Guild Wars 2

I am reposting this from the WvW forum to make sure that the designers gets to read it as well.

First, I’m a long time wargamer/former games designer who plays a lot of WvW. Most of the time I roam alone/in pugs, the rest of the time I play organized guild events. So I’ve seen a lot of different aspects of the game, at least the mid tier one where Far Shiverpeaks usually hovers. And yes, I have run with the zerg many times, but for very different reasons.

What it seems everybody is talking about when they slag zergs is the karmatrain, a massive ball of people circling the map, only interested in Wxp. While I am sure that exists, most of the zergs I have been in have formed for two other reasons:

1: Confusion. This was where I started. No guild, no experience. A nice and shiny commander icon on the map. After having been killed a number of times I learned that if I stuck to the commander there was strength in numbers, I learned how things worked, and it simply felt safer. I don’t think I’m alone there, WvW is a scary place at the start, and we are pack animals.

2: Tactics. This is the zerg I run with on guild nights. It is organized, has a purpose, different teams, different parts, is commanded over teamspeak and in general awesome to be a part of. To bring down a heavily defended T3 keep takes a night, and is a many step process, especially if you need to drain its supplies. Often we break off to run and capture camps, get more supplies, feint-attack other keeps/towers and so on. It might not be the whole zerg that runs off (only those without supply for example) but with enough people, even those amount to a zerg.

If I as a roamer encounters and is killed by a zerg, I have no idea why it was formed and what it is about to do. Karmatrain? Scared noobs? Siergers out to resupply? No idea. At least on guild nights we let roamers and small groups just go since they are uninteresting to us, but since every zerg by its nature attracts followers, others might break off and hack them down.

Increasing the AoE cap would do nothing to stop these things.

I used to play a lot of WAR, where AoE was king both in healing and attack. The only thing a high AoE cap does is give people who play AoE heavy classes a lot of kills, thus making more people roll those classes, thus making more AoE until everything is just a matter off stacking enough fire wizards against each other. A lot of the WvW game is built around choke points, sieges, bridges, doors and so on. Rams melt as it is against a defended keep, can you imagine what would happen if you didn’t even need to build siege?

Siege already has a higher cap than any person, and can be built out in the field as well.

So, what should be done about zergs?

Let’s face it, a zerg (by which I mean a large mass of people) is needed a lot of the times in WvW. And zerg vs zerg can be awesome when it works right. BUT these things needs fixing to make it easier to play:

1: Skill lag (especially with 3 server clashes)

2: Grey out the names of defeated players. A lot of the time I find it hard to AoE in the fury of combat, because it is hard to spot if people are dead or alive, because the mass of red names covers everything. This makes my AoE often hit nothing in moving combat, especially with casting time and skill lag.

3: Shorten server names/no titles. I don’t need a novel for each enemy.

Also, there needs to be incentives to break up the massive zergs that forms for no good reason. I would suggest:

4: Commander colors. Make it possible to choose your commander symbol’s color. That way you can easily say things like ‘follow the red commander to get supply’ in mapchat. Yes, they have names, but especially at the start, it is hard to keep track off, and even now I sometimes end up following the wrong commander if I am focused on other things.

5: More leaders. Either make it possible for commanders to deputize people so they get an icon as well (maybe a slightly bigger dot in the same colors as the commander), or make it possible to buy lower level of commander for cheaper sums. If there is only one or two icons on a map, of course everybody is going to get drawn to them. But if there were lieutenants as well, there are more spots to focus on for people who are not organized, thus they will get spread out more evenly.

6: Make it worth defending: Right now we defend for pride, and to keep the upgrades we have. But, a lot of people are not interested in defense, because that is boring and gives them nothing. It is awesome fighting to take a defended keep and I wish everybody to have that experience of true carnage and war, so make it worth it for the brave ones in there.

7: Make the smaller tasks count. Killing dolyaks gives a lot. Protecting dolyaks gives nothing. We need to have more things smaller teams/roamers can do on the maps.

