Guild Wars 2

SPvP is kind of a different problem.

The new map (Temple of the Silent Storm) is good. However, playing nothing but Conquest maps does get old after a while. That’s in addition to all the class bugs – which gets more noticed in SPvP.

Bluebird.1890:

Dominae: (I don’t want to quote you because… yeah, it was long. I did read it though.)

Chris did address in his responses to our questions the fact that he feels the requirements to obtain ascended gear are too high right now, and that the solution is more ways to obtain the same gear through different avenues.

I think that kind of addresses what you are saying.

Hence the wait and see.

Wait to see how (and if) they adjust the requirements to forge Ascended gear
Wait to see how they add Ascended gear to everywhere else
Wait to see if they really learned from the mistake they themselves admitted to making and not do it again.

I do the above, but keep on playing to have fun. Like I said, if I’m not (personally) having fun, I move on to do something else.

I don’t think it’s as much quitting (no sub fee) as it is “wait and see”.

Lower play time (or start playing something else more) and keep an eye on what they do here. They don’t have to hate the game with all their might, but they also don’t have to play if they don’t agree with the direction the game seems to be going.

Me? I still play to have fun. If I’m not having fun, I move on.

I haven’t spent any money at all on the gem shop. I don’t see a need for extra inventory space really (I use our guild vault). I don’t want to play RNG with the Consortium chests. I don’t really see a cosmetic I like, and the town clothes get unequipped anyway at the slightest hint of being in combat – which for my class, Engineer, happens a lot.

I don’t see a need to buy gem for gold. I can make do with what I have.

Remember, that one of the reason people hated Radiance in LoTRO was that it was tied to gear.

It was the only stat that really mattered, which pretty much pigeon-holed people into equipping whichever had the most Radiance, almost to the exclusion of everything else.

Before they removed it there were a couple of suggestions that I remember:

— Have crafters be able to make Radiance gear (in addition to them being available as dungeon barter items).

— if they really wanted to gate content, make it similar to what they did with Angmar – have the gate be tied to a Deed/Achievement/Title/Passive skill instead. This is effectively what they started doing with the newer dungeons. You can barter for the gear if you want, but you can’t equip it until after you beat a particular boss in the dungeon.

I’ve seen it in another thread and decided to make a topic on it.

If, just in theory, Anet decided to release an expansion to GW1 and an expansion to GW2, which one would you buy/prefer?

Enikuo.9205:

I’m still in the wait and see camp. I won’t spend anymore money on the game and I’ll play a lot less. I’ll dig back into my Steam backlog in the meantime. The AMA didn’t really restore my faith in the brand. I feel like I just need to see what they implement – I don’t trust that I understand where they’re really headed. I thought I understood their philosophy before, but clearly I didn’t. I did appreciate Chris’ willingness to spend so much time answering questions though, including some of the tough ones. That gives me some hope.

I agree on Chris and I respect that he took his time to answer.

The Secret World has it’s own set of problems. It’s Funcom, take that as you will. But if you’re thinking of playing it, I say play it until you complete the story.

Implementation aside, the gameplay and skill system will remind a lot of you of GW1. The story and the overall world lore however is excellent and is good enough to warrant a purchase and however long it takes for you to complete it. Then unsubscribe if you feel you have nothing left to do.

If by second chance you mean me spending money on them, then no. Having said that, I will still play. Like I said in the other forums, I’ll stick to wait and see.

I haven’t gone out of my way to do Fractals over and over. I’ll do them for fun, or if I’m needed. If I get stuff, then I get stuff. If not oh well. I’ll wait to work on Ascended Gear once they’re mostly implemented and available thru most of the game (WvW, Karma, Crafting, other Dungeons). As of now, I’m fine with just Exotics. If I find that I’m gonna end up needing to get Ascended, then I’ll probably just move on to something else if I don’t already have a decent way to get them.

My plan still holds. This being my “alternate” game to my main “gear progression” game – LoTRO: Riders of Rohan.

I’m willing to go to a wait and see approach. It’s not like there’s a monthly fee.

I do appreciate Anet’s responses and that they gave their stance on what the direction of the game is gonna be. I agree that it is miles better than Bioware’s arrogance. The reason I left SWTOR (and came back to LoTRO) is not because of the bugs, or that my class got nerfed (Scoundrel btw), or game designs. The reason I left is because of Bioware’s arrogance, nothing else. Had Bioware responded as such, I wouldn’t have left SWTOR.

