(edited by Loki.8793)
1) Elementalist – High risk low reward, horrible elites.
2) Ranger – Everything about this class is passive. Spirits, traps, signets, pets, short bow, sword, etc. This needs to change.
3) Engineer – Pigeonholed into conditions, buggy, too many utilities are too situational such as gadgets, too many passive traits, extremely lackluster elites.
You guys are missing the point OP is making. The problem isn’t teamwork or coordination with other people, the problem is having to rely ENTIRELY on other people. The fact that people who kill their champions and finish their part can do nothing to help the other areas that haven’t. A single person could cause the entire lane to fail. This isn’t good design.
Killing your champion should help the other people with theirs in some way.
So stand just outside the blind field and CnD when he jumps in? That could work. If I stand in the field obviously it won’t land b/c of blind.
Technically he’ll jump outside of it towards you. The Blackpowder→heartseeker combo is powerful because not only does it give stealth, it closes the gap and deals damage if it hits. However, you can use that gap closer to your advantage because you know he’ll go towards you, so when you see him use the animation, hit cloak and dagger because he’ll most likely be right in front of you. You’ll still take damage, but a 1-2k heartseeker is better than a 4-6k backstab. You should also be able to get a backstab off of him if you pay attention.
I’m assuming you mean you’re playing d/d and you’re fighting against a d/p thief. Play off their predictability and don’t overextend into avoidable blinds.
D/P thieves are extremely predictable; every time they want to enter stealth, they will always do blackpoweder → heartseeker unless you force them to use a utility. So, the best way to counter them is to prevent them from doing a heartseeker. However, you’re a d/d thief, so you don’t have headshot.
90% of the time, the d/p thief will heartseeker to you after he blackpowders. You should time your cloak & dagger for when he heartseekers, so when he leaps to you, you hit him without having to aim. If you have the blind on stealth trait (which you should), then you can pretty much avoid the backstab. You won’t have to worry about them perma stealthing because lol nerf.
Standing outside of the blinding field is another option, though without a reliable way to interrupt their heartseeker, you’re only real bet is to burst them down before they can burst you down.
tl;dr – Prevent their stealth combos, use their predictability to guarantee your own stealths, and burst them down when they leave stealth. After tomorrow’s patch they won’t be able to stay in stealth longer than you without drastically reducing their resources.
Frenzy + Defiant Stance (new warrior heal). Thoughts?
The cape system you propose is something I’d personally like to see, and is similar to an idea I proposed a while back dealing with medals. I think capes aren’t in gw2, though, due to some technical issues, if I remember correctly.
The medal system I proposed stemmed off the idea of the 100% map completion medal people already get. I thought it was neat and would be an interesting idea as an expansion of the achievement system, where a character accomplishing a certain feat would earn him a medal that you could choose to display next to your name.
It seems Anet is planning to add a ladder system of sorts and splitting PvP into seasons, just like WvWvW. A medal could be awarded to the top players in each ladder each season, for instance, along with any other prizes to help those players stand out among the community.
Capes are a fun idea, but I don’t see them being implemented into gw2 any time soon, if at all. I think medals, something they already have a system for, would be a good alternative.
You guys need to read more closely — they aren’t implementing everything on december 10th. You will likely have a long time to gain ranks before they are retired. Don’t stress!
The only thing they are implementing is earning gold from matches and having new pvp rewards to buy, such as tomes of knowledge. So yes, you’re right. That’s not the issue. The problem is that they ARE removing rank at some point, which means we no longer have all the time in the world to get the ranks we want. While the time frame is longer than a week, it’s no longer indefinite.
As a side question from a new pvper, is hotjoin more effective for rank farming than solo queue?
Solo queue wins earn twice the amount of rank as hot join wins, but loses are roughly the same. However, solo queues are just that: queues, you won’t be in them 100%. I’d say do solo queues and then hotjoin when you’re waiting for the queue to pop.
When were they imbalanced?
How long does it take to get from R62 to R70? For sure not a kittening week…kitten you anet
You need 2,271,500 rank points to get to rank 62. You’ll get to rank 70 at 3,421,500 rank points, meaning you need 1,150,000 more rank points. With only hotjoins and all wins, that’s 5,750 games. That means the shortest possible time it would take (each game being 7 minutes long), is 671 hours in hotjoin.
Suddenly, Skyhammer farming doesn’t seem so evil.
I might have to do some math. Can anyone tell me anything about rank points and how many of them are required to rank up? Does the amount increase with each rank (as it does with XP), or does it level off (as with World XP)?
EDIT: Never mind, I found it on the wiki.
The amount increases every 10 levels or so.
Right now, you said you are rank 15. Until you get to rank 19, you will need 4000 rank points for each rank up. After that, you will need 7500 rank points for each rank up from 19-29. Then, you will need 15000 rank points to go from 29-30.
So, you will need a total of 54,000 rank points to get to rank 20, and 136,500 to get to rank 30. This means you will need to get around 106,000 rank points to get to 30 from where you are now.
You earn rank by participating in PvP, you the amount you get depends on if you win or lose, how many top scores you got, if the match was over 7 minutes or not, and if you are playing in ranked matches or not (solo queue or team queue).
A win in hotjoin will, on average, get you 200 rank points. A lose will net you around 125. A win in solo queue will get you around 400, with a lose getting you around 150.