8: Anti zerg siege: It would be interesting with more varied choices of what to build for your supply, especially for use in the open field and to encourage tactics. Arrowcarts are nice, but why stop there? For example, spiked pits could be dug so people could lure zergs to run after them only to be crippled. Maybe setting a herd of cows on fire to drive them into the zerg, or other weird things used in ancient warfare.

Well, I failed in my mission to be brief, but I got some of my ideas down. Feel free to weigh in, I know this has been discussed before in many threads.

I will try to be brief: Removing the AoE cap will do little to deter zerging. Why? Because of the reasons why zergs are formed.

First, I’m a long time wargamer/former games designer who plays a lot of WvW. Most of the time I roam alone/in pugs, the rest of the time I play organized guild events. So I’ve seen a lot of different aspects of the game, at least the mid tier one where Far Shiverpeaks usually hovers. And yes, I have run with the zerg many times, but for very different reasons.

What it seems everybody is talking about when they slag zergs is the karmatrain, a massive ball of people circling the map, only interested in Wxp. While I am sure that exists, most of the zergs I have been in have formed for two other reasons:

1: Confusion. This was where I started. No guild, no experience. A nice and shiny commander icon on the map. After having been killed a number of times I learned that if I stuck to the commander there was strength in numbers, I learned how things worked, and it simply felt safer. I don’t think I’m alone there, WvW is a scary place at the start, and we are pack animals.

2: Tactics. This is the zerg I run with on guild nights. It is organized, has a purpose, different teams, different parts, is commanded over teamspeak and in general awesome to be a part of. To bring down a heavily defended T3 keep takes a night, and is a many step process, especially if you need to drain its supplies. Often we break off to run and capture camps, get more supplies, feint-attack other keeps/towers and so on. It might not be the whole zerg that runs off (only those without supply for example) but with enough people, even those amount to a zerg.

If I as a roamer encounters and is killed by a zerg, I have no idea why it was formed and what it is about to do. Karmatrain? Scared noobs? Siergers out to resupply? No idea. At least on guild nights we let roamers and small groups just go since they are uninteresting to us, but since every zerg by its nature attracts followers, others might break off and hack them down.

Increasing the AoE cap would do nothing to stop these things.

I used to play a lot of WAR, where AoE was king both in healing and attack. The only thing a high AoE cap does is give people who play AoE heavy classes a lot of kills, thus making more people roll those classes, thus making more AoE until everything is just a matter off stacking enough fire wizards against each other. A lot of the WvW game is built around choke points, sieges, bridges, doors and so on. Rams melt as it is against a defended keep, can you imagine what would happen if you didn’t even need to build siege?

Siege already has a higher cap than any person, and can be built out in the field as well.

FIREWORKS!

We’ve got fireworks, rampaging dolyaks and possibly the most active reset in a long time. Was a blast fighting, and whoever started doing fireworks in the tower you just took, you started a trend.

I want to see my glasses… please make the hide/unhide button return.

I have to say that the Underworld thieves are insanely pesky. Luckily my mesmer is good at running away, I don’t think I’ve spent this much time running in any other matchup. Still, having great fun!

Finally found an outfit I like. The heritage coat goes great with pants.

I love this outfit way too much.

Thank you so much for the input! I guess it is time to figure out what kind of defense I really want and which works with my playstyle.

I do it all the time, double draking in dungeons is awesome. Has never tried it with subject alpha though… -ponders-

Greetings. I’m a fresh lvl 80 mesmer, and I have to say it’s a change from my ranger. But, one thing I am pondering.

How much use do Mesmers have for healing power? On my ranger it synergised perfectly, but so far my mesmer tends to avoid damage mostly by not getting hit in the first place.

So I guess my question is if there are any bunker mesmers out there? Are there any traits that stack well with healing power, or am I better off going for toughness and vitality instead? So far I am running a pretty balanced survival/crit/condition build to be able to play around and see what I like. But I just feel that healing power is sort of not that useful. Am I wrong?

1: Pets/spirits takes less AOE damage and no agony damage.

2: Fix the trait lines so they synergize like the other professions.

