Guild Wars 2

Well. I’ve use scepter/shield as my secondary set to GS. It’s a defensive set with Vit + Toughness and it’s great for staying in the fight when your health drops and healings are on cooldown.
I like to play melee (GS is great for that) but at some point you need a viable range weapon and scepter is the only option for us. And since this is a fall-back weapon I use it with shield for maximized survival.

Nothing out of the ordinary so far, but if I was to choose my biggest surprise in the game, it’d be ….

….. discovering Gwen’s grave (accompanied by that short flute tune).

Or maybe that’s just nostalgia

For male heavy armor I like (in decreasing order):

1. Cultural tier 2
2. Inquest set
3. Exotic karma set (aka. armageddon)
4. Dark armor set

The rest are not for my taste or just plain ugly.

And what’s up with the craftable exotic set. It doesn’t look like a heavy armor at all. More like a caster outfit. Not impressed.

Anyway, these things are so subjective there’s never going be a generalized conclusion. What some people like, some other will dislike, and vice-versa.
We’re going to see more armors in expansions. At some point you’re going to find something you like.

Dee Jay.2460:

Underwater combat would be o.k. if:

1. Underwater skills were more interesting and did more damage. They seem to do half of the damage your regular skills do.

2. I could actually maneuver in the water without attracting a bazillion adds. This is largely a byproduct of GW2’s insane mob density and respawn rate. Fixing that would do a lot to make underwater combat more bearable.

3. Mobs actually moved in predictable patterns and didn’t bug out constantly. Especially those big sharks and fishes zig-zag around the water due to their threat mechanic. It’s just wonky and very unnatural.

^ THIS

And I would add:

4. Lock on a single target better (especially valid in larger fights).
5. Bigger indicator for currently selected target.

Divinity – my favorite

World exploration is THE biggest attraction of this game to me.

The reward is not a cause for people skipping DEs. That’s a silly idea.
It’s down to the player to go through the content they enjoy. And as far as I know, map completion is not the fastest way of making cash (by a large margin).

And DEs give karma. Make that currency more attractive on short term and people will do DEs more often.

Going to add my voice here that the camera needs more flexibility. Being very hard to look up at landscape/large creatures is definitely a shortcoming.

I trust they’re still tweaking it.

nic.5720:

- What’s wrong with a ranger calling their pet shadow? The truth is a shadow would do more damage to a moving target than a pet does at the moment!

Yes, I have a ranger with a jaguar pet named shadow!

Hehehe. The pun of words was for Shadowfang (and I’m not even a WoW or Vindictus player)

29) Peeps soloing a champion for 30 mins who get a white drop.

27) Svanir, because he started a cult of lunatics.

28) Zhaitan, because he gets stuck on a rock, while being pounded by newbie cannons. I bet he is also bored.

Strifetoe.4502:

People who are having fun don’t have time to come on here and complain and those who do should goto suggestion forums and give them.

Playing the advocate here, what camp are you on then? Are you posting because you’re not having fun with the game?

j/k

I tried all the methods posted above for my wife’s account and nothing worked so far.

I will continue to test the decline/accept thingy.

My wife gets the same error when she’s trying to login to the forum for the first time on her PC. (error appears after accepting the forum rules)
I have not encountered this problem on my forum account, using my PC.
However, we both use the same Chrome or Internet Explorer settings. For her account it doesn’t work to log into forums.

EDIT: I tried logging with her account from my computer and we get the same error. My account works, evidently (same PC, same browser)

Uhm. Yeah. Effects. And there goes my fps below 10.
I like these pictures, I’ll add more when I get back from work.

I tend to agree with Animus on most of the points he made. I only play Guardian and I used to play a symbol-heavy GS build, but as soon as they nerfed it I switched my build to support Virtues. It works well for dungeons and I avoided the frustration that Animus is going through.

However, reading this post made me realize the latest changes were a very targeted attack against a specific build. Apparently, in PvP it was easy to maintain retaliation using 2 skills: symbol of wrath + signet of judgement.

The nerf is typical of Anet knee-jerk skill balancing: change these skills with no oversight or balance for the rest of the game. This is reminescent of GW1 skill balancing (for many years) where they would just change back and forth from month to month between different skill variations based on the latest GvG meta. It made absolutely no sense elsewhere in the game and it looked completely unprofessional.

I don’t mean to offend the person in charge of balancing (Izzy) but these things only lead to a series of conclusions:

1. He ignores game balance in favour of the highest level of PvP format. (which I believe is the wrong philosophy, but is the one they adopt now)
2. He doesn’t have the oversight to recognize also the negative impacts of these changes (yes, some customers are deeply dissatisfied).
3. He doesn’t have the capacity to make the right changes (i.e. limited foresight on branching implications, more imbalances created down the road, other builds invalidated, etc).

