Guild Wars 2

I will agree with those suggesting that you don’t use double tap. The fact that it is a ‘double’ tap alone indicates an efficiency problem apart from all the trouble that it occasionally causes. I have dodge bound to the mouse key where my thumb naturally rests on my Naga mouse. There is absolutely no movement or repositioning required beyond the simple single keypress.

Also, yes, getting the ‘Evade’ is only important for the Daily Dodger achievement. Any time you remove yourself from melee range (if that is what you intend) or dodge to LoS a ranged opponent it is a successful dodge in terms of combat mechanics regardless of whether it registers an ‘Evade’. BTW, I’d suggest tar elementals for the achievement. I can usually get it with just one of those. But, anything slow with a nice telegraphed attack is fine.

OP, with a little practice you will find dodging natural and efficacious. I now ‘attempt’ to dodge in a GW2 way no matter what game I’m playing; only difference is it works in GW2 and not in the other games.

Kalan.9705:

All because one time at band camp a dev’s second cousin saw a photo-shopped picture of 24k damage.

Worth the read for this sentence alone. +1

Anet made Orr “more interesting” in the 2/26 patch. That’s anetcode for they apparently don’t want you playing there anymore. Between buffs to risen, champs at pent/shelt, a “designed to fail” grenth temple fight, I think it’s natural that you would see an exodus of players. If they truly thought that what they were doing was making Orr more interesting then we would have a serious problem on our hands. But, I don’t think it’s that at all—it’s probably just more micro-management of players playstyles, that’s all.

The nice thing about the MMO is that it addresses a variety of playstyles, solo being one of them. So ‘joining a guild already’ is not going to be a universal remedy simply because solo play is not a problem in terms of the stated design goals of the game. GW2 encourages cooperative play more than any MMO that I’ve played and I certainly give them credit there—and, they’ve also built a game that is comfortable to play solo. I think they need to continue considering players of various playstyles as it’s good for the game.

And in terms of “negative posts”, there is actually no such thing. That’s just a catch phrase for everything you don’t agree with. Those “negative posts” actually contain ideas or argumentation around an idea. The key here is to engage with the ideas rather than dismissing the ‘negativity’. You will find that some ideas are outright wrong, some have limited merit, and some are spot on. Engage with them and argue for what you believe to be true. The negativity will fade to the extent that you enter into and engage with the world of ideas.

The DE’s actually scale to the number of players present and I’ve found most anything not labelled as a group event is solo-able. But, you are right that it’s not much fun in an empty zone. So, as suggested, guest on TC or Jade Quarry. There you will find players everywhere which makes for a pleasant leveling experience. And, as also suggested, gear makes a difference and if you can afford a few green items all the better—especially around your weapons if you are having a hard time killing things.

Red Falcon.8257:

Shonie.5297:

Because if it wasn’t time gated, everyone would have everything in a few days and complain about having nothing to do while the devs create new content.

^This.

And honestly it’s much better than grind gating, doesn’t force people to grind yet leaves time to devs for making new content.

The grind is what is being gated by time. The carrot is more powerful gear. Dailies/monthlies/guild missions/fotm are the activities you grind to get the carrot. Standard MMO fare. Even WoW, which I assume you would refer to as ‘grind’ gated, has time gating as well. There is a limit placed on how much valor you can earn and how many shots at given gear you have each week. Standard MMO fare. There is absolutely nothing new or different here.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Calae.1738:

I think the (GW2) developers will have a hard time making any content challenging. The game doesn’t punish bad play and encourage players to improve. Instead it creates an environment where making mistakes can be covered up by a friendly ally taking the time to help you get back up.

GW2 doesn’t punish bad play? Why does mob AoE always seem to center on the downed player? Why does every third thread in the dungeon forums seem to be about dungeons being “too hard?” Why is the response to these threads almost always “You just need to learn how to dodge, use skills, position, etc.?” In other words, “improve?”

Calae.1738:

When they enter content that prevents them from healing their downed allies (assuming this content exists) wouldn’t this cause confusion and make them think that the content is broken or too hard?

Since that is what is occurring, yes.

You’ve made the point in other threads that you do not find GW2 challenging. This thread seems like just another means to deliver your request for content that requires your level of dedication and twitch reflexes. My suggestion would be to ask for hard mode dungeons. While you’re at it, also support “easier mode” dungeons to keep the “too hard” crowd out of the theoretical harder content.

