Guild Wars 2

Namu.5712:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Cactus.2710:

When the devs steer a game away from entertaining play and toward grinding for loot, this is exactly what you get.

It’s what “the people” want apparently. I still can’t understand the “fun” factor people find in mindlessly zerging champ after champ for hours on end but eh, guess they paid their money just like I did. Hopefully Anet will start to look at putting engaging encounters in the game once they see how the new Tequatl pans out. Sadly if that fight goes south and people refuse to play it because they think it’s too hard it won’t bode well for any of the players that find entertainment from well thought out encounter design that promotes having to use a modicum of “skill” and organization.

Because some people just want gold gold gold gold.

That is perfectly okay.

however for the people that occasionally go and kill a champ with friends or solo them as you happen across them want to be rewarded for doing so.

Before it was not worth the trouble of doing it… wasn’t rewarding. Now it is. Some like to take advantage of it.

If people want to spend their time like that who are we to object?

Whats not okay is name calling and harassing players that are just playing the game. Report the people doing it. After a few 72 hour bans ( or perma if they keep insisting on being jerks in game) they will stop.

Stop being a victim and play the game how you want and report the people that are being rude and nasty. Anet will ban them. And for people that farm non stop during their game time…. well 72 hours of not being able to is harder for them then you think lol.

Um? I am pretty sure I am not complaining about farmers/zergers ruining anything or victimizing me. I don’t understand the enjoyment they get from those activities so I don’t participate in it. Personally at this point I could care less what “monetary” compensation I get, I don’t find it fun so I don’t do it. I would however like to see content shift away from the current trend in at least some aspects of the game, not because I don’t want people to make money, but because I dislike the game design itself of the only thing that matters is damage and dodging. Hopefully the new Tequatl will challenge players to think of at least some strategy for breaking this mold but time will tell. If it is unpopular, it is unlikely that Anet will make further attempts at making things “interesting”.

Cactus.2710:

When the devs steer a game away from entertaining play and toward grinding for loot, this is exactly what you get.

It’s what “the people” want apparently. I still can’t understand the “fun” factor people find in mindlessly zerging champ after champ for hours on end but eh, guess they paid their money just like I did. Hopefully Anet will start to look at putting engaging encounters in the game once they see how the new Tequatl pans out. Sadly if that fight goes south and people refuse to play it because they think it’s too hard it won’t bode well for any of the players that find entertainment from well thought out encounter design that promotes having to use a modicum of “skill” and organization.

noctern.5213:

JustTrogdor.7892:

noctern.5213:

Granted – Super efficient nuclear powered laser weaponry for your classes – unfortunately they are unshielded so you die of radiation poisoning before being able to use them.

I wish i could run faster then a centaur.

Granted but as soon as you pass the centaur in a race giant mega-troll and his giant mega-troll wife spawns and rips your characters head off, smashes it into the centaur head causing both heads to explode and giant mega-troll’s wife uses the mess to make dye for her new dress made from baby Quaggan skin.

I wish my ranger pets had clothes.

Granted, unfortunately the polyester material the clothes are made from gernate a huge static charge and detonate your pet.

I wish I could be a Dev

Granted, unfortunately Anet’s development team is full and you have been assigned to Hello Kitty Online.

I wish using engineer grenade kit did not give me carpal tunnel!

Mostly just to say you did it, I used to belong to a guild that did role play “pilgrimages”. All were invited and the challenge was for the higher levels to escort the lower levels without them dying. This became amazingly challenging in Orr heh.

JustTrogdor.7892:

noctern.5213:

Granted, and i must say you look fantastic in those chaps now!

I wish my holographic wings could make me fly.

Granted but the only place they take you is SAB W2 Trib mode which you have to complete in less than 5 minutes before you can go back to world. Logging out and back in will not work.

I wish when I complete a jumping puzzle I am showered with valuable gifts, all of Tyria cheers over my greatness and women throw themselves at me in real life.

Granted, women will now throw themselves at you but they all used to be named Dave.

Azunai.5974:

JustTrogdor.7892:

Azunai.5974:

You get your dungeons and fractals but they are impossible to beat.

I WISH FOR UNICORNS.

I wish for more, new looks for medium armor.

Fixed.

You bet your kitten I’m watching this thread like a hawk.

Justice never sleeps.

Justice may never sleep, but it does sometimes sit too long on the toilet thereby rendering your mobility nil from “sleepy leg syndrome”.

I wish for Ranger pet’s to have their AI improved in regards to hitting moving targets.

Yeah the elixir changes are certainly welcome with having guaranteed stealth or stability. Keeping my fingers crossed it’s not like 1 second or something heh. Only concern is seeing how non elixir builds will fare. I have not used elixirs in forever and a day since I switched to using multikit builds.

In case people have missed it Johnathan Sharp has posted a tentative look at some of the upcoming balance changes. It should be noted that these changes are not finalized. Head on over and check them out if you have not seen them already!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

morrolan.9608:

cesmode.4257:

jweez.7214:

Colin Johnson plans for this to be the last tier of gear. Exotic was just to easy to ascertain and anet had collectively come to the decision to try at it again. Googling quotes doesn’t help your cause. We all know what they said and they know what they said.

If exotics were too easy to acquire, why not focus on that then? Work the problem. Dont come up with a solution you know will enrage lots of players. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see a few steps down the road with this one.

Work the problem, dont change the situation.

I don’t believe exotics were ever the problem. Colin was either mistaken or being disingenuous. The quotes from the AMA show that the issue is the gap between exotics and legendaries.

The only gap that existed between exotic and legendary was one of time involved to get them as there was no statistical difference. However now of course there is a statistical gap between exotic and legendary with the introduction of Ascended tier. So basically the only reason Ascended was added to the game was to give people a shallow vertical gear progression in terms of statistical advantage. If Anet had stuck to their guns and introduced a horizontal character progression that was more than just cosmetic ie evolving weapon skills, replaceable class traits and added these things through a series of adventures as opposed to simple grind there would have been more than enough character “progression”. Sadly Anet has taken the easy way out to appeal to the indoctrinated vp masses.

