Guild Wars 2

buffing regeneration without cutting down the self heal would make healing-builds pretty much unbeatable. We currently have guardians (and others) which are almost too hard to kill.

Reducing the self heal would mean that the 1-hit attacks from monsters could be reduced so that a battle can build tension rather then surprising you with one-hit kills. If you miss a important dodge and the boss hits you hard you’d be at about 30% health… a self heal would give you back 20% so you’d have about 50% and you feel the punishment of that missed dodge. Now you’d have to look for a regeneration boon (from yourself or by an allie) to bring you slowly back to normal. Would be much more intense instead of: 1 missed dodge → down.

he wears the Molten Factory gloves because he raided a Molten Factory. Something Anet told us in the Forums and what counts as “supplementary” and not worth to be in the actual game.

so what would happen if…

they’d redesign the healing in the game like this:

• reduce the self-heal significantly
• increase the regeneration-boon significantly

Still every profession would be able to heal itself, mostly via. regeneration. People who don’t want to focus on selfhealing could use the regeneration from many other sources since boons mostly pop up for yourself and anyone around.

As that would be changed pve-enemies attacks would get a bit weaker so that they don’t 1-hit you any more but make you still very much feel your missed dodge. You’ll have to struggle to survive and get your health back up again while trying to survive instead of 1-heal and everything is perfect again.

Just a food for thought. My goal would be to make regeneration/healing-builds more viable.

Please don’t discuss about the things Anet “promised”. Instead focus on how the healing-design could be made better without making it so we get the trinity back. I don’t want to be reliant on healers, instead I would like to have to option. Don’t forget: regeneration only stacks in duration, not in the power of the heal.

Valanga.5942:

I don’t like RNG crap. Period.

can you elaborate? Do you want a guaranteed yellow item for each drop? What is the alternative? RNG is practically standard in mmos, the problem imho is the low chance to get something interesting.

I really like guild missions and the challenge that comes with it, I only find it very difficult to find ongoing ones… I’m playing late at night so most guilds won’t play those

he stated that he would reveal it on the 4th. Thanks for the survey, make sure to post it in other communities as well (such as gw2guru, mmochampion, twitter, reddit)

Deified.7520:

I don’t think they should make portals, it kind of takes away from the feeling of exploration.

I agree that there shouldn’t be something that takes away from exploration, my 1st suggestion on this was that the portals don’t lead directly to the event (only the few really big chain events) but to the border of the zone. Then you follow the NPC who opened the portal in a way like the breakout-events to the start of the chain.

It is kind of guiding, but all the events offside the road won’t be visited; only the big main ones which aren’t really hidden but only occur at rare times. This would imho help the exploration-aspect as people visit old zones and maybe roam around a bit after the chain.

How would you gather 10+ people to do those events, if you don’t even know that they’re there. Or you’ve forgotten about those. The portal-NPC would include all of the bigger events and so you’d experience a huge variety everytime you go with him. I think this is what the game needs, people visiting old but epic locations in the game instead of farming the same content on and on. The living story is a good first step, but it’s still quite concentrated on specific areas.

They could also implement a long-term reward this way: each time you go with the expedition npc you get zone-specific reputation. Enough reputation unlocks zone-specific rewards (skins, minis, bags,…)

Is it possible to show ongoing guild missions in the API?

I’d love to participate in guild missions, I’m playing late at night though and never see any of those happen. I’m in a small guild so it’s no option for us

I like the concept of guild missions bringing live to low level zones, but I have no idea how to find some.

sadly the community who plays guildwars consists of people who hate WoW & Co and therefore don’t like mounts. I personally think this are 70% of the people who are against mounts.

well the concept was very good: the whole game is endgame. I just can’t see this. Low level zones feel like a joke to me. I don’t even want better loot in those zones because this wouldn’t be fair… I’m steamrolling everything there.

talking about rewards: there aren’t really long-term rewards from low level zones which is kind of sad… there’s nothing to get from those zones. It would be quite possible to add zone-specific rewards (made a suggestion for that a while ago) to have people spend some time in those zones and exploring them instead of seeing it as leveling-content only – doing the hearts and 1-time visiting the poi’s – then moving on and never coming back. Think of all the events which are missed by such players.

