Guild Wars 2

Mr Crazy Moose.5760:

The only people with a decent guess would be a.net and they’re not likely to say.

If you think about it…this one is easier than clock tower(doubt anybody would argue with that). Which suggests that the tower wasn’t exactly…successful or particularly popular…

PS: @the chick above…not “you, as a female”, sweetheart, just “you, as a person”.

fellyn.5083:

I’ll provide the same source for my argument that you did for yours.

Well, my source is the same source OP used for his statement. Or did you forget that I wasn’t the one who started the “vocal minority” bullbeep? It’s sort of in the topic title and all…

fellyn.5083:

TWMagimay.9057:

And who would the “vocal minority” be? You and the other 4 who thought the puzzle was too easy or me and the other 40 who thought it is a -beep-?

Uh… the people who are saying it is easy by far out number those who are saying it’s hard.

And this jumping puzzle is easy. I would go as far as saying it’s one of the easiest puzzles in the game.

Where do you get your statistic from? Care to provide the source?

And who would the “vocal minority” be? You and the other 4 who thought the puzzle was too easy or me and the other 40 who thought it is a -beep-?

YzermanCpt.9375:

If the damage is indeed percentage based, then that works out just fine.

~11k hp takes 90 dot, ~24k takes 191 dot. It’s all fair, no advantages or anything.

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

Additionally as a Staff user, this skill is still quite nice because Air attunement is simply too situational… if I’m running with a bunch of people doing DE there’s usually no point in entering this attunement because it’s better to just kill the mobs than bother with Static field. I still support the element swapping don’t get me wrong, but think that the title of ‘uesless’ still belongs to conjures and that our signets overall are fairly top notch.

I decided to try this famous “perma swiftness” with staff today, while completing SoD map. So, I get my speed buff up, all dandy. Put static field up → blast in it → enter combat. In Orr it’s virtually impossible to use static field for speed without hitting at least one mob in the process(unless you wanna go to one of the 5 spots without mobs just to do that). Thus Signet of Air makes me very very happy when gathering ori and stuff and totally beats One with Air(especially since it wasn’t working, didn’t bother checking if they fixed it cause that puppy is useless now). Come to think of it…I should probably put the signet to the test. Oh, and aoe blind ain’t that bad…my build is pretty blindy so….

When I loaded in, I thought it looked…awesome. Couldn’t wait to jump it, cause…so pretty ^-^ Then the snowflake melted under me. I realised there’s no time for sightseeing and…left. Disappointed. They create this gorgeous place and then make you rush through it…

So, you buy an obvious gamble item and then complain about…the gambling?! How does that make any sense to anybody? If you want to find out “why ANet?” go to the store, buy a lottery ticket. When you don’t win anything, go and ask them why and tell them how unfair it is because you didn’t get your money worth.

drwookie.6391:

TWMagimay.9057:

Build a bridge…and get over it. Besides, Germany was united in 1989….

“Reunited” would be a more correct term. The “unification” of Germany is more commonly considered to be after the Franco-Prussian war in the late 19th century.

Read OP. Think for a bit. Got it? Hope so.

Build a bridge…and get over it. Besides, Germany was united in 1989….

VictoriousMonk.7150:

I make money, and I’ve done those things on that list (except dungeons – I’ve only done 1). I’m just not extremely rich like people who have commander icons, all tier 3 armors, and all that stuff. I haven’t gotten enough gold for 1 tier 3 armor. I’m curious how much time they put into the game. I’m wondering if I have to put the same amount of time, which would take me a while because of work.

Well, some of those people just get rly rly lucky. My partner has 2 commander tags, first one from a lucky The Legend(he didn’t even know what it was when he got it) 2nd one from Dusk(karka event, duhhh). The rest…like in every MMO, the more time you can play, the faster you get items. You just need to adapt your expectations to your options. T3 armour is over 100g…I wouldn’t expect to get it in less than 1 month without a serious time investment.

VictoriousMonk.7150:

Anything but farm. Dailies, achievements, map completions, etc. Is farming the only thing to do in the game?

And how do you manage to not make money? Farming(as in, killing the same mobs over and over or running the same dungeon over and over) is possibly the worst way to make money in this game. Except sPvP, but that’s a whole different story. You can make money from:
- resource gathering
- dungeons
- WvWvW
- jumping puzzles
- dragon events
- various small stuff: map completion(that made me 15g for the pve part), various achievements that require you to kill things(daily, slayer, weapon master)
The problem is when you want to make 10g/h by running around. That just…won’t happen.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

It’s also on the hands of the designer to build encounters that take advantage of the combat depth. Say what you will about WoW and it’s trinity, but a lot of encounters do take advantage of the combat depth…. because it’s not just dps/tank/heal, it’s different styles of these which all have pros and cons. A tank warrior isn’t always the ideal choice, bear druids have lots of armor, dodge, and are better at handling aggro of groups rather than single target; similarly the prot pally is a hybrid that’s incredibly effective against undead (only played up the BC so I’m not sure how deathknights fit in). Sometimes effective tanking isn’t maximizing defenses like block, parry, dodge, and armor because you still have to generate a certain amount of rage (which is generated more from taking dmg than skills).

