Guild Wars 2

Farzo.8410:

We have had threads like these before, and they have been locked and deleted.

The reason? I believe the reasons was that you are writing the ArenaNet’s staff names in your thread, quoting them, and that is against the rule or something, I think.

But yes, it’s many things ArenaNet have done to sail away from what they said.

That’s odd. That means we can have posts/threads deleted by quoting Arenanet responses on this forum.

Shockwave.1230:

At what point do you feel item stats go from being optional to mandatory in this game based on the numbers?

After a power disparity of more than 10% power it’s not longer optional, you have to get the next tier to be effective.

What tier would you be willing to go with at a minimum?
For…
armor?
weapons?
trinkets?
sigils?
runes?

armor – rare
weapons – rare
trinkets – rare
sigil – exotic
rune – exotic

Do you think the disparity in power is too great between the tiers?

yes

Guys you’re beating around the issue. You want a competitive leaderboard, so ask for a second leaderboard that doesn’t have HoM, Repeatable, Living Story, Dailies, or Monthlies.

I know the community has changed a lot since the original Guild Wars where power progression hardly existed, but I’d like to get people’s views on the numbers.

Talking about all kinds of items here and being max level…

At what point do you feel item stats go from being optional to mandatory in this game based on the numbers?

What tier would you be willing to go with at a minimum?
For…
armor?
weapons?
trinkets?
sigils?
runes?

Do you think the disparity in power is too great between the tiers?

Here’s some data to help you out
Attributes
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature#Level_80_attribute_values
Totals
Note: the parenthesis show the disparity between the current tier and the fine tier
Fine: MajorAttribute-626, MinorAttribute-416
Masterwork: MajorAttribute-802(28.1%), MinorAttribute-583(40.1%)
Rare: MajorAttribute-871(39.1%), MinorAttribute-617(48.3%)
Exotic: MajorAttribute-1003(60.2%), MinorAttribute-698(67.8%)

The item stat disparities get even crazier in runes and sigils, a couple of examples…

Sigil
Note parenthesis show the % increase from fine items
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Superior_Earth
Minor Sigil of Earth:30% Chance on Critical: Inflict Bleeding (3 Seconds)
Major Sigil of Earth: +45%(50%) Chance on Critical: Inflict Bleeding (4 Seconds) (33.3%)
Superior Sigil of Earth:60%(100%) Chance on Critical: Inflict Bleeding (5 Seconds) (66.7%)

Rune
Note parenthesis show the % increase from fine items
We will just look at the first two bonuses of runes to keep things simple
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Monk
Minor Rune of the Monk: +10 Healing Power, +5% Boon
Major Rune of the Monk: +15 Healing Power (50%), +10% Boon (100%)
Superior Rune of the Monk: +25 Healing Power (150%), +15% Boon (200%)

I would like to prefice this whole thing with a rebuttle of the argument to simply buy a lower tier from the trading post if you want to save time or money. First – The numbers of each item drive their demand and therefore drive the prices of the items in the cash shop. Second – the current systems in place do not cater to both “casual” and “hardcore” players like they did in the original Guild Wars. The current system caters towards hardcore players, as they have the information and time to most cost effectively obtain items. This suggestion is also not related to getting rarer items more easily, it’s about bridging the disparity of the enourmous gap between tiers of item power.

This is the best suggestion I have in order to satisfy classical MMO players and original Guild Wars players.

Rework the item system. It looks like the work was already done to allow for what should happen.

What needs to happen?

Separate skins from stats on the hero panel.

In my mind this only matters at level 80. This is good because it reduces the rework necessary drastically.

Basically at level 80 change the hero panel to have slots for armor and weapons like normal, but separate the affixes for the stats to be their own thing.

Create two paths of progression. One path is stats the other is aesthetic. Allow players to mix and match stats and skins with a simple drag and click.

Additionally reword needs to be done to the tiers of sigils and runes, but more on that later.

Now here’s where the debate starts to occur…
How far to take stat progression?

In my mind stat progression should be the exact same thing as in Guild Wars, because it was perfect. Minimal progression up until max level. Now clearly ANet has abandoned this philosophy in order to draw more users from other games. So, we don’t go with Guild Wars’ system. Instead we given stat progression junkies a progression system of having stats of 5-10% higher than the base that the rest of playerbase operates off of. Why 5-10%? Because it’s not too much that players from the Guild Wars side feel they have to grind it out to get it and it’s not too little that players from the traditional MMO side still want to grind for it.

The current system is much more in favor of the traditional MMO player, where they spend a lot of time or money in game going for the gear with the best stats. Lets just look an example of the numbers off the wiki…

Note parenthesis show the % increase from fine items
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor#Attributes
Fine: MinAtt-168, MajAtt-237
Masterwork: MinAtt-184(9.5%), MajAtt-255(7.6%)
Rare: MinAtt-197(17.3%), MajAtt-278(17.3%)
Exotic: MinAtt-224(33.3%), MajAtt-315(32.9%)

So we see that the attributes get a bonus of over 30% from the base armors at level 80. In addition to the attributes, on weapons and armor weapon attack and armor defense also increase with each tier. 30% is an incredibly significant increase and why players from the original guild wars feel slighted by ArenaNet, because we believed that ANet wanted grind to be optional, meaning for things like aesthetics or small bonuses in power. We didn’t believe that ANet thought grind should be driving character power.

Now the difference from tier to tier is obvoiusly less, but the problem isn’t just with the attribute numbers. In fact the issue lies even moreso in the numbers for runes and sigils, because those are heavy drivers for build effectiveness. Lets look at a couple of examples…

Note parenthesis show the % increase from fine items
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Superior_Earth
Minor Sigil of Earth:30% Chance on Critical: Inflict Bleeding (3 Seconds)
Major Sigil of Earth: +45%(50%) Chance on Critical: Inflict Bleeding (4 Seconds) (33.3%)
Superior Sigil of Earth:60%(100%) Chance on Critical: Inflict Bleeding (5 Seconds) (66.7%)

Note parenthesis show the % increase from fine items
We will just look at the first two bonuses of runes to keep things simple
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Monk
Minor Rune of the Monk: +10 Healing Power, +5% Boon
Major Rune of the Monk: +15 Healing Power (50%), +10% Boon (100%)
Superior Rune of the Monk: +25 Healing Power (150%), +15% Boon (200%)

It’s pretty obvious that the numbers are drastically different. A 200% difference in effect power is not optional, that kind of disparity makes the best items become manditory. And as soon as the disparity in item strength becomes greater than 10% items lose the quality of being optional

And this is the core of what it all comes down to, the numbers. The disparity of the numbers is far too distant in their current state to make the casual playerbase of the original Guild Wars happy.

