Guild Wars 2

To (quasi-)mathematically reiterate the point:

Say, for example, Achievement Points and “investment or care in-game” are highly correlated, 80%. (That’s really dang good in metrics.)
80%, Awesome.

Now, that same construct “investment” relates to “skill”. Again, assuming great correlation, 80%

That leaves, at best, a 64% correlation between AP and “skill”.

But we’re not interested in “skill.” We want fast dungeon runs. So, assuming yet another awesomely fantastic 80% correlation, we’re down to 51% chance of assuming AP yields a positive speedrun result. At best. 51%.

Now, factor out that AP also includes PvP and WvW, we’ll assume 1/3 with some overlap for “skill”, since it’s still time in game. Waffle it at a generous .75 instead of .66. Then factor out holiday achievements and caps for daily, monthly, holiday, or LS1 achievements, because those are either pointless grinds are lolzergfests. Well, that’s about half the game so… table that at .60.

So, before we even reassert the calculation, AP is more realistically (by pure fluff estimation) a 45% indicator “dungeon investment”. Apply two layers of separation at high correlation coefficients, and 45% becomes 28.8%.

That. Is. Terrible. for using as a measure of success.

It’s better to stick with “Lv80 full zerk experienced only please” and leave it at that.

Hooking onto a point here. If 5k is better than 1k, and 15k is better than 5k, what’s the relationship? Linear? Curvolinear? Inversely logarithmic?

Assuming AP can accurately be used as a measure of anticipated dungeon speed, what is the cut-off? 2000? 5000? 10,000?

How much better is 5k over 10k? Is the expected gain of 5k over 2k 40%? 10%?
Is getting a 15k member like adding on an Ascended helm? Minimal gain over the more common 5k and just as good, barring a negligible 3-5% increase in efficiency that could be wasted by waiting for “better” people to come along?

Should all AP-groups actually be looking for “Dungeon Master” titles be shown instead, for relevance?

As it is, I’m just not seeing any real thought put into this, solely on the basis of “it’s the best we have.” The best we had was also a flat earth, which worked until we stopped living our lives in 8 square miles of our birth homes.

KarateKid.5648:

I’d rather have NOTHING in the upper right hand corner at all, because it’s distracting as it is, BUT, you could steal the Achievement tracking feature (select to track in upper right) for those who want it up on screen.

I’m not particularly bothered by the size of the tracker, but it would be nice to have more robust options in what we can track, and keeping it off the API would keep clutter down.

Xenon.4537:

I really think the only reason Anet is toying with removing waypoints is because it would get our attention. Mission successful. They wanted to get people worried and speculating about a topic that actually feels like it means something. The ability to travel is one of the most tangible things in the game. Just like destroying Lions Arch and rebuilding it, so too will the waypoint system be compromised and fixed later. It’s just a plot device they are using to affect us. It has nothing to do with adding mounts.

Y’know, wrecking and rebuilding LA actually made it more convenient. Just sayin’.

What if the waypoint scare is a way to introduce an improved waypoint system that better fits an expanding Living Story world? Total speculation and wishful thinking, but it’d be right nice.

I would love to have something in the notification board for world bosses and map icons for everything going on in the zone. I’d prefer if I were the one to decide “can I get there in time”, especially if the event completion percentage was also posted.
It would really help me participate and check a few tick marks on daily/monthly event achievements.

Bonus, it would keep me from camping the Junkyard for event credit (>_>") and would answer a lot of those “Train?” questions in map chat.

Xenon.4537:

For the record, I’m not adamant against cosmetic mounts. I don’t like them, but I wouldn’t lose my mind if they had some. The problem is when people ask for a mount, they almost always follow up with that small voice…

“Please sir, may I have a small speed buff?”

Followed up by more speed buffs, followed by crafting even better mounts that have more armor and run faster, followed by this that and the other until it snowballs into world of warcraft GIGANTIC mammoth mount with 3 vendors riding shotgun and runs 210% faster than pedestrians. And then you see a guild of kittens parking those giant monstrosities on top of the trading post so you cant see a thing. Oh and in order for me to keep up with those people I have to grind 9001 hours getting thousands of gold and mats for something the game didn’t need in the first place because the environment is already designed in a very specific way to work without mounts.

