Guild Wars 2

All of this still doesn’t address the fact that all other guild activities are locked behind guild bounties.
I have no interest in bounties, but guild puzzle and rush sound a hoot. Unfortunately, I have no option to unlock these before bounties.

I still contend it’s this way because ArenaNet haven’t actually finished the puzzle content.

I endorse this, but it’ll never happen.
This is another of those suggestions that gets re-posted frequently yet gets ignored.
Unlike some of the others (mounts, dueling and raids), this one would actually improve the game for all players.
But as long as ArenaNet see it as a source of money, they’ll keep it per-character.

The thing is, even thought they’ll wheel out the suspicious “metrics” argument, I doubt very much that people spend that much, if anything on dyes from the gemstore. I would guess that the majority of dyes are unlocked from unidentified dye drops, then from the trading post and finally from the gemstore (a LONG way behind the TP).

It’s a small bump on the monetisation mountain, but the mountain’s there because there are LOTS of these little things pushing people towards spending real-world cash on the game.
That’s why I’ve promised not to give ArenaNet another cent until they start behaving in a less greedy fashion.

See, the irony is, if they allowed dyes to be unlocked across the account, I’d be more inclined to buy them from the gemstore, especially if I could buy exactly the dye I want and not just a random chance at one. I’m sure most other players would feel the same way if this option was presented to them.

It’s a case of ArenaNet cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Haven’t been there in probably a couple of months now.
The smaller Karka and other creatures aren’t too much of a hassle, but there are far too many Veteran Karka if you venture inland, and giving them two health bars was just lazy game design. Each veteran is as tough as a mainland champion, if not tougher.
Maybe the idea was to promote group play, but with nothing else to attract people, the sheer lack of mob diversity and the overall difficulty associated with a large proportion of mobs, it’s no wonder people just can’t be bothered going there.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

(EDIT: and neither does the feedback or the metrics that help us make these determinations)

I quite often see developer quotes like this.
Can we see this information ourselves?
I find that sort of stuff fascinating and wide open to interpretation.

Pretty much what it says in the title, but have your guild rank show under your name like a title.
Of course, the name filter would have to be extended to this to ensure bad language isn’t used in naming guild ranks, but otherwise I think this could be very useful.

Zasa.7154:

It does

“Windowed Fullscreen” in the graphics settings.

Edit: Avoiding potential snarkiness!! <3

Well I never!
I had no idea that was there. Thanks Zasa!

So I don’t know about you, but I hate it when I alt-tab out and have to wait for my computer to adjust. Then when alt-tabbing back in, I hate that the renderer has to re-cache everything. Typically, this involves rotating the camera and waiting for the judder to stop.

Other games have recently used “Borderless Window Mode” to eliminate this problem completely. Far Cry 3 being the most visible example.

The game basically draws in windowed mode, except that window takes up the whole screen and has no border. This means that alt-tabbing is seamless, as Windows just sees the game as another window.

You can’t even apologise correctly, can you ArenaNet?

Firstly, you announce this as though it’s not an attempt to address the concerns of the community and smaller guilds. Like there was never a problem in the first place.
This makes you look like the kid claiming credit for someone else’s idea.
And gods-forbid you actually acknowledge your weaknesses!

And then you screw up the rewards.
Small or “Casual” guilds need the merits and commendations too. They’re never looking to expand into 30+ members. They’re never going to be able to do the missions that give these rewards.

Oh, and I can’t believe your marketing team didn’t point this out to you, but you shouldn’t be using “Casual” to describe your userbase. It’s becoming a gaming slur term.
When people hear the term “Casual” they hear Facebook, Zynga, Appstore and all that other crap. Gaming in that sector is due a backlash, with the groundswell of people unhappy with “Casual” gaming becoming louder by the day.
“Casual” means vapid, 5 minute games that thrive on exploiting users with microtranscations.
Do you really want to be associated with such drivel?

Szamsziel.5627:

If you came for the Dragon because timer said so – this is called hypocrisy – others went there earlier.

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Hypocrisy is the state of promoting or trying to enforce standards, attitudes, lifestyles, virtues, beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually hold. Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches.

