Guild Wars 2

Ohoni.6057:

Basically, they have a mechanic that is in conflict with the reward mechanism. If the intent is that players rise to a certain point and then “settle” and stay there, then they can’t tie the reward mechanisms to consistent advancement. If they do tie the rewards to consistent advancement, then they need to design the system to consistently advance players that make a genuine effort.

issue being that they HAVE created a system that ties the rewards to people putting in a genuine effort, the only problem is that your definition of genuine effort is not theirs.

you put forward a genuine effort by getting better at the game and building a better team so that you push your MMR such that to reach a 1:1 WL ratio the game needs to put you against better people

and to put you against better people, it needs to put you in a higher division, thereby giving you those rewards

the rest of this is kind of irrelevant because you’re really assuming that a skilled player can’t have a meaningful contribution on whether a game is won or lost, which is blatantly untrue, and completely skips over the point that if you want to not rely on the luck of the draw, you can just compose your own team

just grinding without actually trying does not create an actual effort. you can spit chips all you like about your chances of getting the wings being jeopardized but at the end of the day the rewards are slaved to the system and the system has to stand on its own merit rather than being a highway to shinies.

Ohoni.6057:

That is a poorly designed system. Players should not have to choose between “least bad alternatives,” they should have actually good paths available to them.

i’m bored, let’s not go down this rabbit hole

do you actually have any critique on the matchmaking or the pip/tier/division system or are you just going to whinge about the wings

STIHL.2489:

But it does, exactly that.

• Open world is Tiered from Levels 1 – 80, so you can learn and progress as your own pace.
• Dungeons have Story modes, and come in varying levels of difficulty.
• Fractals, pretty straight up, 1 to 100.

But raids, don’t have any build up to them, no progression, there is no “Level 1 to 10” on raids where you have a ladder you can climb and ‘learn to play’ which is available in all other content.

It is quite literally: “OKAY BRO BEAT THE RAID” and there’s nowhere else to learn how to play

you’re missing the point
also implying that there isn’t difficulty progression within and across raids when there is

Ohoni.6057:

Exactly my point. If I want the reward in question, then I MUST engage in PvP. You try to argue that I can just forever give up on getting that item, but that’s not a positive result either. You can’t present two bad paths and then say it’s my fault that I’m dissatisfied with either option.

then you’re gonna have to pick the path that is least bad for you

in the meantime, stop trying to ruin a system that is not designed for you

STIHL.2489:

I have got to ask, but right now, I am bit boggled, do any of you really go out and try to do something that requires some skill, lets use something safe, like juggle 5 balls, and just take those 5 balls, and keep tossing them, till you get it, without any progressive learning, like, starting at learning to toss and catch 1 ball, then 2, then 3, till you finally get to 5? Or do you just stick with doing those 5 balls, no progressive learning, failing until you master it?

Now that may seem silly, because as a species, almost everything anyone has been taught, has been progressive, they learn the basics, and then work their way up as their skill allows.

But do any of you really work top down with difficulty in real life?

If you do, then carry on, Kudos and Respect.

If you don’t.. why would you suggest that method as a means to learn in a game?

this completely misses the mark, though, because you do learn progressively in gw2

first you do open world leveling
then you move into drytop/silverwastes/hot zones
then you move into fractals, maybe dungeons
then you move into raids

it’s not like you just get handed gw2 and anet says “OKAY BRO BEAT THE RAID” and there’s nowhere else to learn how to play

yakslapper

because yakslapper

STIHL.2489:

But regardless of that factor, progressive learning is the way to learn something like a JP, you don’t simply jump in and there is this magical effect where if you fail enough times you will win. There is no RNG to victory or learning a skill.

there is, it’s called practice

get better at dealing with thieves, applying pressure, and remaining in groups
stop dying in 1 hit

Nocta.5274:

Make it something interactive atleast, not just proc when hit.

Fear on heal ? Fear on elite ?

I do’nt know, but something better. curreently its just frustrating.

that’s runes of tequatl, and they’d be useless for necro because they have no good elites that play with it

Ohoni.6057:

The only difference between solo queuing and being in a group is that in the latter you’re more likely to face a pre-made 5-man, assuming that you don’t know the other players in your group. I’ve had decent luck grouping up with people in the past, but the hard part is finding skilled players to group with in the first place.

maybe you should just queue in with friends and have fun

Kylden Ar.3724:

This so much. Once you get to Emerald, it’s purely luck in pulling team comps and matchups.

