a company… all I’m looking for is some consistent signs that Anet, as a company, still cares about their individual customers (assuming they ever did).

I would fine with the illusion of them caring, as long as it’s convincing and is supported by consistent efforts toward fairness and an understanding of how customers feel about stuff. Instead, we so far appear to be getting a heck of a lot of radio silence and blanket ignoring of concerns about their practices. I don’t expect them to make a big post about it, mind you. I just expect them to at least pretend to give a kitten or two through their actions, that’s all.

Kaz.5430:

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it slightly amusing (and a little hypocritical) that some people are complaining about new Gem Store content “after” having spent $100 on the xpac?

You do recall that $50 of the $100 was for gem store stuff, rather than the xpac itself right?

The xpac itself cost $50.

The first $20 of your other $50 was for a gemstore game upgrade worth 2400 gems ($30), everything in that upgrade was most likely created by the Gem Store team.

The remaining $30 of that $50 fee was for 4000 gems (worth $50), which could have purchased both the appearance packs released since HoT came out, without needing to spend a dime.

You’re actually complaining that they are providing you with stuff to buy with the 4000 gems, that you paid extra to get.

That argument would make sense if the base expansion ($50) came with the 4k gems. Paying $100 for the 4k gem deal isn’t even saving you money, unless you wanted the doodads from the $75 expansion. In fact, if you didn’t care about the doodads from the $75 deal, IIRC, the $100 deal is basically you buying $50 worth of gems from the store in a bundle with the expansion and saving nothing.

BloodyNine.7504:

I think maybe it is because I am newer to this game. But none of this surprises me. The game is F2P. They have to make money somehow. These people don’t work for free. The astronomical costs of items in games is by design. Why pretend otherwise? They NEED you to pull out your credit card and buy gems or the game goes away. Purchases of the game will only go so far. To keep it running there needs to be a revenue stream.

I can understand why people are upset. To be honest I would rather have no gem store, pay a subscription and have everything earn able in game. But that isn’t happening.

This doesn’t excuse the the obvious problems stated in many other posts. I am just saying, I understand why they do this. Not just why, but why the have to do it.

Basically, a number of people are abnormally mad at anything Gem Store related because they are tee’d off about the general direction of the game, HoT (the expansion), and, in some cases, more recent Gem Store practices (such as stuffing desirable items inside of “packs” and making them only purchasable through those packs with a bunch of assorted crap that no one wants, or releasing gliders as a new feature and then making 1% of the glider skins available through actual gameplay and 99% Gem Store purchase).

In other words, people are looking for more reasons to hate on the Gem Store because they’re already mad at it and the game. It’s understandable frankly. It’s not entirely logical half the time, but it’s understandable.

Dogg.2581:

I hoard plain and simple – made Juggernaut, Incinerator and Bolt in the last two weeks – total cost, around 330g out of pocket, for all 3, and 300g was for the Icy Runestones, rest was to get the final Silver Doubloons I didn’t already have, from hoarding and gathering.

If you want to buy every single item – sure, it costs more. If you’ve hoarded nothing, sure it costs more. If you want to make it in one day, sure it costs more.

But if you have tons of mats saved up from roaming around pointlessly, then it isn’t the end of world people claim it to be…and yes, since release of the time gated mats, I make them all almost every single day, hence why I have hundreds of each…but when you want free/cheap items later on, you work early on – simple really.

Hell I love the precursor crafting – although after 3, it hit me hard in Mith…but regardless…still cheap and easy…

I’m not meaning to invalidate your perspective when I say this (yours is one of the kinds of experiences that will be had with the system) but if you came to the game later at all, or didn’t stick around for most of it, then there is an endless stream of things to spend gold on and it’s not all that easy to hoard mass amounts of stuff unless you either have the RL money to buy space expansions from the store or you were around when the gold to gem conversion was cake and you stocked up on gems easily.

It’s hard to deny the disadvantages people face in this game if they weren’t around for stuff that happened earlier in the game’s life. I know that’s not unique to GW2, but I’m also not convinced that the gap is as bad in most other games. Especially considering that GW2 was never a sub game, so most of the advantages people got were merely by paying box cost and being part of the game (e.g. it’s not like some games, where you had to sub earlier in the game’s life and then later didn’t).

