Guild Wars 2

Ryan.8367:

Suddenflame.2601:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Suddenflame.2601:

It is a design choice.

And a really, really crappy design choice it is, for a pet based class.

Anet could quite easily fix many of the issues with pets hitting moving targets. I’d say most of the issues are due to the eye-candy – having animations that looks cool, but are hilariously inefficient because of the fact that they are so incredibly slow to execute – just look at birds, the no#1 contenders for first place when it comes to “the pet that is the worst of all to hit moving targets” – just look at their animations for crying out loud!

For ranged pets, the only issue really is the slow projectile speeds they suffer from. Increase their projectile speed and they will probably be just fine/better.

As for survivability issues like aoe fields that pets have to run through when recalled from danger, that could easily be resolved as well by allowing pets to shadowstep back. Of course that would bring other [balancing]issues, but I’m sure there would be ways to balance that as well.

If they allow pets to attack on the move they would also have to allow all other animals attack on the move just to be consistent. Pets are not meant to be the main source of damage. They allow your enemy to escape from the damage. It would be unbalanced to have damage appear from 2 directions and 1 being unavoidable. Live with the design choice especially since 40% of our damage does not come from our pets. From what i seen its more of an added bonus. Also to escape an AOE field you have to walk through it as well (unless you use a dodge).

“They allow your enemy to escape from the damage. It would be unbalanced to have damage appear from 2 directions and 1 being unavoidable. "

You’re kittening stupid.

Personal insults don’t help your position rather they weaken them. Explain why it is stupid in a rational manner before your view is valid. Your wanting a pet attacks to be unavoidable when they should be able to be avoided. Why should other classes not be allowed to avoid the damage?

40% of the ranger damage does not come from the Pet as some people have brought the math into it. Pets have a set damage based on the level. So that means the pet is a form of bonus support such as other classes mechanics. Such as mesmers clones normally don’t do damage but are a strong support skill. Thieves have the ability to steal and initiative which in both cases don’t deal damage but support the class.

Our pet is not there for pure damage but rather as a form of support. Such as our pet has a F2 skill that has a unique ability with a skill set and can be casted while the enemy is not aware of the pet. The pet also by extension is our ability to control. Such as the spider snaring our enemy or the bear removing conditions and being a damage soaker. Our pet is also able to save us from life threatening situations such as being downed underwater. We are the only class that while downed in water is still a threat. Hell I took on 4 people in underwater combat and still killed 1 even thou I was downed the entire time just because my pet soaked the damage while rezing me. No other class has that function.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Suddenflame.2601:

It is a design choice.

And a really, really crappy design choice it is, for a pet based class.

Anet could quite easily fix many of the issues with pets hitting moving targets. I’d say most of the issues are due to the eye-candy – having animations that looks cool, but are hilariously inefficient because of the fact that they are so incredibly slow to execute – just look at birds, the no#1 contenders for first place when it comes to “the pet that is the worst of all to hit moving targets” – just look at their animations for crying out loud!

For ranged pets, the only issue really is the slow projectile speeds they suffer from. Increase their projectile speed and they will probably be just fine/better.

As for survivability issues like aoe fields that pets have to run through when recalled from danger, that could easily be resolved as well by allowing pets to shadowstep back. Of course that would bring other [balancing]issues, but I’m sure there would be ways to balance that as well.

If they allow pets to attack on the move they would also have to allow all other animals attack on the move just to be consistent. Pets are not meant to be the main source of damage. They allow your enemy to escape from the damage. It would be unbalanced to have damage appear from 2 directions and 1 being unavoidable. Live with the design choice especially since 40% of our damage does not come from our pets. From what i seen its more of an added bonus. Also to escape an AOE field you have to walk through it as well (unless you use a dodge).

I will weigh in on this since I run a Banner regen build on my warrior. My warrior has 3000 attack, 1200 healing power (with banner of tactics), over 3000 toughness, 20% crit chance (due to constant Fury from skills). I gain roughly 700hp/sec. Take that number into consideration for a second. If most higher lvl risen thrall in PVE hit for 200hp/sec (i actually tested this) It would take 4 higher lvl risen thrall to kill me. Which means 4 risen to kill me while i am just standing there doing nothing to fight back. Anything less then that and I will regen through it.

Lets now say the buff the scaling of Healing Power to make it more effective. Lets say give all skills a 1 to 1 ratio for instance like Power where 1 to power is 1 to damage.
I would have 1200hp/sec extra healing on top of my base healing while I am still hitting you for my high damage. No class would be able to kill me at this point cause there is no damage high enough in the game to counter it. At 700hp/sec it takes 2 thieves at least 3mins to kill me if i am just running away from them exposing my back for constant back stabs cause my healing capabilities. Giving me even more healing without taking away any of my damage would just be nuts. Healing for over 1000hp/sec would not be a good thing for the game.

Khayoss.2019:

Chopps.5047:

Read my post above this: cats and birds will never hit moving targets because they’re intentionally designed not to. I go into detail as to “why”.

Can you give me a reference to ANet stating this in some form or fashion? Or is this opinion based on observation of numbers and effectiveness?

Its based on observation based on the fact all animals in the game use stationary attacks. Wargs, birds, wolves, boars, ectcan’t attack without stopping first. The player when transformed into animals as well can’t move and attack at the same time. It is a design choice. Since pets are animals the follow the same rules.

solrik.6028:

Yet my PC is able to simulate AI for 500 soldiers in Warband, or thousands of units in the Total War games. Even half life 2 can have better AI with barely any cost.

What you are saying is almost fully irrelevant because the AI our pets need is not as advanced as (say) Arma 3. Arma 3’s AI has all sort of things like reaction time, accuracy, ‘logic’ for when to change stances.

GW2’s pet AI is only an algorithm for finding the path and then a bunch of if statements that trigger animations and effects.

