Guild Wars 2

A Cure Worse Than The Disease

The grand irony of the NPE is that the developers became alarmed that a large percentage of players weren’t using traits and were otherwise lagging behind as they leveled up, so rather than educating them directly about these features, they redesigned the game to make everyone play the way they tried to “fix” in the first place.

Here’s hoping this benighted method of problem solving is no longer in vogue at ArenaNet.

You mean like the Mesmer Scepter?

What We Currently Know…

To unlock a full core specialization, you must bring the Knights of ArenaNet… a shrubbery! One that looks nice, and not too expensive.

To unlock an elite specialization, you must bring the Knights of ArenaNet… another shrubbery! When you have found the shrubbery, you must place the shrubbery there, beside the first shrubbery, only slightly higher, so you get a two-level effect with a path through the middle.

Once you have accomplished that, then you must cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with… a herring!

In other words, basically the same system we have now.

Anyandrell.6238:

Ah, and yes, Moderator, don’t forget to suspend me. That will definitely help tremendously and will make this 40+ y.o. woman all of a sudden gain a lot of respect for you and Anet.

No need to worry about that or challenge the mods. They are commendably tolerant of extremely harsh criticism of the game, as my continued ability to post testifies.

As long as your feedback is focused on the game itself, they can handle it, and sincerely seem to appreciate honesty — even if the news isn’t good.

Just sayin’

Undesirable Traits

When the new trait regime launched a year ago, I was convinced it wouldn’t last and, aside from buying a few grandmaster traits for my existing level 80s, refused to buy into that system and went from playing the game on an almost daily basis to not playing it for months at a time, and not leveling alts.

Not compensating players for gold and skill points invested into the current trait regime when Specializations launch would confirm the wisdom of that decision, and the wisdom of effectively avoiding GW2 for most of a year while they sorted things out.

I doubt that’s the message ArenaNet would want to send, but that’s the message they would be sending.

Since I didn’t invest heavily in the current trait regime, I don’t have a strong personal interest in how it is handled. I just want it to end as soon as possible and find its rightful place on the ash heap of history.

I do, however, think it would be in the best interests of the game to put this horrible fiasco to bed as graciously as possible, and that would include compensating players for their trait system losses when Heart of Thorns finally puts this godawful system that has infected this game for over a year out of its misery.

Hope On The Horizon

I have been very strident in my criticism of the NPE and trait changes, and they have basically pushed me away from active play for many more months than I could have ever expected, but I am quite encouraged by Jon’s posts on Specializations.

I think I can see where the designers want to go with character development, and if I’m right, I think I can get on board with it.

At the very least, I’m relieved to see some tacit acknowledgement of the problems with the current regime in Jon’s narrative, and a likewise tacit but nonetheless tangible commitment to not repeat the major mistakes of the past year.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty — and, frankly, some distrust — to clear up, but where I had previously been in no mood to even consider purchasing Heart of Thorns, I can see it happening now.

I’d call that progress.

I’m waiting for them to make the Zhaitan fight soloable before any of my characters bother with it.

If that happens to be “never”, so be it.

I’m patient.

On the bright side, I suppose by the time this fiasco gets resolved, the alts I haven’t been playing will have birthday gifts waiting in their inboxes when I finally log them in.

mako.2431:

OoOoOoooooOooooo a developer huh…citing your profession over the internet always convinces people.

Hey, it impressed me!

And as a veteran astronaut and Congressional Medal of Honor awardee, I’m not easily impressed.

mako.2431:

What prank lasts 24 kittening hours?

The best kind.

Runied by rouge haxors!!1!!111!!!!

“Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean that really got out of hand fast!”

— Ron Burgundy, Anchorman

The Not-So-Secret Secret Of Southsun Cove

States.6387:

Why does no one play here?

Because there’s no reason to play there.

It’s a pain to solo for mediocre rewards, most events aren’t soloable at all, and groups tend to be nonexistent except for the Karka Queen, immediately after which the boss train heads off the to next event in some other map and leaves the place deserted again.

