Guild Wars 2

Spirit shard is gold … up to 5 from Gw2 Efficiency. In one evening in Bloodstone Fen, I don’t know how much I can get, but I’d say easy 1 to 2 per hour.
I do raid every week and earn some gold from it, then I earn spirit shards and convert them into gold (well I could, because I actually don’t). It’s not that raid cost a lot of money once you have your gear (free repair!) so it is clearly a disadvantage for those who don’t raid.
But honestly I think it is more something devs forgot to do than did on purpose…

If you look the price of ecto since release, they were on average between 30 and 40s. The price increase since HoT was actually very high compared to what it used to be so the drop was, I think, intended. Let it stabilize first, they may go back to their what I’d call “normal value”.

Would it be an issue to have a way to unlock the raid mastery either by paying a small fee or just entering forsaken thicket?
In the beginning it locked access to Dessa but since the aerodrome everybody can exchange magnetite shards.
On top of that people who are not raiding but intend to do in the future will already have the rift travel to join any encounter (e.g. Trio) or Waters and turrets for escort and will be able to collect shards again.

HoneyBadger.5691:

First there needs to be an easy mode. The current raids are catering to an extremely small number of players. If you want people to raid with you, an easy mode is the best way to learn, not wiping for hours. If that works out, and the numbers exist to make a hard mode version of current raids a viable business choice, that’s great. But, continuing to cater to a very small number of players will simply cause people to quit because of the content drought.

Can we stop this argument over and over ?
What is extremely small ? Do you have numbers? A proportion? Do you have insider information?
As long as you cannot provide real numbers, out of developers’ metrics, this argument has no validity and only serves your will by saying it is not only for you but for many others. It is the same as “only no-lifes can craft a Legendary” yet there are some many in LA wearing one.
From my experience in WoW, easy mode for raid did not help people to understand a fight but rather made them think they don’t do anything wrong in case of wipe because they’ve already beaten that boss. It is like a PUG group where people accuse others to be responsible of everything because they’ve killed this boss, while they don’t realise they’ve got carried by good players until now.

The problem with Engineer is that our utilities are not competing with other utilities but with weapons.
Why would you take personal battering ram when you can have air blast with shorter CD, reflect and burn on top of the CC and have 4 other skills. If you reduce the CD of the ram then there will be no balance with other profession and if you increase Air blast CD to 50 sec (because there are still 4 other skills) then flamethrower will be abandoned like a gadget.
To be honest I feel that the only way to make other utilities worth is to limit the usage of kits in our bar or to split every trait for kits and have all of them as grandmaster so that we have to choose which one will be powerful. Yes, kits are one of the reason we all play engi but when FT auto does more damage than flame turret, and is mobile. The grenade kit does has more DPS on skill 1 then weapons and has some condi/CC attached to it….

Ayrilana.1396:

Zen.5436:

Hi All,

Sorry for the noobi Q but I couldn’t find the answer anywhere. I have just came back from years away (since launch) and I would like to know if you are still able to obtain the Ascension back item in this upcoming pvp season or are they going to release a new year challenge at some point and discontinue them?

-Thanks

No. There probably will not be enough days in the final season to complete all four of the daily participation achievements.

You’ll be able to buy the precursors from the vendors but they won’t be discounted like they are now. The legendary gift will remain unobtainable and a new one will be in its place for the new legendary backpack.

Actually no, the backpack will remain obtainable after season 4 :

There will still be a path to achieve the back piece in future seasons. We currently do not intend to prevent players from progressing the backpack after season 4.

from http://dulfy.net/2016/07/26/gw2-out-of-the-shadows-developer-ama-on-reddit/

I did kill VG in the new zone. That is one example of different difficulty for the same boss…. and I must say that I am more than happy that a challenging version of it exists. But well at least, everyone can experience the fight and feel the pleasure to kill a vale guardian.

But I’d like to see an open world “easy” Sabetha as long as she has the same deadly flamethrower. And also maybe a 10 man version of some world boss would actually be a challenging fight.

Ronin.7381:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Nothing says Primordus is in the Maguuma Jungle.

When I say Maguumas, I mean both the jungle and the wastes.

Actually the main transfer chamber was located in the Far Shiverpeaks. That_shaman map show that the overlayed position would be between Frost Gorge Sound and Fireheart Rise.
Since the last 200 years he may have moved (like Kralkatorik) or not (like Zhaitan or Mordremoth).
Being underground gives him a strategical advantage as we already witnessed. Destroyers can strike in north, South and Far Shiverpeaks, close to Rata Sum or in the Blood Legion lands.

