Guild Wars 2

MarcusKilgannon.5048:

Hmm that is very different Raine. I’ve never seen a layout quite like that. Especially having no backpedal or turn around. Very unique! I might test around with that.

Getting used to strafing only while moving with the mouse definitely takes a little practice; but, it pays off in combat. It’s how pro players do it (I learned from my sons who used to do a lot of arena in WoW). You can move at full speed while strafing and keep the enemy in front of you taking damage. Especially important while kiting ranged, but effective keybinds for melee as well. If you give it a try and practice a bit till it feels natural, you’ll never go back to using turn and backpeddle.

I use a variation of WASD for movement shifting it over one to the right which allows my fingers to be normally positioned as with keyboarding. I use a Dvorak keyboard layout, but I’ll translate to querty:

S: strafe left
F: strafe right
D: move forward

I don’t have backpeddling or turning bound to save me from being the target of choice for lazy thieves in WvW.

A: weapon swap
G: interact/loot
Q : heal
W-R: weapon skills with E being my ‘1’ skill. It’s right above move forward where I have my hands naturally positioned. I basically use the mouse to move in combat, so my move forward key is just a change up when running around.
V-B: my 4 & 5 weapon skills.
2-5: utility skills
F1-F4: on my naga mouse
Dodge: ‘10’ button on my mouse as I can easily hit it with my thumb in combat.

The advantage of this layout is that my left hand position remains fairly stable with a minimum of movement and all my skills are located around my movement keys. It also saves the keyboard gymnastics required by key combos.

For an even more thoughtful gaming layout, check out Taugrim’s:

http://taugrim.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/taugrim-keybinds.png

The server you play on determines your open world PvE experience to a large degree. I’m on Tarnished Coast and every zone is populated from starter areas to Cursed Shore farming areas. Try guesting on TC and check it out.

Guesting is not the ultimate solution as ideally it should be around, well, guesting, playing with friends and the like. Right now, it’s a solution to the dead server problem. It’s natural for the population to peak and decline somewhat in a new MMO. However, their introduction of vertical progression in the 11/15 patch emptied the open world on my original server. It was like in one day there was no one around anymore outside LA. I did two server transfers before landing on TC which I am very happy with.

Same here over the last couple days or so. It doesn’t happen often for me but periodically the target will drop when I’ve done nothing to drop the target. One thing I would suggest for rangers especially is to select the Stop auto-attacking on target change in the game options. I think this is a good one anyway and I always have it selected, but it will save you problems if dropping a target picks up a new and potentially unwanted one.

bluewanders.5297:

I agree that something needs to be done about condition damage. I think direct damage needs to be brought into line… and burst damage needs to have a hard serious look, because it is way out of line.

Since there ARE technical limitations in different forms of damage, then thats the bar that other sorts of damage need to be balanced around.

However now we are very much off topic from the hyperbole of the original post.

Sorry, but that’s not the bar damage needs to be balanced around. The bar should be that sustained damage should be comparable across different forms of damage. From there, you implement technical solutions to achieve the design goal. If Anet has implemented a technical design that doesn’t meet a game design goal they simply need to go back to the drawing board. These are the kinds of core issues that should be consuming developer resources rather than monthly events.

The guild system uses a fairly typical role-based security. There is no such thing as titles; they are simply named security categories. So, when creating one for yourself you need to make sure it has the permissions desired.

That said, I believe a warning dialog should be displayed when changing something as significant as guild leader. And, picking a member at random or otherwise as guild leader should not be the province of the software, it should require a human to make the selection. I wish you good fortune with the support folks at Anet. I know it must be a very uncomfortable position to be in.

I have deleted quite a few characters. The highest level was mid-60’s, most sometime in the 20’s. Sometimes it had to do with race or race/profession. There are only 2 professions I don’t have at 80 and even those I won’t delete…I’m just waiting for Anet to do more work around the professions before I take them to 80.

I don’t think I would ever delete an 80; by then, I’ve committed to the character and feel it has a place with me in GW2.

I got my thief to 80 day before yesterday and the first thing I did was hit up the armor requisitioner in the Chantry of Secrets. I went Whispers for the medium armor as I think it’s one of the best in the game for a thief. I did get T1 Ebon Vanguard weaps for the skins as the color theme is right for whispers black/gold and I like a shortbow that looks like a longbow—it’s huge. The whispers pistol is totally cool. What thief wouldn’t want a silencer on their weapon, eh?

