Guild Wars 2

We need more Black, Red, and Gold weapon skins, especially with Fused weapons being so inaccessible. My ranger and thief are sad that there are no weapons that can visually complement the tiger shortbow’s color scheme.

We also need Lord Faren’s Maguuma Jungle Outfit. It should be unisex on Charr.

Cosmic Gathering tools, please! I’m really wanting to get the Cosmic Harvesting Tool for my ranger to complete the set (I missed it last time it was around), and I figure others would love the other two tools.

Oh, and Fused weapon skins should make a comeback eventually.

I hope we get Purple SAB weapons. Kaiser Snake is supposed to be the boss of World 3. World 4 was supposed to be the last.

What the heck is with all the people saying “The fish is gasping for air”? Fish never “gasp for air”, because they don’t breathe air in the first place, unless they’re magical like the Floppy Fish, which breathes air just as well as water.

The flopping is its only means of transportation on the ground. Ranger pets and animal minis desperately paddle around when you go underwater.

Tibicia.8315:

It may be pixels, but then why not make a mini of kittens being drowned in bag?

Because there are already minis of kittens and cats and dogs drowning, just not in a bag. Grab any small critter mini, then go underwater.

The Floppy Fish is no less happy flopping across the dunes of Dry Top than the Lion Cub is happy swimming through the depths of Frostgorge Sound.

Fatalyz.7168:

Sartharina.3542:

Ayrilana.1396:

2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.

Yes it was. “The Guild Wars” lore event is merely justification for the game’s title, and an out for when they did start focusing more on PvE content as its own reward instead of stepping stones/training for the GvG endgame.

GvG was never a supported game format in this game, so it couldn’t have been end game.

Not in this game, but it was in the original. Guild Wars was originally an attempt at an MMO (That became a CORPG) that was focused on Guild Vs. Guild as its endgame, with the rest of the game and its lore developing around that concept (And drifting from it)

Unfortuantely, I don’t know how to go about finding 15-year-old promotional material.

Ayrilana.1396:

2) The title is not based on actual player guilds fighting with each other.

Yes it was. “The Guild Wars” lore event is merely justification for the game’s title, and an out for when they did start focusing more on PvE content as its own reward instead of stepping stones/training for the GvG endgame.

But you can expand the number of given purposes optimal to pursue.

Warrior and Thief sound like strong options to me. I’m not really familiar with WvW, but Warriors do seem to have some roaming strength there, while Thieves are great at ganking and disengaging. The thief’s initiative mechanic allows for more aggressive play than other classes (No cooldown on weapon attacks), and, while they’re one of the squishiest classes in the game, they can use blinds, evades, and interrupts to squeeze quite a lot of survivability out of their tiny healthpool. I don’t think they have a role in raids.

Warriors… I don’t know if they have a role in WvW, because I don’t do a lot in that game mode (I just grab my guardian and run around in the train). But they have incredible damage for their survivability – trait Defense, and you are tough as hell to take down even in full berzerker gear. I have a charracter of every class, and in PvE, at least, encounters that provide a difficult challenge to my non-warriors are barely a speedbump to the warrior I’ve mained. Warrior also has a protected role in Fractals and Raids thanks to Phalanx Strength with Forceful Greatsword and Banners.

I can’t remember how I’ve changed my controls from default, but my utility skills are Shift+1-5.

Wanze.8410:

OriOri.8724:

@Wanze – I linked silk to the high price of leather, not just T6 leather. T5 leather is still expensive for a T5 mat, and its a ridiculously high % of the cost of crafting anything, which drives people away from crafting, which lowers the demand for silk, which lowers the price of silk.

You are the one who made it only about T6, not me.

The topic title made it about t6, not me.

And even for t5, your theory isnt true because silk rose in value simultaneously to t5 leather since mid february, so the high price of t5 doesnt really stop players consuming silk.

This is a merged thread about leather prices in general.

Frankly, I think the imbalance in crafting is a blight on the game, and it’s having a strongly adverse effect on the economy. Sure, it’s ‘stable’ – but so is the guy on life support in the ICU.

Khailyn.6248:

The only part of the armor repairing that annoys me is right after I repair my gear, the next time i get downed an armor gets damaged. In other games repairing armor in town would set the durability to maximum for all slots, but not here.

