There were mounted mobs as far back as prophecies. It isn’t that they can’t give us mounts. It’s that there’s no good reason to do so from a gameplay perspective.
You’ll note that the current mounts we have like the broom stick and magic carpet are all extremely light on animation. See, animation takes time, and that time costs money. It’s a better investment to task those animators with animating stuff that’s actually important to the core play experience, like skills and enemies, than it is to animate a glorified swiftness boon.
Additionally, for mounts to be a value addition to your game, it means your game needs to have vast expanses to travel that would be boring or tedious to travel on foot. e.g. empty map space. This is important for some types of games where tracking resources or cutting off enemy respawn locations is key, but GW2’s only game type where that would even be relevant is WvW, and they don’t want to make it easier to cut travel time there in the first place because the map sizes and siege ranges are all based around foot travel time, so they’d have to design new wvw maps just to accomodate the mounts.
Until we have some sort of expansion where mounts are a central game play mechanic (like the junundu worms) don’t expect them to exist because it’s a lot of effort for very little payoff. That said, rest assured that if they run out of other ideas, you’ll see a “plains of the grass dragon” or whatever expansion so they can add mount masteries and sell mount skins in the gem store and say “this is a feature our players asked for” and it’ll be a lot more involved than just a run buff.
These come in waves. Just report them and move on and you’ll notice it calms down in about a week.
Gold sellers have realized anet makes it very difficult for them to consistantly advertise so they do periodic blitz marketing whenver their normal rate for GW2 stuff slows down (usually as a result of ANET making them unable to complete orders or disciplining their customers)
They buy or activate batches of accounts, spam, and then get banned in a day and lay off for a while. F2P only really enables them to create-spam in newbie zones if they don’t level characters, and I’d be suprised if anet didn’t have some built in IP tools to detect unusually high numbers of account registrations like you would find done in most of those businesses with an automated tool.
Oh look, another rant about how rare things are rare.
That’s the point. Dyes, minis, skins, etc. are collectibles with various rarity tiers. the entire point of those rarity tiers is that you can’t easily and quickly acquire them, and that they provide an economic windfall to someone that lucks their way in to one if it’s something they have no use for.
In a game in which the entire reward system is cosmetic, giving people the ability to quickly and easily accomplish all of their goals would result in a very stagnant game where everyone would be wondering “why don’t I ever get any cool loot?”
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: PopeUrban.2578
Having participated in anet’s previous expansion betas for GW1 I was pretty much prepared for how content light the beta weekends would be. Going from proph beta to proph release was a big wow moment. Anet has always been very anti-spoiler in their public betas, and I’m not at all dismayed by the 4 maps announcement as verdant brink is already easily as content rich as any of the existing zones without any of the personal story and we’ve only seen less than 25% of the map. They ripped the canopy off the top, they haven’t let us in to the roots yet, and they’ve only given us one choice path of one mission.
The new specs are hit and miss and clearly have a lot of beta in them, and the sheer volume of work that has gone in to the new guild and PvP systems is staggering. Masteries are cool and all, but I hope the masteries list at launch is bigger than the list we have now.
The main story is a large unknown in terms of content as well, but this being arenanet I’m expecting a pretty hefty chunk of content right there. I mean it’s supposed to be the complete story from the end of LS2 to the defeat of mordremoth.
Also, raids and fractal updates. We have no idea how much content is being added there.
If you were to attempt to judge GW1 or any of its expansions by hteir betas you’d hear similar “Is that it?” complaints, until they released and you were fairly well blows away by the amount of content delivered for the price.
If you’re still on the fence, wait for the release and then ask for a review. You might find some people have changed their tune.
I’d really appreciate it if we just stuck to core plot lines that are more relevant to our own characters in stead of another living world season that’s all about NPC backstories.
We don’t need another long drawn our romance, another NPC a reconciles with NPC B, or another “hey player character, ride in the back seat while we go all expository on an NPC”
Nothing against Sya, but I kinda thought the whole point was that she was just a normal person, not another Marjory/Kas 2.0 where we sideline the plot just so anet can prove how progressive they are.
Like, can we just move on and treat the trans/gay/bi/whatever characters like normal people in stead of taking all the time in the world and a giant flashlight and saying “LOOK HOW NORMAL WE ARE TREATING THESE PEOPLE! WE ARE SO PROGRESSIVE!”
It’d be different if someone actually important to the plot was trans, and brought it up and then we moved on to actual plot things. Now that we’ve got the lesbian exploitation chapter over it kas and marjory are great characters in their own right but the entire time they were derailing my mission just to talk about how in love they are all the time was pretty annoying. Contrast this to Caithe/Faolan, who are actually important characters, who happen to have an LGBT relationship, but don’t railroad the plot constantly to talk about their relationship because there are more important things going on
I don’t need a kas/jory stop the plot for a sermon on tolerance version 2.0. You can have LGBT characters without making the whole story about the fact that they’re LGBT characters, and I honestly find it a little insulting to the audience when they do that. You wouldn’t pull the plot train over to showcase the lifestyle choices of a non-LGBT character and make this awkward sermon, why can’t the LGBT characters be given the same respect as everyone else and just be treated as everyday heroes or people of tyria as well in stead of like animals in a zoo that we’re all expected to point at and go “oooohhh, aaaaahhh”
Seems to me an issue of “used full zerk, didn’t redpect glass cannon”
The mobs have learnable patterns, but overall tend to hit harder, so you have to pay more attention. These guys tend to hit like players do, only with easier to forecast tells, meaning, as you would against players, if you’re going to run full zerk you’re going to want to load more defensive stuff, bring backup, or just plain get better at situational awareness.
Toughness alone won’t save you from playing badly, but it will allow you to facetank the tail end of smokescale/sniper burst better and overall increase your EHP enough that your heal can let you take a a big hit>heal>nother big hit if you’re really failing your positioning or CC.
Overall I haven’t had a lot of problems with the new map, but it does seem intended to teach you “hey, defense is important”
Zerk runs well if you back it up with a more control/defense heavy spec, and dps specs tend to warrant a little extra tough/vit, but going full glass gear on a full glass spec is going to require some backup, or getting quite a bit better at the game.