Until they implement a complete PvE/WvW vs. tPvP split, we will always see these seemingly random nerfs.

And to be constructive, not just critical, I will add my opinion on an elegant solution to the PvP imbalance he was trying to fix: change the boon given by symbol of wrath from retaliation to swiftness (same duration, 5 seconds). Done, problem averted.

I don’t think dungeon difficulty has been reduced. Some things were tweaked with each patch. They’re ok.

I think low level zones are perceived as too easy because downleveling doesn’t work well.

For my own preference I’d like open word pve to be a little harder, but I think an in-game poll for each map would give Anet a better perspective.

I don’t have the time to farm or grind for anything. I doubt that I will ever have the pre-requisites to make one. It doesn’t bother me that they are in the game as long as there are other easier alternatives (aka, exotics).

What I don’t get about combat mode is why running is slower.

Can someone please explain to me why are we slower during combat mode than outside of combat? It drives me nuts.

I swap the weapons a lot. In fact so much that I’d like to see the cooldown between swaps lowered. It’s a lot of fun to jump between play styles.

However, I’m looking at getting my weapon master achievements done so I’m swapping much less now that I’d like to. Making final blow kills with shield is tough as hell on Guardians.

First question I’d like to see polled in-game is whether classes should be balanced differently for PvE and PvP. I believe the crushing majority would say YES. Right now Anet is balancing PvP only and completely overlooks the effects on PvE (it has been like this for years in GW1 – see the Smiter Boon).

I’ll eat my words if the general consensus is not that.

I second the OP.
In-game polls are the best way to listen your playerbase.
However, in this case what is critical is what types of questions are asked and what pre-set answers are offered.
I just hope they ask the right questions.

Nurvus.2891:

GW1 had PvE and PvP completely separate. This needs to happen in GW2. They are already showing that they are incapable of balancing them both using the same skill sets.

Just no…

Absolutely YES. For the sake of pvp and pve, there needs to be a split. The two modes are completely incompatible.

To OP: I used GS with a symbol heavy build. After this update I switched my traits to support Virtues. I think you get more out of it.

Looks like the general consensus is that an extra utility skill is more desirable than an elite. I see a lot of people complain about elites being very underwhelming.
A quick fox from Anet before they decide what elites should do in this game is to let us use utilities in their place.
I hope this gets the attention of the devs.

@ Aristio.
GW1 elites were the wild cards. GW2 elites are nothing like that.
And by no stretch of imagination are they win buttons.

Do you want to be able to use an utility skill in the elite slot?

Yes or No?
Would it make your build better?

This is not a debate of how good elites are.

However some would like to use utilities with shorter recharge time as opposed to an elite with longer recharge.
In essence you’re not gaining any advantages (i.e., a skill for a skill) so I’d like Anet to allow this option for us.

What’s your preference?

After reaching lvl 80 and completing the personal story I started going back to explore more than 50% of the map that is was not opened through the personal story.

I figure I completed about 6 lower level maps and during the 40-50 hours of play I had in them I have yet to get a lvl 80 drop (blue, or green). At most I get one or two lvl 74 green drops that I sell for a couple of silvers, the rest is white/blue low level trash.

So Anet, how is the loot content scaled to your level then? Answer this.

Well I can tell you that WP costs have stopped me from joining/helping out guildies playing in other map areas. At the moment everyone is just doing their own thing alone to save some cash.
And the respec fee has stopped me from ever trying a different trait build on my guardian ever since I chose the one I currently use. I have no clue if the other builds are better suited for me.

Yeah, yeah, the economy would go in the gutter without gold sinks! Oh nooo, what would we do without the ‘economy’. We can’t have fun in a GAME, without the ‘economy’.
As far as I can tell, everything is dirt cheap and devalued in the trade post because gold is scarce. Because people don’t have cash to spend. And it’s going to be that way because people will never have enough gold to spend.

To keen in line with the thread purpose and to add a solution rather than moan about current elites I propose these changes:

Tome of Wrath: 2s cast time (on the run); 150s recharge
- Knock down and damage nearby foes with a massive blast (blast radius 600m)

Tome of Courage: 2s cast time (on the run); 180s recharge
- Fully heal up to five nearby allies (radius 900m; pets and minions are not healed)

Renewed Focus: 4s cast time (rooted); 90s recharge
- Focus, making yourself invulnerable and recharging your virtues. At the end of the cast time foes around you are burned (5s) and blinded (5s) (radius 300m)

If you agree with these suggestions +1 this thread to bring it to the dev’s attention.
Comments/ideas are welcome.

