Guild Wars 2

We can come up with ideas of our own, as we have, and discuss their merits and problems, like we have been. Perhaps Gaile or one of the other devs who read the forum will see an idea that they like, and which suits a majority of the community, and which can/will then be implemented.

Pride.1734:

But there is almost no way to determine ( on some occasions its possible) how the run was done. It could have been one expoit after the other and just getting there by basicly hacking through the stage and having the guts to sell that is pretty low.
Same goes for people who kick others from the party to sell the remaining slot, or people who join and then kick the seller so save the fee.

the first two are certainly reportable offenses, and the last probably as well. though if someone joins your sell run and then refuses to pay, ANet will not do anything about it, as it’s a ’gentleman’s agreement’.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Narrrz.7532:

I feel like people scrolled past it without reading or joined the thread after i’d posted it.

Narrrz.7532:

I had a thought that it would be cool if any P4F account got an automatic upgrade to the full (base) game if they bought gems. In that the gemstore items don’t cost Anet any money, it can only give them added revenue, and could incentivise the buying of gems by the new players.

It really would address a lot of complaints.

It would address one of the complaints. However, it wouldn’t generate the same income for ANet. People already buy gems; ANet also wants them to spend on the game and in particular, to buy HoT (so everyone is playing mostly the same game).

Some people will quit without buying because of the restrictions, though. More, i imagine, will pay to lift the restrictions but wouldn’t buy HoT in either case. Some will certainly pay to lift the restrictions and then buy HoT, when they might well have otherwise never gotten into the game through just the F2P version.

Overall i feel like having some way to buy the core game alone can only be a positive move, and by attaching it as a ‘free’ bonus to another purchase, they create a measure of good-will in the people who do unlock their f2p game this way.

Both, going by the TP.

i can confirm from personal experience that karma is definitely the boost it prefers to take, and that the list at the very least is split that way with noncombat on top and combat at bottom.

Also, my personal experience is that people who are sufficiently compelled to create and maintain wiki pages tend to be absolutely fastidious about that sort of thing…

i feel like it should be pointed out that GW1 had this in a big way. They recognised quite early on that the two game modes were too different to be balanced jointly.

I feel like ANet has fewer resources, or perhaps just more demands on those resources, than they had back then…

They provide a service and quite fairly ask recompense for their time and effort.

Personally, i’ve never taken advantage of them but the prices are typically cheap enough that if there was something i actually needed for Arah tokens i’d seriously contemplate paying for a quick finish rather than enduring the multi-hour fiasco it so often becomes.

ekkue.3754:

A sane person would expect some sort of selection window, the way its works is counter intuitive.

There is one, at the vendors from whom you buy the boost powder. you just select, “i want you to do the enchantment for me”

ekkue.3754:

Not sure why people are arguing against the OP, it’s a valid complaint, it does not tell you it will automatically take the booster.

Repackages boosts in your inventory to take up less space and allows you to change boosts to another similar type.

Each powder will grant one Enchanted Boost in exchange for the following boosts in the quantity listed in the parentheses:

Karma Booster (2)
Experience Booster (1)
Gathering Booster (1)
Crafting Booster (1)
Magic Find Booster (1)
Armor Booster (1)
Strength Booster (1)
Speed Booster (1)
Rejuvenation Booster (1)
Killstreak Experience Booster (1)

Bolded for emphasis.
The only ambiguity is that it makes it sound like it wants all of those boosts per individual enchanted reward booster.

Seera.5916:

The game hasn’t really gone F2P though. I still have to pay to get HoT. If it was F2P, I wouldn’t have had to pay. All ANet’s added is an unlimited free trial of the base game.

It’s hardly ‘unlimited’. In fact i’d say it’s less an unlimited trial and more a limited full game. I’m not suggesting they get access to any content they can’t already play; just that they have their restrictions lifted (restrictions which are only in place in the first place to curb gold sellers – by buying gems, and thus contributing to ANets profit, they are in essence proving that’s not their intent)

Seera.5916:

And most outfits are 800 gems. Cheapest gem package gives 1600 gems I believe. That’s 2 outfits. One outfit likely takes several HOURS to make. Remember they have to make the outfit up to 10 times. Once for each race and once for each gender. 8 times if you consider that most outfits have Asura and Charr looking the same no matter the gender. It’s why the wedding dress was more than the typical outfit as they did make unique outfits for each race and each gender. Minimum wage in the US is $7.25. 1 person buying gems solely to buy an outfit will not make the outfit make a profit. It would take several players buying gems to do so.

