Guild Wars 2

Monstrous and pointless grind kinda IS the intended method though…

I don’t believe that. ANet wants to make an enjoyable game, there must be some trick to make this at least somewhat enjoyable.

Really no different than a lot of achievements that Anet creates. Wait until Halloween and Wintersday.

I’ve done all the Winter and Halloween achievements, and none of them are so completely pointless as this one seems to be.

The achievement is optional as you could skip it and still be able to complete the meta. The only thing this gives is a few AP and a title. There’s really no “right” or “wrong”.

The meta only allows you to skip a few of the achievements though, and you need to get the JP achievement to get the mursat coin achievement, so your droppables are limited.

How is this meant to work? You’re supposed to feed him 50 apples, but the nearest apples are a good distance away, and take at least a minute or two of hopping around to get back and forth. Obviously they can’t intend that players should have to run all the way back and forth 50 times because that would be a monstrous and pointless grind. If that were the intended way to do it, they would have set a more reasonable limit like five or ten, tops. So what’s the trick to it? What’s the correct method that would make 50 repetitions plausible?

A puzzle that relies on “Trial and error” is poorly designed.

agreed. Any good JP, you should be able to use intelligent reasoning to determine the correct next jump before you make it. If something looks right but turns out to be impossible or auto-kill you, then that’s not good gameplay, it’s just needlessly cruel.

Huh, I wasn’t even aware of that P/D #3 issue, but they could just make the teleport apply to the first target hit only. In any case, I would LOVE to see Ricochet back, and dual pistol really needs it. If nothing else, they need to make the move baseline for Unload.

Which brings me to the next major point: Pistol was overlapping on Shortbow. During the massive trait change that removed Ricochet; traitlines, weapons, and other aspects became more specialized. In the case of Pistol, it was designated as the “single target burst” weapon, while Shortbow had a more visible role as the “aoe ranged utility” weapon.

SB has never been an “aoe ranged weapon.” It is a “portal gun,” plain and simple. It can tag enemies for you, but is highly unlikely to kill anything at any reasonable pace. If they want to make SB a viable weapon, then that’d be great too, but for now, it’s not, and P/P cannot shadowstep you at will, so it has nothing to fear from the Shortbow either. And just because P/P is meant to be primarily single target, it still needs to have better AoE options, because this is a game of AoE. at least one of its attacks needs to be reliably fired into a group and mess people up. Maybe take the lame #2 ability and turn it into a fragmenting burst, around 150-300 range from the initial target.

Archeia.8905:

ikr? how dare devs expect us to play with other people in an online multiplayer game in order to tackle content? like wow what were they thinking. They should also nerf fractals cause I can’t solo those

Just. . . never use this argument. There’s no point to it, but it comes up constantly in multiplayer game discussions. If people want to play with other players, and other players are available to do so, then that’s what they’ll do. If they’re expressing a desire to be able to solo something, then it’s because either they have their reasons for not wanting to team up, or they are finding the logistics of teaming up challenging. They have a legitimate issue, and deserve a legitimate hearing. Trivializing their concerns does not benefit anyone.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

My warrior that I rarely ever play anymore is sitting on 364 spare hero points. I actually think devs made too quick of a decision on reducing the elite spec requirements. I actually find it mind boggling people are still finding it hard to get the hero points they need.

Did you get World Completion on that character before HoT? That can make a huge difference, whereas players that just want to complete their new character just wants to be able to clear the HoT HPs and get moving.

Seems as though there is a chance you pick it up and it doesnt register in the quest, but removes it from being intractable until you relog.

I don’t think that’s quite it, since I know I only grabbed four the first time and each was counted, but maybe what’s happening is that it’s spawning two on top of each other or something, and collecting one makes both disappear but only counts one, so you need to relog to get it to reappear?

I tried one, got some random stuff but I have no idea whether it was a solid value or not. Nothing that stands out, but it was a tiny sample size so I wasn’t expecting much. I’m waiting for one of those number crunchers to get to work.

I totally agree. I get that the story involves us portalling in as part of the plot, but there should be some mechanism by which once one character enters (or maybe after they complete the story), it unlocks a physical portal elsewhere.

Maybe just make it that portal in Rata Sum, make it so that attempting to use it works like the portal stone in the Guild Hall, allowing you to select your destination from available options.

Not in my case. The 5th one for me was on the edge of the caldera nearest to the story NPC, right on the open ground. There’s no chance that I wouldn’t see it if it had been there, and I spent about fifteen+ minutes walking and flying around the caldera, so I’d have noticed anything inside it.

I agree that they should be nerfed at this point, and that in future content, ANet needs to plan in for every “necessary” event to be soloable at some point, so that when the time comes (and it will), they can just flip a switch and make it soloable.

and the “why don’t you ask in chat or LFG” thing may work, but it often won’t, because chances are very good that nobody will want to do it, or at least nobody is paying attention to that concept when you want to do it. For that to work, it’d need to be something stronger than the existing LFG, where you could actually post an LFG that would last for days or weeks, and people would stumble onto it and be like “yeah, I do need that one,” rather than hoping they’re looking at the same time you are.

Until Anet fixes it though, anyone in this situation I would recommend you instead look for “map clearing” or “HP clearing” parties, which may involve a lot of redundant points for you, but are usually pretty fun, and will get you the ones you need. There’s usually at least a few of these running each week.

I read earlier that there was a bug where the machine parts vanish until relog if you complete the nearby heart quest.

