Guild Wars 2

Bran.7425:

Majic.4801:

Makes the Ranger forum look positively ecstatic by comparison.

It might be that the general ranger community is used to setting their standards lower.

Perhaps, but at least Rangers aren’t going to get ten stacks of vulnerability laid on them every time they use what used to be a really awesome healing skill.

fellyn.5083:

I’m honestly not sure why people feel compelled to thank anet for doing something that should have been done in the first place and shouldn’t have required a massive protest from it’s community.

Whether or not it should have been done in the first place is a matter of opinion, and clearly ArenaNet’s original opinion was that it didn’t need to be.

When players objected, they moved quickly to accommodate them and changed their policy the very next business day.

When someone does something nice, it is customary to thank them. That’s why people are thanking them.

It’s not a big mystery.

Extra Toon Slot is nice, but…

Extra Toon Slot is nice.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Given the bad press, it’s the right decision. Hopefully, more than few players will be happy and the boards will calm now.

There will always be something to complain about, and given how ambitious tomorrow’s patch is, I wouldn’t count on things being too calm.

But yeah, a good move on ArenaNet’s part that I hope will satisfy most players.

I wasn’t bothered about any of this in the first place and already bought the expansion the day it was offered, but as a confirmed altoholic, I won’t mind another character slot.

That will only bring me to 38, but it should get me by for a while.

ArenaNet moved surprisingly fast on this, and while it may not always be obvious, it’s clear at this point that they do, in fact, listen to players.

For anyone who missed it: Pre-Purchase Community Address

Nicely done, ArenaNet.

Strategist.6132:

The idea I think is that you throw tbose bandages to opponents.

Do opponents get tangled up in the bandages? Because I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t want to heal them.

Cerpin.9152:

Yup, crybabies win …

Now they will never grow up to be reasonable adults and will continue throwing tantrums to get everything they think they deserve.

Congratz!

Congratz on posting a stellar example of the sort of childish toxicity that plagues an otherwise wonderful community.

If you don’t like tantrums, grow up and stop throwing them.

More Player Feedback

ColinJohanson.2394:

There are a number of other changes on 6/23 to make the experience from 1-80 more exciting, better-paced, rewarding, and fun as well after having the time to evaluate and player feedback from the updates last year.

As one of the players who has repeatedly spoken out strongly, stridently and yes, bitterly about the trait changes and NPE, and pretty much dropped out of the game for months as a consequence of that and other missteps, I want to make it crystal clear that I am really, really impressed with how you and the designers have bounced back, and I am truly thrilled with where GW2 is going.

Thank you SO MUCH for listening to us, working so hard to make GW2 better, and succeeding at doing just that.

LezardValeth.9453:

So what are your plans? Quit the game or re-role?

I’m going to raise all those dead Necromancers and make them my minions.

No rest for you yet, sweet souls!

Sebrent.3625:

Please quantify that how Necro got better treatment than Ranger? I only see an opinion with nothing to support it.

For plenty of opinions that don’t support it, check out the Necromancer forum.

Makes the Ranger forum look positively ecstatic by comparison.

Lordrosicky.5813:

MM is a typical brainless ai spec.

The AI is definitely brainless.

Cecilia.5179:

AI builds are generally cheesy and don’t always require any amount of skill to usem making them somewhat unfun in comparison to our non minion builds. I imagine nobody is really talking about minion builds because people would rather the class be good without relying on AI.

You can imagine whatever you want.

It still doesn’t justify minions being broken — especially after they were largely fixed for a while before being broken again.

Rationalizing unfixed game bugs is far more cheesy than any build.

Panncakez.1290:

P.S. You can mitigate, like, 75% of Rapid Fire with 1 dodge.

More than that if you’re a Mesmer with dodge clones traited.

And who doesn’t?

Pet Peeves

I can definitely agree that it’s well past time for pets to get the overhaul they so desperately need, and it’s not like Rangers haven’t been clamoring for fixes and improvements for years, either.

