Guild Wars 2

There’s stupid garbage like that all over. :\
Soldier. Dire. Celestial recipes. It’s so very irritating that they can’t even follow their own “discovery” system or provide the materials for stat combinations they created.

Yunielesca.2850:

So, there are people buying this…lol.

And I’ll probably buy one if I get a skritt mail carrier. …lol

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Gods, the thought of this is terrifying to me.

Echo that, Shadowflame.
I’m also willing to wager that the puzzle is, as usual, racist against Charr.

SilverWF.4789:

To be effective Direct DD I need what? Zerk gear. What gives me Zerker? Power, Precision and Ferocity – 3 stats what significantly affects my damage output. Does this stats affects Condi? Not.
So what affect Condi? Condition damage only. So, all DOTers have 2 free stats and basically everyone prefer TOU and VIT – defensive stats!
Basically, DOTers have lower DPS but much more survivability and this is fair.

Also, all DOTs already ignoring any kind of armor.

Or… You could get Power, Precision, and/or Ferocity. DOT skills still have a direct damage component, it’s just not as high as a direct damage build.

And the problem with PvE encounters is that they are frequently low in armor and high on HP, which dramatically reduces the effectiveness of having a condition build.

A bit time strapped, but still looking!

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Yeah, sounds gamebreaking.

But, but.. PAY2WIN!!1!
qq
Okay, sarcasm off. :P

I’ll have to give this feature a peek and pray for a Skritt version of it later.

I’m with you on this one.
Had there been a Tier 6 Node pack, I would easily have flung 800-1000 gems at it.

Instead, they want me to buy … 6 keys and get crap for it.

I can understand not rewarding ‘freeloader’ play by making all the rewards two blues and a green or shoddy RNG, but other games go out of their way to reward paying players with something decent.

Linken.6345:

Anyone know if you can block posters on the forum some posters make my head hurt

Devs, make this happen, please pretty please. There’s always a few at any given time that offer nothing but smug vitriol or inane demands.

Leming.8436:

Gonna continue my habit of eating warning points from mods:

Superior rune of kitten
(1) + 2 power
(2) + 2 ferocity
(3) + 5 ferocity
(4) + 100 power
(5) + 400 ferocity
(6) – you have 90% chance to BDSM dominate player with health under 10% of hp

…I think I need an adult.

Not sure if trolling or just inattentive to the actual issue at hand with that picture. :\

Trading gems for gold used to give a very exact amount of currency. Now it does not. So not only do we have ‘worthless’ gem amounts, but those who actually bought gems (and supported the game with cash money profit revenue) are getting short-changed.
As a consistent support of the game, this angers me.

It also discourages me from selling gems for gold. If enough people feel the same as I do, that’s going to result in higher gem prices (and gold sinks?) for everyone who buys gems with gold.

Sadly, without forty pages of outrage on this topic, I doubt we’ll see a change. This also angers me.

With all the texture warping, tail clipping, and horn-hiding, there are some days I feel like this picture.
Would it be too much to ask to have one person balance textures and add tail covers? I’ve seen a few armors add a cover where the tail meets the spine, and it serves as a great way to cover tail clipping issues.
And more pants. A race that runs on four legs should never be tripping over its own (racial) clothing.

It was the fluid gameplay and a great aesthetic that brought me in.

For all the faults in encounter design, the foundation is pretty darn good. (Condition damage caps aside…)

I like that the game is relatively low on commitment, so I can enjoy things at my pace without falling behind.

No, I don’t mean the e-sports sPvP stuff. I mean considerations for lore-appropriate sports teams in Tyria. Because it’s time for Crab Toss to go corporate!

Or something like that.

Anyway, each region would need a team, like:

The Hoelbrak Hurters
The Grove Dreamers
The Rata Sum R.E.K.T.s (Registered Experts Kindling Triumph)
The Black Citadel Irons (Because for some reason Steelers was taken)
The Divinity’s Reach Knights
…Logan has a position as running back.

