Guild Wars 2

The article is a wall of very biased and very subjective opinions – I can argue the opposite very easily.
The only real issue I can agree with is the “area flow problematic”.

Azure Prower.8701:

Name 5 things to do at 80 that’s not a grind then please.

“Grinding” is just a state of mind you carried over from actually grindy games.
Let me explain you what’s the difference between a player with a free mind and one who’s been corrupted into forcing himself to suffer the grind and chase game.

Free mind player:
Logins into game, says hello to friends and enjoys some activities with them; plays a few of the 40 dungeon quests, does a few events he likes, kills some bosses/champs with friends, some WvW, a couple sPvP games.
During this whole he accumulate some wealth that he stockpiles away in case one day he wants to craft a legendary or something – but it’s not the reason he plays, it’s just a long term goal in the back of his mind.
He logs off satisfied and happy.

Corrupted player:
Logins in game with the sole objective of obtaining materials or gold for a pre-determined item or goal.
Does not care of having fun, he just wants to repeat the most rewarding content to accumulate the most money in the shortest time.
Everyone else is playing, and he’s bothered by this. Why does this guy laugh? Why isn’t he rushing this kitten dungeon so we finish sooner? How dare him enjoy himself instead of concentrating on rushing and DPSing?
He kicks him from the team and replaces him with individuals similar to him: no one talks, everyone rushes. If they die they leave the team with no warning or start “the blaming game”.
Sometime they insult each other or worse.
At the end of his play session, all he cares about is how much money he made in total, how much per hour, how much others have made.
He isn’t happy. His carrot is still far and why is the game enforcing him such a long exhausting grind?
The game is so bad, he thinks about playing something else. But he knows that if the game allows for grinding he will grind and get angry, if the game doesn’t he will say “there is no endgame” and quit.

The bottom line is that one is free to play for entertainment or play for unhealthy obsessive item-chasing addiction.
GW2 does not require nor enforces either, we’re free to do both.

Meditate a bit on this.

I have extensively and deeply played most classes at this point, and Warrior is by far the clunkiest class and most handicapped character I’ve ever played.
Most of the times I am killed with my Warrior is due to some skill that failed to work by design.
Sorry but it’s true: many skills need a fix, and I’m going ahead to post the list:

1) Rush / Bull’s charge.
It lands, never. A channeled sprint skill simply does not work by its nature.
As long as it’s channeled, it will always end missing unless the AI is made capable of realizing when it’s time to end rushing and cast the hit; but why not simply let the player control this skill instead of the AI?
Also, the game automatically decides the directioning during the sprint, ruining thenature of GW2 action combat.
Solution: Make Rush a 100% speed buff that lasts 2s.
Make Bull similar to Guardian’s Leap of Faith in the way it lands reliably.

2) Whirlwind (GS).
We should be able to not only decide the direction of the X axis, but also the lenght of the Y axis.
I.E. if we click 5 feet away, the character will whirl to that point, if we click 10 feet away he will go at full lenght of the skill.
Again, this is an action MMO and a player should have full control of his character’s movement and abilities, not cast a skill and have the game play for him during the whole.

3) Earthshaker.
It’s widely known that this move does not hit the enemy even if he’s inside the circle when we land on him.
It needs to be fixed.

4) In general, try to do away with clunkiness, unnecessary melee cast times or channels, and don’t make skills that cannot be controlled by players as it’s a design flaw if you do this inside an action-combat environment.
Combat needs to be smooth and players need to be in control of their character.

It’s time to make the Warrior more player-skill-based and less “hey let’s hope the AI lets me land this skill”-based.

Thanks.

I’m 800 hours in, have yet to find any grind that I’m forced to do.

It’s all a paranoia of people who’ve been ruined by traditional MMO into thinking every game is a grind.
Those people see basically anything that requires more than moving one finger as a grind, there is little we can say to help them.

People have the habit to comment on stuff they don’t know yet.
Ascended for instance. They are not a new treadmill, just the final tier before legendary that adds progression to PvE only with infusions.
It was a great idea to put a progression for PvE.

Anet doesn’t need a second chance for me, they still have to waste their first.
That part of the community is not worth a second chance tho; all they do is misunderstood and complain their delusions.

Those who think GW2 combat isn’t deep or special… then what about the other combats in all other MMOs that are miles below GW2?
Evolution is done step by step.
GW2 already went ten steps forward with combat compared to other MMOs, give it time and it’ll become even better.

