Teq and Wurm are the best things in the game right now, and I hope that all other world bosses can likewise be “zerg-proofed”
Provided the rewards scale proportionately as well.
… I guess that’s a point as well. I was hoping GW2 was going to do away with “Farm Bosses for ph4t 13wtz” gameplay. Of course, I consider the challenge to be something of its own reward.
Careful, that sounded dangerously close to “might makes right”
Well, that’s ultimately the truth of the matter. It gets interesting, though, when widespread adoption of moral codes and ethics create a “Right makes Might” effect, to the point that “Right Makes Might Makes Right.”
Teq and Wurm are the best things in the game right now, and I hope that all other world bosses can likewise be “zerg-proofed”
Part of the ‘problem’ is that DPS is the ultimate gauge of how long it takes to run a dungeon, since every dungeon has a relatively fixed number of HP to chew through. The higher the DPS, the faster you chew through that HP and get to the reward. Therefore, the other two legs hold up the Damage leg – Control keeps the enemies where you want them to keep hurting them, and also keeps your guys up by negating enemies: Dead or Stunned = 0 Damage. Same with support, but it works by multiplying the force of the others to directly improve Damage Output, and also keeping down Damage-reducing conditions.
Going full DPS can be a higher-risk playstyle for faster rewards, and also reduces the chance of error. Parties with more emphasis on control and support take longer, but, while they have a greater chance of error, also have a greater margin for it.
Guild Wars 2 is an original work set in the same universe as the original Guild Wars. The core experience and themes are designed and allowed to be different. Otherwise, it would just be another expansion for Guild Wars.
It seems that most forum contributors are anti-human and pro-charr. Since many have argued that ultimately the humans of Tyria should be greatful for what they still have as per the events of the current game – GW2.
Since by natural law these said contributors claim that humanity is not entitled to any land they hold or had held in Tyria since they were invaders/outsiders.
I doubt that this is the intention of the writers or the intention of the IP owners. However they have effectively allowed said contributors to claim that all non-humans are entitled to claim all lands that humanity once held just for the sake of telling a better story.
In its re-writing of Tyrian history Arenanet have started the process of writing humanity out of Tyria in time for GW3 unless major re-balancing occurs.
Not Anti-human and Pro-Charr. Just not Pro-Human at the Expense of Everything Else. Humans have to fight for what they want to have, just like everyone else. Even then, they’re still one of the strongest and most populous races in Tyria. They’ve just been pared back to everyone else’s level for now. There’s no “entitling” at all. If anything, the entitlement is for humans believing they are owed and entitled to land they have proven incapable of holding. Your own argument is that non-humans are not entitled to claim any land they hold or have held in Tyria because they are not humans.
I can’t believe that some people are actually defending zerg content. If you’re playing an RPG (MMO or otherwise) don’t you want to be the hero? Why would you want to be just a faceless drone in the swarm (since you already are in real life)?
You’re only faceless if you choose to be. And, there’s something fun about being part of a larger thing that’s actually getting stuff done (And you see it getting stuff done). That said, zerging was a LOT more fun before the megaserver update, when the trains were manageable in size, didn’t dominate the landscape, and was all on one server.
I’m torn on the issue.
On one hand, it’s frustrating seeing all the complaining, and trying to call for help with one boss just to have a massive mob drop in. On the other, when RPcd over on Tarnished Coast hosts a zerg swarm, or other times when there’s downtime in the zerg, it’s fun to meet others, talk with them, and when running bosses like Teq or the Jungle Wyrms, communicating and devising the strategies needed to win. And then it’s off to the next thing.
And, if I don’t feel like zerging around, I can just… wander off and do my own thing. Maybe get a few from the crowd to follow me as well.
However, it can be very boring just rolling over everything.
But, the bigger problem is with the sheer size of the Zerg groups forming now, and their ability to seemingly be everywhere. I had a great deal of fun with RPcd’s Crusades Across Tyria back before megaservers. The new size, though, and sheer number of competing trains makes it much less enjoyable.
