Guild Wars 2

Brother Grimm.5176:

2. Due to Personal Story rewards, resetting the PS for a race changed character is not going to happen.

Wrong. Just make the cost of resetting high enough to compensate for all the rewards you’ve gotten. And that doesn’t even have to be just gold. You can have karma cost, skill point cost, etc.

Yes Mawdrey gets rid of your dust, but saving you gold by not crafting it and deleting your dust saves you money in the end. You won’t ever break even from Mawdrey: you’ll either quit the game first or GW2 will shut down before that happens.

serenke.4806:

Odd, i thought PvE was all about running (standing) around then hit some boss for a bit then reap rewards and wp to the next place to repeat this.

No. You’re totally wrong. You have to step into white areas and out of orange ones as well. Makes the game much more complex than what you’re describing.

Fyrebrand.4859:

Just reset personal story!

Just swap out racial skills!

Just check for race-specific armor and force the player to unequip first!

Just erase standing with your chosen Order!

Just reset your home instance so that it forgets past events!

Just whip up a quick interface for overturning concepts that the game has always regarded as permanent and unchangeable! Wow, so simple!

….or, you know, just roll a new character like everyone has been doing, for years. I get it, losing the map completion sucks. But with all the account-bound items and achievements, level-up scrolls and skill points, GW2 must be the world’s easiest MMO to catch up if you do decide to re-roll.

Like others have said, I would much rather have ArenaNet apply their efforts elsewhere.

If your character is one of your main crafting ones, you’re going to end up spending a ton of gold. Not to mention hard-to-get (or discontinued!) recipies that can’t even be bought, but must be grinded for.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Can we try actually PLAYING the patch before we brandish our pitchforks please?

Here we go again.

When a game does balance updates only every six months and does not player test those updates, every single update is super high stakes. Six months of broken gameplay is a very long time.

Players have no choice but to speak out on their predictions.

NikeEU.7690:

All we need is a really good sink for guild merits. Every guild has been 250/250 for years now. Give us a reason to spend them faster than we earn them and suddenly the pressure to do a tier 3 and complete it is strong.

Have they said anything about how Guild Halls will be built? I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes several tiers of 250 merits to get a guild hall. And then 250 merits for each different hall. It

That said. Who wants to do the same guild mission over and over again — particularly with several of them being frequently bugged for years now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Brainstorming-placeholder-Content-for-HoT/first#post5137674

Surprising, sad, funny, and shocking all at the same time.

Riku.4821:

So the second solution fixes that. Which is to add more dungeon paths. Lore friendly and current events friendly paths into the game..

Seriously? I think you may not be up to date with the times because Anet has explicitly stated that they have no plans for any more dungeon-type content. And considering how much work they’ve been putting into the current dungeons, you can easily believe dungeons are pretty much abandonware at this point.

At best, we’ll see some recycled festivals (Queen’s Pavilion, Dragon Bash…) and a filler WvW tournament.

Not hard if you do it right: for example, just wipe all personal story progress if you want a race change. And if there’s concerns about getting PS rewards multiple times this way, just make gem cost high enough to compensate (or even add a karma cost, or whatever).

That said, Anet won’t bother to do it, even though people have been asking for this for three years.

Who are the bosses who have really high armor? Perhaps the condi stacks increase might make this faster for those bosses?

Maybe the risen Abomination? I remember being able to do him pretty fast with warrior condi build (before sinister gear even). I haven’t done Arah in quite a while now though, so I could be wrong.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Lord Kuru.3685:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I posted this in it’s own thread, but can we please wait to play the patch before passing judgment.

For a different game company this may be a good idea. Not for Anet. Fact is that the interval between balance patches is extremely long for this game.

If this turns out to be a bad change, it will be in the game for at least 6 months before it’s dealt with. So players simply can’t afford to “wait and see.” It’s too risky.

But since we know ANet we also know that it’s unlikely for this change to be altered before the patch because it is very rare for anything to change due to feedback this close to the patch.

