Guild Wars 2

IndigoSundown.5419:

It bothers me that I had to make a “lesser of two evils” choice. I chose the delete option. I don’t care how much or how little time it would take to replace the 60 points they squandered for me, I should not have had to make that choice at all. ANet chose players who don’t want to think over players who do. That’s what I cannot get past — though from recent trends, I should have expected it.

But that’s just what ANet did: choose the “lesser of two evils”. Colin Johanson explained it (I think it was linked somewhere up-thread already): they had to choose between people that want to micro-manage their characters, and those that just want to go on playing without being forced to deal with the trait system first. I can see how you’re unhappy with falling into the “greater evil” part of the choice, but looking at the players around me I suspect ANet did a pretty good call here that actually inconveniences the least amount of people.

In general, those players that intensively use the trait system seem to have a better grasp of the game mechanics, too, and are probably way better equipped to deal with the nuisance of non-optimal traits and skills for a few levels that those that are overwhelmed by the choices given by the system anyway. We don’t have to like that we can’t tweak our characters to perfection right now (yes, I have quite a few leveling characters myself who aren’t exactly traited the way I would’ve chosen right now), but we can find ways to deal with it and overcome the nuisance. The people that just aren’t as deep into this game’s skill system (due to being relatively new to the game/the type of game in general, or those who just don’t care beyond wanting to experience the fantasy world around them) are, on the other hand, much better served by the conversion than if they’d been forced into respeccing.

Now if the part of the player base that actually cares for their traits and skills to the point where the right ones are crucial to leveling is more “worthy” of consideration than the part of the player base still trying to learn their characters and the game and happy to not having to deal with the details of the trait system just yet is open to debate, but ultimately it’s a question we can’t answer. It’s ANet’s responsibility to choose their “lesser of two evils”, and ours to deal with it in whatever way we see fit.

For some it’s a big deal, others (like me) just see it as an added challenge to their gameplay and character customization and find ways to deal with it. But we all should remember that ANet had to make a choice that had to benefit the majority of their playerbase, well knowing that no choice available would make everyone happy (including the “give respec or auto-allocation by mind-reading the player’s preferences so as to not inconvenience anyone by having to actively choose”, which certainly wouldn’t have made their shareholders happy considering the amount of extra work for very little benefit ).

Drivrius.6159:

Kal Spiro.9745:

And THAT is why there is no refund. You give a refund if it’s not possible to buy everything. If you will run out of points before you run out of things to spend points on then a refund makes sense. If you run out of things to buy long before you run out of points, then there is no point.

Tell that to ESO, the devs there went the extra mile to make it possible to reset skills while giving your more skill points then you could possible need.

Actually that’s a very good comparison to our current hero point system, but it really doesn’t work in favor of your argument.

ESO has tons of skill points, but the amount of “work” required in all aspects of the game is far far greater than what you need to do to gain hero points (again plenty of those around, far more than you ever need) in this game. My lvl 40 main in ESO did everything available to her up to that point, all quests that give skill points, all sky shards (similar to the hero challenges in this game to gather extra skill points) available in the areas I have access to, all dungeons available at my level etc., and I don’t even have close to enough skill points to get a decent spread of combat, adventuring and crafting abilities. Respeccing, while being available, is so utterly expensive for a mid-level, leveling character that it’s really out of the question.

My husband, who is much more into ESO than I am, has a V14 character with all main quests, all sky shards, a few dozend pvp ranks and a large part of the dungeon quests done, and even he doesn’t have enough skill points to experiment at will with different builds and stuff. Again, respeccing is available, but it’s so expensive at that point (not to mention the nuisance of having to respec everything, no saving of options or respeccing single trees) that most of the time it’s not worth to respec just to test if another morph of that skill would be more beneficial for a build.

Compared to what you have to go to to even get a halfway decent skill and ability selection in ESO, GW2s hero point system is paradise. Sure, my leveling characters (about 10 of them between lvl 20 and 60 when the trait system changes hit) have some skills and traits/traitlines selected I wouldn’t have chosen myself at that point, but even the impact on leveling to me feels a lot smaller than the missing skills on my ESO templar due to simply not enough skill points available during leveling. My lvl 40 ele now goes through the world with a full water traitline, and will take a while before she can change to trait evasive arcana, but there’s so much else I can to in that time, and before I know it she’ll have picked up another 60 hero points and the arcane trait tree is all hers. It’s not nearly as gameplay-hampering as finding out your weapon set-up doesn’t work in ESO and you have to go all the way through another weapon skill tree to finally get to a skill that may actually help you leveling because you just couldn’t judge the skills and weapons available without trying (and wasting skill points) yourself.

I get it, you have a very specific idea of what your character is supposed to do, but if the (comparatively minor) setback of having to “work” a few levels in GW2 to get (back) to your ideal trait/skill setup, then you should be running away from ESO screaming. There is a lot of flexibility and customization built into that game, but it comes at the price of “work” (aka time commitment) much much higher than any you will ever have to invest into GW2 character progression.

States.6387:

You can not make “the right bid” in this games current trade house. Literally every time something is put on the trade house be it bids for buying or selling it is almost always immediately outbid or undercut by someone else for 1 copper. And this continues endlessly. That means that no matter what number you make up to sell or bid on an item, it will never “be the right bid”.

You’re overlooking one half of the equiation here: Items are not only bought from the trading post, they are also sold on the trading post. If 10 players try to buy a certain exotic weapon for example, there’s a good chance another 10 players try to sell the same exotic weapon in the same timeframe. Sometimes it’ll only be 8 players selling, and prices will rise. Other times it’ll be 12 players selling, and prices will fall. Overall, there’s a pretty good balance between people placing orders and people filling those orders around the current market price.

Less theory, more practical observation: I’m not a trading post player, but I occasionally use the trading post to buy a piece of equipment for a character (both leveling gear and “fresh 80s” exotics), rarely buy items for a skin I’m interested in, and every now and then sell a piece of loot that I don’t have any use for (although most equipment I find gets salvaged and most materials used or stored). Still, the number of times my buy orders didn’t get filled within a week are negligible compared to the orders filled at the price I put, even if they get “outbid” initially.