Assuming you did everything in hotjoin, and theoretically got all wins, you would need around 530 wins. If you had all loses, you would need 848 loses. So, you can assume with your win/lose ratio you’re going to need to play anywhere from 600-700 hotjoin games (if you didn’t do any queues). If you assume the average game will be around 10 minutes, that means you’ll have to invest around a maximum of 8,480 minutes total (if all you did was lose), or 141.3 hours. The shortest amount of time it would take would be 5,300 minutes (all wins), which is a minimum of 83.3 hours. So, you can say it will take you at least over 100 hours to accomplish, probably anywhere from 110-120.
In short, it’s doable in a few months, but a bit of effort and dedication will be needed. Any involvement in queues will speed up this process as well.
If you’re asking why gw2 didn’t release with more game modes, or why they’ve waited so long to add in new ones, I can’t answer that. I feel that was a mistake on their part.
However, they are developing new game modes right now and we can expect to hear about them within the next month or so, or so I’ve been lead to believe. Patience is in order here.
I can’t comment much on PvP stats; I think players should at least be able to choose from 5-6 accessories to dictate their stat combinations. I imagine the logic behind only using an amulet is for simplicity, both in creating builds and in transitioning players into the PvP scene. However, I feel there would only be benefits from adding more flexibility in state choices and combinations.
As for PvP modes, specifically TDM, I do have a solid answer for that. I’m just going to link what i said in another thread:
Let me first respond by highlighting the pros of conquest.
Capture points are a tool Anet uses to force combat. No matter what the secondary objective is, no matter the size of the map, no matter the position or state a team is in, capture points will always gravitate players towards them. This is something a regular team death match would not, and was a problem in gw1.
In random arenas in gw1, occasionally a team would have 3/4 of their members killed, and the last member would run around frantically trying to avoid death. Sometimes it would be because he had a res skill, other times it was to troll, but nonetheless, the losing team was not punished for avoiding the fight until the timer ran out. In gw2, with so many stealths and movement skills, all someone would need to do in order to win a team-death match is to get more kills than the opponents and then avoid them for the rest of the time.
I think there will be some form of a team death match in the future, but it will be accompanied with a mechanic that forces fights much like conquest. We saw some prototype modes in the stream that all have the potential for this, most specifically “Stronghold”. I imagine it to be similar to GvG from gw1, but we don’t know enough now to say. “Arena” was also shown, which could very well be straight up death matches in a very small area.
So, in short, I would expect some version of team death matches in the future, but not in its purest form.
Cheers!
i’m behind the times for spvp so I gotta ask, are we getting a map where the only objective is killing other players?
I think having a pure death match mode would be a great way to highlight the tremendous amount of diverse and viable build options in this deep, rich and flexible professions system.
Let me first respond by highlighting the pros of conquest.
As was said in the livestream, capture points are a tool they use to force combat. No matter what the secondary objective is, no matter the size of the map, no matter the position or state a team is in, capture points will always gravitate players towards them. This is something a regular team death match would not, and was a problem in gw1.
In random arenas in gw1, occasionally a team would have 3/4 of their members killed, and the last member would run around frantically trying to avoid death. Sometimes it would be because he had a res skill, other times it was to troll, but nonetheless, the losing team was not punished for avoiding the fight until the timer ran out. In gw2, with so many stealths and movement skills, all someone would need to do in order to win a team-death match is to get more kills than the opponents and then avoid them for the rest of the time.
I think there will be some form of a team death match in the future, but it will be accompanied with a mechanic that forces fights much like conquest. We saw some prototype modes in the stream that all have the potential for this, most specifically “Stronghold”. I imagine it to be similar to GvG from gw1, but we don’t know enough now to say. “Arena” was also shown, which could very well be straight up death matches in a very small area.
So, in short, I would expect some version of team death matches in the future, but not in its purest form.
The second day of launch, a mob in Queensdale dropped a midnight ice dye. Yep, that’s about it. Literally everything else I’ve had to farm gold for or earn on my own. RNG luck does not exist in this game for me.
As the father, you will understand your child more than anything else on this forum. You also said you’ve played the game for 10 months, so you should be a good judge of the content of the game as a whole.
I’m not sure I’m understanding the question.
Do I think your Son would like the game? Who knows, I have no idea what his likes and dislikes are? Do I think this game is inappropriate for a 10 year old? No. Are you afraid he’ll get addicted to it? That’s the danger of MMOs in general.
As I said, I have no idea what your child is like, so it would be hard to make any informative call. I’d say “trust your gut” and do what you think. You’ll have better insight than anyone else who responds to this thread on this issue.
No, that’s a horrible suggestion. The only thing adding 4 extra initiative would do is increase a Thief’s initial burst output; it does nothing for a prolonged fight.
Having an increased initiative regain rate increases the amount of skills we can use over a duration of time. Having an increased cap on initiative gives us one extra skill at the beginning of the fight. The former is the clearly better option. This is why traits such as infusion of shadow are vastly superior to preparedness: Infusion of Shadow lets us use a Cloak & dagger → backstab combo indefinitely while preparedness let’s us use it around 3-4 times before we run out of initiative.
Jon wants thieves to be able to last longer in prolonged fights, which is why we see this change to initiative. Your suggestion completely dismisses this goal and highlights an “all or nothing” burst build, which is something I feel this game should steer away from.
What even are you talking about? No where in the preview did they mention giving Thief Cool Downs.
As a d/p thief main since beta 1, the classes I’ve typically had a harder time fighting are phantasm mesmers and grenade/bomb engineers, speaking in a sPvP environment. Mesmers are challenging because of all the clones. They soak up damage and deal consistently high numbers to you. You have to choose to either kill the phantasms or deal damage to the mesmer, both of which have their ups and downs. Mesmers who shatter their clones often, however, are not that hard to kill. I’ve opted to make s/p my secondary set just for mesmers. Engineers are scary because of the huge amount of AoE they have and their ability to deal major bursts of damage without notice.
