Guild Wars 2

Filaha.1678:

Swagger.1459:

as a former rper, i feel zero sense of urgency from this zone content besides getting to the event on time for a chest and am (and have been) completely disengaged from anything story related so far. we have a mighty and dangerous dragon (who can slay gods mind you) that is waking up and we are playing around in a glorified jumping puzzle with a bunch of silly mini events that are mostly focused on earning pieces of stuff for loot we have to craft. i know this is just the start of ls2, but i personally feel that anet needs to get their heads out of the sand and start producing more meaningful zone and story content if they plan on continuing to invest more labor and resources into ls while professions and combat remain stale and stagnant.

As a former RPer, I’d laugh at your attempts to RP if you thought that, given the stage of the story we’re at, you’d be able to rush ahead to your goal.

Do your characters when you RP tend to know everything about what you’re fighting, where you’re going, and how to win?

Because the stage the story is at, that’s what we’re trying to find out. There’s no sense of urgency because we can’t really do anything until we find out more about what we’re supposed to do it to. The most we can do right now is react, not act.

It’d be a terrible story if we just knew exactly what to do and where to go and didn’t need to find anything out first.

i’m sure you were an amazing rper who could put me in my rping place with your superior rp skills, but i don’t think you get what I’m talking about. the point of my post was to say that the ls content continues to be subpar and the “journey” needs to be improved. anet has generated more sense of urgency and care for loot related things and finishing timed events as opposed to ls zone and story content. if you were to remove loot and achievements from the equation, the ls updates would be dead on arrival.

also, If anet plans to neglect and underfund other important areas of the game in lieu of the ls, the least they could do is create quality zone and storytelling updates.

Boneheart.3561:

Jesus christ.

these issues have nothing to do with him.

as a former rper, i feel zero sense of urgency from this zone content besides getting to the event on time for a chest and am (and have been) completely disengaged from anything story related so far. we have a mighty and dangerous dragon (who can slay gods mind you) that is waking up and we are playing around in a glorified jumping puzzle with a bunch of silly mini events that are mostly focused on earning pieces of stuff for loot we have to craft. i know this is just the start of ls2, but i personally feel that anet needs to get their heads out of the sand and start producing more meaningful zone and story content if they plan on continuing to invest more labor and resources into ls while professions and combat remain stale and stagnant.

Why can players sell and purchase superior in functionality and appearance legendary gear but not ascended gear?

Border.9463:

Hey everyone,

Just got the game and have played as a Asura Mesmer up until level 8 but I don’t know if this is the class for me.

What’s a good starting class to learn the basics and is something that’s good in a group?

Any advise is welcome.

warrior. do not play or invest any money (cash or gold) on anything else until anet starts doing something substantial to improve professions and combat.

*preemptive response for those will swoop in to defend fair maiden anet’s honor… no, promises, talking a lot, making meaningless ready up videos, emails about combat, cdi threads, trait number shuffling and reshuffling and reshuffling and continuous tool tip edits are not substantial improvements to professions and combat.

Shinjo.6092:

People love to cry and whine about thieves to take attention away from the OP’ness of their own class. Since thieves have been nerfed every single patch, even for stuff that no one ever cried about like shortbow range and dancing dagger, people are starting to have a tough time finding things to nerf. Consume Ectoplasm needs a nerf?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Nerf-the-theif-steal-skill-consume-ectoplasm/first#post1440115

Stolen Whirling Axe?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-stolen-Whirling-Axe-is-OP/page/3#post3695265

How about P/P, our joke weaponset?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/p-p-thief-insane-burst/first#post3636798

I guess now, the whining has whittled down to our core mechanics like initiative and stealth. After all, what else is there left to nerf?

People love to whine and cry because professions and most of the core combat mechanics were poorly designed. Also, you’d figure that a “aaa” game that brings in $100 million per year would do more than just talk a lot, reshuffle trait numbers and make tooltip edits. I personally feel that players who like the profession designs and combat mechanics here have low standards and/or come from the console generation.

1. What were your overall impressions?

2. Did you learn anything new? What?

3. Was your enthusiasm level for the future of professions and combat increased or decreased? Why?

4. Considering this game is already 2 years old, do you feel the devs were “on mark” talking their balance philosophy or did you get the feeling that this was more of a “l2p” video with little relevance to the current needs and state of the game?

