Guild Wars 2

You are absolutely right Blood Red Arachnid. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more attention to it from the art department. This has been an issue since launch. Some of the big orange circles during the Living Story kind of helped, although you still couldn’t see what was happening exactly. I think it deserves to be addressed.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know. Some of the stuff from the Living Story was pretty cool, particularly Season 1, but of course, both Dry Top and the Silverwastes came with season 2 and some people seemed to like them.

I liked some of it as well. Especially The Molten Facility and the Twisted Marionette. Other living story chapters sometimes felt a bit rough around the edges. But overall, there were some really cool updates and neat ideas.

Harper.4173:

I ask this too – but they’ve given us next to NO difficult content but a LOT of faceroll easy content. Open world was easy before but ever since mega servers were added it’s nothing short of a joke.

I totally agree.

Harper.4173:

I hope so too – the problem here is that higher challenge content has to be coupled with equivalent rewards or it will become a ghost town.

You are absolutely right. We need a good reason to try difficult content. Domain of Anguish had the Armbraces of Truth that you could get by collecting 4 different gems from the 4 areas. These were very valuable, and could be exchanged for exclusive Torment Weapons with a really cool skin. Mallyx himself also had great unique rewards from his chest, including weapons for each profession, and a Mallyx mini.

Harper.4173:

The question then becomes – how many of each? I’m pretty sure those who “might not” will constitute a majority – and sadly for us – a paying majority.
As a business it’s not really smart to tick off a lot of people especially if those people are people you get money from.

So, maybe they’ll raise the bar a little overall, like they did in Silver Wastes. Hopefully they’ll also include one dungeon/raid/group content that does have a very high difficulty.

Harper.4173:

Ultimately this game is an empowerment fantasy – the moment you take a person’s “special hero unique snowflake” status away by having mobs beat him up plenty is the moment that person might want to stop playing.
Why would you risk that when you could simply keep telling him (metaphorically of course) “you’re the greatest ever hero to ever live ever ever – give us more of your hard earned money because you’re so good”.

The majority of GW2’s PVE content kind of already does that. Eventually this empowerment fantasy turns sour, and players start to realize that they are not empowered, everything is just really easy.

I understand that you can’t raise the bar too much, or too fast. But I assume that they are trying to make HOT appeal to both new and old players. So maybe the difficulty won’t be raised too much, but they will add more dynamic to the fights.

On the other hand, you can only patch up the combat so much. You can tack a lot onto it to make it less boring, but I think some foundational changes also need to happen. I think they need to examine the way DPS, control and conditions work. To some extend they are already doing this, by finally raising the condi-cap, and changing a lot of conditions. And they’ve added the break-bar as well, to finally address the defiant problem.

My only criticism in regards to the break-bar, is that it still commits the same sin as Defiant did: It makes every control skill have the same effect, because we can’t have static bosses being pulled, knocked down, or feared away. It is a bit of a shame when you implement all these interesting mechanics in the game, and then ignore them for boss fights. I won’t deny that the break-bar looks like an improvement (I must see it in action first), but it is a bit of a shame that it is only half a fix.

Harper.4173:

Did you see the ele video? I would like to see what you have to say about it and how defensive stats “are underpowered”.

I run a defensive build as a necromancer, and can stay alive and kill things just fine. But my damage is not on par with your average zerker. If I pay attention to what is happening on the screen, and dodge everything, I don’t really need the defensive stats at all. But I dislike the pure damage builds, so I went with knights, just like you. I like to have the ability to slack off a bit every now and then

Harper.4173:

All you’ve been doing is repeating “defensive stats are punishing you” without explaining WHY or HOW.

Not so long ago I took my guild into a dungeon. All of the enemies ended up chasing me around the room, ignoring the warrior and the guardian, simply because I was wearing toughness gear. It was ridiculous. I realized that it is a bit pointless to be wearing heavy armor, if it is an aggro magnet. That defeats the point of a defensive build. So yes, the game does punish you for high toughness.

This also happens in the open world. Whenever I’m in a group, all the enemies focus on me. I’m not the one doing the most damage, but I apparently have the highest toughness out of anyone, and so the enemies focus on me. It’s like wearing a giant “kill me” sign around your neck.

Kordash.2197:

As i said before, do an Arah run in a decent time frame, full zerk, only pressing your auto attack and meleeing properly. Or a fractal 50. Or almost every dungeon path. Then i will agree that every content require no thinking. But you can’t (thought, if you prove me wrong i’ll admit it).

WOW! You are unbelievable. Someone shows you a video, confirming what I said, and yet you still refuse to admit I was right. So now we have to show a run in the most difficult dungeon or the highest level fractal?

What is the exact difference between a level 50 fractal and a level 20 fractal? Do the enemies behave differently? Do they use more complex strategies, or respond to player behavior? Or they just do more damage?

Keep in mind, we were discussing the AI. You just picked the areas in the game that have the most outrageous damage, but they aren’t any different when it comes to the AI or the combat. It’s just less forgiving, so you have to dodge more attacks. But the combat itself is no different at level 50, or level 80, or level gazillion. All that changes are the numbers.

Harper.4173:

I don’t know what will be in HoT. But i’m almost certain that there won’t be ANY gear requirement to clear any content. That would be a shift in the design, and i wouldn’t like it.

I think we will see changes to the combat, where other gear combinations find a role in the meta, or at least, I hope so. I think we’ll see more enemies where pure zerker is not as effective as it is right now.

Harper.4173:

In theory I agree with you – I too would prefer more challenging opponents in both the open world and instanced content. That being said I’ve come to terms with the fact that it will never happen. Why?

Because this game’s difficulty is balanced against the “casual gamer average player guy” who is terrible at things.

Well, I think that may change. With the upcoming expansion, they no longer have to provide low level content. So there is an opportunity here to raise the difficulty for high level players. Plenty of the core game already caters to the casual gamer. Hopefully HOT content will be not just max level, but also of a higher challenge.

Harper.4173:

Do you really think the average PvE player wants to go in a dungeon/ open world event and be challenged on par with a PvP encounter?
Do you really think your average PvE player wants to feel challenged by every mob/boss?

I think the average PVE player would like to see a balanced amount of very hard dungeon/open world content, and accessible dungeon/open world content.

It doesn’t all have to be super hard, but it doesn’t all have to be super easy either. Why not both?

Harper.4173:

Do you really think the average GW2 player goes “oh – that’s a pretty hard and dangerous boss that stomped me – better switch my build and step up my game” ?

