Guild Wars 2

Aedelric.1287:

I completely agree with you, the story needs a new male hero that is actually likable and competent. My only problem is that I personally do not like the one you describe.

=P I was also putting my vote in against a pointlessly aggressive/hypermasculine personality.

A lot of the jumping/anti-jumping stuff focuses on Dry Top. Apropos.
So how about this as a suggestion to the devs; tweak the design a bit (a very painful process, I know) and reconsider future designs with the following in mind:

Jumps are shortcuts.

So, using crystals gets you across to places much faster, but for the sake of making LS2 optimally accessible, there should be a path, however lengthy, to get to the same location. Don’t want to risk the quicksand? Use a monster-infested cave instead. Opening sandwaterfallthing a bit tricky? There’s a few ramps to use, but it takes longer.

I personally didn’t find it too difficult (but the lightning tether kittens me off something fierce for its bugginess), so I can keep up, but there are lots of people with performance issues and handicaps (like playing Charr…) that are feeling disenfranchised by the insistence of making things jump-focused.

Swami.4691:

…
Maybe I should just ditch the puns and come up with a “xxx Wyrmsbane” name instead.

Edit: I’m thinking about the first name “Rancor” as a fitting star wars reference/crossover. Would anyone be willing to rate this and possibly give ideas for a solid surname?

As much as I prefer lore-appropriate names, my first warrior is Spaiten Malus, so I can’t be too much of a hypocrite. :P (Post-hoc and canonically, his full name is Spaiten Maluscrack, Malus warband, so named for him breaking his hammer over his former legionnaire’s domepiece, but I digress.)

Charr names are fairly visceral overall, sometimes Roman-inspired. So, “Rancor” fits reasonably well for a Charr. One part of the surname is the warband name, so using the above as an example, either the Wyrm warband or Bane warband. (Position doesn’t matter too much, but is usually consistent between ‘bandmates.) From a lore/RP perspective, this is where you get to do some of your storytelling.
Would he be in the Wyrm warband because that’s a preferred target or they identify with some aspect of the creature? Is it the Bane warband because they are doom to whatever crosses them?
Wyrm ’bandmates: Wyrmbane, Wyrmkiller, Wyrmspite, Burywyrm, etc.
Bane ’bandmates: Wyrmbane, Dragonbane, Flamebane, Aetherbane, etc.
Lots of little inspirations.

Lengthy, but I hope it helps, and welcome to the Legions!

Aedelric.1287:

I would love to see a new male character, but definitely not one like the op described.

Also, Michael Bay? Eww.

You mean a..
/gasp
..competent male in GW2?

Is that allowed?

We might not need the Ultimate Badmule character, but we definitely need some Oomph in the Nouveau Destiny’s Edge.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Just an idea that popped in my mind, and I wanted to share: What if Defiant stays same, except that when the stacks go to zero, it’s not, only a single stun that can get true, but a more then one. By making it a timed ‘vulnerable to CC’ window. This can range from 1 second to 5 wathever, you think is balanced in the grand scheme of things. This would still prevent stunlocking bosses (world bosses will still have 50-80 stacks of defiance), but once the stacks are down, a flashing icon, could alarm ppl, ’now’s the time, Land that specific CC on him that would help the battle, like scorpion wire to pull him to a better spot. All i’m saying is, that it would give more opportunity for people to time the CC, then now, where it’s a ‘chance game’ to get your CC to go off, instead of it being absorbed by Defiance stacks. Just a thought. What you guys think? Would this be an improvement, any downsides?

This definitely works more than the current system. Tack on a more ‘metered’ approach, like someone identified earlier, and we might have something solid to work with.

Example: The number of stacks/CC-points/whatev required to ‘break’ a boss’s Defiant status scales to the players. If hard-CC isn’t used, the stacks slowly go down.
Basically, Defiant converts hard CC into a separate stacking status similar to how Bleeding works (including the player’s Condition Duration bonuses ). It doesn’t do anything until it hits the required number, but spacing out hard-CC use would give it time to recover.
When that number hits, the Defiant is broken, and it can be CC’d for a few seconds. (Out of my personal bitterness, I recommend 5 seconds, but maybe 3 instead. :P) After that broken period, it gains a Defiant-provided buff that is similar to Stability but can’t be removed by the players. And the cycle continues from there.

