Guild Wars 2

ShadowJoker.1703:

…and the one thing that I find really annoying is the way the charr look in game.

Couldn’t agree more. Those charr mesmers and guardians truly make my eyes bleed.

However, the charr don’t need a rework, they simply need to be removed from the character creation screen. All problems solved.

#charrism

EcoRI.9273:

Whenever you move while under the effects of swiftness you slowly degenerate endurance and whenever you use mobility skills you lose a little bit of endurance.

To further build upon this most original of ideas, I suggest to reintroduce the “exhaustion system” (overcast) GW1 has:

The use of mobility skills also temporarily lowers your maximum amount of endurance. You will see a grey bar appear at the end of your endurance bar, which cannot be refilled until you have completely recovered from the effect. Think of this as being exhausted from all the running around.

To encourage different gear stats, “defensive” gear will faster build exhaustion (try running around with all those thick armor plates), but offer a bigger amount of total endurance. DPS-gear on the other hand will build less exhaustion, but come with less total endurance (the berserkers just don’t work out as much as the tanks do).

Lastly, the necromancer elite spec should be renamed to “dopemancer”. By giving blood transfusions, waking dead-tired limbs or transferring endurance from the enemies, some of the endurance regeneration as well as the exhaustion can be countered. This will ensure that the necromancer will finally have place in the swiftness-meta.

EcoRI.9273:

PS mobility is a huge problem. Believe it or not more pugs don’t know that it exists and should they ever give swiftness and use running skills you can literally save HOURS!!! map clearing and minutes in dungeons. I am the type of player that doesn’t like mobility skills and honestly I feel its unfair that these guys can map clear and dungeon clear so much faster than how I like the game to be played.

This swiftness meta sounds even worse than the stacking exploit.

Guess I’m off to start a new thread in order to get it nerfed…

Tolmos.8395:

Whether the first time in a dungeon, or the 100th time in a dungeon, Zerker is hands down the only way to go. Familiarity with the dungeon seems to be wholly irrelevant to that.

Actually, dlonie is spot-on with his observation. Like he already pointed out in the reply above, back around launch when the content was new, soldiers/knights stats were commonly used and there were also more defensive builds such as an anchor-guardian involved. Only through routine did that develop into the berserker meta we have now.

These days, new players have it far easier because they have all the strategies worked out already by veterans as well as being accompanied by them. To elaborate based on one of my stereotypes: The average low ap warrior in default cof-armor is bringing the berserker stats as well as the meta-build he copied from the wiki to a group. Surrounded by veterans, everything is going smoothly. However, as a veteran players, you can easily see how his gameplay is not as fluent and he’ll be the first to go down if something turns out to be tricky.

Now, fill a party with five of those stereotypes and you’ll have one big mess…

Lauren Kamieniecki.6245:

I tend to be less technical in my replies on the specifics of what goes into fixes, but this recent post from Chris Cleary goes into detail on what is planned for this fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Hall-of-Monuments-Update/page/2#post5017030

Sounds like we still have a rather long wait in front of us

Belzebu.3912:

Our current military have the power to destroy our world 7 times, so yeah, we could take Mordremoth, all the living beings could also die in the process … BUT it would be dead, and the other Elders Dragons too

Now that sounds like a proper speed-clear to me…

Well I guess at least in this scenario, tanks would be viable

So this one will be called “Dragonslayer”?

Looking forward to the announcement – wanted to create a second necro for a while and figured I’ll wait till this is out.

Just wanted to point out something that gets overlooked easily when it comes to dungeon skins:

You can unlock any of those skins without setting a foot into an explorable path. The answer is the corresponding pvp reward track. You can find more information here.

As you can progress these tracks rather easily no matter if you actually win or lose matches, it might be the easier approach compared to buying explorable paths or dealing with pugs and the like. It’s nice to have options

Karisho.3058:

So, I’ve been playing Gw2 since the release, mostly PvE. My problem, and I think, it’s a problem, that a lot of PvE players have, is, that the dungeons became really boring. The only reason for me to run them, is the gold. I was thinking about some ways to change that. The first thing would be, to add new dungeons. Now, the problem with that is, that they will also become boring after some time.
What I was thinking about the most was to add something to the dungeons to make them attractive again. Just an item, that can only drop in this dungeon. It shouldn’t be something game changing that gives advantages over players, that don’t have the items. Rather should it be something collectible, something that adds a bit prestige. For example a miniature or a special skin.
Now, I want to know, what do you think about this idea?

The fractals already have a RNG-based reward-system, which is frequently being debated. Personally, I dislike the system because the rewards are not reliable. As you’ve already pointed out, the dungeon content has been around for a long time. The reason I still play it is because the content is predictable and the rewards are reliable. That results in a nice gold-gain. If that would change (for the worse), I would spend my time elsewhere.