>_> I still say that mammoth was the best purchase I ever made in WoW.

Thanks for the game design perspective, Xenon. It does mean that we have a lot of questions to ask if there are ever going to be, or not be, mounts.

Though, I did see someone’s tunneling last night. I got a giggle out of it and almost, almost considered getting one.

Ugh. Just ugh. As someone who actually studied metrics and statistics, the “logic” here is simply offensive.

First of all, the OP doesn’t even define what kind of “skill” is being sought. I’m going to assume that the “skill” being talked about here is to justify using it as a criterion for dungeon runs. It’s a horrible attempt at PR and the question is framed poorly to begin with.

AP is a point structure that rewards the completion of tasks. Any tasks: dailies, dungeons, story/festival events, PvP, WvW… The list goes on. A variety of task completion could be considered “experience.” Experience is a correlation of skill. So, even if we declare AP as a direct measure of experience, it is still only a correlation to skill, and we have no measures of what skill means, since it has not been defined. If we do define skill as dungeon/fractal running competence, then the relationship between AP and dungeon speed is spurious. There are too many other point sources as a part of AP, too many factors contributing to variance, that AP cannot be trusted as a measure of “skill” in that case.

From the other direction the null hypothesis states that AP is not a measure of skill. Thus, it would be on the onus of those requesting AP as a measure to prove that it is, in fact, a valid human resources measure, beyond anecdotes subject to an availability heuristic.

So far, I have not seen any statistical data on either side. There have been no experiments done, no reliability measures taken of AP in relation to skill constructs, or any interaction effects between AP, class, and gear loadout. There haven’t been any mentions of practice effect or false positives/negatives, either.

Conclusion, AKA tl;dr, Science or go home.
#srsbznz

Okay, it’s not really serious business, it’s just a game. Just getting a little sick and tired of the well-practiced (I can’t justify using the word “elite”) set using weak logic for exclusionary purposes.

Which is immediately countered by the common sense notion: If you don’t want them and they don’t want you, just leave it be and make your own group. It’s just how people want to play, get loot, and unwind. There’s no need to defend it.

Sorry, Kyano. XD
I was helping someone with their name, cuz I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. I listed most of them before, but I might as well put them all down (until I make another one~).

Spaiten Maluscrack (canon, in game it’s just Spaiten Malus, because puns and I didn’t know what lore names were like back then), Warrior, Blood Legion
Chagra Fademist, Mist warband, Mesmer, Ash Legion
Kyril Callmist, Mist warband, Necromancer, Ash Legion
Slade Blackstripe, Black warband, Thief, Iron Legion
Garus Trailforge, Forge warband, Ranger, Iron Legion retired
Eidol Thundersoul, Thunder warband, Ranger, Blood Legion

+1 swiss cheese comment.

“Big *” just sounds a bit flippant, really.

Astral Projections.7320:

Charak.9761:

he’s also the worst partner… oh you’re meleeing down these mobs? let me just shield knock them away

jerk.

They should add another NPC who is a longbow ranger. They can take turns knocking mobs back. ^^

…/twitch
My flamethrower engi friend does this to me ALL THE TIME while I’m in melee.
/twitchtwitch

If we weren’t the laughing stock before, the number of "Xxgokuxx"* names that are popping up specifically because of that hairstyle is really, really irritating.

*not an actual name I’ve seen, just one I’d expect to see in any other MMO to highlight how inappropriate it is.

Lil Puppy.5216:

I can’t wait to be able to “DISCOVER” future recipes, not get them from some chest that some unlucky adventurer before me lost in the wilderness or attempting to bribe Zomoros to give me his blessings.

Ditto for Celestial weapons. Seriously, it’s like they abandoned their precious “discovery” system right after launch. I didn’t even like it in the first place.

loseridoit.2756:

OP, I think you misunderstand. In this game, the best support is a dead enemy. Maximizing dps is important

Anet nerf the hammar by including things such as defiance.

And the nerfs continue by ANet dropping the damage on the hammer skills without giving anything back to it. The one hammer trait, nerfed and it wasn’t good to begin with. Huge damage drop on the heavy-CC skills.