In a WvWvW environment, nothing is scary because of all the stat padding you have. Unless the opponent specs specifically into survivability, you can 2 shot pretty much anything with the ability to disengage at any time.
Even with the absurd state warriors are in now, I’ve always found warriors to be the easiest class to kill. Maybe it’s because I’ve also played the mace/shield – greatsword warrior since launch, but it’s laughable how predictable they are. As long as you’re in their face with blinding powder, they can’t touch you.
Necros can be scary if they catch you off guard, but ultimately they have no disengages and almost 0 mobility, so even if you disengage and reset, they’ll never be able to get away from you.
Honestly, the only real threat to a thief is another thief, because it can do everything you can. They aren’t scary if you notice them, but a good thief will always catch you off guard and put you in an immediate disadvantage.
I like a lot of the ideas that have been listed in this topic and I’d like to reiterate the ones I agreed with and explain why.
What I suggest or agree with.
- PvE Rewards Through Glory - Glory is a type of currency that is accumulated at such an easy and fast rate with nothing to spend it on. You just keep getting more and more, despite how much you spend. I think a good method to alleviate this problem is to update/add glory merchants with a selection of PvE goods similar to that of Karma merchants. Obsidian shards, dyes, unique armors/skins that can be worn in PvE, minis, RNG boxes, etc. Give us things to buy that will help us with our PvE characters.
- Make PvP Matches Dynamic Events - I think this is an interesting idea that has a few notable merits. By making each sPvP match an event that awards PvE experience, players can level up their alts via sPvP. I feel this is a good option because not only will it start to add incentive for sPvP players to go to PvE and WvWvW, PvE and WvWvW focused players will have incentive to go to sPvP to level. With sPvP now accessible from anywhere in the game, it makes since that this accessibility should help players in any focus.
- Add more sPvP achievements - With the addition of AP rewards, I think there should be some notable AP opportunities in sPvP. I think more achievments should be added as a whole with 8 new categories, 1 for each profession that can cater towards their mechanics and reward players for intelligent play. There could be specific titles and class rewards in these categories as well.
- Medals - I think the 100% map completion medal is a fantastic small feature of the game, but I feel so much more could be done with it. You could add more medals that a player could choose to display by their name to show what that character has achieved. A medal for 100% exploration, a medal for completing all the dungeons on the same character, a medal for getting 200 match wins (or more) in solo/team queues on the same character, medals for placing highly in different PvP seasons, medals for WvWvW expertise, etc. etc. A lot can be done. You could even add slight passive buffs (PvE only) for choosing to display a medal (100% map completion = 5% overall move speed increase, for example), though that is an entirely different subject that I won’t delve into here.
- sPvP Seasons - A lot of people have already explained the merits of sPvP seasons. Give specific rewards for people who place highly and suddenly you have a good cyclical population.
- Add Additional Ways to Get New PvP Armors - After Rank 40, ranking up takes a lot of time. And that is a lot of time where you don’t have the freedom to be creative with your characters’ appearance. As it is now, you unlock a few more sets of armors and then you need to play sPvP for months to get the next few armor sets. I don’t mind the RNG chests to get the armors, but I feel there should be another way to get armors, perhaps some armors that cannot be obtained from the PvP chests. Perhaps combining 250 piles of dust, and some combination of Orbs, Crystals, and Slivers will produce some sort of token in the mystic forge, and enough of these tokens can be used to buy some PvP only armors.
- Legendaries in PvP - While I personally don’t have a legendary, I would like to see players who have earned them to be able to show them off in PvP matches. If there are no changes to give PvE progression in PvP, then I would like to see PvP only legendaries people can obtain in some fashion.
Cheers.
I’d also like to see more challenging Jumping Puzzles in the game.
Last year, when Clock Tower first came out, I remember I had to do the puzzle around 10 times before I could get to the top. What made it difficult wasn’t the humps but the time you had to clear certain points. However, once you got used to that timing, you could literally auto-run through the entire thing flawlessly 10/10 times.
However, that puzzle made me excited for JPs and I got really into them, so within the next few weeks I completed every JP in the game. After that, I was excited for the Christmas JP, but I actually completed it on my first try. I was really disappointed.
I didn’t expect ANET to change the Clock Tower this year, but it was disappointing coming back to the puzzle a year later and doing it on my first try. I’d love to see more time-based puzzles, as that’s what makes these puzzles “challenging”.
I feel there needs to be more “hardcore” content put into this game for the people who feel the game is too easy. All there has been so far for that group is
- clock tower
- Christmas JP
- Liadri (My favorite piece of content in the game so far. First time I had to change my build to complete something in this game)
And nothing else. What happened to Underworld or Fissure of WoE? What happened to elite missions? What happened to hard mode?
I’m not saying we should forget the casuals. I just think there should be some “extra” challenging content that is put on the side and is completely optional for those who wish to do it. There needs to be something in the game to push the players to try. Right now, the only thing close to that is Tequatle and you need a super zerg to even have a chance. That’s not good design.
