Guild Wars 2

“45% Crit Chance – 33% Crit Damage”

Thats low? Egads – more than twice what I get.

jkctmc: Can you get off the WvW/PvP bit? You seem to be the only one mentioning those modes of play while the OP’s video and dialog always show or imply PvE.

No one cares about WvW or PvP here – it was a ‘burst demonstration’ in PvE.

Personally, I would not discount the use of the Rangers Pet – its our Class Feature and if the giant is busy stomping on our Pet instead of us – that is a class mechanic and an advantage – we don’t have to dodge if we get the pet to attack 1st and then get behind the target so that its sandwenched between us and our pet.

While I’d still love to see videos of Rangers ‘solo any boss’, I really could not care less about how well (or not) we perform in PvP or WvW and if the surveys of what game modes the majority of players are actually using are correct, hardly anyone else does ether.

M.

One of the only reasons I’m playing this ‘mmo’ is that its subscription free. No interest in ‘rental ware’.

M.

I use 3D vision all the time – at least the 3DPlay version with my 3DTV.

Without your glasses on you’ll see ‘double characters’ but the 3D effect ought to converge when you put your 3D glasses on.

You can test your rig/glasses/monitor setup with the 3d Setup feature of the Nvidia control panel.

Outside of that, the #1 thing to remember is since there are two images – one for each eye – Force VSYNC ON in the Nvidia control panels game settings. (I use the ‘adaptive vsync’ setting) I’ve noticed better performance on my rig if I set it there instead of using the in game setting. (the ingame setting I set to ‘unlimited’)

I hope this helps.

xCrusadentx.2784:

I’m confused; How does doing that adding resistances in armor add replayability? Thats just adding more stats for a dungeon or such you play once, and then everytime after it is a repeat. That doesn’t fix replayability, thats just another condition to deal with in dungeons; adding more content and delaying completing the end game goals, is it not?

Having more then one viable solution to a problem allows a player more than one play though. Granted (much like Skyrim) once all the solutions have been played out your still in the same boat (done with all the content). However having more than one solution would be infinitely more interesting than what we have today.

Ahhh, the Achilles heel of the non-subscription game model – how do you keep players interested AND spending money on/in your game in the short and long term.

I’ve been gaming for decades and GW2 is the very first ‘MMO’ title that I’ve installed. Frankly, never before have I had or came across any expectation of long term playability. Players that finished all the content or were bored (or both) simply moved onto another title. While most modern games that have ‘RPG elements’ offer different races/classes/professions that might offer some ‘replay ability’ however I’ve yet come across a title that was interesting enough to roll another ‘toon’ and play through again.

I don’t ‘speed rush’ through games, most titles take a few weeks to a little over a month to complete. “Skyrim” being the exception – I logged over 400hrs of play time on that title before getting bored and moving on. While there are surely some fans of the title still playing it and they are continuously releasing DLC for it I’d be very surprised if it survived the next purge/cleaning of my SSD.

Most games are created with purely static content, if it took ‘two whacks’ to kill something yesterday the exact same two whacks will kill it any other time. In GW2 different professions offer some slight variation – (for example it might take 4 ‘whacks’ with a Ranger Pet) but in the end it all boils down to DPS and health bars.

On paper over 2/3 of GW2 is unscripted ‘dynamic’ content. The PvP and WvWvW battles are constantly changing based purely on the number, skill and build of the players involved.

Think about for a moment how it would play out, if (for example) Veterans, Champions and Boss’s had completely random abilities and weaknesses that were different with each encounter. Would it play out any differently? No. The same dodge/condition removal/high DPS strategy can be used effectively with anything (other than ‘agony’) that these beasts can toss at us.

Right here’s the flaw.

