@Xhean
I was under the impression that light fields are frowned upon in wvw and zerg play, because they interfere with blasting fire fields and water fields for group healing and might. This goes for regrouping and stacking as well. Also, for group swiftness during zerg roaming, lighting fields from eles are far more effective.
I mean, if you need to travel from point A to point B, and it would usually take you 20 seconds, and you use swiftness to grant 33% movement speed increase for the entire duration, it should then only take you around 15 seconds to get there. However, if you use symbol of swiftness, it means standing still for 5 seconds to get the full duration, in which case it would actually still take you 20 seconds to get there…
So, as you can see, having to stand still to move faster is obscenely counter productive, and completely negates the movement speed bonus outright in many cases. You don’t even benefit a tiny little bit from it, unless you use it on the move, in which case you may only get 4 seconds of swiftness at a time with a 15 second cooldown (not counting boon duration increases or traits).
Maybe you’re using the symbol wrong, what if the symbol isn’t thought of as traveling from point A to point B the fastest, what if it’s main idea is to get your group to keep up maximum speed during combat. Cause if you put SoS down under you during fighting you are most definite going to have swiftness on you all throug the fight. Maybe you sohuld use retreat for traveling 20 sec distances between A and B, and if you need more one tick of SoS on each cooldown will increase it pretty substantially.
Even if the point is to give your party maximum speed in combat, it still doesn’t function properly, because it still requires your party members to stay in one area, which limits movement and leaves them vulnurable to enemy attacks. The point of fast movement speed in combat is usually to either chase enemies or to kite them. You won’t be completing either of those tasks efficiently if you’re busy standing in a symbol while your enemy runs away, and you certainly can’t kite efficiently if you’re trying to stay inside a small area to get max swiftness duration.
As for retreat, I was wondering when that skill would come into the discussion. Personally, I don’t think it’s a very effective swiftness skill, because it’s overall swiftness up-time relative to its cooldown is quite low. Sure you could combine it with SoS to extend the duration of swiftness, and thus the uptime, but all that means is using two skills to serve the same function that other classes can already achieve with just one skill, or even with just a single trait. I don’t see how that could be considered balanced.
I’d say guardians are one of the more balanced classes right now. Aside from some issues with spirit weapons, most of our skills are useful and have viable applications in a variety of builds, from consecrations, to shouts, to meditations (the last of which were given a nice buff recently). We don’t have any “terrible” weapons and our dps is actually very good for a class with so many defensive buffs. We’re also always useful in groups in dungeons and fractals thanks to reflects, blocks, stability, blinds, group heals and group condition removal, none of which is unwelcome. We certainly have a lot to offer.
I’d say our only real shortfalls involve condition builds and mobility. Comparing that to some of the shortfalls of other classes, and it doesn’t seem so bad. O_o
I’m also tired of outfits coming out all the time. Firstly, to me it’s silly being able to wear heavy looking armor outfits on a light armor class and visa versa. If ANet wanted to break the wall between class armor weight appearance themes, then why not just allow us to transmute any armor weight appearance onto any class already and be done with it?
Aside from that, I’m never going to buy an outfit, ever, simply because I can’t take pieces of it and mix it with other armor. There are lots of limitations, too many to make them appealing, and there’s no way I’m going to support a trend where rather than giving us three unique looking armor sets at a time, they now just give us one outfit with massive limitations, for all three armor weights.
Lastly, I’d like some armor sets that I can actually acquire in game. I’ve support ANet by buying some stuff on the gem store, but I don’t want to feel like I’m just playing gem store wars 24/7. I want some actual game content and in game rewards as well, I don’t just want gem store stuff for the rest of the game’s lifespan.
If you’re going for a scepter in particular, it might be best to focus on a one-handed build. I personally run a 2/6/6/0/0 build with right hand strength and monks focus with meditations. I wouldn’t go 4 in zeal for scepter power, because it would mean giving up one of two superior grand master traits (monks focus/right hand strength). Also, the 10% damage bonus from radiant power minor trait makes up for the 10% damage you would have gotten from scepter power anyway (it’s actually superior because it benefits all weapons, not just scepter). You can use a scepter/torch, with sword/focus alt and benefit from being adept at both ranged and melee combat.
Here’s an example of the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRArf8dnkIS1Q2NEuDB/QmIeQs+TrNVF46fBzB-TVhSwAAWEQiyvoq/MT/QIlgAA-w
(NOTE: I didn’t choose any runes or sigils, because that’s subjective to tastes and play style, you can pop in whatever you like and see how it affects the build. Also right hand strength doesn’t reflect in the crit chance shown, so always add 15% to the crit chance to get a more accurate view).
I think it’s a really versatile build because you’ll have a very high crit chance and damage, especially with the 15% crit chance bonus from right hand strength. You’ll also have good access to blocks and blinds, which makes stacking much easier, and you’ll be able to switch from melee to ranged as the situation calls for it, while still doing good damage. You can go full zerker if you want, but because of the 15% crit bonus from right hand strength and fury from meditations, you can give up some zerker gear for valkyrie gear if you want more life (You could also go for some celestial or soldiers while still easily maintaining over 50% crit chance).
One thing I have noticed is that fury from meditations does, in fact, apply to nearby allies as well, so there is some measure of support in the build. If you want more support you can take points from zeal and add them to virtues for inspired virtues. Also, thanks to justice is blind and renewed justice traits and the blind on sword and focus, you can blind enemies quite regularly in stacking situations which can prevent a lot of damage to your group in both dungeons and fractals (you also apply vulnerability with blinds so you increase group dps as well).
I think this kind of build would make the most of the damage of the scepter, while still giving you good melee options.
Although I understand the sentiment, especially if your phobia is severe, I would think that for most people, having a way to enable “avoidance” of the fear is just that… another way of avoiding the fear.
I realize you’re asking for an option, not a removal of the fear-inducing stuff. I’m just not convinced that it’s actually helpful to the people with those phobias, even if they might think it is.
Avoidance is a valid coping mechanism and there is literally nothing wrong with it. Removing a stressful stimulus to allow for people to not have to deal with stuff that distresses them is helpful.
@OP sorry about the insensitive people. Personally I think it’d be a good idea, especially if it could be extended to various types of mobs to cover as many phobias as possible. Accessibility is always a good thing in my books.
While the odd person has been insensitive, the others bring up valid points as to why implementing this kind of mechanic would be impractical. For example, if you choose to replace spiders with earth elementals, then what about attack animations? How do you synergize them properly for earth elementals shooting webs, or to show them coming down from the ceiling like spiders do?