I want to ask the devs if there is a limit on buying gems in the TP. And if buying and keeping many gems can lead to any problems.

For example, if I want to buy 10000 gems, would that be suspicious? Can I hold on to these gems for a long time with a guarantee they won’t be lost?

My assumption is that it should be ok, but with the latest waves of bans on botters and exploiters I don’t want to get into the crossfire. Thanks

Tradewind.6913:

Food in general is cheap because the materials needed to make it are cheap and abundant. Try purchasing 500 major runes and see how much that costs you.

The money is out there, the onus is on the players to go and earn it. Not have it handed to you. The avenues for which you can earn gold are numerous and easier the more gold you have to begin with.

Hey. I’m not against earning your cash. I just brought up an argument that generally low income doesn’t stimulate an economy.

PS: I don’t see where you go with your runes example. Some are very cheap.

Sir Blazin.9365:

I play GW2 “honestly,” and I make frequent use of waypoints. Sure, I’ll run here and there from time to time, or I’ll use Asura Gates, but I still end up using waypoints a couple of times during my sessions. However, I’m consistently bringing in more money than I spend on waypoints.

Please understand the purpose of waypoints fees. They are a money sink. Even someone like myself who spends little to no money through the TP or NPC merchants must spend in some silver at some point. There’s purpose in that. It reduces the liquidity (overall volume) of money in the game, which is important to maintaining a healthy in-game economy.

Funny you should say that. Because reading the trading forum, the devs acknowledge that the scarcity of gold drives prices on everything down. Everything sells for dirt cheap because people don’t want to spend hard earned gold. Demand is very low. As an example, just yesterday I purchased 500 cookies (player crafted items) for 5 silver.

So no, low liquidity doesn’t create healthy economy. I’m not an expert, I might be wrong, but that’s what I see now.

It’s been mentioned many times before.

I think it should become obvious to everyone by now that high costs (you can add armor repair, skill books, runes of holding) are there because Anet doesn’t want the average player to have any significant amount of money in game.

I believe it is their hope that this will push more people into buying stuff with real cash (character slots, extra storage, etc).

It’s as simple as that. If you argue against harsh moeny sinks you argue against their philosophy of generating income with the cash shop.

Fozzik.1742:

Silver Chopper.4506:

A few things:

1. More lvl 80 maps. Because getting loot below 80 is not fun.

Silver Chopper.4506:

The reward should come from enjoying the play time itself, not the carrot on the stick. Remember, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters.

/scratches head

Scratch some more if you don’t get it.

At level 80 the only attainable destination in pve is exotic gear (that is the carrot on the stick that the devs placed out there). Getting to it is the journey, and it should be made more meaningful with little rewards that add variety to your play. For example a lvl 80 charr map or asura map for added variety if you’re trying to do the exotic armor craft. Or getting a lvl 80 gold weapon drop after playing, let’s say 200 hours with the same weapon. The rest of my points refer to content not loot.

A few things:

1. More lvl 80 maps. Because getting loot below 80 is not fun. And because you can’t get crafting materials for rank 400 in lower maps.

2. A few more organized PvE content in the form of dungeons and instances that are accessible to pugs and have lower rewards (no exotic armor) as a consequence. Keeping a party of 5 seems like a good balance. Right now DE can’t fill this gap because there are either too few or too many players around (zerging is not fun).

3. The introduction of more open world bosses that spawn a chest after defeating (and not the usual dragons, because these fights are large scale button mashing). Getting to said bosses should require some foot exploration (i.e., they should be located in remote locations)

These are three things that would keep me busy for a while. Grinding for an armor skin is not something I look forward to when playing. The reward should come from enjoying the play time itself, not the carrot on the stick. Remember, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters.

Very interesting. This would be a great study if it was available as an in-game poll.

I only played Guardian (about 190 hours) so far and the unhappiness reasons for that class were spot on (lack of ranged options).
Also, level 71-80 being unhappy due to orr design is also spot on. For me this is what made the game dull. And the Arah dungeon in story mode was the most horrible experience in the game (bugs, lag, confusion, anti-climatic).

More elite skills that have to be captured would be nice. Maybe from dungeon boss in story mode.

I don’t see any crying in this post. I only see people disagreeing with the current respec mechanics. With some good reasons.
If these things are not challenged they won’t be improved upon.

Don’t you remember the whole potions fiasco before the game launched. Anet was pretty adamant the potions were really needed to pace the combat in pve, but then they realized it wasn’t the best system (amen to that). I’m pretty sure that if potions hadn’t received such a backlash we’d probably still have them in-game right now.

You just explained why respecing costs (including travel to town) is limiting your choices, therefore contradicting your previous post.

Why only 2 free builds and not 3 free builds? Or 4?