Sil.4560:

Gotejjeken.1267:

Do you know the definition of lore? Or what a sequel is?

Separate game. A is not B. 1 is not 2. You fail.

To be fair B is derived from A, so while A is not B all of A is within B.

But it’s all really pointless because it has nothing to do with how a competitive leaderboard should be scored.

Ryuujin.8236:

Can i just help put something in perspective for people.

It’s not 500 achievement points – for a tiny minority, it’s 500 AP, yes. But the vast majority of GW1 players barely get half that total – i personally played GW1 on and off for 5 years, spent over 3000 hours in it, and I “only” got 300 AP – most my friends who played for years didn’t do even as much as I did, and they only got 100-200 for their years of gaming.

The number of people getting a full 500 AP are tiny, even amongst GW1 players, these are people who completed virtually every single achievement in the game, PvE and PvP alike and played single virtually the start of the game to the end. The sour-puss crowd are acting as if everyone who so much as created a GW1 character is instantly getting 500 AP which is simply not true.

I personally had 300 AP from GW1, out of a total of 5,900 AP – take away 300 and it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever, I still have exactly 11 chests – just like you if you’ve done the same amount of GW2 achievements as me. in a years time, 300AP headstart means even less.

The people complaining most are the one’s who are competitive about the leaderboards. They feel it’s not fair that they don’t have an extra 500 AP from HoM and various extra AP from dailies, monthlies, living story and repeatable achievements. In a competitive environment it’s actually not fair.

The issue people actually have is how leaderboards are scored, which is why I will continue to stress having a second competitive leaderboard in addition to the one with everything.

apocalyps.7106:

stop the worthless QQing over a few hundred points
1/ it’s a game
2/ it’s another marketing thingy
3/ it’s exactly how it was for new players of gw2 that got the game cheaper than players who got it from beta , because it was on offer by arena net back then and the same QQing was there to, “why should someone else get ……(you fill in the dotted
line)”
4/nobody cares about any leaderboards
5/ it’s a reward for those who played gw1, who invested money in campaigns, character slots, skins, expansions , mercenery’s and so on.
6/ it won’t toppel the game
7/ it’s not paytowin
8/ nobody cares about any leaderboards (again)
9/ everyone will get all the skins from the achievments eventually
10/ it’s JUST A LOUSY CHEST
11/ qqing doesnt help

12/ and final – stop beeing childish, i bet younger kids understand this and “older” ones (30’s ?:D ) don’t!

stop the QQ.

The target of the rage is HoM, but the actual issue people have is how achievement leaderboards are scored. Which has very little to do with HoM. It’s dailies, monthlies, living story, and repeatable achievements people have issue with as well. The practical solution is to create a second leaderboard that excludes or caps those items.

The argument is actually about how leaderboards are scored, not HoM at all.

I say just do two leaderboards.
One without HoM, dailies, monthlies, living story, and repeatable achievements
Another with everything

This whole argument isn’t about HoM at all. It’s actually about how to score the leaderboards.

The easiest solution I see is to have two achievement based leaderboards
1. One time achievements only (no repeatable achievements, no HoM, no living story, no dailies, no monthlies)
2. Everything

Here’s a solution. Make 2 leaderboards. One having only the one time achievements and another having those with HoM + Repeatable achievements.

Celestial items aren’t worth the wasted stats. The only celestial item that has value is the superior rune, but even then there are better runes to use depending on your build.

Unfortunately builds in Guild Wars 2 are very much gear dependent. It’s not that it’s bad that builds are gear dependent, the bad part is that it’s difficult, time consuming, or costly to complete a build because of how gear is obtained.

In order to get the gear with the best stats, you have to grind. I strongly disagree with ANet’s approach on this. It often keeps me from playing, because I know the most challenging content is designed around players having exotic or higher gear. While I am perfectly capable of doing explorable dungeons and fractals in my masterwork gear (which I use because it’s cheap enough to allow me to frequently buy new gear in order to play another build), I don’t like feeling kitten and rejected from groups because they judge my effectiveness not on my skill but my gear. I feel like this is what we were trying to get away from in MMOs… this wasn’t prevelent in GW1, it really sux to experience this.

But basically since Healing Power is always a waste of points, and because either condition damage or power is going to be a waste of points. You’re better off gearing specifically towards your builds.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Shockwave.1230:

Let’s look at the numbers here. 50/50 HoM from Guild Wars 1 is 1 achievement chest.
Really? People are up in arms, because the fans who helped arenanet become as big as it and popular enough to get guild wars 2 made got 1 achievement chest?

I don’t understand how other people don’t understand loyalty.

People are overreacting now because of immediate selfish wants and not understanding the concept of giving back.

It’s 1 chest. 500 points out of 5000 is 10%. Out of 10000 it’s 5%. Over the life of the game the impact of 1 chest will continue to diminish.

Unfortunately it’s not the chest. Most of the players complaining the most have had their egos bruised because they lost their “bragging” rights by losing their position on the leader boards. They don’t seem to know that the leader boards are meaningless, and no one but them really cares. It does not show who the best players are, they simply show who has played the most. I find it very amusing that they put so much in to something so silly, and take great joy in screwing with them now because of it.

That makes more sense than complaining about the chest. They’re still complaining about rewarding loyalty. So to these few players leaderboards are more important than being loyal. On principle I can’t get behind that.

This is really sad.

What’s happening here is that people are complaining about Guild Wars 1 players, who spent thousands of hours on that game, made arenanet big, and resulted in Guild Wars 2 ultimately getting green lit.

These people are complaining, because players with 50/50 get 1 achievement chest, which over the course of the next 5-7 years of the life of this game means very little. But they don’t see that, they see right now only and that this is 1/3 (33%) or more of many players’ achievement points. When at the end of the games life it’ll be 1/20 (5%) or less.

The saddest part of all of this, is that these players are up in arms about loyalty. So basically the players are telling ANet, “We don’t want you to be loyal. Forget loyalty, because we’re not getting the benefits of it!”

It’s so sad, it’s sickening…

Let’s look at the numbers here. 50/50 HoM from Guild Wars 1 is 1 achievement chest.
Really? People are up in arms, because the fans who helped arenanet become as big as it and popular enough to get guild wars 2 made got 1 achievement chest?

I don’t understand how other people don’t understand loyalty.

People are overreacting now because of immediate selfish wants and not understanding the concept of giving back.