I love hammer, it was what brought me to the class, but it’s pretty clear the devs hate it and won’t design encounters or balancing with hammer in mind.

Zalani.9827:

This topic will never die out I swear. It’s undead by this point lol.

I will find this mount-thread’s phylactery and destroy it! Then the Lichmount will be forever vanquished!

Until, y’know, the next mount thread.

cakesphere.5910:

Please tell me what adding mounts when we have waypoints accomplishes other than redundancy that pulls dev time away from more worthwhile endeavours

Go on, I’ll wait

The only decent argument I’ve heard is cosmetic goldsink. The rest I don’t see a need for. Could be I’m spoiled by my Discipline/Warhorn warrior, cruising along the plains of Tyria like a very noise gazelle.

JustTrogdor.7892:

The tools were originally soul bound on equip. Anet made a compromise by making them account bound thus taking a loss in tools sold. Those who had multiple of the same tool got gem refunds. I think the current system is fair. If you want the connivence of having tools on alts without going to the bank then buy multiple tools. There has to be a line drawn some place. Anet is not a not for profit organization.

Which makes me wonder what the metrics are on people who buy multiples. Because you know ANet loves metrics.

Really though, I wonder if they could develop a new standard of items at that point:

The truly infinite pick/sickle/axe set: Account-wide convenience for all your characters. On next log-in, each will receive a mail with the infinite use tool you selected.

Special tools: Since there’s so much murmur about the Watchwork pick (“unfair!” “pay to win!”), release special tools that have better bonuses, like giving year-round access to limited-time items (Candy Corn Sickle? Snowflake Axe?) or a higher chance of rare gathers (hidden troves, extra hits?). These would be the account-bound, single-character items.

Seeing as GW2 is already the most convenient MMO ever, I’d consider these just bonuses. I do just fine with my infinite use set as is.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I can imagine how jealous some of the charr can get of those who have the freedom to raise their own kids (basically any Charr living in a village or at Lion’s Arch).

“Every time I get that feeling, I just remind myself of the bawling and the stench.”
-paraphrased from a Blood Legion guard. =P

RyuDragnier.9476:

Thinking on this, they really should have gone all out when it came to the trait rework, not a mess like this. The traits SHOULD have unlocked as you play through the game normally depending on what you do and how you play your class (meaning most class traits require specific actions), starting when you unlocked traits for the first time (level 30 in this case). It would turn from the mess it is now into a case of pure brilliance as how you played would equal what you got. Below is an example using just the traits in the Thief Shadow Arts traitline and the Engineer Tools traitline to illustrate how I would make it work.

Shadow Arts
I Master of Deception: Use Deception type skills 30 times.
II Slowed Pulse: Suffer the Bleeding condition 100 times.
III Shadow Protector: Give 100 allies stealth.
IV Shadow’s Embrace: Use Hide in Shadows 20 times.
V Infusion of Shadow: Use stealth 100 times.
VI Cloaked in Shadow: Use Blinding Powder 30 times while in combat.
VII Power Shots: Kill 100 enemies with a Shortbow or Harpoon Gun.
VIII Hidden Thief: Steal while in Stealth 100 times.
IX Leeching Venoms: Use 200 charges of Skelk Venom.
X Patience: Spend a total of 3000 seconds in stealth (meaning over all stealth uses)
XI Shadow’s Rejuvenation: Use Shadow Refuge 200 times.
XII Venomous Aura: Use Venom skills 1000 times.
XIII Resilience of Shadows: Get hit in stealth 1000 times.
snip

You just made my friggin’ day with that idea. The numbers need a bit of tweaking, but that’s one kitten of a first draft.

Gimli.9461:

Unless you have their code, you cannot state one way or the other whether a change would be difficult or easy. It depends on how they coded that piece, they might have coded it badly, they might have coded it well. I am not making any statements here as to how easy or complicated it’d be to make the change, I am just suggesting they make the change.

Worst case scenario, they either:

A – Search purchase histories for tool purchases and distribute them per character, similar to the deluxe package rewards.

B – Have to do another swap-at-vendor like they did for the soulbound-to-accountbound exchange, then make them available via another method (like the chest reward panel).

