Guild Wars 2

Rutee.1058:

I don’t know, or care, whether this is a retcon or filling in unknown information.

Well I care, lol. When building on someone else’s work, there should always be a degree of respect paid to said work. Wouldn’t you agree?

Rutee.1058:

…If you want to talk ‘realistically’, it’s irrelevant on that level. The writing staff didn’t choose to make Charr playable (and therefore, need to justify the Charr). You can try this on a higher level (Perhaps the game director or lead designer – someone in charge, in short), but if it’s just writers? Unimportant. You could certainly have a point artistically – if, for instance, the writers left because they couldn’t countenance the change.

Oh I’m not naive enough to think this decision didn’t come from higher up, although I would say writer input was part of the equation as well. But why does that matter? My point is happens to be very artistic, btw. I know this discussion ultimately doesn’t matter one bit, I’m not arguing for them to change it now. I’m arguing it shouldn’t have been done in the first place. Simply because of the artistic integrity of the original story and setting.

Fool’s errand? Probably. Just speaking my mind.

Redenaz

Well, the downed state is GW2’s version of healing…as strange as that sounds. Think about it. Since they don’t have dedicated healers or rez skills in this game, they had to come up with a way to mitigate all the generic player rezing that would be going on in dungeons and such. It essentially elongates your encounters and gives you more chances to stay alive and win the engagement.

It’s a product of having no trinity—no healing class. It’s an interesting idea, and you can tell they put some time into it. And I understand why they did it. But it’s broken in W3 as a viable mechanic.

When you have players exclusively using food buffs that specifically help you revive faster after being downed in a zerg, you know you have a problem. Players are using that mechanic to their advantage, and it takes away from the core purpose of the game-mode. At least separate it from PvP and PvE.

Redenaz.8631:

Tossing out what’s practical to be implemented at this point, I’m really interested in what would have been ideal in this area, more than scattered references like the game has currently. Do you think the 250-year time jump is just too much?

LOL, you should read my other posts…

The 250-year thing plays right into their hands when it comes to this new Tyria, I don’t think that was accidental, on the contrary, quite purposeful. It helps them break free of all those troublesome ties to the past…

Vayne

Most mats are dirt cheap. The ones that aren’t I need for crafting ingredients, foods/oils, superior siege, etc. I do sell them when I manage to accumulate an extra stack, but that’s a slow process. Besides, unless you’re in EB, most of the nodes are T1 or 2.

Yes, most dyes are a few silver…if you don’t mind having twenty-odd shades of pale green or blue or yellow. Most dyes you sample are fairly drab. There are some cheap, nice dyes out there I’ll admit, even starter ones(I’m lookin at you Heirloom!), but for the dyes that really shine, the vast majority of them are pricey. Abyss was just an example, I didn’t think you would latch onto that so tight.

Redenaz.8631:

What is it you want, exactly, as a continuation of the lore from the old game? Keeping in mind that it has to be fun and intelligible for those totally unfamiliar with the old games, too.

(I don’t doubt there are good ways to handle it; I’m legitimately asking what you have in mind.)

I can only speak for myself, but personally it’s too late for that. The game is just too different on so many levels. So I just rant. :/

If I had to guess, I suppose others would like to simply see more in-game references to the events/people/places of GW1 other than a random quote from a book on a top shelf somewhere.

/shrug

Mesket.5728:

Shame its all stained now with all the “wowish” armors (lava, fire, neon lights, fairy wings, lightsabers, etc)

A-friggin-men, brother.

Vayne

Eh, 20 gold is a lot for me. It takes me weeks to get that much if I try. I’ve logged over 4k hours on this game since launch, and never been above 60g. Besides, why should wanting to play one aspect of the game mean I have to be poor?

I never said it had to be Abyss dye, don’t put words in my mouth. All I said was my selection was very limited because of the part of the game I chose to play. Had I been someone who actually likes mindless farming, that would be different. But I’m not.

Besides, you’re oversimplifying the issue to better serve your argument. There were a lot fewer armors available in GW1, each piece of armor could only take one color, and there were like 10 colors. If black wasn’t your color, they were all cheap. Even so, it took less relative money to dye a GW1 toon in black than it takes to buy a few top tier dyes here.

It’s not a 1:1 ratio; if black was the only high-end dye in GW1, and there were only like 10 total colors, then the top 10% of dyes in GW2 by price would be equal to that…not just one Abyss/Celestial/etc dye. The dyes vary in price because of how they look on your armor, it’s not just arbitrary.

Ofc I could use an off-shade of black, that’s fine. But like I said, this game is about aesthetics(not my choice) and the cooler dyes are hard to get.

“So what you’re saying is someone who has no gold and has not enough laurals and has tons of alts has more problem getting a few particular rare shades of dyes. Gotcha.”
Well…yes, that’s what I’m saying. Only add the amount of hours I’ve played the game, too. What’s wrong with that statement?