There is a caveat, though, if we’re considering asking for the “Engi Treatment”, because the Engineers’ “pets” — turrets — look like they’re going to take a major survivability hit on Tuesday due to the removal of a rather critical trait. Turrets already suffer from oversized hit boxes, vulnerability to condition damage and zero regeneration without a trait. That’s the trait they’re removing.

But that’s not the only place there’s trouble. Necromancer minions are still bugged all to hell. After fixing pathing to a surprising degree about two years ago, the bugs in their pathing have since regressed again. So it’s still quite common to go charging into a fight while your Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem stand there watching instead of fighting while your enemies focus-fire your ranged minions to death. There’s no indication that’s going to change anytime soon.

And Mesmer illusions… well, at least you can usually crank those out and shatter them fast enough that some of their more bizarre idiosyncracies aren’t game-breakers.

Unfortunately, Rangers don’t have that luxury and are joined at the hip with their pets whether they like it or not.

Overall, I think Ranger pets are the best-behaved and least-problematic of all the pets, but that doesn’t mean they are free of problems, and the fact that they’re always out during combat whether you stow them or not, want them or not, whether passive or not, means whatever problems they have are always a problem.

I mentioned the other professions’ pet problems to point out that things are tough all over, to demonstrate that pets aren’t a Ranger-only problem, and suggest that, frankly, relief is probably not coming soon.

But if enough of us keep asking, maybe the message will eventually get through.

People Helping People

I think the people of ArenaNet are awesome!

I also think the way some players behave toward them is disgraceful, and pray that those who do will find more constructive ways to channel their misplaced — and sometimes pathological — aggression.

I don’t think it is fair, however, to try to shame the majority of players who are unhappy with ArenaNet’s recent pricing decisions and FAQ revisions and have politely said so into not speaking their minds.

In particular, some of the name-calling and harassment dissenting players have been subjected to here and elsewhere is despicable, and those responsible for it are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves.

Attacking players personally for giving ArenaNet their honest feedback works against everyone’s best interests, just as attacking ArenaNet employees personally does — in addition to being creepy as hell.

I don’t personally have a dog in this fight. I’ve already pre-purchased Heart of Thorns and am satisfied with my decision.

I do, however, have a very strong interest in the well-being of the game, and to that end, a little mutual respect goes a long way.

Making Housecalls

I can see why being able to fling “care packages” at players who need them would seem to be a feature, but share the concern that converting the current drops into ground-targeted skills is going to add an unnecessary burden to the Medkit.

In particular, the classic “spam medkit buttons while running away” maneuver is going to be a lot harder — and I will confess I use that tactic more often than I’d like.

We’ll see how it shakes out.

I really like the suggestion of making the grenade kit and mortar kit autoattacks use normal targeting when their respective skills are set to “autoattack” mode (Ctrl-RightClick), then back to ground targeting when autoattack mode is turned off.

Maybe something similar could be worked out for the Medkit — though I’m not sure how.

Somehow.

I agree there’s no need to continue a pointless back-and-forth, and I’m glad you’re not claiming Irenio was lying, so no disagreement there.

I don’t think it was unreasonable to take what you posted at face value, however, and barring some compelling reason not to, I’ll leave it at that.

The Best Policy

Bran.7425:

Take what I’ve presented however you want, what you think about my opinion/ perceptions matters not a bit to me. What matters is the general message Anet has sent and perception of what it could mean. It is basic PR, but why am I bother to explain this to you, a player of the profession that benefited from the change/fix/buff/whatever you want to call it.

The only question I have is really why you feel the need to come to this subforum which will have no effect on engineer?

I play all the professions, and have four of each, in fact, which is why I take interest in all the related forums and find notions of sibling rivalry between professions amusing. Predictably, the grass is always greener in the other professions’ yards, and every profession is a victim of malicious or indifferent developers because ArenaNet hates us and wants us to cry.

What I find less amusing is players bashing the developers for being responsive to player feedback, which is why I said what I said. Your implication that I am some sort of rube for taking Irenio Calmon-Huang at his word also doesn’t sit well with me, for reasons I hope you can fathom.