Or, what if I have a fear of crustaceans, and I use a potion to replace all the Karka in Southsun Cove with bears? How will ANet show the Karka rolling attack? By making bears roll? If so, then that’s just more programming for more animations for more creatures. Not only would they have to program it so bears can roll, they’d have to do it for every single other creature type or model that the player might decide to replace Karka with. This would involve tons of resources and development time, which could instead be used improve other underdeveloped aspects of the game that need much more attention.
That’s just an example, but the point remains, the suggestion as a whole is impractical. I don’t think there’s any easy way to resolve the problem if someone happens to have a phobia regarding something in a game (for example, how would you solve a phobia regarding heights or deep water?), so in my opinion, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to simply expect gamers to avoid games or game content that involves their particular phobia, if it is truly that unbearable. If Devs are just trying to cater for every single phobia out there, they’d be going at it forever.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
A cool idea for a stealth elite would be a skill that stealths you for 3 seconds (the typical, untraited duration), but that lets you attack or perform actions without breaking the stealth.
It has to be a short duration for obvious reasons and if you use another stealth skill on top of it, it overwrites it (so you can’t extend the elite’s duration).
Aside from that, perma stealth has all kinds of issues, so I’d be against it. Lots of content would become unbalanced with that kind of mechanic.
I have a guildy who has a phobia of spiders and in real life, wouldn’t be seen in the same room as one (or most other bugs for that matter). But, in game he’s fine killing them, I guess because he knows they are not real. To be honest, I’ve never understood why people would apply the same fears to a virtual world as they do to the real world. I have a fear of heights in real life but that hasn’t stopped me from doing JP’s in GW2 (though strangely enough, I do sometimes get this weird sinking feeling when I fall from a high height in game).
I’m honestly against these kinds of changes though. Aside from the mechanical issues, I think they detract too much from the areas of the game that actually do need improvement, or divert resources that could be used to instead introduce more pertinent, meaningful gameplay content.
Symbols are fine as is. I cannot see why you can’t benefit from them as much as I or my party / teams are able to do. In WvW roaming (solo, small group & full group) and PvP conquest mode we are / I am able to get the full benefit in most situations, no matter the weapon set and play style.
You seem to be in doubt about the ability to stay on a symbol for its full duration, and about the inability of your foes to not leave it. Well, just look at the whole spectrum of weapon skills, traits, utilities, self-sufficient and team-related synergies: You have lots of stationary control over your opponents in offensive play, and you can mitigate a great deal of (melee) damage via blocks (mace #3 even is an AoE block on low cooldown!), blinds, evades, reactionary control and melee damage pressure in defensive play.
In PvE, mobs are dumb enough to just stand in your AoE. State of the art dungeoneering relies on heavy stacking. The only problem with symbols might be, that – if you don’t know what you are doing or you’re not paying attention – you might screw up a whole might-stacking rotation. As long as you pay attention and communicate with your mates, it’s no big deal.
Changing anything about the current symbols would just break so much stuff and either make them over- or underperforming. I wouldn’t want that to happen, just for the sake of making some stuff more accessible in-transit. Please try to think more about how everything relates on a wider field of view than than your personal wish for better access to swiftness, and try out some different play styles if symbols don’t feel right for you at the moment. They are great, you can use them efficiently on every weapon set, and they are extremely powerful in team play, even without any changes to them.
I don’t think there’s any problem with the mechanics of symbols as a whole. The only symbol that actually has a mechanical issue, is the symbol of swiftness. While it makes sense to stand in an AOE to get protection, regen or retaliation, all of which suggest a bunker-type, “hold this position” style of play, swiftness is another matter altogether because it promotes movement as opposed to promoting holding an area or stacking with your team.
Swiftness on a symbol is just poor gameplay design. In no way does it benefit stacking and standing still in one place in the manner that regeneration, protection and retaliation do. In fact, standing in one place to get the benefits of swiftness, which allows players to move faster, is completely contradictory and counterproductive. That’s why I believe that swiftness should be moved to the line of warding, and that the symbol of swiftness on the staff should be changed to something else that promotes stacking or staying in an area more. A symbol of aegis would be epic of course, but it would also be OP.
That’s fine though. In fact, temporal curtain was what I had in mind when I thought of the line of warding idea for gaining swiftness. As far as I am concerned, the idea of running in one spot, or standing still to go “faster” is just absurd to begin with. You use swiftness because you want to move around faster, not so that you can stay in one place… faster… X__x
Funny enough, Mesmers asked for quite a while to get Temporal Curtain changed to the old Symbol of Swiftness mechanic, where Swiftness would get “refilled” to a certain amount of Swiftness. Which is indeed way better than Temporal Curtain right now… which in return means that you’d technically want Symbol of Swiftness to be reverted to its old functionality. Then again, it wouldn’t work as well anymore with multiple Guardians all dropping the symbol in a line.
Also, there’s another severe mechanical flaw with symbol of swiftness that goes beyond just the concept of having to stand still to get a speed bonus, and that is that it also damages enemies. If you’re roaming around in pve or wvw and you pop down a symbol to go faster, then some random enemy creature walks into it, it immediately slows you down to combat speed because the enemy gets damage. Line of warding wouldn’t have this issue because it doesn’t do damage, it just blocks enemy movement, so you can pop it down without having to worry about slowing yourself down
That would make Line of Warding superior to Temporal Curtain then in terms of giving Swiftness, haha. That’s because Temporal Curtain very often puts you in combat due to it crippling every random mob that crosses it (can even be a bunny). Earlier, you could activate the pull to prevent that, but at some point they changed it so that the pull also puts you in combat. Meh. ^^
I prefer it when you can just run through the line and get the full duration of swiftness in one go, which will then allow you to move around freely, as opposed to having to stand in one place, or running over the same spot over and over again to get the same duration or to refill it. That’s why I don’t think swiftness should ever be applied to a skill with a “pulse” mechanic.
I mean, if you need to travel from point A to point B, and it would usually take you 20 seconds, and you use swiftness to grant 33% movement speed increase for the entire duration, it should then only take you around 15 seconds to get there. However, if you use symbol of swiftness, it means standing still for 5 seconds to get the full duration, in which case it would actually still take you 20 seconds to get there…
So, as you can see, having to stand still to move faster is obscenely counter productive, and completely negates the movement speed bonus outright in many cases. You don’t even benefit a tiny little bit from it, unless you use it on the move, in which case you may only get 4 seconds of swiftness at a time with a 15 second cooldown (not counting boon duration increases or traits).
