Guild Wars 2

I think they learned their lesson, given the totally awesome mini-dragon fights in LS2, or how well done the wyvern event I played was. I’m looking forward to an epic encounter.

Arenanet:
Dungeons are so full of exploitable loopholes for speedrun farming that it would take virtually the same effort as designing new fractals to fix them. So we’re making farming them non-viable but leaving the skins and old legendary recipies there so they have a purpose.

OP:
WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T FARM BROKEN CONTENT? I WANT TO PLAY MY WAY!

Dude. They’re moving to fractals specifically because fractals are content with more longevity and are a quicker development turnaround. They didn’t design dungeons so people could speedrun CoF1. They don’t see the value in fixing the dungeons when it’s as much work as adding whole new fractals.

On top of that, the new fractal system eliminates the ability to reroll for the exact fractal you want, so they’re comfortable with placing rewards in a system that is, at the very basic level of its design, unfarmable.

On top of that they’re moving the farm to the open world, where it should have always been in the first place. Facerolling through instances which are supposed to be challenging content wasn’t intended play like ever. It was smart players exploiting a broken system.

BrunoBRS.5178:

babazhook.6805:

BrunoBRS.5178:

babazhook.6805:

BIRDPUNCHER.8263:

Nike.2631:

Woaden.9425:

The issue now is that Acro needs a lot of love on it’s own, it can’t stand as its own line: Pain Response is a terrible condi clear (at the very least it needs to add torment and confusion), Guarded Initiation is useless, and the GM’s are outshined by minor-adept/minor-master traits in other lines, making the entire Acro line redundant on so many levels!

((looks at Assassin’s Reward))

((looks at raids being built around continuous unavoidable damage))

I can’t say I agree.

If you need continuous healing in PvE (I say PvE because you mention raids) Invigorating Precision is a better choice, in a better traitline, than Assassin’s Reward. The only time that Acro “stands as its own line” is gimmick situations like laser disarming in Aether fractal, and even then it will be made obsolete when Daredevil is live.

If you are going power certainly. If you are going condition in a unicorn build IP is a poor choice. IP needs high crits and high damage per crit. Assassins reward the damage is immaterial.

That all said without changes assassins reward does not warrant a GM trait. It needs a significant increase in its healing per INI and with its scaling to healing attribute.

It currently 69*INI +.05 healing and should be closer to 90 healing base and .15 healing. This would put its heal more in line with IP.

not that condi builds have a good reason to run acro in the first place. they probably want DA and trickery, and SA if they go for venoms. that leaves a choice between acro and daredevil. daredevil might not have a lot to offer in volume of traits, but the few traits condi users can benefit from are great, plus it gives access to impairing daggers. meanwhile acro… meh?

Actually there is(and more was) good reason to take Acro in a condition build .

dd/acro/da works well as does dd/acro/trickery. I used acro prior to the big patch because it gave health and a lot of dodges for the D/d set. In beta I ran tests with acro and the difference between traiting trickery and acro was not a lot.

Now it true many of the additions to DD make what is acro less desired from before patch but this is also true of power builds. If ACRO fixed i can forsee condition builds using it. Just as example HTC will refill endurance when triggered which can mean three more impaling lotus. This more condition damage loaded than one can get from BA or that extra 3 ini.

With the changes to Potent Poison the DA line is a little harder to give up in a condition build but i can certainly forsee someone going for maximum endurance for those dodges and that impaling lotus so as to increase condition damage and specifically in a d/d build and especially if the line is fixed.

it’s not just bewildering ambush, it’s caltrops on dodge as well, and bountiful theft gives you solid vigor uptime on top of stealing boons (to get rid of that resistance). then you have the reduced steal cooldown, which means endurance thief can be used more often as well.

not bringing DA is just out of question unless you’re running P/D condi, because dagger training + potent poison is a huge DPS increase.

which leaves acro competing with daredevil, which just isn’t happening.

IMO, acro should be a better defensive line, themed around vigor (and making your vigor do more cool stuff, like how other professions have “gain X benefit when you gain Y boon”), keeping the thief mobile, and defensive/utility benefits through dodging (whereas daredevil is all about using dodges offensively). the line in itself is already pointing towards that, it’s just grossly undertuned (swindler’s equilibrium being restricted to sword and only recharging one second, when trickery just outright takes those seconds off the max cooldown, for example) and clunky (pain response only removes 3 of the current 5 damaging conditions, only triggers if you let yourself get hit, and can be triggered when you don’t want it to, putting it on a long 20s CD)

to note: i’d still love a thief trait that cleanses one condition on shadowstep, which would be a perfect fit for an acro trait. i know it’s ridiculously strong, so make it a GM, and put assassin’s reward back on master tier where it belongs.

In all the suggestions about buffing acro I hadn’t really considered “extra vigor benefits” (heck, I myself invented a whole line around shadowsteps just to replace acro)

However, yeah, why not? What about “vigor also grants swiftness” or “reflect ranged attacks in a 1s ICD while you have vigor” or “When you gain vigor, reduce revealed by 1 second” or “lose 2 conditions every X second while you have vigor” or “gaining vigor also breaks stuns, and skills that grant vigor can be used while stunned”

So, like, you’d have this cadence, as you’d have a line that couldn’t give 100% uptime by itself, but similar to shadow arts, was built around “attack” and “defend” phases, only in stead of being invisible you’d just be rather hard to pin down even when you weren’t dodging?

If done right it could be a massive sustain line rivaling SA, and make taking two or three sustain lines actually pay off while nosediving your damage, or just give you real build options without DD for evasive specs.

Like, DD can empower builds to be basically immune to all slows, SA makes you immune to being seen… acro would make you highly resistant to stuns?

Nerf it how? The trapper rune was created specifically to buff traps for all trap using classes by adding a really useful ability to, y’know, setting up a field of traps in stead of being forced to “melee trap”

Add a third pistol!

A level 37 Chocomancer.

You hadn’t noticed large patch sizes with no corresponding increase in playable content?

Every condition except bleeding does something interesting. If anything, fire is the least interesting condition, as it is literally just bleeding with higher damage and lower duration.
Bleeding/fire are raw DPS.
Poison debuffs healing.
Confusion bursts damage when skills are activated.
Torment deals additional damage while moving.