However, I would very much support the idea of increasing the stock of the dungeon token vendors. Add some tonics, minis, etc.

KaizerGr.4815:

There nothing to prove by lying, sooner or later you will be caught.
And at my age try to prove that a donkey do not have wings is waste of time.

Because you do not put restrictions on lfg, does not make everyone not putting one.
I was speaking generally you take it personally.

EU server right now, TA lfg paths UP & FW, 5out of 5 asking for Meta-Zerk.
http://oi57.tinypic.com/28qrjgo.jpg

If you find this fine and do not see any problem with that, then I rest my case.
No point to argue or asking to change things.

Well, such a screen-shot can easily be fabricated to support any kind of argument. You could as easily make one that has no zerker-requirements on it and then claim that the meta only exists on the forums or whatever.

Anyway, as others have already suggested, there is nothing stopping you from making your own group and cater around like-minded players (guilds?). With the amount of anti-meta/zerker threads as of lately, there must be a lot of it. These different opinions don’t have to clash, they can happily co-exist.

oxtred.7658:

…

Also, they could add some nice stuff like having a legendary allows you to get more rewards, or rewars tied on AP to reward their high level playerbase.

Someone is bitter over his tiny AP

Genesis.8572:

The problem is that the ‘Dragonhunter’ does nothing to evoke the core concepts of the ‘Guardian’ baseclass. The name sounds like it should be a ‘Warrior’ or ‘Ranger’ specialization, but not one for the ‘Guardian.’

Yeah, my feelings as well. Had I just read the name without any further reference, I would have thought of a ranger or a warrior. Certainly not guardian.

I’m also not convinced that they can make bows and traps work in PvE. They are seriously lacking now.

… trapbow?

FrenzyCat.9614:

Cheer up? Really? I’d rather dual wield shields before using a frickin’ longbow.

Uh, I was kinda hoping for a primary shield. At least then I’d still be in melee and not sneaking around laying traps. What a disgrace…

Huge disappointment. HoT will have to go a long long way to make traps and bow even remotely useful in PvE

Personally, I don’t think it fits the class… and neither does that awful name.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Satenia.9025:

The kind of behaviour the OP described in his fairy-tale or you did in yours is something I have been successfully avoiding for years.

So you are calling someone elses experience a fairytale, even when it is confirmed by yet another player? How about rather than denial, you try to address the issue with something other than “then don’t join those groups”?

Satenia.9025:

As far as I can tell from posts such as yours, you are trying too hard to be the victim.

I’m not the victim. I don’t even have a ranger character. But I see it happen to other players in my group. And I would also like for other people than myself to have fun. Perhaps you could try this mindset for the purpose of this discussion?

There is no need for me to do either. People can all have fun by forming corresponding groups and happily co-exist. How this is being done has been explained by me and others. I have no desire to further participate in a discussion where you want to limit everyone to one single approach to content (which happens to be what you favour yourself).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Here, have a fruit basket. For being one in many posters to completely miss his point.

He is not having trouble finding a group. He has a problem with OTHER people being kicked from groups, because they aren’t running fast enough. It has made doing dungeons toxic and unpleasant, and I totally agree with him.

I can run dungeons just fine, but when I see that VOTE KICK pop up because someone died, I get angry. I vote no, and then await the inevitable players that leave the group. That is what playing dungeons is often like. I hate it. It’s not the player’s fault though, it’s the design of the dungeons.

No. Any point he might have originally had has stopped being one on page 2 and following when this thread turned into some kind of “anti-stacking” crusade – let me quote:

Derenek.8931:

Fenrir.3609:

Except stacking isn’t an exploit, nor is it cheating (borderline or otherwise).

It is also somewhat rich to mention morals given the fact that you insinuated earlier that you go into specific req dungeon groups with non req gear/builds, in order to annoy people.

Here it is a matter if intent more than result.

I try and make things tough on those guys because I hate bullies and am trying to get some small sort of justice.

It has been explained by various posters since the very first page: For each individual, there are suitable and non-suitable groups. It is also the responsibility of each individual to respect that. I would consider this as one of the most basic aspects of human interaction.

If there is some kind of cat-lovers club (this forum likes kittens after all), you don’t show up there with your dog. If there is a dress-code to a party, you don’t violate it. If a dungeon group asks for certain requirements, you make sure that you meet them upon joining. If the requirements are unclear, you ask about them at the beginning. By acting, you avoid later disappointment.

The kind of behaviour the OP described in his fairy-tale or you did in yours is something I have been successfully avoiding for years. Yes, that’s right, years of PUG-ing dungeons. I always make sure there are some requirements for the groups I join (or open myself) and that they are being honoured upon joining. If I suspect someone is a beginner, I ask about it. Kicks during a dungeon I’ve witnessed very very rarely. Never even happened to myself.