Neither one is particularly hard.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Most do Rauderi. There are a few Charr who prefer raising their kids themselves, though they’re considered odd by Charr society. And then you have those brilliant Charr in Lion’s Arch (pre-destruction), who think so out of the box that one thought about starting a fahrer to teach kids of all races in LA.

D=
I’m sad I missed hearing that! Then even the little mewling human cubs could learn to be psychotic kill machines.

I still haven’t run across much on Charr mating/pairing, though. Anyone spotted a wiki or something with that aspect of their culture in it?

Not sure about the marriage.
Kids get shipped off to military school. It’s like they’re efficiency experts in all aspects of life. }]:3

Beldin.5498:

…
But for some reasons it seems a lot of those “make this MMO exacly like the MMO i played before” thread are from ex WoW players.
Was the same in RIFT with “giff Damage-Meter” and “give Addons” and all that stuff.

And those players often also think that WoW was the first MMO ever and has invented everything .. heck even Tolkien has stolen the Orks from WoW.

Else we should normally not talk about WoW clones but about EQ clones, since WoW has stolen nearly everything from EQ .. even their devs for raids.

Three responses to my previous, and this is the only one that gets it. =P
Highlighting common arguments does not endorse them, just sayin’.

And psh, WoW didn’t steal orcs from Tolkein. They stole them from Warhammer when Warhammer said “no thanks” to the developers. Bet they’re kicking themselves now, especially after Warhammer Online failed. Did that one have mounts? I don’t know, because it was so boring I never got past “Chapter 2.”

[/digress]

Anyway, it’s been in a dozen threads before as to the why and why not. GW2 doesn’t need them. No need for anti-othergame vitriol, the primary point is there.

DJRiful.3749:

I don’t want to spend 20min to travel.

This is literally the case.
Moonglade to Thunder Bluff: 10 minute flight.
#neveragain

Destai.9603:

I suppose that may be why humans lost to the Charr, they couldn’t ride a horse into battle. Meanwhile, Charr have tanks in their capital. That’s lore driven. By your logic, it’d be more okay to add that than a horse.

…I’d pay gems for a tank. >_>

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

There is really no valid argument for “no mounts” but for some reason the topic is a knee jerk hot button here.

A few reasons:

“This isn’t WoW.”
“Waypoints are good enough.”
“This is the n+15th thread on mounts, make it stop.”
“Mounts aren’t lore-appropriate.”
“Mounts would unbalance the game, especially WvW.”
“Frameratezerg omg mounts everywhere all the time annoying.”
“Mounts will be Gem Store and Pay-to-Win.” (It’s not pay to win. If you’re going to use that term, use it properly. -_-)

And so on. All of which are countered in one way or another. (Except the 3rd one. Really, can it please stop? :|) The terrain isn’t even well suited for mounts. Anyone who plays a Charr knows what I’m talking about. =P

I don’t mind the idea of mounts, but they aren’t necessary.

Would they be a fantastic gold sink? If done properly, yes.
Would they be useful in areas with frequently locked waypoints? Yes.
Would (some) people enjoy them? Sure!

Is it worth production cost to include them? ….eeeeh, maybe not.
Considering they can’t even get traits or Legendary crafting or Ascended crafting right, could we even trust them to get a mount system right?
No.
grumpycat.jpg

HiddenNick.7206:

And some are just annoying.

And that’s the crux, isn’kitten For some, the things posed as “challenges” in GW2 (and many other games) are really just surviving a layer of irritations. They’re not fun, just annoying or “cheap.”

It’s about engagement. As someone said above, the player “had to think to overcome,” which means the player was engaged. There was efficacy in play. That kind of efficacy gets removed when some players look at achievement requirements and think:

That mechanic is inconsistent with the rules of the game.
That mechanic is “cheap” and unfair.
That was designed for a very specific play style or character.

And that all leads to a “game is cheating” mentality that is frequently the opposite of engaging. But, if it’s always the same old encounters arrayed differently, it’s still going to get boring, so the devs have to come up with new mechanics, new tricks, and new situations to get the player thinking again. And it’s very hard to come up with that kind of balance. Better to err on the side of caution than get a huge blowback from frustrated players.

tl;dr – One person’s “annoying” is another person’s “fun,” so… yeah, who cares if the achievements are on the easy side for some people?