(edited by Sartharina.3542)
Also… I keep seeing Obsidian saying that it’s wrong for Guild Wars 2 to have a different core narrative than the first game, which I think is absolute nonsense. It’s perfectly acceptable for a creative work to have one installment of the series present one core narrative (Actually, in the case of a game, core experience. Games are not books. Games are not Movies), then have a future work in the same series provide a deconstruction, reconstruction, or even simply different take on the themes and core experiences of an original work. Guild Wars 2 is a standalone product, not beholden to the first game except in that it shares a world and timeline. It hasn’t retconned anything, but instead fleshed out and emphasized past events to change the narrative, much as real-world history classes change the emphasis on events that happened to paint an overarching, thematic narrative to give direction to human progress/regress. (I just had to sit through a class of American History studying the rise of the nation in the context of spreading, defining or restricting freedom)
No. Absolutely no. It is just like a movie or book. Just because the story is used for a game doesn’t mean it doesn’t adhere to the implications those forms of art entail. The story would exist(albeit in relative obscurity) with or without the actual game being around. And it isn’t like some modern history class where we can discover different points of view on things based on new evidence. It isn’t like that because 1) it’s not real, it’s made up, and 2) there is only one point of view for it: the author’s point of view. Taking parts of it and changing them to suit your needs is the equivalent of taking a Beatles song, changing some of the words and making it a country song, and then having the gall to say this is a legit extension of their work. It’s not just wrong, it’s insulting.
Books and movies aren’t confined to your obscure definition of continuity, either. It’s very common for authors and filmmakers and others to, when making a sequel to a work, completely re-evaluate the core narrative and change it to be something else, while still using the same world.
As for your songwriting comparison – Pretty much every songmaker throughout history, from Mozart and before to Blackwell and beyond, strongly disagree with your opinion.
As for Ascalon being “Charr Homeland” – it was as much their homeland as the place they were pushed back to before the First Guild Wars, and saying otherwise is like… you’re saying Ireland is your homeland, right? It’s like saying that Northern Ireland isn’t part of your homeland because it’s Great Britain. There are charr clans capable of drawing their histories back to wandering the entire plains running from the Blazing Steppes to the foothills of the Shiverpeak Mountains all as one land, before the humans came along, cut that land to pieces, and called part of it “Ascalon”.
And by your own definition of Homeland, Ascalon is not a human homeland, either. Settlements are no more permanent or meaningful than anywhere else a family is raised for generations. Humans therefore are stuck referring to only where the gods first plopped them down as their homeland.
(edited by Sartharina.3542)
Something I’m curious about is what all is affected by Healing Power. I think my failure to understand the game has lead me to stacking Healing Power as a form of damage mitigation on my tougher characters. Healing Power really should be part of something like “Boon Strength” instead, or tied to power(For flat healing) or condition damage (For regen), since they’re just attacks/conditions that deal negative damage.
I’ve found most of the people who like Megaserver DON’T like the massive trains. Hopefully, they can find a way to balance the system so we can keep the larger number of people just wandering the world and trying out the various non-train’d content (Which is a significant boon to spont. RP and taking the pain off leveling), while reducing zerg train sizes and keeping guilds, parties, zerg trains, and communities together.
I actually like the Personal Story.
My only qualms is that it can conflict with the Living World making things weird like LA.
It doesnt conflict with anything. The personal story takes place loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong before the LS does in the timeline. The fact that LA appears the same as it does in certain PS missions is irrelevant.
For those of us who have seen LA prior to Scarlet’s attack, though, it is somewhat… disorientating. I mean, things like Tybalt “selling” his apples in a city that has been reduced to ash, or working your way around debris from the Breachmaker to speak to General Soulkeeper seem more than a little “whut?” to me.
Indeed. Any time I’m sent to LA on my personal story now I die a little inside.
…yeah… I don’t think I can add anything to this.
With my experience, I’d rather not have duels be isolated from the rest of the game. Trash talking and abuse are trash talking and abuse. Ignore works, as does reporting troublesome players (If that’s an option). People taking duels seriously is also a problem, but it’s hard to properly implement a more open approach to intercharacter aggression that doesn’t allow griefing.
There is so much missed opportunity in the stories, especially with how they clunk down into sameyness – first with the Orders requiring you to forsake everything you did before, and then Claw Island screwing everything up (Wait just one moment! Why the hell is my Iron Legion Charr Centurion trying to invoke some sort of human god again? That’s not what I signed up for when I chose to try fighting with intellect over trying to facetank threats!)