Edit: Oh yeah, forgot about Tybalt. If you haven’t worked with him you gotta roll a whispers character. Best character in any of the story lines.

Ozx.5683:

Raine.1394:

Ozx.5683:

oZii.2864:

You can’t teleport out of the shadow refuge before the field barrier disappears otherwise you get revealed just like any other thief same applies when your down. I know I see guardians daily revive while tanking like 3 people its almost like they are totally confident that they wont die thats without them popping their own bubble.

That’s true but a guardian would need to burn two utility skills to grant stability in order to actually revive the player. with one of them being on a 120 second cool down. Shadow Refuge is often on a 48 second cd and with two thieves can be done over and over again

When this level of minute parsing of skills and abilities begins to occur, you know you have embarked upon another “nerf them, don’t nerf me” thread. You should actually begin reading very carefully when a thread starts with a specific disclaimer that the OP does not believe X profession is OP, but…

I finally finished leveling my thief to 80 yesterday. I have all the other professions at 80 except necro and engi, which I’ve abandoned until some redesign work occurs. Thief is not an easy profession to run around in. I can be pulled into a Risen pack on my guardian and it’s like “Are you sure you really want me in the middle of all of you?”. On the thief it would be an Oh kitten moment. Yes, the thief has excellent strengths to go along with the weaknesses. Thief, though, is one profession where you have to tread very lightly around the nerfbat. It would be very easy for the weaknesses to quickly overshadow the strengths. Stealth is one of those areas.

minute parsing? im very specifically stating that the issue is exacerbated by the number of thieves involved in the fight. aka the skill grows in power exponentially by the number of people using it

Please dont post unless you have something to actually contribute to the discussion.

When I studied communication I learned that the ideal role to play in communication is to be a participant-observer. Sometimes pointing out the nature of a communication is the most significant contribution that can be made. It is certainly the most significant contribution that can be made here.

Calae.1738:

If you want a nice looking Shortbow skin that looks like a Longbow I recommend the Ebon Vanguard weapon skins at the karma vendors located in Ebonhawke.

Picture
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Ebon_Vanguard_Short_Bow.jpg

You know, I didn’t like the Ebon Vanguard weapons for my other professions, but this shortbow is perfect for my fresh 80 thief. Thanks for the link!

Ozx.5683:

oZii.2864:

You can’t teleport out of the shadow refuge before the field barrier disappears otherwise you get revealed just like any other thief same applies when your down. I know I see guardians daily revive while tanking like 3 people its almost like they are totally confident that they wont die thats without them popping their own bubble.

That’s true but a guardian would need to burn two utility skills to grant stability in order to actually revive the player. with one of them being on a 120 second cool down. Shadow Refuge is often on a 48 second cd and with two thieves can be done over and over again

When this level of minute parsing of skills and abilities begins to occur, you know you have embarked upon another “nerf them, don’t nerf me” thread. You should actually begin reading very carefully when a thread starts with a specific disclaimer that the OP does not believe X profession is OP, but…

I finally finished leveling my thief to 80 yesterday. I have all the other professions at 80 except necro and engi, which I’ve abandoned until some redesign work occurs. Thief is not an easy profession to run around in. I can be pulled into a Risen pack on my guardian and it’s like “Are you really sure you want me in the middle of all of you?”. On the thief it would be an Oh kitten moment. Yes, the thief has excellent strengths to go along with the weaknesses. Thief, though, is one profession where you have to tread very lightly around the nerfbat. It would be very easy for the weaknesses to quickly overshadow the strengths. Stealth is one of those areas.

Regardless of what you think of the particular OP, I think the sentiment here is good. Players should be aware of their environment and other players make up a large part of that environment. My pet issue is gratuitous knockbacks. I often wish that any knockback ability was unlocked only after taking a class in how to use it properly in combat. I’m sure every scepter ele, 100b warrior, WW guardian has the daily annoyance of blowing their most damaging ability (over and over) by having the target removed by someone’s knockback.

Kimyrielle.3826:

Vol.5241:

Nothing is wrong with precursor prices, it’s based on supply and demand.

Free markets do not work unless certain conditions are being met. One of them is neither supply nor demand being substantially influenced by any given party. ANet controls the supply of precursors, for that reason alone your assumption that the result of such a market would be optimal in any way is…flawed.

