Guild Wars 2

Anet is covering the conventional archetypes in terms of the professions/classes. If they wished to break with this convention you wouldn’t even need the designation light/medium/heavy. But, if there is value in having archetypal classes, then there is value in restricting armor to archetype. They don’t need to have a blue sky either; we simply hold that in convention.

EN should be your clue as to language.

They impress me as someone who was willing to go to great lengths to achieve their goal of wielding a legendary weapon. I’m impressed. Actually seeing legendary GS’s sometimes annoys me as, with two, they can pretty much obscure the target. Now, The Bifrost on the other hand, there is a legendary weapon.

What about a zerker GS warrior with bulls/frenzy/100B? You’re pretty much dead after the opener right? The key to dealing with any walking opener is not to participate in the opener. Here things like breakstun, stability, dodge, escape in other words, are things you should be thinking about during their opener.

And, in any kind of PvP, it’s best to dress for success. You say you are in p/v/t and valk gear so I don’t know what to think there. You should be in good shape for dealing with burst builds.

But, yeah, nerf them, buff me.

Yes, Colin’s blog post referenced above is the best reason for hope that I’ve seen to date. There he talks about ability progression, which I believe is one of the best ways to provide a sense of progression without devolving to a gear grind. Good stuff.

More grindy by definition. One of the major problems with vertical progression is that a game becomes grindy. You are always grinding in pursuit of keeping up with an ever increasing power level. It’s grindy.

Laurels are the currency of VP. They are a reward and it is VP that is driving the system. You only need to visit a laurel vendor to understand that. When VP was introduced it was localized to one dungeon. This made perfect sense in that this was how WoW did it, why wouldn’t it work here? Well, culturally they are two different games and that didn’t work here. Laurels, through achievements, represented moving VP into other parts of the game. Our achievement system is now driven by VP.

With the last blog post, there seems to be a strong statement that VP is not the way to go and they are offering an element of horizontal progression “instead”. Instead sounds like a strong word to me. What I don’t understand is how VP can be removed without being removed. There has been no announcement about it being removed, simply that we would have something else to do instead. If they add horizontal and leave VP intact, we will still have VP. And, the problem with VP is that it’s grindy.

Listen, the answer is simple. Lean on Evon Gnashblade and convince him to hire more Asura into executive management. If there is enough pressure he’ll relent and make it part of his platform. I’m certain when he sees the results of trained, rational thinking applied to economics and general business, he’ll continue the program. He wants to succeed and in order for him to succeed, everyone must succeed—by definition.

The discussion of economics is cursed here, as it is IRL, with one group talking about economics and one group talking about fairness. I’ve never really understood the fairness side as it always involves taking something away from someone, which doesn’t seem fair. But, alas…cursed.

Why not plan, long term, on leveling both? I have both professions at 80 and love them both. The warrior I find less forgiving and that makes for a sense of a more active play style. My guardian is a rock that will not be moved. I like that, actually. And, as mentioned, the guardian is more viable across all game modes right now. I’d probably go guardian first.

As others have mentioned, I don’t think there is any problem with rewarding achievements. In fact, since achievements are closely tied to playing the game it’s a perfect way to add relevant reward to the game.

The only possible problem with this is when significant achievement points are tied to temporary, time-limited content. Some players may sense a time to completion difficulty because of life-limited availability of play time. And, because of its sometime niche nature (platformers anyone?), some players may not want to play it, but feel forced by the level of reward. This is fairly easy to understand. If the achievement points were tied to permanent, MMO-like content, for the most part, I don’t think you could find a problem with the system.

Yes, new hearts for new areas. Hearts have a lot of potential for enriching the storytelling. Maybe they haven’t effected the changed world yet, but I like the involvement in local areas. They will most likely get better and better through time.

As a person ambivalent about the downed state overall, I love to rez people. I do it all the time and feel good about it each time. I make only two exceptions. The first is less than level 70, usually naked, players in the cursed shore. I applaud their ability to get there, but they are on their own—they certainly won’t be contributing to anything going on there. The second is completely defeated players in the middle of an event when there is a waypoint a few game units away. There is no point in taking players out of a fight when they can waypoint and run back at little cost.