It’s 1 chest. 500 points out of 5000 is 10%. Out of 10000 it’s 5%. Over the life of the game the impact of 1 chest will continue to diminish.

tl;dr at the bottom

There have been suggestions to allow people to swap the weapon sets equipped at the touch of a key that would go a step further than swapping equipped weapon sets.

I’d like to take the suggestion a step even further and suggest that players be able to swap the following with a hotkey:
- Land weapon set 1
- Land weapon set 2
- Water weapon set 1
- Water weapon set 2
- All Accessory items
- All 5 slot skills
- Major Trait Assignments

Basically allow players to have two build templates equipped and swap between, except for any major traits associated with the template that can’t be active due to trait point assignment.

The net result would be in addition to having the existing weapon swapping functionality for hotkeys in and out of combat, outside of combat we’d also have a build template swap for hotkeys outside of combat.

People already want build templates, because its unnecessary to have to identify all the synergies and change every little thing when we who have played Guild Wars 1 and other games out there know that build templates are completely possible and great time savers for a setup change.

At a high level there’s a few things required to implement

Requirements of implementing:

- Template codes
— For sharing purposes.
— Existing functionality can be expanded upon from GW1 (optional)
- Template UI
— Includes side by side comparison of equipped templates
— Save/Load/Delete template buttons, View/Copy template code buttons
- Template CRUD
— Create, Read, Update, Delete functionalities on the backend for template data
- Equipment lock (option 1)
— Items associated with templates will need special behaviors to keep players from removing items for their equipped templates
— Items on standby associated with a template in the inventory should be locked
— Item lock prevents selling, destruction, mailing, trading post, and depositing
— Item lock can be removed through right clicking on items in the inventory
- Save template items to template UI (option 2)
— Items associated with active templates don’t show up in the inventory
— When unequipped from an active template they are placed back into inventory

RoI – there’s no return I can think of, except maybe the return would be that players are spending more time actually playing the game instead of setting up their characters? At the very least you’ll be making players very happy that they can easily share, load, and swap builds. Even trolls will be happy whether they show it or not.

tl;dr
Add build templates and sharing
Allow for two templates to be “active” at a time
Create a hotkey option for template swapping out of combat

tl;dr
Basically what I’m getting at, is that Guild Wars 2 is designed to prevent casual players from having flexible game play and to prevent them from having maximum potential builds. This is due to penalizing players by taking away their time mostly in the form of game currency (which is earned through their time) via numerous implementations.

I’m not one who’s going to be milked for their money in order to save time on things that I expect I should already be able to do. I’ll just do something else instead.

p.s. Death penalty from Guild Wars was incredible because it didn’t steal my time to make it go away, it just went away when I played better.

p.p.s I realize now that the first Guild Wars is probably the gold standard of casual player friendliness out of any online game that I’ve ever played, console or pc. The core principles behind that game should be engraved on a gold plate with a platinum frame, which should then be streamed via a live feed over the internet for all to read and marvel at.

p.s.p.s. I have to say Guild Wars 2 falls incredibly short in giving casual players a good experience for their time. Guild Wars -10/10, Guild Wars 2 – 3/10. But I’m sure it exceeds in generating revenue.

Warning: This is incredibly long, which was not my original intention. Please see the tl;drat the bottom if you want to save time.

My orginal topic, being the intention to talk about ascended items vs exotic and their flexibility
There’s a wonderful build editor that exists gw2skills.net that helped bring this to my attention.

In my theorycrafting of builds I realized that ascended gear is nowhere near as flexible with it’s stat distribution as exotics and their upgrade slot.

The reason this is true is that exotic upgrade slots allow for points to be distributed more flexibly.

On the otherhand acended gear stat distribution is far less flexible. Therefore, while ascended gear is better for maximizing a few attributes, exotic gear is better for balancing stat distribution.

Stop right there and let’s think about what this means.
1.) Less flexibility means players are more likely to build heavily into 3 stats of their choosing.
2.) Players who want flexibility are more likely to get celestial (all-stat) ascended items
3.) Players who want flexibility are more likely to stick with exotic items, because of the flexibiliy it offers

Regarding point 1, that means that players will likley experience buyers remorse for the items as they learn better ways of distributing their stats or if they want to change their build. However, being heavily invested into these ascended items will likely keep players from changing their builds, because they realize they will kitten themselves. In these situations players will find the lack of flexibility to be annoying as their build gets stale. Eventually if they ever do change builds, then ascended items just take up space in their account, and it doesn’t make sense to get rid of them because of how much time has to be invested to obtain them.

Regarding point 2, this means that these players will be more able to change their build and playing experience. However, exotics with upgrades can achieve higher stat totals that these grab bag stat items. This also may result in buyers remorse, because even though they’ve obtained an ascended item, the item doesn’t make sense to use when exotics with upgrades are better for a build.

Regarding point 3, this means that there are players who believe that the flexiblility of exotics outweighs the stat increase of ascended items. Also, even with the more flexible celestial ascended items being available, they aren’t worth getting, because higher values can be obtained through exotics. This is because points are wasted on condition damage or direct damage, and because healing power’s impact on combat is so negligible that points would be better spent elsewhere.

My topic of flexibility starts to bleed into gameplay and builds
My expectations of an MMO are driven by the first Guild Wars, where I expect easy readily available flexibility and diversity in both gameplay in builds. It’s pretty much a given that the diversity of gameplay and diversity of builds are fractions of fractions from what existed in Guild Wars. Even still I expect more flexibility to play the comparatively small amount of different playstyles and builds that are available.

It’s a matter of preference, I prefer changing playstyles and experiencing combat in new ways over grinding out the maximum potential of a build. I actually prefer to lots of playstyles and builds with the maximum potential of each build readily available like it was for the first Guild Wars.

My topic of gameplay and builds leads to overall design decisions
I feel like what I’m driving at her is ultimately a core competency change from the first game to the second game, and I don’t prefer this new direction.

It’s like there’s way more grind in Guild Wars 2. It takes weeks maybe a couple months to get a build to maximum potential, whereas in Guild Wars it takes minutes maybe hours if you need to grind out a little gold.

The problem lies in the lack readily available max stat gear and scarcity driving the prices up.

Ultimately time is equating to money. Players get nickle and dimed for everything…
You put your time in to get game currency, but then you have to spend that currency which represents your time to save you time. Which ultimately leads to people paying for things that should be free.

I wish there was a waypoint counter so I could estimate how much gold I’ve lost fast traveling.