But somehow, I think Primordus, while being a threat won’t be the next target. First because Tyria can not afford a new dragon fight with such big loss within the Pact and the Sylvari.
We will fight destroyers in a close future, sure, but I think the main plot, either of the LS3 and/or next expansion will be to find the solution of the excess of energy in the world and to find a way to contain the released magic to be sure that the world won’t explode the next time we fight one of the Elder.

Just to say but if the next raid is about Rytlock on the beach where we are with him to fight Mr Big Sandman so that he can have rest in the sun, we will still create some connection with him. We will share some intimacy with him.
If the next raid story is to fight the last blighting tree in the jungle and one of the main boss is Mordrem Malyck, there will be outcries on how few selected hardcore gamers who have no clue about the lore and only care about fights are being given some privileges regarding the story. Even if there is nothing more to say after this because it will end this arc.

Then the other possibility is to make raiders fight a giant mob with no lore, and no one will care on the long run. Actually that is one of the weakest point in Fractals for me, there is few lore in them and I sometimes loose the point of fighting in those. It is changing lately (maybe) but the story is not evolving much…

A good story which is connected to the world story is actually a good way to attract players in raid. Especially those raids where after a fight you can sneak in every corner and read some journal entries or search dead bodies. You feel you are here for something. Yet the main story, though related, is actually another bundle independent of it. I would even say that the story is more important to understand what has happened in the raid than the other around.

Just as an example, it because of the story and the journal that I realized that we, players, enriched the white mantle because the were trading bloodstone dust via bandits. When we all crafted our ascended stuff to go in Fractals or force-fed poor Mawdrey to get some shinies from it we were actually helping Caudecus to overthrow Jennah… The raid story did not made that connection although a lot of bloodstone weapon were used.

As I said earlier, the forbidden thicket is a good spin off of the main show. You may choose to watch/buy/do it to have a deeper knowledge or you can just follow the main show and still understand what is going on. Can one understand Torchwood without watching Doctor Who? Answer is yes, but if you do you have a bit more background about Captain Jack Harkness…

And I think this kind of analogy does not come out of nowhere seeing where Leah Hoyer, head of narrative of the game, is coming from. I think this is related, but maybe she would be best to share her vision on this.

I am far from being an expert but my felling is that this balance pass reduced the healing abilities of Ele who did not invest stats in healing while they increased a bit some self sustain.
Wash the pain away is globally the same, even better if you take the CD into account, if you have healing power. It only reduces support of offensive gear. The same goes with elemental bastion, although the global result is still a nerf.
On the other side self heal through glyph got up’ed and with druid rune one can imagine a different active way for team support (rather than passive through shout).
Personal survival also increased a bit with the new stats in PvP since you can have a longer duration of Protection but only with offensive stats. You’ll be more sensitive to deboon but that is by design (something normally shared with Guardian).

Training’s nerf is, I think, due to the fact that people tended, in every game mode to always have skills ready while staying in the same attunement. I think it somehow should increase the skill ceiling of the profession, because one has to admit that even less than average Ele players could do a lot and the difference with good players was not high enough. Now the “camp element” players will have a harder time in every game mode compared to those who know which skill in other attunement is available and which one they can squeeze by the time their CD comes back.
It is somehow a way to normalize the difference between core Ele and Tempest since switching will be more interesting (and then Arcane will be more used too).

In fact should the Cleric amulet still be available, the last season’s bunker build would not be to much nerfed. But the PvP team (not the balance one) do not want to see the Ele support being so strong compared to other support and hence shifted the sustain/support amulet to sustain damage amulet ( seeker and diviner amulet) in order to increase boons (37% or 70 % boon duration!!)… which can lead to 5 seconds of party protection upon aura sharing or 10 sec regen upon cantrip use…. well many different defensive use, and of course a better might stacking.

Maybe the issue is that balance team and PvP team should not change things simultaneously because we had explanation on why the balance did what they did but the patch note concerning how PvP team want to shift the meta was not clear enough.

Engineer will always be kind of king in the control domain through launch, knockbacks, daze though. Sure other class have good options too but engineer have them on lower CD. Problem is : in group PVE it is not that useful any more…

I do think they could have changed the + 4 laurel infusion to + 5 fine infusion. The prime goal of those was for min/maxing stuff for non-Fractal players. Those last may also be upgraded to + 5/+ 5Agony.
The + 4 are totally overpriced now that the + 5/+ 5 do not require so much mats. They could do something (even if they simply disable + 4 stats infusion from laurel vendor) because 5 laurels for those is too much.

