Guild Wars 2

Do you realize how much loot you could get from farming CoF 1 if those mobs dropped loot. With one guy running in circles hitting all the braziers, that room spawns 1 mob per SECOND. 60 loot drops per minute. That would wreck the prices of a lot of things.

I have come 540 degrees on HoT. At first I thought it was too grindy because all the annoying Hero Points and Masteries. Then I started to enjoy it after they changed the requirement from 400 to 250 and I could stop stressing about my elite specs. Now, I am back to being of the opinion that it is too grindy again, mainly because of the ridiculously high cost of crafting the new gear. For example, exotic sinister gear from SW cost about as much as the average piece of crafted gear. Viper gear is stupid expensive. Just the linseed oil alone costs 30g at current TP prices. Seriously anet, you don’t think 200 flax seeds for one piece of gear is excessive?

I feel your pain. I used to crash once a month in this game. Now, I’m lucky to go an hour without crashing. And the cause is never the same thing. I wish I could say it is one thing or another that causes the crash, but it is seemingly completely random.

250 points is fair. As soon as this change goes live, everyone’s main character(s) will max out and they can play the new content with the elite spec, like so many of us have wanted. It also means even our alts with 5% map completion can power through VB and AB in a couple hours if they are just going for hero points because the HoT masteries will be leveled up by then. To be fair, it’s not the first 50 hero points that are the problem. It’s the LAST 50.

Thank you so much for listening, Anet.

Why give 200 hp’s for map completion? I’ll tell you why.

Anet wanted to force us into Maguuma Jungle for a LONG TIME. If they made hp’s account-wide like they did the masteries, we would all, even us weekend warriors, be able to complete the new maps in a month or two. Then, we’d all get bored and start wondering why we paid $50 for so little content. So some (high-ranking) fool at Anet decided that they needed to hold a gun to our head and make us grind through the same content for every character we cared about to stretch the content out. They did this even though forced grinding runs completely contrary to Anet’s published philosophy that repetitive gameplay is boring.

So back to the question of why map completion? It’s simple. Map completion is the only character-specific aspect of the game. Every other aspect of the game that could be quantitatively used to measure “accomplishment” is account-wide. WvW rank, PvP rank, fractal level, dungeon mastery, living story, achievements, legendary crafting, etc. are all account-wide. Map completion is all that’s left. Even though just running around Tyria for 50 hours hitting all the POI’s and vistas is about as brain-dead and unchallenging an activity you can imagine, it the only activity that creates a NUMBER that is different on every one of your characters.

TL;DR – Map completion because if you are a lazy teacher, it’s faster to grade your students by their attendance record than it is to sit down and grade their tests.

Ditto Gromit.

On the second pic, I’ve never worked in video game development, but I can assume that just like in any other kind of product development process that when a major deadline is looming, all the stuff that needs to get done is put on a list and constantly organized by importance. Stacking chests didn’t make the cut.

Anet priority is spend 90% of time and energy on their precious pve content and because they think everyone should enjoy it as much as they do, they gate the hell out of it to force us to stay their longer. Are we really surprised wvw is treated like anything other than an afterthought?

The more I think about it, giving 200 hero points for map completion and ONLY for map completion is a pretty cruel thing for Anet to do. Basically it says we only respect the accomplishments of pve’ers. It’s kinda like a parent telling one child he/she is the favorite in front of the other 2. After maxing all my wvw masteries, I now have almost 400 unused wvw rank points and those are all meaningless. If Anet really wanted to be completely fair, they would have allowed map completion, wvw rank, and spvp rank to all weigh equally in the equation to determine starting hero points. And why we’re on the subject, why map completion by character? For all the things that we do in the game in the various aspects of pve content, be it map completion, dungeons, fractals, living story, personal story, etc., why did they land on map completion as the standard for game “success?” Mindlessly running from POI to vista to heart for 50 hours per character is the thing we should be most rewarded for? Really? That’s the pinnacle of achievement in this game? SERIOUSLY? It sounds pretty kittening dumb when you say it out loud, don’t you think?

True, but this requires you to go out into wvw and get the Proof of Heroics tokens before you can buy the Hero Point.

My idea was to somewhat level the playing field between pve’ers and wvw’ers. Pve’ers who have full map completion come into HoT with 200 Hero Points. Wvw’ers who I assume have, on average, lower levels of map completion, have far fewer starting Hero Points. It is absolutely unfair and rewards only one gamemode. Moreover, wvw masteries have been reduced so those of us have done more in wvw are getting hurt the most.