I kind of wish the trading post didn’t exist, it seems like semi-pro market analysts hold most of the wealth. You can’t get significant wealth redistribution with the trading post either. This is one of the biggest things about the GW2 economy that I see preventing wealth redistribution, everyone is always willing to undercut by 1 copper and it ends up driving prices down super fast compared to players offering straight rounded off numbers only wavering in price by 100 gold or 1 plat.

I just see a lot of high level design issues.

I find efficiency fun. I also enjoy good storylines. That said, if a storyline isn’t compelling enough I won’t do it unless it happens to be part of the most efficient way to play.

Attached below…
Condition Damage as it increments with Malice
Direct Damage as it increments with Power, Prowess, and Precision

Enjoy

I play alone when I’m not doing dungeons or guild missions. The only content I enjoy solo is personal story. Roaming the world I don’t enjoy anymore, after I explored it once and realized it wasn’t rewarding I was done with zone play.

ProxyDamage.9826:

(3/3)
I know this has been recognized as an issue by ANet, and that they’re “working on it”, so there’s no need to go in-depth. The only reason I’m bringing this up at all is because I’m hoping ANet won’t simply take the lazy way out and make enemies “unskippable”. The problem isn’t that you can skip enemies, is that there is no reason not to.

Speed runs are a good thing. They’re great fun to do and watch, if you’re into that sort of thing. Super Mario 64 is still alive today due to speed runners. I remember in Portal some of the most fun I’ve had with the game revolved around “cheating” the game – finding alternative and more efficient solutions to the puzzle – along with finding the original “intended” solutions. This was something the game makers actively encouraged, even going as far as purposely not patching “exploits” they knew as they considered them more intelligent/interesting/challenging than the originally intended solution. Alternatives are good. The problem is when all non-mandatory encounters are boring, uninteresting “tank and spank”, and unrewarding. Sitting through a minute or two of extra “Hundred Blades/Whirling Wrath/whatever other high DPS attacks you have> Auto attack until it comes off cooldown > Rinse and repeat” for anything from grey trash to a green worth 2 silver if you’re lucky is simply not worth it. When a champion or elite mob takes 20 times the time it takes to kill a “trash mob” and they’re both worth the same jack kitten, you simply don’t bother.

If, instead, you make these encounters interesting and challenging, and make them worth the time they take to do, I guarantee that you’ll start seeing a lot more “no-skipping” runs pop alongside speedruns.

Respect +1 for the OP

I definitely want to emphasize the importance the paragraphs quoted above. Encouraging creativity instead of being Apple like and making everyone have the same thing.

Do you feel like your characters have a significant impact on storylines?

Better yet, the impact on the storylines that you enjoy

I’m a sucker for a good heroic story. My personally I don’t feel like I impact the game’s stories. The first 30 levels of the personal stories I had that feeling, but other than those I don’t feel it.

Everything goes despite what my character does. It’s like I’m just a small insignicant part of the overall story, and there is no storyline following me. This is a stark contrast to the original Guild Wars + expansions and other games I like to play.

I feel like if I could play as a Destiny’s Edge character or Trahearne I’d have a lot more fun and get more enjoyment from the story, because they are the one’s creating the most impact throughout the storylines and world.

It’s like the game was marketed as being all about the player’s story, but my characters aren’t important to the story.

Just my feelings. I’m curious about other people’s thoughts.

I’d like to see some better way of reducing recharges. Elementalists have to use rotations in order to get the most out of a build, and attunement swapping putting entire lines on recharge does not make 20% recharge traits as useful to the ele as it does all other classes. Even though we may have the 20% recharge traits, it’s not exactly helpful due to having to wait for other skills in other lines to cool down or having to wait for an entire line to come off cooldown.

A few of ideas I have to make this less of an issue.

Attunement Base Recharge 11 seconds
Arcana Trait line
Boon Duration +1%
Attunement Recharge Rate +1%
Basically allow the elementalist to attunement swap more often, so they can get into the attunement they need access the skills they want to use more readily.
It’s a straight buff overall, but necessary in my opinion. If elementalists are to be a jack of all trades, but master of none than we need to be able to access the trades we need when we need them.

Arcana Trait line
Boon Duration +1%
Attunement Recharge Rate +2%
Attunement Line Skill Recharge Rate +1% per point in a respective line
Basically what this would do is further link the Arcana trait line to the element trait lines, by allowing a recharge bonus per point into an element line up to the number of points into Arcana. For example, if you have 30 points into arcana and 10 points into water then you get 10% skill recharge bonus, but you could get up to 30%. Likewise, if you have 30 points into water and 10 into arcana then you get 10% skill recharge bonus, but don’t get a 30% recharge bcs only 10 points are into arcana.
This would also be a straight buff, but it’s less impactful than my preferred choice above.

Alternatively
Relocate the 20% Major Masters into an earlier trait slot. For example merging it into the Minor Master traits.
It would still leave the same problem in my opinion, but might be useful in combination with some other implementation.
Again a straight buff.

Obviously given the wave of nerfs to existing elementalist builds for various reasons it’s not likely to see non-ele fans to be accepting of an overall buff like this, but our build diversity is pretty much non-existant. I feel like this would breath some life into a couple more build opportunities.

Healing scaling is awful compared to Power or Toughness. The game is designed so that healing isn’t a role. If you try it, you’ll be disappointed, because you won’t be effective, and you’ll get more out of devoting your points into Power or Toughness.

Here’s how healing scales at level 80 every 100 healing power for the following skills
Regeneration: (Base heal 130 + 12.5 per 100 healing power) per second
Geyser: Base heal 808 + 25 per 100 healing power
Water Trident: Base heal 1448 + 100 per 100 healing power
Cleansing Wave: Base heal 1302 + 100 per 100 healing power
Water Blast: Base heal 370 + 10 per 100 healing power
Healing Ripple (trait): Base heal 1302 + 100 per 100 healing power
Water field + Blast Combo: 1320 + 20 per 100 healing power

With the weak return from healing power in combination with the long recharge and infrequent use of heals, it’s better to spec into damage or damage reduction.

The best way to heal is to prevent damage in the first place, which the guardian is very good at doing with Aegis’ and Protections from Virtues and Shouts. Even then those are available infrequently. Leaving the best way to prevent damage being skill players who know how to use their dodges and profession mechanics.

That said, what the OP would likely find most enjoyable is either a Staff elementalist or a Staff/Mace&Shield Guardian with Tome of Courage with Shouts and Sanctuary

Esplen.3940:

You realize spending money on having people fix those descriptions is more effort than it’s worth. There will always be a way to perceive something in a different light. Look at how they finally managed to do WvW Rewards because everyone had a different opinion on how they worked and most people STILL didn’t understand after 2 fixes to the descriptions.