Open world content? MMO open world difficulty is always going to be tuned to the middle to low end of average play, not top tier skill. It does not hurt to ask, but don’t hold your breath.

I agree that MMO’s are not about crushing challenge in the open world. But, Anet has explicitly stated that they were addressing challenge with the grenth temple fight and, I assume, with the buffs to the krait and undead in various DE’s. From the volume of downed players and failed events I seriously doubt they are tuning the open world for the middle to low end of average play currently unless the world tilted and all the bad players fell into GW2.

Personally, I think combat is confused at this point. It is both too forgiving and too punishing. I personally don’t like having the downed state in the game, and you could argue that it is too forgiving and limits challenge. On the other hand combat often is punishing as is witnessed by the massive failure that you see everyday in the open world now. Let me give you an example from yesterdays play. I was fighting a champ from range at shelter last night. I was at full health one minute and defeated a second later. What happened? I certainly didn’t know so I consulted the combat log. It seems that an arcing shot came from the particle blur that is center screen and hit me for 24k, instantly defeating me. I was paying attention and saw nothing to indicate that anything was coming my way. This happens frequently enough to characterize GW2 combat for me. It’s not challenging. Challenging is when you can do a postmortem and understand what you did wrong and what correction you need to put in place. This is where I feel that combat is confused. In many ways it lacks challenge and at the same time it sometimes feels punishing.

Bottom line, I think they are still trying to figure out combat. And, that’s why threads like this are helpful.

Same. I was fine till I made the mistake of logging out.

When in a PvP area, you have to look for a PvP solution to the problem.

I bet Anet loves these posts. You know that the state of the game is pretty good when players are arguing about passwords.

+ 1 for fishing and fish as food items. And, while you are at it, add in a Hylek Mastercraft fishing pole as a high-level karma item. Nothing but pure win around fishing.

Turn off the ambient occulsion in your video settings. I experienced a problem similar to this when I tried to turn it on. (Nvidia 580gtx here)

Mujen.2089:

Raine.1394:

It’s impossible to avoid combat roles as they are part of being human. I mean, look at any human group organized around an objective and the first thing they do once they are clear on the objective is decide who does what.

I was watching a youtube video of a very good dungeon group talk about the team composition. The warriors were berserker, of course, but they referred to the guardian as an ‘anchor’ build. Very high toughness and control-oriented. It was his role to run in and grab aggro and position the mobs for the warriors to burst down. Anchor? Can anyone spell T-A-N-K?

But, we must avoid the trinity, so the guardian is an ‘anchor’ guardian. Roles are a part of being human so we will have them. What we call them and exactly how they function is up for grabs.

That’s only due to aggro mechanics, there is no realiable tanking in GW2.. but because lower hp & higher toughness grants more aggro, it works out that way. Also having a shield provides less benefit than say a guardian with a focus (blind/regen + 3 blocks on lower CD) I usually end up as “tank” anchor w/e u wanna call it because I have 3k+ toughness and 16k HP. Not by design, im actually mostly cleric gear lol aka wannabe healer.

Yes, it’s purely due to aggro mechanics. The guardian’s build serves as an effective ‘taunt’. So, you see the anchor guardian managing aggro as a ‘tank’ would, albeit without a keybound taunt. You are correct that there is no ‘reliable’ tanking overall.

It’s impossible to avoid combat roles as they are part of being human. I mean, look at any human group organized around an objective and the first thing they do once they are clear on the objective is decide who does what.

I was watching a youtube video of a very good dungeon group talk about the team composition. The warriors were berserker, of course, but they referred to the guardian as an ‘anchor’ build. Very high toughness and control-oriented. It was his role to run in and grab aggro and position the mobs for the warriors to burst down. Anchor? Can anyone spell T-A-N-K?

But, we must avoid the trinity, so the guardian is an ‘anchor’ guardian. Roles are a part of being human so we will have them. What we call them and exactly how they function is up for grabs.

Vicarious.3047:

TexZero.7910:

I lol at people who think condition damage on a ranger is superior to straight Rifle burst.

It’s okay though, keep dreaming. Ranger Damage is good in long drawn out skirmish or if the target is completely zoned from the Ranger. Same can be said of the Warrior however

LOL rifle burst is the easiest thing to avoid and at the same time rifles warriors are one of the easiest class/spec combos to kill. I see a warrior kneel down in front of me with a rifle I just run straight past him and it cancels, or if I’m too far I dodge at the extremely predictable moment it fires. DONE.