Using ‘Skyrim’ as an example, there were/are a number of condition damage ‘types’ that a player had to have resistance to as well as be able to deal out in their arsenal. If a ‘Fire Dragon’ happened by you’d better have a set of Fire resistance gear and be able to hit it with ether Frost or Electric elemental damage or you were more than likely ‘toast’. The same could be said of the ‘Frost Dragon’, you’d better have a resistance to it and a Fire/Electric damage dealing weapon or you’d be reduced to an ice cube in short order.

While the ‘electric’ weapons were generally enough to combat most targets with I had to carry a subset of gear that had ether fire/frost/electric elemental resistance as well as a selection of potions at all times to be able to deal with whatever I happened across.

Presently most equipment in GW2 is pretty much the same. There really is little to no reason to have more than 1 set of ‘Exotic’ gear for your toon. If however one dungeon allowed you access to ‘fire resistance’ gear while another had ‘freeze resistance’ gear and (much like AR is today) the gear offered a way of mitigating a specialized risk having more than one set would make more sense.

Here’s where Anet really dropped the ball with not only equipment but with professions. Different professions ought to be specialized in mitigating or dealing different types of damage. Sure, we could still have the dodge/condition removal/DPS method, but allow us to (for example) take a specialized Ranger/Pet+Engineer to mitigate/deal with specialized damage a viable alternative. Allow the ‘less popular’ professions to combine their abilities to create viable alternatives to simple ‘high DPS’ models.

In Skyrim, it took me months of playtime to collect/craft all the specialized gear sets I wanted to be able to handle any situation and while others will surely jump in and speak on why these elements should not be added to GW2, I think the added depth of play would be worthwhile.

Chopps: try “http://www.zdsoft.com/” it will watermark your video but has no restrictions on unregistered recording time length. (the ‘demo’ will expire in 30 days)

I’d love to see a Ranger kick-some-boss….

My flat female toon must have a ‘pushup’ trench coat…. (ducking)

I’m thinking that when your in the middle of a Zerg sometimes the only way you can make out your toon is the color/effects on your weapon.

Raine.1394:

MaRko.3165:

While cleaning out my inventory at an encampment a ton of commotion ensued outside – some giant Champ thing was playing ‘bowling ball’ rolling over and defeating dozens of players at a time – I decided to join the fey.

After getting downed/defeated multiple times the rest of the Zerg and I finally defeated the beast only to get – repair bills. No drop. Me thinks next time I’ll ignore it.

I’ll jump in and help if some nasty or mob is protecting a resource node or skill point at least when your done you can get THAT – otherwise why bother?

I think the DR is directly linked to the economy and the TP. Since starting this game over the Thanksgiving holiday my earnings from DR/Salvage is rarely greater than the cost of armor repair/WP usage. Without infusion of PLASTIC I’d still be wandering around in whatever Green gear I could purchase at Karma vendors.

So it would seem to me that this is by design. Ether have your under geared toon carried through endless farm/speed runs of ‘profitable’ game play elements for tokens or coin or get your Plastic out.

Sounds like the Abomb champ at the end of Plinx. Most of the time he drops something; often it’s just 1s86c (sometimes a blue) for like, what, 10 minutes of effort? The loot, or absence thereof can only be by design. Loot systems are rules-based and they should understand the loot experience of the common player through simulations. The design may have to do with monetization as improved loot directly affects the bottom line. I don’t know the answer only the problem. We play, in part, to experience reward. It’s not rewarding. Where do we go from here?

I don’t know about the rest of you but for me I have TSW to finish and Crysis3 comes out on the 22nd.

Many people that know them find them easy and most that don’t find them hard to impossible. Are they going to be made easier or harder?

That all depends. Mostly on what they are there for in the 1st place and why would anyone want to bother with them.

On the one hand, they are part of the PvE game world and for ‘Dungeon Master’, ‘World Completion’ titles/trophies and personal story lines all or (some?) need to be done if the player wishes to complete those things.

On the other hand different sets of gear can be had as well as many simply ‘farm’ them for in game gold and matts for purchasing/crafting gear.