The main problem with shields is really where they sit on the weapon bars of classes that use them. Because they can only be wielded in the off hand, conventions of GW2 demand that they be fairly long cooldown skills which don’t really define “shield turtle fighter” the way you’d usually expect, where the shield abilities are shorter cooldowns, and offensive abilities are the longer ones, but still using the weapon rather than the shield as an auto.
To remedy this they’d basically have to swap the mechanics in a new elite spec, which changed the weapons from MH1,2,3/oh 4,5 to MH 1,2/OH 3,4,5 and some creative massaging of cooldown mechanics. That would, of course, require adding a new 3 skill to all the other non-elite offhands for the class, which sounds like a really interesting elite spec overall for a warrior or guardian.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: PopeUrban.2578
The most important thing to remember is that the primary portion of upgrades is the favor (or whatever “new influence” was called) cost, which can’t be sped up by having more players at all as it’s a fixed rate of gain for every guild.
A large guild might be able to stack up 1k mithril or whatever faster, but they’re still going to wait the same amount of time a one person guild would to build each subsequent upgrade due to that time gating mechanic. It’s literally the reasoned they removed the influence design and aren’t offering a way to speed it up with a gold sink.
Yeah, here in Europe the tax has been showing since day one, it’s just been included in the checkout. When I bought Gems for 50€ as advertised as the cost, it charged me 50€. Does it work similarly in the states where you see some tax added? If so, what is the problem?
In the US, prices are generally listed without relevant sales taxes applied, except in the case of fuel for some weird reason. Receipts for purchases made in the US are usually a list of the items pre-tax, then a line item for sales tax following that, then a total.
Sales tax varies by state or county, as there is no federal sales tax so it’s up to local governments to decide what and how much they want to tax. For instance, I live in atlanta, and there’s no sales tax for online purchases, but the state run lotto and tax hikes on booze and tobacco balance it out.
Honestly I think it’d be better if raids were two group instances and used the existing 5 man groups. This would require better coordination and wouldn’t let people scale stupidly high stacks with extremely minimal support, as well as making sure warrior and necro AoE rezzes hit the right people in emergencies.
Smoke field would be rather OP as the staff stealth is (when it doesn’t bug out and fail) a very useful knockdown and easily chaining it would simply lead to stunlock no-counter play.
In stead, give it a dark field, which will allow the skills to combo in to life steals which synergizes better with the high sustain/low stealth feel of the spec.
Stunbreaks also break knockdowns. If you’re having trouble with a certain area, equip more stunbreaks?
Fix the Animations
I’m not going to go down the whole list, just the big ones for me
Distracting daggers Completely unusable for its intended purpose. The cast time is too long to set it up in combat, and you have to set it up in combat because the duration of the equipped daggers is too short. In addition, the ICD between daggers seems arbitrary and clunky for a skill that already has a travel time and relies on use during very short time frames to achieve its intended function (interrupts) It’s already hard enough to land, it seems needless to put it on an ICD which makes it even more difficult to use within its narrow window of usefulness. Make this function like a mantra, increase the cast time to compensate, and remove the ICD between daggers so it feels like a thief skill.
dodges
The effects on these are right on the money, but as other posters have said they feel clunky. I’m glad this is being addressed, but while you’re at it maybe have a look at death blossom and staff 2 and apply a similar treatment. Also, why does lotus training cost initiative? I’m assuming this is a bug.
Impact Strike
The chain timing is too narrow to justify being a chain skill at all. Either increase the window to execute the next strike or just make it a one touch skill. The final hit, while an actual stomp, just looks bad. The skill has an overly narrow use, and seems more suited to a utility than an elite slot. Also, it’s the only skill in the game that is completely without purpose in PvE. The damage and conditions it applies simply don’t measure up against foes who don’t need to be finished. Maybe a split version with higher damage or better disables for pve would fix this.
Fist flurry
Just plain awkward to use in a lot of cases. The functionality is good, but it’s overly difficult to land all hits on a non-stationary target. Maybe increase the range/cone or something?
Animations overall
The animations on most of the skills feel obviously rushed or incomplete. The effects on the lotus dodge seem awkward without syncing sound effects and dont match up in quality with the same animation on deathblossom, rush hides your weapons and uses a hammer stance while holding nothing. Bound has extremely awkward timing and a largely theme inappropriate stomp. Bandit’s defense stows your weapons mid combat even though the reactive strike is a kick. The blows from fist flurry have no sense of impact. Overall the visuals as they currently stand are well below arenanet’s usual bar, and noticably poor in quality or half finished compared to the base game.
Was it fun?
I used DD to supplement a condition deathblossom spec, and it definately added a lot, and significantly changed the game. Balancing the use of lotus and juggling two separate resource pools for DPS and attempting to maximize and position for trickery caltrops, favoring dodge against singles, deathblossom against multiples, and using bandit’s defense as a “fill” when other resources are low made the build much more durable, and increased its damage output significantly, and the extra endurance and dodge restored the old “I never run out of endurance as long as I don’t spam dodge” feel of pre-nerf feline grace. I think DD is in a good place thematically, but it needs visual polish and some basic usability adjustments to its skills.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
You don’t “earn” armor by running a raid, you are not “generating” anything by running a raid
This is the primary flaw in your thinking. We are not going to see eye to eye on this, and you are not going to convince anyone of anything with this line of thinking.
We are playing a game, and like in any game mankind has ever played, we earn victory. In some games the reward is simply the victory, the knowledge that you won. In others victory has a tangible and quanitfiable reward.
This is a game in which victory confers a quantifiable reward with a direct corrolary to the challenges undertaken. It is not arbitrary. It is not bribery. It is not unfair. It will not change as drastically as you want it to.
Good luck finding your dream game where everything is purchased with the same token rewarded in different quantities. I’m sure it exists, and I’m sure it’s less fun than this one. Have a pleasant time with the rest of your thread.
I’d like to see more headgear and less outfits.