‘luck in pulling team comps’

assuming you’re solo queuing, you can queue as a group you know

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Just grind through the pain. Once this year is over and we all have our wings we’ll never have to step into the godforsaken hell hole that is PvP in this game again and then we can all rejoice.

And then they’ll add another set of wings and the lootkitten shall return as foretold in the ancient prophecy

I tried WoW pvp once and I didn’t have my trinket and I cbf grinding that out so nty

Curunen.8729:

I personally don’t like huge and “in your face” backpieces, and I’d usually hide the skin anyway – so the skin doesn’t appeal to me.

As stat swap is the only other benefit it depends what stat(s) you might want in your wvw or pve build(s) as to the convenience of swapping. I think a few ascended backpieces covering the more common stats are all you really need so this feature of the legendary backpiece is also not a big deal for me either.

yep

you can use mystic forge recipes to reset or change the backpiece statspreads and you can get cheapo infusion extractors to protect your upgrades so there’s really little need for an ascended backpiece mechanically

if you want it, you should be going for it for the looks, and there’s not much need to grind through it if you don’t like pvp

Shiren.9532:

Wouldn’t this simply reward people who transfer to already stacked servers and discourage the status quo from moving to a server that is less likely to win the week? For around three years now WvW hasn’t been very competitive due to population imbalance and the winner of each week is fairly predictable.

If you give players a rewards incentive to win each week in a format (WvW) where winning is primarily decided by the server you are on, people will just move to winning servers and losing servers will not only fight outnumbered but they will also lose out on rewards while doing it.

Was a very big issue with the tournaments. I don’t know if it would be an issue with a weekly currency reward; it could be.

Without seeing how the War Score/Skirmish revamps will change the meta it’s really difficult to make any projections as to whether stacking will help, especially if they include provisions to protect the outmanned servers.

Kaijantoo.5796:

It only starts counting once you’ve completed Year of ascension part 3. Hope this explains.

This is wrong.

This achievement, the Daily Games Played achievement, the Wings line and the Essence Collector line will all ignore your meta progress. You can complete them at any point in time. If you theoretically pushed 10 divisions on your very first day in ranked pvp you would have League Elite completed, regardless of your progression elsewhere.

Could be a mid emerald game which is drawing from late Amber and early Sapphire? Idk, that is a bit odd

BrotherBelial.3094:

This problem was apparent last season. It’s the same problem this season, I’m doing fine with my games. But as I said the pip system can not take into account skill when the match making is 50/50. The league needs a reformat, or take away the ability to solo queue and force people to make teams to play.

I’m not going to bother reading beyond this.

If you want to win matches, you have to play better. This can mean getting better at the game, it can mean getting better builds and countercomping, it can mean recruiting better teammates. If you do this, you will get pips, you will break divisions, you will progress. This will help you even at this point in the season as people are already breaking into Ruby and Diamond.

If you think that everyone should need to make a team to play, what is stopping you from going out and finding a team to play with? You don’t like solo queue, fine, don’t solo queue. Go get some friends. Don’t force your position onto the rest of us just because you can’t control yourself.

Go get good and win at games. If you are winning a game for every game you’re losing, then the matchmaking is working.

BrotherBelial.3094:

While you have a point, this is the problem with the pip system. Now image you’ve played say for the sake of argument, 30 games. You have won 15 of them. But you are still on zero pips.

I’ve played 33 and won 16 (was pushing my league professional so I sucked at them, + new meta warriors punish my necro). I am at 10 pips- in Sapphire, too, so I don’t have checkpoints as frequently as Amber/Emerald players.

You can say this as a hypothetical, but it’s my actual experience, and I’m progressing. If you’ve made absolutely no progress and you’re in this position, you are very unlucky from a statistics point of view. While being unlucky can suck, understanding why you’re doing poorly or doing well is important.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why would you keep playing?

Because PvP is fun. If you don’t enjoy PvP don’t expect to progress in the season because chances are you aren’t very good at it, either on a theorycrafting/buildcrafting side or on an actual play side.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Sure last 2 season by now you could be out of amber and working your way through emerald. You could argue players are no better off at the moment, as they are there already. But they had seen progression. They had the feeling they are getting somewhere. Currently people are not feeling that. That is a problem.

Again… This is entirely the problem with looking at the leagues after 3 days. You built that headstart during the middle and later days of last season and now you’re coming into the start of this season and expecting it all to be hunky dory. People haven’t spread out into the leagues yet. Take a chill pill.