While this is reported to be a ‘skill based game’ if your not farming for gold/tokens for gear then your buying Gems and hitting the TP for gear.

At the end of the day one could make the case of making dungeons harder so that gear was harder to come by and therefore making the Gem Store more attractive, however if gear makes little or no difference there is no point in doing ether dungeons or shopping at the Gem Store. (outside of the completion factors above)

The bottom line is as long as the demographic that can/will/might spend money in the Gem Store is having fun and spending money Anet/GW2 is successful, if they are not having fun and not spending money, not so much.

Wethospu.6437:

MaRko.3165:

Wethospu.6437:

And you can go to open-PvE and faceroll all you want. Why whole game needs to cater to your needs?

Non-subscription = game supported by players spending $$ on gems.

How does catering to people that actually have credit ratings and buying power not make sense for their business model?

Yeah, gems are so horribly expensive that only hard-working ultra-casual players can afford them.
I can make you a program which gives you very simple task and each time you succeed it tells how awesome you are, just 50 euros!

While there is little doubt in my mind that your an awesome GW2 player, I play games for fun and entertainment. If it is not fun and entertaining my amusement budget gets spent elsewhere.

What percentage of the GW2 players play at your level? How much cash do you think the group spends? (if any) If whatever demographic that might buy GEMS to gain better gear becomes frustrated that their class/gear won’t help them reach whatever in game goal they’ve set for themselves how is that going to support Anet and keep the game going?

Vasham.2408:

Ungood.3054:

Yes

Sincerely the Guild Wars 2 Community.

I would say a player speaking for the community against easy dungeons cares more for the game’s future than a casual.

Huh?

What percentage of the population do you think are ‘hard core’ gamers? Ever wonder why the entire industry is making their games more playable by a wider audience? Ever wonder why dungeons are split into “paths”?

If you want ‘challenge’ if you want ‘difficulty’ start making videos showing how easy it is to solo every path of every dungeon with EVERY profession.

I might spend 1/2hr enticing my cat into attacking a wayward spider that got into the house while someone else might just step on it and then complain that they are bored. Different strokes for different….

(sigh)

Blacklight.2871:

I’m still holding out for the 5x Rangers version. That would make for interesting reading. Or maybe 5x Engineers. That would be cool too.

5x Necro?

Wethospu.6437:

And you can go to open-PvE and faceroll all you want. Why whole game needs to cater to your needs?

Non-subscription = game supported by players spending $$ on gems.

How does catering to people that actually have credit ratings and buying power not make sense for their business model?

RedStar.4218:

MaRko.3165:

I fail to see why obviously gifted players would even care if the content were made more accessible to <insert less popular/effective profession(s) here> and game play challenged players – unless of course they somehow expect to NOT steamroll through content outfitted with the best DPS professions and gear. (face palm)

This isn’t a discussion about “Warriors and Guardians are OP and Necromancers are the worst choice you could do”. Or about make dungeons easier.
It’s about whether or not solo dungeon mode would be a good idea. And it wouldn’t. It would kill every bit of fun (even if for some people there isn’t any fun) because the dungeons we have can’t be scaled down to cater to the majority of the playerbase.

It’s not a question of toning things down, it would need a massive overhaul. When you are down, who is there to revive you ? Who is there to take some damage for you ? To attack while you kite/cc ?
If they add NPCs, they would have to make them so powerful that they wouldn’t even need your help…

Having a ‘solo mode’ detracts nothing from ‘team mode’. If you like running in teams why would you even care? Understand software much? Anything can get reprogrammed.

Presently when I walk into and create an instance the game asks me “story mode or Exp mode”, some of us are simply asking for ‘solo mode’ as an option. Heck, I’d even call it ‘tourist mode’ so I could wander around, see the sights and design and further complete my World map. At this point I can’t care less about the tokens/gold/DR.

Its actually rare to find a game where this sort of kitten tat argument is not happening.

‘Gifted’ players want more challenge and not-so-good players want less.