I do think GW2 has a lot better combat system in terms of potential, but the execution of encounters really doesn’t make you feel a synergy between classes. In many respects, it really does play a lot like D3 in the sense everyone is just adding a little something to the encounter than really needing to work together in a truly cooperative sense. Some encounters in GW2 are better than others, but often time the cooperation is more that someone (or a few folks) needs to interact with something while everyone else is doing business as usual. It’s not like "oh this boss takes heavy damage from combos, so we should really switch our skills around to maximize the ability to create and finish combos.

They do. And then people find ways to avoid the deep combat. I personally don’t like GW2 combat, but not because there is smth wrong with it, but because…I’m diehard healer and it’s severely lacking in that department. But it is just like every other game on the market. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn’t require more/less skill, effort, team work, knowledge, adapting, reaction time etc. And, yes, I adjust my playstyle, change traits and utilities/elite based on the situation/party. Just because people don’t do that doesn’t mean it’s not in the game. It just means that people are lazy(that’s also why no matter how many people kick about more challenging content, once it comes, people look for ways to simplify it through exploits).

VictoriousMonk.7150:

God Of Fissures.8627:

there is no fun way to make money in this game. it is all a repetitive grind.

Totally. As someone who works 40 hours a week, I want to play the game when I get home and have fun. I don’t want to farm. That is absolutely boring to me. I don’t think I can ever afford all the tier 3 cultural armor.

Just wondering…what do you actually do in the game?

I had this once…we all entered the dungeon)separately) and then exited, ending up in the same overflow. It seems to automatch parties on the same channel after you go out, so…yeah…

Combat depth is in the hands of the player. It’s neither better nor worse than the combat system in any other MMO. Buttonmashing is what bad players do in every game(including supposedly revolutionary MMOs like GW2, Tera, B&S), skill planning, timing, positioning is what good players do in every MMO. I’d actually say, dodging makes it easier(although I think it’s broken in GW2, because the invul frame isn’t always synced with the actual dodge animation)…especially compared to having to move out of range to avoid a skill in some other games. All of this(dodging, targeting etc) has always been there, just nobody advertised it…

The most effective way to battle gold sellers I’ve ever seen was to simply outbid them. The game adjusted cash shop prices(and pretty much the entire game economy) in such way that selling cash shop items would generate you the same gold/$ ratio as buying from a gold seller(and since nobody wants to risk a ban for nothing….gold sellers just left due to no business…oh, and when they’d return to check the market, they’d face some funny chat filters, like, if smb would type “1000g for $10” it’d turn into “banhammer for $10” etc). As long as ANet refuses to do that for the gem market, GW2 will always have gold sellers and the bots to match….

Fabsm.5897:

Then… what is “skill”? Who is the “skilled” player, or better, the skilled TEAMS?

I think that:
- dodging at the right time and knowing when to retreat
- using your abilities at the right moment
- coordinating with your group and doing teamwork
- focusing the right target when there is need to burst
- adapting your strategies to the group

is what a skilled TEAM has to do.

At the contrary, the unskilled team:
- whines because it is instagibbed by boss abilities (solution: tank and trinity, so i can tunnelvision heal or pew pew DPS without interruption)
- whines because their abilities have too long CDs and they can’t DPS/heal (solution: specialize roles and give more specialized abilities)
- whines because there is no structure and tactics (solution: trinity)
- whines because feels it should do much more damage and the boss have too much health (solution: specialized roles so i can pew pew more)
- whines because some bosses are too hard (solution: trinity)

but, read, the solutions are already there. Up in the previous list. I don’t think that the skill of the player should have to limit to “building a good spec”. It is part of the game, but the most important is TEAMWORK.

I’ve been looking for a way to say this for 2 days now… Ultimately, GW2 is not more or less skilled based than any other MMO out there. It just seems to attracted mostly dps players who think that it requires more skill just because now they have to do a fraction of what tanks and healers do all the time… Kind of sad though…

Hologramx.6402:

Everyone can be a tank.

Ammm, no. Actually, nobody can be a tank in GW2. Because the defining characteristic of a tank is aggro control. It’s not dmg soaking or mitigation or defence. Those are just bonuses that are utterly worthless if you can’t keep the enemy on you. And since GW2 has no real aggro table and no means of generating aggro…everybody can be tanky, but nobody can be a tank.

penatbater.4710:

I think you CAN be a healer in this game. One thing you must take note is you CANNOT only just heal. You have to heal + give buffs + damage. It’s not like the old trinity where you don’t hit the mobs at all, and simply heal everyone. You can heal everyone, but you have to contribute damage as well (as well as support stuff like conditions, boons, knockbacks/blocks/daze/stun/stealth/etc.)

The old trinity? Like, how old? Last century? Because in the last 5 years any healer in any game I played had to heal+give buffs+debuff enemy(negative buffs and often removing buffs)+dps+anticipate attacks. And that’s just a small fraction of pve, pvp is usually even more demanding. You try keeping 24 people alive in a pvp situation while every enemy is trying to get you and then tell me how “simple” it is. Seriously, people who never played a healer shouldn’t talk about what it is like….