Lest I be mistaken for some sort of “white knight” trying to stand up for the devs, feel free to peruse my post history. Highlights include my strong condemnation of making Season One of the Living World “throwaway content” and last year’s spectacular trait system debacle. I’m not shy about criticizing ArenaNet when I think they’re doing something wrong, fully respect your right to do the same and encourage you to do just that.

My point is when you attempt to impugn someone’s character — whether Irenio’s or mine — from a position of dishonesty, you act only to discredit your own character, and nothing good comes from it.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Just be honest, don’t talk trash about people you don’t know, and when called on it, don’t act like you don’t know what the problem is.

It’s not hard. Honest.

chemiclord.3978:

Can we just all be perfectly honest with ourselves here?

I suspect, the bulk of the complaints REALLY centers around the base edition not getting a bonus character slot. Let’s cut through the noise and just say it outright.

“Veteran” players want a kittening character slot, because they’ve filled all their slots and don’t feel they should have to buy another one on top of the expansion to play a Revenant. They feel this is cheap because GW1 handed out slots to play with in each expansion.

So can we just SAY THAT? Can we stop trying to couch it in bullkitten so that we don’t sound like “entitled brats?” Rather than run around in stupid circles over legality, quibbling semantics over whether or not the core game is actually “free” or “not free”… just say what we want here.

Give me a character slot and I’ll stop complaining.

I’m not actually complaining now, but I’ll stop if they give me a character slot.

Bran.7425:

Odd you go straight to accusing me of calling anyone a liar.

This is what you said:

Majic.4801:

Majic.4801:

It was a bug fix, not a buff.

Keep believing that and the attack speed reduction on shortbow (from early In the game’s history) was just an ‘animation’ fix. At this point just saying ‘that wasn’t intended’ now counts as a fix hmmm….

If this is not supposed to suggest dishonesty on the part of the developers, it would be reasonable not to write it that way.

Writing that, then quibbling about it when it’s pointed out, doesn’t make a stronger case. Trying to put me on the defensive about your own dubious comments is a tactic that isn’t going to work either, given how transparent and disingenuous those sorts of shenanigans are.

For the record, I’m really not trying to make a big deal out of it, but seriously, if other people questioning what you write bothers you so much, then don’t write questionable stuff and get all huffy about it when people actually question it.

TheShyGuyTheory.2849:

The current UI with all that painterly stuff is so outdated, it screams 2007 and to be honest, this game would be 100% better if you made it more modern…

It screams 1328 to me.

Throw in some undercoating and you’ve got yourself a deal!

You’re lucky. Could’ve been the dreaded Flying Sharkacuda.

In which case, no one would have ever known what happened…

Zumi.6384:

Why wouldn’t the runes be allowed in WvW? I use them all the time.

Watch out!

The Rune Police are always watching…

Rifle for the Thief would be awesome.

So here comes the Scepter!

Aim For The Foot

The devs would look at the data mining and think, “Wow, look how popular rifle is! Better nerf it.”

And yeah, what choovanski said. You have too much to live for.

Don’t go throwing it all away by carrying a rifle!

Bran.7425:

Majic.4801:

Fluffball.8307:

There is red in the engi forum. kittening engis get buffed to god status and complain ever so slightly about speedy kits being nerfed and Anet BUFFS it. I mean WTF.

It was a bug fix, not a buff.

Keep believing that and the attack speed reduction on shortbow (from early In the game’s history) was just an ‘animation’ fix. At this point just saying ‘that wasn’t intended’ now counts as a fix hmmm….

If you’re going to accuse an ArenaNet developer of lying in the face of evidence to the contrary, offering something more than dodgy innuendo and vague allegations would help establish some credibility.

Harnel.6810:

Probably the easiest way to solve this dilemma, and the one I’d be most willing to go for, is basically, if you set a skill as an auto-attack, whether it’s an AoE or not, it will always automatically fire at your target.

Sorry, but that makes way too much sense, would be too elegant a solution, and would please too many players.

Ironically enough, I’m looking forward to finally playing my non-grandfathered sub-80 characters who have been gathering dust since the trait changes last year.

So I guess there’s a sort of symmetry here, maybe.

Yep. Plenty of choices and potential fun to be had.