As far as I can tell from posts such as yours, you are trying too hard to be the victim. Either by not talking about group requirements, carelessly putting your head into the sand and then get upset when things go wrong because of your own inaction. This is not a matter of game-play, but of human behaviour.

This thread should have been over two pages ago… and that’s me being generous.

Ah well, this is rather disappointing. I was hoping the guardian would remain somewhat of a melee bulwark with the specialization, but I guess there simply weren’t suitable existing weapons choices left for that (go-go primary shield).

Now it looks like it’s going to be some paragon-ish mid-line buffer… meh.

First of all, joining a group without explicit requirements should be treated with care: More often than not, such players are simply unable to communicate their expectations appropriately (or unaware that they should). They assume that their own ideas of running an explorable (for example, be level 80) is what everyone else is doing as well.

Keep in mind that some of these expectations are more common than others. Being level 80 is a quite popular one as far as I’m aware. Ideally, you explicitly state if you have a level requirement or not so there won’t be any room for misunderstandings. Which brings me to the part of your suggestion I actually agree with:

Filtering! Yes, the lfg-tool absolutely needs more filtering options. The level would be the most obvious one. I would also like to see AP included as well as subjective ones such as experience (could pick from “beginner”, “average”, “experienced” or something like that).

Lastly, the timer I don’t agree with. More often than not, people just don’t bother reading. When you join a group that clearly states obvious requirements such as a level, a class or AP and you do not meet them, well, expect to get kicked. There should be no punishment involved in this. If anything, the player not meeting the requirements is the offender for not respecting the wishes of that group.

Try killing them… you might be positively surprised about their loot table.

Got all classes twice except for necro, which I will likely create one of these days once the specialization has been announced.

I keep telling myself that it’s for different builds or play-styles, but it’s really more about the race and wardrobe. Definitely about the wardrobe…

Well, in that case, thanks a lot for the presents, Anet.

And to those who want to get upset over this: Keep in mind that this is not about the beta as such, but about old accounts making it into the beta. There is a good chance that these accounts already have the skins and plenty of xp raising stuff anyway.

Well, to be fair, the Wyvern-fight has been downscaled for the beta. Apparently they didn’t want to challenge the random selection of players too much or whatever.

However, challenging open-world content is the kind of design I believe is doomed by default due to the fact that there are random megaservers holding random players with random builds.

Off-topic though, so on the idea of putting something like that into dungeons:

Derenek.8931:

Hmmm, my problem is that newer and more casual players that I group with and are friends with are turned off by the dungeon mechanics. It causes many to quit the game or just to avoid what I think is beautifully designed artwork and cool monsters. There’s so much awesome work that’s been out into the game by the developers and so much of it is just ignored for the sake of making virtual gold…

I still don’t see why they cannot start groups of their own. For each individual, there are suitable groups and non-suitable groups. It simply boils down to communication: A “speed-clear zerker meta ping gear etc.” requirement is just as legitimate as a “low-level not skipping watching all cutscenes PHIW”. The problem here is not gameplay, but the players who do not honour these requests or just don’t bother to communicate their own preferences.

That you prefer one approach over the other is entirely subjective and asking for a “stacking-stop” is just as much enforcing your view onto others as “berserker/stack or kick” is. Having multiple ways to complete an encounter is what I consider a good thing and it’s up to the individual to pick the one appropriate to their skill-level.

Lastly, about the whole new and casual players being being turned off by dungeon mechanics: Skipping/stacking is actually a very easy way to learn dungeons even as a new player. When I have beginners in my groups, I usually just tell them something along the lines of “stand where I stand, move where I move to” and that way I can quite easily afford to have them along.

However, imagine if the fights were indeed more challenging. Challenging to the degree where you need class/build-synergy, where you need to actually counter specific phases and so on. Imagine that Wyvern-fight you happen to like so much dungeon-style. I don’t know about you, but I would absolutely NOT want new/casual players in my group. As a matter of fact, I would go to great lengths to ensure I get the fully geared veterans (by putting ridiculous requirements on lfg and kick anyone who doesn’t fit right away) and nothing else. Where would that leave the new and casual players then? Well, they will be stuck in their own groups hitting their heads against a brick-wall, not being able to finish the dungeons and then just quitting the dungeons altogether.

On your actual suggestions (for reference, I don’t agree with the “game breaking” part):

Derenek.8931:

There are a few simple ways to prevent this game breaking phenomenon.