Yeah, I don’t think that special equipment should be necessary to pull this off. Just don’t include them in deposit all and we’re good.

I’m a proponent of developing story through the evolution of a living world that doesn’t come and go in monthly installments. I was very happy to read some of Colin’s thinking on this in his latest blog post (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/) and recent interviews. I’m looking forward to more focus on a permanent living world going forward.

I once died using the warrior’s rush down the ramp into Rata Sum—something you can run down with no damage at all. I, too, vote for the hills to be given priority the next time devs feel an irresistible urge to wield the Nerfbat.

Without doubt, the holiday content has been the best. The initial storytelling has been problematic across the board, though I don’t blame writers at all—it’s more in terms of how evolution in the game was conceived and I believe it’s a general design problem. That said, given all recent statements by Anet, they have recognized the problem and hopefully will put in the correction sooner rather than later. I’m really looking at upcoming content to be the best that we have seen.

I agree with the actions of Anet in the patch. I hope no one calls this a “farming” nerf as it just helps facilitate the intent of the event chain. And, it aids the community as there shouldn’t be a disconnect where failure is seen as the better path in experiencing the rewards of the game.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Celebratty.1632:

Farming =/= exploit.

If you want the dungeon open, just do it. Or you could be courteous and guest and leave them, but it doesn’t matter either way. They can’t stop you and there is no reason to try and stop them.

Farming IS NOT an exploit, sheesh.
O.P. just ignore them and continue what you were doing to open Arah. People like this give legit farmers like me a bad name.

I’ve never really understood the anti-farming mentality in the game, but I believe it may come solely from “farmers” who want to game the game rather than playing the game. Farming itself is just goal-directed play, i.e., playing the game.

For me it’s about game culture really. If you PvP, dueling is the best way to sharpen your skills. I practiced several forms of martial arts and in each sparring was an essential part of the practice. And, in each, I went to a studio to duel. I really don’t want an offer to duel made on the street on my way to the studio and that describes the cultural dimension to which I refer. I’ve experienced that culture in another game and don’t want to repeat it here. We have the “studio” in-game right now. If you want to sharpen your PvP skills use it.

Yes, it’s easy to play the game solo. The MMO is really not about crushing challenge in the open world and, for the most part, GW2 gets this. In fact, most DE’s that are not labeled Group Event are easy to solo as well. You should never have a problem leveling through level appropriate zones. I always try to keep gear, especially weapons, up to my level and that generally isn’t difficult. They won’t all come from drops and judicious use of the TP is recommended (by me).

While agreeing with the OP 100%, I would invite you to read the looking ahead blog post which describes a focus more on permanently expanding content going forward (I read that as the opposite of temporary mini-games).

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

I actually had forgotten about it till I read the OP. But, at the rate my block list is growing the last thing I want to see is someone, who probably already belongs on my block list, with the ability to put up dueling requests. We already have dueling opportunities, just head over to HotM. You can actually duel there all day. Just please leave it out of the open world experience.

For those of you arguing GW2 is a different game…deal with it….leave, I’d like you to consider the statement Anet made in announcing GW2: "GW2 takes everything you loved about GW1 and puts it into a persistent world. ". First of all, is it possible to consider as an overall design goal? I think so. I never played GW1, but I understood perfectly well what he was saying. Any game that can be described as a franchise has a similar dynamic. The game’s have a core DNA and as they evolve their success is measured around keeping things that worked, losing things that didn’t, taking advantage of technical advances, and trying out new things that seem compatible with the DNA. When new releases within a franchise seem like a different game altogether that indicates a failure to manage a franchise over time.

I think what a lot of people are saying is that Anet hasn’t managed the franchise well. Please don’t hear me wrong, as I love GW2 and think it has great potential. Even though I didn’t play GW1, from what I know of it, I think GW2 would benefit from evolving along the path of its DNA. It’s actually why I came to GW2 from WoW.