Some players might, some players might not. When Domain of Anguish was released shortly after GW1 Nightfall, at first people yelled out on the forums how “this is impossible!”. Then players started figuring it out, until they reached Mallyx the Unyielding. “This is impossible!” -they yelled once again.

I was probably one of the first to be in a group that managed to kill Mallyx for the first time (and not in a way that became meta, we just did what ever we could think of). It was a great challenge. Once a lot of players started figuring it out, a meta was established, and more casual players started trying it as well.

Eventually the more fanatical player base will figure the really hard content out, and then once someone figures out a solution, the players who don’t want to go through that trial and error process will shortly follow.

So, even very challenging content can cater to casual and hardcore players.

Harper.4173:

You said you played GW1 – did people run any FoWSC builds other than the meta?
Did People UWSC with anything but meta builds?

No…. but the meta constantly changed. That’s because there was not one dominant strategy. New skill combinations were discovered, so new things became meta. At first Spiteful Spirit was dominant for the necromancer. Any party you joined for UW or FoW demanded Spiteful Spirit. Later on you started seeing other necromancer builds become meta, such as Mark of Pain, Spoil Victor, Icy Veins, Feast of Corruption. I’ve seen quite a number of them.

I suppose this was because the builds on other classes constantly changed as well. When you had a melee heavy group full of warriors with 100 blades, then mark of pain suddenly became a valuable ingredient. There were other elite areas where energy denial was a problem, and so Blood is Power became meta there.

55 monks were meta for the longest time in UW, because they were one of the few solo builds that allowed players to tank Aatxe and Smite Crawlers, and thus solo farm for ectos.

So GW1 had a constantly shifting meta. GW2 has a very static meta. It’s all about maximizing damage.

Harper.4173:

Meta builds always overshadow everything else because if you have a meta build available why would you even run anything else?

But in this case the game encourages DPS over everything else, and punishes people for building defensively. It does not have to be that way.

Harper.4173:

And what makes you sure that you know what the developers intend for the game? Did you have a part in designing it?

I can see what they are trying to do. Just pay attention to what they say on the forums, and what things they choose to address. They know these things are problems, which is why we are seeing so many of them being touched upon with HOT.

Harper.4173:

I’m getting pretty tired of people “knowing exactly what the developers intended” in spite of the fact that they’re neither part of the dev team nor privy to Anet’s internal affairs.

You don’t need to be a part of their development team to have an understanding of what they are trying to do, and whether it is working or not.

serenke.4806:

They’re not using autoattack, but one key they chose before the run, so weapon/attunement swap can produce the effect they desired. That’s NOT the same as using only autoattack.

The point was that you don’t really need any tactics. The AI doesn’t pose any challenge, and can be killed with no strategy at all. And that was what this is about. The combat needs good ai to put up a real fight, where you are expected to pay attention, and react to what is happening.

If spamming your aoe heal skill occasionally, and spamming all your attacks in between, is enough to beat almost every PVE fight, then something is wrong.

This is what PVE combat looks like: I go through all my damage skills, rince and repeat. The enemies make no attempt to keep their distance, or stay out of an aoe effect. They don’t really use attacks that the players need to dodge. It’s as if this only happens during boss battles. It is as if only boss battles have the minimum effort put into them, to make them some what of a fight.

In GW1 enemies used to have builds, and unique skills, that made a difference. Silver Wastes is the first area where I’ve started seeing enemies that do something different. It is the first time I’ve seen enemies that have healers, or do charge attacks.

Kordash.2197:

For the challenge, well, you said in this thread that the majority of the PvE encounters is just spam ‘111111111’. This argument is often used by “anti zerkers”, and is just plain wrong.

If it’s wrong, then why does it work for so many of the PVE encounters? Have you actually tried it? Most of the PVE content does not demand any strategy, or clever positioning, or to change your build.

Kordash.2197:

I like this game, true, but where did i say it was perfect ? Yup, the combat system work as intended. And yup, it has his little flaws, like condi being to weak compared to direct damages until the last patch.

The flaws aren’t little. Defiant has been a big problem, and has rendered control skills against bosses pointless. This is finally being addressed with the break-bar system, so obviously the devs recognize it as a problem as well. Build variety is also an issue, and they are addressing this with the specializations.

You claim these things are little flaws, yet the devs apparently think they warrant a very large patch to the game. So there is a disconnect between what you and a developer would consider a major problem with the game. You just seem very accepting of the combat system, and don’t see the inherent flaws in the foundation.

Kordash.2197:

All i see is that you want the game to cater to your system. It will never happen, because it does NOT go with the core philosophy.

If you think that, then you have truly not understand a word I’ve said.

Kordash.2197:

Almost all “anti zerkers” are wrong because they don’t understand the system well.

I don’t think a game designer would ever agree with that statement, if they care for their audience. If there is a vocal majority complaining about a dominant meta in the game, then the game is to blame. You just dislike people who don’t share your opinion on the zerker meta. Me? I don’t care, I don’t side with anyone. I just look at the game, analyze it, and realize that indeed zerker IS dominant. And I can also see why its dominant: Defensive stats are rendered useless, because they don’t scale very well. At higher levels, there is very little difference between being hit in full armor, and being hit naked. You don’t want to get hit to begin with. Plus the game encourages DPS to be maximized, so zerker fits with that idea.This is an oversight of the developers. Something that they will be addresssing eventually.

Kordash.2197:

If i had to put it simple the combat system was intended to allow :
- Active defense over passive defense

But not at the expense of the viability of defensive gear and support. This is an oversight.

Kordash.2197:

- Experience > Gear stats (we all run zerker, because we know how to handle the content)

And because the game focuses only on maximizing DPS, and punishes players if they build defensively, or focus on support. This is an oversight.

Kordash.2197:

- No trinity (meaning no hard roles, see nike’s post above)

No trinity does not mean no roles. Currently the game feels dumbed down, and I know this is something the devs definitely want to fix.

Kordash.2197:

- Everything VIABLE (not optimal)

One meta should not overshadow everything else. Again, this can’t be what they intended. In the future we can expect to see more and more encounters that encourage players to not only invest in damage output. You may disagree with it, but expect HOT to have plenty of content that does just that.

Kordash.2197:

So yeah, the system work completly as intended.

If you don’t understand game design principles, I can understand why it may look like that way. But you’d be wrong. There are countless mechanics that don’t work well with each other, and some that outright contradict each other.