1. Have the enemies dodge out of AoE circles and not blindly walk back into them.
2. Turn on collision for player characters so they can’t stand in the exact same spot as another character.
3. Place doors in the dungeons that require keys to open. The keys are dropped by random mobs in the dungeon. This way encounters can’t always be bypassed and players actually will have to play the dungeon and fight some monsters in order to progress further.
4. Have the monsters drop better loot progressively. The more enemies you kill, the better the quality of loot becomes. By the end of the dungeon if you fight all the mobs there is a chance of exotic drops, but if you bypass all the mobs, the loot will be green quality at best.

1. Making a “good” AI is not as simple as it seems. Sure, you can try putting things in like enemies constantly dodging your attacks, kiting you around, interrupting your stuff within milliseconds (GW1 mesmer AI anyone) and so on – but that will just turn combat into an annoyance. That aside, if enemies avoid all AoE, what is the point of having such skills in the first place?

2. This will result in griefing whenever crowded places are involved: Towns, world-bosses, WvW anyone? Basically, you hurt everyone playing outside of dungeons, while you likely don’t change much for the dungeons themselves. Even with some collision on, I would think that 5 players can bunch up and achieve the desired “cluster”-effect just fine.

3. A “key” system is already in place. You have to defeat bosses or certain events at set locations. Making this random means you will potentially spend a lot of time running around the dungeon trying to find mobs. Especially for new players who are not aware of all locations/spawns, this will hurt more than help.

4. The most interesting point you raised so far. The problem here is that these rewards will have to be worth the extra time spent. If you can “rush” several explorable paths within the same time it requires you to fully clear a single one, the potential exotic drops are likely not worth it.

Lastly, about helping new players:

Derenek.8931:

Those of us with elite gear and that have run the dungeon hundreds of times really should be the first to ask for redesign to assist newer players. We don’t need to run them anymore for gear and loot. So to grief people or resist any changes is just pointless and is a matter of mental inertia or laziness. Why should newer players and casual players have to adjust to our play style when we’ve done the dungeon so many times we could do it in our sleep? It’s the elite players who should use their advanced gear and experience to adapt to the weaker players. You know the line from Spider-Man, “with great power comes great responsibility.” But seriously, I dare you to go to the dungeon LFG menu and find a group that isn’t asking for lvl 80’s or full zerker gear. Out of all of then less than 10% will be open to newer toons

To me, this sounds like some weird kind of entitlement. Personally, when I’m new to a game and/or its content, I expect some kind of learning curve. What I certainly don’t expect is veteran players being obligated to carry me through the content or getting content completed simply because “I’m there”.

Let me point out that I don’t agree with griefing new players or mocking them for being less experienced. But when different players have different kind of skill-levels, let them use different tactics and let them form appropriate groups?! They will never have to play with each others if they use and respect the lfg-tool appropriately.

Likewise. I got both a mail with 2x heroic chest as well as a mail with a 4k influence thing. Both are official Anet-mails.

Not complaining, just curious what this is about.

As others have already stated, game forum users tend to be a vocal minority.

Personally, I may not always agree with everything regarding the game, but I’m still happy with it overall. If not, I wouldn’t be here.

No, I would not.

While I don’t exclusively play them for the gold reward, it’s an important aspect in the overall picture.

Dawdler.8521:

I’m getting too old for this kitten.

Haha, can I have your stuff once you move to the retirement home?

In addition to what was already posted by others, I would like to put some emphasis on the difficulty of explorable dungeon paths for new players: If you’re a first-timer, if you’re under-leveled and under-geared (read: not lvl 80 with full traits, some build synergy and proper gear), these dungeons will feel very unforgiving and quite difficult.

It’s important to realize that dungeons have not changed much since release, this means there are veteran players who have literally done them hundreds (thousands?) of times and don’t feel challenged anymore. As the dungeons are a popular source of income, players run them with their fully (dps-)geared level 80 toons to minimize completion times, no matter what the actual dungeon level states.

Most important for you is to learn these encounters. If you do this with a meta build or not is irrelevant, especially when you are playing with a group of newcomers. I advise against simply copying something from a wiki if you don’t understand why you’re supposed to run this. As you learn your class and the dungeon paths, you can start to think about maximizing completion times and so on.

I’m playing on EU and doing dungeons regularly if you want to add me. Been doing dungeons since launch, have seen all kind of strategies over the years, I’ll be happy to share a hint or two.

As far as I can tell based on threads as this one, we have two separate groups (meta and anti-meta) both feeling discriminated by each others.

Over the years, we’ve heard all sorts of arguments for and against the others and honestly I don’t think it’s worth going over them again and again as this is simply turning in circles. Personally, I think the focus should be on how these two groups can co-exists without negatively affecting each others.