Truth be told tho, GW2 lacks combat variety due to very shallow skill/character depth.
This is ok for a release, but we’re 4 months in now. Time to stop adding world depth and start adding character depth.

30/30/10, D/W.
BiP, pull with grasp (chill), WoSuff, dmg with 1/siphon, dark pact, 1/siphon, locust, 1/siphon, rupt heal with Wail, dark path(chill)transfer = dead.
Permachill/cripple (chill of death trait), plus bleed/immob/daze/fear on enemy, swiftness on you, +400 tough when using siphon/transfer to counter burst.

Sure, might not be a Thief gibbing in 2 seconds, but you dont die, the worst that can happen is they manage to escape.

Jefzor.7145:

May I ask why you don’t have 30 points in Critical Strikes?

Ah that was a mistype. Ofc I have 30 CS.

You have my same playstyle OP.

Below is the best stats setup I found so far (full exotics but green back item btw).
14k health, good armor and still great dmg. 90 crit dmg I think (240%).
All goodies in one package, no weakness, adaptable to every direct damage build.

My build is 25 / 20 / 15.
I don’t like the Grandmaster from Deadly Arts, the lockdown is really overkill and somehow it feels unsatisfying to see them stuck in place and watch their inevitable end, I prefer to see them running desperately and ’seekerjump in their back.

PS: I used a mix of beryl and ruby orbs, and a mix of valk/zerk jewels and armor pieces.

Thief is the “smoothest” class I played.
Little to no abilities that break action combat such as lock-in-place or cast-time skills, very cohesive skills and plays very naturally.

I like the Warrior more as an archetype, but it’s the clunkiest and most action-breaking class due to frequent long skill cast times, channeled+locked sprint (this one has to be the worst skill design I’ve seen in MMOs), the “mobility” weapon aka GS based on a lock-in-place ability…
Not to mention Guardian’s Hammer skill 1. I don’t even want to talk about that.

Anet, you believe Warrior is the best class you made, but everyone else say the class is clunky, boring, gimmicky.
Thief is your best creation.

I dream of a day where Anet does away with the cheap, obsolete “cooldown” mechanic and applies a Thief-like resource system to all classes.

The freedom of using the skill you want when you want is unmatched sorry
Resource management is also much better than spamming things off cooldown.

Old gamer here too, I put 700+ hours in GW2 but I’m less willing to play.
I don’t think it’s the game’s fault tho, I just, well, played it too much.

I agree on the lack of character depth.
The world is super deep, jaw-dropping and full of things – but characters lack variety.
More weps/skills/elites and more skins, GOOD skins this time (don’t get me started on the clownish skins, are we sure it’s the same artist from GW1?).

But hey. Here is the bottom line for me:
GW2 is a videogame.
I don’t want nor need it to become something that needs daily management.
For Dwayna’s sake, I have a wife and friends and job and other games – please GW2 don’t become another “prison” for people with no life, keep being a game that you can jump in and play with your skill not with your time.

Healing in the form of health refilling is the most uneffective form of defense in GW2, I wouldn’t push people to be full healers and therefore being carried in dungeons.
No high-end team will take a person who focuses on spamming green numbers and nothing else.

A support thief based on blinds/stealths/screen for instance negates a ton more damage than any healbot could ever dream of – and this while still doing heaploads of damage.

Please play GW2 as it is meant to be played when you are with others.

People you find in pugs can be simply ignorant at times – Warriors with 5 signets are terrible and therefore now when people see signets they start having major brainfarts.
3 signets is ok, I assume he was using SoA+SoM+SoS, it’s not bad depending on his traits/weps.

I’m a melee-only player.

I started with Guardian, quickly realized after lvl 80 that laughable dmg + no cripple and all the fail things like scepter and staffs were far from anything I would play very long.
I then hated the super clunkiness of the Warrior and its gimmicky, boring playstyle; skills like rush and HB that “lock” you are anti-action MMO things that have no place to be.

Then I made a Thief.
I was very skeptical for a lot of my time, but then realized it’s the best thing I’ve ever played in 20 years of gaming.
It’s the most reflex-based, quick-thinking-requiring class I’ve ever played that sees you using all sorts of tricks in an endless combination of awesomeness.
We have outstanding mobility to get where we need immediately and ninja tricks that allow us to dance at the edge of death.
We have great damage to put quick pressure on enemies.
We have a bag of tricks to deal with different situations.