Gamma is my nightlight. :P

If Marj/Kas (Kasjory? Marjmeer? what IS their Hollywould couple name, anyway?) is a bothersome relationship, I can only imagine how mind-’splode the forums are going to get when Braham and Rox start making out.

I kid, I kid. …I think. o_O

But yeah, I ran into the same thoughts as other people have. Namely, the “we get it already” idea. I don’t object to the relationship. I find it forced and, so far, unnecessary to the story. Have you seen the way Marjory "honey"s everyone? I swear she's flirting with me. A Charr. I mean, if she wants to put my hammer to better use or puff my warhorn, more power to her, but.. it's just awkward the way she eyes me while Kasmeer's watching. Perhaps LS2 will see them enduring hardships and testing their bond, but right now, it just feels like a pairing of convenience.

Definitely agree with the boring and lame perception.
Yet another sylvari engineer with too many hit points.
Put on my rifle, laid my banner, and just shot at him, avoiding the middle of the platform as necessary to avoid getting thrown off. I suppose I’m sad I didn’t have any rocks to throw at him, like the ranger boss in AC. =P

Ayrilana.1396:

I want the power / power / power stat combination.

Ooh, that’d be excellent for world bosses.

For something so non-critical, it’s mostly a minor gripe anyway. I’m still not a fan of how the dev team goes about their jumping puzzle philosophy (still got 100% completion on a Charr…), but the best I can hope for is camera tightening.

16 pages and no dev response is considered brutal? Take a gander at the official Traits one. I think it’s been almost 3 months and 40+ pages of fairly-directed vitriol, good suggestions, and testimonials. Still no official response.

Beldin.5498:

ironically GW1 did dungeons quite well (except for exile), it’s filled with normal enemies but the circumstances are what makes it challenging.

Would be maybe much better here also since we don’t have a trinity and i think those overpowered mobs are more a result of trinity gameplay in EQ and all its clones.
[/quote]

It really is. But that’s a topic I’m sure is covered time and again elsewhere. Six know I’ve done it enough. :\

Anyroad, I hate this casual vs hardcore snitfest that shows up in every MMO. Without “casual” players who faff about and take their time getting to end-game content, the game wouldn’t exist. They’re the ones paying the most. (Might work a tad different in the GW2 model, as I see the most dedicated players, casual or not, being the ones paying for outfits/gold, instead of the casual-subscriber dominance.) The “hardcore” players are the ones that end-game goals are designed for. Their influence gives the rest of us something to aim for above dailies and festivals.

It’s a weird, finicky symbiosis.

And I’d wager self-identified hardcore players aren’t all that “hardcore,” they’re just well-practiced and optimize for gear. Once out of that element, this is where you end up seeing the “dead-zerker” that people skitten at, perhaps a bit unfairly.
There’s also “casual” players who pop on every kitten day, but don’t have the hours and hours to chug into the game. They can be quite good, know the ins and outs, and search for fun, usually non-grindy things to do with their time.
So, casual vs hardcore isn’t about skill, it’s just parallel to it. It’s about time investment.

And both ‘sides’ want due rewards for their time. Rewards behind hard content versus something one can get by collecting a few tokens every day. Stuff like that.

Should it be “easy”? …eh, not in MMO-land, no. Easy means quickly forgotten.
But worse, easy means “not engaging.” And that is the crux of it.

Content needs to be engaging, and that happens with agency. Not, sadly, by following around faux-Destiny’s Edge and listening to them chatter then clicking on stuff, then more chatter, etc… I digress a bit.

tl;dr – We don’t necessarily need “easy” or “hard,” we need interesting.

Leveling is face-roll easy enough without having best-in-slot. I run around in underleveled blues and greens on the way to 80 and have no issues whatsoever.

I don’t need any more Queen Jennahs!
If I could Mystic Forge her, I would.