The dominance of dumb tactics, such as stacking in a corner, or zerking in wvw, are but symptoms of a larger underlying problem. They have a direct correlation to some of the flaws in the design of the combat system.

You enjoy the combat as is, and that’s fine. I can’t criticize that opinion. But you don’t see the inherent contradictions in the game design. You don’t see that a mechanic that makes enemies run away (Fear) directly contradicts with the goal of killing enemies, and that it also contradicts with the idea of static world bosses that can’t move. There are many mechanics in the game that have such contradictions, and that is a foundational problem. It is like they tossed in what ever idea sounded nice, without really thinking it through.

The combat system does not seem like a cohesive whole to me. It looks like a hotchpotch of ideas, that they are now trying to patch up.

Kordash.2197:

@Malafide

I challenge you to do any Dungeon/Fractal path with a full team hitting only your auto attack with any team comp. And please, post video here.

And what would that prove exactly?

Kordash.2197:

In the end, you don’t like the combat system, which is fine (thought I’m not sure why you are still here if you don’t like it) but stop saying it’s broken. It works as intended.

-which I suppose is why we are seeing massive changes to conditions, defiant, AI and the camera right now? Apparently it isn’t working as intended at all, and the devs realize that there are issues, which they are trying to address.

Look, I understand you like the game. That’s fine. But don’t pretend that everything is just perfect. It’s not. The game has many mechanics that don’t work very well, and could be improved on. It is healthy to be able to take a step back, and look objectively at the game as a whole.

We all know the countless complaint threads about stacking, zerker, etc. Those don’t just pop up out of nowhere. They have their origin in the game’s design. It would be lazy of any designer to discount those complaints as mere whining.

Draknar.5748:

I can’t speak for GW1 (I’ve heard it had a great system for builds), but in terms of every other MMO I’ve played, build diversity went by a meta. You are X class healer? You better be running this gear, these skills, should be using this rotation. You are X class DPS? You better be running this gear, these skills, using this rotation.

There’s a difference between meta, and actual diversity in builds. Meta is what the most popular builds are, and what people want other players to use. But build diversity in and of itself, is the ability to create vastly different variations on a class. In GW1 this lead to literally crazy interactions of skills, such as the 55 monk, or the 1 hp necro, Edge of Extinction bombs, etc. I’m talking functionally different builds, and not just statistically different. We don’t have this in GW2. The trait interactions aren’t free enough to allow for that sort of variety right now.

Draknar.5748:

I’m not sure why you think GW2 is less diverse than any other MMO, there are lots of potential builds, but if they aren’t meta then everyone scoffs.

Forget meta, this is purely about build diversity, not build popularity. It’s about being able to do things with skills and traits.

I can only compare GW2 to other MMO’s I’ve actually played, such as GW1 and DDO. And both have more build diversity. Not just because they have more skills (which would be an unfair comparison), but also due to the freedom to do really outrageous things by combining skills and traits.

Ansau.7326:

You are trying to convince myself your problems with the game are tremendous,

Not just MY problems, but problems many players have with the combat since release.

Ansau.7326:

pet AI issues are annoying, but defenitely not game breaking…

I’m not discussing things that are game breaking. I’m discussing things that break the combat system. JUST the combat system. The combat system. The combat system.

Just the combat system.

Ansau.7326:

You have a problem not being able to enjoy a thing cause of fuzzy details. And again, several threads with a few pages might seem it’s a big deal, but it isn’t.

Several threads that have been popping on these forums since the release of the game.

The thing that you seem to not understand, is that most bugs or class imbalances are temporary. A skill may be overpowered for a while, or not work correctly. But that is not really going to break the combat system as a whole.

No, what I’m discussing is core mechanics. You’re bringing up secondary mechanics.

That’s what I meant, I’m using the dedicated HDMI and VGA connections. They are both VGA flat screens, but I’m using a VGA to HDMI adapter for one of them.

Apolo.5942:

Im tired of PvEer screwing the game. 2 out of 3 game modes are pvp in one way or another, if you want pve go to WoW, you are doing it wrong.

Have you been eating angry cookies again?

Apolo.5942:

PVE is meaningless and its about time people got it straight, its a grind to ascended gear and skins. The faster you do it the better.

I wouldn’t say “fun” is meaningless. If all that matters is ascended gear and skins, perhaps. But I think many PVE players don’t see it like that. There’s more to PVE than just grind…. although the game has been taking a sharp turn towards grind as of late…

Apolo.5942:

In Spvp and WvW i have to agree damage is a tad high, having a fairly high armor 2600 armor and 17k hp, thiefs can burst you down in one implementation of stone with no chance to react.

Either the damage there is too high, or the effect of armor is too low. I don’t play pvp, but a common complaint I often hear, is that it is all about who bursts first. And that’s a shame.

mtpelion.4562:

Just chiming in to add that the camera is probably the worst in any game I have ever played.

Thanks for chiming in.

Although Ansau has already stated in advance that no amount of confirmation from other players will sway his/her opinion.

To quote: “Btw, forum is just a tiny representation of the whole community.”

So yeah, Ansau has already covered that possibility. Wouldn’t want to admit being wrong when too many people start agreeing that the camera in GW2 is terrible. I don’t really get what the big deal is. It’s not like I’m pooping all over the game by saying it has a terrible camera system. Plus the video clearly show the main issues, which are not just exclusive to Asura. I play a human character myself, and the camera drives me nuts.

Ansau.7326:

You’re completely wrong if you think a guard or necro should have the same access to active defenses like mesmers or thieves.

I don’t think any class should have skills that complete negate damage or give extra dodges. You already have 2 dodges, and all combat should be balanced around that. As long as you stay true to this philosophy, you can never make an encounter too easy or too difficult for certain classes (since all classes have 2 dodges and no more). It also makes fights such as with Liadri balanced, because one class cannot trivialize the fight by having more dodges than other classes.

It could very well be that my design philosophies differ from those of the devs, and I respect that. But they’ve made this mistake before in GW1 in regards to Shadowform and Obsidian Flesh. And I think they are making the same mistake again.

Invulnerability == bad game mechanic, in my opinion.

Ansau.7326:

If you cannot understand the essence of gw2 is about balancing mechanics, traits and skills based on if they can achieve these or that successfully and reasonably, and not how much more or less they performs compared to others, there’s no reason to keep trying to explain you anything.

I don’t think you have such a solid understanding of balancing game mechanics as you seem to think.