But you also have to consider that the next step after all the anger dissipates is that people are finally gonna move on. Whether that means staying here in GW2 or not is ultimately up to the gamer. They paid, and got their money’s worth out of it after all.

I’ve had this feeling for a while now and now seeing some of it from his responses.

They were trying to make a “different” sort of MMO, trying to do things differently from the current MMOs on the market. Trying to challenge the system. But in the process they’re slowly realizing that there’s a reason a lot of these systems are being used to begin with. So, they end up slowly inching these systems in.

ie, the comment about not wanting rez rushing – probably the reason why there are no waypoints in the Fractals.

I still remember one of the early videos about dungeons (right before the first Beta Weekend started). Wasn’t the original plan to have bosses that don’t tether (you can drag them anywhere in the dungeon), with HPs that don’t reset (if you wipe and go back, the HP will stay where it was when you wiped)?

Imagine my surprise when I went in to Ascalonian Catacombs the first time and it wasn’t similar at all to what I watched.

Corvindi.5734:

ThiBash.5634:

While it’s still easier to point the finger and blame than to accept the upcoming plans with gear, I must admit that overall, I’m reasonably satisfied.

Yes, there will be new gear coming out all the time. Yes, it will have better stats and yes, we will have to keep playing to keep up.

But also, it will be relatively easy to get. No more endless fractal grinding. We will again be able to play the game the way we like and come across ascended gear while we play.

Even if grinds are relative, I hope it won’t be that much harder to get compared to current exotics. Because enough is enough.

Like I said, it’s easy to start arguing again but for now, I’m a bit more at ease than I used to be.

This is what they seem to be saying. I hope they actually mean it. I will wait and see. No sub fee means it won’t cost me a dime to find out.

Yeah, I’m gonna take the whole “wait and see” approach as well.

They did say it might take the whole of next year to dole out more Ascended gear and ways to get them. I can be patient. It’s not as if I spent any money on this game aside from what I paid to purchase it (not even for extra inventory space – I use our guild vault for that ;P)

They also did mention that they were gonna dole out the rest of the Ascended gear over the course of the next year.

So if anything, I can play a bit of a waiting game. But yes, I kinda agree. It does seem like a way to try get around the manifesto by making a new one.

I read the minimal/zero grind thing too and started shaking my head.

But if anything, wait until how they decide to add other Ascended Gear in the future.

I do appreciate the transparency. Whether or not is the answer we were hoping for (or wanted to hear) is another thing altogether. But it’s nice to know where they stand on the whole thing, so we as GW2 gamers can decided for ourselves where to go from here.

While we’re at it, remove the Dungeon Vendors from Lion’s Arch and post them next to the Dungeon Entrances themselves? (or at least post some vendors there in addition to the ones in LA)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Dye your gear without using the same color twice, and try to make the ugliest thing ever.

I actually did this on my Guardian once – a Norn Male no less, so extra big character model.

lol

As pretty as Lion’s Arch is, I feel it’s actually the 2nd weakest of the 6 major cities overall (The Grove being below, it. uggh, The Grove lol).

Yeah, the Norn City (coz I love Ice Towns) and Rata Sum (design and convenience) are my favorites.

Sometimes I actually make it a point to do crafting in Rata Sum instead of LA. But I really have go out of my way to do it.

BTW, anyone else think it’s kinda weird that most of the cities have the Leatherworking Station next to the Cooking Station? I was under the impression that leatherworking isn’t particularly . . . appetizing if you know what I mean. ;P

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

Maybe it’s because their priorities are being skewed by an ultra-reactionary community.

They could have easily decided to put the gate to FoTM in Rata Sum instead of in Lion’s Arch. It wouldn’t have made that much difference to the dungeon’s story.

Yup, I love being an Asura for the animations. Including flipping instead of just rolling when you dodge.

If there’s a downside though, it’s cosmetics.

I understand that weapon models need to be scaled down, but it seems they are scaled down a bit too much on Asura. Which means I personally wouldn’t want to bother getting weapon cosmetics – they’re gonna end up being a bit too small to see.