5. What could the devs do to improve the way they communicate with us?

6. Do you feel like anet actually places professions and combat on the “high priority” list? Why?

7. Do you feel confident with the current management team and developers in charge of this core part of the game? Why?

“We also presented what we feel the strengths/weaknesses of each profession was, and sort of our long-term high-level goals for balancing.”

Could someone please elaborate on what the devs presented for their “long-term high-level goals for balancing”?

thanks for taking the time for the ready up guys, but 2 years in, i think we got it already. time to start getting some serious work done on professions and combat and stop wasting the great potential this game has.

Question… The devs have already discussed and established “balance” design philosophy and profession roles so what is the real purpose to this ready up?

Josh Davis.6015:

Hey everybody,

This Friday on “Ready Up” I’ll be joined by Game Designer Karl McLain and Game Design Lead Jonathan “Chaplan” Sharp for a discussion on balance design philosophy. “What’s that, and why should I care?” you ask? Great question!

We won’t be going over future changes we’re making, but rather discussing the ideas and philosophy that drive balance changes. We’ll also be discussing our vision of what purpose/role each profession serves in relation to another.

To get started, we’d like to ask a few open-ended questions to all of you. In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite? And remember, no single profession should be the best at everything!

We’ll be reading through your thoughts over the next few days, and we’ll try to address as much as we can on Friday. Feel free to post your thoughts below, but try to keep your replies relatively short (I’d aim for under 300 words).

As a note, the previously announced “State of the Game” episode has been postponed, but rest assured – it will happen!

Thanks all! Let’s keep this constructive.

with all due respect, i (and i’m sure a whole bunch of other peeps) would prefer less talk and more action. you all built a decent foundation for professions and combat, but you have a carp ton more work to do. earn some player good will back by getting your hands dirty on a regular and consistent basis.

also, read this post…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvX-Balance-Iteration-Wrongdoing/page/6#post4009012

thanks

edit- to answer those questions…

“In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite?”

create a highly customizable and deep profession, skill, weapon and combat system that is similar to what city of heroes offered so players can create their own strengths and weaknesses based on the type of profession and build they chose to make.

follow the link then download and mess around with the old city of heroes build designer for inspiration… http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,4812.0.html?PHPSESSID=bjlca1abb8sphilfl3svfin4b6

dancingmonkey.4902:

I disagree. They have made many large changes in the professions. The problem I see, is that posters tend to claim the changes are bad or pretend they do not occur simply because the changes made were not the specific ones the said poster wants themselves.

Trait number shuffling, reshuffling, more reshuffling and text corrections are not anywhere near “large changes to professions” for a “AAA” development team running a “AAA” mmo.

The problem is lack of development not the players. Go read the thread “Balance, iteration and wrongdoing” in this subsection to open your mind a bit.

vincecontix.1264:

Well atm all classes are complaining about each other so Anet must be doing something right.

Doing next to nothing is definitely not “doing something right”.

The primary reasons and root causes of complaints are because little has changed to improve and develop professions outside of gear, and certain “red flag” combat issues have not been addressed. The foundation of professions and combat made by anet are decent, but they have a lot more construction work to do.

ricky.2679:

Everybody plays for or against a profession and thinks it is Overpowered. Well I am simply going to say that is your opinion. There is no balance when everything is “overpowered”.

Arenanet will not listen to your complaints obviously biased against certain professions. Because all you want is for them to be nerfed and your own profession buffed. I will link “Playing to win” by Sirlin now.

Play to win, don’t be a Scrub

Sure, “balance” is subjective, but the extreme lack of developer effort to improve professions is not subjective. Professions and combat are the most important aspect of this game, yet they receive the least amount of attention despite needing the most. Let’s talk about “balance” being subjective later after we get a real investment on anets part.

So when are we going to get this “VIP” subscription option for our regions?

warriorjrd.8695:

If you actually look into it a bit more the ranger was initially meant to be two separate classes, not this archer you still cling to. The beast master and the warden/ranger were the two different classes that were merged into one last minute, the result is the current ranger. You will find that regardless of the ranger’s description, rangers excel with melee weapons and conditions, compared to long range power.

I would presume that considering the two classes were merged last minute they also needed a description for the class, which was apparently also made last minute. I suppose you could say that we are unparalleled archers simply because we are the only class with access to both bows. However, as stated previously, we excel with melee and conditions more than ranged DPS, so overall the statement that rangers are indeed the best archers in the game is void, because we aren’t, and we don’t need to be.