It does reset the durability to maximum. In GW2, each piece of armor has two ‘hit points’, chosen randomly for damage each time you die, then randomly for breakage after all is damaged and you’re defeated.

I wish I could turn off the XP number flashing on the screen simply to declutter the game’s interface.

We should have had free waypoints instead

If the flopping fish didn’t flop, it wouldn’t be a Flopping Fish. It’s a flopping fish, so it flops. Maybe it should sing the Boogie Bass songs?

mtpelion.4562:

Farming, in general, is discouraged by the game’s design in order to build a game that rewards “play how you want”.

Essentially, the theory is that doing anything should give you lots of random stuff. You can sell the stuff you don’t want on the TP and use the money to buy the stuff you do want (also on the TP).

“Lots of Random Stuff” should balance out to roughly equivalent volumes of stuff (Crafting materials) for roughly equivalent things (Stat types), with Demand changing the value of them (Powerful Blood is expensive because everyone wants Berzerker gear, not because it has a negligible drop rate). This is not the case with Lilies and Pearls.

When the game first launched, Dungeons were seen as stupidly hard, and required specific builds to beat until players figured them out, several got nerfed, and player skill in general increased. I bet in a year or two, several Raids will be seen as ’Playhowyouwant" in terms of difficulty – not from the power creep, but from improved skill at the game from experienced players being able to carry the newer ones even in mixed parties.

Even at their worst, masteries were never as bad as The Time We Had To Unlock Traits.

Ah! This subject!

I have two classes I’d like to see:

For Engineer, there are actually two:
Demolitionist – New weapon is Sword, and its skills are assorted explosives that apply buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies. We’ll say it’s Canach-based, and not the Demoknight from Team Fortress 2. It uses its sword to implant tiny subdermal explosives, that explode after a brief pause. He can also throw then detonate his sword.

Mechanic – Where the Scrapper was specialized in taking things apart with a massive hammer, the Mechanic is specialized in building and repairing things. New weapon is Mace, which can be used to repair friendly objects as well as smack people (Friendly turrets, gyros, mechanical minions, maybe some quest defense targets). Its skills would be mechanical minions and possibly even a vehicle like the Asura elite. Maybe we’ll finally be able to defend those poor Ash Legion tents in Ashford?

For the Warrior, I’d absolutely love to see “Captain” – a support-based spec with utility skills that create combo fields (Lets call them “Tactics”), and the new weapon would be Main Hand Pistol (Gives them a mainhand ranged weapon to allow for easier positioning and oversight of the battlefield, and it can be paired with off-hand weapons, and would easily go well with Sword for defense+conditions, Shield for defense, Warhorn for more support.) Lore-wise… Warriors of all types take up the role of Captain, whether they’re pirates or commanders on a battlefield. Whether leading the charge with a melee weapon in tow, or standing back surveying the battlefield with a sidearm, rifle, or longbow, they reshape the field of battle with keen eye and opportunism to help their team carry the day. Warmaster Gritblade would be a notable proto-Captain already in the game.

Thief
Bard/Minstrel, a support-based specialization that gets the Focus as a weapon.
The Minstrel is sort of like a Thief/Mesmer hybrid (Sort of like how Dragonhunter is a Guardian/Ranger cross). They have a focus and mantras, and their Initiative is modifed to a more irregular ‘cadence’, which gains and loses specific Initiative values on a pattern that can be modified by their Mantras (new utility). It doesn’t have quite the same burst potential as a core Thief, but it has far better sustained performance.

Mortifera.6138:

It should go without saying, considering the original Guild Wars 2 had real fantasy elements.

Where? Was it when we were invading the homeland of an Elder Dragon with a column of armored tanks? When we were repairing the steel aqueducts and mills powering the fields of Kryta? Maybe it was when we were defending Submarines and building helicopters in Ascalon! Or fighting in dragonscarred trenches beneath the thunder of howitzers, flak cannons, and other heavy artillary! And when we were shooting dragons out of the sky with giant lasers. And the armies of robots everywhere. And a whole fleet of airships killed an Elder Dragon that one time.

Guild Wars 2 is very much still a fantasy game, though. It just happens to exist in an era with more advanced technology.