Thanks for this correction, you saved me the trouble. Any allusion to a free market such as citing “supply and demand” is just wrong. A game economy has many of the dynamics of a free market, but they are overshadowed by the fact that supply is determined by the developer.

If you think through other games in or near the genre, movement speed is usually key for all classes both in and out of combat. Try to sell a pair of boots in D3 for any class without % movement speed and good luck. As things are, there are professions where movement speed is no problem and ones where you don’t feel like playing them because of the lack of speed buffs. Perhaps part of the problem lies in not viewing movement speed as universally necessary, again, both in and out of combat.

I think I had a couple in the first 1k hours. Then, yesterday after the maintenance patch I got one exotic armor and a precursor, sadly venom, an aquatic weapon. I also found 4-5 rares in the first hour of play. Today Ogden’s mask dropped. Most exotics I’ve seen since launch. I’ve found the general rule is exotics very, very rarely drop except on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s in the month of February, after maintenance patches, in the year 2013.

Making it party-wide has been tried in other games and it didn’t work. It simply creates the same problem with a different face on it. The new outcry becomes, hey, I go to all the trouble and expense to acquire X% MF and this other guy is full zerker and he gets to share my MF? That’s outrageously unfair!! And, yes, it would be unfair, just as unfair as the MF leech who benefits more from contributing less.

There is a solution to the MF problem. D3 tried sharing MF and an equally vocal outcry ensued. They reverted it back to un-shared based on the outcry. Their ultimate solution was to remove it from gear over time via the paragon level system. There is no good solution to the MF problem in games where grouping is possible other than to remove it from gear entirely.

You could say that of any event in the game. Reward, especially with champs, is not what our game sense tells us it should be. I mean, I spend 8-10 minuets fighting X champ and come away with 1s86c. In the same time I could have killed many normal mobs and gotten far more reward. It’s out of balance as it is and will continue to be a thread generator until it’s fixed.

OP, a very thoughtful contribution on issues with GW2. I’m less concerned around teleports and stealth. I believe these are always potentially problematic as good counterplay is the goal—but I don’t see them as a major issue in the game as it is. I enjoyed your insights around combat roles and positioning.

Games are no different than anything else we create. We are creators, but we don’t create ex nihilo, we create after ourselves.The answer is simple and you only need to understand how humans naturally approach meeting objectives in a group context. Do they just get together and “go for it” or do they typically identify roles/tasks and approach the objective with at least a tacit plan of action based around their roles.

For me, it isn’t a question of do we do the trinity or not. The question is more how do humans naturally function in groups where meeting an objective is the organizing element. What dynamics are typically present when the group behavior is efficient, successful, and satisfying? The trinity is one method of organizing combat that has worked. Are there other ways to organize? Probably.

Morrigan.2809:

Eviator.9746:

I guess the people who log in once every few days don’t care about ascended items, and are happy with their exotics.

Yes that is about it

Or not. It could well be that many people’s game time is restricted by other commitments in life. They may well wish to follow the prescribed power curve but are compromised, at least in terms of time to acquisition.

There are other aspects as well. For active players they may quickly achieve a daily completion and then the remainder of their gameplay that day is unrecognized and unrewarded. And, there is the tangentially related issue of alts. The daily achievements, and therefore the path of the power curve, do not take alts into consideration. You can’t hop on an alt and do the daily for them so that they can get the amulet in reasonable time. And for the unreasonable altoholic who has, say 8 level 80 characters (not naming any names here), that means 8 months (no monthlies) to get one piece of max level gear in one slot for each character. There are a number of issues that make the path of the power curve problematic for some players and it’s not just problematic for casuals.

I remember when I first played GW2 it felt ‘clunky’ compared to the tight character navigation and combat of the other games I was playing. However, now, going back feels clunky in so many ways when compared to GW2. GW2 definitely has some pluses going on in its game systems and the game world is second to none.

Mackdose.6504:

Red Falcon.8257:

Uncle Salty.6342:

Some people have trouble fulfilling one role and you’re asking for three!

Those people can go play all those bazillions of MMOs with pidgeon-holing brain-dead easymode mechanics.
Why change the only one that does not have that limit?

Don’t call trinity PvE easymode, you’re gonna end up with a bunch of people telling you about how gear checks and artificial difficulty introduced by trying to have 25 people follow a script all at once is hard.