it’s a good suggestion, I like it. Remembering the latest post from Anet about this I’m quite pessimistic about them evolving the system. I feel no love for the lore-lovers in this game since there is not much to collect in this department. Not even legendaries have a legend so to speak of. (I’m sorry about this pessimism, I’m quite frustrated at the moment because of this)

I think there are quite enough cool event-chains in those zones. My suggestion (I’ve posted it quite a few times) would be to bring people from the city via an expedition to the start of those eventchains.

So people see this NPC in the city, he opens a portal to the next occuring chain-event and you go through and can follow the event-chain right from the start. Since the portal has no name on it you won’t know beforehand where you are going to… could be a meta-eventchain in Kessex Hills or the pre-event to one of the dragon-encounters.

things that would go hand in hand with this:

• dragon-encounters can’t be predicted via dragon-timers anymore. Instead you are either there when it happens, or you use the expedition to get there. —> less players —> no too-big-zergs to break those events
• you’d need events and/or minigames in the city in order to keep people busy while waiting for one of the portals. (…well, it shouldn’t last long)

Outlaw.3421:

Attached an example I created real quick in Photoshop.

yeah this is great. I really wonder why Anet can’t implement such thing when a fan can create this in a short time. There must be reasons other than the mechanical stuff —> They don’t want it, I guess. The reply in this thread looked like they are quite happy with the current situation and only want to change small things (re-implement cutscenes instead of refining the system). Users who agree with the current situation are basically against refinement and enhancing so that it can become something truly good. As someone stated above GW1 had a more in-depth system and this looks like a step back. (seriously http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/thumb/0/0c/Storybook.jpg/375px-Storybook.jpg )

ok subscribe doesn’t work for me, I’m using the latest firefox browser if that’s the problem… ?!

Hey!

1.) I tried to subscribe to certain posts via. the “subscribe” button, but I’m not sure it worked. Where can I see my subscribtions?

2.) RSS seems to work only at the Dev-Tracker but not in threads… is it working for you?

hey!

I’ve made a quite similar suggestion to find chain events in the open world, I think it would make much sense for guild missions too.

how does it work
There is one NPC in each of the main racial cities who opens a small portal to the open guild missions.

why?
Personally I find it difficult to find open guild missions. I’m playing late at night and rarely see any of those open. I’d really love to participate in those but I’m not in a big guild (I don’t plan to) and I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of people like me.

advantages

• people with little to no direction would visit the main cities much more
• solo players & small groups could find those guild missions much easier
• small guilds who open those guild missions will have more people to help them – granting them a chance to success without the need to be in a big guild

BobbyStein.2315:

Ideally, the in-game story should tell you everything you need to know about the current Living World plot, context, and character motivation through a combination of scenes, clues, and gameplay. Blog posts, interviews, novels, etc. are supplementary.

I appreciate your feedback. I give up though, it seems to me that you are ok with the fact that most people miss those wonderfull pieces of lore and have no intention on implementing those in the game and enhancing the experience for us lore-lovers. I’m really sad now, seeing what is possible in other games.

I’d say most people who play the game since release have a point when saying: they want more challenging content. It’s 9 months now and not everyone rushes through content.

we got guild missions, but this is only content for big groups of players – judging on the need for singleplayers instances quite a lot of people don’t care about guild missions.

I would, if I could find one. The fact that playing after 23:00p.m. doesn’t make it easy though.

sorry for ending this now, the free survey tool can only show 100 results, I don’t plan to upgrade for $

Results:
I like it the way it is! 6,06%
6
I like it – would be nice to see good drops more frequently though 34,34%
34
I don’t care 9,09%
9
I don’t like it – I can live with it though. 18,18%
18
I don’t like it at all. 32,32%
32

Totally random loot 17%
17
Fixed loottables with a certain chance to get a specific item 52%
52
Fixed loottables without any kind of RNG – like tokens 31%
31

I agree Shiren, about Kiel: the NPC has also a very generic character model – which helps to build a character too.