Basically,

findPath(target);
if(range(target) == 400) skills();
————————
skills…(..)
{
//determines which skills is used based on if statements
//e.g. use the skill that immobilizes if the target is moving around or
//use the skill that heals if “this” is on low health
}

findPath…(..)
{
//this one also has a bunch of if statements. This can be made in hundreds of different ways but if each object has it’s own pathfinder assigned to it then the pathfinder can keep track of changes.
}

I could write all kind of examples but that would take all day.
MY POINT IS THIS:
Gw2 already has AI implemented. The problem with it is that it’s not used frequently enough. There is at least 500ms delay before the pet realises that something is now blocking it’s would-be path. The solution to this can be and is not limited to doing parts of the calculations on the client while finishing them on the server.

Your comparing 3 different types of AIs which none of them are similar in the least. Such as I can if you really wanted give you full detail how an RTS AI works and its not how you think it works. GW2 has multiple AIs in it already not just pet AI which currently is the most simplistic out of all of them to lower bandwidth usage. If you want to know something the pet AI is on the client side its not a server side function. There isn’t a 500ms delay do to path finding not being done enough, but there is a delay for how long it takes to do the calculation.

I can tell you this right now that you fail to realize. Path Finding is an NP-Complete algorithm. Look it up since you have proven you do not know what it means. Finding a path from point A to B that is not a straight line is not easy to do in programming. Since it is an NP-complete problem, Computer scientists have come up with approximation algorithms that run faster, but are by far less accurate.

Your solution your wanting is impossible by now days unless you can prove that NP = P. Since your wanting an NP-Complete algorithm to run constantly just so you can have flawless pathfinding in a dynamic situation. A dynamic NP-Complete algorithm would consume all your processor. I have stated this more then once and told you guys to look it up if you do not know what NP-complete means.

edit: Your line of Findpath() is what takes the most cause that is calling a method which could be 1000 lines of code for all we know about it.

Kilrik.6320:

I don’t believe I called it pathing here, but hitting a target is the problem I was mentioning. Perhaps animations could be sped up or skills could be made instant. I can swing a sword while moving, why can’t my pet. I understand the “100 Blades” concept, we have “Whirling Defense,” but not all skills are stationary, so why should it be any different for our pets. F2’s are stationary fine, but why are all the other skills performed by pets “stop and attack” style.

Additionally…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77D8fI2Ow4E

Ok that video correctly indicates the issue that pets suffer from. It is also viewable through the use of transformation potions and use the Custum brawl

Kilrik.6320:

Found this video on youtube, which shows the moving target issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5DiFJAtWQ

Path finding is not the issue in this. Pet reached the target, but the target is moving during the animation and the attacked missed. Easy way to solve the problem is lower the animation times, but the animation is there to give time for the enemy to “dodge” the attack by moving out of it. Or another situation is to allow the pets to move while in animation like a player. Similar situation is GS warriors. You can stand there and take the 100 blades attack, or you just move out of it.

Pathfinding issues /= standing still animation issue.

solrik.6028:

Suddenflame.2601:

A.I. code is actually really hard to write. Its the most complex code that can be written. A.I. is also extremely CPU heavy with many condition statements. A.I. in games like Final Fantasy Reborn are not ordinary and have been developed over years (not talking 1 or 2 years I am talking 10-20 years of development). Also have to consider game mechanics such as stealth and porting that would drastically effect A.I. performance since you would have to find all possible conditions and solutions to each.

I can honestly say I could make an A.I. for GW2 that would be hard to beat but at the same time hardly any computer would be able to run it due to the complexity. A good A.I. would have to know literally every skill in the game and know when you used it last so that it can estimate the time necessary. GW2 game engine can not handle such aspects. Very few game engines can.

Witcher 2 REDengine is so far the only engine I know of that allows advanced A.I. that is capable of learning and countering. REDengine 3 engine will be a vast improvement, but it still isn’t beyond a zerg mentality.

In all games I have played each A.I. has weaknesses that are extremely easy to counter. GW2 A.I. is actually decent for all the mechanics needed to be countered by the A.I.

If you guys want to know something pathing is an NP-Hard to NP-Complete problem in computer science. If you don’t know what those stands for look it up lol. In this case the A.I. pathing you guys are wanting are NP-complete problem. On a game of this scale it would be extremely hard.

I am not saying their algorithms for pathing are perfect for the problem (they could be optimized more I bet but i can’t see the pathing code so i don’t know)

That “lol” in your reply made me see your post less seriously…

However, what said is totally irrelevant because the game obviously had AI that works. The problem is that, as said before, pathfinding is not frequent enough.

Once Object A finds a path to Object B, it takes X time until Object A can “see” Object B again. In that X time, Object B has enough time to alter it’s position. In GW2, X is too big which gives us a noticable impact on gameplay.

Path finding is a CPU heavy program. If you have read the other posts then you would know that GW2 is already a CPU heavy game. By making path finding perform more it takes a lot more bandwidth and CPU power. Which increases stress on the servers and on your own computer. Path Finding from what i seen is done very frequently, but pet misses not do to path finding but because of animation times which is meant to give the enemy player enough time to move out of it.

My pet does not miss his target unless the animation is already going and the enemy moved. At which point pathfinding is not the issue.

Solandri.9640:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Pet A.I is meant to be imperfect. Having a set it and forget it pet isn’t what being a guildwars 2 ranger is about. Ranger are suppose to work in tandem with their pet. Not one or the other doing all the work.

I wouldn’t have a problem with that if they gave us more ways to control our pet. But right now it’s very limited control combined with a poor AI. The complete opposite of your “set it and forget it” scenario you’re warning against. Either extreme is bad.

Suddenflame.2601:

A.I. code is actually really hard to write. Its the most complex code that can be written. A.I. is also extremely CPU heavy with many condition statements.

And the solution to this is to have the AI run on the client computer. Just like your character is commanded by the player’s computer, your pet should be commanded by the player’s computer. It’ll just be commanded by a (more sophisticated) AI instead of keyboard inputs.

But that gets into the whole control issue. They don’t want us to control the pet, preferring it remain a mostly autonomous entity, yet at the same time they won’t give it decent AI. So they don’t want to put the AI on the client.

Your missing the point all together. The A.I. your wanting is by far too sophisticated and difficult to make. Your asking for Anet to make a program that is capable of doing path finding with multiple constantly changing variables with blockades (AOE) that can appear out of no where and disappear and able to calculate all that information and transmit it in a matter of seconds. Just making a static path finding is NP-Complete problem what your asking for is by far at our current technology level is fundamentally impossible.