Gear treadmill games do have one advantage to them: Due to the “resetting” of power level, it’s generally not that difficult to catch up if you hit the game at the right time. GW2 has no such resets that I can think of, which of course doesn’t matter if all you care about is stats, but matters quite a bit if you care about having the overall most appealing items in the game.

I don’t get the impression that Anet fixes any more or less bugs than other games. It’s possible they have more bugs overall, due to the insane amount of different systems, giving the impression of very little fixing done. They also seem to have little to no resources devoted to bug squashing – they just move people over into it from other projects, if it seems important (aside from QA, who typically doesn’t have the know-how to fix bugs… only to find them, figure out how to reproduce them, and communicate with the devs).

But again, I don’t know that that’s any different from other games of this size and scope.

I’m also operating on impression and speculation. Maybe they do have teams specifically for it. Sure doesn’t seem like it though. The thing about bugs is (and this is not a defense of Anet in particular, just a general reminder about bugs) some of them are very difficult to reproduce and even more difficult to fix. It’s not always obvious where the problem is. Sometimes you think you’ve fixed a bug and then it comes back, or you can never seem to reproduce it in testing but people persist in reporting it.

This problem can be lessened by creating systems with strong organization, well-documented code, and so on, but all it takes is a little bit of sloppiness and it becomes a headache to track stuff down. Unfortunately, game programmers aren’t necessarily experts at software engineering and the systems required for a working MMO are anything but amateur stuff.

I recall something about Anet having a reputation for strong programming, but I think that was its reputation from years ago and the main thing it seems to be true for now is the client. Beyond that, I’m not sure if it remains true at all. And even the client I’m not sure about. After so many years of development, it’s hard to say.

xarallei.4279:

No, it wasn’t the first MMO. But it did have a huge and very undeniable impact on mmos.

Look I understand that GW2 is a bit of an unusual game. Legendaries have free stat swapping. Ascended has stat swapping, but you need to pay for it. But in this case, so long as runes are such a huge thing and cannot be switched freely it means that the legendary stat swapping is just not all that useful a feature at all. It’s just never going to be a requirement for raiding. To be honest, even if it did have free rune swapping it STILL would probably not be a requirement for raids. It would just be something convenient to have. Two ascended sets would still be equal to that.

In that, I will agree with you.

eldrin.6471:

The bottom line is im severally disabled including being registered legally blind,This game gave me a lot of pleasure for a long time and i spent a lot of real money to get the stuff i got.I thought maybe £3000+ was enough to keep the best gear,seems i was wrong.Il spend what it takes to get in groups that get me the new bis probably another£1000.
This has turned into one hell of an expensive distraction from life.Whats next mythic armor next year.Spending money for whatever reason on this game seems to be shunned and frowned upon in these forums.strange in a game with a gem to gold currency converter.I tend to think most folk hide there spending due to the reactions like what i have had.thank god im long past caring what strangers on a forum say they think of me.

Sorry to hear that man. I have a brother who has been legally blind since the age of 9. I can’t imagine him trying to play a game with as many complex visuals as GW2 in the first place. I imagine it’s not an easy feat.

Either way, I understand the feeling about expenses. I have had similar feelings since the expansion, but I will save the time in restating them since I’ve probably voiced them a hundred different ways already. :P

PopeUrban.2578:

True story:

They started putting notifications up there because during LS1 people complained that things were going on in the game that the game didn’t notify them about.

Basically, those notifiers are present because the community complained that they didn’t have them.

Now, we just need a way to dismiss them. right click or something. I dunno.

This would appear to be a theme with them: People complain about this or that. Anet gives people what they want pendulum style, by swinging in the other direction. Rather than keeping what they used to have in any capacity (e.g. options) they throw out the old entirely and give people the new exclusively.

xarallei.4279:

It’s not MY definition.

I didn’t say it was your definition. I’m saying that you’re acting like your personal experience is what dictates fact and that’s not how the world works.

You’re really giving off the impression that you’re one of those people who thinks WoW was the first MMO and everything follows from WoW.

xarallei.4279:

BiS is a theorycrafting term used by min/maxers. Anyone who has played WoW and raided for any amount of time knows what this means. They don’t have to say “we are talking about stats!” That is obviously implied. The whole idea behind best in slot is what gear/set up will give you the maximum amount of dps your character can possibly get. That is the same when you are talking about legendary and ascended. No raid leader is ever going to say “LF2M legendaries only,” but you will see LF2M full ascended only." It’s not about what an individual player personally feels is more desirable for his character. If that was the case it would include the look of skins too, which it doesn’t. Pretty skins have nothing to do with BiS.