PvE
- Living World vs Expansion – While I find the idea of the living world to be very exciting, I am not totally convinced it would be best to completely replace a full-on expansion with this form of updates. The Living world, as of late, has been nothing but holidays and achievement grinds with no real emphasis on expanding the potential of the game. I’m sure down the road this will change, but no matter how the living world path develops there are some aspects it can’t cover than an expansion would. I’d like to direct this point to a video made by Wooden Potates, a very avid GW2 supporter and has followed this series for a long time now. This video discusses the living world strategy vs an expansion and how they would work for GW2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AidBQxGQsSg
- Hardcore / Difficult team oriented areas – One thing that has been bugging me about GW2 is there is no real “end-game area” like there was in GW1. I’m talking about areas like the Underworld and Fissure of Woe. These were areas that you needed to have a team to explore and were genuinely difficult to conqueror. They were also very rewarding. I’m not advocating these things should be added to the game, but I would love to see what the general player base has to say on the idea and what the developers have to say on the idea.
- Guilds – I would like to see more options for guilds. I think Guild missions are great but I think they fail as a content generator by themselves. I think we should see something similar to the Zaishen Boards from GW1 but associated with Guilds (Like a Job Board) to add more incentive for players to join guilds. I also think GvG and Guild Halls should make their way into this game.
Thanks. My hopes these ideas are considered.
The living story is what is going to be used to add new zones, introduce new characters, and create more personal stories for the other dragons. Right now Anet is familiarizing their-selves with the living story and getting used to it. After a while, they’ll start adding bigger, more permanent things.
At this moment, no, nothing significant has happened. Though, I suspect we’ll see something quite noteworthy within the coming year.
No. You have 2 weeks to do this, and it happens every hour. Get over it.
The weapons I’d like to see in the game are:
- Scythes – Warrior, Necromancer, possible dervish class
- Greataxes – Warrior, Guardian
- Polearms (Halberds, on-land spears) – Warrior, Guardian, Ranger
- Melee stakitten – Thief, Ranger
- Knuckels/Claws – Thief, Ranger
- Crossbows – Warrior, Ranger, Thief, Engineer
- Fan – Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer
- Whips (There are already whip animations in the game) – Ranger, Thief, Mesmer
So what, you want to turn GW2 into Fairy Tail or Final Fantasy Tactics? Actually, what made those series so fun is that guild atmosphere and the importance of the members after completing those requests. I think this would be a fantastic addition once they add in guild halls.
I could imagine these working similar to the Zaishen quests from GW1. First, they would be daily, meaning you couldn’t just complete these one after the other, making them feel slightly more important and urgent. Second, completing them would add influence to your guild as well as netting you the reward offered in the request. Third, there would be a variety of different requests, ranging from exploration to combat, offering both solo requests as well as team requests. They should also be instanced, so random zergs can’t just come in and complete it for you. Or, only make the enemy hostile towards the person(s) doing the battle, so no other people can interfere. This would not only add content to the game, it would give the ability to add viable team content outside of dungeons while giving more incentive to join Guilds. It would also incentivize people to interact with their guilds as well, and not just be another number.
You could add achievements towards these quests, and start awarding titles for completing enough, similar to the PvP achievement line now. Doing enough requests would “Rank” you up in the guild and give you prestigious titles. It would also notify the guild leaders who is helping the guild and who isn’t.
I like the idea, and I see a lot of potential in it. Hopefully Anet sees it the same way.
If I had every item in the game, or the ability to get any items I wanted, yes, some of the joy would be taken away from the game for me. Part of what makes games fun is the idea of progression, the idea of slowly working your way towards a material goal. However, I wouldn’t lose all interest in the game.
For me, I bought this game for the combat and for the PvP. Thus, most of my time in the game is spent in sPvP. However, when I do go to PvE, it’s usually to level up my alts, gear them out, and do dungeons with them for fun. I actually really hate farming and having to wait to gear up my characters. And, if the living story is done correctly, I’ll have a lot of content to look forward to every 2 weeks for PvE.
To be honest, I hate ascended gear. I hate it because it takes so long to acquire. I don’t feel accomplished when I spend a month grinding dailies to get enough laurels to buy a single accessory, I feel like I wasted my time. Having the ability to get those items in a single day would make me feel much better. The idea of gearing out 8 alts with full ascended items seems impossible for me right now anyways.
Back on topic, I suppose I’d do what I normally do now: PvP, WvWvW, and do living story updates in PvE when it comes out. The only thing that would change is the tedious grinding for cosmetics, which I would gladly trade for doing things I actually enjoy doing. I play this game for fun, not because I like to be rewarded. People who only play games for the rewards I find a little pathetic, to be honest. If you don’t enjoy playing the game for the gameplay, then why are you even playing at all?
Liadri reminds me a lot of the Mad King’s clock-tower from the Halloween patch: It’s really hard and frustrating because you fail constantly, but the instant you do it, it suddenly becomes one of the easiest things in the world and you can auto-pilot it every time.
When I first did it, I had no idea what any of the mechanics were or the patterns, and most of my runs were simply dedicated to figuring out what the fight was all about. After about 10 runs or so, I figured out that phase 1 had the exact same patterns for the shadow-fall each game, the exact same patterns for the clone spawns, and that the orb spawned in even increments in 1 of 4 places that was easy to see. I also realized the light swirls also had a set pattern and appeared in the same places every time.
Then, after I was able to do phase 1 every time, without fail, phase 2 became easier when I realized there were only 2 shadow-fall patterns that alternated each time, and all you had to do was kite her in a circle with range.
I can’t say I’ve had as much fun with this game as I did with this one fight. Very rarely do I have to stop and think about how to approach a specific fight in this game. Liadri reminded me a lot of my gw1 days, and the nostalgia made the experience for me. Yes, the fight is very unforgiving, but at the same time, if any of the mechanics were toned down a bit, the fight would be a cinch with no challenge at all. How many times can you say you had to stop and actually think about how to beat a certain part of the game? How many times have you had to change your build for that content? In my experience, I have a single build that I can use for pretty much everything PvE and excel at it. This was a fantastic change of pace.