The system works, all you need to use it is a little patience. And if you can’t wait a couple of hours, or at worst days, there’s always the option to just buy from the lowest sell order (which, as often as not, goes down a few copper if not silver if you wait a bit and try outside of peak times, too).

maddoctor.2738:

There isn’t much difference in waiting for a “Tank” or “Healer” than waiting for that PS Warrior, the Staff DPS Ele, the Guardian with the reflects or the Thief with the team stealth. “Pro” groups already have mandotory roles

News flash: the really “pro” groups know how to deal with the content just as well without those “mandatory” classes/builds.

Why wait for that guardian and thief that noone in your group cares to play just now when you can do both jobs just as well with a decent mesmer and some really minor strategy adjustments? Why wait around 10 minutes for a staff ele if you can just take the next person that comes along on another class and take a minute or two longer (still saving you 8-9 minutes of wait time)?

Now if you’re one of those people that freak and give up if the icebow freeze doesn’t hit perfectly each fight, then I can see your problem, but if you really know class and combat mechanics in this game there’s nothing forcing you to wait for a specific class/build to run any of the dungeons we have.

Otaur.9268:

If they find a way to include Amount of Health Healed During X Event, then MAYBE people will support again.

Tagging by healing was awesome when they changed the tagging rules in LotRO with the Riders of Rohan expansion. I could go around with my minstrel just putting HoTs onto random people I came across and would tag pretty much every fight going on in the vincinity without having to go near a monster once. No risk, all reward .

Once you’ve experienced a system where every random boon or heal thrown around would automatically tag the kills of the affected players, you’d understand why ANet doesn’t want to go that way. The “problem” of people afk-tagging events really is negligible compared to tagging by healing/buffing.

simplesimon.2084:

If we have people filling roles you’ll still could be full DPS cause you have the tankier player taking the hit or using active defence and bring kept up by the person that filled the healing roll. You DPS would just have to watch out of AOE attacks which your skilled players could dodge or your going to put extra strain on the support character

This is for group content. For open would you have to make sure that if someone is in DPS that they can kill it before they run out of there active defences and also that someone speced for support can kill it as well with there passive defence

But dps in this game is so much more interesting than in classic trinity games: you not only concentrate on pushing out max damage, but also have to look after positioning, spot healing, supportive boons and crowd controls, no matter what class or character you play.

I’ve played both tank and healer in endgame raiding in trinity mmos, and fights in those games are so much less flexible. You either concentrate on max damage, max defense or max healing, and don’t spend any time on any of the other aspects of the fight. If a tank or healer goes down, the whole raid is usually screwed.

In this game, everyone can cover for everybody else, and everyone has to cover for everybody else. With the same class, depending on group composition and encounter mechanic, I can go into each of the fight aspects on demand, change my gameplay (and even equipment if necessary) to be more damage, support or cc heavy, but I can never really dismiss one of the aspects of a fight, not even in groups optimised for max killspeed.

To me, this combat system is the first time I actually enjoy playing dps, because it’s not just dps but all of my favourite playstyles rolled into one. Why split that off by assigning rigid roles to each player (and consequently higher chance of failure since the rest of the team can’t cover for one that goes down accidentally if everyone is traited and geared for their specific niche of one-trick pony playstyle)?

Soft, ever-changing combat roles are what this game excells at, at the price that people have to pay attention to all parts of combat and not just concentrate on one tiny aspect (e.g. only healing or only doing damage while avoiding aoe circles). And even better, the game still lets you play with a team-composition with more rigid roles, you just have to build your characters a bit different to do so. Why force everyone into more rigid roles when both is viable already?

All this time I was playing this game, believing that how powerful my characters are is a combination of stats, traits, utilities, character/class and encounter knowledge and personal experience at playing this game, just to find out that I was totally wrong.

To be a powerful character in this game is simply a question of the numerical value of the power stat in your hero panel .

Good thing I have the general discussion forum to cure me of my ignorance …

krzygum.4028:

so you’re comparing soft indicators like “personal experience” and “knowledge of the game” to hard mathematical evidence of lower stat distribution between downscaled lvl 80 and genuine lvl 20

seems legit

Yes I am, because, as others already tried to point out to you, you have a lot more advantages at level 80 than mere stats. Cooldown reductions on weapon skills, offensive boons from skills/utilities etc. For example, a level 80 mesmer using greatsword has access to a skill that both reduces the cooldown on greatsword skills and gives might on auto attacks, both yours and your clones. Add to that the trait that produces clones on dodge roles, and you’ll be able to stack quite a bit of might on yourself, which gives a decent amount of power to you that.

If my rough calculations are correct, you’ll need around 5-6 stacks of might to make up for the lesser power shown in the screenshot earlier in this thread when scaled to around level 20. Seeing from the screenshot that the downscaled character also has higher precision, ferocity, crit chance and crit damage (among other things), adding a bit of might will easily make up for the difference in power. And you can always supplement with food (either +power or +might), sigils and runes.

I still see a level 80 that knows what they’re doing more powerful than the low-level character. If I play my lvl 21 or 29 mesmer (yes, I know I have way too many mesmers, let’s just say I like the class ), despite having spent hundreds of hours on the class and having the resources to outfit them with the best available at their level, they still aren’t as powerful as my level 80s since the 80s simply have tools available that make them much more versatile.

Dinks.2478:

Actually the point of leveling is to progress and become more powerful. I certainly didn’t level to become weaker.

That may be the point of leveling in other games, but not in this one. The point of leveling is opening up access to more content, including more complex game mechanics and additional traits, skills and equipment options to deal with whatever situation the game presents to you better.

You don’t become more powerful in this game by leveling. You don’t even become (significantly) more powerful by getting high-end equipment. The largest part of power you have in this game comes from your own developing skill, your understanding of your character and class and all the tools given to you, be they trait combinations, utilities, equipment, runes and sigils, movement and dodging, temporary buffs from food etc..

The price? The more options you open up by leveling, the more complex your understanding of the game has to be to actually come up with a really powerful combination tailor-made for the situation at hand. If you don’t understand your class, the game and the mechanic of the content you are facing any better than a lvl 21 and try to counter by playing the same way you did at level 21, then yes, you will be less powerful than a level 21 since you are not taking advantage of all the tools available to you at level 80.