And without the ability to swtich runes the whole legendary stat swapping being “better” is highly questionable at best. You are better off having two ascended sets.

The fact is BiS being about stats IS the common usage and it’s obviously what Anet is talking about when they discuss BiS and not invalidating people’s hard work. If you notice most people here are not confused about this term. They know what it means. I think Anet knowing most people’s familiarity with it assumed most people would know exactly what they are talking about and they didn’t feel they needed to spell it out. Apparently they do though. Maybe Anet is right whenever they say things are “too confusing” for people afterall. I had always assumed they were just babying players.

The irony of you telling someone else they are misusing the term and then claiming that your personal experience with the term trumps dictionary definitions.

I know what the common usage is. I don’t need three paragraphs on it. It’s beside the point and ignores 90% of what I said.

Leohart.4610:

Final point. This is just another thread voicing its dissatisfaction with HoT, almost everything is the same, just dragged out longer than it had to be. Anyone can sit here and point out the flaws of Guild Wars 2. Hell, it’s been done repetitively since the launch of the game, more so after HoT. Perhaps you’d get more credibility if you actually voiced your own personal thoughts on what should be done, or as people like to call it: constructive criticism.

Maybe I took something from it he didn’t intend, but to me, it’s a fairly simple message: The game doesn’t have much game in it with HoT and most of what remains is a chore.

I won’t name the game by name, but there’s another game I once played… it came out with something similar to guild halls (and was a variation on housing). There were a few costs here and there, but there were a few things about it that made it really work as “game” content:
1) Despite the costs present, there wasn’t a whole lot to spend coin on in that game, so most people had a lot of excess with nothing else to spend it on.
2) The design of it had amazing customization, so you could literally spend hours tweaking one little aspect of your “house.”
3) Even taking excess of coin into account, the costs were pretty fair (especially for private housing, as opposed to guild housing).

In other words, low barrier to experience it and breadth of customization so you could spend hours on it in sheer time spent designing your own place.

I’m not saying GW2 should have done this with guild halls, but the point is, it’s an example of an incredible amount of lasting content, without huge barriers to entry or heavy grinds.

xarallei.4279:

You mean like you are doing. BiS is a long established term in mmos used by min/maxers. It means what is best for your character stat-wise. It always has been used this way. It always will be. You are the one misusing the term.

Actually, regardless of whether I agree with eldrin’s overall stance, he is technically right about the phrase (the deal is, if Anet was using BiS to mean stats, then he is wrong in that context).

Let’s look at some definitions for BiS:

Best in slot (also “best-in-slot”; usually shortened to “BiS”) is a term meant to describe the very best item, enchant and/or gem available to a character for a specific slot. While there are differences in opinion there is usually a generally held idea of what is the BiS. This term is used by the twink community for things that are best for particular levels, while it usually refers to level cap things.

Some players consider such “BiS lists” to be absolute, while others consider best in slot to be relative to your other gear, talent specialization, and play style.

Best-in-slot slot gear can change from patch to patch and may only be correct if the underlying methods or theorycrafting used to determine the item’s status is correct.

Gaming acronym for Best in Slot.
It refers to a piece of gear that is the best piece you can equip on a specific place (like a weapon, or a piece of armor).

Best In Slot is used by gamers to define a piece of gear which is simply the best for their gaming character in a specific slot (eg. head slot, pants slot etc.)

In none of these is it saying, “We are talking about stat differences no matter what and everything else is wrong.”

The reason stats are what is primarily thought of when speaking about BiS gear is because most games don’t give you weird stuff like the ability to swap stats. Legendaries in this game are technically BiS, due to the ability to swap stats, but it is debatable how useful the stat swapping is when you take into account the importance of runes/sigils.

It’s not a common usage of BiS simply because it’s not a common feature. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. But like I said, if Anet meant “BiS by stats,” then eldrin doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. Anet would be wise to be mindful, in the future, of how the phrase can be interpreted, given the uncommon design of their game.

Edit: Mixing up names.