But in general, this can only increase profit. Say X% of people buy gems now, and Y% would buy if they knew their f2p restrictions would be lifted. X + Y cannot be less than X alone, and it has cost ANet nothing.

Seera.5916:

Whether or not I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of it has absolutely no bearing on what I consider a fair price for the base game without limitations. I do not consider 50% of a the cheapest gem package to be a fair price to remove the restrictions.

Alright, so what DO you consider a fair price? because prior to HoT being made available for prepurchase, i believe it had fallen to $10, which is the smallest amount of gems you can buy. Now, of course, you can’t buy the base game at all, and HoT comes bundled with it.
Anyone who ‘unlocks’ their F2P edition this way is still gonna have to pay full price for HoT. Some definitely will, some definitely won’t, but either way, the company that runs the game winds up with more money than they would have had otherwise, and i just can’t see that being a bad thing.

Seera.5916:

Narrrz.7532:

I feel like people scrolled past it without reading or joined the thread after i’d posted it.

I had a thought that it would be cool if any P4F account got an automatic upgrade to the full (base) game if they bought gems. In that the gemstore items don’t cost Anet any money, it can only give them added revenue, and could incentivise the buying of gems by the new players.

It really would address a lot of complaints.

So they get more for their gems than I did? My gem purchase went towards a couple bank slots and maybe a bag slot for my main. Someone else could get a couple bank slots and maybe a bag slot AND get the base game?

It’s less that they get more value so much as their account is recognised as ‘valid’.
If you must think of it that way, though, they’re getting something you already have, and which you have presumably had for some time. Have you gotten your money’s worth in that time? this is mostly just the argument against going f2p in general.

Seera.5916:

Gem store items DO cost ANet money. Bank slots and bag slots not that much. But it costs money to create outfits. The time spent on designing and meshing and creating the textures. The mini’s cost money. The finishers cost money.

Just because you can’t go to the local Walmart and pick up “Wedding Dress outfit” doesn’t mean that it didn’t cost ANet money to create the Wedding Dress outfit.

You’re right. I hadn’t thought of the development cost that goes into going into these items. However, that’s only an upfront cost – There’s no cost associated with manufacturing each individual instance, only the template from which the item is created.

If even one player buys gems for the purpose of lifting their p4f restrictions, ANet will have profited.

I feel like people scrolled past it without reading or joined the thread after i’d posted it.

Narrrz.7532:

I had a thought that it would be cool if any P4F account got an automatic upgrade to the full (base) game if they bought gems. In that the gemstore items don’t cost Anet any money, it can only give them added revenue, and could incentivise the buying of gems by the new players.

It really would address a lot of complaints.

I absolutely agree on those points, though i still feel little sympathy for the people who threw away 50% of their boosts for a single extra inventory space.

putting it in patch notes and/or ADDRESSING IT IN THIS THREAD would make a world’s worth of difference.

Sylvari don’t get an accessory for their, er, ‘hair’, do they? all other races can config the colour of some other aspect of their hair, but sylvari just get to choose their foliage colour.

While it does affect the entire body, you still wouldn’t be able to re-select the pattern of the glow, just its colour, so it would be more like allowing a hairstyle kit to change tattoo/fur/skin marking colour (which would also be a fine addition, imo)

Roundabout.1752:

Narrrz.7532:

Well, the whole point there, is why would you convert something you wanted at a 50% loss?

To free up Bank space and because we were told when we purchased the Enchantment Boosts that we would be able to select Karma. I didn’t luckily convert any Karma boosts because I have plenty of Bank space but I understand how that could be an issue for others.

i can understand converting the rest of your boosters for that reason, but if karma is what you want, isn’t that worth taking up 1 more inventory slot?

I have the ground target setting so that the reticle is displayed while the key is held down and the skill casts on release.
So you just move your mouse where you want the spell to go and hit the key.

The zerker meta, and to an equal extent, any other meta that might/have developed, is a symptom of a simple problem – the game is balanced by humans.