Same thing with armor cosmetics, but to a lesser degree. The only thing you really see clearly on an Asura is the chest piece and the helmet and the shoulders. Leg pieces are pretty hard to see, and the boots will almost always have claws sticking out of them.

Well, granted the cash shop itself is poorly designed is another thing too.

I’m really not gonna buy into RNG chests just to get some skin. Maybe if they sold the skins directly, even for a bunch, maybe I’ll consider buying. Otherwise, I’m not gonna bother.

Town-clothes skins? Those get changed out too at the slightest hint of getting in combat. So I’m not really gonna see them very much to begin with.

Same thing in the Philippines, really, but with DoTA. I don’t know if they ever moved past that game. But my goodness it’s making me learn it just so I can keep up whenever I go home.

LoTRO had a Harvestmath Festival in the Shire. Fit perfectly in that game btw, not sure why this is the first time they did it. But they had it months ago, probably coz Riders of Rohan was about to come out in October.

I wouldn’t mind working towards furnishing my own house. It’s a goal that I actually like doing.

In fact, a lot of the time it’s the main reason I do LoTRO’s festivals.

Me: “Ooh, a fancy new apple tree I can put in my front yard”
(Cost: 25 festival tokens)
Me: “Eh, sure no problem.” ;P
Me: “Wait, what’s that? A fancy new chandelier? yay”

Although the game also has vertical progression (in the form of QL equipment and signets), The Secret World’s Skill Wheel System is a perfect example of horizontal progression. In fact, it’s undeniably heavily inspired by GW1 itself.

Here’s how it works to give you an idea:

In TSW, there are no classes at all. There are 9 weapon types available. For clarity’s sake, I’m not going to include the auxiliary weapons.

Melee – Fists, Blades, Hammer
Ranged – Assault Rifle, Pistols, Shotgun
Magic – Chaos, Elemental, Blood

You can equip any 2 of them at any time.

Now, you can equip 7 active skills and 7 passive skills. The Active Skills are your attack skills. These are limited by what weapons you have equipped. The Passive Skills give you bonus effects. You can equip any Passive Skill you want. It doesn’t matter where you learned it from.

How do you learn the skills? Here’s where the Skill Wheel System comes in. All the Active and Passive Skills (from all 9 weapons) are there available for you to learn. If you look closely, the skills are also designed to work together

- One skill might slow (Hinder) a target
- A passive skill from some where else says when you hit a Hindered target, you add a Weaken effect to them as well
- Another skill does extra damage if the target is weakened

You get the idea. The idea of horizontal progression here is that you can choose to learn all there is to learn for your chosen weapon, or branch out and learn skills from another weapon to give yourself more coverage. And since Passive Skills are unrestricted, you can also choose to learn Passives from another place in the wheel altogether if it fits your “deck”.

Also, the game has suggested “decks” you can work towards. If you complete them, the game awards you with a costume that fits the theme of the deck (complete an Assassin deck, gain an Assassin costume).

Get the idea? They are also (relatively) constantly adding more weapons with updates, which means new skills to learn.

Disclaimer though that this isn’t a discussion about whatever problems TSW has. It’s just for illustration.

If they don’t reset, then that makes the whole thing even worse.

But I digress.

Yah, give it a few weeks or so. Give the Fractals some time to reset a couple of times.

People should come back to whatever it was they’re doing before.

We’re going to be fighting a Risen, Frozen, Branded Ancient Karka. . . .

Stuffed in a turkey.

Fractal vs Thief

Thief Used Cultist Hammer
—It wasn’t very effective.

I have to say, though, that best MMO forums I’ve encountered so far were the forums from LoTRO and The Secret World.

The LoTRO forums are just plain friendly and helpful.

And The Secret World game as a whole encourages and attracts people who like intelligent, well thought out discussions. It attracts role-players, healthy faction loyalty and spirited (but engaging) discussion on the game’s lore.

Being a game that actually incorporates real-world research into in game quest-solving, TSW’s forums effectively became an extension of the game itself, instead of merely a place for people to post questions. It’s very rare that an MMO can do that.

I liked the forums before the patch.

A lot of the tricks I learned on my Engineer I learned from reading the forums. Reading people’s experiences. Generous and helpful people who can’t wait to give advise on how to more effectively play your class and the game.