Spamming As A Cure For Spamming

krixis.9538:

1. fast cast ground target
2. practice spaming keyboard skills
3. hold down right mouse button and practice using ground target using mouse look, keep your ground target marker middle of the screen and when u look your marker will always be where you look at. in time u will get used to this

And this prevents repetitive strain injuries how, exactly?

It’s not like those of us who want this haven’t mashed the living kitten out of our keyboards and fingers over the past three years. That’s the point.

Hence the interest in getting some relief, and the reason I don’t use these kits anymore.

You can already do quite well without kits if you want, but it’s important to build for it.

The builds are out there now if you want, but they will all be obsolete day after tomorrow.

I think a Grenade Bag held in the off hand would be better. Put a picture of a grenade on the side and have our grenadiers reach in and pull grenades out of it.

Or maybe a picture of an onion to commemorate the current solution.

…

Oh, and Gern, I was just being silly about bringing back the hobosacks.

The Zen Turreteer

On the bright side, the new Supply Crate turret looks interesting, and it might actually be pretty awesome. An elite turret? Sounds cool — if the implementation doesn’t fall short.

Given the fact that turrets already suffer from oversized hit boxes, drop within seconds to most AOEs, are vulnerable to conditions and conditions now stack to 1500, I expect Tuesday to be a sort of Armageddon for turrets in general.

However, I could be dead wrong and they may be fine. I’m going to give the new turret regime a shot, and if it turns out to be practical, I won’t be shy about singing its praises and dropping turrets left and right.

But based on my experience with turrets over the past few years, I have good reason to expect that unless some sort of autorepair feature is implemented or they gain massive health buffs, they are going to end up being sort of like Mesmer phantasms: short-lived entities that do damage for a while before being quickly destroyed. Except with longer cooldowns.

Here’s hoping the situation isn’t a dire as it looks — for a change.

I can understand the dread, but I can’t wait for Tuesday, because I’ve been waiting for some of these things to be fixed for over a year (I’m looking at YOU, April 2014 Feature Pack).

Some of my builds are getting nerfed or obliterated (goodbye, Turreteers), but others are definitely getting buffed, and overall, I think the upcoming changes are a Good Thing.™

And I’m definitely not going to miss the current trait system. Did I mention how much I despise the current trait system?

Kill it with fire!

Whatever the details, I would really like the Shield to become worth using, because as things stand — and are likely to remain after Tuesday — it just doesn’t make sense.

The reduced cooldowns are great, but the skills themselves pale in comparison to what other offhands offer. Pretty silly that a focus defends you better than a shield.

There are some great suggestions in this thread. Here’s hoping the designers will take another look at the Shield after Tuesday and finally, finally elevate it from a glorified cosmetic item to something you won’t get kicked from a group for carrying.

The Entitlement Metagame

Calling players “entitled” is what all the cool kids are doing now, because it’s cool. Suggesting they stop is uncool, because it offends their sense of entitlement.

However, there is a silver lining to this dismal state of affairs. What is it, you ask?

The Entitlement Drinking Game!™

Every time you see the word “entitlement” in the GW2 official forums, take a drink.

Be sure to have plenty of your favorite beverages on hand, and if they happen to include alcohol, hide your car keys and make arrangements in advance for the liver transplant you’ll inevitably need after just a few short days.

Don’t worry, though. It’s what all the cool adults are doing.

Mario, Where Are You?

Arantheal.7396:

You still can repair them with toolkit.

And lose both a turret to the kit and a ranged attack to pull and supplement the turret damage, while simultaneously micromanaging turret health.

No thanks.

After the last round of buffs, Turreteer definitely became viable — arguably for the first time — as a skill focus, which was good.

Now that seems to be going away, which is bad.

Turrets Destroyed

Novuake.2691:

Turrets are pointless. Stop using them.

That’s the problem. A lot of players, including myself and the person who first got me interested in GW2, were attracted to the game by the prospect of using turrets.

Then we found out that that they were utter garbage and stopped using them except as instant use/instant pickup skills that are little more than mundane utility skills with novel animations.