Humans simply aren’t good enough to balance a game so that no one attribute combination or playstyle comes out on top. Personally i’m quite happy that all or most professions are viable within the ‘zerk’ meta and that condition damage can be/is as viable as direct damage for some professions.

Put simply, however we tweak the numbers, some specific attribute combination will, in theory if not in practice, yield the greatest dps/highest efficiency. Given enough time, Players will determine what that combination is, or what they think it to be (and can make a convincing case for) and as knowledge of that “best” equipment propagates, players who wish to be as effective as possible will adopt it and start demanding others who wish to group with them do the same. This is how a ‘Meta’ forms.

Currently there is no reasonable way to avoid this occurring. Think about it logically; either the encounter puts out so much avoidable damage that some defensive stats are required, or it does not. Either way, the bare minimum to ensure survival and success is going to be the optimal setup.

The situation we have right now where both direct damage and condition damage are viable is really the most optimal situation possible. The skilled players are not forced to invest into defensive attributes, which would create an artificial and arbitrary limitation on itemization choices, while those who wish that extra degree of surety can do so, and have their survivability visibly increase even from just a couple of hundred points.

The only complaint i have ever seen on this subject is by people who want the added surety of defensive stat investments but also want to feel they are optimally geared or fall within that category of most skilled players. There’s an inherent contradiction there. The best players are the best because they can do the content with the bare minimum of defensive investment. If you force the content to change, you also change that minimum which means that you will no longer have that safety net of defensive itemization. All you’ve done is make soldiers the new meta, and you’ll need to switch pieces out for nomads in order to get your former sense of safety and you still won’t be amongst the top players.

The only change that needs to happen, imo, is a rebalancing of defensive stats

I bought the skritt finisher myself, and while i was willing to part with the gold at the time, it’s a little galling to know that had i not fallen for the hype it would have saved me 100g.

I’m not gonna bother putting in a support ticket, because as i said, i was willing to pay that much for it, but i think i’m gonna tie my purse strings a little more tightly from now on, and i doubt i’ll be buying gems with real money until ANet manages to restore my faith a little.

Foefaller.1082:

Robert Gee.9246:

One of the reasons we are more conservative about axe when it comes to balance is because axe uses a unique attack action in our game that cannot be avoided using positioning. Normal melee attacks have an attack arc and normal ranged attacks use projectiles. Enemy players can use positioning and movement to avoid these attacks. Axe 1 and 2 by contrast just hit you when you are in range regardless of your positioning. While some utility skills (like Corrupt Boon) also use this targeting method, it’s rare on weapon skills and thus we are wary of buffing it too much.

As for the animation on axe 1, it was changed because of an exploit with cancel casting that allowed players to get significantly more damage from the skill by continually canceling it. At the time I tried to just adjust the original animation so we could keep it but due to its construction that ended up not being feasible. The resulting animation looked extremely choppy and didn’t sync well across races. You are always welcome to make suggestions on alternate animations you’d like to see, but going back to the original animation at this point is extremely unlikely.

What if axe AA was made a chain skill, like scepter? Would the counterplay possible with that (since breaking LoS long enough/CC’ing would make the skill chain reset, avoiding the big final attack) mean you could go a little crazier with the damage numbers? Might even be able to bring the old animation back for the middle part of it, as long as the damage from doing the whole chain was better than canceling at that attack.

I made a suggestion thread about an idea for an axe AA chain here, which would move a majority of its damage into the second and third skills with an overall dps increase of approx 30%.

haven’t really received much enthusiasm or revulsion, but that might just be because most people have given up on the necromancer forum…

Without speed boost, charr do feel very slow. I think it’s the size, which means slower animations (try using warrior elite transform if you want to know what slow feels like)

That said… i actually have noticed this especially since the patch.

Quaggan baked you a cookie, but quaggan eat’d it =(

Necros in general really seem to have to fight tooth and nail to get the few scraps left over from other prof’s getting useful attention…

The real issue:

For those, who will never forget and never forgive:

The Good ==> The Ugly

Good Asura ==> Ugly Asura
Good Charr ==> Ugly Charr
Good Norn ==> Ugly Norn
Good Males ==> Ugly Males
Good Females ==> Ugly Females

Edit: not to minimize the actual numbers balance. But i recently posted a suggestion on how to change the autoattack to fix it, which still seems like it would work, so it seems redundant to also address that here.

mazut.4296:

I see what you did there, my mistake. But then your idea becomes 5 attacks chain, way to long I guess.