The rest I can wait for, this is… uuuugh.

I love my ranger. Nobody better for farming PVE. Buuut… dungeons are a bother, and WvW pretty much only had guard going for me. So right now my ranger pretty much is relegated to farming Orr or Karkas.

Also, yesterday I took my lvl 40 mesmer into WvW for the first time, and while she is in no way levelled or equipped for it, she felt very, very useful.

I think for me, one of the most frustrating things are the trait lines for the ranger. Not only are they confusing and messed up, they are also weaker as individual traits. We get like 20% shorter recharge period. A lot of other classes get that + something else in the same trait.

And now I have NO reason to play my ranger in WvW…

Okay. have been positive. I have been happy. I have been enjoying my ranger.

But with the change to guard… o_0 wtf? What is the use of the skill then? Will I be completely worthless in WvW? Can I no longer be the handy pet-resser in dungeons? All the sneaky things I could do… gone.

Yeah.

This is my first negative comment on this board. But seriously… This is too much. I didn’t play for power. I played for fun. Now no more fun.

MarkusParkus.8467:

Guild [IM] of Abbadon’s Mouth, abusing the invulnerable spot in Vale supply camp is not a valid tactic.

Yep, had another one doing the same earlier, not the same player though. Had no idea that spot even existed.

Go beastmaster and make sure that your pet is as nasty as they come with traits. Your pets should be close combat variants. One for high single target damage (jaguar, lynx, or the canines for the knockdowns). One is for tanking and group combat (river drake or murellow).

You can do two different weapon variants. I usually do 2 different weapon combos:
1: greatsword/shortbow. This gives a lot of tanking ability. The greatsword gives good survivability, and when you need to kite (usually vets or champs), the shortbow gives you decent auto attack that can stack bleeding.
2: Sword+warhorn/axe+torch. This gives high damage and is really good for handling veterans and champions, as the longer the fight goes, the more might you will stack on your pet. When you need to kite (usually groups) the axe hits a lot of people, and the torch gives you more attrition burning. I usually don’t have room for the fire trap here, since I love the sword and QZ.

A few general things:

Always use healing spring. It is brilliant. Either with your missile weapon, or by doing leaps in it.

Bring at least one field (cold or fire trap are my favorites). Don’t use your leap attacks to close gaps, use them for healing or fire and frost armor. Both cats and dogs have leaps as well, so with both of you sporting those auras the damage adds up quick.
There are many viable builds of course, but I always had the most fun just running in and cutting things up, and the ranger is surprisingly good at it. Not the highest damage, but mobs don’t kite pets, and if you are in close combat as well, the damage racks up fast.

I find this build a lot more effective than range builds, a melee build REALLY makes your pet shine!

River drake. In the end I always comes back to him. Too bloody useful.

Woman for sure, and what I do in WvWvW is usually dependent on the character I’m on. Usually I’m on a ranger binge, so eating siege, flanking zergs, running supply and general small scale battles. Unless I run with my guildies which in case it’s all stabbity stabbity and traps. As for whoever asked before, I usually play males, got 4:1 in that regards at the moment. For my male mates it’s the other way around it seems.

Got hooked on WvW in WAR, and never looked back.

The old classic stand and plink while the pet tanks gets old real fast, and doesn’t get the best use out of the pet either, especially on higher levels where the mobs focus more on you. And playing is all about fun, that is why I love the ranger. Can do all sorts of crazy builds to change things up. Sadly, not all of them are effective…

Wow, Ranger was my easiest one to level up in PvE, compared to my other characters he was a monster. That being said, it is very easy to play a useless ranger. If you are playing solo and want to speed level, try this out:

Go beastmaster and make sure that your pet is as nasty as they come with traits. Your pets should be close combat variants. One for high single target damage (jaguar, lynx, or the canines for the knockdowns). One is for tanking and group combat (river drake or murellow).

You can do two different weapon variants. I usually do 2 different weapon combos:

1: greatsword/shortbow. This gives a lot of tanking ability. The greatsword gives good survivability, and when you need to kite (usually vets or champs), the shortbow gives you decent auto attack that can stack bleeding.