The ranger however, if specced right which most PvE and WvW players don’t quite understand how to do I’ve noticed, can burst almost just as high with their condition stacks PLUS they can survive better then most burst classes while keeping up pressure and damage.

Any decent ranger will beat any decent rifle warrior, the ranger has too much control for the severely lacking rifle of a warrior.

WvW is not about 1v1 and people who think that way are not good WvW players. It’s about objectives and actually winning. In a 1v1 or very small group encounter, the rifle burst animation will be detectable and avoidable. In the more common WvW scenarios, trust me, it goes undetected the majority of the time. Ranger condition damage is largely worthless in WvW given the amount of condition removal going on. It is very disheartening to play my necro in WvW because of this. Invest time in dotting up a target and see it removed a second later. Sorry, the rifle warrior is going to far outperform a condition ranger in WvW.

Ursan.7846:

I guess I should’ve expected the “Ranger, Lol” posts.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Shortbow-vs-Warrior-Rifle-DPS-tests/first

Tests I’ve ran. Gives you a pretty good idea of Ranger SB dps vs a War Rifle dps, but Ranger, while flanking, with pet alive, wins hands down.

Anet has stated also that Rangers have the highest single-target ranged DPS.

But not all damage is equal. Rangers have higher dps, but War rifle does FAR more burst damage. It’s up to you to decide what kind of damage you want.

And, warriors, traited for rifle, with inspiring shouts and quick bursts, are going to have kill shots available often. I have a ranger and warrior at 80 both built similarly (power/crit) and the warrior far outperforms the ranger in ranged damage.

HC was fun in Diablo. There was a problem with death by d/c which would also be a problem in this game. The main problem I would have with it here is that death can be one or two shot out of the blue. In D3 once they toned down the affixes elites could assume fight outcomes generally depended on player skill. GW2 has combat mechanics that introduce random death much too often for a harcore mode to be successful imo.

And, the reference by Oldsarge above about aggro switching is actually a sport in HC—it’s called PKing (Player Killing) and it occasionally rises to an art form. It’s a form of non-consensual PvP and only really finds full expression in HC.

Rytlock and Tybalt. They are two faces of the Charr and really two sides of the same coin. They are simply the two most straightforwardly awesome personalities in the game. I suppose the teeth, claws, and piercing red eyes option are an attraction as well.

My male Charr warrior’s face is not so much hideous as it is awesome. The piercing red eyes just make him doubly awesome. More options are fine here, but please do not remove the ‘awesome’ option.

Have to agree with everything suggested but ‘wilderness’ PvP as WvW fills this need nicely. Player inspection is the only suggestion that gave me pause to consider. I believe it is contrary to the Guild Wars franchise, but in the game its become it makes perfect sense.

If they had a monthly fee the game could quite possibly be a rewarding game to play. From GW2 and one other game I’ve played with the same monetization scheme, I’d say RMT creates a game with a loot wasteland. It’s quite possible that a monthly fee would solve that.

Each update since 11/15 seems to bring as many anti-features as not. Consider guild missions or the way 2/26 buffed open world PvE mobs in such a way that has led to player failure time and time again. It’s not challenging and it’s not fun. I greet the prospect of an update from Anet in a very guarded manner. I would be very happy with an update that simply fixed DE’s so that they run reliably.

It truly has been pure bliss. I got my first monthly after rarely missing a daily since launch. May they continue to include players of all playstyles!

A very constructive post, thanks. I have to agree with you on 1, 2, and 3. On the first point, I’ve been mentioning, as often as I can, the difficulty level of the game. I don’t know what they are thinking, but it’s not appropriate for an MMO. The 2/26 changes brought buffs to mobs and difficulty to an entry level dungeon. None of it was needed. Actually, none of it was appropriate as an MMO is not about crushing challenge in the open world or entry level dungeons. What I have witnessed as a result is player failure, over and over again. And here we have, not the kind of challenge, say, a Dark Souls offers where you can actually analyze your performance after an unsuccessful encounter. Here, it’s more like you are alive one second and dead the next. What are we supposed to say? YEAH!!! That was a challenging encounter! I believe hardmode content is valuable in an MMO. But, first figure out challenge. Take a week off and play Dark Souls exclusively. Then, come back and design some hardmode content. And, then put it outside of open world PvE.