Your taste in names is bad anyway. The Sparkle legion needs more members!
No chainsword or gun is strong enough to take out a Norn in single combat. Norn are pretty good about rising to a challenge before them.
Also… I keep seeing Obsidian saying that it’s wrong for Guild Wars 2 to have a different core narrative than the first game, which I think is absolute nonsense. It’s perfectly acceptable for a creative work to have one installment of the series present one core narrative (Actually, in the case of a game, core experience. Games are not books. Games are not Movies), then have a future work in the same series provide a deconstruction, reconstruction, or even simply different take on the themes and core experiences of an original work. Guild Wars 2 is a standalone product, not beholden to the first game except in that it shares a world and timeline. It hasn’t retconned anything, but instead fleshed out and emphasized past events to change the narrative, much as real-world history classes change the emphasis on events that happened to paint an overarching, thematic narrative to give direction to human progress/regress. (I just had to sit through a class of American History studying the rise of the nation in the context of spreading, defining or restricting freedom)
I’d rather see bar brawls be implemented before dueling. That said… what are the complaints against open-world opt-in PvP? As primarily a roleplayer, I’d love to be able to actually take swords against people who tick me off in-game (And probably get my kitten handed to me as a result… but it’s better than just puffing up and strutting around powerlessly)
The principle complaint is that players might be rude to other players.
…As if they can’t be rude to each other right now?
I’d rather see bar brawls be implemented before dueling. That said… what are the complaints against open-world opt-in PvP? As primarily a roleplayer, I’d love to be able to actually take swords against people who tick me off in-game (And probably get my kitten handed to me as a result… but it’s better than just puffing up and strutting around powerlessly)
And, as a primarily Charr/Norn player, being able to prove myself to others through steel would be an invaluable addition to the game.
(edited by Sartharina.3542)
Right now, there are two critical problems with the new trait system. For those with new characters pre-patch, they don’t have to put up with the monstrosity of unlocking traits (Which everyone should have unlocked by default, not just us!), but they still have to put up with 70 dead levels. I thought it was only 66, before I realised four of the non-dead levels gave double trait points. I don’t mind that traits have been condensed to 1/5th the original number… but they need something to make those intervening levels actually feel like levels, and give something for the players to mess around with.
Trait access also needs to be dropped down to level 15 again, with every 5 levels giving a new trait (And something else stuffing the gaps). There is no reason that the high levels should grant double trait points – spread those out throughout the leveling experience, and at a predictable rate!
As it is, the only thing that’s holding me to the game right now is the awesome lore of the Charr, and the still-unmatched-by-any-other-MMO use of dynamic events providing an engaging gameworld, and ‘assistance threshold’ hearts system replacing the generic quests used in other MMOs.
While I like how it’s greatly reduced the need to carry around skins in the inventory, and it’s not inconsistent with how it used to be (But the loss of cheap transmutation stones made it prohibitively costly to transmute while leveling), I feel the system would be much better if it were “Transmutation charge to unlock” skins, rather than to apply them.
People don’t like spending real-world money on transient things in video games. I’m strongly suspecting that there’s been a freeze on the sale of charges for leveling characters. If not, well, it’s guaranteed not as many people are transmuting as the potential numbers of transmuters.
There are enough skins out there that it would still be expensive to unlock them all with charges, and by making them cost charges to unlock forever, people would be more willing to take risks on unlocking skins that look nice but they wouldn’t want to wear forever (Such as a lot of low-level armors), as well as encourage people to spend money on exotic skins in the store because they won’t lose them the moment they decide to wear something else.
The very name “Wardrobe” implies that people are actually able to change between outfits they own, which the current system doesn’t allow. Previously, people could sport two distinct looks because of the “Town Clothes” option. The name ‘wardrobe’ implied we’d get a better system for changing outfits to what we want and how we want to look, but it’s been the opposite so far.