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

You’ll get enough svanirs to last you a lifetime once the LS moves on to Jormag after Trahearne cough-cough kills Mordremoth (and Bubbles and the rest of the bunch, it all depends on the order they want to have Trahearne kill the dragons off).

Treesus will save us all. (Assuming they can get his voice actor back. :P)

Y’know, I don’t even like the Svanir. A few people kinda missed the point and hooked onto that. I just want the Norn to be interesting in game.

There’s a lot of potential to make them something other than oversized dwarves or “the one lone dudebro admist the tacofest,” but that’s a different argument. =P

We’ve seen Flame Legion, Nightmare Court, the new(ish) Aetherblades, Dredge…
All factions in this lengthy Living Story thread.
And now, Inquest. Woot.

So where are the Svanir in all this? Or any other antagonist Norn? Why is our only proper Norn representative in LS2…. Brahm? Nice guy, kinda dumb, big.
Like every other Norn in the game. Ergo, boring and noninfluential.

Why isn’t there a rogue group of Norn following Raven or some other “witty” totem doing something much more menacing. Or at least a better-plotted Svanir that actually contribute to Season 2.

The Norn are there, writers, waiting to be made interesting. Hop to it.

Highlord.7158:

I’m not liking the new destiny’s edge (lower case intentional) replacements that much either. Quite frankly, if I wanted a pair of women gushing over each other to the point of distraction while they leave getting work done to others, I’d go read Final Fantasy fiction. I don’t give a whit about Anets GMPC’s. It reeks of White Wolf level railroading and bad writing.

All in all, I’d like /some/ attention paid to the PC for a kitten change. Not a passing line of dialog, not being referred to GMPC #1631345’s “friend” and not as “just another adventurer.” We are incredibly deadly, frighteningly capable, world-shaking engines of Getting Kitten Done, and some acknowledgement of that would be nice as a player.

But as things are now, the new group of DM created special snowflakes are just replacements for the last group of them. But while destiny’s edge are a pack of simpering morons more interested in teenage drama and blame games than they are of doing their jobs, the new group are too busy flirting and necking in the bushes to be of any use.

Enough of this. Get them out of the way so the professionals can gets things done already.

Show, don’t tell. You can talk about the PC being a commander and doing commander things somewhere else all you want. It’s not shown in game, since it goes from Zhaitan, to Scarlet, to whatever is going on now, and apparently we only actually had a hand in the first one. Everything else happens offscreen and the PC we’re playing is just some random sideliner taking part in the writers characters’ story.

I… can’t add anything to this. This echoes a lot of what I’m feeling about the story writing. Through level 20 or so, the PC was important, even if a lot of that was indecisive leaning by the PC’s administrative superiors. But now, we’re not even worth an honorable mention. :\

Rainin.9812:

The Pale Tree is actually a terrorist cell and pumping out bad Sylvari left and right. The new enemy becomes the Pale Tree and all Sylvari (including player characters) are put into prison camps until the issue is resolved in Season 3 Living Story.

That aside, I agree that Sylvari enemies are getting a little old/bland.

Holy kitten, but no one could predict that heel turn! I say they do just that, and have the Nightmare Court turn out to be the “tough love” antagonists we ally with to stop the evil Pale Tree’s minions.
…Sigh. =P I like the Sylvari, at a distance, but this writer-frotting-plant-legs thing is wearing me down.

Eniko.1476:

My guildmates who are no longer rolling alts (they love alts) would buy around $10 worth of gems a month, sometimes more. They’re not gonna be buying new character slots, ANet is earning less. I bought 80 euros worth of gems this past couple weeks, thinking of spending more to get the infinite axe. I also brought in a new player who thinks the game is kinda grindy and boring muchly because of the trait system.

So uh. Yeah.

I have well over 12 now, for various race/class combos and looks. I’m not buying any new slots, after my first experiment went flush down the toilet.

But yes, ANet is losing potential players in its NA/EU market from this. We’re not recommending this game to our friends, even though we still play it. We’re not buying new character slots. Which means buying less cosmetic items (outfits, transmutation charges, gear skins…) to support those characters.