No doubt. But what can you do? When balance comes twice a year — and there’s no betas to catch bad changes — every update is high stakes. You can’t afford not to speak up even if there’s little chance of action.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I posted this in it’s own thread, but can we please wait to play the patch before passing judgment.

For a different game company this may be a good idea. Not for Anet. Fact is that the interval between balance patches is extremely long for this game.

If this turns out to be a bad change, it will be in the game for at least 6 months before it’s dealt with. So players simply can’t afford to “wait and see.” It’s too risky.

Sykper.6583:

You know. This is the big problem with these kinds of announcements with long breaks in between. The movement and condition one today SHOULD have been coupled with the announcements of ‘Slow’ and ‘Resistance’.

…Why do I bring up those two? Clearly because if Movement Skills like Leaps were to remain as is with the release of Slow, then every single one would have been garbage-tier useless to even attempt. What we have here, is the dis-connect of information and everything not being brought together.

Barring the fact that we will be getting a new profession and new specializations.
Barring the fact that we will be getting a reworked trait system.

Just the new condition and new boon alone would ruffle anyone’s feathers. I am putting my bets down on the fact that Slow will do the job both Cripple and Chill did towards movement skill animations. Units closed or opened mattered in some manner, but the biggest reason why Cripple and Chill were so effective was that while doing the movement skill under either one you were also subsequently ‘moving’ slower.

If my thoughts are right about this, Slow might be an even bigger danger to leaps than Chill or Cripple ever were since movement skills are now forced to move the same distance rather than a reduced one.

Besides, Resistance would have made Chill and Cripple pointless anyways. There is just so much going on I don’t think anyone can really criticize until we see what actually breaks apart in a negative manner.

I was wondering whether slow would affect movement skills. If so, then it’s likely Anet’s “let’s make a new condition that has enormous overlap with current conditions” forced them into this in order to make the new condition more unique (and to push people to get HoT).

Looks like really bad/lazy development to me

Shadow.1345:

Personally I’m gonna wait and see how it plays out before I jump to the OMFGUSUCKANET reaction because some things got changed.

Not a good idea with GW2 considering how glacially slow Anet is when it comes to fixing balance issues. Best for players to analyze them now for a (small) chance Anet will listen.

The opportunity for players to exhibit skilled play (knowing when to use movement skills and when to apply chill) allows a bigger gap between casuals and skilled players.

This makes casuals feel bad. Hence the change.

Yes. That money is gone. People have been saying this since the traits change announcement: do not spend your gold on traits until the update.

runeblade.7514:

Can someone explain why anyone think this is a good change?

I am looking through the thread and I see people mocking OP because they like the change, but they don’t explain why they like it.

People like the change because it reduces skilled play (should I rush now/should I put chill on him now). This reduces the gap between casuals and skilled players and thus makes casuals feel better. Remember, this game is shifting its focus so that casuals are 100% the focus.

Sounds like a bugged stealth nerf. Now why does that sound familiar?

Loosmaster.8263:

Human nature is to always attack the weaker. EZPZ….

But it’s Anet’s ranking system that really does it. The best way to get PPT in an uneven matchup (and pretty much every matchup is grossly uneven) is to take it from the weak server. And that completely ruins the point of having 1 vs 1 vs 1.

What’s a possible solution? Determine rankings using winner-take-all or (something close to it): winning server gets 3 points, losing servers both get 0. This encourages servers to hit the leader.

This hurts those who currently have the presence of mind to:

• use movement skills when they provide optimal return, and
• apply conditions to opponents when it really hurts them.

In other words, skilled play is being removed. But with the dumbing down of the game in nearly every single aspect serves as a guide, this is exactly Anet’s intention.

Maybe after we hear about the Lupi autoattack (any day now!) they’ll address this? Yeah. For sure.

dlonie.6547:

I just hope another game rips off the GW2 combat system and develops content that is in line with the standards of the MMO genre, both in variety and quantity.

This. Please, people at Wizards of the Coast: make an MMO based on Magic’s mana system (with no set classes)!

