Guild Wars 2

Harper.4173:

I’d rather have this “dps fest” in which each player is responsible for his own actions and one individual’s success or failure isn’t pivotal to the success of the group.

It’s better than your tank/healer failing halfway through a run and wiping everyone.

Also,
#NoDungeonQueues2015

Signed,
Every DPS class ever.

Ayrilana.1396:

Why should the daily reward for completing the three avhievements be rewarded to players who passively go for them by playing in whatever manner they prefer? How’s it any different than just awarding the players by playing the game in whatever manner they prefer when they play at least 30 minutes or some other arbitrary amount of time?

How about they take the achievement that tracks your progress and create 3 tiers that each reward AP. Each tier requires you to complete any daily achievement. Tiers 1 and 2 reward 3 AP while tier 3 rewards 4 AP. Players can get partial rewards of AP without having to complete all three achievements.

That’d be lovely, actually. I had all of a half-hour to an hour last night, so I couldn’t be bothered to do dailies. I did the two easy-easy ones for the loot boxes (/shrug) and I didn’t mind not getting AP, but with the idea you laid out, I would have at least gotten 6.

Make it 2/2/6 or 1/1/8 for all I care, but partial credit would be more polite than the system we have currently.

Surprised no one’s recommended Edge of the Mists yet. It’s where a lot of the derailed Queensdales went after the champ nerf. Or is that only for WXP and karma?
I’ve touched it once in the past year (because dailies), so I don’t actually know. =P

Jerus.4350:

And please no with the defiance thing… I can just see people now.
“dude, why did you throw that CC I had a Deep Freeze on the way”
“I needed agro, I’m playing the tank”
“ugh….”

So it’s not the best idea. I can accept that. =P

I never claimed aggro control was consistent. I’m sure there’s plenty of Elementalist stories about “that kitten boss wouldn’t leave me alone even with 4 other party members beating on it.”

The point is, I can, if I do it right. And if that makes it easier (not necessarily faster) for my team/guild, I’m okay with that option. The perceived lack of options is what some of the arguing is about. (The other is the group exclusion, but that’s a use-LFG matter.)

aspirine.6852:

I think I am the only one not interested playing as a big bird :/

What’s wrong with being a big bird?

I do find it an odd philosophical choice to keep junk items when several other design decisions were made around avoiding the usual MMO pitfalls.

CMM.6712:

Start passing out flame proof gear and have all the healers at the ready.

I believe the pro-trinity group have declared that GW2 has no healers. =P

Brahmincorle.1264:

Rauderi.8706:

Brahmincorle.1264:

Nah, some ppl just want to play tanks and healers in a game without tanks and healers.

Funny thing, you can still make a ‘tank’

No you can’t (at least not traditional MMO kind of tank). A DPS in tanking gear is as close as you can get. Unless you somehow come with a guaranteed way of holding aggro on you, you are not a “tank”.

That’s just quibbling terms. Yes, there’s a lack of a threat mechanic, but aggro is still an algorithm, and if you know it, you can manipulate it to a degree.
Apparently, some people haven’t tried it. I’ve managed to hold boss/champ aggro on numerous occasions, so it can work.

Thinking about it again, I’d be perfectly fine with aggro re-coded somewhat so that anything that removes a stack of Defiance also has higher threat. (Partially because lolbearbows? I dunno.) That could at least give hard-CC some other meaning in relevant boss encounters.

Nat.4029:

Removing the holy trinity was a big fail. It’s the reason you get such amazing game play like stacking in a corner to kill a boss.

As opposed to stacking around a tank to kill a boss?

Removing trinity isn’t the fail. So far, the devs haven’t pushed what a non-trinity game can do, because much of their design thought is still rooted in trinity combat and gimmick monolith bosses.

Brahmincorle.1264:

Nah, some ppl just want to play tanks and healers in a game without tanks and healers.

Funny thing, you can still make a ‘tank’ or ‘healer’. I’ve done it, and done it successfully. It’s not speed-run optimized, obviously, but I give two adorable kittens about that. :P

The point is that tanks and healers aren’t necessary for success. No unbalanced rewards for tanks, no WTF-hour queues for DPS. It’s one of the many reasons I still (try to) love GW2.

But that’s a side argument from ‘zerker’ stuff. Then again, I don’t feel there’s a zerker problem. ANet could tweak 2-year-old content to make it more balanced for PPF vs Condition, or improve the AI and damage mechanics, but they likely won’t. It’s primarily a monster design problem.
If there is a problem, it’s an attitude problem.