They really should just normalize the primary refinement mechanics of crafting (3 to refine all T5/6 materials, 50+Ecto for the Ascended thingy. Metal and Wood for Inscriptions, Cloth+Leather for Insignias), let the market recover from the shock, then tweak sinks and faucets for the materials from there.

Masteries aren’t even a treadmill – they’re a horizontal progression. Closest thing I can think of to a mastery approaching a Treadmill is the Nuhoch Wallows→Magma Vents, but even then it’s tenuous (Wallows are instant. You can glide out of Vents)

A treadmill requires constant improvement just to maintain your current performance relative to the opponents. That’s not happening in Guild Wars 2. Every ability gives you a distinctive tool to use. The only 4-stat set better than its 3-stat counterparts is Viper’s, and that’s because of the mechanics of conditions. The rest just make spreading stats around more efficient. A theoretical Power, Precision, Ferocity, Condition Damage stat set might be better than Berzerker’s, but only for weapons/builds that deal hybrid Condition and Power damage.

There seems to be a ‘squared’ weight class.
I think Rangers would have had High hitpoints like Warrior and Necro, but got a pet instead.

Mortifera.6138:

The majority of the game involves you playing commander in a warzone. I know this is the expansion to Guild Wars 2, but it’s not a fantasy one. Did the queen even exist this time around?

And no, I did not purchase the Guild Wars 2 army uniform.

Did you not play any of Guild Wars 2? It’s always had a more “Trenches+Tanks” tech level.

Carighan.6758:

But, 4,5 years down the line, I feel this is finally bursting at the seams. Many many MMORPGs (and non MMOs) have eventually done massive reworks, either class-by-class, or all in one batch. For a reason. This is sometimes necessary. The game evolves, and some elements such as underlying class design cannot be adapted in small increments, rather the game design moves away from them and then eventually you do the “rough” break of redesigning them one after the other.

And every MMO that made such a thing died. Except WoW, which was sent into a decline it’s never recovered from. Only games that were struggling (FFXIV) before the rework ever benefited.

The leather farm isn’t much of one. It’s still an excessive timesink for very little payoff.

1. Knockdowns/backs. Yeah, the stunchains are obnoxious. Fortunately, you have stunbreaks and stability. Enemies have them to make getting hit feel punishing (Learn to manage dodge/block/evade/stability), without needing to kill your character. The better you get at the game, the less time you spend with your face in the dust. Honestly, I like that it makes combat more kinetic than other games. You are also able to knock enemies around.

2. Damage – You went the wrong way. Yeah, a Guardian has a frustratingly low health pool (Same as Thief and Elementalist – lowest in the game). You should have gone for… Valkyrie, I think? is Power, Ferocity, Vitality. Or Cavalier, which gives you Ferocity instead of Precision (Your crits hit harder instead of more often). Also – with Knights gear, remember to use Sharpening Stones – it gives a boost to Power based on Toughness. The problem with Knight and Cavalier gear is that they’re Toughness mainstat, giving you pretty terrible damage output. That said, Guardian healing gets a lot of mileage out of toughness and armor.

3. Traps – They’re an encounter. Learn to get through them. Dodging and blocking are your friend.

4. Travel – The zones aren’t really huge, and there are waypoints. You’re supposed to take your time exploring between waypoints, then use waypoints to travel (I kinda wish we had Free Waypoints instead of Free Armor Repairs. Curse you, Ellen Keil!). In the Heart of Thorns zones, it actually gets better thanks to the masteries opening up more paths. Learning the maps is part of the challenge and experience. It’s not supposed to be a simple cruise-through. Mounts are ugly, too. That said, I wish there were more conveniently-located waypoints.

5. Yeah, I keep forgetting about the inconvenience of nonpermanent harvesting tools(Which don’t cost copper to use) and the Salvage-o-Mat. Fortunately, the game does allow Gold-to-Gems conversions, so you can use in-game gold to get anything you need.