I do agree that the floor was poorly chosen for the arenas. If there was a solid floor instead of a grid, then all the AoEs would be fairly easy to spot and easier to predict and avoid. A lot of players would probably have beaten her faster if they could see what was happening more clearly.
As you would expect from playing PvP, thieves are best played when focused on damage. At level 80, pretty much every form of content is viable for a full berserker thief. In generic PvE, d/d, d/p, s/p, and s/d are all extremely good and can solo pretty much any event, even some group events. In a dungeon setting, you need to treat it like PvP. You aren’t a tank or a warrior, so don’t act like one. Go melee when the mob isn’t focused on you, and when it does become focus on you, create distance. Thieves survive by avoiding damage, and they have a ton of tools to accomplish this. Just learn how to avoid damage and you’ll be able to do any dungeon viably. In fractals, it doesn’t matter how much toughness you have, agony will kill you, so being a berserker, again, won’t hurt anything.
In terms of PvE builds, I normally go with something like 10/30/10/15/5 so that I can be lazy and use all the weapon sets without a need to change traits. All you need for initiative management is signet use and initiative on steal (Crit strikes major trait and first minor trait in trickery). If you’re going d/p, use initiative on stealth. With this, you can do pretty much everything and feel powerful and survivable while doing it.
The most successful weapon sets, in my experience, are s/p and d/p. With s/p, you can pretty much kill anything by just spamming pistol whip, and with d/p, you are pretty much invincible because everything will be perma blinded. However, in dungeons, the bosses have defient, which means blinds are not that effective. Pistol whip would be best against mobs. Though, black powder shot will pretty much destroy fodder mobs in the dungeons. Also, my secondary weapon is almost always shortbow for the range and for AoE. It has cluster bomb, which is the best blast finisher in the game, meaning it works really well in group play, and the #3 is amazing at keeping your distance.
All 3 of the thief’s heals are really good. Signet of malice is very powerful with shortbow, pistol whip, and dagger auto attack. You won’t even have to use it most of the time, as the passive regain you’ll get from it will keep you at full health. Withdraw is fantastic in dungeons to keep distance and have an extra evade. It also synergizes well with the acrobatics trait vigor on heal. You’ll basically have unlimited dodges.
For utilities, I often go with Signet of agility (Refill endurance bar and a passive 9% crit chance), Shadowstep (Mobility + Stun breaker + Condition removal), and a third trait that depends on the situation. I’ll use signet of shadows (25% movement speed) In generic PvP, or shadow refuge in dungeons for group stealth when needed. Infiltrator’s signet is also good for a little extra initiative management and mobility.
If you do decide to go full berserker, don’t be scared of your 12k health. Yes, it looks small, but a good thief is one of the hardest things to kill in this game. You have an unlimited supply of blinds, dodges, and shadowsteps in your arsenal. Learning how to use them effectively will be what makes or breaks your thief career.
Ciao.
I agree in that dagger skins are lacking, but there are still some pretty satisfying skins already in the game, even for daggers. My dagger skin of choice is the corrupted shard. It is crafted using level 400 weaponsmithing, requires the recipe (can be bought on TP), and needs 20 corrupted lodestones and an etched shamon’s shard of rage. The skin looks pretty knarly, but the reason why I like it is that it has one of the better particle effects that I’ve seen in the game. Every time you unsheath it, dark blue mist envelops the dagger, and it really stands out. If you’re looking for awesome dagger skins for your ele, I’d say corrupted shards stand at the top.
Think it this way.
Did they really need to add more stats to the new rarity class?
If what you say is true and they don´t add more tiers with better stats, what was the point of adding better stats to this tier?
They said it in the blog: to lessen the huge gap between obtaining exotics and legendaries, exactly what the community, as a whole, has been asking for the past month and a half or so.
Did they need to do this? no. But they did exactly what the community was asking, and now they’re getting a huge amount of drama from everyone and their grandmas. It’s not rational, and it’s not fair.
Probably because that “free” content is showing every sign of forcing players to grind new gear repeatedly, which the developers explicitly said would never happen. Just because it annoys you doesn’t make it any less valid.
Care to point out what “signs” are leading you to conclude this will be a grind? Max stat exotics can hardly be considered a grind, and now you’re saying the next step up, with absolutely no indication of how you even acquire them, will be a grind? Rubbish. We don’t know anything about them. Just saying what you feel doesn’t make it valid.
I believe a suitable compromise is to just simply improve the capabilities of the current LFG tool that’s in the game, which I’m aware Anet has plans for (versus implementing a Dungeon Finder). A dungeon finder would be nice, but I don’t see it happening any time soon— at least not yet anyway. First of all, not many people know the LFG tool actually exists and for those who do know about it, the tool is very archaic. Here are my specific suggestions for the tool:
- Easier Accessability: Instead of being buried somewhere in the contact list, it should be its own button on the top corner where all the other buttons are.
- Advanced Searching Tools: Just like finding an item on the Trading Post, there could be options that could be enabled or disabled so that one can find a suitable group.
- Cross-World Capable: This opens up the pool for available players and allows for players to search for members outside their server. Parties, Guilds, Friends Lists, and the Trading Post are already Cross-World. I see no reason why the LFG should not. I mean, last time I checked, certain dungeons weren’t being claimed by opposing worlds in WvW. At least not yet anyway.
- Cross-Zone Capable: This opens up the pool even more by allowing anyone in the world to see your request to form a group.
- Add Comments: A comment should be added so that people know why you want to group.