CEThelucid

I didn’t mean the gods named it that, I meant the humans did. I just worded it badly.

And the gods did help humans establish Ascalon. They were brought to Tyria by them from…wherever. And the gods, until the exodus, treated them almost like sheep until then. Besides, if you look in the “Human” section of the wiki, it states it directly.

As for the legions, my point was they were retroactively written in, and not part of the original gameplay. Ofc, now they have existed for a long time. But then they didn’t exist at all. Get it? XD

I realize it’s an organic story and grows both forward and back, I’m not intentionally being obtuse. All I’m saying is that initial intention with the Charr never involved exploring them as a playable race. That came later…and even though ANet did a good job splicing them into the storyline, you can’t totally erase the setting of the game before this happened. It’s one reason the Charr feel…off a bit, at least with the GW1 playerbase(yes I know, not all of them).

“It’s their story to write.” Legally yes, realistically not exactly. The writer’s that wrote Proph(and I say only Proph because it’s the only one that concerns the Charr until GW2 development started) are no longer employed by ANet. While that don’t mean jack squat in video game circles, it means something very subtle nonetheless. Since the current authors chose not to continue along quite the same trajectory as those first writers, there’s a degree of inauthenticity present. Granted it’s small and pretty lifeless now. But it’s there.

Btw, I actually like the Charr cultural history, it’s very well done. I just think it doesn’t make a good fit here.

I didn’t say it was the ED’s sole purpose to make tech eclipse magic, only one big one. Other things contribute. The 250 years is one. The mass market appeal is another(prolly the biggest one). The Charr and Asura themselves are another. The gods exit-stage-left is another big one(again…ED’s tied to that).

/shrug… Just look at the big picture. Everything is interconnected and purposed to do one thing: provide us, the players, with a cool world with which to engage in. Every game does that.

The difference is some games make it a point to tell a story simply because the story is that good to hear, while others design the story around a target audience.

Which one do you think this game is?

Vayne

Everyone hates dying. But the downed state just makes the PvE aspect easier overall. There’s very little “fear” of character death. Just another way the game is more casual than GW1.

The dyes…what’s not to understand? My main has got a few cool looking dyes over the past year, and I’ve opened every single one of them that dropped. No Abyss, 1 Celestial, no LS dyes. Can’t buy them with laurels because I need those for ascended trinkets. Can’t buy them with gold because I really only do W3 and I’m poor.

So, even though my main has a ton of dyes to choose from, it took a year.

My alts, on the other hand, even though 2 are 80, have very limited dyes to choose from. And again, opened every one they got as a drop. A few are neat, but nothing like the pricey ones that do make a difference in appearance. Those high-end dyes are expensive for a reason, they look awesome.

For a game that prides itself on aesthetics, I miss the boat on that. I don’t really care personally, that’s not why I play. But it’s a factor nontheless.

note: now if they made them purchasable with Karma…that would be ok.

Redenaz.8631:

I’ve written enough in this thread already that anyone can check my other posts for my opinions, but I wanted to note that Obsidian’s criticisms, while not necessarily all ones I agree with, are generally insightful and well-presented.

I spend a lot of my time on these forums shooting at half-formed ideas (“Anet hates money! Lazy devs! Freedom of DLC is a right!”) so it only seems appropriate to acknowledge an unusually good, opposing opinion, and this one cast a new light on some things I hadn’t considered. Props to you.

Thank you.

Although I have to admit, a lot of my posts can be fairly angsty. :/

Redenaz.8631:

- snip -

Concerning your own personal opinions:

• I agree, Renown Hearts are a good thing
• The downed state is a horrible design decision. The fact that any one of dozens of players/mobs that someone “tags” has the potential to revive you is beyond comprehension. A random moa going down halfway across the map can revive someone I’m about to spike? wth
• I thought skill capping was brilliant. It encouraged both exploration and build diversity. Two things which are sorely lacking in this game.
• Choices. I don’t know about you, but having more freedom to customize my character is better than having very little. Complexity is a good thing, it challenges you to really theory-craft your builds instead of the half a dozen choices we have now with each class.
• The open world is better…although I don’t see why they can’t have both. Having solo or grouped instanced zones for vanquishing would be really easy to implement. Not to mention awesome.
• The dye system now is better and worse. Better for your main toon, worse for your alts.
• Crafting is better by default…since it didn’t exist in the first one.
• Combat is better, although personally I think it plays a bit too much like an FPS console game. It’s very action-oriented, but they didn’t need to scrap real team strategy to do that.

Redenaz.8631:

…despite a throwaway line about “everything you loved from GW1” (which is true in my case,) anyone who expected that everything from his or her own, personal bulleted list of game “features” was going to make it through into the new game, wasn’t paying attention.

There’s a lot I wanted to comment on with your post that I disagreed with, but I’ll stick with this line because it simplifies the issue.