A friend got Rage, the pre-cursor for Frenzy from the Frozen Maw the first night after the chest buff, and he’s in the same boat. He doesn’t really want to waste so many materials on a legendary weapon that will never be seen.

Aaah, thank you!
I’ve wanted a dolphin since I saw them swimming around in Bloodtide Coast, I’d just forgotten them.

Of course, there’s also a friendly whale in that same expanse of water.
Can we have one of them?
:D

I have a level 80 Mesmer and love doing jumping puzzles, so will gladly offer my services to anyone in the game wanting help, assuming I’m online and not otherwsie occupied.
Okay, it’s more of a workaround than a solution, but it helps.

I’m on Ring of Fire in Europe. Feel free to message me in game if you’d like me to help you out.

People go where the play is most rewarding for the least effort.
Even I’m doing this at the moment.

The rewards in this game have been drip-fed at such a stingy rate, it’s no surprise people are trying to make as much money as quickly as possible. They know the good stuff will be taken away from them, so they’re hoarding it while they can.

The market is controlled by abusive players who exploited early and were not punished for doing so.

In addition, gameplay changes are being dictated by those ArenaNet see as “dedicated”.
In reality, a huge amount of these “dedicated” players are ones who will never spend a dime in the gemstore. They have no need to. They’re unemployed and/or students. They have no money to spend. They can play all day, make gold and buy anything from the gemstore with in-game gold. These people demand more because they play more and get bored quicker, yet will never give ArenaNet a penny.

The core of this game is dementedly broken, and the feedback loops have been designed to be so exploitative as to be abusive.

Zosk.5609:

Mungrul.9358:

Here’s another point of failure:
You’re still going to see overflows; in fact they may be worse.
In the evenings, when normal people get back from work, they’re all going to try and do the high volume, slow turnaround events like Claw of Jormag. When they can’t get in to their own home server instance because everyone else has the same idea, they’re going to guest.
This solves nothing in regards overflows and guesting. It’s purely an economic nerf.

That makes no sense. You are saying it will mean less Ectos…which logically is because less people are doing events…but that it will have “no effect” on the possibility of overflow. Most illogical, captain.

Don’t put words into my mouth.
I didn’t mention ectos at all.
Here it is for the hard of thinking:

This is to reduce the amount of yellows being created by chests.
It is not going to make the chance of accessing an overflow less likely.
In fact, at certain times, it may make it more likely.

Reading comprehension failure captain.

No matter what you say, the evidence is before your eyes. There is no look that is consistent with that of the Mesmer in GW1.
You can say what you like; personally, I’ve never seen ArenaNet say such a thing, so I’m calling hearsay.
And canon here is a poor defense when all caster looks have been so atrociously homogenised.

Even easier, make Necro, get them out of starter mission, buy cheapest headpiece you can get from the TP, transmute to make account bound, then use another transmutation stone (or fine one) to transmute onto your actual headpiece.
No need to level to 10.

Personally, I’m not a fan of any of the looks here, and there’s been no armour in GW2 that screams “Mesmer!” at me. The closest I’ve gotten to a proper Mesmer look is human tier 1 cultural or just bog-standard starter gear.

Mesmers should look more Thespian, more “Haute Couture”. They need to be elegant, with their clothing cutting simple lines.
Check the Guild Wars 1 wiki page for what I’m talking about.

Having GW2 casters all share the same armour appearance was a really bad idea.

Here’s another point of failure:
You’re still going to see overflows; in fact they may be worse.
In the evenings, when normal people get back from work, they’re all going to try and do the high volume, slow turnaround events like Claw of Jormag. When they can’t get in to their own home server instance because everyone else has the same idea, they’re going to guest.
This solves nothing in regards overflows and guesting. It’s purely an economic nerf.

Yeah, someone else already pointed that Eurhetemec if you’d bothered to read the rest of the thread.
I understand the urge to point out that someone is wrong on the internet can be overwhelming, but please, take your time before jumping in.

I’m in agreement that clones should shatter on my current target, but at the same time, it does add an element of “Chaos” to the profession. I get the feeling that while the current behaviour may not have been intended, they’ve left it the way it is to add flavour.
It’s a running joke in my guild that my Mesmer can aggro mobs from the NEXT MAP.