Here’s an idea. This whole 400 Hero Points to unlock Elites hit wvw’ers pretty hard. I can’t speak for all wvw’ers, but my average map completion is about 20%, so I didn’t have many Hero Points to begin with. Also, I am not too excited about doing pve content to get them. However, one thing I do have a lot of is wvw rank points. Thanks to the total number of wvw ranks needed for full mastery dropping to 945, I have an even BIGGER stack of unused ranks. So, to honor wvw’ers for their amazing achievements and contributions to wvw in general, why not turn wvw ranks into a character-specific currency that can be used to either level up wvw masteries OR buy Hero Points.

Zixum.9718:

Why has PvP been neglected in this respect when you have worked hard to allow people to develop their characters in PvP in most other aspects.

Are there any future plans to bring hero points to pvp? Or is there some way to get them and I’m missing something?

Why do you need hero points in spvp? All the elite specs are already unlocked. There are new runes and trinkets that you have to buy with gold, but that is an insignificant annoyance in comparison.

Here’s an idea. Since all us wvw’ers now have even more wvw rank points that are going to waste, why not lobby Anet to convert them into a currency like a wvw rank token that can either be used to rank up wvw masteries, or buy a hero point.

For now, I’m scheduling group hero point-getting rallies with my guild to pound these out. Stupid problems require stupid solutions. Throw bodies at it!

How can anyone answer this question? No one has been there yet. We’re all to busy grinding hero points in maguuma jungle.

Test.8734:

Go to the metacritic site and give HoT a low score

No reason to get nasty. Hero points are really the only thing that I think is screwed up. I’m going stick with lobbying for now. Let’s hope anet fixes this almost as fast as they fixed perma-quickness rangers.

MaJoBooOM.4851:

I dont get why you are all complaining about the 400 points .

because I only have to do it on my one and only character. (finished your sentence for you)

Actually, elite specs remind me of ESO’s Veteran Ranks (VR) system. Basically, they didn’t have enough content, so after you ground out your own faction’s quest line, they made you do the same thing for the other 2 factions. However, in ESO until you reached max VR, you were at a HUGE disadvantage in wvw. Worst, grindiest mmo experience of my life.

Answer: it is wasted.

MaJoBooOM.4851:

I dont get why you are all complaining about the 400 points , I started playing friday and play for 3 hours a day and have my reaper already 80% finished . No stress and ita fun unlocking everyskill. I am always thrilled to see what comes next in my specialization.

We’re complaining because we have to do all this crap 9 FREAKING TIMES to unlock elites on all our toons (for those of us with one of each class). Personally, If nothing changes, 2/3 of my toons are probably going to spend the rest of their lives sitting on rich iron or platinum nodes. GW2 was the best mmo I ever played because ( up until 2 days ago) it was not grindy. Sure, you can grind if you want to, but it completely optional. Those days are long gone. Getting hero points is grindy as hell because you have to do the same godkitten content on every toon. That actually wouldn’t be so bad, but pretty much every hero point requires a group to defeat a champ. Why are we all complaining? Because getting hero points in the new zones is essentially mandatory if you ever want to unlock elite specs, but many hero points require a group to fight a champ.

So way to go, Anet. You did it. You figured out a way to completely alienate anyone who is either A) casual, or has lots of alts. I am both A & B so am doubly screwed.

AivenPrimus.9184:

Suggestion is simple, reduce HP requirement down to 200.

Even simpler, cut the xp needed for each mastery/hero point by about 75%.

Anet, you are seriously making the same mistake that ESO made with their VR system that demanded inordinate amounts of grinding. Don’t make grinding mandatory. It’s really what sets GW2 apart from every other MMO.

Give yourself more time. Two hours is not enough to really develop an unbiased opinion. I was really frustrated at first but got to like it after a while.

In my opinion, anet royally screwed up the early player experience by the way they did the HoT masteries. OK, so you get gliding pretty much immediately. That’s great, but to really enjoy VB you have to have the Super Mario mushroom bounce mastery and the updraft mastery. Only problem is, the huge amount of experience needed to get those 2 masteries is extremely frustrating. I spent 3 hours in VB last night with the guild and only just got the mushroom bounce mastery by the end of the night, and that’s with a bday booster activated. It would make much more sense to me if the experience needed for each mastery increased incrementally. Having this huge amount of experience to obtain is made worse by the fact that there are not enough events going on and the mobs are much more difficult to grind.

You really need to find a commander tag or guild group to explore the new maps. It’s really the only way to guarantee you will be able to get those hero points.

DoctorDing.5890:

Nah. Some of them would be QQ’ing regardless. ;p

Here’s a tip for the complainers: if you find the most enjoyable thing about the game is complaining on the forum then you’re done with the game. Move on.

That describes my experience with ESO perfectly.

Hilarious. Nobody would be QQing if they were actually leveling another 10 levels while they did the new pve content like in EVERY OTHER mmo. At least Anet’s way lets us keep our gear.