Every other condition is a non-damaging debuff, and every one of those has effects that are unique to that condition.

Condition builds are most definately a thing, and now that the stacking isn’t ridiculous a lot of people run condi builds.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

PopeUrban.2578:

I don’t really see the point. GW2’s mechanics don’t make raw DPS calculation a reliable measure of contribution to a fight. Your DPS can easily hit the toilet if the boss you’re fighting decides to aggro you and you have to spend a greater amount of time dodging, or if you’re just unlicky with environmental hazards that force you to fight ranged for a bit, or you stop your DPS to go rez someone, or any number of things.

DPS meters really only work in classical trinity systems where the intent is that DPS is output at a reliable pace due to tanking mechanics making the DPS element of the group effectively invincible to aggro if everyone is doing their job, and the content is thus tuned around DPS running near-perfect rotations because it is the only challenge in the encounter for those players.

A gear check might display potential, but in GW2 a player’s knowledge and more important their ability to react to openings afforded them by allies and enemies are much more important. Full ascended does very little to increase your DPS compared to being in the right place for might stacks, or simply using the proper food for your build.

I just don’t see raw DPS or gear being important enough that we need the meters in this game. They were very useful tools in other games where gear stats were much more important, and dps rotations were much more reliable, but given the systems in GW2 I just don’t see how they’d be useful in a practical sense.

Well aggro mechanics are much more defined in GW2 raids then they are in the other areas of the game. There is no random aggro in the raid fight we saw last BWE. Aggro was determined by the person in the raid with the highest toughness. As a rabid necro I had 100% aggro the whole fight. We recruited in a rabid engineer at one point and then he had aggro 100% of the fight since his toughness was a little higher.

As such dps need to do two things:

1. DPS
2. Follow the mechanics of the fight

You need to be able to do as much of 1 as possible while doing 2. A meter will let people know if this is happening or not. Obviously if you are wiping then the problem isn’t dps, it is mechanics. A meter is useful for when you are hitting the enrage timer even after surviving all the mechanics.

Right, however that was one fight. Given that “main tanking” isn’t a core mechanic, but a special encounter mechanic everywhere we’ve seen it used in GW2, I have doubts that every encounter will have such predictable aggro.

In this fight it’s toughness, in the ooze puzzle its a buff, but it could easily be a “hot potato” mechanic like the cliffside hammer in another fight that you have to rotate, or a more intricate slit without hard aggro like the tongue boss seems to be.

Mostly I cringe at the idea of overbearing UI. If we’re going to build it in to the system, it would be preferable that it be handled by anet, and handled post-fight with a popup rather than mid-fight with some silly obtrusive window.

Players being jerks is less of a thing I care about. One should assume that if you’re pugging (the only place anybody cares about gearchecking you or kicking you for low DPS) then you’re going to run in to jerks some percentage of the time, as PUGs are the last refuge of people to abrasive to make regular friends to do content with.

Personally I’ve never seen the need for either tool, both as a raid leader and as a player. If you have a regular group you raid with, that group is probably going to be honest and helpful when it comes to optimization or pinpointing why encounters are failing. If you’re running a PUG group, you have to assume that you’re going to end up with some jerks and baddies who don’t want to learn to get better some times, and no amount of meters are going to stop them from being jerks and baddies.

My last three alts leveled to 80 without doing any combat past the tutorial. I just fed them books, scrolls, and used them to learn crafts that I hadn’t done yet.

I have more level 80 characters than classes I’ve actually played for more than an hour, heh.

The real question is who’s guarding our valuables when they’re all transferred to the new banks?

Because if it’s the Lionguard I’m really worried

I’m glad they added raids without also adding a gear treadmill.

The transmutation system and optional legendaries make me want to raid in a way I haven’t really wanted to in other games. In most games we’ve raided in, we did it because we had to, you know, for the stats. Knowing that, as a guild leader, I can say “you’re all already ready for the next raid, and the one after that” is a lot of freedom.

Doing content because I want a thing, like boss skins or legendary precursors is much better than doing repetitive raid progression because I need gear from raid 1 to do raid 2 and so on. Being able to tell a lapsed player, or a member with a more casual schedule “yes, you too can raid, right now, in the same raid we’re all doing” is fantastic.

I don’t really see the point. GW2’s mechanics don’t make raw DPS calculation a reliable measure of contribution to a fight. Your DPS can easily hit the toilet if the boss you’re fighting decides to aggro you and you have to spend a greater amount of time dodging, or if you’re just unlicky with environmental hazards that force you to fight ranged for a bit, or you stop your DPS to go rez someone, or any number of things.

DPS meters really only work in classical trinity systems where the intent is that DPS is output at a reliable pace due to tanking mechanics making the DPS element of the group effectively invincible to aggro if everyone is doing their job, and the content is thus tuned around DPS running near-perfect rotations because it is the only challenge in the encounter for those players.

A gear check might display potential, but in GW2 a player’s knowledge and more important their ability to react to openings afforded them by allies and enemies are much more important. Full ascended does very little to increase your DPS compared to being in the right place for might stacks, or simply using the proper food for your build.

I just don’t see raw DPS or gear being important enough that we need the meters in this game. They were very useful tools in other games where gear stats were much more important, and dps rotations were much more reliable, but given the systems in GW2 I just don’t see how they’d be useful in a practical sense.

“As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression. Our desire is to create a game that is more inclusive for hardcore and casual players alike, but we don’t want to overlook the basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level. Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion, but we feel it’s important to strive to satisfy the basic needs of our players sooner rather than later.”

“As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.”

Linsey Murdock, Arenanet game designer, November 13, 2012

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

Exotics as endgame were, in Arenanet’s eyes, a problem. They also felt that legendaries as endgame goals were a problem in that they were too grindy to be an appropriate next step up from exotics.

Ascended was added to the game, specifically, to bridge the progression gap. This is why it’s more powerful than exotics, but not so powerful that not having it excludes you from content.