Or they might point out that a modern national army never goes into battle without a battle plan. On top of that, gasp, they all are composed of units that fulfill well-defined unique roles on the battlefield. Does that make modern warfare braindead or easymode? Sometimes it’s helpful to take a step up and and a step back and think about the issue at hand. The trinity doesn’t make anything necessarily easier. Brain surgery is still brain surgery even though it’s made up of a team of highly skilled people filling highly specific roles in a highly scripted environment. Did you know that even the surgical instruments on the trays are scripted? The surgeon knows exactly what he will find in the operating theater before he or she walks in.

Seriously, many of you are taking shots at the Trinity because it follows advanced human group behavior. I want to make it clear that I’m not supporting the trinity per se (aggro management here); but, I do support advanced group behavior over primitive group behavior. Why? For the same reason humans do IRL. It is more efficient. It leads to successful outcomes more often. It provides meaningful roles where meaningfulness and contribution are both felt and obvious (again, it’s a human thing).

IndigoSundown.5419:

If tagging for loot credit is the only issue, then it may not fix what some of my characters have been experiencing. Was I not getting loot credit for doing all of the damage needed to kill a mob (i.e., I was solo)? Guess I’ll see what happens with the patch.

My latest 80 happens to be the ultimate farmer and tags basically everything in front of me. Tagging may be an issue for some relative to loot, but it will not solve the common problem which is really more about quality. Funny, after posting earlier today on loot, and after the maintenance patch today I logged in and within an hour had 4-5 rares and a precursor. That’s never happened before in well over 1k hours played. Sadly, the precursor was Venom, an aquatic weapon. But, it has dramatically upped my gold per hour for the week. So, in deference to my good fortune, and not wishing to offend whichever gods control the Tyrian loot system (don’t think it’s Lakshmi here) I am going to cease noting the loot problems for the remainder of the day.

Lysico.4906:

Only good Asura is the dead one you punt thru the uprights.

God they are the worse race in any MMO I ever played.

Why someone plays them, I have no clue..

oh yeah, the will be a d/d elementalist OR a d/d thief.. FOTM race/class combo those guys

You are obviously thinking of a gnome if you want to punt them and therefore are playing the wrong game.

Asuras honestly couldn’t be any cuter and a reduction in size runs the risk of a reduction in cuteness. My last consideration on Asura size occurred during the Pent DE in CS today. It was I wish they were bigger so that I could actually see my character amidst the particle chaos storm.

I agree that Colin deserves praise for his level of engagement and he’s probably the best face Anet can put on right now. Loot is a fundamental problem in the game. I have noticed an improvement in the quantity of loot I receive in-game. But, quantity has not really been my issue. I’m more into intrinsic value and an occasional OMG moment out of a loot system. And, I would prefer predictable gathering so that crafting is a viable activity. I have really enjoyed that aspect of the MMO in other games.

Edit: Oh, my. Logged in after the maintenance patch and promptly had Venom drop. It’s aquatic, but a precursor nonetheless. I’d like to personally thank Colin or whoever flagged my account to get me to stop complaining about loot. I did want to let you know that I’m after Bifrost though, so it’s The Legend that should drop. But, hey precursor’s drop for real in the game. Wow.

While Colin is doing a good job providing a face in general, I believe they are not in the professions because they don’t have a lot to say at the moment. Core game is obviously not prioritized over monthly events. I mean, you got to pull them off or you wouldn’t be able to market on oodles of free content. I honestly don’t look for a lot of stabilization and balancing in the core game in the near term. I think monthly events and fire drills (Laurels) have taken up the development resources since 11/15. I do hope they get to the professions and core systems soon. I notice they are hiring and that’s a good sign. I logged into my necro last night (lvl29) and just decided to wait for them to address condition damage builds…just not worth the effort leveling till then.

OP, I tend to disagree on your causation theory, i.e., that they relied on damage alone because it was easiest. As a programmer I know it is not all that difficult to add in another factor or two to consider and certainly nothing you’d design combat around..