Dyno.9467:

So what do you personally want in this game? were you think this is fantastic……….Cause I guarantee, what you like someone else wont be happy. Most players in MMO want the gear and achievements for doing nothing, and thats what i dont understand? Why play a game with nothing to play for? You must agree with that?.Anet doing 1-2 PATCHES A MONTH FOR FREE is absolutely brilliant, no other MMO would ever dream of that, cut the team some slack.

Easily obtainable BiS gear, interesting content tied to horizontal progression as was originally stated. More cosmetic options are nice, but it should not be the only form of horizontal progression explored. A example could be evolving weapon skills or trait scrolls that allow you to replace certain traits etc etc. It still gives a feeling of character progression but does not directly inflate stats. The problem with VP is that you can’t turn it off, if content is already too easy for many players in exotics, what will happen once full ascended is released? If Anet does not then adjust “difficulty” to account for the new inflated stats the development time spent on ascended items is meaningless. At this point in time Ascended tier is literally nothing more than a carrot for players that are conditioned to only see progression through better stats, but with no actual need.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Ascended weapons are cheap. Try making some legendaries and talk with me then.

The point is thakitten- is – a goal to make over time. To hear 5 pages of people fearing the challenge only makes me cringe to think that ArenaNET may backtrack on the ascended level or make it easier.

..and no, it’s not Elitist Allisa. The challenge is like that of anything else in the game: those who want to put in the insane efforts deserve to have something to show for it. If you don’t want to put in the time, you are like the other 99% … Which means that a few ascendeds in a Zerg of 100 people will add .13% each.

The game hasn’t been made harder. Exotics work as well as they ever have.

For most the issue has zero to do with effort in obtaining the items, it’s about broken design implementation and a 180 from a original philosophy of horizontal progression. Obviously games will always have busy work to keep people playing since no developer can crank out high quality content fast enough to keep things interesting indefinitely. The problem here is that it was not supposed to be busy work for BiS gear, but rather for hard to obtain prestige items such as a legendary or other rare cosmetics. Thank you for agreeing though that since the game has not been made harder to keep up with a new tier of gear that it serves no purpose other than a carrot to keep the VP sheeple masses satiated because they can’t see anything but needing more stats to stroke their kitten.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

“Vegan meal” with “a bit of meat” in it is not vegan meal any more.

Your spin aint working.

Ascended gear probably did more damage than good, and in the long run it will deal even more damage.

When you’re done with your crystal ball, you must lend it to me. Because I think you’re wrong. I think ascended gear will be a storm in a tea cup.

A year ago people on these forums said the game is dying. That’s less true now than it is then. Maybe Anet knows something you don’t. Maybe what they’re doing is actually working for them.

It may not be working for you, which is another issue altogether.

In the meantime, I think this game is gaining popularity, not losing it.

We don’t need a crystal ball, we have reason and logic. At some point the people who demanded “something to do” grew bored after attaining what was then the BiS gear (exotics). ArenaNet, fearing these players would stop playing the game, added a new tier of BiS gear (ascended) for these players to work towards.

They’re now saying this is the final tier of gear they wish to add. But what happens when that same group of people has attained the new BiS gear for all of their characters? Are they going to be content upon reaching that plateau where before they screamed they were bored? Or are they again going to demand “something to do”? And if they demand more “somethings to do”, is ArenaNet going to stand firm and say “this far, no further”? Or will they cave as they did last time?

Forget crystal balls…what does your gut tell you will happen?

It’s pretty simple, they can add better infusions to grind for. It’s much easier for them to continue down their stat progression without having to increase tiers this way. I don’t agree with the inevitable direction Anet will now be forced to take if they wish to cater to the VP masses, but they have given themselves a fairly elegant solution to a long term problem.

Advent Leader.1083:

I really can’t see how you can manage to build 25 stacks of vuln on an engie, though, on champs. Most I can get is a 17, and that drops off once grenade barrage is on CD. Do you take the on-crit 50% vuln option as well to nearly double vuln done by a single nade barrage + nade AA?

I can understand spike application of vuln on bosses, though – analyze + nade barrage is around… 10+8+max 8, but optimally >4 from the on crit trait if it’s 30/10+x/x/x for around… 4-5 secs (because of defiant) + constant 9 from normal grenades. Buuuut that’s just at the start, and it tapers off, though. Am I missing something?

Condi duration food like rare veggie pizza or the much cheaper alternative koi cakes. Also increased crit chance from things like fury, spotter, banner of discipline and if you are not still capped on crit chance under those circumstances switch from bloodlust to perception and bam 100% crit chance. This is assuming you want to maximize vuln stacking without adding additional + condi duration runes or items and still focusing on keeping your dps at acceptable levels.

Joonks.7501:

The whining is incredible. I suggest you all get jobs/lives outside of the game and then maybe you won’t feel compelled to “grind” out an ascended version of every weapon you have immediately.

“You mean I have to PLAY this game more to get a better item?! This is unacceptable, Anet is screwing me.”

To Anet: thank you for introducing some more progression I can work towards on my character, I like the fact that the materials for ascended weapons come from a variety of different game elements. I’m sorry for all the entitled children on this forum, but I’m sure you know they don’t represent the majority of players.

Thing is, you can have progression without having vertical stat progression. Imagine if you will the opportunity to work towards improving your traits, or evolving your weapon skills in some manner. It is not about the work to get ascended that is the problem in and of itself as much as it is a 180 of the horizontal progression scheme they had originally touted. Coming on the forum and calling people “entitled children” because you can’t see what the real complaint is about makes you a guess what?

Mumu.6203:

I personally hate engineers in dungeons cuz I have been running too much into these guys :

- Flamethrowerlol engie : bad dps cuz they don’t switch + their flame cone covers the whole boss animation making it way more difficult to predict the attack of a boss and dodge.

- Bumpaholic engie : they bump everything at the wrong time making the melee dudes dps less or worse ( we already failed a boss cuz the engie bumped it at the worst time possible)

Not that great dps + potential to ruin your party = facepalm when engie joins

- Support engie is not bad but it’s pretty rare and a guardian is usually better most of the time.