The acquisition of ascended equipment has been the intended endgame progression mechanism for nearly three years. Raids are intended to leverage that gear progression without invalidating it just as masteries are intended to leverage your character levels without invalidating them.

Palador.2170:

Back in CoH, the introduced a new end game. “Incarnate Powers”, that you could slowly unlock and earn.

Now, the first slot could be unlocked by anyone by going through a story once you were at level 50 (max level). The next four slots, however, required raiding. Raids to get the EXP to unlock the slots (think Masteries in this case), and to get the items needed to craft the powers to slot there. People that didn’t like to raid were cut out, and complained.

Eventually, they came up with the solution by revamping one of the areas of the game into a really wonderful piece of nastiness that makes Orr look like a joke. And there was a great storyline in it that could be done solo. You’d get the EXP and items, but slower. Not only was the story pretty awesome, but it allowed people to earn things at their own pace. Yes, there were time limits on it, you could only go so fast, but if you wanted to just jump into the game for 30 minutes or so, you could still make some progress.

Now, let’s adapt that idea to GW2. Let’s say that raids go live as planned, and for a while that’s the only path to legendary armor. Then, several months down the line, they add in a new level 80 solo-only path to every dungeon. Maybe you’re tracking down the remains of Scarlet’s forces, or some mad sylvari that’s trying to save his people by burning out parts of their minds so Mord can’t detect them. You play through them all, and at the end you get to pick one of the items you could get from a raid. Want a second item? Play through them all again, though you’ve got a weekly lockout on rewards to keep you from going nuts.

This would be a greater time investment, but a more flexible one. A lot of people would consider it less challenging, but it would also be the slower path. Raiding would get you there quickly, making it the preferred path for those that are okay with it.

I’m sure someone objects to this idea, and I look forward to hearing why.

I remember the incarnate system pretty well, but the major difference between the incarnate system and raid gear is that the incarnate system added very real mechanical power to characters.

The thing is, GW2 is a different animal. It’s not a game about constantly chasing the gear (or enhancement set) treadmill, so its rewards really do thrive on what they represent moreso than what they do functionally.

I’d be all for some kind of “hardcore solo” dungeons here and there, but the thing is, they already built that system in to the living story. They could simply add “while solo” to challenge achievements, and done.

That said, it seems just… inappropriate with the way GW2’s loot is modeled. Like, giving out AC armor for beating CoF. That gear is statistically equivalent, but its value is largely cosmetic can as a trophy. The same goes for the WvW and PvP skins, etc.

Anet’s stance (which I agree with) is that you shouldn’t have to have a less powerful character because you didn’t do some instance a million times. They need to add legendary armor precursors to the larger game, and I assume they will do so through masteries. However, it doesn’t fit anet’s pattern or the structure of GW2 to make the same legendary precursor set that comes from a piece of challenging content also pop up through crafting or open world farming or masteries.

They’ve done this is a “soft” manner with fractals already, and they’re hardening up on that model with the new l100 fractals and their legendary backpack.

So what you’re saying is, take the expensive acquisition of ascended armor and weapons, that players spent time and gold on for the expressed purpose of a fractional increase in stat numbers… and make the whole purpose of acquiring said armor null and void by making it equivalent to exotics.

You know the crafting difference between a +4 and a +5 infusion? I worked my butt off for every last stat point on my gear, and I did so with the expectation that the stats actually, y’know, work

You view exotics as “forever armor” but Anet was pretty explicit when ascended was released. It is top tier, but it is not a huge statistical jump from exotics so people can “get by” without it in stead of being completely locked out of content This is highly unlikely to change in raids. Whether players insist on all ascended isn’t anet’s fault, but I assure you, as someone wearing a full set of exotics with +5 infusions, the difference is negligable unless I’m actively reading my incoming or outgoing damage numbers. In most cases a mob that takes kittens to kill… still takes kittens.

Agony resistance was the optional mechanic. Ascended was specifically designed as the assumed endgame gear goal, but as a very soft buff, like moving from a major to a superior health rune in GW1.

Anet literally created ascended because people were gearing out in exotics in a week. That was the stated reason of adding an additional tier even though they didn’t want the game to be about a constant gear treadmill.

Ascended is time consuming and costly to acquire specifically because it is the last gear you will need, ever It’s the same reason they’re not letting people outlevel raids, and it’s the same reason they’re not making any new legendaries tradable.

Whether you like it or not Anet wants people to work on ascended gear at 80 but it doesn’t want to force them to do so by completely excluding them from content.

Anet does not view exotics as “endgame gear”

They simply make sure that the almost best gear isn’t light years behind the best.

Unless they add agony to raids you’re still going to get a more noticable buff from food and party members than from swapping to ascended.

Ah right, merits are the “use it now” not commendations. sorry!

They said during the guild week stream they are useless after HOT, use them all.

The NPE has stuff set up in a series of linear paths. For most classes these are themed for stuff like “spirit weapons” or “traps” with the more essential stuff at the front of the path.

For revenant, I’d imagine that these are set up on a per-legend basis, with 5 unlocks per path, legend, heal, util1, util2, util3, elite, and the trait line unlocks set up the same way as everyone else.

In addition, I wouldn’t be suprised if you have a choice of a full weaponskills + heal unlock for one of these paths at creation, like how rangers start by selecting a starter pet. So you’d start with one legend half unlocked, and from there you prioritize your hero points early on. Do you max out your starter legend, or do you immediately unlock a second one for the weapon skills?

Like any disability, you have to learn to work around it. We had a deaf guy in the guild a while back, and it boiled down to making sure we were very clear in our use of the target calling system, and going over “pre-game planning” in text once we worked out a strat.

Your particular disability is a little easier to work around since you can still hear voice chat right? I’d say as long as you don’t attempt to take a leadership role in the content it should probably be fine as long as people know you can’t “speak up” if you need a res or something. What i’d do in this situation is find a volunteer with a less intense role to keep an eye out for you can call out when you’re down, but in practice once you play with people long enough and repeat the same content you sort of develop a sixth sense about keeping track of the group.

I support this. They could add a door inside the home instance that redirects to a “guildless guild hall”

The extra work would be in creating a separate database backend for decorations, since as far as I’m aware, decorations in their current implementation are tied to the guild once consumed from an inventory.