Why does all the other content need “bribery” then? In fact, why do we need rewards at all? Why do we need gold, karma, skins, or anything to be locked behind any content? Wouldn’t it be more fair if we just unlocked it all on account creation so people could just repeat whatever they found fun? Certainly. Would it be as much fun? No.
Your posts are much better when you don’t devolve in to thinly cloaked insults.
Nobody asked for any rules to be bent but you. Exclusive content rewards have existed since the game went live. They are in place, and have been forever. Typically, the more challenging the content is the more likely it is to have an exclusive skin. At launch they locked karma skins behind god temples, which were their theoretical challenge focused endgame. They locked dungeon skins behind dungeons, again their theoretical challenge focused end game. I’m citing a precedent that exists. That’s not asking for the rules to be bent. That’s stating that enforcing the existing rules works and is fun.
They didn’t create legendary tracks for a whole new set of legendaries and make them account bound because they though buying a legendary off the TP was a working design because it wasn’t. The message was a quite clear “we want people to earn the most difficult to acquire things themselves. We don’t want them acquired by proxy. We want them to undergo the content we decided to link to the rewards”
You may feel it’s “arbitrary” but it isn’t at all arbitrary. It’s a fundamental reward mechanism that is core to the way the game works, and it always has been in GW2
The introduction of raids with raid exclusive cosmetic rewards should be a clear indication that this is a reward mechanism that arenanet likes, that players want more of, and that “play your way” does not and never did mean “you can have everything you want by doing only what you want to do to get it” it mean “There are extensive reward paths for all types of content which pay out their own special rewards”
I’ll leave this thread now for you to state your opinions, and out of politeness I’d usually wish you luck, but in this case I can’t do so with any shred of honesty.
The clamor over this is far far less than the clamor over ascended, and they didn’t reverse course there, so you can rest assured they’re not going to reverse course on this. At best they’ll introduce another set of legendary armor for non-raiders (and for the record I think they should) to mend the perception of mechanical inequality.
Enjoy your thread, and I hope you can stomach the future of a GW2 that continues to run the way it always has and remain part of our community.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
Pretty funny to me the dev was just spamming Deathblossom and seemed to be enjoying himself. I guess thats dynamic combat for you. I dont care too much anyway, can be evaded and conditions can be removed on evade.
D/D condition isn’t so much about hitting as it is about maximizing number of hits. Positioning basically. Just spamming will usually get you 2 hits from db in stead of the optimal 3, and if you don’t make positioning adjustments you also miss the mini-caltrop bleeds from trickery. You need to stack bleeds from both to get out your damage and keep your stacks high.
The dev was having fun, but he was playing it super inefficiently, similar to running a backstab build and not properly timing c&d to sync up with revealed ending. Anybody can hit 1-5-1-5-2-2-2-2-2 but without the proper positioning and timing you’re cutting your DPS in half. Same thing with condi D/D, if you’re not constantly repositioning before dodges and uses of deathblossom, and making quick decisions about whether to use them for evasion or optimal bleeds, you’re cutting your DPS in half. Those decisions get even more complex in multitarget fights, as you want to maximize the aoe potential of those skills to get the damage out, and that requires even more complex positioning like starting DB stacked on one target while targeting another, dodging to drop trops on one to end the dodge on the other to db back to the first, etc.
Basically, the multiple decisions in a set like d/p are more about what skill to use when, wheras condi d/d is more about where to use skills from at a very fine level of positioning.
That dev video he was having fun, but was playing obnoxiously inefficiently to show off the range of the new dodge trait, or just because he didn’t care/know better since it’s not exactly hard to kill an ettin.
It would be about 3,500 times easier to implement and of greater service to the player base to just add 6 rune slots to the character sheet and take runes out of the armor entirely. Then you could just move runes in and out of those slots freely.
I think the point of runes and gear being fixed that way is that it’s supposed to be a time and resource sink to keep the economy going. Many rune sets are worthless enough already. With this kind of unlock system they’d all be worthless.
Just add legendary runes. Recipie requires one of every (non-event) type and an assortment of legendary goods (gift of X, gift of y, etc.)
In stead, add legendary runes to the game. Functionally the same as exotic, but perhaps they add some sort of effect to the armor they’re slotted in, and can be right clicked and type switched like the weapons and armor.
Like, if legendary armo has particle effects, the runes would have material effects similar to the leg. hammer, or apply legendary visual effects to the runes 6-slot power.
You can only create BWE characters during the BWE.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: PopeUrban.2578
I mean it sounds like a good fight and all, but the complexity meter of it is inconsistant with dungeon bosses and fractal midbosses.
Like, I like the idea of that fight, it just seems wrong to attach it to mai trin in her current position as a fractal midboss, if that makes sense. Something that mechanically complex seems more end boss level, or raid midboss level.
Also, I don’t like the idea of nerfing the cannon phase. The cannon phase is what’struly unique and special about the fight. Its “central gimmick” if you will. I’d rather see the cannon phase extended in some way, perhaps in stead having the players fight horrik during that phase in stead of the rage/poison thing.
It’s confirmed in the blog post that there will be rewards exclusive to raids. And frankly, that’s what it takes, otherwise people will run raids until they win for the challenge, and then they’ll have nothing to do. It takes a little carrot to make them keep playing after they beat the encounters. There are a lot of examples in other MMO with raids becoming ghosttowns after people beat them once due to no reward. The Ruby Sanctum raid in WoW is one such case.
That only means people weren’t there for the raid, but just for the rewards. To keep those that are actually interested in the content playing, all that is really needed is a right quantity of the rewards. No exclusivity should be necessary. If it is, that means raids are pulling in people that would have been equally happy (or happier) with acquiring those rewards from other sources.
What gets raiders raiding is the challenge and the exclusive rewards. You can argue that social is important too, but it’s orthogonal to raiding. (Social guilds don’t necessarily raid.)
If you beat the challenge and you have all encounters solidly on farm status, what’s left is the rewards. And if there’s no rewards? Raiders abandon the content. It’s as simple as that.
Note i did not say “no rewards”. I said “No unique rewards”. Also we’re back to the point that if the raiders are raiding for the rewards, and wouldn’t raid without them, then in the end it means that it’s not the raids themselves they are interested in.