Now to actually address your other notes. First and foremost, the longbow isn’t low DPS if you trait right, and is only possibly beaten by warrior LB because warrior LB has access to damaging conditions which add to the over all damage. However talking about straight direct damage, ranger longbow wins that one. Shortbow on the other hand isn’t really meant for the big numbers. It’s more of a hybrid weapon, hence the reason it has access to the conditions and offers more utility than the LB.

You can take advantage of the SB’s speed by taking the Sharpened edges trait which gives you a 66% chance to bleed on crit. Even with moderate condition damage using that combined with poison volley and the bleeds built into the AA itself you can do some nice condi damage. I wouldn’t recommend trying to get ultra high numbers with the shortbow though, like I said it’s a hybrid weapon, not only power.

Now for the pets. Pets used to be borderline useless, but they have come a long way with recent patches. Always make sure you are using the right pet for the right job. Don’t try and get a bear to do some super combo and 1 shot your enemies. I wouldn’t suggest taking a cat to try and soak up some damage either. I would also suggest keeping an eye on your pet’s HP bar (it’s there for a reason) because if your pet dies the CD for swapping increases from 25 seconds to a minute. Ranger’s total damage is shared with the pet, so neglecting it to try and do things quicker, will only slow you down and hurt you more. Learn how to use the pet effectively and you can and will blow through things with ease.

If you came to GW2 looking for an archer, you’re out of luck. You CAN play an archer, but most melee builds will outshine you, that’s simply how the game has been designed. For all classes their melee builds can generally out DPS their ranged builds.

That was a nice and informative post! In your honor, I will start calling the Ranger Profession… Miolm for “merged into one last minute”!

Great post op! Thanks for taking the time and effort to write it all out!

Azhure.1857:

Swagger.1459:

That was a lie and players have a right to complain about being forced to craft and grind for said gear.

Yeah NO. You aren’t, in fact, being forced to craft and/or grind. Again it is something you and other players have chosen to do. Its oh so very easy to blame, or in this case complain, when you shake off the responsibility of your own stress and try putting it on others because you argue the equivalent of “I have no choice” – Sorry but that doesn’t fly.

please reread what I posted before you decide to reply again. choice or not, there was not supposed to be a gear grind. there are a bunch of other dev quotes relevant to the ops topic that I can share and discuss if you like?

here is something else to read too…

“Ascended Gear is designed to fill the ‘Time’ gap in regard to the distance between exotic and Legendary in terms of progression and in retrospect would have been better to have been rolled out pre launch.

I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.

Please understand that we see the community as a ‘whole’ and therefore are not intending to design again for one specific type of player over another. This is a misconception and one that is not promoted by the team. We will continue to develop the game for the community as a whole offering game play that caters to lots of different types of players in a unified approach that will evolve over time based on feedback and the direction the team as a whole wants to take."

Smooth Penguin.5294:

This game doesn’t require grinding to have fun. It’s the individual player’s desires to get certain things that drive one to grind. Once you understand this, most of what you typed will be resolved.

Your right, you don’t have to grind to have “fun” in certain parts of the game. Ascended gear does however improve your characters performance, and those that are competitive want an edge so they will have to level up crafting professions, grind and spend lots of gold or buy gems and convert. You seem to have missed where ascended gear was marketed in an interview by one of the devs as… “a minimal stat increase with the focus on zero grind”. That was a lie and players have a right to complain about being forced to craft and grind for said gear.

Skimming through what the op wrote holds true for a good chunk of players, so no you are not correct. I’m assuming since you post in the bltc threads a lot you are one of those gamers that likes to play virtual economy while many of us want a decent game closer to what gw was. There are many players out there that have not forgotten the “everything you loved about gw” statement and we many of us will bring those things up until it becomes closer to the truth.

Goloith.6349:

Like the title says, ANET needs to double the precursor drop rate. Now I can see a few people that spent a fortune with real currency to obtain these, but they are minuscule to the total revenue that ANET could receive if the “base was widened”. Also many of the people that own legendaries did not spend a dime ever in the gemstore. Call them the lucky ones that got a precursor drop early, flipped it, and repurchased when it was lower. Same goes with other market hawks.