So, basically, what they’d have to do is mirror that system, set some flags for certain things to allow/deny being added to a “personal decoration inventory” to prevent things intended for guild decoration (like banners or certain trophies, etc.) and add some basic decoration vendors to the home instance so that “solo scribes” have a supply of basic decorations to upgrade.

From there it’s just a matter of building out the UI to support personal home instances.

The question is whether or not anet wants to move this direction, or if they want to keep the decorative sandbox nature of the system limited to guilds so as not to create a conflict of interest between personal decoration and guild hall decoration.

We might be better off.

Here’s what me know about dragons:

• They eat magic
• They want to subjugate all living things
• When they showed up, the human gods skipped town

So, the human gods, the being supposedly responsible for releasing magic in to the world, just up and left when the dragons started rising. Despite all their machinations, flooding the world with magic and then dialing it back with the bloodstones, watching like bigg googly eyed jerks as mortal humans killed abbaddon, they just… left.

Why?

It seems to me our “gods” know something we don’t, and that something is that _magic is unnatural, and potentially harmful to the fabric of tyria, and possibly reality in the guild wars universe.

They didn’t come from tyria, but from somewhere else across the mists. Then they for some reason… left. And picked up come humans, and dropped them off here with magic for a while, did some maintainence, and left

As a human, it took a while to step back from blind reverence, but once I did it hit me. That’s a pattern. The six human “gods” have done this before. They have an agenda, and that agenda is to seed worlds across the mists with magic. However, it seems that reality doesn’t particularly like magic. Hence the existance of the elder dragons. I wouldn’t be surprised if the gods left the last place they lived for the same reason.

Why is unclear, but the “who” seems pretty clear to me.

The human gods are extremists fighting a guerilla war against something far greater, and that something doesn’t want magic kittening with the rules of reality.

A single entity or race in charge of the creation of the mists and thus all of reality? Are the gods equivalent to rogue “dragons” from wherever they come from, and have simply decided to selfishly stick out on their own to build armies that span multiple realms?

After all, they have some similarities. Dragon energy can move from host to host, just like the essence of a human god. They have specific spheres of influence, which when combined administer the whole of a world.

Most importantly, however, is the fate that befell Abbaddon. Who was… the god of magic.

Looking at it from a different perspective, it is entirely possible that the six left their original home with altruistic intentions, and upon discovering how easily they could rule over tyria once they arrived, only abby wanted to stick with the original plan. So they cast him out.

and the dragons? They’re just what Tyria has in stead of whatever the six gods are. Possibly every major realm of reality has such guardians, and it’s entirely possible that the absence of magic, given what we know about the mists, is what actually defines reality

The mists, being pure potential, magic, and chaos are the natural state of things, the filler between all realities right? The realities we know, tyria, the domain of anguish, all the littel shards, fractals, and borderlands differentiate themselves because they have less possibility and more rules. Rules like time and physics.

It is entirely possible that the natural state of all reality is the mists, and what causes these little pockets to exist is creatures like our own elder dragons. By removing magic they allow things like time and physics to exist.

When mordremoth says “I am this world” hes’ not just being evil. He is telling the truth

My theory posits that tyria exists because the elder dragons existed first, consumed large portions of magic from the mists, and that “hole” in infinite possibility is tyria. A land with rules and physics and time, but also a land with enough magic sitting around to bend those rules.

If this is the case, then the six gods take on, from our perspective, a much more dire aspect. By attempting to visit these realms and spread magic, they may be knowingly or unknowingly destroying countless worlds.

The elder dragons aren’tr much better as they would logically view all of tyria as an extension of themselves because it actually is so we small mortal things are left in the middle. On the one side we have inter-reality terrorists possibly erasing whole realities, and on the other we have the source of all realities not giving a crap about our tiny concepts like “free will” because, in their eyes, they own us.

In the end we may find that our survival depends on making peace with the dragons (or at least one of them) rather than murdering them all. You know, one that appreciates and values mortal life and its free will.

One like we could hatch out of glint’s last egg

Torolan.5816:

PopeUrban.2578:

Torolan.5816:

PopeUrban.2578:

Leodon.1564:

Brimstar.9036:

The people who are saying 5% difference is nothing but between 10 people its a 50% difference collectively but…that 1-2% extra damage (per person) can be 10-20% more damage effectively.

Before you decide to have a hernia over math, you should first make sure your math is correct.

Truth. Here is math in real life.

1% of 100 is 1

100 * 10 is 1000

1 * 10 is 10

1% of 1000 is 10

a 1% buff times 10 people is still a 1% buff.

a 1% buff times a billion people is stilla 1% buff._

Math is not my strongest suit, but if you have for example 100dps per member and per tick and need to reach 10000 in another amount of time, 5+ for everyone per tick would be quite a factor if it is designed in a way that you will barely make it if you have only 100?

With that in mind, should the hardcore crowd not shed off their ascended armors voluntarily rather than asking for them to be not necessary? I thought that you are looking for a challenge? There it is, build just for you, the 1%ers, as you are so fond of saying to us others.^^

I don’t know what you think I’ve said, or what group of people you think I represent. I’m sure some people will happily attempt to do it in greens or naked eventually, but that has very little to do with the challenge versus reward baked in to the encounters themselves.

Personally, I try to use the best tools avaliable to me to complete the task at hand, but most of my test raid party (and my live guild for that matter) hasn’t ever found ascended necessary outside of fractals. Unless there’s an artificial mechanic (like agony) that literally requires certain gear the difference is pretty miniscule.

I’m also not sure what I’m supposed to be fond of saying, and to whom “others” refers.

Can you please clarify this a bit so I can respond to you properly?

Quite the contrary, it has everything to do with reward vs. challenge debate. If you artificially lower the challenge by putting on the best available gear, should not also the reward be lowered on the premise that you spun kind of a safety net? If not, any argument that raids are done for the challenge and not for organization-fetish elitism or group experiences are moot or at least severly weakened. The fact that it is available so you should use it is irrelevant for that kind of argument, either you are looking for the unbriddled wrath of a challenge or are also indirectly asking for less hard content in that way.