You would need several super computers working together just to figure out the dynamic path finding along with predicting movements of humans (cause one of the targets is a human player) just to compute the information in time let along transmit several hundred GBs (possibly TB) of information.

They give control to us already. One button to attack your target and one to retreat. Use the one to retreat to tell your pet to get out of AOEs. Then tell him to reengage afterwards its not complicated.

Anet has stated they don’t want to give the players too much control since it would over-complicate the Ranger making it a lot harder to play. How many players you think are able to control 2 characters at the exact same time?

Edit: Your computer is not capable of handling such a CPU heavy task. What your asking for is a multithread program that would use 100% of your CPU for the entire time your game is running.

Chopps.5047:

Logically, you’re correct suddenflame. The sentiment remains: a good thief is by no means easy to beat, especially in wvw. Sick em will really help, I have a feeling. I have been using the skill already. It really isn’t too bad for beastmaster builds.

by the same Sentiment any good player is hard to beat. I fought good rangers that went 5v1 and made it out alive (couldnt kill any of them due to them constantly rezing the downed) but the fact that 5 players couldn’t kill him was enough of a praise. I seen an engi (usually called the worst class) take on 4 people.

How good a class is in GW2 is not predetermined by selecting that class but by the skill of the player using it. I am no expert on Ranger or Engi but I would say I am a skilled warrior and a least decent Ranger. I will be hard to kill in any 1v1 situation, but that’s not where it matters in this game. Sic Em will be helpful for yourself and your team not just yourself. The entire game was designed around the concept of team play. Rangers have more team helping skills then most classes.

Such as:

• Spirits
• LB arrow barrage use it to cover your zergs retreat (guranteed to save a few peoples lives)
• traps used as indicators or time gainers

this is only some of the different uses for common damage skills

If you only think of skills for what they can do for you or their damage then your missing entire concepts of the skills. The new Sic Em will have more team play then solo play. It is great for solo play but better for the team.

A.I. code is actually really hard to write. Its the most complex code that can be written. A.I. is also extremely CPU heavy with many condition statements. A.I. in games like Final Fantasy Reborn are not ordinary and have been developed over years (not talking 1 or 2 years I am talking 10-20 years of development). Also have to consider game mechanics such as stealth and porting that would drastically effect A.I. performance since you would have to find all possible conditions and solutions to each.

I can honestly say I could make an A.I. for GW2 that would be hard to beat but at the same time hardly any computer would be able to run it due to the complexity. A good A.I. would have to know literally every skill in the game and know when you used it last so that it can estimate the time necessary. GW2 game engine can not handle such aspects. Very few game engines can.

Witcher 2 REDengine is so far the only engine I know of that allows advanced A.I. that is capable of learning and countering. REDengine 3 engine will be a vast improvement, but it still isn’t beyond a zerg mentality.

In all games I have played each A.I. has weaknesses that are extremely easy to counter. GW2 A.I. is actually decent for all the mechanics needed to be countered by the A.I.

If you guys want to know something pathing is an NP-Hard to NP-Complete problem in computer science. If you don’t know what those stands for look it up lol. In this case the A.I. pathing you guys are wanting are NP-complete problem. On a game of this scale it would be extremely hard.

I am not saying their algorithms for pathing are perfect for the problem (they could be optimized more I bet but i can’t see the pathing code so i don’t know)

Ryan.8367:

Atherakhia.4086:

It’s all going to hinge on how the skill works. I’m not really sure we need it as it is because the Ranger does well against thieves overall. I’m more interested in the utility it provides. Can the Ranger counter a Mesmer veil in some fashion for example? Roaming with this to counter Thieves? Unless Thieves get greater access to stability I’m not sure we ‘need’ it.

You speak as if you’d dueled good thieves before. Name the guys you’ve dueled before to make an assumption that rangers do well against thieves.

Hard to name good thieves in WvW just cause you can’t see their names.

I don’t use a BM ranger at all so I don’t know your guys pain on that subject, but I use a mixed ranger using an LB/GS combination. I use Troll urgent, signet of the Hunt, signet of the wild, a trap, and rampage as one. I trait 30/30/10/0/0. I also have a gaming mouse with my pet controls on it so I can control my pet on the fly. My armour is rampagers with celestial accessories with a berzerker backpiece.

I can go toe to toe with thieves along with my pet helps me. The pets I use are Drakehound and Spider. I don’t use them for their damage, but for there unique abilities and some interesting tricks that can be done using them. A constantly invisible thief would have more issues as I place a trap and stand in it with my GS out. As soon as my trap goes off I know where the thief is and engage them on my terms and on my field (flame or poison trap both work wonders, cause of the constant pulses of damage). My pet in the mean time has enough time to lock and these pets have the unique property of long charge up attacks. This is a good thing when dealing with something invisible cause once the charge up is locked by the pet it can hit invisible targets (also works against mesmers to easily find the real one). The drakehound pounce attack that causes knock down usually hits the invisible thief by surprise (unless they are porting around as well but that is rarer) which then I use to place a trap where my pet landed. A spider has 2 long charge up attacks a snare and a poison field. poision field is unreliable and misses often just use it as a cover from a thief. The snare usually hits tho unless the invisible thief is paying attention to your pet and you (which 99% of the case they aren’t) so when you see the snare go off hit the spot where it landed (espically if it vanishes before hitting the ground).

If they give me sic em’ with a revile attached to it i will use it and start murdering thieves more just cause i could use my LB more and keep them at range.

I have several classes using various different build styles such as a guardian using full zerkers, a warrior using clerics, engi with celestial, ranger with zerkers.

I can honestly say that toughness and healing power are actually useful. With the healing power below 100 the ability to recover from 1 mistake was greatly reduced since the healing skill failed to heal 50% of the damage. Full zerker gear does not have the capabilities to prevent mistakes or take damage.

Bosses do not 1 shot unless your using full zerker gear (expect Teq).

From various dungeon runs where the zerkers were the first down and my cleric warrior had to spend half the fights rezzing them, I would say they all have their place.