There are two posts in this thread I liked a lot, so I’ll quote them here again with a short personal comment:

Thaddeus.4891:

But finally you have toxic people on both side. PHIW that create anti-zerk/meta subject every single day and hate on it like it’s something that broke the game and should be ban. Zerk meta that are look down and think they are better than everyone, talking about dps all the time and view any non meta build as pure garbage.

Nobody group is more or less at fault than the other here. Just more or less toxic people on both sides that kind of ruin it for everybody.

I completely agree with this. The hate comes with those attitudes, not because of the actual game-play.

maha.7902:

the dungeon community is branded as elitists because of the misconceptions of the majority and the actions of the few condemning this majority to being negatively labeled. why, seemingly confirm their perception by referring to lesser skilled players as “PHYW”, giving an enormous aura of supremacy to their post(s)? what do you gain out of it besides venting your frustrations?

This is also my experience. Dungeon and Fractal content has remained stale over the years. Obviously, there are veteran players with a lot of routine. Having run the same content hundreds of times, it’s easy to forget the initial learning curve. Players who are still at this stage are not bad, they are simply less experienced.

To conclude, I believe the focus should be how these two groups can co-exist without affecting each others negatively. We have the lfg-tool, we have guilds, friendlists, and so on. Surely it must be possible to form groups with like-minded players and not get upset over when others do things differently? The best advise I can give based on my daily PUG-ing experiences is to carefully read the lfg-message before joining somewhere. With that, a lot of drama can potentially be avoided.

Lovely, I’m allowed to order my own ale

lordkrall.7241:

What makes you so sure it will be a “grind-fest”? And how is it different from signing up on a list? At least this way they guarantee that the people that get selected actually plays the game.

Looking at how “rare” drops are being handled during festive events or in BLC’s leaves me with no other conclusion. Not sure what you are expecting other than trains of players all trying to tag the mobs for the few seconds they’ll be alive (if at all). Compared to that, signing up on a list is actually fun.

Lastly, farming two maps is a rather poor representation of “actually playing the game”. If these drops were world-wide, I’d agree with you, but like this it just favours players with a lot of spare time and/or luck.

Not sure what to think of handing out invites based on a grind-fest.

I just hope this won’t be along the lines of the carapace armor boxes from Vinewrath…

Interesting question indeed.

Personally, I would love if a person you blocked is being displayed with a red colour in the lfg-interface, similar to how a person you have as a friend is being displayed with a blue colour. This should take care of PvE-related activities.

For PvP, adjusting matchmaking so it won’t assign you into a team with someone you have blocked should be perfectly possible as well.

Pretty much what the fractal levels and their tier representation in the lfg-interface should already take care of.

The problem with both the current implementation as well as your suggestion is that players don’t tend to read and/or cannot judge their own abilities in relation to the fractal level and the rest of the group. These days, I sometimes wonder if “experienced” means being able to find the entrance.

Personally, I would much rather see a general overhaul of the LFG feature, with more filtering options and such. This would improve team-making in all aspects for the game, not just fractals.

If you play GW1 only with the HoM points in mind, it’ll feel like a chore and you will likely not enjoy yourself.

It’s a beautiful game, generally more challenging than GW2 and builds are far more important than they are here. It requires commitment, learning about build synergies, setting up your heroes and so on.

My advise based on your op is to forget about the HoM and play something else you enjoy.

tramwajarz.2369:

it’s not the meta because meta is for skilled people willing to learn the encounter; cleric “meta” is for people that don’t want to or can’t learn the content but want to finish it anyway, only slower; everybody is rewarded, so where’s the problem?

The only fact is that when you can face tank a boss – this is the definition of trivial.

If that was only true. The skilful part about the meta is coming up with the working concepts. The ones following are just joining the developed path of least resistance.

In GW2, this is precisely how I originally mentioned: You minimize the encounters and therefore actually avoid potential challenges. The rest is simple routine you can have pretty much anyone pull off. This is why it’s meta.

tramwajarz.2369:

James Quall.6029:

tramwajarz.2369:

That’s because after almost 3 years of no significant PvE content, we learned and mastered what we have. The same goes about professions. Once we get new content we are going to learn it until we master it like old content. This is how games work. And berserker builds in PvE are rewarding for those able and willing to learn the content.

I don’t think that (at least for pve) there is or was really any place at all for characters geared specifically to be tough and that high/pure damage builds have always been the best option, regardless of how long it has been since there has been content released or how long it has been released for.

You can gear yourself to take a lickin and keep on tickin, but at the end of the day a person in soldier/cleric/nomad armor not dying is always going to be severely outperformed by a berserker character who is also not dying because they know how to dodge or use built in evades on attacks or blocks or invulnerability skills or projectile reflects. There is just never an unmanageable danger that requires you to have more life or armor.