Southsun Cove is a vestigial artifact of a massive live event that never really went anywhere after that, and a monument to what happens when you build an area around group-only content. It just never gets above critical mass.

The map itself is beautiful and would have great potential if it was ever turned into a proper place to adventure, but sadly that just hasn’t happened, so there it sits, languishing away as an “uncharted desert isle”.

I would prefer a cap on the number of currencies.

The closer to “one” the better.

You can revert my camera changes when you pry them from my cold, dead eyes.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nope, it’s usually the PvP communities that are the most toxic and hostile.

Nope, it’s always the other community we aren’t a part of that is the most toxic and hostile, which is why they are our enemies and we have to defeat them.

/all_of_human_history_summarized_in_one_sentence

Flyphish.6398:

Nothing is quite as fun as ganking a map completer. Oh well, all good things come to an end.

Now you will have to find healthier outlets for your misplaced aggression.

It’s better for you in the long run.

Trust me.

Tibstrike.2974:

So this removes any reason for a player to enter WvW.

If this were true, then the problem would be WvW, not map completion.

Fortunately, it’s not true — though WvW most certainly could use more love.

What about the gankers?

Won’t somebody please think of the gankers?

You don’t kill WoW by being more like WoW.

And it’s not about killing WoW in the first place, but making the best game possible.

There’s more work to be done, but so far I think ArenaNet is doing a pretty good job. Dare I say it?

“Wow.”

The Rumour Game™ CONFIRMED!

…

Wait… am I late?

I just want to push a button and get a reward, and do that repeatedly until it becomes the essence of who I am.

Operant conditioning has never been so exciting!

At this point, the thread reads like a cross between Das Kapital and Civilization and Its Discontents, but I’m not sure how this actually relates to the price of silk.

I’m definitely going to have to find me one of them there loot caves, though.

Thanks, Branden, for bringing so many much-needed camera improvements into the game!

I can’t wait for them to go live.

I think the changes to Stability are a great idea, as long as the relevant skills are properly adjusted to account for the differences.

Count me in as a fan — if done right.

So basically, what I’ve learned from this thread so far is…

About. Kitten. Time.

I would have really preferred seeing this in beta, or in the long, long intervening years since (sheesh!), but now that it’s finally, finally almost here, I just gotta say…

Thanks Branden! Thanks Colin!

And thanks, ArenaNet.

The Power Of Choice

Ashendale.2165:

But what I and other people have been advocating is the OPTION to chose which way you want to level up.

It would be better than throwing people away. As you said, the people that go may justify the people that it retains. I’m not a manager, but if I could effing easily retain both groups, would it not be the right approach to take?

That would indeed be a sensible approach, it’s all I’m really asking for, and if it had been considered and provided for when the changes were made, threads like this one and the (multiple) Trait Changes threads would be much, much shorter and a hell of a lot less acrimonious.

But that’s not what happened, so here we are.

For me, “here” is taking a break from GW2 (still my favorite game of all time, I should point out) except for the occasional log-in to grab a quick daily bag, maybe taking one of my level 80s out for a quick spin and checking for any news of substance about when we can expect changes to the character development experience.

So far, same old same old, and that’s not surprising, because these things do take time.

The Power Of One

In the meantime, I recommend that my fellow players not get caught up in an endless cycle of finger-pointing and recriminations. As easy as it is to fall into, it is ultimately less satisfying than doing other things, and frankly less productive than doing nothing at all.

ArenaNet has given us threads like these to offer our feedback. When we do, we speak only for ourselves, not millions of other players. Other players speak for themselves, mostly by voting with their feet rather than posting in forums, and how they spend their leisure time is entirely up to them, not us.

The developers of this fine game can see what all players are actually doing when they log in (or don’t log in) and don’t need the forums at all to know what players like and don’t like. The numbers speak clearly enough for themselves.

My hope is that they will lead ArenaNet to make better decisions about the Guild Wars 2 player experience in 2015 than they made in 2014.*

But that’s just me.

Your Mileage May Vary.