There is no stat caps from what i seen nor is there loss of effectiveness.

I played so far all classes, and all them are pretty well designed. My favorites so far are Warrior, Ranger, Guardian, Mesmer, and Engi. Rangers are really not that bad in PVE from what I have used my ranger for. Teq on the other my ranger is not good there but my warrior is.

The one class i dislike is Ele something about them i just dont like even tho i got one at lvl80 with full exotics i cant bare to play him (i gave him a good run to ensure i didnt like him).

Draco.2806:

Suddenflame.2601:

Such as how many betas have you played?

I’d say about 50, not including of my own design. Many gamers have much more under their belt.

Suddenflame.2601:

How much programming have you done?

About twenty items of content, most gaming-related.

Suddenflame.2601:

Do you understand the complexity of this game system?

Yes.

Suddenflame.2601:

Do you understand issues that can cause the issues you have listed?

Yes. I also know how to avoid and to how to fix them.

Suddenflame.2601:

And finally can you list your one magical game that has zero bugs in the basic features?

Super Mario World.

Is that personal enough for you? I understand being emotional on the issue, but attacking people is the road that leads nowhere, and, more importantly, attacking people is not a way to win an argument, and that’s all your argument is: an attack against me, not the problems of Guild Wars 2. Which isn’t very nice, nevermind simply wrong.

Would you like to come again and word your complaints in a way that doesn’t hinge on an Ad Hominem? I don’t expect an apology, but it’d be appreciated, too.

Your attacks against Guild Wars 2 are without grounds as well and define 20 items of content cause all those are relative terms. Plus I know you don’t know how to avoid nor how to fix them since you haven’t given Anet neither cause I bet you they would appreciate it if you did. Super Mario World does have bugs in its core features look them up you shall be enlightened. Attacks against your opinion and yourself are different cause I never stated anything about your personality nor your looks, but I attack your opinion on the subject at hand.

Neural.1824:

Suddenflame.2601:

First part about crafting is to gather the resources yourself rather then buying them on the TP.

This is invalidated by the fact that most items are selling for less than the total value of the materials used in them. For example, there is a Destroyer Torch for sale right now for 8gold. The lodestones themselves cost 10gold for crafting that item. Never mind the orichalcum and ancient wood required for it. You would make more money selling the materials directly.
As for crafting yellows to make ectos, I’m not buying that line at all. Yeah, you can craft yellows and salvage for ectoplasms, but if there’s profit in it, then it’s simply going to be overdone.
If you have hours and hours every day to sit and watch the market and rush to craft something when values are just right, then maybe you can make a profit. Beyond that, the market is simply so skewed that crafting isn’t an option. People are deliberately underselling, deliberately losing thousands of gold, just to wreck the market.

Your missing many of my points that I made just to attempt to discredit me. A lodestone great that its 10g you would sell that yourself without crafting the weapon. As I pointed out I was very specific that only some weapons (not all) are worth making along with armours. I also was specific that they are not lvl80s. Destroyer weapons are lvl80. Gold weapons and armour is created using mithril and silk which is 2 of the most common materials in the game and is cheap to buy on the market along with common T5 materials. Ectos are worth far more then the materials used to make the item. Also ectos are a lot more important and most people have a stock pile of those materials already and gain more from salvaging.

edit: the main point of step #1 is to avoid unnecessary costs associated with crafting. Gathering the materials yourself lowers the cost of crafting the item. Most materials used in crafting are not worth selling on the TP such as mithril and silk. Iron, Platinum, and gold are worth more and should be mined instead of being bought on the TP due to their high costs. They are also needed to get to 400 crafting. Basically Step #1 is avoid unnecessary costs.

Draco.2806:

Suddenflame.2601:

Your opinion on the matter is using ignorance on the extreme.

Oh, an insult instead of an argument. That’s just great.

Otherwise the rest of your post can be summed up with “My opinion and experience are different from yours, therefore you are wrong.” You know, it’s really annoying to read such responses, not to mention rude on your part.

Frankly it’s always amazing to state blatantly obvious things that are literally common knowledge by now (I.e. GW2’s performance being horrendous, broken Charr armor, underwhelming class builds) and find someone willing to deny it outright.

Gandarel.5091:

I love when PvE guys complain about how is PvE in beta.

Actually, if you’re a PvP player, any problems that aren’t loot related are practically the same as they are for people in PvE and even WvW: poorly-balanced builds, poor hit detection, poor lag compensation, poor performance, poor armor placement, poorly-managed camera… It’s all this stuff.

Yes it is an argument since I am shutting down your opinion on the matter which I find unhelpful and unknowledgeable about the subject at hand. Such as how many betas have you played? How much programming have you done? Do you understand the complexity of this game system? Do you understand issues that can cause the issues you have listed? And finally can you list your one magical game that has zero bugs in the basic features?

Prove to me that you have knowledge about the subject, and I will respect your opinion. At this current point your not being helpful to the community and instead expressing your unconstructive opinion that does nothing but harm.

To answer my own questions to show my understanding:

1.) 10 betas plus 1 Alpha (game still in Alpha as of 09/19/2013)
2.) 3 years worth of programming (Novice at best but understand)
3.) I could go into depth here if you want.
4.) Same as above i could list to you what could cause it easily
5.) Like i said magical game cause there isn’t one.

edit: Also reading through all your recent posts not once have you said anything nice about the game and have complained about it and every design decision ever made. When people give you exact reasons why something occurs you say that they missed the point and tell them to drop the subject all together.

I am usually against such things but in this case I would have to agree with a token system being implemented due to the difficulty of the encounter. Mind you the tokens should be higher then 10 and 25 as they would only take 10 days to get a weapon which in all consideration not very long.

I will post what i seen from my many runs at Teq.