As it is, I don’t think ANYBODY is going to take the tonics seriously – If those were supposed to replace Town Clothes because of a lack of interest in the latter, I think it’s backfired spectacularly, especially since tonics are one-shot items. People prefer spending real-world money/gems on permanent things… or at least the western audience does. Is that it, though? Are the changes in the system from the April 15th to emphasize cash-shop money-grubbing to be more familiar with the Eastern MMO approach to microtransaction oversaturation? (Which Guild Wars 2 is not! It’s a pay-to-own!) I hope not, because it means a loss of what makes Guild Wars 2 stand out from the Eastern approach to monetization, just as the “Buy to own” stood out from the Western subscription model – though the lack of followup expansions don’t help.
Anyway… the gist of this is that I think a lot more people would be willing to shell out extra on buying transmutation charges and cosmetic skins if the system were changed to make such acquisitions permanent, and it would also bring more diversity to characters in the game.
What I’m not sure of is how to handle those who’ve already unlocked a lot of skins under the current system. Grandfathering them in would be the most player-friendly way, but it would also lose out on a LOT of potential revenue. Grandfathering in exotic/cash shop skins and any confirmed transmutations to a skin, though, is something that would absolutely need to happen.
Roll a charr, then complain about Human clipping issues.
Or report them, and probably see them fixed while Charr continue to be ignored.
Simple definition of homeland – the land where someone (A person, family, clan, or even race) was born, raised, and prospered on.
The humans, Norn, and Asura are all extremely imperialist. The Humans are Imperialist with their God-given mandate to civilize and spread their version of order and governance to the land. The Charr are imperialist in their desire to conquer the land for the glory of the Legions (Now that they’ve developed their militant culture as a reaction to overcome human imperialism and later Flame Legion theocracy), and the Asura see themselves as the only ones with the brains to conquer and rule the above-ground world as they had the subterrain before.
Scooby Doo, is that you?
7/10 Silly, follows convention, but exists outside of lore in its reference… and which is his Warband name? Smurf?
Mine is Ryder Sparklepuff, most fabulous Guardian in the Blood Legion! The Sparkle legion will stay strong and sparkle on in the face of total bogus and straight squareness!
Haha, I’d give “Ryder Sparkelpuff” a 7/10 because I like humorous names that use the Charr warband naming convention for last names. And surely only a Charr guardian could be fabulous (well, maybe a Sylvari could be fabulous too). At the risk of having my post incinerated by the moderators, however, it does sound like the stage name of an adult film star.
My Engineer is Nomz Furnacebelly, of the “Belly” warband. He is orange and fat, like my housecat.
10/10. Maybe we should merge warbands? Ryder woiuld make a great dancer in the belly warband! Unfortunately, there either aren’t enough animations, or I don’t know how to access them, to actually capture just how awesomely fabulous Ryder is. I think Elementalists and possibly mesmers can be fabulous too, but, despite the class’s emphasis on guile and charm and rainbow swordbeams, I don’t see most Mesmer armors showing off enough fur.
I’m tempted to make a third Ash Legion charr character named Dagryl Gearshred.
Also… I think Charr warmachines were primarily developed during the civil war with the Flame Legion, meaning they’re made to take on Flame Legion and Ascalon’s Ghosts, rather than actually trying to take on fortified holdings. Good AoE, but they haven’t had a need for wall-breaker weapons until they tried taking on Ebonhawke, and have been trying R&D to develop new ones.
7/10 Silly, follows convention, but exists outside of lore in its reference… and which is his Warband name? Smurf?
Mine is Ryder Sparklepuff, most fabulous Guardian in the Blood Legion! The Sparkle legion will stay strong and sparkle on in the face of total bogus and straight squareness!
There’s a serious problem with dismissing pre-human Ascalon as “Not being Charr land” because the Charr hadn’t built any permanent settlements, given that it’s highly implied they lived a more tribal and nomadic life. It’s an offensively ethnocentric way of determining “rights” as well, because it says someone else’s lives, property, posterity, culture, and livelihood don’t matter unless they conform to a set of guidelines determined and demanded by an alien power.
It doesn’t matter if the Charr bothered to assign an arbitrary name to the land they hunted and lived on – it didn’t make their lives and clans meaningless. It doesn’t matter if they built houses or farms or other permanent structures – they still lived, died, and raised families on that land.