When he said “everything you loved from GW1” he didn’t mean “you” individually, he meant “you all” or “ya’ll.” He’s speaking to an audience, not a single person. He was speaking to the GW1 crowd.

Now, if he’s speaking in generalities about “what we loved from GW1” what do you think he meant with that? It would make the most sense to assume he meant those things which made GW1 unique and popular among its playerbase. Unique, because otherwise you could get it from other games; and popular, because of the things people like to do most…the content that is fun, challenging, etc. So, let’s break those down.

What was unique about GW1? I’ll throw out five for good measure.

• Skill Capping
• Secondary Professions
• Minimal leveling cap(20)
• Hundreds of build/skill options
• AB & GvG PvP Arenas

What was popular about GW1? 5 more generally considered “good” aspects.

• PvP
• Build Customization
• Elite/Challenging Farming Areas
• Heroes(post NF) see footnote
• The Story

The above things(or a similar list) have to be a consensual agreement among the GW1 player base for there to be any legitimate discussion about the merits and flaws of that game. Otherwise, it’s all hearsay and opinion.

Heroes: there was a rather large chasm between the pre and post-NF playerbase concerning heroes. A lot of players thought they made the game too easy and solo-able. Others thought they were a godsend.

Mesket.5728:

The big question to ask is:

Would so many GW1 fans buy this game knowing there were not going to be any additional zones so far? Knowing the atrocities their “art” team is doing? How the lore of the game is being put aside for lame excuses to use the gem store?

/shrug

Some of us probably didn’t realize how very different it would be, or were willing to give ANet the benefit of the doubt that the changes would be welcome. Both for me. And let down on both as well.

It’s not so much the jumping, as it is the tiny little ledges and crags you don’t see unless you have the graphics settings turned up.

Prysin.8542:

Pegaasus.3280:

^^2800 armor ranger^^w

2800 is too much, you want 2750 and not a point more… rest goes into vitality. Learn to build your gear.

Why is that?

Farzo.8410:

There was a person working at NCsoft who was Korean I believe, and he didn’t like that ArenaNet mixed cultures. That pretty much means that Cantha, and such, is a mix between Asian cultures, both Japan, China, Korean, etc.

TDLR; Cantha is a mix between different cultures and someone who, at that time, worked for NCsoft didn’t like that so they scrapped the idea for Cantha at that moment.

My story is not 100% correct, but it was something in those lines, about mixing cultures.

ANet originally tried hard to steer clear of anything obviously representative of real-life cultures with Cantha. While it’s clearly an “Asian” themed expansion, anything beyond that is fuzzy. I mean, the Kurziks were almost entirely Gothic in theme.

The problem lies in the fact that those few bits and pieces of content that could be traced back to some real-life examples were put in a huge spotlight. And having those pieces of various cultures mixed together presented a problem apparently. I don’t want to sound insulting or racist, at all, but there is something to be said for the different ways in which different cultures view themselves and each other.

East Asian nations and cultures have a huge history with each other, and much of that involves conflict and violence. I can understand that. For us Americans, we’re used to a melting pot, that isn’t the case so much over there. It’s a little like the Balkans or Palestine…it’s hard to get over centuries of animosity. Even if it’s just a silly video game.

There is one thing I really don’t get though. Why now?? I don’t remember this ever being a problem with GW1. What changed?

Lonesamurai.4852:

What gets me is that we had Factions a year after prophecies release

Ok, I know the campaigns are what hurt ANet with GW1, but would be good if they TOLD us they were working on Cantha, Elona and more

Wait, what? First time I’ve heard this, the campaigns were bad for GW1?

Hawkian.6580:

I should say first that I sympathize greatly with you at being frustrated that the content you wanted to play was unavailable when you logged in to play it. On the individual level, if you haven’t been paying attention to the release dates, I can understand disliking that they do things this way especially if you didn’t realize a certain activity was temporary.

However, on this point:

I simply don’t understand why new content is added only to be removed a month later. Forcing players to play the new content by locking out everything else might get bodies where you want them, but I guarantee you’ll have far less long-lasting playerbase than if you released permanent content.

I want to stress that such a guarantee might be ill-conceived. ArenaNet hasn’t elected to incorporate temporary content with a rapid release cadence on a whim; they study actually player behavior through metrics and concurrency trends, and have structured their approach around that. To clarify, it’s the difference between reacting to what people say they like on a game’s official forums, and what can be demonstrated with data. It’s not a coincidence that there’s a fairly consistent rate of complaint about it on the forums- when discourse on the forums is not what fueled it in the first place (you may certainly disagree that this is a good thing, though in general listening too much to the official forums has its own dangers).

Secondly while many games have attempted the approach of slowly-released, static and permanent content, a majority of these games have failed to sustain the long-lasting playerbase to which you are referring. In contrast, this different approach is as of yet functionally untested (outside of GW2’s success so far), and that makes it a lot harder to guarantee anything… we’ll just have to see how it goes.