Sad thing is, if they would just make the challenges level-appropriate and make them less reliant on mob events (Obsidian Sanctum, temple defenses), a lot of us would actually like it a little. There’s dozens of posts in previous pages in this thread that would make this new trait design work, if ANet would actually listen.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

I thought the mechanics could be figured out eventually, after wasting a while killing the constantly spawning mobs the player has to guess that they need to take on the sylvari alone, then this fight quickly becomes incredibly tedious and boring.

Mobs that spam knockdowns are not ‘challenging’ they are annoying. Mobs that spam knockbacks to throw you off platforms so you get to waste time running back up them are even more annoying.

As others have said, use ranged attacks – if you are melee, I can’t imagine you can actually finishing this in a sane amount of time.

This fight needed the NPC to have 1/2 of his HP and half of the knockdowns/backs from him and the environment. The novelty wears off too quickly and the fight should have been made MUCH shorter.

Also the randomly spawning crystals actually get in the way of the fight, you may be trying to dodge and suddenly you lose all of you abilities. Yay, real fun.

How is that that ArenaNet manages to make their sylvari villains so badly designed in either their story or their fight mechanics? There are legitimate reasons why Trahearne and Scarlet are so disliked as characters, and this fight belongs right alongside Canach for boss fights that drained away any sense of entertainment while playing. It’s getting to the point where I never see another sylvari villain again.

I really want this next Living Story to be good, but so far the tedious ‘challenge’ of the fights I’ve seen (not just this one but the others in general) is making me less interested the further I go into it.

Keep the story fights short and to the point ArenaNet. You can make them longer for people who want to replay them for the achievements.

Oh gawd, so much everything above.

Enemies in this game rely WAY too much on CC skills and get them far too frequently, with minimal cooldowns. Blind on a 3-second cooldown? I’m wishing I could play dust motes as a race, if I could get that kind of awesome.

And enough with the Sylvari focus. :\ We don’t like Treehearne, Scarlet, Canach, or Aerin. They have plot holes big enough to drive an Iron Legion war machine through, and their personalities, if existent, are irritating. So it begs the question, are the elf-substitutes writer fangasms, or is there some long-range sinister plan, as curious speculation suggests?

Time gates are completely pointless, given the amount of materials that have to be gathered. And, as others have said, time-gating exotic gear is just silly.

Remove time gates entirely, please.

Dreiji.5419:

And as usual in this game, the reward is not worth the time.

Yup. Going through the story got me… two blues and green. Hyperbole, but I got nothing memorable.
The same will be for the achievement rewards, if I bother to do them at all. :\
Woo, some geodes or other salvageable garbage…
And then there’s the piles of (empty) sand…

Another ‘rifle’ fight. …yay.
I love how ANet doesn’t hate melee. /sarcasm

Electro.4173:

I hate them. I’d rather just get junk items I can sell to NPCs as usual than get these sand piles that I have to double click through only to get nothing but a few copper or a very rare geode or key. At least the “sell junk” can be easily gotten rid of and for guaranteed money, even if its a very small amount.

Yeah, echo this. If I got at least a little something from each pile, I wouldn’t be bothered. 15-20 copper would feel like less of a gip than absolutely nothing.

Not terribly enthused with this first episode. /shrug

The Zephyrite focus and Aspects is an irritating way to get around on a 15-second time limit. It doesn’t work half the time anyway:
Got quicksand’d from a false lighting tether jump…
Sun dash across quicksand comes up horribly short.
Wind jumps often run into intrusive cliffs or miss false ledges. Then again, THE CHARR PROBLEM STILL LIVES

And o.m.g., please stop fawning over Scarlet. She wasn’t fascinating beyond her introduction. She’s dead. Leave her that way. -_-###

LS2 rewards are.. slack. Hopefully the next episode is better. Fingers crossed!