Humans believe that they are on a divine mission from their gods to populate, settle, and civilize the lands, regardless of the lives and cultures of those who lived on that lands. What they saw as boldly going where no man has gone before and forging a new life in hostile and untamed lands, the rest of Tyria saw as being on the receiving end of “War of the Worlds” (Which was written as a criticism of Imperialism)
Hey Devs, hey, hey! If you want people to enjoy playing as Asura and Charr more, make them actually look good instead of clipping with everything!
From a non-carnivorous viewpoint – if we find the Quaggan have valuable resources we need and refuse to trade for, or if their leadership changes and they become more warlike, it’s a good idea to have the firepower to handle them even if we have no intention of using it.
There are a lot of reasons I like Charr. Mostly because they’re like D&D’s hobgoblins, but even more awesome.
Their appearance is also great, but the clipping from their armors is absolutely unacceptable. I don’t mind the knee-length kilts, but I wish they were rigged to the tails properly, like several of the ‘worn’ armor meshes.
I like that, unlike a lot of games where the animal race is primitive/tribal/shamanistic/primal, the Charr are technologically advanced, incredibly intelligent, well-organized, and extremely ‘modern’.
Second favorite race has to be the Norn, because they have so much fun. On the other hand, Charr and Norn get along very well – I wonder how much of that friendship is from them trying to kill each other first (Like two guys forging a friendship over a bar brawl).
When it comes to dealing with humans – Well, they owe us a new homeland. Sure, the searing was our fault and is our mess to clean up if we want Ascalon returned to its former beauty. But the ghosts are unacceptable. I wouldn’t mind giving the humans Ascalon back in a peaceful exchange for Kryta. Don’t worry about the centaurs and other things humans struggle with, we can clean them up. Hopefully you can clean up the ghosts – maybe they’ll go away once humans are in control of the land? The parts of the treaty keeping Charr from moving to uncursed lands are crippling to our kind. Sure, Kryta may not be our ancestral land like Ascalon was… but there’s no use throwing good lives away on a tradition we nuked ourselves.
As for long-term tolerance of humans – egalitarianism is the best approach. Charr are better and more qualified than humans in every way, so we’ll gradually ‘float to the top’, while the humans keep our weakest and least respectable members in their place and out of our duty. The egalitarian approach also deprives humans of hating us for unfairly discriminating against them – if they were as good as us, they’d be the ones in the positions – and keeps our less respectable members from having illusions of mistreatment as well, since they can compare their performance to the humans.
As for long-term peace – There must always be something for the Legions to fight against. Peace is the gateway to spiritual death and weakness. It is our duty and honor to die on the battlefield, instead of snivelling and wasting away in decadence or squalor, bound by promises of nonaggression and decency, instead of fighting for our lives and rights with our own blood and steel. We may have killed our gods, and put our faith in Iron, but we are no less faithless or lacking in spirit than any Human or Norn. We just put our faith in our own works and warbands instead of distant or abstract entities.
One thing I’d admit. If we factor in guns or explosives, the balance is clearly shifted.
But if we talk purely just melee combat like EOTN (maybe some magic thrown in)… probably more like the lore examples.
And, as Tarreth said, warbands can be anything from (IIRC) 4 to 12 people.
And they can be anything from hot-headed rookie recruits to well-coordinated and devastating veterans. Of course, I think it’s possible for a Charr and Norn to find themselves evenly matched in a 1-on-1, yet still evenly matched in a warband-on-one. After all – there’s more glory in defeating a Warband than a single warrior, and the greater challenge drives the Norn to greater heights of ability.
#1. Traits back, and at a reasonable pace.
#2. Body Blocking
I think I’d like the changes to the metagame body-blocking could bring if they can keep allied griefers away and solve the performance issues.
It’d be pretty cool to see Zergs that weren’t all of on top of each other and looked like actual battalions of soldiers!
They could do this if they just thought about trying to do it in other ways. Using the WvW capture those circles for the server buff for example. Imagine a battle line down the middle of the whole map (or broken up in a way that all 3 maps are equal) where there are areas or circles that needs players in them the whole time or the land becomes neutral. Of course the whole battle line would have these all along it and as the battle lines get pushed in either direction they move accordingly. Remove the ppt garbage and do something like this I say. :P
Things like this could go a long way to breaking zergs up.
So you have to leave a bunch of people sitting around doing absolutely nothing unless the enemy decides to attack that particular spot? Doesn’t sound very fun.
