Guild Wars 2

Final Day Event Feedback.

The Good:

- Performance started out a bit rough, but then became very smooth. Whatever adjustments you made to slay the lag, ANet, I hope someone wrote them down

- The series of events leading up to the final battle with the Ancient were clever and flowed logically from one to another. The gimmicks didn’t feel gimmicky. Nice design work!

- The loot. I didn’t get a precursor, but I was happy at how generous the rewards were. I’m also glad to see that folks who missed out on the earring can grind one eventually.

- Other players. This game’s mechanics do a great job of encouraging cooperation between strangers. Major events like this really highlight that. For example, every zerg had folks who spent most of their time rezzing.

The Bad

- The trash waves were too long. Those champion, and even veteran karka seemed to have a billion hit points, and they just kept coming. Nobody really wants to fight trash for 30+ minutes at a time.

- The loot. In retrospect, perhaps you should not have included precursors in the loot. Even though they were rare, their presence greatly magnified the anger of some people who were unable to complete the event.

The Ugly

- As I understand it, some people were unable to complete the event because the servers went down for routine maintenance, with the usual short warning. This is a blunder. You need someone to run the events as they happen, and that person needs to prevent things like this from happening.

Overall

Nice work! The good things can all be replicated, and most of the problems can be mitigated with the proper adjustments in future events. I was surprised at how smoothly this ran, and how clever the fights were. 7/10, would kill again!

The normal critters are all fine — you just have to learn how to fight them. Some of the veterans are essentially champions. They’re hard. And there are a lot of them.

I think my alt made an entire level rezzing people during the demolition team segment

What was the exploit? If you ran the event twice with the same character, you only got to pop the chest once. The second time, it was already open and non-interactable.

In my guild, about a dozen of us completed the event. Most of us did so twice, on alts. I managed three runs. Nobody got a precursor. When I see claims like “half my guildies got one,” I am fairly confidant that is not true.

The vast majority of participants got the following:

- Two completely random exotics (level 62 – 80, depending on your character’s level)
- A level 80 exotic accessory
- A twenty slot box
- Two random yellows

That is very generous, but there’s nothing on that list you cannot grind out in normal play. There’s no reason for rage.*

*unless you were doing the event when the game went down for routine maintenance. That’s a colossal blunder on ANet’s part.

GW2 should win easily. It’s loopy how much they got right, especially with a beast as large and complex as an MMO. Add to that a launch as smooth as butter.

This is my first go at an Arenanet product, and I am extremely impressed.

Naurgalen.2374:

Ill just call a basic game design concept present in mobas, fps, hack & slash, rpg, fighting games, beat them up and even third person games:

Because skill-shots and combos need more work to do than simple or auto-aimed attacks, they are rewarded to the players more than the others. (proportionally ofc)

This is not arbitrary. That relation means that a good player can real show of making combos/good aimed shots and getting an edge for it (have u ever seen pro playing mortal kombat/street fighter games?) while beginners are compensated for trying combos instead of button smashing. Everyone wins.

The thing is: that rule its not yet in the game. Elementalist combos-skillshots deal less damage that 2 hits without swapping from other classes given the conditions. (even in 1 hit in WvW as some screenshot showed in this forum)That can NEVER happen in a real balance.

I really like the swap/combo game play, and because of that I would really hate if they buff the basic attack/damage from the class. But the combos and skill shots must be fixed/updated with a real compensation balance in mind.

This is exactly how I feel. I love the elementalist’s complex gameplay, and I have done a ton of PvE, PvP and everything in between while playing mine obsessively. It is clear to me that the complexity is not rewarded with results. It does not give us a high ceiling, but a low floor.

I do not want it simplified. I want it to be rewarded. If my attack rotation takes three times the time and key presses as that of a warrior, I expect to do more damage, not less. If my defenses are all active ones, as I have the lowest possible combination of hit points and armor, I expect them to be more effective than hit points and armor.

The spells and attunements are a great design. Just change some of the numbers a bit.

Playing tournaments won’t change your mind. If you like elementalist gameplay — and I do, too — you’ll like it there, too.

What might change your mind? Play another class to high level, gear them up and notice the power gaps in many situations. Anyone with the skill and time to get good at ele’s could become great with a more capable class. Ele’s don’t have a higher ceiling. Ele’s have a lower floor.

I like Orr, as difficult and inconvenient as it is. It’s a long-dead land risen from the deeps, and it looks exactly like that. I don’t think I’ve seen such a zone in any other MMO’s endless parade of deserts, forests, mountains and farms. The mob density and constant danger of being overwhelmed lends it an endgame feeling.