I don’t think so in my case, because I’d completed that heart quest, but did so about an hour before I even started that step of the story mission (I’d stumbled into the caldera while the boss fight pre was active), and those four machine parts were plainly visible, just not the 5th. It’s good we’re working through possible explanations though.

I don’t think they will sell HoT for $15 because now the core game is F2P, which wasn’t the case when they droped the core price to $15. Basically, at that point they said "we want a lower barrier of entry for people to try the game, so let’s make it $15. Now that barrier is “$0,” so they don’t have that concern. You get the core game for free, and HoT costs extra.

They could maybe drop the price to $15-25 for people like yourself who already own the core game, if they have the tech to do that sort of thing, but otherwise I think the price will stay high.

Now the real catch is when the next expansion comes out, because I assume it will be the same as HoT, “buy it, and fully unlock your F2P account,” so there will be people who buy it without having bought HoT. They really should have some cheaper option at least for those players to pick up HoT as well at a lower cost, and I really doubt it will be included for free.

To be honest though, I don’t have any sympathy for people who bought the base game and then won’t buy HoT for $50. Whatever price you bought the base game for, you MORE than got your money’s worth out of that purchase. They delivered a TON of content for that original $60 price tag, and I was more than happy to pay it again three years out to cover what HoT launched with, and continues to add to the game. Just drop the $50, it’s the price of a standard retail game, and you’ll be playing it ten times as long as anything else.

I love the new Infiltrator’s Arrow, it feels like Spider-Man.

Yeah, when I logged back in it was right in the open, can’t imaging I missed it so it mustn’t have been there. So anyone else, if you can’t find all five, re-log and it should be there.

I do, thanks, and the four I did find were all relatively low as you say, but the 5th didn’t seem anywhere in sight. I wandered all over the caldera, high above and low to it, even flew through that tunnel just in case. Couldn’t see it. I’ll try again in a bit, maybe having reset the client would cause it to appear or something.

There’s a point where you have to locate five machine parts in a volcano caldera. The first four were effortless, all within easy sight of it, but the fifth eludes me. Is it hidden in some crazy place? Or glitched? Or what?

I think the problem is, there is no “right” strategy. It’s always different depending on what your team has vs. what the other team has, plus whatever random factors might be in play. There is no strategy you can form in the base that will definitely work once you’re out, and “doing it right” is about adapting effectively to the state of the battlefield.

If you’re being “out-rotated” then that typically means that the enemy has more nodes than you do, and any time your “A-tema” makes an effort to take one of them back, their own team manages to snipe whatever nodes you do own, so that you’re constantly chasing them around, and they usually have at worst a 2-1 advantage over you, even when you do manage to retake a node.

So basically, if you can take mid, it’s usually a good idea to take and hold mid, while holding home. If the enemy seems obsessed with keeping mid, try taking far, and holding far and home. If you can’t fight their strike teams and win, then it’s like playing poker with losing cards, you can beat them, but you need to stay very tricky. Your only hope then is to keep them distracted, pull some of their strongest 1v1 players into match-ups where they outnumber you, but in which you can stall them out for a while over a relatively minor objective, while the rest of your team works to retake the rest of the map.

If you’re defense heavy, you want to snipe nodes when they aren’t looking and then hold them steady. Maybe have 1-2 bunkery characters on each node you control, but you’ll need to have a couple mobile players (like Thieves or Mesmers) that are to distract the enemy team to keep them split up (by attacking secondary objectives, decapping their home node, etc.), or ready to reinforce a team that comes under siege.

If you’re defense-weak then you’ll need to blitz nodes, take them fast, and then largely abandon them, moving to the next, such that the enemy almost never holds any node for any length of time, while your team always has 1-2 active before they can take it back. If doesn’t matter if you only hold a node for as long as it takes them to decap it, so long as on average you hold them for longer than they do.

And also keep in mind which secondary objectives can flip the outcome of the match. On Temple, for example, Stillness basically means that even if you hold a 2-1 node advantage, you’re basically gaining equal points for a bit, so a team that knows when to go for those effectively can really throw off a team that ignores them and just plays a generic strategy, while at the same time if a team ONLY goes for the secondary objectives then they can typically get trolled into gaining very little for a lot of effort.

Just make it a skin and not an actual legendary item and that would reduce the “demand” from non pvp players.

I would much prefer it be a Legendary item and not a unique skin than for it to be a unique skin. I mean if it’s super ugly and I wouldn’t want it, then fine, but I didn’t go through the unending torment of the Path to Ascension for a kittening purple backpack, I did it for a very cool looking pair of wings. I would have done the same if it had been just a skin, but if it had just been some purple backpack like Ad Infinitum then I wouldn’t have bothered.

How about skins that are only vissible in PvP areas?

Yeah, that’d be fine, or finishers, titles, anything that is either used almost exclusively in PvP elements of the game, or that serves ONLY to say “look how great a PvP guy this is!,” without also being anything that someone would want whether they care what a good PvP guy they are or not.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

This thread has responses pointing out issues in the current iteration of leagues and using those flaws as reasons why a rating and point (pip) system cannot both be used in tandem as I suggested in my original response. The issues mentioned include restrictive matchmaking based on pips, small tier sizes creating a large sense of loss when dropping pips, and a lack of prestige because of win streaks and rating-based matchmaking.

With that said, I’d like to clarify my original comment regarding using both pips and MMR. Our goals for leagues are still the same: create opportunities for skill-based prestige, give rewards for effort, and keep a low barrier to entry. We’ve tried to hit these goals with different iterations of a catch-all pip system; each emphasizing a different goal at the expense of the others. Pips are an easy to understand system for delivering rewards, but we understand that rating is a more accurate display of skill. We are now looking at how we can leverage the strengths of these systems individually to better succeed at reaching all of our goals. Both pips and rating can be used within the system if they are focused on solving specific problems – not all of them.