BrotherBelial.3094:

As I said in my OP. If players get frustrated they stop playing. A league only works if you had players. Last season saw a massive drop off after 4 weeks. People where in queues of over 10 minuets for ruby. Some reported way longer. This showed the league failed to keep people interested to the end. We all know this to be true. Weather we want to admit it or not.

Analyze long term trends all you want it doesn’t make a lick of sense when you’re analyzing 60 days of league play and then trying to compare it to the 3 days we’ve seen so far.

I think the stack goes like this.
Mist War Summons+
Birthday Booster=Celebration Booster+
Experience Booster=Heroic Booster+
WXP Booster=WXP Minibooster+
Outmanned+
Guild WXP Potion

With them all stacked up you get something in the field of +260%.
Using the old XP booster through an Enchanted Rewards Boost will not grant you extra WXP.
WXP boosters are, to the best of my knowledge, legacy items. WXP miniboosters are only rewarded as a leveling reward. Don’t worry about these two items. Everything else on the list is more or less fair game.

yes, you will get your division credit just as you get your items

Kayberz.5346:

All you guys are doing is crying because your not getting instant gratification, as if you expected to reach your final standind in the division in the first week, AND ITS ONLY BEEN 3 DAYS out of 6 WEEKS.

Yerp, people need to settle down. It’s nothing new. If you want to grind against the brick wall of first week league with an unsettled meta, you shouldn’t expect much progress if you aren’t good at buildcrafting/playing.

If you do not have the expansion then your best gearing strategy is just going straight Sinister in every slot, I believe.

I don’t believe the expac added any Sigils of note, so you will be able to use the same sigils you otherwise would, with an extra emphasis towards condition duration sigils. In particular, I’d be looking at Agony as a mandatory sigil, though this depends on what content you’re targeting- if mobs die before your bleeds tick out, you may want something else which applies more conditions or grants more condition damage.

For runes, I think you can buy Rune of the Berserker as a non-HoT player, but I am not sure.

Yeah, very glad to see this, but we do need to be a bit careful. It’s still early days in the season. The meta will probably shake one or two of these classes down.

Still, glad that the early picture is so good. Just need to get those Dragonhunters patched up and then ANet can start looking into some broader build diversity improvements.

Surely if the average player is a non-mover then the matchmaking system is working? Checkpoints, winstreaks and losestreaks will still protect you on your way to Ruby.

tomb of knowledge sounds like a great dungeon

more seriously, i think being able to convert tome of knowledge into something else would be great. converting them into leveling rewards is long and messy. maybe if you could spend X tomes of knowledge and receive a class exotic box that would be a good change.

Wolfey.3407:

People naturally will flock to a top tier server to get their pretty shinnies.

Really important point, unless people forgot about BG overstacking and getting doubleteamed for a month, which was completely unfun for everyone.

insanemaniac.2456:

iron guards costs like 3g thanks to the flax fibers… people wasted 3g on a camp that is guaranteed to flip to a group of 5+ when groups of 20+ are common?

i think anet did us a favor. =/

Was gonna say. I don’t even know why people use Iron Guards on towers/keeps.

That’s really interesting, thankyou. Good to hear that it’s on your minds.

I wonder if it’d be mechanically feasible to open a reward track every X ranks- you get to say, 500, you can complete Triumphant Hero’s armor once, it locks again. Get to 1000, it opens again until you do it once, then it closes again.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Our primary motivation for avoiding running another tournament, is that at the end of every tournament we saw a permanent dip in the number of players playing WvW. Presumably this was due to players burning themselves out during the tournament.

However, we can still run a poll to see if the majority of the community wants another 4 week tournament, even if it might be bad for the long term WvW population numbers. Though even if ‘running another tournament’ won the poll, we’d probably hold off until we get the scoring updates in.

With this in mind, do you have other plans to implement the Mistforged skins and the Triumphant Hero’s armor? Gotta be plenty of people who bought Hero’s weapon skins and planned to upgrade them in the next season that will now never happen.

Chase.8415:

How do you expect a melee centric class to kite a warrior when they regenerate health at insane rates and your only source of damage is to get infront of the warrior, whom will spam burns.

Yeah I guess warrior isn’t broken if you’re ranged.

you have an alternate weapon set, or you have kits, don’t pretend you don’t have options
unless you’re an ele
sorry eles

dealing with condi warrior- any berzerker, even- is pretty much exclusively just managing the headbutts properly, keep a mental note of their headbutt CD and range them while their headbutt is available

get in a game and find out, i am also curious

AirSickMouse.7294:

I mean really, I think most of the older players in the game would agree that the June 23rd patch was when things started to go south.