A skills-based game with new skills every 4 months managed by people who understand how to create/balance skills + combat system of GW2. I’d be outta here in a second.

Jerus.4350:

They have a chance to prove me wrong with the “challenging group content” but I simply have no faith left in the game.

I’m pretty sure that by “challenging group content” they meant content like Vinewrath.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Liston.9708:

Maybe you were not wvwing at the time, but poor nsp and ioj were crushed for months by the t2 reject of the week (there were 4 t2ish servers) often like this weeks score – but remember MONTHS.. Many bolted for greener pastures with no relief in sight. By the time t2 sorted out, it was too late. NSP seemed to have weathered that storm better than IOJ, but both were battered and bruised…..

This. It was really really bad and Anet never showed any evidence that they cared. The result? Massive numbers of people left IoJ for kitten, or bandwagon servers, making the already terrible population situation even worse.

It was a player created issue though. Anet is not, and should not, step in and ‘move’ server positions.

You have a tragedy of the commons problem so you need a higher authority. That would be Anet.

And there are a ton of things they can try, from the draconian no-transfers-ever, to rewarding transfers to smaller servers, to discouraging bandwagoning with high gem costs, to revising the PPT system, to changing map caps, to changing the ranking system, etc.

But they don’t even try. So yes, it is their fault.

Not sure who signed off on the horrid grid view of currencies that we have now, it was pretty clear to everyone how bad it was.

Also:

“As an added bonus, we’ve slightly changed how currencies display in the bottom of your inventory. Your gold will always be there, but the other visible currency will change based on where you are. For example, in World vs. World you’ll see badges of honor, and while in the Fractals of the Mists you’ll see fractal relics”

Terrible idea. All it does is annoy you when you can’t see the currency you want to see just because you happen to be in the wrong location.

• PvE elites: zerker gear was the best and still will be: no change.
• PvE “play-how-you-wants”: Does it matter? You’re running full minion master build.
• WvW: screwed big time as stat balance is quite important (particularly for those running in small groups)

Since it looks like WvW takes the biggest hit, I’d bet Anet doesn’t care about this issue.

serenke.4806:

There is something that developers and people advocating no instances should consider. While it is probably true that more people fall into the casual category and they probably spend more real money in the gemstore than veterans who can afford gold > gem conversions… veterans are a very important part of the community, the core actually.

In my opinion it is a terrible idea to focus exclusively on either group, since if you neglect content that casuals can complete, you lose a paying customer base. But if you neglect veterans, you will lose those players who would keep your game alive when the casuals have logged off. They provide really important promotional work by building communities (guilds, ts communities), creating content (youtube videos, drawings, paintings, fan fictions). They draw people in by spreading the word how great the game is. They provide feedback that the developers can rely on because let’s be honest, sometimes they understand the game better than the devs.

Veteran players in my book are not only dungeon runners, they can be anything from open world boss event farmers (the ones carrying the press 1 and i win crowd) through dungeon speedrunners, pvpers all the way to RP-ers (yes even they are important while anet seems to think otherwise).

In a game like this where you have so many different ways to play and be a veteran, we should respect the other veterans instead of trying to make them “wisen up” and play our kind of content.

This. Exactly this. Look at the wiki. It has suffered a lot from vets quitting the game. Superficial information still goes up, sure. But in-depth information is more and more lacking.

And I don’t think Anet realizes it at all.

Liston.9708:

Maybe you were not wvwing at the time, but poor nsp and ioj were crushed for months by the t2 reject of the week (there were 4 t2ish servers) often like this weeks score – but remember MONTHS.. Many bolted for greener pastures with no relief in sight. By the time t2 sorted out, it was too late. NSP seemed to have weathered that storm better than IOJ, but both were battered and bruised…..

This. It was really really bad and Anet never showed any evidence that they cared. The result? Massive numbers of people left IoJ for kitten, or bandwagon servers, making the already terrible population situation even worse.

nearlight.3064:

It would be completely illogical for them to say soon, but really mean 6 or more weeks away.