“Everything the White Mantle was doing in the raid is directly tied to the surprise at the end of the first S3 chapter and whatever future content tied with that.”

Yes exactly, that was their activity before the raid squad entered the raid and actions of this squad did not change the fate of it. The big guy had his own agenda.

Honestly, every single game with raid have story tied to it. The difference with other games being that you would never have killed an elder dragon solo… so they actually handle raid in a different manner. Here you kill major threat during personal stories in solo/group instance and save an NPC, who is not even a merchant, in a raid. And to say that it is not accessible is also not true because everyone can access the raid and get carried or find a finished instance… or actually train to beat it.

It is much better story telling than some parts of living world to be honest. By this I mean these things that are happening in the world and stay, or not. Who is able to witness the moment Rox found her devourer? Can any new player dig into krait lore and their prophet anymore? And what about helping Taimi to stop the tendrils invasion while there are no tendrils to be seen around waypoints?

If the raid would not have existed both from game point of view and lore point of view, nothing would be any different. They could have released the raid after LS3, things would be the same.

Blaeys.3102:

Everything that takes place in Bloodstone Fen – and, for the most part, in the Living Story steps – is a direct result of what happened in the raid.

Could you make a summary of episode 1 and raid story to be more precise on that please?
The reason for the Commander to go there, the explosion, the investigation, the chase of Caudecus…. nothing is a result of the raid. Should the raid not have existed, only Benett would be dead now, nothing else would have changed!
This is no direct result.

My thoughts is that many bosses already need a healer. Well… in most cases, there are always groups that can have a berserker Ele or druid healing and only rely on this. Those groups are the same that defeat Gorseval without updrafts since long or can low man pretty much every encounter…. these are outliers!
For the rest, every group has a dedicated healer in term of build and/or gear. Sure druid are more present but only because their buffs are mandatory and when played as support DPS character, their DPS is not competitive.
It is like tank mesmer, a great support with bad DPS but mandatory… give a spot where his dps does not count.
To finish, there is few diversity in healer role because the sate of the game does not allow many profession to have a good, effective build. Ele and druids are top tier, you could argue Rev and guard could have a spot but they lack the flexibility of the other two who can heal two spots. The rest is pretty bad atm.

The debate has strongly shifted since the beginning. The question was not to know if there would be story in the raid that is tied to the world lore, it was more to know if this story was mandatory to understand what happens in LS.
And the answer is NO.
The events of chapter 1 are independent and the circumstances are well explained. The main villain we are chasing in the story is not a villain from the raid. We actually did not know that this very character was in the position of leading this group.
And the final appearance only happens in the story, not the raid. Actually after the raid the question on the survival of this character was basically in the same state than after GW:EN. We only discovered he is alive yesterday.
We also discovered yesterday that things were not as smooth as we thought within a certain group of enemy.

To me, raid story was as promised : a spin off of the main show. If you don’t see it you still understand the main story. If you did see it you get a bit more in touch with some character because you know where they are coming from…. this is exactly what happens in the PS when you are not sylvari and meet Carys and Tegwen or when human player were so happy to meet Riot Alice in Dry Top while I had no clue of who she was.

Bobby Stein:

If you rescued Bennett in the raid and you have the corresponding achievement, he’ll say that you saved him. If you don’t have that achievement, he should simply say that he was rescued. It’s a simple acknowledgment in a couple of spots. Here’s what I mean.

Didn’t Rescue Bennett in Raid: “After I was rescued, I notified the queen about Salvation Pass. Then I regrouped with my squad and chased some White Mantle here.”

Rescued Bennett in Raid: “After you rescued me, I notified the queen about Salvation Pass. Then I regrouped with my squad and chased some White Mantle here.”

Didn’t Rescue Bennett in Raid: “I’ve been thanking Dwayna that the rescue team found me in time. If not for them, I’d be rotting in a ditch.”

Rescued Bennett in Raid: “I’ve been thanking Dwayna you busted me out of that infernal place. If not for you, I’d be rotting in a ditch.”

And that is for a simple case of boolean (achievement or not). I can’t imagine the work load if you want to take into account race/orders/PS choices …. A big amount of work for writers!