So you are blaming the class for the players being bad.
Sounds logical to me /sarcasm

spoj.9672:

Ill more likely be using dungeon specific potions and curry butternut squash soup. But thanks for the confirmation, havent seen anyone link that trait setup for dungeons which im a bit surprised about.

The only time using the pizza is worthwhile is if you are basically the sole vuln stacker, which rarely happens but I suppose it can’t hurt to keep some with.

Op, I agree in sentiment with your points, maybe not on some of the specific implementations. I would absolutely enjoy playing a game that is truly based on horizontal character progression not vertical stat or gear progression. I am sure there are many who just can’t see how a system could be implemented that would make it fun for them since they are so conditioned to the way mmorpg’s have always worked. As such I have no doubts that you will get lots of undeserved criticism from many of the forum posters who won’t take the time to really consider the out of the box thinking of what it would entail.

Killface.1896:

Its a good think they are adding new set of gears that dont take 1day to get,BIS stuff should be hard to get and it only a bit better than exotic gear anyway you gonna be enable to do all the stuff just like before.

Why? I am willing to bet you can’t actually explain a reason why BiS should be hard to get versus cosmetic being hard to get, that doesn’t ultimately boil down to “I don’t understand horizontal progression”.

edit: It suddenly occurred to me that your post might be sarcasm, in case it is….don’t do that it doesn’t work on the forums!

Other than as you and kalgarr said, not having to wait for a specific role, I don’t like it as much as I expected I would. The system in place now makes the encounter design fairly one dimensional in my opinion.

digiowl.9620:

Nick.6972:

I thin it’s even more hilarious seeing how some people find even dodging hard.
Example, – Liadri. All the whiners.

Dodging on its own is not hard. Dodging while fighting a camera that going wild on every last map outcropping and a targeting system that loves to aim for anything it should not however…

Right now the control scheme is a overly complex hybrid of classic MMORPG and TERA/Neverwinter style action MMORPG.

IMO, Cryptic did it one better with Champions Online. There you had a active block, that you could keep up to forgo attacking but gaining massive amounts of energy/mana and reduce incoming damage, that could also be used to break out of knockback/immobilize (and made you immune to same for some seconds).

Note tho that the block did not make you impervious. It just sharply reduced incoming damage. So you could not sit behind the block all day, but you could buy yourself a breather.

Lol I never even bothered with using a shield skill in champs, in pvp you got crippling challenge spammed to death so your block was never up anyhow, or they just used something like DW/2GM and bypassed the shield altogether. The exception for pve was parry on a melee build since it increased your dodge while attacking.

Vol.5241:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Vol.5241:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Vol.5241:

stof.9341:

What lack of constructive criticism? There has been PLENTY of remarks on how to improve the ascended mess already, some dating back from November last year.

Nothing was listened too, all we got was worse and worse implementations. First the Laurel daily gating for necklace, then the stupid idea of locking the earrings behind zerg guild missions, with an “alternate” scam of paying a huge amount of ectos and laurels for them.

And now, as if the complaints about that ecto price for non zerg guild access for earrings was nothing, let’s put the weapons behind a 250g markup price in our savings for the first weapon. All that without ever fixing the stupid idea that 2H weapon costs the same to craft than a single 1H weapon (in the most expensive mats)

And those constructive points ended up devolving into huge whine fests and massive exaggerations like the one you are using. Scam for using ectos? Colin said back then that it was an incentive for people to guild up. If you didn’t want to, then fine, you would have to pay a premium.

Furthermore, I could make up a ridiculous suggestion in a very constructive manner. Just cause you present it in a professional way doesn’t mean Anet needs to listen to you.

I’m glad that Anet didn’t listen about the ascended complaints because the complaints were from a vocal minority (and mainly from casuals)

So what is a “casual” player to you? I can make an assumption through context that you mean it in a disparaging way as someone who does not value the things you do. I would prefer to not make an assumption and hear what your definition is so I can understand the basis of your argument. The problem with using terms like “casual” and “hardcore” is that they are subjective in nature. This makes those terms nearly worthless in determining whether or not a complaint is logical, since they both tend to be used in a biased manner on either side of the fence.

My view of casual player boils down to playtime – someone who does not plan on playing the game for hours upon hours. Probably no more than an hour a day, and no more than 3 hours a week.

So players who have more time but not necessarily more “skill” should be given a statistical advantage?

Why not? It’s the nature of MMOs. You invest more time in a game, you will get more rewards.

Skill in MMOs is pretty much non-existent. The closest thing to skill when it comes to games is fast reaction time and APM, and that’s not important in MMOs.

Well “skill” for mmorpgs comes in different forms, between knowing strategies to the most effective builds to knowing how to play said build in traditional mmorpgs. But by your definition dodging and using active defenses when appropriate are not important to success in GW2? If I am not mistaken this is what has led to all the proclamations of berserker gear being the only “viable” set in pve since if you miss a dodge or some other active mitigation you will often be one shot regardless of gear. So someone can show “skill” versus let’s say simply auto attacking in a zerg as an example. Now what about the WvW players, who can only play for a few hours a week but are highly “skilled” at beating their opponents, it’s still ok for the people with time to have a statistical advantage?

Vol.5241:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Vol.5241:

stof.9341:

What lack of constructive criticism? There has been PLENTY of remarks on how to improve the ascended mess already, some dating back from November last year.

Nothing was listened too, all we got was worse and worse implementations. First the Laurel daily gating for necklace, then the stupid idea of locking the earrings behind zerg guild missions, with an “alternate” scam of paying a huge amount of ectos and laurels for them.

And now, as if the complaints about that ecto price for non zerg guild access for earrings was nothing, let’s put the weapons behind a 250g markup price in our savings for the first weapon. All that without ever fixing the stupid idea that 2H weapon costs the same to craft than a single 1H weapon (in the most expensive mats)

And those constructive points ended up devolving into huge whine fests and massive exaggerations like the one you are using. Scam for using ectos? Colin said back then that it was an incentive for people to guild up. If you didn’t want to, then fine, you would have to pay a premium.