However, I do agree with your sentiments. A successful fight involves healing and other support. I think one of the issues that arises out of the abandonment of the trinity is meaningful roles in combat. I approach it from a larger human perspective assuming that what we do in games is what we do in the rest of life. We are creators yet we don’t create ex nihilo, we create after ourselves. Assume a task-oriented human activity. Even a scavenger hunt will serve our purposes. What is the first thing that occurs? Roles are defined and tasks assigned. One person commits to X item or searching Y area. Why? Because it’s inefficient for everybody to just go for it and do everything. As you go up the complexity scale you find the same dynamic. In an operating room you find a group gathered together around an objective. How do we do it? In highly defined roles executed in standard ways. We do it this way for many reasons. Certainly it is the most efficient way. It also yields the highest chance for success in an activity. It also gives us meaning and a sense of contribution. In short, we do it this way because this is the human way of doing it.

This is what I believe is missing in GW2 combat. We have a very primitive implementation of human group behavior. Basically, it’s the berserker battlefield where everyone goes for it and does whatever is right in their own eyes. Roles at least organized effort under the trinity and gave players a sense of meaningful contribution. I’m not arguing for the trinity here. But, I do recognize a weakness in GW2 combat in terms of meaningful roles. One step toward meaning here would simply be to account for the contribution of the various methods of contribution and explicitly add them to the determination of reward for participation.

Naqaj.6219:

Mirta.5029:

You’re playing with a random generator. The fact that your loot is not good always does not mean that there’s something wrong with it. I ran CoE for days now getting only blues. Went to metrica province to complete my daily, smacked a mob and got a yellow. It’s random. Sometimes you get unlucky for days, sometimes you get real luck streaks.

A valiant but futile effort. People don’t understand randomness.

I’m pretty sure that the majority of people posting on the forum have a reasonably good understanding of the term random. There are a few though that don’t understand the purpose and goals of a loot system that uses RNG. We play games for a variety of reasons. One of them is reward. When players do not experience a sense of reward beyond the gameplay itself you will see threads like this one. It has more to do with an experienced lack of reward than it has to do with misunderstanding randomness.

AcidicVision.5498:

Jski.6180:

Now its not a stretch of the imagination that thoughts with out these items who cant do things are blaming the fact that they do not have the items before they blame there own skill. It realty all an ego thing (blame every thing else on a fail before you blame your self).

Well if you look at Tigirius’s post history its ascended items, Legendary grind, engineer balance, profession bugs, DE design, and DR that are holding him back. And that was only page 1.

And he has a habit of confirmation bias. Like posting two vanilla rings with no upgrades against two of the ascended items that are lower capped for multiple stats. What he should have done is compared those particular ascended items to something like the Triforce pendant or Karka shell. But that wouldn’t have aided his point.

Reality looks more like this:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ruby_Orichalcum_Ring_of_the_Berserker with
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exquisite_Ruby_Jewel
92 pwr
63 pre
+6% crit

compared to its equivalent ascended… http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Red_Ring_of_Death

103 pwr
68 pre
+8% crit

Yes ascended are supposed to be better. Like has been said multiple times, its gear between exotic and legendary that is supposed to take time to get, and is acquired while you make legendary progress (ie Dailies for Karma, Fractals for Cores and T6 mats all result in progress towards ascended). But as you can see from the practical example, the stat bump isn’t so insane that it makes exotics redundant.

The issue is not that the initial pieces of Ascended gear make Exotics redundant, they don’t. The issue is that they represent the path of the power curve. We don’t so much have Ascended gear post 11/15 as we have vertical progression. Vertical: the power level increases. Progression: it periodically and continually increases over time. It is a straightforward concept in gaming but it appears to be a challenging concept for some to comprehend on the forums. In a vertically progressing game you either tread the path of the power curve or you stop playing the game. It is viewed as a method of giving players a sense of progression and an incentive to play. The defense of Anet’s implementation of VP that we see here is that it is insignificant. That, of course, is interesting in itself. How many of you would be proud to have worked hard and accomplished something insignificant? But, also of course, vertical progression takes place over time and over time it will not be insignificant. It is the power curve that you climb in order to continue playing the game. This is what people object to, not an Ascended ring or an Ascended amulet. That would be a red herring if you are looking for your own logical fallacy.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Iehova.9518:

There’s still no reason to kill champs, Colin. Blue does not good reward make.

Just a reminder, blue is the absolute minimum champs can drop, they have much better odds of dropping good loot than regular mobs, and once you’re properly getting kill credit for them hopefully this becomes more visible.