And especially, it’s the smoothest class.
Everything combines and connects in an harmonious manner: a big relief when compared to the awkward clunkiness of some other classes.
I believe every class should be made as smooth as the Thief.

1) 5% dmg.
The issue of PP is the wild RNG nature of it.
With 65% crit and +15% dmg (5% on dual skills +10% mastery), Unload can range from a worthelss 3k hit to an overpowered 8k hit.
Even if you gave a whooping 20% dmg buff on what we already have now, it would be 3600 dmg to 9600; either still far too low or way too high – this proves out of doubt that % damage changes are completely uneffective until the wild unload foruma is under control.
You cannot make Unload balanced without reducing the super-wide RNG of it.

2) Ricochet.
Ricochet will not make P/P worth taking over SB for AoE unless it’s at least 50% – which you won’t do because you don’t do major buffs yadda yadda.
I say just replace the trait with a more single-target-oriented one, as P/P is a single target weapon.
Chance for boon removal/condition/boon/endurance on crit, or whatever you feel it’s best.

Thank you.

P/P is great single target DPS, very good on bosses.

Also, epic against the elemental/robot because you can plow through his defiant and rupt his heal.

stof.9341:

“Leaping Death Blossooooooooommmmmmm……..”

Lol this! So many times…

The HS change to GTAoE would change nothing.
One can keep the cursor where the opponent is and then still spam it.

I don’t see HS as a problem considering its unimpressive damage above 5% health.
If a Thief managed to get you below 25% that means he connected his stuff without you blowing any anti-burst CD or dodging during the whole – which means you fully deserved the death screen.

Rukia.4802:

Stopped reading right there. Not what people are saying, read again.

I read what they said. A guy complained we have little skills usable at the same time, and that was the correct answer.

As a friendly advice, next time you use the “you don’t read what people are saying” angry kid talk, make sure -you- actually read it first or it might end up embarassing again.

You guys need to be done with the mentality of buttons.
I’m tired of hearing a game to be fun needs 18 keyboards of keybinds and 72 hotbars on screen.
Player skill is shown in reflexes and reaction time, not on how well they manage 800 buttons – if it wasn’t like this then FPS games would be stuff for noobs, they are instead a great gauge of player skill.
We currently have 5+5 wep skills + 1 heal + 3 utilities + 1 elite = 14 buttons, enough.

What we need is more weapons and skills to pick. A lot more.
Character and combat severely lack depth because Anet focused on world content (the “omg we have no endgame, better make one” moment), but now it is really needed to add this.

I’m personally sticking to exotics until ascended tier has better ways to be obtained.
Currently, we only have 3 ways:
1) RNG, luck based.
2) Crafting, recipes are very very grindy.
3) Tokens, requires tons of fractal grinding.

When I start a game I want to have fun, not starting a slow chase toward gear.

I’m confident Anet will fix all these things soon tho.
They always find a way to fix their mistakes and bring some fun

Yours, OP, is the typical review of a person who still didn’t get to master his character and team play.
I too believed that, just like most people, before getting deeper into the system.

GW2 indeed lacks challenging content and especially there are no team-required zones.
This is an issue, but has nothing to do with the combat system, it’s just a matter of lack of team-based endgame.
Fractals is the first implementation of such a zone, but it’s not enough.

Finally, I’m bluntly telling you that GW2 combat doesn’t have to adapt to every person that’s missing obsolete tank/healing system.
This combat is much deeper and more interesting, and the reason a lot of people play this game; Anet will never downgrade the greatest selling point of their game down to the level of other MMOs.

All servers are full, if you see zones empty it’s because the population is concentrated elsewhere.
Anet made a bad choice with the server shard system, yes, they should rethink it and go back to district system (TES online is doing it).

@Chou
No game is meant to keep you entertained forever, all days, 12 hours a day – unless it makes you repeat the same content over and over.

There are many forms of support in GW2, just not in the obsolete form of refilling healthbars.

I guarantee you that -this- way of healing is much more satisfying and engaging than obsolete healing could ever hope; it requires a lot more to master than old healing tho.

I’m fine with progression as long as it doesn’t have to do with gear.
Gear progression is bad, obsolete, woefully stale – and especially, it’s lazy design.
Character progression instead is interesting.

A lot of things can push people to play new content, such as capping new skills, unlocking new titles, unlocking difficulties, gaining new traits… just use a bit of imagination.

All MMO forums have a large group of people who do nothing else than throw smack against the game and devs.
There are 2 millions of players in GW2, and it’s easily the best MMO on the market for now – just don’t pay attention to complainers.
Their “MMO” is creating a character in a forum and level by crying, insulting, etc. Seriously don’t mind them.