• Cannons fall often due to the cannon defenders being more in the middle leaving the left and right cannon wide open and down half the time.
• DPS team gets decimated from failing to stay out of poison and jump over waves.
• People on Cannons not using #2 immediately when it comes off of cooldown which allows bone wall to come
• With the lose of 2 cannons constantly poison and buffs to DPS team are lowered which leads to DPS being decimated.
• DPS failing to be aware of mechanics loses 50% of its players (i am not exaggerating in 5 of the runs i watched 50% of the DPS die at the waves)
• People not listening to commanders when important issues are raised (such as left cannon falling due to 0 protectors being present)
• DPS People not wping when they die (Cannon defenders can be rezzed easily but DPS would produce too much aggro on the Cannon defence its crucial to maintain the aggro any way so rezzing is actually helping)

With these crucial mistakes being made constantly over and over its no wonder servers are falling. You need a competent DPS, Cannoners knowing what to do, and a defence team that can defend the cannons. In realization there should be at least 4 Commanders

1.) Left Flank Defender
2.) Center Defender
3.) Right Flank Defender
4.) DPS

That way each can be coordinated to a better effect. Also joining the commanders squad would help greatly as those new commander tools would be helpful along with issues command through chat that only that squad can see so that it doesn’t get mixed with another commanders commands. Turents should be on the DPS commanders as the DPS commander can get the cannons to fire at the correct locations for the buffs and poison clear.

vhiran xergo.7802:

The camera is so horrible but it has not been addressed in any way

Anet has already commented about the camera and have been working on fixing it for months its not that easy considering there is an issue with the engine that is causing it. (a bug in the engine can cause a large number of unwanted effects and limitations. Fixing a game engine is also a lot harder to do.)

Reading all the posts on this one, most people either haven’t played very many MMOs, betas or just want to be plain rude about the game. As a programmer I know all too well some of the features in this game take time to create, and bugs can take a hell long time to fix. I bet you if you guys were placed in the same situation you would not be any more successful (probably worse considering the average person knowledge on computers).

Draco.2806:

Charr are still working around with floating shoulderpads, Engineers are still barely functional, jumping puzzles are still the same as when reviewers thought they were hilariously unpolished, projectiles still fly away from autotarget, and performance is about as smooth as a rabid porcupine.

This isn’t about “improvement” of a finished product. It’s about getting most basic features to work properly in the first place. You know, something people expect from an early release, not a released game.

ANet has no business doing all those lovely “More content! More stuff!” updates when the core of the game barely works.

Your opinion on the matter is using ignorance on the extreme. Engineers are functional and most of the cases its a L2P issue not the class fault. I seen some really good Engineers in WvW which disproves your point of them being barely functional. My charr doesn’t have floating shoulder pads issue and I am running the game on the highest settings possible. Projectiles sometimes do fly away from the autotarget, I will give you that one but its not that large of an issue considering how often it actually occurs. Instead of being detrimental why not try to figure out what causes that bug to occur and actually be productive?

Performance on my computer is right now excellent with my computer able to handle the game flawlessly. I am aware there is other people and Anet has stated they are working on it but its not as easy as 1.2.3. There is billions of different computer mixtures that each one has to be optimized for which is why performance on any new game has suffered.

The basic features on any game have a few bugs on release (hence day 1 patches) I would challenge you to find a single game that has all its basic features without bugs. If you can find one I will be flat out amazed and wonder where you pulled this magical game from.

Anet has many teams not just the LS (by the way Anet has stated on several regards that the LS is their smallest team just fyi) which means there is larger teams working on other aspects of the game. Just cause you don’t know of them or what they do doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Sauzo.6821:

Suddenflame.2601:

Sauzo.6821:

PopeUrban.2578:

Champions will be placed on some sort of timer system, preventing players from farming them in a static loop as they respawn and in stead requiring players to venture to different zones and kill different champions.

I really hope they don’t put champs on a timer. The FG and CS champ trains are the only real way to make money in this game with any kind of speed since everything else has been nerfed into the ground.

Why must you have to farm? Hell i made 10g in one day from just normally playing and never went to a champ train or anything. I just went to WvW played there, did some dungeons with guildies cause they needed help, did FOTM cause of the relics. All and all I made 10g. If your only concerned about farming then your not having fun which is not what Anet wants.

It has nothing to do with “have to farm”. It’s more about having the option to CHOOSE to farm if I wanted to. Sometimes i’m feeling lazy and just want to throw in some music and just mindlessly follow the zerg and farm. I should be able to do that. And making 10g a day is peanuts when you are talking about 600-800g precursors. I can make an easy 20g just harvesting Ori and Ancient wood a day too but like I said, if i’m either done with dungeons for the day or just don’t feel like dealing with people yet still want to make cash, I should be able to choose to farm champs for cash since Anet has already nerfed the hell outta trying to farm normal mobs.

And that’s where Anet and myself disagree with you. Your looking at it through a monetary gain. I made 10g and had fun doing it. You made 20g and weren’t having much fun doing it. Anet wants to punish the monetary view and wants people to instead focus on having fun. Whats fun running around a big circle killing the same things over and over? Nothing is fun. If I get a precursor I am selling it but I will never go out of my way to buy it. And 10g a day is not peanuts when compared to 600g precursor that was designed to take a long time to get in the first place. Its like trying to equip my 10 characters with ascended gear. Which do you think will take longer? People were complaining about how long it would take to get that much laurels, but I don’t care cause I am having fun doing what I want. If you belief that you need everything right now then you will have less fun.

I am not interested in legendaries at all either cause none of them works with my end goal for my characters. My goal is to get the “The Emperor” achievement which requires equipping 90 pieces of culture armour. Am I rushing to achieve my goal? No.

Anet nerfs farming spots cause they don’t want you to have the option to farm as its not fun and should never be encouraged.

Last time i was on that server, some of the major guilds left and went to large servers. The server is not dead but it is not overly populated either.

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

Personal story and home instances aren’t of much importance to many players. With an obvious warning that personal story and home instances would be reset/wiped/whatever, I’m sure many, many people would still buy gems for character race change.

They wouldn’t allow them to be wiped cause the of the rewards that would be reopened do to it. Personal stories would have to be transferred over and corresponding spots would have to match with the other, and that would be a lot of work to make that work. As well culture armor wouldn’t work, and there would be hundreds of bugs introduced with many other issues. It’s not as simple as you think due to the nature of how coding works.

I so far have crafted items and gained a large sum of money by doing so.

First part about crafting is to gather the resources yourself rather then buying them on the TP.