Tolmos.8395:

Ascended gear is here to stay. In fact, they flat out gave a middle finger to their entire forum playerbase and said “obviously everyone loves it”.

That should tell you how they feel about forum input.

The general discussion is only here because if it wasn’t, an unofficial one would pop up. The problem with that is they couldn’t moderate it themselves, so a lot of the more negative and critical posts wouldn’t be able to be deleted like they are here.

I realized when they made the blog post about how much of a “success” fractals were that it was basically a message to the forum posters saying ‘know your place’.

Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, they actually have access to game logs and know what’s happening in there? And that it’d be unfair to change fotm just because 20 people kick and scream on the forums while there are 20 000 people running fotm on daily basic? Unlike you, the devs can actually see those numbers and decide on what the majority thinks without even reading the forums. They don’t need you to tell them if fotm is a fail or success, the playerbase already did that(obviously, the big picture was in favour of the dungeon and it is a success).

JemL.3501:

Atleast you dont get bashed now that the party gets wipped or you dont have to say: please can you get out of the void zone?

The blame-game only works on inexperienced/new healers. For one, the healer knows who screwed up and why the wipe/death happened(doesn’t matter how much u scream bout heals, I saw you were standing in that aoe because knowing where everybody is and what they are doing is part of my job). For two, good healers eventually get in good parties with other good players(who know what they are doing and don’t play the blame game). For three, healers do it to themselves. I had a brief dps career recently and saw so many healers who apologised to me after I derped and died(I spanked each and every one of them for it, healers should rly learn that not every bad thing that happens is their fault and that taking the blame for smth that wasn’t your fault to begin with is what makes others think you are a bad healer…the tank and the rest of the dps…they don’t know what really happened because it’s not their job to know it so if you say it was your fault, they believe it….even if smb else screwed up).

Cina Reas.6938:

A-nets restriction of the average players ability to aquire, via resonable effort, status symbols is a mistake that they will pay for in loss of players and thus loss of income.

Define “reasonable effort”. Is that 1 week? 1 month? 6 months? And don’t forget you are talking about a “status symbol”.

Avatara.1042:

What patch? It was working just last week, as long as you did not use the Signet of Air.

I just checked…necro with 10% ms signet runs just as fast as I do with one with air… That’s a pretty “grrr”-moment…cause i liked the idea(never thought of testing it before, somehow doesn’t feel like it’s actually slower….)….

bri.2359:

@Andykay
I understand where you are coming from, I work with statistical analysis every day. However, with MMO game loot drops and functionality we are not dealing with a natural system where standard principles of randomness applies.

We have no idea what tweaks Anet does with the weekly ‘maintenance’ updates, Sure, they make drop announcement for things like special events, but for the weekly updates and you can be assured anything like loot drop tweaks would not be made public.

The game is still very young, and I am sure Anet hasn’t settled on a ‘sweet spot’ yet for loot balance. This is why we get so many threads on nerfed drop rates for this and that. Put simply, Anet are in control and we never know from one week to the next how things are going to play out.

If you work with statistics, you know what a bell curve is, right? And that it’s pretty much guaranteed to have people with extremely bad results while also having people with extremely good results. Those who feel “cheated by the system” are also bound to come here and complain while those who are happy are less likely to bother. I get most of my ectos from my partner. On daily basis I get to watch him salvage 4 rares with a basic kit and get ~10 ectos out of it(think his lowest score was 8 ectos from 4 rares and he gets 12 more often than. But then again, he’s the luckiest gamer I’ve ever seen… if there actually is a problem, don’t you think everybody would be feeling it instead of just selected few?

jaw drop Try this: Check how much gold you make doing what you enjoy. Set your expectations based on that. If you are not making a few g/day, you should probably realise that spvp doesn’t give you gold, because you don’t need gold in spvp. That’d make your time in GW2 a lot more enjoyable.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Play Final Fantasy XI.
All about gear and soaking damage as Tank.

Sure u can dodge in GW2 and Tera but there is no substance when ur handycapped in combat because u have to have a healer to babysit you. That’s right, I used that term before because it’s what it is. If you NEED a healer to look after you because you lack the abilities to stay alive, then that’s a problem. This game has it done combat differently. I like how it is. It could use improvements at times but those improves are NOT to add the trinity roles that will ruin what “we” like about this game.

Thus, leading some of us here to GW2.

Never played and if what you say is true, that’s a very bad game design…

I’ll assume you played Tera…any class can solo a BAM. Without a healer. Heck, my last month there in pve….I healed less than 10% of the time(or provided any defensive support). Because my party was so good, I could focus entirely on offensive support(or go make coffee, they wouldn’t notice anyway). I can also find some old Aika videos of various classes soloing various dungeons. Heck, in 9Dragons healers were obsolete. The support role has evolved a lot in the last 5 years, most players just seem to have missed that…

Somewhere, smb on this forum said that…s/he thought dungeons would be runnable with random classes, not that the whole roles would be deleted. I mentioned ArcheAge earlier…what do you think of that design?

Oxstar.7643:

Wow, presumptious much? I outheal every ele in pve and in pvp I’m a bunker which I’m doing great at – I win most games I’m in.

Because, like every good healer will tell you, hps is the most important thing…oh, wait, no, that’s what bad healers think while good healers know that hps is literally irrelevant.