I understand that the higher level expectations are broken at, the more impact it has on trust with your users. Summary descriptions are pretty high level. When Mike O’Brien made his big reddit post months back acknowledging that they had significantly broken away from major tenets of the original Guild Wars and tried to spin that to be a positive thing, it caused me to cut myself off from the game completely for almost 6 months, because I stopped trusting that ANet could provide an expierence I would enjoy. The more open and truthful communication is the more trust that exists between two parties.

I also understand that they clearly don’t have adequate testing, because so many of these issues have made it into production, and the earlier a bug is discovered the less it costs to fix.

I understand how much effort it takes to update text content. It’s literally the least amount of effort it takes to fix a bug. You branch off the source code, update the text, make sure your diff tool only finds a change to line of code you’ve updated then merge the code back into the parent branch. This would literally take a minute to do when you know what the text should say and copy/paste it in. It also requires no regression testing other than making sure the text is updated. If the functionality is updated instead, from a testing perspective regression is still minimal.

It’s going to take 3 people 10 minutes time each on the incredibly high end (more likely 5 minutes each) to 1) specify whether the description or functionality needs updated, 2) to update the description in the code, then 3) test it in the next build. That’s a grand total of 30 minutes between 3 people per bug on the high end specifically for bugs related to numeric differences between descriptions and functionality.

I don’t believe for a minute that’s too much time for ANet to have better communications between their product and their users. The little things add up. And if it is too much time, that’s their own fault for putting themselves behind, and it’s their responsibility to get caught back up if they care about the quality of their product.

The community obviously cares, just look at the wiki.

I’m frequently having my expectations let down when I am told by descriptions what a rune, sigil, skill, or trait’s behavior is only to find that is not true.

I think it’s rediculous that this game has released over 10 months ago, and there are dozens of discrepencies that exist. On top of that numerous discrepencies have existed since launch…

Just looks through the different sigils, runes, skills, and traits on the wiki. It’s incredibly disheartening that more care is not invested into how skill behavior is communicated to the community.

I believe ArenaNet has higher standards than what they are showing. I would hope more attention is being paid to this. There doesn’t need to be a hugh patch to fix these, simply pushing out a few description updates to match the actual behavior or vise-versa every week would have lead to most of these discrepencies being gone.

Where is the Quality?
I believe ANet cares more about their users than to have their game lying to players, in some cases for over 10 months.

I spend on average between 1 and 2 hours of time in game on the few days of the week I play. I actually frequently decide not to play, because of how much time it takes to get to previously uncovered content and I am bored of my main. Because of the current time it takes to traverse the world, it’s not feasible for me to enjoy the PvE content I like on alts.

Content I like includes guild missions, dungeons, Arah, and Dragon boses. I always end up stuck on my main, because it takes so long to run to content I haven’t uncovered, and I’m unwilling to spend my limited time doing something that’s incredibly boring when I should be enjoying myself.

Being bored of my main comes from a lack of build diversity, which is the main reason I want to play alts, so I can enjoy new builds and new playstyles.

That’s the situation I’m in, and it’d an issue for anyone else in it as well.

Solutions that involve continuing playing this game for 4-8 hours a week are welcome.

Time’s a big deal to me, and swapping between my mobility weapon set and my build weapon set should be simpler than going through my inventory and finding the items then swapping to them.

When I say weapon set, I am considering any any number of weapons that Adds up to 10+ skills on the left side of the skill bar to be a weapon set. That means I’m saying Sword/Shield + Mace/Axe is one weapon set.

I’d like to see the devs take a page from the original Guild Wars and Add UI elements for swapping weapon sets more easily. In the original Guild Wars we could swap between 4 UI icons to change what our character was equipped with.

Something similar to this would be helpful for my original scenario above. It would definitely incentivize even more to play situationally, which it seems many peopel already do anyways. It’d inventivize people to play more situationally, because it’s easier to change weapons, which means it’s easier to use weapons that would perform better in certain situations. This is not a problem ANet, it’s beneficial to the player and saves time. We already play situationally, for example against large boses an elementalist is going to get Staff for Meteor shower, Glyph of Storms for lightning/ice storm, and frost bow ice storm. We’re just going to do it, because we output so much damage that way regardless of our build.

I’m sure the dev teams are familiar with the concept of lean and getting rid of waste. Let us be more lean and not waste time swapping weapons.

It’s just as the title suggests.

Time efficiency is very important to me personally, I don’t get much time to play games.

I enjoy high end content and don’t find the journey to get to that content compelling enough that I enjoy it. The first go around was great, I just don’t like it enough to do it all again like I did in the original Guild Wars. Therefore when I find myself on alts I often am bored and grinding the same things that I had done previously on my main, because there’s no way to power level other than crafting.

I’ve found that my time is important enough to me to spend my coin on craft leveling. However, there’s still an unfortunate problem I run into, which is that on my alts I have to run everywhere, because they don’t have maps zoned. The game world is big, which is great in a way, but it sucks that it takes so long to traverse.

That all leads up to my suggestion of allowing for previously identified waypoints to carry over between characters at the applicable level. Meaning if a character is at the highend of a level range for a specific map, the waypoints discovered are available for use.

Obviously there’s impacts on completion percentage with that. Waypoints are about 20% of map completion, so it comes down to whether or not the devs would be okay with potentially 20% of the map completion being done and whatever portion of the playerbase that doesn’t craft level would probably end up not having to find a bunch of way points. So if that’s an impact a price point could be found in gems that would be high enough to only encourage people like me who value their time out of game to be the only purchasers.

It doesn’t matter to me how I save time so I can do the content I enjoy, but it feels like a chore getting to my favorite content because I don’t have time. And I’d be willing to pay 3-5 dollars per character for something that would save me from doing that chore.

This suggestion is primarily for PvE, but could impact WvW

ArenaNet obviously wants people to stick with one build, unless you’re willing to reduce your wealth accumulation or give them more money. I don’t know why this is the case… speculation I’ve seen has included…
*Prevent players from playing situationally
*Hiding lacking build diversity
*Reducing the amount of currency in the game
*More money

Whatever the reasoning, the fact of the matter is players are discouraged from experimenting with builds. It’s stupid to the players and bad for them. ANet’s a business and it’s good for them, because it leads to more money and less complaints from PvErs about lacking build diversity. Whatever… moving on.

Players don’t like being discouraged from doing something they feel they should be able to do, and freely changing our builds is something we feel we should freely be able to do in PvE. Obviously we currently can’t and the only valid reason I personally see is to prevent players from playing situationally, which I don’t agree with in principle, but I do agree with to keep players from constantly pausing to change their builds between every single fight.