Well from your data, OP, you have played on average more than 12 hours per day over the last month.
While you caught up rapidly everything done in the last 3 and half years, I fear you’ll hit the bored wall quite fast if you play that much with the standards you’d like to achieve (constant attraction to new challenging content). Mind you, you beat all the raid bosses while many daily players (3 to 4 hours) still struggle with half of the available encounters.
If you don’t want to run in circle in the game, I think a playtime of 12 hours per day is too much. You will rapidly get angry at the lack of things to do. It is relative sure (I don’t feel it to be fair, but in two day you play more than I do in the week) but many people left because of it. The problem with not playing constantly though is that you will have issues to create connection with others and be part of a hardcore guild, something that you already feel an issue for you.
I am no fortune teller, but I just want to make you aware that you may feel the game empty soon, but please if it happens look back at that post to remember that there was a time when you felt the game was kindda good

Oh and by the way, personal DPS meter exist (Jaxnx should not be bannable) but you will never see what others are doing. Play with people you know and compare after fights.

The thing is that patch content, for the biggest part, is decided between 3 to 4 weeks ahead of launch from what I understand from previous dev posts. This seems to be the required time for localization and QA testings.
If players would be required to react to proposed changes it should then be done way earlier, a schedule that would lead people to actually wonder why it is taking so much time and create communications issues and I am not sure we need more of those.
About the testing, they test their changes, but not with everyone. It’s like Raid testing, it is done with few people, to be sure to not have too much noise in the feedbacks.

I think a PTS would be bad for the majority of players, because it would increase the release frequency a lot. And since really few people understand what balance mean and are able to have a required exterior view on it I am really not sure that it would increase the quality of said balance changes to ask everyone.
They certainly could preview the balance changes like they used to but I think that people would not understand (and they actually did not when the preview were made) that their feedback is mostly for after release than before.

Asclepios.4295:

Add a chak weapon as a reward and you’ll bring people back

Are people away? I always find full maps for Gerent. The fight (though nerfed) is harder so maybe that is a reason for having less maps (a lot of lazy/bad players). But there no direct competition between maps. Actually because of timers, you generally can do TD, then AB 30 min later and be ready for the next DS start 30 additional minutes later.

While we’re at it, crafting one legendary weapon should unlock all Legendary skins.
It is boring and expansive to make one…..
/s

Isn’t the global powercreep from last year (spec update+ Espec release) responsible for bunker?

The problem with PvE Ele is that a relative simple rotation gives too good results!
Both fresh air and staff are relatively easy to play sure, but the output of both is crazy.
My Ele is not wearing anything BiS (I dont even have a full zerker set of trinkets on him) but on DPS golem it is already competitve with my other toons.
I also play a non optimal support/condi build (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFEQJBLhdygIUzAW2A44AQHBWEAsgAQB4A4mant12iNZY4MA-TxhHQBA4EAwO1f2lyvMqEsW6Bo1DAgC7PQIgFrBA-e) which gives better results than other builds on the market (well at least you don’t loose all your dps to max might and fury around you). This build is also super easy to play !
It’s the same for healer build, it is relatively easy and has huge output. I think this is what people are complaining about on ele : the ratio DPS/difficulty is too high compared to other class.

Ok this is sadly based on nothing any more but I always thought we knew what the stone was : a piece of the original Lion’s Arch keep, to remember the battle for Lion’s Arch of Salma.
At first, I thought it was a dialogue of an NPC in the throne room, but apparently it is not, at least not referenced on the wiki. I looked on the internet and could not find any source either. But I was quite sure this was the case, and honestly I don’t see why I would have created this idea alone.
Does it ring a bell to anyone? Could the NPC have been removed?

For skills, they have Suffer!, deathly swarm and putrid mark. As trait they may use necromantic corruption or plague sending (both passive).

So yes, the actual advice of running away a.k.a don’t duel them was a really good advice

Cyninja.2954:

While the raid team does a great job, I have a feeling that Arenanet will be moving away from raid content design. It just doesn’t attract enough players compared to the ressources it consumes.

Best result would be a new raid per future expansions but I doubt new raids will get added outside of those.

That is pure speculation. We honestly never waited more than 5 minutes to find a pick-up when our raid squad is not full, every time someone being full geared and some basic knowledge (at least) of the encounter.
On top of this, raids are permanent addition in the game so the ratio resources/raid activity is not really something one can calculate now.

That said, it is not clear now if Anet ever intended to have more than one full raid for this expansion. Maybe, as you said, there will be one raid per expansion but we don’t know how often they intend to release new expansions.

I always wonder if the system is better like it is now or if the cycle of WB and maps would be better on a 23 hours period. In the second case, everything would be one hour shifted every day and since these events have a repeat cycle of more or less 3 hours, it would not be that disturbing. It is true that if you are playing on the same hours everyday, the cycle of available events is everyday the same. In my case, I always wonder if I should start this next DS because it is already late, and in the end I play the map less often than I’d like to.
On the other hand, it is easier for groups to organise events if the time is fixed.