Huh?

i labelled the three attacks you make – or do you mean, because the first hit strikes 3x? That’s no different from warrior mainhand axe – they have a chain of 1hit, 2 hits, then three hits, spread over three skills.

I had a thought that it would be cool if any P4F account got an automatic upgrade to the full (base) game if they bought gems. In that the gemstore items don’t cost Anet any money, it can only give them added revenue, and could incentivise the buying of gems by the new players.

you can actually read the item description, you know? I know it’s a long and intricate item tooltip but it does explain what it does…

Of course, it doesn’t mention that the resulting booster can no longer be selected as a karma boost.

Well, the whole point there, is why would you convert something you wanted at a 50% loss?

I was hoping rev would get rifle as an alternate ranged option.
Sniper rev 2016!

nekretaal.6485:

Did you miss the preview?

They ignored all the issues and increased the range, which is what they did when focus sucked.

Hint: it didn’t help anything

Yeah, axe needs a lot more than a range increase.

a lot of old bugs seem to have re-reared their heads since the major june patch. I wonder if they had to build it on an older version, or something

just have them turn from the small windy gust into a sizable tornado thing when you’re actually airborne?

Sorry, maybe i wasn’t clear – this is all one skill, turning autoattack into a chain, rather than a single repeating skill.

maddoctor.2738:

On higher difficulties Snowblind is a pain. I hate it because it’s hard to reset your spec/build after the fire part and before you engage the elemental, so I usually die at least once there. If the elemental regenerated health when the team wiped, it would be the hardest boss in the game. Last boss of Snowblind is a joke though

YOUR WEAKNESS MAKES ME cry =(

Axe is in a strange place right now. It has a jarringly poorly matched animation, too short range for a true ranged weapon, and too poor damage for close range. It’s life force generation is poor, and its ‘burst’ damage skill is actually a dps loss, when it works right at all.
There’s a long thread about the animation and what the weapon is designed to do already; i’m not going to get into that here. This is just my idea for a redesign of the autochain to bring its damage into line.

Attack 1: Rending Claws
slash your foe three times with ghostly claws, making them vulnerable
hits 3x, for 75% of the current per-hit damage, for a total of 12.5% additional damage in the same time frame
Attack 2: Deathly Grasp
Impale your foe with ghostly claws, leaving them weakened
Deals 2/3 total damage of attack 1 in half the time, for a proportional 33% dps increase.
Attack 3: Spirit Rip
Rip away a chunk of lifeforce with your spectral talons
Deals the full damage of the initial attack in 2/3 the time, for a 50% dps increase.

Overall this averages to just below a 1/3 dps increase with most of the damage concentrated at the end, with added weakness application, 50% more vulnerability, and added lifeforce generation.

Bitoku Kishi.8346:

DiogoSilva.7089:

GW2 is designed from the ground up to avoid, for as much as possible, situations like the one you mentioned. So if they want to be consistent with their design philosophy, then yes, that’s also a major problem.

Perhaps, but to me it seems equally strange and against design philosophy to exclude the racial skills entirely from Revenant.

This would be fixed by actually fixing ventari as well. The tablet should autosummon and autofollow anyway. You choose to give up the ability to move it to get… what? healing seed? Prayer to dwayna?

I’m sure someone can theorycraft a build that could benefit from using those skills. Why can’t we have that opportunity? i’m actually seriously rethinking rolling a revenant because of this.

sprockets have a way to drop, by using a watchwork mining pick/your home node sprocket generator

I’m generally against more visibility of healing power though… it’s so useless in pve, and only niche in wvw.

i think giving healbot in place of the exciting new elite specialization to a prof that few people, if anyone, rolled with the expectation/anticipation of doing any healing whatsoever, is a sure-fire recipe for trouble.

cliffside. It’s just so long and annoying, and it can be both second or third (and maybe even still first?) so you can’t be sure you’ve escaped it until you get to the boss fractal.