If they were really interested in the challenge, then having raids be better/equally rewarding than other content in quantitative sense should be enough.Basically, if people will stop doing raids just because legendary armor will become available elsewhere, then it means that the number of people that really wanted that content was just that small.
It’s not about legendary armor. It’s about that specific set of legendary armor. I’m confident that, like ascended gear, there will be other ways to acquire it that aren’t tied to raids, but those legendary pieces will be visually distinct so that the raid armor retains its meaning and value. Doing fractals is’t about getting ascended items. It’s about getting fractal items, a unique skin that can only be acquired by persuing unique content.
I get that some people feel that they should be able to get everything and be required to do nothing specific for it, but it’s just plain bad for the longevity of the content.
People don’t do raids because of the challenge. they do them because of the challenge of obtaining a unique reward. For some of us, getting rewards without challenge isn’t fun, and neither is challenge without the unique reward.
I get that you don’t understand it, but it’s pretty a common risk-reward design, and as long as they don’t make the wildstar mistake and over-emphasize that sort of challenging content and leave those that choose not to do with nothing to strive for in the content they do enjoy, everybody ends up with something they like, and the only people left complaining are the ones that demand to have it all for no reason other than they feel they deserve to have the rules bent around their personal preference or play style.
Keep in mind that f2p folks can’t move servers, and are stuck on the server they selected at creation. Never underestimate the aversion to spending money from a f2p population. I think f2p will significantly bolster the population of lower tiers.
I dont like everything be account level, because its ALT unfriendly.
crafting is account level
raids ?
bank
dailyI wish it was a bit more alt friendly, because I love leveling alts, but if its so much account based, not much mood for it.
ps: Can we have 2 accounts? I mean, if I buy the game twice and in a point I email to me stuff (from one account to another), is it going to be bad for the game rules? I am new in gw2… So still learning.
yes. There’s no policy against having multiple accoutns as far as I know, though i’m not sure about running two accounts at the same time (e.g. multiboxing)
Ohono, you’re missing the point again. it is specifically because skins are generally more desirable rewards that it is more appropriate that they be tied to specific bits of content. That perception of value is the very reason that content exclusive skins are more appropiate and meaningful rewards than title. As you said, it’s because if you lined up a hundred players and said “would you like a unique title or a unique skin for this collection/raid/pvp rank/world rank” The overwhelming consensus would be “I want a skin”
The desire that underpins your argument is the primary driver for that reward system. GW1 ran this model for seven years successfully with event less statistical variation and no real tiers of power, and it was the driving force that spread players around and made content feel rewarding. Getting those shiro’s blades felt like a meaningful and appropriate reward for killing shiro. Getting that tormented bow felt like an appropriate reward for conquering the realm of torment
Those items would have lost meaning, and percieved value if they could be bought off a merchant, or if you could trade a stack of husks for them.
I’m not saying raiding should own all the skins. I’m saying every game type should have its own selection of unique skins in addition to sets that can be had from two types of content, three, some that require a bit of everything, and some that you can get with just plain gold so you can do whatever you like.
Arenanet seems to agree, and while it’s unfortunate that you do not, I don’t think you realize the ramifications of what you’re proposing.
You’ll need
1 GW2 character
78 butterflies
4 large panes of glass
2 buckets of paint (pink)
Add all ingredients to a large cutscene, and blend until smooth and creamy, then liberally apply pink paint to exterior surface.
And enjoy your new mesmer!
Anet realized really quickly with boss chests that character level just doesn’t work for lockouts, as it completely trivializes the lockout in the first place.
Having more alts isn’t intended to be the optimal way to play the game, It’s intended to be an optional way to play the game for those that enjoy it.
Falso. Both titles and achievements have intrinsic values. Titles have the exact same intrinsic value as skins. They are things your character wears, that other people can see. Achievements have the intrinsic value of achievement points, which in turn grant (you guessed it) the primary reward mechanism of the game. unique cosmetic rewards
The suggestion that all skins should be avaliable through all forms of cintent is exactly the same argument that all titles should be avaliable through all content. Why do you wear a title? “because it looks good on my character” or “because I want to show off what I achieved to get it to the people around me” Titles are simply a gear slot, like minis or outfits, that happens to not have any stats or inventory items associated with it.
See, that’s the thing. You can’t have one without the other. If you’re arguing against content exclusive skins, it follows logically that if you claim to hold a balanced and equitable viewpoint, you must extend that logic to all forms of reward which players can display to others. This includes your theoretical trophy items, titles, tonics, minis, outfits, and with an extremely broad interpretation any item a player can link
You’re singling out skins because they are important rewards to you personally. The fact of the matter is that as a reward mechanism they are not different. They are things you can display in public view that prove you did a thing. Whether that thing was spend gems, use the SMS authenticator, hoard gold, defeated liadri, or completed a raid, every bit of this is a form of cosmetic skin and if they were not tied to specific means of acquisition, acquiring many of them would lose much of their meaning.
I get it. You want skins and you don’t want to raid. Attempting to twist the game to favor you personally is simply selfish. I want those cool sPvP skins. I don’t want to do sPvP. The difference between you and I is that I’m not attempting to stomp all over those players just because I want something they have and don’t want to put in the time in sPvP that they did.
Dennis was right, it’s no basis for a system of government, but it’s absolutely a basis for a nice story or an entertaining video game.
I apologise for the misinformation about lumi. I had not realized that they were offed on the vendor only after I had earned them by completing those achievements. I had assumed they were always there as I did the achievements before the SW open world content and haven’t really looked in to lumi as I don’t like the look of it and don’t find collections gratifying. I also find it appropriate that I don’t have access to lumi because I’m not willing to do the content connected to it.
The point stands that lumi requires extremely specific content. And is a meaningful achievement to acquire for thaose that obtain it for that specific reason.
You’ve also selectively quoted and responded to the bit about dungeon armor, conveniently omitting the exact reasoning those skins (and indeed any PvE skin) is avaliable in PvP. It’s not about choosing content. It’s about content parity for a game type that is so fundamentally separate that it does not share characters with PvP in a mechanical sense They removed glory specifically so that people didn’t feel that PvP stood in the way of PvE progress, and so that their rewards gained from specific content could be used and displayed universally.