Another thing is, imagine you’re constantly confronted with inappropriate language all over the forums – or you’re a new user who will be disturbed by the forums because of the use of such words.

And that’s why people suggested **** or some other funny stuff, like, smth that doesn’t result in open animal cruelty…. Seen a censor go for [I have a potty mouth], which was nice….when the same censor started changing w**** to “saint”(one of the playable classes, locked to a 12-14 yo girl)…it didn’t last long for obvious reasons(still, “LF saint CHell” was never the same)…

[Edit by Moderator]

Anyway, bout the topic…the issue is not with the trinity system itself but in the way it’s implemented. Most games just do it wrong, by presenting healers and/or tanks as boring(while often they aren’t even close to that) which results in less people attracted to those classes -> demand can’t be met. Tera solved the problem sort of OK. 2 tank classes, 2 healer classes, 4 dpsers. Wait times would only arise when there simply aren’t people running the dungeon(i’ve waited for dps often enough, to the point where i rolled one myself xD) and not so much due to a lack of xxx role. ArcheAge seems to have hit the gold mine(if the CBT material is accurate). GW2….I think they just went about it wrong by completely removing the system instead of improving it(aka, making healer/tank just as fun to play as a dps…and not just on the inside, but on the outside as well). It kind of feels like somewhere, somebody had exactly that in mind…but it got lost on the way….

@DreamyAbaddon.3265: That’s either some pretty bad games you played or just some pretty bad players. For one, dmg soaking is not even the most important aspect of a tank(that’d be aggro…and often dps). Good healers roll with good parties which puts us at a support position and not that of a babysitter. Oh, and I’ve had supposedly squishy dpsers tank dungeons for me without a problem.

Twitchz.6407:

I believe its a play on the ‘Every time you say a bad word, god kills a kitten’ thing. That’s only my opinion though.

And then you read….when kitten hits the fan…and reach a whole new level of holy kitten….

Plunder.8195:

I just wanted to point out that using CET/CEST could be confusing. Especially for people playing from countries without summer/winter time.

Same logic, GMT can be confusing for people who live in countries with summer/winter time. You either know your basic time zones or you don’t(and, c’mon, Europe has 4 of them, it’s not rocket science). Besides, CET is local time for most countries which should actually make it easier…

penatbater.4710:

Do it for the pixels! and the medal :P

^This. There is no actual progression reason to craft a legendary. It’s purely cosmetic and will likely always be(having in mind the current easiness of obtaining exotic gear and that ascended will probably be based around the same principle…it’d take 100 new tiers for legendary to end up cheaper than simply upgrading to the new weapon type that comes).

digiowl.9620:

The combat system is basically designed to force us to use position and movement as the primary defensive mechanism. In other words, the game is focused around kiting!

Except they screwed that up as well, by reducing ms when you are fighting stuff instead of running away from it.

Anyway…no healers. GW2 doesn’t offer what a real healer player needs. You either get over it or get over the game. I’m just casually playing it(cause, ya know, no sub and all) and waiting for that other game…the one with 120 playable classes…just hope it’ll be p2p and not p2w.

BG JPs give 4-5 badges per chest, so that’s 12-15/day. EB JP gives 13-15(i’ve ran it on lvl 17-26-80 chars, same on all). The BG is generally about luck: are there people in or not. EB…if you make it to the first fountain, you are good to go(the stealth will get you to the dark room and from there on people rarely attack, 2nd fountain near the chest will get you clear from the really mean campers). If you don’t…try again later. Once you get used to the jumps, the puzzles are easy and all you need to get the badges.

alcopaul.2156:

are you oblivious to the fact that drop rates can be adjusted at will? if they can twitch numbers at will, they can certainly do it to their rng, customizing it for those who thought that a.net was stupid or namecalled for adding ascended gear.

Because, obviously, everybody working for ANet is an immature brat, right? From what I can tell, there is 1 ring per run, so everybody has 20% chance to get it. Now, the game has some system in place to decide who does and what stats come with it. BUT for the player it’s pure luck. So, yes, when you don’t get the ring, youw ere just as unlucky as the other 3 people in your party who didn’t get the ring. Besides, for every player that gets 8 rings out of 9 tries, there are 32 players who didn’t get a ring at that run. Bell curve and all…

Pretty much that…ctrl+1(to change keyboard language) crashes the game. It went from a nuisance to grrr when I started crashing in the middle of fotm….

DigitalKirin.9714:

Salient points! I like the thoughtfulness of this argument. I will respond with this:

I think a reasonable amount of equity is important, so long as you balance it with your other values.

To take one of your examples for now, the French peasantry and bourgeoisie rose up against the Nobility for several reasons, but the main factors that fomented resentment and rebellion was the price increase of basic necessities such as bread, leading to widespread starvation. The common frenchman was not afforded their basic human rights. The culprits of this was the Nobility, who selfishly attempted to protect themselves – a basic human reaction as well.

To counterpoint: Nobility still exists in many cultures today. Let’s take England. Why haven’t the common people of England torn down the walls of the Palace and taken Prince Harry out into the street to be hanged? They still live in a monarchy (constitutional monarchy) where just being born to the right person means you get to live in a palace. It’s because people in England are afforded their basic human rights and opportunities – the right to live, protection under a common law, etc.