Will only vote for it if Heavy armor.

I could get behind that.

Sorin.4310:

Why do I click “fix zerker” threads…

Masochism? :\
I assume that’s why I do it.

The answers are always the same:
Zerk is fine.
Make your own LFG groups.

Less nerf-zerk and more make other gear more enticing is where my opinion is now. Unfortunately, because of PvP, they’re afraid to make Healing Power better, even though it’s the counter to Power/Crit (with Toughness) or conditions (via Vitality).
And we could do better to have a nominal balance pass on dungeon mobs. /shrug

Ayrilana.1396:

Are stat combinations other than zerker not viable? Are signets, or other utilities for that matter, not viable in group play if they don’t benefit or synergize with the group?

Whether racial elites are ever more beneficial than class elites is irrelavent as viable and optimal are two separate things. You can have skills that are viable but not optimal just as you can have skills that are optimal. For quite some time FGS, was the optimal skills for Ele. Did this make all of the other skills not be viable?

Sigh. I’m just gonna leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e31OSVZF77w
The argument goes beyond “Can I use this to PHIWdurpdurp?” Don’t argue semantics of “viable” versus “optimal”. That’s irrelevant.
The most pertinent line of questioning is: What situations exist where it would be preferable to use skill X instead of other skills? Is Skill X useful in a high-pressure situation? Is Skill Y useful for counter-play? If Skill X is useful and Skill Z has the same utility, why use one over the other?
For Great Justice vs Battle Roar, to use a non-elite example.
FGJ:
Grant fury and might to yourself and allies.
Fury: 8 s Might 3: 25 s Number of Targets: 5 Radius: 600 Cooldown 25s
Battle Roar:
Let out a battle roar, giving fury and might to nearby allies.
Fury: 6 s Might 2: 15 s Number of Targets: 5 Range: 1,200 Cooldown 25s

For a warrior, For Great Justice is almost clearly superior, except in range. In a small, tight group, there’s no reason not to use it. Warrior also gets the possibility of traits that further enhance it. Unless your group is known for spreading out wide, it clearly makes Battle Roar obsolete. (Or be weird and stack the two. /shrug)
But for another character, that may be one of the few ways to be a source of good buffs (ie, Thief). This becomes a choice of incomparables for the player: take a less-optimal offensive party buff, or find something else in the class list that solves the same problem differently (vulnerability stacking) or provides counter-play for another problem.

Thing is, a lot of the racial elites are kind of WTF in that problem solving framework.

DavidH.7380:

Ayrilana.1396:

For those who are choosing not to play the game because of the daily:

Would you still play the game if it was removed entirely?

That is an interesting question, and it made me think about why something this trivial seemingly makes such a difference. Typically I’m not logging in to “play” as much as I am logging in to get the “once a day stuff” that can’t be made up for later if I don’t.

Previously, getting the laurel required the daily, and the daily just required doing stuff, and if I was going to do stuff then I may as well also work on map completion, or looting world bosses, or other goals. So, I would set off to play enough to complete the daily, and along the way I would get into playing and having some fun, and often I would play well past the daily when I really should have been doing other things.

Now the important rewards happen immediately on login. After I collect the chest I am left with a character that is just sitting in a city, dailies that are an annoying set of pointless tasks for an unimportant reward, and the following decision to make. “Since I don’t want to do these dailies, does it make sense to start playing right now just for fun, or should I not even start and just get on with the stuff I really ought to be doing instead?” It is far easier to not start playing in the first place than it is to stop, so I’m regularly just logging out and getting on with my day.

I still play the game, but not nearly as much. If I’m just playing for the sake of playing, I’d only play for a few hours twice a week or so.

A rather accurate assessment.
While I appreciate the significant improvement in reward structure (bonus wood for logging, WXP for ruin capture, daily log-in bags), the actual play experience is disjointed enough for me to rush through, get the daily done, then just leave, unless friends or guildies are around.
Even then, the daily tasks can be such a chore that I’m just ‘tired’ after putting up with them, and I go elsewhere.

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

Viable != optimal

I just wanted to point that out as I keep seeing that players are confusing the two.

The point the OP was trying to make is most racial elites aren’t even viable.
Then again, even most class elites are so conditional with such long cooldowns that they’re hardly worth the skill points invested in them.
/shrug

Define viable. All I saw was that they were not viable with the reasoning that because nobody uses them. The race elites have uses although there are better options available.