I ask you though, how is your position any different from a belief that any achievement, or any of your theoretical trophy items, or any title should be granted by doing whatever content you like. Why can’t I obtain the “Golden” title by completing a dungeon? Why can’t I get the “Honorary Skritt” title through crafting?
You’ve simply singled out a specific reward type because you want to have access to all the skins, all the time. It has nothing to do with fairness or parity. You don’t value certain rewards, and thus are okay with not having access to them, but you value skins and thus feel that they should be made avaliable to you through means that you deem enjoyable.
A player who has done content tied to a skin is absolutely more deserving of the skin than someone who has not, regardless of how much they actually want to wear it because skins are the primary reward structure of the game I want those skins whether I wear them or not because the option to do so is intrinsically linked to my decision to attempt the content and my ability to complete it
It’s not about the skin being viewed as prestigious by other players. It’s about the skin actually being prestigious. Whether an individual player cares about prestige items, or how they view them is irrelevant. I don’t have to care about a full set of lumiscant armor for that armor to be proof that its wielder undertook a substantial and in some places difficult route to acquire it. What’s important is that the person wearing it knows, and that the people that want it know.
There are no legendary tales of Arthur pulling a bag of tokens from a stone, or recieving a magic business card from the lady of the lake for a very good reason. Tangible and usable trophies are part and parcel with not only the genre, but the core fantasy of the heroic epic. They’re why so many RPGs revolve around loot in the first place. You may not be one of those people, but for many of us it simply cheapens excalibur when you can either get it from a mysterious woman in a lake or for peeling 400 barrels of potatoes.
You don’t have to empathize with it. You can deny it. but the fact is your argument comes from that same desire. You want skins because they are a compelling reward and you play GW2 because you like getting items as loot
So does everyone else, and we want that loot to feel varied, special, and relevant to the tasks we undertake to acquire it.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
Ohoni, the fundamental difference here is that you’re trating the idea that everyone should have access to everything and required to do nothing specific to get it as fact.
It has clearly been demonstrated, again and again, that arenanet agrees with your thinking in regards to statistical power, and disagrees with it in regards to cosmetic variety.
It has also been clearly demonstrated that you are in the minority with this method of thinking.
I know you consider yourself “right” about this. However the overarcing structure of the game disagrees with you. Every bit of communication from arenanet disagrees with you, and by and large the community disagrees with you.
And for the record, dungeon skins were always avaliable through PvP, That’s actually why I have the HoW set in my wardrobe. Before they removed glory, PvP also had access to exclusive reward skins. After they killed glory they also added a new skin that is exclusive to pvp reward tracks. They’ve maintained the exclusivity of fractal skins to fractals.
In addition they’ve been pretty clear that they don’t want to force sPvP players in to PvE because sPvP characters are mechanically separate entities from PvE characters, and it is effectively asking them to reroll
I apologise for not being up on the exact lumi collection requirements, but the two pieces of the lumi collections not tied to silverwastes are actually tied to simply completing episodes. Lumi actually requires two separate pieces of specific content to complete, one of which requires gems to unlock if you didn’t unlock it for free.
The chief complaint about the game in general that nearly everyone has is that the loot is lame, and getting the same stuff everywhere is not fun.
I know in your mind it seems reasonable that every type of content should just pay out the same tokens which we can just insert in to a machine and pop out our desired skin, but the fact is that’s simply not fun, it’s not what players want, and the homogenization of loot is one of the primary complaints about the game across the board that anet has been hearing for years.
Skins are trophies in GW2. They’re the most valuable and most prestigious trophies because they’re the most visually exciting and can be seen by everyone around the owner. It has been true since launch, and asking it to change now without a suitably interesting replacement is folly.
Group puzzles are often more about execution than creative problem solving. Think of it like a machine with a lot of moving parts. To make the machine run every part has to be in the right place and doing the right thing. You might know how to put them all together, but it gets a lot more complicated when you have to ask them to put themselves together, and it feels really awesome when you can make it happen as it’s a very pure expression of teamwork.
Ever hear the expression “you catch more flies with honey”?
Your OP was very positive and upbeat and a great way to approach a feature request. Your following posts, however, were less and less so.
I get that this is a thing you’re passionate about, but try to keep in mind when making feature requests that anet doesn’t actually owe any of us anything beyond what is clearly stated in our EULA.
For the record, were I in anet’s position and you made the same request I likely would have respectfully informed you of the reasons why it is the way it is, agreed it’s a great idea, and made no promises to get on it that I wasn’t already prepared to deliver.
Business is about compromise between your vision, the customer’s needs, andhow much it’s going to cost. The age old adage that “the customer is always right” is a hope, not a motto. The customer is never always right. The customer wants maximum value for minimum cost, which is inherantly at odds with the business’s need to make profit, pay employees, develop new products or services, and remain financially solvent enough to service future customers.
In an ideal world the customer would always be right, because the customer’s requests would always be reasonable enough to fit in the required compromise space between their goals and that of the business. In the real world, the customer isn’t always right, as some times the customer makes requests that you can not reasonably fulfill.
I’m not saying your request is unreasonable at all mind you, and I’m not claiming to know exactly how arenanet feels about it. What I am saying, as a fellow consumer, is simply don’t pin all your hopes and dreams on it as it’s highly unlikely because they seem to have vastly different priorities that conflict with it.
With 10 slots and 9 profession you pretty much know there will be a step in the design process that asks “at what point in this is raid is [each]class highly desirable?”
There really should be a point during each and every raid at which your class of choice shines above all others (in the matching build). Two-to-three other classes should be able to fake it, but in that moment… BOOM, you da man. Like the moment where a well placed Portal makes the struggle 25 times easier. Boom: Mesmer slot confirmed. Imagine a super-pain-in-the-buttocks archer-type on the wall designed to be scorpion wired.
There’s also plenty of room in a 10-man composition to reward racial skills. A boss that takes +400% damage from charzooka for example or a boss that’s specially debuffed by summon owl or seed turrets.