It would make more sense to me to simply add levels of difficulty to dungeons and make rewards to scale. How hard is it to change dungeons so that difficulty scales like fractals?

Schurge.5194:

I might actually buy those silly things if you were able to use them on all your characters simultaneously.

This is honestly the ONLY reason I have not bought the permanent harvesting tools. Anet could have made a lot more money if they had simply doubled the cost and made this an upgrade that automatically applied to all characters. The annoyance of removing them, putting them in the bank, and then taking them out again makes them worthless to anyone with multiple characters.

I would happily spend 5000 gems on an inventory manager. Make it automated or maybe a mini-pet that rides along in my bags, but what I REALLY want is a way to quickly and easily deal with all my annoying trash loot when my bags fill up. Ideally, I would want it to have some sort of UI whereby I could save preferences for salvaging, selling, etc. At a minimum this is what I would want it to do with one click is:
1) salvage – I want it to salvage all my white, blue, and green loot and put the mats in my collection
2) loot – any loot bags that drop or any lootable chest that comes in range should be automatically picked up and things like those luck essences should be used without me having to double-click them. Bags that drop between the time you die and the time you respawn in wvw should also be looted automatically.
3) stack management – any items in my characters inventory that are also in my bank should be automatically combined into one stack. I hate it when I forget to throw my stupid tomes in the bank.
4) sell – in addition to junk, i would love to be able to automatically sell all those useless green sigils and runes that pile up after salvaging.

Wnerwiak.6049:

The only rasonable solution is to let match go on 4v5 with substantial buffs for cripled team (extra speed, enhanced def/attack, faster match points count) to compensate lack of player.
No one hurt …no grudges ..some extra fun from enhanced champion.
Those enhancments should be substantial to make real difference.

This could be easily abused if the buffs made a “real difference.” A powerful premade group could have one of it’s members leave on purpose so the rest of the team could get the buff. I certainly wouldn’t want to fight someone with a big buff if I couldn’t beat them under normal circumstances.

This is a really tough one. Any system has to take into account the MMR and/or experience level of the premade. Keep in mind that there are a lot of casual guilds out there that just want to have fun as a group and don’t have anywhere near the amount of skill that pvp-focused premades have.

Interesting idea, but I would drop it to about 20-30 seconds. That way it will allow SM defenders to ambush anyone hitting the door. That would be good for a laugh but not be game breaking. Being able to stealth all the way to an enemy keep and drop rams before being revealed seems excessive.

Where this could really go wrong is on crowded servers. For example, on Maguuma, our problem is getting SBI to leave their keep and come out and fight. They will be even less inclined to do this if they think a stealthed blob will come out of nowhere and massacre them.

Meh. Farmers gonna farm. It’s not like the daily rooms actually hurt anyone. If they want to square dance their way to the pvp daily rewards, who cares? That dragon finisher is meaningless for them. BTW, if the host is in attendance in a particular daily room, they usually move everyone to the winning side right before the match ends so everyone wins.

I don’t think these daily rooms would fall under the jurisdiction of the rules of conduct you cited because the matches are not ranked. How do you manipulate rankings in an unranked contest?

Also, think about what getting rid of hotjoin would do the experiences of the more serious spvpers. I would be pretty upset if I had a couple of these daily farmers on my team in an arena match. They would probably just do the minimum to get their dailies done and then just afk at spawn. Better to let them have their own little kiddie pool so they can’t spoil the fun of the big kids.

After messing around with hotjoin for a couple weeks until I got comfortable with my build, I hardly ever play it anymore. The only exception is when I really have no time to play that day and just want to join a daily room to get them all done at once, or if I am switching toons and want to reacquaint myself with the rotations.

I usually have a much better time in arena matches. I think the fact that you can’t leave keeps out a lot of the miscreants who can’t deal with losing. I’m really surprised others have had negative experiences on a regular basis. Maybe 5% of the time one team will be all or most premade and the match is one-sided, but the rest of the time the matches are more or less competitive.

My only advice for anyone new to spvp or getting into spvp for the first time is please learn to play in hotjoin for a while until you get to the point where you are reasonably confident in your ability so you don’t let down your team.

If you don’t like condis, go to eotm and join the blob. No condi there.

Considering how hard it is to hit with every burn to get high burn stacks, it is definitely not a cheese build. Best I can do in pvp (and this is on someone rezzing or immobile) is about a 5k burn per tick. If anything burn guards are OP in pve. I can get over 12k damage per tick in dungeons.

Of course we’ll never know because you don’t get exp or bags for healing, so no one will want to play wvw unless it is a serious gvg guild that doesn’t care about bags. Is anet the only mmo that does not reward healing?