I think the important thing here is that when you guys do come up with a system you think works, tell us about it. Don’t just dump it on our doorsteps when it’s already too late to change, and say “this is the system that will be happening next season, deal with it.” When you feel you’ve come up with a system you think works for you, let us know about it, let us discuss it, let us provide feedback on it, and give yourself the space to fix any issues we raise with it BEFORE it becomes locked in as the new normal.

And remember, give PvPers a good reason to be excited about the league, but one which does NOT involve PvEers having to spend more than a few hours in PvP to get something really cool looking for their character. Whatever reward mechanisms are in place, they should only be things that PvP players would want or need (beyond a small reward designed to give PvEers a chance to try it out).

I’ll get much more knowledge out of a blue [-8.4%] than a blue [-100]. And if I know my personal

Maybe, although percentage contribution scales with group size, so while it may be nice to know how much you contributed, it would be kind of worthless for strategy, since the same attack would do random amounts of apparent damage each time. A hard number, on the other hand, would make clear to you that this attack does “100,” while this other attack does “75,” and this other “25.” Well informed players can look up all their CC and figure out the tables how much impact it has, but for the casual player, just seeing this hard number for each of your moves would give you an idea of how much, or how little impact you’re having relative to your own potential.

Apologies if I semi-hijacked the thread, but I’ve had Defiance Bar improvements on my mind recently, and any good ideas we can get to bubble up to the dev team would help the game as a whole.

Hey, any good idea is a good idea.

Can’t say it’d be an overly useful idea, but if it helps with conveyance, I’d still support it. As it is, it’s the breakbar duration and defiance-HP that occasionally bothers me. For something like mushroom kings, it’s fairly worthless to try, because you may get one CC ability off before the bar closes, and it has way too much dHP.

I’m going to go a little off topic in my own thread, but I consulted with the OP and he approves; but it would be a nice thing if “fast breakbars” gave more advanced warning that they were coming. There’s a simple fix for that, use the cooldown visual, the brown bar. When you have a breakbar that only lasts a few seconds, instead of having it jump instantly from “drill bar” to “blue bar,” change it from “drill bar” to an empty “brown bar,” which would then refill over ten seconds or so, giving people time to prep their best CCs and for commanders to shout in chat that people need to get ready.

And while we’re on the subject, what about those enemies that have their bar broken and that leaves them vulnerable to damage for a few seconds, but usually not for the amount of time it takes for the brown bar to refill, meaning the player isn’t given a clear indication of how long he’s in that vulnerable phase. It might be nice if the brown bar turned red or something while the enemy was actually vulnerable, then flashed back to brown when they became normal again.

And as a third aside, it might be nice if during breakbar phases they could pop-up “damage” numbers based on your own CC contributions, just so players would know without having to look it up how much CC impact each of their attacks was having.

Not a criticism of your idea but there’s a problem with making things too complex in a game that doesn’t even have a basic cc tutorial, much less a breakbar and what it is tutorial. There’s appears to be a lot of people out there who don’t know what cc is, don’t know what the breakbar is, how you break it or why you would want to. Making the breakbar more complex will make the crowd who don’t know what it is even larger.

I think that if it’s relatively subtle, then people who have no idea how breakbars work might not get much out of it, but wouldn’t be hurt by it either.

Ok. I’ll comment. I read it earlier and did not comment because I saw no use for it. Is this a specialized raid thing? Because in the open world the bar is either there (I should use cc), not there or filling (be ready to use cc). I didn’t see how the extra bar would tell me anything of real use against open world bosses.

It would provide feedback. I mean, what’s the point of a health bar? If the enemy’s there, you throw damage at it, it’ll eventually die, or not. The point of the health bar is to gauge how well you’re doing that. A lot of times it’s unclear whether or not a breakbar was successfully defeated, since the enemy doesn’t do anything that can be visible through the effect spam. A timer bar would let you know that if it’s very low while the breakbar is quite a bit higher, then it’ll likely time out before the bar is broken.

It’s not essential, granted, but I do think it would be a quality of life change.

There are some enemies that have a breakbar up permanently. An additional bar wouldn’t provide any useful information and would just distract from what is relevant. Lots of mordrem have this type of breakbar.

True, but in this case they could either not display the “timer” bar, or it would just sit there not moving, in which case it would not be causing problems. I’m not thinking of this as taking up additional space on the bar, I’m thinking of it perhaps as a small second line that runs along the bottom of the existing trough.

An example is when VG gets his breakbar. You want to break him as soon as possible so he moves to the next section, but if you don’t break him he will stop eventually. Having a bar showing how much time is left would be very misleading to people learning the fight, especially if they had gotten used to it being a good indicator of how breaks are doing in other content.

Well, I don’t think anyone’s going to look at these bars and say "well, it looks like we’ll have ten seconds to break this bar, I guess we can take it easy and break it at the 9 second mark). If you can break it fast, you’ll want to break it fast, always, but this would at least give feedback as to how well you’re doing.

My take on this. A quick mock-up.

https://youtu.be/v4c7Wc1GB3g

I like this. I think that so long as it doesn’t add too much visual clutter, more information is better than less. You may not pay attention to it every time, but it’s helpful the first few times, and after a while you learn to pick it up as second nature.

