Guild Wars 2

I read pretty quick. But it’s not about that, and you should not use this as measurement, since there are probably a lot of people who read slower. Your 8 word argument, well, there are different messages to read, so there are probably more than 8 words. But that does not matter either.
It is not about for how long you are distracted, it is about being distracted in the first place. And since they said in that video which was posted earlier that they want to keep using this mechanic, you might expect an increase of stuff that you have to read, depending on the complexity of the enemy mechanic.

Also not having to read it again once you have read it, this is just a dummy argument. The point is that no matter what, you’re at least distracted by it once. It breaks immersion. It breaks the flow of the gameplay. It distracts.

And by the way, I think you misunderstood me. There are timestamps afaik, as long as you have them enabled for the entire chat in the options. This is also a big NO. Elements that influence combat and gameplay should never be so blatantly reliant on a setting a player can choose.

It might be helpful to some people, but it is nevertheless bad design. It should not be encouraged. There are a lot of other, better ways to communicate with the player. It also does not need to be communicated on all channels, because some will be distracting. Clear visual and auditory communication is the best and most sufficient way.

Apart from all this, people probably fear that ANet is shifting to less quality and more content in a short time, so that in the long term visual and auditory communication might be replaced entirely with this text nonsense.

Jemmi.6058:

I just don’t think the text should be removed. It is out of the way, so it’s not getting in your way. If you want the extra information it’s there. If you don’t, then ignore it.

Here I really beg to differ. Especially since it is “out of the way” it becomes a distraction. As I said, you have to focus on it, making you ignore the actual battle. Also since it is yellow, at first I thought it was a system message.
Now you also say ignore it. But to ignore it, I have to know what it is in the first place. So I have to read it once at least, making your argument invalid. I cannot ignore it, because it could be important. I do not know what it is if I do not read it.
Also what jazzllanna said. This was confusing me, too. “Is it a new message or not?” For people who have turned timestamps off this hurts even more. And for those with timestamps on, they have to do the additional check of comparing timestamps with the actual time, distracting even more.

Don’t get me wrong, I get that on a personal level you seem to like these messages. But on an objective level, there are just too many facts showing that it is bad design. It’s just screaming BAD everywhere you look.

Jemmi.6058:

“Oh look at that text in the bottom left explaining everything”.

It’s a good design to use everything possible to communicate. They gave the visual cues and added text to give more explanation if you were unable to figure it out via the video cues. Again I cannot speak to audio as I had the game muted when I did this.

I think at this point it comes down to personal preference, but communicating via chat is not good and should never be used. Seeing and hearing what your enemy does is rather easy (as long as the animations and sound fit), you’re focused onto him anyway. But if you have to divert your attention away from the fight to the chat (or are distracted by it, since it appears in yellow so it seems to be somewhat important), then the flow of the gameplay is broken at this point. It is not intuitive, it is distracting and can lead you easily to make mistakes.

Compared to everything else in this game, especially Molten Facility, this is very very bad gamedesign for the reasons I have already named.

Try looking at it from another angle: When fighting the dragons – Jormags Claw, Tequatl the Sunless and the Shatterer (also when taking back Claw Island, which of course is kinda like Tequatl), his attacks and moves are called out by npcs. While this also kinda dictates the flow of the fight, it is also immersive, because the npcs who are fighting with you are calling it, which makes the world feel alive.

So at the very least they could have used the npcs who you teamed up with to communicate his actions. Give them a little voice and let them tell you what Canach is up to. This would have been way better than yellow messages (System anouncements anyone?) and not so immersion-breaking.

instead of telegraphing boss mechanics clearly

He didn’t say that they were not telegraphed at all, just not clearly enough. And I totally agree. His animation for detonating the bombs – kneeling down – looks pretty much the same like his blocking animation. I confused the two at first.
Also, I don’t remember clearly, but did he have any in-fight voice at all? Felt that this was totally missing.

Apart from whether his actions were telegraphed or not: The progress of a fight, especially of a boss fight should never be influenced by the chat. Unless you’re deaf, you should not be forced to read. And there should not be any messages dictating the fight at all. If it was intentionally made for deaf people, fine. But make it an option you can turn off, because personally I do not like it. It is distracting, and it is bad design.