Furthermore, I could make up a ridiculous suggestion in a very constructive manner. Just cause you present it in a professional way doesn’t mean Anet needs to listen to you.

I’m glad that Anet didn’t listen about the ascended complaints because the complaints were from a vocal minority (and mainly from casuals)

So what is a “casual” player to you? I can make an assumption through context that you mean it in a disparaging way as someone who does not value the things you do. I would prefer to not make an assumption and hear what your definition is so I can understand the basis of your argument. The problem with using terms like “casual” and “hardcore” is that they are subjective in nature. This makes those terms nearly worthless in determining whether or not a complaint is logical, since they both tend to be used in a biased manner on either side of the fence.

My view of casual player boils down to playtime – someone who does not plan on playing the game for hours upon hours. Probably no more than an hour a day, and no more than 3 hours a week.

So players who have more time but not necessarily more “skill” should be given a statistical advantage?

As someone else stated I would be perfectly happy if BiS gear was just awarded to you when you hit 80. Not because I don’t want to “work” for something, but because what I value working towards is not related to stats. See there is a certain disconnect in players, they often see stats as progress, but in other games those stats usually came with “cooler” looks. In comes horizontal progression, where statistical advantage is of little use, and the “prestige” comes from the difficult to obtain cosmetic items, but many players are unable to shake the old conditioning where more stats is “cooler” because it’s armor also gives better looks. As an exercise, think of all the things you could do to improve your playing/character if you did not need to spend time “chasing” stats. Think about the amount of developer resources tied into making a stat chase versus if they had kept horizontal progression, by now we could have had something else such as replaceable traits that can be hunted down, or evolving weapon skills. The issue with increasing stats as many have figured out is that if you don’t artificially inflate the content that requires it, it becomes largely wasted development time. If you don’t need higher stats to progress or complete content then you don’t need higher stats period. The could have easily introduced ascended with the same weapon stats as exotic but with the infusion slot to put in AR for Fractals. That way if you don’t run fractals there is literally no reason to worry about ascended, but that is not the direction Anet chose, they chose to do a 180 of their original design philosophy and introduce vertical progression, it’s a slippery slope and time will tell how it pans out for them.

Vol.5241:

stof.9341:

What lack of constructive criticism? There has been PLENTY of remarks on how to improve the ascended mess already, some dating back from November last year.

Nothing was listened too, all we got was worse and worse implementations. First the Laurel daily gating for necklace, then the stupid idea of locking the earrings behind zerg guild missions, with an “alternate” scam of paying a huge amount of ectos and laurels for them.

And now, as if the complaints about that ecto price for non zerg guild access for earrings was nothing, let’s put the weapons behind a 250g markup price in our savings for the first weapon. All that without ever fixing the stupid idea that 2H weapon costs the same to craft than a single 1H weapon (in the most expensive mats)

And those constructive points ended up devolving into huge whine fests and massive exaggerations like the one you are using. Scam for using ectos? Colin said back then that it was an incentive for people to guild up. If you didn’t want to, then fine, you would have to pay a premium.

Furthermore, I could make up a ridiculous suggestion in a very constructive manner. Just cause you present it in a professional way doesn’t mean Anet needs to listen to you.

I’m glad that Anet didn’t listen about the ascended complaints because the complaints were from a vocal minority (and mainly from casuals)

So what is a “casual” player to you? I can make an assumption through context that you mean it in a disparaging way as someone who does not value the things you do. I would prefer to not make an assumption and hear what your definition is so I can understand the basis of your argument. The problem with using terms like “casual” and “hardcore” is that they are subjective in nature. This makes those terms nearly worthless in determining whether or not a complaint is logical, since they both tend to be used in a biased manner on either side of the fence.

One thing to keep in mind is this is just the weapons that are now being introduced, once the armor is introduced it will balance out some in WvW at least. The reason I say this is two fold really, the condition damage increase for amor sets is unkown and condition damage is not affected by armor value. So right now you have ascended level weapon strength and exotic level armor values, giving ascended power users a bit of a leg up, but once the ascended armor value and increased stats from that come in to play it should even things up a bit. Conditions in pve will still be garbage just because of the way they have implemented the condi stacks.

Galtrix.7369:

There used to be a ton of stuff in GW2 to complain about, but lately, with the new patches and content, there’s absolutely nothing to complain about.

Let’s start with what I complained about before these past few patches. Too few rewards and too crappy of rewards, gap of stats between legendary and exotic weapons, repetitive two-week content, and dungeon rewards.

They fixed all of that in two patches, which I think is pretty awesome. I’ve been having more fun in the past week than I had in an entire month pre-patch. They’ve been doing decently so far, and there are a few things that make me just want to stop playing, but let’s hope that the game turns out to be great instead of good.

I would just like to point out that there was no stat gap between exotic and legendary since legendary mimics the highest tier of gear for stats. Once ascended items were introduced it created a gap of stats between legendary and exotic when there was not one before. It’s a simple and largely pointless carrot that serves no other purpose than time filler for someone who does not understand the theory behind horizontal progression.

kRiza krimos.1637:

I think its unnecessary, it will further trivialize game. Making new tier of gear just for sake of making it is pointless.

But I would love to hear from Anet point of view, why is acsended tier even here and what is their reasoning behind it. I just hope they didn’t introduced it for trained monkeys that need new tier of gear every 6 months… =/

Colin J. and perhaps Anet as a whole has a idea of how long it should take you to get your BiS gear.

http://youtu.be/Jy7CcwnfUdU?t=2m

Despite previous claims by Anet in terms of the B2P model they went with, as a game studio they absolutely want/need people to be logging in as much as possible for various reasons. Everything from increasing gem store sales (the longer things take to get the more likely someone with little time will buy), to making themselves look successful to a community at large with the amount of concurrent log ins etc etc. They have a vested interest in seeing their servers stay full in between the “content” updates, things like gear grind fill the time gap.

Gotta love human nature. The same players that will follow a commander tag and mindlessly zerg for hours upon hours like lemmings (and think that is an example of good gameplay), shout “Don’t tread on me” in a dungeon run. Maybe the solution is to turn your commander tag on?

nakedziggy.3187:

Thank you all for the responses. In so far, it seems like there’s a trade off to be made between fun vs practicality. I’ve level both to 25 and find the elementalist to be more fun than the mesmer (in terms of basic class mechanics.)