Why didn’t they just implement events where Kiel is escorted to certain story-relevant happenings. (e.g. you try to catch Canach who drops crippling-mines behind him and you have to dodge those and use swiftness to come close to him to hurt him enough so that the event succeeds.)

yes, only 2 questions

are you divided on those 2? Feel free to elaborate That’s what the forum is for

I’m sorry, I hope it’s clear enough… I’ll post the results when I have enough votes

Hey guys

I’d love to see what you think about RNG in GW2

here a link to a survey:
http://de.surveymonkey.com/s/HCXJG9C

Feel free to add your reasons why you voted in a specific way here.

why not use surveymonkey or something like that?

Vayne.8563:

Rift, when I played it, which was when it started, had one path of progression and that was through raids. You had an epic quest chain that led through every single dungeon and culminated in a raid. It was the only epic quest chain in the game.

-snip-

So again, raids were the focus of the game….but I wasn’t a raider.

ok this sounds horrible, I downloaded Rift just a few hours ago but after reading this… meh. I really love Anets decision not to implement Raids, GW2 still has difficult carrot-content in form of fractals but I guess the hardcore people burned already through it like they do in every Raid-centric game. You can’t win as a developer since it takes much more time to create a dungeon than to burn through it.

the way I would like to see raid-like activities implemented in GW2:

• a raid of any size (a guild or even a single player with people around – no guild required!!) can spawn one of the worldbosses whenever the standard-spawn is over
• the area around get’s locked so no one can enter or leave – if you die you’ll have to wait until somebody picks you up or the whole group wipes and the battle is lost
• the encounter is much harder than on casual mode and rewards are encounter-specific skins

So in a way it works like guild missions, but no guild is required. Every player around can participate if he is in that area at the moment the guild spawns the battle. If a guild want’s to be alone, they have to spawn the dragon when no one else is around (or simply don’t rezz the others – kind of cruel though).

I don’t have a good solution that people don’t farm this all day long. Perhaps a player can only participate in such a battle twice a day. The system knows if you were there that day and the boss becomes invulnerable to that person.

Vayne.8563:

…but having seen what Rift did with raids…they were pretty much the way to advance.

can you elaborate please?

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

@Marcus. To address your points in their given order:
1. Some people found this boss easy while others hard, but whether or not it forced you to use your brain is an entirely different story. You can easily exploit this boss by using weapons/attacks that deal conditional damage, and come out victorious with little to no trouble. The only class that was set up to fail against this boss was the ranger… believe me, I know, I had to do the bloody battle two dozen times just to get the achievement. And in what part of the mines programming do you have to use intellect, it tells you exactly what to do and when to do it. The only skill required is luck and a dab hand with a keyboard to avoid explosions.

I think they patched the condi-damage thing, it certainly wasn’t intended. Well, I must be a very stupid being then if everyone thinks this was an easy encounter the first time, haha. This is roughly how I experienced the battle:
1.) Testing the mine-detector on the mines in the entrance. Using the same symbol turns the mines green and using the wrong symbol makes them explode. Aha.
2.) Tried to turn the mines green, ran by and then when Canach was near them tried to manually explode them by using a different symbol. Fail.
3.) Tried to kite him over the red mines. A while. Fail.
4.) Tried to punch him with skill 5 into the mines. Fail.
5.) Tried to get him by manually exploding the red mines again. Fail.
6.) I think I’ve tried every single thing you could do. fail.
7.) Turned the mines green and kited him over the mines. Success. → WTF, didn’t I try this before (probably not).
Now I feel stupid how everyone says this was an easy encounter. It was a challenge for me.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

2. I may have been wrong about this point. There is supposed to be one more instance released on the fourth that may have cut scenes (here’s hoping)… however that still doesn’t excuse their lack of story content in this current release. I agree it is unlikely that a permanent event chain boss will be given a cut scene.