If I want to read text, I’m going to play a text based RPG. We have audio and video for a reason. So use it.

Wat?

So what makes this a good boss? Accountability. Every player needs to be on their toes in this fight, slacking can and will negatively affect the group and is very noticeable to other group members when it is done.

I went in there with a few guildmates. We figured out his “patterns” really quickly. In the end one of us just had a Scanner, activating 3-4 mines in a certain area, while the rest simply bashed his head in. Heck, we could even ignore the healing turrets and damage aura. Just a little bit of coordination and all his mechanics except for the shield went to waste.

In conclusion, this game badly needs more content like this boss. Challenging encounters for those of us that have finished the current dungeon content and are masochistic enough to demand that you hurt us more. We want to be smacked down by clever mechanics and counterattacks that require more than just “Stand next to Shatterer’s leg and stab his toes”, we want to be beaten into the dirt in the complete knowledge that it was entirely preventable if we had not messed up.

While I agree with the general idea behind this quote, this specific dungeon is in no way a good example of how dungeon and enemy design should be. Uh-uh. Never. Molten Facility, yes. This? Hell no.

Well his animation when exploding the bombs is just him sitting / kneeling, which I easily confused with his blocking animation at first. Nevertheless the content was way too easy and way too short. Seemed like anet ran out of time and just pushed this instead of admitting that they got nothing worthwhile.

sorrow.2364:

Seriously people, if ArenaNet nerf Thieves it is probably because they need a nerf.
It’s not like that such a big software house buff and nerf professions based on sympathy.

That argument… oh geez. Because big companies always know whats best. Especially in any rpg-like games. It has never ever happened in any such game that something was nerfed or buffed too hard. Never. No. Of course not. ._.

Just that neither of them deserve to be called dungeons. both can be completed within ~4min each.

tigirius.9014:

As a filthy casual I have to laugh at these threads because nowhere in the post level 80 process is this game at all easy. Mobs keep getting updated to make them non soloable, there’s a code in the system and the whole game is designed to absolutely be partied with someone at all times to get anything from mobs, the dungeons are so difficult and so few are rewarding that people generally ignore all of them save 1 path all the time, and don’t try to actually see the story mode because that will waste people’s time. Not to mention the need for certain classes due to the game challenge level of the dungeons so that people can speed run thru them to get resources since those resources are nowhere else to be found.

The game is easy. It really is. All mobs are soloable, even those in Southsun which are just a teensy bit harder. But still no challenge.
Also dungeons are not difficult. People don’t run CoF p1 just because it’s easy, they run it because it is the fastest path in the game. The other dungeons + paths are also easy, but they take longer simply by design. And since the rewards for dungeons are pretty much the same, people simply run the fastest path available. Really. Why run Arah which takes 1-2h because its long (not difficult), when you can run CoF p1 in 6 minutes, for the freaking same reward? It’s totally out of balance right now.

Oh and there is no need for certain classes because of difficulty. There is a need for certain classes if you want to achieve something special, like a speedrun. But again, that’s got nothing to do with difficulty.

I ran FotM 26 with 0 agony resistance yesterday, it was easy. Like the rest of the game. The most challenge I get is from sPvP, since players are unpredictable. And even if some content might be difficult in the beginning, it quickly transcends to being easy the more you play it. Because it is always the same. But then again, most content was easy to begin with.

Doggie.3184:

This is the Thief forums. No Anet words here. :P

Thief forum, huh? They’re probably disguised as regular users. Would make sense.

Elmuerto.9840:

What self respectin’ thief runs about with only guns anyway, they haven’t even got silencers!

Don’t tell anyone: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Whisper%27s_Secret_Pistol.jpg

Ankle shots has a 10sec cooldown and only 3secs activation time. Also just 60% chance to proc. Not worth it tbh.

Right now people run the easiest and shortest explorable path(s), right? Meaning different dungeons and different paths provide different difficulty and length already. The only thing that needs to be done is to evaluate the paths properly and adjust the reward accordingly.

In Other words: The harder the path, the better the loot. Wouldn’t be too much effort for the devs while encouraging players to run more than just CoF p1.