This observation may be inaccurate in the long term because I’m not factoring in any traits and builds given my low level – just the class mechanics. What that ultimately means is that by 80 the lack of practical builds on elementalist may wind up causing the character to be more boring in fact (and less useful).

The thing is, I will be playing solo for the most part – or with a guild of strangers. In light of these circumstances, it seems the mesmer, while more boring than elementalist, is the more practical and useful of the two. Seemingly, mesmer’s versatility would open up more gameplay options than if I were an elementlist…or am I wrong? Before the present meta got so condition heavy and D/D was nerfed, did the public have such a poor perception of the elementalist in PvE?

You really can’t rely on what the general public thinks when trying to decide if you will enjoy a particular class. The obvious reason is because “fun or interesting or good or boring” are subjective in nature and will vary from person to person. Mathematically speaking in terms of damage output all the classes are close enough that they are all competitive with one another, close enough that individual player skill is more of a factor than the class. The main difference between any class is really in terms of the utility they can bring to a party and how “easy” it is to use to it’s full potential, it’s the major reason you see people claim that warrior is top dps when it’s not, but it is “easy” to use successfully compared to say a multkit engi build. Having said all of this, play what you enjoy, if you put the effort into learning a class that you like you will be much happier in the long run since you can not control public perception.

Think of it this way, if you had 100% crit chance you would still only get 5 stacks of vuln from the full channel. But honestly, ft auto is terrible for damage and I do mean terrible. The amount of time you would spend using the aa to get vuln would still end up in you taking longer to kill than using other skills without the vuln. The only time the ft aa is good to use is if you are trying to loot tag in a zerg, or if for some reason you want to run a ft condi build (wouldn’t recommend this). So fireforged trigger is by far the better choice if you building around power. If you want to vuln stack just wait til 60 and use the gk.

Xyonon.3987:

It would be nice to have a rotation on the F skills with 0 CD:

First click, all Clones will going to shatter, now you have 1 sec time to send the Phantasms if you wish so. The Problem is: The damage calculation of F1 -> The damage gets less if you shatter more Illusions. So actually it would be a great buff! (Shattering 2 and 1 Illusion deals more damage than 3 at once).

How about that idea?

Um, I must be completely missing something here. Explain what you mean the damage gets less the more illusions you have to shatter please. Only thing I can think of is the effect that compounding power has, but you don’t actually lose damage you just get less additional damage from the amount of illusions left alive when they shatter (the base damage does not get less). Example, compounding power gives 3% damage per illusion alive, you have multiple illusions at various ranges so they don’t all blow up immediately, as each individual illusion shatters you drop 3% bonus damage.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

It’s not a shatter build, the Illusionary Persona is just for the burst when you need it. Otherwise just leave them out and let them shoot.

Sorry if you have discussed the specifics in another thread that details the actual build and I missed it but is the 10 point dom line the 15% illusion damage or the 20% mind wrack? I guess I am just having a hard time picturing what the intent is for this build, was it just for a dps test? Seems to me like you could run it 10/30/0/30/0 to get both 15% bonuses (they do stack right?) or is IC and PH really necessary argh…halp! need more info!…….

fungihoujo.8476:

I think that’s a bit of a conspiracy theory there, suggesting that they are gating karma hardcore just to keep people playing longer.

I think it’s far more likely that karma jugs will be on the gem store soon, but they didn’t want to make this karma nerf at the same time or people would quickly come to that conclusion. I’m thinking November or December- karma jugs on gem store.

Yes because a game developers goal is to not keep you playing the game, it is a obvious conspiracy! Ok ok, thing is Colin J was interviewed at Pax and he basically said they didn’t like how easy it was to obtain exotics, so they introduced ascended and are now happier with the time frames they think it should take players to obtain gear.
http://youtu.be/Jy7CcwnfUdU?t=2m2s
Now while I realize this example does not directly pertain to karma, I want you to think about what he is saying here. Anet has a time frame in mind for players to achieve certain tasks and have seen fit to go about enforcing that time frame. Possible motives could simply be just to keep people playing because they are amoral greedy game developers muhahaha (partial sarcasm but only partial), but most likely it’s to buy themselves time to figure out the direction they want to go with the game in terms of actual content.

Klawlyt.6507:

I think of even bigger concern, is when the majority of the population have 300% or close to it, won’t ANet be balancing loot/the economy with that in mind? At that point, we may as well have MF 0%… which would have been cool with me from the outset.

Heh, and hence the crux of any kind of vertical progression whether it be stat or mf or whatever. You get built up then something is implemented to plateau, which basically means there was no real change other than inflation.

colesy.8490:

According to Guang, an un-buffed 10/30/0/0/30 sword/pistol mesmer will do better with berserker, whereas a fully buffed 10/30/0/0/30 sword/pistol mesmer does slightly better with assassin.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Assassin-Vs-Berserker

Considering he specifies sword/pistol, it does make a lot of sense since you want to be maximising your crit chance with the duelist so you can consistently get 8 bleed stacks, and the bleed stacks scale better with might stacks (+875 condition damage) than power. On the other hand, you can miss out on the assassin precision and take your chances with berserker in a dungeon since your group will be stacking so much precision you’ll still be getting crits reliably.

Hmm, I am not sold on using a pistol in a shatter spec for pve heh. I guess you can spawn it right next to the mob if you are already there but I prefer having phants that will spawn up close even if I am further away do their thing quick and let me blow em up, I don’t like them needing run in time to reach their target. I am sure I am just thinking of it incorrectly or something?

I think you will find a phantasm build is generally going to be more useful to you in a given scenario than shatter is. Don’t get me wrong shatter can have great survivability and utility when played well but it does take a bit more effort. If you build for phantasms and take signet of illusions, use iDefender and iDisenchanter rotating between them and your damage dealing phantasms you basically can go afk and let the phantasms fight for you in open world pve. Plus as someone else mentioned most people run phant builds in dungeons simply because it pairs well with having reflects from the inspiration line (which you don’t always need but…it’s another topic all together). I guess what I am getting at is, if you like having a build that you can do anything pve related with and not have to switch around too much a phantasm build is for you!