I find it interesting that every time the idea of legendaries as a prestige item or achievement comes up on this forum people say it’s meaningless because you can buy them with real money, and seem to be under the assumption that a lot of people do get them that way.

And yet we’ve not had anyone come forward in this topic to say they did it, or even that they know someone who did it. I know there are people on the forum who have spent hundreds, even thousands of dollars on the game so I would have thought if people were regularly buying legendaries at least some of them would be here.

Worse than people being able to buy them with cash money, which would at least go to ANet, there are people out there who buy them using in-game gold that they earned through the Trading Post.

I crafted a Bifrost a couple weeks back, starting the Legendary Crafting process from scratch it took me about two days (maybe 4-6 hours of actual gameplay, the rest just waiting for a few basic mats to come through on the TP), although of course I had a lot of the materials in my bank to get that far (particularly the Gift of Exploration and Battle). I also had a ton of Laurels which I converted into the T6 mats I needed. But overall I spent less than 500g on the entire process (opportunity cost on the mats I had not being counted).

But basically, plan ahead, keep collecting the bits you need over time, and it may be far cheaper than you think. You might at least be able to save some money by crafting the precursor, selling it, and buying the final piece, if you don’t want to hassle with the final Gifts needed for the Legendary itself.

A lot of views, but no comments. Does everyone totally agree with this? Or totally Disagree? Or just vehemently have no opinion?

Right now, breakbars have three states. They are either locked off (gray “drill” pattern), they are open to be broken (an emptying blue bar), or they are recovering form being broken (a filling brown bar). This is good, but could be better.

The problem is, some enemies have “infinite breakbars,” that will stick around until you beat them, others have “long breakbars,” which last a good 10-15 seconds, and others have much shorter ones, 5 seconds or less. And there’s no way of telling how much time you have left, how “close” you were to breaking it, except through practice against that specific enemy. This is annoying when fighting new enemies, and requires too much to remember when many enemies have these bars.

My suggestion is to split up the breakbar somehow.

Have one blue bar that empties exactly as it does now, and then a second bar that moves at a steady rate relative to time, emptying when the time is up. If you can stay ahead of that bar, you’re on pace to beat it.

Now there are a lot of ways to do this, it could be a translucent red bar over the blue, so that it’s purple where they mix, and if you can see blue you’re lagging behind, while if you can see red then you’re doing well. Or it could be a very thin bar, a few pixels high, that runs along the bottom of the existing bar. Since it’s less vital it should be less distracting. I don’t know which method would be easiest to implement or look best in game, but I do think that attempting some method would be a good idea.

No, it’s not “good business practice” I’ve already told you why it’s not. You don’t give someone a job they can’t do, just because it would make them happy.

Again, you are pushing the example outside the realm at which it is relevant to the discussion. This has nothing to do with “giving someone a job they can’t do,” this is a case of “giving someone a job that they can do, and that could use doing,” because that’s the case that would be relevant to the game. “Giving someone a job they can’t do,” has nothing to do with anything.

A good business owner gives the job to the right person for the job to ensure the business is successful.

Certainly, but in cases in which there are multiple people that are right for the job, and multiple jobs that need filling, the good business owner considers their interests and tries to be flexible. Your philosophy leads to worker burnout and high turnover, which to turn back to the game, would be a bad thing.

Ohoni, why on earth would you use such an awful analgy such as “A good boss gives someone a job they want, to make them happy.” to basically say “I don’t like PvP so Anet shouldn’t give PvP players an exclusive reward.”?

Last thing first, I’m not saying that “I don’t like PvP so PvP should not have exclusive rewards.” I’m saying that “most players have play styles in this game that they don’t like, so NO modes should have exclusive rewards.” The PvP-specific reward is just the topic du jour.

To the first point, because it’s good business practice. If you have the freedom to shift employees around your business, if them taking a new role would be a lateral movement, then it’s always a good idea to err on the side of the job that would make the employee happiest, because an employee that works because he loves his job is more productive than one that’s just clocking in for the paycheck.

PvE players have been given loads of stuff, then when they finally start offering things to the PvP players, you complain.

Again, nothing whatsoever to do with quantity, and if PvPers want to complain about things they want only being in PvE, I’m 100% behind them, but that isn’t my fight to fight.

I have remarkably little to do still in season 4 to get my wings, but playing even 3 games a day (or a week, apparently) is too much for me to bother with. I just don’t enjoy literally any aspect of sPvP anymore, so I don’t want to play.

Now imagine people that felt that way from the start, and yet still had to push through the PvP leagues to get their wings. It’s a terrible system for everyone.

Just because Fractals don’t meet Your definition of Pve doesn’t make them not Pve it is by definition exactly PvE players fighting Game controlled AI/ mechanics.

My point is that the definitions you’re insisting on don’t really matter. You were trying to make the point that [you guys] get the Fractal backpiece so you shouldn’t complain about [my guys] getting the Ascension, and I’m just pointing out that people who play Fractals have less in common with [my guys] than they do with [your guys]. [My guys] are still left out with no backpiece.

But even that aside, remember that the important part is not to get [any backpiece], it’s to get the specific backpiece that a person wants. I wanted the Ascension, if I were handed Ad Infinitum on a silver platter that would not mean anything, since that was not what I was looking to get. It’s like if someone asks for a steak and you give them a salad instead, “it’s still food, same difference,” but it’s still not what I wanted to eat at all, and doesn’t do a thing for me.

Why can’t trophies/rewards I.e special armor/weapons be one and the same? Because you would be locked out of getting them, and rewards are there to incentivize people to play all game modes to try them out to see if they like them.