So, to provide even more proof that the things I mentioned are indeed big problems, check this old topic on targeting issues:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Targeting-Still-Broken-Please-Fix-It/first

Or this topic on camera issues:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Camera-control-issues-a-documented-list/first

Or these topics on AI:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Necromancer-pets-will-not-always-attack
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Did-Minionmancers-Get-a-Buff/first#post5227634
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necro-Summons-Pet-Controle-Missing
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Minion-AI-Possible-bandaid/first#post5226947
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Nobody-is-talking-about-minions/first#post5185754
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Patch-effects-on-MM
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Are-minion-builds-still-viable
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-Minion-Master-revamp-idea
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Minion-masters-will-be-gods-again/first#post5077104

lordkrall.7241:

Wait… so that post HoT additions should not be taken into consideration but at the same time the OP includes post Nightfall additions in the comparison?

The only post addition from Nightfall that I took into account, was Domain of Anguish. Because it was released almost immediately after the release of Nightfall.

Ansau.7326:

- So now short range is bad because you don’t like it.

That is not what I said. You don’t seem to understand the topic at hand here. I was saying that short-range buffs cause a type of emergent game play, where stacking is the most efficient. And that is a problem.

Ansau.7326:

- You keep telling poor AI, but in which way? And didn’t you read HoT will bring a way better AI?

I know better AI has been promised in the near future, and I think everyone highly welcomes it.

Right now however, the ai is very poor. See picture below of how bad minion Ai is.

This also extend to mob behavior. Mobs have no means of dealing with stacking, or aoe damage. They just run at you, and that’s it. Ranged enemies don’t attempt to keep their distance from the player, like they do for example in DDO. And we don’t have any flying enemies. Enemy behavior is just very boring.

Ansau.7326:

If you have so much knowledge, amuse me explaining how aggro works in this game, or how is determinated when a transportation skill is able to teleport.

Please don’t derail the discussion.

If you want to discuss the problem with aggro management, I’m all up for that. But it is an entire topic on its own. Rather than discuss how aggro works, lets discuss how it doesn’t work. Currently players have very little control over aggro. Enemies often go after players with high toughness, rather than players with high DPS. While each enemy can have its own unique aggro parameters, on the whole this seems to be the pattern.

This is a problem, because if you build for high defense, you are punished with more damage. That does not encourage anyone to have high toughness/armor.

Ansau.7326:

How many of you think the camera experience is so bad the game is worthless to play?

Strawman! The last bit of your sentence was tacked on to build a strawman argument.

Ansau.7326:

How many of you have so many problems at targeting that you’re unable to play properly?

I’ll do one better, I’ll provide a picture as evidence of the problem.

Ansau.7326:

Let’s see how many people agree with you. Btw, forum is just a tiny representation of the whole community.

Wow, you covered all options there in one sentence. First you say:

“Lets see how many people agree with you”

and in the next line you say:

“If people do agree with you, they are just a tiny representation of the whole community, so it won’t count anyway”

How reasonable of you.

Ansau.7326:

And the threads about camera issues a such a small part of the whole complaining amount of threads, it barely becomes an issue.

Being able to see what is going on during combat is a rather essential aspect of combat.

Ansau.7326:

Just because you can find some threads doesn’t mean it’s a big issue that ruins the game, so you’re exaggerating.

What if there are hundreds of threads on the topic?

Ansau.7326:

- Again, you don’t like massive fights, but it doesn’t mean they are bad.

I never said I don’t like massive fights.

Ansau.7326:

It’s clear you’ve never tried to understand it, just joined a pug zerg, you were melted the first time and your whole opinion is a bad design

Strawman! Again!

Regarding your list of ‘crucial’ game issues:

- Performance optimization, (not really game breaking)
-exploits and bugs (differ in impact depending on severity)
-issues with HoT pre-release (an argument over the price of HOT)
-dynamic events that aren’t what they announced (what?)
-story line very plane and far from what we had in gw1 (that’s a core problem?)
-unreasonable loot all across game modes (I have not heard that one before)
-unbalanced builds or skills/items (minor issues)
-inconsistent work-reward system (I’d say rewards overall are a problem)

Ansau.7326:

None of them were part of your arguments, so it’s clear how much exaggeration is in you.

Or you simply have a different idea of what are crucial game issues. I’d say the core game play (that would be combat) is the most important part of the entire game.

Ansau.7326:

- I quote: “Good luck I hate to see this game die off”. In that sentence I wasn’t referring about the time, but the feeling you have about the health of the game.

I made no statement about the health of the game at all. You made that up. This thread isn’t that long, anyone can scroll up a bit and see that I’m correct.

Ansau.7326:

Anyway, if you don’t like it, just leave. But leave knowing you haven’t understood how is this game, not because it’s utterly bad and broken.

I never said the game is bad and broken. I said there are fundamental issues with the combat system as a whole.

Some how that doesn’t always work Megastorm. I always thought that’s how its done, but nowadays that gets me killed.

Vayne.8563:

May I ask how many actual MMOs you’ve played before you purchased Guild Wars 2?

-GW1 for years
-DDO, still do
-Age of Bonan, for mere minutes, till I realized what an awful boring piece of consumer exploitation it was. Incompetently designed, boring and cliche.

Vayne.8563:

I’m relatively certain, no matter what reason you may have personally bought Guild Wars 2, that if Anet had said straight up, you’re getting only what’s in the box and that’s it, most people would not have bought it, or at least would have had second thoughts about buying it.

To clarify, I bought GW2 because of what it would contain, plus Anet advertized that they would keep supporting the game, adding more things to it eventually. They didn’t say what, and I didn’t pay for those things either. I paid for the core game, while knowing that there may eventually be new things added.

So when/if I buy HOT, I do not pay for future content. I pay for the expansion, and may or may not feel encouraged to buy it if they also say they’ll keep adding things. But I’m not paying for that future content, because it doesn’t exist yet.

So it may be a bug?

serenke.4806:

Let’s be honest, you could play the game with the old camera system, it was not like you ended up cursing at it every day. So yes, you are exaggerating badly.

Yes you could. It was kind of like playing a game with a camera system from the PS1 era of games, and it made some players nauseous, but you could. It was however pretty bad, I think that is hard to deny.

If I can pick any random PS1 or PS2 game from my shelf right now, and it has a better camera system, then I think we safely say that GW2’s camera is pretty terrible. I’ll even say it is clearly unfinished. Its like a rough beta of a camera system.

(Heck, even the camera systems in one of the games I’ve worked on myself is better than the one in GW2, and THAT camera system was terrible! Granted, that was a rail camera, but it was pretty buggy.)