Well considering that necro brings no group might and very little vulnerability (unless in a power build which still forces them to be in a weaponset or deathshroud both of which are suboptimal in terms of their damage output compared to other options) I would say engineer for dungeons any day of the week. For WvW I would say it really depends on what you want to primarily do, engi only really struggles in organized GvG due to retal and having unique aoe that can actually hit 15 players at a time as opposed to 5. I have to agree with the above poster that if you want mobility engi is the clear choice. To be honest many people really only think Guard, war, mes are worthwhile taking so if your concern is facing a bit of class bias then necro or engi is a poor choice, but I can tell you that there are many players that literally don’t have a clue how to play this game or what classes are capable of. Probably because the boring zerg fest where your individual contribution matters very little since you can just auto attack and get “teh phat lootz”. So ultimately play whichever class you want, so long as you learn to play it well you will be fine and succeed just don’t pick necro for dungeons :p

fellyn.5083:

Ostra.3927:

I dont count farming champs on rotation as a “living” zone.

GW2 is worse then at release. People are not enjoying the content… they are farming the content asap so they can go back to ignoring it again.

People mistake farming for content. It is not content… its a time delay. its a cheap way to provide something for players to do, and it shows a lack of true caring that Anet was once known for.

So you managed to ask every single person who plays the game how they feel about it then?

You keep saying “people” like you did. Which doesn’t make sense because you didn’t ask me or any of my friends who play. Who by the way, don’t have any issues with ascended weapons and think people are largely over reacting and are all having fun doing events and killing dragons and kitten.

So what you really mean is you read some posts on the forum and asked maybe a few people in your guild and maybe a few more in map chat how they felt?

Right?

Should I point out the irony of your response calling him out about using the word people, all of the assumptions you accuse him of are the exact thing you are doing.

youkai.2394:

Raine.1394:

Otaur.9268:

Sorry, search feature is not good, so I decided to post it here.

Tequatl Revamp, looks like we got a challenge on our hands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AVuhltsBoM

I prefer to call it a failure-fest. It better captures the essence of the experience. Challenge is a completely different experience in my vocabulary.

Teq will follow in the mold of Grenth and the Karka Queen. There will be some initial interest if the reward is high enough, then it will simply empty that part of open world PvE. Humans are not built for continual, near-assured failure—we tend to want to avoid failure on anything near an epic scale.

Yeah, the problem here is:
- If the reward is good, this is going to be a zerg party without the challange ruined by the zerg.
- If the reward is not good, It’s going to be ruined by the fact that no one does it.

That’s a big problem of Gw2: There are challanges, but are just ignored because the reward is less than farming events.
On the other hand, I hope the reward will be bad, so we can use the event as a sort of guild raid.

The problem is with the players themselves, literally the only reward they can see is attached to money or itemization. It’s their end goal not a bonus for them, it should be “Yes we slayed the dragon we are heroes!, oh and I also got this cool loot bag” not “I need to get the loots so I must slay the dragon”

tolunart.2095:

GfC.9175:

Of course we have no time frame for it, but at least we know something is in the works.

Time frame is Sept 17. Answer to raids is an update to the dragon bosses.

Well just one boss for now not all of them heh. It’s a bit like A/B test splitting, they will make changes gradually so they can see if it works or not, no reason to implement changes to all bosses if most players just want easy loot over challenge or interesting mechanics.

Vol.5241:

MikaHR.1978:

Vol.5241:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Vol.5241:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Vol.5241:

Did you guys expect Ascended to come off quickly and cheaply? There is a reason why it’s the tier between exotic/legendary.

Furthermore, the price spike is a large result of increased demand. Demand increased for wood so much that people are willing to pay 10s more than pre-patch.

If you are not willing to match other people’s prices, then there is no seller out there that will sell to you.

A tier which doesn’t need to exist as it literally serves no purpose other than to give people busy work. Anet focused their efforts in the wrong direction with ascended and the the two week living story. Instead of actually delivering compelling content and horizontal progression we get bi-weekly to do lists and ascended. So now you have people who are slowly waking up to this and they are upset about it, and they should be as it is not the game that was advertised. Anet has thrown their hat in the ring with trying to be popular versus trying to be different and as such with them pandering to the masses, the people who bought this game on the premise that it is different are being left behind.

They already said the purpose of ascended was to bridge the wide gap.

This game was advertised with living story. If you bought this game thinking it would be something different than that is your fault. People like to complain about living story IMO because they dont like change. They are so used to the subscription/expansion model that they don’t want to risk on anything else.

If you don’t like it then by all means you don’t like it. But Anet’s metrics show that this past year has been very successful. Player activity in the summer (when 2-week releases started) has gone up when it traditionally goes down (that’s Colin’s words). That tells me that this Living Story is working and GW2 is working.

Anet:
Fun impacts loot collection.
The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

Again, ascended gear was supposed to be here at release. Anet has said that they do not plan on adding anymore loot tiers to the game. Ascended is the final (and was supposed to be at release).

Furthermore, it’s not required to play the game. You survived the game for a year without ascended. Now that we have it, do you expect to fail dungeon runs and raids?

No it wasnt.

Well, you are at least right about no purpose whatsoever though.

It was rushed, poorly thought out, poorly implemented no purpose addition to the game.

I was pretty certain this was the case so I looked it up. Lo and behold I was wrong! For that I apologize

http://www.tentonhammer.com/gw2/news/guild-wars-2s-chris-whiteside-on-ascended-gear-concerns

More great details here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/

That being said, I still do believe that ascended gear is the right thing to do. It’s meant to bridge the gap between

What gap? The time gap? There is no statistical gap since legendaries take on the BiS properties of the highest tier which was exotic. So the only possible gap is a perceived gap by players that don’t understand the concept of horizontal progression. So as I have been saying all along it’s just a time filler, to give people busy work. Instead Anet could have spent their time focusing on ways to give players other means of progression that were not simply about better stats. Evolving weapon skills, ability to collect replaceable traits etc etc, there are so many options they could have implemented but they went with the path of least resistance to appease those that can only see progression through better numbers.