I would disagree. The pre-hot game, after Elementalist burn application was tuned down, was very fun.

Killface.1896:

Adventures silver/gold requirement should be nerfed a bit,we have leader boards to show the best players anyways can maybe give extra rewards for top 10 each month but it should be lot easier to get silver/gold as those adventure are forced on lot of clumsy people.

How many mastery points do you need to get from Adventures to learn all Masteries?
Are legendaries supposed to be something that just anyone can get?
How long should you need to be practicing Adventures before you can get gold? Keep in mind it’s only asking for Silver.

I haven’t seen any challenges that took more than an hour’s worth of practice to hit Silver. I don’t think it’s unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination to put a legendary behind adventure completion, especially when they’re putting other items like daily completion and specialization weapons behind them.

If you cannot complete an adventure, look up a guide online and practice. How are you ever going to stop being ‘clumsy’ if you don’t practice?

Redenaz.8631:

Is the problem really as severe as it was? I don’t really follow what builds are popular, but I seem to hear a LOT more variety nowadays, especially since HoT released.

I don’t have my finger on the pulse of all the different sub-communities, but is zerker really the only popular choice for HoT maps, raids, WvW, etc?

it is not

raids top dps builds include viper’s, sinister and zerk’s, with some oddball specs using other builds (power reaper uses Valk’s)
raids also require healers which use magi’s or zealot’s
there’s also the boonstacking chrono which uses some commander’s

fractals use the same statspreads as raids, but they also use assassin’s and i think rampager’s might even be viable. depends on what class/spec you’re running

open world is tuned such that you can broadly use whatever you like. so long as you don’t die, the boss is dying, so it’s npnp

wvw is right out; depending on your role and class you could use a very broad mix of stats and still be viable. frontline uses traditional defensive statspreads as well as new concentration statlines from HOT. backline does the same with offensive spreads, and viable condition stacking opens the door for a lot of builds. roaming has just as much variance as spvp does.

so no, we are miles away from the ‘zerk or die’ meta

i see no problem with aoe chilling bleed explosions every second, seems totally balanced

broadly, i want to say no

there’s only one thing really massive that happened in the meta and that was the removal of merc’s. there’s a broad reduction in the survivabilty of necros and mesmers which could give dragonhunters an opening as a counter to them but i am skeptical. high projectile hate in the meta from scrappers and elementalists will, i think, leave them an unfavorable option

cd reductions on shouts will give the traditional bunker guardians a leg up in the counter condi game but that’s a build that’s not in favor at the moment so it’s up in the air if it’ll stick. again, leaning towards ‘no it won’t’, but i don’t think anyone would mind a pleasant surprise here

burn mediguards will be seriously hampered by no merc’s amulet

power mediguard/non-lb dragonhunter will probably not be in a good place

Kicast.1459:

…comon guy…did you see the other elite specs ?

yes

Kicast.1459:

Seriously…what are you talking about ?

do you really want a ranger elite spec that just doubles down on shooting more
do you really want a guardian elite spec that just doubles down on bunkering and booning more
if that was the intent behind elite specs why did they even bother? they’re supposed to change how you play the class

Kicast.1459:

All other elite specs are just a plain and stupidly op enhancement of the core profession. (except maybe ranger which became support).

no, warriors suck
and no they aren’t pure enhancements of what the build was pre-hot and if they were they’re getting pruned

Kicast.1459:

Did ele loose their supportive role ?

ele became more supportive and more defensive in their support than they were prior to hot. instead of providing massive mightstacks they now produce massive heals, which are pretty different jobs.

they’re now doing the job that guardians used to do- they’re being a heavy supportive bunker which sits at middle and aids the group. if you’re suggesting that elementalists and guardians did the same job prior to hot… let’s just say i’m skeptical

Kicast.1459:

Are daredevils new bunkers ?

no, but if you don’t think that daredevil gives you a bunch of defensive options, you’re being a bit silly. why do you think they all slot dash and bandit’s defense?