But like I said, it is but one of many problems with the game’s combat.

Ansau.7326:

You’re wrong here.
- Conditions are now in par with power damage, since the limit cap is gone and vulnerability also affects condis. There are builds able to do 2k/s with burning, 2k/s with bleeding, 1.5k/s with poison and 1k/s with torment or confusion. That’s about 6-7k/s plus the small direct damage.

And yet this doesn’t hold true for all professions. And you also have to account for the ramp up time for conditions to reach their maximum damage potential. I’ll agree that the recent improvements are a huge leap forward (as I did in my original post), but we’re not there yet.

Ansau.7326:

- Defiant is there because without it pve would be dull and extremely easy. Just bring 1 interrupt class and the mobs wouldn’t do any attack. I also think that it could be improved to a more dynamic way, but blaming all the combat just because of defiant is a bit unfair.

I didn’t blame all the combat problems on Defiant, but it sure is part of the long list of problems, and it should be mentioned. I know why Defiant was added, but it was a lazy solution, that ultimately made control skills feel terribly redundant in PVE.

The break-bar mechanic solves part of the problem with control skills, but not all of the problems. For example, the break-bar still negates the inherent functionality of a control skill, thus making every control skill essentially the same as far as their actual effect. And that is a shame.

Ansau.7326:

You need to see this with the whole perspective, not just dodges/invul. Yes, some classes have better acces to dodge/invul, but others have other ways to survive, like better healing, better condi cleansing, higher base stats…

And that is not how it works. I can forgive you for not understanding complex game mechanics, and I’ll try and explain why this is such a big problem.

Lets start back in GW1. Invulnerability has always been a big balance problem. When ever an invulnerability skill was introduced, balance problems would quickly raise their ugly heads. Take for example Shadow Form, or Obsidian Flesh. This problem has now escalated to GW2, where they once again introduce invulnerability-type skills.

The main problem here is that at its core, all classes should be essentially the same. They can have their own unique traits and gimmicks, but for balance sake, everyone needs to be able to dodge the same amount of times to have some semblance of balance. This is the heart of any hazard in GW2. You dodge or you die. Dodging is the core defensive mechanic in GW2. It is more important than anything else. How often you can dodge is essential. The fact that some classes can dodge more than others, is a problem that is not balanced out by better healing, better condi cleansing, or higher base stats. It’s all about the dodge.

And that’s not a bad concept, but you have to hold true to it. Anet kind of broke their own design rule.

Ansau.7326:

Devs clarified before the game release that they’d simplify the trait system, because the GW1 idea wasn’t viable, with thousands of skills and tons of builds that made the system uncontrollable and the biggest challenge in that game.

I know why they did it. But now I feel something is lacking. And I know I can’t be alone in this.

Ansau.7326:

Gw2 is not about what you do or what build you take, but more how you play and how. The same build can be played in several ways, because this is more an action combat game, so the way you play is the most important thing.

And yet builds should matter. There is no reason why the two can’t go hand in hand. And I think the devs want exactly that which I describe, but without the hassle they had in GW1. I think they are working on it, but they aren’t there yet.

Ansau.7326:

You can look 2 people playing the same build in gw1 and they will have the same skills and doing the same combos.

Not quite. I have faced off against necromancers with near identical builds to my own in GW1, and there was a difference that allowed me to beat them.

Ansau.7326:

The only problem the game has had with traits is that some of them were so game changing that the professions felt limited without them, so the build diversity was crippled. But that doesn’t mean the rest of traits had good ideas.

No, I have said this before, and I’ll say it again: The real problem is that the game has superior and inferior game mechanics. There are classes that are stuck with mostly inferior game mechanics. Guardian clearly has most of the superior game mechanics, which is why we see so many of them. It’s not a mystery, or a trend. There’s a perfectly valid game mechanical reason for why you see so many guardians in the game.

Vayne.8563:

So the value of Guild Wars 2 is only the value of the box. Fractals don’t add to the value. They weren’t there at launch. Guild missions don’t add to the value. Three new zones don’t add to the value.

They didn’t add value when I bought GW2, because they didn’t exist. I bought GW2 because of what it contained.

It is the same for HOT.

Ansau.7326:

I never had problems with camera in this game. You’re overexaggerating, because the internet is not so full of camera issues threads. In fact, I put camera moa Jormag in the google and there’s no thread about complains… And with the latest improvements, there’re are less motives to complain.

Little do you know:

So yeah, the camera is a well known problem in the game for as long as anyone can remember. There have been countless threads about it, and eventually people just kind of gave up. It’s not even under discussion. EVERYONE knows how bad the camera is in GW2.

You call the latest changes to the camera “improvements”. I call them bare essentials for a moderately enjoyable game experience. Because really, the original camera system needed an exorcism badly.

Ansau.7326:

First, stacking is due to no body-blocking, a feature of the game. If you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s broken.

No that’s not the only reason. It’s due to many other things as well:

-Poor AI
-The game’s bias towards short range buffs, thus encouraging stacking for maximum damage and support.
-The set up of encounters, and lazy dungeon design

Ansau.7326:

Mobs running is another feature to make them less dull. It is reasonable that when someone is near the death, they panic.

You do not understand game mechanics. That is fine.

Ansau.7326:

Also what an overexaggeration by calling AI completely utterly broken

You haven’t played a minion master I see.

Ansau.7326:

and you’re the first that thinks the most annoying of this game are the camera, AI and things that NO ONE is aware of.

I dare you to ask anyone on this forum what they think of the targeting, camera and ai. In fact, search the forum for threads about these problems to get a clear picture of the scale of these issues. I wouldn’t bring it up unless everyone and their mother was fed up with these problems.

Ansau.7326:

All you’ve said just prove how little you have understood about how this game is.

So far this is the only actual argument you have used.

Ansau.7326:

All your complains are very biased, because reasonably they are small things here and there and only pve related (when there’re also wvw and pvp which seems you don’t have ever tried).

I’m more of a PVE player, but some of these issues also extend to WvW for sure. The massive zerks in WvW is another example of emergent game play from a poor combat system.

Ansau.7326:

The game has much bigger problems, worth of complaining, you don’t even mention.

Such as?

Ansau.7326:

You come here blaming the game is completely broken and it will die fast,

You just made this up. I only criticized the combat system, and said nothing about the future of the game.

Yes. It should not be factored into the price. I pay for what I get now, not for what I maybe get later.