If you’re sitting around doing nothing while waiting for your chance to get to the enemy, try a different approach – Take your chunk of formation away and try to flank, for example, or loosen up formations, and fall back when injured to let healthier soldiers take to the frontline. Or, just wander away and hunt a less-contested objective. Right now, the lack of collision enables mass zerging and blobbing by making it too convenient for a large number of people to group up into the same spot. Discouraging single massive groups encourages more, smaller groups to form and rove – especially if well-coordinated smaller and more mobile groups can out-fight the larger groups through more efficient use of its manpower.
Guild Wars 2 is one of the best MMOs out there, and it’s spoiled me in so many ways thanks to its handling of leveling and approach to the world. However, the April 15th changes and other issues that have been unfixed remain problematic, and I find my interest waning. Unfortunately, April 15th brought far more harm(zerg trains on world bosses, trait lockout, loss of noncombat alternate outfits, trait lockout, prohibitively costly transmutations, trait lockout, breakup of server communities, boring leveling, trait lockout, trait lockout) than good (More people in the world, easier cosmetic management, encouraged exploration).
The idea behind Megaserver improving the ambient levels of players in the world was a good thing, IMO, but what hasn’t been good is the effect on world events. Event trains are not usually fun to be in (Except for Tarnished Coast’s Chains of Duty’s Crusades Across Tyria, but that’s because there’s a lot of stuff going on with them as well), and dominate the world encounters so there’s no edgeroom for anyone but PvE zerg.
Hopefully Anet can find a way to balance megaserver populations so that people are more likely to stumble across each other when wandering, keep guilds and friends together, but discourage the massive swarms that currently dominate the landscape.
Sorry but just no. He doesn’t have to “prove” anything. The gear is out there, it gives better stats, period. Unless you want to debate that “fact,” prove to my satisfaction that stats don’t matter.
That’s not the point. The point is this: is the difference between Ascended and Exotic really worth the effort? Does the end justify the means? Nobody’s denying that Ascended offers better stats, but are the stats even that much of an improvement to strive for?
Think of it like car selection in a racer. One of those cars will be the fastest, and can outrun everything else on a straightforward sprint, but all that speed isn’t much good on a winding loop. In much a similar way, that edge you’ve got from your Ascended armour might not make a jot of difference when every factor comes into play.
If it required zero effort either way, which one would you pick? If you would pick the higher stats, then what you are saying is that the amount of effort to obtain (i.e. grind) is a gating factor.
Your analogy is a bad one, because there is no balancing performance advantage to taking Exotics over Ascended. Try two cars with absolutely equivalent handling, on the same track conditions, except one has 10% more horsepower, for $50k more cost. Is it worth it? Maybe… maybe not. It depends on if you plan on winning the race or not.
Does it really? What is the purpose of ‘Winning the Race"? If it’s to earn victory money, then just save the $50,000 and mentally add it to your winnings in the 91% performance car.
If it’s winning races, then time’s better spent in the 91% performance car and entering it into more races with a car good enough that, while the better car wins a slightly higher %, the slower car wins more simply by entering and racing more (And also getting a more skilled driver through the experience).
My major reason for playing an MMO RPG is to be able to get together with my friends, Role Play, and enjoy the game. I usually IC my leveling when i have company. It gives more spice to the whole idea, especially if you have many high level characters.
(…)RPG was dropped long ago when mmo’s decided to have overflows and static theme park.
Sandbox mmo’s are still young and hard accepted since players nowadays only care about graphics….
Actually, Sandbox MMOs are older than Themepark MMOs, and largely dead.
The current megaserver problem causes a lot of problems, but I can think of a few ideas to ‘fix’ it.
1. Big problem is a complete loss of a sense of server community. This can sort of be fixed by making a server ‘map’ with preferences of zones to favor people close to each other on that map, so that people of the same server stick together, and have a chance of meeting the same people from the other servers again as zones dynamically load. Shifting characters between adjacent servers on the map should also be cheap and easy, so if you find yourself preferring the friends from another server, you can join them. The server map idea also should have variable density, so people who like a certain population level can gravitate toward the area of the server map that’s as dense or sparse as they enjoy. Maybe I should sketch this idea out.