-

Yup, that was all for the Logan joke.:P

Belzebu.3912:

When making my asura thief I tried to use my RL last name “Bardy” it kinda sounds like an asura name, but guess what, it was taken somehow … so I added an extra “d” and now my thief is called “Barddy”

That actually works better for an Asura. They have a tendency to have double-letters, so the second ‘d’ just seals it.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Here are some Dev responses concerning this issue:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Is-my-name-okay-or-should-I-change/first#post4333088

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Question-about-Trademark-Names/1540789/quote

There are more, if you wish to search for them. Good luck.

Ah, yes, that’s sufficient. Thanks!
Good that gets reiterated. I’m usually an original-character kind of person, so it wouldn’t affect me, but it was a question of curiosity.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Oh, and I much preferred the old Meta Achievement system per release, to Season Two’s. But, I’m probably waaay in the minority here. Lol.

But not alone!

I can understand why they did achievements the way they did. Sort of. I don’t mind some of the skill-based tasks, but they really, really need to include ways to run the previous content without sloughing through extensive story chatter.

And have achievements that aren’t “have stability one 100% of the fight and finish it in 30 seconds”. That’d be nice too. >_>

timmyf.1490:

I also love the Living Story. I just want twice as much of it or an expansion.

I love the idea of Living Story. And it’s had some good moments.
I wouldn’t need twice as much if it was twice as good. =P
Also, expansion = Tengu, so bring on the new box!

Kidding aside, I like that it keeps the content coming in small bursts. A few weeks into Draenor, and I’m already pre-raid geared, so I’m already hitting that cap of things to do. This is why expansions don’t quite cut it.

Cuddy.6247:

I was surprised that Angua Von Überwald (with the diaeresis) was taken at launch. I mean, Terry Pratchett books are pretty popular but I didn’t figure they’d be that popular to be a name taken pre-launch.

On the flipside to this kind of situation though, I did manage to get Angua, Cuddy and Kelirehenna as names in World of Warcraft and I thought that was pretty neat (albeit more famous characters like Vimes, Vetinari and Weatherwax were already taken).

To the flipside as well, I was able to get Rhynocerator pretty late in the game. I didn’t even think about it until I played R&C 3 again a few months ago.

That reminds me of two names I lost in WoW when I swapped servers: Rubicant (fire mage) and Daisoujou (Undead priest). I guess I’m not the only who remembers old/obscure gaming lore. =P
I’ll just assume they’re already taken in GW2.

Side note, I’m pretty sure people trying to get lore-appropriate Sylvari or Asura names must be tearing their hair out right now. :\

I couldn’t get Prince Charrming at launch.
Yeah, I know, terrible, obvious pun. =P
He was Prinz Charrming for a while, until I decided to get more lore appropriate. Remade him from the ground up as Chagra Fademist, and I’m much happier that way.
}}:3

I have to wonder how many of those popular-fiction names would get moderated into re-naming, though. Technically, those could be under “copyright” stuff. I wouldn’t mind a red-post answer to that, actually.

Considering we can dive into the water… not really necessary.

But we could have some Ascended cooking recipes with fish! And Bloodstone Dust.

Rash.6514:

It hasn’t been always like this. Let me give you a bit more background on why I am going to stop supporting the game with real money.

Before, we used to buy gold by setting the amount of gems we would like to trade and the game would give us the coins in gold, silver, copper. That is more fair because coins in the game are “float” numbers, like dollars in real life, while gems are integer. That essentially means you can’t trade 80.6 gems, it’s either 80 or 81. But that’s not the same for gold.

Using that conversion I mentioned on the first post, 1 gem = 13s12c

So if I had 10 dollars to spare, I would buy 80 gems and I could convert them all to gold if I wanted to. The game would give me 10g49s60c.
Now I need to buy a “rounded” number of gold. So 10 gold costs me 77 gems, but 11 gold costs me 84 gems, that’s more than I have.

Now I only have the option to spend 77 gems out of the 80 I bought, and I am left with 3 I can’t do anything with. UNLESS... I buy more gems with dollars or gold. My next 10 dollars purchase would put me at 83 gems which, considering the market fluctuation, could help me buy 11 gold.