Someone up-thread (forgot who it was) mentioned they compared their level 80 mesmer in meta-build to a level 21 in level 20 gear. What meta build? I would assume the dungeon build? I know my mesmers pretty well, play three of them in dungeons, but the dungeon meta build, optimised for a 5-man group in specific circumstances (esp. the fact that dungeon fights usually take place with everyone in melee, where open world certainly doesn’t) is not what I would take if I were to optimise any of my mesmers for open-world exploration.

On the other hand, why optimise for Queensdale exploration anyway? I’m just playing, not running from anything .

deSade.9437:

Talyn.3295:

I was helping a friend through it and had forgotten some of the mechanics that Shiro had, such as the banish and summon abilities. Would be kinda cool to see something like this added to gw2, but I am not gonna hold my breath.

Too confusing for new players. And I really mean it. The skill level of gw2 players is so low I doubt they could handle a single HM mission in gw1.

Hey, don’t say that . You know I’m as casual as they come, and I actually find GW1 considerably less difficult than GW2, despite the fact that I have played the later for almost 3 years and the former for only 3 months. At least from what I’ve seen (only factions in hardmode so far, since I still haven’t finished the other campaigns).

ShadowStep.3640:

Now I have to spend forever, to simply get there to unlock that waypoint

Since complaints like these appear regularly on this forum, I did a little experiment a couple of weeks ago to figure out how long “forever” actually is. I created a new character and did nothing but run to open up all waypoints (and use a few tomes if I was too low level for the next area.

The result: It took me a little less than 10 hours to unlock all waypoints that are part of map completion. Just by running across the map, next to no fighting or anything else involved. Actually there was just one waypoint that turned out somewhat difficult to get, and that was the one in the very north-eastern corner of Frostgorge Sound that noone needs anyway, and this was on a lvl 71 character in a lvl 80 area … even Cursed Shore was easy to unlock at lvl 72/73.

So “forever” to unlock specific waypoints on lvl 80 characters really isn’t the case. As someone above said, you can unlock the racial cities (plus Ebonhawk) in a matter of minutes, and to access the first four dungeons all you need to do is step out of one of the starter cities as long as someone in your party has the dungeon waypoint.

Just consider how many waypoints you could already have unlocked in the time it took you to post this …

I’ve never taken a closer look at what the formula might be behind the damage reduction, but I’ve got one character running fall damage reduction plus a full set of runes of snowfall, and there are a few drops in WvW I know that she can do while staying at approx. 95% health where characters without any fall damage reduction die and those with just the trait will see their health go down considerably.

So yes, the combination works, and works well (plus the added regeneration you get from a full rune set even makes it viable if you expect a fight at the end of the drop).

You’ve got five character slots at your disposal, so just park your guardian for now and try another class until you feel you get the hang of the game again.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Rasimir.6239:

The instance/story is pretty much the same it was before, but it is significantly easier if you go in there with a full group. .

That… that is possible?

Well, I was in there with my casual guildies, the ones that get excited when a CoE p1 “only” takes 50 minutes to finish, and that can spend two hours on a fractal lvl 9 . I’ve seen them wipe (multiple times in fact) on the 2nd Arah story boss (the one east of the initial waypoint, that gains a buff when eating grubs) before, so this was a pretty good “test environment” to judge if things have gotten easier .

DonQuack.9025:

I was trying to help a friend and it seems I no longer have the option to do arah story mode. Only exp. Im not sure if I should complain.. :P

Victory or Death is just a regular personal story instance now, so you need somebody on the proper story step to play it. I played it with some guildies right after the patch hit (wanted to do it a couple of hours earlier, but unfortunately real life got in the way).

The instance/story is pretty much the same it was before, but it is significantly easier if you go in there with a full group. We were five, and despite just throwing together some builds on the fly (or sticking with whatever ANet had saddled us with in the trait conversion) we cruised through the whole thing in record time.

The one nice thing that’s come from this conversion is that instead of the generic yellow hat you got for finishing the instance before, Victory or Death (former Arah story mode) now rewards the exotic dungeon armor hat appropriate to your class. That’s one less Arah skin I have to farm for for my dungeon collection .

Has any of you checked the spirit shard difference in your wallets before/after dungeon runs? They said shards are supposed to drop off mobs (for lvl 80 characters) now, so I would assume they drop of mobs in dungeons, too. I have no idea at what rate they drop though, and haven’t really played myself for the last couple of days (beyond being dragged through the new LA jp by my 9-year-old daughter ).

This topic has (as noted above) come up multiple times lately, and I have to admit I don’t understand your reasoning. If people can be in two guilds and choose to represent the other one rather than yours most of the time, what makes you think they’d even be in your guild instead of the other one if you forced them to choose?

Alliance chat wouldn’t do a thing for me, since my two guilds are made up from people with totally different interests, many of which don’t even speak the same language and wouldn’t be able to communicate on an alliance chat. I’m glad ANet has given me the chance to be a part of both, since I value both communities and have a lot of friends in both.

Why do you want to take that choice away from me and force me to stick with one group of friends or the other instead of being friends with (and playing with) both? Btw, both guilds are in the 20-50 member range, and slowly but steadily growing just from people we get to know while playing the game. We wouldn’t want guild members that get lured away by bigger, better guild buffs instead of true community anyway.

Did you read the specialization blog post by Jon Peters from a few weeks back? It will give you an idea of how the new system works. It actually is very streamlined and I suspect a good bit easier to use once you’ve gotten used to it.

If you’re wondering how to unlock your traits and skills, there’s a 2nd post to the series that explains just that.

Anything beyond the scope of those two posts, feel free to ask again for specifics, it’s pretty hard to summarize without knowing what you figured out and what you are still fighting with.

Jon Peters explained their reasoning for doing things this way in another thread:

Cheshire.8761:

Cheshire.8761:

Are you going to address how you forced characters to train into builds using their hero points without their consent? :o

Why not. Basically there were two options, both with a large number of edge cases.

1) We wipe your stuff and let you respec as you see fit. Because so much had changed this was our initial plan. Here are problems it ran into.

• People return from a long hiatus and don’t remember what they were running
• People log in and the first thing they have to do before they can play is learn both the new unlocking system and the new build system.