And for the second paragraph I was refering to a group of people, not you specifically there. The kind of people that tell others to htfu and seek challenges with a dedicated resolve but are unwilling to spend some hours crafting because they quickly sell all their materials after they get them and are now to cheap or lazy to farm them so they come out of the woodwork, ironically demanding that their hand is held and exotic is enough for them to do a content that is made! for people dedicated to the game and their content who are willing to sacrifice time and effort into it.
The irony, hubris and hipocrisy of this is so thick that I nearly feel compelled to cut out a piece of it.

People want to use their hard won, hard earned, meticulously designed gear and builds. It is the task of the developers, not the players, to create challenges that take the progression up to that point in terms of learned player ability and equipment and say “alright, you’re so tough, try this.”

Creating content specifically designed to be trivial doesn’t create an inherant challenge at all. You could call dungeons extremely challenging, but only if you solo them, but the intent of the content is not that they are solo instances.

What I actually said was that the raids are, obviously, designed and tested around the best tools avaliable. Would it be cool if there were some sort of reward system that handed out even better stuff to people that chose to do the content in greens or whites? Absolutely!

Thing is, the content is designed with a certain checkpoint of gear, and that checkpoint is the exotic/ascended bar. It’s also designed specifically around the understanding that those attempting it will likely do so with every advantage they can muster. Designing it any other way, say, with everything completable in whites solo as the baseline goal immediately trivializes the content and calls in to question why better gear or larger parties exist in the first place.

When people complain about the challenge of content, it isn’t becuase they can’t create additional challenge for themselves. They certainly can. However, there’s a certain assumption when you take the time and effort to, say, build a set of ascended armor, and that’s that you can actually use the little extra numbers on it. That was after all why you built it.

Content intended to further the goal structures of players also must be designed around the assumed maximum power capacity of those players, including all statistical buffs and class synergies.

The people saying to htfu or whatever are speaking a truth in the rudest way possible. It is healthy to have content intended to be “the ultimate achievement” toward which players are intended to strive if they truly wish to prove themselves. It is also healthy to reward those that can succeed with something special.

Attacking that concept is a personal choice, but it is one that simply discounts the very real and valid desire of a massive part of the player population that says “I want to do something difficult in PvE, and I want to get really cool loot from it that I can’t get by doing anything else, because that’s what makes it special.”

The persecution complex espoused by certain players (not necessarily you) that they deserve equivalent rewards for doing content that is not equivalent has reaches a much higher point of forum toxicity than the counterpoint. It is littered with thinly cloaked or outright brazen insults, and quite frankly it saddens me. If people can play PvE for years and never care that they’re not getting WvW or PvP rewards, why do they suddenly have such a massive problem with raids?

There is no reconciling these two points of view as they are diametrically opposed.

One side of the spectrum wants unique and valuable rewards for unique and challenging content. They are of the mind that rewards should be primarily a test of skill, and that trophies are fun, meaningful, and add to the game. They see these as new and interesting challenges to acquire new and interesting things.

The other side of the spectrum would prefer rewards to be a function of scale, in which any given thing can be acquired by working longer rather than harder. They are of the mind that rewards should be primarily a test of earning power of just desire, and that trophies keep them from having things they want. They see these as impossible roadblocks that prevent them from acquiring new things.

Neither extreme is completely right, nor completely wrong.

Arenanet has opted to hover in the middle, realizing that pleasing extremists is effectively impossible. Anet values the non-raider that recognizes and accepts why they don’t have raid rewards, and anet values the raider that recognizes and accepts that they can’t fully utilize their rewards without playing a hefty helping of content they may find “easy” and “boring”

The entire system is built on a foundation of assumed tolerance. They expect the raiders to tolerate open world content and living stories, and they expect the non-raiders to tolerate raids.

Why people can’t simple tolerate one another is beyond me. It’s a video game for the sake of pete. I haven’t attained 100%, or max rank,, or collected all the collectibles, or whatever in virtually any game I’ve ever played, and it’s doubtful I will do so. However, is seems silly to suggest that simply because I can not achieve it no one else should be able to. I simply haven’t because I haven’t made it a priority, not because the game itself is actively hostile toward me.

If you’re going to all the effort to make 5+ different skins for each legendary, there’s no reason not to just make that many more legendaries so people can choose for themselves what look they like regardless of class.

Karl McLain.5604:

Here’s a couple other updates that had been in the works and are now in testing.

• Vault: Reduced aftercast by 80ms. Added a 500ms evade at the start of the ability.
• Distracting Daggers: Projectiles from this ability are now counted as 100% projectile finishers.
• Impairing Daggers: Projectiles from this ability are now counted as 100% projectile finishers.
• Weakening Strikes: This trait now grants 10% damage reduction when being struck by a weakened foe, in addition to weakening foes on critical hit.

10% reduction of weakening strikes and 100% finishers for moar lifesteals and blinds?

That’s hot.

Any word on core thief rebalances? You’re killing it with the DD stuff here, we’d love to see the trend continue to core thief’s issues some time after release.

Not asking for a commitment, I’m just curious where you guys at anet see the main issues of the core thief lines, utils, and weapons. I know you’ve said you still think pistol needs love, any opinions about acrobatics or venoms?

BrunoBRS.5178:

Nike.2631:

PopeUrban.2578:

bliss.4305:

I don’t understand how any thief here can find logic in being able to deal damage and stay stealthed at the same time with absolutely 0 loss of stealth.

Mesmer Minions

Ranger Pets

Engineer Gyros/turrets

Necromancer Minions

You left out Drangonhunter-Trapper Runes with Spirit Weapons

Ok. Its terrible now. But one day… ((shakes fist at sky))

i’m trying to picture a build that has enough traps with low-ish CDs to justify trapper runes, and still has room to bring sword and hammer.

I set mine up with staff/bow in beta. It was highly entertaining to stalk my own roamers and add suprise support to 1v1s.

I wouldn’t call it effective but it was kinda fun. Currently leveling a guard to do it on live for the lulz.