Anyway, sorry again about your experience and I hope you return when you hear about an addition that intrigues you.

Why such a radical departure from that then? It’s like they tried doing the opposite thing, with no room for compromise. Temporary Living Story updates alongside long-term permanent content releases would be ideal. But they refuse to do that, it’s “Temporary LS at all costs!!” now.

Does no one think to hit the sweet spot in the middle anymore?

Tyaen.5148:

Reslinal.2359:

Is there like a symposium for spin in SoR?

We have a sit n’ spin.

^
This!!

should be in the gem-store already

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Dyes are char bound. Very alt-unfriendly.

And try to keep more than one character up to date with all the new ascended stuff, good luck (and yeah, ascended armor is coming in a week)…

Not compared to Guild Wars 1, where each use of a dye consumed it and you needed a dye for each piece of armor.

By contrast, unlocking a dye for a character is far far better than it ever was in Guild Wars 1. It’s a major improvement.

But there were only like 10 different dyes then. Total.

Now there’s like 5 thousand. And all the “cool-looking” ones are comparative to buying 5 black dyes in GW1.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Actually, they went the techno route despite, not in spite or due to. The two were unrelated, directly at least.

Oh for christ’s sake, can no one here separate writers’ intention with lore canon? Do you really think the way they presented this games’ story has nothing to do with how they wanted to market it? Wake up, man. They are selling us a product. And to make that product more appetizing to the masses, they threw in all sorts of glitzy, mainstream fluff to guarantee the sales.

Good grief, I understand you know this lore inside and out Konig, and whoever else, but if you can’t bring yourself to look at it from a business perspective, you’ve lost objectivity. Try to see things from a sellers eyes, and not a fan’s eyes. I’m one too, but I’m tellin ya man, this game was not made with the same compassion as the original. Whether that’s on Anet, NCSoft, or whoever, it doesn’t matter. You can pick apart my wording ‘till the cows come home, but that won’t change the fact the game is a sell-out.

Almost every decision of import they’ve made since development began bespeaks that.

And btw, every time someone asks why a dev or writer chose one way over another, for anything, and you answer with only some game or lore nugget, you lose credibility.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

To your second point – I wouldn’t argue the Elder Dragons are a thematic plot device for that. After all, the asura, dredge, charr, and Scarlet go in the direction of technology without the Elder Dragons.

Well…when you consider that they also render the gods defunct, or at least a non-factor, then that’s exactly what they do. It’s two birds with one stone. The Asura, Dredge, Charr, and Scarlet went the techno route not in spite of the ED’s, but because the ED’s existence allowed them to do so. Otherwise, pure magic would still be the power-of-choice in Tyria.

I thought Kyrel was being sarcastic, but I could be wrong. :-/

Ballistae are niche siege engines. Their purpose is siege destroyer, and should be used as such. Like Obscure One has pointed out, their main disadvantage is LoS. AC’s excel at this, especially with the view-hack that is slowly becoming accepted in W3. But I wouldn’t say they are entirely offensive, they just need AC cover fire in order to do their job right.

There is no other siege that can hurt other siege like a ballista can, except for a treb. But then again trebs can do a lot of things better than all other siege, which is why they are slow and expensive. Still, the return on investment on a well placed ballista is good, especially with the increased range and rate of fire skills.

There are particularly good vs. golems and rams, something to consider since AC’s do crap damage to both, and since golem rushes are becoming as common as sliced bread. The real trick for defense is finding just the right spot for them, and having a buddy cover you with AC fire that can take out any build sites they might be throwing down to counter your Balli.

One thing to note: when placing a ballistae, the bolt line-of-site start is in the lower middle of the ballistae, not at the business end of it. Looking at it, you would think the bolt just flies from the end of it, but it doesn’t. This is why you see players placing them so they hang over the edges of walls and cliffs…which obviously makes them more vulnerable. That said, if you want to shoot downward at all, you either need an edge safe from return fire, or a gradual or terraced slope down to effectively hit things below you. Kind of a bummer.

Zacchary.6183:

I think the half naked cowgirl is lvl 80.

I think she’s level 10.

I mean is a ten.

A perfect 10.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The idea of the Elder Dragons is rather good – even if not too entirely original – but poorly shown in the game…

Are you kidding??

First off, it’s terribly tropish. Every fantasy MMO seems to have dragons as the apex predator. Guild Wars 1 actually managed to shirk that stereotype and create original villains. Of the 3 “draconic” beings in GW1 that stand out at all, one was a minor boss with no real story connection(Rotscale), the other two were important to the story, but totally allied with you and acted more as npc advisors than anything else(Glint & Kuunavang). Why bring in huge dragons at all??