(I’ve +1ed your post by the way; while I find current clone behaviour amusing, I would prefer the consistency offered by your solution)

It’s not even that; they’re not leaving changes in place long enough to see if the community will naturally balance them out.
They keep fiddling instead of waiting to see. They have no confidence in the changes they make, so why should we have confidence in them?

The more I think about this, while agreeing something needed to be done, this looks like yet another panic patch with no finesse or thought having gone into properly designing a solution.
ArenaNet are bouncing from pillar to post at the moment.

Ah, like the Daily Reward chest that offers a random chance of something in addition to your karma jug, laurel, silver and experience?
Oh well then, my fears have been put to rest.
Nothing can possibly go wrong if the RNG is involved.

Let’s just think of what can go wrong here (or rather will go wrong, as ArenaNet have proved time and again that quality assurance is not the Live Team’s strong suit).

To paraphrase Martin, these rare reward chests will behave much like the ones that drop from monsters in the world when you get “Special” loot.
We all know how successful THAT’S been.
How many times have you opened one of these little chests only to find that your “Special” loot is blue or worse?
I’ve had numerous ones of these chests just give Porous Bones for example.

I foresee lots of angry users posting reports of no yellows from these new reward chests.

One quick point:
If you make a game and then spend more time worrying about its economy than its gameplay, you’ve failed at making a game.

Interesting thing I discovered last night. I was in my chef’s outfit while waiting for the Shatterer. I’d summoned my sous chef and proceeded to wander out into the main field to fry some sparks. Lo and behold, my sous chef attacked them too, using axe attacks!
I can’t be sure, but it looked like he was doing damage too!
Has anyone else noticed this?

Yeah, that is cheesy, in a good way
There’s a couple of female Sylvari lines that fit as well. While the delivery is fab (I wouldn’t expect anything less from the incomparable Jennifer Hale), these two lines make me double-you-tee-eff-lol whenever I hear them:

“I want that!” when she gets an exotic or more valuable item. What do you mean, you want that? YOU ALREADY HAVE IT.

“I am that.” I think that’s on levelling. WHAT DOES IT MEEEAAAN?

It’s my major problem with dungeons. Why am I playing a massively multiplayer online game only to be locked away in a scripted instance with a meagre 4 other people?
I may as well be playing Left 4 Dead, and hell, at least the AI director adds a random element to the mix there.

I’ve no doubt there’ll be something fun, but the cynical side of me also suspects they’ll find some way of monetising it.

I’m kind of in two minds about this.
Since drops have been so good from bosses, it’s basically all I’ve done. It’s affected my gameplay for the worse. I’d start playing an alt I’m levelling, only to realise my time would be more profitably spent doing the next boss event to pop on the timer (I have 5 level 80s so I could spend all day doing major events and getting yellows; didn’t help that my friend got a pre-cursor the first night, goading me on to even more obsessive play).
I was no longer exploring the world or levelling.
I was doing one activity, and one activity only, which can’t be a good thing.

However, at the same time, I realise the draw was so strong because drops are so god-awful throughout the rest of the open world game.
If GW2 didn’t feel so tight-fisted elsewhere, people wouldn’t have been farming these events.

So props to ArenaNet for realising that this change was engendering an undesirable method of play, but at the same time they really need to look at increasing rewards for other forms of open world play.

If they really want people out there doing things, they should improve rewards for some of the more interesting long event chains out there such as the Branded war in Iron Marches out Ogre Wars in Fields of Ruin. Keep it once per account per day, but DO improve the rewards.

Some jumping puzzles should also offer the same level of reward as the event chests. Let’s face it, it takes a lot more skill to do some of the jumping puzzles than to kill the Shatterer. Again, once per account per day, but they do need improving.

Oh, and all participants in guild missions should get the same rewards, no matter their guild status.

Don’t drive people back into crappy, repetitive instanced content.
Reward them for spreading out and helping others.

But when all’s said and done, I only have to look at ArenaNet’s history to see that they have a rather weird idea of what’s achievable.
They are really rather fond of having goals for players be so extreme as to be nigh on unachievable.
Don’t get me wrong, God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals is one hell of an achievement in GW1, but when you look at the sheer amount of time needed to get there, it begins to look positively abusive, and definitely unhealthy for the player. The Kurzick and Luxon titles alone required months of continuous speed-farming for influence points.
Somehow I suspect that the company responsible for such hideous grinds in the past have no problem having achievements in their new game be just as abusive, if not more so.