So how exactly can ANET make more money and make more players happy?
It’s simple supply and demand really. If precursors would double what would happen? The price for precursors would drop a little less than half. This would in turn put precursors in the viability range for a lot of players to purchase…….well almost. It would spark huge demand for gems to cover the extra 100-200 gold needed to buy the precursors. It would also greatly increase the demand for the other mats needed in creating the actually legendary. The increased demand for those other mats would compensate a bit for doubling the drop rate. It would also force demand on none-legendary materials.

Overall we would see the price come down, but would give a huge perception that legendaries are actually attainable.

don’t worry, precursor crafting is coming. (more crafting yippee…)

as to your question… “So how exactly can ANET make more money and make more players happy?”

1- adopting more of the guild wars mentality when it comes to gearing up and rewards while offering all the “great” skins through the gem store.

2- offer more options than just crafting, rng luck and horrible drop rates as ways to obtain ascended, precursor and legendary gear.

3- save face and earn more money from customers in the long run by not making false statements in interviews that contradict what has actually been in development for many months.
*on ascended gear… “minimal stat increase with the focus on zero grind”.
*"best statistical loot by 80"
*"cosmetic grind only"
*"play your way"

4- offering better goods, services, skins, all gear levels… in the gem store will make for an easily accepted gold sink and increase gem sales tremendously.

5- content for the “fun of it” that rewards players appropriately for their time and effort, not content mainly designed for gold sinks and gem store sales.

Yeah, buy more gems and convert y’all!

Loudog.9721:

Just wanted to say thanks for the great game you have created and the extremely fun content. Thank you for the wardrobe system, thank you for the villain Scarlet, who turned the community on its ear with the thought she may never be slain, thank you for the account bound Legendary/Ascended item fix, thank you for the two handed sigil update, also thank you for the champ train nerf in noob areas! Thank you for the multitude of improvements you have provided. Finally, thank you for trying new things in an MMO and working with the player base to make it better as we go into Living World Season 2. Again, thanks for your hard work and dedication!

Now, to the trolls that will most definitely hit this, grow up and try to look beyond your own nose when it comes to things in life. To those who feel that they are “unique” because they played first and got “x” item, and it should not be ever again offered to the player base, really? By this time, your uniqueness should be portrayed in your ability to make fantastic toon builds that will stomp the kitten out of these noobs in WvWvW and sPvP adding to your pvp reward track. To those that have hurt feelings over not getting what they want when they want it, get a kitten job and learn you are not the center of the universe, the world is not flat, you are not special. Enjoy what you have and participate in the discussions of “making things better” in a constructive manner that Anet can follow and we can stand behind as a gamer community for the betterment of our game! To those that think Anet can operate without a budget or a marketing ploy, aka Item shop. Look at it this way, the item shop is not pay to win, nothing in item shop gives you an advantage over anyone else. Do not want to pay? Don’t, just play. You just won’t have that cool hat everyone has, or that 12 hour extension to your food buff. also, it costs real money to pay for bandwidth, programmers, marketing, salespersons, management, and service technicians to keep your game/forum websites running. So, YES, Anet is trying to make money, again don’t pay more than you are willing to and do not troll more than you should. Again, that is slightly just beyond your own nose, look there from time to time! To those that feel the wardrobe has destroyed there dual legendary set-up, LOL, think about it, put he keyboard away and just really think about it. If you can’t figure it out, then just quit, we are all better off without you.
Finally, to the community at large, thank you for being such a great group of players, thank you for being passionate and working with Anet to give me the game I so love and enjoy! Again Anet, NICE JOB!
To players just coming in, GW2 is a great game and after you get involved, it’s what you make it. I have played from day one, have all professions and toons to level 80, fully geared and still love this game and have more than enough to keep me busy! Give it a shot!

To those that utter fan boy, LOL, work for what you have and quit begging and crying for what you want! PEACE!!!!

Great post!!! Nice job to you too!!!

Tiger Ashante.1792:

GW2 has been officially released in China merely 2 weeks ago and it has already hit #5 on their top 10 list, toppling some of the giants along the way.

Now I know some trolls and sourpusses will come along and try to negate this with various rhetoric “it’s a new game”, it’s the honeymoon" etc. etc. etc.

But no matter what you say, the fact that Anet went to China with a very risky business model never before seen over there, makes it a great achievement indeed.