So I feel like I am being robbed by ANet. I can’t spend all the gems I bought unless I spend more money on the game. I am not doing a formal accusation, of course, but ANet must have some economists in there working for them and balancing the TP. I can’t help but think that someone in ANet knew about this and approved it for evil purposes. So we would unconsciously spend more money on the game this way.

This is wrong, plainly wrong. I understand real money conversion and fees, Xiahou Mao. I work with this. What ANet is doing is just unfair. Rounding the gems on conversion is absolutely unfair. So I am done with supporting the game, unfortunately.

This, so many times. After such a huge urge to “fix” the conversion system, the one that exists now is an insult to those who would support the game with real money. It devalues the gems that I purchased, when I would normally be just fine putting the “remainder” gems from a 700/800 purchase back into gem market, keeping prices lower for those who convert gold into gems.

I’m less inclined to do that, now.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Please, if you are a new player, or even a vet player just leveling a new toon using the current trait system, PLEASE leave a comment here. Let the developers know how this system affects you.

I’ve been posting my thoughts as I’ve run a new character through this.
It hasn’t been pleasant. I ended up having to buy a trait because of the “make friends with ogres in WvW” crap. It’s not fun.

Otherwise, I’ve been doing everything on a plan:
100% this zone, even though I’m 9 levels lower.
Finish unfulfilling Personal Story step that’s 3 chapters ahead.
Wiki this jumping puzzle.
Accidentally stumble on this out-of-the-way event thread that ends in a champ.

It hasn’t been fun, and it doesn’t engage me. It hinders me. I can’t even re-recommend my friend back to the game, because the trait system is so bad. He was in a prime position to become an active player for a while and I turned him away. I had to un-recommend another friend who might have enjoyed it with me, again because the trait system is terrible and unwieldy.

Don’t hold us hostage by keeping traits behind jumping puzzles and WvW. We’ll do them when we’re interested. Heck, put duplicate trait challenges in WvW, and you’ll actually make the WvW crowd smile a little, instead of giving them the finger by making them drag their hind ends through PvE stuff they don’t want.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

….or you know….. we could have more “armor.”

Maybe some more pants instead of all the men wearing a dress/skirt all the time would be pretty cool too.

Especially for Charr.

Conncept.7638:

Your descriptions are about as honest and unbiased as a Fox political correspondent.

ftfy~

Really though, the list of topics has been done to death, and they’re all things that won’t be resolved until ANet decides to include it. Because even saying they won’t doesn’t mean that policy won’t change down the line.

If the “pro” side looks sparse, well.. it is. I’ve seen much more elaborate arguments for the various requested features, but they do boil down to “this feature would be cool/useful/fantastic/bring people back to the game/interesting.” And that’s not wrong. We want the game to be interesting. Opposing that requires more finesse, and therefore, more verbiage.
Granted, most of the “con” reasons are “that would unbalance gameplay/economy/player attitudes/development allocation/resources,” so… yeah, I could go either way on presentation.

Sindex.9520:

Can I ask why your pro’s are short sighted by a couple of words? All the while your negative are verily detailed on their reasoning. It kind of makes things look more slanted in one direction, because of this format. For instance the line in your pro’s to which you repetitively use “that other game has it,” tells us jack diddly squat on why that argument should even be considered. In the end it just seems negative stance get more argumentative attention, which is a biased angle towards GW2 keeping it’s status-quo. Which in all honestly I beg to differ because the game is far from perfect.

In most of the cases, the pros are actually very simple, for good or for ill. There isn’t much reason to argue for a proposed feature, since they could be good for gameplay or quality of life.
The cons have to be more elaborate to justify why it’s not a good idea to add these features in. I can see why it would seem slanted, especially when the pro side items are “this would be cool” and “other game has it,” but those aren’t inherently bad reasons. :P

Sariel V.7024:

Time to update my game rules.