Ohgods, this topic got its own feedback thread? /facepalm

As it is, I find myself annoyed by the Zephyrite method of moving around, and much moreso on a 15 second timer.
And it’s still “little ledges / big characters” that’s a huge problem in some spots.
And of course, camera. Why the camera hates us so much is a total mystery.

I need to dig into story stuff more before I really decide, but so far, there’s only two things marring it for me. I suppose that’s a good sign?

Badbad:
1. Jumping focused. Not mad at the jumping itself, but the 15-second time limit. And I play Charr, so their skinny ledges are still irritating.

2. Blind. I need to slap someone’s hand here. Your “write this on the chalkboard until your hand goes numb” statement is: Blind is not every 3 seconds. It’s getting highly irritating that this form of denial-CC is how they expect to ‘challenge’ us. It wasn’t funny with fake-Zojja in Twilight Arbor, and it’s not funny now.

But those are semi-minor details, and I’m still jazzed about my next Living Story steps.

Most people use Edge of the Mists for quick runs to 80, but you’ll probably have to buy the traits you’re interested in.

Crafting each path does give 10 levels, but that’s cash intensive. I’ve seen guides for 1-400 crafting though.
Basically, it’s 1% of a level per crafting level from 1-100, 2% per level from 100-200, etc. So two crafts from 1-400 gives you 20 levels total.

Living Story season 1.
El. Oh. El.

=P

4 months old but still hilarious:

What do you call Logan’s date with Queen Jennah?
A run-devouz.
Why do Logan’s ears, eyes and mouth despise his nose?
Because his nose is runny.

I mean.. that’s a burn harsh enough to make Flame Legion pray to it.

There’s quite a bit of this in the rest of the game as well, not just the new areas. Perhaps even more grating is the use of mountains and slopes (common to every MMO I’ve played so far, actually).

There are some steep slopes are that intended to slide players off and act as borders. Great, I get that. Some of those same inclines are actual paths, and there’s no way to tell which until you end up standing on them for a jumping puzzle or some other nonsense.

But yeah, I’ve run into invisible walls in quite a few spots, especially around Maelstrom.

storiessave.3807:

I still don’t really understand the point of this change. I just recently (couple of weeks ago) made a thief and leveled it to 80. It was the first character I have that didn’t exist before the change, so it’s subject to the new system.

First off, I ended up buying some of the most necessary traits, especially the one about removing conditions in stealth – which is an adept trait, and requires killing a level 58 champion. I mean, seriously? How that’s supposed to be even remotely doable at 36 is beyond me.

I tried helping a friend get that trait unlocked on her lowbie thief when it was ~48 (took a lot of deaths just to get her to the area where the champ spawns), and she ended up not getting the trait unlock since she couldn’t get more than glancing hits for the few seconds at a time that she was up. So, this trait’s impossible even 18 levels after it opens up, even with a level 80’s help.

And even if you tried assuming that just because a trait’s available at level 36 doesn’t mean you should be able to get it at that level, why bother with tiers at all? Why unlock the whole adept tier at level 30 if you can’t get some of the traits at that level? Stupidity at its finest.

Reminds me of what a friend and I did a while back. Fresh into 36, we decided to trudge our way over to Ulgoth, since we both needed his trait. Forgetting that Harathi is 35-45, we survived lots of higher-level mobs to get to him, then Glanced at him the entire time. We didn’t get any credit at all, event or otherwise.
Closer to 42 the second time around, because we also needed Harathi exploration, we managed to get it, 6 levels later after we opened up the trait line.

That’s unacceptable.

Oooh, no, I’m not leaving my spot just because someone said so. :P

I will, however, kitten where I’m needed most, or wait until the current run finishes. Which, apparently, means staying away from Boom Boom, since upleveling her hurts more than the others.

Ulion.5476:

NECRO TREAD…… Anyways do wvw for karma. Most of the wvw I know have million of karma with nothing to spend it on. Highest karma I have heard of was 20million.

Yeah, I was going to say, if I ever actually need karma, I’ve been meaning to level my WvW rank through Edge of the Mists anyway.

Might be better to take this one to the Living Story forum.