So my proposal is simple, since for some reason ANet doesn’t want to implement a simple solution of allowing free retrating in town’s/outposts…

I say add logic around the trait system to create 10 flexible trait points to be removed and allocated at all times. These 10 would be different than the other 60 in that they can be removed at any time, outside of combat, and reallocated.

Even if it is just a small amount comparatively, it gives players some flexibility to respec so that they have traits to work with weapon sets they aren’t built around. Like a D/D elementalist swapping to staff when it’s suicidal to use daggers.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I browsed through the last several posts, but didn’t see this :

Straight from the Dev’s mouth this past Sunday –
(Q:) Will we ever be able to go to Cantha?
(A:) (Paraphrasing) Cantha is definitely not cut from the game, you will just have to wait and see.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1g0zqb/tc_fireside_chat_with_former_lead_producer_in_la/

Oh happy day. Rejoice!

It has to come back, it really was great.

I would assume the only reluctance to implement Cantha would be due to historical numbers being low from Guild Wars 1, but when the main way to get to Cantha was going to Kaineng Center… I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the case that Cantha’s numbers were lower than Elona or Tyria, because Kaineng Center’s layout was super confusing and claustrophobic to me at first.

Just make Kaineng City less of a funnelled maze and it’ll all be good. Shing Jea Island, the Jade Sea, and Echovald forest were great.

So basically from what people posting are observing it sounds like WvW and PvP are getting some growth but not yet back up to what it was at launch, and PvE is pretty much only people running Dungeons and living story?

And the world zones are barren, because people are only doing the challenging or rewarding content, so hearts and DEs have pretty much fallen off the face of the game from the perspective of the majority of the player base? Which is kinda sad, because that’s where ANet would have spent a huge portion of their time.

That’s what it sounds like is going on to me.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Shockwave.1230:

Sounds like a combination of things are going on, the content in the zones isn’t compelling enough to keep players spread throughout the world, so they’re doing the more rewarding or newest content.

Also it sounds like server populations have decreased, since 6-7 months ago.

So your surprised that most players are doing the newest more rewarding content, that is only going to be available for a very short time? I fail to see how this could be a surprise to anyone? The same happens in almost every game I have ever played. Limited time content or “special events” always draw the most players, it’s only natural.

Also, due to the way culling works, most times, you are not going to see other players unless you are standing almost right on top of them.

I haven’t done any of living story stuff. It’s temporary, so I’m not really interested in spending my time on it. I play casually.

Karizee.8076:

Southsun Cove (multiple overflows)
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-14-2013/

Meta events (new API was just released)
http://v2.gw2stuff.com/

Dungeons and Fractals (millions of groups forming within 2 minutes)
http://gw2lfg.com/

More people than ever are playing.
What server are you on, OP? I’ll show you where everyone is

I’m on Stormbluff Isle

Sounds like a combination of things are going on, the content in the zones isn’t compelling enough to keep players spread throughout the world, so they’re doing the more rewarding or newest content.

Also it sounds like server populations have decreased, since 6-7 months ago.

What’s up all. I’m back from a long hiatus, it’s been 6 or 7 months. This past week I started playing again.

I gotta say, I’m really shocked at what I see. All the zones are empty, as in I’m lucky to run into 2 other players in a zone and I’ve been running through level 30-60 zones (trying to get a second level 80).

What happened to the open world? It’s barren. I know I didn’t like how hearts and dynamic events were all the same couple events skinned differently, but I didn’t expect that the majority of the playerbase would stop doing the bulk of the games content.

What’s the playerbase doing now?

Krosslite.1950:

Shockwave.1230:

Krosslite.1950:

Shockwave.1230:

Dynamic events are cookie cutters. It’s the same few high level concepts recycled and reskinned. After participating in hundreds of them, someone like me realizes they don’t get anymore interesting or challenging so I may as well just do the challenging or interesting content. Even then the content wasn’t enough to keep me in the game. The storylines kept me in for a bit, but ultimately I realized each person had one of a handful of stories. It’s also not easy to follow individual storylines, because you can only follow them by being a particular race then flowing into the main story line. Additionally a lot of the stories aren’t repeatable, which I found to be an issue.

Ultimately, in my opinion a game should be about two things. Stories and challenges. Both are there, but very limited. Filler content, like most of the Dynamic Events are, don’t have much value to me, I feel like they are just time wasters compared to an interesting story or unique challenge.

If Dynamic events were more crucial to storylines and following those storylines was simpler, they’d hold much more value. The idea of not having a clear linear path to follow for a story just to be different for the sake of being different and not adding value to that idea is a downside to Guild Wars 2. In RPGs, you deviate from the main storyline to experience a unique challenge or get a unique reward. You don’t deviate to experience generic filler content.

In summary my opinion is too much of the game is about experiencing large quantities of the same generic cookie cutter content. It’s better to spend time experiencing the unique content concepts or challenging content. The lack of a clear means to follow a storyline is detrimental to the user experience of Guild Wars 2 as is the lack or replayability. When encouraging players to deviate from a story or challenging content, they should be presented with challenging content or a unique content concept or a unique reward. I don’t think these opinions mean I have tunnel vision, I think there’s a formula for great games that involves story, unique content, challenging content, and rewards, and if ANet wants large amounts of DE’s to be part of that formula they need to do a better job of making those events fit the above.

“(Orr) Events tend to have farther-reaching effects than we’ve seen so far in lower-level areas, putting emphasis more on holistic zone control and cooperation than in the early game”

Why do you feel this quote applies to the context of what I’ve previously stated?

Simply showing that your statement was moot since the DEs in Orr are crucial to the storyline. If you didn’t see that or still don’t you have made yourself ignore documented facts that state you are incorrect

The quote does not show that the above statements are moot, it in fact hardly relates to the statements at all.

Krosslite.1950:

Shockwave.1230:

Dynamic events are cookie cutters. It’s the same few high level concepts recycled and reskinned. After participating in hundreds of them, someone like me realizes they don’t get anymore interesting or challenging so I may as well just do the challenging or interesting content. Even then the content wasn’t enough to keep me in the game. The storylines kept me in for a bit, but ultimately I realized each person had one of a handful of stories. It’s also not easy to follow individual storylines, because you can only follow them by being a particular race then flowing into the main story line. Additionally a lot of the stories aren’t repeatable, which I found to be an issue.