Based on a tip above I went to my collectibles tab in the bank and noticed I had a ton of stuff there that I had no immediate use for. I had been in the habit of storing at least 250 of everything thinking I would use it one day and this worked well while leveling alts. I sold off less than a third of it and made 195g. That was rather shocking. Some “poor” people may be sitting on a ton of gold in bank if you’ve been playing for awhile.

I’m sitting out the current content. I watched the dev livestream and it was pretty obvious that it was just an extended platformer. I really don’t enjoy them, so I don’t do them.

The sad part is that I miss this chapter of the story, and, of course, the reward that they have added for this content. I’ve long advocated for an evolving living world as opposed to one that comes and goes in monthly installments. And, I’m all for mini-games, but ideally they should not be used as the vehicle to tell the story.

At any rate, my reading of Colin’s blog post would indicate that he is in agreement here and that there will be more focus on evolving a living world with more permanent content and play that impacts the process of evolution. I’m looking forward to seeing how this will play out in the future.

I don’t think they will offer this as long as they are serious about telling a story and integrating it in your characters history. I’ve actually got multiple 80’s of professions just because I wanted to experience the different races in the context of a given profession. For me, that is the better way to solve the problem.

I would like to have both a slider to adjust all instruments and an extension of the block function to include instruments of that player. People who play to annoy are block list fodder anyway and it would be nice to be able to block their annoying words and sounds. Some combination of the two would solve my issues with the instruments. I actually like having them a lot in the game.

If you read Colin’s latest blog post (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/) you’ll see culling in PvE mentioned near the bottom in the And So Much More to Come… section. Bottom line, they are working on it without a specific time to resolution given.

That should be pretty simple. If you believed it was an exploit enough to report it, it would never be right assume it as a strategy. Once you understand what an exploit is, there should really be no confusion about whether it should be performed.

I have a human guardian and have never slotted the prayer. I use signet 90% of the time as condition removal is generally good to have in this game. And, as has been mentioned above, how often do you use your heal? In most fights, due to passive healing alone, I often see my hp trend upwards.. When I do need my heal it’s usually a big heal that’s needed. Signet fits perfectly.

I don’t believe the champs will bring any new dynamic to PvE condition builds. Basic tagging and contribution for participation seems to work ok for condition builds. I don’t see why this would change anything. Condition damage is broken in PvE. It needs to be managed by player, as it is in other games, rather than by stacks on a mob.

1) continuous major CC
2) instagib from the particle blur

These are the two major PvE annoyances that arise occasionally with each attempt to make the game more interesting. I’m not particularly interested.

After about my 5th character or so I began relying on crafting more for leveling. By then, I was familiar with the world and just wanted to get to 80. This is where http://gw2crafts.net/ can come in handy as it will show you the most cost effective path.

However, in your case I wouldn’t recommend anything to boost speed in leveling. Leveling through normal gameplay is fast in this game and will allow you to experience all the cool stuff Anet has put in the game. Guardian is a great profession to level; just check out all the level-appropriate zones and have fun. Dynamic events are your friends. I often camped out in areas where a lot spawn for a few levels—they offer a lot of bang for the buck.

I watched the dev livestream for the current content and it didn’t take more than a minute to understand that it was an extended platformer. I don’t particularly like platformers so was not interested in this installment of the LS. I sat out the last installment for a similar reason: I don’t like the implementation of Southsun or what it represents in the game.

And, I don’t like a living world that comes and goes in monthly or bi-weekly installments. It’s not how living worlds are best modeled or evolved. But, as was said above, given the latest blog post, I think that Anet agrees with OP on this one. My reading of the blog would suggest that we will see more content of a permanent nature where our actions affect the evolutionary process. I agree with the criticisms, but am willing to give Anet time to reinvent themselves around the living story/living world. They seem to have gotten the message.

Cross server zones would be one alternative to the problem. A single virtual server architecture would also solve the problem. You would, of course, lose the sense of distinctive cultures on the servers. It will be interesting to see where they go with this. Not dismissing the problem on many servers I really don’t see it on mine—Tarnished Coast—it always feels relatively populated—everywhere I go.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I just need a codpiece.

I got a fever, and the only prescription is more codpiece.

I have all the professions at 80 and enjoy aspects of them all. There are professions that I believe need work more than others but they all are viable and I believe they will eventually get the work they need.