Also, parties and guilds should never be split on the same map, ever. If you party with someone native to a different server, one of you gets to be a guest for as long as the party lasts. Oh yeah… and cross-server friends lists.
2. Population control is borked in both directions – too much zerg in some areas, yet guilds/groups struggle to get everyone in on the same map. Never split parties or guilds. The server map idea hopefully handles this by giving each zone a different ‘minimum’ number of players based on density.
There are a lot of problems with the trait system now. I guess I should try giving constructive criticism this time.
The biggest flaw that stands out to me, and the one that is read as “Leveling is now boring”, is most likely the excess of Dead Levels. A Dead Level is any level gained without any benefit or player choice – traditionally, just an increase along the math treadmill. There are two ways to solve dead levels – Give the player a choice of math bonuses, and/or a special ability. Traits in GW2 prevented levels from being Dead. I can’t remember much of the first ten levels, but there was enough going on with them that the lack of traits isn’t really noticed – I think it’s because the free skill point on level-up is still meaningful at that point, and you’re still unlocking weapon abilities.
Sure, the trait points were only mathematical bonuses except every fifth bonus, but they were a bonus you could choose – even if most players went in a single direction. That hasn’t been solved, though, and at least it was possible to be more fluid when playing around with the ability to play around with the 1-4 “useless” traits before a special ability unlock before you recovered them and tossed them into spec path for a special ability. There were also more special abilities in general. Now, the intervening levels are completely dead – no math boosts to play with, no visible progress toward your next special ability. There needs to be something gained on level up more substantial than a skill point at the middle levels, even if it’s not a trait point.
Locking traits to the world is also a misstep. I’m glad none of my 3 characters have to put up with it yet. You’re trying to capture something from the original Guild Wars that doesn’t work with the new game’s design ethos, and it was never like this in the original, either. It’s not even preparing to have fun, and more like trying to pry a paycheck. The skills were supposed to be the things you unlock through adventuring. Traits are more inherent to the character, and the current unlock system, from what I hear (100% completion!?) is terrible. Unique, Interesting challenges would have been one thing. Being forced to do EVERYTHING in a zone goes against the game’s primary design philosophy. Especially just to unlock something you should already be allowed to have.
On that note… the free swapping of skills is a mixed bag. On one hand, it kind of makes up for the loss of so many lesser traits and points (I should have had 8 trait points at level 50, not 4! And 3 tiers of traits to choose, not two!), since it allows swapping them out between battles to fit a situation as needed. On the other, it destroys character identity and uniqueness, making everyone the same amorphous blob of potential.
I’m trying to find a way to politely phrase how terrible the trait lock system is. Traits are part of my class and possibly race! Not random treasure to be found lying around the world. They are the options for customization of how to play. And, locking them to specific events violates the “Have Fun” design philosophy of the game, as others have said, by forcing characters to undertake specific tasks. At least with the expensive skills, you could get the skill points from anywhere, and spend them on any skill you wanted, instead of having to gain the traits you want in a specific order (Because of proximity/difficulty of the trait-giving tasks) for specific tasks in a specific way. Especially because the way the game wants us to play isn’t fun.
That said… I think the new trait system, aside from the trait-lock system, might be better for PvP, since the fewer traits available and shorter trees means it’s easier to kitten and balance the combinations. but I don’t do PvP. And, the leveling really needs to be fixed.
I like the theory in concept, but I don’t like the loss of server identity that comes with it. Tarnished Coast used to be the unofficial Roleplaying Server, and I felt comfortable striking up spontaneous RP there, but now there’s no telling what server others are from… and on that note, I really wish Anet would make an official RP server cluster.
Unsynchronized events sound like they might be a problem with server bleeding, but I have yet to experience anything meaningful from it.
I concur that the new trait system is awful… what’s the point of leveling now, and I mean from a game design standpoint. Why do we have 66 completely dead levels?!
The horizontal progression was provided by the skill points scattered throughout the world, encouraging the “Do your own thing” mentality by allowing you to rack up points by taking the challenges you want/stumble across, and save up for the abilities you wanted or distribute as you saw fit, instead of having the game lock critical content off from players. At least the elite skills in GW1 weren’t mandatory for play!