But, in support I must say I’ve done gold runs on my 20-became-80 Mesmer. I threw everything I had at the boss until it came time to slow down, then resumed on burn command. No “11111spam” here, and I stayed upright longer than most on the boss, so I obviously contributed.

pdavis.8031:

I don’t know…MMO on a console? Doesn’t seem like it would work very well…

If the MMO planned for it, then maybe.

FF14 handled it that way. The resulting problem was that the game is very slow-paced and less fluid in comparison to more modern MMOs like GW2 and WildStar.

And yet, I know a few people who love FF14’s console version. Weird. o_O

It’s not about the profit for me. I can do profit by farming materials and running dungeons. The problem I see is the purpose and role it serves. It’s little more than an XP battery or best-in-slot gear generator. I’ve less a problem with the latter, as I’ve always felt crafting should have that purpose, with rare materials being found behind other content like dungeons.

It’s just disappointing to see that crafting was as much of an afterthought to the game as PvP was. But then again, that’s most MMOs. /shrug

Danikat.8537:

I’ve never seen the logic of buying gems or not buying gems based on anything except whether you like the item you’re buying and think it’s worth the cash/gold.

How could Anet possibly know that you bought a new armor skin because you like the last round of balance updates? Or didn’t buy a new bank tab because you didn’t enjoy the last Living Story release?

There’s just too much of a disconnect between the two for them to be able to draw any conclusions unless gem sales dropped dramatically immediately after an extremely controversial update, and then they’d already know people weren’t happy from the fact that it’s controversial.

I can understand not wanting to pay money to a company you’re unhappy with, but not expecting them to know exactly how and why you came to that conclusion. Or even knowing that you considered spending money and didn’t.

They honestly don’t need gem store revenue as a metric on content, anyway.

They have actual metrics of how many people log in, how many times events were run, etc. If something is unpopular, they’ll know, eventually.

Fhi.1840:

Ah, the never ending debate on whether anyone cares about grammar.

I agree with you about the freedom to choose whatever name you (general you, not you specifically) like. Just understand too, that if I come across a nonsense name or lazy grammar, I will judge the player. It could be anything from declining their guild application, to passing them over for party invites. Freedom works both ways.

A terrible character name is a flag that says “don’t res me.” Either that or it says “res me when I’m AFK so all my armor breaks.” =P

Though, I will admit to having pun-themed names here and there, most of that comes from not knowing the naming conventions at start. I’ve restarted a character for lore-appropriate reasons, and I’ve even pondered getting a name change contract or two.

Not that I’m enamored with Sylvari/Asura naming conventions, as I find them lame, tired, and difficult to find unique ones in a sea of other players.

It makes me glad that FF14 has an option to reduce names to initials, so I don’t have to see the dumb ones.

Maybe ANet could follow up with an option akin to how people show up in WvW, but in reverse. There could be a display checkbox that makes all non-party, non-guild people show up as “[Server] Ally” instead.

I need to get in on this one!

The goal’s a bit obtuse, is it not? There’s hundreds of pages of feedback of what ANet can do to get the game back on track.

Fix Traits.
Give more PvP modes.
Provide better matchups in WvW.
Reward us for our time invested.
Make enemies more interesting and engaging.
After Trahearne and Scarlet, get better writers.

Jury’s currently out on Living Story, but they were listening. The upcoming content is permanent, and an extension on level 80 gameplay. I’m hopeful, but wary.

pdavis.8031:

While I have to agree on some level about crafting, that it could use more varity, and the use of some recipes over discovery. But I do see WHY you would need a recipe for “special” items rather then randomly discovering a certain unique sword.

However, I will say this (as I do when I see other games compared to this one, and how it should be more like them) This is not those games. Anet certainly had the option to make something similar to how other games do it, but they chose not to. Changing it now will cause more problems than its worth.

A recipe for a legendary-level weapon I can understand. And the Ascended ones, since they don’t follow the typical pattern and have a lot of investment, otherwise.

But for Celestial? The only difference is the type of insignia/inscription. Dire and Sentinel are also pointlessly inconsistent with the rest of crafting.