I have played my guardian most over time. I’ve always said that if I had to go to a fight I needed to win, I’d take the guardian. He affords a more relaxed playstyle and I love to a end fight with near full health. It’s a comfort factor. That said I have a d/d ele that I just played for a week. The ele is an edge of your seat playstyle and I play it when I’m feeling expansive. I probably still would say that I’ve had the most fun on my mesmer. I love the kiting mechanic and the mesmer just seems to come together as a perfect ranged class for me. But, I’m a hopeless altoholic. I love melee and ranged, heavy armor, light, and everything in between. I think GW2 has done a fine job of covering the class archetypes. There is something for everyone here.

Galtrix.7369:

Zedd.8239:

Rangers are perfectly fine in PvE. They certainly aren’t without their faults and there are things I’d like to see changed. But they aren’t useless.

Anet said I could play how I wanted and still be viable. I wanted to play with the longbow. My damage is almost non-existent. Oh, look, I’m no longer viable.

No offense, but people who defend Rangers are the ones that prevent the Ranger from being changed. I’m not trying to bash Rangers, because I really enjoy playing them, but It’s really, really difficult to enjoy the class behind the sound of my arrows striking my enemy for 1 damage each.

When Anet buffed the longbow, that was the happiest day of my life, until I saw that they increased the rate of fire, but lowered the damage. I then realized that Anet had no idea what they were doing. At all. There was no point to that change whatsoever, and I really wanted to smash my face into my keyboard badly.

At least Anet got the weapon right, the LB. And, they were right to think about changing it. This was the perfect opportunity to move the profession forward and it was a big disappointment for me as well. I love everything about the profession, but almost never play my ranger. Hopefully, some day.

Edit: I don’t mean to imply that rangers are not usable or viable and I found that mine is perfectly fine for general running around in PvE. I don’t play my ranger because it feels demonstrably weaker than my other professions without any meaningful offsetting benefits.

I believe here that the OP is referencing the mesmer role in the GW2 dungeon trinity, i.e., that the role is largely utility/support, which it is, and that is why the trinity works. Well, 33% of why it works. You really need to mention the guardian as well, as zerker warriors really don’t work well alone outside of cof1. (It’s actually rather shocking how quickly a glass cannon warrior dies when faced with sustained damage.) You need a quasi-tank. With the guardian, warrior, and mesmer in place you have a trinity that works in GW2.

If there is a problem with this, I don’t believe that reducing the DPS of the warrior profession will in any way fix it. It’s not as simple as light=more DPS, heavy=less DPS. There are a number of trade-offs, mechanics, and implied combat roles in play.

I do believe that there is a problem indicated when three professions rise to fill roles that others can’t fill as well. But, it’s not purely a DPS issue. It’s an issue of how combat and combat roles are conceived in the game and whether they are working or not. But, yeah, there are class balance issues as well. Rangers should do more DPS.

Delvoire.8930:

I may be wrong.. but isn’t all the PvE content pretty simple. This would make it easier, would it not?

No, it wouldn’t make it easier. It would simply properly account for all types of damage, both direct damage and damage over time. The problem can be seen in a simple thought experiment. Consider adding 5 zerker warriors to a group and consider the increase in overall group damage. Then consider adding 5 full condition (not hydrid or power) necromancers. The increase in damage would be inconsequential and far, far less than adding 5 warriors. The only thing that needs to change is to properly account for damage by player. This is one of the reasons that condition builds are less viable and less sought out in group play. It simply shouldn’t be this way.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Condition damage is most definately one of the biggest if not biggest problems in the game.

There is a reason direct damage is so superior to condition damage. There is a reason the zerker warrior is king.

Most real fixes for this issue will cause more server side load and thus cost more $$$ so it is very unlikely we will see a solution.

There are some simple things they can do to allow conditions more viability without crashing their servers.