2nd part Higher lvl does not always mean worth more. Such as lvl50-60 armour and weapons are worth close to 1g a piece depending on which one and the materials needed cost you not even close to 1g.

3rd part Leatherworking can easily be used to make ectos. Silk and tier 5 materials are really cheap due to large amounts of it. Making the rare version of the items (which don’t use ecto to make) you can easily make ectos for cheap.

This is a true advice for new crafts.

No they wont be due to how hard it would be to transfer all information into a new personal story. As well to transfer all the culture armor and everything is a hard undertaking and if they were to implement it i woudn’t be surpised if it would cost you $50 or more since server transfer is easy but costs $20.

Toby.2357:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Other Misc. fixes:
Tab Targeting Improvements

• Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else

First of why the clones? I dont like targeting clones

Second of all: when you tab pvp does it mean that I will target players first then if you tab again it will target clones?

Third and last: Can we have the option to choose to target clones in the options window? I’d like to decheck tab targeting clones.

Thanks

It targets clones cause of mesmers. It would be unfair if you just had to hit tab and you instantly target the real mesmer and not one of its clones.

Sauzo.6821:

PopeUrban.2578:

Champions will be placed on some sort of timer system, preventing players from farming them in a static loop as they respawn and in stead requiring players to venture to different zones and kill different champions.

I really hope they don’t put champs on a timer. The FG and CS champ trains are the only real way to make money in this game with any kind of speed since everything else has been nerfed into the ground.

Why must you have to farm? Hell i made 10g in one day from just normally playing and never went to a champ train or anything. I just went to WvW played there, did some dungeons with guildies cause they needed help, did FOTM cause of the relics. All and all I made 10g. If your only concerned about farming then your not having fun which is not what Anet wants.

Reading most of the posts I have noticed that people are failing at one computing science logical error. I can find a bug in 1min of playing a game or using a software. Great I found the bug what do I have to do now?

Now I have to isolate the problem and fix it. How hard can that be? Well lets see a game like GW2 has about 1 billion or more lines of code some of which could be executing by thread. Which means there is a large number of possible ways for something to go wrong. Especially if it is Thread based.

As my computing science professors would say it takes minutes to find a bug, but could take months to fix it. Even my 500 lines of code would have 3-10 bugs and each attempt to fix a bug would usually produce another bug. It took a usual computing science major 5-10 passes (complete rewrites of code) to debug it 99% even then there would be 1-2 bugs that would slip through. Coding is by far not easy and the more people testing it (live has more) the more bugs can be found. Some bugs would be associated with other bugs when you don’t realize it that they are.

Some other bugs would require such a massive change that it isn’t worth the effort and possible side-effects (more bugs) to fix it.

Once you start doing programming you realize quickly that bug fixing is the hardest task.

Also,Anet has stated that the Living Story teams are the smallest development team. There are other teams that are producing larger content along with testing and patch work. These larger teams work are put in with the Living Story team’s when it is completed. So basically we don’t know how much of the work is done by the Living Story Team and how much of it is done by the other teams.

Some other bugs such as the shark SP in Sparkfly fen were too hard to fix so they changed the entire SP to stop it from constantly breaking. The wiki also contains still information that has changed. Such as some juvenile in WvW BLs could be killed or would attack you. This was an anomaly that has been fixed, but wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place.

How would people feel over a 1 or 5 person dungeon instance with leaderboards with scaling difficulty (like FOTM) where the goal is to survive the most waves as possible. Every 5th lvl would have a boss and every 20th lvl would have a challenge. I am always a big fan of these types of combat where the goal is just to kill as much as possible and survive. And to not make it as 99% of the games that try this type of thing. Enemies will appear from all direction each wave all at once rather then just piles.

It would also include a solo mode or team mode and leaderboards for each. Each wave would have different types of enemies from the wave previously. Such as skritt being the first wave (or quaggans or what ever people think is the easiest thing to kill).

Rewards would be based on the lvl completed. Not sure if the normal wave monsters should have drops but the bosses should.

This type of game mode would encourage teamwork as it would be impossible to avoid all the damage and a capable team would need to balance itself to progress far.

AgentofChaos.1539:

Suddenflame.2601:

AgentofChaos.1539:

Suddenflame.2601:

It can be soloed i done it solo with 4 different professions. Ele, Warrior, Ranger and Guardian… i might have done it with an Engi, but not sure i would have to check.

At this point I question your knowledge on your classes along with your combat ability. I have never died to her even once.

Suggestions:

• You can dodge her attacks.
• Since she is ranged melee does a lot more to her.
• Side stepping and never standing still will make 60-90% of her attacks miss.
• Take out Noxia first before engaging her. Noxia can be pulled.
• ensure your gear is not to low below your lvl

edit: when i mean side stepping i mean going back and forth fast like press D and hold D for half a sec then press A for a half a sec and do that. Once you learn to perform this skill correctly you can use it in WvW and PVP and watch as most ranged attacks miss you espically a rangers rapid fire or any other skill that grants repeated shots.

Are you actually serious? You’re saying you can avoid projectiles by sidestepping? I have to admit I’m skeptical. As far as I can see, projectiles will hit no matter what unless you use an actual dodge/evade mechanic. Or if you stand behind an obstacle. It’s an MMO, not an ARPG. Avoiding the animation doesn’t avoid the attack.

And beyond all that, how are you supposed to avoid being squished in seconds by three ravens and two veterans? And even if you survive the initial attack, how do you recover and survive the next wave? Healing does little and you can’t evade every thing.

Come on, be serious. Can you really solo this fight without being downed at least once? Sorry, I just don’t see it.

I am serious you can dodge attacks by side stepping that’s including melee attacks. Circling your opponent will make his attacks miss. Side stepping and making the the game over shoot happens as well when it comes to ranged. The game tries to calculate where you will be in the instant the arrow is released therefor it leads the target. If the arrow does not hit your hit bow because you went in the opposite direction it will miss. Try it out some time. I do it all the time in WvW and PVE. Avoiding the animation in this case does avoid the attack cause the combat system is ARPG.