Not to be overly snarky, but define “better”. Better in a vertical way? Because then those skills are easily replaced. Better in a lateral way? As in the racial elites are incomparable to class elites because they do completely different things?
Where would racial elites be more useful than class elites?
While I understand the above statement that racial elites/skills need to be a bit underwhelming so that class is the major focus, if the racials just flat-out suck, why have them?

Ayrilana.1396:

Viable != optimal

I just wanted to point that out as I keep seeing that players are confusing the two.

The point the OP was trying to make is most racial elites aren’t even viable.
Then again, even most class elites are so conditional with such long cooldowns that they’re hardly worth the skill points invested in them.
/shrug

Sylent.3165:

Sorry if my op wasn’t getting across what I meant. I’m not saying the game has a trinity right now in any way.

What I’m saying is at least in my server the lfg is nothing except warriors, guardians, eles, and sometimes a mesmer. I try joining as a s/d ranger I got booted. I tried going in on my d/p thief I get booted. My main suggestion was an actual dungeon queue for people who experience this issue and don’t care who they play with they just want to play. But just not on a specific wanted class just to get into groups.

Awkward to point out, but you can LFG to make your own groups.
Just be sure to communicate that it’s not a meta/speed run or “all welcome.” I swear those groups will fill relatively quickly.
Any booting that happens after that is just people being kittenholes. >_>

You are actually the only one, c-chains.
And I didn’t use Frog. He was …kinda garbage. =P

mtpelion.4562:

… so we are stuck with the current toxic environment where the two sides throw stones and hurt everyone in the middle.

Long story short, the extremists are kittenholes who can’t be nice to others?

When I look at the language used in some of the pro/anti sides, I see a startling lack of empathy/emotional intelligence. …on the internet! Shocking.

On to me being less snarky. The “zerker problem” is mostly a PR issue that spawned from items mtpelion pointed out above and the natural inclination for many gamers to optimize.
If players could learn how to use the LFG tool with open communication, we’d see much less of these problems.

tigirius.9014:

Make bosses have a building crit damage resistance buff. Think about it why should CC suffer CC doesn’t kill bosses and Condi damage already has a limitation because it’s built poorly (max stacking), so fix the crit Zerker mentality by making bosses require coordination by giving them a significant buff against crit burst damage skills then parties would be required to have multiple build types and the Zerker build parties would be dead.

Was I the only one to realize tigs is trolling? :P
The was a dead giveaway.
Because we really don’t need yet another anti-zerk thread. -_-

Sorry to be blunt, but it’s called “meta” because the builds that follow the meta are the result of theory-crafting and performance examinations, AKA, meta-thought about the game.

I don’t quite remember the linguistic term, but the word stands as a short-hand for the process.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Rauderi.8706:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Against 20, definitely.

…because I likely only round numbers and demand 10 or 100!

Technically, 20’s a round number. =P

Oh, a butterfly!

;)

/golfclap
Bravo. I love XKCD.

So, my yesterday went like:
To friend: “Hey, I know you just got back from a trip, but SB’s up in 1:47.”
Him, one hour, forty minutes later: “Crap, the character I want to use doesn’t have a close waypoint.”
Me: “…Well, hoof it.”

And then there was Field of Ruin events. Sigh. Missed two called-out events from map chat, but was lucky enough for Ebonhawke to actually be busy.

Then I was demotivated and shuffled off to play WoW. Thanks, daily task list. :\

Lishtenbird.2814:

Against 20, definitely.

…because I likely only round numbers and demand 10 or 100!

Technically, 20’s a round number. =P
#Level80Forever

No.
#NoAthathins2015

Neural.1824:

This is a concept that needs to be floated about 3 years ago, when the game was still being developed.

You don’t just open a file and change a number from 80 to 20 and magically everything falls into place when you recompile the game.

What you want would require a massive amount of time and effort in both development and implementation, none of which would do anything but satisfy you and a few other customers.

The ROI would be the polar opposite of “income generation”.

Pretty much this. Yup.
And honestly, remember the last time they “took something from GW” and how that turned out. Leave the levels as they are.

I’d rather see it akin to PvE content, as character groups going through a dungeon to fight a chain of bosses. So, closer to games like the LotR deck builder, Sentinels of the Multiverse, or Legendary, and less Hearthstone or Magic.

But yeah, I could see a way of it working.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Randulf.7614:

After all, there are no “noobs” or “elites” in pen ‘n’ paper RPGing.

. . . are you sure you’ve played enough of them? Cause I guarantee they’re out there.