Vol.5241:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Vol.5241:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Vol.5241:

Did you guys expect Ascended to come off quickly and cheaply? There is a reason why it’s the tier between exotic/legendary.

Furthermore, the price spike is a large result of increased demand. Demand increased for wood so much that people are willing to pay 10s more than pre-patch.

If you are not willing to match other people’s prices, then there is no seller out there that will sell to you.

A tier which doesn’t need to exist as it literally serves no purpose other than to give people busy work. Anet focused their efforts in the wrong direction with ascended and the the two week living story. Instead of actually delivering compelling content and horizontal progression we get bi-weekly to do lists and ascended. So now you have people who are slowly waking up to this and they are upset about it, and they should be as it is not the game that was advertised. Anet has thrown their hat in the ring with trying to be popular versus trying to be different and as such with them pandering to the masses, the people who bought this game on the premise that it is different are being left behind.

They already said the purpose of ascended was to bridge the wide gap.

This game was advertised with living story. If you bought this game thinking it would be something different than that is your fault. People like to complain about living story IMO because they dont like change. They are so used to the subscription/expansion model that they don’t want to risk on anything else.

If you don’t like it then by all means you don’t like it. But Anet’s metrics show that this past year has been very successful. Player activity in the summer (when 2-week releases started) has gone up when it traditionally goes down (that’s Colin’s words). That tells me that this Living Story is working and GW2 is working.

Anet:
Fun impacts loot collection.
The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

Again, ascended gear was supposed to be here at release. Anet has said that they do not plan on adding anymore loot tiers to the game. Ascended is the final (and was supposed to be at release).

Furthermore, it’s not required to play the game. You survived the game for a year without ascended. Now that we have it, do you expect to fail dungeon runs and raids?

So if it’s not required then why is it here? And no it was not supposed to be in at release, you know how I know this?
http://youtu.be/Jy7CcwnfUdU?t=1m59s

So basically what happened is it’s a response to the “content locusts” and people that have been conditioned to only see character progression as increased stats. Basically they want BiS gear to be a time consuming process, as opposed to the cosmetic horizontal progression that they initially touted over and over and over and over again pre-release.

Vol.5241:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Vol.5241:

Did you guys expect Ascended to come off quickly and cheaply? There is a reason why it’s the tier between exotic/legendary.

Furthermore, the price spike is a large result of increased demand. Demand increased for wood so much that people are willing to pay 10s more than pre-patch.

If you are not willing to match other people’s prices, then there is no seller out there that will sell to you.

A tier which doesn’t need to exist as it literally serves no purpose other than to give people busy work. Anet focused their efforts in the wrong direction with ascended and the the two week living story. Instead of actually delivering compelling content and horizontal progression we get bi-weekly to do lists and ascended. So now you have people who are slowly waking up to this and they are upset about it, and they should be as it is not the game that was advertised. Anet has thrown their hat in the ring with trying to be popular versus trying to be different and as such with them pandering to the masses, the people who bought this game on the premise that it is different are being left behind.

They already said the purpose of ascended was to bridge the wide gap.

This game was advertised with living story. If you bought this game thinking it would be something different than that is your fault. People like to complain about living story IMO because they dont like change. They are so used to the subscription/expansion model that they don’t want to risk on anything else.

If you don’t like it then by all means you don’t like it. But Anet’s metrics show that this past year has been very successful. Player activity in the summer (when 2-week releases started) has gone up when it traditionally goes down (that’s Colin’s words). That tells me that this Living Story is working and GW2 is working.

What wide gap? It’s nonsense and pr spin, exotic was BiS legendary is cosmetic..
Anet:
Fun impacts loot collection.
The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

This is the game that I bought, where BiS gear was easy to obtain and the chase was for cosmetic. With the introduction of the ascended tier I now am required to jump through the hoops Anet has put in place in order to be just as powerful I either have to grind to get the legendary which was supposed to be optional or ascended. As I said ascended tier’s only purpose is to give people busy work.

My issue is not with living story, but rather it’s implementation and lack of change to the world. It is here for two weeks then gone and nothing has changed except the amount of fluff that people have obtained it simply is not compelling and has nothing to do with the main storyline of the game. Of course people are logging in, if they don’t they miss out on the temporary “content” that consists of a to do list.

So yes while it may have made the game “popular”, that does not mean better or different. I realize Anet is a business and they need to feed their families, but by trying to appease the masses they have basically abandoned what their original design philosophy of the game was. This is the reason I and probably many others are upset with the direction the game has gone.

Vol.5241:

Did you guys expect Ascended to come off quickly and cheaply? There is a reason why it’s the tier between exotic/legendary.

Furthermore, the price spike is a large result of increased demand. Demand increased for wood so much that people are willing to pay 10s more than pre-patch.

If you are not willing to match other people’s prices, then there is no seller out there that will sell to you.

A tier which doesn’t need to exist as it literally serves no purpose other than to give people busy work. Anet focused their efforts in the wrong direction with ascended and the the two week living story. Instead of actually delivering compelling content and horizontal progression we get bi-weekly to do lists and ascended. So now you have people who are slowly waking up to this and they are upset about it, and they should be as it is not the game that was advertised. Anet has thrown their hat in the ring with trying to be popular versus trying to be different and as such with them pandering to the masses, the people who bought this game on the premise that it is different are being left behind.

Well you can transmute the weapon skins so you are not stuck with the looks of it once you obtain one. As far as the money issue, I hope this doesn’t come across as rude but you really have no one to blame for that but yourself to be quite honest. It’s just like running out and buying a brand new computer, tv, stereo etc etc when it’s first released. I do feel your disappointment for this patch however, though mine simply comes from having to do all of this to get back to being BiS gear it just seems rather unnecessary to have the gear even in the game since it’s nothing other than a gimmick to keep people playing that don’t understand what horizontal progression is.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

tolunart.2095:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

tolunart.2095:

Engineers are for people who actually know how to play the game, warriors are for those who don’t. Rangers are for everyone in between the extremes.