I can solo her without being downed once. Your over thinking it and based on what you have said you do not understand how the combat system in this game works. If the animation does not hit your hit box then you do you not take the damage. This game is about skill not item based like most MMOs. Understanding how the combat system works helps you in the long run.

For example just recently my lvl30 (even scaled up mathematically disadvantaged) mesmer wearing masterwork armor defeated 1v1 in WvW defeated a lvl80 mesmer wearing exotics. In any nonARPG combat MMO i would mathematically would have lost but since i understand the combat system and that it is ARPG i was able to out skill my opponent and defeated them.

Wow, I never knew that. I’ll give it a try. To be honest, I never put much thought into the combat system. I just assumed it was the same as other MMOs. That said, though, I do fine in most fights. It’s only this one that seems impossible, lol.

It does take more skill to defeat her buts its more of a test to see how well your skill is with your current character. Unable to beat her without just spawn running shows that you need to learn a little more.

I design all my characters to play in WvW so basically veterans are not an issue espically when your dealing with supply camps all the time

Healix.5819:

AgentofChaos.1539:

It’s an MMO, not an ARPG. Avoiding the animation doesn’t avoid the attack.

GW2 is an MMO hybrid action RPG. Generally, avoiding the animation does avoid the attack. There are a few exceptions of course, notably homing attacks.

When you shoot a projectile, it predicts where the target will be and shoots in that direction. Once the shot is fired, if the target changes direction, it will cause you to miss. The easy way to side step is by holding Q (stafe left) and tapping E (strafe right).

I just use A and D while holding the right mouse button so that i am able to change directions fast. But either way works.

AgentofChaos.1539:

Suddenflame.2601:

It can be soloed i done it solo with 4 different professions. Ele, Warrior, Ranger and Guardian… i might have done it with an Engi, but not sure i would have to check.

At this point I question your knowledge on your classes along with your combat ability. I have never died to her even once.

Suggestions:

• You can dodge her attacks.
• Since she is ranged melee does a lot more to her.
• Side stepping and never standing still will make 60-90% of her attacks miss.
• Take out Noxia first before engaging her. Noxia can be pulled.
• ensure your gear is not to low below your lvl

edit: when i mean side stepping i mean going back and forth fast like press D and hold D for half a sec then press A for a half a sec and do that. Once you learn to perform this skill correctly you can use it in WvW and PVP and watch as most ranged attacks miss you espically a rangers rapid fire or any other skill that grants repeated shots.

Are you actually serious? You’re saying you can avoid projectiles by sidestepping? I have to admit I’m skeptical. As far as I can see, projectiles will hit no matter what unless you use an actual dodge/evade mechanic. Or if you stand behind an obstacle. It’s an MMO, not an ARPG. Avoiding the animation doesn’t avoid the attack.

And beyond all that, how are you supposed to avoid being squished in seconds by three ravens and two veterans? And even if you survive the initial attack, how do you recover and survive the next wave? Healing does little and you can’t evade every thing.

Come on, be serious. Can you really solo this fight without being downed at least once? Sorry, I just don’t see it.

I am serious you can dodge attacks by side stepping that’s including melee attacks. Circling your opponent will make his attacks miss. Side stepping and making the the game over shoot happens as well when it comes to ranged. The game tries to calculate where you will be in the instant the arrow is released therefor it leads the target. If the arrow does not hit your hit bow because you went in the opposite direction it will miss. Try it out some time. I do it all the time in WvW and PVE. Avoiding the animation in this case does avoid the attack cause the combat system is ARPG.

I can solo her without being downed once. Your over thinking it and based on what you have said you do not understand how the combat system in this game works. If the animation does not hit your hit box then you do you not take the damage. This game is about skill not item based like most MMOs. Understanding how the combat system works helps you in the long run.

For example just recently my lvl30 (even scaled up mathematically disadvantaged) mesmer wearing masterwork armor defeated 1v1 in WvW defeated a lvl80 mesmer wearing exotics. In any nonARPG combat MMO i would mathematically would have lost but since i understand the combat system and that it is ARPG i was able to out skill my opponent and defeated them.

Healix.5819:

Suddenflame.2601:

Which personal story are you referring to? I have so far completed multiple paths using different characters and not once have I needed help from anyone.

One of the last personal story steps requires completing a story mode dungeon. But that might change, since they want to evolve the personal story similar to the living story.

Ahh your talking about the end which requires you to complete a story mode dungeon and kill Zhaitan. That’s the only exception and its a pretty minor one considering in its current state one of my characters (warrior) could potentially solo it with little to no problem lol. They nerfed the hell out of it. Its pretty minor and i agree with Anet decision to make a dungeon and 5 party members needed cause it would be too wierd if you could solo Zhaitan but unable to solo Teq.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Daywolf.2630:

tom.7468:

Nuka Cola.8520:

i can’t believe some are actually asking for nerfs… are you like stupid or something? this is probably the game that received the most nerfs in its 1st year than any games released in the passed decade and you want more? like wtf

exactly he want it to take longer to grind for ascended etc. What happened to play the way you want !? some people just want to get legendary in this decade. Then others want to nerf some of the only profitable farms. Not everyone have time to play 15hours a day. Some people like me have jobs for them profitable farms are good.

I don’t think you read his post. I must agree with him in that it causes problem for others that are in the same zone doing other content. It’s very problematic for all in the zone. I don’t agree with his solution, but I do agree with his premise. Of course proposed solutions get heckled, but fun-fun we can just keep at each others throats in the zones until the game melts and everyone logs out for good.

you know what the real problem is? GW2 has no farmable spots. Lets say running dungeons wa truly rewarding (3-5g per run without stupid DR). Do you really think we would be seeing zerg trains farming champs? No. But since there’s absolutely nothing to farm in this over nerfed game, everyone is doing what they can to make some kind of money. Don’t blame champ farmer but &^#^ anet nerfing everything that can possibly be nerfed.

I will pose these questions to you. Why do you need to farm? Where does it state that you need all that money and materials now? Why not play the game and not just farm the game?

AgentofChaos.1539:

And yeah, a lot of it is. But then you have skill points which are only possible with cheap tactics, and a “personal” story which requires a group of five to complete. Yeah, very solo friendly.