If a zerk player is skilled enough to outplay the encounter it is totally okay in my book.
The better the player, the better the reward should be.

Basically, the point of berserker builds is to minimize the time required to kill a foe and with that the duration of the actual encounter. Due to that, the encounter becomes trivialized and potentially requires less skill of the individual player than it might if the encounters were longer.

Therefore, playing berserker builds is about routine and knowing the encounters, but not so much about skill.

Sarahfull.4930:

Wait what?!

The only sense I can make out of this is you hate the icebow everything, anything meta.
And ok, ok, Ill amit I dont like the whole icebow 5,4 strip defiance repeat untill enemy is dead although still this is an extreme, nothing else is in that teir.
Besides we are talking about 3-4 ele teams that do this kind of damage. Its an extreme thats gona be changed by the new defiance.

So anyway.. I need to stop, step back and think at which angle to see your point of view?

High damage is the same as exploiting.
I can see the truely extreme ele partys with icebow although nothing else proves this statement.

Idk where Im going with this post, just please help me understand your side of all this

Sarah

Gladly. I am referring to the pre-FGS-nerf (and similar skills) way of handling bosses. Compared the rather static dungeon/fractal content, this change happened relatively recently (September 2014 feature pack).

I am not saying that high damage is exploiting – actually I wasn’t talking about exploiting at all – I am saying that TOO high damage (aka unintended by the devs) circumvents and therefore trivializes encounters.

To elaborate on a popular boss like Lupi:
If you abuse certain skills to skip a phase, you make the encounter less difficult. There are those people arguing that pulling that kind of damage off is a display of skill. Personally, I disagree with this line of thinking as it boils down to routine (pulling a skill-rotation off in a static encounter). As you are skipping a phase, you never get to deal with its challenges.

Now apply this approach to various boss encounters with the unnerfed FGS:
If you melt a boss within a handful seconds, the content gets trivialized. Some mechanics may never even trigger. Your two dodges and any potential skills become more powerful as recharges/cooldowns matter less. I don’t recall people dismissing those strategies. But the fact that Anet nerfed it is really all the proof you need that this wasn’t intended.

Since then, strategies have changed, I’ve already mentioned this in my original post. Personally, I think for the better. Nevertheless, no matter if you abuse damage-skills or if you bug the AI, you trivialize the content. Why one should be better or more accepted than the other is something I don’t quite see.

fracture.9754:

You seem to be mixing up game mechanics with exploits.

LoS isn’t a frequent thing in proper dungeon clearing anyway and is used rarely. I am sorry to hear you haven’t found a proper group to clear dungeons with, yet. Even then, stacking and LoS-ing is high risk high reward scenario, in some cases avoided by the use of CC/blinds, in other simply taking the damage. Pulling Mossman underwater means taking no damage whatsoever. There is a very distinct difference there.

I can not even fathom the idea of comparing DPSing down mobs to exploits, so I do not feel inclined on wasting my time explaining such basics.

No I don’t mix it up. Had you spent more time actually reading my post instead of limiting yourself to personal attacks, you might have figured that one out. Since we both seem to agree on not wasting each others time, don’t mind me if I simply report such posts in the future. Thank you.

@ serenke: I’m aware that it has been corrected. Just like I’m sure the Mossman-issue eventually will.

I recall that working really well for the spider queen. Generally speaking though, they may still use skills, but not necessarily to their full effect.

LoS was just a minor aspect of my post though.

First of all, I agree with the OP that pulling Mossman underwater should be fixed. Preferably in a way that doesn’t involve underwater-combat at all.

With that said, I’ll join in on the fighting bosses part:

Purple Miku.7032:

I also don’t believe you were oblivious to it being a bug considering he doesn’t attack you and just stays still while you can autoattack him to death. If you actually played for as long as you claim to have then you’re just BSing to try to make yourself seem less hypocritical. There’s no way you will convince anyone on this forum that you thought that completely disabling a boss was a legit way to fight him.

Glad you mentioned hypocritical. Let me redirect you to the second part of ProtoGunner’s post, which you choose to ignore – intentionally or not – but which I think raises a very good point. I will quote it again for easier reading:

ProtoGunner.4953:

On one side you try to play the dungeons the fastest possible way in form of stacking (which I do myself btw) which is clearly not intended from the creators since a lot of boss mechanics of the game are made invalid/easier/negated etc but is possible due to bad dungeon design, this is valid. On the other hand it is not intended to kill Mossman underwater and that’s “unathletic”.

(Ab)using LoS and map objects in general has been part of clearing dungeons since their existence. Highly prominent ones such as stacking FGS/bear-form/WW-charges on top of each others have only “recently” been abandoned due to changes in game mechanics. Surely you would not try to convince anyone on this forum that players returned to fighting/DF-ing stuff in the open because they care so much about fair-play?