Yeah, agreed. I’m getting it up to twice a day at the moment through normal play.
I have no idea any more how many of my achievement points are “Real” and how many are down to this.

No +1 from me unfortunately.
I hate dungeons and other such instanced content in MMOs. They are the very antithesis of massively multiplayer, and represent a critical failing in the design of an MMO when you have to fall back on (relatively) small scale, repetitive and scripted content.
Dungeons shouldn’t be held as the zenith of MMO gaming; they are much nearer the nadir.

A solid, stoic Charr name. Sounds like he may be a little boring, but has your back in a fight.

My Engineer is Mister Tiddles.

He’s obviously a member of “The Forces of Brightness”.
I myself tend to side with the “Earthtone Coalition”.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have a full set of PVT on my main, but it’s a pain when trying to gear alts, especially if you hate instances. Let’s face it, the rate of badge acquisition in WvW is less than generous.

It just feels unfinished to me. Like someone fully intended for there to be 6 pieces available, but miscalculated. Either that, or there was supposed to be a sixth Orrian temple which got cut in the rush to release.

Then again, they never finished back-pieces or breathers either.

Mujen, you didn’t address the topic at all and merely chose to belittle the idea that pre-cursors should be craftable without offering a valid explanation why.
Raf isn’t looking to be “that crafting guy people go to” and you’re putting words in his mouth. He is merely offering another channel for acquisition of precursor weapons.

Personally, as ArenaNet said prior to release that crafting would be an important part of the game and more involved than it was in GW1, I’m more than a little disappointed that there isn’t a recipe for absolutely everything.

I’ve been wondering about this since release, and have asked it before.
Now we have the attention of someone representing ArenaNet, can you clarify for us whether only being able to get 5 pieces of PVT armour from Orrian temples is by design or simply oversight?

With all other races, it’s fairly easy to identify them as a chef when wearing the Chef’s outfit town clothes, thanks to the hat looking like a Chef’s one (or the common misconception of what a Chef’s hat is).

Yet on a Charr, there’s some sort of weird, scary Hannibal Lecter thing going on.
A Charr Chef doesn’t look like one. They look like some freaky psycho killer. With a frying pan.

Can you change it so they get a hat much like the Charr sous chef’s hat?
You know, the mini one you summon with skill 5 when in your chef’s outfit?

That’d be aces

You need to edit the original post with some actual suggestions before I’ll +1 it.
Here are some ideas:

Last online status.

Branching guild ranks as opposed to the linear ranking system we have at the moment.

Automated promotion / demotion system based on leader defined qualifiers (ie: new members become full members after X days, etc.).

Multiple guild leaders (may be possible at the moment, but I’ve not experimented with it).

Confirmation windows with clear messages when making changes that may affect your leadership status.

Larger message of the day.

EDITABLE message of the day that doesn’t erase the entire text when you decide to edit it.

Leader replacement voting system if singular or multiple leaders have been offline for a leader-defined amount of time.

Some form of activity of the day voting system, where members can vote on what they think the guild should be doing on a daily basis.

I use full Rampager’s at the moment on my Mesmer, and while I like the GS, the Staff is far better suited to a Rampaging build.

I spec 0/20/20/0/30.

Major traits are:

Desperate Decoy
Deceptive Evasion

Debilitating Dissipation
Chaotic Dampening

Precise Wrack / Confusing Cry (depending on how I feel)
Illusionary Elasticity
Illusionary Persona

The extra bounces from Illusionary Elasticity help spread conditions and keep Vigor up almost constantly, meaning more dodges and therefore more clones.
Illusionary Persona means an additional 33% shatter effects; I keep close to the enemy to ensure maximum splodeyness.

I’ll investigate using an Earth sigil, but at the moment I’m addicted to Air, as it’s cheap and procs ridiculously frequently with the bounces and my high precision for oodles of extra damage.

I keep a Greatsword on hand for those times I need iZerker and some instant, high single target damage, but I just love dodging around the battlefield like a madman, shattering large amounts of illusions with insane frequency.