- Set Restrictions: Perhaps you only want to restrict members by World, level, and/or professions. Some groups might not want duplicate professions while others would welcome a 4-Warrior 1-Guardian group.
- Show Experience: Your achievements keep track which paths have been completed for a specific dungeon. This information could be displayed by those interested in running said dungeon. This could either be account-based or character-based.
When looking over your suggestion, I have to ask “What’s the point?” As far as I know, dungeons are, currently, the only reason to form a 5 man group, server based or not. You can’t trade, you can’t do map completion, you can’t farm or do events together. Aside from dungeons, there really isn’t a reason to group with people from other servers if not just to talk while you do your thing. Unless anet makes more team-based content that isn’t a dungeon, there isn’t any reason to have a group finder instead of a simple dungeon finder, and so anything but that would just be excessively useless.
Now, I do, to some degree, see how a dungeon finder would lessen the hard-core players’ experience. But, when I think of a hard-core dungeon player, I only think of them as hard-core when they have a group of other hard-core dungeon runners. I’d argue there is no such thing as a solo hard-core dungeon runner. There may be times when a hard-core player won’t have his group and would try to form a pug, but server based or not, a pug is a pug, and you’ll also take a gamble with who you’re going to get. As I see it, the hard-core dungeon runners won’t really be affected.
The concern I have, as said in your first “wall-of-text”, is due to the increased accessibility of these dungeons, more casuals will run them. And with that, we’re bound to see a lot more complaints for difficulty around these dungeons. I’d like to think anet wouldn’t break under the pressure and lower the already low difficulty of these dungeons, but crazier things have happened before.
I didn’t realize dungeons were already world-based. That’s encouraging, because that means if anet really wanted to do something like this, it wouldn’t take much effort. I have high hopes for the future.
I’ll be a LFG tool hater as much as I please.
Tool-generated groups are, as seen in all other games featuring the tool, the reason you get Donald in your group. Maybe a whole pack of Donalds! What are you to do about it? Nothing. If you leave, you’re punished for it. Try to kick him? Might get kicked yourself. Punished for that too.
“Hurr so make your own group lol”
With whom? The people who once used map-chat are now using the tool, because how else would they find a group? And why should I make a group myself when the game directly discourages that by shoving an unnecessary dungeon finding tool down my throat? It’s there. You find many more groups (quantity), but how many quality groups do you find? Seeing as the groups are just mushed together, chances are you will find at least one Donald. Maybe even 2. Or 3. The horror.Donald gets groups because the tool lets him. It trusts his ability to do the dungeons with no evidence. You, the skilled player, will end in a group with him, and will suffer 2-hour runs with him.
What’s the difference between spamming map chat, player John see this, and asks to join your party, and player John seeing your post on this group finder and asks to join? In both situations, the party has the same power: they can accept or reject this player, they can talk to this player before accepting him through whispers or in party chat if they accept him. The ONLY difference between these two options is the level of convenience given.
It seems to me you don’t like this idea because you’d rather not play with a particular type of people. You don’t want someone who is inexperienced. Well, here’s a news flash: you always take that risk when forming a pug, no matter how it is formed.
So, again, I ask how a pug formed through map chat and a pug formed with a browser is different, especially in terms of quality? Because you can manually choose who you accept in map chat? You have to manually accept people through this browser too. You might get kicked if you try to kick someone you don’t like if you use this browser system? Guess what, this works the same way with map chat pugs. Oh, you’ll need to use this new feature if it gets implemented to find any party for any dungeon ever! Again, no. This feature will lessen the amount of map spams we see because it is no longer required to get a party, but it will not lower its effectiveness in forming one. People who aren’t thinking about doing a dungeon, but see a “lf1m CoF exp” will still become interested and try to join.
This system doesn’t affect those people, it affects the people who are looking for a group and can’t get one because there aren’t any people doing those dungeons and because they don’t have a group of people willing to help them. This system also makes it easier on groups because they won’t need to wait in town for 30 minutes spamming a message just to find the last person. It will go by quicker with this system, and they can be doing other things while they wait for their last player.
How is that a bad thing?
Arena-net is currently reworking dungeon rewards, so I don’t think anyone can answer that question right now. We’ll most likely see what they changed on the 15th, and if not, in December. If there are no options for accessories via dungeons (I don’t see why there would be, since you do dungeons for cosmetic rewards) by then, the answer will almost certainly be “no”.
Please try to keep this at least a little on topic.
To be clear, I am not suggesting an auto-party feature. That would hurt the game more than it would help, in my opinion. What I am suggesting is just a little UI feature where players or parties can post their situations in relation to entering a dungeon, and leave the rest to individual player incentive.
What I envision is a more advanced and organized UI window that is similar to the search feature in gw1, located in the lower section of the party window. The search feature was just a list of comments players can post explaining, briefly, what they wanted, indicated their party size, and what district they were currently in.
How I see this work in gw2 is giving a party an option to choose what dungeon they wish to do, what type, and have the option to post a brief comment that can specify what they want in more detail (ie. exp p2&3). Then, solo players can look through this list, see a post/party that meets their interests, and then right click that post to give a few options, such as whisper (the poster) and join. Joining a party would act exactly the same way it does now, giving the party the chance to accept or decline the player. Parties and party invites would stay exactly the same, this just makes finding these parties significantly easier.
That’s all I’m suggesting. It doesn’t seem like much, but this would allow dungeons, and potential future team-based content, to become accessible to everyone in the game.