Yet they’re still terribad in terms of a class.

Why?

Visually they suck – Legendary Freedoms are restricted due to internal weapon designs, and skins and legendaries conflict with weapon kits, making them in a major sense cosmetically redundant.
The skillset.. It feels lacklustre. I mean, it’s strong because I’ve been playing my engineer since Day 1 of release. But they don’t feel particularly strong compared to other classes.
They have little mobility. The only class in the game that can’t use constant or spammable Swiftness abilities (This includes all those Speed Signets).
They’re too random. I NEED STEALTH TO GET PAST THIS CHAMPION KARKA FOR ORILACHIUM NODE. NOPE. I GET STABILITY INSTEAD \o/ [/end sarcasm]. I mean, okay, I get the whole “Mix this and this and Boom! Invention axe” thematics, but a bit of consistency is nice.

Horrendous çooldowns. |: And their utility is kinda meh. Their stealth from Toss Elixir S only covers 6 or 7 allies, and everything else is purely self effective, save for damage abilities and a couple of combo fields.

They could have been made ALOT better IMHO.

So basically you play a elixir engi and base your arguments on that I take it. Never mind that we can drop like 4-5 blast finishers on our own in one combo field, and that with a p/s ht, gk, bk, eg setup you have access to water,fire, light, and smoke fields which you can blast in, you also have low cd group condi removal from fumigate, tons of cc and since you are switching kits so often you have permanent swift + vigor. But yes it does require very tight timing to pull all the things off that you can do with an engineer so I guess it’s not for everyone.

tolunart.2095:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

tolunart.2095:

Engineers are for people who actually know how to play the game, warriors are for those who don’t. Rangers are for everyone in between the extremes.

Yet they’re still terribad in terms of a class.

Why?

It’s a perception issue, there are many people that simply haven’t figured out how to play one well. There are of course certain glaring flaws like turret and elixir builds are pretty lackluster for dungeons. If players don’t mind playing a multikit build based around the gk,bk,eg kits they can crank out damage on par with a warrior but the timing is tighter to keep the skills on cd so it requires more careful management. They don’t really bring any kind of unique buff to a group like a banner of discipline, spotter, timewarp etc etc. Basically though they can do a bit of everything, but they really don’t excel at anything that other classes can’t also do well except solo stacking vuln to 25. So I don’t agree that they are terribad but they do require a bit more coordination with your group and yourself to get the most out of them, which makes them a bit less pug/faceroll friendly in many scenarios. Having said all this it is my favorite class in the game to play because of the high APM relative to most other classes.

If you don’t enjoy the actual game play it’s time to move on. I don’t mean the bells and whistles like achievement points and gear I mean the actual core game play. Personally I am in a similar boat as you, though I have spent very little in terms of cash shop items. I just don’t find the core of the game offers enough depth to be very entertaining once you take away the chase for “things”. So it is clear I have no issue with people trying to go for a certain look or what have you I just wish there was more to the game besides that. The only form of character progression they offer at level 80 is now just stat related through a boring gear grind. It just feels pretty bland and generic all in all to me. Encounter design for pve is pretty poor generally speaking from a mechanics perspective, it simply boils down to dodge or die and makes combat in pve so one dimensional that it has lead to the proclamation by many that it’s “zerker” or gtfo. I had such high hopes that Anet could deliver on the lofty promises they made pre-release but the direction they have taken in just giving people lists of things to do and things to chase after has left it feeling like such a empty experience to me. I kept hanging on hoping I would see them introduce something that was “different” from the norm and maybe eventually they will get there someday but at this point seeing the direction they are taking gives me little hope for that.

colesy.8490:

I don’t understand what is wrong with speed clearing.

Why is it a problem, whereas pressing 1 in open world bosses is perfectly fine?

I don’t think anyone is saying that there is anything wrong with speed clearing specifically in this post. I am pretty sure the intention of the OP is to draw attention to the fact that not everyone has the twitch reflexes (or possibly the computer power needed for smooth framerates ) to ensure that they can make every dodge every time. I know the view of many of the “hardcore” dungeon runners is basically what boils down to “tough deal with it” as they take a stance that if for whatever reason you are not able to compete in the twitch fest you are simply not “skilled” enough. I believe what the op is saying is that there should be some availability for different kinds of “skill”, where other things besides dodge or die matter. Also I believe the OP feels that it would be nice to actually have a reason to open build/gear diversity so that it is not always just about a dps race.

SiNoS.2147:

Wallace MacBix.2089:

TehPwnerer.7215:

Swoo.5079:

Upgrade to the Deluxe Edition.

You will even get the complete Deluxe Edition, opposed to my pre-ordered one that didn’t came with a 18 slot bag or a armor skin.

I feel the same way. Pre-ordered the CE and have a limited banker to show for it. Oh yeah and that mini that sits in my collections tab.

Are you guys really upset that 1 year after launch people who buy the game now can get 10 exp boosters (which I think are useless either because most people have all lvl 80s right now, or because of the achivement chests which gave a ton of boosters).

An 18 slot bag that costs like 1.2g to buy/craft. Or if you ran fractals at all since Dec you could have had free 20 slot bags (plus the free 20 slot bag from southsun, and the free 15 slot bag from wintersday).

And the armor skin, which you could have bought if you wanted it since launch for 400 gems. And back at launch that would have cost you ~2g, when the rates were 1g=~240 gems. Or 4g in October when the rates were 1g=~120 gems.

Plus not to mention all of the free LS updates since launch (and their respective back items or minis or whatever which you got usually in <5 hours).

Shouldn’t you be happy more people buy the game, and that means more money for Anet, which means more continued support and more free updates in the future.

I’m annoyed a lot by this most recent patch, but giving people an incentive to buy the game a year after it came out isn’t one of them.

Really its not unreasonable. They both bought the exact same thing. Fact one person got something more out of it buying it later is a bit screwed up. If you expand what it grants those who got it before hand should be grandfathered in to it as they have it already.

I literally can’t think of a single business that operates the way you suggest when they offer incentive programs for buying their product.