2) We look at what you had equipped and unlock the necessary skills and traits to re-equip you. Here were some discussions points around that:

• We might give you stuff you don’t want
• at least this won’t matter for lvl 80s if we make all the unlocks possible by just reaching lvl 80.

There is a third option which I’m sure you will bring up.
3) let players choose
Here are some reasons we did not go with that:

• Its twice the work
• Its actually more than twice the work because it would have required temporarily saving both options until you choose which is more complex technical work.
• People who were unlikely to understand or want to explore the new system were going to be potentially more confused by the choice.

At the end of the day we wanted to ship this build so we had to decide. Based on instinct we erred on the side of helping people we thought would be more overwhelmed by the opposite choice, and I would make that choice again because it has less edge cases, impacts more expert users, and leans towards over unlocking for free to benefit most of the edge cases anyway.

Hope this info helps you understand our process a bit more.

Thanks,

Jon

JonPeters.5630:

Daegony.3604:

Does it break anything if you just add a “refund hero points” button? That way you can just let the game re-build your choices and if your not satisfied, just refund the points and assign them to what you need/want. Just a suggestion anyway =D

It actually breaks everything. The point of a system with more points that points to spend is to allow players to both eventually unlock everything and to bank for future unlocks. If you take a system like that and allow people to refund in it you break both of these fundamental reasons for the system existing. There are two ways to go with any system that has points spent.

1) Let people continue to earn and continue to progress
2) Limit the amount people can progress or spec and make a refund system.

This new system actually contains aspects of both of these. On the side of unlocking we went with a “keep making progress” system where players would eventually get all of the things they want and more, the more they played. We felt like for unlocks this is a better system because it gives people more to unlock and it doesn’t put pressure on a refund system to make the most basic functionality of having stuff work.

On the build side of things (and this is a general principle of GW2) we went with a make choices and refund system. The choices being which skills, specs and traits you select and the respec process being basically free once everything is unlocked.

Jon

tl;dr: They knew they couldn’t find a conversion that fit every player and choose the one they think will benefit the most people and inconvenience the least, since there wasn’t a practical choice that would benefit every single player.

Menadena.7482:

Hopefully the spirit shards will go into the wallet rather than becoming the new mystic forge stones and cluttering up my inventories.

Check out the recent blog post on wallet changes , especially the last paragraph about skill points. Spirit shards will go into the wallet, and you will get spirit shards from tomes of knowledge when you use them on lvl 80 characters. Characters below level 80 still use tomes of knowledge to gain a level.

ToT.7018:

Does this effect the instant level 20 scrolls? also any one know if anything happening to tomes of knowledge as you can use these at level 80 to gain a skillpoint.

Since hero points are connected to levels without any distinction on how you got those levels, your character leveled to 20 via a lvl 20 scroll will have the same amount of points as your character that leveled to 20 “traditionally”.

Tomes of knowledge will give spirit shards on level 80 characters after this update.

Flatley.1620:

Quick question: I am in a guild of one – is getting a guild hall therefore going to be out of reach for me?

We don’t know at this point. They mentioned “small guilds” several times in their blogs, but whether they are referencing guilds in the 1-5 members size or rather 20-50 is just a guess right now.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

What is it you do with your low-level characters that need skill/traits that won’t be given in the changeover (they announced they would try to keep your existing build as close as possible) that gives no XP whatsoever?

This is what I’ve been wondering, too. Literally the only things I can think of that give no experience is opening champ bags on a specific level (to get crafting resources/equipment for salvaging appropriate to that level range) and sPvP. Everything else you do in this game will give you experience in one way or another. You don’t need skills for opening bags, and you will have all skills/traits available in sPvP anyway.

Is there something I’m missing?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Why do use think a Guild Leader must be present to ‘unlock/capture’ the Guild Hall?

Check out the Guild Halls: Taken from the Enemy blog:

At the heart of the ruins, you’ll discover a strange crystal embedded in the earth that was the focus of the Mordrem’s attentions. The crystal shines with magical energy, and it seems the creatures were drawing power from it to feed to Mordremoth. When one of your guild leaders touches the crystal, they can attune it to your guild and cut off the jungle dragon’s influence.

Guilds without active guild leaders do seem to be out of luck here.

Tyrion.8632:

But the problem still stands… how many hasnt feeled the warmth of a guild.. and still playes this game solo for their own needs

Why do you care? How do you know they’d even appreciate “feeling the warmth of a guild”? How do you know they’d even feel comfortable in a guild like yours? How do you know that your idea of one 100% 300-person guild is right for everyone?

Right now, I’m a member of two active guilds. One (of which, incidentally, I am one of the guildleaders) is made up of older players, many of us 40+, with people mostly playing open world pve, casual dungeons, and small-scale or public-zerg wvw. Since most of us have a full-time job, “busy” guild hours are usually in the evening.

My second main guild is made of people I’ve met dungeoning. Most members are in their 20s and enjoy playing dungeons in a more dedicated, near-meta (or meta) environment. Running dungeons with this guild is a totally different experience than with the other guild.

Both guilds are roughly in the 20-50 member range. Both have different main languages, with people that don’t care to speak (or sinply don’t know) the other guild’s language. Both have a very different focus. Both concentrate on parts of this game that I enjoy very much, but there’s only a very small part of members on both sides that would feel comfortable in the other guild.

I like to know the people I play with regularly, and I know personal details about most, if not all of the people in both guilds, where they come from, what job they hold, family ties, hobbies, whatever. Many of them have even become real life friends, and I have even met some of them outside of the game. To me, being in a guild means being with friends I share interests with and like to spend time with.

There is a third guild that I am a member of, the first guild I joined in this game. The guild has long since become inactive, with people hopping around different games, but every few months one group or another comes back for a stay in GW2, and every time they do, they make sure to say hi to people that are still here, even if none of us reps any more. They’re still friends, even if the only show up occasionally.

You see, I very much know the “warmth of a guild”. I’d never feel comfortable in a 300 member guild, much less one that requires me to ditch my old friends that may not be around as much any more, or my old friends that speak another language, or my old friends that focus on a different aspect and thus join a different guild (dungeon speedclear, wvw, whatever). Just because my friends don’t all have the exact same interests in this game doesn’t mean I don’t know what it means to be part of a community.