I’d just finished the ‘Mass Effect’ series before starting this game. Gosh what a novel concept – they catered to EVERYONE. While I played at ‘adept’ and found that setting about perfect for my style and abilities there was much more difficult and WAY easier modes available to play.

This game makes it very easy to cater to the ‘hard core crowd’ – simply don’t gear up a <insert not-so-popular profession here> and see how ‘challenging’ and ‘effective’ the game is then. There are surely LOTS of ineffective professions and gear to chose from.

The less inspired players simply don’t have many options. The encounters are designed so that you WILL FAIL on your first few attempts (or all your attempts if you don’t recognize what you may need to do or bring (if you have the coin or skill points to have those options available to you) or have someone explain the encounter or watch some instructional videos on it).

I fail to see why obviously gifted players would even care if the content were made more accessible to <insert less popular/effective profession(s) here> and game play challenged players – unless of course they somehow expect to NOT steamroll through content outfitted with the best DPS professions and gear. (face palm)

While cleaning out my inventory at an encampment a ton of commotion ensued outside – some giant Champ thing was playing ‘bowling ball’ rolling over and defeating dozens of players at a time – I decided to join the fey.

After getting downed/defeated multiple times the rest of the Zerg and I finally defeated the beast only to get – repair bills. No drop. Me thinks next time I’ll ignore it.

I’ll jump in and help if some nasty or mob is protecting a resource node or skill point at least when your done you can get THAT – otherwise why bother?

I think the DR is directly linked to the economy and the TP. Since starting this game over the Thanksgiving holiday my earnings from DR/Salvage is rarely greater than the cost of armor repair/WP usage. Without infusion of PLASTIC I’d still be wandering around in whatever Green gear I could purchase at Karma vendors.

So it would seem to me that this is by design. Ether have your under geared toon carried through endless farm/speed runs of ‘profitable’ game play elements for tokens or coin or get your Plastic out.

“End game” for any game is when your done with the content. You ether start over with a different toon, (some games have a harder difficulty level) or move onto another title. Period. Just because its “massive multi player online” does not change that. (the new Tomb Raider following that)

I’ve leveled a toon and have not seen the entire map or done all the dungeons. While I may get most of the PvE map, I no longer have any interest in doing the dungeons.

It would appear that the majority of players are ‘grinding’ or ‘farming’ dungeons for gear sets or Gold/mats for a Legendary. Its good to see that some are simply doing it for fun. After all this is a GAME, it should be fun.

I don’t know what the rest of you will be doing but I’ll be playing Crysis3 before the end of the month.

(while attempting to maintain my seat while contemplating ‘Farming’ Chickens in a video game….)

The old work/payoff or cost/reward issue.

If I kill <insert here> I may get 1s.25c but if I get defeated the armor repairs will cost me 1s.50c +WP costs so is it worth the chance?

I’d like to disable it all together. Gee – I have some small business to do in LA and when I enter I get the annoying overflow message – who cares? I don’t – I’ll be done in 10min or less anyway. Then even MORE annoying is the NEXT message – saying giving you the option of staying where you are or moving to the ‘real’ LA.

Why not just give us THAT option on the first message – “I’m in overflow, I don’t care, let me stay here thankyouverymuch”.

Just about all the FPS “team” games have it out of the box however when I jump into a dungeon instance with 4 strangers I have to stop fighting to (sic) TYPE a message.

Please give us voice comm.

I think we need cross profession combo fields – give a Nec+Eng (or Eng +Ranger Pet) a repeatable combo field that makes a high DPS Warrior blush. If the game is going to be all about DPS, let the ‘less popular’ professions combine their skills into something useful and playable.

However the #1 thing that PUG’s could use at this point (which ALL the FPS games have out of the box) is in game Voicecomm.

Humm…. “easier but rewards less” tell me again how hard these things are for a high DPS team… (ducking for all the flaming to be coming my way…)

Yeah, go figure high DPS simply steam rolls through Anets content. Not exactly rocket science here. The less popular professions and builds CAN complete the content, however taking longer and with more time (and humans) greater odds of defeat.