Chaith.8256:

I think Rifle needs to be more lethal at medium range when combined with kits.

My design for Rifle:

Hip Shot – Fine.

Net Shot – Projectile tracking added, similar to Hip Shot

Blunderbus – Reduced damage penalty for being farther than 200 units away

Overcharged Shot – Fine.

Jump Shot – Reduced cast time from 1 second to 3/4 second.

Help Rifle Traits to not be awful – Allow Juggernaut to affect Rifle as well as Flamethrower.

I like that ! Maybe a bit too strong when coupled with applied force but not even sure.

As I said in Vee Wee’s post I’d like to see Shrapnel boosted for bombs to reinforce its role of condi kit. Either a 100 % proc with 2 sec ICD or a 50% chance on explosion skill activation, because right now it is really good for nades, which are less condi oriented, than for bomb.

As for big Ol’ Bomb itself, its AOE damage and knockback are what makes it already strong. On top of it with kinetic battery, it is a real good boost in defiance bar breaking if you time it well. For PvP it contributes to engi’s ability to decap a point while fighting by simply throwing the enemy away…. this is far from being a skill I’d consider underpowered. And I still don’t understand why you compared it to coalescence of ruin, it makes no sense.

Soon.5240:

Yes. Torment makes no sense for a melee profession. Certainly not in the core maps. I suspect that they gave torment to the Rev primarily because the HoT map is full of NPC that move quite a bit. But Torment only really works when applied at range – such as a Mes does.

I kinda like melee torment, especially in Rev case where you put a lot of long stacks (compared to mes scepter AA, mace applies stacks of double duration). From a design point of view at least, the fact that either you run away and torment makes twice the damage or you stay range in the fire field, the mace is quite interesting.
Maybe the raw damage or scaling for mace should be increased but I must admit I did not run any DPS tests.

By the way, OP, could you be more precise about the “tons” of damage you loose (because power Rev is not a DPS champion either) and give some build/itemization you used. In term of feedback for devs it would be more valuable (though I am not sure if there is still time for them to add some balance change before they wrap up the next quarterly patch). Also, there is a big chance that playing condi Rev is in fact playing condi herald, which comes with a huge support part.

My biggest issue for condi rev is the difficulty to optimize your condi duration and damage at the same time. I don’t find any config where rune of the berserker can be used. Maybe they could add some burning duration on diabolic inferno (20 or 33%). It would first fit with the theme of the trait and boost it to a better state because right now it feels weak. It basically has the same burn application as incendiary powder but the application is not as simple, short range and without the burn duration.

So far I’d imagine the build and stuff like this : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNApXin3geNSuQvJRboHlsP0kS4I6SJ4EtrkFNFKtDhoEtLIANwegJshA-TRiMQBgT1nCqEEeKNAw+DlSNAopPAUPBgQdKAOlyMSBsoyK-e

I don’t have enough money to test this but I wonder how much less DPS it is compare to other profession.

Really long post, I must admit I don’t fully agree, but maybe I may have not fully understood…

About explosives The line will be totally useless for condi when shrapnel will be gone. But for now, the rapid application of bleed through grenade+shrapnel makes the kit and the trait a really good condi combo. There is a basic 20% CD reduction on bombs which are supposed to be the melee condi kit. The only issue here is shrapnel in fact because it favors grenade for bleed/cripple application, making the kit mandatory in pretty much every situation. The trait should be either 50 % for every explosion skill (meaning not counting every single grenade) or 100 % with a 3-5 sec ICD. On top of this, pistol AA should be an explosion. Of course, as being melee, bombs could see some love like Rev mace if shrapnel would not be changed. Melee condi should logically be higher than ranged condi in term of damage….

Flamethrower has never been a condi kit but rather something more hybrid, with cc, blind, flaming zone…. something that is never perfect but always useful. Sure Napalm is pretty strong for non mobile target (aka Raid) but that is the only real condi damage. In comparison to IA, Rocket kick is better. I’m not saying this kit should remain the same, but if condi were raised, it would loose a lot of control not not become OP… unless you make it the next Espec weapon and in that case it’s OK to be OP.

Scrapper and condi Yes, you are right, there is few to win by being scrapper and using condi. Well there is one poison field on the purge gyro and applied force can be useful but that’s pretty much it. On the other side, condi specs are always a bit more defensive(unless you are Berserker) and Scrapper adds so much defence that giving some condi option would have been crazy. But still it is a bit sad.