Azhure.1857:

Question, which is a little off topic, but how bad would it be if they removed auto-attack too? The worst offense would be to those players that are suffering from overuse or injury in their hands… But would it be effective in staving off afk autoattackers or 1 spamfests?

Eeeeeh, sorry but no. I was ticked off enough in the WildStar beta when I had to sit there and click (and click and click and click) for each and every attack. And with no rotation to occupy through (games with rotations have very weak auto-attacks so.. yeah), auto attack is kinda vital to my sanity and keeping my mouse intact.

Calys Teneb.7015:

Seras.5702:

Haha I’m sure OP meant Daphne

And he’s bang on too

Actually, you could say that Rox = Scooby Doo & Frostbite = Scrappy Doo

SCRAPPY DOO

NEVER

HAPPENED.

Just gonna leave this here: http://youtu.be/LsoEqodRImY?t=29s

There is nothing wrong with the players. This goes back to what’s wrong with Anet and this game. Rewards have always been way out of line with the time/effort required to obtain them.

In my opinion it’s the biggest single reason why people have left this game. There is no sense of reward here, and this silky sand garbage points this out in the worst way.

This.

The sand takes up room in inventory, relies on a despised RNG, and often gives absolutely nothing. There is nothing wrong with having a guaranteed but low-value reward to keep people invested in what they’re doing.
But, I’m going to assume someone misread a chapter on variable reward systems in Psych 101 and insisted that sand (and BL lion chests, honestly) should be this way.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

Hm I think a strawpoll could help

Voted for “I don’t even bother doing them”, but would’ve voted for “I don’t do them because they’re wearisome” if that option existed.

I would’ve voted for “I don’t even bother doing them because the story is a cheesegrater to my psyche,” but I didn’t see it there.

Please!
I find the storytelling in LS2 so far very grating. I haven’t done the new achievements because I dread going back and wasting my time.

Honestly, they should make those available in the same way as the achievement chest rewards. Double-click on it from the panel, and it drops into your inventory.

Bam, done.

Heck, if they wanted to sell a different gathering set that did just that, I’d be pulling out my card again. (So long as it doesn’t look dumb. Jack-in-the-box, really? -_-)

If they guaranteed ticket scraps, those boxes and keys would move a lot more units.

Doing a little transformative math, a full ticket scrap would be $10-$15 (or 3-4 hours of key runs :P) for a skin. And with some of them being 3-5 tickets? (That’s kittening dumb, to be honest.)

Bugs. Ew.
#Nope

…Well, that eases my mind a little. I was in the giant battle in Dry Top when I couldn’t do anything for minutes at a time.

Cue spewed curses and game dissatisfaction assessment. :\

Ah well, guess I can’t blame a fluke. Guess I’ll go back to blaming zone design and weakly-written NPCs.

I usually get nothing. What a waste of time. They should give at least a few coppers, minimum.

fantasy.8395:

I have the same issue I was spending more time running and evading on my warrior then I was fighting, they really have upped the condition spams on the mobs in the living story for season 2.

I am all for challenge but sometimes i wonder, while I can adapt I have to now make a specific build with the right gear just to survive these outrageous spamming of aoe on the ground and conditions, makes me wonder what the developers are aiming for aside from forcing me to go ranged to even kill efficiently.

Ranged always seems to get the greater love. Less risk and greater up-time on damage. That’s why I always carry a rifle.

I wouldn’t complain about the jumping in Dry Top (it might even be “fun”) if not for some very critical issues that the devs continue to do poorly.

The biggest sin is not designing for all character types. Large Norn/Charr get the shaft again in Dry top, as there are tiny ledges that they will easily slip off, while others have the better collision detection to handle it properly.

Similarly, the layout has quite a few spots with overhangs that are easy for characters to get snagged on, especially larger characters. Which means you have to start over because…

The stupid, idiotic time limit. Out of all, everything, in Dry Top, this is my biggest annoyance. (Because a 3-second cooldown blind attack belongs in another thread.) A number of people have specified that they have problems with the jumps due to some performance limits, and the time gate just aggravates that.