…

* In fairness, ArenaNet did make some excellent decisions in 2014; I just don’t think the trait changes and NPE were among them.

Politics By Other Means

The central, overarching lesson of emergent gameplay is that there is absolutely, positively nothing people won’t fight over.

Nothing.

Teleport To Commander = Perma-Zerg

Sounds amusing.

Well, I’m seeing 300 posts in this new thread, but nothing that actually tells me what to expect from the new trait system, just a lot of opinions and speculation like in the old thread.

What do we actually know about the new trait system?

Playing other games for a while is the best way to appreciate how nice the GW2 community actually is.

Welcome to the new Suggestions forum.

Ayrilana.1396:

Well wouldn’t an exploiter be using an exploit in order to be an exploiter?

I love that sentence, so, to agree…

If you report the exploiter, ArenaNet should be able to exploit the exploiter’s identity to identify the exploit.

ArenaNet does have algorithms in place to identify “teleport hacking”, so if someone is not being caught by them, knowing which accounts are using the hack can help them tune their detection methods.

At the very least, it couldn’t hurt to let them know.

A New Way of Looking at Healing and Death

While it may not completely answer the OP’s questions, Jon Peters’ article does explain much of the thinking that went into the current GW2 combat system.

Also, I like this…

O Solo Mio

I would like it if ArenaNet offered more content that was soloable, because not needing to form groups and deal with all the hassle and overhead associated with them was one of the major draws that lured me away from LOTRO in the first place (and ultimately ruined all traditional MMOs for me, leaving me stuck here).

I first played GW2 during BWE2 back in 2012, and being able to do group content without actually needing to form a group, haggle over loot, etc. was so revolutionary that I still remember those early days with fondness.

Two-and-a-half years, 32 characters and over 4,200 hours later, I still haven’t run a single dungeon and have no plans to. Because the personal story ends with a forced group, I haven’t completed the personal story on a single character and have no plans to.

Why? It’s not because I’m antisocial. I really enjoy playing alongside other players, and when a tough dynamic event comes up, I’m always happy to see other players join in.

But I really don’t care for the process of forming groups, communicating without voice chat (type-type-type-type!) and basically dealing with all that stuff because frankly, after having played MMOs for the last twelve years, I’m just not interested in it anymore.

Not my cup of tea, plain and simple.

Anyway, I don’t expect ArenaNet to design the game around me, and very much want players who enjoy group-only content to have what they want.

That said, if ArenaNet made more content that was soloable and not just group-only, I would have more to do and would spend more time playing GW2. And I know I’m not the only player who feels that way.

People can argue all they want about that, but ArenaNet has the numbers from their data mining, and they already know what I’m talking about.

Ultimately, all of us play the way we want, and don’t play the way we don’t want.

I’m okay with that, and hope you are too.

Skritt. My Revenant will be a Skritt.

Okay, well at least an honorary Skritt.

But seriously, we need playable Skritt. Fast!

Eles are going to be Tanks.

And it’s going to be awesome!

Is it worth farming for a legendary?

Only if it’s one of them pony bows.

Gotta get me one of them pony bows.

Leveling Off

Lishtenbird.2814:

What we know by now:
Disclaimer: I’m not advocating for gear grind or level cap increase; I’m just voicing concern that with the current policy of making people grind more and more for everything, gear grind and level cap might have actually been a more user-friendly solution.

I’m interested in the new “skill grind”, but as much as I love GW2, I would have flat-out quit and uninstalled the game client permanently if they had raised the level cap, so clearly there’s a difference in how I perceive these things.

I think the key difference is that raising the level cap would have meant instant obsolescence of the gear on my 27 level 80s, and I’m already turned off by the NPE/trait changes (which have put five alts on indefinite hold), so it would have been a final nail in the coffin, so to speak.

I left LOTRO and came to GW2 over that (among other things), so if GW2 were to become too much more like LOTRO (or WoW), I’m outta here forever.

Unless I’m missing something, using the new Mastery system will be necessary for some new content, but won’t be necessary for existing content, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes all the difference in the world.