If LoTRO ever comes out with a Mordor zone, I’d expect it to be exceptionally difficult for soloists. Likewise, Orr is the belly of the beast. It should be nasty.

I love the elementalist from a style standpoint. The spells look cool. Also, the permanent swiftness you can attain truly is hard to give up.

However, it’s a bit loopy to say that you want it to be kittened in order to provide ‘challenge.’ You could accomplish the same thing with a warrior or thief. Simply play with half your gear slots empty, or perhaps tape all your fingers together.

Every game has a small minority of gamers who prefer to play in some kind of “impossible level/ hardcore” mode. That’s a legitimate playstyle. It doesn’t makes sense to say that certain classes are restricted to people with such particular taste, however

Turbo Whale.1738:

Do the other classes have 25 skills, with the level of versatility that comes with those 25 skills?

Other classes have 10 skills, compared to our 20. But the answer to your question is generally, “yes, they have an equal number of useful abilities.” About half of our abilities in any given weapon set have the same function, “reduce opponent hit points.” Giving most of the cooldowns and sticking them in different attunements does not add to my versatility. It simply means I have more keys to press in order to continue doing damage.

I crafted a set of exotic armor split between Knight (power, precision and toughness) and Valkyrie (power, precision and vitality) gear. That is a solid mix of damage and survivability. Glass cannons are too fragile for my tastes, and I wanted a set with flexibility for solo, dungeons and WvW, even if it’s not optimal for any particular situation.

If you generally solo and dislike WvW, here’s one important hint: Forget staff. It’s only good in situations you don’t seek. Try the various other weapon combos, and see what suits.

Anlyon.8375:

Between the Betas and release i’ve got almost 300 hours on my ele.

I pay attention to your posts, as you clearly know your business. However, you should consider that the sheer volume of time you have put into this overly complex class may render your opinion somewhat less useful for players who are more casual. I submit that the vast majority of players would be more effective playing almost any other class, in almost any situation.

It’s not like there’s some pot of gold at the end of the elementalist learning curve. I think it’s more of a low floor than a high ceiling.

Dicemeister.9340:

I’m sorry, but what are these knight and valkyrie you guys are talking about?

They are armor prefixes. Knight gear has Power, Precision and Toughness. Valkyrie gear has Power, Precision and Vitality. As with Anylon, who posted above, I chose to craft myself a set of 50/50 Knight/ Valkyrie gear at 80 for my staff elementalist. I’m pleased with that choice, and I plan to continue using it. Pure glass cannon (typically, Berserker armor) is not for me.

This is distinct from the runes you add into your armor, which can customize it further.

Elementalists are good in the hands of a good or great player. However, that same player would be more effective choosing almost any other class.

The major exception is WvW sieges, where staff eles are fairly powerful.

Husseini.7413:

Wtf is wrong with you guys?

Helpful Hint: Calling people ‘kids’ and asking Wtf is wrong with them has never convinced anyone of anything. Not once.

Substantive Reply: Eles have the tools to be competent in the hands of a good player. That same good player would, in almost every circumstance, contribute far more to his team if he played a class that didn’t come out of the box with minimal survivability and didn’t take a half-dozen keypresses (and the associated time and cooldowns) to do anything useful.

Opinion: I like complex classes with difficult learning curves. The traditional tradeoffs for climbing that curve do not appear to exist. Given equal levels of player skill, most other classes will usually be better at darn near anything (with a few specific exceptions, most of them in WvW sieges).

For reference, my ele is 80 and all dressed in orange, except for my jewelry. If I didn’t consider WvW my favorite endgame, I’d have dumped him for my ranger or thief.

In most cases, an elementalist will do three times the ‘work’ of other classes to achieve the same, or slightly lesser results. By work I mean both keypresses and decisionmaking. All of those take time, and they increase the chance that your fantastic five-skill combo will somehow be interrupted, or the target will simply move out of your ground-targeted AoE.

In terms of style and flash, elementalists are fantastic. They’re only better statistically in WvW sieges or zerg clashes. In all other cases, a good player can still get good results, but they’d get better results on a different class.

If we’re going to take six keypresses (and the time it takes to fire off all those skills) to do anything useful, we need to be doing it far better than classes who do the same thing in less time.

Solved this myself. First, here’s what did not work:

1) Three different browsers on two computers and an Ipad
2) Deleting all cookies
3) Closing all other tabs
4) Trying every day for two weeks
5) Declining the Code of Conduct before accepting it

Here’s what did work:

1) Logging into my GW2 account, logging out of it, then logging into the forums

Sheesh.