Read up the thread, both of these have been adequately covered.

You just seem to think everything should be obtainable in open world Pve.

And in the other modes. You always leave that bit out, I think because you’re trying to portray me as being “PvE over PvP,” when we both know that isn’t what I’m saying here.

And since the back piece doesn’t provide any different stats than can be obtainable in open world Pve and Fractals it is just that a skin that shows the effort put into PvP. So it doesn’t matter that it was locked behind PvP, you just think there is a problem.

So if you wanted a backpiece that had unique stats that were very important to you, and my response was “And since the back piece doesn’t provide any different skin than can be obtainable in PvP, it is just that stats that make you marginally stronger in a game that doesn’t really require it. So it doesn’t matter that it was locked behind PvE, you just think there is a problem.” You would find that a satisfactory response?

Again, you seem to think that stats matter more than skins. That is your opinion and you’re entitled to it, but do not assume that this is some universal truth and that everyone who disagrees with you on it is “wrong.”

And yes if there was a stat I wanted behind a certain gamemode I would do that, but I do every intent the game offers till I get what I want from it without complaint.

And that’s nice that it works out for you, but don’t project onto other that they should play the same way. It is far better for ANet for a player to happily only play a single game mode for years at a time, than for a player to grind away at a game mode that he is not enjoying, making him less satisfied with the game as a whole, and thus more likely to leave entirely. If you enjoy playing all game modes, then that’s great for you, but it doesn’t apply to everyone.If you don’t enjoy all the content equally and yet you do them anyway, that is not in any way “noble,” it is just self-damaging behavior, and nobody should be encouraging that.

Saying fractals are closer to PvP bahahaha funniest thing I have heard out of your mouth in a while…

and yet your laughter doesn’t make it untrue. Fractals and PvP are both 5-man content, instanced, rewarding higher levels of skill over simple perseverance . Open world content is 1-150 player, drop-in/drop-out, and typically has a lower floor on player skill. No matter how you slice it, Fractals has more in common with sPvP than it does with most PvE content. I would bet you that a larger percentage of serious Fractal runners also enjoy PvP than among those that don’t Fractal much.

And again there should always be unique rewards for all content, just because you don’t like doesn’t mean it has to change, it provides and incentive for others to try that content,

I believe you’ve heard my response on that one plenty of times. A reward like the Ascension is not an “incentive to try sPvP,” it’s “incentive to spend the better part of a year doing PvP whether you enjoy it or not.” Incentive to try new things should be short and sweet, RESPECTING your choice to not enjoy that content once you’ve tried it. Green Eggs and Ham did not end with the guy saying "nope, turns out I don’t like green eggs and ham, and Sam I Am forcefeeding it to him anyway for the next year.

as well as allowing other players to show what they have done to get those items,

and again, so long as a player might reasonably want that item without caring in the slightest about showing off what he did to achieve it, that is a poorly designed reward. Items designed to show off accomplishment should have ZERO intrinsic value to anyone that has not achieved that accomplishment, or at least cares that someone else has.

eeing as Pve has the majority of all skins in game, you just have a selfish gimme attitude, and don’t want to have to do the prerequisites since you complain about unique rewards.

Again, it has nothing to do with quantity. Since cosmetics are subjective, PvE could have exclusive access to all the skins in the game save one, and if a player ONLY cared about that item, he would be perfectly justified in complaining about that, because the other items are irrelevant to him.

Since you can’t seem to understand that an exclusive skin would actually matter to someone (while vehemently defending exclusive access to that skin for some reason), let’s use another example. There are dozens of stat combos in the game. Let’s say that JUST one of them, the Berserker stat combo, were ONLY available as a reward for WvW achievements that would take months to complete. Would you be satisfied with that? After all, you could get any other stats out there, ONLY that one combo would be locked behind specific content, surely that would be acceptable to you, right?

Now if you’re tempting to argue “no, stats are different, they matter more,” remember that this is entirely your subjective opinion, and that other people feel the same way about skins. Try to actually see it from their perspective and not just dismiss it as something that isn’t true for yourself.

The only thing I can say is that Anets implementation of getting the wings was bad, they could have made it more prestigious by getting rid of safety pips or added in a better achievement track for it or made it a special reward track mixed with achievements.

And my position remains that I would have no problem with them setting up exactly that sort of challenge, so that ONLY really good PvPers could get it, but only if the final reward is something that nobody outside PvP would have any use for. If it can only be earned by being really good at PvP, then it can’t be something that people who don’t care about being really good at PvP would ever want.

Think of it like an award trophy. Nobody would want a big trophy taking up space unless they valued the accomplishment needed to win it, while those who would value that accomplishment value it highly. That’s what high-end PvP should offer as a reward, a trophy that PvPers would be greatly impressed by, but not something that PvEers would ever want.

Sorry you saying fractals aren’t Pve discredits everything you say, it definitely isn’t PvP so the only other thing it can be is Pve,

It isn’t PvP, but it’s got nothing to do with general PvE content either. It’s instanced small group content, which has more to do with PvP than it does with open world PvE.

Also again you are making baseless claims that most players only play one gamemode every guild I have been in everyone does Pve/PvP/ WvW and enjoy it. It is rare to find people that only play one game mode exclusively.

Confirmation bias. Every group you have self-selected into has similar interests to you. This should come as no shock.