When you consider how easy it is for some other classes to gain swiftness, or other passive movement speed bonuses (like signets or traits that give 25% extra movement speed), guardian swiftness mechanics just seem really meh. I will, however, be honest and say that mesmers are probably a very close second as far as crappy movement speed availability goes.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
I’ve suggested this before, but I’d just change the source of swiftness on the staff to the line of warding, so when you run over the line, it grants swiftness. This would make it easier to use on the move and would make LOW a more useful skill overall (it becomes a better escape and movement tool).
That would be the mechanic of Temporal Curtain then. If you run through your Line of Warding even with just half a second of Swiftness on you, you will not get any Swiftness at all. Because if that’s not the case, you could stack ridiculous amounts of Swiftness by running through the same wall multiple times.
That’s fine though. In fact, temporal curtain was what I had in mind when I thought of the line of warding idea for gaining swiftness. As far as I am concerned, the idea of running in one spot, or standing still to go “faster” is just absurd to begin with. You use swiftness because you want to move around faster, not so that you can stay in one place… faster… X__x
Also, there’s another severe mechanical flaw with symbol of swiftness that goes beyond just the concept of having to stand still to get a speed bonus, and that is that it also damages enemies. If you’re roaming around in pve or wvw and you pop down a symbol to go faster, then some random enemy creature walks into it, it immediately slows you down to combat speed because the enemy gets damage. Line of warding wouldn’t have this issue because it doesn’t do damage, it just blocks enemy movement, so you can pop it down without having to worry about slowing yourself down rather than speeding yourself up, which is the whole points of swiftness to begin with.
As it is right now, Symbol of swiftness is pretty much a broken skill as far as its mechanics are concerned.
It would be great if burning was more viable in groups, that way guards could actually build around their superior burn damage and possibly go for a power, vitality, condition damage build, while still dishing out relatively good damage, or even a toughness, vitality condition damage retaliation/burn/tank build (though retaliation is less useful in PvE thanks to slow enemy attack patterns).
Aside from that, there’s unfortunately no real benefit to going anything other than pure zerker for MOST builds. At least, not until Anet does some significant changes to how conditions work, or do a 180 on the zerker meta they’ve created.
However, if you want something a bit different, I play a medi guard (though I often change skills during dungeons/fractals as the situation demands) and I use a 2/6/6/0/0 build (you could go 0/6/6/0/2 if you want inspired virtues instead of fiery wrath) with right handed strength and monk’s focus, using one handed weapons like a sword and scepter, with offhand torch/focus. Because of the 15% crit chance bonus from right handed strength and the bonus to crit damage and precision from the valor and radiance lines, it gives you more leeway to remove some of your zerker gear and replace it with valkyrie gear, soldier’s gear or even some celestial gear if you want.
I personally use a mix of valkyrie and zerker gear, with some celestial armor for added tankiness, and I still have around a 60% crit chance and around 220% crit damage. The crit chance can be boosted to 80% with fury from using meditations. I also have about 15000 life and 2600 toughness, so it’s a decent all round build that’s a bit less squishy than a pure zerker, while still retaining good damage output for a guard. It’s also versatile and can be used in a variety of situations, even wvw, without really needing to change gear.
I play a medi-guard, and I’ve honestly never had much of an issue with warriors in wvw in a 1vs1 situation. I’d say they’re probably one of the easiest classes to deal with unless the player is very good. Blinds and blocks go a long way in helping mitigate their big hits, or their launches and stuns (sword/focus anyone?).
The only problem I seem to have when it comes to warriors is that if they decide to disengage from the battle and run away, catching them as a guard is incredibly difficult (slow guardians are slow).
Engineers are, admittedly, more of a problem. I struggle with them much more than I do warriors. Battles with engineers also tend to be quite long in my experiences, and they take forever to kill.
I’ve suggested this before, but I’d just change the source of swiftness on the staff to the line of warding, so when you run over the line, it grants swiftness. This would make it easier to use on the move and would make LOW a more useful skill overall (it becomes a better escape and movement tool).
As for symbol of swiftness, they can change it to something else, like a symbol of fury, or a symbol of vigor, etc (I’m not sure what boon would work that either isn’t in use already, or isn’t OP for symbol use).
I got GW1 in ’08, playing GW2 since beta, etc. I stopped GW2 for a while because nobody was playing with me, and I was bored. I got back into it early this year, still playing regularly.
I don’t know why people make such a big deal over “quitting” a game you can come back to at any time. Just stop playing until you want to play again, problem solved.
Also, just because you’re bored doesn’t mean Anet isn’t making loads of money off of the game as we speak. People can point and shout about problems with the game and the studio all day long, but if they’re still making good money on it, they don’t really need to change anything about their process. They should, but they don’t need to.
I’d like to see significantly more content, too. But so what if Anet is going slower than we like? I barely have time in my day to fit in GW2 with other things I want to do; if I get bored of playing it, that just means I have more time to do other stuff.
GW2 is just one of an unfathomable number of entertaining things you can do without moving from where you are right now. We players may think the fate of the game is important to us, and it is if you’ve invested more in it than you’re willing to let go of, but really, the only people who need to care about it are ANet and NCSoft; if (when) the game does die, we’ll still have plenty to replace it with.
There’s this saying that goes something along the lines of “penny wise, pound foolish”, and it’s usually used to describe people who are good at handling their money in the short term, but who don’t have much foresight when it comes to long-term investments.
That’s basically how I see ANet right now. You say that so long as ANet is making money, it means they don’t need to change anything, but that statement couldn’t be more inaccurate. If players become unhappy with the state of the game, and start leaving or stop playing for whatever reason, it means ANet’s income will start to wane.
If ANet is in this for the long haul, then it makes financial sense to invest in the greatest commodity they have, and that is their playerbase. By introducing more, fun gameplay elements and keeping their playerbase happily playing, they will essentially be securing their own financial futures because the more players there are around, the more they will be spending money on the gem store, and thus, the more money ANet will make.
The problem right now is that ANet’s approach is too lopsided. They’re too focused on the gem store and not enough on introducing new gameplay content. In my opinion, the focus should be, first and foremost, on gameplay content and the gem store should be the secondary focus. That way, players will have more faith in GW2 and in its longevity, and it goes without saying that if someone sees themselves playing a game for a long time, they’d be much more inclined to invest money in it.
As for having other stuff to do, on that part I do agree with you. But let me make it clear that GW2 is not the only game I play. I do often play other games. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want GW2 to become better, and the main reason I want it to become better is because I see the great potential in it and I don’t want to see it wasted.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
Age and maturity are not always directly proportional. I know plenty of adults who act like children in games, or even outside of them.