It’s not quite that simple. Minions still need to draw a path to their destination. The lava isn’t really an obstacle, since it doesn’t pose any pathing issues. It is simply a transparent sheet that creatures walk through, rather than step onto.

To solve minion pathing, they would probably need to change the way AI moves. This means allowing creatures to more easily step-onto things. But pathing also demands a route to the destination. You can’t really have minions walk through a mountain or wall. They have to go around it. They have to calculate a path around obstacles in a reliable way.

maddoctor.2738:

Are you talking about pvp or pve here?

Both. The combat system as a whole.

Ansau.7326:

I really need your arguments about:
- What are the problems with DPS/condis/control.

DPS dominates the game, while conditions and control are less important. Condition damage for example, is still not on par with DPS damage. And control skills are rendered void by defiant. Then there are also problems with things like fear, which makes enemies run away, which in PVE is usually something you don’t want. Only now has the condition cap been fixed, and are they improving the effects of conditions over all. They are also finally adding the break-bar, but I think that’s only half a fix. These fixes are welcome, but 3 years too late.

Ansau.7326:

- Why you think there’s a problem with the dodge mechanic being at all professions.

Not all professions have an equal amount of access to dodge. Some classes have endurance regen, others have invulnerability, and some have all of the above. Invulnerability is basically a free dodge, so the distribution of the dodge ability is completely out of whack. The core idea is fine: Every class gets two dodges. And yet they don’t. They broke their own design rule.

Ansau.7326:

- What do you understand depth in the trait system.

The game lacks build diversity. There is not enough in the trait system to make really unique and interesting builds. Not in the way you see in other MMO’s, or like in GW1. I blame the removal of the dual profession-system for this. I don’t feel like my necromancer is all that different from any other necromancer. Sure, I can max out my DPS, or my conditions, or specialize in minions. But I don’t really feel like there’s a lot of opportunity for interesting build mechanics. You won’t see any 55 monks in GW2, just to give an example.

Specializations finally add a bit more diversity, which was badly needed. A clear sign that the devs recognize this problem too. I’m not sure if it is enough though. Recent fixes for trait synergy for all classes are also a great and much needed improvement. If you want to do clever trait combinations, it sure helps if the traits do what you expect them to do when you combine them with other traits.

Ansau.7326:

- What problems do you have with the camera and targeting.

I don’t think this needs any explanation. EVERYONE knows how broken the camera and targeting are. Fortunately they have now finally started fixing the camera (it’s in beta). But again, 3 years too late. Just search the forum for all the countless threads of people accidentally targeting moa’s while fighting the Claw of Jormag.

Ansau.7326:

- What is lacking in the AI.

It is completely utterly broken. Minions stand around doing nothing, and often run away from enemies when they should be attacking. PVE enemies get absolutely obliterated by stacking, because they have no AI to deal with even the most basic of cheese-strategies.

AI in the game is such a big problem, that a lot of necromancers have completely written off the Minion Master as a viable build, simply due to the unreliable AI of minions.

It also translates to boring combat. This is why so many fights in PVE turn into a case of 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1. Enemies don’t respond to what happens in combat, and there is zero aggro management at work too. Maybe the new taunt system will finally address this issue.

Ansau.7326:

All I see is you didn’t understand what this game is about, you expected it to be like a lot of classic mmo and here you’re wrong.

If you have to ask me what’s wrong with the targeting, camera, or ai, then I think you don’t know what this game is about. All the others are valid questions. But targeting, camera and ai are things that everyone who plays the game is aware of.

Grimrah.9256:

I spent 99.99 plus tax today for the Heart of Thorns expansion and I have spent thousands of dollars on Gems from day one until now and do not regret a moment of it. I enjoy this game so much and has brought me and family together for quality game time together. I wish people would try and think about the purchase as a way of supporting the company and brand rather then focusing on what the rest of the genre is doing or has done. I am just pointing out that it is a matter of perspective and how much you really want to support the brand. I think in the long run including the core game as part of the Heart of Thorns is going to save many head aches for the company and the players.

I didn’t realize this was a charity, my mistake. I thought I was just buying a product.

Erukk.1408:

So, I’m guessing we’re writing off all the additional content they are going to add to HoT over time via LS for the comparison?

The Living Story is meant to be free. We are not supposed to be paying for that.

I took the fall damage trait, and carefully dropped myself to the first rock on the left. Then you can proceed from there.

I used to think that Sharkmaw was simply a matter of aiming for the waterfalls while you slide down, but either I was wrong, or this got bugged at some point. Now doing that is a guaranteed suicide.

The combat has been broken since release. They are trying to fix some of it now, be it 3 years too late. I like some of the improvements they’ve made, but like I’ve always said: It is not a problem that can easily be fixed. The combat is broken from the very core. From the core mechanics being completely skewed (DPS/conditions/control) to class balance, to the dodge mechanic being unevenly distributed across the classes, to the trait system lacking depth, to the defiant problem, to the targeting and camera system, and of course the AI.

I’ll give the devs the benefit of the doubt, and assume they are aware of all these problems. But it will take a lot of time to fix. This is probably a problem they should have tackled before even releasing the game, but I’m glad that they are at least trying to fix some of it. Don’t expect all of this to be cleared up in one big patch. It will happen slowly, with some stumbling along the way.

My two monitors are both connected to the only connections I have on the back of my pc, which would be the motherboard. As for GPU drivers, I haven’t touched those, and don’t think I should.

selberkh.6859:

the issue their is that you arent re-buying gw2 it comes FREE with the expansion. that means, wether you admit it or not, its not repurchasing as you arent paying for it.

Or so they say. For a price of $50 bucks, I don’t believe that.

Yo mama is so fat, she takes up all your extra character slots.
Yo mama is so fat, her bikini line has its own explorer achievement.
Yo mama is so fat, Zhaitan claimed her as his domain by mistake.
Yo mama is so fat, when she discovers a new vista, it becomes night time
Yo mama is so fat, when she finds diving goggles, people start building rafts
Yo mama is so fat, when she does a jumping puzzle, they have to replace it with a new one afterwards.

MiniEquine.6014:

If they get 1 activation code, then everyone is receiving the same product.

No, we are not. I’m not getting an activation code for GW2. And while I already have GW2, shouldn’t the price be lower for me, since I’m not getting the core game, and just the expansion?

Yes, I know they are saying the core game is free. I think that is a load of rubbish. The expansion is priced as a full game. You can bet your sweet behind that the value of the core game is included in that. And that comes across as very shady.