Well… since this is still going…

While it’s possible that many of the negative could have been faked, and even have been faked with both positive and negative stuff to say (imagine a devoted fan who is annoyed and you get the mixture of positive and negative you’re looking for).

It’s also really hard to fake the details, as I stated before. A fake reviewer (player) might target the CEO, or he might target the Game Director, or any other leadership position that he perceives to be at fault for the state of the game.

Let’s look at the motivations real quick for writing a fake, overall negative review:

• Player – to hurt the company’s reputation (this doesn’t really fit with “mixture of negative and positive,” since someone who wants to hurt the company would likely go full negative) or to send a message (but that’s assuming the reviewer believes that faking some glassdoor reviews will get the company to change)

• Employee – to grind an axe (seems unlikely, considering the risk of being recognized by writing style or time of departure relative to review date)

• Competitor – to hurt the game’s reputation and scare talent away (possible, but again, we run into the difficulty of forging details and this assumes that game companies try to undermine each other at the employer/employee level, which is not proven)

It is important to recognize that correlation is not the same as causation. Seeing that some of the reviews create a picture that jives with one’s view of the game and its history can easily be confirmation bias or begging the question (in non-nerdy terms, assuming that you’re right about what you already thought because the evidence points in that direction – you are, in this instance, biased by your prior conclusions… see Sherlock Holmes stance on creating theories before having evidence).

(This is a pretty cool lesson in critical thinking, tbh.)

That said, the main thing to keep in mind from what I’ve said (aside from the general stuff about critical thinking) is that even if all of the negative reviews are true, that isn’t necessarily why you are unhappy with certain parts of the game, or feel that it is messy and/or going downhill.

That’s another layer of analysis you’d have to go into.

We can certainly make some “common sense” assumptions and feel quite happy about how perceptive we are, but that’s doesn’t get us closer to truth or teach us anything about how to find truth. You could be 100% on the money this time, but be horribly off another time because you were relying on instinct, irrespective of analysis, both times and you got lucky the first time.

We tend to do this all the time without stopping to think about it because we can blank out the times we got it wrong and forget about them. I’m not trying to give anyone an existential migraine. Just a friendly reminder of common pitfalls.

Bitoku Kishi.8346:

1. It potentially restricts the viable party composition builds, requiring you to build the party and characters in the party in at least somewhat restrictive ways.

2. It eliminates recovery options almost completely.

3. It seems to push knowledge rather than skill. If you know the boss patterns, they aren’t really exceptionally difficult. I typically tank it, but I’ve tried the other roles too, and even as the tank I’m not finding this really more complex than a lot of WoW dungeon bosses were…

except that the timer is there to artificially put pressure on everyone to know everything about the fight and not make any mistakes.

It takes skill to handle a boss pattern, even if you know it.

The above that you outlined are some of the main things that separate raids from other PvE content. And I mean in general, not just in GW2. They are supposed to be unforgiving. Recovery is supposed to be limited. Restrictive composition is supposed to happen.

None of that is new or different. It’s how 90% of raids are constructed. Think of raids like the PvE Olympics and maybe it’ll make more sense. They are usually designed to push people to the edge of performance.

The problem with raids, as I’ve said before (as have others) and I’m curious to see how they will handle it is, there is no gear treadmill for power, so raid bosses are not going to get easier by gearing up in the drops from that boss. Someone suggested masteries could be a way to handle this – they could add a unique line of masteries that you get points for by defeating raid bosses, only progress through raid XP, and give you percentage bonuses against bosses in a particular wing.

This would solve the issue of treadmill, since the bonuses would not apply outside of raids, and would make it easier to farm bosses that you’ve killed in the past.

Phy.2913:

eldrin.6471:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxLkfXwxLTs

At 16.40 i get the wiff of lies going up my nostrils.
At pax south we were promised our best in slot armor would stay best in slot.
They launched hot with a new tier of armor and invalidated our ascended armor.
that is how i see it.they lied

And it’s still best in slot. Stop using this to support your “argument”, because it doesn’t.

Well… it’s a bit of a twisty thing, cause technically ascended is BIS in terms of effectiveness and has stayed that way, but due to the continuous addition of new stat types and the potential for these stat types to be necessary for certain builds or classes, and the heavy reliance on gear for making builds effective, there might as well be a gear treadmill… it is the process of getting a new set with new stats.