Open on JQ. However Pent/shelt/jofast is broken…simply stuck. Orr is having some serious problems.

Yeah, it’s really a min/max issue. If you have the gold to spare, it’s probably worth it to go with the 30% rate, but it’s not going to be gamebreaking running with the major sigil.

Since Anet allowed me to get my first monthly in Feb by not including required dungeoneering or WvW, I refuse to complain about the dailies. As a matter of fact I have made peace with the dailies as they are now structured. I find little about them to object to and can incorporate them easily in my daily play. I do hope that Anet will continue to support players of different playstyles in terms of the monthly going forward as it is a significant reward and one that should be obtainable without a dungeon or WvW requirement.

Yes, we really, really want this feature. I’m quite disappointed that it went from “quite soon” to “in the future” in the last Anet post on the subject.

An interesting take on this may be that it is Anet that is bad at MMO’s. That is, the 2/26 changes buffing the krait and undead as well as entry-level dungeons have created a situation where groups fail, time and time again. It has a lot to do with how they scale them in terms of players in the vicinity and the like. But, bottom line, the MMO is not about crushing challenge in open world PvE and in many instances that’s what you now get. Where I diverge from the common thinking is that I believe it has more to do with Anet’s level of experience around MMO’s than it does with the players.

Vladimer.7051:

4. Character name change ( I know it is in the works)

Ah, yes, but it has been “in the works” for a very long time. How they could release gender change before this feature was complete remains a continuing non-sequitur.

I must admit that the “in the future” reference is quite disappointing. The last reference was “quite soon” which I was taking as, well, quite soon. It sounds like the feature is back on the back burner. It would seem that this feature should have competed successfully for just about anything out of the 2/26 patch. Oh well.

Jski.6180:

Cowrex.9564:

Doggie.3184:

We don’t deserve early patch notes.

How come? :S

Well look at the TP for ecto they give us a bit of info and we as players are making a ecto bubble and it will burst after the update.

Ppl make too much of any changes its best to put things out there then enplane why and then get ppl reaction after the fact to see how thing work out. What sounds good or bad on paper is not allway the same in real life and the players cant seem to get this in there heads. So “We don’t deserve early patch notes.”

It has nothing to to do with ‘deserving’ early patch notes and it has nothing to do with the economy. It really has nothing at all to do with the player base and it’s behavior. The reason other companies can provide a significant preview and expectation around updates has to do with the length of the development cycle. Anet has built their value proposition around a monthly development cycle. This barely (cf. Flame and Frost) gives them time to develop code let alone test it. Because of the length of the cycle nothing is really known for sure until code freeze which must happen just before release.

bcd.4352:

Asura is by far the best.

• Easiest to do jumping puzzles with, since you’re so tiny you don’t block your own view and you know exactly where you will land.
• You appear to run really fast. You don’t actually run faster, but since you’re tiny and everything is bigger by comparison, you seem to traverse distances at amazing speeds. My human and Charr feel so horribly slow compared to Asura.
• I like how most armor looks on Asura, much more than on other classes. (but most people disagree with me because boobs)

I have human, charr, norn, and asura at 80 and this rings true for me as well. I know they are not actually moving ‘faster’ but the feel of the character in terms of navigation is much more responsive. It’s like driving a sports car that rewards driving skill.

Then you have the animations. I’m sorry but an asura GS warriors 100b is superior to any other race, and that goes for most of the skill animations. Especially, a guardians ‘empower’ which is most disappointing on a human.

That, and the story, I think, is more interesting. The asura story line, until the order, has a good deal of humor that’s missing from the others. It’s quite engaging. And, I have to mention Rata Sum. Now there is a city that was planned for efficiency. All my characters, regardless of race, make their home in Rata Sum. It’s got everything you need within a stones throw. Asuras FTW.

I have every profession at 80 except Engineer and he is 45 now. I’ve been playing my latest character to 80, a Necro, a lot lately as I enjoy the play a lot. Probably had the most fun leveling with my Mesmer as I felt relatively untouchable (I like kiting). Realistically, all the classes are fine for playing solo. It’s in grouping where problems begin to surface and that’s mainly for Engi, Ranger, and Necro. Condition damage itself presents a problem due to the way Anet has chosen to implement it. Rather than maintaining a players damage per tick, they manage a stack of bleeds on a mob. So, most groups really only benefit from one condition damage profession (build) which doesn’t add up to satisfying group play for anyone, but especially those with a condition build.