In the current regime, turrets are actually useful for players who want to use them for point defense in PVE, which is a common scenario for high-level dynamic events. Autorepair makes them viable in many situations where they otherwise are not, even though they are still worthless in places with lots of AOE spam, like most boss fights and pretty much everywhere in the Silverwastes.

So what we’re left with is one less way to play, and while that may not bother some people, it does bother those of us who tire of narrowness and orthodoxy.

Love the concept and wouldn’t mind seeing the devs draw some inspiration from it.

My warriors might even start using rifles for something more than avoiding PBAOE spam if they did something like this.

Nerfed Plink

I would love to see the Rifle become more viable, at least for PvE. There’s always a “melee premium” in GW2 which rewards the risk of using melee weapons versus ranged, but in the case of the rifle, it just doesn’t stand up at all.

Creating a purpose-built “Sniper Warrior”, taking him to lvl 80 and seeing how miserable his performance is with the rifle, even with a full glass cannon build and gear, proved to me beyond all doubt that Rifle is currently at best a secondary weapon useful mostly for plinking at world bosses.

Fixing that would be a welcome change indeed!

Fluffball.8307:

There is red in the engi forum. kittening engis get buffed to god status and complain ever so slightly about speedy kits being nerfed and Anet BUFFS it. I mean WTF.

It was a bug fix, not a buff.

Arantheal.7396:

I thought the message about how A-net want’s us to use them was clear, so if anything you didn’t understand the classes INTENDED trademark, and that is mobile, fast paced combat, something that is very much possible with turrets as well..

No amount of snark or condescension will change the fact that removing autorepair from turrets makes them less appealing.

Depending on how things work out after Tuesday, it’s likely my turreteers won’t be using turrets anymore because of this.

We’ll see.

Josh Davis.6015:

Jerus.4350:

Curious, will it have minimum ranges like the old Mortar? If not, sounds pretty sweet, one more thing to add to rotations. 5kit Engi ftw.

No minimum range. Shoot it at your feet!

Well, now I know what I’m going to be doing all day Tuesday.

I would love at least some form of autoattack for these kits, because as they stand, they are WAY too rough on my fingers and utter RSI bait.

It is, in fact, why I rarely use the Grenade Kit, even though I otherwise love it.

…

Edit: Fixed a rampaging kitten filter that doesn’t allow the word “on” after the word “hard”.

BRING BACK HOBOSACKS!!!

BRING BACK HOBOSACKS!!!

…

What? Somebody had to say it.

I’ve been running Staff and Scepter/Pistol for over a year, and based on what I’m seeing, that’s not going to change.

Whatever makes that combo the most uber shall be my build.

The Hard Case

Beast Sos.1457:

Guild wars 2 already has more than enough casual content its about kitten time they add some hard core PvE content.

Harder (“more challenging”) content is one of the catch phrases woven into the Heart of Thorns mantra, so you’re probably going to get your wish.

However, with HoT, as with everything else GW2, it’s unlikely that most of the “hardcore” content will be exclusively hardcore, because the business case for cutting off the majority of players from new content is terrifyingly abysmal.

As in, cash your next ArenaNet paycheck before it bounces abysmal.

Based on what we’ve been seeing so far, it seems obvious that calls for more challenge have been heard, so if you’re looking for something more engaging, I’m pretty sure Heart of Thorns is going to offer it.

For whatever it’s worth, my biggest concern isn’t whether it will be challenging, but whether it will be fun.

It’s a fine line between “hard” and “tedious”.

Here’s hoping “fun” wins out overall.

ArenaNet Needs More Shinies? We Get Shinies Fast!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The only thing that can save GW2 is…

Playable Skritt.

I’m looking forward to the release of Rise of the Skritt next year, and with it, GW2’s inevitable salvation.

Charrmed, I’m Sure

Overall, I like the Charr, have several of them of both genders, love their voice acting and my Charr Mesmer is one of my favorite characters.

What really needs rework are most of the armor sets for Charr.

Making Charr armor pieces fit, not clip or hover in space and look good on both minimum- and maximum-sized male and female characters isn’t an easy job, to be sure, but if ArenaNet were to devote some time to a Charr rework, that is where they would need to focus.