So once again, congratulation Anet and all the best in your future endeavors.

Cheers!

Source: http://www.gamesinasia.com/the-top-10-hottest-pc-games-in-china-may-2014/

That’s awesome! Now we will get better development here as a result! GG devs and thank you China!

timmyf.1490:

Pavilion is no longer a massive 1-1-1-1-1-1 loot farm.

Yeah! It’s a nice change from the rest of the game!

Precursor weapon hunt and crafting.

Legendary armor, precursor armor hunt and crafting.

cheshirefox.7026:

better decision making
/ end thread
n_n

Bingo.

ICEing.9237:

I heard some rumors about this, and I hope it isn’t true. I feel like ascended should be the final tier in armor grind. Although I feel ascended armor should have more of a significant stat increase than Exotic. New Legendary weapons, fine. But armor should stay at the current tier level

Of course legendary armor is coming.

/thread

zznightmare.4098:

…now I throw myself into the mystic toilet and try my luck

pls increase the chance to get a precursor xD

I’m sorry. Don’t waste you time and money again on anything rng in mmos.

Precursor hunts are coming so don’t mess around with that mystic toilet ever again.

jweez.7214:

Yea it annoys me too that they try to make money from their game.

I don’t think players would complain if a decent amount of money was being reinvested into substantial content, profession improvements, fixes, personal story revamps, dungeons, …, …, … and a plethora of other important core things.

not sure if already posted…

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/05/09/working-as-intended-what-guild-wars-2-got-wrong/

what do y’all think?

*wonders where all the money goes because it certainly isn’t being reinvested here.

a development team that keeps their promises by following through on their pr statements and forum comments.

just a couple before someone asks (no, i’m not finding links right now)…

-on ascended gear from some mmo site… “minimal stat increase with the focus on zero grind”…

-“amazing” thing for rangers…

also, a development team that does not allow professions and combat to remain subpar, and focuses more on preventing end game stagnation as opposed to gem sales.

Jeknar.6184:

Swagger.1459:

no bag, no win. allowing the enemy to get away before you kill them means that you lost, are weak and inexperienced.

Tell that to the GS warriors and their whirlwind, rush, bull’s charge “you’ll never catch me” combo. Unless you’re a GS warrior yourself or a thief, it’s likely that you will never catch him, no matter how good you think you are

warriors and thieves pfft… my ranger catches all targets with his amazingly deadly arrows and mighty pets! no one gets away from my unparalleled archer lol!

I understand that you have to make money, but having transmutation charges in denominations of 5 is disappointing and a slap in your customer’s face when armor sets come in 6.

in addition to reinvesting very little back for qol features, professions and a bunch of other core things, it’s stuff like this that justifies player negativity. I could understand if you all worked extremely hard to uphold your words in those public relation videos and interviews, and made more than a smidgen of effort to improve this game, but you all don’t and put more effort into gouging your community while giving very little in return. after 2 years of begging and pleading for game improvements all we get are cdis and more effort put into cash shop related gameplay. all of this is extremely disrespectful to your community, particularly for a game that touts a “aaa” status with over 100 accolades.

Alex.9268:

What is your opinion on people that flee a fair duel once they realize they will lose? thieves and mesmers vanishing and warriors flying away are probably the main culprits here.

I solo roam a lot and I see a lot of people not just fleeing the duel once they start losing, but trying to aggro guards or even bring their friends into a 1vs1 duel.

All is fair in love and pvp, or is it cowardly?

no bag, no win. allowing the enemy to get away before you kill them means that you lost, are weak and inexperienced.

Feydryn.9576:

I dived into this game abit but never had the patience to level, Now I beleive I can play again but im not sure how big the community is right now. The most I could ask for is active and nearly balanced pvp and fun endgame pve. With possible competetive scenes in the pvp areas. Ive been hopping between either playing GW2, Tera, and FF14ARR. But it is hard to make a final decision.

while this game has some good elements, it has one of the worst maintained class/profession systems, so spvp is extremely subpar and end game here revolves around running in mass zergs pressing a couple of buttons so you can earn junk loot and bits of crafting materials. if you plan on continuing to play, i do not recommend that you spend a dime on the gemstore because the quality of reinvestment to make strong and fundamental improvements are poor to none.

stale.9785:

It’s been a complaint since before release. Hard to imagine that any “AAA” game release doesn’t have decade old basic camera customisation.