The essential difference between 5-man and 10-man content is the design can demand everything. You have room for it with a slot to spare.
I don’t know, it’s a point of pride for them that “need X class to start” is a thing GW2 doesn’t have.
If those “class focus” moments are too heavily geared toward a specialty of one class or another it in effect creates an even more restrictive version of the “trinity problem” that they designed the GW2 class system to avoid.
They have made constant adjustments toward the direction of “every class can fill every role” with varying degrees of success, and I don’t think they’d consciously design away from that paradigm rather than toward it.
Double for racial skills. They have always always said racial skills are intended to be mostly fluff because your race isn’t supposed to be a mechanical factor when rolling characters, and releasing top end content intended for existing characters alongside a system that seems intended to force you to reroll seems very anti-Anet style thinking.
The sort of unique abilities and mechanics a thief might be able to get from trash mobs or even bosses via their Steal skill can also have a big impact on if thieves are desirable to bring to a raid.
“Thieves have sub-optimal DPS!”
“Sure, but if the thief steals one of the boss’ magic gems the boss will get a debuff that makes him hit less hard.”
“Sold.”
Woah, that’s an excellent point. Hadn’t even thought of that, though it would probably be more like ‘thief can steal a thing that gives him a buff’ with a buff designed around wherever that particular thief tank/support/healing build is weak. Seems like it would actually be easier to balance thieves than other classes in this manner since they’re the only class with a mechanic that already has environment specific interactions.
+1!
You should get zoltar’s character to be you character’s designated driver. He can hold his alcohol far better.
I agree that it would be a potential selling point, and that it’s a good request. I’m simply saying it’s an unreasonable expectation given the way the game works.
Also, as a person that does 3d animation and rigging for a living, I assure you “rescaling the animation” is actually not that simple. Bones (the invisible objects that control how the vertices of a given character move in modern realtime animation systems) have discreet rotation and scale values. You can’t simply scale an animation. you have to retarget IK targets, tweak things to fit around the unique length of connected bones, rework key frames so the timing looks right, and do a host of other things when you’re trying to take an animation that looks good on a human and transition it to something with the significantly different bone structure of a creature like an asura or charr, and even something like a male norn, where the shoulders are significantly more broad.
Some people can only learn the hard way. I’ll be honest with you – it would not have taken three years for me to deck this theoretical facepunch junkie..
Yeah, but listen, your analogy is terrible. It’s more like you have this one friend who keeps asking you to punch him in the face and then give him cookies. So you bake a batch of cookies and offer it to a whole group of your friends at a party, on the condition that they have to let you punch them in the face first.
“Punch your buddy in the face” isn’t the only party game you could be playing in this situation, and only one guy you invited is actually enjoying it.
Well, that’s assuming those are the only cookies at the party. if you want chocolate chip, play face punch. If you want frosted sugar cookies, play canasta. Nobody’s going to give you the sugar cookies for face punch, and nobody’s going to give you the chocolate ship for canasta.
I love this metaphor, and I hope this thread expands on it even more as it makes for a much more entertaining thread!
In fact they don’t, unless something changed you have to be on HoT maps to progress HoT masteries. They were unclear on the core masteries, and whether you can progress those anywhere or only on core maps (I suspect anywhere, as they’re “core” masteries)
Yes, but anything you do on those HoT maps, events, raiding, story mode, just grinding mobs, whatever, will advance your HoT masteries. You aren’t stuck doing a single task to advance them.
Also, clovers don’t take just ten minutes to knock out at the mystic forge. They take as long as it takes the player to gain the skill points (now the shards) ectos, and coins.
Ectos and Coins are just money, Spirit Shards are relatively cheap to acquire. I have 4700 at then moment. You need around 140 to get a legendary weapon, you can get 2 per day just from the login challenge, and they pour out of ubiquitous champ bags.
I can virtually guarantee that I’ll be reskinning most if not all of my legendary armor. I really hate sparkly particle effects. It’s the same reason I reskinned all my ascended gear.
So then you wouldn’t mind if other players could also have those armors, who don’t want to do that content, and might appreciate those skins more than you.
See, exclusivity isn’t about lording it over other people. It’s about knowing you have something that is a lasting mark of doing something difficult. It’s about knowing you earned something special not simply having something special
So why does your reward have to be in the form of a skin that you do not actually want? Why can’t you just get titles and achievements to denote that you made those exact accomplishments, while people who just want the skins can just get the skins? “I just don’t want you to have it so that I know I have something that you don’t.” It seems rather . . . small.
I’d say it seems rather small to demand access to something without being willing to do the prerequisite task to obtain it, but hey, that’s just me. Your insults notwithstanding, the point is that a trophy is meaningless if you can just buy it off a shelf. The trohpy has value specifically because of what it represents, not because of what it does. Yes, it could be a title or achievement, but as your ongoing campaign to get access to cosmetic skins shows, skins are way cooler rewards than achievements and titles, and players find them more desirable for the same reason it’s more satisfying to get a trophy or medal than a certificate. It just looks cooler.
Face the facts here. There are already many content specific skins in the game. That isn’t going to change.
Nobody’s saying legendary armor should be raid exclusive. We’re saying that there should be raid exclusive legendary armor. There whould be open world exclusive legendary armor, and pvp exclusive stuff, and fractal stuff, and so on.
Anet has designed around this principal for a long time now. Mechanical power is not a prestige item. Cosmetics are. That is how this game works, has always worked, and will continue to work.
I expect that legendary armor will not remain unique to raids just as ascended gear did not remain unique to fractals. I do however encourage you to open your mind to the very real possibility that raid legendaries will be limited to acquisition from raids just as open world ascended luminescant armor is limited to an open world zone
Yeah, sure, current Dungeon content can theoretically be completed by almost any non-troll team composition. But raids are not current Dungeon content. The whole pitch is that they’re more “challenging”. And being “challenging” means that, by definition, the “you must be this tall to enter” bar is getting raised above its current height.
In a game where easily half of the classes are only barely above that bar as it is, any raising of the bar that isn’t accompanied by substantial buffs is absolutely cause for concern.