2: Sword+warhorn/axe+torch. This gives high damage and is really good for handling veterans and champions, as the longer the fight goes, the more might you will stack on your pet. When you need to kite (usually groups) the axe hits a lot of people, and the torch gives you more attrition burning. I usually don’t have room for the fire trap here, since I love the sword and QZ.

A few general things:

Always use healing spring. It is brilliant. Either with your missile weapon, or by doing leaps in it.

Bring at least one field (cold or fire trap are my favorites). Don’t use your leap attacks to close gaps, use them for healing or fire and frost armor. Both cats and dogs have leaps as well, so with both of you sporting those auras the damage adds up quick.

There are many viable builds of course, but I always had the most fun just running in and cutting things up, and the ranger is surprisingly good at it. Not the highest damage, but mobs don’t kite pets, and if you are in close combat as well, the damage racks up fast.

I wish I weren’t working 12 hour shifts this weekend….

Also, Cry Havoc, no relation to the Havoc guild in WAR I presume?

WvW Ranger? Good at many trades, master of none.

I switch utility skills SO often with the ranger, he’s very situational.

At heart I have a beastmaster build, with the trait that the signets work on me as well as the beast. Signet of stone is a lifesaver I don’t want to go without. I typically fulfill 3 different roles in WvW, usually with the greatsword/longbow combo, sometimes with sword/torch or sword/warhorn instead of greatsword. Rampage as One is always the elite. I usually run Jaguar(or Lynx)/River Drake for pets. Traited they both cause bleeding on regular attacks.

Supply runner/roamer: Utility skills are spike or cold trap, the movement signet and signet of stone. The trap is there to deal with the inevitable thieves, together with the signet of stone and the nasty pet I can usually outlast the burst, and then I am too annoying to finish off. Unless the thief is very good, which in case, OW.

Siege: Switch in Heal as One, Sick ‘em, Signet of Stone and Guard. Send the pet up the wall and watch him go. I get kills, or I get chaos. Either way I win. The jaguar is great for single kills, the drake is good for packed walls or siege equipment. One favorite is just finding a good spot on an undefended keep and proceed to eat all the prepared siege equipment while avoiding the guards. A lot of the time the keep won’t even show as attacked. This also works with sending the pet down to annoy from the walls, but they survive less in a zerg. Good for sending to the back ranks and harass casters tho.

Zerg: I am currently experimenting with dual drake bombs. The drake have the drawback of having long f2 animations, but in a zerg nobody notices. And with regen and signet of stone they can survive alright. I roam the outskirts, sending in my river drake, releasing the lightning breath, then switching pet as it reaches half health. Currently doing the reef drake as the second one, confusion can be nasty in a zerg as well. With well timed switches you can get a lot of opportunity kills, this is sort of my homemade meteor storm.

I also experiment with the suicide stopper, basically greatsword swoop into the zerg, muddy terrain, spike and cold traps, then sword leap back and run. Buuuuut…. I die. A lot. Still, I love experimenting.

Lynx are good if you like to stack bleeding. I alternate between Lynx and jaguar for my feline pet, depending on the situation. Not much use for the other ones sadly.

Had a blast last night, and is finally starting to come to grips with WvWvW. My goal now is to become the most annoying ranger on the field. I know that’s not saying much, but shush, let me have this.

Also, loving the FSp leadership and players. This server really feels like a home.

Looordy. You blokes at Gunnar’s Hold sure like your arrow carts. I don’t think I’ve ever broken down a wall to be faced with such a wall of pointy death before. How I survived I will never know.

The only place I’ve felt like the spirits actually worked, was running in Orr as the healer/protector with two friends. Mobile spirits, greatsword for tanking, and my friends were running a damage warrior and a thief. It actually worked okay, it was great in events , because events in Orr usually means a ton of dead npcs, and with my elite spirits I can wake a whole bunch of them at once making things go much faster. I didn’t feel like my spirits got targeted very much, but since we were two close combat people, and I use a movement control, the undead usually have other things on their mind.