GUTB.8436:

I can’t help but think that substituting actual RPG mechanics for action mechanics is console-y and actually pretty pathetic. All I’m saying is, even in it’s currently severely dumbed-down state, WoW has:

Attack Power
Spell Power
Intelligence
Stanima
Armor
Avoidance
Strength
Dexterity
Mastery
Versatility
Haste
Multistrike
Crit
Spirit
Dodge
Block
Parry

As far as I can tell, at least for my Thief, GW2 has:

Precision
Power
Armor
Vitality

In addition, I have a very simple 2-key rotation (auto-attack and heartseeker). Using the blind + heartseeker combo to get into stealth seems to be a clunky and expensive way to get a little bit of stealth. It also takes quick and accurate mouse action to accomplish in a useful manner.

you missed toughness and ferocity for your thief’s stats. you could substitute condition damage, too – thieves have some pretty good condi application through shortbow.

also…

Wow no longer has dodge/block/parry. They have been folded into other stats or removed as a stat you can/must stack entirely.
Dex/Int/Str are all ‘power’. Actually, they’re both ‘power’ & ‘condition damage’, depending on what class you play. plus, all gear comes with these stats, so it’s not that you choose to invest in it – you have x amount of str, and you can’t really do anything about that (besides upgrade your gear, through vertical progression that guild wars does not have nor want)

crit is precision. Multistrike is also precision, albeit one that operates by a slightly different mechanic. It’s – how can i put this? – it’s needlessly forced build diversity. You critically strike or you hit multiple times but for less damage individually, but more overall, so essentailly the same thing

Versatility is, in essence, the invisible stat which gw2 characters get by investing in certain trait lines and/or meeting certain conditions. it’s build rather than gear based, which only enhances build diversity.

spirit does nothing but affect resource regen, and even then at a very poor rate of return – if you were playing a rogue in wow, you would gain no benefit from spirit either. It’s a stat taken out of necessity rather than by choice, and as such, it actually hurts build diversity.

Finally, the only stat which gw2 actually lacks, is haste. It’s not a stat, it’s a boon, ie a temporary buff – bloodlust or heroism, if you will. It’s available from many sources, but is (in about 95% of cases) extremely brief in duration. it’s intended, quite appropriately, to be something used tactically, fitting with this game’s very reactive rather than watch-the-timers gameplay.

And then there’s ferocity, or critical damage, which WoW completely lacks. So overall, i think this game has greater build diversity.

at least i get a bowwww chokes back a sob

thief sword/pistol 3 is both a stun and an evade, pistol 4 is an interrupt, pistol 5 is an area blind (pulsing?) and sword 2 is shadowstep (which can be used evasively once you learn the class)

i found that weapon combination great for levelling.

i feel like a scavenger hunt half the length of the full luminescent one wouldn’t be out of order. You collect a bunch of items to unlock the recipe which combines them into three weapon components, e.g.: blade, hilt, and ‘core’, the unique inscription which makes it the very specific precursor weapon.
once you’ve collected all three parts, you unlock the recipe to combine them into the precursor weapon itself.

Ayrilana.1396:

Setz.9675:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s less of a grind because you’re not doing the same thing over and over again.

Can’t image how many mental gymnastics you went through to get to that conclusion but the discussion between you and me ends here. Neither of us will back down on our stance.

Edit:
Do collection one, spend 250g in materials.
Do collection two, spend 250g in materials.
Do collection three, spend 250g in materials.

Wauw you are right, this is so much better than spending 750g in 1 go on the tp.

Source that the collection materials costs will equal that of existing precursors?

Setz.9675:

Love the collections, really do.

The recipes however. So the hammer shaft (t3) that was shown required 10 spiritwood planks, 100 siege golems and an item from the previous stage. I find it rather strange how an exotic item is being crafted out of ascended materials, just a little bit strange don’t you think?

If we take this knowledge of the t3 part and apply it to the other stages, we will probably end up spending 30 spiritwood planks, 30 deldrimor steel ingots, and 3 legendary inscriptions (lets just assume this ranges from 5 to 30 spiritwood planks/deldrimor steel ingots total) and the cost turns out to be the same or higher for the hammer precursor than on the TP but now the collection just became a timegating punishment for crafting the precursor.

edit:

Don’t get me wrong, it should be a grind. but making it cost money, and moreover, cost more money than buying it outright is about the worst way it could possibly be implemented. It’s taking community feedback and twisting it around so that they are hurt by getting what they’ve asked for. In what imaginable universe could that be good design?