It remains to be seen how the new systems will play out, and I do share some of your concerns — especially given some of the ill turns the game took last year — but I’m cautiously optimistic that Heart of Thorns will, overall, be a good thing.

And I could be dead wrong about that.

I roleplay as an obsessive gold farmer constantly grinding for phat lewtz.

It’s a very popular play style.

Crafting could definitely use a makeover.

It’s been two-and-a-half years and I still haven’t been able to get into it, and I actually like crafting in most games.

People can disagree on what needs fixing, but I don’t think I’m the problem.

I think this thread is a good candidate for being stickied.

The Claw of Jormag is so scary I never go near it.

Problem solved.

4,279 hours.

0 precursors.

I’m tired of staring at the ground all the time, and all the new vertical content only makes the existing camera’s flaws all the more obvious.

+1 for being able to zoom in and out of first-person-view, adding a field-of-view slider and less zoom-pumping when doing jumping puzzles, in tight areas and moving around the landscape.

I really don’t need to be punished any further when I die. I don’t like dying regardless of cost, avoid it as much as possible and running back from a waypoint or waiting while some generous soul rezzes me is punishment enough.

With repair costs removed, WvW feels a little less intimidating, especially being on a mid-level server and knowing all too well how it feels to get face-rolled again and again and again by massive zergs.

I like the way it is.

ArenaNet explained why the NPE was implemented, and I understand their wanting to improve the game experience for new players.

That said, the NPE, combined with the trait changes, took something I enjoyed immensely and have done over two-dozen times — leveling alts — and transformed it into something so boring and tedious that I don’t like doing it anymore.

That’s how it has affected me. If other players like these changes or don’t mind either way, good for them and more power to them.

I don’t like the leveling process now because it has become unenjoyable as a direct result of these changes.

All the forum-bandying and white-knighting in the world isn’t going change that. Only improvements made by ArenaNet will.

Been There, Done That

Gaile Gray.6029:

Majic.4801:

~ snip~ ….speaking as a player who plays all races and classes and has leveled 27 characters to 80… ~snip~

I just have to pause to say “I salute you!” (And ask, of all you’ve chosen, what’s your fave? I’m genuinely interested.)

Edit: I just realized I sorta posted in an off-topic theme. Perhaps a different thread would be best, eh?

I have to /salute right back, because your endless patience and compassion are truly one of our community’s greatest assets.

Respect.

I know there are a lot of players who have far more alts than I do and have many more hours played (a little over 4200 hours at present), thus I doubt my own tale would be worthy of its own thread.

The Grand Illusions

So I’ll just reiterate that I’m apparently a Natural Born Mesmer, because I simply cannot stop playing that silly profession no matter how hard I try.

Mesmer is probably one of the hardest professions to level (and I’ll throw in the jab that the NPE/Trait changes make it worse), but once leveled up, fully traited and blessed by Lyssa with the sacred dodge clones, there’s very little a Mesmer can’t do, and do well.

That is to say, I can take on larger crowds of top-level mobs (Risen, Mordrem, etc.) and solo more different kinds of champs with my Mesmers than I can playing any of the other professions.

I should point out that I mainly enjoy just running around the open world, doing random events, completing maps and whatnot, so I can’t necessarily speak to PvP or dungeons — although I’ve had great fun when I’ve been in a WvW mood, and apparently even a clueless Mesmer like me can be a threat out there.

I have four level 80 Mesmers currently: Human (my “main”, I suppose, since he was my first lvl 80), Sylvari, Asura and Charr. I can’t name a favorite because my race preferences change often based purely on my mood at the time.

I’m all about clone-spamming regardless, so lately I’ve tended to choose the full-sized Charr because it’s such a kick to see four of those darkly-dressed giant cats crowding the battlefield.

Bee careful…

Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

badboyzpwns.9807:

This is based on my opinion, I have a warror charr and an asura engineer, having a tough time deciding, what class would you guys pick?

You’re asking this in the Engineer forum.

That might affect the outcome.