Elm.8169:

Oh noes, y’all! A weapon set without a teleport or an escape? Whatever will we do?

Try not to lose sleep over it.

That’s what I’m tying by figuring out whether I should get my hopes up high anytime soon.

It’s clear that P/P is probably the worst weaponset in game and it is also clear that people crave for it to become somewhat viable, considering the number of threads that keep popping up on this topic.

So I would love to get some official answer from ANet. Are the pistols being worked on? Should we get our hopes up high? Or should we throw them into a corner pretending they never even existed?

Yours faithfully,
Someone who would love to have a viable P/P set.

Charr. Because I like Charr. Yup.

First of all: I love pistols. I love their style as well as their feeling.

But sadly, pistols outright suck. I think we can all agree that pistols on thief are one of the weakest weapon choices. Right now there are two ways you can use pistols. That’s P/D or X/P. You can try P/P – and when geared and traited correctly you can almost achieve a state where you are somewhat useful – but there are way better choices.

So what’s wrong with the pistol?
To determine what’s wrong, we first need to know what’s right, or what is considered balanced. A weaponset is only balanced when it is viable by itself, without the use of traits or utility skills. D/D for example is considered balanced. It has good damage, movement, some AoE (dancing dagger, death blossom) and control. Shortbow is also balanced, if not already on the verge to being OP. AoE damage everywhere. Good condition and burst damage, can also deal huge single target damage with cluster bomb and loads of movement. These weaponsets are viable without any traits or utility skills. They are only enhanced by them.
And then there is the pistol set. The only two decent skills that this set provides are Headshot and Black Powder, while the latter is rather situational. The set has low base damage, low condition damage (compared to death blossom or the sb, let alone other classes), no movement, no real defensive abilities and no AoE. In fact pistols on thief are the only weaponset ingame that does not have a single AoE damage skill. Not one. And it does not make up for it in higher damage.

Why does P/D work then?
P/D only works because it is being enhanced by the daggers skills. The constant stealth provided by CnD allows for constant use of the Sneak Attack, which in turn provides decent condition damage. In addition the perma stealth playstyle allows for great survivability. But again, this is only possible because of the dagger, not because of the pistol.

Why does X/P work?
It’s simple: the main focus here lies on the X and not on the pistol. The pistol is only a support aspect. It is a means to unlock the #3 skill and to get a little bit of extra control.

So what can be done?
Well, the pistols need to be viable on their own. They either need to have some AoE skills (or be able to become AoE, the 20% bounce chance from Ricochet right now is a joke), or they need a serious increase in damage to make up for lacking AoE and utility.

Frankly I would love to have a viable ranged alternative to the shortbow. Sure you can go for a P/P initiative regen build that relies on constantly spamming unload. But that is neither fun nor very useful. You give up all utility, all initiative and probably the second weaponset so you can spam unload to keep up a decent amount of damage, which comes by default when using other weaponsets. And P/D is not a ranged alternative, it’s an entire playstyle requiring you to go for condition damage. So it cannot be used as an alternative to shortbow.

On a side note: The lack of proper alternatives for the shortbow is probably also one of the reasons why people repeatedly keep asking for the rifle to become a thief weapon.

Wow, so much stupidity in one thread. Unbelievable.

This is not a learn 2 play issue. It is not about being able to survive for 30 seconds without stealth. It is not about losing burst damage potential because of missing stealth.

This issue is about a game mechanic – anti stealth traps – that is heavily influencing one class more than the rest. As has been mentioned, up to 30 trait points are going to waste. An entire mechanic is shut down because of this, and this mechanic happens to be a very big part of the thief class design. It does not matter how easily you can survive without stealth. All that matters is that one class is a lot more influenced by this mechanic than the rest.

How would guardians feel if they had no boons for 30 seconds at all?
How would necros feel without deathshroud for 30 seconds?
How would eles feel being locked into an attunement for 30 seconds?
How would mesmers feel without clones for 30 seconds?
…

You get my point. At least I hope that you do.

Arheundel.6451:

At what should I spam auto-attack if I need a target to hit are you kidding me?