Which personal story are you referring to? I have so far completed multiple paths using different characters and not once have I needed help from anyone.

It can be soloed i done it solo with 4 different professions. Ele, Warrior, Ranger and Guardian… i might have done it with an Engi, but not sure i would have to check.

At this point I question your knowledge on your classes along with your combat ability. I have never died to her even once.

Suggestions:

• You can dodge her attacks.
• Since she is ranged melee does a lot more to her.
• Side stepping and never standing still will make 60-90% of her attacks miss.
• Take out Noxia first before engaging her. Noxia can be pulled.
• ensure your gear is not to low below your lvl

edit: when i mean side stepping i mean going back and forth fast like press D and hold D for half a sec then press A for a half a sec and do that. Once you learn to perform this skill correctly you can use it in WvW and PVP and watch as most ranged attacks miss you espically a rangers rapid fire or any other skill that grants repeated shots.

People keep on talking about how they need to craft their ascended weapons. Where is the need? No where does it stated that you need to craft it. Far as I know there are several ways to gain Ascended weapons outside of crafting. If you play normally eventually you will gain an ascended weapon.

Do you need your ascended weapon right this instant?

Does the weapon provide such a large bonus in WvW that you can not possibly win without it?

You do realize that legendaries are above Ascended now in that you can choose any stat you want while being ascended quality. I don’t see anyone complaining about that and walking through LA I can literally say that Legendaries are extremely common that at least every 1/10 people have one (From what I seen so far).

It is not stated that you need the weapon nor do you need it. You want it and you want it now for no reason other then it is BiS.

Cynz.9437:

Suddenflame.2601:

Report for botting. The botting one will make their account become under watch if reported enough times and if there is hacking it would turn up in the botting.

what they do is not exatly botting, that is the thing

bots follow certain pattern and it is easy to see it

players abusing hacks don’t follow the pattern so even if their account would come under watch since there is no bot pattern in behavior it won’t be banned

Best suggestion and think I read somewhere already from an Anet post that is what you should report hacking as well… Some other games i play they already place Botting/Hacking into the same category. So keep with the trend and the usual and just report it as botting and anything usual would appear during their search.

Report for botting. The botting one will make their account become under watch if reported enough times and if there is hacking it would turn up in the botting.

There is currently 4 ways of getting Obi shards:

1.) Balthzar Temple (Karma)
2.) Karma Boxes (Karma)
3.) FOTM (relics)
4.) Laurel Vendor (Laurels -not suggested)

Getting them from FOTM is really easy and highly profitable. Technically you would be making money from doing FOTM route and since FOTM gives a large number of greens, blues, rares, and exotics (account bound but can be used to make dark matter) you would be making a large enough profit with no wait times usually (if there is its only for a couple of secs just keep hitting refresh on gw2lfg and eventually a group with the fract lvl you want will appear.

My warrior uses a healing and power (regeneration) build as a means to endure a large amount of punishment while at the same time not being completely useless. Dodging and timing is highly important to any skill based game. Intelligence and out of the box thinking is useful. In combat adaptability and able to think on the run is highly important as well.

Thoughout my dungeon runs and helping other people I noticed that a large number of the player base I have dealt with in PUG runs most people generally are terrible at thinking on the run. I find myself resurrecting the same people throughout the dungeon or risking my characters life to save them countless times. Such as the Kohl battle in AC, a large number of people do not figure out after the first grab/spin attack to dodge, block, move side to side, or anything to get out of his attack. Only reason why I used to dodge Kohl in AC was cause I did not want to spend half the fight resurrecting my team.

Another example was during F&F the final boss I ended up soloing as my team got wiped all expect me cause I learned quickly his attack patterns and countered them all.

Quick reflexes are only part of it being adaptable and thinking things through in a timely manner help greatly. Which brings me to why I choose healing/power over Bezerker is due to the fact that if everyone plays as a Bezerker (which seems to be just about everyone) they generally get downed faster and are easy prey in WvW.

Now to fully comment on the combat you are suggesting they should do. They absolutely need to make changes that make it from a dodge and #1 spam to coordination and adaptability. Such as “The Rising” what they are doing with Teq is a great start if pulled off correctly. The main issue is that if they were to make it more skill based rather then a spam based certain types of players would have trouble completing the content. (Generally that means those guys need to work on skill more)

AI also needs to be improved but that is complex to achieve.

lmaonade.9207:

No Ancient Saplings in CS or Malchor’s, and no it’s not because I’ve already farmed it because Orichalcum and Omnomberry nodes spawned just fine

They still exist i farmed one in WvW just recently.

cesmode.4257:

Cowrex.9564:

marnick.4305:

It’s called “The Rising” and has following features:
- Tequatl Overhaul
- LFG System
- parallel overflow bosses
- world wide dragon warning (currently limited to tequatl and invasion)

Wow that’s some amazing features coming up to GW2

Hm. You don’t 3 million players telling you for an entire year, that bosses like Teq and SB are HP sponges. This could have been in for launch, or shortly after. Not over a year later.

A LFG system that really..isnt LFG. Its gw2lfg.com put in the game with a UI. And again, a Quality of Life feature that could of and should have been in game at launch. Most AAA MMOs launch with one these days. At least the MMOs released in the last two or three years.

Actually a large number of MMO’s including WoW did not have a good LFG till a year after launch. Also it is not easy to think of ways to change a boss and then implement it without a study and data to back it up. Also define AAA MMO cause most of the recent MMOs released to date have not been overly successful SWTOR anyone.

sazberryftw.3809:

Slightly off topic, but where do you acquire ascended boxes?

Any where you can get ascended material. So basically off of chests, champions, ect.

Latinkuro.9420:

why the hell didnt they just let us choose both the weapon and the stats !

Cause that would literally be to easy. There would be no point and after a short amount of time everyone would have the weapon and stats they wanted.

Umm I think people are massively forgetting that all the places where ascended materials can be earned (expect the TP and salvaging exotics) you have a chance at getting an ascended weapon of your choice…. Hell I am just playing normally and hoping an ascended weapon drops. It has a higher chance then a precursor but a lower chance then a normal exotic. Overall that isn’t too bad and I am in no rush at getting them.