Height above ground adjustment and a FoV slider are both desperately needed.

aaa game with a fixed diabloesque ui as well. so sad.

Hitman.5829:

I constantly get headache for the close camera view and when I play elementalist and want to place an AOE spell 15 feet above the ground and move the camera towards the target area, the zoom goes to ground level and focuses entirely on my character thus blocking my FOV and covering most of the screen.

Even with all the zoom out available in game i still get nausea when playing the game because of fast camera movements.

I would really appreciate if you guys could solve that problem.

Edit: I have seen these hacks on youtube where you can zoom out the camera angle. It looks very pleasant similarly to the zoom out when you fight a dragon boss.
Please add more zoom out on the next patch; I love this game so much but i constantly get nausea because of rapid camera movements. I am sure I am not the only one suffering from this!

thanks.

the recent patch confirmed that the #1 priorities are developing things that generate immediate cash sales, so things like camera, ui, qol features, profession improvements, long list… are a whatever or never to them.

sadly, after this game, I will never buy or recommend another anet or ncsoft product again.

The Pointless.3869:

Swagger.1459:

The Pointless.3869:

Swagger.1459:

Astral Projections.7320:

Guild Wars 1 has a grind to get max titles and Guild Wars 2 has a grind to get the end vanity items. It’s set up as the core of both games. They want you to earn them. Granted they didn’t do a very good job with the Legendaries in this game, but the no grind only referred to leveling not going after one of the end game goals.

ascended gear and ascended level swappable stats on legendaries are hardly mere “vanity” things.

And yet none of which are vital to the effective completion of much of the content in GW2, which can be achieved with exotics easily enough.

correct, not until anet finally implements harder content along with higher tiers of gear…

my point still stands.

Not until it actually comes to pass.

correct.

my previous point still stands.

Teon.5168:

I guess I am just not seeing it…..are you saying that there should be higher level content and top end gear to make the higher end grind more worth it?

I can see that and I’m truly sorry. feel free to reread and take from it whatever you all want.

Teon.5168:

Swagger.1459:

Teon.5168:

Swagger.1459:

The Pointless.3869:

Swagger.1459:

Astral Projections.7320:

Guild Wars 1 has a grind to get max titles and Guild Wars 2 has a grind to get the end vanity items. It’s set up as the core of both games. They want you to earn them. Granted they didn’t do a very good job with the Legendaries in this game, but the no grind only referred to leveling not going after one of the end game goals.

ascended gear and ascended level swappable stats on legendaries are hardly mere “vanity” things.

And yet none of which are vital to the effective completion of much of the content in GW2, which can be achieved with exotics easily enough.

correct, not until anet finally implements harder content along with higher tiers of gear …

my point still stands.

I fail too see how that statement makes your point any more valid or justified, for that matter.

read my previous posts in this thread and you will get it.

I have….. /shrug

I’m sorry

Teon.5168:

Swagger.1459:

The Pointless.3869:

Swagger.1459:

Astral Projections.7320:

Guild Wars 1 has a grind to get max titles and Guild Wars 2 has a grind to get the end vanity items. It’s set up as the core of both games. They want you to earn them. Granted they didn’t do a very good job with the Legendaries in this game, but the no grind only referred to leveling not going after one of the end game goals.

ascended gear and ascended level swappable stats on legendaries are hardly mere “vanity” things.

And yet none of which are vital to the effective completion of much of the content in GW2, which can be achieved with exotics easily enough.

correct, not until anet finally implements harder content along with higher tiers of gear …

my point still stands.

I fail too see how that statement makes your point any more valid or justified, for that matter.

read my previous posts in this thread and you will get it.

Belzebu.3912:

Swagger.1459:

ascended gear and ascended level swappable stats on legendaries are hardly mere “vanity” things.

Yes they are. vanity
The majority of the owners of a legendary do it for the skin, and ascended set gives a really small advantage over exotics, asc weapons gives a little bit more compared to exotic weapons, and asc trinkets are really easy to get.

vanity means no statistical change. gear with higher stats and the ability to customize to any gear set is not vanity.