Ultimately, in my opinion a game should be about two things. Stories and challenges. Both are there, but very limited. Filler content, like most of the Dynamic Events are, don’t have much value to me, I feel like they are just time wasters compared to an interesting story or unique challenge.

If Dynamic events were more crucial to storylines and following those storylines was simpler, they’d hold much more value. The idea of not having a clear linear path to follow for a story just to be different for the sake of being different and not adding value to that idea is a downside to Guild Wars 2. In RPGs, you deviate from the main storyline to experience a unique challenge or get a unique reward. You don’t deviate to experience generic filler content.

In summary my opinion is too much of the game is about experiencing large quantities of the same generic cookie cutter content. It’s better to spend time experiencing the unique content concepts or challenging content. The lack of a clear means to follow a storyline is detrimental to the user experience of Guild Wars 2 as is the lack or replayability. When encouraging players to deviate from a story or challenging content, they should be presented with challenging content or a unique content concept or a unique reward. I don’t think these opinions mean I have tunnel vision, I think there’s a formula for great games that involves story, unique content, challenging content, and rewards, and if ANet wants large amounts of DE’s to be part of that formula they need to do a better job of making those events fit the above.

“(Orr) Events tend to have farther-reaching effects than we’ve seen so far in lower-level areas, putting emphasis more on holistic zone control and cooperation than in the early game”

Why do you feel this quote applies to the context of what I’ve previously stated?

Dynamic events are cookie cutters. It’s the same few high level concepts recycled and reskinned. After participating in hundreds of them, someone like me realizes they don’t get anymore interesting or challenging so I may as well just do the challenging or interesting content. Even then the content wasn’t enough to keep me in the game. The storylines kept me in for a bit, but ultimately I realized each person had one of a handful of stories. It’s also not easy to follow individual storylines, because you can only follow them by being a particular race then flowing into the main story line. Additionally a lot of the stories aren’t repeatable, which I found to be an issue.

Ultimately, in my opinion a game should be about two things. Stories and challenges. Both are there, but very limited. Filler content, like most of the Dynamic Events are, don’t have much value to me, I feel like they are just time wasters compared to an interesting story or unique challenge.

If Dynamic events were more crucial to storylines and following those storylines was simpler, they’d hold much more value. The idea of not having a clear linear path to follow for a story just to be different for the sake of being different and not adding value to that idea is a downside to Guild Wars 2. In RPGs, you deviate from the main storyline to experience a unique challenge or get a unique reward. You don’t deviate to experience generic filler content.

In summary my opinion is too much of the game is about experiencing large quantities of the same generic cookie cutter content. It’s better to spend time experiencing the unique content concepts or challenging content. The lack of a clear means to follow a storyline is detrimental to the user experience of Guild Wars 2 as is the lack or replayability. When encouraging players to deviate from a story or challenging content, they should be presented with challenging content or a unique content concept or a unique reward. I don’t think these opinions mean I have tunnel vision, I think there’s a formula for great games that involves story, unique content, challenging content, and rewards, and if ANet wants large amounts of DE’s to be part of that formula they need to do a better job of making those events fit the above.

Draygo.9473:

Shockwave.1230:

Draygo.9473:

your missing a little in your description.

You have to keep in mind that partially its the fault of the capture point meta though.

Bunker builds not only are highly survivable ‘tank’ builds they also have significant area control and denial.

The only 2 things I see missing out of gw2 are pure healers (which I don’t miss) and shutdown builds. Shutdown is only needed when healers exist in my opinion though because if you cant shut down healers then you wont get kills. Sounds like you just prefer the healer included system.

If you are talking gw:p vs gw2, there are far more viable builds right now in gw2 than gw1 had 6 months in. GW1 with everything included has far more viable builds today than gw2 has, but that’s not apple to apple.

Bunkers have some area control (like the Guardian), but there aren’t builds that are centered around it like, spirit walls, minion walls, Wards + DoT AoEs. Guild Wars 2 has some of those concepts in the Bunker, Roamer, Pressure playstyles, but they aren’t a playstyle in and off itself like in Guild Wars.

I definitely like the healing playstyle, as my primary in GW1 was a monk. I miss it a lot. Shutdown was also something I liked playing, but I didn’t just utilitize it for healers, I would also use it to keep pressure off my party. There is a lot more depth and breadth to GW1 combat, which I prefer.

I don’t know about you but I called what you are calling shutdown as mitigation.

No matter how hard you tried in gw1, you couldn’t completely shut down someone especially if they knew what they were doing. I am running a physical shutdown build in gw2 right now that can lock an enemy player for quite a bit of time – if they let me.

If it was GW1 that build would be more powerful, but in GW2 you have a dodge button which can create gaps in my shutdown.

There are shutdown builds in gw2, the game doesn’t revolve around or allow hard shutdown builds – they arnt fun to play against.

I loved the mesmer from GW1. Psychic Instability, Cry of Frustration, Cry of Pain, Diversion, Blackout and other hard shutdowns, and then soft shutdowns like Shared Burden and other move and attack speed inhibitors. Love love love shutdown. You don’t have to like shutdown builds, but it made combat far more interesting. There’s nothing that comes close to the kind of shutdown that came from a GW1 mesmer in GW2.

Draygo.9473:

your missing a little in your description.

You have to keep in mind that partially its the fault of the capture point meta though.

Bunker builds not only are highly survivable ‘tank’ builds they also have significant area control and denial.

The only 2 things I see missing out of gw2 are pure healers (which I don’t miss) and shutdown builds. Shutdown is only needed when healers exist in my opinion though because if you cant shut down healers then you wont get kills. Sounds like you just prefer the healer included system.

If you are talking gw:p vs gw2, there are far more viable builds right now in gw2 than gw1 had 6 months in. GW1 with everything included has far more viable builds today than gw2 has, but that’s not apple to apple.

Bunkers have some area control (like the Guardian), but there aren’t builds that are centered around it like, spirit walls, minion walls, Wards + DoT AoEs. Guild Wars 2 has some of those concepts in the Bunker, Roamer, Pressure playstyles, but they aren’t a playstyle in and off itself like in Guild Wars.

I definitely like the healing playstyle, as my primary in GW1 was a monk. I miss it a lot. Shutdown was also something I liked playing, but I didn’t just utilitize it for healers, I would also use it to keep pressure off my party. There is a lot more depth and breadth to GW1 combat, which I prefer.

I’ve been in my Guild Wars 2 off season for six months.
.

Guild Wars 2’s combat and skill system wasn’t good enough to keep me interested. I was still playing Guild Wars 1 even after I had my fill of new content, and that was becuase of its skill system alone.
.