You just did a /drink x 15 combo, didn’t you? You either ran out of booze or suffered alcohol poisoning. =P

Really though, it’s a pretty accurate list.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Mesmer clones actually dealt damage with their autoattack.

I would love to see clones to better damage. They seem to do about 1%, which is completely zero in low level. Starting around 3% each but lowering weapon damage a little would make having clones worth using, however briefly. Or don’t even lower weapon damage for it. >_>
And apply some motion AI to them, so they stop standing in fires or so they can slowly kite their target.

Ah, wishful thinking. :\

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I’m not impossible to satisfy, as the only two things I really want have already been in game:

1) A decent trait system.
2) SAB worlds 1 and 2.

While other things would be nice, I don’t ask for or demand them.

Is it sad that some of the best content/features we want as players are the things they took from us in the first place? :\

So, I heard some crowing about adding Anise’s dress to the gem shop.
Think maybe we can get that for the males too, pet?

Leo G.4501:

I’m probably one of those considered demanding since I make proposals for new changes or additions more than I post about current content. I try not to sound demanding and most of the time when I post ideas, I don’t expect it to be added.

And since I don’t really demand, the devs could simply not add the stuff I want. I can just not play if I don’t like what they do add.

Suggestions are good! It’s okay, and helpful, to make suggestions.

It’s the legion of “im bored nothing to do were iz content” that isn’t helpful.

So keep on making recommendations.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Rauderi.8706:

Prophet.6257:

Release a full expansion and you will satisfy a HUGE percentage of the player base.

For two weeks. =P
A month, tops, if they ever release an actual expansion. The content locusts will never be happy.

^^ This ^^

There were players complaining about nothing to do inside a month from the launch of GW2. The only way a new area would be as extensive as the original game would be if they opened up all of Elona. Cantha was quite small by comparison with the continent GW2 is set on.

=P I’m trying not to be totally negative about it, at least.

A lot of what people want for content is either story (takes a while to produce) or a sense of progression in their gameplay. Depending on how it’s done, it can feel like an unrewarding grind, which is where GW2 seems to put itself too often.

Sai.5908:

It’s ok to play another MMO behind Guild Wars , I also play WoW along with Guild Wars , nothing wrong there . As for Final Fantasy , I quit that game since every character looked too cartoony , the game was great but I just did not connect with the game .

Play WoW, but FF14 is too cartoony?
Irony. (I tease because I love. =P)

Though, I do like the relatively sincere aesthetic for GW2. It’s not grimdarkgritty like Warhammer was (past tense, dead game, lol) or ESO, but it doesn’t abuse bright and shining color palettes like WoW or FF14.
GW2 is refreshingly free of visual distraction. …Except in zergmob boss fights. >_>

Prophet.6257:

As with everything it will only hold players attention as long as it is entertaining. GW2 offered a good year of replayability before too many people started complaining about no new content. GW1 had similar results and as they started to release the expansions players were satisfied. It also gave players hope knowing that in the near future a new chunk of Tyria would become available.

Without a doubt though it would be met with more positivity than the current model. Not saying LW doesn’t have its place in GW2 just not as the main engine for content.

Certainly a reasonable assessment. Even with WoW, they learned very early not to give their entire expansion in one go. (lol Burning Crusade) Instead, they eke it out in various patches over 18 or so, roughly 3 or 4 major content patches.
It’s a reasonable parallel to the way Living Story has been released, and I think that’s a good thing.
As a it is, Season 2 has given us Dry Top and Silverwastes, which isn’t bad. Comparatively, the 2-year wait for Warlords gave WoW 6-7 new zones, and a few of them don’t feel optimally used. Dynamic events give GW2 more density in each zone, so I can see that working.
For GW2, a new zone every four or five months could put the game on par with expansion-based games.

If anything, my complaints are more on the subpar writing and having to endure it to get the challenge achievements. :\

But, otherwise …did I just compliment GW2? I do believe I did.

Prophet.6257:

Release a full expansion and you will satisfy a HUGE percentage of the player base.

For two weeks. =P
A month, tops, if they ever release an actual expansion. The content locusts will never be happy.