DallasisaLeo.1584:

I should note that the last second one, when paired with one of the new faces, looks exactly like Shou Tucker’s dog-daughter. “Ed….ward?”

Y’know, I had to think about that one for a minute.

And then…

FEELS

T____T

Jarrix.8234:

You shall fear Vegetarr!

So much hate…
And yet, BWAHAHAHA. Well done, sir and/or ma’am.

I was out leisurely swimming in Orr, when I heard a Risen say, “You should have died with Forgal!”

Turns out, I still cared enough about the man’s sacrifice to beat the everloving kitten out of that saltwater zombie.

I thought it was a nice touch, since I went Vigil with that character. I wasn’t overly fond of Forgal, but no crotchrot’d undead is going to badmouth my mentor.

Maria Murtor.7253:

We impaled her a looooot times. No way she is coming back

Bwahahaha! That one broke me. Good times.

maha.7902:

Wanderer.3248:

Trait doesn’t add x% damage to my ’zerker build.

Must be worthless.

Can’t have a guild wars 2 discussion thread without completely random and pointless references to berserker stats and offensive builds, can we? 0/10 at least try to be original next time

Uh.. Wanderer’s statement was sarcasm. :\

Anyway, when it comes to QQs about removing something from the game for being underpowered, the appropriate solution is to add more utility to it, not delete it, unless it really just can’t be salvaged.

Since I do a lot of roaming, and I switch the trait out (it’s very easy to do) in dungeons, there is no reason at all to remove it.

Doubt we’ll see him back, since they’d have to re-hire the voice actor or find a close-enough replacement. Not to say it won’t happen, but that’s a major barrier to it.

Well, that, and the players hate him~

As someone who’s spent minutes at a time staring at the blinking cursor on my screen, I can empathize. =P

Soulsage definitely had gravitas, and it stands out among Charr names. That gets a +1 from me.

darkace.8925:

Back in the day I was holding out hope that we’d get Player Housing and a furniture-crafting discipline. I was hoping said crafting discipline would be able to make chests (bags) that auto-sorted Account and Soulbound Items, meaning masterwork and better equipment bound to your character would go there when unequipped.

Huh! A Soulbond Bag would be a way to solve the problem. It would still be limiting on bag space, but the idea itself is fairly solid.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

For those who didn’t know, the term “biconics” to refer to Kasmeer, Brahan, Rox, Marjory and Taimi was first coined by one of the ArenaNet writers during an interview. It did not originate with the players.
Because Rytlock, Eir, Caithe, Logan and Zojja were already referred to by ArenaNet as the “iconics”, the Living Story cast were the “second group of iconics”, which was shortened to the punny “biconics” (with “bi” being ancient Greek for “two”).

Any incorrect use and confusing meanings of the word can be attributed to them.

Personally, I hope that the group of characters will be given an in-game name (for example, if they founded a guild), so that this would make this corny developer-pun obsolete.
(And no, I don’t believe “Delaqua Investigations” would cut it.)

That… clears up so much. o_O
Thanks for the intel. I was having as much of an issue as the OP on this one, and my brain was going into family-unfriendly places with it.

ThanatosAngel.8024:

No one should have to do map completion for a single trait, something that requires a lot of tasks to be done over an extended period of time. For a single trait that might not even be useful. That’s one of the things that makes me wonder about just how much thought was put into this system.

Not nearly enough, and that’s what a lot of us are protesting here. Many of us have even started fresh, no-inheritence characters, earning only what we did in game, just so we can understand how terrible this is. It begs the question, where were the playtesters in all this? The current trait system was very deliberate, but it seems no one polled about its actual playability.

Zaxares.5419:

I’m waiting for a Condition Damage / Power / Precision or Ferocity stat spread myself.

I know, right? I mean, condition builds are borked in big-boss PvE, but I always see Condition Damage take a back seat to Power in the regular stat combinations.

Ooh, Condition Duration, Condition Damage, Precision? (I’d say Power, but Precision offers more chances for crit-based procs. Either/or.)