It’s not about us versus them. It’s never been about that at all.

Dimos Avergis.1864:

Has that problem occurred after the latest patch from gw2? Or did u just installed gw2 on that pc?

Ever since I installed a new motherboard, with more memory, and installed Windows 8. I reinstalled GW2, and installed Dragon Age 3, along with other games such as Half-Life 2, Minecraft, DDO. They all run fine, except Minecraft (I blame java for that). I can’t really point at any particular GW2 update that may be the culprit, since I was away from GW2 for a while.

Dimos Avergis.1864:

U said that Dragon age is running fine, did u just tested if after the gw2 fps problem occurred? Or was it a while ago?

I haven’t tested Dragon Age 3 very recently (probably a few months ago). Both DA3 and GW2 were installed right after installing Windows 8 on this new machine. But I have played other games more recently, such as Half-Life 2 and DDO, which run fine.

Dimos Avergis.1864:

Because I think that u just put the monitor cable in the wrong slot of your mainboard, so u are on your onboard-GPU atm, which is a “weak” HD Graphics 4600 and wont give your any more than 10fps with your settings I believe.

What makes you think that?

Dimos Avergis.1864:

Edit: Why do u have a 1k ping btw? o.O

Maybe because of my wireless router, or a display error. I don’t generally have problems with lag at all.

VOLKON.1290:

No, I’m not paying again for the core. I’m simply not getting the core again (for no cost) because I already have it.

Doesn’t matter whether you already have it. The price for you is the same as for someone who doesn’t own the core game. So you could be paying for it again, without knowing it.

VOLKON.1290:

What others get or don’t get is irrelevant.

This is not about what others get. It’s about what we get for paying the same price.

Galen, I can’t really disagree with anything you just said. And I think that means we’re kind of in agreement, and understand each other. Not on whether HOT is worth the price tag, but in agreement on the current situation, the lack of information, and the leap of faith aspect of it all.

Thanks for your help, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem. The weird thing is, other games run just fine, only GW2 has this issue. And look at my FPS!

2! It’s down to 2! That is unplayable. Even my laptop runs GW2 better than that!
I can play stuff like Dragon Age Inquisition on nearly the highest settings. This is absurd.

Update:
I have contacted GW2 support, and they got back to me quite fast, and asked me to run an app to give them a full system report, which I did. I’m now awaiting their response.

VOLKON.1290:

Let me slow this down for you.

I pay $50.00 and get exactly what I expect for the money I’m spending.
New players pay $50.00 and also get the same expansion, and so they can actually access the expansion they also get access to the core as well. The core that I already have and have had since closed beta.

The core that you are paying for AGAIN with the expansion.

And what if the raid simply includes cool weapon and armor skins? Or an achievement?

Vayne.8563:

DDO? hahhaha conversation over.

Turbine was a greedy horrible company long before Warner Bros took them over. One of my friends is a DDO player and does nothing but complain about what thieves they are. He used to be in my GW 1 guild and got involved in DDO, which he enjoys. But saying that Turbine’s pricing policies are somehow better than Anet’s? lmao

Okay.

I have yet to pay a single dime for DDO. I’ve bought all expansions by simply playing the game and earning DDO points, and one expansion was gifted to me. So they seem pretty fair to me.

But even if you think Turbine is also greedy, so what? Does that make it right?

Galen Grey.4709:

I am not sure what the holes are supposed to be to be honest. What holes did the living story patch?

I was referring to the fact that we buy a product that will have to be patched shortly after release. This has been the case for the core game, and also for Nightfall and Eye of the North. In the case of GW2, a large chunk of the dynamic quests, and nearly all of the traits and skills were bugged. This will be the case for HOT as well. We don’t pay for a perfectly polished product. We pay for a rough product, and are even given the option to pay for testing it for them.

Galen Grey.4709:

I assume the picture at the back refers to the fight with mordremoth right? I looked hard and wide but didnt manage to find one single statement by an devs saying we will not get to fight modremoth in the expansion. Considering they gave us 0 news on the story I’d find it hard to believe they already spoke on that respect. Do you happen to have a link where they stated no fight in HoT?

Like I said, don’t have a link. Just remember it being mentioned in an interview. People just blindly assume that he has to be in the expansion, and for many this is a reason to buy the expansion. I think it is about time Anet spoke up about it.

Galen Grey.4709:

Which updates in the past 3 years were not free (accessories was an analogy for updates)

I was mostly referring to all the gem store content.

Galen Grey.4709:

Would it though? If every T-Shirt in the world sold for $100, would someone releasing kitten t-shirt be considered overpriced? What people are willing to pay for something is a massive driver for pricing. Just look at housing. 30 years ago houses around here sold for about $100,000ish now a days they sell for about $300,000 though no one would even dream selling the house they bought for $100,000 for anything less then $300,000 because ultimately the price isn’t what an item costs but what people are willing to pay, it may be unfair but its how the business world works.

A lot of games are trying the free-to-play model nowadays. GW1 started the trend, but it is now no longer a unique feature. And companies are trying to find other ways to earn money from their customers. This started in GW1 with the in-game store (which made a lot of people unhappy), and then continued into GW2 to a much larger degree. Now the whole gem store concept, along with constant DLC, has become mainstream. We are seeing pay walls in a lot of games, and more and more companies are trying to exploit their customers.

It started out really innocent, but has slowly but surely been growing into an ugly beast. And it is going to keep doing that, unless we as customers send a clear message. This pre-purchasing concept is a bad deal for consumers. And the only way we’re going to stop it, is by saying no.

There are plenty of people who would pay $60, $70 or even $100 bucks for half an expansion, packed with Living Story left overs, because they think the expansion is worth it. That does not put them in the right. What little we know of HOT does not validate the current price tag. It just doesn’t. And by paying it anyway, consumers are contributing to the problem of overinflated expansion pricing.

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. And if you think you can get the same value anywhere else TODAY, good luck to you,. because you can’t. Guild Wars 1 came a time when that sort of thing was possible. I don’t see any value like that around today.

DDO?

Vayne.8563:

Maybe you want to spend the rest of your days looking for that value and never play anything again.

Or alternatively, vote with your wallet, and encourage more game companies to not be so greedy.

Vayne.8563:

Because there is no expansion to Guild Wars 1. It doesn’t exist. So I can’t play it. And there’s no other MMO that makes a game that’s worth playing.

I’m assuming you meant to say GW2, since GW1 obviously has Eye of the North.