I wouldn’t expect too much, this reminds me of the bonfires we got in F&F. Why would the cutscene-team do something in one instance on the island instead of the whole island? I could be wrong though.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

4. Crab-toss… eh, if you love PVP you love crab-toss, if not, its just a pain. Don’t get me wrong there were some groups willing to cooperate towards achievements, which made a really unique player friendly experience… and then there were the others. I’m uncertain whether they were obsessed with playing the game how it was intended, enjoyed making it hard for those who wished to obtain achievements, or simply loved its brutal keep away mechanics, but crab-toss with the wrong group was no fun at all.

Well the achievements weren’t necessary to get all the backbag-items. I really think that they should grey out the missing achievements when you have the requisite complete. Some people still feel forced to get every single achievement, even though they don’t like the activity. They feel that they have no choice.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

You keep suggesting we wait for the Queen Karka, but if we don’t see as much as a single cut scene from her battle -which I believe to be the end of this entire chapter- they might as well change the name from ‘living story’ to ‘temporary event chain achievements,’ because that’s all we’re getting. Doesn’t sound very pleasant to say? Well its just as pleasant to receive.

I guess we won’t see a story-related cutscene in a permanent (yes it is permanent) metaevent.

What I’m getting from this release so far:
(just speculation on what I’ve heard)

1.) there is 1 team (1 man) who designed the boss-battle. I love this challenge because it’s something completely new gameplaywise and you have to use your brain. That’s something really valuable in a game where more than the half of the content is killing waves of enemies.

2.) there is 1 team which works on cutscenes. It obviously wasn’t present during the creation of this content which is a shame. Imho this hurts the game. I guess this team is currently working on the next living story content. No cutscenes during the boss battle, no cutscene to give context to anything on the island.

3.) there is 1 team (Robert Hrouda + team I guess) which created the open world content for the Secret of Southsun + Last Stand. It seems that there went a lot of work in the meta-event since the other events are relatively similar. I love the scavenger hunt though, it’s something I will always love since it takes a bit more time to complete + you are rewarded for exploring – the whole game should be about rewards for exploring since events happen in different locations at different times – so you should come across those areas more than once. They could create expeditions from the main city to bigger chain-event-starts so that people get to know these wonderfully designed events.

4.) is there a seperate team/man who created crabtoss? Listen to me, creator: I love you! It’s something where you clearly get better by playing. Crabtacular – the achievement – even if it wasn’t intended that way – created a kind of cooperation minigame. Help the others to get the achievement. I had a wonderful evening last week when doing this with some decent people. At first it feels a bit clunky but once you have the timing mastered it’s so much fun.

5.) I wished there was a team who creates new UI-Elements to imlement those stories/blogposts into a decent compendium similar to Warhammers Tome of Knowledge like this: http://zam.zamimg.com/images/4/c/4ce0f264e8f4455b5881ff3fd2347fea.png

pass the crab to someone unexpected to get the small karka off you and on him, then get it back because he is slowed from the karka and has no idea what’s happening

worked quite well

Katreyn.4218:

But I understand they cannot because of the time frames the teams work with. Personally I’d take seeing new content less often to just see them be able to complete the premise they want to get across.

Absolutely. I respect the devs for the content we got and I’m sure you are right. Releasing stuff in this short intervalls hurts the game imho because the devs have to hurry + there isn’t enough time to include polishing (e.g. cutscenes, storytelling, etc.).

A new release each month is totally ok, a lot of people need more time to complete the new content anyway. The ones who complete it in a day burn through each of the new stuff in hours anyway. There’s no way to please those.

The people responsible for those timeframes should really ask themselves: is this worth it, since it might seem like a step back (we had good cutscenes in F&F e.g.).

Niyo.5920:

That might help. It’s from this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/southsun/Canach-s-Mutation-Radical-Change/first

which was also never explained ingame :-/

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

-Braham and Rox spoke; chat boxes at the least, and even some voiced dialogue if I remember correctly. Not to mention; Cut Scenes! If not during the actual battle itself, at least at Holebrook and the Black Citadel.
-Braham and Rox’s input actually furthered the story, there was detail and content in what they spoke.
-There was a journey with assaulting enemies, not just one room with a boss
-Braham and Rox actually took part in the battle… fathom that!