Personally, I am really looking forward to the guild overhaul, because it will make it much easier for me to be an active part in both active communities I belong to, instead of having to choose one or the other. It’s pretty much what I try to teach my kids: If your friend tries to dictate who you’re allowed to be friends with, they’re not really your friend. If my guild tries to dictate which community I may involve myself in, it’s not the guild for me.

Thank you ArenaNet for making it easier to be social and really involve yourself in all aspects of this game!

I’ve been playing ESO since beta, and I have to say I’m not impressed. I’ve gotten my main character to no more than level 40, and most of that playing with my husband (it’s his main MMO since he left LotRO), because the single player experience of that game somehow doesn’t appeal to me at all.

I’m an altoholic, and I’ve come to love both the alt-friendly system GW2 has and the freedom to explore in whatever direction (and on whatever character) I feel like. ESO unfortunately gives me none of that, instead funneling me into a pretty much set route of areas and quest chaines to follow with little chance of variations.

Even LotRO did better than that with having areas overlapping so you could e.g. level one character through Evendim while another one would go from the Lone Lands to Angmar with a few choice questhubs in the North Downs sprinkled in (and I leveled A LOT in that game … I had over 50 characters in the end ).

Somehow GW2 has spoilt me with giving me a lot of things that favor my playstyle. While I’ve loved questing in previous games and still enjoy it every now and then, I find that I no longer tolerate being forced to follow the same quest chains on each character, and prefer the more open storytelling way we have with open world events in GW2. I also no longer get along with character-bound achievements.

That said, there are a few things I really like about ESO. Crafting is fun, especially alchemy exploration, and I’ve spent a good part of my time in that game just wandering the countryside, picking up crafting resources. I also log in regularly because I have a good many friends in that game (we are in a guild with people we used to raid with in LotRO, so we go back many years together), but for long-term enjoyment, GW2 is miles ahead of ESO for my personal needs.

Besides, there’s a major flaw in ESO that will never make it the go-to MMO for me: They have neither Hobbits nor Asura (and that’s coming from somebody who’s got a good dozend Asura and way over 20 Hobbits on her “payroll” ).

dlonie.6547:

A few in my guild have apparently already bought the $100 version -_- How about you guys? It sounds like none not many of us plan to get it, at least not at this price, but what’s going on in your guilds/friendlists? Do you see many people thinking this is a good idea?

I know I’m eventually going to buy it, because there will be a lot in it that appeals to me. I love exploration, and coupled with masteries (learn some frog people language to learn their secrets? count me in ), precursor collections (yeah, I’m one of those people that loved crafting Mawdrey, and precursors look like they’re similar but even more involved), and guild hall developement I already know HoT will be worth it for me. As much as I love dungeons, I love exploring new places even more .

That said, I’ve never been one that would jump on a preorder train early. I’d rather take the journey at my leisure whenever the first hype rush has gone past . Even in my previous MMO, I would exasperate my raid and guild members when they preordered the new expansion, rushed to the new level cap, then found their main healer was still back near the old level cap, smelling flowers along the way. I’ll probably (pre-)order the basic edition of HoT sometime closer to launch, then upgrade the second account whenever I feel like it (or find a good deal). I’m in no hurry to get to the end of the Maguuma jungle anytime soon .

I do have several guild mates (wvw-ers and phiw-pve-ers) that already preordered, mostly people that are regularly buying gems anyway and picked up the ultimate edition instead of their usual gem contingent. There’s a lot of people around that still enjoy this game, so there’s really no reason for them not to preorder. Personally, I still hope for new dungeons or similar instanced group content, but even without it, HoT will offer enough to keep me busy.

Equilibriator.8741:

more dungeons seemed to me like the easy way to go, with random elements to keep it fresh. Whats wrong with having a few parts of the dungeon swap around with some rooms being like a 1% chance of appearance during the run, etc. or when you normall go north through a tunnel this time it collapsed and you ave to find another way?

but they are not making anymore dungeons…schoolboy error if you ask me.

That’s what fractals are, and people are complaining left, right and center that they are too random to run, with “good” (read: short and easy) and “bad” (read: long and possibly complex) fractals thrown in the mix and no chance to select the ones you want to run.

Random content may sound good on paper, but in reality it’s next to impossible to balance the randomness to get a set of truly equal alternatives, and most (if not all) players will eventually get annoyed when the randomness gives them a variant “again” that takes them out of their comfort zone rather than the one they prefer.

Personally, I’ve been playing this game since shortly after launch, and I’ve yet to run out of content. Compared to the MMO I played before I enjoy the fact that I can choose what I want to play rather than having to repeat the same content until long after it’s stopped being enjoyable just to get that piece of gear I have to have to stay competitive (I’ve been playing healer and sometimes tank in high-end raiding), then raid two nights a week only to go a whole raid period (about a year) without getting the one top-end drop the raids gave because it was too rare to outfit the whole raid with it.

I’m glad this game doesn’t do “get this random drop only as a rare chance from boss xyz” for (almost) all of its content, because that’s what eventually frustrated me most in previous games. I’m an adult, I can very well choose what content I enjoy. I don’t need to be channeled into instance x and daily repeatable quest y just to keep my equipment level at a point where I won’t be a detriment to my raid.

Usually you can get rid of any kind of “bundle” weapon (anything you pick up that overrides your weapon skills, including buckets of water, elementalist conjured weapons, and in one case even live chicken ) by pressing whatever key you have weapon swap bound to.

In the rare case where that doesn’t work (more often with transformation like the costume brawl potions than with bundle weapons) your only help is to read the individual skill’s tooltips and figure out which one ends the transformation/bundle.

You can aquire pages from wintersday rituals for honoring the recently vanquished by opening giant wintersday gifts that you can buy on the trading post, craft at the mystic forge using different kinds of snowflakes (again aquired from the trading post at this time of year), or one a day by harvesting the wintersday tree of generosity in another player’s home instance (assuming you weren’t around last wintersday to get one yourself). The pages contain one of three (random) limited-use finishers, including the gift finisher.

deSade.9437:

Tell me, who other than me manages to get ill in may?

Me! But you already knew that, right?

Get well soon!