Absolutely a cause for concern, if the raid releases and it is functionally impossible to complete without an exact and rigid comp.
I’m willing to give anet the benefit of the doubt and believe they haven’t been designing fights around “okay, they have to have a medi guard or this is impossible” or “they’ll have to have a thief or mesmer to stealth through this part”
However, until we get a chance to play it it’s fair to assume that they’re designing this content, as hard as it is intended to be, within the same “Any class can fulfill any role in their own unique way” PvE ethos that drives the rest of the game, and would wager that the design of some of the elite specs is specifically given tools to patch holes in that design where it is currently not true.
Assuming that the reverse is true just because the instance is harder doesn’t jive with what they’ve told us about the raids.
Some classes will probably be undesirable in pugs because that’s just how pugs work. I highly doubt classes will be straight up non-viable for completion. Builds maybe, but not classes. I wouldn’t expect the current composite dps/everything else builds to be “raid ready” and no matter what everyone but DPS will probably find themselves collecting some new gear before anyone can complete it.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
You can complain about anything you like. You can state that you don’t find the economic reality of the cost of man hours an adequate excuse as well.
We’re explaining to you why it is the way it is and why it’s unlikely to change. It would require substantially more investment in something that does not return more profit for said investment.
You have every right to complain about anything you like, but you’re simply not being realistic with your expectations and should be prepared to be disappointed.
At no point did they advertise it as a sword with custom sheathe animations, or in any way promise that kind of functionality. It’s one thing to make a request, but to say your demand is reasonable and the current sate of the item is unacceptable is going a little far.
If they didn’t put that sort of money in to other items that cost the same price, what makes you think they’d have any inclination to spend more effort on this one?
I would venture to say that for most of the ‘other’ shop items Anet has sold, Anet did go reasonably far enough as they should have to the point of acceptability. Not only that, the difference with ‘other’ shop items and Belinda’s Greatsword is the Greatsword came with something that doesn’t even show function. When you buy and see any of the instruments in the shop, you are getting what you paid for; they allow you to play music. When you buy any other items from the shop, they do what they’re supposed to do as advertised. But when you buy a sheathed sword from the shop, it doesn’t do everything it should do? Come on…
With that being said, my complaint did not go too far at all because it was a legit complaint. The item came with a secondary attribute to it, a sheath, and so yes! when somebody looks at Belinda’s Greatsword in the shop, the first thing they’re going to wonder like I did was, “Is this thing going to have animation to it where it is drawn and put back properly since this is the only sword I can think of that actually has a sheath?!”
And if the shop doesn’t claim that it does have such an animation, a reasonable assumption since no other weapon in the game has custom player animations, then they’ll probably google it to check it out.
The instrument items you reference clearly state that they’re playable instruments.
What you’re saying is that it would also be reasonable to assume that laser gun looking rifles all have laser gun sounding effects and fire lasers, or that any weapon with fire effects actually adds a burning condition when it hits a target. I mean it’s a laser right? It obviously fires energy bolts. It’s a burning sword right? It obviously burns things!
The problem here is that you had an expectation with no precedent not that anet half finished a weapon.
I see what you did there, except what you argue regarding those ‘other’ effects and skins comes completely down to mere aesthetics, because GW2 would not sound like or be GW2 with a bunch of laser-sounding guns like you’re in a Star Wars MMO. That is different!
Furthermore, Anet did create a half finished weapon given that the sound Belinda’s Greatsword makes when through with combat is the sound of the sword being put back in the sheath with no animation! That there calls for an animation by default.
Let me put your ‘laser-sounding guns’ argument on its head… Would it also not make sense if Anet did advertise a gun that looked like a laser gun, sounded like a laser gun, yet shot projectiles that did not look like lasers? That’s my point with the sheath that came with Belinda’s Greatsword. The sound is there where there is no animation.
The game includes a huge number of laser guns already. Every single asura styled rifle.
In addition, there are many many existing skins with incongruos effects. Check out the popgun rifle (which fires the same normal projectiles as every other rifle rather than corks despite making “pop” sounds) the slingshot shortbow (which fires arrows like any other shortbow despite clearly being a slingshot and making slingshot noises)
Also, literally every greatsword, sword, and dagger weapon in the game makes a sheathing/unsheathing noise under the proper conditions, if the character isn’t executing another animation when the you hit the draw/stow weapons key of you’re out of combat long enough to auto-sheathe. The sound on that sword is not unique to that sword. It’s the same sound as every other greatsword unless it has changed since I last viewed it.
Again, you’re free to want whatever you like, but the arguments you’re using to make that request are based in an assumption with no precedent.
I agree, it would be nice if it had an animation. It would also be nice if all weapons had proper sheathes and had appropriate animations for sheathing them.
However, expecting that to happen as if it was missing a listed feature is just a bit unrealistic.
Good luck convincing arenanet to add the animation though, really, it would be cool.
Pope to give you an idea of how bad thieves were in big group fights such as wvw a lot of T1 guilds banned thieves. They’ve made a slight comeback as venom bots and picks for gvgs but still are not welcomed in top tier game play.
That’s a far different situation. That’s actually a usability issue that impacts their ability to do a job. Usability in PvE is a very different thing than usability in PvP.
In PvE you only need to balance around successfully completing an event, instance or zone within the alotted time limit or other limiting parameter. In PvP you have to balance around the peak effectiveness of opponents, as “ability to complete” also means “ability to compete”
In PvE you’re only competing with mobs and against an enrage timer, so “optimal” is actually optional in a way that it isn’t in PvP.
You can complain about anything you like. You can state that you don’t find the economic reality of the cost of man hours an adequate excuse as well.
We’re explaining to you why it is the way it is and why it’s unlikely to change. It would require substantially more investment in something that does not return more profit for said investment.
You have every right to complain about anything you like, but you’re simply not being realistic with your expectations and should be prepared to be disappointed.
At no point did they advertise it as a sword with custom sheathe animations, or in any way promise that kind of functionality. It’s one thing to make a request, but to say your demand is reasonable and the current sate of the item is unacceptable is going a little far.
If they didn’t put that sort of money in to other items that cost the same price, what makes you think they’d have any inclination to spend more effort on this one?