You do realize that you don’t need a target to use and hit with your autoattack, do you? If a dagger thief stealths there is a 90-99% probability of him getting close to you to pull off a backstab. If you constantly spam your autoattack you will eventually hit him, or he will retreat without attacking.

The only two good things about rifle warriors are 1) style and 2) it’s actually a (sniper) rifle, unlike the engineer shotgun which is disguised as a rifle.
I really love the style of a charr rifle warrior. But that’s it.

Botting means letting a program play for you. Usually to do the boring lame kitten stuff like farming. Nevertheless it usually plays a big part in destroying games.

Hah, I’m camping character select now. Double “The game client was unable to connect blah blah” messages when I hit the Play button.

AuraBeedit.1654:

i just bought GW2 today and after 1 h of playing the server gets down? lol

You just got unlucky.

Oh I know all that. Just wanted to point out that it does in fact display a range for SR. That the tooltip is wrong, well that’s another topic. :)

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The tool tip only shows the minimum distance for IF, not for SR. SR is time limited, no need for it to have a range limit also. If a range limit is added, no sense to add a time limit. It’s either/or and Anet choose the time limit and it is perfect as it is.

Actually that’s not true. Tooltip says:

Infiltrator’s Strike – Range: 600
Shadow Return – Range: 1200

Sssshhht. Don’t tell anyone. :D

In this case the wording is just a little… vague. There’s basically two states: Using a skill, and a skill successfully doing whatever it is supposed to do.

Thrill of the crime says: “When you steal […]” it is not saying or implying that the stealing has or does not have to be successful. And that’s not important, since because of the wording it is simply about using the skill. When you steal. When you use the skill. So everything is alright here.

Bountiful Theft on the other hand states: “Stealing grants […]”. Now that’s vague. It is about the action itself, and does not say or imply anything about using the skill. Then again it also states: “Up to two boons are also ripped from your target […]” implying that the skill actually has to connect. Since this is the only hint we get, I would say that not gaining vigor when not connecting is the right behaviour.

Then again the definitions are rather vague. So there is still the off chance of it being a bug.

Skip this part if you’re only interested in the build

Meridian.8730:

evasion sucks for thief, only pistol whip has any decent evade and it plants you very firmly in one spot. s/d isn’t used for the evade, it’s used because they tried to give thief a fighting chance vs some really OP classes in recent patch…but they didn’t actually want thief to have a REAL chance, only think they had one so they won’t whine as much…

People just love whining, don’t they? Loads of bullcrap in that quote. Really.

Lately I have been running S/D very successfully, PvE as well as WvWvW. Especially in WvWvW that boon steal mechanic is just godly. Combined with a well timed flanking strike your enemy won’t stand a chance. I’m having a blast.

Admitted, it took me some time to get really used to the sword skills, but it was definitely worth it. The sword has a blind, a daze, a shadowstep and a shadowreturn (stunbreaker). It cripples and weakens your foes with the final strike of the auto attack and still deals good damage, especially considering that it is PBAoE. And as I have already mentioned, evade + boon steal = godly. The evade can also be used as a small gap closer.

And that is just the sword. Combined with an offhand dagger, steal, shadow refuge, shadowstep and a shortbow you’re the king of movement, stealth and AoE. Especially if you go with Dagger Storm. I’m ever so happy I gave it a try.

On a sidenote: I’ve been taking a look at the class forums these past days and the general consensus of each class forum is: “qq my class is so bad and haz so many bugs, the devs ignore us!”
It’s like a big black cloud is hovering over the class forums spitting out self centered emo crybabies that want their class to never ever having trouble at anything and being god. Seriously.

The build

But enough offtopic. As for my build: Complete Berserkers gear except for earrings, they’re valkyrie. Runes of the pack (haven’t really decided what I want to go with finally, but as of right now they suffice).
Fire sigil on sword, rage sigil on dagger and sb. The latter is also subject to change

Traits:
0
30 (VI, X, XI)
25 (I, VIII)
15 (III)
0

Utility skills as I have mentioned already: Hide in Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Shadowstep, Signet of Shadows (feel free to change if you don’t care about the movespeed), Dagger Storm.
You can get rid of all the stealth stuff and go for even more mobility and initiative regen, but I really like stealth as it gives me time to recover, especially in WvWvW. Shadow Refuge is also very helpful in general.