But, solo anything’s viable. You mention warrior or guardian. Both are strong choices for solo play. Warrior has high damage and cleave, so dealing with multiple mobs is easy. Just line them up and 100b them down. Rifle is also good for multi-target tagging (farming) with a high crit build and sigil of fire. Guardian does adequate damage and is very survivable. I used to hate the Staff because of low damage, but I’ve come to appreciate it over time. It’s got decent AoE. I definitely feel the most confident on my guardian. And you’re a boon factory and can be very supportive in the random groups you do find yourself in inevitably in this game. Warrior is a little less forgiving than guardian. The balance for the higher damage is lower survivability.

I too find the change more frustrating than ‘entertaining’ or ‘interesting’. Challenge is an interesting concept in games. One distinction I’ve learned to make is true challenge and artificial challenge. Of course, I’m using ‘true’ here in terms of what represents challenge to me. I find in good challenging games like, say, Dark Souls, the challenge is seldom questioned. Why? Because, if you do a postmortem of the fight, you can usually understand where you went wrong and what you need to do to avoid a similar outcome in the future. I find GW2 provides more of the artificial variety than any true challenge. That is, one minute you are alive fighting and one second later you are dead and you don’t have the slightest clue as to why. You look at the combat log and see that some mob hit you with two quick shots that took half your health each, but there was no real reaction called for in the combat itself. You know, you see the attack coming and you evade? This happens often enough that it characterizes GW2 combat. It’s not satisfying. At least not in the sense that Dark Souls is satisfying.

So, this is another take on the frustration and challenge. I’m ok with challenge. I don’t think the MMO is about crushing challenge in open world PvE though, or in entry level dungeons for that matter. I think the current frustration with the 2/26 changes is more about developer inexperience than anything to do with the player base, one way or the other.

Heijincks.9267:

Cliff.8679:

Heijincks.9267:

They didn’t. I suppose they’re referring to it as a debacle in the relative sense. As far as grinding ascended is concerned, the “grind” isn’t traditional grind. It’s merely time “gated”, but there’s a huge distinction between that and grind itself.

I dunno, I define a grind as performing the same monotonous task repeatedly, over and over, for a reward. Time gated or not, as far as I’m concerned, fractal after fractal for the chance at rings is a grind. Daily after daily to amass laurels to turn in for one piece of gear, resulting in having to continue doing daily after daily for your next piece is a grind.

Are we sitting in a single camp spot for hours killing the same enemies over and over for exp or hoping for a rare drop? No. But it’s still the same thing. At the end of the day, it’s still monotonous, it still isn’t fun, and we’ll still be stuck doing it if we want our characters to get ahead.

“Grind” is a really relative term. Most of the things people do in GW2 (minus PvP) is the same thing over and over again, but some people might not feel that it’s a grind.

The grind in this game seems to be more of a “want” than a “need”. As far as ascended is concerned, “grinding” to acquire it isn’t really sped up by investing more time into it like in more traditional MMOs. It isn’t the type of grind which you spend endless amounts of time for a higher chance of acquisition.

Grind, like all words, has a range of meaning. And, what constitutes grind for one (used in a negative connotation) would not be a grind for another. The distinction with vertical progression is that the grind is non-optional and this is where problem lies. You have ‘want’ and ‘need’ completely confused if you are talking about VP. Because we are talking about the power level of the game increasing over time, there is no question as to whether you will follow the path of the power curve if you want to continue playing the game. VP doesn’t progress by stopping—it continues on over time. That’s what makes the grind of VP so objectionable. Unlike horizontal progression where any ‘grind’ is optional, with VP the ‘grind’ is mandatory. To believe otherwise simple betrays a lack of familiarity with this element of game design.

Heijincks.9267:

Also, vertical progression has always existed in this game even since beta.

That, of course, would be a red herring in terms of the current discussion. 1-80 is vertical progression; no doubt about it. White to exotic armor is vertical progrogression; no doubt about it.

The key with the GW franchise as it existed in GW1 and as it was advertized for GW2 was that the game was not about grinding gear beyond max level gear at max level. Everyone knew what Anet was talking about in their manifesto and they expected that Anet would continue on with no vertical progression beyond max level gear at max level.

No amount of word jazz or PR speak will change the underlying issue. VP was something ‘new’ and unexpected and that’s why you had the ‘debacle’ of Ascended gear.