I’m really not sure how mounts would work in this game, even if ANet were to implement them. I mean, you have various races at various sizes, with different anatomies. Can you imagine a Charr riding a horse? It would look ridiculous. Aside form that, Charr already run on all fours so from a lore point of view, they should be as fast as, or faster than any four-legged mount they’d be able to ride (cats take up a few of the fastest land speed slots in our animal kingdom, including the top spot).
The only way I see it working is if you got race specific mounts. Charr get various coal/steam powered vehicles. Asura get hovering, technological stuff. Humans get more traditional horses, etc. Norns get… giant bears… or something. I’m not even sure what Sylvari should get. O_o
Aside from that, this game doesn’t really need mounts, for the reasons others have pointed out above. It would mostly be a cosmetic addition that has no real practical purpose, unless they introduce new, expansive map areas that are so large and so under-waypointed that using mounts in those areas actually becomes necessary. Considering the rate at which ANet has expanded the world map over these past two years, I can’t foresee any such map types coming into existence in the near future.
I honestly couldn’t be bothered about Radiant and Hellfire armor. They’re rather generic and cannot be dyed, so in many ways, they’re worse off than many of the far easier to acquire armor sets out there.
I do agree that the amount of achievement points needed to acquire them is nothing short of ludicrous, especially given their limitations, so I agree with the point of reducing the amount of AP’s needed to acquire the entire set, but even then, I doubt I’d ever use them.
Also, people should be using armor because they like the style. We should be coming up with fun combinations or themes to show off our characters and role play in a manner that’s fun and interesting. It shouldn’t be about showing off prestige. In my opinion, using AP’s to time gate armor as a measure of prestige kinda kills the sense of fashion fun.
@Absconditus
I love your idea about content that promotes build variety. I’d personally love to see some enemies in dungeons that take more damage from particular sources, like conditions. It would certainly promote party variety, as opposed to everyone just running full zerker gear in an effort to get it done as fast as possible.
Right now, running a condition build in PvE is akin to intentionally going into battle with one hand tied behind your back.
I play this type of game on a main.
I’m casual by definition, lucky if I get 5-10 hours a week to play this game but that was never an issue in GW1. It held relevance.
This is a great game for altoholics. Most of the people I talk to have no issue with the game, and they have 10+ lvl 80’s and 2-5 legendaries.
I also have multiple alts, and legendaries. I wouldn’t even consider myself as hardcore a player as many others out there. That still hasn’t stopped the game from feeling stale. And the biggest reason it’s feeling stale for me above all else, is a lack of new, replayable gameplay content. Yes, Anet has introduced a lot as far as new items and skins are concerned, but a new skin (for example) won’t change the way you play, or what you play. I’m here to play a game, not to stare at new skins all day. X__X
And as I mentioned, even when I login out of boredom, I often find myself not knowing what to do when I get into the game. Hell, it would even liven things up if they just introduced new weapons and skill for existing classes, because then at least I could experiment with new builds and play styles for a while.
There’s plenty of people who agree with you, but this thread will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 posters that all negative threads are dominated by and will ultimately turn into a thread about how great GW2 is and how there are no problems. Luckily there is still an hour or two before they wake up where people can actually discuss it rationally.
Anet claims to put out content faster than any other MMO, but I just don’t see it. We have had no new areas, no new skills, no new dungeons, no raids, no new guild missions, no new PvP modes, no new races, no new trait lines, and none of the other things you see other MMO’s producing. Yes other MMO’s only put out 1 patch every 3 months and an expansion every other year, but those patches actually contain content and exciting things, and the expansions are HUGE.
Look at GW2… we are only getting patches every 3 months and they contain small stroy instances with little replayability and maybe 3-4 hours of content. The last content patch was August 12th, with the next one coming in November… same 3 month schedule as every other MMO but without the fun stuff that expansions bring.
I kinda used to be one of those people who was mesmerised by the living story and its two week release schedule. It kinda gives people the impression that lots of content is being released all the time and seems very impressive at face value. It’s only when you actually take a step back and look a the whole picture, that you start to realize how superficial that content was in the grand scheme of things and how little permanent gameplay content has actually been added to the game as a whole.
Anet has attempted to fix that with season 2, by making the living story content permanent rather than temporary or seasonal, but it’s still very limited content that doesn’t have much replay value. We need more permanent end game content and many of the other things you mentioned – like new races, new weapons, new skills, new traits, etc – would all be very welcome. It starts to feel tired when you just play with the same classes, using the same builds and the same skills, to do the same content over and over again.
@Aither
I pretty much understand and sympathize with everything you’ve said.
Hey guys.
Like many others, I’ve been playing GW2 for quite some time now, pretty much since launch. Now that we’ve recently hit the 2 year anniversary for the game, I couldn’t help but take a look back and consider how far we’ve come since many of us experienced our first waking moments in the game.
I’m sad to say, we haven’t come that far at all.
In terms of features, I’d say Anet has made some good, necessary advancements to the game, with a number of quality of life changes including account wallets, the wardrobe, gem store improvements and UI improvements, as well as balance tweaking, etc. However, there seems to be a severe lack of progress in the one particular area that matters most to gamers, and that is gameplay content.
In two years, the only new, permanent content we’ve actually gotten outside of various weapon and armor skins (most of which are limited to the gem store), are two small new areas, ascended items, Guild Missions, Edge of the Mists and Fractals of the Mists. We also got repeatable living story episodes for season 2 of the living story, but there’s only a finite amount of times you can complete that before you’ve gotten the rewards/achievements you needed from them, after which the purpose for replaying them becomes lost.
Now, I do acknowledge the fact that the Maguuma Wastes area will be expanded on, etc, but to me it just feels like we have to wait weeks or even months, just for a small new expanse on the map, or for a minimal amount of gameplay content that can be completed in a very short space of time. A lot of the stuff that has been promised to be in the works, such as new weapon types and new skills, has not really been delivered on, save for one new unique healing skill for each class and the odd few new traits (that’s not much to go on after two years of waiting).
I really like this game, but I’m afraid I’m getting to the point where I’m going to start saying “I liked this game, but now I’m over it”. Hell, I might be there already. I’ve actually spent money on the gem store in an effort to support Anet for what I felt was a promising MMO with a long future ahead of it, but I feel like my optimism and good will isn’t being rewarded in any meaningful way. Instead, I can’t help but notice that any time I spend in GW2 these days is done so either wandering aimlessly, simply chatting to others, or repeating content that I’ve already done 100 times, and have long since become bored of. The only reason I do it still, is because I don’t want to feel like I’m falling behind and because I’m still expecting something grand to happen. I can assure you though, that this sentiment is now wearing hopelessly thin.