Bout your counterpoint…that’s exactly what happened during the October revolution and all the events that followed it.

As for why it’s not happening now…most likely because royalty has little meaning nowadays. But people still revolt against the government(look at recent events in Greece). We have also found a certain amount of fairness in that situation. Ok, I don’t get to live in a palace, which sucks. But I can dress in WWII German uniform and go to a mask-ball without ending on the front page of a newspaper with everybody screaming “bloody murderer” at me. Pretty good trade-off for most people. And the entire reason yellow press even exists: to make us feel better about not living in a palace.

I agree that it is important to compare prices! So long as we’re talking about apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

So, you would buy $20/kilo oranges because you don’t think of comparing them to the $1/kilo apples and buying the apples instead? Let me guess. You are a guy xD

If the exact same exotic dagger could be purchased from a vendor for 10s instead of 300 tokens from a different vendor, then it only makes sense to get it from the 10s vendor because the vast majority of us can agree that the amount of effort to acquire 300 tokens from any dungeon is more difficult than acquiring 10s.

I’ll go on to preempt the next point made about the above statement. If the 10s vendor popped into existence tomorrow, you’d certainly hear a lot of crying on the forums about it. However, at the time, the 300 tokens that those people spent to buy the dagger in the first place was worth it at that time. The existence of this new vendor doesn’t change the value decision those people made at that time.

The thing is, though, in the game weapon sets are pretty much equal. Crafting 1 staff costs pretty much the same as crafting 1 dagger. They both give you 1 sigil slot, yet 1 dagger will only give you 2/3 skills. The dagger is inferior to staff in what it gives, yet costs the same. Getting 2 daggers will bring you pretty much on par with the staff(+1 extra sigil, which I also find unfair), but at double the cost. When it comes to normal weapons, it’s…meh. But when it comes to legendaries, that double the cost thing becomes pretty significant.

I’ll throw one more example your way.

Let’s say GW2 costs $60. And let’s say Half Life 3 comes out for $90, but you find yourself enjoying HL3 twice as much as GW2. Should Anet reduce the price of GW2 to $45?
Anet chose the price point of $60 because they felt it was a reasonable amount of money for the game they were producing. People paid that price to play because they felt it was a reasonable amount to pay for a game like this. Some people choose to save their money and not play GW2 and get HL3. Are those people who are potentially having twice as much fun as you with their HL3 going to really upset you because they got more fun for their money?

Again, already happened. When Tera came out, it was 50-70 bucks. When GW2 came out…Tera went down to 30 and is currently $20. And if you think about it, ANet didn’t just pull that number out of a lucky hat. Pretty much every p2p/b2p game is around 50-70 bucks on release. It’s not like GW2 is 65, x2 game is 250 and x3 game is 5. They don’t just pick a number that sounds right, they compare their game to other games and base their price on that. Because that’s what most people would spend on a game.

Fungalstorm.8593:

Thanks for the brisk replies. As I mentioned in my OP, I do have a biased knowledge of how RP goes based on roughly 6 years of playing on a pvp server in wow; wherein saying you RP was met with unanimous cruelty and rudeness.

From these replies so far, I’v gathered that RPing is more of a persistent state of play rather than a scheduled or spontaneous event; i.e. my character Lord Bidwell is a certain way always and thus I personally respond to all situations as if I were him. That sounds fairly fun and immersive, however I must admit that constantly being in character sounds like a pretty daunting challenge. For example, if I accidentally say something out of character at the wrong time I could end up spoiling other peoples’ fun which is obviously the exact opposite of what I’m going for here.

Edit: This is an issue because I love to be part of gchat discussions, often regardless of topic.

Edit 2: Is it permissible to be member of multiple guilds at once and still be illegible for RP events? I just think that given my weakness for juvenile humor and pop-culture jokes it might be best for me to have a secondary place where that behavior is less damaging.

Smb already suggested that you build your char around your personality. That way anything you say will basically be “in character”. It’s not like you have to create this very different person and GW2 allows for a good variety of char types. So, you are juvenile? What stops you from creating your persona to be juvenile and enjoy the same kind of humour and activities you do?
As for making your character “believable”….you don’t have to really. It’s your story. If it involves being raised by wolves(hey, that actually did happen in real life…sort of), that’s your choice. You just need to have a basic idea of what your character is like and how s/he would react to certain situations. Which is not that hard if you based it on yourself. You also don’t need a “full” story as it evolves every time you play. Some grey spots are allowed and can be cleared up in time(like, if you can’t come up with a good childhood story, play the mystery card….you just don’t want to talk about it…eventually smth will happen and give you an idea how to fill in the blanks…amnesia is also a good one for beginners…as in, you have no story).
As for guilds…you have to ask the guild you’d like to join. Afaik, there is no universal rule and I personally see no reason for anybody to stop you from joining another guild(heck, it can even be an RP story itself…your dark side…spying on smb…etc)

EDIT: Just realised smth…you talking about RPing as if you never did it before. But you have. probably still do. Think about the games you played as a kid. Table cloth around your neck, running around to save the world? Cowboys and indians? Pretending to be a cop/doctor/fireman/knight? All of those games are basically RP. And more recently…telling your friends a made-up story about a girl? Telling a girl a made-up story about a fight? Heck, every time you flirt with smb or tell a lie you are most likely RPing….