If you mean by “can drop” that “If they drop loot, they will drop a blue”, then I would agree with you. Many people, however would interpret this as a guaranteed blue drop which is not true. Last week the Abomination at the end of Plinx has regularly dropped no items and 1s86c and, rarely, a blue item as well. Of course, on TC Plinx has been bugged for several days so I don’t have a “current” example on this champ. The champ on Noose Rd guarding the skill point has twice dropped nothing at all within the last week. My perception of champs is that, especially given the effort required, they really should not be regarded as more likely to drop something of value than a normal mob.

There are still people who oppose treadmills playing the game. And, no, nothing has fundamentally changed around Ascended gear. It still represents the path of the power curve that defines a non-optional gear grind. They did move the grind out of FotM exclusively and have made an amulet available through daily/monthly achievements.

Can’t argue with the rankings. They pretty much mirror my own. The only professions I don’t have at 80 are necro and engi. I enjoyed both and believe they can be viable but they felt noticeably weaker than the others leveling up to the 40’s. If I were charged with class design, I’d be focused on bringing ranger, necro, and engi up to the standard of the more successful professions. And, I wouldn’t go about it by making the more successful professions less successful.

It is unique among MMO games that I’ve played, but I experienced the same phenomenon with D3. There, the game itself was a veritable loot wasteland. Players who made gold and therefore were able to acquire top tier gear spent a large proportion of their gaming time playing the auction house. I believe it came partly from JW’s misconception of Diablo as a “circle trading game” rather than an action rpg. That and RMT. Both GW2 and D3 are monetized around a cash shop. Reward, in-game, directly hits the game’s bottom line. Which all comes back to nothing being free. You either pay for games monthly or even more often (and more) through RMT. Personally, I’d prefer a monthly sub and rewarding game.

I have 8 at 80 and my latest, a guardian, was the fastest to 80. I completed it before the starter bank golem ran out of time. I think a lot of that had to do more with knowing the game and maps (and judicious crafting) than the profession itself. Profession-wise warriors tear through fights especially with the 5 signet/greatsword leveling build. But, bottom line, I don’t think profession is the major factor in getting to 80 quickly. That said, I wouldn’t pick, say, a necro in a race as it takes so long to kill anything.

I actually feel they’ve done a good job in creating a living world. When I look at, say, Divinity’s Reach, I just see a lot of potential to expand the experience. Don’t know that traditional quests are really the answer, but I trust that Anet has this on the radar as they’re focusing on story and world. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.

I don’t know if I would go to brilliant on it, but it would have been preferable to vertical progression and a continuous mandatory gear treadmill. But, we didn’t get Agony gated content. We got vertical progression. Anet is now in the process of trying to make lemonade out of it all and I wish them the best. GW2 is one of the best games I’ve played. I would love to see it succeed.

I would be willing to bet I’m one of the oldest players of GW2. I played pong when it first came out. That said, I was never into platformers that much and am not a natural at JP’s. I honestly haven’t had a problem with skill challenges and vista’s. I don’t always get it the first time, but it’s not complete frustration—and, I don’t think anything but extreme age or disability should compromise you in this game. As long as JP’s are optional, I’m fine. Unlike some others, I don’t consider skills or vista’s as optional, they are how you complete the game.

Having had one of each race and 8 level 80 characters overall, I can tell you race plays a big role in character navigation and the Asura are truly the best at everything they do, including tough vista’s and JP’s. If you are playing a full-sized Norn and are at any way challenged, you will not have an easy time of it. I have an 80 Norn warrior and he would often prefer to fall to his death rather than see a vista that my Asura’s have no problem with. There are size (shrinking) potions on the TP, don’t remember the name, that some have suggested are helpful with a Norn or Charr character. I’ve found that humans and sylvari are both fine in terms of navigation, just not up to the Asura standard.

And, practice helps. I’ve found myself turning walls and stones into opportunities to see what I could do with my character and thereby learn the abilities of my character and get them “under my fingers”. OP, keep at it and push back the limits of age. I wish you good fortune in all you do in-game.

The answer is fairly simple, sadly. There are no free games. You either pay monthly, or even more often with RMT. In my experience, games with monthly subs cost far less than free games, at least those monetized like GW2 or D3. Ultra-scarcity is a feature of free games and I don’t see that changing fundamentally. The problem, of course, is that we’ve been conditioned to expect reward beyond the gameplay itself when playing a game. With the free games you either need to keep a bowl of M&M’s or your wallet handy if you want to maintain the same level of reward.