I fully agree, but don’t forget: there are a lot of enemies on Southsun Cove, the fact that the battles with those happen outside the story-instance doesn’t really matter. Anet put the time they could have spent in a dungeon into open world content with a new meta-event which we will see next week. I’d loved to see Kiel participating in the boss battle though since it was her “prey” which she hunted down, not ours. I have no idea why we as players had to deal with Canach. I also enjoyed the npc-heroes dialogues between Braham and Rox quite a lot. Kiel and Canach had no character-development I was aware of… if might have happened in some event I missed / or in the blogposts.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

On the other hand, even the good points about the SSC Instance can be taken in a bad light:
-Quick and Easy boss that less skilled players love… but on the other hand so quick and easy it becomes boring.
-Interesting use of mine mechanics… but so reliant on mine mechanics that it takes away any real skill from the player.

In comparison, all the good points in Braham/Rox’s instance helped to further the story, and yet these points were not implemented in the SSC instance. I can’t see this as anything other than a drop in quality.

And this is where I disagree. To me this battle wasn’t easy, actually it was harder than the group-battle against Null imho. I did bad in that battle but it seems that the other 4 randoms were good players and so we destroyed Null in a few minutes.

The battle vs. Canach was, when not spoiled by some youtube-clip, quite interesting. I had to figure out how to hurt him while he was charching me and hunting me in that cave. The fact that I played as a guardian saved me since Aegis and Skill 3 on down mode worked quite well. Cragstead in comparison was a bland “kill all waves of enemies”-mission, I was really disappointed.

I have no idea how someone can see this as boring. Are you playing the instance more than once? I do not, it’s a story-mission. I don’t care for the monotonic rewards.

Ravious has written a correlating post:
http://www.killtenrats.com/2013/05/29/gw2-last-stand-and-delivery/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KillTenRats+%28Kill+Ten+Rats%29

Niyo.5920:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Braham and Rox, even though there was not a lot of lore to it, had much more character than Kiel, Canach and Noll together.

I disagree. I think Canach has much more character than Rox or Braham.

once you know the blogposts or before it?

lordkrall.7241:

Actually in most RPGs I have played you had to work a bit to get information about stuff. Not everything needs to be pushed into your face.
A RPG is about living the world after all, and it is not much of a world if you don’t have to ask around for information, is it?

I disagree, there were quite a few cutscenes in F&F and personally I liked the story-delivery much more. Braham and Rox, even though there was not a lot of lore to it, had much more character than Kiel, Canach and Noll together.

There was also backgroundstory on Braham and Rox on the blog, I really don’t understand why there is no way to implement those masterpieces into the game. Those who want to follow probably do, but those who don’t know about it never will.

toafarmer.8401:

Cluncky control, bad designed skills (I thought the run skill was lagging for like the 1st 10 times I used or that I was getting stuck in terrain), crap load of conditions with long duration (crippling and knockdown are really annoying, specially for long times),

You were probably hit by a stone so that you can’t use a skill for a short time. I only experienced lag on day 1, which was fixed quite fast.

achievements have bad tooltips (crabtacular!), annoying obstructions and VERY poor rewards for the time spend (maybe better now that the new items can drop with a really high chance – at least the high offer of them in auction house makes me think so).

“Be the last player standing while holding the crab in the Southsun Crab Toss.” – how is this hard to understand? I’m from Austria and understand it perfectly fine. And you shouldn’t play the game if you’re doing it for the rewards imho.

Rozbuska.5263:

We are forced to do this every day for AP from daily. Every kitttttttttttten day.

no you’re not, you have the choice… in a way

@Anet: I’d suggest to grey out the other achievements when you’ve done the first 5 of the 10 available. Giving still points some people might think that they are forced to do this because they try to compete with others who care for the leaderboard-points. The reason behind being able to choose was so that no one feels forced to do something.