You really seem to have some biased information about how RPing goes.
In general, RP players are very tolerant, there shouldn’t be stuff as “forcing you to RP when you don’t feel like it” or “RP raids” that everyone has to attend to. BUT if you are in an RP “event”, you can’t just randomly break character(because that would spoil it for others). You can, however excuse yourself and leave. The excuse would have to fit in the ongoing story though.
Whether you can just “let loose” depends on the rest. If everybody else is RPing, you can’t. It just isn’t…polite(would be like throwing a football on the chess table while people are playing chess and then laughing). BUT you can create your character in such way that it actually fits in(like…multiple personality disorder…hit on the head as a child and a bit slow…that kind of stuff).
As for how the story itself is created…one person(or a group) would come up with the theme. After that everyone just..rolls with it. As in, it’s not scripted, every participant contributes to it and it evolves in real time.
Limitations come from the big story itself(and from the game people are playing). Playing “god” is not really a good idea…unless everybody is playing a god(like,you are all pretending to be some ancient gods on a mission to do w/e). Bascially, your role has to fit in with others in some way.
Swearing….if you mean being “verbally abusive towards guild members”…I don’t think that’s allowed in any guild. Fart jokes….can be tolerated, depending on the situation and the character you’ve built for yourself. But don’t be surprised if you say smth fart-funny and it’s met with complete silence…
Ultimately, maintaining the story is the most(and only) important thing. You are free to do anything within it as long as it fits. And it’s up to your imagination and outside-the-box thinking that came make pretty much anything fit. Just dun randomly play god unless you got drunk before.

PS: General RP stuff, not GW2 specific.

Danikat.8537:

The important point is that the money is also appearing out of no where.

That ettin you just looted 10s from didn’t earn it by selling crafting materals to a centaur, who lost 10s to gain the mats. It appeared out of no where when you looted the corpse. Similarly there isn’t a finite amount of money to go around. Someone looting that centaur won’t have to get mats instead of silver, and if someone else comes along and kills the ettin later they won’t get nothing because it hasn’t had time to earn more money. If more people are out there killing and looting things, or they’re killing things faster it would just pour more and more money into the economy.

UNLESS there’s an equivilent system to regularly remove money from the system to keep it balanced.

You can’t really compare a virtual economy to a real one, but I’ve seen a few virtual ones with no gold sinks and trust me, it doesn’t really work. It ends up like UO 10 years ago (not sure if they’ve changed it since) with people selling fairly common items for hundreds of gold and anything actually worth having for millions. Which is do-able for those who have a lot of time to play because they’ve got all this money coming in and nothing else to spend it on, but it means new players and those with limited play-time are priced out of the market even more than in most games.

There are gold sinks and gold sinks. People easily get over repair costs, travel costs, buying stuff from NPCs(the most epic gold sink I saw was an NPC selling lottery baggies, within 2 weeks more than half the gold was removed from the economy, because people really wanted to gamble for that 1 awesome item with 0.00001% drop rate) etc. But the TP is badly designed and this is why:
1. You basically get a fake price when selling an item. It’s says 2g and then your projected profit is noticeable less.
2. The tax is not reflected anywhere. It shows you a price and a listing fee. You’d expect your profit to be the price minus the fee. But it’s actually lower, again, noticeably so.
3. This actually bugs me the most. Items don;t expire. Ever. So, if today I enlist xxx item for 100g and in 2 weeks the price is 50g…I either have to accept that I just lost the listing fee and tax(which is not small on a 100g item) or keep that item in hopes that maybe…one day…price will be 100g again.
4. No trading system forces people into using the TP to avoid scamming(seriously, what were the devs thinking?!) and is literally setting you up to lose. If I have a precursor that I don’t need and it’s around the price of the precursor I do need…I can’t just trade A for B. I have to pay 20g+. For what? So I don’t get scammed. This is the first game I’ve ever seen that takes measures to make scamming easier instead of harder.

Lastly, as I said, I played a game where the tax money wasn’t “sunk”. And the economy was doing just fine with other gold sinks(repairs, special crystals to enter high lvl dungeons, build changing). Strangely enough, nobody was complaining about those… And it’s not like GW2 allows you to make massive amounts of gold out of thin air anyway….

PS: How on Earth do you know what etins do in their free time? Maybe they work hard for their loot xD

I have a staff ele and it feels awesome. I perform much much better compared to d/d and everything just melts in front of me… So, ammm, I disagree.

Edge.4180:

When a game is heavily advertised to favor skill over gear, but gear differences are allowing one person to dominate compared to the other, how can you claim “working as intended” when that’s not the advertised intention? And I’m not talking about a case where one character is wearing junk that is not appropriate for his level, but instead about two characters wearing gear appropriate for their level but one of them being so much more powerful because the scaling mechanic that is meant to put them on roughly equal footing is failing to come reasonable close to that.