Eli The Yahoo.9782:

thanks all for the replies, i dont seem to get 1G per 1hour of play, maybe im doing smth wrong.
gems isn’t the answer since it requires to buy them or convert to them from gold when the economy is down.

I’m already a level 80 Gurdian so dungeon difficulty isn’t the issue – it’s just boring to spend so much time looking for parteners for dungons.

ill investigate “cursed shores events and salvage everything”.
thanks all for your suggestions.

Cursed shore will net you perhaps the best gold in the game. Dungeons are great but there is a lot of downtime there which cuts into the returns—maybe better if you have a ready group to play them with. I make at least 1 gold per hour most sessions farming pent/shelt/jofast/plinx. I sell rares and the once in a blue moon exotics on the TP, salvage and sell everything else. I do maintain an inventory of some mats. Sometimes, in a all-day weekend session, I can make 10 gold in a day. I suppose if you are a lotto winner in game you could make even more. Bottom-line though you will seldom feel the amount achieved meets your needs for maintaining and evolving your characters. Guardian is one of the best farming professions, imo. I use a staff 85% of the time. It does decent damage and provides support but, more importantly for farming, it tags everything in front of you. Best wishes OP in your quest for the Holy Grail in this game…gold.

Villious.8530:

AesirValkyr.7418:

Villious.8530:

You must use the most overpowered spell in the game. Its called……Pull out your wallet…..

I’m a bit confused, when did I pull out my wallet? If your gonna just hate the game, then go do that, make you own thread.

at Salacious, if you want fast track your gold, the system is there you. I you want to play a game, you can do that too. I don’t buy my gold, I make it.

I didn’t say I hated the game, I’m having a blast. You want gold? Your wallet is a way to get it. Salacious agrees. This game is not designed to get “nice amounts of cash” easily. Any MMO that has a store is going to be that way. Gold in this game equals time and farming, or playing the TP. They want you to buy gems, hence gold is always going to be hard to make and hard to keep. That’s by design.

And yes AesirValkyr, you are more than “a bit” confused, I was addressing the OP. Get defensive much?

This seems true. The only other game I’ve played where gold was even an issue was D3 which is monetized the same way. The problem is that we play games for a sense of reward beyond the gameplay. When the reward is not there, we complain. Can we accept that there are no ‘free’ games and we either pay a sub and be rewarded in-game or get it free and pull out our wallet even more often than once a month to feel a sense of ‘reward’? From what I’ve experienced with ‘free’ games, the only way to get gold in-game, would be to revert it to a subscription model. There are no free games, the manner in which pay for them is the only thing that varies.

I actually would have suggested alts pre-11/15. I now have 8 level 80 characters and have enjoyed exploring the races and professions. I wouldn’t suggest it as a strategy post 11/15 however as the grind to move them along the power curve is just too steep. I mean, seriously, 8 months to get an amulet for each of them…when there are other slots to grind out as well. Unfortunately, the steepness of the gear grind prohibits alts as an alternative for what to do at 80.

Monthly events are not the answer. They introduce more bugs and compete for developer resources around stabilizing and balancing the game. No, monthly events are a problem not a solution. We need appropriate prioritization which right now is core game. Then we need a release schedule which is 3-6 months but offers interesting content of a permanent nature that significantly adds to the game world. This would allow for a PTR in the development schedule.

GW2 is one of the best games I have played. There are issues, but they are relatively easy to fix. otoh, if they continue with head-scratcher solutions, given what’s on the horizon, we won’t be around for long debating what to do at 80.

I can save you a lot of time on this one. Drops, not drop rate so much, are bad because of the way they have tuned the loot system. Correspondences are always interesting and may give insight into particular aspects of the problem but they are not the problem. The problem with drops is simply the loot system as it’s currently implemented. No mystery here and really no need for player investigation.

Agree with OP on this one. WvW should not be part of map completion.

Blissified.8369:

When i can go afk in orr and not worry about dieing from the normal mobs somthings wrong (and im not specced for tank, im a ballenced spec as in dps/tank ballence)

If you pick a location at random and go afk I guarantee you you will die. I haven’t encountered a mob that does zero damage or damage you can auto-heal through in Orr which would have to be the case in the scenario you describe. Sounds like an unrealistic appraisal of the matter altogether.