Distaste.4801:

… 10 more levels with skills to go with it, 3 new classes, flying mounts, guild airships …

Honestly, if that’s what you’re looking for in game additions, then I’m more than glad that I’m playing a different game .

Merlot.8567:

Also to the (irrational) complainers – go ahead and map out how long it takes you to get to every waypoint (since you probably don’t even have 1 100% character).

Yeah, didn’t think so. I’ve been playing since beta, and gw1. The game has aged. Get over it.

Challenge accepted . I’ll even buy a new character slot for this, sounds like a fun idea. Now I only have to decide what race/class to take … that’s the most difficult part I’m afraid.

Btw, I have 6 full world completions, with my other seven lvl 80s between 50% and 80%. My main interest in this game is playing with friends, which means mostly dungeons and casual wvw. Running around the countryside on different characters is something that just happens on the side sometimes, mostly when I’m looking to harvest specific crafting materials, as I prefer to do couple that with mapping to have different goals I can complete at the same time .

Beldin.5498:

Waypoints are part of exploration .. and i always have the feeling it takes me hours
to run through that kitten Orr zones, especially finding the way from Straits to
Malchors Leap ..

Except for one character, an ele in her early level 20s, that I just couldn’t get past Fort Trinity due to mob aggro (yes, I had run her all the way south from Hoelbrack to open up waypoints in Timberline, Mount Maelstrom and the Straits of Devastation, started at level 20 and was around level 25 by the time she reached Fort Trinity if I remember correctly), I’ve never had serious problems running characters through the Straits of Devastation to Malchor’s after the first or second one through the area.

Depending on event status, you may have to choose between different ways to get to the Rally waypoint, but once you’ve figured out which routes lead there (and there are four main ones I can think of of the top of my head), it’s fairly routine. I’ve actually run several characters from LA down to the Cursed Shore for some quick trait unlocking or equipment buying when they reached level 80, and I don’t recall it ever taking more than an hour, even with stops for harvesting and detours for some additional waypoints (Malchor’s has most waypoints off the main route).

Let me see if I understood this correctly: You are looking for a carrot leading you through the game to level 80 in a fairly straight and linear way that you can just follow to get to that level? Kind of like the quest chains in other MMOs that you have to follow to gain levels?

I’m afraid this game doesn’t work that way. Getting to level 80 in a variety of different ways is easy, there just isn’t a carrot leading you from one point to the other. The closest would probably be the content guide in the upper right-hand corner, leading you from waypoint to poi to event to skill challenge to unexplored map parts to waypoint to … . You can follow that content guide all the way to level 80 without much problem, but it doesn’t take into account how easy/fast the next accessible content is. If you have a map almost done, it may lead you all the way across to a single poi you haven’t gotten, instead of to the next map right in front of you that gives you much more level-appropriate experience quicker.

Getting to level 80 in 30-40 hours without shortcuts (tomes of knowledge, excessive crafting, or similar) feels a bit quick to me. 80 hours for 80 levels would be much more reasonable in my eyes, and really is do-able by going out into the world, unfogging maps, unlocking easy points (don’t worry about out-of-the-way skill challenges or pois), and participating in events that cross your path. You can even pick whichever map catches your fancy, no need to stick to dried-out Ascalon if you’d much rather spend your time in snow-covered Shiverpeaks.

This game doesn’t do “paths” as much as it encourages you to go find your own path. You’ll have to find your own leveling path that is fun to you, as much as you’ll have to figure out whichever “endgame activity” catches your fancy later on. Get used to it early, or you’ll be in for a big disappointment once you’ve reached level cap.

winterchillz.2564:

But still, since I’d do it generally for the skins and titles, it’s a bit of a turn off

Believe me, you’ll be busy collecting those points way past the date when the HoM comes back online .

Merlot.8567:

Thoughts?

I’m starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier for ANet to just offer “full” characters for sale. Full as in

• level 80
• all waypoints unlocked
• all skill/hero challenges unlocked
• all dungeon stories unlocked
• full set of exotic equipment of a stat set of your choice

After all, that’s what a lot of people on these forums seem to be after. Leveling, unlocking maps, skills, traits, dungeon access all seems to be regarded as boring, necessary grind these days if you judge by the topics around here.

Personally, I find waypoint unlocking a quick, easy and painless way to advance my character, giving me several levels on the side. Just running from Lion’s Arch to the gates of Arah with a lvl 75 character will bring you close to lvl 80 by map unfogging/wp unlocking alone, and takes way less than an hour.

I wonder how many people would actually play their characters more if they could pay to unlock the world, and how many would pay because of being impatient, but ultimately end up playing less because “there’s nothing to do”?

winterchillz.2564:

I was thinking about buying GW1 in order to get some nice skins and titles, but guess what – nope.

Why not? I bought the game right before the HoM broke (and didn’t get my account linked until after it broke), but the game by itself is a lot of fun, getting those points takes a bit of time, and I know I have my skins and minis waiting for me as soon as the HoM is back online.

Besides, you know you have friends over there to play with .

Chris Cleary.8017:

I’ll go ahead and comment on this thread, as it seems to be the most recent of the HOM ones.

I’ll try to explain this without getting too technical, and some parts are probably going to have to be left out.

The bug that caused players to unlock achievements/skins/titles and achievement points was caused when the GW1 server that stores the HOM status talks to the GW2 server that controls new character creation. Basically it was sending bad data to the GW2 server, and unlocking achievements that should not have been unlocked.

This means that there were multiple problem points that need to be cleaned up. The first thing to be cleaned up was the bug that caused this to happen, and that was fixed within a few hours. However, the removal of the rewards is an entirely different problem.

We don’t have the tools to easily mass remove achievements/titles, which means it’s something that has to be developed. Unfortunately, this came at a time where our resources are tapped to the max, so it’s taking longer than we would like to fix this.

Thankfully (lol), when the HOM rewards bug was happening, the actual HOM was not accessible, and those players were not able to claim any other HOM entitlements…so the damage was somewhat limited.

We are working on this, I assure you, and we will remove the rewards from players that should not have received them. I do not have a timeframe, as modifying accounts at this type of level is not something we would ever take lightly, and as long as we keep a majority of the entitlements locked there is less for us to clean up.