Turrets and gadgets Yes they are not on par with the rest, turret should apply more condi or be put on steroid for support, but I tend to prefer option one since they are now so fragile. Gadget are generally more on the defence side (escape, cc, blind immunity) and their dedicated trait is not well tuned I think. But generally if a utility is not a kit, it will have issue be really useful, just because kits are much more versatile than any utility. You forgot Elixirs, but one could talk hours about Elixir R (and maybe C).

If you don’t want to see other team’s chat, just make a special PvP tab where you disable /say and /map. If you want to also not see team chat (not advised) turn /team off. If you don’t want to be /whisp, just change your status to offline before starting PvP.

If someone want to PM some toxic message and got the answer that you can’t be joined via PM, that person won’t stalk you for days and send PM 2 days later. Having other’s name is actually the goal in SoloQ because that is a place where people should find partners for TeamQ. Can you really imagine somebody in the lobby saying " I want to find the Ele Emerald T2 I just played with to team up with him"….

And Wow never hid names in the other team, and since you can have characters from both factions on the same server, there is actually a lot of toxicity happening vie mail between alts.

Josh Davis.6015:

The trait is actually working as intended (25% chance to apply torment), but the tooltip is incredibly inaccurate.

That said, I don’t think it’s GM worthy with a 15s ICD. How does 10s sound?

Well the tooltip should have been hotfixed since a long time!

As for the change, maybe balance team could use the remaining time (like 2/3 weeks before finishing next patch and send it to QA?) to rethink corruption line more than changing ICD?
This line, like other for Rev, lacks a real identity. It has been designed like an Espec line, where you can find everything : damage, crit, defence, condi ….
If you really want to keep this functionality, then yes reduce ICD, right know we are speaking of 560/1020 (if moving) damage over 8 sec (with yearning empowerment, but it can be cleansed) every 15 sec at 1200 condi damage…..

I hope the gliding between the spots (hopes for flying on the Bloodstone!!) won’t be as clunky as gliding between islands in DS can be. You know this moment where you are on the ley line moving forward but downwards and ending under the floating island.
Other than that, yeah I can totally see ley lines concentrating towards the bloodstone in order to fight….. What? Mursaat leader? Magic Elemental? Let’s hope it won’t be another White Mantle on steroids but a real creature

Oh, sorry, I posted about the raid wing and not about myself and my rejection of grinding things that are grindy because … well because it is a super fancy word.

Rebound.3409:

Maybe the timer ran out before you killed him? That would be a first and a coincidence at the same time.

If, like in their case, no final score is over 500 they actually must have reached the timer limit indeed.

A bit out of topic, but I’d like to know if those “suffering” from toxicity play on NA or EU. I don’t want to expand on my life but I am not working in my home country and I am surrounded by people from many countries. What I noticed is that people are more prone to use bad words/insults in another language. I noticed too that it is easier for me to swear in other languages (English, German or Italian) because I feel it is not as impolite. On the other hand, people from those countries always look at me like I said something really strong.

By this I mean that on EU (which is a mixture of many languages) people may tend to be way more insulting in English because it does not feel so strong. That is actually weird to see German or French players being rude in another language. That is exactly why I think there is no “I can’t control myself” part in being toxic. People actually take time to translate their insults (which is obviously not the language in which they think) and type them to be sure that the other guy will read and understand them.

That said, toxicity may be an issue in game but if one wants to be fair I don’t think there is more than 10-15% of game where I’ve read somebody being really rude. Saying things like “Come on why are you going Lord, we have no points and our score is 100. Think a bit !” is not a toxic sentence, right?

@Ellie: Pills are no replacement for education!
If someone in the street cannot control his anger, turns upset easily and throw some insults because it is getting out without control, I see how this person needs to channel his anger. It can be done either by medication or discussion.
In the present case, people get upset and take time to type on their keyboard, sometimes read what they have written before pushing Enter. It is like a forum, it is not as spontaneous. In that case I tend to think that people know what they are doing and do it on purpose : they want to be toxic towards someone.

There can be several reason (“you hurt my ego, I hurt yours in front of others”, “If I am mean enough to someone it will create a reaction in his gameplay”…..) but I don’t think it is a medical issue.

Harper.4173:

So I was on reddit a few minutes ago and some happy poster posted this:

It is the same immaturity that plagues other PvP and FPS games and the problem is certainly not the people that are just there to play casually/have fun.

It was posted in a topic where people were discussing toxicity and its causes.
Well one of the causes is right there – in his post.

If you are playing PvP casually in a happy-go-lucky way you should not be playing in leagues.

I think Anet should take steps to make it more clear that people that just want to “play some pvp” but have no idea what PvP is, how it works and so on should be encouraged to not play leagues.