Generally, bursting down bosses as fast as possible and “glitching” Mossman have one thing in common: It circumvents boss mechanics. In the first case, by shortening the fights to a (ridiculous) minimum through skill-abuse and therefore enabling glass-cannon builds to work where they otherwise would not (as well). Yes, I said skill-abuse because recent changes to them clearly indicate that the behaviour was not intended. In the second case, by tricking the boss AI.

Why you would be so quick to point at one case and not the other escapes me. One has been heavily nerfed, the other not yet. Former abusers pointing at current ones is what strikes me as truly hypocritical.

Personally, I would recommend ranger. You have decent mobility through the signet and you can solo very easily as well as tab/autoattack at range to farm hearts and DE’s. The pets can also be used to distract mobs if you need to claim something and you cannot clear everything by yourself.

Coming to think of it, I do all open-world content pretty much exclusively on my ranger.

Very impressive work, I like pretty much all of it.

Yeah, pretty much. Personally, I consider the renown hearts to be amongst the most boring and grindy activities the game has to offer. Don’t get me wrong, I love exploring the maps (even though I kinda know them by now) and my new characters end up with plenty of the world uncovered, I just never stop to complete the hearts.

That said, I understand that Anet tried a new kind of approach with them, moving away from the classic “pick up a quest at the NPC and then go kill 10 rats”. I do however feel that they also lost any kind of immersion attached to traditional questing. To complete a heart, you can randomly attack stuff, click on some things or move objects from A to B. The large majority of them work precisely the same, just wrapped with another theme.

As there is no further interaction required (and even if you try talking to the NPC’s involved, they have little to say and it’s not even fully voiced), there isn’t really anything to remember them by. If anything, you might remember them if they happened to be bugged, annoy you greatly or something like that. Out of the 300+, there just a handful of both positive and negative examples I would be able to remember. The rest is… unimpressive and to me completely unwanted.

(The maps I fully complete these days are the Orr ones – because they have no hearts grind)

Jerus.4350:

How’s the air up there on your pedestal?

If you think blasting swiftness/stealth/might/heals is limited to dungeon content… you’re very very mistaken. It’s a huge reason D/D Ele is so powerful in PVP being able to stack the might up. Also something you’ll see in WvW both in general WvW in the zerg blasting lightning fields for swiftness to keep on the move as well as blasting water and fire fields before a charge or at a regroup. You’ll also see roamers doing things like that, and even in GvG you’ll often have the pick team stealthing up to get a shot in before they’re revealed. And, it’s not just blasts, a leap in a fire field will give the flame aura which gives you might when hit. Leap in water is a heal. Whirl in Light is condi cleanse. Projectile in smoke is blind.

Ohh and not sure if you’ve done Teq lately, but seems like a lot of people know to might up before the burn phases, I sure see a lot of fire fields and blasts going off.

As for dodging… yeah, it’s the number 1 defensive tool in the game, I can’t even understand how you would think that’s limited to dungeon type content.

Helping someone to understand these basic mechanics of the game would improve their play in almost every element of the game. Jumping puzzles and crafting… maybe some RP would be the exclusions.

The air still smells of all the high horses around here, thank you for asking though.

Why do you even bother to bring PvP and WvW into this? As far as I’m aware, your suggestions were entirely PvE-related (hearts, JP-comparisons, etc.). PvP should have completely separate tutorials on its own, that much I agree with, but it has nothing to do with the actual debate.

Lastly, what is this Teq-talk about now? Are you suggesting that the playerbase does indeed stack might and blasts fire-fields? In the open-world where you have no control over who’s actually on the map? Seems like they are not that bad after all.

Jest aside, I’m absolutely not in disagreement over the helping and tutorial parts, I just felt that the suggestions turned out to be a little one-sided and the overall criticism overly harsh.

Lorgus.6148:

Yeah, would you look at all these dumb dungeon runners thinking silly things like dodging and swiftness matter outside of highly elite dungeon speedruns! Regular players don’t need to know what dodging or combo fields are, because who even needs to dodge in this game anyway?

Protip: Don’t assume that just because you don’t want to learn the oh-so complicated mechanics behind dodging or combos, doesn’t mean others don’t

Don’t know about you, but I learned what a combo field is back in the beta when it happened to pop-up as I was playing. Same goes for dodging, which has a bar that is rather prominently displayed above your health-bar. Don’t need extra hearts or tutorials for it. If you feel that players are not aware of this, I wonder where you got that impression from. I surely cannot share it.

Protip: Don’t assume that just because I’m arguing against this uncalled for denouncing of a large majority of the playerbase, I don’t understand how the mechanisms in question work.

spoj.9672:

The thread developed into a discussion about teaching players. And we were giving other alternatives unrelated to the OP.