Secondly, the whole dragons-devour-magic thing was a plot device created to further ANet’s thematic style for the game. They wanted to diminish magic and magnify technology. They could have done that any number of ingenious ways, but the fact that they chose the cheesy fantasy fall-back trope of “dragons” makes one want to spam /rollseyes.

warriorjrd.8695:

The best way to utilize a pet atm is use it purely for buffs, or conditons. Red moa= 15s fury. Sylvan hound=11 regen, blue moa=4s protection. Those are all AOE capped @ 5 players.

For zerg warfare, absolutely.

The canines and drakes are pretty useful in small-man for their CC’s though.

For solo roamer, anything will do really.

I don’t RP…like at all. But I really hate having to choose a pink ostrich or a rainbow-colored hound if I want group buffs. They’re so darn ridiculous looking. Why can’t we choose the F2’s for each pet again?

Vayne.8563:

The idea of the living story is that it’s a living story…Anet didn’t want to make it so people have to log in to follow the story. It was an intentional design decision so that people who came and went wouldn’t feel lost.

…

But you do have to log in to follow it. If you’re busy doing other things, in-game or out, you miss it. Forever. That’s crappy design.

So…last LS thing I did was the Karka Queen. Where do I go in-game to experience all that content I missed?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

EverythingXen.1835:

I honestly cant think of an aspect of the game that is outright alt-friendly save the AP system.

what about the laurel system? you can buy ascended items with laurels
what about the karma system? exotic endgame gear with karma from Orr vendors
what about the dungeon token system? exotic endgame gear

you guys are complaining about the small bonuses from WvW-xp levels, fractals and the dye-system? O_o

What do you want guys? Gear being accountbound = not having to work for BIS-gear on a character? Seriously? I mean you already can play entirely on your Guardian and equip your Thief BIS by spending karma, laurels and coin. In which other game can you do this?

I do spend laurels on trinkets. For the three 80’s I have, none of them have all ascended trinkets yet. I have 3 laurels atm because I spend them as soon as I can. I don’t do Fractals because a) I’m always in W3, and b) I just can’t stand them. It’s been almost a year for Fractals and I think I’m on lvl 5.

Now you add weapons that have even more intense time-gating, it’ll take me months to equip one character with 2-3 weaps.

And yes, the extra stats matter, especially crit dmg for some reason. I’m loathing what armor will be like next year…

Direksone.3867:

Obsidian.1328:

I respect Konig’s opinion, if only for his vast knowledge, but I disagree.

The new lore is ok, not great. Too radical a departure from its roots imo, but that’s another topic.

The story is good at times, but overall it just seems whimsical and flat. I have to say there were a few moments I actually enjoyed the story content, but they were rare gems indeed. It kind of felt like it was meant for an adolescent Harry Potter type crowd. /shrug

The characters…idk. Unmemorable? Destiny’s Edge is uninteresting: Logan is universally loathed; Rytlock is probably the most well-liked by players, including me. Tonn and Ceera’s little mini-story was nicely done. Trahearne…I don’t need to talk about him. The Personal Story had potential, but it didn’t follow through at all really. It also wasn’t very “personal.” People seemed to like Tybalt.

The Living Story characters I have no idea really. Trying to force me to participate in temporary content in a tiny window of time is bad. You can chalk this up to story telling like Konig said, but the reasons behind it is what destroys my interest in it.
There was an interview awhile back(can’t remember the details) where a dev was asked why GW2 has leaned so intensely toward the Living Story as its modus operandi for story-telling. His answer was basically that ANet had started to notice that “hype” for GW2 always seemed to spike before content releases. So they decided to change their content releases to be doled out in pieces every two weeks so they could ride that wave of hype more often. This also benefited their gem-store tremendously, adding several new, unique items every two weeks to pad their wallets.

It really irks me that marketing decisions can influence the story in such a way. Bad ANet, bad!

Have you read the novels? I’ve grown fond of DE because of it, shows why they are who they are better than the game. I know Logan is a bit of a lovesick puppy, but aside from that I dont see a reason to hate him like so many do.

But yea story and lore is awesome, but the actual storytelling isnt. Saw a gw1 eotn vie yesterday and it had very nice storytelling so i cant wrap my head around how its pretty awful now…

I broke down and read GoA. Killeen was my favorite. I didn’t become emotionally attached to any of it though, it was just a moderately entertaining read. It failed to convince me to read the other two at all. :/

I respect Konig’s opinion, if only for his vast knowledge, but I disagree.

The new lore is ok, not great. Too radical a departure from its roots imo, but that’s another topic.

The story is good at times, but overall it just seems whimsical and flat. I have to say there were a few moments I actually enjoyed the story content, but they were rare gems indeed. It kind of felt like it was meant for an adolescent Harry Potter type crowd. /shrug

The characters…idk. Unmemorable? Destiny’s Edge is uninteresting: Logan is universally loathed; Rytlock is probably the most well-liked by players, including me. Tonn and Ceera’s little mini-story was nicely done. Trahearne…I don’t need to talk about him. The Personal Story had potential, but it didn’t follow through at all really. It also wasn’t very “personal.” People seemed to like Tybalt.