I would love this. It is the perfect solution.

loopi.7913:

So, do all those posting ranger love think rangers are fine then and need no fixing? Or are they just hating the hate posts? Just curious.

They need fixing. But they are not broken completely. So, hating the hate posts for me

I love being a ranger, got my guardian/mesmer/elementalist stuck in the 50s just because I got addicted to WvW and now it is ranger all the way.

Do I want changes? OH YES. But for variety. I have a few build that work well, but there are so many things out there I would like to play with that just doesn’t work as intended. Like the spirits and a lot of the utility skills. I would love for even more variation.

Aaaand pets that works better in dungeons.

DaisyRogers.6837:

I agree completely. Rangers make extremely hardy combatants, and you can focus purely into tanking if you go BM and still keep your DPS fairly decent. lay down some CC and your pet will go to town on whatever unfortunate sap is unlucky enough to get caught in it. I am really impressed with the melee skills available for ranger. Only time I carry bow now is if I feel like zerging.

As Malin mentioned I am typically last man standing for whatever party I’m in outlasting warriors and guardians alike. Typically why I opt to play medic since I can rez and still keep DPS pressure up through the pets.

If you pack wolves, they bring their own CC

Yeah, I go team medic if there’s no guardian around. Even had an Orr build for a while that focused on mobile spirits… it was not that bad, but suffered fast in larger battles. The spirits really need to be tougher. And if I run with QZ, the speed ress is awesome.

I need to go back and try the canines again, currently I am going with the Lynx and the Riverdrake. The drakes might be broke, but it is durable, hits hard, and since I have the trait that gives bleeding on basic attacks for drakes/felines they are not too bad. And lightning breath is a good crowd cleanser.

Funny thing, my orr beastmaster build is actually okay in WvW too. Haven’t died yet in one on one combat and I survive thieves and warriors well with the help of signet of stone.

I never experienced that brick wall when it came to lvl 80 in Orr, quite possibly because of my switch to close combat tactics. The thing is, if I jump in and attack, throws down a frost trap and then starts cutting loose with sword or greatsword, then the undead doesn’t chase me. Thus my pet will hit, and hit hard.

The thing that amazed me once I switched tactic in there was how survivable the ranger is in a close fight. I generally am the last survivor in my group. However, if you want to hang back and rely on your bow there… yes, there will be trouble.

So I would say that instead of the ranger turning useless at 80, our viable tactics gets cut down a lot. Which is sad.

Why the either or? I have one range weapon, and one melee weapon. That gives me functionality. Got three characters I play, but it is the range and variation of the ranger that makes it my favorite.

Weapon switching on the fly is amazing, my current fave combo is Shortbow/Sword+torch. Together with two superior runes of the geomancer that applies bleeding on weapon switch you can do crazy annoying things to people.

Also, when playing with my guardian friend, I go melee damage all the way, getting stuck in next to them is awesome. They keep me safe, I do the damage.

Loving the greatsword! Currently running with a beastmaster/skirmish build, and I was completely taken back by my ability to tank.

It’s possible to finish with two people, me and a friend did it twice with a little planning (ranger and thief). Of course, with a pet you’re almost three…

Had a bit of luck with the wintersday drops and had enough to lure out our special, quaggan little friend.

Christmas came early for me this year. Love this little guy so much.

8/10 it is a lovely name and I don’t own an iphone…

I go by Jamail Saoud, there’s not enough mid-eastern dudes out there.

Personal story/cinematics: HORRIBLE
Ambient scenes and events: AWESOME

I still can’t believe the difference. Possibly two different teams?

-sigh- I really don’t have time to level another character, but after not playing for two weeks and feeling completely useless in the dungeon me and my mates explored I guess I’ll shelve my lvl 80 for the time being. It’s just not fun.

Need six books!

I completed the scavenger hunt on my main, no problems. But for three nights in a row the Blackroot cut ghost won’t spawn. The suspicious location keeps moving between the back of the cave, on the roof and in the alcove behind the house. I can press it, and the ground shakes a little. Scanning does nothing, luckily I have a lot of candy corn. I have once got a personalized trick or treat bag, but nothing more. No ghost spawn. For any of us people looking.