In the end, I really think Anet needs to address this issue. I surely can’t be the only veteran player who is starting to lose faith in this game, or who is losing sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. We need more meaningful gameplay content. We need more rewards or items that aren’t limited to the gem store. We need to feel like we’re investing our time and energy into something fun and worthwhile, something that has a bright future that doesn’t feel like it’s years beyond our reach. We need something that will make many of us tired veterans fall in love with this game all over again.
Hell, even if we don’t get all that stuff right away, at the very least we need more transparency on Anet’s side with regards to upcoming content and changes, because a lot has been promised that has yet to be delivered. I say all this not because I’m trying to flame, or mud sling, or to create strife, but because I truly believe in the vast potential of this game, and I hate seeing it squandered.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
Waiting for a legitimate answer to this question is akin to taking a long bath in a pool of sulfuric acid.
We want harder content with better rewards ( as in quantity) and with rarer rewards ( as in unique skins. WE DO NOT WANT BETTER STATS. We do not want vertical progression.*
So .. you want still those rarer rewards .. that means anybody else get less new armor/weapon skins because the designers have to spent a lot of their time just to create stuff that only the elite crowd can get.
And you don’t see where the problem is ?
We should all be happy and say : yay .. great you get new stuff all day long while we get nothing instead .. cause we are just so bad gamers that don’t deserve it ?
The solution to this particular problem would be to simply have scalable content, as is the case with Fractals of the Mists. You can either play it on lower levels if you’re a more casual player or want easier content, or play it at higher levels if you want to get more rewards faster, and enjoy a challenge.
I personally like both easy and difficult content (I don’t always want to do hard stuff 24/7, but I certainly do like challenges), but I’d prefer it if difficult content was limited to smaller groups or individual play. It’s frustrating when Anet tries to implement overly difficult content on a large scale, like with world bosses, because your success or failure is dependent on the coordination a multitude of other random players and is no longer subject to personal skill. At the very least, it’s fine if these events are hard in a more typical sense, but it goes without saying that an event doesn’t necessarily have to demand a lot of coordination to be difficult (a good example is Mark 2 Golem. It’s easy to die during the event, so it is difficult in a sense, but it doesn’t require any coordination, so you won’t necessarily fail it because of other less experienced players).
In the end, it’s all about balance. It is possible to cater to both hardcore and casual players at the same time, it only becomes an issue when you try to mix the two groups together and force them to work with each other.
P.S. to give an idea of how they could make the Minstrel more interesting, have a figure that’s maybe built into the base of the harp, like maybe an angelic figure (something humanoid would be best) and when you draw the harp, the figure’s hands and arms move and pull on the strings, as if it’s playing the harp itself (which causes the musical notes to appear). You could also make it that the strings themselves faintly light up as they are pulled.
Just that on its own would make the design much more interesting than it currently is and make it stand out. It would certainly feel more unique and legendary.
@Absconditus
My issue with Misntrel is the design. There’s nothing about it that says “legendary” it’s just a straightforward harp with a particle effect. There are other focus designs which are actually more intricate and have better particle effects than it.
For me personally though, I’d actually like it if legendaries stood out more for their unique designs than for their effects. Adding lots of particle effects to a weapon to make it stand out is just a cheap solution for covering up dull designs. My personal favorite legendary is actually Meterologicus, because the design is interesting. It has lots of moving parts, clouds going around the base, an interesting theme, and in general, there isn’t a single other scepter that looks anything like it, so it stands out from a design perspective as a whole. I also love Rodgort not because of footfalls or anything, but because of how it moves and breathes flames and actually looks like it’s alive (the first time I saw it I was really impressed). The only thing that stopped me from crafting it already is just a general lack of usefulness for torches. If they buffed torches, I’d be all over it.
And yes, it would be nice if we could customize effects or footfalls a bit, either to check them on or off or even if we could choose between a few options for each legendary. Like, choosing what type of sky shows in sunrise’s blade (all day sky types) or in twilight’s (all night sky options). Or choosing a footfall for meteorlogicus (lighting, or puffy white clouds, or star dust, etc). A general option to turn them on or off in itself would be great, just for people who don’t want them (I personally like footfalls but I know others who do not).
To be honest, I do think some legendaries need to be updated to feel more legendary (Minstrel needs complete rework, Rodgort footfall needs to be better, etc), however, aside from that, I think they’re fine.
As someone who has legendaries myself, the last thing I’d want is for the effects to be too pronounced. They should stand out, yes, but you don’t want to see effects being spammed everywhere, to the point where it starts to become an eyesore, especially in large crowds. I also wouldn’t personally want the effects to in any way hinder the view of my own character, which is part of why I actually prefer legendaries without auras. There’s no point in having great character outfits or customized looks and colours if all of that just gets hidden behind a blinding aura.
What would be nice is to have optional effects, or let us customize our own legendaries to a degree (eg, choosing to have footfalls or auras on or off). It would also be nice if we could choose to show or hide aura and footfall effects from other legendaries in this case.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
IMO these are good ideas that I could imagine in the future of the game. The real question I’d have is this: how would it benefit the developers of GW2? Aside from competitive pvp, the game developers don’t seem to be interested in making such beneficial features in the game for veteran players. Small tweaks to the hero menu and small things that should have been introduced over a year ago seem to be all they can really put out atm on top of their precious Living Story nonsense.
Bitter, yes. Opinionated, certainly. Your idea is good. It’s certainly just my opinion (and I hope to be proven wrong by the developers) that the people in charge simply don’t care about making such innovative and desirable changes to the game that would require effort and wouldn’t end in a gem store cash-grab in the end.
Well, I think the logical response is that by keeping players happy, you keep them playing. The more people you have playing your game, the more potential spenders you have. Players who can foresee themselves playing the game for a long time are more likely to invest money on the gem store than players who are growing irritable and considering leaving.
That’s how I see it at least, I can’t say if Anet sees it the same way though.
Let us trade 15 ascended rings for a fractal weapon skin and it would still be worth it. :P
There is an issue with stats tied to grindy equipment:
Lets for example thing i am enojying my celestial character…..
A “feature patch” arrives and suddenly my hard earned equipment becomes useless for my build.Repeat every X months.
In the past a stats Exchange scroll was datamined, we would really need some of those :|
And they should give free stats change after every “feature patch”
(aka nerf patch).They did that for anyone who had celestial gear and magic find gear… allowed them to switch the stats…
Actually, they didn’t do that for celestial gear. I had ascended celestial armor on my guard, which took forever to craft thanks to the time gate on Quartz as well – and I never got the option to change stats after celestial crit damage was severely nerfed.