I love how thief complainers only list WvW experiences as proof of OPness.
In WvW pvp nerfs are not applied, like in PvE.

Furthermore, you can Frenzy→Bull→100b and oneshot a person, OP, and that’s clearly the build you’re running; you come here saying thief is OP for 15k dmg in 3 skills when you deal 20k with 3 skills on top of your high armor and health?
Sorry but that sounds quite hypocritical.

Because it’s the only MMO on the market that’s worth playing.

There is no such thing as “leveling”, you explore the world, do events, complete hearts, do whatever you want – and you get levels by doing so.
The concept of “leveling” is an obsession with doing things repeteadly just so you raise your level, it’s not something that can be resolved by anyone else beside you.
Until you’re obsessed with the level you are you will always believe getting to 80 is a grind no matter what, but in reality it’s not – unless you don’t like anything in the world that is, in which case you should consider games with a progression are not for you.

It’s just that I never liked WoW or those games where you finish getting your gear and it becomes obsolete so you start another tier etc etc.
I played GW1 8 years because I hated gear treadmills.

I just need to know if we’ll be getting treadmills continuously or there is a final tier I can safely get without worrying – obviously they cannot want us to make a full legendary set, that would require years to complete.

I’m just wondering, will there be stronger tiers than Ascended, or “new versions” of the same tier with more stats?

I ask because, after the effort I put in getting my exotics just to find out they are now outdated, I can’t find the willpower to put effort into this new tier unless I’m sure it’s never going to be outdated.

I know some of the playerbase likes this but I don’t like to farm PvE for gear, I’m too old to find any enjoyment in running on a hamster’s wheel or any time/willpower to do it.

“Today I looted a ton of stuff” → Anet must have buffed drop rates!
“Today I didn’t get anything” → Anet must have nerfed drop rates!

Yup, it’s totally not RNG.

I too played every MMO in the last 20 years and yes, GW2 is the best MMO on the market by far.
The forum community is the worst I’ve ever seen in my entire life tho, they want everything perfect and now, and they want it exactly as they imagine, oh and god forbid Anet takes a new route because they saved every word of them and are ready to use them against them.
New generations…

Very true OP.
No MMO survives without progression, infact GW1 had a lot of this.
If I had to choose I’d take character progression over gear progression any day.

Farming or grinding for anything is the wrong way to play GW2.
They specifically made it so you cannot just farm things, things come with time – period.

Until you get out of that mentality that you need everything and you need it quickly, you will never enjoy GW2.

I thought fractal was a big update and now they say Jan/Feb are even bigger ones? Yay!
Don’t listen to crybabies Anet, you’re doing great.

I only hope there will be some character update tho.
So many world updates and little to nothing in regards of new weps/skills/traits :/

Tulisin.6945:

You can say this, but the only developer sentiment we’ve had on the subject along with a large portion of the community agree: TTK being <4 seconds isn’t good, especially being able to instantly close from a range.

Every class in the game has <4 TTK vs unprepared people.
And it’s very, very welcome.
I’m tired of MMOs where PvP is endurance battles where reaction time and surprise effect doesn’t matter because you can reset a fight.
If you are caught with your pants down, you die. Period.

Stealth will never be removed.

1. When did you begin playing? (post bw’s)
Day1
2. how many hours total do you have? (/age)
667
3. What’s your most gold banked so far?
50 or so
4. Do you have a max level character (s)? (number if more than one)
3
5. List 1-3 areas / zones / events / tp; where you spend most of your time for income.
Fractals
6. Do you mainly use MF or not?
No.
7. Have you ever got an exotic weapon from a mob? If so, how many and total?
2
8. Have you ever got an exotic weapon from a chest? If so, how many and total?
2
9. What’s the most number of rare weapons you have looted in one day or 8hrs time?
15-20
10. How many rare or exotic weapons do you “expect” to loot in one hour of time?
1-3
11. How many lodestones have you looted total so far? (all types)
10+
12. Do you craft? If so, do you have a 400 crafter? if so, how many?
No
13. Do you sell your looted crafting mats? (specify optional)
Yes
14. Do you feel your return, (in terms of items, completion, income, etc) for your time, has been worth it?
Yes
15. In ONE word, what needs improved most; from your perspective?
content (new skills/weps/etc, not world content AGAIN)

Right hand:
- Move with mouse (melee class, no need for strafe or wasd bs)
- Camera on right click
- (thumb) Utilities+Elite on mouse buttons

Left hand:
- F1→F5 weapon skills
- 1→4 profession skills
- (thumb) X swap C dodge V heal SPACE jump

Never need to reposition my hands/fingers, very comfortable and reactive setup for me.