I think what would help is a dynamically created dungeon with scaling difficulty. No attempt at story, like Fractals, just an old-fashioned dungeon crawl with enemies that have varying abilities.
Of course, even that would only last for as long as it would be rewarding.

IcarusMelody.5312:

Man I wish leveling via dungeons wasnt largely looked down upon in GW2 without needing your lvl80 to do everything first before swapping out. I liked the challenge that was in dungeons at the level you unlocked them at. Folks have runned them so many times though that most have zero patience for it :x

Yeah, I really do consider the dungeon communities in FF14 and GW2 to be racing each other to the bottom. And that’s really sad, because GW2 has an easy way to start dungeon groups. It’s keeping them together and insured against trolls that’s the problem. :\

Ashen.2907:

Rauderi.8706:

I sometimes hold myself back during events so that other people can tag mobs in low-level zones.

Yeah, I’ve taken the approach of waiting until mobs are half health or so before starting to attack.

I like the idea of downscaling so that all content is (in theory) available for play at max level. I do wish that the system worked better.

Then again I understand the concerns raised by Sorudo as well. I think that this is one of those kitten ed if you do and kitten ed if you don’t situations.

I do consider it a perk for being higher level, even if I get downgraded. It means I don’t completely invalidate the event.

And thankfully GW2 isn’t like FF14 about down-scaling. FF14 makes you drop your skills. >_> Could you imagine doing a level 8 event with only, what, 3 weapon skills and maybe one utility? /cry

Ashen.2907:

sorudo.9054:

the one thing i DON’T like about GW2 is exactly what the OP sees as a good thing, scaling.
i don’t want my lvl 60 character to feel like a starter character, it needs to feel like i actually am stronger then the rest.
overleveling is a part of a level system such as this, scaling ppl down diminishes the joy and reason of levels and shows that they can just as much remove levels and start using a non-level system.

i rather overlevel then be kicked down just because i am in a lower level area, i think that’s one of the reasons why GW2 feels so empty and distant compare to, let’s say, SW:ToR.
i level to become more powerful, if i reach a certain level it needs to matter.

When I take my level 80s to low level zones they one or two shot everything. I generally don’t need to dodge or use my self heal,. I can aggro far more foes than was the case when my characters were at level for the zone. In every way my character is much more powerful than was the case at level for these zones. I feel bad when dailies put me in events in low level zones because 80s are so much more powerful than lower level characters that its not uncommon to see lower level characters struggle to participate.

It really feels as if the only way max level characters in low level zones could be more powerful relative to the local mobs than is already the case would be for the mobs to faint and die just from looking at the characters.

Truth. Since the NPE hit, the mobs are absolutely no match for characters outside their level range. I sometimes hold myself back during events so that other people can tag mobs in low-level zones.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

If they wanted to take some of the existing pve maps and stick them in the mists as ‘battle fields’ and allow 20 or so people (10v10? 5v5v5v5?) to run around beating on each other, go for it. That’s fine. Just keep the pvp in the mists….and out of my pve.

That could do wonders for quasi-WvW or PvP.

I call dibs on ransacking the Grove~

Kidding aside, they could take city maps and make “invasion” PvP scenarios. Imagine leading a Flame Legion boss through the Black Citadel, and having to decide on engaging NPC forces to free them up for a larger invasion force or making a burst toward the Imperator’s core.

The actual map assets are already done, so it’s just a matter of populating it and setting the various sides.

That’s a big no on this one.

But, if the idea ever did come to GW2, I would hope that a PKer gets sent to prison for doing it. =P
Also, reading trials on ArcheAge is hilarious. Apparently, people don’t watch Judge Judy; if you talk smack, you get a swift Guilty verdict. XD

Zoid.2568:

ArcheAge would be better if it didn’t have the labor system.

It also has a terrible, but lauded, crafting system. =P
At least GW2 let me make stuff as I leveled.