The luminescent collections were a good step in the right direction of how this should be/have been implemented. They require the investment of time, not money; they require feats of skill; and while they do require buying some parts they require you to do so with a special, non-readily-transferable currency, bandit crests.

This sort of thing is how i expected legendary crafting to be implemented, and i simply lack the words to express my disappointment that they have discarded what, to me, seems to be the obvious implementation in favour of one which, if anything, exacerbates the original problem it is supposedly put in place to help with.

The problem that will occur is that crafting price becomes the same to TP price since spiritwood and deldrimor steel are so limited and tied to t2-5 materials, which will only increase in price now as well.

That’s my fear as well. This gives precursors a very definite price, one which is a lot higher than the current one in many cases. Since this price guarantees you a precursor, it works as a functional minimum value for the items.

Setz.9675:

Narrrz.7532:

Trinnitty.8256:

Anyone that thought precursor/legendary crafting was gonna be easy or cheaper was/is delusional. Its gonna be a grind.

Now you can feel kitten about being unable to afford a precursor in a whole new way!
Now, you can’t even afford to make one!

So much this!

Don’t get me wrong, it should be a grind. but making it cost money, and moreover, cost more money than buying it outright is about the worst way it could possibly be implemented. It’s taking community feedback and twisting it around so that they are hurt by getting what they’ve asked for. In what imaginable universe could that be good design?

The luminescent collections were a good step in the right direction of how this should be/have been implemented. They require the investment of time, not money; they require feats of skill; and while they do require buying some parts they require you to do so with a special, non-readily-transferable currency, bandit crests.

This sort of thing is how i expected legendary crafting to be implemented, and i simply lack the words to express my disappointment that they have discarded what, to me, seems to be the obvious implementation in favour of one which, if anything, exacerbates the original problem it is supposedly put in place to help with.

Trinnitty.8256:

Anyone that thought precursor/legendary crafting was gonna be easy or cheaper was/is delusional. Its gonna be a grind.

Now you can feel kitten about being unable to afford a precursor in a whole new way!
Now, you can’t even afford to make one!

i was thinking about something similar the other day. What did the old kessex hills splash screen look like? It wasn’t the same as the one posted above, was it?
have any others been changed since release (other than LA, obviously) that i just don’t recall?

wait wait wait
what if
we make power scale with conditions?

iunno. i kinda miss the face-to-face cutscenes of original PS. Granted, they couldn’t take place while any action was happening – which these ones can – but it’s not much of a story if it includes only action scenes…

People want success to be guaranteed, or if it can’t be guaranteed, then to be as likely as they can make it.
Most people also want to succeed as expediently as possible.

If you somehow convey that you will impair one or both of those aims, then you are liable to get kicked.
If you don’t want to be kicked, take steps to do or learn to do whatever is needed to comply with those aims.

If that means a departure from your preferred playstyle, find a group of like-minded and/or similarly skilled players who you can play with as regularly as you desire, and in the way you find most enjoyable.

You do not have the right to foist yourself on others and expect them to adapt for you. If you are kicked from a group specifying certain requirements that you don’t meet, you are not the victim. You are the one attempting to victimise other players who are playing the game as they want to.

Please don’t do that

Kirschsahne.2081:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

sean.6058:

Agreed. The trinity is a better system than what we currently have.

Why would you think that?

Because it’s a ROLE PLAYING GAME !!!!!!

The whole purpose is to play roles.

ahem. I think you’ll find it’s not a rolesplaying game. just a roleplaying game.

That role is dps. (/s)

Vayne.8563:

Turamarth.3248:

Kirschsahne.2081:

Odin of Ark.4860:

Pretty much, dungeons still clear too fast for a druid to be effective with heals.

I would say it’s the opposite.
Finally you have the chance to play the dungeons as intended.

As intended?
The dungeons were designed with no trinity in mind.
GW2 was advertised as having no hard trinity of dd, healer and tank.

And it still doesnt’ have a trinity because there’s no way for a tank to hold aggro. It was advertised with a soft trinity which included support.

Druid is support. What’s the issue?

Actually, aggro is related to two things; outgoing damage and your toughness stat.
On a zerk necro with enough cavalier pieces to get my toughness up to around 3k, champs stick to me for the entire fight.