The underwater environment is awesome and I would love to see more reasons to be underwater. Sadly, underwater combat will need to change dramatically before this will be possible. My character, under water, becomes a different character entirely and one who is far less powerful than on land. There are also bugs around underwater like invulnerability, and other issues that have been well documented on the forums. There is a lot of potential there as they have demonstrated they can make a very engaging game world underwater.

Heijincks.9267:

Dante.1508:

I’ll say it quickly and concise.

Ascended damaged this game very badly, it has been badly implemented and helped cause a huge rift in this game and the community..

To enjoy the game fully i’m forced to use it.. (grind or time sink grind) there is no “option” no matter what others say.. unless i limit myself only to certain parts of the game..

I dread how powerful this stuff will be when the rest is added to the game..

“To enjoy the game fully”. So the 0.001% (Fractals) that you cannot “enjoy” matters to you that much? I say “enjoy” because you can still play lower level fractals the same way (and level 10-19 agony doesn’t one shot kill and still gives you ascended).

I think you’re over-exaggerating how badly ascended “damaged” the game. First of all, if ascended was released at launch, no one would be complaining. Second of all, if the maximum tier was rare at launch, if exotics were released later, I can expect an uproar anyway.

Also, given the base populous (and through whatever data we have), I disagree with you that ascended “badly damaged” the game. It’s kind of opinionated, don’t you think?

I was reading an interview with Colin a few days ago and the interviewer referred to “the debacle” of Ascended gear. Everyone in the industry knows this and a large part of the community as represented by the forums knows this as well. There is no possible way to minimize the damage that vertical progression has caused a game that was not about grinding gear.

The last patch was an attempt to make the game more “interesting”. There were changes to Orr, dungeons, DE’s, various NPC races to make the game more challenging. This is, of course, a step in the wrong direction in terms of open world PvE in an MMO which is not about crushing challenge. Anet seems intent upon learning lessons the hard way and sadly the players are along for the ride.

Lexandro.1456:

They do both, which is what all almost all developers tend to do these days. One team on bug fixing another on additional content. SOP in developement.

In real world software development there is always a prioritization of developer resources, regardless of formal organization. That is why the Living Story has been delivered in ‘teasers’. They had to release the monthly content, as it is a key element in their perceived value proposition, but there weren’t developer resources to provide ‘actual’ content—so we got ‘teasers’. The question is triage; what is the most important thing to work on at this time; what will provide the most value given all the things that could be worked on.

So, while they do fix bugs and work on new content, it’s clear that core game, balancing, and bug fixes probably haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. Part of this is due to the monthly release schedule that must occur (even when they can’t provide the actual content). Part of it is due to changes in design philosophy. I’m sure that Anet didn’t have a good handle on the cost of managing vertical progression over time and dailies/monthlies/guild missions, laurels and commendations, probably have eaten a lot of resources over the last few months.

Bottom line, I too would like to see more attention paid to the core game. Anet has shown they can make a great game but have displayed weakness in terms of their ability to manage it over time. I hope they can learn from experience and put in the corrections necessary.

If I recall correctly it was around the 400 hr mark where I got my first exotic drop. And, maybe the second around the 1k hr mark. Pretty bad by any standards. However, since I’ve settled into level 80 life I’m seeing the 1-3/week pattern. I’ve had two since monday this week. I play mainly open world PvE, DE’s and the like. One of my exotics this week was from a fractal run. I don’t like dungeons in this game and don’t spend a lot of time there, but from what I saw in FotM, the best drops are there. BTW, I’ve never gotten anything interesting from a world boss and don’t really understand the attraction those events hold. Given travel and down time it really seems a waste of time to me as I can have more rares in less time doing normal Orr farming.

The game is alive and well. You are right to question server population as it’s the key to a good open world experience. As you may know the various server designations (‘high’, ‘very high’) do not really describe server populations in terms of players actually playing. I play on Tarnished Coast and am very happy with it. However, I have taken to guesting on Jade Quarry when I need something from a temple vendor. JQ seems to be happening in terms of temple events. TC is also the unofficial RP server. I don’t RP, but if it bothers you to witness it then TC wouldn’t be the server for you.