The Pointless.3869:

Swagger.1459:

Astral Projections.7320:

Guild Wars 1 has a grind to get max titles and Guild Wars 2 has a grind to get the end vanity items. It’s set up as the core of both games. They want you to earn them. Granted they didn’t do a very good job with the Legendaries in this game, but the no grind only referred to leveling not going after one of the end game goals.

ascended gear and ascended level swappable stats on legendaries are hardly mere “vanity” things.

And yet none of which are vital to the effective completion of much of the content in GW2, which can be achieved with exotics easily enough.

correct, not until anet finally implements harder content along with higher tiers of gear…

my point still stands.

Astral Projections.7320:

Guild Wars 1 has a grind to get max titles and Guild Wars 2 has a grind to get the end vanity items. It’s set up as the core of both games. They want you to earn them. Granted they didn’t do a very good job with the Legendaries in this game, but the no grind only referred to leveling not going after one of the end game goals.

ascended gear and ascended level swappable stats on legendaries are hardly mere “vanity” things.

Peeachxd.3786:

So I have slowly been creating Twilight over the past wee while and now looking at the 1k gold pile that I need to raise to afford Dusk at its current Trade Post price im starting to feel like Gw2 is a grind, I know that the developers said that they wanted to make the game feel like it wasnt a grind but I think some of the recent changes and perhaps lack of change has made it into one of the most grindy games I have ever played. does anybody else think that the whole Idea of needing a precurser or puting so much focus on gold has made Gw2 into a grind? because all I seem to be doing when I play is earning gold by grinding different dungeon paths or doing pvp which is kind of a grind aswell to level… :L perhaps ii play wrong.

do not waste time with a legendary right now. wait until precursor hunts are implemented and see what other changes to obtaining a legendary are put in as well.

Theridon.6249:

March 18 Game update:
“Trading
Rumors tell of a merchant interested in items from major events in Tyria’s recent history, including Blade Shards. Players are encouraged to hold on to these items if they are interested in trading with her when she appears.”

female merchant hmmm… scarlet 2.0 maybe?

eleshazar.6902:

All I see is more and more content that encourages zerging in this game. With the addition of the megaservers, we literally cannot escape zergs.

I personally enjoy the challenge of doing things by myself, or in a small group, and relying on my skill. To me standing in a massive amount of particle affects pressing 1 is not heroic at all. I play video games to feel like I matter, feeling like you make a difference in this virtual world is exciting (which is what I imagine is the reason many people play, even if they don’t want to admit it.) Zergs/Zerg content takes that epicness out of the game, and forces you back into the reality that you are just one tiny being amongst many, and it really doesn’t matter if you press one or not, things will just continue as they were anyway.

What happened to the epicness of this game? The feeling of being a hero? If you look at the personal story, the reason so many people hated it was because it was all about Traherene. People want to feel like the hero, like what they did is awesome and made some difference. Maybe I’m just too much of a fantasy lover, but Guild Wars 2 has lost that appeal to me now. The megaserver took what semblance there was of that left and destroyed it. Now you just take a number and stand in line to receive your loot. It feels like a chore. Working for rewards that aren’t pleasing because in actuality all you did was run as fast as you can to press 1 as fast as you can so that you get loot before something melts.

I doubt anyone from Anet will read this, but honestly the zerg content and zerg centric changes are killing the game. There is no feeling of greatness, no epicness. Community destruction aside, even if you were guildless and didn’t belong to a tight community before, these zerg centric updates just take the fun out of the game. It makes me sad to see this game deviate so far from its manifesto. When did the players become mere numbers to be corralled, and ceased to be your loyal customers that you cared about?

Because open world zerg content is cheaper to design.

I believe these thread mergers are a sign of some big changes to come for the thief profession.

ricky.2679:

What I want simply is a game with monks like gw1 had where fights can actually last longer than a couple of minutes. But apparently Arenanet decided that healers are boring and everyone should just kill each other with dps. Healing and Damage Mitigation needs a real buff if this game wants to have any chance at being a competitive #ESPORT

Guild Wars 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFWvdyCk1Uo

“Monks…with their unparalleled gift for keeping their allies alive”
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_monk_skills

Main skills used by monks to mitigate spike burst damage were Aegis, Protective Spririt, Guardian, Infuse Health, Spirit Bond, Restore Condition and Word of Healing. But nearly all the skills had a use.

if they do add the monk, let’s just hope that their “unparalleled gift” doesn’t turn out similar to our “unparalleled archers”.