Really though, the Labor Points thing is just a way to force a subscription so you can be a Sponsor. …Yay, free-to-play. After ArcheAge, I don’t wanna hear anyone complain that GW2 is a money-grab.

phys.7689:

graphics/style. yeah ffxiv style is way better. I like some gw stuff, but even with an insane amount of flashy armor, it all still seems pretty unified, and the gear looks kitten good. But, GW2 is pretty good overall.

I miss Limsa Lominsa so much. :\
That area was gorgeous, and I adored the sound score.

…Which is another thing I miss about 14 over GW2. GW2 has some notable pieces and I like them, but FF14 draws me in more. I even ported various combat music to GW2 to enhance my play experience.

Rather in depth post from the OP.
I have to disagree about the crafting, though. To echo an earlier post:

Crafting – I’m sorry you feel that way about FFXIV’s crafting system. I for one found it to be incredibly deep. When you are crafting something, you feel like each item you make was really tailored by you with all the options you have during the process of crafting it. In GuildWars 2, you buy a recipe, get the mats, hit “Craft”. Kinda boring IMO.
Also, Final Fantasy XIV has fishing

Not that we need “fishing” as a skill in GW2. We can swim and go get them.

I ended up quitting FF14 because it wasn’t very friendly at end-game. The dungeon-grind culture and speed-run nature of it, along with /ugh, DPS queues, it ruined my last few story dungeons.
Lesson to all MMO devs: Do not mix story cutscenes with dungeons. Save it for the end.

But I digress. =P
FF14’s crafting is far superior. It takes it seriously and it doesn’t try to play cutesy hiding games with what I can do. There is synergy between all the crafting classes, and, in the end, you can do anything.
It does take up a ton of space, so GW2 wins for convenience, by far.

Then again, FF14 has minions. Don’t want to farm materials? Make your minions do it.

Rebound.3409:

All i know is i am getting tired of this “Silvari Wars 2” game. Bunch of over-glorified cabbages.

Too right. I started off hating them as plant-elves, actually grew to like them for their refreshing outlook on life, but now I’m just tired of them. Very tired.

Hey peeps? Writers? There’s Norn. Make them interesting. For once.

UnitedChaos.8364:

Zaklex.6308:

I don’t get it, you don’t need to know how to make every single stat combo in the game as a crafter, you only need to learn the ones that you want to use…unless you plan on crafting for an entire guild or crafting and selling, which is really a losing proposition for the most part. What’s the point of wiking nomenclature, when you go to craft something, it tells you the stat combos, do you really need to know the name before you craft it? Aren’t you crafting for stat combos and not name?

The point is to open up all possible combinations. As of right now, there are only a few combinations and the names dondon’t reveal much about what it is, ex. Nomad.

It’s not about the name, but if you wanted a Precision, Vitality, a healing Power weapon. What would you craft? Chances are you end up on the wiki. But if you knew: I need one major Precise inscription and two minor Vital and Rejuvinating inscriptions, it would be super easy.

Think of all the combinations though.

A method of picking one’s stats would free up design space as well.
Instead of one ingredient for each prefix/suffix, leading to needing an ever-expanding list of materials (quartz, amberite, etc), we would only need one for every stat and perhaps the Celestial inscription. Eleven total, unless I’m missing something interesting.

We wouldn’t have to suffer with zone-grinding to get the “new, special” inscriptions and insignias that have a limited usefulness, and we definitely wouldn’t have to put up with Soldier/Dire’s outright insulting method of needing to find and salvage Soldier/Dire pieces in order to get the inscription.

Stooperdale.3560:

hybrid.5027:

What else do you balance on? The suggestions I made impact pvp and wvw the least since it would be easy to make condis OP. there is no balance in open world PvE since there is no challenge. Instanced pve is the only pve worth balancing on.

Instanced PvE is fine to balance with. Speed running is not. These forums are full of speed runners. The real game has a wider variety of players who a variety of different things.

Balancing with speed runners in mind helps all condi-build players. It’s limiting to think in terms of “the one token condi guy” on a speed-clear team, but that has more to do with condition caps than other issues with condition builds. But that condition cap isn’t going anyway anytime soon without a major technical overhaul, so it’s better to find ways to work around it.