Anet COULD OF worked into the mechanics ‘something’ that only specific professions could do well at and have that be different in each Dungeon or path so it would almost require having a full mixture of professions – EVERYONE would have a problem with that rather than the non-high DPS or not so ‘popular’ professions.

However this would work into the ‘gray area’ of having ‘rolls’ to fill for specific jobs. A big ‘no no’ in the minds of Anet and many players alike.

The easy answer is that while in theory the players are scaled to the dungeon it really needs to be the other way around – the dungeons need to scale to the player or team of players.

I’d like to see each profession have just ONE unique ability that allows each class to bring something special to a group of players. I’d like to see combo fields that require two or more less popular professions to setup and use but make using a team of high DPS professions obsolete.

3W/1G/1M can take out a boss in 15min? How about 2N/1E/1R/1G doing it in less time?

My favorite right now is Axe/Torch with a flame trap. Awesome for mob’s as you can rotate the Bonfire/Flame trap so that you have a fire combo field up nearly all the time.

Nice video – looks like you folks had a lot of fun.

Complete with res’ing downed players while under fire and the last up player stepping out of combat so their mates can rejoin them via the nearby WP.

It was fun watching!

I think in the 2-3 months I’ve been playing GW2 I’ve gotten the daily maybe a handful of times. No biggie – I just ignore it and the monthly.

Do I want an ‘accended’ thingie? Nope.

Actually, there are a few concepts here that are seemingly broken that I’m not so sure what (if any) can fix it.

“Farming” is a generally distasteful thing in my mind. The entire implication of going through the motions of something just for the reward is not only takes any implied fun or entertainment out of what your doing but makes the activity more of a ‘job’ rather than something that is done for fun/pleasure.

Players are naturally flocking to whatever activities that yield the highest rewards for the least amount of player effort. Instead of picking content that is ‘most fun’, ‘most entertaining’ or ‘most challenge’ we have ‘most reward for time invested’.

I can’t think of or even if there is a fix for that. Maybe its not broken.

That will be something you do in the Nvidia Control Panel before starting the game up.

There is a single option to ‘render 3D’ (something or other) in the GW2 graphic settings that presumably will on/off rendering in game ‘tags’ at depth. I’ve never messed with it.

Enjoy! My i5/Intel Graphic powered 3D laptop (Tridef drivers) clocks in at ~20FPS (on a good day) while in 3D mode with all graphics settings to LOW. I’ve often though of getting a highend 3D laptop but when I have a 43" 3D plasma to play GW2 on – why bother?

GW2 performed poorly 6mo before release and now many months after release has not changed.

Don’t hold your breath.

While it could indeed be pointed out that my higher level toon was ‘down scaled’ so that lower level content might be ‘interesting’, Anet’s stated ‘slight advantage’ result is clearly not the case.

slight [slahyt] Show IPA adjective, slight·er, slight·est, verb, noun adjective
1. small in amount, degree, etc.: a slight increase; a slight odor.
2. of little importance, influence, etc.; trivial: a slight cut.
3. slender or slim; not heavily built.
4. frail; flimsy; delicate: a slight fabric.
5. of little substance or strength.

While lower level content is generally more interesting with DLS than without it still a bunch of room for improvement.

Here’s two of my toons standing in the same place. The top two images are of them NAKED with absolutely nothing equipped, the bottom two in the standard gear I have for them. (left toon white/blue/green gear, right toon all Exotic gear)

Attrib – Low/High
ATT – 252/361
Tough – 173/320
HP – 1034/1362
Healing Power – 0 /72
Condition damage – 6/58
Crit chance – 5/17
BM – 0/30
Boon Dir – 0/20

[img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8241/8451619252_b1859eedd7.jpg[/img]
<img src=“http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8241/8451619252_b1859eedd7.jpg” alt="" />

Only a “slight advantage” ? ROTFLMAO!