I don’t know OP what makes content ‘hard’? The old Orr was easy enough in terms of any given fight. However, Orr was annoying to play in. The mobs respawn rate was too fast, mob density was too high, and major CC was endless. It didn’t seem like a particularly challenging zone, just not one I would want to play in given the choice for the reasons I’ve given. I don’t find the new Orr any less challenging, just less annoying. The new Orr looks to be a product of good design and I’m all for more instances of good design.

There is a reason financial advisors don’t recommend buying lottery tickets to increase wealth. Sure, there will be daily winners but the odds are it won’t be you. Basically, it’s a gold sink and if you feel you have too much gold laying around this is a good way to take it out of the game. Kind of like taking one for the team.

No, I never have bought a key and consequently have over 250 chests. The fact that there are chests in the game indicates that you should also occasionally find a key. This is one of the most glaring funnels to the gem shop in the game. Outside the personal story I don’t believe I’ve ever found a key. Sometimes you get something of value out of the box, but I wouldn’t spend money to open one.

Why not pick a PvE achivement to go after rather than WvW. Here’s why. WvW is about, well, WvW. I realize there are a lot of people there doing a lot of things but it’s basically a war complete with strategy and tactics. To see someone running around doing miscellaneous things that don’t contribute to anything beyond himself is going to bring grief to you from someone. My suggestion, stay out of dungeons and WvW to the extent that you can’t contribute to the primary activity. Achievements like Dungeon Master shouldn’t be a problem, but something like “Wave a Bouquet before 5 Bosses” could be trouble.

Hawkian.6580:

Raine.1394:

I actually chose my words carefully and said what I believe to be the truth. Name me a grindy game where you grind thirty days to get one item in one slot. I now have 8 level 80 characters. To have them equipped with max level gear, that’s what, eight months for one slot out of how many slots are we grinding gear for?

Should I respond to your “you don’t really need the item to play the game” here or should I wait your you to state it?

First, you understand that costing 30 laurels does not mean that you have to play for 30 days, right? People who have attained every laurel so far will able to get theirs tonight after the daily- that’s 18 days.

Second, there’s an extreme assumption that eight months from now, the only options to get ascended amulets will be the same as they are now, and that obtaining laurels will be possible only at the same rate they are now. I don’t know why you’d think that. Ascended gear has only been made easier to get over time already. This trend will continue.

Third, the language you used really implies that an Ascended amulet is the only type of item in the game that can occupy that slot. Surely you will agree that you can obtain an exotic amulet in less than a day, correct?

Fourth, I would appreciate your response to the speculative point you offered. I have yet to see a compelling answer for it and I wouldn’t mind hearing your perspective.

Sure, I’d be happy to respond to my question in the referenced post. But first let me respond to your points.

1) If you don’t do dungeons, the case this month, it takes 30 days to get an amulet. For me to obtain one it would be 30 days, that’s why I used that number.
2) I was actually avoiding assumptions not making an extreme one. I was simply dealing with what we know so far.
3) I understand that any gear level can occupy the slot. We are talking about a gear grind though. Ascended represents the max level gear for that slot. If you want the max level, it’s Ascended.

And, that is a perfect lead in to your final question. So, is Ascended gear optional? Let me set a backdrop for the question.

My issue is not with Ascended gear, per se, it’s vertical progression. What is vertical progression? Simply stated it’s a method to give players a sense of progression in a game. And, you only need to understand the words making up the concept to understand the concept itself. Vertical: the power level of the game increases. This occurs generally through stats on gear. Progression: It periodically and continually increases over time. In the AMA Anet confirmed that VP would be in the game going forward. We know that for a fact. And, if you understand the concept, you understand that the gear grind is not optional. Because we are talking about the power level of the game, there will come a point as vertical progression progresses that you will no longer be able to play the game in your current gear, in my case exotics.

This is why the amulet is significant. Do I need it to play the game currently? No. But it represents the path of the power curve and if I want to continue playing the game, I must (mandatory) follow the curve. Any player opting out of the gear grind will eventually find themselves as a level 60 player would be running around in Orr.

Btw, this is not a slippery slope argument. Google it. Those rely on leaving open a possibility for something to occur and then arguing that it’s likely to occur. I’m working from an understanding of a concept. A mandatory gear grind must occur in a vertically progressing game. That is not an opinion either, again just an understanding of the concept.

Opinions, or preferences, come in around whether you like vertical progression or not. I prefer horizontal progression in an MMO. I think it carries less baggage. That is my opinion.