Kicast.1459:

Are necro tied to healing and support buffs ?

reapers are probably the closest thing to a 1:1 buff from their base class but they took quite a few nerfs last patch to their offensive capability, including deathly chill being almost completely neutered for pvp, their 2 Reaper’s Shroud abilities which provided heavy duty burst have taken non-trivial hits

if reaper’s still taken, it’s not taken because it improves significantly (sure maybe a little, but not much) on the traditional strengths of necros as a condition class- it’s being taken because it provides heavy duty defense tools in Infusing Terror, Rise! and CttB. i am skeptical that the Reaper we saw dominating season 2 is still alive and well, between these changes and the removal of merc’s amulet

Kicast.1459:

Are warriors now spell casters ?

you’re talking about guardians being not viable for any role

uhhh

wth role was warrior viable for in season 1/2, other than impromptu face to floor dirt inspections?

and zerker is a high damage/pressure specialization when warriors pre-hot were either ramping brawler builds or shout healing support builds. the changes that they’ve made last patch, chiefly the adrenal health change, provide defensive benefits for base warriors- not the berserker’s wheelhouse

Kicast.1459:

Guardian is the only profession that has to let all what was their role for something that is underwhelming.

except for warriors and thieves which weren’t just underwhelming in their own role but were underwhelming in every role imaginable

Kicast.1459:

Karlification at its best…provide a ranged elite spec to a class dedicated to front line according to Anet designers themselves.
It is as if druid was designed for guardians and dh for ranger. For an unknown teason they switched.
With so much instant gap closers and so much projectile hate such professions are doomed.
Thanks again Karl….please focus on thieves next time…they are so toxic..they really deserve it.

it doesn’t make any sense for them to implement elite specs which just double down on what the base class is already good at

bai long.2085:

I’m willing to debate points with people, but I don’t have the patience to listen to people who’re trying to berate my own opinion. That’s not a debate. That’s just poor people skills.

>not willing to listen to people who berate your opinion

bai long.2085:

Of course, if no one was able to gather, that was of the utmost sarcasm.

>makes fun of other peoples’ opinions

The main problem with the tree IMO is that it has multiple traits which are dependent on life force but there is no way to gain Life Force from the tree. Soul Comprehension should be reworked or replaced with a trait that grants life force. If the tree were given a signature boon (retaliation, I think), then that could be a good way to get it.

To play devil’s advocate;

I think part of this issue is solved just with common courtesy. If I’m playing an oddball build I won’t be shy I’ll just say in /team “hey I’m playing Venomshare” “hey I’m playing XXX”, is encouraging that sort of behavior a better or worse idea?

Isn’t this the point of playing as a team? If you’re in solo queue, for better or worse, you’re getting random people. If you want fixed people and you know what they’re playing, you should be team queuing.

bai long.2085:

My question is, if people can survive well enough as Berserker’s, Sinister, Viper…just in general…then why should other sets like Soldiers, Valkyries, Knights, etc even exist?

1. Open world and solo content in which you are supposed to do what you like rather than submit yourself to the group’s needs.
2. WvW.
3. Valkyrie’s is a viable stat set.

Question asked and answered, good talk.

bai long.2085:

7 Berserker’s druids at my personal skill level could beat the raid. 10 Nomad’s druids at my skill level could not. The timer would run out. This shouldn’t be the case. If 10 of one type can do it, 10 of any type should be able to do it.

Sorry man but this is just funny.

If you’re wearing Nomad’s gear you do not understand how the game works. You aren’t skilled by any stretch of the imagination.

If you were a zerker player you would need to learn how to dodge, learn how to manipulate projectiles, learn how to manage your boons and weapon skills to survive. As Nomad’s you just kinda stand there and you probably do less damage than a Rifle Turret.

TallBarr.2184:

What would you like for them to add? I doubt they will move them closer to the keeps or garri to give them more of an strategic location.

I don’t know. I thought that the idea of giving them waypoints could be interesting.

I don’t think they need to follow the Alpine paradigm of “applies pressure to the garrison”. That would be boring map construction. DBL is DBL and it should be different from ABL.

I think that, in trying to find the answer, it should follow a few rules:
1. It shouldn’t be identical to the ABL north towers’ strategic advantage
2. It shouldn’t involve a new gimmick. It shouldn’t be a buff, it shouldn’t be a supersiege.

Steelo.4597:

Not sure if Ogre is trolling or kittened.

I think he is meming you

while adding tactical value to towers would be nice i do not think that supercannons would be the way to go

how is making them hit like trucks not artificial difficulty

Necros are fine. They bring powerful group support tools like Vampiric Aura and Transfusion and they have Epidemic, one of the best utilities in the game if the party is built to abuse it.

Just make sure you don’t use an Axe and you’ll be fine.