(define ‘slight’… LOL )

Here’s two of my toons standing in the same place. The top two images are of them NAKED with absolutely nothing equipped, the bottom two in the standard gear I have for them. (left toon white/blue/green gear, right toon all Exotic gear)

[img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8241/8451619252_b1859eedd7.jpg[/img]

Only a “slight advantage” ? ROTFLMAO!

loseridoit.2756:

DanH.5879:

i can solo a breeder in AC without any problems/and no elite.
you guys have a l2p issue…

At level 35 doubt it.

Make a level 35 character and solo a dugeon. You can have full gear and runes which is unusual for pugs. It should just as possible as a level 80 and also a level 35. If it isn’t then you understand why level scaling is broken

Exactly. ^^^This^^^.

Most everyone that is saying this stuff is easy are going at it with Lvl80 players with Lvl80 Exotic gear/runes/gems. Since there are no Exotics available for AC story/Explorable players (read Lvl35 for explorable) while your gear is ‘down scaled’ it’s still way better than the Blues/Greens available to actual Lvl35 players.

“Gosh, my Lvl80 team outfitted with Exotics can breeze through AC – whats all the noobs complaining about – L2P for gawd sakes”. Gee what an accomplishment.

For a few copper, outfit yourself with some actual Lvl35 White gear from a vendor and see how easy it is eh? I’ve yet to see a “gimped” team of 80’ players or true Lvl35 team video showing it can be done. (or even cheaper – go NUDE – who would argue then?)

Greetings,

I started this guild as I just wanted a ‘tag’ so others would not invite me into their guild. Nothing wrong with the ones I was invited to – I’m sure they are fine folks – I was just not looking for a guild to join.

If your over 50yo and enjoy simply playing the game, maybe this Guild is for you. I’d like ‘our’ gaming concepts to be similar as in:

- “Farming” is something that is done REAL land (IE: not in a game)
- “Grinding” is something I do with peppercorn when I use it for REAL cooking
- Cheating disregards the journey in favor of the outcome
- “Run” means actually running while “Explore” is more ‘lets take a look around’

I normally play most evenings (6PM-11PM PST) and a bit more recently since I’m between jobs. I enjoy looking at the sites and gathering materials and doing map completion. Not really into the Dungeons as most are in way to much of a hurry. Presently only interested in PvE play (non-competitive) on NA server.

I play computer games for fun and the adventure. If your of like mindset and would like to join others in our age group maybe TOPC is the Guild for you.

Mark.
Gwenthelost – Human Ranger Lvl80

I’m likely not the best to answer about ‘runes’ as I’m still experimenting and just playing. Dodging is not one of my strong suits so I went with Cleric gear with Guardian runes. I was mostly going for toughness. (actually this is my highest trait) I can take a few hits before going down. This was important to me. However my rating is so high that I’ll often get Aggro when in a Zerg.

My ‘build style’ (for better or more likely worse) was to have ‘armor’ with defensive properties and ‘weapons’ with offensive properties. The 5 ‘trinket’ items I have two sets, one is offensive (provides boosts to critical chance) the other defensive (Toughness and Vit). I swap them depending on how long it might seem to take to drop something as well as how ‘squishy’ I may be felling at the time.

The environment that I play in (plus the dark 3D shutter glasses) make it difficult for me to find the keys on my keyboard. Outside of the large group events and some of the harder ‘Champions’ I can solo all the open world PvE content.

When I’m having to juggle mobs in my face, red circles at my feet and ranged 2-3 shot bosses at my head I’m retreating or going down, (or both) I simply don’t have the skills to keep up with all that.

In a true ‘skill based’ game, there would only be one of each item. Granted it might take you a while of adventuring to fight your way from a knife to a sword – but once you had one you were set until such time you’d adventured far enough to find a GS or a LB. By the end of the game you’d have one of each weapon that your class could wield.