The thing that’s lacking in Guild Wars 2’s combat and skill system for me, and possibly others, is that there aren’t a numerous viable ways to play in combat.
.

I’m not talking about builds, bcs technically builds are different by one trait, or one slot skill. I’m talking about things at a much higher level than that, because it’s higher level issues that lose people, not the low level small details.
.

Combat in Guild Wars 2 isn’t even limited because of the skill system, it’s limited because there are only a few ways to do combat and very little flexibility for blending the ways to play that are there.
.

Maybe it’s different now, but while I was playing… I observed the following ways to play…

• Bunker builds – Tanky with survival
• Pressure builds – Consistent DoT
• Roamer builds – Mobile spike damage

If there’s more than those three now, awesome. I played those three types of builds in their various incarnations on the professions. Theif was one of the better roamers. Guardian was one of the better Bunkers. Warrior was one of the better pressurers. And Elementalist is really the only Prof that can blend those three concepts together to be a jack of all trades and master of nothing
.

In Guild Wars 1 there was a high degree of flexibility for blending playstyles. The ways I observed a lot more ways to play where builds could completely revolve around a combat concept…

• Tank builds
• Healer builds
• Pressure builds
• Spike builds
• Shutdown builds
• Area Control builds
  .

Me personally looking at this comparison. I see GW2 with 3 ways to play and very little blending of those three ways. I see GW1 with 6 ways to play and a lot of flexibility to blend those styles. That’s 100% difference with a significant degree of flexibility.
.

That was what didn’t hold me to GW2, the thing that pushed me out, was the direction PvE seems to be going which is where it’s more about Stats from Gear than Builds, Combat, and Strategy to overcome challenges. Which started with the Lost Coast content.

Vayne.8563:

Shockwave.1230:

Odds are in this forum most people are going to consider the game fun, because most of the time only people invested in the game will be looking in this forum and posting.

Probably the best way to get gauge whether people are having fun or not is to get data from ANet on peak simultaneous logins on the servers and compare the highest number over various months. If people are having fun there will be minimal diminshing in numbers or potentially a gain in numbers.

I myself found I was not having fun and quit months ago. I occasionally jump back on the forums to see what kind of updates are being made, but I don’t anticipate playing again until an expansion is released when there is the potential for major changes such as new skills, weapons, classes, redesigns to combat customization, etc.

I played an ele mainly, then some guardian, and mesmer. Regardless of the profession I was playing I ultimately determined the game was the same few concepts wrapped up in slightly different packages, and didn’t offer enough diversity for my liking.

I was spoiled with Guild Wars 1 having so any different combat functions, and so many different heroic storylines. Someday Guild Wars 2 might have the same breadth to it, but for now it feels like ANet was placing more focus on digging deeper than broader, which there is nothing wrong with. I just don’t happen to enjoy the way the game feels, which in my opinion is narrow with repackaged content.

But you didn’t have so many different heroic storylines at launch. You had one. And only one way to get to it. Factions was another game, beyond Prophecies. It sold separately. We don’t know what paid expansions to Guild Wars 2 are going to offer.

What I do know is no new game is going to compare to a game that’s 7 years old, in terms of content and updates. The game needs to mature for that to happen.

I agree 100%
Which is why I plan on taking another look as expansions are released and changes occur.

There is one other thing, which made GW1 very fun. You played with people, but when your people weren’t available and you didn’t want to waste time finding a decent pug, there were heroes.

Not only that, but the instanced nature of the game had a more personal feel to it. GW2 open world is very uncaring, which is cool in it’s own way. I’d almost want to pay ArenaNet to be able to swap to my own server space for a whole zone and invite anywhere from 8-25 players to run through a zone and do our own thing. It’d be nice to get away from the openness on ocassion and play it like a large instance.

Odds are in this forum most people are going to consider the game fun, because most of the time only people invested in the game will be looking in this forum and posting.

Probably the best way to get gauge whether people are having fun or not is to get data from ANet on peak simultaneous logins on the servers and compare the highest number over various months. If people are having fun there will be minimal diminshing in numbers or potentially a gain in numbers.

I myself found I was not having fun and quit months ago. I occasionally jump back on the forums to see what kind of updates are being made, but I don’t anticipate playing again until an expansion is released when there is the potential for major changes such as new skills, weapons, classes, redesigns to combat customization, etc.

I played an ele mainly, then some guardian, and mesmer. Regardless of the profession I was playing I ultimately determined the game was the same few concepts wrapped up in slightly different packages, and didn’t offer enough diversity for my liking.

I was spoiled with Guild Wars 1 having so any different combat functions, and so many different heroic storylines. Someday Guild Wars 2 might have the same breadth to it, but for now it feels like ANet was placing more focus on digging deeper than broader, which there is nothing wrong with. I just don’t happen to enjoy the way the game feels, which in my opinion is narrow with repackaged content.

Is there a way to view what achievements that other players have in game?

HUGE favor to ask of anyone willing to help. Trying help a buddy gather information for his class. Looking to get at as many responses as possible, hopefully 500. Thanks if you can help.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zsLTnC2bGZR3o2y1cbgDK3uDIJgLHzZ5Gg4kUv8CWYk/viewform

FluffyDoe.7539:

Shockwave.1230:

Lots of people are mistaking combat problems for specialization problems…

…Personally I find GW1 to be a superior game from a combat perspective, because of the specialization it allows for. But the actual mechanics of Guild Wars 2 are obviously superior. That’s just one person’s opinion, though._

No offense OP… but it sounds like (to me) that you’ve just contridicted yourself by saying that the combat specialization problems don’t have anything to do with combat.

A game’s combat is how you fight (plain and simple). And essentially in GW2, combat requires everything from weapon skills, traits, to mechanics such as mouse-targeting and keyboard controls.

And I believe “class specializations” should fall under (if not already) there as a subpart of combat.

EDIT: Read what the poster above me wrote & you’ll absolutely understand why in the case of gw2, its class specialization is absolutely related to its combat design.

We’re pretty much getting at the same thing. The problem isn’t in the combat mechanics, it’s in the lack of specialization offered in builds.

When we ask the question “What can players specialize in?” It’s not much, everything revolves around the weapon set and there’s only a handful of weapon sets. Many builds have access to a lot of the game’s mechanics, but a high quantity of mechanics doesn’t mean a high quality of mechanics. Options for players to choose a few of them that the player wants to specialize in is something lacking significantly.

Ele’s make places go BOOM!

It’s what they do, it’s in every build. I can’t see them making ele’s not have effective AoE. Look for tweaks, but no reason to over worry.