JediYoda.1275:

People on Reddit raged by using their voice about the 2 months time gate to build guild hall pvp arena and in 24hr Anet agreed to change to 2 weeks. Did you tell them they have a choice not to play also or anyone else here on the forums that bring up things that you don’t agree with?

The difference is that that was an actually significant portion of the community, rather than like seven people that keep making the same threads over and over.

Torolan.5816:

PopeUrban.2578:

Leodon.1564:

Brimstar.9036:

The people who are saying 5% difference is nothing but between 10 people its a 50% difference collectively but…that 1-2% extra damage (per person) can be 10-20% more damage effectively.

Before you decide to have a hernia over math, you should first make sure your math is correct.

Truth. Here is math in real life.

1% of 100 is 1

100 * 10 is 1000

1 * 10 is 10

1% of 1000 is 10

a 1% buff times 10 people is still a 1% buff.

a 1% buff times a billion people is stilla 1% buff._

Math is not my strongest suit, but if you have for example 100dps per member and per tick and need to reach 10000 in another amount of time, 5+ for everyone per tick would be quite a factor if it is designed in a way that you will barely make it if you have only 100?

With that in mind, should the hardcore crowd not shed off their ascended armors voluntarily rather than asking for them to be not necessary? I thought that you are looking for a challenge? There it is, build just for you, the 1%ers, as you are so fond of saying to us others.^^

I don’t know what you think I’ve said, or what group of people you think I represent. I’m sure some people will happily attempt to do it in greens or naked eventually, but that has very little to do with the challenge versus reward baked in to the encounters themselves.

Personally, I try to use the best tools avaliable to me to complete the task at hand, but most of my test raid party (and my live guild for that matter) hasn’t ever found ascended necessary outside of fractals. Unless there’s an artificial mechanic (like agony) that literally requires certain gear the difference is pretty miniscule.

I’m also not sure what I’m supposed to be fond of saying, and to whom “others” refers.

Can you please clarify this a bit so I can respond to you properly?

JVJD.4912:

No, its not ok
You don’t create content and divide the player base on it
Much like the pve. pvp and wvw <————-All of them are players nothing more nothing less

Did you seriously just try to make a case about not dividing the player base by listing the three primary divisions of the player base?

These are literally three completely different, non-overlapping advancement systems.

You have a right to your opinion, but this isn’t a great way to illustrate it.

shadowfanatik.5160:

PopeUrban.2578:

flog.3485:

Maybe E as Evennia in GW1?

I have always assumed this is the case. As far as we know she holds the scepter of orr, which means she’s effectively immortal. As a human, former shining blade spy, and witness to the first stirrings of the elder dragons in this age she has the motivation, means, and skills to do everything E has done. She also has no conflicting interests as several other possible operators behind the scenes.

As a necromancer her keen interest in Marjory even makes sense.

Also, her name actually starts with E.

I find it highly unlikely anyone else is E.

Evennia was a mesmer, livia was the necromancer

Ah right, shining blade mixup. nix the first name bit. LIVIA is the logical choice for E.

flog.3485:

Maybe E as Evennia in GW1?

I have always assumed this is the case. As far as we know she holds the scepter of orr, which means she’s effectively immortal. As a human, former shining blade spy, and witness to the first stirrings of the elder dragons in this age she has the motivation, means, and skills to do everything E has done. She also has no conflicting interests as several other possible operators behind the scenes.

As a necromancer her keen interest in Marjory even makes sense.

Also, her name actually starts with E.

I find it highly unlikely anyone else is E.

MashMash.1645:

Swizzle.7982:

Ayrilana.1396:

People are arguing that the city the Exalted were in was the golden city of the Musaat.

I haven’t seen anyone argue that. Most people are just annoyed that a golden city full of mursaat like creatures (just like the descriptions of golden mursaat cities) turned out to be just a golden city full of creatures that look like mursaat but are just a whole new race with no existing backstory or lore but who were HERE THE WHOLE TIME! As if that’s something that makes any sense.

At least when they did it with the asura and the norn in gw1 they had a good reason, as they lived in places we hadn’t visited. 50 (or there abouts depending on how inaccurate anet are) years after the construction of a golden exalted city in the maguuma we literally visited the maguuma and we saw no cities. At least the mursaat had the excuse of being Unseen. But I guess this giant exalted city was behind a bush the whole time or something, right?

Where were these guys in the first game? How did no one notice them? Or the Mursaat not sense them? Didn’t we go through this region in GW1?

UGH. It’s so long since I played through gw1 I can’t remember all that stuff.

We went through parts of this region in GW1. The magumma maps made up roughly 3/4 of the actual surface area of the jungle, but the maps also didn’t include any underground or canopy layers.

Also keep in mind that, from what we’ve seen, a lot of land has been uprootd/moved around by mordy’s rise. If the city was originally underground, it wouldn’t be suprising we never encountered it in GW1, even if mordy’s rise has now exposed it to the surface.

Guys. Filigree isn’t gold plating.

It’s intricate patternwork, usually used as trim.

The exalted cities look nothing like “alabaster and gold filigree”

They look like (magical) gold paint.

Leodon.1564:

Brimstar.9036:

The people who are saying 5% difference is nothing but between 10 people its a 50% difference collectively but…that 1-2% extra damage (per person) can be 10-20% more damage effectively.

Before you decide to have a hernia over math, you should first make sure your math is correct.

Truth. Here is math in real life.

1% of 100 is 1

100 * 10 is 1000

1 * 10 is 10

1% of 1000 is 10

a 1% buff times 10 people is still a 1% buff.

a 1% buff times a billion people is stilla 1% buff._

JediYoda.1275:

PopeUrban.2578:

I was sure you made an entirely different thread about this issue to avoid the toxicity in the old thread. Do you want to trade insults or actually discuss this matter? Please stop insulting me.

Wow really? talking about someone taking things out of context.

I never insulted you directly or indirectly so I don’t where you get off accusing me that I want to trade insults with you or anyone else, the thing is you’ve insulted me with the above section of your post that I quoted.

I will ignore any more post will you make from this post moving forward.