Build works well in PvE (Dungeons, Fractals) as well as WvWvW.

It will happen eventually.

And thus a shameless bump has been applied.

Nope it does not.

Just double checked, it is an average of 50ms.

Country: Germany
ISP: Telekom

The game is definitely not based around 100ms+ if you ask me. And as I said, I do not have any problems with dodging. Hit detection seems fine.

Maybe you should update your knowledge a little. Your generelization of “the rest of the world” is utterly wrong, since I am neither american nor korean and have an average ping of 30-50ms.

150ms is pretty high. Even with good interpolation you might encounter imprecisions when it comes to dodging. Never noticed anything too weird with hit detection, so I guess it is your latency.

Race: Charr
Weapon: Sword

Description: The position of the drawn sword is incorrectly while running. Screenshot #1 shows the sword while standing still (the way it should be), screenshot #2 shows the sword while running.

Note: Seems to be an issue for all kinds of swords. Don’t know if it only affects charr or other races, too.

I have always loved the idea of thieves having a rifle. But this will probably just stay a dream.

As has been said before, the pet mechanic is too intrusive for the class design.

The mesmer illusions for example are not intrusive, if you don’t care about them in the slightest they will still deal damage or apply buffs and conditions. They really are fire and forget, as well as a great way to mitigate damage. On the other hand you can use a build that properly enhances them so your entire gameplay revolves around them.

With the ranger it is different. Your pet is there, like the illusions, but fire and forget does not work. If you keep it in its aggressive stance, it will most likely die pretty quick and be totally useless (or in worse cases: pull even more mobs, especially in dungeons).
If you keep it passive this means you will lose a portion of your damage.

Now you might argue that other professions might not use their F-Skills as well if they don’t like them and would by doing so also lose damage, but that is highely improbable. The sole reason most rangers dislike their pet is because it requires and constant amount of your attention. You have to micromanage it. Always.

Other class mechanics like the thiefs steal, necros deathshroud, guardians virtues, warriors adrenaline are all fire and forget, like mesmers illusions. Use them if they are ready (or not if its passive virtues) and proceed as usual. You can of course make them a substantial part of your build, but you don’t have to.

The ranger then again has to micromanage his pet, if it’s a part of his build or not, or else he will lose damage. And worse, if it is not a part of his build, his class mechanic is highely likely to die and be useless altogether.

Ignore this post

I just wish they would buff pistols on thief… or give him a rifle. One can always dream.

Guys really?
It’s always the same, no matter who says it.

X only wins because of population and has no skillz!
X and Y always team up and that’s why we lose!

Blah Blah. Get over it. Population will fluctuate, there are more than enough people that are hopping on the winning train. Nothing new here. And you will also always get the feeling that the other two servers are teaming up. But just because you get the feeling does not mean it is actually true. It’s just looking like this, simply because 3 servers are fighting each other.

No use whining about it. Doesn’t help anyone and nothing will change.

Actually I’m playing Staff Necro (and did so just yesterday). I have traited for greater marks, too and everything was fine. The marks visuals were bigger as well as their effect radius.

Now I don’t want to imply that you’re lying or anything, so the bug is probably not consistent. What’s important now would be to figure out the circumstances under which the bug is occuring. I will post my current spec later on when I have some more time.

Hey folks,

I love copying the looks of NPCs. I really love the looks of some of the flame legion troops. So I’ve been looking for the perfect color to actually match them.

Right now I’m using Honey as a color and it looks pretty close, but I’m not sure if there might be some better color. So if you know which color is used exactly, I would greatly appreciate if you told me. Attached a screenshot of how honey looks on my gear.

(I know I’m missing the shoulder gear, but since it’s T3 it’s way too expensive for now)

Sorry ANet, I really liked you up to this patch + event. Screwing up bigtime. At least you’re trying. :/

Your hitscan definition is not quite correct. In an fps for example most weapons are hitscan weapons, but the target still requires a hitbox to determine if it has been hit.
The only difference is: hitscan is instant. You click, a ray is cast in the direction you are looking and with the help of the hitbox it is determined if you actually hit. Non-hitscan weapons use projectiles, which actually take time to travel.