Based on what I’ve seen of opinions from the speed-run subpopulation, an optimized condition build character doesn’t turn out as much damage as a full-zerk power character. Even in concept that just seems wrong to me, since the point of a DoT build is to do more damage but require time to execute it. So it’s not terribly incorrect to account for meta-level play.

gemboj.6203:

Same goes for buffs. Why does we have full dmg berserk meta in pve? Because there is no need for any tank (it’s even hard to be a tank without any aggro mechanism or ability to distract enemy bosses thanks to defiance) nor there is need for supports, when a team of 5 berserks can do just fine with some fire fields and blast finishers. There are TOO MANY boons available to certain professions and builds, that shouldnt be there.

Going to save you from getting lambasted on this one.
The reason why there’s a zerker meta is because of the number of boons. Active defense, vigor, aegis, in some cases protection, they all contribute to survivability. It’s a skill/synergy play that works for high risk/high reward strategies.

But, to get back on track, a fair portion of the game’s anti-condition bias can be resolved on the enemy’s side. More armor, less HP. It won’t affect PvP, where conditions do just fine.
Theoretically, if enemies attacked faster, that could increase the effectiveness of confusion and give players more reasons to mitigate damage. The latter portion’s for a different thread, of course.

I’m glad to see Torment in the condition rotation, though. It forces a strategic choice on the target to move or not move, similarly how confusion forces a choice between acting or not acting, and it encourages ranged tormentors to stay on the move so their target follows. Taking the damage load off of bleeding helps a ton as well.

Still, that doesn’t really answer the condition cap issue. I’ve been idly working on modeling something that might be a solution for it, but I don’t quite have realistic numbers to display it.

Oh, I thought this was about using a Norn as a trident. I could just see a trident skin with a Norn holding his hands up in trident position, blurble-drowning a phrase about hunting or drinking to each of my underwater skills.
Got my hopes up. =P

I’m suddenly having flashbacks to Starbound and its lantern-on-a-stick item. o_O

Which would be really useful for GW2.

Ooh, or maybe something for “Ascended” jewelcrafting: Ascended grade gems (ie, minor stat boost) that has non-combat effects like light radius.

phoenix.3465:

Why such a complicated mess, that needs a PvP/PvE split? The advantage of conditions is that they ignore armor, that’s also why vulnerability shouldn’t work for them. Simplest solution would be to increase enemies armor and decrease enemies health. That’s why conditions work better in PvP.
Then there’s still the problem of weakness, poison and chill not having all effects on monsters that they have on other players, but that’s not about damage.

Thanks to hybrid for putting some new and in-depth thought to the condition issue.

Seeing a few simple issues that can be resolved would actually make a big difference for PvE.

I can agree with having fewer, stronger stacks, especially for bleeding, which is where most condition damage happens. Seeing a greater shift toward more Torment on some weapons has eased the burden on bleed stacking, but it’s still too easy to net 10-20 stacks from one condition-oriented character.
It raises the question that if they can create a new condition without their system falling apart, could they make a parallel to bleeding that does the same thing (low damage, longer durations) and still have their system be stable?

As phoenix pointed out, a simple balance pass for PvE mobs could do wonders for bringing condition builds up without touching the overall game balance. It won’t solve the condition cap issue, and it may not be optimal, but a blanket statement of “you, intern-minion, go raise the armor values on all the monsters by 20% and lower their HP by 15%” is relatively low cost to execute.

Crossplay.2067:

I would need to see the logistics behind the “special snowflake” mindset because I can’t imagine it would be profitable. A handful of players may love it but, in order to keep those players, you have to deny others the ability to buy the same item later. I imagine catering to the others would be more profitable.

“Limited time only” is a very well-studied marketing tool. It’s smarmy, but it works.

Also, other MMOs and raiding? Totally “special snowflake.” It’s a special snowflake that requires skill and organization, but you can bet a majority do it for the shiny gear at the end of it. It’s a bit of extra proof that people want to be special snowflakes.