But again, best we can do is shrug and accept it, because a complete overhaul of crafting is too much investment for something players aren’t exactly bawling over. Best we can really muster for rage is a stern “I’m disappointed in you, ANet.”

Cross-post from another thread, but it occurred to me that the thought’s still valid.

Nerelith.7360:

The sad part is, seeing the potential of crafting, and Not seeing ANet get even close to it. It’s simply another part of the game that could have been awesome, and is Bland and generic.

Sad, but true. The discovery system is nothing more than a little pattern detection puzzle, and it’s only marginally fun on Cooking. Marginally. Having the “what can I make now?” question and ending up with 15 varieties of zucchini WTFness at least gave me a laugh.

Beyond that, it’s a standard MMO crafting system with little customizability. The parts that are customizable end up gated by rare materials that come from special events or by breaking materials already of that type, looking at you Dire and Sentinel.

This makes crafting nonsensical. Some components you need to get by bizarrely WTF means or pay out several gold from the trading post. And even if you do have the components, and you’ve proven via discovery you’re capable of simple pattern detection… NOPE, still can’t make it, because that version requires a recipe, even though every other one of its grade and type do not. Celestial, guilty as charged.

FF14 and WildStar have much more robust crafting systems.

And to echo Nerelith’s other note, what do you do with items you can make, besides fulfill ANet’s desire to have a goldsink in the Trading Post?

Again, FF14 and WildStar have been much more forward-thinking about craft and trade. You can turn materials and products in to specific game vendors and quest givers, in exchange for special currencies.

Something like that could have corrected the trade market without the excessive Ascended crafting (yes, I mean silk) and given crafters something to do after they’ve made their best-in-slot gear.

Those same crafters can make other fun toys as well, or, y’know, housing decor. Even WoW has craft-only mounts and pets and toys and parachutes. …What? I like my glider-cape.

Point is, the crafting process is flat. The crafting results are flat. While they could have made great strides toward a high quality (FF14 pun, kitten ) system, instead, we got a typically-generic MMO crafting system with a bit of an XP bonus on the end of it.

Normally, I try to find solutions instead of just posting gripes, but I don’t think there is one here that isn’t a total redesign of the entire crafting system. Which, honestly, needs a good razing.

Nerelith.7360:

The sad part is, seeing the potential of crafting, and Not seeing ANet get even close to it. It’s simply another part of the game that could have been awesome, and is Bland and generic.

Sad, but true. The discovery system is nothing more than a little pattern detection puzzle, and it’s only marginally fun on Cooking. Marginally. Having the “what can I make now?” question and ending up with 15 varieties of zucchini WTFness at least gave me a laugh.

Beyond that, it’s a standard MMO crafting system with little customizability. The parts that are customizable end up gated by rare materials that come from special events or by breaking materials already of that type, looking at you Dire and Sentinel.

This makes crafting nonsensical. Some components you need to get by bizarrely WTF means or pay out several gold from the trading post. And even if you do have the components, and you’ve proven via discovery you’re capable of simple pattern detection… NOPE, still can’t make it, because that version requires a recipe, even though every other one of its grade and type do not. Celestial, guilty as charged.

FF14 and WildStar have much more robust crafting systems.

And to echo Nerelith’s other note, what do you do with items you can make, besides fulfill ANet’s desire to have a goldsink in the Trading Post?

Again, FF14 and WildStar have been much more forward-thinking about craft and trade. You can turn materials and products in to specific game vendors and quest givers, in exchange for special currencies.

Something like that could have corrected the trade market without the excessive Ascended crafting (yes, I mean silk) and given crafters something to do after they’ve made their best-in-slot gear.

Those same crafters can make other fun toys as well, or, y’know, housing decor. Even WoW has craft-only mounts and pets and toys and parachutes. …What? I like my glider-cape.

Point is, the crafting process is flat. The crafting results are flat. While they could have made great strides toward a high quality (FF14 pun, kitten ) system, instead, we got a typically-generic MMO crafting system with a bit of an XP bonus on the end of it.