You said it yourself that PVP players should not get unique items that can be used in any other game mode, but wait Pve players can use anything they get in any game mode, and they have exclusive access to all but 1 Legendary Item. Interesting.

and I have said that PvE players should not get unique items either, don’t leave that bit out, it makes it sound like I’m favoring PvE over PvP, when all I want is for each group to be able to function 100% independently.

You complaining about items being unique and want them to be attainable in any fashion you deem “satisfactory” is you complaining about the effort involved

Nope.

No Ohoni, you’re the one that’s clearly confused. You brought up a bad analogy and I proved a counter point.

Ok, this is important information that you really need to know. If someone presents an analogy, and they clearly have an intention with that analogy, and you present an alternate angle to the analogy that circumvents that intention, that is not a “counterpoint.” You have not made a valid point on their actual premise. It’s easy to break any analogy, analogies are intended to highlight a specific point. If you over-analyze the analogy itself, of course it will break down, but that’s not its point. It doesn’t mean that the initial premise is flawed, because what you’ve done is break down an element not relevant to that initial premise.

So for example, in this analogy you added the variable that the worker would not be as good at this new job, and therefor the boss would not want him there. Well that simply doesn’t apply if you try to invert the analogy. If a player has to do PvP to earn a reward, but would rather PvE, then his relative skill at these activities is not relevant, “the boss” would not care. If you want to actually counter the point being made, you cannot do so by challenging the semantics of the analogy, you have to actually challenge one of the core points of the argument.

So, lesson learned, go forth with wisdom.

Am I the only one that thinks the fractal wings are like a million times cooler looking then the pvp wings?

Up to you. You preferring one over the other does not mean that other players should be prevented form having the one they prefer. This is why “you can’t have this one, but you can have this one which is equally as good” never applies to cosmetics. “Equal value” is always in the eye of the beholder.

Every game mode should have exclusives to make those game modes not obsolete. Without exclusives people take the road of least resistance and makes other game modes played less.

So long as they are reasonably in balance, people will do whichever they prefer. If it concerns you, not all items need to be equally balanced. They can make it so that 1/3 of the items are easiest in each of the modes, so people who insist on the path of least resistance would play all three equally to get all things. But at least they’d have options.

Added PVE Rewards tracks to pander to casuals to try and build its PVP fallen population

I viewed this as a pro-PvP thing, to give PvPers reason to stick around.

But overall, I LOVED how PvP was at the start, 100% unrelated to anything outside the Mists, and would love to see it return to that state.

That’s the thing we all agree on, PvP lacks some kind of exclusive rewards for PvP only players.

Yes, aside from The Ascension, Glorious armor, and Llamas, but this is a good thing. Hopefully these will be opened up too, in future.

People who don’t like Pve should not have to play Pve just because they want to have a certain weapon or amor skin. They should have options.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaas. Definitely so.

Since pve players have their own Legendary wings the Ascenesion is just a skin at that point for PvP players.

Again though, “PvE players” don’t have a backpiece, Fractal players do, and less people like Fractals than like PvP. The best PvEers have is the Bloodstone backpiece. And “just a skin” is never an argument. “Just a skin” is all.

There is no mechanical or stat advantage provided by it that you don’t have with ad Infinitum

And I wouldn’t care if there were. If you could get the Ascension skin elsewhere, but only PvP could aware a backpiece with +1% to all it’s stats, go for it, I wouldn’t even bother for it. The skin is all. And not even the backpiece skin, which is kinda ugly, but just the glider skin.

this is just another case of you wanting something you don’t want to work for.

You keep repeating this but it never makes it true. I am willing to work for it. In fact, I’m one pip away from earning it (which means it’ll likely take another week of up and downs)[edit:no, I just completed it between typing on this. So, yay.], and would have been just as willing, and much much happier to put that same time and effort into some other activity. This have never had anything to do with effort.

since most players don’t just do 1 game mode and 1 game mode only these items being used in all gamemode works perfectly and doesn’t make people want to quit since they can jump over to another game mode with the gear they got in PvP.

I think most players do play one game mode, or at least WANT to play one game mode and only play the others when forced to (which is hard to tract statistically). But event hat aside, if you can earn all awards in all modes, then if you enjoy all three then that’s great, because you can play whichever appeals to you, and still progress towards what you want.

Though I have no particular opinion on the subject I do find it hilarious that a spvp backpack features pve-only inspiration (Tarir).

And the only place to use wings in sPvP is faffing about in the lobby.

So you think that if a programmer for example said “Hey boss, I want to be the character designer, I’d be much happier in that role!” The boss should automatically say “Yes! Of course you can be!” even if said programmer is a terrible artist that can only draw stick men?

No, which is what pushes your interpretation of the example out of sync with the game. See, ANet has no reason to care if you’re any good at anything, and no reason to care which of their game modes you’re playing. All they care about is whether you’re playing some game mode in their game, and having fun doing it.

To go back to that workplace analogy, if you were working as a programmer, but also happened to be as good an artist as anyone in the art department, and they had an opening there and people to take over your role in programming, there’s no reason the boss should not allow you to make that lateral move. It would make you happier and more productive because you’d be doing a role that you enjoy doing. Same thing here.

That’s not how it works Ohoni. Your skills and merits are what get you places, you don’t just get things because you think you deserve them. That’s exactly what’s wrong with modern society. Too many people feel entitiled to things just because they want them.

I think you’re confused. We’re talking about a game here. The point of a game is to have fun, and different people enjoy doing different things. If you’re in a game and not enjoying what you’re doing, then the game designers have messed up someplace.

You want an item, you earn it. Not ask that how to earn it is changed to make it easier for you. That’s ridiculous. Like being employed but asking your supervisor if you can do half/something else for the same pay.