You seriously believe the skill>gear thing? Like, for real? I’m not sure if you are delusional, naive or just new to MMOs. The only reason people get exotics in the first place is because it matters. Gear will always make a difference if it gives stats. Same with skills. If they don’t make you stronger than those who don’t have them…what’s the point in getting them?

The developers love to discuss how every feature in their game is aimed at making you excited to have other players around (rather than dread their competitive presence). Whether it’s resource node sharing to events scaling according to population, you’re supposed to be happy when another player shows up. But the fun that many associate with challenging gameplay is easily ruined when someone (or a bunch of someones) enters an event and their overpowered nature turns that challenge into a cakewalk. Again, how can you claim “working as intended” when that’s not the advertised intention?

Really? I spent 50% of my time in CF(as a lvl 80 staff ele in full exotics) and till now only got “ty for helping” and a few lowbies asked me if I needed a staff, cause they just dropped a lvl 5 one(that was rly cute xD). Been reading these topics for a few days now and still waiting for someone, anyone, to complain that I ruined their experience(from what I’ve seen MMO players aren’t just too polite or shy to say when smth annoys them).

And, finally, the whole concept of us earning rewards that are appropriate for our actual level (even when we’re playing a max level character in a zone aimed at players half our level) is based on the idea that the precious balance of “risk versus reward” is being maintained. And yet, a max level character can decimate low level content so much more easily than someone of the appropriate level, and yet still earn rewards appropriate for his true level. Do I really need to explain why that’s broken? Because this is basic game balance I would think any MMO player would be familiar with.

I’m still waiting to hear what lvl appropriate rewards does a lvl 80 get in a lvl 1-15 zone. Yall keep talking bout them, yet I never saw a single one….

What exactly are you afraid of here? That you’ll visit a level 20 zone on your level 80 character and find it nearly as challenging as the level 20 players playing around you? I hate to break it to you.. but that’s pretty much how it was supposed to work. And, no, that’s not an opinion. Maybe you’re just not familiar with the design (and that would certainly explain your point of view).

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. That I spent the last 2 months leveling, unlocking skills, perfecting my build, getting gear and it was all for absolutely nothing. Other questions?

I think you forgot to log into your GW2 team member account before posting.

If it’s too easy, try the following:
- lower lvl chars
- remove gear and traits, don’t use utilities/elite skills
- play on lvl 80 maps
Any of them would solve your “challenge” problem without affecting others.

Mandar.9813:

Ighten Hill.5038:

Think yourselves lucky you dont live in the UK. We pay 20% tax just for the fun of it.. Want to travel abroad – the tax is more than the airfare..

As for the game, its a simple mechanic to take gold out of the system and control flipping on std items.

Would you like to trade places with me? I live in the US and pay nearly your taxes (about 43% of my wages, commission based, and I make under 100k a year), but my government still wants me to pay for all medical, health, dental, vision, etc too. :P. Maybe there aren’t enough people out there complaining about the sad state of how money is prioritized by the US government :P.

Also, bringing this topic back from the dead, I really don’t think it is reasonable to hold a game to real world expectancies/scenarios…and I really don’t think I need to start listing the reasons why, right?? Do I really want to escape the world of taxes (among other things) and come into a game and pay what seem like high taxes to have someone try to justify it by comparing it to the real world? NO! The last place I want to be reminded of the REAL world, and ESPECIALLY TAXES, is in a game :P. FML! hahahaha

It’s not even remotely comparable. In RL when you pay those taxes you at lleast have the hope that your money is used to pay teacher salaries(so your kids can have an education), fixing roads(so you dun need to repair your car every week or change a tire every other day) etc. In this game you know your money just goes into a black hole and will never be seen again(I played an awesome game with player-run “government” where taxes where not just deleted, but instead used to upgrade temples to make the nation stronger). And since smb up there decided that we dun need a reliable trade system, you are basically doomed to be at a loss, no matter what you do.

DigitalKirin.9714:

The relevancy is this:

How much effort is one exotic dungeon dagger worth to your thief? How much time are you willing to put into getting him/her that one dagger?

The game devs have said, “This dagger is worth 5 path runs through a dungeon.”

Is this an unreasonable amount of time to put into making your thief better?

The argument that another weapon setup costs less is irrelevant to your thief. The reason is because regardless of how much or little a different weapon costs, it doesn’t affect how much effort you are being told you have to put into your thief to make him/her better.

Tying it all in:
The game devs (the farmer) said you need to run x amount of times (work from blank until evening) to receive your weapon (the $100).
If you had said “5 runs is too much work for a dagger – it’s not fair because there are other exotic daggers that can be had for less effort” (essentially saying $100 isn’t enough money for the work you did) then I feel that is a viable point and then the debate can move to the next stage.
However, people are saying “daggers cost too much because that other guy got his weapon setup for cheaper” (the worker complaining about the other workers who got $100 even though they started in the afternoon).

If the second group of workers never appeared, the first group of workers would have no reason to complain about payment. But the amount of work they did didn’t change. And the amount they got paid didn’t change.

If tomorrow we all woke up and they had ninja patched all dungeon 2h weapons to cost 1000 tokens, would you feel justified in telling me that 1h weapons should cost 500 tokens?