Is it as required for high-end content as in strictly treadmill games? Technically, no, but it’s not all that different from it either.

This is partly exacerbated by how hard it is to get a realistic view on class effectiveness in any given situation, outside of taking experts at their word and confirming it with your own anecdotal testing. It is all too easy for people to get it into their heads that a particular gear set is necessary for a build to be effective, while having little to no actual data on whether that’s true.

If data was easier to get, I’m betting it would put most of the stat types on the shelf as useless, for all but highly situational use. As it is, people already hone in on a few stat types (see: zerker meta) and sometimes go too far in trying to simplify what is effective, while not actually having evidence to back up their hearsay about effectiveness that they never bothered to vet.

For these reasons, I think ascended should eventually be given stat swap. I’m inclined to think that both legendary and ascended should be given rune swap as well. Then it would truly be BIS, no gear treadmill, and legendary would be something you get entirely for the sparkly appearance.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure this idea would ever make it past the economists, since it means that once you have one set of ascended gear, you never need another, unless you’re going for the skins or gearing up alts. Rune demand would drop significantly as well. I think it’s worth the hit to the market to keep the game’s reputation intact, but I’m not an economist either, so what the hell.

CaelestiaEmpyrea.2617:

The stated official stance from Anet is that there is no need to gather Hero Points in PvP. A PvP character can access all Elite Specializations (in fact, ALL Specializations and skill) without unlocking them in normal play, and giving them a way to use their PvP progress to bypass PvE content would be unfair to other players.

Can you link where they said this?

Cause my head is spinning from the logic of it. PvPers already have stuff that allows them to “bypass PvE content” (see: Like, every reward track ever?)

How this would be any different is beyond me.

If they really said that, I call BS and they just don’t want to let people get out of playing HoT maps for hours and hours.

Vayne.8563:

The grind is optional for 90% plus of the game.

Frankly, I’m not sure how this is still being argued. This is one of those dead horse arguments that keeps coming back like a horde of zombies.

Let’s see if I can sum this up in brief:

• 1: Whether you view the grinds in GW2 as optional depends almost entirely on how you play the game. If you enjoy virtually all of the content and enjoy changing it up all the time for variety, then yes, in most cases, you can avoid the heck out of the technical definition of “grind” (repetition).

• 2: If you play the game for a particular type of content primarily, whether it be open world events, Raids, EotM, WvW, PvP, etc… it’s all but guaranteed that there will be a grind, you will notice it, you won’t be able to avoid it (unless you break away and do content you’re not interested in for variety) and it will fit the technical definition of “grind” (repetition).

I don’t think I can make it much simpler than that.

When people like yourself say “the grind is optional for 90% plus of the game,” what they are saying is basically this: “The primary way in which I get enjoyment out of the game happens to be something that allows me to avoid most repetition and time blocks.” That doesn’t mean that, objectively, 90% of grinding in the game is avoidable. It means that for your playstyle, and others like it, 90% of grinding in the game is avoidable.

They are two different things.

Perhaps people would better understand each other is they used the phrase “time consuming.” This game is filled to the brim with massively time-consuming goals. I mean, I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve seen someone talking about taking a year to get a legendary, as if it’s this totally normal thing. And in fairness, yeah… it is totally normal in GW2 to spend an enormous amount of time to get a single item.

I think we can all agree, at least, on the factual nature of that – that the game is chock full of extremely time-consuming goals. In theory, this is a good thing, as it means people will never run out of stuff to do. But when it goes too far, for the wrong demographic, it can be overwhelming, off-putting, and quickly lead to burnout.

HardRider.2980:

Crafting a legendary IS meant to take a long time.
Moaning that it costs insane prices because you don’t want to work with the time stuff and buy everything now is stupid.
The whole point of this legendary crafting is so people have 100% chance to get the pre in a certain time frame and not rely on RNG.
If you want it now. You pay the extra from the TP which is User defined.

They didn’t bring it legendary crafting soo people can make them in a few weeks.
Jeez

You don’t have 100% chance to get in a certain time frame, if you’re locked by time-gating and currency walls. You would have to be logging in every day and/or have a lot of money, in which case you might as well buy it off the TP.

Your logic… don’t make sense. I’m pretty sure most of the people who waited for this system to get a precursor were not doing it because they were too rich and couldn’t stand the idea of paying for one.