1.Allowing conditions on objects would solve a lot of headaches.
2.Allowing conditions to crit (might be more complicated and need some balancing) should also be a possibility without killing the servers
3.Allowing more synergy between condition oriented stats. Power/Prec/Crit% gear is king because all 3 stats increase the effectiveness of the other stats. This doesn’t happen at all with condition dmg. Allowing conditions to crit would also give Rabid gear more synergy.
4. Simplest solution of all: hike up the toughness of all enemies in the game to decrease direct dmg.

It doesn’t solve the underlying issues (stack caps) but it would at least help alleviate the problem.

I’m actually optimistic that the real problem will be solved. That’s because other games have solved the problem. I realize they played the “I’m sorry, the computer can’t do that” card, but then you realize that other games did, but currently don’t have this problem. They’ve admitted it’s a problem and they will solve it in the same way other games have. But, they have to additionally do something about objects as well.

Dawdler.8521:

Ah, Logitech. That explains the minor injury.

Had it been Steelseries, you’d be dead now.

Ah, the Steelseries 6GV/2, now there is a proper keyboard! While potentially lethal, at least they are not the subject of frustration posts.

They have pretty well nailed the archetypes between the Elementalist and the Necromancer alone.

The way condition damage is managed in the game is one of the major problems in the game. It is also, apparently, one of the more difficult problems to fix. I suppose it’s always helpful to remind them that we are still noticing that this is one of the most significant issues in the game and it hasn’t been addressed.

Judging from the timer on the Karka Queen, there isn’t a lot of activity in Southsun on my server. But, I haven’t been there so don’t have first hand knowledge. For me, it’s not a fun zone to play in and I don’t even think of going there. Orr has been fine periodically, but every time they have tried to make it more interesting they empty it. The current timing of events in Orr is problem enough to avoid it. In 90 minutes there I can get a full workout in, but I’m hard pressed to get in 30 minutes of play.

While I would agree that the three professions are fairly well designed, I agree with spoj that it’s the synergy of the three together in group play (dungeons) that puts their names out there as the top tier professions. Zerker Warriors were always strong in DPS, but they are not comprehensively OP on their own unless you are talking cof1. Guardians can grab aggro and position mobs for Warriors to burn down. Mesmers provide a lot of utility/support. It’s a trinity that works well in dungeons. This speaks as much to problems in how combat and combat roles are conceived as it does to issues of class balance.

There are a number of things that need to happen. Damage over time needs to be managed by player as damage per tick X a number of ticks, not by stacks on a mob. Personally, I think combat roles needs some redefinition, but I don’t want to get into it here. And, I think that the move away from vertical progression to skill/ability progression, as announced, offers one of the most interesting ways to promote a diversity of builds (and therefore strong professions) in the game. The potential is there, it just needs to be realized.

I don’t believe they have designed anything around the Asura race. And, the guy who did the JP’s mentioned doing testing with a full-size Norn.

That said, the Asura are the easiest character to navigate. The perception of faster run speed (I know they all run at the same absolute speed) and general responsiveness makes them feel like sports cars compared to the other races. Norns lumber along and I swear the Charr hesitate a to move a micro second at least as compared to the Asura. There are problems with the camera and they swapped out the camera everything was originally developed around just before launch which made some of the JP’s troublesome initially. The problems associated with the camera do favor smaller size so there you go.

I agree with the OP in that the Asura are superior (fitting, eh?) and I would like to see improvements in general character navigation even beyond jumping puzzles. In other games I’ve played large and small characters and I don’t remember ever sensing that the larger characters were more difficult to navigate.

What you will find is the game will be easier and harder as you level. It will go in cycles. I recommend you begin buying green gear at level 14, especially weapons. The buy/sell price makes it easy to get. Yes, found gear is fine in the early levels, but that tapers off quite quickly. The found/reward gear can be used to augment what you buy.

You mentioned fewer players and on the more populated servers you will find people playing throughout the game. It does make a difference in quality of life while leveling. Try guesting on Tarnished Coast.

Many of us live in NA so a suggestion of this nature should not be surprising at all. But, having given it its due consideration, around one second, I vote no.

The fact that they recognized the problem with MF and made the decision to remove it from gear has given me increased confidence in their ability to manage the game. There will need to be an appropriate transition and we will need to wait to hear how it will play out. I too am interested in an equitable transition.