Luckily, all my characters were made before the lockoff, so they have their traits unlocked. Unfortunately, they’re still stuck with absolutely kittenty progression, and far fewer special abilities than they used to have.
That said, the ability to change traits freely is nice. But not at the expense of everything that was lost, such kitten levels of advancement and character building.
If something doesn’t change, between the Charr armor issues, lack of official Roleplaying server clusters, and this new trait system, I think I’m quitting the game entirely.
(edited by Sartharina.3542)
My opinion on the situations… Last Stand is not a problem at all. In fact, it’s a trap. To kill someone with it up, just hit them with a ‘bogus’ CC as a distraction, delay until they lose their stability, then stun them for real. Or, use something other than CC against them.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t played much since the patch, and don’t do much PvP, but I’ve always preferred healing Surge over Healing Signet. Sure, the latter has greater HPS in theory, but healing surge can be used to spike adrenaline if you can mitigate damage and don’t need a big heal, or use a big heal with greater HPS in a short battle – The HPS from the HS is wasted when you’re sitting at full health before a fight, and needs the battle to last long enough for Healing Surge’s cooldown to matter.
Always find it funny when folks call condition spam as a bad thing, but spamming direct damage skills some how is magically different. Talk about a clear display of unreasonable bias.
So do you have any evidence that power bunkers do less damage? Or as was mentioned above, are we going on the " cause I said so " system some more?
Power-, Protection, Armor, Weakness, % Damage Reduction,=Less damage against foes(note i left dodge and block out because people want to bring in the application thing.)
Conditions: Cleanses, – Condition Duration(only through Runes, and impairment conditions on traits)= Only two ways to deal with conditions. Either mitigate or remove conditions.= Higher damage since no real stat that helps mitigate the damage conditions do.On the boosting front:
Power- Ferocity, crit rates, Sigil of Force, % damage traits, % damage runes, Vulnerability, Might
Conditions- crit rates (in conjunction with traits/sigils, on its own, no noticeable effect), Condition Duration, Might.Hmmm…..
You forgot the big boost to Conditions: Condition Damage.
Notice I also “forgot” “Power” under Power builds. The central stats are a forgone conclusion.
The more boosts you need to invest in, the weaker the option is because of a loss of focus.
Always find it funny when folks call condition spam as a bad thing, but spamming direct damage skills some how is magically different. Talk about a clear display of unreasonable bias.
So do you have any evidence that power bunkers do less damage? Or as was mentioned above, are we going on the " cause I said so " system some more?
Power-, Protection, Armor, Weakness, % Damage Reduction,=Less damage against foes(note i left dodge and block out because people want to bring in the application thing.)
Conditions: Cleanses, – Condition Duration(only through Runes, and impairment conditions on traits)= Only two ways to deal with conditions. Either mitigate or remove conditions.= Higher damage since no real stat that helps mitigate the damage conditions do.On the boosting front:
Power- Ferocity, crit rates, Sigil of Force, % damage traits, % damage runes, Vulnerability, Might
Conditions- crit rates (in conjunction with traits/sigils, on its own, no noticeable effect), Condition Duration, Might.Hmmm…..
You forgot the big boost to Conditions: Condition Damage.
The problem is the very concept of a Thief class is antithetical to “Fair and fun” play. People say they want covert/subtle options supported by the game, yet have no actual idea what any of that means.
Y’know… there’s more to the game than just PvP. So what if the trait happens to be only useful for PvE? Don’t take away my PvE salvation button just because it doesn’t appeal to players of an adjacent game.
The thing is he was talking about PvP.
He was talking about removing the trait from the game entirely.
Agreed – Direct damage requiring three stats (Precision, Power, and Ferocity) vs. Condition Damage’s single stat (Condition Damage) makes it much harder to work with. Power Bunkers have to divert more stats from the Bunker side of the equation than Condi Bunkers do.
I actually see the ‘counterpoints’ as what makes Initiative great for playing as a thief. A thief is not merely a warrior with a tiny weapon.
If fighting a thief feels really cheap and cheesy, then Mission Accomplished. They’re not supposed to fight ‘fair’, and, if they try, they end up sucking for it.
They use actual dirty play and guile to get an edge over opponents, instead of using honorable fair play and standard combat abilities given stealth-themed names and particle effects.