The Living Story characters I have no idea really. Trying to force me to participate in temporary content in a tiny window of time is bad. You can chalk this up to story telling like Konig said, but the reasons behind it is what destroys my interest in it.
There was an interview awhile back(can’t remember the details) where a dev was asked why GW2 has leaned so intensely toward the Living Story as its modus operandi for story-telling. His answer was basically that ANet had started to notice that “hype” for GW2 always seemed to spike before content releases. So they decided to change their content releases to be doled out in pieces every two weeks so they could ride that wave of hype more often. This also benefited their gem-store tremendously, adding several new, unique items every two weeks to pad their wallets.

It really irks me that marketing decisions can influence the story in such a way. Bad ANet, bad!

Skan.5301:

Stooperdale.3560:

If chasing achievements isn’t fun then don’t do it. Simple.

The game is pretty much all about achievements. So this isn’t really an option.

Every 2 weeks a new tier of achivements are released. Dailies, monthlies, JPs, dungeons, WvW, ect, ect.
Everything you do on the game is tied to some sort of achievement.
So unless you’re suggesting people just stand in LA, there’s always an achievement chase.

I don’t do anything in the game related to achievements unless it gets me something I need(like dailies for laurels). In fact, I go out of my way to not do achievements. I think it’s the part of my educated brain that cries out in horror at the possibility of being a labrat to mindless, meaningless tasks.

colesy.8490:

Olba.5376:

colesy.8490:

People too lazy to use swiftness skills are buying them all up, and TP flippers bump the prices up accordingly.

Actually, the 6th bonus has tons of use.

In some cases, the Swiftness skills mean having to pick a specific offhand or swap weapon. In others, it means taking a Signet as a utility or a runspeed trait. In all of those cases, the 6th bonus on Rune of Traveler can be a complete game changer.

Not to mention that there are classes that have notoriously bad access to Swiftness to begin with.

Swap in off-hand, apply swiftness, swap out.

Swap in speed utility, swap out before fight.

But idiots would rather shell out half a mist weapon worth of gold just so they don’t have to spend two seconds swapping.

Yes, because no one ever gets attacked unawares in W3 and has to use a weapon they aren’t even traited for…

Imagi.4561:

Kilandros.2098:

Pet should be an invulnerable/innocuous companion who neither deals nor takes damage.

Instead every pet offers various utilities existing on the class mechanic bar.

Boom. Ranger fixed.

That would be interesting and worthwhile, I think, but it would be a little odd to have a shark just maxing and relaxing beside you while a krait tries to stab your face in.

Also, this is a minor issue compared to everything else fundamentally wrong with the mechanic, but it bothers me to no end: why are the pets permanently juveniles? I’d like my polar bear to grow up and lose his stripes.

Or to have any control over their stats.

Holland.9351:

Not at all alt-friendly. The biggest problem is having multiple sets of gear for each character. It’s basically not allowed.

^
This.

Basically, if I want to run a different build, not only do I have to pay some silver for it every single time, but I also have to wait months now to get the time-gated Ascended items…and spent tons of gold on it. ANet hates W3’ers.

If you only want Exotics, it’s fairly alt-friendly.

If you want Ascended, it’s very UN-alt-friendly.

Thread started HERE if you want to throw in your 2 cents. :-)

Ascalon was far from dead at the close of GW1. But yeah, Palawa is like the Joker, he’d rather just see the world burn.

Dustfinger.9510:

Obsidian.1328:

Well…the events make tacit sense. I wouldn’t say absolute. But the real kernel of truth with your statement there is the “spirit” of the lore. Facts and figures should never trump spirit and theme when dealing with fictional story continuity. GW2 tried hard to meld the new with the old…in terms of raw facts. Big deal, anyone can do that who can read. But emulating the spirit of a thing, does justice to a thing…in so many ways. It is more honest, genuine, practical, reasonable, reliable, believable…better. It’s just plain better.

Sentimentality is not the main reason for my issues with the new lore. It’s mostly disgust at the ANet for using GW1 as a lore-pot of goodies with which to sell a new product. That may seem an overreaction to you, but given the dozens of ways in which this game salvages and alters old lore to better serve their new “vision” of Tyria, I feel justified in saying so. You can downplay the importance of that if you want, but to me it’s one of those things that you never mess with when adding to an established narrative.

In no way am I trying to down play the importance. I realize it can be very personal to some. My point when I bring this up from time to time is that it is not always the actual problem. e.g.: Here when it’s brought up to try to demonstrate that the lore can’t possibly make sense. because when it just gets accepted, it gets repeated in other topics. Then we have a people in other topics saying the lore doesn’t actually make sense and extrapolating off of that flawed perspective, when it actually does make sense. If you’ve noticed, I state my piece about choices but I don’t try to counter how the zeitgeist isn’t the same. It’s because we do agree on that part. We may not share the exact same sentiments about it (similar in some areas), but we do share the same facts.