Are you serious?

spoj.9672:

Question. Who actually enjoys being 1 insignificant player out of 100 in a huge zerg?

A lot of people. Here’s one major reason:

You feel accomplishment when you succeed because you were part of the group that did it! And when you fail, you don’t need to take any blame: after all, you were just one person in the zerg, it can’t really be your fault, right?

It’s very safe for your ego. This particularly applies to WvW.

Also, the grind. Oh the grind. You want that one ascended sinister trinket that can’t be gotten from the LS? Or a second set of sinister trinkets? You gotta grind thousands of bandit crests from SW. That’s not fun. So you take the easy way: zerg the breach and VW while watching TV, or listening to podcasts, or starting flamewars in mapchat.

Besides, even if the number of people who enjoy zerging is not big in the general gaming population, we see a lot of them in GW2 because thesea are the kind of people Anet selects for by not releasing any small man instanced content in years.

The probability of getting one fractal is tied to what other fractals you did leading up to it, right? So let’s say you roll swamp as the first one every time. Then it might mean you get more chance of Mai Trin at the end.

Anyone done any research on this?

I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Brekkabek.

As for the OP’s concerns, guild missions are basically abandonware at this point. Don’t bother waiting for improvements and updates.

I think it can be agreed that in general, tournaments are a sham — competition-wise. Winners are predetermined (unless you have a super short tournament like the last one where there was a first place and then pretty much everyone else tied for second).

But it seems people like the rewards and a change from the usual monotonous WvW. So why not just do a few “event” weeks where you can get some new achievements that lead you to those coveted tickets? You bring people into WvW and it’s not a sham competition.

Chris Cleary.8017:

Exploits@arena.net is the best place to report these things. Yes, it is used to report in-game exploits, but it can also handle reports like this. Moving forward, it’s probably best that reports go there instead of on the forums.

Also

I disagree and here’s why:

There is the overwhelming perception that hackers have free reign in WvW while Anet does little to nothing to deal with them.

Now when you come into a hacker thread and announce someone has been banned — it goes a LONG way towards changing this perception.

And that’s important, because thinking hackers are everywhere in a PvP-type game mode discourages players from logging in — who wants to PvP in an unfair environment? Furthermore, would-be hackers are seeing — for the first time — that hacking can lead to bans.

Of course, you don’t want the WvW forum to be permanently filled with hacker threads, but I think it might be ok for the time being — until people really start to believe the problem is being dealt with seriously. Perhaps a (temporary?) sub-forum might be opened just for ban requests.

TLDR: After three years of the perception that hackers roam free in WvW, people need to see that something is being done about them.

Not sure why they can’t just let you mystic toilet them. It’s an easy solution that’s simple to implement. I really don’t think they care enough to implement even this though.

Anet should have been putting out new maps regularly (one every six months, say). That already would remove a lot of the staleness from WvW.

On the other hand, look at all the new map content Anet has developed (bloodlust ruins, EoTM, HoT BL preview). It’s all cluttered terrain, PvE-heavy, and filled with the hated skyhammer-like mechanics.

EB and BL are good maps because of their simplicity and large chunks of open terrain. Losing the current BL and getting the HoT one is, in the long run, going to be a big step backwards.

Anet loves their metrics. They certainly have stats on which items get trashed by players. If people started deleting all those rings, someone would take notice. Maybe.

The devs have been slowly removing underwater combat from the game (the failed bloodlust regions in the BL replaced quaggan lake in WvW; PvP lost its underwater content; and zero of the new PvE regions have any water content. So I wouldm’t hold out hope for OP’s suggestions (and that’s not even considering that profession balance underwater is terrible.

ArchonWing.9480:

Like it or not, the wvw seasons were successful in bringing more people in. OP is right that providing these things shows some care is given into wvw after all.

I have to disagree with you here on both counts.