But if your business has multiple different job roles, and several of them pay pretty much the same, and you say “hey boss, there’s an opening in that role and I would be much happier there, could I shift?” Then a good boos would say “sure, of course!” because he knows that a happier employee is a more productive employee.

ANet would lose absolutely nothing by allowing players to earn their desired goals through multiple methods, and would gain a lot of good will from the players for not forcing them through content that the players do not enjoy. Forcing players to do things “like everyone else” benefits no one if that activity is not something they enjoy doing.

I legitimately don’t like PvE and wish there were other ways to obtain Legendary but that’s my own wishful thinking.

And I definitely agree that this should be an option. Win/Win.

That said, things will no longer be exclusive and I very much like to show off my PvP rewards too.

I think there is value in a player being able to “show off.”

I think there is MORE value in a player having the skin that he wants to have, because he thinks it looks cool.

I think that when a player’s ability to “show off” has to come at the expense of other players not having the skin that they want, or having to go through gameplay that they do not enjoy, then that is a net-negative for the game.

There can be methods of showing off, things like the World Completion star or the PvP League nametag icon, which have no purpose whatsoever except to say “I have done this thing.” That’s great, that’s fine. But if we’re talking armor skins, obviously there will be people who will want that skin who have absolutely no interest in “showing off” that they have completed any specific task. The one should never limit the other.

Again why should pve players in your eyes get everything?

I’ve been perfectly clear that I think all players should have everything, so long as they’re willing to put in the same amount of time and effort to acquire them. There is no item in the entire game that I would insist MUST be PvE only, as you insist The Ascension must be PvP-only.

No other gamemode has that access to legendary items, next you would say that every game mode should get those items but contradict your self with you having already said that PvP should not give any rewards that can be used in pve as shown here.

No, no, not a contradiction, you misunderstand. It’s either or. EITHER the item can be earned elsewhere OR it can only be used in PvP. Basically, if the Ascension can only be earned through PvP, then it should only be visible in The Mists, where you have all that important flying to do. If, on the other hand, The Ascension can be earned through other means, then sure, you can earn it via PvP and wear it wherever you like, no problem.

If you never want to PvP, then there’s no real point to trying to earn something that could only be used in a mode you don’t care about. It’d basically just be playing another game entirely, like beating Mario because you like Zelda, even though you don’t like Mario. But if the item can be used in other game modes, if the wings earned in PvP can be used on a PvE character, then PvE players have a justifiable reason for wanting to earn it, and it’s unreasonable that they should have to PvP to do so if they do not enjoy PvP.

All you want are the rewards without putting in the effort the gamemode asks for, no one forced you into PvP to get a set of legendary wings since pve already has a set.

Again, not about effort, no matter how many time you repeat that.

I disagree. There should definitely be more PvP rewards specifically items like the backpiece. I really hope they start incorporating weapon sets, mini’s, and other armor pieces too.

So long as they are either exclusive to the Mists, or people can earn them through other modes. Peopel who don’t like PvP should not have to play PvP just because they want to have a certain weapon or armor skin. They should have options.

It’s PvP, you’re destined to play with people who have 90% more pve playing time than you but Anet shouldn’t force these players to swap their mains for achievement sakes.

Having PvE experience doesn’t have a ton of influence on PvP. You usually need to change your build entirely, and doing PvP well has more to do with PvP-specific tactical understanding than it does knowing how to work your character anyway.

Pvers already had that with the Ad Infinitum the only difference is the skin. No pve player would have to enter PvP for a legendary back piece they weren’t forced to.

Ad Infinitum has a different skin than the Ascension. The only thing they have in common is the pink nametag. The fact remains that if you wanted the Ascension, PvP was the only way to get it, and earning a dozen Ad Infinitums would not get you any closer. Furthermore, Ad Infinitum can only be earned in Fractals, which are no better than PvP in terms of a specific and often undesirable activity.

But again, if the methods of earning Ad Infinitum bother you, suggest alternatives and I’m likely to support you, but it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

First, a system like the one you propose would not have attracted casuals to come try pvp. That was a major reason for the backpack or it was made a major reason.

First, the League system was HORRIBLY designed if the goal was to attract non-PvPers. Oh, it may have gotten them to play the bare minimum necessary, but it created the absolute worst environment for them to potentially enjoy themselves enough to stick around.

Setting a super-long-term goal like The Ascension is not how to design something designed to attract outsiders in. Using the same basic mechanics, same basic rewards, here’s how I would have designed the system:

1. The Wings of the Recruit, which require passing to Emerald at least once, would remain exactly as it is. It would then unlock a second achievement track that would require you to do the same in season 2, and 3, and 4 in order to get all the pieces needed for the Ascension. These four elements could ONLY be earned this way, requiring that all players at least attempt each PvP season, but any player could be expected to complete these tasks within the time allowed.

2. the remaining materials could still be earned via the current methods. If you enjoy PvP, then this would be the fastest way to earn them, and would also provide alternate methods of earning the other bits, so basically a hardcore PvPer could earn the full wings in whatever time he managed it under the current rules, while the first “PvP casual” to earn the wings would be at least season 4.

3. Of course even the PvP casuals would have to spend plenty of time and effort acquiring the remaining pieces, there would just be alternate methods of earning them, through story chapters, map achievements, dungeon currencies, all sorts of elements so that players who really don’t enjoy PvP could pursue the bulk of the collection outside of PvP, but would spend an equivalent, or likely higher amount of effort in the process as if they’d just PvPed for it.