Hmm…I still disagree. Personal critiques is one thing, but there is such a thing as relative truth. A fine work of art remains fine whether or not anyone is looking at it. It’s utility is gone because there is no one there to appreciate it, but it’s still beautiful. Beauty is not entirely within the eye of the beholder. Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

The lore, in relation to both games, may make sense based on a mostly superficial and technical standard. Saying the lore doesn’t make sense isn’t flawed if you look at it with a holistic understanding of the contextual style with which it was written and presented in. When players say, “this game just doesn’t feel like Tyria to me,” this is what they are talking about.

As I’ve mentioned before, ANet specifically stated they were trying to stay true to the lore of GW1. Did they? Quantitatively, it does for the most part, if you allow for some minor fudging. The qualitative facts, however, don’t really share that view. GW2 lore is not the same as 1 because it follows a vastly different thematic and narrative style, and the bare bones “facts” have to bend to support that style. Otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense.

It’s the same reason why retaking Ascalon right after Adelbern destroyed the Titans would make complete sense, but trying that now would be just silly. And it’s not because of the 250 years, or the size of their armies, or anything to do with logistics. It’s because the theme of GW2 will not support that. Cooperation between the races isn’t just part of the story, it’s part of the DNA of the game. You have to accept that to effectively participate in the game’s narrative. It’s really that simple.

Dustfinger.9510:

it’s a lore problem in the sense that the spirit of the lore is altered even though the actual events can make absolute sense.

Well…the events make tacit sense. I wouldn’t say absolute. But the real kernel of truth with your statement there is the “spirit” of the lore. Facts and figures should never trump spirit and theme when dealing with fictional story continuity. GW2 tried hard to meld the new with the old…in terms of raw facts. Big deal, anyone can do that who can read. But emulating the spirit of a thing, does justice to a thing…in so many ways. It is more honest, genuine, practical, reasonable, reliable, believable…better. It’s just plain better.

Sentimentality is not the main reason for my issues with the new lore. It’s mostly disgust at the ANet for using GW1 as a lore-pot of goodies with which to sell a new product. That may seem an overreaction to you, but given the dozens of ways in which this game salvages and alters old lore to better serve their new “vision” of Tyria, I feel justified in saying so. You can downplay the importance of that if you want, but to me it’s one of those things that you never mess with when adding to an established narrative.

SynfulChaot.3169:

No, you didn’t see many [pets] in the elite areas. That’s because the meta in GW1 for rangers was splinter barrage, burning arrow, or SoS/SoGM.

Pet’s weren’t run in dungeons not because of the meta, but rather they weren’t a viable option. Minions and spirits were both very useful because a) their numbers meant huge amounts of both damage soaking and applying, and b) those numbers could generally be repopulated quickly.

The pet, even a tanky one, couldn’t last that long in dungeons simply because the mobs hit hard as heck, and the pet lacked the skillset, anticipation, and mechanics to survive like a well-geared hero or player could.

It makes sense. Why force a mechanic on someone when that mechanic is known to be a fail in that situation?

Synful Chaot

GW1 mechanics are very different than than GW2, the same principles wouldn’t necessarily work. Even so, there’s a reason you didn’t see many rangers with pets in the elite areas of GW1. Just saying…

You don’t need to be a master of all games modes, but a simple understanding of W3 is required for a solution to the pet. As it stands, I don’t see any viable way the pet can produce results like other classes can there. It’s just the way that game-mode plays out.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Obsidian.1328:

SynfulChaot.3169:

But in most end-game group encounters in PvE, the pet can survive quite well if you’re skilled at micromanagement.

Then ANet needs to inform players that Rangers require a high degree of micromanagement before getting to the area’s where it is required. Nothing before Orr, the dungeons, W3, or PvP requires micromanagement.

Very true, though I hold more that rangers should be updated to require less micromanagement. Though expecting a pet class not not require a decent amount of micro is a bit … naive …

The GW1 pet required very little micromanaging. Oh wait, that’s because the pet didn’t nerf the Ranger’s damage when it died…

SynfulChaot.3169:

You have a lot of supposition in thinking that a majority of the rangers are casuals. Without hard numbers, which I know you cannot provide, we cannot know the balance of rangers between pure casual players and the more ‘hardcore’ or ‘elitist’ players.

Yes, a fix may necessitate removal when proven untenable. But it has not yet been proven untenable. Only the current implementation of pets has.

Yes. I did throw in those words alot. I say them because it’s based off of how I feel about the game, my critical observations of the game, and my discussions with game devs at PAX. Because it’s not cold-hard fact. Because little of either of our opinions are facts and I wish to properly present my opinions without being accused of presenting them as facts.

I never said Ranger players are casuals, I said the game itself is a casual game. I doubt you could get 10% of the playerbase call this game hardcore.