Lazuli.2098:

One of the side effects of this new disastrous trait system is the nerfing of the mobs in the low level areas to compensate for the weaker traitless low level characters. This in itself has hurt the game.

Before I could take a high level character around with a friend’s low level one and we could both enjoy the play. Now either the high level character refrains from fighting or the low level one doesn’t get a chance to fight.

Exactly this! I have a friend who might be a new player to the game soon, but I dread so much of what he’ll have to put up with.

Meanwhile, the game is so back-loaded that it makes the difference in level scaling even more lopsided.

ipan.4356:

The only mystery is why this debacle hasn’t been rescinded already.

The community spoke out against it before it was implemented and Anet refused to listen.

They speak out against it now that it’s implemented and Anet refuses to listen.

I see a pattern here.

Time for some reverse psychology?

Oh boy, I LOVE the new trait hunts! With all the zone completions and other absurdly high-level, excessive-time-investment tasks, I’m MAKING SO MUCH MONEY!

Because nothing shuts down a system like hearing players getting paid off it. =P

/sarcasmoffnow

Dual.8953:

I think the biggest thing is attitude the meta has created. The PvE scene has gone from a situation where player skill = skill to where player build = skill. If you aren’t meta, you’re considered unskilled and second rate. Just because of your build.

And it’s that attitude a LOT of people are sick of. :\
Acting like practiced dungeon runs are skill because of selected stack-and-spank tactics is incorrect.

Unfortunately, without more variable dungeons and a divergence from a dps-heavy encounter set, we’re not likely to see that go away.

And it won’t entirely, to be honest. High damage is optimal. Shorter kill times mean shorter times to potentially get KO’d in a fight. It also means faster rewards. So, even if they change the dungeons around, there will be teams that dps-only. Because that’s how GW2 works.

Diba.4682:

Add to the discussion, that when a lucky newbie gets a precursor he tends to just salvage it… yes this really happens.

Yeeeah, they don’t really mark those very well. I’d want big gold text that says PRECURSOR, not a text blurb I’m never bothered to read.
Didn’t salvage it, thankfully, but now I’m kinda stuck with it because I unlocked the skin. =P

Amending my previous:
8+ characters at 80
ONE at 100% Woohoo! I got so lucky on the server color flip, I managed to sneak in and get those last 6 points I needed.

Now to get that precursor. /findsanotherthreadtorageon :P

Romo.3709:

Yeah on top of that they updated the WP system so they’re all uncontested now until u get to the map. So the megaserver argument is not valid.

Someone reads patch notes~
And the old system used to be this way anyway. It was much less of an issue because the server could show which waypoints were uncontested, but if it flipped, you’d still get relocated. (Usually. If it wasn’t bugged.)

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Having a legendary will not make the game more fun. People will not “oooooh” and “aaaaahhh” over your shiny.

And some people will actively want to bash your modem with a sledgehammer when you stroll in with The Dreamer. …No seriously, I stay at range 2000 from that annoying piece of horsekitten.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Waypoints>Mounts
/thread X7 (since i think knives should actually have been 6th)

Anyway, mounts are not something that have been present in the GW lore. To add them now would be… odd. It would add that ‘one more thing’ to the people already kittening that the writers are screwing up and/or ignoring the existing lore of the game.

Outside that, they would provide no useful functionality. With the current design of the game, mounts simply are not needed as a means of transportation. All classes have traits or skills that offer speed boosts, though not necessarily passively.

Cosmetically speaking, they’re simply going to be a pain. Oh, I know the broom and the drill are technically mounts, but they are also extremely simple. If mounts were implemented, they might start out simple, but eventually people are going to want that rainbow trail footprint pony or that sparkly golem or some fiery hellhound. Something with particle effects, something “legendary.” We can’t see through the particle effects we already have, let’s not add more… Not to mention the associated lag.

After that it escalates to “we want more functionality” “we want to battle” etc etc. We’ve already seen people calling for these types of things in other mount proposals. Speed boosts, flying, mounted combat, etc etc.

If they give an inch, players are going to demand a mile.

+1
Enough is never enough.