I’ve seen them. They exist. But! I help them improve. (Or shudder and flee in disgust, one of the two.)

It still looks like a garbage sack on a Charr, but it’s not too bad, and at least they tried to cover the tail intersection. I like the design otherwise. I’d be in the mood to roll a new Ele, but.. Traits.

Work chatter. =P

Ensign.2189:

Most of the balance changes are naturally going to focus on sPvP, as it’s the most sensitive; 3-5% tweaks can be a pretty big deal in a format characterized by dueling as even something minor like that can swing who is favored in a match-up.

Balance in PvE on the other hand is really coarse. Small changes in damage output or defense simply do not matter there at all. PvE centered balance changes are necessarily structural in nature – big changes to numbers to make unused skills viable, restructuring of traits or weapons, etc.

So generally you fine tune around PvP and make structural changes to get lots of things in the same ballpark for PvE – making sure the PvE changes don’t lead to something degenerate in PvP, and generally not caring about the small tweaks percolating out to PvE as it so rarely matters.

That’s likely the most even-handed answer we’re going to see.
/hat-tip

Aenesthesia.1697:

… i very rarely see people role playing.

Rata Sum and Black Citadel can be very active RP spots, depending on what megaserver batch you end up.

…It’s usually pretty horrid, though. >_>"

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Honestly? I think it’d make a better adventure board game. Not unlike “Wrath of Ashardlon” via Wizards of the Coast. Or “Descent” the board game I will never . . . ever . . . get enough people interested to play.

I feel your pain, TT. My friend owns Descent, and we still can’t get him and our gaming group to play it. :\

Warband Support’s pretty fantastic. But most of the others are Transformation type skills, and they haven’t been optimized for GW2’s combat style. They’re jerky and stiff and mostly don’t allow a character to move and attack simultaneously.

So yeah, bad.

Edit: Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about Hounds. Basically, adding dps minions is good, transformation is bad. =P

bird.5920: IF Tengu were ever released (and oh boy I do wish, I love me some bird people) I would delete my guardian (max level, don’t care) and make one of those. Also buy another slot for either a mesmer or necro. And for medium…maybe delete my engie or thief.

I would want one of each weight profession. Gimme my birds! :>

Bias highlighted in bold. =P

Rich lore? Warrior? Rogue? Priest? Magic-User (er, uh, Mage)? At least half the WoW roster is a rip-off of D&D anyway. XD Not that GW2 is treading any unique ground, conceptually.

cloudjsh has it right. You grab a roleplaying book for the world as much as the system itself.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Oh, and some popcorn too. You gotta have popcorn.

Jiffy-Pop, if they still make that stuff, so you can cook your popcorn over the fires of the burning HQ. =P

Interesting speculation, at least! Heart of Thorns doesn’t really capture a GW2 tabletop game book, though.

But I’d buy it. Because Six know I can write better characters than the biconics. (Not that it’s hard.)

nGumball.1283:

As many people hate Blizzard’s design decisions. While you are sitting here praising WoW and asking Anet to learn from them, many WoW players ask Blizzard to do the same.

And Blizzard has, in some small QoL areas. Irrelevant bitterness against the WoW aside, a good idea is a good idea, no matter who comes up with it.

Specific to traits, yes, GW2 would do well to learn from that one aspect and keep system updates separate from content/expansion goals. Considering that there is precedent, Feature Pack versus Living Story, I expect they’ll continue the trend anyway.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

I can promise you that if Anet did link any fix to the trait system to the new content and made that content paid while leaving those that don’t pay for it in limbo that I would not only walk away from the game, but i’d walk away from Anet. Such an idea would be so ill conceived and ill received that it would sink them, so I cannot fathom them actually doing that.

I’d also hope that they would float a fix BEFORE they try going live with HoT in any way shape or form simply because if it IS a new paid for expansion, I will not buy it unless this trait problem is fixed in a way that is well received by most.

If HoT is a paid expansion, I’m confident they’ll do a system pass either before or concurrent with it. Vital systems like Traits are universal to the game, so those would be handled independent of expansion. If they take any lessons from WoW, they’ll release the system/feature patch ahead of time, so players are acclimated to class changes before the content hits.

But that’s a lot of “if” statements, so all speculation.

Then again, it’s also ANet design decisions, so I’m not comforted that they wouldn’t kitten this up in some horrible fashion.