The real reason for toxicity as far as I see it is being matched with clueless people that don’t listen and go into PvP with the wrong attitude.

One solution I propose to fix this would be a PvP rank requirement for entry into leagues of let’s say 60. I understand this can be farmed too – but I doubt most “casual” PvPers will bother with farming it that high.

Also to those of you who will be asking – why not post this on reddit – the answer is: I dislike reddit and believe that discussion regarding GW2 should take place on the official forums – not some 3rd party website.

While I understand your proposal, I am sure such a system would simply destroy leagues… which means coming back to where the system was before HOT. Leagues are a good way for the game to attract many people in PvP on specific times (hence the one month down time). If you put a high threshold for entry, no one will take the time to do it save hard pvpers and queue times will be much longer.

Does the mixing of good and bad players create toxicity ? Maybe, but not only. Within each group (baddies or goodies) there are always people thinking they are better than they actually are so they will not believe their teammates have their level and hence starts to be toxic (following your thoughts). But sometimes it is enough to see that the other team is better to give someone the impression he is paired with bad players, it’s just a comparison effect.
On top of this, the main factor for toxicity is losing game. If you are in a “bad” team and win, you won’t feel the need of ranting, you’ll simply think “well, it is ugly, but at least we won”. Rank 60 wouldn’t change the fact there is a losing team… and toxicity.

I think the place where there is the least toxicity within a team is premades (full team of course). If you choose 4 people to play with you know there level so you won’t really be toxic towards them. In fact, in that case the toxicity will be against the other team but this is easier to solve by not having any map chat on PvP maps.

So my suggestion : create “fake” leagues (with less rewards upon crossing tiers but keeping the possibility of Legendary rewards) in unranked and make ranked (with proper rewards and leaderboard) for team only (no ranked soloQ any more).

I don’t think it would create a better game (a place where baddies would say to anyone toxic that he can find a team if he is better than them because everyone feels to be the king of his own pile of poop) but it would reduce toxicity. Does it worth it? I don’t think so.

Ignorance is a bliss : http://wow.gamepedia.com/Arena#Matchmaking_rating

You wanted celebrity, and you got it.
Too bad you did not try to control what you will be reminded for.

That’s why people work hard on having the right to be forgotten….

Blanche Neige.7241:

I miss the good old time when one of the selling points of this game was “play the way you like”.

Now it’s more and more “play the way Arenanet want”.

It is fun to draw lines out of context.
“play how you want” does not mean be bad, do stupid things it is going to be fine.
It means, when you pick a class you can play it with different role if you like. Sure they are not as competitive for the different roles and playing healer mesmer is far from optimal. Yet in 95% of PvE content you can still do it because there is a weak difficulty fence.

Burn.5401:

Pretty sure all of the above has been suggested all they way from season 1 so I doubt anet cares at this point. It’s a sinking ship that’s almost reached the bottom.

And your still standing on the bridge, knowing it is sinking? Not really how one win evolution….

As for OP, MMR reset would create much worse matches at beginning of the season. People complain on the forum, but that is what forums are for, most players don’t even know they can access the forum because they simply don’t care.
Unability to join as duo/group would also make the game unfriendly. I mean there is a social component in the game so if people cannot group in pvp the social part fails. There should be a compromise between strict solo and evry group size as we have now. In fact I tend to think that Legendary should only be a fix 5 man queue, because… well ….team based game.

König

How about calendars – surely the asura and charr didn’t use the same calendars back in GW1 time. What kind of calendars did they have? Why/when did they conform to Mouvelian calendar?

If I may, I’d also have a question about calendars : what is the in game year? More precisely, did we fill the 10 month gap at some point?

Back in January 2015 (1328 AE) the Pact was crushed by the Jungle.
The following day (from PAX preview) or some days(if Mordrem invasion becomes canon as per Canach) we enter the jungle to fight Mordremoth. These events are said to be fast-paced.
Some days later again (maybe some weeks?), the Commander enters the Spirit Vale to rescue a Pact squad.
This is pretty much where we are now : early to mid 1328.

So did we effectively lost a year and we are still 1328 (which would span 2015-2016 in real world) or do we jump a year and game year becomes 1329?

Well on one end, the big selling argument for raid was “There is no attunement to go in our raid”. No there is a “soft-attunement”, so i can see why people could complain….

On the other hand, Gliding mastery is one of the most profitable through all the Jungle zone, and almost everyone completed it first. And, honestly, leveling the mastery must be shorter than collect/craft the right gear to go for raid, so if one is motivated enough to be geared, there is no point in complaining about the mastery.