Did it? The way I read it, the “teaching” is being limited to stacking swiftness, blasting stealth and might as well as dodging. Apparently, you seem to believe that the playerbase should be measured based on how well they do things applicable for a narrow selection of dungeon paths and fractals. This in a game where the developers have largely ignored dungeon content since launch and only did a minor rework of fractals – instead being focused on open-world encounters, living story, NPE and so on.

I am somewhat baffled that you would judge a playerbase based on such a limited selection of content – especially when a large majority of them doesn’t even plan to regularly participate in it. In my opinion, your (and others) problem are sunk costs: You heavily invested into one aspect (dungeons, fractals) of the game, turns out it’s not the one being actively pushed by the developers. So what you do is you stick to self-imposed challenges such as speed-clears, soloing, etc., which means you get a lot of routine on a narrow selection of content you deem most important. In order to be able to pat each others backs, you then compare yourself to the casuals who run that content like once every blue-moon in comparison. Based on that, everyone is bad but a handful few who should start some kind of crusade to enlighten the ignorant masses. Who exactly do you think you’re kidding?

That aside, on the actual suggestion of putting more “tutorials” in:

If you make them hearts, it will feel enforced, just the way that map completion in WvW did and I suppose we all still remember that kind of drama. There is also no point to just do a handful, when there is a grand total of like 300+ hearts. Just like with most other hearts, you have to keep repeating them throughout the maps if you want to achieve any permanent learning effect. Giving that much priority seems questionable considering where the knowledge actually matters enough.

On the other hand, if you don’t make them “mandatory” (more like JP’s), then they will simply be ignored and nothing has been accomplished. Those players interested in learning will do so regardless if the information is being presented in-game or on some wiki/forum.

Rasimir.6239:

…

Some days I carry, some days I get carried. That’s the way it is. Some day I get frustrated crawling through fractals with guildies, but I still do so occasionally, because I value those people for other things. I’m glad the game doesn’t try to “train” them to the point where they simply stop playing.

This game’s player base isn’t bad. It’s diverse, and for very good reasons. It’s not always the way you want it, or even the way I want it, and I think it’s a good thing, because diversity to me is alway preferable to one-way perfect.

Great post overall, I truly hope that people will take the time to read it fully.

I completely agree with you that the game both encourages and supports a diverse playerbase. Precisely because of that, it has to be more forgiving than other games catering to a more hardcore-crowd. As I’ve already suggested in my opening post, understanding to what playerbase a game caters is something I consider essential to be able to fully appreciate it.

Personally, I like doing my “gaming homework”. However, I would not keep playing a game that absolutely forces me to do so at all times in order to be successful. As you explained rather nicely, as you get older, priorities shift. If someone has the time available to solo lupi this, lupi that, lupi with their hands tied behind their back and so on and so forth that’s really great – and I’m not being sarcastic here – I’m fairly sure there are games out there that encourage this kind of dedication, I just don’t believe GW2 is one of them.

For some players – including myself – GW2 is great because it’s a MMO we can afford to play in terms of time-investments and gains. There are others where that’s not possible. You won’t see me go on their forums and complain about it or its playerbase. However, when that happens here, especially in such a negative kind of way, I do feel like pointing out that likely not the game is the problem…

So happy they put this ingame. Don’t care too much about the aviator stuff, but the “sepia-mode” is simply pretty

Thanks Anet <3

DarkSpirit.7046:

I miss that. Coming up with a team build in GW1 was part of the fun.

I feel so helpless in GW2, always asking people in the map to help me with this and that group event. Sometimes, people don’t want to help and even dissuaded others from helping me:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Punished-for-Temple-Defense-events/first#post4970650

I do miss my heroes…

GW1: You are a commander of an elite group of heroes!
GW2: You are merely Trahearne’s side kick with no real power. But maybe we would get to usurp him as the leader of the Pact in HoT after he has fallen under the dragon’s influence and we get to kill him.

Indeed, being able to work out a skill synergy over 8×8 skills was totally awesome, not to mention the more “creative” individual builds such as the ER ele, necro with rit heal skills and so on.

While I do like the trait system in GW2, the way the actual skills are locked/limited never quite made me happy the way Build Wars 1 did

Maybe in GW3 then…

Yeah, I do miss it very much. If it had the GW2 engine, I would still play it today

(and if only for the heroes, which could spare me the PUG’s)

DarkSpirit.7046:

I do. I miss my heroes.

Awwww, I think I remember you from the hero section of the guru forums. There used to be page-long debates where people had mostly identical hero builds except maybe 2-3 skills across all heroes, but kitten those fuelled the flames. Good times, miss that too.