Lauren Kamieniecki.6245:

Satenia.9025:

Lauren Kamieniecki.6245:

I tend to be less technical in my replies on the specifics of what goes into fixes, but this recent post from Chris Cleary goes into detail on what is planned for this fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Hall-of-Monuments-Update/page/2#post5017030

Sounds like we still have a rather long wait in front of us

It won’t be next release, but there is progress being made. This fix will debut on a release day to much fanfare though.

tldr: ANet is aware of the bug and working on a fix. It’s just not as simple as you might think.

piano man.1672:

I don’t think it’s the leveling itself that is painful, it’s doing the same content over again. Doing the same exploration/events/hearts for each character is a pain in my opinion, but it’s not as bad as other games.

I think that’s the point. In most other games I’ve tried, you are practically forced to follow the same leveling path/quests, no matter how often you have leveled before. In GW2, you are free to level different characters in different areas or even different game modes, giving a much wider variety of leveling experiences.

I’ve always liked playing different characters, but hardly ever got more than one or two to endgame in any game I played before, because leveling required me to do the same stuff over and over again on each character. In this game, I’m not that restricted, and have actually gotten 13 characters to “endgame” (max-level plus appropriate exotic equipment) already, with more on the way. If I get tired of one area/activity/class I just switch to the next that catches my attention, and my characters get to 80 before I even realize it.

IndigoSundown.5419:

While I can kill most mobs in GW2 by initiating my #1 skill and letting it run its course, this was not true in GW. Vanilla GW was actually a hard game, even before Hard Mode. It got easier due to the later addition of new skills, particularly PvE skills, and the addition of Heroes, who were much more effective than Henchmen. If you don’t believe me, play a new character through Prophecies using only the skills you gain from quests, only gear that drops or you get from collectors, no Droks run for top defense armor, and only Henchmen. In other words, play it like the game was new and this was your first character.

I started playing GW about two months ago. No skill-unlocks for heroes on the account, no easy access to heroes for any of my characters, no access to skills beyond what’s available at my level/location, no prior knowledge of the game apart from what you can read on the wiki.

Still, I have to say that to me GW is a lot easier than GW2. I’ve gone through the whole factions story-line on a ritualist, including all but one mission with master rewards, with only the help of whatever henchmen were available. I’ve done a good many vanquishes and hard mode missions (again, with master’s rewards) on the same ritualist, as well as a good part of the nightfall and prophecies story and most of the EotN story. I’ve played a mesmer quite a bit into the prophecies story line, again with only the skills available from questing and of course no heroes.

GW and GW2 are vastly different games from a technical point of view. GW requires knowledge of skills and mechanics, and the ability to strategically counter whatever you come up against. In return, it is a lot slower paced than GW2 and allows you to survey what you’re up against in better detail than GW2. GW2 requires a lot more quick reactions, on-the-fly positioning and recognition of enemy animations (as opposed to seeing the skill icon and name under the enemy’s casting bar in GW). I really like both games for different reasons, but for pure difficulty, GW feels a lot easier to me personally despite having played GW2 for a lot longer, simply because it puts more emphasis on things that come easy to me. Quick reactions and animation identification just aren’t my strong points.

“Easy” or “hard” content isn’t as simple to quantify as they seem at first, since they mean different things to different people with different personal skills. When it all comes down to it though, I’m with the posters before me: The call for “hard content” often seems to me a thinly disguised call for “content that gives me rewards that allow me to feel superior to others”. I’ve been playing MMOs (and other types of games before them) for many years, and the so-called hard content was never exclusive to the really good players. If anything, the hard-core rewards went to people good at impersonating and worming their way into groups that carried them just as often as they went to people who really excelled at what they were doing.

GW2 is a cooperative game, one where the developers stated that they want people to feel good about meeting other people in game. There are competitive game modes in GW2, but PvE isn’t one of them. As such, I doubt we’ll get much in the realm of “hardcore content exclusive rewards”. The rewards we have that would fullfil that niche, like the Aetherpath weapon skins, the fractal weapon skins, or the Liadri mini, do exist, and we’ll probably get more of them as the game expands, but I would be surprised if a substantial part of the rewards gotten in-game would ever be as exclusive as these are.

Just by running through the world to open up a bunch of waypoints for dungeon, guild mission and world boss access you’ll easily get a lot of levels. Participate in events you pass, do skill challenges in the area, watch a few vistas on your way, and the levels will come. Don’t forget the food and utility buffs, the added experience, while not being a lot per monster, does add up, too. Maybe do some personal story inbetween, it gives good experience and useful items.

I’ve been leveling a character over the last few days (already have 13 at 80, 6 of them with 100% world completion), and just by traveling across the map to open up waypoints I’ve gotten tons of experience. It really is easy to level in this game, the hard choice would be to try and stay on-level while doing stuff .

They did in fact re-release the pack for Wintersday 2014, as that’s when I got it. You may have to wait for next winter, but there’s a pretty good chance they’ll release the pack again this year just like the last two years.

Raven.3957:

Lets make up some numbers here..

Your numbers are just what you say they are: made up. We have no idea how many players created characters while the bug was active, and how many players won new HoM points since the HoM got closed down. For all we know, the ratio may just as well be the other way around, with a hundred buggy HoM-unlocks for every player that earned new stuff. We just don’t know, but ANet does, and they find those numbers serious enough to lock us out of the skins temporarily.

Some people care only about numbers and skills, others about skins, again others about titles or achievement points. To you it’s just titles and achievement points, to others it’s something much more important, a sense of achievement that gets destroyed if the achievement is handed out to others without achieving it. On the other hand, the HoM just holds cosmetics, too, skins, minis, and ranger pets that have the exact same skills and stats as other pets freely available in game.

I started playing GW1 shortly before the HoM bug, and didn’t get my accounts linked until well after the HoM got temporarily closed down. I have 10 HoM points sitting on my account right now, with several more within reach that I’ll probably collect before the HoM reopens again. Would I like to try some of the skins and minis (especially the mini ) that I’ve unlocked? I sure would. Do I feel punished because I have to wait a few more weeks until the mix-up is fixed? Not at all. Those skins and minis are mine, even if I can’t access them yet. It won’t affect my numerical abilities in-game in any way or shape if I have to wait a bit longer.