While you can often get in-between drops on gear, most of it that can be had from vendors are every 5 or 10 levels. A level 20 Green is still better than a level 25 white.

Most of the ‘hearts’ NPC’s turn into Karma vendors which sell Blue/Green gear that are good for 5-10 levels before replacing.

Gee it’d be nice to have a bow that squirted out unicorns but at the end of the day my Exotic bow has the same stats as the rainbow/unicorn squirting one does.

I’m more likely going to simply play the game until I’m bored with it (or Feb22nd rolls around) then grind/farm or plastic my way into a rainbow. (pun intended)

I do think that the ‘Gift of Exploration’ if its not already a requirement ought to be for any of the ‘Legendary’ weapons. Actually I think a ‘Legendary’ ought to highlight the successful completion of all aspects of the game. Get 100% in all the Hero areas and get the gift of a precursor.

LOL – I don’t get this as well. Post after post I see something along the lines of “but this is a MMO… <insert feature of subscription online game here> is how they work…..”

ROTFLMAO!

Right now this game just serves as a filler until: February 22 – Crysis 3 release.
(I hope it melts my PC)

Vasham.2408:

The fact this thread exists and has so much support is a clear sign that GW2 is doomed to the same ultracasual fate as WoW. I hope you people are happy with yourselves. You ruin everything you touch.

Gosh really? I mean really? This is getting to be to much. The designers of this game are the real ‘losers’ here. They simply can’t win.

You know who’s to blame here don’t you? (I’ll get to that in a sec.)

They could make the content random and and totally unforgiving and EVERYONE would complain that there was no way of knowing what your facing or getting better as it would be different every time. No fair.

So to add some fairness the designers put in mechanics that ‘telegraph’ the attacks and follow a pattern that can be learned with time.

As far as the ‘forgiving’ nature goes – they gave us (for example) Lvl35 dungeons that simply punish Lvl35 players in Lvl35 gear. However they also gave us a way around much of that by leveling our toon’s and gear.

So in the end while I’ve YET to see a SINGLE video of (for example) Lvl35 players completing Lvl35 dungeons in Lvl35 gear what I DO SEE is line after line of Lvl80 players in Lvl80 Exotics lined up to play the Lvl35 content. Then we all get to see in the forums the same players complaining how easy the content is. (face palm)

Back in the day when ‘insane’ mode was not enough we’d simply “gimp” ourselves for challenge, entertainment and bragging rights. There are plenty of “sub optimal” professions and ton’s of cheap very weak gear in this game. (if your looking for any of the above)

Giving the player a ‘knife’ and placing them in a gun fight is unfair to the player. Equally a player that brings a rocket launcher to a knife fight and expects a ‘challenge’ is unfair to the developer.

Simply making some of the content actually playable for single players or sub optimal gear/team match ups does not ‘ruin’ the game, only taking all the best of whatever is available does.

M

I think its all a huge “gray area”.

I mean really, what is a game mechanic and what is a design flaw?

If we intended to have to kill a mob to progress – the path would be narrow forcing us to aggro it – there would be a door at the end of the hall that blocked our progress that opened when we killed the mob – the mob would be faster than us and we could not simply out run it.

Designers more than often give us ways around things or easier and less obvious solutions. Did they intend that we melee a monster that only has a ranged attack? Sure. Was that sweet spot by the post were I can toss out damage without getting hit planned? Maybe. Should I be able to walk through (wall/floor/door/terrain) or attack through something without getting hurt? Do I need to answer that?

Flameseeker.8591:

I am with OP and I don’t mind the reward being scaled down. I don’t think it will hurt anyone or anything with this feature, just more options for the players.

So when when a fully optimized team (of 5) ‘farmers’ go CoF farming for (what?) 15min they ought to get more reward than a single player battling less difficulty for say 2-10x time investment?