Like I said, one of my characters have done it earlier, I have all the other pages, I have filled out two bug reports, but I am leaving for London on Monday morning, and alas it looks like my Mesmer won’t have her book.

40 here, and loving it. It’s pace suits my busy life, it’s wonderful to just stroll around exploring.

After browsing the forums, I have seen a lot of posts/complaints about the dialog/personal story and similar issues. First let me state that I did not buy GW2 expecting a riveting story, I wanted a cool, fun game, which I got. Being an author myself and rather picky about what I read, I look at this as a game, not as a quality literary product. That being said, some things could be improved. A lot. And it all has to do with immersion.

For me, GW1 took one big step towards being an immersive world with Nightfall. Did the writing suddenly turn stellar? Was the plot more original? Not really. The main difference was the fact that suddenly you were one of a group of people working against a common goal, people that traveled with you as heroes, that saved your life and which you grew to love (or hate). I found myself drawn to actually liking some of them, and by the end Koss was my bro, instead of the annoying prat I had him pegged for at the start.

I can see that Anet is trying something similar here, with the Destiny’s Edge framework. The problem here is that here we have no interaction with most of the characters, and thus form no bonds. We are spectators to someone else’s RP campaign, and just like it is never a good idea to talk about the awesome campaign you just finished at a party, this is another case of you had to be there. It falls flat without the framework of the heroes.

So what has GW2 done well?

Dynamic events and NPC’s out in the world. They are brilliantly done, I don’t know if it is a different writing team, or whether it is just the creativity that comes from working without constraint, but here everything flows. I often find myself lingering to listen in on conversations in bars and camps, dynamic events flow nicely in and out of each other, and there are enough little gems out there that makes me smile at least once per session. The only thing I want here is more, and well, I have no doubt that more will be added as the game ages and focus can shift from bugs and balance to fine tuning and adding content. I can never go back to quest the old fashioned way, ever again. Big thumbs up here.

So why do the personal story kitten so hard then? Three reasons.

The cutscene movies. I realize they can’t be changed now, but never, EVER do this again. The best script in the world would fall flat with this treatment, it tears you right out of immersion and into first year school play. If you can’t go the whole nine yards like in DA2 (understandable), then stick to game environments and game figures like in the world events. Seriously. That way our own brains will fill in a lot of the information missing. As it is now, it is like first generation computer effects in movies, just awkwardly bad. For me, this feel like a budget cut, that more might have been intended but time and money ran out. Skip it.

It tries to pretend it is about you. In Nightfall, for example, you were never given any character. You were the nameless hero hanging out with these dudes, leaving you free to make up your own background. Once you have established friends and family, you need to go for it, otherwise people will just feel cheated. Add to this the lack of reply options (apart from paths), the lack of use for the personality bar, people just fading away when there is no use for them, the empty home instance… it just feels shallow. In this case, the cake is a lie.

The dialog/VA. This varies. Some VA are great, others not, some writing is done well, other lines make me cringe. But everything could be improved by one small thing: For kitten’s sake, stop using the character’s title everywhere! I know you can’t use every person’s name. It’s not that. It’s about the first rule of how characters talk. You do NOT mention the other person by name all the time. Seriously. This is one of the basic rules of screenwriting. Sometimes a title is appropriate, but the way people use it here is a lazy, sloppy way to make sure we know people are talking to us, and not someone else. You can write dialog that does that without the constant ‘Valiant’ or ‘Hero’. Trust me. This is half of what makes it smell like a bad C-movie.

@Elric Traehean is made of wood, I am sure he can take it

Seriously though, I don’t expect changes to currently existing content, just a hope that they do the job right and think about this in the new content they will be adding.

I support this (being part of the quiet ones)

Recently I went into a few dungeons (CM, TA) with my mates. We were a team of mid level characters, two thieves, a ranger and a guardian. We proceeded to get thoroughly annihilated. And then we sat down and tried to figure out what we could do different.