Sure seasons brought people in — for the season; but a large number came only for the new achievements and the reward tickets. Did those people stay in the game mode after the tournament? Compare that number with the burnout of vets caused by massively the unbalanced matchups and damage to communities due to mass transfers. (Just think of the commanders you know who no longer tag up/play since the last tournament.)

As for care given to WvW. I don’t see how tournaments are evidence of that at all. It takes almost zero work to implement a tournament the way Anet does — basically just a change in matchup algorithm. Blowout matchups are the norm as usual. I see the tournaments as filler “content” for when Anet didn’t have any LS to put out.

Remember when you would go to Lion’s Arch and either ask for help because keep or garri was being besieged? Or because you were planning a glorious golem rush? That’s how you people got interested in WvW.

You want to recruit new players into WvW, and provide some server pride (which leads to better server stability)? Make LA server based again. Now Anet is going to be unwilling to spend the funds for more instances of LA, so at least arrange megaservers so that players from the other servers in your matchup are assigned to different megaservers. Not a fix-it-all solution, but a small, easily taken step.

Both in the same thread!

RlyOsim.2497:

the massive amount of updates

Say what?

As for in-game voice. Never gonna happen. Anet will either have to roll their own voice, which means a lot of dev work, or buy a solution — either way, that’s is a lot of resources put into WvW. And Anet has shown they don’t have much interest in spending resources on WvW.

DeWolfe.2174:

No one outside of the Dev’s know the numbers. We don’t know what the totals are, if they are static or variable, if they are equal across all 3 worlds, etc.

Definitely variable. My educated guess (I recall some dev post about PvE map caps being affected by minions): almost certainly influenced by number of minions and other AI that are out. This means the number of actual players won’t be equal across the three worlds even if all three are queued.

And this is why Anet completely refuses to give any useful information about caps: if this is officially confirmed, it means players with minions will be told to GTFO of WvW.

Offair.2563:

Never. Tourneys are rather pointless with the fail PPT and imbalance/coverage problems.

The only winners from tourneys are Anet with server transfers.

Pointless and fail, yes. The only winners being Anet, yes.

But we’re definitely having another one. Between now and HoT is a lot of time and Anet needs filler content — just look at the “Content Drought Continues” thread that’s created every single Tuesday. There are some events they’ll likely recycle over the summer but when they run out, they’ll bring back the WvW tournament. In fact, that’s been the purpose of every single WvW tournament: to fill time and give illusion of content when Anet has none to deliver.

serenke.4806:

There is no problem with berserker gear, with might stacking, reflecting, dodging, condi cleansing. We just don’t get new instances so we are getting bored.

This is precisely the problem.

ArchonWing.9480:

Although speaking of no white swords and PPK, it seems like PPK was well received and white swords much more mixed. At the very least if Arenanet would run more trials like that it would be a far more effective way to get ideas across as opposed to pulling the rug underneath us with permanent changes of which there’s little forewarning, of which I feel the stability changes and guard stack removal are, regardless of their actual merit.

Remember that no-white-swords was not originally a trial. It was simply announced as a permanent change. Only when the forums exploded in anger did it become a trial.

Also, remember that when they did turn no-white-swords into a trial, they said they would try out tweaks in WvW for short periods of time to test how they would play out. Between no-white-swords and now, how many such tweaks where trialed? Zero.

Seems it was all lip service. Perhaps you can push for more in-game testing?

The boldness of hackers just shows how rare it is for punishment to be meted out.

I hope they have alt accounts on servers lower than JQ and SBI.

Look at how much precursors sell for on the TP. If there was a decent chance to get a precursor spending only 300 gold, a lot more people would do it and prices would be much lower.

Kitiara.2706:

The result is ending up where one person is going to be required to hold all the guild gold, instead of keeping it in the guild bank.

That won’t work. Sending the gold to this one guy is going to hit the limit as well.

In any case, this is a WvW issue, so it’s probably best to not expect much consideration about it from Anet.

Check out the biggest blowout matchups for a week.

Best way to level given the abomination that’s been (and will be for the forseeable future) the NPE.