Keep ‘em coming. I’m assuming that the response is going to be overwhelmingly negative, but I’d like more responses so we can get ArenaNet to either revamp the skill or replace it.

Do you actually use this skill at all?
I know that I myself have never found a use for it, and that either of the other two Warrior elites completely overshadows it in usefulness.

The problem is, even if ArenaNet successfully “Re-work” the dragons, chances are it’ll still be a scripted event, and scripted events follow set patterns that will be gamed.
People will discover the quickest, most efficient and risk-free method of doing any new content within minutes of release.

So on release, I was a little disappointed that ArenaNet decided to divide armour classes in to 3 sub-groups instead of making it per-profession.

Instead of having 8 distinct style lines, we now have 3.

I can understand the thinking behind this from a development point of view (saves time, money and resources). However, from an artistic and even gameplay aspect, this consolidation is doing a dis-service to the game.

Stylistically, all professions in a particular sub group feel samey and generic with rarely any flourishes indicative of a particular profession. For example, it’s very hard to find something that looks distinctively “Engineery”; Mesmers no longer have that Thespian feel they had from the first game.

From a gameplay point of view, it is impossible to identify a profession at a glance thanks to the silhouette indicating one of potentially three professions (2 in the case of Guardians and Warriors).

Now I know it would be difficult, time-consuming and expensive to go back and change the armour system so that each profession had its own unique and distinctive line of armour (not impossible however).

However, I’d like to suggest that ArenaNet implement new sets of gear that are restricted on a per-profession basis rather than per profession sub-group. These would be in addition to the existing sets.

This would require dividing in to 8 professions, 5 races and 2 sexes.
So ideally, 80 new sets.
A lot of work, but it would really help the game stand out and would really improve gameplay, especially PvP.

ArenaNet could take shortcuts in much the same manner they already have done with the existing sets:
Using the same set for Humans, Norn and Sylvari.
Simple resizes of Human sets for Charr and Asura.

But I’d advise against it. It looks cheap and lazy.

I’d like to see a Sylvari engineer look noticeably different to a Charr one, with Sylvari using their natural plant look while Charr would be all spikes and gears.

I doubt very much this will happen, but I’m suggesting it anyway as it would dramatically improve the game.
Humans are incredibly good at pattern recognition; it’s how our brains work. Every player of the game can see the artistic shortcuts taken. They can’t tell the difference between a Guardian and a Warrior without clicking the character and checking the profession icon.

Sort it out ArenaNet!

I’ve never understood why we can’t buy NPC town clothes for our characters. There’s a wide variety of lovely fashion options that the NPCs wear, none of which are available to the players.
When I started playing in beta, I saw the NPCs and went looking for a vendor that sold those clothes. It seemed like a no-brainer.
Of course, now we only have town clothes that are jokey, and that are exclusively available through the gem store.

Oh, a handy hint though: you can bind a key to change in to your town clothes.

I made this thread in General discussion, but a moderator closed it without clicking through the links and understanding my point, instead assuming that it was a simple spam thread when it actually had a valid criticism of the game.

When is a backpack not a backpack?
When it’s a backpack!

This is to highlight that there are (at least) 3 different backpack concepts in the game, when there should really be one consolidated one.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

ArenaNet should really look at consolidating all of these design concepts.

I was so disappointed when I got that set for my female Sylvari Ranger (back before preview).
I was expecting the wonderful coat from the male set, yet I ended up with a set that unnecessarily flashes skin.

When is a backpack not a backpack?
When it’s a backpack!

Seriously, one item, 3 different definitions.
The mind boggles.

Remember ArenaNet: Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

And yet the more I play, the more I realise that GW2 enemies DO use the same skills as players. It’s just harder to tell because you no longer have enemy skill monitors. There are a lot of creature unique skills, sure, but I would say there are more that are simply identical to player skills.

What’s wrong with that Delgan?
The idea is that the challenge would be the same no matter your level, and rewards from map completion are finite, therefore can’t be “abused” ad infinitum.

Warhorn and axe is my favourite Warrior weaponset, but yeah, Warhorn sounds terrible. Distinctive, sure (which is good from a game design point of view), but rather wishy-washy and not at all horn-like.