Maybe I’ve just not played as many MMOs as I thought, but I’ve seen a lot of Limited time events. Where all the content, and drops, and prizes was only available for a limited time. But usually all the drops and prizes end up being available for everyone during the time frame. And the time frame is usually long enough gives people from everywhere (different timezones, important stuff to do) a chance at them as well – anywhere from a few days to 2 weeks.

The One-Time event that just happened for the Lost Shores is something I haven’t really seen much. Where to get the prizes, you have to be online at some very specific time or else miss out on them completely.

Shifu.4321:

The pre Lost Shores forums was pretty much civil. You had a few dissenters complaining about bugs, lack of content, missing trinity etc., but they were probably like 10% of the actual threads. All in all, pretty much a normal – even one of the better- game forums around.

The forums now reminds me of the scorched earth wasteland that the Diablo 3 and TOR forums became a few months after launch. Whoever is reading these forums must have a pretty negative picture from all the threads. Not certain if anet anticipated THIS much of a backlash (I’m sure they anticipated some).

The thing too, for the most part the whiners on the SWTOR forums back then were pretty much on point with their predictions. They warned Bioware a week before of what was going to happen should they release Patch 1.1. What they said in that really long forum thread was what exactly happened – and more besides.

Loosifah.4739:

Considering 90% of the forum complaining came from about 10% of the actual game population. I’d say they’re doing alright.

Far be it from me to just blurt out numbers, I somewhat agree that there’s really no way to say how representative of the community the forum of a game is.

But it will be ignorant of them to ignore. Case in point – CCP and EVE online

Here’s a link to the official apology to the community from CCP
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2672

Look also at SWTOR’s forum a few months into it’s release. There’s little argument now that the game failed it’s initial release. There’s been very vocal warnings from the community of what was happening. Almost every single time, all the warnings came true pretty much exactly as people predicting.

Also, bear in mind that each MMO’s forum community is different. Just because one game’s forum only behaves one way, doesn’t mean that all MMO forum goers are the same way.

EDIT: weird, I can’t seem to get the link to work. Anyways, just google “A letter to the followers of EVE” if you’re interested.

Don’t be so harsh. The Ilum Patch of SWTOR probably still holds as one of the biggest mistakes. That one was just pathetic lol. :P

I agree. If you insist on putting it on a City, Rata Sum is the perfect place for it story-wise.

Yeah, the other cities are really beautiful, Rata Sum being my favorite of them all. It does feel like a waste that there’s hardly any reason to go to any of them aside from Lion’s Arch.

I’m sure the people at Anet who worked so hard designing and implementing the other 5 cities will appreciate it if more people go there and enjoy them.

If they’re worried about pissing people who wants to work for unique skins, just make the store ones exclusive to the store or something. But make them stuff that people want to buy.

Keep the Legendary PvE skins out of the store. That way, it doesn’t lose it’s importance by suddenly being cash shop buyable.

Just make sure they’re all the same (or equivalent) stats. So where and how you got them isn’t gonna matter on your performance.

What do you guys have against donkeys.

The poor things.

I agree.

I don’t consider myself someone who buys from these MMO stores, but even I bought the Steed of Night from LoTRO’s shop. Why? Because I like the way it looked.

Take all these stuff off of RNG chests. Make them real, for-sure purchases. Charge a lot for them if you want. If people know for certain what they’re going to get, they will buy it. I thought that was taught in Marketing 101 or something. It’s really mind-boggling.

Valtameri.2075:

That does seem to be common problem with people nowadays, nothing to do when story is finished or level cap reached.

Anyway thanks for the info, i might check out that game eventually.

The thing with TSW is that the game’s story is so well written and the world so well-developed, that people like me who leave do so with the full intention of coming back eventually.

The Secret World has it’s own problems – mainly stemming from how it’s design is heavily lore and story based.

TSW’s story is it’s strongest element by miles – combined with some of the best writing I’ve seen in an MMORPG (heavy kudos to the writing and research staff of that game). The problem there being, that if you finish the story you feel like you’ve run out stuff to do.

A pretty major update just released for it (Issue 4) which, among others, introduced the game’s first raid, the game’s second auxiliary weapon (which means new skills to learn), and changes to that game’s answer to WvW type PvP (Fusang) and Faction Rivalry.