This is the best of all worlds. It gives PvPers something to shoot for where they have the inside track, it allows PvP-haters to still get the item they want without failing entirely at enjoying themselves, and it encourages dabblers to try PvP each season, and if they have ANY chance of being converted, they will be, and can pursue the wings the default route from there. It also has the fringe benefit of PvPers not being teamed with people who have no interest in actually being there, will lay horribly and not mind that fact, and will complain all over the forums about how PvP is broken, even in ways that serious PvPers know is working fine.

I really hope that devs hold their word and leagues will be more skill based next season. Surely, i might possibly not reach legend (who knows, i am by all means not amazing) but at least it will have value. And it will be motivation for pvp’ers to improve instead of just mindlessly spamming matches.

I wouldn’t mind that at all, so long as there are no armor or weapon skins that require high league placing. I think people who get high scores deserve the ability to show that off, I just don’t think they should have armor or weapons that other people might want but cannot possess.

The only thing that was toxic was being forced to play other classes when we only main 1 or two. I’m tired of the, “I don’t main this class but I need the rewards” mentality.It just skews matchmaking even further.

No, the toxic element was flooding sPvP with thousands of players who had absolutely no interest in sPvP. You can’t expect to have a healthy multiplayer environment when many of the players do not share the same fundamental goals of what a healthy environment should be.

You have to original sPvP hardcore that actually cared about “prestige” and about fair match-ups and about honest competition between players, and then you had far more players who were just in it to clear out their achievements and get the wings so they could get back to the PvE they actually enjoyed.

Nobody benefits from that.

So whatever they do next season, it should not involve any sort of exclusive reward that would have any purpose outside of an sPvP match. It could maybe be a finisher, or a title, or a nametag flair, just nothing that a PvEer would ever say “I never want to PvP, ever, but I really do want that thing.”

There’s no secret that the Legendary wings have lost their prestige. Usually I don’t care about prestigeness since legendary weapons lose prestige over time as more people can afford to buy one. But with the PvP legendary backpack I am not ok with. IMO, one of the requirements to attain the wings should have been reaching legendary prestige x1 in atleast 3 seasons. I don’t think it’s right that you can never reach legendary in any season and still get the wings.

Nope.

I hope nothing. The Ascension was toxic to PvP and to the game as a whole. They should not provide rewards that can only be earned through PvP, unless they can be something that nobody outside of PvP would ever want or need.

A fairly large premade, IF it is a genuine pre-made and not just an adhoc one, can have a HUGE advantage over a pug. It’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise. A Pre-made team can:

• Know each others’ strengths, and thus be much more reactive to changes in the flow of battle (ie, Fred can hold a node for a while, we don’t have to rush to him, or Bill will be capping that unattended point, we don’t even need to ask or head over there). Having a good idea what the rest of your team will be up to without even having to ask them is a huge advantage.

• They can plan compatible roles in advance, knowing that they have a trustworthy Thief to cap things, Mesmer to move the team around the map, bunker to hold a point, etc. If you assume that a pug group will be able to do these roles well then you’re yoloing it. You might get lucky, or you might get a thief that ignores easy nodes, a Mesmer that ignores transport options, a team that ignores the Mesmer trying to set portals, etc.

• They might be using voice commands, which is something I’ve never been offered in solo-queue and likely wouldn’t bother with.

Basically, it’s possible to luck into a pug that is just as good as a coordinated pre-made, but the odds are hugely against you, especially at lower divisions. Running a pre-made is not “cheating,” and a bad pre-made is no better than a bad pug, but a good pre-made has a massive advantage over any pug.

And even as for 2-3-man teams vs. complete pugs, the small teams have a slight edge, IF they are a well constructed team, because they will know how to perform two specific roles at once, complementing each other.

It’s a bit like the difference between playing 5-card poker, holding a few good cards in your hand and drawing the rest, verses just tossing in your entire hand and hoping for better cards. It might work out, but the odds are not great if you already had a decent base for a hand.

Although personally this season I’ve had much better luck “yolo-rolling” pugs than I do when I try to team up with 1-2 people from a winning round. The latter almost always results in failure the next round, for some reason, while this morning I had a winning streak of about 6-7 matches just solo-queing each in turn.

Khisanth.2948:

Ohoni.6057:

What are you doing in terms of compensation for this change? I mean, will dailies that were cleared during this period be automatically cleared, or will we just miss out on that daily progression entirely? Will we get our loot compensated somehow? I mean, usually when a game takes things away from players that they have earned, they give something back as fair compensation.

It is not a good idea to set up that sort of precedent but IF they are going to do that my vote is for https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Paper-Bag_Helm_4-Pack

It happens so rarely in GW2 that you may never have experienced it before, but with most games if they have a significant disruption in service, or especially a rollback that wastes hours of time a player has already spent, then they receive something of value roughly equivalent to the time they wasted. Not a Precursor or anything nuts, but something, a batch of gems, Black Lion keys, ticket scraps, something fun that they don’t already have unlocked.

I didn’t lose anything super fancy, but I did miss out on my dailies from yesterday, so they at least owe me 2g, a bunch of Unbound Magic, Bloodstone Dust, and Rubies, and some achievement points, that sort of thing.

I doubt they’re thinking about that now. They’re probably just trying to get the bug fixed and the servers back online.

Different people, different jobs, in most cases.

I wonder what does “this morning” means.

It means “since the patch.” So if you played before the game patched, you’re probably fine. If you played after the patch installed, then anything you did in that time likely got erased.