Off topic:
On a broader scale, why should someone else dictate your happiness/satisfaction? Shouldn’t you be in control of it?

edit: By the way, I do want to make expressly clear that I’m discussing this in an effort to provoke thoughtfulness, not anger. I enjoy debate, philosophy, etc. and I am having a good time talking about this. I hope you are too. And with that I bid you a good night.

But that is how “fair” is determined. By comparing your situation to that of others. If your situation is the only situation, you are likely to accept it. Because you don’t know of anything different thus yours is the normal one. Think history. How did the French revolution start? Or the October revolution? The poor decided it wasn’t fair that the rich had an easier life and wanted a change. If you had the chance to go back in time, would you tell those people they shouldn’t compare themselves to others? Then why are you saying it now? What about equal rights movements? Are those also wrong because they are based on one group comparing their situation to that of another group? Or slavery? I\ll even take it down a notch. When you go shopping, do you compare prices? Or do you just buy the first thing you see? Heck, would you buy GW2 from a retailer for $100 if you knew the official site sells it for $50? Or would you say the retailer is expensive and then buy from the site? How does that fit into your logic of not looking at others?

Fact is, our entire lives are based on comparing things and deciding what is fair and what isn’t based on that. You choose your phone plan, food, even place to live based on what “others” have/pay for. It’s how we utilise information. And also how we take control of our satisfaction/happiness. Believing we live in a fair situation is a big part of it.

Edge.4180:

Mercucial.6759:

What level 5 zone are you going to that has anything even remotely worth it for a level 80?

Queensdale. Plains of Ashford. Metrica Province. Caledon Forest. Wayfarer Foothills. Pick one.

I pick CF. So, what appropriate rewards do you get there as a lvl 80?

Well, here’s the thing. I have explorer staff and 2 explorer daggers(all exotic, crafted etc). The daggers have 924-981 dmg, 64 power/precis and 3 mfind each. The staff has 985-1111 dmg, 124 power/precis, 3% mfind. Regardless of which weapon I have one(2 d/d/ or staff), my power and precision is the same. But the attack stat is 130 higher with the staff(i never quite figured out how off-hand weapon actually affects the overall dmg). From the looks of it, I get +3% mfind and 1 sigil slot extra when using a dagger in exchange for 130 attack. The rest is the same. Now…price…
Staff: 5 globs, 5 claws, 54 wood logs, 30 ori ore
2 daggers: 10 globs, 10 claws, 60 wood logs, 80 ori ore
The dagger set is almost 2 times more expensive than the staff, yet it doesn’t give 2 times the stats….
And, yes, I use staff as primary weapon, but I still think it’s…unfair. Wouldn’t it make more sense to increase price on 2h weapons, give them 2 sigil slots so it doesn’t matter what weapon set you want(at least price-wise). And maybe even the same for legendaries….

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I thought it was 4500 Karma per jug? Just a minor correction.

Last I checked, karma booster, guild buff and banner affect jugs and drops bringing jugs to almost 8k per and drops to about 700. If they changed it, I missed the patch notes and can’t log in to check right now(might forget later). So, anyway…did they actually change that?

Hydrophidian.4319:

You’ve been asked to cite support for your… shall we say… novel interpretation of the word… and you haven’t.

Because you already did it for me. Look at the definitions your buddy here gave. The first 2 are precisely my “novel interpretation of the word”. Read them. A few times if needed, until you understand what those words mean. Then come back and we can continue.

Linkent.7416:

Was about to make a thread “Grind Wars 2” but i am too busy..
Love this game.. But i cant enjoy it the way i want it to..
Eg.. Exploring.. Did all jumping puzzle.. Did all outdoor boss.. Getting dungeon master title.. Get exploring achievement..
Rewards? Zero..

While people “playing TP” gets all the gold..
People farming crabs for gold.. Grind? check
People farming 1st boss of arah3 get gold.. Grind? check
People who bought gold got the legendary..

Also
Need gear? Do dungeon 100×..
Need ascended ring/back? Do FOTM 100x
Need karma? Do plinx 1000x
Grind Wars 2..
You can do whatever you like in this game.. But to get gold.. You must grind..

Let’s see…
I’d say the reward for that would be the fun you had doing it. But that’s just me, being all about fun in games and stuff(I know it’s not a very popular position on these forums…)
Getting 5-10g/day…check
Playing the TP? No
Farming crab? Ammm, no…what are those?
Farming first boss of arah3? Is that, like, an exploit or smth? Been to arah once only, with a party, didn’t like it much, never went again.
Buying gold? That’s just silly….

Need gear? No, I have 2 full sets of exotics(armour, jewellery, staves) and a set of exotic daggers for kicks. Farming dungeons for it? I have like…10 total dungeon runs(not counting fotm), so…no, not really….
Need ascended ring/back? No, I don’t want to farm fotm 20+, thus I don’t need to farm fotm 100 times for ring and back.
Need karma? Yeah. Get like ~10k a day(20k when I misclick and end up in WvWvW). While you are here, can you tell me what “plinx” is?

Grind comes when you set your goals before your gameplay. If you look at what you like doing and based your expectations on that, you’ll “grind” a whole lot less.