I have 11 character slots and, with my Necro this week hitting 80, I have 10 max level characters. All that activity has led to a lot of mats over time, but I think alts are now more of a liability long-term than an advantage. The reason for that is the power curve we are now grinding through dailies, monthlies, and fractals if you do dungeons. Prior to the Feb monthly I never got a monthly though I rarely missed dailies. At my rate it would take 10 months to buy 1 piece of gear for each of my max level characters. I think it’s wholly impractical to think you are going to be able to maintain alts over time in this game. It was nice while it lasted, but I’m actually trying to narrow the field down to one character. It’s hard as I really do enjoy them all. TLDR: Alts are more of a disadvantage overall.

Jason King.2647:

Thanks for the reports and screenshots! We’re aware of and investigating this issue.

I came to report the bug as I just bought the staff. It does look more than funny to have two “staff heads” on the animation. I’m glad to hear you are aware of the problem and are investigating. I do hope the fix will be in-game soon.

Behellagh.1468:

Shayne Hawke.9160:

I could go back to GW and start a fresh character in Prophecies right now and have maxed out gear in less than a day. I could even shave a few hours off that if I permitted myself access to the expansion.

Show me how to do that in GW2, and I’ll stop believing that Ascended material and time costs aren’t absurd.

Ever considered that capability you had in GW was intentionally left out of GW2 because it’s dumb in terms of retaining players who spend real money in the cash shop?

ANet is in business and need to pay the bills and would like a steadyish cash flow so they can do more work and keep the servers up. Having a whole bunch of players insta-max level/max gear doesn’t lend toward that goal you think?

I think that you are assuming that vertical progression is the only thing that will satisfy players over time and produce a profitable game. In actuality, it is simply one method of offering a sense of progression and a motivation for continued play. And, it’s an old idea that many thinking gamers are frankly tired of. Here are a couple videos that present issues and critical thought on the subject:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/power-creep

http://taugrim.com/2012/04/19/why-games-should-scale-horizontally-instead-of-vertically/

Ascended gear as an embodiment of vertical progression is a problem in itself, regardless of implementation. But, as one of those with eight or more max level characters, the time-gating is a significant problem with the implementation. If they were to revert from the Feb monthly to requiring dungeons or WvW for monthlies that would mean a minimum of eight months for me to get each character one piece of ascended gear. That’s ridiculous on the face of it. And, there are other pieces in the game already and will be more. The time-gating and lack of diverse paths to acquire the gear make it a problem for those playing max-level alts. Perhaps if I had one character that I was moving along the power curve I would feel differently.

Yeah, the wiki has a write up on Aggro, but in actual gameplay I treat it as more of a mystery. I’ve also heard that toughness moves you to the top of the charts, but have no way to know it is so for certain. I’ve also heard that equipping a shield makes the target on your back a little larger still (though I’ve never played with a shield so can’t corroborate).

I can tell you my precision/toughness/condition damage necromancer is much more attractive to mobs than my power/precision/crit damage GS warrior, which really makes no sense in terms of actual threat. I mean the Necro is pretty much capped as far as damage goes. And all the bleeds are probably from the thieves and warriors anyways. Just grist for the mill.

Jski.6180:

Good job?
I cant image it being that fun to just rush though every thing. Why would anyone want level 80 with out doing any thing but spend gold?

I’ll use your post to address all the “play police” posts. It really doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with rushing through content or not playing the game. My first character to 80 I leveled solely by gameplay, no WvW, no Dungeon. With my next 8 characters, I tended to level to 75 and then craft the final 5 levels as once you’ve seen the level 75-80 areas, there’s not a lot of new content to see. BTW, if you’ve been playing awhile and collecting mats, the cost of leveling through crafting can be about half of what OP mentioned.

On my last character to 80 (earlier this week) I decided to craft him all the way, well from level 5. I finished him in one day with 1% map completion. Would I recommend that for someone new to the game? Of course not. Would I recommend it to someone with 7 80’s who’ve been there, done that? Sure. For many classes, which tend to come together in the later levels, you can safely begin ‘learning’ them when you have your full palette from which to learn.

Does this mean that my crafting leveled character escapes experiencing the world? No, he’ll just do it as a down-scaled player experiencing every part of the explorable map. It’s kind of daunting seeing that 1% map completion—he has a lot of Tyria to experience. But, I’m sure I will enjoy the journey. It’s a great game after all.

I think undead make sense in terms of the story. The problem is that their combat ‘affixes’ make them a tedious foe to fight. Overall, we simply need more variety in level 80 mobs in the game.