Mirta.5029:

3. You can’t get into the group version unless everyone in your party have completed the solo dungeon

are you sure about that? It’s not like that in the old dungeons

ok back to topic, what do you guys think about the storytelling?

to be fair: I wouldn’t compare the story mission with a dungeon, but instead with a story mission in F&F like the Braham-Mission in Cragstead. We got a few new events and get a Meta-Event chain, don’t forget that. Plus a Minigame.

Mirta.5029:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

why the hate for a singleplayer mission? Too lazy to meet a challenge? Come on guys, you shouldn’t have made it to Orr if you can’t do this…

because when we play we play with our friends. Having to leave our friends and enter an instance alone is saddening.

so you never do something alone? Kegbrawl? sPvP? Crab-Toss? Personal Story Missions when your friend isn’t online? I wished I had friends like that who are always there when I’m online.

I kind of like singleplayer content – To have something to do when I’m alone

I want to express my thoughts about the storytelling & background info

I like… because:

• it’s very realistic to spread the story/infobits amongst a lot of npcs & 2 unmovable books. You have to find those npcs & objects which adds an exploration aspect to the game, which is great
• most dialogues are voiced & I love the voice-actors – it’s relaxing not having to read everything
• Interesting villain. I love how it’s not black/white, Canach just tried to help the settlers, so I can’t see him as evil creature. I like this character.

I don’t like… because

• “who the heck is Canach” – It’s so easy to miss the infos on him and I feel there is something big missing…
• Anet blogposts are great, I really love them. Why are those not in the game in some form? I feel like all these great stories are lost outside of the game and when playing you should have a context at hand. Who was this Canach again? There was a link in the launcher last week but now it’s gone.
• very few scriped dialogues like in Flame & Frost. There were first cutscenes and I thought to see improvements on those… instead no cutscene. Canach isn’t appearing before the finale which seems odd… I don’t feel like I’m hunting him down. Why isn’t Kiel the one who challenges him to the final battle. I’m really confused.

I really wonder (on the dislikes): was time the issue? Perhaps it takes much longer to create cutscenes and implementing a new system which mediates written stories/lore.

why the hate for a singleplayer mission? Too lazy to meet a challenge? Come on guys, you shouldn’t have made it to Orr if you can’t do this…

Super Adventure Box aka 8-bit-land

Danomeon.3201:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

pretty sure they never anounced it as dungeon, it’s a story-mission, not more, not less. They have the new meta event chain and lots of new events on southsun + a minigame instead of a dungeon (and poor open world stuff like F&F).

“Join Kiel for a mission to capture the deadly, desperate Canach! In this all-new story dungeon…” – Official statement on the Last Stand at Southsun info page. They did bill this as a dungeon, just as they billed molten facility as a dungeon.

ok this is bad. To be fair, they stated in the same sentence that it’s a story mission (which reminds me of the personal story) but again bad wording from Anet

you have to read Anet blogposts to get the story imho

pretty sure they never anounced it as dungeon, it’s a story-mission, not more, not less. They have the new meta event chain and lots of new events on southsun + a minigame instead of a dungeon (and poor open world stuff like F&F).

people are saying this should be like the Molten Factory should realize that a single team only can do so much in a limited time. The Flame and Frost team had the focus on the dungeon and the open world content was very poor. Not even a single permanent event if I remember correctly. The dungeon was great though.

Now Roberts team works mainly on open world content, new events on Southsun Cove and a new Meta-Event chain. They even created a Minigame and made a lot of improvements to achievement-rewards. They also listened to the people who wanted the story in a singleplayer mission (which they created) + he created a mission for a group. NO WAY they could have done a whole dungeon in this limited time too, grow up people!

I respect Robert + his team for listening to the people and trying to make the best they can to improve the content from patch to patch. Compared to the living story mission (Brahams & Roxxs mission to fight down wave after wave) this one was pretty good since you had to use your brain. People who can’t beat this content solo must either be new to the game or they should really learn how to play it. Yeah, I didn’t get it on the first try, but I learned from my mistakes, tried a few things until I got it and it worked pretty well. Thank you Anet for giving us challenging but not unfair content, this really means a lot to me.

I never got 2 pieces of equipment when winning… I think…