Calm down. It’s just skins, you’ll be able to access them sooner or later, nobody’s punishing you for anything. There was a mix-up with data transfer that lead to some (probably quite a few) accounts being credited with incorrect data, and as soon as ANet gets the necessary tools developed to fix the data everything will be fine again. Allowing more incorrect data (in the shape of skin, mini and pet unlocks) into the system (that would most likely need yet another new tool developed to clean up later) just to appease a few impatient players doesn’t seem reasonable to me.

CookieMonster.5869:

The thing is I don’t have the gold to pay upfront like that. You lose like 100g+ by going that route.

Then don’t go that route?

I’ve never gone after ascended materials or bought them from the trading post, just used whatever I collected during regular gameplay, and I have finished two full sets of ascended armor (light+heavy) plus several weapons on the side. One day, it just happened that I had collected enough stuff so I started crafting.

And you know what? My other account, where none of the crafters have gotten past 100 in their crafting disciplines yet, and where I have a grand total of one ascended weapon from a lucky drop, doesn’t feel any less powerful than the main one. The only thing I can’t do on that other account is high-level fractals, but in any other kind of content I just don’t see the difference between my full-ascended and full-exotic characters (same class, some equipment stat sets, same traits/utilities of course).

Ascended isn’t worth it to worry about. Treat is like a nice surprise that pops up every now and then, not as something that’s defining your ability to play. In this game, player skill makes a lot more difficulty than equipment stats, and you can improve your personal skill just as well in exotics as in ascendeds.

Jerus.4350:

Why aren’t you NA so we could play together!!!!, of course if I played much anymore haha.

Next time there’s an account sale, just buy yourself an EU account so we can all play together .

deSade.9437:

spoj.9672:

Yeah but its only a few maps gab! And the skillpoints are the least boring part of doing map completion. We can do them together. :>

Ok <3

If you need another cheerleader count me in . I have too many characters anyway.

winterchillz.2564:

Rasimir.6239:

I’m afraid my dungeon running friends are dreading the days when I feel like bringing my warrior to dungeons, although I’m not 100% sure if that’s because of the runes or the backpack .

I couldn’t care less honestly LOL

Thanks Winter

Now I’m wondering what Tom would say if I gave him the choice of bringing my warrior or dragging some of my casual guildies along …

Tigaseye.2047:

Same really goes for traits and skills and so on – make each choice more equal in value, so there are no wrong choices and people will be far more on an equal footing, but still have some choice available to them.

Sounds great in theory, but how exactly do you propose to make all trait choices equal for all game modes? Some traits are more optimal for 5-man instanced content, some are awesome for wvw zerging, again others are must-haves for maximizing your personal gain on the world boss train.

Most traits are at a point, where there is a game mode/type of content where they are the most optimal out of all the available traits, and I at least get the impression that ANet is always trying to figure out which traits really are useless and to do away with/upgrade those. Whether they are successful or not is debatable, but I don’t think you can deny that they’re seriously trying.

Now making all traits/skills/options equally desirable? What type of content would you place the trait system on? Looking at the classes I regularly play in all game modes (mesmer, ele, guard), there’s lots of traits that are must-haves in some builds that I wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot-pole in others.

Have you ever gone into a meta dungeon group forgetting that you’re still traited for wvw roaming, to realize in the first boss fight that you don’t have reflects on focus skills but instead spam clones every time you dodge? Believe me, I have … more than once. I’m notoriously bad at checking my characters gear and traits on logging in before jumping into content, but I know my traits, and there’s no way I would want them all “equal” since it would seriously reduce the variety of builds I’d be able to enjoy on my characters.

Tigaseye.2047:

Meaning vets won’t feel the need to lecture the “noobs” on their wrong choices, or feel like underappreciated (and unpaid) teachers, when the “noobs” (inevitably) don’t like being lectured.

But that’s a people problem, not a game problem. People feeling superior to others and feeling the need to lecture them turn up in any part of life, and more specifically in every (online) game I’ve ever played. In the mmo I played previously, for example, I played both healer and tank in high-end pve (top-tier raids), and knew my classes and their skills and traits inside-out. I didn’t usually run the usual cookie-cutter builds you’d find online though, but something more custom-tailored to the content at hand. I got tons of lectures about my setup when pugging (inspecting traits/skills/equipment was available to all in that game), from people that clearly didn’t understand what they were talking about, despite the fact that I even had the “trophies” (aka current raid equipment) to show I was able to do the hardest content in-game.

People don’t even agree on what “the best” really is. A while back, I was dungeoning with my (casual) guildies, on my meta ele. I downed a few times (although a lot less than I expected ), and did get a bunch of well-meant tips from our cleric guardian about how to better survive in dungeons. And you know what? In a way he’s right … meta specced ele certainly isn’t the most optimal ele build for the party we were playing with (where I really was the only glassy build).

Will I change the way I’ve built my ele? No, because I enjoy the way it plays and usually play it with groups where it fits. Was he “wrong” about lecturing me? No again, because the optimal way to go with the team at hand was very different from what I was bringing. Does this have any impact on one of us being better or worse, or one way of running and building for dungeons being superior/inferior to the other? Again, no. It’s a question of preferences and people playing together.

There’s no need to make choices more equal, because there is not just one viable way to play this game, nor is there just one viable way to run this game’s dungeons. I see my guildies run dungeons in wvw builds and wannabe-trinity-parties, and they are just as successful and have just as much fun as others running dungeon meta. The run time, and consequently the gold/hour average is lower, but since that’s not the important point of dungeoning for those people, who cares?

fishball.7204:

My friend used to run golemancer runes in dungeons but eventually swapped it out when the golem kept CC’ing random stuff and knocking it back lol.

I’ve got a complete set of golemancer runes on my (full zerker) golemancer warrior (complete with golem mini, golem backpack and asura golem elite utility ). It’s awesome fun to play that character (and the only way I can stand playing that class at all ), but I’ve had many a memorable moment with that golem misbehaving in dungeons myself. I’m afraid my dungeon running friends are dreading the days when I feel like bringing my warrior to dungeons, although I’m not 100% sure if that’s because of the runes or the backpack .