For previous players like me, it’s as good a time as any to go back.

EDIT: it IS a monthly fee game, though. So if you don’t like another one it might not be for you. It also caters to very specific players. If you’re the type of player who doesn’t like actually reading/listening to quests and paying attention to what’s happening around you then stay very far away.

It’s odd. Because The Secret World takes heavy influence from Guild Wars 1 on horizontal skill progression. That game feels more like a sequel to GW1 than GW2 is.

In that game, all the skills in the game are available for you to learn via a really big skill wheel. But of course you can only learn so many at one time, so you have to choose.

— Do you learn everything there is to learn for your chosen weapon so you get good at it?
— Or do you branch out to another weapon (you can equip any 2 weapons at any one time) and learn those skills to give yourself more coverage?
— There’s also passive skills scattered all around the wheel that might help you with whatever build you’re trying to make.
— For the fashionistas, the game also have suggested decks you can work towards. Completing them will give you a unique cosmetic costume that reflects the nature of the deck (assassin type deck? get an assassin type costume). Btw, each faction in the game has it’s own set of unique deck costumes as well – even for decks that are similar in function.

For most of that game, it’s about when to learn what skill and in what combination to use them at (the skills work so well together). Even at endgame, you probably still haven’t learned all there is you can learn – and they’re adding new skills to learn pretty regularly (in the form of new weapons).

BroScientist.9875:

So everyone with legendary gear currently is getting bumped up to ascended level? Is that correct? Or is ascended the utmost top tier of gear in looks+stats and legendary comes before it with slightly lower stats followed by exotics?

Ascended is a tier below Legendary and a tier above Exotic.

Legendary stats received a bump to keep them “best in slot”.

Another way for Legendary Weapons to not become obsolete:

— Keep the cosmetic on them to be as glowy or spiky or spinny or transparent as you want. But keep the cosmetics unique.

— Make all new weapons/gear introduced have the exact same stat distribution – but with different cosmetics (again, unique)

This way, several years down the line, your legendary will still be as unique as it was when you got it. And yet it will still be exactly as powerful as whatever new gear they’ve introduced by then.

Should you want the new spiffy looking gear, you can go do whatever it takes to get it. Should you not, no big deal. You will do just fine with that glowy ghost sword you’ve worked so hard to acquire when the game released and not feel like you’ve missed much. You can go back to actually having fun with your friends playing, and don’t feel like you have to catch up.

While we’re at it:

— In the essence of horizontal progression, maybe have all the stat combinations (Berserker, Valkyrie, Carrion, Soldier and whatnot) available equally. As of now, not all of the stat combinations are available to craft. Some of them are specific to certain dungeon sets (that you have to grind to get).

Here are some of the suggestions I’ve seen that I personally agree with:

— Have Ascended and Legendary Gear have the same stats as Exotic Gear – the only difference being that the “higher tier” gear will have better cosmetics.

— Make the new gear be available in all avenues of the game: make them be craftable by the crafting professions, buyable thru Karma Vendors, barter/drop in WvWvW, be available for SPvP. Heck they can even make them drop off a chest at the end of jumping puzzles. The idea being you can get the gear no matter what type of player you are.

Still playing LoTRO: Riders of Rohan.

Also, stopped playing The Secret World with the full intention of going back to it eventually. Issue 4 looks about the right time to go back – new raid, 2 new Accessory Weapons, Albion Theatre, Fusang Changes, more focus on Faction rivalry that made the game great in the first place.

Also well aware that Planetside 2 is right around the corner. And I still have to get around to playing XCOM:Enemy Unknown.

Effectively jumping over (or otherwise avoiding) the tripwires is actually one of the problems. Collision detection problems in the game are magnified by this fractal.

The gameplay of Engineers and Elementalists revolves around switching skillsets a lot. As such, these classes have a particularly high player skill cap involved since they have so many skills (due to weapon kits and elemental attunements). Playing them effectively means knowing all of their skills and on-the-fly decision making of knowing when to switch to use them (all while staying on the move).

So you might want to stay away from these if you’re a beginner to the game.

I might be a bit odd, but I believe a run a combination of Valkyrie and Knight.

Maybe some Carrion if I feel like using a Condition Damage build (or Rampager, if you want).