I experienced a new trend on EU : flame French people!
For example yesterday a druid (playing meta) got downed and started to rant about how “french can not play with skill and only use Meta OP build”… which was funny because we were not playing Meta builds.

Burn.5401:

Drussthelegend.2630:

How is this going to be done the current system doesn’t really support it. First 500 to legendary? That’s not really fair and doesn’t really signify anything but who played the most first. What if someone was out of town the first two weeks of a season or couldnt play much. Someone outline how this would work that would be compelling or meaningful. I guess I could envision something where you could lose divisions and you had to play a mandatory ammount of games per week once obtaining legendary so you could go backwards. Something like that would be more meaningful then a cap.

It wont matter who gets to legendary first if you could drop out of it.

He’s making a good point here : if you are on legend 2 you only go back to legend 1, so getting out of Legend is maybe trickier as it seems. So a limit can only make sense if those on lower range of Legend are always matched against high diamond players. If diamond wins he becomes Legend and the Legend becomes Diamond. Queue times for those players will be huge and those low Legend will never have any occasion to progress. It is not as easy as it seems to generate a ranking where only a few players can be ranked, even if they can be kicked out.

Kicker.8203:

Burn.5401:

Sadly MMR doesn’t connect to divisions/pips in any way.

Hence the thread.

Well, I was hoping that at the end of season 2 Evan Lesh would have made a recap with some stats like correlation between MMR and division just to know how reflective the MMR is. Right now, everybody has an opinion on this (generally the one that explain why one is loosing) but there are sadly no known facts.

Burn.5401:

You’re way off. A ridiculous amount of players reached legendary in season 2 that can probably fill another 6 divisions in skill variety due to how bad the system is. In every game out there are certain gaps in the ranking that can only be reached when you improve your rating and of course you can fall out if you don’t perform. In GW2 nothing is tied to your rating, only wins/losses matter. It’s one of the most primitive systems in existence and it shows. And I’m not sure if you follow the scene but there are like 5-10 teams per region and that’s a very tiny percentage of the playerbase if you ask me, so excluding individual rating makes no sense. There’s a guild team leaderboard/pro league for teams and they can barely find people to participate.

Maybe a lot of people reached Legendary (not sure how many) but from what I remember from S2, the first player was legendary 24, the second 17 and then it fell towards L5 or L7… so the difference was HUGE!
Sure people are not motivated to go past Legendary, but I do think this is where the competition should start for skilled players since you can loose levels and division. That is why there should be a better visibility of what player achieve when they hit Legend and where the ranking mean something.

As for teams, they should have a better acknowledgement than currently (hence an auto tournament) to attract people in team queue. This should be THE competitive mode (think GW1 GvG) because conquest requires teamplay and this is the place where people show skill. If I had to choose, the game would have 2 queues : one for solo/duo/trio (maybe) and one for teams. The first mode would have leagues while the second would have its own leaderboard and some kind of prestige.

Honnestly … no !
Leagues are fine as they are. There is already a big difference between a Ruby player and a Legend 14 (or more). If something, only the legendary level should be displayed.
But you can’t make a leaderboard of player skill out of soloQ in a team-based game. It does not make any sense.
What should be done is a proper team ranking with rewards so that skilled players could play against skilled players within skilled teams. Teams should be declared as 6 or 7 players and should remain for the entire duration of the league. Then show a real leaderboard and have automated tournaments for the 16 best teams at the end of the league before balance patch.

The thing that there are as many people saying that class stacking is an easy win as people saying it is a mandatory loss. One should conclude that it is maybe not THE deciding factor, at least for division < Legend.

In premade situation, the highest division is taken into account i.e if one sapphire tries to carry his amber friend, they’ll be matched versus sapphire players.
Anet, did not messed your games purposely, the guy who took his friend to higher division did.
The only change that would make this situation impossible would be to disable groups to enter games together. It would split ranked into two modes : Solo or Full team. This would somehow make sense but I fear the team queues would be really long….

As always, the dose makes the poison. I’m sure if you AFK farm for 20 mins-1 hour from time to time because you are bringing kids to school, cooking, have stomach disorders… it is OK. But if you spend nights and days camping one spot while AFK farming you engage an alarm in the system which can detect how much you move Vs how much you loot.
Once you got spotted, the autoban must have kicked in and while you are not using third party program you are also not actively playing so a suspension seems right.
As always, it is better to not think of ourselves higher than what we are and extract some GM sentences and transform them so that we can cheat the system. The system will always win.