Whatever new class pops up, if any.
If not, warrior and/or elementalist.
Not mesmer. I have.. too many as it is. >_>

While I like the idea of the dailies and the reward system, it’s butting up against the flow of play.

Sunday, my guild was having a community event. My first response, “I’ll be there after SB.” That was 40 minutes away from spawning. Timing the guild event around a world boss was an intrusion on an otherwise good time.

Yesterday, the daily PvE batch was less than desirable. Luckily, I had WvW ruin capture to fall back on. But, the two most offensive from last night: Jormag and Caledon events.

The events one is obvious, just by looking back at prior feedback. We’d like that one changed.

But Jormag? Who doesn’t love beating down a world boss? (Lots of people, actually, but I digress.) The problem was, it was 2.5 hours away from when I logged in. There isn’t enough in this game anymore to keep me logged in for that long. And I still had to go to an external site to find the boss timer. I can’t stress how bad this is.

Two more examples of dissatisfaction:
Just breached 30 with a new engineer. Thinking about build options, I look and find … do something stupid in WvW. Not interested.
I also thought about buying a new slot for a character, so I can design around a look. Every time, I thought about the terrible trait design and the hope for a new one, so I’m not going to invest until it changes.

But, the issue with my Engi made me think.

While some might crow about “the manifesto,” wasn’t there a notion that rewards would be available through any style of play (WvW, PvP, PvE)? Not to say all rewards should be available in all modes, but traits should be something anyone can get from any mode.

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

naiasonod.9265:

I beat Ghosts ‘n Goblins on the NES when I was maybe 8 years old. Totally beat it. Cleared it, then cleared it again because that game pulls the biggest ’Sorry Mario, but your princess is in another castle’ move ever.

I’m willing to bet that very, very few of any of the chuckleheads crying for everything to be moar-harder could beat the first level.

Want harder, we could have have BattleHyleks as a fractal somewhere. :P

As long as we get to use the speeder bikes or whatever they were.

Sounds like support for mounts, right there. Careful, or the Tyrians Against Irritating Mounts Interest will come for you. =P

Windsagio.1340:

Basaltface.2786:

i guess high damage is just too confusing… oh well there goes 100 gold in runes…

Oh the hyperbole.

Might isn’t destroyed, it’s 15% less effective (give or take). Having a complete might stack is still massively valuable to any group content.

And given how much Might contributes to the typical ‘zerk set-up, it’s maybe a 3-5% loss on high-end damage. Some of the above comments are right; the Might shift hurts defense/healing (and condi in that regard) builds more than damage-optimized builds.

Still, that’s some hefty qq for what amounts to a little damage loss.

naiasonod.9265:

I beat Ghosts ‘n Goblins on the NES when I was maybe 8 years old. Totally beat it. Cleared it, then cleared it again because that game pulls the biggest ’Sorry Mario, but your princess is in another castle’ move ever.

I’m willing to bet that very, very few of any of the chuckleheads crying for everything to be moar-harder could beat the first level.

Want harder, we could have have BattleHyleks as a fractal somewhere. :P

CureForLiving.5360:

Mind you (and here comes the excuse) looking back at it the sprockets are pretty useless beyond a single back piece (well ok a single back piece with 4 or so proper skins and a bunch of inprogress skins)..

Runes of Perplexity, for those confusion-loving folk. I figure that’s why my sprockets still sell for 3 silver a piece. Imagine how bad the price of those would be if they went the way of Azurite.
>_>
Honestly, I’d be fine with a tool that rarely drops some of the forgotten materials, just to pad the trading post with them again.

Hayashi.3416:

On-kill effects only trigger on mobs that give experience, as a lazy coding solution of preventing effect stacking from killing ambient whites, and from stacking on killing nonstop-respawn mobs. Therefore all sigils, traits and skills of this type used on zero-experience mobs will not trigger.

As far as I know, this also includes the Vengeance and Illusion of Life effects in many cases.

This answers your ‘how’ question. As for why, that’s Anet’s job to answer.

So, assuming the code is intact, the easy counter to their solution is for instance mobs to give 1 XP. Not exactly worth farming at that point, but hopefully would trigger on-kill effects again.

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s a blog post. Also I did not see anywhere where that was the sole reason for it failing. From what I have seen, there were many others reasons on top of the lack of solo content for those that want to play an M M O but not with other players.

Like.. the art direction/execution, skill/AMP acquisition, heavy gates to get into end-game content…

At least we don’t have playable ogres and Kodan, where “shirt” is a “secondary sex characteristic” suitable for dimorphism.