As someone who owns two legendaries, I actually agree with the suggestion that we should be able to change ascended gear stats. Crafting ascended gear is a very expensive and time consuming process, and in a way it limits build versatility because to try out a new build, you have to go through the lengthy and expensive process of crafting new ascended gear again. This completely clashes with the simplified and now cost free trait changing system and comes across as very counter productive.
I wouldn’t mind if there was some cost involved in changing the stats on ascended gear, but as long as it’s easier, less time consuming and a bit more affordable than crafting an entirely new set, that would already be a great improvement.
As for the argument that it would make ascended too similar to legendary gear, I crafted legendary weapons for one purpose and one purpose only; for the skins. I didn’t craft it just for an easier way to change stats, that’s just a secondary perk that legendaries never had before, that was mostly introduced to stop legendaries from losing their names and status when transmuting them with items with different stats.
To be honest, Guardian Torch as a whole is pretty good. 4 is one of the strongest-scaling power attacks in the game (on the throw) and can be timed so you also cause a tick of burning. 5 is an amazing ability to cleanse conditions, hitting fast, often and in a cone.
It’s more Ranger and Mesmer torch which is an issue. Mesmer is so/so since 4 is very very good but 5 is one of if not the single worst skill a Mesmer has. Ranger I don’t know much about only I’ve yet to see a single ranger wield one. :S
Torch 4 for guardian does good damage, but my main issue with it is the long cooldown the throw induces. If they took the 50% cooldown penalty away, that would be better, but as it is right now, the 22 second cooldown is just too high for what is arguably pretty mediocre single target burst damage, which is quite highly televised.
I also don’t agree that five is an amazing ability to cleanse conditions. With how allied players tend to move, trying to aim it down on them can become very difficult unless they stand still. I’ve used it a number of times before for that purpose, and even when it seems to go over allies it doesn’t always remove conditions. I’m not sure if there’s a hit box issue or something, but it just seems very difficult to remove conditions from allies with it.
I’d say it’s much more practical to use the guardians other, much easier to aim condition cleansers (like purging flames or virtue of resolve traited) which also have little to no cast time, compared to cleansing flame’s 4 second channel time. Maybe if the cast time for cleansing flame was cut in half and the aoe for condition cleansing was increased (just for allies, not enemies), the practical use would be much greater.
Can’t really agree with anything you’ve said…especially the ranger stuff.
Would you care to elaborate? I’m all for constructive advice and if I’m saying something wrong, I have no issues with people helping me see things from an alternative point of view, but, if you just say you don’t agree and not why, it isn’t really helpful. X__x
Ranger and mesmer torch arent, unpopular at all, in fact theyre quite common.
I honestly never see rangers carrying around torches. Maybe I’m missing something, or maybe I’m just not looking for it, but when I do see a ranger with an offhand it’s usually a warhorn.
If you think about a torch, and were designing it for a weapon what would you have it do? Probably burning. And burning in this game limits the weapon to mostly condition builds, which not too many people use, especially on the classes that can use torch.
Also the super popular professions like warrior don’t use torch, so the mesmers/rangers (two of the most rare classes in wvw imo, and maybe engi) have the weapon but only if they run condis. There aren’t too many people that run condi rangers at the moment, and even condi mesmers are pretty rare for the time being, I bet we’ll see a ton more torches after the torment on AA :P.
I actually think the mesmer torch is a nice guidepost to how creative Anet can actually be with torches. Here you have a weapon that offers creative play styles with conditions, illusions and stealth, with the only reason it wasn’t used much probably being the lack of a good main hand condition damage dealer to pair it with, which was now fixed with the upcoming scepter changes. I don’t see why guardian and ranger torches can’t see some similarly creative approaches.
As for class popularity, if you make the weapons more viable, you make the classes more viable and thus more popular. I don’t see a lack of class popularity being a good excuse for not fixing broken or useless weapon mechanics. In fact, I see it as being the exact opposite; a good reason to fix them.
To be honest, I’m a bit of a fan of the idea of using torches as weapons. They have a cool fantasy about them and I love the look of Rodgort and have been looking for an excuse to craft it for a while now. However, the reality is that torches are probably the most underwhelming and least used off-hand weapons in the game. I also hardly ever see people use torches in any builds in any areas of the game, save for the odd mesmer in wvw (I don’t play PvP much so I’m not sure how much it is used there).
What surprises me the most though, is that after two years of playing GW2, Anet has still failed to balance what could easily be called the weakest and least-used offhand weapon set in the game and make them more viable. I was hoping to see torch changes for this upcoming feature patch, but none were mentioned, though the mesmer torch was indirectly made more viable thanks to mesmer scepter buffs (because scepter condition builds have become more viable, having a condition afflicting offhand makes sense). But Guardian and ranger torch skills have very little usefulness and are still in desperate need of some reworking.
For guardians, torches offer an unnecessary extra source of burning, which is pointless in group play thanks to virtue of justice, and other classes like elementalists easily applying endless amounts of burning as well (it doesn’t stack either so it’s an immediate dps loss in group play if you rely on burning for damage). It also offers an unreliable group condition removal skill with an excessively long cast time, where the guardian has much easier to use and more reliable alternatives that can be cast instantly and don’t interrupt their dps. The damage of cleansing flame isn’t even enough to warrant it as a damage skill, because using it would actually lower your overall dps because of its low base damage and long cast time.
For rangers, the torch only really offers burning, which in theory would be great for a condition build, but the ranger lacks any condition-focussed, main-hand weapons to pair it with (Axe doesn’t apply damage conditions, and the sword only applies poison). Also, no ranger in their right mind would use a torch over the far superior warhorn, which offers them and their allies fury, might and swiftness with a good up time. The only real positive that the ranger torch has going for it, is that it gives the ranger access to a fire field, but that on its own isn’t enough to make up for its shortfalls.
I’m just really confused as to why torches have been neglected so much. Why with all the balance changes that have come and gone, have torches always been pushed to the side and ignored? Why has their underwhelming lack of usefulness never been addressed? It’s just a bit dumbfounding to me…
Perhaps I am missing something here, that someone can enlighten me about.
I was hoping to see a few more balances. In particular, torch is still in desperate need of a buff, yet two years down the line, Anet still blatantly neglects it. Then again, torch needs a buff on other classes as well, not just guards.
As a medi guard though, I do indeed have something to be happy about, so it’s decent progress.
I agree. If permanent gathering tools unlocked the tool on all characters, I’d actually invest in them, but as someone who regularly swaps characters, it’s completely nonviable.