So if your not playing a popular speed-farm profession your choices at this point are:
Forget about running dungeons.
Join a Guild that may (or may not) include you on their run(s).
Spend and enormous amount of time finding a group to go with.
Attempt the run solo and FAIL.
Invest the time/$$ in leveling+gearing a popular speed-farm profession ALT

If the dungeons actually scaled with the number of players and (heaven forbid!) actually scaled to the team running it then we’d have some interesting and dynamic content that everyone could enjoy.

Does anyone really think that the designer(s) intended these things to be ‘farmed’ in 15min or less? Really?

I went with 0/0/20/20/30.

This gives me:
NS – (I really wanted the 2s dodge roll defense)
Natural Vigor : Increase endurance regeneration by 50%
Shared Anquish : Incoming disables are transferred to your pet (90 second CD)
Companion’s Defense : You+pet gain 2 seconds of protection when you dodge roll
Oakheart Salve : Gain regen 5s when you suffer from bleeding, poison or burning (20s CD)

NM –
Rejuvenation : Gain regeneration when your health reaches 75%
Nature’s Protection : Protection for 5s when you take more than 20% damage (30s CD)
Fortifying Bond : Boons are shared with your pet.
Enlargement : Pets become enlarged when your reach 25% health.(Grants PET Stability and +25% damage – no listed time limit or CD – this is HUGE!)

The build you linked shows your heavy into traps (with trap targeting) so to me the obvious choice would be additional condition damage to make use of all the points spent on your traps.

I also noticed your using ‘Rampage as One’, while a good offensive trait I was surprised that you did not pick ‘Entangle’ as it is by far our best trap.

What? A class forum that actually has helpful advice and constructive comments about the class with possible changes for improvements?

There are two ways of handing this. More active moderation and giving users the tools to weed out the ‘rif-raf’, trolls and other noise that clog these forums.

I offered in the ‘suggestion’ forum the idea of an ‘ignore’ button. Its worked wonders in many professional/technical forms.

0/0/20/20/30 – River Drake/Brown Bear, Axe+Torch/SB.

While leveling I usually bought Karma gear as it was almost always superior to the drops that I was getting. Only problem was how to get rid of it? Someone in the forums suggested that I toss it into the MF.

So while tossing Karma vendor junk into the MF and out pops a (I’d later find out!) precursor that my toon could not use. Not knowing what I had I just tossed it back in.

A google search on ‘guild wars 2 performance issues’ shows that the issues you are facing were noted up to 6mo’s before release (while in beta) and here we are nearly 1yr later.

If you play many PC games at all you undoubtedly realized that for the majority of the titles (this one included) the “minimum hardware” listed will only allow you to install and run the game – however the results are more than likely unplayable.

The chances of GW2 “performance issues” getting fixed at this point is slim to none.

For older hardware there are many many quality (older) titles that are ether F2P or very cheap on Steam.

LOL! While working on map completion I was heading for Augur’s Grotto and was defeated shortly after reaching the platform. WTF? On another route to the platform I ran across a unmarked Champion+Pair of Veteran’s – they all chewed me up fairly quickly.

While many/most things in the open world PvE can be solo’ed I’ve ran across a number of ‘non-event’ areas that may require specialized tactics or simply more people to deal with it successfully.

Dynamic Leveling – This has got to be the #1 thing I LIKE about GW2 and something they could license to makers of most games as they all NEED something like this.

Example? Boarderlands2 – similar respawn rates, useless gear, one shot deaths and costs in game ca$h for being ‘revived’. However – try standing in a low level mob after you’ve reached max level – your GOD – you one shot kill anything in your path – fun for a few minutes until the novelty wears off then – boring as heck.

The DLS in this game is making my 100% map completion at least interesting. If anything I’d say they they still don’t go far enough especially in Dungeons.

The NPC’’s labeled “Champion” in this game are not all created equal. (same goes with ‘Veteran’) While there are some that are a bit ‘challenging’ to solo, others have HP pools that require at least 3-4 players to take out no matter what the level.

M