And this is where GW2 truly started to shine for me, as compared to GW1 and WAR for example.

We could adapt. Suddenly we had to work together. We needed to have communication, stick close to our guardian, work together. We were all healers in the way that the ranger would put down a healing spring, then someone else would do a whirl and heal us. We worked with fields and finishers, and were far more effective as a cohesive force than we were as single players. Towards the end of the dungeon, the people that had tore us apart before were defeated with far less death and suffering.

Yes, we were all healers and tanks, but not the way you’d think. That guardian light field and a cluster bomb, and suddenly we all have retaliation = 3s of tanking. A water field + death blossom, and suddenly that thief is a healer as well as dps.

It works. And once I got the hang of that, it was awesome to go back out in PVE and keep an eye out for fields. Even if I’ve never met the person before I can be fairly reliant on the fact that yes, guardians will be giving light fields on a fairly regular basis, and dropping my bow and drawing my sword will make me a far nastier addition to the fight when I can get a bit of retaliation by timing things right.

And best of all? It feels great when you pull it off. That moment when complete strangers suddenly start sticking together and work as a team is the greatest feeling ever, and one that I think Anet is trying to cause. Sure, it will take time to make people pay attention in this new way, but I think that after a while, it will be so worth it. I smile every time I cast a healing spring into combat, and immediately see someone pull off a whirl attack and heal everybody around him. Just the best feeling ever.

In 250 years climate and weather patterns can change quite profoundly. For example, the spread of the sahara over what was previously lush forested savannah, the cutting down of forests in south america, the growth of forests in sweden.

250 years ago, the area I am from in Sweden had almost no forests left. Now it is covered in pine forests.

Just a slight shift in global temperatures could lead to a shift in rainfall that could be the nail in the coffin for the Maguuma jungles, I think that a lot of the Amazon jungle will be gone the same way in about the same time unless something is done.

I am a casual but experienced gamer, and my experience so far is that the dynamic events are alright, until the zerg comes. The thing is, I work odd shifts and so I am often online in the daytime when there are fewer players. The events are cool when we are just 3-5 people, and some of the devilishly hard (oh Krait Witch) and have been lost more than once. The big problem are the main event chains, because as soon as more people come online, they start stalking the chains. By then it is just switching to AOE and hope for the best.

I think the problem here is AOE. This is one of the most difficult things to manage in a game (remember WAR fire wizards anybody?). In general Anet has done well, but the mass effect of too many players just breaks the system.

I think the solution is partly to make the events harder as more people join, not only by adding more cannon fodder, but also more veterans/champions. But, even more than that, by managing the reinforcements smartly.

Having fodder run at you in clumps begs for AOE. Variation is needed. How about having undead claw their way up from underneath people’s feet? How about spawning a veteran for every downed player? (good res incentive). How about adding things that you also need NOT to blow up in the process or things will get harder, thus limiting the efficiency of AOE?

I do not advocate friendly fire, but right now there is really no use doing anything but AOE if more than five people are present. Why?

Say that AOE kills 1/5 of a mob’s health while a spike kills 1/2. If you are one or two people, spiking limits the damage you receive by killing off some mobs fast. But once you have 5 people who each sets of an AOE, all mobs will be dead without the use of coordination. It’s the old story of the gatling gun in the civil war all over again.

One solution might be to give some mobs dodge/evade skills. If we can see the red circle on the ground, why shouldn’t they?

I would buy furniture for housing without hesitation. The home instance is right now woefully underused, both from a housing and from a plot perspective. I made a few suggestions of how to make it feel more alive from a plot perspective (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Personal-Story-Immersion-dialog-suggestions/first#post384913) but what Wanko.8103 suggested about housing would be completely awesome as well.

Seems my christmas list to Anet is getting longer…

From what I have read in other threads, the personality reactions were postponed because lack of time/manpower. Which I can totally understand. But i think that we need to keep this on the agenda so that it will be implemented in the future, and not just scuffed away because they think that players just don’t care enough.