Costs aside, the problem is that it isn’t even convenient if you regularly play with more than one character. I’d hate to have to pop it in my bank and retrieve it again every time I want to swap characters and the fact that it costs more than simply buying master or mystic salvage kits, makes it even less convenient as a whole.
All-in-all, the Silver Fed Salvage-o-Matic is a big failure. I have no idea what Anet was thinking, because it’s so blatantly obvious that this is not a good deal in any respect.
Rather than remove the cooldown, it would be cool if they just gave the might a longer duration, like say 10 seconds base. That way, it would still have a slower start in terms of build up (1 stack of might per second), but would eventually be able to build up more stacks of might for the group in a prolonged battle (with superior runes of strength, it would be awesome). This would also keep it from being abused with Altruistic Healing, while still increasing its effectiveness.
For me personally, I’d rather they just made improvements to the scepter and torch, rather than introducing a new ranged weapon altogether, otherwise you have a situation where you simply make one or more weapons redundant by introducing a better one to replace them. In saying that, I think it’s fine to introduce a new ranged weapon eventually, with different mechanics, but rather prioritize fixing current weapons first.
For me personally, I think the scepter actually does really good damage relative to other ranged weapons. It’s auto has the highest dps of any ranged weapon auto attack I can think of, and smite is actually the highest damage weapon skill in the game, relative to its cast time and cooldown (if all attacks hit). The only real issue is that scepter struggles to hit moving targets. Smite is glorious against slow targets with big hit boxes, but against smaller moving targets, not as much. The auto attack does a decent job of tracking ai targets with predictable pathing, but completely fails when the enemy moves unpredictably (against human players, this issue is much more obvious and is inflated over longer attack ranges).
If I were to make changes, they would be as follows:
Orb of wrath (auto): I’d give this skill some homing capabilities. That’s not to say that it should be a fire and forget skill, but if it just homes to a certain degree, it can make up for unpredictable sudden turns or odd enemy movements. It must still be avoidable though, just not as easy to avoid as it currently is.
Smite: The problem with this skill is, even against single targets who stand still, not all attacks are guaranteed to hit if the target has a small hit box. I’d either increase the aoe of each smite attack so they’re more likely to hit more often, or change the mechanic altogether. Perhaps make it a delayed blast, like a skill that you cast on an area, with an orb of light that explodes after 2 seconds (a blue flame explosion would be cool). Make it so that it still does a large amount of damage (same total damage that smite does if all attacks hit), but make it so that the damage is split between every enemy inside the aoe, up to five enemies. That means you can either use it for high damage against single targets, or for smaller amounts of damage against multiple enemies. Make it a blast finisher as well to give the scepter more utility.
Chains of Light:
This skill is fine, I just think it needs to have the same base range as other scepter skills.
Staff:
Swiftness needs to be moved from the symbol to the line of warding. It’s very annoying casting symbol of swiftness to go faster while roaming maps, only to have some random enemy creature walk into it, get damaged and slow you down to combat speed. Line of warding would make more sense because then it can be used as a true escape skill (granting swiftness while blocking enemy movement). It would also be easier to use while moving, because heaven knows standing still to go faster just doesn’t make sense at all.
The Symbol can be changed to give 2 seconds of fury per tick or something (symbol of fury?).
Torch:
Cleansing flame should remove boons from enemies rather than conditions from allies. As a condition remover, it’s very hard to aim on allies and the guardian already has much more reliable group condition removal methods. I also think the cast time should be reduced.
Zealots flame should remove one condition from the guardian when cast. This change and the one above would give the torch much better and easier to use utility to help it compete with focus.
Shield:
Cooldowns really just need to be reduced. Maybe also allow for shields to apply aegis somehow, so as to promote aegis builds more? It would also play more on the theme of shields granting measures to block attacks.
Sword:
Sword wave is currently a projectile, which is dumb for a melee skill. I’m tired of getting punished for using a melee skill against enemies with projectile reflect or blocking properties (crystal golems in Jade Sea fractal come to mind). This needs to be fixed.
Flashing blade should be a leap finisher.
Zealots defense really needs a damage buff and it needs to block projectiles, not absorb them, so it synergises more with guardian blocking traits.
Slot skills:
Meditations and signets need a bit of love overall. As they are, they don’t really compete with the far superior shouts and consecrations as far as utility is concerned.
Spirit weapons need a lot of love. The only good one now is shield of the avenger, which is actually great. The others needs a similar level of utility to compete. Spirit weapons also need much more survivability, especially the two melee weapons, which tend to flock right into damage zones.
That’s all I can think of now. Some traits obviously need some work as well but I won’t go into that.
I’ve been playing GW2 basically since launch, and in that time, as one would expect, the amount of players running around with legendary weapons has increased, to the point where they’ve come from being a rare sight, to a very, very common occurrence.
The problem is that when they start to become too common, they don’t feel very unique or “legendary” anymore. Rather than standing out of the crowd, you might actually feel as if you’re blending in more, especially if you go for the more popular legendaries like Incinerator, Sunrise or Twilight. Also, because of the very strong visual themes some legendaries have, it can be hard to tailor your character for a specific look when the legendary itself clashes with what you had in mind (for example, necros might not want a rainbow staff or a sunny scepter because they’re going for a darker theme, but they have no real, darker looking alternatives as far as legendary staffs or scepters go).
So, my idea is to give legendary weapons some degree of customization abilities. It doesn’t have to be too extreme, just simple option sliders that could make a noticeable difference and help characters with legendaries stand out more, even against other characters with the same legendaries.
To give an example of what I have in mind, let’s say you have Sunrise or Twilight. The options you could have for the sliders would be as follows:
1: The Blade:
For Sunrise, give the player a choice between a few day time sky backdrops to choose from to show in their blade. Some might go for a more clear blue sky. Others might go for a gray, rainy or even partly cloudy sky. You could even give one sky with a rainbow in it for those who like more colourful characters. For Twilight, you could have a more simple, dark, starry night sky, or a lighter one with a more bluish hue with spiraling galaxies, etc, or even one with a bright full moon, and so on.
2: The aura:
Give players the option to turn auras on or off, and change the colour from a select few themed colours depending on the legendary. Sunrise would obviously have brighter, day themed colours like white, oranges, or blues, while Twilight would have darker, night themed colours like black, dark red, or even purple.
3: The footfall
Make the footfall for Sunrise or Twilight the same as whatever sky backdrop they choose.
(Eternity could obviously have access to options from both Twilight and Sunrise, as well as a few exclusive options).