(edited by Loki.8793)
Suggestion
Add a new UI browser that will allow incomplete parties looking to enter a dungeon to advertise for more spots world-wide. These parties can/will consist of players world-wide, instead of being server based. Additionally, make dungeons similar to spvp servers, where players from different worlds can play in the same dungeon.
This browser would include information about what dungeon the party is aiming to enter and what type (story or explorable), the party size, as well as any other relevant information that can be used to sort or search (average party level, professions, etc).
What this accomplishes
Implementing this would make finding a dungeon group exponentially easier, and thus would increase dungeon activity among the playerbase. This lets players who are interested in running a certain dungeon find a group quickly, and groups trying to find just a few more people fill up effortlessly. By making dungeons world based, not server based, and having the browser be world-based, players should always be able to find a group no matter the time.
This also addresses groups trying to do less popular dungeons, such as SF or CoE, find enough people because, again the browser being world-based, there are bound to always be posts for those dungeons.
Additionally, this will also reduce the amount of spamming “lf2m xxx dungeon” in LA map chat.
Reasoning
I really like running dungeons, not just because it’s interesting content, but because it’s pretty much the only formal reason to form a party for PvE. However, many times when I want to play a specific dungeon or complete its story mode, no one wants to do it and I become stuck. It seems only the popular dungeons, like CoF, AC, and HotW are the only ones that you can get a party for without going excessively out of your way.
If I want to do SF story, or AC story, I go to the dungeon and find no one is there. So, I advertise in map chat for about 10 minutes, and get maybe 2 people if I’m lucky. Then, I head to LA, wait to get out of overflow, and then advertise in map chat for another 10-30 minutes just to get the remaining people. It’s doable, yes, but why does forming a party for less popular dungeons and story mode need to be so difficult?
If there was a world browser where I can just post my need for a party to do xxx dungeon in xxx mode, this issue would be solved. I can just post and be on my way, doing whatever while I eventually start getting party invites from people who want the same thing. Or, alternatively, I can just look in the browser list and find an existent group trying to do the same dungeon and join theirs.
This new feature would make party forming exponentially easier for team based PvE content and would make dungeons a lot more appealing to the average player. This also makes dungeon achievements (such as dungeon master) actually doable without having a core group of friends or a huge, active guild willing to do random dungeons.
I do realize that dungeon rewards are being worked on at the moment, but this is a feature that, in my opinion, would greatly improve the accessibility of the content, allow for more intense team-based content to be added, and increase the overall longevity of the game.
Arena-net, please consider this.
- Lokí
Additional Comments
To be clear, I am not suggesting an auto-party feature. That would hurt the game more than it would help, in my opinion. What I am suggesting is just a little UI feature where players or parties can post their situations in relation to entering a dungeon, and leave the rest to individual player incentive.
What I envision is a more advanced and organized UI window that is similar to the search feature in gw1, located in the lower section of the party window. The search feature was just a list of comments players can post explaining, briefly, what they wanted, indicated their party size, and what district they were currently in.
How I see this work in gw2 is giving a party an option to choose what dungeon they wish to do, what type, and have the option to post a brief comment that can specify what they want in more detail (ie. exp p2&3). Then, solo players can look through this list, see a post/party that meets their interests, and then right click that post to give a few options, such as whisper (the poster) and join. Joining a party would act exactly the same way it does now, giving the party the chance to accept or decline the player. Parties and party invites would stay exactly the same, this just makes finding these parties significantly easier.
That’s all I’m suggesting. It doesn’t seem like much, but this would allow dungeons, and potential future team-based content, to become accessible to everyone in the game.
(edited by Loki.8793)
Suggestion
Add a new UI browser that will allow incomplete parties looking to enter a dungeon to advertise for more spots world-wide. These parties can/will consist of players world-wide, instead of being server based. Additionally, make dungeons similar to spvp servers, where players from different worlds can play in the same dungeon.
This browser would include information about what dungeon the party is aiming to enter and what type (story or explorable), the party size, as well as any other relevant information that can be used to sort or search (average party level, professions, etc).
What this accomplishes
Implementing this would make finding a dungeon group exponentially easier, and thus would increase dungeon activity among the playerbase. This lets players who are interested in running a certain dungeon find a group quickly, and groups trying to find just a few more people fill up effortlessly. By making dungeons world based, not server based, and having the browser be world-based, players should always be able to find a group no matter the time.
This also addresses groups trying to do less popular dungeons, such as SF or CoE, find enough people because, again the browser being world-based, there are bound to always be posts for those dungeons.
Additionally, this will also reduce the amount of spamming “lf2m xxx dungeon” in LA map chat.
Reasoning
I really like running dungeons, not just because it’s interesting content, but because it’s pretty much the only formal reason to form a party for PvE. However, many times when I want to play a specific dungeon or complete its story mode, no one wants to do it and I become stuck. It seems only the popular dungeons, like CoF, AC, and HotW are the only ones that you can get a party for without going excessively out of your way.
If I want to do SF story, or AC story, I go to the dungeon and find no one is there. So, I advertise in map chat for about 10 minutes, and get maybe 2 people if I’m lucky. Then, I head to LA, wait to get out of overflow, and then advertise in map chat for another 10-30 minutes just to get the remaining people. It’s doable, yes, but why does forming a party for less popular dungeons and story mode need to be so difficult?
If there was a world browser where I can just post my need for a party to do xxx dungeon in xxx mode, this issue would be solved. I can just post and be on my way, doing whatever while I eventually start getting party invites from people who want the same thing. Or, alternatively, I can just look in the browser list and find an existent group trying to do the same dungeon and join theirs.