I would venture to say that for most of the ‘other’ shop items Anet has sold, Anet did go reasonably far enough as they should have to the point of acceptability. Not only that, the difference with ‘other’ shop items and Belinda’s Greatsword is the Greatsword came with something that doesn’t even show function. When you buy and see any of the instruments in the shop, you are getting what you paid for; they allow you to play music. When you buy any other items from the shop, they do what they’re supposed to do as advertised. But when you buy a sheathed sword from the shop, it doesn’t do everything it should do? Come on…
With that being said, my complaint did not go too far at all because it was a legit complaint. The item came with a secondary attribute to it, a sheath, and so yes! when somebody looks at Belinda’s Greatsword in the shop, the first thing they’re going to wonder like I did was, “Is this thing going to have animation to it where it is drawn and put back properly since this is the only sword I can think of that actually has a sheath?!”
And if the shop doesn’t claim that it does have such an animation, a reasonable assumption since no other weapon in the game has custom player animations, then they’ll probably google it to check it out.
The instrument items you reference clearly state that they’re playable instruments.
What you’re saying is that it would also be reasonable to assume that laser gun looking rifles all have laser gun sounding effects and fire lasers, or that any weapon with fire effects actually adds a burning condition when it hits a target. I mean it’s a laser right? It obviously fires energy bolts. It’s a burning sword right? It obviously burns things!
The problem here is that you had an expectation with no precedent not that anet half finished a weapon.
It’s not about having fun, it’s about if 2 thieves + 8 randoms can do it as fast as 2 eles +8 randoms.
That’s my point.
It’s not about speed. It’s about completion.
If speed is your goal then you’re absolutely going to have exactly one build option and one class option for every member of the raid. There will be an optimal speed comp. That’s unavoidable. There is always a “best”
It sounds like you’re concerned with viability and options for speed clears. Speed clears by their very nature eliminate all options but one. If you think your clear is fastest and someone else comes up with a faster clear, you are now rerolling. Full stop.
You can’t be both looking for speed clears and looking for the ability to play whatever class or spec you like. You’re going to have to pick one or the other.
However, with a week reward lockout, or pretty much any timed lockouts on any rewards speed clears don’t affect earning potential at all so it’s just bragging rights and personal preference based on playstyle and time avaliable to complete content.
This entire argument is placed in a time period far into the future when everyone is aware of the mechanics and have figured them out enough to worry about getting through in record time.
No one is going to approach these in the first weeks thinking “how can I get through this the fastest?”. They are going to be worrying about how to beat it at all.
The very real and reasonable worry is that some classes are just going to be found to be less than optimal to the point that taking them introduces too much risk of failure and they will be shunned like lepers in the same way that current “not speed clear optimal” classes are.
The difference is that you can make a non-speed group for fractals/dungeons. Not so much for stuff that is hard enough that failure is a real possibility with certain group comps.
Your point here is good, but it’s based around the assumption that everyone is pugging raids.
If you’re pugging you don’t get to choose other people’s expectations, and you can’t control them. They could make every class completely mechanically viable for the exact same clear speed, and you’d still get turned down from pugs for “not being the right build” because the “right” build is the one that the world first twitch superstar posted and everyone else copied.
This is a very similar issue to speed clearing in the first place.
Clearing content is a balance issue. Attempting to forsee the whims of masses of (often unreasonable or just plain wrong) players is beyond the realm of balance or software design.
Well, you can hold the greatsword in your hands, or on your back. So technically yes, but no to the specific example you gave.
It’s not about having fun, it’s about if 2 thieves + 8 randoms can do it as fast as 2 eles +8 randoms.
That’s my point.
It’s not about speed. It’s about completion.
If speed is your goal then you’re absolutely going to have exactly one build option and one class option for every member of the raid. There will be an optimal speed comp. That’s unavoidable. There is always a “best”
It sounds like you’re concerned with viability and options for speed clears. Speed clears by their very nature eliminate all options but one. If you think your clear is fastest and someone else comes up with a faster clear, you are now rerolling. Full stop.
You can’t be both looking for speed clears and looking for the ability to play whatever class or spec you like. You’re going to have to pick one or the other.
However, with a week reward lockout, or pretty much any timed lockouts on any rewards speed clears don’t affect earning potential at all so it’s just bragging rights and personal preference based on playstyle and time avaliable to complete content.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
You can complain about anything you like. You can state that you don’t find the economic reality of the cost of man hours an adequate excuse as well.
We’re explaining to you why it is the way it is and why it’s unlikely to change. It would require substantially more investment in something that does not return more profit for said investment.
You have every right to complain about anything you like, but you’re simply not being realistic with your expectations and should be prepared to be disappointed.
At no point did they advertise it as a sword with custom sheathe animations, or in any way promise that kind of functionality. It’s one thing to make a request, but to say your demand is reasonable and the current sate of the item is unacceptable is going a little far.
If they didn’t put that sort of money in to other items that cost the same price, what makes you think they’d have any inclination to spend more effort on this one?
Not saying thief can’t do any of these things… I’m simply saying other classes can do what they do better.
The way GW2 works, it’s all about composition. The “meta” classes are the way they are because they work well together and are easy to understand and build. They’re not better at completing content. They’re better at completing content with randoms and require less coordination to do so.
There’s not a single piece of content in the game that can’t be completed with a randomly selected assortment of classes, provided those classes run builds designed to support one another, and I don’t expect that will change with raids. The content will be harder, and it will require more role focused gear, and people that demand meta builds will absolutely demand them harder. There will probably be an “optimal run time” comp as well, just like there is for the current content.
If you’re concerned about speed running, then prepare to roll within whatever meta develops. If you’d rather play the class you like, be prepared to put together a team of like minded players and design complimentary builds.
Also, raids are 10 man instances, not the awkward 40 and 50 person cat-herding fests you may have encountered in other games.
If you already have 5 friends for fractals, it shouldn’t be difficult to find another group that would hook up with you once a week.
Raids in GW2 aren’t about better gear. Like everything else they’re about better looking gear. You won’t fall behind just because you don’t raid enough.
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