JediYoda.1275:

@PopeUrban.2578

Not everyone is yes person or a mindless sheep that is just willing to go along with or accept everything is put in front of us.

bliss.4305:

I don’t understand how any thief here can find logic in being able to deal damage and stay stealthed at the same time with absolutely 0 loss of stealth.

Mesmer Minions

Ranger Pets

Engineer Gyros/turrets

Necromancer Minions

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

Alphard.6529:

JediYoda.1275:

Someone answer this “Why is this suddenly so bad when it hasn’t been a problem for 3 years?”

Because there’s new stuff coming, it’s not the same old stuff as before. You shouldn’t be able to buy everything in a guild hall on day 1 with gold, just as you shouldn’t be able to buy one of the new legendaries from the TP.

Not sure you actually read the original post, he said it would still be gated like how earning favor from missions is. I think the idea is great although not necessary. As people have pointed out you can always form a pug party to help you complete missions. I believe there is even a mechanic build in to help support this. If you guild finished a mission and you missed it you can complete the mission with another guild (I think one you are not a part of even) and still earn your personal reward. I don’t see why people would be upset with this if it was implemented, both gold and favor are currency’s and both require some ‘effort’ to obtain so it’s not like people buying favor with gold are getting things ‘free’ also gold cost per favor could be significantly high to make it not worth it unless it is your only option.

Gold is a different and not equivalent currency. They decided that buying influence with gold let you turn a system that was supposed to be about playing with a guild in to a system that was about farming mats or buying gems.

Just because two things are currencies doesn’t mean they should have methods of exchange. You can’t buy dungeon skins with gold, even though tokens and gold are both currencies for the same reason.

The intent is you do guild content to acquire guild rewards. The ability to buy influence, and the old login/event influence reward model broke that, as it was possible to acquire guild rewards without ever doing any guild content.

That is why they changed it to the new favor and guild hall upgrade systems.

JediYoda.1275:

Someone answer this “Why is this suddenly so bad when it hasn’t been a problem for 3 years?”

@PopeUrban.2578

Not everyone is yes person or a mindless sheep that is just willing to go along with or accept everything is put in front of us.

Nobody said you have to accept it. You’re allowed to be upset, and you’re allowed to say whatever you want.

However, you’re suggesting a massive shift in the core philosophy of how the game is developed, and what I’m telling you is that the game is treading the same path it has always tread.

It’s not about being a yes man as much as it is about what’s best for the game as a whole. I can afford to buy a new legendary off the TP. However, I agree it’s better for the game as a whole if I can not do that. You, however, seem not to care about what is better for guild systems as much as you care about what you, personally, can get without making any concessions to what’s better for guild systems as a whole.

You want to be able to have all the toys intended for groups of players without actually having to be in a group of players. You don’t seem to care about all the fixes to the system to make it an actively better and more fun system for the people it has always been designed for

They didn’t change the system to be more group centric with less emphasis on guild size because they felt the old way was better. They did it because they felt the old system was worse. You’re free to disagree, of course, but the decision has been made and unless a disproportionate about of the player base riots about it it is unlikely to change.

Reading through your other thread about this exact same issue, it appears that is unlikely.

So, it falls to you. You can either accept the system, or you can be unhappy and rant about it.

I was sure you made an entirely different thread about this issue to avoid the toxicity in the old thread. Do you want to trade insults or actually discuss this matter? Please stop insulting me.

I like this spin better, as it does call in to question Saul’s account of the mursaat.

The Mursaat, as well as the Seers, are too big of concepts to be unceremoniously shoehorndes in to a side plot in an expansion about a dragon. Seers and Mursaat are “mists level” Lore entities potentially dwarfing the miniscule “tyria level” entities that we face now in the form of the elder dragons.

Dropping hints in this expansion that the Mursaat purposely decived Saul would make sense, and would further solidfy them as much more existential threats, as we have always know that they have an understanding of the universe that dwarfs our own, and likely transcends tyria.

At this point I wouldn’t be suprised if the Human gods themselves were an exiled splinter faction of Mursaat, as we know that they came to tyra from their homes across the mists. It is entirely possible that the Mursaat/Seer conflict has much further reaching consequences and ramifications than one tiny world in the infinite number of worlds throughout the mists.

JediYoda.1275:

Anet has always said for a very long time even pre-release of core game “play your way” and “we don’t want to force players play in a way/game mode they don’t want to”

And they sayid that with reagards to character power, not cosmetic or QoL rewards. Again, from release of the game.

I welcome you to attempt to find an arenanet statement where they stated an intention to allow players to have access to every cosmetic and utility reward in the game from playing only the content they wanted to.

In fact they said the opposite. They said that allowing legendaries to be sold was a mistake and didn’t align with their vision for them. They also never added other PvE avenues to acquire dungeon skins. They also never added a non-guild acquisition path for guild buffs, and in fact, with the initial release of the guild mission system actively designed systems to require players to play more specific content for specific reward, not less.

“Play your way” was always a philosophy about character power. Your character should not be functionally weaker than others because you don’t like certain content. They have stuck to that principle, and have never deviated from it.

Certain players have taken that phrase out of context to serve their own desires, but Anet hasn’t changed their design direction at all since the release of the game. Power is something that should be universal. Shinies and economic efficiency are not.

Buying influence was an issue because it allowed you to skip the whole point of the system. Influence was always intended to encourage guilds to do things together, and represent the guild.

The ability to buy favor didn’t level the playing field, it simply made it simpler for guilds of all sizes to fast track progression. Further, it eroded the basic foundation and benefits of the guild system in an MMO where very much of the game does very little to encourage people to establish relationships with other players. It was really easy to form personal bank guilds, or level a solo “guild” to gain buffs, completely removing any incentive to make friends and form “real” guilds.

Your suggestion with keeping the cap intact, while it does serve to level that playing field, has the same problem as much of the old influence system. It prioritized material gain, repping, and login uptime more than actually structuring and rewarding guilds for playing as guilds.

The new system takes the idea of the old system: reward guilds for playing as guilds, but removes the worst parts of it by making favor gain more about getting together occasionally for guild events (missions) rather than demanding all-rep, daily logins, and mass recruiting.

The primary concerns about the new systems come from people in “guilds” of less than five people. Anet’s stance, as per Colin, is that 5+ people is what anet considers a guild, and less than that is really not even a group.