Another legendary I could use as a good example is Meteorlogicus (my personal favorite). It has a lot of individual moving parts and effects, and it would be awesome if you had sliders to change certain parts.
1: The orrery
Give players the option to change some of the pieces in the orrery. Like, changing the earth sphere to a fiery world or a gas giant. Let them change the sun into a moon, or even a black hole, etc.
2: The clouds
Let players change what kinds of clouds float along the base of the weapon. You could have nice, fluffy white clouds, dark, thundering clouds or even clouds that have rain falling from them.
3: The glow
Let players choose the glow colour around the weapon to better suit their style or colour themes.
4: The footfall
Instead of just the current lightning footfall, add others like small tornadoes, white clouds or star dust.
5: Aura
Give the option for an aura for it (and all other legendaries for that matter). For Meteorlogicus, you could choose between wind swirling around you, star dust radiating from you, or perhaps even have clouds floating around you.
Anyway, these are just a few ideas to give the general gist of what I have in mind. I know it might seem like a tall order, but I think it would be amazing if we had some degree of customization for our legendaries, so that they feel truly legendary and worthwhile. They take a lot of effort to make, so I think the reward should reflect that.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
I think one easy way to overcome condition caps without actually removing them is to create a burst damage effect for conditions when they are applied to an enemy that is already capped out. This damage would be caused immediately and directly, like normal damage.
One formula you could use for the amount of burst damage is (a pure, thumb-sucking example):
Burst damage = (20% of damage per second) * (amount of stacks added) * (condition duration)
So, in other words, if you normally do 100 bleed damage per second for each stack, and you use a skill that adds 3 stacks of bleed at a duration of 10 seconds, then the amount of burst damage you’d do is:
20 * 3 * 10 = 600 direct damage. This would be added to the physical damage your skill already does.
If you did, for example, 700 burn damage per second, and inflicted a 5 second burn, then it would work out to:
140 * 1 * 5 = 700 direct damage.
This way, you can keep the cap ceiling for the actual conditions themselves, thus ensuring they don’t get out of hand in PvP, while still allowing players who attack someone with full condition stacks to do a good amount of damage that will be dependent both on their condition damage stats and their condition duration, which gives the incentive of increasing both.
Anyway, that’s just a very rough example. Obviously it would have to be balanced out so the damage scales properly and doesn’t become too OP or UP, but that would be fo the devs to work out.
Personally, for me there’s two contrasting sides to this new event. The one I like and I think Anet did well, and the part I hate.
The part I liked is the Labyrinthine Cliffs. It still has some of the familiar tasks to complete that we had to do last time around, but also adds some new events in the form of the Dolyak Race and the Crystal Collection event, both of which are not overly complex and accessible enough for all players to take part in without adding any unnecessary stress.
What I hate is the new Crown Pavilion mechanics. As a whole, I’m actually tired of Anet trying to force such rigid mass coordination mechanics on us for large scale events, especially after they just hit us with the new megaserver system. As some have mentioned already, they expect us to coordinate on such a large scale and yet don’t give us the tools to do so properly, so in the end, the Boss Blits just ends up becoming a zerg fest that can easily take up to or over an hour to complete with a near nonexistent chance at getting gold, or even silver for that matter.
What I want to know is why Anet insists on introducing these kinds of mass coordination events on us. All it does is introduce a lot of frustration for players who are trying to do the event properly, but who are hindered by other players who can’t be bothered. It feels like we’re being punished for playing and games are meant to be rewarding and fun, not needlessly punishing and frustrating. I also don’t understand why there’s such a severe contrast between the events in the Labyrinthine Cliffs, which are relatively easy to complete and get gold for with almost no coordination involves, and the Boss Blitz, which requires so much coordination that it’s gotten to the point where it’s folly to expect any fair degree of success. On top of that, Anet nerfed any other form of farming in the Crown Pavilion, which makes playing there completely pointless aside from doing the Queen’s Gauntlet.
All-in-all, I’d say the Crown Pavilion is an epic fail. Even my guildies have repeatedly mentioned how annoying and frustrating it is. I’m not sure who in their right mind over at Anet thought they were creating something fun when they implemented these changes, because it’s things like this that often end up being the “last straw” for players that could end up pushing them away from playing the game altogether.
The way I see it, there’s nothing wrong with difficult content that requires coordination. The problem is that it’s hard to coordinate on such a large scale with the megaserver system as it is now, because for an organized group to all get onto the same map would be nearly impossible. You’re now tossed in with pugs from different servers who may not even speak the same language as you in some cases.
While there are instances where people do succeed against Tequatl – for example – even with pugs, failure seems to happen much more consistently, at least from my own experiences every time I’ve attempted the boss. This failure trend creates a sense of frustration amongst players who end up feeling like the effort involved is not worth the reward. Even for me, the few times I have succeeded against Tequatl I’ve mostly gotten sub-par gear that I could have just as easily gotten from a far easier world boss like Shadow Behemoth, so I end up asking myself why I even bother.
Unfortunately, you can’t control how people play and when you do events on such a large scale, success or failure depends on the whims of the masses. I personally believe that difficult, coordinated battles should be limited to instances with smaller parties involved, such as the likes of dungeons or fractals. However, if people do want coordinated battles on a larger scale, then there should at least be a means to join it as an instance (as some have suggested) so at the very least, a guild can organize coordinated events rather than just joining a map and hoping for the best. What would be cool is if guilds got an upgrade that allowed them to create an instance for a particular boss, that becomes available during the bosses spawn timer window. It could be set that only people who are in that guild, or who are in a party with a member from that guild, can go into that instance. This ensures that an organized group will all end up on the same map together. (This is just one possible solution, but I’m sure there are many alternatives). The only issue with that is that people who are not part of large guilds still end up losing out, which is part of why I feel that battles like Tequatl and the three headed wurm end up being really limiting to players and could do with a change altogether.
In the end, I don’t see why ANet would nerf every other form of reward farming and leave Champ farming as the most viable. I think they should either nerf champ farming to bring it in line with everything else, or take away the diminishing returns from other forms of content so as to lessen the impact of champ trains.
It’s not the rewards or how viable it is as a source of income. This topic is about the insults, the general attitude that other players must sacrifice their choice of how to play the game because of the train method, and the overall breaking of the code of conduct that gets players banned in other contexts.
Yes, we did go off on a bit of a tangent there, but my original comment was actually made with the idea in mind that champ rewards would be less farmable, and thus, you wouldn’t see massive trains doing it continuously anymore, in Queensdale or anywhere else, which would essentially resolve the issue the OP brought up.