This new feature would make party forming exponentially easier for team based PvE content and would make dungeons a lot more appealing to the average player. This also makes dungeon achievements (such as dungeon master) actually doable without having a core group of friends or a huge, active guild willing to do random dungeons.
I do realize that dungeon rewards are being worked on at the moment, but this is a feature that, in my opinion, would greatly improve the accessibility of the content, allow for more intense team-based content to be added, and increase the overall longevity of the game.
Arena-net, please consider this.
- Lokí
The trick, in PvE, is to have all berserker gear on everything. For me, I have Valkyrie stats (power, crit damage, vitality) on my armor with ruby orbs, and full berserker exotic accessories. In total, I have around 50% crit chance and 108 crit damage, doing, on average at lv 80, 5-7k heartseekers and 7-10k pistol whips.
It’s all about your gear, to be honest.
you cant evade backstab
the moment you see thief he already used steal and you are turned to stone by his venom, no breaking stun skills work and you cant move, then he uses backstab and poof you are dead
no skill required at all and no way to counter it
now someone will tell me evade the steal
you cant evade instant cast skills that instantly teleport thief to you and hit you in less than a 0.1 sec
No, you can’t avoid an instant cast skill like steal off of pure reaction, but what you’re talking about is the C&D → steal → backstab combo. C&D Has a distinct, fairly slow animation that is easy to see, and thus is easy to avoid. If he ueses that animation from a distance, he’s going to steal you.
The problem with thieves, and mesmers, is stealth, or clones, has lag to it. Every time you exit stealth or create a new clone, there’s a 3 second lag where the character is still fading in, meaning they are pretty much untargettable for those 3 seconds. This affects mesmers more than thieves, imo, as that is exactly why it is so hard to fight mesmers right now.
Artificially lengthens the “end game.”
Only thing I can think of right now honestly.
The problem with this, though, is that there are so many elements in this game that prevent this artificial lengthening that it just doesn’t fit. This isn’t a subscription based model, they have no reason to waste your time for endless hours for a single aspect of the game.
I realize that while the core aspects of the game require practically no grind, obtaining prestigious or cosmetic objects do require some time investment. With that, I’m fine. However, when you look at the (intended) most prestigious items, legendary weapons, and see yourself obtaining one easier and sooner than any dungeon set, something is wrong.
The reason I’m making this a question thread is because I’m hoping a dev answers this.
As the title suggests, I’m baffled about the decision to make the tokens required to buy dungeon armor and weapons that you get from the respective dungeons soulbound to the character who acquires them. Why must I go through 100+ runs of explorable mode on a single character to get everything I want when it would be funner and more beneficial to me to do these runs on other characters?
Let me clarify a bit.
Since release, I acknowledge 4 different forms of prestige someone can obtain in the game: Legendary weapons, tier 3 cultural armor, dungeon armor and weapons, and titles (mostly pvp oriented). Of these 4, all but 1 of them can be obtained through a collaborative effort of as many characters as you like, and the remaining one must be done through a single character.
- Legendary items – These are extremely hard to get, requiring 200 skill points for a bloodstone shard, 2 different gifts – which are crafted by buying a 10 gold recipe for each, combining large amounts of very hard materials to get, and doing so at a max crafting level – and requiring a specific exotic item. To me, I already see a future in getting one for myself. I already have the gold necessary to buy the recipes, I’m at 150 skill points with only 100 skill challenges completed, and I have the patience to farm for the materials I need. While this will take some time, with patience and some effort, I can obtain one in a reasonable time, using all of my characters to help accomplish this (aside from the 200 skill points).
- Cultural Armor – These require around 100 gold to buy. 100 gold seems like a lot of money, but all of your characters can further this goal through normal play or farming. You do not need to do this on a single character. Granted, 100 gold may seem like a small amount later on, considering the game has barely been released, but the fact that you can use any to all of your characters will still remain.
- Titles – These are obtained by maxing out a specific achievement line. However, achievements are, again, across your account, meaning any of your characters can help, many times by normal play.
- Dungeon items – These items are unique in that they require their own currency to buy. They can only be bought by the tokens obtained from their respective dungeon, cost hundreds of tokens per piece, and on average, you will get 15-30 tokens each run. These tokens are also soulbound.
To be entirely honest, I’m fine with this grind. I really enjoy doing dungeons for their difficulty and the teamwork it requires to complete. No matter what dungeon, I have always been able to complete it, on any character with any combination of professions, by just looking at the problems and building our strategies around them. Completing these dungeons is personally rewarding for the difficulty, and you earn a decent amount of money on the side. To be honest, I see the tokens as the bonus.
However, making these tokens soulbound means you MUST complete the SAME dungeon 100+ times with the same character just to get a full dungeon set if you desire it. This is completely different from every other prestigious object in the game, and is counter-intuitive.
In order for using tokens to buy dungeon armors to make sense, 2 things can be done:
- All dungeons must contribute the same token which can be used to buy dungeon armor ( which is stupid, why should you be allowed to complete Ascalon Catacombs 100 times and get Arah armor).
- Each dungeon gives its own token but these tokens are account bound, meaning I can casually play these dungeons with any of my characters, get the rewards I want (challenge and some money and experience), and still be progressing towards my goal of a prestigious reward, like all the other prestigious rewards currently in the game.
Please do something about this, or provide me a suitable response explaining the rationality in designing this aspect of the game this way.
Thanks.
- Lokí
Account Hacked? Permanently Banned? Post here! [merged]
in Account & Technical Support
Posted by: Loki.8793
I can confirm this, as I was playing with him when this happened. I sent a bug report, but this needs to be addressed immediately. A game-breaking bug such as this shouldn’t be in the game.