I agree, and I think that’s fair. If you need to find PUG allies to do a dungeon, or any other group content, it’s completely fair to build the systems to also assume you’d need to find temporary allies to do guild content, as favor advancement is now based around a very similar reward structure. You do a group task, maybe two or three in the week, and you’re done. You’ve hit the cap.

Unlike the old influence system in which the total play time of everyone in the guild was more important than occasional participation in guild events, the new one actually balances large and small guilds much more effectively by not making sheer numbers logging in and repping the best way to advance.

In all of these threads I ask the same question, so I’ll ask it here as well.

If you don’t want to go do guild content, designed for groups, why do you feel you should be afforded the benefits of being in a guild?

It seems like asking for all dungeon paths to be designed for solo players. It just doesn’t make sense. Certain content is designed for groups, certain content is not. Those pieces of content have different rewards.

It’s now easier than ever to only occasionally “work as a guild” and still advance as a guild even though people have wildly different play schedules.

As the leader of a small guild where there are usually only ever 5 or 6 active and online at any given time, and more only if we explicitly schedule something big, this seems ideal. I’d imagine it also seems ideal for the leaders of large guilds, as there’s now no pressure for them to require people to rep 24/7 to keep up their buffs.

The only people it’s not ideal for, it seems, are the people who felt they should be afforded guild benefits without being willing to form the long term relationships with other players that constitute a guild.

Bank guilds were not a given. They were a loophole in the system.

You don’t need to temp invite and kick any more than you used to. For the longest time we ran public guild bounties so people could get their ascended stuff. We created a rank specifically for public event runners with no permissions. They tagged only for the bounty, then untagged and we didn’t see them until the next week. it was a win/win for everyone involved. Our guild got a much larger pool of people to do events with so we were sure to get completions, and those solo players got their special items and gold from the bounty rewards.

GW2’s multi-guild system is specifically geared so that you can be in a guild in which you only tag during events now more than ever. In stead of encouraging guilds to require 24/7 rep, farming, and whatever it encourages guilds to get together occasionally to do one or two things, and then move on to whatever level of teamplay they like.

You may want to avoid sematic arguments on what constitutes a guild, but the fact is that Anet has pretty much ended that argument and drawn a line in the sand. Guilds are groups of people that get together at least occasionally to do group specific content. I think the new system is perfectly fair in many ways the old system was not.

Yes, it leaves “solo guilds” and “duo guilds” out of the picture. You may disagree, but I don’t think that’s a problem. If you can PUG for a dungeon, or join other players for a world event, why can’t you do the same for guild events occasionally?

I agree that the dodges should probably not fire their effects in stealth, just for the sake of synergy and build variety.

However, I feel that balance is balance, if bound and lotus don’t fire their special effects in stealth, neither should dash. Seems only fair.

Legedaries are not “better stats” in the first place.

Ascended is the BiS in terms of stats. Legendaries are simply ascended pieces with shiny effects and the ability to switch the stats any time you’re not in combat.

There won’t be a better tier of stats, like ever. Arenanet specifically designed the game around not making your hard earned gear suck with expansions. That’s why they put all this effort in to the mastry system for endgame progression in stead of just adding more levels and gear tiers.

I don’t understand why you’re asking for the stealth focused class to have less stealth, even though it doesn’t make enough of a difference to actually kill you.

A broad system like that is simply counter to the existing balance of the trait system. You already get intrinsic benefit from stacking stats quite high, so I don’t really see any reason to pile more stuff on top of that.

Meanwhile, on a class and spec specific basis secondary effects from traits already exist, but it has to be a build choice.

Rather than adding a bunch of bloat to the system, a better approach would be to make sure all stats mechanically have value in similar amounts. Currently, power and condition damage scale far better in terms of actual usability than, say, toughness and healing power. Adding 200 power is noticable, while adding 200 toughness is not. I just don’t see the point in a system that places artificial target numbers to get a mini-buff as opposed to the system we have now, which makes it worthwhile to mix stats to suit your build without having to worry about some artificial target number like 1700 power just to get some additional bonus.

A guardian and a Thief.

As for steal, usually the best move on pistol builds is to take slight of hand in trickery so you can use it to interrupt heals or stun followups. Basically, only use it for the daze to finish people off or to defend yourself against melee that manages to close on you.

They already added counterplay to thief traps by giving out reveals like candy.

The fact they don’t reveal you (and trapper runes) is the only thing that actually makes them worth using on a thief. They’re also far far less powerful than ranger traps. Due to the fact that all ranger traps actually deal damage (that pulses), have combo fields, and can actually be used as anti-melee sustain, while only two of the thief traps actually deal damage, none spawn combo fields, and they are one shot abilities that can’t be used for sustain.

BrooksP.4318:

PopeUrban.2578:

I’m pretty sure its written in a combination of COBOL and binary punch cards and runs on servers powered by thermal turbines powered by bruning money and expired content punch cards.

Binary punch cards would explain why content updates take so long.

If we all pitch in maybe we can buy them some reel-to-reel magnetic spool drives!

Eldbrand Charging.8902:

Eponet.4829:

That’s handy for the people that don’t like to play PvP, it’s good that they’re not being forced into it.

We can only hope that PvE and WvWvW players will be able to trade for gifts of exploration too.

and that WvWvW players will be able to trade their badges of honour

Since a minority of players do PvP Shades of Glory will be ridiculously priced, it will force players to do Pvp if they want to be able to finish Legendary crafting.

That’s kind of the point. Colin said one of the reasons all new legendaries going forward are untradable is that they want legendaries to require people to play every part of the game to get them, even if they don’t make it their main thing.

It is likely they made the glory shards tradable to address the income disparity between pvp and pve since they both reward the same currencies now, giving people the option of profiting off of others, but the general intent is that it’s going to always be far cheaper and easier to get that legendary crafted by actually going and doing the content yourself.

We also don’t know what else the glory shards are used for. Off the top of my head I’m guessing some of the guild arena upgrades will probably require them. I don’t believe they’d add a whole new currency, and make it tradable, if its only use was legendary crafting.