La Goanna.8142:

After playing the raid with entire squads in full ascended and still having trouble beating the boss, I’m now very concerned that raids truly will be reserved for the hardcore elite 5% of the game’s population.

Does anyone else remember when beating Teq was considered difficult? I do. I remember failing Teq numerous times with an organized guild leading on voice coms. Now Teq is about as automatic as the Shatterer. My point is, relax. Raids will be tough at first until you learn them, but before you know it, you’ll be farming them with pugs.

ReaverKane.7598:

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a HUGE issue with Ascended gear, which will also bleed into the guild halls. Cloth is just too kitten expensive because of how ascended armor crafting was made.

Sure would be nice if ascended insignias could be crafted from cloth OR leather, don’t you think? /wink@anet

If anet changed ascended weapons so that you could change their stats in the mf, won’t surprise me if they make the same change for armor. That seems like a logical change and supports anet’s statement that it does not force you to grind gear.

Furthermore, if anet follows the path of every mmo, EVER, raids will start out extremely hard and then get incrementally nerfed as time goes by. This allows the hardcore player to enjoy the content at its most challenging setting at launch while still allowing the casual, gear-challenged player experience it at his/her own pace.

I messed around with it. Not as impressive in practice as it is against golems. You really need to be perfect in your rotation to get that quickness duration and if you get CC’ed (no stab now) it’s blown all to hell. Oh yeah, now I don’t have a heal when I need it because I have to use it at the very start of the fight. Also, investing your entire build around one trick that can be rendered useless by a necro corrupt boon is a recipe for disaster.

T raw.4658:

There is no defending this amount of quickness.

Stop. Its broken.

I applaud effort but the devs who allowed this to go through need to be fired.

WAAAAAAAA! I lost to a ranger.

I see your logic. Fact – rangers suck. Fact – I do not suck. Therefore, if I am beaten by a ranger, it cannot be because I suck, and by process of elimination, must mean the game is unbalanced.

This is not the first time oversights on anet’s part have lead to balance issues. It’s not like they PLAY the game all day like some people and dig up every conceivable build and combination. The only blame anet deserves, imo, is leaving rangers so neglected for so long that the entire class is considered crap and therefore losing to one under any circumstances has everything to do with balance and nothing to do with skill.

At any rate, this is going to get nerfed in a couple weeks, so rangers, enjoy your time in the sun.

Guys, chill. Even if druid ends up being the most OP class in the game, no one is going to play them in wvw or spvp because you don’t get credit for killing an enemy unless you damage him. Zero bag potential = no interest. Who knows, maybe they’ll have a role in gvg…

Actually, unveiling the druid as a dedicated healer makes me think there are some 25-man WoW-style pve raids in the works.

Is the guy you were fighting when the match ended still fighting you? If yes, keep it up. If he stops doing anything or starts moving away, grow up and leave him alone. Honestly, what kind of pathetic individual enjoys killing someone who is effectively afk?

How often do people switch professions after the match sides are determined? In 50 ranked and unranked arena matches, I have never seen anyone on my side do this.

I imagine matchmaking will continue to be poor until spvp populations improve. How fair do you expect the match to be when the number of potential participants is very small? Maybe its time to join NA and EU together for spvp.

Don’t forget bearbow rangers is the preferred class of (what must be) botters. Too many times I see some level 1 ranger in starter wardrobe do nothing but run to a cap, stand in the exact center, and autoattack whatever comes in range. After about a minute, the rest of the team leaves.

I really hope so. I used to love playing my warr in wvw, but now I only play him when the guild needs another banner. IMO, the stab change ruined warrs for wvw. Even with 3 sources of stab, I run out in a couple seconds when facing a large group and end up being the first to die. Now I just embrace the meta and play my wells backline necro.

If duelers want respect, they should act respectful. I can’t go a week without some idiot dueler hanging out on the south side of SMC acting like he is just waiting for another dueler to show up, deciding to attack me while I run past trying to catch up with the zerg. If you want to duel, hang around the other duelers, only fight with those duelers, and I will completely ignore you. Roamers should take the same advice. In my experience, most zergs with decent commanders ignore roamers or duelers completely because they are on the way to OJs, but once a roamer attacks the zerg’s tail, the commander gets kittened off and adopts a “kill on sight” policy. Just remember the golden rule and we will all have a good time.

Caedmon.6798:

A 5m placeholder whenever i Get Dc’d.

I’d buy that for a dollar. Don’t know how many times a raid has fallen apart because the commander dc’ed and got stuck in a 30-man queue.

Some people just wanna “win.”

You think wvw is bad? Try spvp. You are lucky to be in match where 50% of the players aren’t mesmers.

I bid 500 gems for the ability to change characters without going back in the queue. Do I hear 600?