Of course hit detection works differently in an mmo with single target skills. Just wanted to point out that hitboxes and hitscan can work together and are not necessarily opposites.

Apart from that, good post. This stuff has been said repeatedly and also ignored as much by anet up till now.

225mb at 20%. So i guess the patch is about 1.2gb

Downloading with 2mb/sec now

8675 files remaining

Kravick.4906:

Mobott.5908:

Rytlock says after you talk to him that it was a mistake to send to into the situation without more information. He says that under normal circumstances, you would be punished for it. However, for all he knows, Emer could have been in the wrong and your father in the right, so he can’t punish you for it. Rytlock trusts your decision, so he just lets it slide (he’s a tribune, he can do that). And you didn’t kill anyone except Emer, the soldiers were just basically “downed”, just like when you went you run out of health.

I did this not more than a day ago. The only thing you’ve said that is correct is that Rytlock admits he made a mistake sending me in without more information. As for “downing” the guards, mechanically within the game, yes that is what happened. I’ll just let that one go, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that every single guard I chucked grenades at, dropped bombs on, and shot bullets at somehow survived. At the very least thats still assault with a deadly weapon and can be construed as intent to kill. Lets not forget the jail break itself which is considered a capital offense.

With that said, this all took place inside the Iron legion city. Rytlock has no authority there except for his own legion. My character is Iron legion. I fall under the jurisdiction of Iron regardless of what the circumstances are. Remember, Blood and Ash are guests ATM. Then there is still the fact that I murdered Emer. It doesn’t matter that Emer “may” have been suspected of being involved. Emer was only “suspect”. Emer was only doing her job as a Legionnaire by trying to stop me. I killed her. That makes me a murderer. Even if Emer was guilty, thats still murder. No sentence of death had been given to Emer as of that point.

We also don’t know whos legion Emer belonged too. If Emer was blood, then I can see Rytlock pardoning the crime of murder with the Blood legion. However, the murder itself still happened on Iron legion soil. There is also the matter of the jail break and the assault on the city guards, which would fall under the jurisdiction of the Iron legion. It would take one heck of a silver tongue to convince the Iron legion not to press charges after that little rampage and I don’t see Rytlock having THAT much pull.

If Emer was Iron legion or Ash legion, Rytlock can’t do anything, period. There is just to many plot holes here and zero explanation of what was really going on. This part of the story was badly written. The other two storylines (Flame dad and Honorable sire) were very well written and I enjoyed em both. Gladium father is bad. Very bad.

You’re trying to somehow squeeze the entire charr culture into a human like justice system. But Charr don’t work like that. I read the two gw novels, and in the second one at the end it is more or less explained how rytlock obtained his rank: by basically killing everyone that opposed or made fun of him, taking their places. If you can kill them fair and square, it means you are better than them. Similar to gaining legionnaire rank in the blood legion story.

Now you might argue that it only works like this within the blood legion. Then again I am pretty sure there was a small piece of conversation bewteen rytlock and your tribune, going somehow like this: “For the duration of this mission, your legionnaire will report to me”, basically putting you under blood legion rules for the mission, giving rytlock jurisdiction.

I did play warrior with sword + shield from 0 to 80. Enjoyed it pretty much.

Get your terms straight, people.

Atheism = Denial of existance of gods
Agnosticism = Not believing in gods, but gods might exist

Even though the charr have so far denied that most of the gods (if not all) in the gw2 world are gods, they probably still do not deny the existance of a god ultimatively.

The iron legion catchphrase “Rely on iron, not on false gods” is actually a great example, since it only says to not rely on false gods. In return this actually leaves the possibility that the charr think that actual gods might exist, in turn making them agnostics.

vicekeridan.2708:

Give us Rytlock’s armor and all will be well.

The heavy cultural tier 3 armor is the one Rytlock’s wearing.
I actually do love the cultural armors, especially the first light armor. That’s why im still wearing it on level 80. Transmutation all the way. Takes horns and tail into account.

http://i.imgur.com/3awBc.jpg

Though I’m disappointed with the light tier 3 cultural armor. Basically ignores the tail, which is okay for other “normal” armors, but not for a cultural one.