6. Actually – the game DOES have a progress of weapon and armor skins. Unfortunately, the game was developed with somewhat limited resources, so they padded out the item list with reused assets (And the basic weapons were just cheap re-tints, which is REALLY lame). The armors and weapons do have a progress based on level and rarity, though. First time I played through on my Charr Warrior, I distinctly remember going through a whole chain of armor, and the Cultural weapons are used to fill out the leveling loot tables (I had gone Chain through Scale with Basic weapons, then Banded and Tempered Scale with Flame weapons… but I stayed on top of the qualities.)

I’d say the Hylek missions are better. Then again, they were who I chose on my own Sylvari Ranger, who I was finishing the self-imposed challenge of “Explore every story map I enter before I unlock the story chapter’s level”, and wanted my adventure to be as smooth as possible, and the Hylek missions take place in Bloodtide Coast, which is right on the way to Orr without needing any detours.

Also – no underwater combat, you’re not hanging out with Quaggan (Meaning you don’t have to wait forever for them to say what they’re trying to say), and I feel it ties into the Sylvari hero’s personal story better than the other two options for minor spoiler reasons.

fishball.7204:

Most efficient way is to farm gold and buy it right now. None of the other farms are efficient.

Do you not understand how the BLTC works?

Does the in-game mail system not work?

I disagree with the notion that the chapter is “Unacceptably Hard”, for the most part – In fact, I hope all boss fights are of similar difficulty (And wish they all had the reset on player defeat. Being able to win a fight fairly through the whole this is really satisfying)

The one issue I have is the Defiance bars on the bosses. Defiance has NO place in Solo Content – it should strictly be a mechanic for allowing single group-content monsters to stand against a group without being permanently stun-locked (Then again, I hate the new defiance mechanic because of its change). It makes Thief a ridiculously hard fight because of the class’s reliance on soft control effects to deal and avoid damage effectively, which Defiance completely ignores.

I wouldn’t say the profession balances to PvE were “because of Raids”, simply as much as “Because of High-End PvE instanced content”, and that’s because balance is always done with the top tier of performance in mind (Even when it’s changing things to make mid- and low-skill play more enjoyable, they’re making sure things remain as balanced as possible at the high-end as well).

Before we had raids, the classes were rebalanced based on their High-End Fractal performance. Before Fractals were introduced, Dungeon Performance was used to benchmark class performance.

ArchonWing.9480:

Never really understood the QQ over this. What is it used for again?

All exotic armor, and moreso for exotic medium armor. And it’s also used in Exotic Bows, but to a lesser extent.

I actually like that the battles reset when you die, and I wish the rest of the game’s checkpoints worked in a similar way.

Also – We’re about halfway through (or so) Living Story 3, which also requires Heart of Thorns. You’ll have to buy the first three episodes with gems. I don’t know if the maps (Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay, Bitterfrost Frontier) are accessible without the episodes.

Alga.6498:

As I said before, it was indeed a Dwayna-themed shield.

BUT! No matter who or what, this shield is so beautiful!!
The real question is, which weapon does it match with?!

Well, it looks good opposite my Calcite Antique Sword on my white-winged, gold-armored Guardian, opposite the Soaring Longbow.

Well, the RGB definition of Maroon is wrong. That’s just a dark red.

Maroon is supposed to be Blue+Red.

Kasmeer is Lazarus, doing some crazy switcheroo shenanigans to become Goddess of the White Mantle to use them as a force for good! /crackpottheory.

it looks great on my White Winged Charr Guardian, though.

zealex.9410:

Just remove 90% of the waypoints (keep world boss related ones only and 1 per map at least) and give us ground mount. Immersing urself never felt so good. It would also be lore firendly say primordus is out for dem sweet ley enegies jsut like mordy was.

No. The maps don’t have enough waypoints as-is. Especially after Mordy took out so many that were in actually-functional places (Brisban no longer has a Southwestern waypoint. Timberline lost a central one)

I like being able to choose where to start my adventure from instead of having to waste time running from map entry to the far corner (And Silverwastes is in desperate need of a waypoint near the Vinewrath/Blue Oasis)

Actually, GW2’s front-and-center content is the living story, not raids.