Vayne.8563:

So either you spend a few zillion dollars and build a time machine to a time when you can get that value, or you accept the fact that times have changed, or you don’t and play only games and never expansions, because by your reckoning, none of them will be worth it.

Or! Or! You don’t accept it, and show the game industry that they have to be reasonable with the pricing of their expansions. If enough people vote with their wallet, they will have to reduce the price. Yes, even mammoth companies like Blizzard.

More staff, means more wages, means more expensive production costs.

What they need is competent management. Look at how much content was created during the Living Story, and then tossed away. What a huge waste of resources! Do they not plan ahead? Why isn’t the Twisted Marionette a permanent addition to Lornar’s Pass? Why did they remove the Molten Facility, and completely break it apart for Fractals? Same for the Aetherblade dungeon. Broken apart for Fractals, thus destroying the original flow of the dungeon and drastically shortening it. The original creator must feel heart broken.

Is there no planning involved with this? Does management just bounce from one idea to the next, with no one drawing out a straight course that ensures that nothing goes to waste?

Take the Crown Pavilion for example, or the new Lion’s Arch. Yeah, it’s a great idea that things change. But they could have added all that content in an empty spot of the world, rather than an existing location, and it would have increased the size of the world.

And what of the Zephyr Sanctum? That place is not connected to anything, and we only go there once a year. What a waste of resources! It’s smack down in the middle of nowhere.

Or what about Super Adventure Box? They have one release where they get negative feedback, and the project is immediately aborted, never to be heard from again. If you start something, bloody well commit to it!

This is what Anet needs. They don’t need more money. They need someone competent to lead the projects. And perhaps they already have too many incompetent project leaders already, and need to toss some of them out.

Draw out a clear course that ensures that nothing goes to waste, and stay the course. Don’t create a ton of amazing content, and then delete it a few weeks later. Will we ever be able to fight Scarlet on board the Breach Maker ever again? Probably not. But apparently we CAN replay parts of the living story…. just not the conclusion of the story. What a mess!

Did none of the management think at the start of the project: “You know what, we should probably make sure this doesn’t go to waste, and make sure people can replay it all”?

I think Anet had a ton of concept art made that ended up not being used (yet), as most big game companies often do. It could be that this is concept art for an area that was supposed to be in the original game, rather than in the new expansion.

I hope we get to see it eventually, because it looks amazing.

Galen Grey.4709:

I mean I am heavily speculating now but I think there is a good chance the expansion will have more then 25 story missions and more then 205 dynamic events. using your own logic wouldnt that put it above the $50 prophecies charged?

Lets go deep in the dark crevises of speculation and state there is going to be 50 story missions and 500 dynamic events. If we compare it with the original guild wars using your metric thats worth $100

You know, I thought your estimate of 25 story missions was already way too generous.

Galen Grey.4709:

if we compare it to Gw2 thats still about 33% of what the core game had so worth $20

Add in some of the other features, and you close in on about $35 bucks, which would be a very reasonable price for any MMO expansion.

Galen Grey.4709:

2 very different conclusions which we came to using metric. Provided there are actually 50 story missions and 500 dynamic events (which as yet we don’t know) based on content size this expansion is overpriced and under-priced at the same time depending with what you compare it to. How can that be explained? only possible way is the price chosen never had a direct relation to the amount of content in the first place. Because if it did Gw2 so have cost a lot more than prophecies did.

50 story missions I think is a wild over estimation on your part. I don’t think we’ll get even half of that. This is a small expansion, not a full stand alone game.

Look, I think the price will always be a balance between:

-1- The amount of new content
-2- The production costs
-3- What the customer is willing to pay (for an expansion)

Point 1 is directly linked to point 3. You have what Anet thinks the content is worth, and you have what the customer thinks the content is worth. Anet tries to strike a balance between the two.

Point 2 on the other hand is more a case of, how many copies do we need to sell to break even? And how many copies do we expect to sell?

Galen Grey.4709:

Thing is this isnt a white brand t-shirt, its a quality fashion shirt that sells for $50 and you can keep wearing it proudly for 2-3 years.

Although they will need to patch certain holes in the T-shirt right after you bought it, and while many customers were expecting the T-Shirt to have a really awesome picture at the back, that picture will in fact be added much later.

Galen Grey.4709:

The company is also nice enough to supply you with free accessories now and then too.

Although most of the accessories will not be free. Just the ones that fix holes in the T-shirt.

Galen Grey.4709:

Now you can stop and just consider the price and conclude this is the most expensive shirt there is. Or you could look at the big picture and realize that everything considered the value you’re getting over time is actually better then some cheaper options.

Another way to look at it, is that those other brands of T-shirts are not just expensive, but deliver bad quality on top of that. This T-shirt delivers good quality, but for a really really high price.

It’s not that the quality of this T-shirt is remarkably better. It’s just that the deal you are getting from other T-shirt manufacturers is remarkably worse. Basically, they are all trying to squeeze dollars out of their customers, but some T-shirt manufacturers are more greedy than others.

This map is more accurate: http://zoom.it/cw31d

Basically, yes a large chunk of Riven Earth would be in the bottom part of Metrica Province, and the other half would be in the foggy area below it.

Currently I see no reason to ever want to pick Dhuumfire. Blood has become more interesting. Death Magic will never be interesting with the current poor state of minion AI, and I haven’t found a use for it on none-MM builds.

Overall with some traits now being baseline, I find myself in a position where I have more freedom to choose other traits for my well-o-mancer. So well-builds seem in a better spot now. Consume Conditions is absolutely horrible, and I would never choose it as it is now.

Galen Grey.4709:

what I am trying to say, most likely really badly is personally I don’t think you can measure a price by content simply because there is no direct relation there. Price here is more of a raw supply and demand affair.

I disagree. Just because some people are willing to pay more for a product, does not mean that you can’t compare content vs price.

Yes, there will always be fans that will throw down as many dollars as required, regardless of how high the price is. That does not mean that that price is justified.

You seem to be implying that the value of a product is completely abstract, and differs from person to person. And while each person will no doubt attach a different value to any given product, that doesn’t mean that the product cannot be given an inherent value based on its content alone. I don’t think it is entirely subjective, as you seem to suggest it is. With digital products this is perhaps more difficult than with physical products, but it doesn’t make it impossible. In fact, the GW2 core game gives a direct comparison.

If we agree that GW2 was originally reasonably priced at $60, then I think we can also agree that any expansion that has the same price tag, should deliver at least as much content for that value.

Haha, 4 guardians?!