Raine.1394:

Not sure I would try to focus Anet on patience. They seem to be evidencing plenty of patience as they wait out the storm. The thoughtful action was a very good idea. I went from praising them to all, to wondering whether anyone there had their lights on in the course of one week.

In my opinion they would obtain better results if they slowly released changes in constant communication and accordance with their loyal community rather than throw in changes suddenly then jump behind sandbags for a month to wait for mortar fire to end.

Many people out there seem to feel betrayed by Anet due to them throwing in radical changes with no warning, so maybe Anet should learn the value of patience and the value of letting people know about their developement earlier and calmly.
The jumping behind sandbag thing wasn’t a smart move, hope they’ll be wiser in the future

I believe Thief is currently in a good place, like Warriors.
Damage is adjusted now, there isn’t much else to do beside fixing bugs.

I hate games like WoW where classes are continuously, incessantly, irritatingly overhauled every single patch.
I’m happy Anet is just fixing damage, and I don’t want any change to my class’ mechanics.

My idea is to stop trying to find ideas to change a mechanic that works.
Stop trying to repair something that isn’t broken, everything is already fine as it is.

This is true not only for players, but for Anet too.

Fractals was a great patch, but also rushed.
There is no hurry Anet, GW2 is going for the long run, lay back and be more relaxed in the way you release new content.
When you operate with a long run goal in mind, knee-jerk changes without consulting your loyal community isn’t the best method.
Discuss it with the community, let things be known beforehand piece by piece, gather feedback.
People hate sudden changes: they need to be prepared, need to state their opinion, need time to adapt, time to think.
If you want to build a long-term community like in GW1 you need to be more laid back in the way you change things.
I’m sure a lot of positive things can get from patience and thought ful actions, while sudden changes create a crack and a lot of fuss as you have seen.

Please make sure the next content isn’t some coming down like a bucket of water on our head, but more like a slowly spilled stream.

Thank you.

Those zones are exactly what they said they would be: warzones, the land of Orr, where enemy presence is high (duh, it’s their base of operations) and walking alone isn’t recommended.

I love these Orr haters.
Orr is 800% easier than any lvl 20 zone in GW1 which we used to solo.
I’m sorry the new generation believes everything should be a pushover with no challenge whatsoever – GW2 already went downhill when it comes to presenting challenge, but it’s not enough it seems: it needs to be a complete walk in the park to make the new gen gamer happy, and difficulty should be present in dungeons only.

Yeah, no.

AuldWolf.7598:

I like to think of forbes as a reputable source.

I like to think everyone as an holder of his own subjective opinion, and I also like to think any man that considers himself an intelligent individual doesn’t even pay attention to the source of an information but to its content.

There is no truth or fact to be found in that review, just the opinion of the reviewer, the exact opposite of which can be easily argued too.
That opinionated post of forbes isn’t worth more or less than any of the blog-esque reviews players post in this forum – it’s just another opinion that millions disagree with.

When Anet started to listen to these “reviews”, these complaints… they made Ascended tier.
Before, when they were listening to nobody they made a masterpiece that was widely voted 9 by every reviewer on the internet.

That is enough of an indicator for me that Anet should stop taking advices from reviewers and start listening to their loyal playerbase.

667 hours, 489 deaths.

At least 460 of deaths are from WvW tho, I barely die in PvE (Thief).

There is an easy solution to difficulty.

They simply need to make fract difficulty slider into an “difficulty bar”.
Doing a dungeon of your current difficulty level fills that bar by 1/4 (just like now), but doing dungeons of lower difficulty fills it a bit less.
This way it doesn’t matter if a lvl 18 diff guy does a lvl 12 frac as he would still be filling that bar and progress through difficulties.

There is no MMO, and there will prolly never be during our life, that gives you unique content every single time you play it.
Sorry OP, it would take terabytes of terabytes of space and decades to be completed.

You can have a varied challenge with different difficulties (which lead to different spawns etc), with many differenth paths etc…. but there is no such thing as unlimited new content in PvE.

Just logged in with my old Warrior and noticed Healing Surge now fully refills adrenaline.
Used to be only 1 bar of adren. When did this buff happen?