SynfulChaot.3169:

But in most end-game group encounters in PvE, the pet can survive quite well if you’re skilled at micromanagement.

Then ANet needs to inform players that Rangers require a high degree of micromanagement before getting to the area’s where it is required. Nothing before Orr, the dungeons, W3, or PvP requires micromanagement.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Pets do have more issues in zerg WvW. They get the worst of both worlds between PvE and PvP. There, at least, power may not be what you want to run. I honestly don’t know. I retired my ranger from zerg WvW duties nearly a year ago. In fact I retired entirely from WvW nearly a year ago.

…

Then you shouldn’t be posting here if W3 is not a part of your solution. End of story.

SynfulChaot.3169:

- More supporty pets. Perhaps even ones that give buffs and are immune, or nearly immune, to damage.
- Lowered death pet-swap cooldowns. 60s of downtime is just absurd. No other class can have so much of it’s power and utility shut down for a full minute.
- Addition of more pet modes than aggressive and passive like, say, one that has your pet only automatically attack targets that you attack, prioritizing the target you’re currently attacking.
- Addition of the pet dodging/evading attacks, whether it be automatic or manually triggered. If automatically triggered it could be so it only dodges specific attacks, mostly ‘wave’ attacks and AoEs. Or very hard-hitting boss attacks. You know, the things that generally kill your pets.
- Making the pet stay closer to you when idle. It’s idle leash range is too far away.
- Perhaps taking reduced damage when it’s retreating back to you on F3 (with a cooldown on the damage reduction of course).
- The ability for the pet to detect and get out of AoE circles.
- The ability for the pet to attack while it is moving.
- The ability to choose which of the pet’s attacks you get to manually trigger.
- The ability for Master’s Bond to retain stacks and keep them active between all pets until a pet fully dies.
- Revamp of the beastmaster major traits so that they don’t only affect particular pets but all pets..

- immune pets would be OP and not acceptable.
- true, but doesn’t address the real issue at all.
- true, but doesn’t address the real issue at all.
- true, dodging alone isn’t nearly enough to make them viable. It’s a one trick pony, and maintaining 2 separate dodge-bars only adds to the micromanagement.
- making the pet stay on your kitten would mean a lot of RP’ers complaining that they can’t “see” their pet because it’s in your legs. Also, it means your pet will get hit whenever you do. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.
- A reduced damage return is interesting, but unfair in W3. Why should your pet get to soak more damage when a player is actively targeting it?
- auto-maneuvering out of AoE circles would be OP in W3.
- attacking while moving…that is an extremely hard thing to balance for an AI when against a human player. The attack range would probably have to shrink to make up for it, thusly nerfing your own damage yet again.
- more micromanaging…wonderful
- this one I agree with, but still doesn’t address the real issue.
- good idea, but still doesn’t affect the real issue.

SynfulChaot.3169:

If the class is that much an injustice to the players then the players will stop playing it and ArenaNet will be forced to change it one way or the other. But evidence shows that it is still a highly played class.

And you have a major logic fail there. A flawed mechanic does not necessarily need to be removed. It needs to be fixed. That fix may require removal, and if so then that’s that. But a fix does not necessitate removal.

And again, like I’ve said waaaay too many times to count, the reason for nothing being done about it is that our pet issues are minor in the PvP meta and prior to recently they have not seemed to care at all about balance outside of PvP. Yes, people have complained. No they didn’t do anything, not because they couldn’t but because the main balance dev is also the head PvP dev, and he only seemed to care about his PvP and eSports. Now that the focus seems to be on PvE we should see some changes. If we don’t then I’ll be forced to agree with you.

It’s still highly played because it’s a casual game, and doesn’t require you to engage hard content to enjoy it.

A fix necessitates removal when it has been clearly shown to be untenable. Again, there’s little reason to think so given the mechanics of the game.

-“seemed…seemed…seemed…should…”_ ..that’s a lot of maybe’s for having such a strong position. I’d rather like to have something I can count on instead of blind hope.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Actually I’ve switched from running condi to power (in PvE, of course) as the other ‘condi’ classes can build and maintain better and longer conditions than a ranger, as well as doing it more effortlessly. And with proper pet swapping and management, I can maintain near full pet uptime, of which the pet remains attacking a majority of it.

Yes, control is abysmal. That badly needs updating. But it’s updating that’s needed, not necessarily removal..

In regular PvE yes. But not in the other two I already mentioned. Between removal and updating I’ll get to…

SynfulChaot.3169:

I have to strongly disagree with you here. A good ranger in melee with a pet can output very high damage. I believe that record CoF speed-clears have been with these rangers. And although the pet can’t currently survive everywhere, it can survive in most places outside of a few boss encounters.

…if the pet consistently hits, which it doesn’t in W3, and if the pet doesn’t die fast, which it does in W3 and end-game encounters. Those two are the entire reason for this thread.