Guild Wars 2 is built on four pillars of gameplay:
1. A fully-cooperative dynamic open world that encourages players to assist anyone they come across, and team up organically to overcome challenges. (It was NEVER intended to be an “Easy” game.)
2. Instanced content designed for players seeking difficult content in controlled, team-based environments. We started with Dungeons (They were NOT supposed to be easy), then we got Fractals as dungeons ran their course (Dungeons being tied to the open world and leveling probably hurt them), and now it’s taken to the next level with a few raids.
3. Highly-competitive, tightly-balanced E-sport PvP.
4. World Vs World – which is trying to be Massive Battles, Strategy, and Hostile Open World all at once.

Guild Wars 2 has spoiled me on all other games, with its set gear and level cap (And apparently quality tiers as well), always-active world, reasons to return to lesser-used maps, auto-loot, cleaving all the mobs in action combat, and auto-cooperative PvE.

Heart of Thorns was sort of a misstep, but clear what they were going for and a logical progression from the Living Story seasons (The HoT maps have a structure that’s a balance between Silverwaste’s “Play at your pace until big bosses” and Dry Top’s “Work the map on a cycling time limit to reap 1337 rewards!” I think the developers realized they went TOO far on the “Have everyone on a map cooperating to achieve a great goal” angle – which is probably fun the first few times, but gets tedious after a while, and conflicts with playing at our own pace.

Living Story seems to be course-correcting back toward letting people play toward their own goals.

As far as raids go – They’re a small, active team that probably functions so productively because of their tight constraints for scaling (They know what they’re dealing with – 10 people in near-max gear). Unlike other games, though the raids are pretty ‘evergreen’. And, there are only 1.3 raids at the moment – other games have dozens of raids. But, you don’t need to raid at all – it just gives nice skins and a little bit more lore.

Did someone really just say Pain Absorption was the counter to Epidemic? How ignorant can people get?!

Pain Absorption is a massive “EPIDEMIC ME!” sign on the revenant (And pity any that immediately try to PA away the epidemic afterward – if there are any other necros with Epidemic ready, that exponentially explodes the pain)

Also – Anet’s promised no more gemstore armor sets.

I’ve been more interested in the Charr civilian clothes.

We also need Lord Faren’s Maguuma Jungle outfit.

Moonyeti.3296:

Khisanth.2948:

Mahou.3924:

I decided to try Heart and Soul for the first time yesterday, but ultimately stopped after my headache (not from playing the game, though ;-) ) got worse.
As for myself: I AM a rather low-skilled player and a notorious clicker. The fights feel quite dragged out, tbh, at least on my Condi Druid in the afore mentined attempt. Eir and Garm were tedious, once I stopped dying from Eir’s fire spam due to lolworthy-executed strafing. Mordrem-Pale Tree was okayish but I didn’t understand the whole mechanics, so getting – in that reagard – “randomly” interrupted was rather head-screatching.
Fatty-Dragon was also a bit mystery. I understood the meele need once his air whirl surrounded him (that pulled you to him when you stepped too far out of range), but I still don’t know if there’s a “deeper” reason why I got some random confusion stacks (“painful” with the fast shortbow auto attacks).

You get confusion when you hit him if he has the purple shield surrounding him. It works like chaos armor but seems to apply confusion everytime instead of a random condition. Pretty horrible against condi ranger because SB hits quickly and both SB and axe #2 hit multiple times. I considered bringing more condi removal but at the end I just decided to face away from him whenever that was up which would stop my character from attacking. There are other ways to stop attacking but I find facing away to be more convenient.

Exactly what I did when I soloed it on my ranger. It felt weird turning my back on such a dangerous enemy, but it worked

Actually – considering how much of a self-obsessed narcissist Mordremoth is, turning your back to him and ignoring what he’s doing for a while is quite fitting.

One of the problems I saw pop up with the “It should be Core Tyria Difficulty!” argument is that the Core Tyria map they’re referring to is Queensdale - You know, the zone made for level 2-10 characters with one stat, half their weapon skills, and not even traits or utilities? They’re comparing the maps’ difficulty to newbieland.

This is a pipe dream. Otherwise, I’d go back and grab Reeva, Cimmera, and Luccia.

Frankly, Swordmaster Faren, Ellie, Laranthir of the Wild, Snarl Backdraft and Galina Edgecrusher would make a better team than the current set.

My Sylvari ranger now is running Sword+Dagger/Greatsword, because one can never have too many Caladbolgs.

The problem is that the seams are completely different across all armor weights.