I can’t believe people would argue against having the freedom to swap between builds with ease and convenience.

souldonkey.9534:

Silver Chopper.4506:

I’d like to hear the opinion of the devs as to why having costs on respecs is such a good idea.
We can argue all we want, if we don’t know the true intentions behind this we’re barking at the wrong tree.

If they chose this simply to create another money sink at the expense of freedom of choice and gameplay diversity, they are really lame.

PS: also bring the option to save builds once you remove the respec cost.

Someone already linked that article:

“We realized that an important part of building a character is some sense of permanence. With this new system, you are flexible enough to change if you really want to, but you should still feel like the choices you made matter while you are out adventuring or slogging your way through a dungeon.”
http://www.arena.net/blog/play-your-way-jon-peters-on-traits-and-attributes

Edit: Also, I fully agree with Jon on this. If you want to test out builds go to the mists and mess around there. When you have something you like spec for that. Or hell, test it as you level, like me. You get a free respec every time you buy a new manual (so 3 free respecs). I’ve been using that to test out new builds. Also, with it being 1s and change, it wouldn’t kill me if I did want to pay to respec. Stop whining about insignificant costs.

Thanks for the link. This is helpful. Now the discussion should go on with this as the starting premise.

For me that explanation makes sense, though I don’t agree with the tradeoff it has (it limits choice in a system where build are already very limited).

I’d like to hear the opinion of the devs as to why having costs on respecs is such a good idea.
We can argue all we want, if we don’t know the true intentions behind this we’re barking at the wrong tree.

If they chose this simply to create another money sink at the expense of freedom of choice and gameplay diversity, they are really lame.

PS: also bring the option to save builds once you remove the respec cost.

My thumbs up goes to: small Easter eggs that add immersion to the game (e.g. finding Gwen’s gravestone, the preserved red iris, ‘Koss on Koss’ – if you’ve explored in this game you know what I mean)

I don’t normally read rants but I have to salute the OP for a well written ‘dissertation’.

I agree with almost all the points and I wish the devs will find the courage to add skill diversity in future updates. Maybe not to the level of GW1 but I’d like to see more.

Also I want to bring up 2 points:

- Elite skills feel underwhelming in GW2 (from a Guardian perspective). I remember in GW1 you would shape your entire build based on the elite of choice. The elite was the backbone of you strategy (most often). This cannot be said about GW2.

- The trait system in GW2 is limiting my choice for weapon usage. For example, the guardian has trait lines that heavily emphasize the symbols. However, the scepter which is the only viable long range weapon doesn’t have any symbol skills (nor do offhands).
Of lesser impact we then have traits that buff a single weapon type. Changing traits costs money and a trip to the city. I hope you see this creates an artificial choice limitation.

/agreed

This is such an important feature that it should be big, bolded, in red text at the top of the discussion forum.
Anet, are you listening. This has to happen.

To OP:
- if it’s any help for a melee class I binded skill 1 to letter ‘e’ which is easy to press while you circle-strafe using ‘mouse+wasd’. It works pretty well once you get used to it.
- also for people who hate to press keys 6-0 in the heat of battle, I have reassigned them as follows:
skill 6 to ‘z’
skill 7 to ‘c’
skill 8 to ‘q’
skill 9 to ‘shift’
no reassignment for elite skill since it is severly underused

That’w why I hope the first expansion doesn’t raise the level cap and all the maps are balanced for lvl 80 players with lvl 80 loot drops.
Then, there won’t be any more whining about end game lacking. The entire game will be truly end-game.

Lol. That made me smile.
It does feel like ‘panic mode’ sometimes. Things can go from normal to holycr** in a matter of seconds.

Hey, what this post needs is more witty metaphores instead of noob bashing replies

I am experiencing severe network lag especially on the maps leading to the orr.
It’s been going on for about a week.

ISP: Rogers Communications, Canada
Location: Ontario, Canada
Server: Tarnished Coast

One thing I have to ask Anet. Because I am genuinely curious about their philosophy here.

Is it your honest intention to make dungeons content (including rewards) accessible to only a small part (i.e, the more hardcode players) of your playerbase?

Thank you.

PS: also, I want to suggest you bump the AC and CM exotic armor to lvl 80. I think it;s the fair thing to do considering the time required to obtain them.

I’d prefer to reach max level 20 after the first 2 maps in the game. And the rest of the maps to be balanced for lvl 20 stats. In GW1 the good stuff started happening beyond the level cap and you could focus on more important things other than leveling your gear.

Also, now with the downleveling system, I have no clue what my armor/weapon stats mean anymore. I simply ignore my hero attributes and stats because they change too often to be meaningful in any way. The level difference between you and the enemy is the only thing that matters.